Spiritual Depression Pt. 19: The Peace of God

Okay, we're up to chapter 19. We only have two more chapters after tonight on this book.

So we're going to start just a short portion of scripture, just two verses tonight.

Philippians 4 starting in verse 6, be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.

Let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

That's the text that we're using for tonight. Here's the good doctor's opening paragraph.

This is undoubtedly one of the noblest, greatest, and most comforting statements which is to be found anywhere in any extant literature.

One is tempted to say that about many passages in scripture and yet from the standpoint of our personal lives in this world and from the standpoint of practical experience there is nothing that has greater comfort for God's people than these two verses.

In them the apostle is continuing what is not only the major theme of this fourth chapter but the major theme of the entire epistle.

He is concerned about the happiness and the joy of the members of the church at Philippi. He has written the specific exhortation that they should rejoice in the

Lord always and again he says rejoice. In his great desire that these people might maintain that constant rejoicing in the

Lord, the apostle has been considering various forces and factors that tend from time to time to rob the

Christian of that joy and to bring him down to a lower level of Christian living.

I have another quotation from him as well. He has said, let your long suffering, your forbearance be known unto all men for the

Lord is at hand. He has shown how an unquiet spirit, a grasping desire to have our own way so frequently robs us of our joy.

Here in these verses he goes on to consider another factor that is perhaps more problematic than any others which we tend to rob us of the joy of the

Lord and that is what we may well describe as the tyranny of circumstances.

I want you to keep this phrase. You are going to see that phrase several times throughout our study but the tyranny of the circumstances or things that happen to us.

How many they are and how often do they come? Here the apostle deals with this question in a final manner.

It is remarkable as you read through the Bible to notice how often this particular subject is dealt with.

A very good case can be made out for saying that all the New Testament, all the epistles face this particular problem and were designed to help the first Christians to overcome the tyranny of circumstances.

So, spiritual depression then is often the result of circumstances beyond our control.

Everybody can certainly agree with that. We go through life and you come across circumstances that you have absolutely no control over and you can't just leave, you can't desert.

You are in circumstances and somehow you have to deal with them. These circumstances can bring on anxiety.

That is the one that he is specifically talking about, the circumstances that will cause a person to become anxious and that often leads to restlessness and sleeplessness.

Has anybody ever experienced that type of situation? Nagging problems and you put your head down, you can put your head down, you can go to bed but you just can't sleep.

This is what Martin Lloyd -Jones calls the tyranny of circumstances. So, how should a

Christian respond to this condition? He says,

I sometimes feel that there is nothing perhaps which provides such a thorough test of our faith and of our whole

Christian position as just this matter. What he means by that is it's one thing, well

I think I even say it up here, it's one thing to profess faith, it's quite another to have that faith tested.

It's good to tell, as Christians we're often told or approached by people who are going through circumstances and we give them advice, but how often do we fail in our own lives to be anxious for nothing?

So, in the text before us this evening, Paul gives a remedy to this problem. And here is what he says, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

The word anxious that's used here is the same word that Jesus uses in the Sermon on the

Mount. In Matthew 6 he says, for this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life.

The King James in verse 6, this is one of those times where I don't particularly care for the

King James version, it says be careful. And careful has a different connotation for us than it did back in King James time.

But the idea here is not to be overly concerned about the circumstances of life.

Some people actually use these verses to say that I don't have to worry about anything and they're lax, they're complacent.

It's not saying that at all. What it's talking about is the anxiety or the worry that is not commensurate with what the problem is, which actually robs people of their joy, robs them of their sleep and any good rest.

So, how does one get into this condition? Paul gives the answer to the question as he offers a solution.

This is one of those verses that you've got to read very carefully because the answer, the problem is actually revealed in the solution.

I'll show you what I mean. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

There is the problem. Why is it a problem? Notice what he's saying.

The remedy is that the peace of God will guard your hearts and mind. Well, if that's the remedy, what's the problem?

Our hearts and minds are not guarded. So, the heart and mind is a description of your inner self.

You can distinguish between the different parts, but you really can't separate them.

You've heard us talk about these things before. Your heart, your mind, your will, it's all part of who you are.

It's part of your soul. And you can distinguish it and say, well, you know, I can do this with my mind, but you can never really detach them.

