Philippians 4:4-9

open your copy of God's Word to Philippians chapter 4. Please do not let the birds in the vents distract you.

Me and JD desperately tried to get rid of them this morning with no luck. So you can hear them walking around.

But Philippians chapter 4, we're going to be looking at verses 4 through 9, but before we read our passage,

I'm just overwhelmed as I'm looking around and as I'm thinking about what

God is doing in our midst and how God is working in this church.

JD, can you go turn the heat on a little bit? Maybe we'll get rid of them that way. How God has been working and he's doing it in his power.

No schemes, no man -made plans. And as we started just a little over six months ago, which

I don't think anyone in this room was here that first Sunday, but in the house down the road in our living room with just a few people, we decided to jump into the book of Philippians right away.

And we felt like that was the direction God was leading. And every single week

I have found that the passage that we're in, we don't skip anything. It's either a verse or a handful of verses, but every single week it's as if God had planned from eternity past that that was the passage that I needed that specific week.

That's the great God we serve. The Holy Spirit had already orchestrated all of it. And I don't have to look around at the landscape and say, okay, well, this person over here needs to hear this, and this person needs to hear this, and I need to hear this.

I don't have to do that. Well, I'm going to pick a passage accordingly. I just say, I'm going to be obedient to what God has called me to, and we're going to go line by line and the

Holy Spirit has done his work. I've talked to a number of you that have said the same thing. You've come to me and said that was exactly what

I needed in this moment. I don't think that's helping, bud. Let's go ahead and turn it off. I think the heater is louder than the birds, don't you?

Well, the Holy Spirit ordained that too, so he has the birds here for a reason. All right.

Thank you, bud. Well, let's go ahead and open up our passage.

Look at our passage here. This passage is true in this situation because what

God is saying here in these few verses has been a perfect timing for me this week.

It has been perfect timing, and I pray it will be for you. It's been a difficult year and a half for everyone, hasn't it?

And this has been a passage that God has used very specifically in my life over the years during difficult times for a progress in the spiritual realm, a progress in my life to sanctify and I pray, and I would assume for you all also.

It's a very familiar passage, but it has caused me to rely on the Holy Spirit more.

Let's read our passage, starting in verse 4, chapter 4 Philippians. Paul says, Rejoice in the

Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice.

Rejoice in the Lord. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the

God of peace will be with you. This is the reading of God's word.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer one more time as we expound upon that. Lord, I pray that you would guard me from error.

Lord, I pray that I would speak only truth from your word, God, and I pray that you would guard the ears and the hearts and the minds of the hearers that are sitting out here,

God, and I pray that you would reveal truth to us, Lord, through the power of the Holy Spirit that is dwelling within us that we would understand these great truths.

In Christ's name we pray. Amen. So as a moment ago I mentioned how difficult this past year, year and a half has been.

I mean 2020 was a crazy year and it doesn't seem to have gotten a whole lot better. I think things have lightened up a little bit but it's been difficult for everyone hasn't it?

And for us in the church we have not been exempt from this difficulty. We've gone through it right alongside our neighbors and our co -workers and those out in the world.

We are going through it in the same way and there has been so much fear, so much anxiety going around.

I mean seriously just turn on the news for a moment. You'll be scared to death in about five minutes. The world is scared aren't they?

They're scared and rightfully so they should be because this is all they have.

But they're watching us. They're watching us. God has left us here for a reason hasn't he?

He's left us here to be salt and light. And that's why he allows us to go through those same difficulties right alongside others around us because they're watching us.

We're here to teach them aren't we? We're here to teach the world about who

God is. To proclaim the good news of the gospel. And we teach a couple of different ways in our lives.

The first one is didactically. We speak it. We speak truth from God's word.

Which is what we're doing this morning with each other right? But we like to tell people about who

God is. Because that's what we're left here to do. Salt and light right? We tell people about who God is and who you are in response to that.

And your desperate need for a savior. And then what God did with his own son. Our savior.

And what it takes to be made right with God. That's speaking truth into a lost and dying world.

But we also proclaim truth through example.

Through our lives. Now you've heard this statement before. Preach the gospel and when necessary use words.

That is the most ridiculous thing ever. Because the verbal proclamation of the gospel is first and foremost.

