Prayer

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Good morning. You know, it's great to be here with y'all this morning, and Drew, I always appreciate the opportunity that you give me to come and to be here with this family of believers and to be able to worship my son and his family, and it's just always a good day we get to do that. It's always a good day to get to be in the house of the Lord. You know, Drew was at Hillman Street where I'm still, me and Cindy still attend, and our discipleship pastor there and did a great job for us there, and now he's here doing a great job for you, and just being able to just know what he's doing, how God's working in his life and in his church. We're just excited for that. I want to continue to see God to work in this place, so thank you for allowing me to just be here this morning. You know, this morning when we were out, we circled up and praying this morning, and appreciate something Brother Dan said

as he prayed this morning. He said, Lord, I just hope that we can just kind of block things out of our minds this morning. Just focus on you for just an hour this morning, and isn't that the struggle for us each and every day is to try to block other things out so that we can focus on God, and one of the things that keeps us from doing that is the fact that we worry. And that's what we're gonna talk about this morning. We're gonna be in the fourth chapter of the letter to Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, to Philippians chapter four. We're gonna be in a few verses there this morning to look at this issue, but if you're like me, many of you here this morning are part of that Society of Warriors, or some would say that we're a member of the Society of Warriors,

I have to say that twice, right? But we constantly worry about things, and we're anxious about all these different things in our life, and when that happens to us, it kind of steals some of the excitement and joy from our life, and not only it doesn't, it just has physical and spiritual impacts on our life. And I wanna share with you just one definition of anxiety that psychology gives us. It says it's a mental condition characterized by excessive apprehensiveness about real or perceived threats, typically leading to avoidance behaviors, and often to physical symptoms such as increased heart rate and muscle tension. And I want you to see a couple things in that definition because it tells us that oftentimes we're apprehensive about real or perceived things. And so we're gonna talk a little bit about that in a moment, and it talks about the fact that there's this physical symptoms that happen,

there's this increased heart rate, there's muscle tension, where I can add to those, and many of you probably experienced this loss of sleep, or ulcers. It's amazing that I'm a card carrying member of this society. Now I'm doing a lot better than I used to do in my life, but about the age of 19, right in that area where you're going into college, I started having some stomach issues, and I noticed that sometimes when I drink a little milk, my stomach will feel better. So we ended up going to the doctor, getting all the exams, getting all the tests, and running scope down my stomach, and went in to see the doctor to get the diagnosis, and he said, Tim, he said, you've got the largest ulcer I've ever seen. You're 19 years old. He said, what is wrong with you? And he said, are you having girl problems? I'm like, no, I'm not having girl problems. I even had to call him a few days later

to tell him the medicine that I was taking was not working, it was causing me more issues, and on the phone he asked me, he said, Tim, are you sure you're not having girl problems? It's like, no. I mean, looking back, I think part of it may have been first year college calculus, that may have contributed some of it, but it was just, I had this, I worry about things. And so all of us sometimes, when we're sitting here this morning, even as we sing those songs, for us that are in that society that worry a lot, it's hard for us sometimes to focus and not think about those things that we're worried about, like work tomorrow, or relationships, or marriage, or finances, all those things kind of impact and flood our mind and try to divide our mind in what we're thinking. One study was done and they took 29 people and they told them to write down everything they worried about for a few months.

And after they wrote everything down, the team that was studying it took those things and went through and studied everything and they found out that everything that they had worried about, only about over 91.6% of what they'd worried about never happened. Now I know growing up I've heard this statistic a lot of times that 90% of the things we worry about never happened. Well that study kind of proved that and one of the other studies kind of looked at what do we worry about? And it found that 40% of the things that we worry about will never happen. It says that 30% of the things we worry about are in the past and we can't change those, can we? So why are we worrying about those? 12% of the things we worry about are about others, mostly what they say, a lot of them are untruths, but we still worry about them. 10% about our health and that study said about 8% of what we worry about actually happens.

