We want to thank you for listening to this week's sermon from Harvest Bible Chapel, Kansas City. We pray that you will be encouraged and challenged by God's Word today. If you would like more information about Harvest, please visit our website at www.harvestkansascity.org. So according to the National Institute of Mental Health, anxiety disorders are the most common mental illnesses in the U.S., affecting 40 million people. of 18 or older, 18% of the population or so. And it's not uncommon for someone who has an anxiety disorder or issue to also struggle with depression in some form too. These things are commonly linked together. Over one half of diagnosed depression folks, they are diagnosed with anxiety disorders too. So they kind of go hand in hand. So let's go ahead and define anxiety. And it's a feeling of worry or nervousness, typically about a future event or something with an uncertain outcome. I'll repeat that again. It's a feeling of worry or nervousness, typically about a future event or something with an uncertain outcome. That kind of sounds like the last few days of sermon preparation for me. It's funny how, as you prepare to preach a message on anxiety, what happens? You become anxious about it, right? It's kind of ironic, but that is the nature of it. So this message really spoke to my heart, and I believe that it could be a fresh It can be used freshly by the Lord in yours as well. So, anxiety is truly a crippling thing. It can lead to a lot of greater issues in your life if you're not careful. And we see this in scripture. Just in Proverbs 12, 25, it says, It literally is, it's an anchor. It's an anchor that holds us down. Holds us down in so many different ways. So today we're going to look at what God has to say about answering anxiety. And we're going to be going through Philippians 4, verses 4 through 8, so if you want to go ahead and turn there now if you haven't already. So verse 4 says, So our first answer to anxiety is simply this, and this is a pretty simple message. It's to choose joy. Choose joy. Joy is the answer to your anxiety, to the worry that plagues you. The word rejoice means to be glad or to delight in. It's the same word used in Matthew 2-2 when the shepherds were in the field and an angel comes and he tells them this great news. And he says, it says they rejoice exceedingly with great joy. It seems like a bit redundant, right? But it just means that they're full of joy. They're just bursting with joy. It's the same word used in 1 Thessalonians 5, 16 when he says rejoice always. Rejoice always. To rejoice is a choice. That rhymes, right? To rejoice is a choice. It's a choice that we all, that you all must make on a daily, minute-by-minute basis in every circumstance in your life. Will you choose joy in that? But you might be thinking, how could I, I mean, it sounds simple, but how could I choose joy when life's circumstances are so difficult? Like maybe your husband has just left you or is thinking about leaving you. You lost your job or things are rough at your job. Your kids are disobedient. You're stuck in some pattern of sin. You're worried about the future. Or maybe you just have some kind of health concern. Something going on there. These are valid points. Now, the question we must ask is, is Paul telling us to do something that he's in fact not doing? The answer to that would be a resounding no. Okay, no. The answer is no. Paul is experiencing a lot at this time period. And don't forget where Paul was when he was writing Philippians. He's in a Roman prison. Now is a Roman prison a cozy place? Like is it like prisons today where guys just like hang out and watch TV and whatever they do in prison? And they lift weights. I just assume people lift weights and watch TV in prison. That's all I assume. But no, on Paul's day, he had two imprisonments that we know of. And Roman prisons were agonizing. They were horrible. Let me give you some of the conditions of it. It was cramped, incredibly cramped, like very narrow and very short type spaces. There was no heat in the midst of the winter. So they could be freezing, potentially. There was no food. You had to have people actually bring you food. That's why Paul, he was so reliant upon the body of Christ when he was in prison, because he needed people to bring him food, otherwise he would have died. Not only that, it was smelly. Because you can imagine, there's not bathrooms in most of these places. If they are, they're very limited. And then there was the darkness of the inner cells. It was a place of darkness. Spiritually and physically, it was a reality. And this reality, this darkness was overwhelming for so many of the people that went to prison. It was a place that was meant to break the spirit. It was meant to destroy kind of what they were feeling on the inside, and it did a great job, because many of the people that went to these prisons, they committed suicide, because it was such horrible conditions. Not only did Paul have this kind of torment going on as far as being in prison, but he had mental anguish. He was agonizing over the churches that he had planted and the divisions that were in them. Just read 1 Corinthians and the rest of Philippians. There's all kinds of divisions and things going on. And he was in anguish over those. And then he had this wait for his own people, for the Jews. He had this incredible wait for them. Truly, if anybody had anything overwhelming to think about and struggle