The example in your life is the evidence of the truth of it. And so we live by example.

And do we hold Christ dearer than anything and everything?

Including ourselves and our family. Because that's what the world is watching. Because if not.

If you do not see Christ for who he is and live your life accordingly with that example. Then your admonitions are meaningless.

All the words you're saying are landing on deaf ears. Because there's no fruit of evidence in your life of it.

And so I think that's what Paul is drawing attention to here in these verses. To these believers at Philippi.

Here in verse 4 I want us to see what Paul gives us here as a positive command.

A positive command. Look at the passage with me. It says rejoice. Rejoice. What does that mean?

Are we to just take joy in something? To be joyful about it? We think of rejoicing.

We think of somebody dancing. I think of King David stripping down off his clothes and dancing through the streets.

That's rejoicing. It's about as extreme as it gets. We think of rejoicing. But this word that Paul uses for rejoicing really just means to delight.

To delight. We delight in many things in this world. We delight in our family. We delight in our friends.

We delight in a beautiful wonderful day. The weather that God has given us. We delight in many things.

But just as the psalmist says delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Paul is saying and he identifies right here in this passage the object of your rejoicing.

The object of your delight. And what does it say? Verse 4 he says rejoice in the

Lord. The object of our rejoicing here. Rejoice in the

Lord. What does he mean by rejoicing in the Lord? The word

Lord here simply just means master. Doesn't it? It just means master. He's obviously speaking about Jesus.

He's speaking about Jesus and he's telling us to rejoice, to delight in the one and only thing in the universe that can give us the desires of our heart.

What do I mean by that? What do I mean by giving us the desires of our heart? Jesus is the only thing that can give us the desires of our heart just as the psalmist says?

I say that because nothing else in this universe can. Nothing else in this universe can give you the desires of your heart whether you are a

Christian or a non -Christian. Nothing. And that's because for us as believers we belong to Christ.

Right? We belong to Christ. He is our Lord. And if he is our Lord then he is our master.

And he has given us a new heart. He's taken out a heart of stone and given us a heart of flesh. What does that mean?

It means that when we delight in him our heart's desire is his will.

Our heart's desire is him. Look at what the lost world who doesn't have

Christ does with their heart of stone. They delight in this over here for a while until they realize it doesn't fulfill.

It can't give them their heart's desire. It can't. It does the same with us when we don't delight in our master, when we don't rejoice in the

Lord. What happens? We begin to desire sinful things. We desire sinful things but ultimately sin is a liar.

And we set our affections and our rejoicing and our delight in something other than our master and what happens?

That lie tells us, oh we'll fulfill. We'll give you the desire of your heart.

But what does it do? It leads to destruction every single time and you're left wanting. You're left with nothing.

So we can only rejoice in the Lord. And we have such a propensity to rejoice in other things but that's why

Paul is reminding the believers at Philippi and us the readers now that we are to rejoice in the

Lord. And when we do, our desires begin to change, don't they? Our desires, what we long for, what we want, the things of this world that are important to us begin to change because when we're truly rejoicing in the

Lord and our master, when we're delighting in our Savior, then our hearts desire that which is good.

And what is good? God. God's will.

God's purposes. God's plan. That's what we desire and we're going to see that at the end of this passage in a little more detail.

But Paul gives us this positive command and in this positive command, Paul gives us a time stamp on it.

Maybe that's not the right word, a duration. There's a duration of this command that he has given us to rejoice in the

Lord. What does he say? Look at the verse again. He says, rejoice in the Lord whenever things are going good.

No, he says always. He says always. Rejoice in the Lord always, no matter what is going on in your life.

And that is difficult, isn't it? But nonetheless, we realize that this is a command.

And it's interesting that he uses this word. Obviously it's inspired by the Holy Spirit, but it's a little redundant.

But it's redundant on purpose to drive our attention. Because back at the word rejoice, the word that Paul uses in the

Greek for this rejoice is in the present tense, which means that it's ongoing.

It doesn't have an end. It's a continual rejoicing. And so not only does he use this word rejoice, there's not an end to it.

You continue. It's continual. But then he adds the emphasis of always, in every circumstance, so that we don't have a tendency to sit and go, well yeah,

I'm going to rejoice in the Lord. But man, when that terribly, tragic, difficult circumstance hits me, man, it's going to be hard to rejoice in the

Lord. Or even worse, have you ever noticed when things are going really good?

