You'll take your Bibles and turn with me to Philippians chapter four. We continue our study on learning the secret of contentment. Philippians four, we've been focusing on verses 10 to 14, now I want to go a little bit further up and begin by reading the surrounding context in Philippians four beginning in verse four. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. 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 understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, Whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report. If there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things, the things that you learned and received and heard and saw in me. These do and the God of peace will be with you. But I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at last your care for me has flourished again, though you surely did care, but you lacked opportunity. Not that I speak in regards to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. We can be content in every circumstance. And yet, Lord, we have to confess that we fall woefully short of availing ourselves of that God given peace that only Christ can give. So often, Lord, just like Peter, we look at the wind in the waves and we find our hearts beginning to sink and we get our eyes off of Christ. We magnify our problems and we don't magnify the Lord. Lord, we confess our sin and we ask your forgiveness for having an anxious mind. But we thank you. You have provided the way out in your word when you've given us clear instruction to know how to have contentment as well. So, Lord, teach us to be a contented people, a people who trust in your will and your ways and you trust in your sovereign hand and know that behind it beats a loving heart that is concerned for us. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. We have been considering for several weeks now, the Apostle Paul learned the secret of contentment. He said, I've been initiated into the mystery of contentment. I have learned that when I am full to be content. I've learned that when I'm hungry to be content, when I'm humbled in my circumstances, I'm content. When I'm exalted in my certain circumstances, I'm content. Here, Paul had learned somehow that his inner sense of peace and tranquility, the tranquility of his soul was not inseparably connected to his circumstances. It was connected to someone else. He had learned this great secret in our task, having seen that secret. are seeing that Paul learned that secret is to explore how did he learn that secret? What hints does he give us in the book of Philippians and elsewhere to show us how he learned to be content so that we as well can learn the secret of contentment just as Paul did? Someone has said bitter old women were once bitter young women and bitter old men were once bitter young men. And if we don't learn the secret of being content, we will grow up to be bitter old men and women, won't we? Because our circumstances are going to be difficult at times, we're going to go through hardship. And so we need to know how do we hold fast to our Lord in the midst of it all? Well, we've begun to explore some of this. I set before you last week that I want to set before you if we would learn the secret of contentment then and then we fill in the blank. And there's seven different things that we have one to set before you this way. We've set before you, too, so far. The first thing is this. If you would learn the secret of contentment, Jesus Christ alone must teach it to you. Paul said, I've been initiated into the mystery of contentment. Someone has taught me. I have been the passive learner. There has been someone who has been an active teacher. And we look in the context and who was that active teacher who taught Paul the secret of contentment? I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Jesus Christ was his teacher. Jesus said, my peace, I give you my peace. I live with you, not as the world gives peace. Do I give peace? It is a supernatural peace that only Christ himself can give. And he gives it only to his people. If you're outside of Jesus Christ, it's a peace you know nothing of. So peace in your circumstances, you cannot, you're a stranger to the world, cannot imitate it. It cannot. It can envy it. It can long for it, but it cannot obtain it because it's only found in Christ Jesus. He teaches us in the classroom of experience. It's not something you just get zapped with one day and suddenly know how to be content. It's something Paul learned. He had to go through lean times and he had to go through good times in order to learn to be content in all of them. And so Jesus teaches us as well as his people to be content. Second thing that we saw is that if you would know the contentment of Philippians chapter four, you must know the humility of mind of Philippians chapter two. Paul spoke of the lowliness of mind that Christ had. When we think of Jesus Christ and his humanity, here was a man who went through the most dire of circumstances. Here was one who suffered most unjustly at the hands of sinners, and yet he opened not his mouth. He could have called 12 legions of angels to come and you could have called his father. Father, give me 12 legions of angels to come and smite my enemies. But he did not do so. He rather submitted himself to the father's will. Why? Paul tells us in Philippians, chapter two, because he had lowliness of mind. He took upon himself the form of a servant, became obedient even to the point of death. He did not cry out and insist upon his rights, which is, I believe, what Paul means when he says he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. He did not hold on to his rights, insist upon his rights as deity. And if that's true of Jesus Christ, who is Almighty