with, it was Paul. And it's here, in the midst of all this stuff, that we see Paul rejoicing. He's rejoicing. And he isn't rejoicing in his circumstances or his possessions, because he didn't have any. He wasn't rejoicing in a family that he had besides the family of God, that was his way of rejoicing. It wasn't related to his temporary circumstances. You see, that's so often what we do. We take, we see our, we have circumstances and we try to take joy in, but we take joy in our work, and in our family, in our adorable children that never cry and just smile at us, right? They only do that when they're small. But we take joy in those things. when we rather need to be rejoicing in the Lord. He's the one that we rejoice in. The word says, the word rejoice means to delight in. We're to delight in Him. We're to delight ourselves in the Lord. It's crucial to understand that God is to be the object. He is the object of our rejoicing. I love this quote. This is from Charles Spurgeon, famous preacher. He said, if the Lord be your joy, Your joy will never dry up. All other things are for but a season, but God is forever and ever." Isn't that good? If the Lord be your joy, your joy will never dry up. Paul understands Nehemiah 8.10 better than anybody, which says, the joy of the Lord will be your strength. The joy of the Lord was Paul's strength, and it could be yours as well. The joy of the Lord is, I think about it, like a shield that we could wrap around ourselves and it really, when the worries of this light come flying at us, it lessens the blow, right? Because when you're a joyful person, things just don't sting the same way. You're able to overlook things more easily. Paul would also have understood Psalm 37.4 when it says, See, this is often misunderstood. We think, oh, well, if I delight myself in the Lord, He's going to give me what I really want. Yes, that's true, but the thing that you really want is Him. As you delight yourself in Him, your desire for Him will increase. And when that desire increases, your joy will increase as well. So if you are struggling with anxious thoughts, the question that you must ask yourself is this, is Christ your one delight? Are you delighting in Him? Or is your delight divided? These may be perfectly wonderful things that you are trying to find your delight in, but it won't satisfy. We must guard our intake of delight and joy. We must only allow that the Lord is the source of that joy. Because if we don't, we're like Solomon in Ecclesiastes 2. He found that it was all worthless. It was a chasing after the wind. I haven't had a very good track record of chasing or catching the wind. I imagine you haven't either. See, when we are doing this, when we are choosing joy, when we're guarding our joy to only be found in the Lord, an incredible fruit is produced. And isn't that the way it is? Like, as we live our lives, as we pursue Christ, as we're obedient, as we do these things, like, it produces fruit in our lives. And the fruit in this circumstance we see in verse 5a. He says, Reasonableness. What an interesting word. It's a gentleness combined with kind of a consideration towards others. A person who is choosing joy in the Lord will display reasonableness. And I'm gonna give you several different words that this word all means. And so it's forbearance, it's being yielded, it's being kind, gentle, being sweet, reasonable, considerate, charitable, mild, generous. There's really not a single word in the English language that gives full breadth to what this word actually means. That's why Greek is such an amazing and beautiful language, because it has a fuller understanding. It's not just love. There's numerous versions of love, right? It's the same thing here. Another word for it, and the person who thought of this has kind of taken all of this definition, and he said it's big-heartedness. Big-heartedness. I thought that was interesting. It's big-heartedness towards all people. It says, let it be known to all, not just those who love you. See, a person who is struggling with joy is very easy to spot. You could probably think of a few, but they're typically very rough around the edges. They're unreasonable many times in what they say and what they do. And if, you know, they go to Starbucks and they don't want whipped cream, they're like, and they get it, then they yell and they're like, I didn't want whipped cream! You know, like they get so mad about the most goofy things. They snap at people. They're rude, arguing, even with complete strangers, right? They're the person who, or maybe that is you. Maybe that's you. Maybe you struggle with strangers. You're not reasonable towards strangers. Maybe it's more your family, though, that tends to get the brunt of it. Like your kids know, like, don't go near your dad when he comes home. Give him some time to kind of chill. Give him about an hour. Let him eat his dinner in quiet. and then let's go watch TV, right? Are you struggling in that way? The best way to know if you're really struggling with joy and if you don't realize it in your own life is to ask the people that are closest to you, because they're gonna be able to recognize it in about three seconds flat, especially your spouse. So this reasonableness is a sweet disposition towards others even when, even when, key, unjustly treated. Even when things are being done to you that don't make sense and they're not right, there's a sweetness there. This is again a Charles