Finding Peace in the Storm

Philippians chapter four, verses six through nine today. You know what we're

talking about? What the theme is today, it's in the bulletin.

Peace of mind, right? Peace of mind. And though Paul here, y'all remember this, right?

Paul is actually imprisoned in Rome, right?

He's a man who knows peace though.

Get this for just a moment, y'all. He is in chains in Rome, attached to a Roman

soldier 24 hours a day. How would you like that set up?

Seven days a week. And he's been in this situation for two long years, okay?

And Paul, this man had previously lived an adventurous life,

okay? You have to remember this.

He was traveling from city to city. Now he goes nowhere, right?

He has restricted movement, literally chained, right? Limited resources and dwindling support.

So this industrious, this fast-paced preacher, if you will, who was constantly

active. He was moving about all the time.

He's now confined under house arrest.

Well, no matter what, the message that comes from this imprisoned man,

Paul, is not that of a chronic worrier.

He's not replaying the circumstances, I should say, of his life over and over

again, wondering how he got in this trial, why he got here, how he might escape it.

Instead, Paul is a man who knows peace here in spite of his circumstances, right?

In the midst of the storm that's actually raging all around him,

a tranquil calm has settled into his heart.

And Paul, who has, I'm just going to say, he has many reasons to feel conflicted and anxious, right?

Is a man who is at peace.

We got a lot to learn from him, don't we? How many of you just think this is

a great question before we dive in today?

How many of us feel at peace? Do you feel at peace today?

Do you feel at peace? You see, while Paul, again, was chained in prison,

the Philippians had ministered to him actually by sending financial support.

We'll see that in verses 18 coming up here in chapter four.

They sent the offering to him by way of a messenger. So Paul actually writes

back the book of Philippians in response.

It's in reality a thank you letter to express his gratitude for their gift that they sent.

And so given the Philippians' concern for Paul, it would seem to be the perfect

time for Paul to just be transparent, indicate that he's collapsing on the inside,

right? Let them know how bad it really is.

But the apostle, he doesn't respond that way, does he?

Instead, he actually urges them to commit their burdens to the Lord in prayer.

Because, I mean, undoubtedly, that's what he's done himself, right?

That's what he's been doing. And it's actually brought a calming stillness to his own soul.

And the Philippians had ministered to Paul, and now guess what?

He is ministering to them through this letter. and he encourages them here not

to be anxious for him or anything else, by the way, that they might encounter personally.

Rather, they need to commit every concern to God in prayer and focus their minds upon what is pure.

And the result will be that God's peace, and get this church,

God's peace will flood their minds and hearts because of that.

And so as we look at these verses this morning, Paul is going to minister to

every one of us as well, and in how we handle circumstances that can cause us worry.

So I just want to say to start with as we look at this first slide,

no need to panic, okay? No need to panic.

Paul instructs the Philippians to avoid being anxious in their Christian lives.

So be anxious for what, it says in verse 6?

Nothing, really. Wow. In other words, stop being anxious. Put another way, stop worrying.

Got any worriers here today, right? Or do you tend towards worrying?

Paul would say, stop it. Stop it, right? Don't do it. Don't be anxious.

Merimenao in Greek means to be troubled with cares.

The idea is literally to be pulled in different directions or to be pulled apart, if you will.

And the picture is to suffer the tension of your hoax pulling in one direction,

if you will, and the trials of life pulling in the other direction.

The person in such a situation like that feels like they're being pulled apart.

And you may have felt that at some point in your life. Probably have if you're human, right?

And it's at a breaking point.

But worry, worry actually comes from an old English word meaning, get this, to strangle.

To strangle. That's a good image because stress chokes our inner life,

doesn't it? And sometimes the way we feel physically, robbing us of peace,

it's like it chokes it out of us, right?

And so worry squeezes, if you will, the life out of the heart.

And it's strangling all enjoyment of life if our lives are consumed with being

anxious about everything or something. Worry, worry, worry.

Paul's message today through the inspired word of God again is stop it. Stop worrying.

To be anxious is to be a worrier, to be fearful, to be distressed.

And such anxiety really compromises our faith in the sovereign purposes of Almighty God.

It really does, because I want you to know, when we actually stop and do what

Paul says here, we realize that God is the one who has sovereign purposes.

He is in control. We can trust everything in our lives to him,

And in that way here though Anxiety robs us of our joy You can see When we have

that in our lives And we let it fester and go and go And when Paul says be anxious

for nothing I gotta tell y'all this is so important That is a command.