I mean when you think about the time that as we have anxiety and worry about all these different things and you think about how much time we spend doing that and to think the fact that there's only about eight or nine percent of that that ever happens. It's just telling us that mentally we are wasting our time when we do that. In fact the German word for worry means to strangle. It means to, it's like what we worry when we worry, it kind of strangles us. It strangles our mind, it strangles our joy. It changes our relationship and who we are. And not only does it have a spiritual, I mean a physical impact on us, it also has a spiritual impact. Because when it divides our mind, worry causes us to be distracted from the thoughts that God would want us to have in our lives and in our minds. And we begin to be distracted just as Dan prayed this morning. We don't wanna be distracted from what God

has to say to us this morning. Through the music, through the prayer, through the message this morning, through his word. That Satan, you know, Bible tells us that Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy. And he is the father of lies, the father of deceit. And he is the one that gets great joy when you and I have our minds divided and concentrating and worrying all these things that are happening in our life. And not focusing on God and what he wants for our life. John, Mark 4:19, it says, but the worries of this world and the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things enter and choke out the word and it becomes unfruitful. You see, that's what happens to us when we worry. And that's what Satan loves because when we are so caught up in worrying about the things of this world, the materialistic things that we become, just like he talks about the seed here becoming unfruitful,

he said, we'll become unfruitful with followers of Jesus Christ. That it'll impact the ability for us to serve him, to follow him, to love him, and experiencing the joy that comes from knowing him because it just strangles our relationship with him. Then Mark 4 reminds us in verse 19, he says, but the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires of other things enter and choke the word and we become unfruitful. I'm reading Mark 14. 4.9.19 again, sorry about that. Cash, let's go to Matthew 6:34, the second verse. It says, therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Isn't that true? I read one guy this week that said, when we worry about things in the future, we take the trouble of the future and bring it to the day and all it makes us have today is double trouble. Why do we wanna do that?

The Bible tells us we've got enough problems today. Don't worry about the past, don't worry about the future. Just deal in the presence of God and enjoy who he is in our lives. But it's hard to do that when worried. So what does the world tell us? That if we're in this situation and we're having so much trouble worrying, what are some of the things the world will say, these are the answers that we need to perceive. So here's just a few. We're gonna run just touch on these a little bit. But here's one, it's just strategies, 10 strategies for how we are to deal with worry. It talks about meditation, about practicing self-compassion. It says do a body scan. I don't know if you know what a body scan is or if you've ever done one of these, but what it's talking about is you lay down and either you can do it yourself or you have a counselor that does it, but you start at the tips of your toes

and you start concentrating on the parts of your body and you kind of relax them. And you begin at your toes and you work your way all the way up through your body, all your muscle groups, the top of your head and you're just relaxing. And at the end of it, you're supposed to be just, feel like you're just floating there relaxed. And truthfully, that probably works for the time that you're doing it, but as soon as you finish focusing on scanning your body, you'll go right back to worrying about the thing you was worrying about to begin with. Other things it mentions is to keep an emotional journal, to focus on what you can control and then exercise more often. We'd all like to do that, right? Some of us need to do that more than others. Then there's this list of 10 tips on what we can do to manage our worry. It talks about, I love the first one, it says problem solved, don't worry.

It kind of reminds me of that song, it says be happy, don't worry. It's just like that's what sometimes the world will tell us, why are it just, just be happy, don't worry. It says don't kid yourself about worry, always be helpful, learn to accept uncertainty. Then it goes on down and talks about manage your time, manage the time when you worry. One of the things when you look at both of these lists of these strategies and these tips of how we're gonna handle it, what the secular solution is, it's all about you.

