Praying for Maturity Week 3 | Philippians 1:9-11

Relational Prayer and Paul’s Prayers for the Philippians

Praise God for his sovereign mercy and protection over all of us. I'm glorifying him to see you here this morning ready to to learn. This is our fourth and final lesson in our series on relational prayer that has been drawn from Paul's admonitions and his prayers in the context of his relationship with the church at Philippi.

And it's been a huge blessing for me to be on this side of the Sunday school experience. I know the joy of being there in your seat, of listening and anticipating what God's word has for each day. And I know the privilege it is to be on this side and to be able to prepare my heart and mind from God's word to be able to help you and then to see God at work in your lives.

It's just been a tremendous privilege for me. So thank you for praying for me. Thank you for participating actively in this important part of our sanctification process. We grow together, not separately.

We grow together in Christ and we need each other so much. So if you missed one or all of the last three weeks, let me give you a quick summary so that you can catch up as this will be our final week together looking at these four separate sections of Paul's communications to the Philippian church and the implication that it has to us as we pray for other people, specifically the believers in this body here at Kootenai.

So in week one, our goal, our first goal was to grow in our love for others through relational prayer by imitating the prayer priorities of Paul. We looked at four specific prayer priorities that we gleaned from his prayers across the New Testament.

The first of which was to strive faithfully and urgently in intercession for others. Secondly, we saw how Paul prioritized making specific requests for the sanctification of other people. And third, we saw how if you look at his prayer life, it's just saturated in genuine thanksgiving to God for how God is continuing to work in the lives of other people.

Fourth, we saw that Paul prayed with a confidence that we too would love to have a confidence in God's sovereign ability to work gloriously in the lives of others through both joy and suffering. And that's going to be important as we look at our lesson today.

So that was week one. Week two, we looked specifically at the passage in Philippians 1, 3 through 8, that greeting section of Paul's letter to the church at Philippi. And we saw seven characteristics of his prayer life.

Things that we can imitate as we embrace the pattern of prayer that he had and that he laid out for the Philippian body. We saw that Paul was thankful, he was consistent, joyful, confident, purposeful, affectionate, and gospel-focused.

And I pray that that has been what has been transforming your prayer life, like it has mine, to be more joyful, more affectionate towards the people of God that he has placed us in sanctification growth process with alongside of one another.

And last week, we just moved forward one verse into Philippians 1, and we went through verses 9 through 11. And we spent time looking at how to pray effectively for the maturity, the sanctification growth process of other believers.

We saw that the way that Paul prayed is he connected together his prayer requests. We looked at five of them. The prayer requests were that they multiply or increase the amount of love, real love, that they had for one another.

More and more and more and more love. Secondly, we saw that his prayer request for the Philippian church was that they learn to make excellent choices, which they were doing, but Paul wanted more. And third, that those choices would then manifest in their lives in a sincere purity, a blameless behavior pattern.

Third, we saw that his goal was that this behavior pattern would allow them to continue being filled with the fruits of righteousness, the fruit that God produces in our lives as a result of his grace, and that continues throughout our entire sanctification process all the way until glory.

Finally, we saw that the final goal that Paul had for this church at Philippi was that they magnify God. And he connected those five prayer requests together. So this week, we're going to return one final time to Philippians.

And the title of our lesson this morning is called Protective Prayer. Protective Prayer. It's going to come from Paul's admonition to the church in chapter 4. So if you'd like, you can open your Bibles up to Paul's letter to the Philippians, chapter 4.

We're going to be in verses 6 and 7 this morning. Now, my kids have been looking forward and anticipating to the day when they would get to be the illustration in one of my Sunday school lessons. So I have good news.

Kids, this is not your week. You're going to have to wait till the next time I get to teach Sunday school. But I usually, if I was going to do that, I probably would warn them before I embarrass them in front of the entire congregation.