He's telling the church He's telling us today Through the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit Don't worry about anything.

No exceptions. No exceptions. But my brother John, yeah, he meant all this stuff

here, but over here, man, we got to worry about that. No, no.

Don't worry about anything. Be anxious for nothing. That is a command, church.

And though it may be strange to think of it like this, to be anxious is to be

disobedient to God, according to this text.

To be anxious is to be disobedient to God. To worry is to disobey God.

Worry is a failure. I want you all to get this today, to trust that God is in control.

It reveals that, you know, we're not sure that God's going to provide what we

need in His perfect timing.

Worry is gazing at my problems in self-reliance or self-pity or both possibly,

rather than looking to who?

Looking to God, looking to the Lord in dependence upon Him.

Worry is the failure, basically, to believe the promises of God and his word.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be concerned, that we shouldn't plan,

that all those things about issues in our lives in the midst of difficulties.

But Paul stresses that believers must not be pulled apart or strangled of peace and joy.

We must not be anxious or worried.

And Jesus taught us the same by the way if you're wondering

you know all God's words inspired right under the

inspiration of the Holy Spirit but Jesus actually said

from his own lips in Matthew 6 25 do not be worried about your life as to what

you will eat and what you will drink nor for your body as to what you'll put

on you see he is saying stop being worried instead we're to trust God who's

going to provide for our needs.

And it's worth, I think, asking ourselves this, that what is there in my life

that causes me a sense of panic, either low-level panic or almost paralyzing panic?

Anybody thought of anything that causes you panic or maybe has in the past?

I want you to realize this as you're thinking of that, God's not worried.

God is not worried. There is no panicking wood in heaven, but only plans to

work out his good purposes in your life, in my life.

Get that. There is no panic in

heaven, but only plans to work out his good purposes in my life and yours.

You see, there's no need to worry, church. There is no excuse for worry. Do not worry.

It's both a command to trust the Lord, and guess what else?

It's also an invitation to enjoy peace with the Lord.

We were rested in him when he is, it leads us to our next slide here,

the primary cure for worry.

So how do we live without anxiety? I mean, there's one primary cure for worry,

and you may have guessed what it is. What is it?

Okay, prayer. Look at verse 6 again. in everything by prayer and supplication

with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

And in this context, these prayers address whatever's causing the anxiety that's

stealing our peace of mind.

And notice that contrast there between everything and nothing.

Did you see it? The believer is to be anxious for nothing, but praying about everything.

Anxious for nothing, but praying about everything.

And everything carries the idea of every troubling situation that threatens

the peace of God in your life.

Paul uses four words, four words here today for prayer.

Each of them making a unique contribution to the whole comprehensive nature of it.

What are they? You probably already picked them out in the text,

right? The first is prayer. Okay.

Pretty obvious there. What else do you see?

Supplication, thanksgiving, requests. The first word, let's look at it, prayer.

It's the most general term. It's what we hear, it's what we think of for intercession

to God. It's the standard word that encompasses all the different elements that

should go to prayer, right?

But the second, supplication, it actually comes from a root word,

which means to lack or to be deprived of or to be without something.

And the specific areas, get this, Ace Wood, in which we lack something will

naturally create stress and worry in our human nature, right?

But instead, according to this passage, we're to bring our concerns about what we're lacking to who?

To the Lord. We should trust that God will answer the prayer and meet our need

according to his perfect wills.

So that's our supplication, what we're lacking, we bring to God.

That's our, you know, lifting that to Him.

And then we have third, thanksgiving.

It also needs to be a part of our prayer.

All true prayer is going to be marked by gratitude, is it not,

of what God has done for us?

And at the same time as recognizing what we're lacking, we got to also acknowledge

what God has provided for us.

Hey, we're coming up all not too far down the road of the Thanksgiving season,

we say. Like, you know, right? But every day is Thanksgiving Day.

I'm just saying, we are thinking about the blessings of God.

We think about how he has blessed us in our life. And so basically here we see

that no matter how dire our circumstances, he has lavished his blessing upon his children.

So his children must certainly pray. We must ask and offer thanksgiving to God.

And there's no shortcut to peace, is there? But prayer is the path to it.

Prayer is the path to it. Well, the fourth word is request, which instructs

us really to make known to God the specific needs that every one of us have.

We should bring our particular request to him. We actually have prayer request

forms here that people turn in like we're bringing these before the Lord.

We want others to join us in prayer, right?