And so, that's why he joins them together. So, talking here, your hearts and your minds is really a description of your inner self, your soul.

It is who you are. It symbolizes your thinking and your emotions.

And here's the point. How does one get into this condition of anxiety and worry?

By overthinking or letting your emotions go unchecked. Now, I say that, but here's the problem.

Can you ever stop thinking? When you have a problem that's facing you, you get into some sort of tyranny of circumstances.

Can you ever say, well, all right, I'm just not going to think about this? Doesn't work. Can you say, all right,

I'm not going to get emotionally involved in this? No. You can't.

We've gone through this in previous chapters. You can't dictate to your emotions how you are going to feel.

Jerry. It's a question, but more an observation. There are times that we've become so involved with it, we don't even realize that's what's causing our lack of sleep or our lack of comfort or it's causing our angst.

Sure. And again, the problem is, you can't just simply say,

I'm going to stop it. You know, I'm not going to think about this anymore.

Because the more you say that to yourself, the more you're thinking about it and you can't change the way you feel.

The only way, remember in a previous lesson, we talked about how are you really going to, in fact,

I'm going to do a little quiz here, pop quiz. What did we say was the remedy for changing the way you feel about something?

Anybody remember? You need to think about truth. If you keep reading this passage, it says, finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is...

Give that lady a gold star. That is right on target. It is truth that will change the way you feel.

When you see the truthfulness of the situation, that is going to change your emotional condition.

OK, so that's the problem that we come into. So you can't just stop feeling or stop thinking.

In fact, thinking and feeling can lead then to an overactive imagination. What do

I mean by that? Instead of you find yourself into some problem, you say, oh, my goodness.

Now, well, what if this happens? What if that happens? All right.

And you start now projecting. And what happens? Things get worse.

You know, that was like like the old advice giving the guy goes to his friend and explains this big problem.

He says, cheer up. Things could get worse. He says, so I cheered up. They got worse.

You can you can start worrying about what might happen. All right. So it's not even a question now of the situation that you find yourself in.

But now you're even worrying about perceived problems, things that haven't even happened yet.

So and in this state of anxiety, what what can happen in the worst case scenario is you don't want to be around people.

People separate themselves. They isolate themselves. You don't want to hear advice. Just want to be left alone.

All right. We've all, some people, most of us have been at some point in that.

And you basically become useless. And I mean that in a spiritual use to the kingdom of God.

Or sometimes you're just useless anyway. And I don't mean that tongue in cheek.

So the main argument by the apostle is do not be anxious in this way.

And that is in the imperative mood. But how can you stop being anxious that these responses are not easily controlled?

Notice what he says. If I do nothing else, I trust that I shall be enabled to show you the eternal difference between the

Christian way of dealing with anxiety and the psychological way or what he calls the common sense way.

And this when he's talking about common sense way, he's talking about the secular way, what they call it.

I don't particularly care for his choice of words, but you get the idea. Psychology, I believe, is one of the most subtle dangers in connection with the

Christian faith. People sometimes think that they are being sustained by the Christian faith when what they have is merely a psychological mechanism in operation and it breaks down in a real crisis.

We do not preach psychology. We preach the Christian faith. So it's important the person personally knows that you cannot just stop worrying.

Just and we need to understand this. If somebody comes to us for some advice or for comfort, we can't just tell them just stop worrying.

Everything's going to be OK. Every time I hear somebody do that and you see that on the movies all the time, movies, television, just stop worrying.

Everything will be good. Everything's going to be OK. I promise. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

You firstly, you can't promise that. And secondly, it's probably not true in the second place.

So you can't just stop worrying. People tend to say those to those wretched people who are anxious and worried.

You must not worry. It's wrong to worry. And all the worry in the world will not make any difference. Ever anybody tell you that?

Why are you worried? You can't change a thing. Right. So while that statement is perfectly true, it's of no help.

You can't just tell somebody stop worrying because it doesn't account for the power of the heart and mind.

God has made us incredible beings and what we can do with our heart and mind is incredible.

Just I mean, just look at the feats of men. All right. So the apostle follows the negative, though.

Be anxious for nothing. All right. There's the negative. But he doesn't just leave it there.