It's all about you being stronger or concentrating more about you doing certain things that you have to solve the problem, that you need to focus more, you need to exercise more, you need to sleep more, you need to stay in the moment. It's up to you if you're gonna overcome worry. If you don't overcome it, then the guilt trips on you because the strategies you're trying to tell you, if you follow these strategies and act these out, I should not be worrying, but here you are. You still battle with this worry. So that's the secular solution. So see what the biblical solution to worry is. And Paul tells us that in one of the verses in Philippians in chapter four in verse six. And here's what he says, he says, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God. So Paul doesn't give us a 10 step strategy,

he doesn't give us 10 tips for doing overcoming worry, he gives us one way to overcome worry. He says pray. He says present your request to God. And notice what he says, he says when you're anxious, no matter what the situation is, he says in every situation, take that to the Lord. Pray to the Lord. Take those concerns to the Father, to the God who created this earth. If you're anxious about anything, how many things? Anything, whatever you're anxious about, you need to pray about in every situation. Prayer is about every time, every problem, we should be talking to God. One author said that prayer cures worry. In Psalm 139 and verse 23 it says, search me, oh God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. So the Psalmist is reminding us that when we have those anxious thoughts,

to allow God to search our heart and allow him to lead us in his way everlasting, not in our way. But that's one of the problems, isn't it, with prayer? We can say, well I've done that. And notice that Paul doesn't say that when you present those requests to God, that God's gonna immediately answer them. He's gonna immediately provide something or he's gonna immediately remove you from the problem. He doesn't promise any of that. He just says, if you were worried, take it to the Lord. Spend time praying to the Lord. Take that issue to the Lord. And one of the things that many of you are probably sitting here thinking at this time, man, Tim, I've tried that. I've had issues, I pray, man, I still worry. And listen, I have not overcome worry in my life. I really think I'm a lot better at not worrying than I was 30 years ago. But it's almost like an addiction, isn't it?

You just never overcome it. You always have to continue following it. And so there's always that temptation to leave God out and worry. And that's what happens in prayer sometimes. That we decide that when we go to prayer, and the reason that we're not experiencing that release from the worry when we pray is because most of the time our prayers are self-centered. That when we pray, that when we start to pray, the first thing out of our mouth, and listen, having time to pray is a battle in itself. And so we don't have a lot of time, so when we pray, the one thing we wanna do is to make sure God knows what we need, which is really contrary to Scripture, right? Because God tells us He already knows what we need. But prayer's not just about sharing our needs with God, it is about having a relationship with God. And oftentimes our prayer life is telling Him of all the things we need or the things

that our family needs. But that's not what Paul is teaching us here. He says, when you pray, you're gonna take all these requests to God. And you're not gonna, I'm not gonna say we never worry after that, right? Because we're human and we're gonna fight that battle. But He wants us to experience this freedom to know that God is gonna take care of it. And the way that we do that, if we're gonna pray and experience that, Paul lets us know that in that verse, right in the middle of that verse. I want you to see something we haven't touched on, but Paul throws this right in the middle, but it's vital to the way we pray. He says in the middle of that verse, he says that we're to pray with thanksgiving. Now oftentimes we don't really pray with thanksgiving, do we? Because our prayers begin with ourselves, it's focused on ourself, it's focused on our need, our family needs,

our church need, it's really self-centered. But he's saying when we pray, first of all, pray with thanksgiving. So He's telling us that we can need to take our eyes off ourself for a moment and put our eyes on Jesus. To focus on Him, who He is and recognize that the person that we're praying to is the God who created all these heavens and earth. He created you and me in the image of God. He loves us deeply. He is a God who is full of grace and mercy. And when we look around with thankful hearts, we can't but help see how God has provided us with great things in our life. The fact that you live in this country and able to worship freely, the fact that you have a family here at this church that you can come and worship together with, that will pray for you, that will mourn with you, that will be happy with you and be joyous with you. Those are all different things

that we could be thankful for. And Paul's reminding us that when we're taking those to concerns to the Lord, that we need to start by being reminded of all the things that we need to thank God for. And when we're thinking of that and being recognizing this God that we worship, it also remind us that whatever problem that we're about to ask God to solve, when we start with God and who He is, we already know that that God that we worship is bigger than any problem that we're about to pray or any worry we have in our life and we're about to ask Him to help us. It's reminding us of the God that we worship and how much He cares for us. That we're to pray with thanksgiving, that we're to approach the heavenly Father with a thankful heart that is recognized as what He has done for us, taking our eyes off ourselves and our own problems and recognizing who He is. Isn't that what Jesus said in the Lord's Prayer?