We have that opportunity where we want to share those requests.

And it instructs us to make known to God those specific needs that we have or others have.

And we should bring our particular request to Him, whatever's troubling us,

in other words. Bringing specific requests to God is illustrated actually,

I think, in the parable that Jesus told about prayer.

In Luke chapter 11, I believe it's verses 5 through 8, somewhere in there,

Luke 11 · chapter mention

a person who is hosting a friend, if you remember, but lacks food to feed them,

goes to another person to seek what's neater.

And this host asks not merely for food, but specifically asks for bread.

He gives a specific request. And so he asks specifically for three loaves as

well of bread. You see where we're going?

Specific requests And he asks for those three loaves He makes specific requests

And he receives what he needs,

So it should be, church That us as believers,

That we bring similar requests To God in prayer And I don't know if y'all ever

felt like That there are some requests or needs That if you ever thought This

is too small for God I'll just handle it,

Anybody ever felt that way?

I think sometimes the way we act Kind of says that I don't know if we say it

out loud, but y'all, we're talking about every specific need,

every request to take to God.

Pour it out to Him, no matter how small you think it is.

So think about this this morning. What are the specific needs in your life?

What's been weighing you down?

What is burdening you? What has become a millstone, if you will,

around your neck? What is dragging you down?

Think about that today. Y'all, I believe today that God's Word is so relevant.

And I want you to know today, I know God's Spirit is speaking to our hearts.

I mean, here's the ground where anxiety will flourish if it's unchecked and unchallenged.

But this is also the ground where dependence, trust, and joy may grow, right?

If you and I pursue dependence, prayer, dependence upon God.

And the question we have to ask ourselves today is, will you bring your request to the Lord in prayer?

Or are you going to try to handle it on your own?

Y'all, I know there's probably some people here that are problem solvers.

Anybody here like to solve problems or to troubleshoot? Do I got any troubleshooters in the audience?

I mean, give a good problem, buddy, we're going to conquer it.

I'm going to tell y'all, I've been faced with different scenarios.

And one of the things Sharon can tell you, if I get going on something and I

need to figure it out, I'm going to stay up.

I mean, I've worked into the night. You know what I'm saying?

It's like I've got to conquer this. I've got to figure out what's going on.

Whether it's a technical problem, whatever's happening, it might be a software

problem. It might be code, whatever the problem is.

But we've got to get it down. We've got to figure out what's going on. We've got to solve it.

And some of y'all may have that type of nature And it's like sometimes,

you know, it's so easy for us to say I just won't bring it, like I said,

to the Lord in prayer But y'all, the thing about it is those little things in your life,

When they're left unchecked, when they're left outside.

They grow, and they grow, and they grow.

Got to let go of the little things that weigh us down, right?

We need to bring our request to the Lord in prayer. Don't be prideful to bring it to the Lord.

Don't try to handle it on your own. Take everything to God in prayer.

Remember, we're to worry about nothing, but we're to pray about what?

Everything. In fact, if that's all you get today when you walk out that door, that's good.

Worry about nothing. Pray about everything.

But let's talk a little bit today about enjoying peace. No matter how your prayer

is answered, taking your concerns to God in prayer brings abundant supernatural peace.

Anybody know that peace today? Do you know it?

I mean, look at verse seven here. Look at what it says, Philippians 4, 7.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts

and your minds in Christ Jesus.

God himself is peace, right? Romans 16, 20 tells us that, Ephesians 2, 14.

That is, all peace exclusively belongs to him, to him alone.

And so, therefore, he alone can give peace. Only God can give true peace.

True peace. Erine. It's an inner tranquility of the soul. It's an inner calm.

That settles the turbulence of troubled hearts.

The result of casting our burdens, right, to the Lord, to be unstressed,

undisturbed, or as Paul says here, to know a peace in verse 7 that surpasses all comprehension.

That is, in other words, church, that it exceeds human comprehension.

It doesn't make sense in our minds, right, that we can't explain how God gives it to us.

In fact, one of the commentators that wrote on the book of Philippians here,

He was simply stating, I believe it was Mortyer, that said that our lives will

be touched with a mark of the supernatural, something that passes all understanding.

And then the meaning there in that text, he says,

is not of something mysterious and incomprehensible in its own right,

but of something which man cannot explain or explain away, something which runs

beyond the range of human comprehension.

In church there's no explanation for

this peace that god gives except what

god provides it it's a supernatural peace that's unnatural flooding your heart

flooding my heart and you know what it does when it floods it it drowns out

worry it drowns out the anxious heart right when a believer prays,

God may not change their circumstances,

but he does change their heart.