God, how much more so should it be of you and I who are sinners? So often the reason we're not content in our circumstances is because we think to ourselves, I deserve better. God has not given me a fair deal. And yet we realize if we really insisted, God, give me what I deserve. All of us would be burning in the fires of hell right now. Lowliness of mind, humility is absolutely necessary if we would learn contentment. Well, I want to sit before you two more this morning that come right from our text that we've just read. And it's this, the third, if you've taken notes, this would be your third point. You must cast all your anxieties upon the Lord if you would learn to be content. And then fourthly, you must cultivate a thankful heart if you would be content. So first of all, you must cast all your anxieties upon the Lord. Notice our text in verse six. Be anxious for nothing. The Holy Spirit of God is not giving us here a suggestion to be considered, he's giving us a commandment to be obeyed. He is telling us, do not be anxious. Jesus Christ himself said, do not have an anxious mind. I was telling my wife just this week and just in case you have any illusions that somehow my teaching about the secret of contentment, I've learned it myself. OK, I'm stepping on my own toes as I preach this. OK. There should be a mirror in this pulpit so I could see myself. Remember, I'm preaching to me as much as I'm preaching to you. But I said to my wife, you know how in Romans chapter seven, Paul says he read that that 10th commandment, thou shall not covet. And what did it produce in him? All manner of covetousness. When I read about Jesus saying to me, you should not have an anxious mind. I'm like, OK, it produces me produces in me all manner of anxiety. But this is a commandment. It's a sin to be anxious in mind, isn't it? Because God has commanded us not to be. Do you realize it's a sin to worry? Because Jesus commanded us not to worry. I'm guilty of this sin myself. How about you? Yet it's a commandment to be obeyed. But I'm rejoicing this, that God does not simply say to us, be anxious for nothing, but he gives us practical handholds of how we are to obey that commandment. He says here, be anxious for nothing. But and in the original Greek, this is an extreme contrast. You're not to be anxious in mind, on the one hand, you are to be this this thing over here instead. And he tells us exactly how not to have an anxious mind and puts it before us so plainly that a child could understand it. So let me begin by saying this, brothers and sisters, you realize that anxiety of mine is an affliction common to all. This is something we all struggle with. I don't know about you, but sometimes when I get so anxious in my heart and mind, I start to thinking to myself, I'm the only one that feels this way. Anytime you ever start feeling that, you know, it's a lie because the Bible tells us there is no temptation that overtakes us, but such as is common to man. So often people will come to me and they'll share things and lay their heart bare before me as their pastor and share with me. I'm going through this or I'm going through that. And I feel really stupid telling you this, but this is the way I really feel. And I'll say to them, you shouldn't feel stupid. You're just more honest than others because everybody else is going through the same thing. One thing I've learned over the years is if I'm struggling with it, so are you. We all go through the same temptations. We all go through the same struggles. We all go through anxiety of mind. We are fallen people. We live in a fallen world. And it's so easy for us to get anxious in mind. In Psalm 139, which I'm sure you're familiar with, there's a wonderful phrase of David in this place. Psalm 139 says in verses 23 and 24, you know, these verses search me, O God, and know my heart. Recognize those verses? Listen to what he says. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxieties. And see if there's any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. He says, I'm inviting you, Lord, not only to search out my sin, I'm inviting inviting you to search out and know all my anxious thoughts. I find that comforting, don't you? To realize that David had anxious thoughts for God to find, but he wonderfully and graciously invites the Lord. Know my anxieties. Don't leave me there. Lead me in the way everlasting. Lead me away from those anxieties. Lead me away from my sins and the wicked ways that are in me. But Lord, no, my anxieties, he doesn't want to hide them from him. Even so, here is what Paul says in Philippians chapter four. What does he say we're supposed to do with our anxious thoughts and our anxious mind? Deny it exists. Pretend that we really don't have an anxious mind. Act like we're more holy than we really are. No, he says, rather, this 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. Confront your anxieties, face them head on, look upon them and come before the Lord and enumerate them one by one. Fall upon your knees and speak to him about them. Tell him about each one of them and make your request concerning what you desire him to do in regards to each one. That's what we're to do. And we have a beautiful example of someone who did this in the Old Testament scriptures. Turn with me to Second Kings and Chapter 19. I'm sure this is a story you are familiar with. This is one of my heroes in the Old Testament, King Hezekiah. Hezekiah was used of God to tear down the high places and the false worship of Baal that was going on in the nation of Israel. He resurrected the true biblical worship of God that Moses and his word had through the word of God had laid down. So Hezekiah was a great king, a man God used to bring about great revival to his people. But