I know for me, that's the time when I have the most difficulty rejoicing in the Lord, because everything's fine.

I don't need my Savior right now. Everything seems to be great. But he drives that home, that emphasis of always.

And then he drives it even deeper. He says, again, if you didn't hear me the first time, if you didn't catch the rejoice continually and always, again

I will say rejoice. How important is it that the Apostle Paul tells us twice?

This is something that we should take hold of, take stock in, that we are to rejoice, that we are to delight in the

Lord. Amen? So now, in verse 5, we see a visible confirmation.

This is what I was speaking of earlier, that the world is watching, right? We need a visible confirmation of this truth, of this rejoicing, of this delighting in our

Savior. Look at verse 5, he says, let your reasonableness be known to everyone.

Now some have a tendency to read this verse and they say, well what he's saying is, be a reasonable person.

You ever heard the saying? He's a reasonable guy. Just go to him. You can reason with him.

He's reasonable. But that's not what Paul is saying here. That's not the language that Paul is using.

This word reasonable is actually better understood as assurance.

As a matter of fact, it's understood better as an abiding assurance.

An abiding assurance in what? Well, let's keep reading.

One, it's to be known to everyone. So everyone is seeing this abiding assurance. And then look at the second part.

It says, the Lord is at hand. The Lord is at hand.

Now some want to say that this, for Paul, is a reference to the second coming of Christ.

Which, in a sense, I'm sure I can see where Paul would use that here.

I mean, think about it. He's writing to the church at Philippi. These people are suffering. These people are going through extreme difficulty.

They're losing their lives. They're losing their loved ones. They're losing their jobs. They're losing their friends. They're losing their family.

They're losing so much. And then Paul himself writing it in difficulty.

So it could be the fact that he is saying, hey, our Savior is returning. Just hold on.

Hold on. Our Savior will return. But I don't think that's what Paul is saying here.

I don't think he's speaking of the second coming. What I think he's saying to this church at Philippi who is struggling so greatly is that Jesus is with you now.

He's not giving them future hope. He's giving them current, here and now hope.

And the fact that when he says, we're just going to wait and rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice.

Let your reasonableness, let your abiding assurance in our Savior be seen, be evident to everyone around you.

And let me give you a little bit of hope here because Jesus is with you right now. He's present.

And not only is he present, you may say, well, I don't, he can't be present because my circumstances are difficult.

Jesus would never allow this to happen. You don't know my circumstances.

Well, you're right. I don't. I don't know your circumstances. I don't know what God has you going through right now in this specific moment.

But what I do know, what I do know is that there's nothing new under the sun, right?

Your troubles or your situation has not caught

God off guard or God's up there going, oh, I didn't see that one coming. That's a new one. No, he knew it.

Not only did he knew it, did he know it? And more importantly, I may not know your situation, but I know the one that is sovereignly ordained that current circumstance in your life right now.

It's the same God that has brought these people in Philippi to such suffering. It's the same

God that has imprisoned the apostle Paul as he writes this letter.

It's the same God that has brought these people to this situation, yet our present

Savior, our here and now, sympathizes with our pain.

He's brought it, brought us to it, but he's with us. Think about that for a second.

He has brought you to this situation, and he knows what's best for you. How arrogant is it for us as man to sit and say, how dare you,

God, bring me to this situation? Jesus would never bring me to this situation. Jesus wouldn't let his child suffer. Jesus wouldn't let us suffer in this world.

How dare he let us get to this situation? How dare us speak? Think about who you're speaking to.

This ever -present Savior that is with you in the here and now is the one who condescended from heaven from his throne to be made in the likeness of his creation to live a life and then to be rejected, and not only be rejected, but then to be tortured and then murdered.

He ordained that, and he brought himself to that. And now he's allowing you to play a part in his suffering.

How dare we say, how dare you, God, bring me to this situation? Are we better than our master?

But yet, isn't it? What does Paul tell us? Rejoice, delight in the one that has brought you here, the one that not only has brought you here and left you out in the wilderness, he's with you.

He's been there before you, and he is with you present now. That's what Paul is telling us in this passage.