Spurgeon quote. He said, Their minds are so sweetly occupied with higher things that they are not easily distracted by the little troubles that naturally arise among such imperfect creatures as we are. It's good stuff. So do you find that your mind is occupied with an offense that's done to you? Like, do you find yourself dwelling on that, thinking about that? You know, I should have gotten that raise. Why did that person ignore me? I should have repaid that person with this. Maybe dwelling on the things, on the ways that you should have responded in a situation, like, oh man, I should have said that. That would have got him good, right? That's the opposite of reasonableness. Choosing joy in the Lord means overlooking wrongs and being okay with things happening to you at times that don't make sense and that aren't fair. So are you a reasonable person If you're not, then you're probably struggling with joy. So the first answer to answering anxiety is to choose joy. And the next answer is, very obviously, if you've read this passage, is prayer. And that's to choose prayer. The second answer to answering anxiety is choosing prayer. Choose prayer. So verse 5b into 6, it says, Prayer is the most crucial weapon. And weapons are offensive, right? It's the most crucial weapon that you have to fight against anxiety. It is. In every commentary that I read, It was very obviously stated that prayer is our weapon, it is our way to fight against anxiety. We have different weapons, we have different ways to deal with the outside factors of anxiety, right? Because it causes physical things to happen in us, like all kinds of different things. But for many, this is the problem. For many, the problem is that the only answer that they look to, the only answer, key words, is medication. That's the only answer that they look to. Medication will lessen the symptoms of your anxiety, but it won't cure the heart of what's really going on. It can't get to the core of who you are. It only alleviates the very obvious external things that are happening because of it. It must be used with caution and great wisdom. And I would encourage you to get counsel from the church before you go down that road. But I was polling some of our elders in relation to this question of anxiety, and I got an answer that I really, really liked from one of our elders. He said, Such wisdom in that. Like, we're trying to dig below the surface. We're not trying to deal with the external, the leaves of the tree. We want to get down to the root. Like, what's really causing it? What's the heart of it? Again, prayer is the most crucial weapon you have in fighting anxious thoughts. Prayer is truly, it's opposed to anxiety if you think about it. What is prayer? It's reliance and trust upon God. It's asking Him for help. Anxiety is really just kind of getting lost in yourself in so many ways, getting lost in your thoughts. I love this quote from D.A. Carson. He said, I have yet to meet a chronic worrier who enjoys an excellent prayer life. Isn't that true? Think about people in your life. Think about yourself. Prayer brings our anxious heart in line with His. And the hearers of the faith, the people we look back to, they show us this. It goes back to Christ Himself. I love this quote from Martin Luther. He says, I have so much to do today that I'm going to need to spend three hours in prayer in order to be able to get it all done. No chuckles? That's kind of funny. Three hours in prayer, right? Not an easy thing to do. But we pray knowing that the Lord is at hand. That He's here. That's what it says in verse 5b. It says, I love that verse. Those four words are so powerful. The Lord is here. He's with you. There's kind of a twofold meaning here. It's that he's here with you here in the now, and also he is near as far as he's going to be coming back again. So it's about his second coming as well. So the Lord, he's here, he's around us, he's near. He's near at the exact time and at the exact place that you need him most. When you need him, he's there. Now what does anything meet in this verse? Is there anything that doesn't qualify as anything? No, right? Like anything is anything. Everything is everything. There's nothing that escapes that, that's not under that umbrella. So we need to be careful. We need to offer everything to Him by prayer and supplication. Now, Matthew 6, 25 to 34, this is another great passage, obviously, about anxiety that Jesus is talking about. And He mentions in that passage that we're not to be anxious for food, clothing, the basics of this life, and that we're not to be anxious about the future, about what will happen or what could happen. Fear of the future is truly a paralyzing thing. Fear in this way, it's a method of attack used by the enemy. Have you realized that? That he wants to make you scared? He wants you to live in fear? And I thought about this over the last couple years. I believe that I made it up, but the enemy, he wants to keep you in guilt in regards to your past. distraction in regards to the present, and worry about the future. He wants to have you lost in those things, lost in guilt, lost in distraction, lost in worry. Because that way you're... you're worthless in a lot of ways. You can't be used for the kingdom because you're so lost in your own world. 