there was a king of Assyria, Sennacherib, and he threatened Hezekiah and he says, I'm going to come and lay waste your places. And he sends a letter to him telling him what he's about to do. I'm going to destroy you. I'm going to pillage you. Your God will not save you. Because I've plundered other nations, I've plundered their gods, their gods didn't deliver them and your God isn't going to deliver you and I'm going to lay you waste. Well, the Spirit of God had already spoken through Isaiah and assured King Hezekiah that this was not going to happen. But here comes this letter. Now, imagine you're King Hezekiah and you get a letter from another king. He says, I'm coming to your territory. I'm going to burn everything to the ground. And, you know, it's a great and a mighty nation. Well, in verse 10 of Second Kings 19, we begin to read the letter that Sennacherib sent to Hezekiah. Listen to it. Thus, you shall speak to Hezekiah, king of Judah, saying he's dictating a letter here. Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Look, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by utterly destroying them. And shall you be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed, Gozen and Haran and Rezif and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? Where is the king of Hamath? The king of Arpad and the king of the city of Sephiroth, Hinnah and Iba. The point is, their gods didn't deliver them. We plundered all their nations. Your God isn't going to deliver you. What a blasphemous letter this was. But what did what did Hezekiah do in response? It's beautiful. Look at verse 14. And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. And Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord. Isn't that beautiful? What's he do? He takes the letter in his hand. He goes to the temple. He bows upon his knees and there on the floor before him, he sets up the letter, all of his pages right in front of him. He sets it before the Lord. And in my mind's eye, I can see him on his knees, raising up holy hands before the Lord and beginning to plead before God and to bring every anxiety before. Now, if you received a letter like that, I've destroyed all the other nations. I'm going to come destroy yours. What would you be doing? Would you be a little bit anxious? Well, certainly he must have been as well. But notice what it says in verse 15. Listen to this prayer. What a tremendous prayer this is. And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, Oh, Lord, God of Israel. It's very interesting. He's making it very clear. I'm not speaking to any other God, but the God of Israel. Oh, God of Israel, the one who dwells between the cherubim. Remember the two cherubim that were on the Ark of the Covenant and God's presence dwell between the wings of the cherubim. That's he says you are God, you alone of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, and they have cast their gods into the fire. Everything that he said in his letter is true. He has destroyed the nations. He has overthrown their gods. But here's the here's the difference, for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. Therefore, they destroyed them. Now, therefore, O Lord, our God, I pray, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the Lord God, you alone. It's like, Lord, they're right. He did overthrow them because their gods weren't gods at all. They were the creations of men. But you are God. And I pray that you will overthrow this man. And you know the story. What happened? God brought a great deliverance against the Nacrab and his forces. But here was the thing. Here was the anxiety. Where did Hezekiah go? Do you sit there biting his nails? Do you wait around just surrounding himself with a multitude of counselors? There comes a time and a place for that. But the first thing he did was to spread all his anxieties before the Lord and enumerate them one by one. It's exactly what Paul's telling us to do. We don't deny that they exist. We don't act like that. We don't have real needs. We come before the Lord and we're honest and we enumerate them one by one. You may think to yourselves, Well, I'm going to weary God with all this. He doesn't care about the details and the minutia of my life. I'm going to wear him by my coming. Not so. What does the Apostle Peter say to us in First Peter, chapter five, verses six to seven? He says there, cast all your cares upon him. Why? Because he cares for you. Your God loves you. Your God cares about the small things. He cares about the big things. He cares about the anxieties that trouble your heart. We've just sung it in the hymn. Oh, what needless pain we bear. Why? All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. He wants us. He invites us to enumerate our anxieties and to give them to him. Is there anyone else you can give them to who can deliver you from them? Who's the only God who can change your circumstances? Who's the only God who can give you peace in the midst of your circumstances? Is it not the Lord? And so enumerate those those things to him. Come before him. Don't try to hide them from him. You can't anyway. He's omniscient. He knows it all. And come and tell him the things that trouble your heart. And he says he will give you his peace. Now, that being said, how many of you ever had the experience and I'm sure you've had it many times of coming before the Lord and enumerating all your anxieties only to walk away without his peace? You had that happen. I have many times. It's very interesting, isn't it? When we look at that, we think to ourselves, well, wait a second, did the promise of God fail? Has God fallen short of doing something he promised he would do? I mean, he promised if I would enumerate my anxieties, then somehow, you know, he