When a believer prays, God may not change their circumstances,

but he does change their heart.

And that peace, Paul explains in verse 7, will, what did it say it would do to the heart?

It will guard the heart and mind.

That guard there, here.

For Raon, it's a military term. It describes a soldier who watches over a prisoner, if you will.

Paul, in other words, remember we talked about it earlier? Paul was being guarded

by Praetorian guards, the most elite soldiers in the Roman Empire.

However, he was also being guarded in a far more secure way.

God was protecting Paul's heart so that anxiety and fear would not enter it.

Fear was being denied entrance, in other words, if you will, into Paul's heart.

When preceded by prayer, the peace of God is always standing watch,

like a sentry, if you will, over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

I don't know about y'all, but don't you want to take it to the Lord in prayer?

Don't you want to go seek him? Don't you want to stop the worry and start to

pray? pray about everything.

And so, as we see here, the entire inner person, in other words,

according to this passage, is being fortified against the attacks of worry when we do this.

And anxiety cannot, church, cannot crack the divine defense that we have.

The Christian who actually prays dependently is guarded against the enemy of worry.

But you know what? To pray that way, you've got to be humbled.

You got to stop trusting in your own strength and your ability to solve problems.

You got to start relying upon God. You got to start being dependent.

And a lot of us just in our flesh, man, in our own human spirit,

we don't like that. We don't like to depend on anyone.

But here's the, y'all know this as Christians, if you don't depend on Christ

entirely for your salvation, you're in trouble.

This is one place where you need to be dependent.

Paul specifies that this peace is found in who? Christ Jesus, right?

It's supernatural peace of Christ. It's all sufficient, even in the most turbulent storms of life.

Jesus had promised this in John 14. He said, peace I leave with you,

my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you.

Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.

This peace comes not from this world, does it, or anything in the world.

Instead, it comes down from where? Down from above.

It's like a surging river. Wow, just think about it. A surging river into troubled hearts.

And such peace, y'all, is found exclusively in Jesus.

There's not a drop. Let me just say this today. There is not a drop of genuine

peace outside of him, nor a moment of relief apart from resting in him completely. Not real peace.

You may find some type of peace, world peace, whatever like that,

worldly peace that lasts for a little bit and vanish away because it's not real.

All peace and all comfort, real peace and comfort are found in Christ and in

Him alone. That's so important for us to get.

So I have to ask us all today, are you experiencing this kind of peace in every area of your life?

Do you need that kind of inner peace and tranquility? Again,

it's found exclusively in trust in Jesus, and it's obtained through prayer,

a humble heart, a bended knee, right?

We got to come before his throne of grace and pray. We got to commit our problems, our trials to the Lord.

He supplies a perfect peace that's unexplainable, incomprehensible.

But we can't, there's no way we can figure it out.

And if you're on the outside of Christ, you actually have a lot of reason to worry.

More than you realize if you consider your eternity if you don't know him.

But if you'll come to him, he's gonna receive you, scripture says.

He's gonna forgive you and you'll become the recipient of his abiding peace.

You see, the best peace we can have, the most ultimate that we need is peace

with who? Peace with God.

And that's what Jesus came to offer us. And it's experienced only in life with

him when salt anywhere else and in anything else is going to be elusive.

It'll just be elusive if we seek it anywhere else. We'll never find it.

Only in him. So I want y'all to think today as we close, what are the sources of your anxiety today?

Fear? Anybody else? Lack of control?

How attractive, though, do you find the idea of knowing peace about those things?

Being able to experience peace? Because you know what?

All those things, and I know y'all are mentioned, probably others,

maybe some I didn't hear, fear, lack of control, things like that.

You know who's not any of those things? Jesus.

No fear. He's in control.

That's the one that I want to put my dependence on and His sovereign purposes in my life.

And I hope today you realize, maybe some of us sitting here today,

maybe God's Holy Spirit has just moved in your heart, and you realize maybe

for the first time or maybe in a long time that worry is the failure to believe

the promises of God and His Word.

Maybe right where you are, maybe coming down. I don't know what God moves in

your heart. Maybe you need to repent of that attitude.

Maybe you need to say, Lord, I've just been failing to believe your word.

Lord, please forgive me. Help me to trust you the way I need to trust you.

Lord, that's why I can't have peace because I'm not trusting you.

I'm trying to do it all on my own.