1 Peter 5, 7 says to cast all your anxieties on him for he cares for you. So we must ask, what are your anxieties? What keeps you up at night? What's the first thing that you think about in the morning? It's a good gauge. We're to cast our anxieties on Him. This word for casting literally means to throw it overboard. It's like if you're on a, it's a mentality or a understanding of, it's a boat reference, right? Like, if there's too much weight on a boat, or it's too much weight to one side, you've got to move it around, you've got to throw it off the boat. You've got to cast it away. Like, when I'm in a kayak, like, that's too much weight. It doesn't matter what kind of kayak. Like, bad things happen. So we have to cast away that extra weight. We have to throw it overboard. So why does God want all our anxieties? I'll give you two reasons. Because He knows that they are a weight that we can't carry. We're not meant to carry them. Again, Proverbs 12, 25, anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down. I know it's weighing many of you down here. And the second reason why he wants our anxieties is because he cares for you. That's what the verse says. Cast all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. The love of God is so evident in this. So how should this type of prayer look? He says that we should offer it up with supplication, with thanksgiving, let our requests be made known to him. This word for supplication, it's a word of desperation. It's a word of desperation. It's a plea with urgency. So many prayers that we offer up, they have no passion. There's no desire because we're comfortable. We don't really want something to change, we're just kind of giving lip service to the fact that we're supposed to pray. But they're supposed to be so much deeper than that. How do you pray when somebody is sick in your family, when you found out you just got cancer, when your child is sick, somebody's got into an accident? What do those prayers look like? Desperation, plain and simple. Is that the way that you pray about your anxiety? God appreciates our urgency in prayer because it shows our reliance and our desire for Him alone. I love the story in 1 Samuel 1. It's about a man named Elkanah. He had two wives, Panina or Panini, whatever you want to call her, and Hannah. Hannah was barren. She could not have children. Panina, she was getting pregnant like cray. Like she was having lots of kids, okay? So she had a big family with Elkanah, her husband, right? And so they would travel to the temple. They would travel to the temple to offer up their sacrifices to the Lord and to give homage to Him and to pay for their sins for that year. And they would go up year after year. And really what that was is, that was an opportunity for Hannah to see the huge, amazing family of Penita. And she would provoke her. She would say, you don't have any kids, you don't have... Like she would make fun of her. She would push her. She would cause anguish in Hannah's heart. It would drive her to a place where she would weep bitterly. She would stop eating. That's anxiety, right? And one day it grew to be too much for her, and so she called to the Lord in her anguish. She kind of stumbles over to the temple, and she's pouring out her soul to the Lord, it says in 1 Samuel 1 15. Pouring out her soul to the Lord. Isn't that a great phrase, pouring out her soul to the Lord? I wonder if some of you have ever done that. Like, just poured it out before Him. Luke 22, 44, we see Jesus about to go to the cross for the sins of this world. So He's in the Garden of Gethsemane and says, and being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly. Do you think Christ prayed with earnestness already? Yeah. He prayed more earnestly and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground." Man, more earnestness, more urgency. So we must ask this question, when was the last time that you prayed explicitly and at length about those things that worry you, trouble you, and plague you? When was the last time you offered those things to the Lord? You cry out to Him with that kind of desperation. I would challenge you to be stubbornly passionate in your prayers. What do I mean by stubbornly passionate? I mean go to the Lord and refuse to leave His presence. Sometimes God just wants us to get before Him and just be with Him and just wrestle with Him and stay in that place. Sometimes, for me, when I need the Lord, especially more times than others, I have to go there and I have to stay there. I can't just go flippantly, read a couple scripture passages, and then offer up a prayer, a simple prayer. I have to wrestle with Him. I have to just be with Him. And I would challenge you to be stubbornly passionate in your prayers as well. We're also called to pray. There's two different things here. There's the urgency of prayer, and then there's the thankfulness of prayer. He says that we should pray in that way. How difficult is that to do, right? To have our thinking change to the point where we're actually thanking God for the things that cause worry in our lives? It takes a change of thinking for that to happen. So we have to think, And ask this question, how can I thank God for this circumstance, whatever it is? Like, what are some ways that I could actually thank God for it? It's a difficult thing to do. But James 1, 2 says that we are to count it all joy, my brothers, when we experience trials of various kinds. Because the testing of our faith produces what? Perseverance. We can thank God that our trials cause us to persevere, that He's growing us. Now I'm going to say something maybe