It would be not too difficult if I just said, well, she, because that narrows it down pretty quickly, where if I said he, you'd at least have a one in four shot of being right if you're guessing. But I should have warned you about something before we started this series.

Worry as a Sin and the Dangers It Creates in Prayer

If you love and pray for others, you may increase the likelihood of sinning. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, what do you mean by that, Simon? How can praying for others make me more likely to sin?

Well, I'm going to suggest to you that praying for others can increase the danger of sinning. It can increase the danger of worrying. The problems of sin, suffering, and society can rise to a level that when you start praying for other people who are going through sin, suffering, and society, you can find yourself worrying more.

And God's design for prayer is that prayer should be the antidote to worrying. Yet, we in our fallen sinful state allow worry to begin invading, corrupting, and corroding our hearts and our minds and stifling the very prayer life that is meant to guard against it.

It's so deceptive. Satan has the capacity to use sin and our own deceitful hearts in a way that he can suppress our prayers for others through worry, which our prayers should be the very thing that should be guarding against that form of worry.

Now, I'm going to suggest to you this morning something that you probably already know. Worry or anxiety is one of the societal sins of our age. We're drowning in worry. And sometimes we're not even aware of it.

It's like we're swimming in a fishbowl and we have no idea how wet we are. We worry about anything and everything. Now, some things in life are worth being concerned about. But let me just bring to mind some of the things that worry tends to focus on.

We tend to focus upon unbelieving relatives who will not repent. No matter how long we've prayed for them and how faithfully we've prayed for them, they will not turn. And that can cause us great worry.

As we look around us, it's hard to ignore the societal decay in our morality, our money, our motivations in life. Third, life happens. Death, divorce, estrangement, the significant long-term health issues, the financial ruin that some of us have wrought in our own lives.

All of these things can bring worry to the surface. Unfulfilled dreams. I've always wanted that piece of property, the ability to cultivate it the way that I thought God intended for me. The natural decay of our bodies and the aging process in our minds.

Disappointments that life brings to us. Now, I know you know, but the world has cultivated entire industries devoted to dealing with the effects of worry. Whether it's psychologists, therapists, pharmaceuticals, mindfulness, support groups, books, podcasts, seminars, the world thinks that they have solutions for your worry.

But you and I know that they don't, right? That those are not solutions. At best, they're just covering over the problem. And here's the sad truth. Many Christians neglect the elementary pattern of a strong prayer life.

And that leaves them and their loved ones spiritually, emotionally, and even physically vulnerable. We choose often to protect ourselves and our families using the inferior weapons of this world rather than the Word of God and a devoted prayer life.

And brothers and sisters, that should not be. So we're going to look this morning at Paul's prayer to the Philippians in verse four, excuse me, verse six of chapter four. And let's read it together here.

Paul says in verse six, 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.

This morning, we're going to examine two fundamentals of a strong prayer life. So that we will protect ourselves from worrying. Real easy, straightforward, two basic, two fundamental truths about a strong prayer life.

So that we will protect ourselves and the people around us through a strong prayer life. The first fundamental from verse six is stop worrying. Look at it. Verse four, be anxious, or excuse me, verse six, I keep saying verse four.

Chapter four, verse six, be anxious for nothing. Do not worry about anything. It's like a biblical counselor providing instruction to their counselee. Just stop sinning. That's it. You can all go home now.

That's point number one. Point number two, it's such a simple command that Paul gives us. And yet it is so hard to obey consistently. We all aspire to obey this command, don't we? And yet we struggle.

So look at that. Look at that word translated in the NASB, anxious. It means to worry, to be concerned for, to be filled with anxiety and care. Now, the verb here is not always used in a sinful way. It is possible to be concerned about something without sinning.

Look back with me as an example of chapter two, Philippians two, verse 20. As Paul writes to the Philippians and commends to them Timothy, he says in verse 20, I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned.

That's our word there for your welfare. So Paul and Timothy had a godly concern for the welfare of the Philippians. And I'm commending to you that you should be concerned like Paul and Timothy for the welfare of others.