That would be the psychological approach. Just stop. You know, remember, wasn't it Reagan that had the policy?

Just say no to drugs. All right. Nancy Reagan. And then all of a sudden that became the comedian's thing.

You know, the war on poverty. Just say no to poverty. You know, it doesn't work.

But look at the rest of it. But in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.

But that's a beautiful word in Scripture. Now, this verse is often misunderstood.

It's not just let your request be made known to God. Here's what happens a lot of times, even with pastors who have not given a lot of thought to to biblical counseling and how the word of God is constructed.

All right. They'll say, all right, you're in this problem. Just pray about it.

Pray about it and ask God to deliver you or take it, take it from you. Right.

How many people? I've said that to somebody at one point or another. The apostle doesn't just say make your request known to God.

He tells you how to bring your request to God by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving.

Now, look now, watch this. This is important. This is this is the crux right here.

What we're going to be covering over the next couple of slides is the actual crux of the whole teaching tonight.

If you have problems that seem insoluble, if you are liable to become anxious and overburdened and somebody tells you to pray, do not rush to God with your petition.

That's not the way. Before you make your request known unto God, pray, worship, adore, come into the presence of God and for the time being, forget your problems.

Now, notice that it's not just telling you to forget your problems. It's telling you to go to God and focus on God.

Notice he uses a generic term for prayer, prayer in general.

Prayer is more than just petitions and supplication. And this is what a lot of people miss, especially in the church today.

We use our prayer time as though we're making out a Christmas list for Santa Claus. Give me this.

Give me that. This is what I want. That's taking a whole realm of away from what prayer really is.

Let me continue. So Martin Lloyd -Jones says not to start with your problems when you're coming to God.

It's having an attitude of reverence and awe. It's an acknowledgement of who

God is. That's why Paul says pray without ceasing. How could you ever hear people say pray without ceasing?

What does that mean? It's scripture. I mean, so it's true. How can you do that if that only means presenting petitions?

Are you going to go around all day long just presenting petitions? Can't. Couldn't do anything else then.

And we're commanded to do other things. But if you understand that the general attitude of prayer is always having

God before your face, then you can pray without ceasing. You can always be in an attitude of prayer.

So the admonition of the apostle is not just bring your request to God, but come to God in worship and acknowledge who he is.

Now notice what this is doing. All of a sudden you've got this whole set of problems here.

And they're real problems. I'm not talking about make -believe problems. They're real problems. All right. And all you can do is focus on those problems.

You're thinking about them. You're hurting because of them. You stop looking at that and you come over here and all of a sudden you bask in the glory of God by reading the scriptures, by doing a lot of other things, and coming to him in meditation and prayer.

That's the first step in how to deal with these type of problems. And that is the only one who hears and answers petitions and supplications.

What good would it do if you come to God and you pray and you say, I don't know if he's going to answer me.

Where's the relief going to be? But if you come to him in an attitude of reverence and awe and worship, and your first thing before you even bring your problems to him, you're praising him for who he is, what he has done.

And you notice the difference between praise and thanksgiving.

God needs to be praised just before he does anything. He's to be praised just for who he is.

And then when you understand that, that he is the one who answers prayers and supplications, petitions and supplications.

So prayer is more than bringing requests to God. So he says, do not start with them. Just realize that you are face to face with God.

Now that's in a symbolic sense, but when you come to God in prayer, that's exactly what you're doing.

You are coming face to face with almighty God. In this word prayer, the idea of being face to face is inherent in the very word itself.

You come into the presence of God and you realize the presence and you recollect the presence.

That is the first step always. Even before you make your request known unto God, you realize that you are face to face with God, that you are in his presence and you pour out your heart in adoration.

That is the beginning. Notice how you're pouring your heart out. Pouring your heart out for your own requests?

No. In adoration for who God is. You see how this is starting to change?

Move your thoughts. What are you thinking? What are you feeling? It's moving it.

Then you're ready to begin petitions and supplications. Now you can start to pour your heart out like the psalmist.

Notice if you read the Psalms, and this is why I love to use the Psalms for people who are hurting, because the

Psalms first and foremost always bring you right to who God is. And then you'll hear them pour out their heart about the trouble that they're in.