would give me this piece that passes understanding. Has God fallen? Has he failed some way? We know that's not the case. But you need to notice that this particular promise, and it is a promise, it will cast our cares upon him. He will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. It's a conditional promise. There are conditions that must be fulfilled before we can claim the promise. And part of the condition is that we pour out our anxieties upon the Lord, but that doesn't end our responsibility. Notice what he says. Verse six again, the anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication to key words with thanks giving. He says, let your request be made known to God so often. When I walk away without the peace of God, I'll look back and realize I gave my complaints to the Lord. I gave my anxieties to the Lord, but I never gave him thanks. And the great and those two words with Thanksgiving are the great qualifier of this verse. And until we have given him thanks, we have no right to claim, Lord, you've fallen short of your promise because the condition is we enumerate our requests, but we also give him thanks in the midst of our circumstances. And this is the great key that unlocks everything with Thanksgiving. We must come before the Lord. The habitual discipline, being thankful to the Lord is no small potatoes. This is a very big deal, bigger than we realize, I think. I've been thinking just during the Thanksgiving season, I think that Thanksgiving really is the most truly Christian holiday we ever celebrate together, more so than Christmas or anything like that. This time of giving thanks, we should be a people who are marked by our thankfulness. Turn to Romans chapter one. I want to see just how important thankfulness is. Romans 1 verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. What he's telling us here knows he does not say the wrath of God is going to be revealed from heaven. He says it is presently right now revealed. God's wrath against sinners is already revealed from heaven. And if you continue to read through the chapter, how is it revealed? It's revealed in the fact that God gives men over to uncleanness, to vile passions, and to a debased mind. And the very fact that you see these things present in this age is the proof that God's wrath has already been poured out upon his people. Or excuse me, not upon his people, but upon those who are outside of Christ. But it's just a foretaste of the wrath that's going to be poured out upon the day of judgment. But you'll notice as you keep on going, verse 20, it says, Verse 19 has already said, what may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shown it to them. God has shown them something about himself. How has he done so? Verse 20, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. How has God made it clear to them? He's made it clear by his creation. His creation, and I love Paul's play on words here, says that God's invisible attributes are clearly seen. We see that which is invisible. All men on the face of the earth, whether they've ever heard the name of Jesus, whether they ever had the Bible translated in their own language or not, are guilty before God simply by the witness of his creation. His creation is enough to tell him there's a creator and something of what that creator is like. Something about his attributes to know what he's like so that he's without excuse. Now, the creation is not sufficient to bring them to salvation. It's not enough. They have to have the written word of God for that. They have to hear of the of the living word. Jesus Christ proclaims to them in order to be that have faith in Jesus Christ. But it's enough to condemn them. The creation is it's a language they cannot avoid. It's something they cannot escape. And that is what it says here, they saw. That God was in his creation, they could see that there was truly a God. But notice verse twenty one, because although they knew God and here, Paul does not mean they knew him like we know God through Jesus Christ doesn't mean they had a saving relationship with him, but they knew that he existed. They knew there was a truth and a fact and a reality that this God exists. And they knew something of what he's like, because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God. Nor were thankful. They did not praise him for who he is. They did not thank him for all that he's done. And this is why God's wrath was poured out upon them. Ingratitude. Unthankfulness. That they could infuse in their faults and their foolish hearts were darkened. He goes on to speak of how he gives them more to vile passions, how even the men and women exchange what is natural for that which is unnatural. Speaking of sodomy, you realize the first step to becoming a sodomite is to simply be ungrateful. That's where it goes, because what is sodomy ultimately? It's saying, I'm not content with the way God has made me. I want to be something else than what God has made me to be. It's the ultimate discontent, isn't it? But it begins with the first step of being ungrateful. But though we, by God's grace, don't take things that far, still, ungratitude in us is a horrible sin. Turn to one other place, Second Timothy, chapter three. Paul is here prophesying and warning there are going to be those who depart from the faith. There's going to be people who profess to know Jesus, and yet they're not truly born again at all. They have a name that they're godly, but they don't truly have the power of God in them. And he describes what these people are like. Second Timothy, chapter three and verse one. But know this, then the last days perilous times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, Blasphemers, disobedient to parents, what's the next