The Lord is at hand. You can rejoice in this great Savior because he is with you, and you can allow your abiding assurance to be evident and seen.

An assurance in a living Savior. Amen? So, we have this abiding assurance, and the one that's with us, and this is a testimony to a watching world, a watching world that looks in and says, he's going through the same situation that I'm going through.

Yet his true north never changes. His compass is always true. There's an abiding assurance in him.

So, he we're given that positive command, we're given this evidence for the world, and now

Paul gives us a negative command. A negative command here in verse 6, look at it with me.

He says, do not be anxious about anything.

Anxious, anxiety. We all struggle with this, don't we?

Worry. I have to confess, I'm a worrier. That is a sin that always draws me away from my eyes on my

Savior. I worry about every little thing, and I struggle with that. Paul is telling me not to be anxious, not to worry about anything, and I have to give that over to the

Savior and fight that and mortify that sin, right? Well, I think a lot of us struggle with this.

Why is Paul telling us not to worry? Why is Paul telling us not to be anxious?

Because this feels impossible, doesn't it? My flesh always wants to go back to it.

It tends to default, and it feels impossible. And not only is he telling us not to worry, he adds to it.

He tells us not to worry about anything, anything in our lives.

Let's be honest. There's some things that happen in our lives, or could possibly happen in our lives, that seem like legitimate things to worry about, right?

They seem legitimate, but Paul gives us no room. He gives us no leeway to squeeze out of it and try and evaluate what we assume is legitimate and not.

He says everything, anything, all things, everything is legitimate. Whatever happens in your life, you are not to be anxious about that.

And I heard a pastor one time put it this way. He asked, what is it that causes anxiety and worry?

What causes anxiety and worry? Well, it boils down to this. The root of worry is a small view of God.

When I fret and I worry, what

I'm telling God is, God, I don't trust you. You don't have my best interest at heart.

Or, you're too weak to deal with the situation. You're not in control. Maybe you're worried about this situation.

That's what I'm telling God. I have a small view of God whenever I fret, whenever I am anxious, whenever I worry.

You know, like I said, for the youth is going through the Sermon on the Mount. As a matter of fact, turn there to Matthew chapter 6 with me, because Jesus gives us a little bit of information on this.

I think this is probably where the Apostle Paul is getting this directly from our Savior. Matthew chapter 6, starting in verse 25.

We're going to read a few parts and kind of skim through it very briefly, but I want us to see in Jesus' words what he is calling for here in this

Sermon on the Mount. There in verse 25 of chapter 6, Jesus says, therefore I tell you, what's he say?

Do not be anxious about your life. Do not be anxious about your life.

And then he goes on and tells them what you're going to eat, what you're going to drink, what you're going to wear, where you're going to sleep.

All of these things, let's be honest, are legitimate things to be concerned about, aren't they?

You don't eat, you die. You don't drink, you die. You don't have shelter, you freeze. These seem like legitimate things to be anxious and worry about, don't they?

But yet Jesus tells us as his children, why? Why would you be anxious about this?

And then he goes on in verse 26, he says, hey, look at the birds. Look at the birds.

They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they?

Are you not more valuable than the birds, these birds flocking around here in the heating system that we're listening to this morning?

Are you not more important than them? That's what Jesus is saying, right? And then at the end of verse 30, he tells them, oh, you of little faith, oh, you of little faith.

And then in verse 33, he says, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

What Jesus is telling them is, there's no reason to be anxious because your heavenly

Father is sovereign and he has ordained every little minute detail of your life down to the most seemingly insignificant thing, and he will provide for you, his children.

It doesn't mean we don't go work for it, right? It doesn't mean that we don't do what God's called us to do, but what it does mean is that the anxiety has no place because we know who our

Father is. We know who God is, amen? We know who our God is, and we can rest assured in that.

And in verse 34, Jesus goes on, he says, therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow.

Don't be anxious about it. Don't worry about tomorrow. Don't be fretting about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.

Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. And I think what our Savior's doing right here in this moment is he's affirming to us,

I'm not telling you you're not going to have trouble. I'm not telling you you're not going to have difficulty.

That's not what I'm saying. Tomorrow will have its own trouble. It's the heart matter.