That should be a part of your prayer life is to be concerned, genuinely concerned about the effects of sin and the dangers of what can happen if you give your life to sin, right? Paul and Timothy were very concerned about the Philippians.

That's what motivates Paul to write and to pray. So what we're not saying here is, is that all concern is sinful. But go back to verse six of chapter four, when Paul says, be anxious for nothing, he couples the verb anxious here, concern with this strong negative and then a present active.

Imperative.

And he's saying here that this is a sinful concern and you should not engage in it. Do not be anxious. Do not worry. He wants the Philippians to discourage this behavior and therefore he's, by extension, he's discouraging it in our lives.

If we engage in worry, this is at the very least an unwise and a harmful behavior. And at worst, it's sin. Gordon Lightfoot in his commentary defines worry as that unreasonable anxiety which arises in one who is full of cares, especially about the future and thus distracted in mind.

So we need to stop and ask a question. What does God and what does Paul want the Philippian church here in the book of Philippians to stop worrying about? What is it that he's telling them as he's writing to them?

Remember, we're listening to his conversation. It's like listening to half of a phone conversation. You're kind of imagining in your head what the other person on the other side is saying back and we're doing the same thing here about Paul's communication with the Philippians.

But what does he want them to stop worrying about? What is he saying here? Well, the beautiful part is Paul doesn't specify. And that's beautiful because it means that we can take it at face value. They shouldn't worry about anything.

He doesn't give them the specific thing so that we could kind of excuse ourselves and go, well, Paul's telling the Philippians not to worry about this. That's not my problem. He didn't say not to worry about this.

No, he says, do not worry about anything. Now, did the Philippians have anything to worry about? Well, absolutely. Let's just work our way backwards. We're in chapter four here. Look at verse two. It says, I urge Iodia and I urge Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord.

They had conflict in their body at the very least between these two women. But chances are these two were not the only women in this body who had some form of conflict. And he's urging them live in harmony with one another.

You know how worrisome it can be when you have conflict going on around you in a body. Look back at chapter three, verse 18 and 19. Paul says, for many walk of whom I often told you and now tell you even weeping that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their appetite and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.

Paul wept at the reality that there was this constant threat of the end. Enemies of the cross of Christ. The Philippians had something to worry about, to be concerned for. And so do you and I, right? I could be talking to you by telling you that you have a constant enemy around you.

The enemies of the cross of Christ. Look back at chapter three, verse two. Paul says, beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision. One of his primary goals in writing this letter was to issue a warning to this body of the presence of false teachers who were seeking to pull them away from the true gospel.

Look back at chapter two, verse 26 and 27. Actually, I'll read verse 25. He says, but I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger and minister to my need, because he was longing for you all and was distressed because you had heard that he was sick.

For indeed, he was sick to the point of death, but God had mercy on him and not on him only, but also on me so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow. There was a distress in this body over the sickness of Epaphroditus, and Paul in turn had sorrow upon sorrow over this reality.

Look at chapter two, verse 15. Paul says in 2 .15, so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world.

The Philippians lived in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Look at chapter one, verse 28 and 29. Paul says in 28, in no way alarmed by your opponents, which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you and that too from God.

For to you, it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me and now here to be in me. The Philippians, like Paul, were suffering for the sake of Christ, and they were alarmed at the presence of these opponents of the gospel around them.

And then all the way back in chapter one, verse 12, Paul writes and says, now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole Praetorian garden to everyone else, and that most of the brethren trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear.

Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from goodwill. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, rather than pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment.

The reality that Paul was in prison caused distress to the Philippians. And not only was he in prison, but those opponents of him were seeking opportunity to preach Christ out of selfish ambition and take advantage of the fact that Paul was in prison.

Summary, the Philippians had a lot to worry about. They had a lot of things in their lives that could have caused them sinful anxiety. But Paul's message to them in chapter 4 verse 6 is clear. There is no place for worry in the life of a Christian.