word? Unthankful. Unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying its power and from such people turn away. These are people inside the church. They have a form of godliness outwardly, they profess Christ, but they deny its power. The power of the gospel is not evident in their lives, and part of what marks them out as people who have not been touched by the power of the gospel is that they are ungrateful. They're unthankful people. It's no small potatoes to say with Thanksgiving, is it? It's a big, important thing that we be a thankful people. One of the texts of Paul turned to First Thessalonians five, and this gives us the positive side of things. First Thessalonians five, verses 16 through 18. These are commandments. Listen to them. Rejoice always. How often are you to rejoice? Always. Pray without ceasing. In everything, give what? Give thanks. Why? For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. In everything, give thanks. In every circumstance, in every situation. Do you realize there are only two times that God ever wants you to give him thanks? When you feel like it and when you don't. Same time, he wants you to worship him, too, when you feel like it, when you don't. He wants you to give him thanks when you feel like it, when you do not. He wants you to give him thanks when you are a base and when you abound. He wants you to give him thanks when you're full and when you're hungry. He wants to give you thanks when you are lifted up and when you're humbled in everything. Give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. You say, how can I give thanks to God in the midst of trying circumstances? How is it if I've lost a loved one? If I'm struggling financially? If I'm doing whatever? There's circumstances in front of me that I just don't know how to give thanks. Brethren, the truth of the matter is, God has so lavishly blessed us that we don't have a problem finding enough things to enumerate. We have a problem finding the time to enumerate them all. And that even in the most dire circumstances. The first thing you need to do is give thanks for his spiritual blessings. We have a tendency to run to our material things first. We need to be more heavenly minded than that. We need to start with the things that are spiritual and say, Lord, have you ever stopped to thank God that you're his elect? Think about that. We read this doctrine of election, but if you stop to think he chose you and put your name down in the last book of life before the foundation of the world and there was nothing to distinguish you from any other sinner, he could have passed over you and been just. But his mercy said, I'm going to choose you. And he wrote your name down in the last book of life and set his affections and love upon you in Christ Jesus before you can create this world. He committed you into the capable hands of his son. As the captain of your salvation, entrusted the care of your soul, that Christ would come and would secure your salvation by his death. You ever stop to think, I mean, Brethren, isn't it a horrible thing that we don't thank God every day? Jesus Christ had my name written upon his breast when he died upon the cross, that he was blood was shed for me. He secured my eternal security. He gave me eternal salvation and nothing can ever sever me from it. We can thank God that Christ lived a life in our place we could never live. I hope you get this because it's something I keep pressing on every Lord's Day. Jesus' entire life was substitutionary. Not only his death, his life, his perfect obedience to the law of God. That's mine in Christ Jesus. His life was substitutionary. His death was substitutionary in my place, my sin he paid for all my failures, all my mismanagement, all my wrongdoing, all my lying, all my lustful thoughts, all those things he died for. I can thank God that he's given me his Holy Spirit. There came the point in my life history that the Spirit of God came and showed me my sin. and showed me my need of the Savior and granted me repentance and faith." Have you ever thanked God for the gifts he gave us of repentance and faith? Because they're his gifts, aren't they? Did you have the ability to do those things in your own flesh before you knew Jesus? Or did God himself grant you the ability to repent of your sin and believe on Christ? Have you ever thanked God that the Spirit of God lives inside of you day in and day out? That you have the written word of God in your own tongue and language and multiple copies of it in your home? Well, brethren, we've even gotten past the spiritual blessings. How many more can we even begin to thank him for? We can thank him he's given us brothers and sisters in the faith who love us and care for us. We can thank him for the preaching of the word that he's given us all through our lives. How many good Bible teachers have I had in my lifetime who have instructed me in the things of God? And then we begin enumerating the material ones. God, I have a roof over my head and when it rains, I stay dry. I have heat to turn on when I'm cold. I have air conditioning to turn on when I'm hot. I have food in my pantry. I have food in my refrigerator and I don't deserve any of it. And it's all kinds of wonderful variety of food, too. Grapes and apples and all this kind of stuff. I don't have to eat manna every day. I get to eat all kinds of different things, right? I have cars that take me to work and take me back from work. I mean, just begin to enumerate all those things. You give me the air to breathe. You made your son to shine upon me. I mean, take any given circumstance. And brethren, do you realize suddenly we just don't have the time to enumerate all of it? In everything, give thanks. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus. And what is the promise then? In Philippians, it will enumerate our anxieties. Yes, make our request made known to God, certainly with Thanksgiving. Here's his promise here. That's the condition. Here's the promise. Verse seven, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. I love that expression. That whole verse is great. Of course, it's great. It's given by the spirit of God. But here's my thing. Notice what kind of piece it is. It's a piece that makes no sense. A piece that passes understanding, it transcends my ability to comprehend, it doesn't it's completely unreasonable. There is no good reason on earth why I should be at peace in the midst of the circumstance, but I'm at peace because it passes all understanding. I can't figure it out. I can't discern how it happened. All I can say is to the glory of God. God has given me a piece that I can't explain. Because it transcends my ability to understand. And notice he sets it as a watchman. It's a guard. It's a night watchman. What's a guard do? He protects, right? He keeps something from being stolen. He keeps something from being harmed. This peace that passes understanding guards your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. I'm telling you, I've said this before, but I'm telling you the truth. We can sit there giving in to our anxious minds and worrying about tomorrow, worrying about the next day and worrying about the next day. It's amazing. No matter how much I worry about it, it doesn't seem to change any of my circumstances. Somehow, I keep thinking the notion that if I just worry about it enough, if I think about it enough times, worry about it enough times, somehow I'm going to change it as if I could add a cubit to my stature by worrying about it. But I can't. I'm not sovereign over my circumstances. Neither are you. But, you know, the truth of the matter is we can start doing that what-if-ing and we can just what-if ourselves to death. If I really yielded to every anxious thought that began to press in upon my heart and mind, I'm not kidding you. I'm not exaggerating. When I say to you, those nice young men in the clean white uniforms with the butterfly nets would come and tote me away because I would lose my mind and my heart would fail me inside if I yielded to every pressing thought that comes in. I know when I lost my son, John, one of the things that began to start wrestling with is, well, what about my other children? And you start fearing, what if, what if, what if? And, you know, you can quickly go into the same asylum that way. But notice what he says here. guard your heart and your mind. Something this irrational, unreasonable peace helps you keep your reason. It helps you keep your sanity. He says it will guard you. It will guard you from those who would attack. It will protect you from those anxious thoughts. It will set a guard over you and say no, hold them at bay. You will not penetrate into this one's mind. You won't penetrate into this one's heart because I'm guarding them with a peace that surpasses all understanding. This is God's promise to us. How do we not be anxious for anything? Well, to lay our anxieties before him with thanksgiving. Here's the promise of God. Here's a piece that passes understanding, a supernatural peace. I can't dredge up from inside. The Spirit of God gives me from above. That's where it comes from. And here's the key phrase. The key to all this, you've got to get is the last three words of verse seven. Guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. It's not just any old piece. It's not, well, OK, I got my moralism down. I've enumerated my my anxieties before the Lord and I've given him thanks. So here, give me my peace. No, it's a piece that comes to the gospel. This is a piece that comes to the gospel and nowhere else, because the gospel is the explanation of why I can have peace and hope in a hopeless situation, because it fills our hearts with hope. It's through the gospel of Christ that we find such a supernatural peace. That's why those who are outside of Jesus Christ are strangers to this kind of peace. And like I told you last week, I don't even know why the world gets up in the morning. How do they go through the things they go through without Jesus Christ as their friend, without having the gospel and the hope of the gospel in them? What a joy it is, even though we go through hard circumstances, to know I have a friend. I have a friend who's going to stick with me closer than a brother who is a very present help in times of trouble. You know, sometimes you'll see these things and you'll see how people reacted to things. There was a made for television movie that came out about the flight 93, the the flight that crashed on 9-11 where some of the passengers overtook the terrorists in the cabin and forced the plane into the ground. It was really sad because they took dialogue that was recorded on cell phones and such because some of the passengers were able to call home and that kind of thing. This one woman, she called her mother and she said, I think I'm going to be dead in an hour. The terrorists have overtaken the plane and they're going to crash it into something. And she was telling this to her mother and her mother's response was, OK, honey, OK, well, let's just let's just breathe. Let's just sit here and breathe. And they just sat there on the phone for an hour and breathed. And I thought to myself, the thing that struck me when I saw that was that is not at all what I'd be doing. I'd be singing psalms. I'd be praising. I think I'd stand up and start preaching to some of the people and say, time is at hand. It's time to repent and believe. What a peace would flood our souls, if you know Christ. We have someone to turn to. Someone