It's your view, both mentally and in your heart, of who you belong to and who you rest assured in.

My children don't worry one second about if they're going to eat tomorrow, because they will eat 48 boxes of cereal, because they know who their mother and father are, and they trust that there's going to be food on the table tomorrow.

Why would we not trust our Heavenly Father? That's easier said than done, right?

We find ourselves falling back into worry and anxiety because the things of this world distract us.

And you might say, and I've done this before, well, I've got a big view of God now.

I get it. God's sovereign. God's ordained everything. God is in control. I know all that stuff intellectually.

I know who God is, so I shouldn't have to worry. Why am I still worried? Why am

I still anxious about these things in my life? Why do

I still not trust God, even though I mentally know who He is?

I would say it's because sometimes we think we have an accurate view of God, but then in that moment, our view of ourselves, who we think we are, reveals that we do not truly know the

God of the Bible. What do I mean by that? I have a tendency to fall back and go, yes,

God's ordained everything. God is sovereign. God is in control. And Nathan's somewhat in control. I have some power over some situations, don't

I? I can make some stuff happen. I can pull myself up by my bootstraps and deal with this situation, can't

I? God doesn't have to intervene in this, and I know overall He's going to somehow spiritually oversee all this and deal with the situation.

And I view myself in light of that, which reveals to me that I don't truly know who

God is. And that's what's distracting me.

Because when we see who God truly is, we will always respond with a humble countenance.

We will always see ourselves in light of who we truly are and our desperate need of the

Father. I love the phrasing, Abba, Father. You ever heard that?

Abba. And for the longest time, I always thought there in Scripture that what that meant was somebody like a child saying

Daddy. You know, everybody always says, well, that means Daddy. That's the way they would have said that word,

Abba. But as you study it in greater detail, you start to realize that it's far more infantile than that.

When you hear Abba, Father, this would have been a phrase that an infant would have uttered,

Dada. An infant that if left on their own would die of the elements and starvation and is 100 % fully, completely, thoroughly reliant on their mother and father.

Think about that for a second. That's who we are. How arrogant we think that we're playing a part in this and that we think that we're something.

We always want to share glory with God, don't we? But we serve a mighty, sovereign God that we are his children.

Not only his children, but his infants that are fully, completely, thoroughly reliant on everything and call out to him,

Dada. We reach out with our hands, Dada, I have need. And our

Father provides it. That's who we worship. Why would we be anxious? Why would we worry?

Why are we going to worry about what's coming next? Why are we going to worry about the circumstances around our world?

That's what Paul is telling us right here in this passage. He's saying the watching world is looking at you. You're going through difficulty and they're looking.

Do you have an abiding assurance in your Savior? Do you know who God is? Are you being anxious for nothing?

And I said we have, we will respond with a humble countenance. Look at the passage there in verse 6 where he says do not be anxious about anything but, but in everything.

Not just some things, not just a few things, not just the things that we want to let go, everything, but in every element, every minute detail of your life, by what?

By prayer. What is prayer?

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, if any of you have been in my house and seen my library, you know I'm a fan. Charles Haddon Spurgeon said this about prayer.

He said to pray is to enter the treasure house of God and to gather riches out of an inexhaustible storehouse.

What's Spurgeon saying there? I think it's a beautiful poetic picture of prayer as his children. When we go to God, our

Father who owns everything has an inexhaustible storehouse.

And when we pray, that means that we have access to this, this treasure trove of inexhaustible mercy and grace and providence.

And we pray every single element, that's prayer. The Bible tells us to pray without ceasing, doesn't it?

I mean, if you're a believer and you have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, you're praying even at this moment. You don't even know it.

Uttering things that you can't even comprehend. Because praying is like breathing for us.

I would assume that there's no one in here this morning that has sat here this entire time going, okay, breathe in, breathe out.

Okay, breathe in. It's absurd, right? We breathe naturally. Prayer, prayer should be that.

Do you pray? Do you humble yourself before the Lord and pray?

Are you praying without ceasing? Are you going and interceding? Are you saying, I have an inexhaustible storehouse available to me and I'm going to take advantage of it at every moment

I can? Because that's my dad's and he's good with it. Is that how you see prayer?

Because that's what Paul's telling us. If we want to be anxious about nothing, that this is the key.