If you think about it, the Lord's Prayer does not begin, give me my daily bread, does it? That the Lord, the example, the model prayer that Jesus taught or used, told us to use in prayer begins with our heavenly Father, who art in heaven. His will be done, not mine. That we start that prayer by looking to God and recognizing exactly who He is. And He says once we are reminded of how worthy He is of our praise, then we go to the fact that we're needy and we need to ask Him for something. But it reminds us of just a great Father that we work, that we want His plan, that we're gonna trust Him to work out whatever situation there is in our life at that time. One author wrote it this way, he says, faith is not, when we pray with Thanksgiving, we're praying with faith. He says faith is not a ritual to get what we want for ourselves. He says faith is obeying God's will with the assurance

that He will provide what is best for us or for you. Do you trust God that He is gonna provide what's best for you? Oftentimes we don't, I mean, we can say the words with our mouth, that we trust God. But the actions that follow do not testify to the fact that we truly believe that. Because we go out and we're trying to solve the problem that we just told God we're gonna trust Him with. Isn't it amazing how we do that? That we're not allowing Him or trusting Him to work out the situation. Oftentimes because we don't feel like He's working fast enough, right? Because we want it to happen immediately. And oftentimes we wanna be removed from the situation when God is using that situation to strengthen us, to grow us. One author said anxiety springs from the desire that things should happen as we wish they would rather than as God wills them to happen.

That's one of the conflicts we have, isn't it, when we pray? Because we have an idea of this is how it should happen. We thank God, here's the solution. If you'll just do this, everything's gonna be perfect. But that's not God's will, that's our wish. And we need to follow God's will. It's important that we pray. One of our favorite, Cydney and I's favorite quotes on prayer is from Daniel Henderson who wrote a book called Transforming Prayer. He says, prayerlessness is our declaration of independence from God. And so that's when we don't pray, we're declaring we don't need God. And so when Paul was reminding us is when we're anxious about something, that's the first thing we should do. That's the first place we should go, is to ask God, Lord, I don't know how to solve this problem. I don't know everything that's happening in this situation but I know that you do and I'm gonna trust you

to work it out. You know, that's not an easy thing to do and we battle that, right? Because if we're in that society of warriors, man, it's hard to overcome that. But I promise you, it works. It's working for me right now. And I struggle from time to time in worrying about things. And there's a situation that came to my life about four, about five, six weeks ago that if it happened 30 years ago, I promise you I would still be losing sleep over it right now.

But I've decided at the time that I'm gonna pray, I'm gonna ask God, what needs to happen in this situation? I prayed several days about it. I fasted one day about it just saying, Lord, what needs to happen here? You gotta guide me on what needs to happen. And I just turned it over to the Lord. And listen, it's not solved today but I'm not losing any sleep over it because God is in control of that situation. And I'm trusting that he's gonna work it out, not the way I want it to be worked out because I got some ideas, Lord, but I'm gonna trust him to work it out because I know that he has the best interest. He knows what's best for me even better than I myself know. And Paul was reminding us of that, that we need to trust him. But some of you may be even thinking, well, you know, Tim, that's fine but you just don't understand the situation in my mind. The dire situation, how difficult this situation is.

And I may not, I may not understand that. We know God does but I want you to understand that Paul, the person who wrote this letter, I want you to understand his situation and how he writes this out of his life and how to his heart in the midst of what's happening in his life. The apostle Paul in Acts chapter 14 was beaten and dragged outside of the city of Derby, left for dead, came to, got back up and went right back into the city to start preaching. Two chapters later, Paul and Silas are preaching and they're arrested, they're stripped down, they're beaten with rods, they're thrown in prison, they're put in chains. If you read that chapter of chapter 16, you'll find out later that night at midnight, what was Paul and Silas doing? They were praying and singing praises, singing hymns to God. Paul understands being in a difficult situation but yet trusting God, not what he sees