He leaves no room for ifs, buts, accepts, or what about this? There's just nothing in the text that gives us the freedom to make excuses. But how quick are we to create excuses for the worry in our lives?

We accommodate worry as, quote, one of the respectable sins. Jerry Bridges wrote an excellent book called Respectable Sins and talks about sins like worry that we kind of put into a different category in our lives.

We say, well, it's not one of those sins. It's one of these sins. It's okay in moderation, right? After all, is it really a sin to be concerned about providing financially for your family in a world where money has been distorted and broken?

Is that really a sin to worry about that? What about if you're dealing with long-term health issues that don't have ready solutions? Shouldn't you be allowed to be a little bit more worried about those situations?

Maybe you're just grappling with the reality that we live in a corrupt world with an overbearing government that seems too far broken to ever be changed. Shouldn't that justify, make it right, a little bit of worry?

Now, worry or anxiety, I'm going to use those two terms interchangeably this morning, it's a constant danger to any generation. It's not just the Philippians problem, right? When we face trials, we often seem to forget what we know to be true of God.

Our mind and our hearts lie to us, and we must bring our mind and our heart back to the truth through the Spirit, through His Word, and I'm going to suggest to you through the lives of other believers, other believers who pray and speak truth to you in the midst of your concern.

By worrying, we are confessing our lack of trust in God. We must remind ourselves that nothing has occurred, is occurring, or will occur that is outside of God's sovereign, perfect plan for us and for the believers that are around us.

Nothing has ever occurred outside of that sovereign plan. And by worrying, we're proudly asserting our confidence that our assessment of the circumstances is superior to God's. We're saying, look, God, if you knew what I knew, then you would understand what I'm going through.

A little commercial here. I wish I could be here next week. I'll be traveling for family wedding, but Jeff's going to be diving in Sunday school next week in the book of Habakkuk. And if you struggle with the sovereignty of God and how to live in light of the reality that you don't understand what's going on around you, come hear what God has to say to you from the book of Habakkuk.

This type of distrust of God and his perfect plan for us negatively impacts our prayer life, specifically in four ways. One is it can consume our minds and prevent us from praying in the first place. I would pray, Simon, but my mind is so full of just some life that's going on around me.

I can't even break free from that to have time to pray. It's just there's too much going on in my life. Second, we do pray and then we get distracted in the middle of our prayer by the worries. We start praying for someone or something and gosh, our mind just goes off into the worry world and we find ourselves just lost, not back in prayer life.

Third, we can pray, but then doubt can creep in. A doubt that God can or that he will act to answer our prayers. We start thinking to ourselves, well, I'll say it, but God's not going to do anything about it.

He just, he can't or he won't. And finally, we persuade ourselves, this is part of our sinful heart, that prayer is too weak of a method to use to fix our problems. And therefore, our time and our efforts are better spent pursuing other things that are more effective at dealing with the problems in our world.

We could pray, but gosh, maybe I should go to yoga, do some mindfulness. Maybe I should go to my psychologist and he knows how to deal with the problems. My prayers, they don't really, they're not, they're not that powerful.

So I want you to ask yourself this morning, when you're praying for others who are going through times of difficulty, do you ask God to help them stop worrying? Is that one of your prayer requests for others who are going through times of difficult, difficulty is, God, help them not to worry about anything.

Do your prayers tend more towards asking God to take away the source of the trial, rather than allowing you or others to grow in faith and trust in through the trial, right? God, take that trial away.

That would be far better. And maybe in God's good providence, growing through the trial is what he wants and needs in your life. Think back to what we learned in Hebrews 12. The discipline is a sign of his love.

It's proof that you are his child. What does your prayer life reveal about how high or how low your view of God's sovereignty is? What does your prayer life say about what you actually believe about God's sovereignty?

Anxiety is an ever-present danger for believers of any age. And Paul's solution is timeless. Stop worrying, for it does not work. In the words of the Apostle Peter, 1 Peter 5, 7, casting all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.