This is what it means to be humble before the Lord. He says in prayer, if you don't pray, you don't know who

God is. You don't know this God. But it goes even deeper. What does he say?

He says through prayer and supplication. What does this supplicate, what does that mean?

I think the easiest way for us to comprehend it is begging, a deep pleading.

So how is supplication different from prayer? Well, what it is, is it's prayer from a deep and desperate knowledge of your need.

You know who you are. You know who God is. And this can only come from knowing that God.

And I was thinking of an example of supplication. It's hard to nail down, but I wanted to give you all maybe a visual of it.

I think of supplication the day that my oldest Delaney was born.

Some of you may have heard this story, but here we are in the hospital. Mother and my mother -in -law are in there.

My father -in -law is standing over at the door out of the way, but he's a doctor, so he always wants to be a part of it. The rest of the family is in the waiting room.

It's a beautiful day. We're excited. We're about to have our first child. It's a little girl. Her name is going to be

Delaney. We're so thrilled. I mean, some of you parents in here know what I'm talking about. And it's a beautiful time there.

I'm sure Erica sees it as a very different situation from her end, but we are all in there excited.

I've got the camera ready, and then I notice the doctor and the nurses' countenance change.

And I know something's wrong because they act quick, and they realize they have to get the baby out now.

And so instead of that beautiful time where the baby comes out into the world and starts crying, and they say, you have a daughter, they remove a lifeless body.

There's no cries. The body's blue. And they remove this body, and I can see the fear in the doctors' and nurses' faces.

I can see it in my father -in -law over in the corner when his countenance dropped, and I knew this is bad.

And for three minutes, which felt like an eternity, here I am. I don't know this girl.

This is my first time even seeing her body. I know in this moment that I have a supplication deep within my gut.

I know my need because I can't help the situation. I have no power. I'm powerless.

I can't do anything, but I know the one that can. And I make supplication.

It comes from deep within. And I plead, and I say, God, God, take my life. If you have to take someone, take mine, and leave hers.

Bring life back into her. Let me drop now and she breathe. Please, God, I beg of you. I plead with you.

And our good and gracious God in that moment, like I said, three minutes later, you hear a cry.

And looking back, I didn't realize the providence of God in this moment, how God had orchestrated every single minute detail, because there was a specialist that worked at that hospital that the entire state of Florida wanted, and they couldn't get him because he was the guy for this situation.

And he wasn't even supposed to be in that day, and he definitely wasn't supposed to be on that floor that day, and he happened to be walking by the door in the moment, and a nurse caught him.

And every doctor that we talked to since then said, if that man hadn't been in that hallway, your daughter would not have survived.

No one knew how to deal with that. That's the providence of God. I supplicated on behalf.

I went to my father. It wasn't just a prayer of, God, I pray that you give her life,

Lord. I pray that your will be done. No, I begged. Now, here's the thing.

We serve a God that he would have been good and gracious and kind, and he would have answered my supplications even if life never got brought back into her, because God is sovereign, and I would have been called to rejoice in it.

Easier said than done, right? God was gracious in that moment. That is what supplication is.

So when Paul says, by prayer and supplication, this is what we're to do. We're to plead with our great

God, because we know who he is. We know who we are. We know our great need of his sovereign interaction.

But then Paul makes it even more personal. What does he say? With prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving.

With thanksgiving. I think we skip over that as we read it sometimes. We're like, yeah, pray.

Yeah, supplicate. Oh, with thanksgiving, let your request be known to God. Yeah, I'll be thankful. But no, no, no, no, no.

Stop there for a second. This ensures humility. You cannot be thankful.

You cannot truly be thankful for something without being humble. Can you?

Think about that for a second. True thankfulness requires true deep humility.

I mean, Jesus said in Matthew 23, whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

This is what God has called us to. He desires humble servants that will humble themselves before him, because they know who he is.

When we see ourselves in contrast to God, we will be overwhelmed with gratitude, won't we? Overwhelmed with gratitude.

And when we pray and make supplication, we know that he is God and we are not. And no matter what happens, no matter the circumstance, we're thankful for God's perfect sovereign plan.

Your thankfulness to God is fruit of your humility. You get that?