who's not just a figment of our imagination, but someone who is really there. Someone who really can deliver us and one who can give us peace in the midst of every circumstance. I'm going to die in an hour. Well, that's not exactly the most exciting views I've heard all day or anything, but death has no terrors for me. It's my butler that's going to open the door and lead me to my master. You just told me that in an hour, I'm going to go see my master and live with him forever. You want to terrify me with that? You see, There's a peace that we have in the gospel that the world simply cannot have. And so, brethren, we should rejoice that we have such peace and we should avail ourselves of the peace that God has given. Let me make two applications and we shall move on to the Lord's table. First of all, if you're a stranger to Jesus Christ, you desperately need peace. But I'm not talking about peace in your circumstances, as wonderful as that is, I'm saying you need peace with God because you're at enmity with God. Your sin has estranged you from him. If you're outside of Jesus Christ, the wrath of God burns against you. He is building up that wrath and anger against you, and the longer you stay impenitent and unbelieving, the more that wrath builds up. And God has shown patience in restraining that, holding that wrath back from you. But the day will come, if you do not repent, that God's wrath, His patience will be over, and His wrath will come pouring upon you like a flood, and it will be too late to cry out. How you need to flee to Jesus Christ for salvation. You're coming to the living Christ, coming to the Christ who is alive and is able to save to the other most those who come to God through him. There is no other way of salvation than Jesus Christ. There are not multiple ways to God. There's only one way to God. And that way is through his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect life and died a substitutionary death in the place of sinners. And I want to say to you, every one of you who is in here, the blood of Jesus Christ is sufficient to save any and every one of you who will come to Christ. Jesus Christ receives sinners. He invites sinners to come to him. I love the fact that the end of the Bible and the Revelation 22 ends with an invitation for sinners to come to Christ, the spirit and the bride say come. Nowhere is the spirit of God's pleading with you. Come to Christ and live the church. The bride of Christ is pleading with you. Come to Christ and live. Are you hungry? We'll come to the Lord and die freely without money. Salvation is free. It's absolutely free. It's not something you earn. It's not something you deserve. It's not something you work for. You're not saved by your own works. The only works you can be saved by are the works of Jesus Christ in the place of sinners. But Jesus says if you'll come to him, repenting of sin, not trusting in your own righteousness to save you, but believing on him alone for the salvation only he can give, that he will receive you as a sinner and he will pardon you, wash away your sins, and there will be peace with God. Whereas before there was enmity, Now there will be reconciliation through Jesus Christ and his blood. Would you not flee to Christ? Why would you refuse such a good savior as Jesus Christ? Come to him and repent of your sins and believe on him alone for salvation. But for those of you who are in Christ, and I trust that's most of you in this place. Do you have an anxious mind? Struggling with anxiety like I do. Do you find yourself reading? Do not have an anxious mind and it fills you with all manner of anxiety. Well, God has graciously given you the way out, hasn't he? To pour out your anxieties to him with thanksgiving, knowing the peace comes from the gospel. It comes from Jesus Christ. Will you sit back in unbelief and listen to your own understanding and trust your evaluation of your circumstances? Or will you go with bold faith and dare to lay a hold of his promise? And to enumerate those anxieties and to give thanks to God, to become habitually thankful for the things God has given, sometimes even perhaps we need to say, thank you, God, for the circumstance I'm going through. It's not what I would have chosen, but I know you've ordained it for my good and I know that you're in the end intended is to make me more like Jesus Christ. Faith by faith, the promise sees and looks to God alone, laughs at impossibilities and cries shall be done. Lay a hold of his promise by faith, by grace, fulfill the conditions he's placed. But the promise is yours, then, in Christ Jesus. Brethren, why would we suffer under anxiety needlessly when God has so graciously invited us to cast all our cares upon him because he cares for us? Let's do so. Let's pray. Our Father, we confess that our feebleness and our fallen minds so often, Lord, we do yield to an anxious mind, an anxious heart, We trust our own understanding, we get our eyes off of Christ, we magnify our problems and we get our eyes off of Christ and we don't even realize it sometimes. Oh Lord, I pray that you will help us to be a people who enumerate our anxieties before you just as Hezekiah laid his letters before, the letters of Sennacherib before you. Help us to lay our cares before you as well. but also to give you such thanks. And thank you, Lord, for your salvation. Thank you for the Lord Jesus. Thank you for his perfect death. Thank you for your perfect peace that you give us. Thank you that you not only convict us and discipline us as children, but also, Lord, you encourage us, you give to us psalms of deliverance. And we are so thankful for all that you do. Bless us, O God, now as we take of the Lord's table, for we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.