And these can be very specific concerning the issue at hand. Don't ever just pray in general,

Lord, take the trouble from me. Get specific. Because the more specific you get, the more you're going to be understanding that he can answer those prayers.

And you'll see those answers to those prayers in specific ways. But that is not all.

Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. OK, let your requests be made known to God.

You begin your requests in an attitude of worship bathed in an attitude of thanksgiving.

What if God answers your prayer like he answered the Apostle Paul's? When Paul said, three times

I petitioned him to take this thorn in the flesh from me. Three times he came back and said what?

My grace is sufficient for you. What do you say? Thank you,

Lord. Do you see the difference between this and the humanistic psychological approach?

Because this is not made up stuff. This is dealing with God who is your loving

Heavenly Father. If you do not come with thanksgiving in your hearts, you are not seeing things accurately.

Because we need to thank God for everything. Remember last week's lesson on chastisement.

You must see everything you receive from God as that coming from your loving Heavenly Father.

So even when you start looking and say, I got this whole bag of troubles here.

All right. And nobody knows the trouble I've seen. I love that song, by the way.

This is from my Heavenly Father. And there's a reason for it. In other words, you must be in a right relationship to God.

That's part of the biggest problem. You must realize the truth concerning him. The prayer that Paul advocates, in other words, is not a desperate cry in the dark.

Not some frantic appeal to God without any real thought. No, no, we first realize and recollect that we are worshiping a blessed, glorious God.

We worship first and then we make our requests known. That's the order.

Now that brings us to the third great principle in these verses.

You didn't realize there was so much packed in these two little verses, did you? And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

The peace of God will guard your hearts and minds. There's the comfort that's coming.

All right. Not just stop worrying, but when you come and you bring your request, the peace of God, if you bring the request, your supplications, your petitions with an air of thanksgiving in prayer, then the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds.

Now this is a very important principle. Notice that the promise has nothing to do with the circumstances that you may find yourself in.

What's missing from here is God's going to remove the trouble. Do you see that in the verse?

Is it in there anywhere? If you bring your press, then God is going to remove the trouble from you.

It's not there. It's not there. The promise has nothing to do with the circumstances you may find yourself in.

The promise is to guard your heart and mind, not fix the problem. Because, again, he may give you the answer that he gave

Paul. My grace is sufficient for you. And if he does that, there's a reason.

Why did why did Paul's affliction not leave him? Remember, came from becoming prideful.

He struggled with pride. And he said, no, he says that keeps me from being prideful.

So he thanks him for it. The glory of the gospel is this, that it is concerned about us and not about our circumstances.

The final triumph of the gospel is seen in this, that whatever our circumstances, we ourselves can be put right and maintained.

Regardless of what's going on around me, I'm in a right relationship with God, and I am presenting my petition to him, thanking him for it.

His will be done. Paul does not say that the thing feared is not going to take place.

He says that we shall be kept whether it happens or whether it does not happen. Thank God that is the victory.

I am taken above circumstances. I am triumphant in spite of them. OK, again,

I would point out that never does the apostle say that if we pray, our prayer in and of itself will make us feel better.

It is a disgraceful thing that people should pray for that reason. Wow. Wow. That's a strong statement.

That is a psychologist's use of prayer. They tell us that if we're in trouble, it will do us good to pray.

Very good psychology. Thoroughly bad Christianity. Prayer is not auto -suggestion.

Neither does he say, pray because while you are praying, you will not be thinking about that problem and therefore will have temporary relief.

Again, good psychology, bad Christianity. Neither does he say if you will fill your mind with thoughts of God and Christ, these thoughts will push out the other things.

Once more, good psychology, but nothing to do with Christianity. Neither does he say, and I say this advisedly, pray because prayer changes things.

No, it doesn't. Prayer does not change things. That is not what the apostle says.

That is, again, psychology and has nothing to do with the gospel at all. What the apostle says is this.

You pray. Make your requests known unto God and God will do something. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds.

How does God bring this peace to your heart and mind? Beyond your comprehension. God grants his children peace in the midst of trouble.

And how he does it? You cannot understand this peace. You cannot imagine it. You cannot even believe it in a sense.

And yet it is happening and you are experiencing it and enjoying it. Will guard your hearts and minds.