If you're not thankful, truly thankful to God, then you are not being humble and you're not humbling yourself before the

Lord. But God has called you to humble yourself. So when we pray and make supplication through a humble, thankful spirit, look at the end of that verse.

He says, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.

God already knows it. You're not revealing something to God that he doesn't know, but this is for your benefit.

Your benefit is to request him and make it known because he wants to be worshiped and he wants you to see him for who he is.

He wants you to glory in him and his greatness. So we make our request known to him.

We make our request, but our thankfulness and humility are shown in the fact that we trust that our heavenly father always gives us more than we ask.

Think about that for a second. Even in that situation with Delaney, if he would have not brought life back into her,

God would have given me in that moment more than I had asked because that was his perfect plan and his perfect will.

And in its great perfection, it is exactly what is best for me and brings most glory to God.

This is the God we worship. How do we know this? How do we know that this is it?

Well, look at verse seven with me. And the peace of God, the peace of God, the peace of God.

This is a guarantee. Here's another promise from God. The peace of God. Not that he gives you specifically what you ask for.

Paul doesn't say, and he will answer your prayer. He will give you what you ask. No, he says in peace, regardless as to what

God brings, whether he answers it the way you want or not, you'll still have peace.

Not only peace, the world wants to talk about peace. We always want peace, peace here, peace there, peace of mind.

But there's only one peace and Paul affirms it, the peace of God. There's only one true peace, is that peace that we get through our heavenly

Father. And it's unlike any other peace, isn't it? So no matter how he answers it, we have that peace in God.

And then he goes on, he says, which surpasses all understanding. The world can't comprehend it.

This lost and dying world that's watching you go through the same thing they're going through. You're going through the same pandemic they're dealing with.

You're struggling financially the same way they're struggling. You're dealing with heartache and loss in the same way that they're dealing with it.

But yet there's a peace that they can't comprehend. Not only can they not comprehend it, you can't comprehend it.

You ever felt that? Have you ever had circumstances hit you in your life and you stand back and go, how do

I have so much peace? Because you can't comprehend it because it is the peace of God which surpasses any kind of understanding.

And then here's a promise. If you write in your Bibles, circle this word and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will.

I love that word in there. That's a guarantee. I grab hold of that one all day long. It will.

It will what? It will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

It's going to guard. It's armor. It's a promise.

If we humble ourselves, pray and supplicate, have thankful hearts, run from anxiety and worry and trust in our

God, he will guard our hearts and minds. And Paul uses this hearts and minds on purpose.

It must be both of them. Think about it. If it was just your heart, if you just knew,

I know who God is, then Satan's going to use that to distract your mind and your mind's going to go elsewhere and that worry's going to settle in.

But if it's just your mind, then it's not real to you. God has to guard both your hearts and your minds.

These are two major elements of us as Christians. That inward being, that soul, that heart as to who we are and intellectual ascent.

These are important and God will guard those things. But ultimately, and I'm going to close here.

I'm not even going to deal with 8 and 9. We'll deal with that. I'll jump on that next week. But ultimately, what does he say?

He doesn't say he's just going to guard your hearts and minds. He doesn't just say that you'll have a peace from God. It's only, solely, completely through and in Jesus Christ.

You hear me? That's it. The world has no hope.

They can't comprehend it. And when we try and seek out after avoiding worry and anxiety on our own or through any other means, when we try and distract ourselves by binge watching

Netflix so that we don't have to think about the things in our lives, when we do any of these other things, they're not lasting, are they?

They actually build and everything builds and builds and builds. But if we want peace, if we want to be able to avoid anxiety and we want to be able to avoid worry, it only comes through our

Savior. It can only come through peace in Jesus Christ. It only comes when we focus on that center.

Our Savior, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, which is the one that has made all of this possible.

Because otherwise, this God that we know, what would happen? We would be of utmost anxiety because we would have no means to be made right with Him.

We wouldn't be able to be made right with Him. As a matter of fact, we would be awaiting a judgment by a perfect, holy

Creator. But when we're in Christ, we stand justified and redeemed and freed and made new.

So I pray that this is encouraging. I wanted to get to verses 8 and 9, but we'll deal with that next week.

I hope this is encouraging to you as we struggle through the difficulties of this world.

Look to your Savior. Know who God is. Let's go to the