that you don't like here, maybe you don't want to hear, but maybe the thing that you are most anxious about in your life, it might be the thing that God is using to sanctify you the most. Like it's the thing that God has allowed into your life in order so that he could make you more like his son through the process. For some of you, that doesn't sound that fun, but we need to thank God for the fact that He is sanctifying us, right? Like that He is making us more like His Son on a daily basis. That's what we thank Him for. And whatever means necessary for Him to do that, like He's going to do at times. Thankfulness in prayer is possible in the worry of our situations because God is present, because He uses it for His glory. As we present our request to God, this most beautiful thing happens, and I love this. I love this. I'm hoping that you're ready for it. Are you guys, are you ready for it? Because I don't want you to be falling asleep or something. When we cast our anxieties on Him, when we're praying in that way, something amazing happens. Just listen for it. Peace. Peace. Peace. Some of you need peace more than anything right now. Verse seven says, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. This is a promise of God, and the promises of God come true, amen? Two of you said amen, okay. The promises of God come true, amen? Amen. All right, good. The peace of God. And listen to the definitions of the peace of God. I love this. It's freedom from worry. quietness, rest, and to set it one again. Like oneness happens. Everything goes back to the way it should be when we have peace. I love that. It's the same word used in John 16.33 when Jesus is saying, That's awesome. So two characteristics of God's peace that we see in verse 7. And number one is that His peace surpasses all understanding. People will look at the peace that you have and they will not be able to comprehend it. It just will not make sense. Think about the people in Paul's life. He's sitting in a prison in these conditions. They're singing psalms. They're singing songs to God. They're blessing him. They're thanking him. They're joyful. And what does it do? It causes people to be like, what is going on with these guys? And it draws them to Christ. That's what happens. The peace that Paul had is incomprehensible. It doesn't even make sense. He's agonizing. I just think it's so amazing. And number two, His peace guards your heart and it guards your mind. That word for guard makes sense, right? It's a prison-related term. It's a prison context. God is kind of like a huge security guard. He will guard your mind. He will guard your thinking. That's the mind. He will guard your heart, which is the emotions. He will guard your emotions. He will guard your thinking. He can do it. So what is the opposite of peace? War. Some of you are in turmoil. You're experiencing warfare in this way. Many times you are at war with the forces of the enemy. Other times you may be just at war with yourself. There's many times in my life where a war is literally raging over situations that have either happened or are going to happen. It seems uncontrollable at the time. It drives me though, and it has to drive you. Our anxieties must drive us to prayer, drive us to our needs, drive us to Christ. It has to. So how is your prayer life? Are you a desperate person? Are you a thankful person? How about your level of peace right now? Are you filled with peace? So the first answer to anxiety is to choose joy. The second is to choose prayer. And the third is to choose right thinking. Big surprise, right? Are you shocked? Maybe you're totally shocked. Choose right thinking. I love this quote. It's from a man named Frank Outlaw. Interesting last name. It says, watch your thoughts, they become your words. Watch your words, they become your actions. Watch your actions, they become your habits. Watch your habits, they become your character. And watch your character, it becomes your destiny. Isn't that so true? Like, it starts here and then it's displayed in our lives over time. And if you've been around Harvest for a while, you know, and if you don't know, that's crazy, but right thinking leads to right living, right? We know that. We talk about that all the time. It's essential to living to God's glory. We have to, and this is so true of anxious thoughts as well, we have to be careful in our thinking. Our thoughts of worry and fear, they become our words, then they become our actions, then they're overwhelming. They overwhelm us. A thought is different than thinking in some form. Like, what are you talking about? Well, a thought is something that pops in your head. Maybe you have a random thought about this or a thought about this. But the pattern of your thinking is what we're really talking about here. Like, what's the pattern of your thinking? Something may pop up in your head. That's going to happen because we're crazy individuals at times, right? But the pattern of your thinking is what Paul is really, really consumed with. And so what should our thinking be? Like what kind of thinking should we choose to have? He says in verses 8, verse 8, he says, So Paul basically gives us a laundry list of things that we're to dwell upon. or to dwell upon thoughts of truth. Thoughts of truth that are reliable and that are honest. What is real? Things that are not imaginary. I don't know if any of you are daydreamers, but we so easily start to think thoughts and just think