but what God knows and what God sees. And in the midst of that, he still praises and prays to God in the midst of prison. Even this letter that we're reading today, when he writes this letter, he's in prison in Rome chained to a Roman soldier. But out of that, a few verses ahead of this, as he comes in his verse, he says, rejoice. Again, I say rejoice. He's rejoicing in the midst of a severe, difficult situation in his life. Not because of the situation but he's rejoicing because of the God he worships. And he knows the God that loves him, that cares for him, that wants to see what's best for him. Paul doesn't understand it but he says, I know the God I worship is doing the right thing. I trust him with everything. What if Paul's not enough? Well, let's listen to what Jesus said. Maybe Jesus will help. In Matthew chapter six and verses 25 through 27, Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount said,

therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. It's not life more than food and the body more than clothes. Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or weep or store away in barns and yet their heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? The answer to that is no, right? I think the answer is that by worrying, we may be able to reduce our life by a few hours. But I don't think we can increase our life by worrying. In Luke chapter 12, it says in verse 29 to 31, he says, and do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink. Do not worry about it. For the pagans, the pagan world runs after all such things and your heavenly Father knows that you need. But seek his kingdom and these things will be given to you as well.

That's what Jesus and Paul is reminding us, to seek Christ first, to focus on him, not the problem and trust that he will take care of the issue. He'll guide you with wisdom and understanding what you should do in the situation. Paul gives us a solution. He says, if you're worried, pray. He gives us the method. He says, if you're worried, pray with thanksgiving. And then in the very next verse, he gives us a promise. And I love the promise that Paul gives us if we'll be willing to pray with thanksgiving when we're in the midst of worry. In verse seven, he says, and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. The peace of God. It's beyond all understanding because the world will not understand why, just as they didn't understand why Paul and Silas is singing praises to their God in the midst of being in a prison.

Doesn't make sense, does it? But it does to a believer. Because we have faith in the God that we believe in. I love the passage when it says that we'll guard our hearts and our minds. And the word there for guard is a military word. It kind of gives you a picture of a garrison guarding a city, and I like to think of that and think of that when God is gonna guard my heart and my mind, that it's like he's gonna surround me with his peace that will guard me from Satan and these worries taking hold of my life and dividing me, and making me, dividing my mind and making me unfruitful for his service. That I don't want worry to do that. God will help us be able to overcome that. You know, peace is mentioned over 400 times in the Bible and many times it talks about the peace of God, but it also talks about the peace with God. And I want you to understand that there is no way

that you and I can experience the peace of God if we haven't first, if we don't first experience peace with God, that we haven't professed Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. And Paul writes in Romans in chapter five, verse one, he says, therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So he says that we can have peace through Jesus Christ, through his death on the cross, and at once we experience that peace with God because of a profession of faith in Jesus Christ, then we can experience what Paul's talking about in Philippians chapter four, this peace of God that goes beyond all understanding. And when we hear that, you know, we think, man, wait a minute, T.M., that's too simple. You're just telling me if I worry, I pray, and it's just too simple, it doesn't make sense. It's just like the salesman comes to you

and he's trying to sell you something, and if it sounds too good to be true, our attitude is it must be too good to be true. And in this world, it probably is, but that's not the case when it comes to God. It's not the case in salvation, is it? Because some people feel the same way about salvation when you tell a person that you can have eternal life if you will just confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised you from the dead, you will be saved, and you'll say, no, that's too simple. And there are even denominations still out there today that will take that and they'll add all these different works of things you have to do, and that's our struggle with worry because we want to be able to go back, we kind of lean back to that secular solution because it involves us, and we can feel like we're doing something. But in salvation, Jesus did everything.

