So Philippians chapter four, verses six and seven. Do not be anxious about anything, 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 your minds in Christ Jesus. Please be seated. Do not be anxious. Instead, pray. That is the message. Do not be anxious, but pray. Trade your anxiousness for peace through prayer. And again we are seeking to answer the question that is necessarily raised from Paul's opening verse to this chapter. The question is, in what way, Paul, are we to persevere? Verse one again, Paul states, therefore my brothers whom I love and long for my joy and crown stand firm, thus are in this way in the Lord my beloved. So stick with it, keep going, hold the line, keep advancing in this way, says Paul, and so we ask in what way? As I mentioned last time, it is interesting to note that Paul doesn't merely go on now to say things like, do your morning devotions, or read your Bible daily, or be sure to get through your prayer list each day, and so on. And yet surely Paul recognizes the value in the so-called spiritual disciplines of our religion. Actually, I would suggest that Paul is here, pointing us to the spiritual disciplines of the Christian faith. But the way Paul exhorts us to these things is worth noting. Paul seems to go deeper. He has a way of getting to the urgent need in the exhortation and as well as the effect, the glorious result. And in so doing, Paul seems to guard against mere duty, checking off of the lists, going through the motions. And this morning's text is a prime example of this, for here Paul is basically calling us unto prayer, unto the spiritual discipline of prayer, and yet he does it in such a way as to almost remove the possibility of mere duty. Do not be anxious, he says. Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication. With thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Now let me begin just by breaking this down a bit. First, we should notice the ultimate end or the goal here. The reward is the perseverance of the saint. Verse seven. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. In other words, it will keep you in Jesus, in salvation, in faith, and keep you from the unbelief of anxiety. This is the role of the peace of God for the believer, to guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. In other words, the peace of God acts as a soldier on guard, sworn to protect your heart and your mind. In fact, this term which the ESV translates as guard is a military term. And so the picture here is that of the peace of God as a garrison, which stands to protect a city or a fort. And so God's peace is this garrison, which is assigned to protect and defend the believer's heart and mind. So to protect us from what? From unbelief. The unbelief of anxiety. For what is stated in the positive in verse 7 is stated in the negative at the beginning of verse 6. Do not be anxious. Do not be anxious about anything. Possessing the peace of God is here parallel with not being anxious. Do not be anxious in verse six as having the peace of God in verse seven. In other words, having the peace of God guarding your heart and mind means freedom from anxiety. Freedom from the unbelief of anxiety. And anxiety is just that, it is unbelief. Anxiety is unbelief. Unbelief in the faithfulness of your God. Unbelief in our Heavenly Father's love for us. Unbelief in the promises of God to us, such as in Romans 8, 28, where God promises to work all things for our good, for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Anxiety is unbelief. We are anxious because our faith is small. We are anxious because our faith is small. Matthew 6 and verse 25, our Lord says, do not be anxious. Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you of not more value than them? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to the span of his life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin, and yet I tell you, even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you Oh, you of little faith. Oh, you of little faith. We are anxious because our faith is small. Our faith in what? No, our faith in whom? Our faith in our God, in our Heavenly Father, in His ability and His willingness, in His faithfulness and in His love. For that's where Christ points us here. Again, look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father, your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And if God so clothes the grass of the field which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you? Oh, you of little faith. Anxiety is unbelief. unbelief in God to provide in His faithfulness, His graciousness. It is a distrust in the providential hand of God, and as well, it stems from a disbelief that God is truly enough. No matter what comes, or no matter what is taken from me, God is enough, isn't He? Isn't He our portion? I hear the Savior say, thy strength indeed is small, Child of weakness, watch and pray. Find in me thine all in all. Prayer is not so much about the removal of what troubles us as it is about our finding our all in our God. For it is not that the Christian life is to be without trouble and without reason for worry, unstable employment, health problems, wayward children, failing relationships, the list goes on and on and on. And if there is on any given day in your personal life a lack of reason to be anxious, then the nightly news will certainly fill that void for you. We are inundated daily with a host of reasons to be anxious. Wars and rumors of wars, doomsday predictions of financial collapse, the rise of crime, terrorist attacks even within our own borders. And to add to that, our brothers and sisters in Christ suffering persecution on record levels all over the world. And at the same time, a multitude at ease in Zion here in the American church. And a host of damnable heresies seemingly flourishing within Christendom, having become perhaps the chief export from the professing church in America. This is not about the utter removal of all temptation to worry. No, it is about what you do with your worries and your anxieties. Where do you turn for relief? That is the big question here. Where do you turn for relief, for a sense of peace? Well, we've already seen where our Savior would have us turn, to our Heavenly Father, The way we are to find relief from anxiety is to consider just who our Father is. Your Father, Christian, loves you with a pure and infinite love. And He is all power, and the universe is His. He is the one who feeds the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the fields, and He loves you. And surely He values you more than birds and lilies. So don't be anxious about anything. Just look to Him. Humble yourself, says Peter. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him. Why? Because He cares for you. Because He cares for you. Humble yourself, says Peter. Humble yourself. For Peter knows what it is to walk in pride, to attempt things in his own strength. He knows as well, all too well, the bitter end that it brings. So humble yourself, says Peter. Put yourself under his mighty hand and cast your anxieties upon him. Give them to him and he will take care of you. So what does that look like? What does it look like to cast your anxieties upon your Heavenly Father? How do I do that? Well, Paul aims to help us out with this here in the middle part of these two verses. Here sandwiched between the imperative and the glorious result is the how. Paul does not merely say to us, do not be anxious and leave it at that. No, Paul actually tells us how to go about not being anxious. Verse six, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Turn to your Heavenly Father in prayer and ask Him to help you. Express to Him the anxieties of your heart and ask Him to take them from you. And considering just who our loving Father is, this ought to be our knee-jerk reaction. And the fact that it isn't reveals our unbelief and our distrust. Our unbelief in either His ability or His willingness or both. It is unbelief and it is sin. It is sin. And so it is worthy of being repented of. And And it only leads to greater sin. Anxiety only leads to greater sin. Anxiety is not the end of it. Anxiety is just the beginning. There's actually a web of sin that grows from this one sin. But what do we do when we don't turn to God? We don't just sit and wallow in an anxious state. No, we want relief. And so we turn elsewhere. We turn to our own ways. We go about trying to remove the anxiety and find peace in our own way, in our own strength, in our own wisdom. We find peace in other things, other than our God. I would like to take just one example, flesh it out a little bit. This example is what our Lord speaks of in Matthew 6, and so I assume that one, it is a very common one. and two, a very dangerous one. And it is indeed both. It is anxiety over what I will eat tomorrow or what I will wear. Anxiety over financial instability. Will my family be provided for tomorrow, next month, next year? What about in 20 or 30 years? Will I have a good retirement? What will I retire on? What if I lose my job? What if the stock market crashes? What if the dollar plunges? What if inflation soars? What if recession hits? Or even another Great Depression? Where, brothers and sisters, are we to turn when such thoughts occupy our minds? Where are we to turn when such fears assail our hearts? But let me tell you where I believe many have turned, even within the church. Again, no one cares to just dwell in a state of constant worry and anxiety. No, we all look for an out. We all want a sense of peace and security, but our bent, unfortunately, in our pride is to turn to our own ingenuity and strength. And so, anxious about money, We become workaholics, or we become greedy, covetousness, covet, covetousing. We become cheap and miserly, stingy. We become irritable and unreasonable with regards to the things involving money and expenditures. And we become hoarders. We become hoarders. We become fools. Absolute fools, building bigger barns and laying up treasure for ourselves instead of being rich towards our God. And it is foolishness. Absolute foolishness. It's actually insanity. We have everything in Christ Jesus our Savior. In Him we have a good King, the best of kings, who will meet our every need wonderfully, beyond what we could expect or imagine, and beyond what we even know we need. And so how foolish it is to steal from our God in order to hoard for ourselves. And just consider what this communicates to our God about what we think of His ability and His willingness and His faithfulness. And oh, how we fail to bear witness to the lost world of our God's great faithfulness when the church takes it upon herself to outdo even worldlings with our storehouses. By and large, we in the American church have turned to the wrong thing for peace and security. Financial stewardship, even within the church, has basically become smart investing. But investing in what, I ask? Certainly not eternity. It is labeled as good stewardship. Hoarding for self is actually considered by many to be good stewardship. Well done, good and faithful servant, for I provided you with plenty and you stored it up as a mighty treasure for yourself. Do we really expect to hear that when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ? My financial advice to we who have much is to be diligent to get rid of it. Be diligent to get rid of it. and be sure you die with as close to nothing as possible. Nothing here, but storehouses in heaven, where rust and moth can't destroy it, where thieves can't take it. Do good with what you have been given. Outdo one another in doing good with what we have been given. And why would we go on teaching our children to be good savers? We ought to be modeling for them how to be good spenders, spenders for the kingdom, givers to the needy. Christ commended the poor widow who gave even of her daily provision, not the trumpet-sounding Pharisees who gave their 10%. Have you noticed that it is no unusual thing for a Christ follower to spend 40, even 50,000 on a new truck for self? While at the same time, it is thought to be something quite remarkable for a Christian to send even a fraction of that to the mission field, or to an orphanage, or to freely give it to a neighbor in need. We can find no joy in giving when our peace is dependent upon the size of our hoard. For giving then decreases our hoard. and thus threatens our peace. And therefore, by putting our hope in wealth, we have robbed ourselves of the joy of giving freely, and we have robbed ourselves of eternal reward. And we now shrink back from the plate, we now shrink back from doing good, we now shrink back from those in need, and if we are honest, we find ourselves saying, maybe not in so many words, but nonetheless, saying, may it be well with you. We are quick to turn our backs on those in need, all to gain and maintain some false sense of peace and security. We now lack compassion. We are found lacking in love towards brother and for our Lord. When our peace and security is our hoard, we have become a servant of money, a worshiper of money, a lover of money. And we know the