about things happening that are just not true. We have to guard our minds that they are thinking true thoughts, not lies. or to dwell on God's Word as the source of all truth, we replace lies with truth, right? And the truth of God's Word is the truth that we replace it with. So how are you doing it meditating and reading God's Word? The amount of time that you spend in God's Word will directly impact your thinking. Directly. And thus your actions too. Joshua 1.8, Meditation on the Word of God leads to doing, leads to action. We are to dwell upon honorable thoughts, thoughts that bring honor to others, glory to God, not glory to us. See, I'm so often the hero in my imagination. You know, I'm like lifting cars off of like old ladies, and jumping off buildings, and taking down bad guys, and I drive an Ashton Martin, and I have a guy named Q that gives me cool things, and I'm James Bond, basically. Okay? So that's me. But in my mind, you know, that's kind of the reality that I think about. Some of you guys can maybe relate to this, but many times, in order for me to be elevated, I have to push somebody else down. I have to actually I have to actually make sure that they're failing in order for me to succeed. Isn't that sick and twisted in so many ways? Like, that's what we do. So I want you to be honest, and don't say this out loud, but do you have thoughts about other people failing and you succeeding? Do you have desires that other people actually fail in their life in some form? So not only should we have honorable thoughts, but we need to have just thoughts, it says. Thoughts that conform to God's standard. We're to understand that He is just in what He does. Thoughts that bring justice to others, not injustice. We're to think pure thoughts And the connotation here is sexually pure, upright before the Lord as far as in that way. Now, men and women have very different strongholds when it comes to their thinking, and I would say purity for men is a stronghold. It's an area of their life that it's a garrison of evil, right? For women, this anxiety might be it for you. I know the women just did a study on it recently. So we are to think lovely thoughts, it says, Thoughts like 1 Corinthians 13, four through seven. Thoughts like those lovely thoughts that love is patient, love is kind, it doesn't envy, it doesn't boast, it's not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It's not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Those are the kind of thoughts of love that we should have towards people in our lives. Love thoughts that are not irritable. Thoughts that do not insist on its own way. Next, we're to think thoughts that are excellent and bring praise to God. Truly, He's the only one that is worth worth praising, right? So our thoughts should bring praise to Him. We need to be constantly thinking about how we can bring Him glory. In our minds we need to think about those things. We need to be dwelling upon the attributes of God in our heads. That's why I like to have a constant flow of worship music basically kind of going in my life all the time, right? I just listen to it all the time. I have this really long list. constantly listening to it, but I want to be filled, I want to be filled with the truths about who God is. I want to be filled with the truths about His love for me. Paul says we are to think about these things, and when we do so, when we choose to think in this way, anxiety will lessen. Colossians 3, 1 and 2 says, if then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above. where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, set your minds on things above, not on things of the earth. So where's your mind right now? You're probably thinking about what you want to eat for lunch, right? But are you setting your mind on Him? Or are you consumed with something in the future, something that you're worried about or thinking about? Why don't you go ahead and think about that, go ahead and bow your heads, I want you to just listen to a couple more things. It's so easy for us to not only dwell on wrong thoughts, but downright evil ones at times. This is a battle. It's a stronghold, as I mentioned. Just listen to this scripture, 2 Corinthians 10, four and five, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have, listen to this, divine power to destroy strongholds. Your stronghold of anxiety can be destroyed in God's divine power, but do you believe that? We have the ability to take these thoughts captive and they could be locked away forever. Just like any other sin. God can break the cycle in your life once and for all. Lord God, I thank you for your word. For your word is power. Lord, even in this place, there are people that are thinking, how can I have freedom from this? God, I pray that you would cause each person here to have a sense of desperation, a sense of urgency, a sense of passion, that we would be stubbornly passionate to be with you and to be changed by you. Lord, would you make us prayer warriors, Lord, for prayer is the opposite of anxiety. God, may we think thoughts that are true and honorable and just, lovely, praiseworthy. Lord, I pray that you would use this message as these folks go on their way home. get on with the rest of their day, Lord, that you would move in their hearts and move in their minds and change them. Lord, it's for your glory. It's for your glory that we live and move and have our being. We praise in Jesus' name, amen.