Cease From Worry & Pray in Jesus' Name
Tom Shrader walks through John 16:23-33, unpacking what it means to pray in Jesus' name — that believers pray as those who are in Christ, based on His merit, and in alignment with His will. He draws on Philippians 4:6-7 to contrast the world's counterfeit peace with the surpassing peace God gives to those who worry about nothing and pray about everything. The teaching closes with a call to know God personally and intimately, emphasizing that a deep relationship with Him is the foundation for contentment, endurance, and a stable life in the face of tribulation.
“Peace is not the absence of turmoil in your life. It's the presence of God.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: John: The Essence of Life (2007)
Recorded: 2007 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 55 min
Themes: prayer, worry, peace, anxiety, contentment, knowing god, trust, endurance, struggling with anxiety, feeling overwhelmed, new believer, searching for peace, facing hardship, spiritually discouraged, young adult, anyone in crisis
Scripture: John 14:1, John 14:5, John 14:8, John 14:22, John 14:27, John 16:17, John 16:23-33, James 4:2, James 1:2-4, 1 John 5, Ephesians 6:18, Mark 1:35, Luke 6:12, Daniel 4:26, Philippians 1:14, Philippians 4:6-7, 1 Peter 5:7
Theological Themes: intercessory prayer, union with christ, philippians 4, the peace of god, prayer in jesus name, soteriology, john 16, sanctification
Full Transcript
Welcome and Announcements
If you are with us for the very first time, a special welcome to you, and we are glad that you are here. One of the great dilemmas we have in life is how to communicate with you who are here for the first time and how we can express our desire to get to know you and have you get to know us at East Valley Bible Church. Our resolution has been that you initiate that response by completing the guest registry card we have provided and dropping it in one of the boxes as you leave the room today. That will give us your name and the ability to contact you, and we will follow up just as quickly as we possibly can.
We would also invite you, as you are leaving the room, to ask one of the gentlemen or ladies by the door for a packet that will have information about East Valley Bible Church, along with a visit to our website — that address is in the bulletin as well. What would really bring us together is if you joined us on July 1st, a Sunday, at 10:30 in the morning in room 100 for the Connect One class. That is an opportunity for us to give you a satellite view of East Valley Bible Church and for us to get to know you. I will come over after the 10:30 service, we will have lunch together, and we will provide it for you. That is why it is important to register — so we can have lunch prepared, and if you require child care, we can have that available as well. You can use the response tab in your bulletin for that.
A couple of other things. When summer comes, people are in and out, and it can feel disconnected — when one of us is here, the other is gone, and the same can be true of you. So I want to bring to your attention a second time the Institute classes for the summer session. It is not too late to take advantage of the first session, some of which begin even today, and there is another session in the latter part of July as well. They are great classes, and all you need to do is contact Patty — the information is in the bulletin.
We are slightly disappointed that the Commons area will not be open for Father's Day on June 17th as we had hoped. We are going to miss that day by just a fraction. What we have decided to do instead is host six evenings we are calling Hot Summer Nights, beginning June 20th. It will be a casual time over in the Commons with some live music, no formal teaching, time to hang out, and then I will take some time to interview people I think will be of interest to you — some from the church, the area pastors, and some friends from outside the church who are fascinating people I think you would love. So Hot Summer Nights begins June 20th at 7:00 p.m. If you have junior high or high school students, drop them off and come on in, grab a seat, grab something to drink, and it should be a great time. We will do that for six nights.
My guest for the first interview will be Susan — and I know she was surprised when I announced it because she was in the service this morning. We will be celebrating our 29th wedding anniversary on Father's Day, so I thought I would take that occasion to introduce you to the staff who will run the Commons and let you hear how God prepared them for this moment. Then I will bring Susan up and we are just going to talk. It will not be rehearsed, she has no idea what I am going to ask her, and I will let her flip it around and ask me questions as well. It should be a genuinely fun evening, and I am looking forward to all six of these nights.
Introduction to the Upper Room Discourse
If you have your Bibles, go ahead and open them to the Gospel of John. Let me set the table for you. John 14, 15, 16, and 17 are known as the Upper Room Discourse, and they are generally taught in their totality — straight through from beginning to end — and that is how we would normally approach this. We do have a brief gap in the teaching schedule, as I will be away at summer camp next Sunday, so please be praying for us.
Introduction and Context
We are finishing up chapter 16 today. Although chapters 14, 15, 16, and 17 go together and are identified as the upper room discourse, if you really look at this, chapters 14, 15, and 16 are really Jesus dialoguing with, encouraging, strengthening His disciples, and preparing them for what is going to happen. Chapter 14, verse 1, He says, "Do not let your heart be troubled." Why? Because it is going to be very troubling times. Then He unpacks it, and look at chapter 16, verse 33: "These things I have spoken to you so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. Take courage, I have overcome the world." Those are the bookends of this section. He is talking to them. He is preparing them.
