Defeating Worry with Prayer
Philippians 4:5b-6
Philippians 4:5b-6
Let's Pray...
Okay, last week we discussed how - the fact that the Lord is near should cause us to be reasonable, or gentle, to the point to where all people we interact with notice our God honoring gentleness.
Fleshing it out, we said, since Jesus is coming back at any time — could be right now, could be another 2,000 years — but He’s coming back.
And since He’s coming back, we want to be people who live lives with Gospel intentionality.
Since our friends and family who are far from God are on their way to hell if they don’t respond to the Gospel before Christ returns, we want to live lives that draw them into gospel conversations.
So anyway, last week’s message was be gentle BECAUSE the Lord is near.
Tonight we are going to piggyback on the same fact, the fact that the Lord is near, that He’s coming back soon, and we’re going to see another implication of that fact.
This one is less about God and others – God and Non-believers — and more about God and YOU – God and the Christ follower.
Now, if you are here and you are not a Christian, we’ll bring this back around, so please stay tuned in.
Last week was: God’s coming back so we want more people to be saved than damned on the day He returns.
That was a very important truth. I pray that your heart never stops breaking for the lost. That broken heart will drive you back to Lord and that return to the Lord will perfectly position you to co-labor with the Holy Spirit in the lives of the lost. That’s what YOU are here for as a Christian.
But this week we’re going somewhere else: Since the Lord is near, and you are a believer, than you need not live in fear. Instead you can find comfort, strength, peace and power while waiting on the Lord. Let’s read the text again…
Philippians 4: 5b-6
5b The Lord is near. (Since the Lord is near…) 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but (Since the Lord is near…) in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
So, since the Lord is near, DO NOT be anxious. The Holy Spirit — through Paul — is giving us a command. A command not to worry.
Now I say this while at the same time knowing that we are in troubling times. Political power swings wildly from one party to the other. Terrorists have attacked our nation and we are told that they may attack again at any time. Fear of terrorists causes Americans to say and do terrible and sometimes stupid things to people whom they know little to nothing about. The environment is whacked out. Kids are dying all across the globe of diseases that are easy to cure and prevent. There are a million and one ways we kill other people from the womb through old age. We excuse some ways of murder (abortion), we condemn others (school shootings) and we ignore the rest (genocide).
And those are just the big troubles. We have a lot of other reasons we worry, don’t we?
Some of us see the scope of world problems and we just don’t worry because we feel powerless. Those problems are too big. But there are some other worries, closer to home that we obsess over.
These might be some of your worries: Can I or my family afford to go to the doctor – even with insurance? Are we going to keep our jobs, or is the plant, or branch going to close down? Is my family going to be able to eat? Are we going to get the bills paid? Does my classmate or co-worker like me or do they think I’m annoying? Does this outfit make me look stupid, or fat, or outdated? Is my kid going to do well in school? Does my mom or dad think I’m a good parent?
I could go on and on. Some of those sound silly, but how many of you would admit that even the silly worries occupy space in your mind at times?
The fact is there are a million reasons to worry. So what do we do? I’m not asking what does the Bible tell us to do. I’m asking, honestly, what do we do with worry?
We run away from the worries – diverting our attention with shopping, pointless conversations about pop culture or pop-psychology, or philosophy, or politics.
We divert our attention by sitting through endless hours of television, by running our kids to a bunch of events and sports activities, by stacking up our schedules — all so we don’t have time to sit in the quiet and stillness. Because, it’s in that quiet and stillness that the worries come in and invade our hearts the most.
Some of us have tried (or still do try) to medicate our worries away. We have tried to dull our senses with drug or drink so we could just let our worries drift into oblivion.
If that’s you, eventually you come to realize that every time you come to your senses again, those old worries and fears are still there. And most of the time, at least in my past, I always “came to” with a handful, or truckload of new problems. Problems caused by trying to escape the worries.
If we are honest, we all lose sleep over the worries – whether yours are big or small.
Or, worse than trying on our own power to escape the worries, we EMBRACE the worry and try to justify it. We make excuses for why we HAVE TO worry and then we drag other people into the worry with us.
No matter what, let’s call this what it is. Beyond worry, or concern, or anxiety, or doubt, or fear, or fretting, or stewing or whatever we want to label it. Beyond any name that you want to give for your worry; the worry is simply sin. It is sin. It is sin.
See, first and foremost, worry is an absence of faith. It is a sign that we have forgotten — or NEVER really believed — that God is all powerful, that God is completely in control and that God is deeply in love with us, that God is working out all things for good, according to His purposes. Simply put worry is a sure sign that we have forgotten that the Lord is near. And that worry; that lack of faith, is sin.
Hebrews 11:6 tells us
And Romans 14:23b reads:
And when we see sin, we need to take it seriously and we need to fight it head on. When God’s people found them selves in sin, from Moses to King David to Paul, they didn’t excuse it they repented, they turned away from the sin and went to the Lord in prayer.
Now as I say all of that, I know what some of you might be thinking. Ken, I can’t fight it. You say, I’ll repent from the big ones. I’ll repent from lust and anger, maybe greed, but I can’t break free of the worry. I have so much stuff going on, I can’t help but worry.
But again, if you see worry as a violation of a Scriptural command — if you see it as a SIN, then that excuse can be chucked out the window. That excuse has to be ditched if you are God’s child. Jesus said in John 14:15, “If you love me keep my commands.”
Murder is a sin. Would anyone agree with a person who says, “I have all these people who are driving me nuts, I can’t help but kill ‘em.”
Or what about adultery? What about stealing? No, it would be ludicrous to go along with those things. Those things are sin. That’s easy to see.
If we are brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to try to stop those things.