So the first fundamental of a strong prayer life is, stop worrying. And the second, start praying.

That's it.

That's all the best I could come up with. Stop worrying, start praying. Look back with me at chapter 4, continuing on 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. What is Paul's admonition here to the Philippians? When you're tempted to worry, pray, pray, pray, pray, and then pray some more.

That's his answer. Stop worrying and start praying. Look back at it. He starts this phrase with the contrast, but this very sharp contrast. You either are worrying and sinning or you are praying. Two opposite sides of the coin.

But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Now the word everything means all, all things, anything whatsoever, or simply everything. Sometimes God does take the cookie jar and put it right down on the bottom shelf for us.

Don't worry about anything, but in everything, right? So that means what it says it means. And this is also beautiful because Paul does not specify here what he wants the Philippians to pray for. Just like he doesn't specify what he wants them to not worry about, therefore covering everything.

He also does not specify what they are to pray for, but this gives them a comprehensive framework. They're to pray for everything.

How?

By bringing specific requests or petitions to God. So there are specific things that you pray for. You don't just pray broadly and say, God fix everything, I'm done, right? You can pray fix everything because God could fix everything, but he wants you to do more.

He wants you to do it in a specific way. So he uses four different terms for prayer in this phrase.

Look back at it.

By prayer, supplication, thanksgiving, and requests. Prayer is just prayer to God in general. It's self-explanatory. It's something that believers do to their God. It's not something that unbelievers can really do effectively, right?

Calling out to God as a believer is very different from an unbeliever voicing what we would call a prayer, unless it is the prayer of repentance. Supplication gives prominence to the sense of need. I need something from you.

And so you can use the term supplication both with reference to praying to God as well as making supplication to a human authority. But here it's clear that we're giving supplication to God. Please act on behalf of my need.

Thanksgiving, we've already looked at this word before, involves the humility and submission that what God provides is best. And therefore we can be continually thankful for it. Even if we don't agree with it, understand it, or enjoy it.

What God provides is best. And finally, this word for requests here gives us the sense of very definite, specific petitions. This is to the level of the nitty-gritty. We're praying for certain people, certain situations in their lives, and certain things to happen or to not happen in their lives.

William Hendrickson in his commentary says, nothing is too great for his power to accomplish or too small for his love to be concerned about.

Nothing.

God knows what you need, but he still wants you to pray for it. And Paul wants the Philippians to fill up their prayer lives with supplication, thanksgiving, and specific prayer requests. Just be reminded of what we talked about over the past two weeks.

Paul told the Philippians in chapter 1 verses 3 through 8 how he gave thanks to God for them in his deep affection for them. And in verses 9 through 11, he gave them his specific prayer requests, what he had been praying to God for them and how he wanted to see them grow.

Paul demonstrated what he told others to do. He practiced what he preached. So what are the benefits of this kind of prayer life? If you embrace praying about everything with supplication, thanksgiving, and specific prayer requests, what do you get out of that?

Well, look back at verse 7. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Now this phrase, the peace of God, I love it because it's the only place that you'll ever find in the New Testament.

It's right here. Philippians 4, 7. The peace of God. And peace, the Greek word here is very similar to the Hebrew word shalom, which we know to be peace, which helps us communicate the benefits of this peace is that it's a kingly blessing that follows directly upon those who acknowledge God's reign and the submission of all his foes.

When you know God, the king, the ruler over the entire universe, then you can really know peace. Until you know that God and his rule over this world and all the ugliness that this world has in it right now and accept and understand the reality that that is still God's perfect plan, then you will not know peace.

But when you do, when you know the God who, look down at verse 9 of chapter 4, the God of peace, when you know the God who is himself peace, he provides it to your heart and mind. And he not only provides it, he maintains it.

He guards it. This is the antidote to the cares and anxieties to which our flesh regresses so easily when the cares of this world arise. Isaiah 26, 3 says, the steadfast of mind, you will keep in perfect peace because he trusts in you.