It's a gift to you and I. And if we want to experience peace with God, we confess with our mouth and believe in our heart to God raising from the dead. And that's kind of what Paul's saying here in this passage when he says, you pray, and we can't just, it's like confessing with our mouth that Jesus is Lord is not enough, right? Just saying the words doesn't work. It has to be a belief, a faith in the heart that he is the Son of God. And it's the same if we want to use prayer to help us overcome worry. It's not just saying the words of prayer or saying those things to God, but it's with thanksgiving, it's with a heart full of faith that God will do that. That we can walk away from that prayer time with the faith that God will accomplish that. And we're not gonna go out and try to solve the problem under our own wish and our own will, but we're gonna allow God to work that out in our life.

We're gonna trust him to make that happen. In John 14, he says, peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give you as the world gives you. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Do not be afraid. Put our trust in him and we can experience that peace that passes all understanding. You know, it's great news. I mean, we say the gospel is just this great news. It's good news to those who don't believe. But to those who believe, this message that Paul's given us for those that deal with worry all the time is a good news too for us. Because he says that you can pray and trust God and not have to deal with that. Paul provides us with the biblical solution. He says pray. He gives us a method to pray with thanksgiving, with faith. And then he gives us this promise that we will experience the peace of God. So if you're here this morning, you're not experiencing the peace of God right now.

I think the first question we have to think through is have we experienced peace with God? That have we confessed with our mouth and truly believed in our heart that he is our savior? And then if the answer to that is yes, I am saved. I know that I have eternal life in the Lord. Then are we praying to God with faith and with thanksgiving? You know, there are so many old hymns that are just drenched with theological background, theological basis, theological truth. And when you're seeing them, there's just so much truth in them that comes right out of scripture. And just love singing so many of those old hymns. But I wanna bring up one this morning that I think it just applies directly to this passage that we're reading this morning. And many of you may be familiar with the hymn. It's called What a Friend We Have in Jesus. And isn't that true? We truly have a friend in Jesus.

There's no friend greater than Jesus Christ. But this writer, songwriter, you know, interesting, something I read about this writer this week. And he had a lot of tragedy in his life, but he wrote this hymn of how what a friend Jesus is in the midst of that tragedy. His first wife, his first fiance, the night before they were to get married, drowned. He moved to Canada many years later. He married a woman and a few months later, she got an illness and died. But he, in his heart, still has this song, What a Friend We Have in Jesus, that reminds us of how we should take these concerns to Jesus. Just the first stanza. It says, What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear, what a privilege it is to carry everything to God in prayer. And these next two remind us of what we're missing out on. Because he says, oh, what peace we often forfeit, oh, what needless pain we bear,

all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. And some of us here this morning are experiencing that. We're experiencing needless pain because we don't trust God, that we're gonna take control of the situation ourselves. And I wanna encourage you this morning that as we close this morning, as we sing and as we pray to close out this service, that you'll make that decision today, that you'll take everything to the Lord in prayer, and that you will trust him to deliver you, to deliver you in or through that situation. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, man, your scriptures are so full of so many promises. And Lord, we just recognize the fact that we worship a God who we can trust in every promise you make, you will fulfill. And so Lord, I just pray that in our lives today, those things that are dividing our mind, those things that are making us unproductive

and unfruitful because of the worry in our lives, the anxiety that we're experiencing, Lord, just help me be able to trust you. Help me to make a habit of taking those things to you in prayer. And anytime they come to my mind, Lord, that I just ask you, Lord, please take care of this, I trust you. Lord, help us to be able to trust you with all the issues in our life. And Lord, we want to experience that peace that goes beyond any understanding. Take it to the Lord in prayer. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Amen, thanks Tim. Thank you, brother. Look, if you want to respond in some kind of way, the way we do that is we do that right after the service, so we'll sing one more song, and then I'll be down here, and if you wanna catch Tim after the service, I'm gonna ask him questions too. My encouragement is if you were convicted in the middle of that, there's probably something that you are,

you feel like you need to do. My encouragement is don't do it alone. Don't do it alone. Find somebody, talk to them about it. If you need somebody to pray over, if you need to pray, but don't even know how, find somebody. I'll be sitting up here, but like I said, you can find a lot of different people and talk to somebody, so that's my encouragement. Let's.