warnings from our Lord regarding this state. Matthew 6, 24, No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. It cannot be done. You cannot love both. Cannot be done. Do you know what the very next words of our Lord were? The very next words out of His mouth, therefore, therefore, since you can't serve both God and money, since love for money is a damnable state to be in, therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious. Do not be anxious about your life, what you'll eat, or what you'll drink, or your body, or what you'll put on. Why? Because anxiety over such things ultimately leads you into bondage. It makes you a slave, a servant of wealth. It makes you a lover of money. And that is a most dangerous place to be. For you cannot serve God and money. And we have all felt this pull, I am sure. We know how we could help. We see what the Lord has put in front of us. And it is Jesus himself to whom we would be giving if we were to give and yet we shrink back. We shrink back even though we have the means. We fail to love our Lord and giving to our brother in need. Why? Why? Because we love money. Because we love money. Because we find peace and security and happiness. But we can be very good at justifying self So we reason. We are not workaholics. We merely possess a good work ethic. We are not cheap and miserly. I am no Scrooge. No, we are necessarily frugal. We are not hoarders, just good savers, wise investors, good stewards. But no, this is not stewardship. Again, hoarding is not good stewardship. Actually, biblical stewardship is a principle applied first to the spiritual gifts given to each believer. And surely our spiritual gifts are not to be hoarded up and kept for ourselves, even for a rainy day. No, Peter says 4.10, verse Peter 4.10, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another. Use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's very grace. And so all blessings, financial or otherwise, are from God's gracious hand and thus are to be used to serve one another. Our spiritual gifts are for others, not ourselves. Likewise, our wealth is not for ourselves, but to be used to serve others. Wealth stored up is an earthly treasure. Money stored up is an earthly treasure. And our Lord warns us against storing up treasures on earth. In fact, he commands us not to. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal it. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven." How do we lay up a treasure in heaven? We serve. We use it to serve one another. We give it away. We need to hope in God, we need to trust in our Heavenly Father to care for us, to take any financial worries to Him and to cast them atop His mighty hand and humble ourselves, placing ourselves under His mighty hand. That we would have no hope tied up in any way, shape, or form in money. That we would have no peace and security tied up in a hoard. that our money might be to us a mere tool with which to bless others, to be used in a manner as to show the world that Christ is indeed our all in all, and thus to store up heavenly treasures. Do not be anxious, but trust in God. Trust in God. You need to trust in God and look to Him that we might actually have the freedom to be shrewd with what is not really ours, but has been placed in our charge. Be shrewd with the world's money. Use it to magnify your glorious entry into the kingdom. Oh, to be greeted on that day by a myriad of souls praising Christ because of your sacrificial giving on their behalf. Oh, how foolish it is to build bigger barns down here. And oh, to be free, to be absolutely free to use money in a manner that communicates to all who are looking on that Jesus Christ is my treasure, that God is my savior. All this sin, this greed, this covetousness, this hoarding, turning our backs on those in need, this lack of love, serving ourselves and our bank accounts instead of our neighbor, all this sin has blossomed from the unbelief of anxiety. Anxiety with regards to what we will eat and drink and wear. And this is just one example. This is just one example. We could speak of anxiety about school or career, about relationships and about being accepted by others, anxiety about the salvation of our children, anxiety about health, our own or the health of our children. And with each of these, we could identify, I think, a trail of sin that has sprung forth from the unbelief of anxiety, where it has been left unchecked. But it doesn't have to be this way. It does not have to be this way. There is reason for hope. For again, Paul says, do not be anxious about anything, 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 your minds in Christ Jesus. Brothers and sisters, we can actually trade anxiety for the peace of God by turning to our Heavenly Father in prayer. We don't have to try to manage it ourselves and act in our own strength or our own wisdom, but we can come and tell it to our Heavenly Father who loves us and cares for us by prayer and supplication. Come to your Father and let your request be made known to Him. And do so, says Paul, with thanksgiving. With thanksgiving. This is, I think, from a heart of contentment. Thanksgiving is the fruit of a content heart. Do not come as Israel in the wilderness, full of grumbling and murmuring, wallowing in self-pity and finding fault with God. No, humble yourself. Humble yourself. Come as one who has been ransomed by the shed blood of the very Son of God. Come as one who, though so undeserving, has nonetheless been shown such grace and love and such promises of glory. Come as one who is truly thankful for eternal life. We have been granted eternal life in Christ. Oh, how deep the Father's love for us, that He would give His only Son to make this wretch His treasure. Go to Him and just tell Him everything that troubles your heart. Go to Him and declare your unbelief, repent of your distrust, and beg Him to take it from you. Beg Him for peace, for rest, for joy. But you say, you don't understand, I'm anxious, I can't help it. The troubles are still there, it just doesn't make sense how I could be at peace in my situation. Well, that is just fine, because the peace of God doesn't make any sense. It doesn't have to make sense. In fact, it surpasses all understanding, says the Apostle. It is supernatural. It will even look foolish to those who look on. It is the very peace of God that we are promised. Divine peace. Oh, the precious words of our Lord in John 15, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not just the world gifts do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.