The word guard, I wanted to, just before we close, I wanted to show you this.

The word guard is a good translation. It's in the NASB, by the way. Had to throw that in.

We just had a little discussion earlier. It has a military connotation to it.

All right. Such as garrisoning. All right. The peace of God walks around the walls, the fortifications of your hearts and minds, keeping anxiety and worry from entering it.

It's not keeping trouble, but it's keeping the anxiety and the worry from entering into your heart and your mind.

That's what that means. You cannot understand this peace. You cannot imagine it. You cannot even believe it in a sense.

And yet it is happening. You are experiencing it and enjoying it. Beloved Christian, whatever it is that is tending to get you down, tending to make you a victim of this anxiety, this morbid care, harassing and spoiling your

Christian life and witness, whatever it is, let it be known unto God in that way. And if you do so, it is absolutely guaranteed that the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall guard, keep garrison your heart and mind.

That mighty turmoil of your heart and mind within you will not affect you. Like the psalmist, you will lay yourself down and you will sleep.

You will know this perfect peace. Do you know this? Have you got this peace? Is this another bit of theory or does it actually happen?

I assert that nearly 2 ,000 years of Christian history, the story of the Christian church proclaim that this is a fact.

Questions? Yes, Ted. I'm just reminded of Hebrews 11, 6, that all those who diligently seek

God, he will reward. The idea is that if we're praying and seeking

God in a diligent manner, he will reward us abundantly.

Any other? Yes. It reminds me of that song that says, turn your eyes upon Jesus, and the things of the world will grow strangely damned.

Yeah. Maybe there's something to that. Sure. Yes. I was going to say, this lesson tonight corrects a lot of bad teaching that's in our churches today.

Yeah. But it also affirms a good sermon, a good teaching I heard this week from Sinclair Ferguson, because he was talking about the

Sermon on the Mount and the Lord's Prayer. And he says, one of the mistakes we make as preachers is we separate those two texts, and they go hand in hand with each other.

When you talk about circumstances beyond your control, we have no control over our sin nature. The Sermon on the

Mount points out how we need God. We're totally dependent on God to overcome our sin nature. And that's why then

Jesus taught his disciples how to pray. Thanking and praising God. Asking God to feed us in his word.

Asking God to forgive us of our sins. Asking God to guard us and keep us from evil. Sure. That we're totally dependent on God.

And he's saying, yeah, the Lord's Prayer is, I mean, yes, it's a good way to teach prayer, but it's in that greater context.

You are totally dependent on God for your greatest problem, which you have no control over. Your sin. Absolutely.

Amen. Anyone else? Any other questions? Yes. Whenever you see the apostles writing letters, they talk about thanksgiving to God for what he's done.

I mean, it ties in with truth because we're reflecting on what God has saved us from, what he has done, how he has provided to save us.

And reminding ourselves of that truth as well. That he who has done this will also care for you.

You see it through the Psalms. They're constantly bringing up their history and what God has done for them and delivered for them. So when you think about the circumstances in front of you, just recognize

God is a God who saves. We can trust him. We can realize that whatever is going on, he's going to make it good.

He's going to work through it. He's sanctifying us. He's saving us through it. But just that attitude of being thankful and being thankful for what he's done and what he's doing.

We kind of leave that part out sometimes. And when we do leave it out, then we're thinking to ourselves that we know better than God or he somehow owes us something.

You know, we become very opposite of who we ought to be as Christians. That's good.

How unique this whole process is to Christianity. No other religion anywhere in history or around the world has anything that comes close to this.

And if we are seeking to practice that in our daily life, the difference will show in our lives and our accountants.

And people will come to us and ask for a reason for the hope that is in us. And you can see, too, how it's completely incompatible.

That's why, you know, there is. I hope everybody realizes there's no such thing as Christian psychology. Because people, there are psychologists out there who are

Christians. And they often say that they practice Christian psychology. There is no such thing.

Psychology by its very nature, by its root, is secular. And what they have done in some seminaries is they have merged.

They've tried to sanctify psychology by adding scripture references to it. But they're not compatible.

And here you can see it really clearly how you're starting from two completely different planes.

You know, even your epistemologies is completely different. And the