I love that verse. It has so many of those key concepts. When you are praying, we are praying to be steadfast, fixed on God and his truth in your mind. And when you do that, when you are steadfast, God keeps you.

He holds you. He strengthens and maintains you in what? Perfect peace. Because we trust in a God who loves and cares for us. How big is this peace? How big is it? Well, look at verse 7. It's so big that you can't even understand it.

It surpasses all of our comprehension. Now, God wants us to understand as much as we possibly can about this. I'm not suggesting to you that this is just a let go and let God kind of peace. That is not what Paul is commending to us here.

He wants our minds actively engaged in searching out, seeking to comprehend the secret things of the Lord, our God, knowing that we will not exhaust it. But we will gain greater and greater quantities, volumes of peace in the process.

It surpasses, it goes above and beyond. It transcends our limited human effort and mind. It's a supernatural work. It's something that God alone does and can do. I'm completely fine with the reality that God can do a whole bunch of things that I cannot do.

I'm very thankful for that because I fail far too often. So what does this peace do? What's the verb here? Well, look at it. This peace will, future tense, guard. The Greek word here would have been immediately familiar to the Philippians.

The Philippians were a Roman colony established by virtue of the work in the wars that were rewarded by inheriting land. And they were a Roman colony. They had a Roman garrison stationed there whose job was to guard and protect the city for the Roman empire.

They knew what it looked like to guard something, to protect it. So when Paul uses this term, guard, protect, keep, it's military language that suggests a comprehensive protective benefit. The protective benefit of God's peace.

Who and what is guarding us? He is in Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus is our peace. He's the one who has provided us peace with God and with each other and in the midst of a very hostile world. And we live in light of the reality that we always have Christ interceding for us.

Even when our prayers are weak, poorly worded, poorly timed, inconsistent, and I would suggest even selfish, Christ intercedes for you and he has left you the Holy Spirit who groans with us in our weakness.

In the words that Jesus said in John chapter 14 verse 27, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, be anxious for nothing, nor let it be fearful.

If you want peace, you have to come to the Savior. If you are here this morning and you do not know peace, you do not know Jesus Christ the way you should. If you do not know him at all, you need to repent today.

Because that is your only hope of peace. William Hendrickson says, the proper antidote for anxiety is the outpouring of the heart to God. Oh that our first response to the threat of worry would be to pray.

I was so encouraged this past week, as those of you have been talking to me about how God is working in and around you. I had a friend text me, he had heard of some very bad news affecting one of his family members, and I was so encouraged that he was asking for prayer.

That his heart and his attitude and his mind and his words would be properly aligned with God's will for the situation. Now note what this verse does not say. This verse does not promise you that when you pray, God will give you whatever you ask for.

It does not say that if we pray, our difficulties go away. It doesn't guarantee us that we will understand why God has allowed us to go through the trial. It does not assure us that we or others will not experience the consequences of our sins.

Think about that. I can pray for a man who's going through a divorce. It doesn't guarantee me that God will not allow him and his family to go through the consequences. Of his sins. It does not prevent us from going through the same circumstance or even worse in the future.

What does it promise? It promises us that God hears and he cares for us. Again, that's not necessarily true of an unbeliever. You can't reassure an unbeliever that God hears and cares for them in the same way that you can for a believer in this room.

We can be assured that this verse does assure us that God's assessment of the situation is far greater and deeper and better than ours will ever be. And it reassures us God loves us and he intends to provide us with what?

Peace.

If we truly understand how great God's plan is and how faithful he is to keep his promises to provide peace, then we can stand in the midst of this world and confidently affirm that even our greatest trials can be considered good in God's providence.

We can stand out in the midst of our crooked and perverse generation and stand on God's word and say, it does not matter what happens to me, my family, or this body. I know that God has determined before the foundation of the world to bring about good for his people and his glory through this circumstance.