But the difference is, our friends will feed the fire of worry. They might talk you out of murder, but they’ll be your accomplices in the sin of worry.
In fact, some people in my family will give you reasons to worry if you seem too peaceful. As though I’m not aware of what’s going on. Like I’m clueless.
But we — Christians DON”T have to worry. We DO have a choice. And unlike others, we have the power, the only true power to defeat this sin of worry in our lives.
The power comes from the cross. Let me ask you, which of your sins were paid for by Christ on the cross? It’s not a trick question. They were all paid for. When you put your faith in the saving work of Christ on the cross, God took your sin debt and laid it upon His Son. And God credited the righteousness of Jesus to your account.
And when those sins were laid upon Him, they were defeated, they were taken away. You may still have the old slave mentality, that tries to leave you convinced that you have to sin, in the case of tonight’s message, that old slave mentality, that tries to leave you convinced that you have to worry.
But that’s bunk. You are a conqueror. That fight is over. You’ve just got to get that truth into your head and into your heart and HOLD ON TO IT so that when that old devil tries to throw it back into your face, you can smack it down.
And you don’t smack it down by your power. You do it by the power of God. The LORD IS NEAR! He’s got your back! You are not fighting alone. You aren’t backed into a corner! As God’s child, you’ve got the power of the universe standing at your side and He is ready to lead you through the battle.
A pastor I was listening to this week said, "The only sin you can make ANY progress in defeating is FORGIVEN Sin" - John Piper
Family, that sin of worry is forgiven, you and I need to start LIVING in that truth. But How?
You and I hear this and we say, Paul, I’ve been trying but I just can’t get past this worry. I worry about my kids, my wife, my job, my retirement, my house – whatever your worry is. I can’t get over this Paul. And, when one worry does stop, another one jumps right in.
To that, Paul tells us, you’ve tried it your way long enough. It’s time to do something different. He writes:
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but (instead of worrying, instead of dwelling in that sin, dwell in God instead. Look what he says…) in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
Paul says, get into a rhythm of talking with God — About everything. Paul doesn’t say wait until you're in over your head before you pray.No, start now whether things are good or bad, start praying start talking with God. And go to Him with everything.
Now I know, this is an English translation of the Bible, what does the Greek mean when it says everything. The Greek word for everything in verse 6 is pas. Guess what it means: each, every, any, all, the whole, everyone, all things, everything. Paul says pray to God about everything. The Lord is near.
Imagine if your husband or wife or best friend or parent was always walking by your side, all the time. Do you think they would want you to ignore them until there was an emergency?
How awkward and cruel. We do this with God all the time. As believers, we are told that God is not simply beside us. Jesus is coming back in a physical form and He’s coming soon. But until then, God is actually with us, indwelling us through the Holy Spirit.
But we walk around like He doesn’t exist until something big comes up.
When we want a big deal to go through, when our family has a death, when someone’s in the hospital, when a car crosses the center line and is headed straight for us, we’re quick to yell out, “Jesus, help me!”
And there’s nothing wrong with any of that. But that’s not the extent of our relationship to God. He wants us to dialogue with Him. Pray to God about EVERYTHING. My old pastor in Ohio said, make it like breathing. Make it that continuous. Make it that natural in your life rhythm.
So how do we pray? Read the verse again
Ask for what you need, ask for your wants to be conformed to God’s will. Study the Lord’s Prayer this week as a great template for your petitions, requests to God. And look again. It says to pray and request with thanksgiving. So many times we get so focused on the things that we don’t have or what we are concerned about that we forget what gifts we have been given in this life.
One of the quickest ways that I can get out from under worry in my life is by praying out a gratitude list to the Lord. It’s a way of reminding yourself of what He has already done for me and around me.
If you’ve never made a gratitude list, you might want to write it down the first few times.
It can be a mix of the simple and the profound.
I like to start with the obvious and sometimes I pray and ask Him to show me things that I might have overlooked in the busyness of life.
I was debating whether to share the things that make it on to my list. I don’t think I will because yours is your own and no two will be the same except for the first thing on our list: Lord, I’m grateful that you saved me from my sin, I am grateful that you adopted me into your family and that I can look forward in faith to the day you return and I am able to see you in all of your glory and am able to live with you and all other believers in the new Heavens and new Earth.
Beyond that, our gratitude lists might differ, but as believers we can all be thankful for God’s grace.
There is much more to look at in this passage, we’re going to leave the rest (verses 7-9) until next week.
But until we get together again next week, I want to challenge you to make this a week of prayer. I want you to set aside time to be alone be by yourself and just start to develop this discipline of daily devotional prayer.
But also, I want you to take seriously the portion that tells you to pray about everything. Breathe prayer this week.
Breathe – forgive me for… (That one is key. Make sure that you come to God with a repentant heart and life when you pray.)
Breathe - thanks for the weather.
Breathe – thanks for my family.
Breathe – thanks for…
Breathe – help me with this relationship.
Breathe – help me with this task at work (or school)
Breathe – please bless them.
Breathe – please heal me of…
Breathe – please help me to rest.
Breathe – Lord, I’m feeling off track. Please help me to start this day over from here.
Breathe prayer everywhere you go.
And listen aside from your quiet time, when I would suggest you pray on your knees or laying flat on the ground, or if you’re immobile at least pray with your head down on a table – the rest of the time this is conversing with God as you walk and work, and eat and shower, and… Just start talking to God and in EVERYTHING, with prayers and petitions, with a grateful heart, let your requests, thoughts, burdens and joys be know to God. Amen?
We’re going to continue this next week with some very practical, Biblical tips in addition to prayer that we are able to use as Christians to kill the sin of worry in our hearts.
Until then, Let’s pray…