Then in chapter 17, He stops at verse 1, and after He spoke these things, He lifted His eyes to heaven and prays. So John chapter 17 shifts from Jesus addressing the disciples to Jesus now speaking to the Lord. I want to finish up chapter 16 today. I could get into chapter 17, but I want us to take it in its totality, as a whole.
Asking in Jesus' Name
Look at chapter 16, verses 23 through 26. He is talking about the day when He will leave and when He will come back. "In that day you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you." I want to suggest that if you mark in your Bible, you circle the word *ask* and put a square around the phrase *in My name*, so your eye can distinguish these two things quickly.
Verse 24: "Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be full." Then: "These things I have spoken to you in figurative language, and an hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but will speak to you plainly of the Father. In that day you will ask in My name." Having that kind of marking means that when you open this page, your eye picks up that pattern immediately.
So obviously what Jesus is talking about here is us asking the Father, speaking to the Father. The term we often use for that is prayer — prayer, simply conversation with God. Just as the disciples have been asking Jesus questions throughout these chapters — Simon Peter in chapter 13, verse 36; Thomas in chapter 14, verse 5; Philip in chapter 14, verse 8; Judas, not Judas Iscariot, in chapter 14, verse 22; the disciples in chapter 16, verse 17; and again in chapter 16, verse 29 — what Jesus is saying to you and me is that we need to ask, in real, genuine, sincere conversation with God.
The Weight of This Promise
If you were to pick this book up cold, without any preconceived notions, but knowing it was true, knowing it was God's Word, knowing it was reliable, knowing these are Jesus' words, and you simply read verse 23 — "If you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it to you" — that should stop you cold. That is a huge statement. That should grasp your attention. And yet, I doubt it does.
This thing called prayer is something that virtually every person I have ever encountered says is an area where they feel vastly inadequate. I was in the office yesterday putting the finishing touches on this message, and I saw a book sitting on my shelf: Charles Spurgeon, *2,200 Quotes from Charles Spurgeon*. Some of you know him and some of you do not, but he is considered by many one of the greatest preachers to ever live. I started working through these quotes, and when I came to the section on prayer, it went on page after page after page. No other topic was given that much attention in the book.
Spurgeon on Prayer
I thought I would read a few of them. They are random thoughts, so they do not connect logically, but here is a hand-selected half dozen or so of things Spurgeon said about prayer.
"If anyone should ask me for the epitome of the Christian religion, I would say that it is in that one word, prayer." "Never account prayer second to preaching. No doubt prayer in the Christian church is as precious as the utterance of the gospel." "The Christian should work as if it all depended upon him and pray as if it all depended upon God."
"Praying is a saving of time. You remember Luther's remark: I have so much to do today that I shall never be able to get through it with less than three hours of prayer." "No man can do me a truer kindness in this world than to pray for me." "It is a good rule never to look into the face of a man in the morning until you have looked into the face of God."
"Only that prayer which comes from our heart can get to God's heart." "I could as soon think of living without eating or living without breathing as living without prayer." "How often I have said, all my strength lies in prayer. I feel that there is something wrong if I go without prayer for even half an hour in a day." "The best style of prayer is that which cannot be called anything but a cry."
"A man scarcely needs to be reminded that he must breathe. It is essential to the very life that he should breathe."
Praying in His Name
It is essential to our spiritual life that we should pray. And after all that, one writer confesses he usually feels more dissatisfied with his prayers than anything else he does. This is an extraordinary power — almost a secret power — that God has given us, secret in the sense that we simply don't use it.
Let me read this to you again, because this is big: "If you ask the Father for anything in my name, He will give it to you." James tells us in his little book, "You have not because you ask not." Here is this open invitation from the Creator of the universe to ask, to pray.
What It Means to Pray in His Name
Now the phrase we see in verses 23, 24, and 26 is to pray in His name. What does that mean? Let me give you three things.
First, it means that we are in Christ. We pray in His name because we are in Him. We've come to that point in time when we're His child — we know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we have a relationship with Him, we believe in Him, we are in Him, trusting in Him. If you just took communion and said, "Indeed, I'm converted," then you are in Christ. To pray in Christ's name means that Jesus is my Lord, my Master, my Messiah, my Savior — the perfect sacrifice, the one who died in my place, who did for me what I couldn't do for myself. So when I pray in His name, I am acknowledging first of all that I am His.
Here is the second thing: I am praying based on His merit, not mine. R.A. Torrey uses this illustration — so it is when we go to the bank of heaven. When I go to God in prayer, I have nothing deposited there. I have absolutely no credit there. And if I go in my own name, I will get absolutely nothing. But Jesus has unlimited credit in heaven and has granted me the privilege of going to the bank with His name on my checks.
So if I were to pray, "I pray this prayer in Tom's name," God would say, why waste your time? Tom has no credit here. Tom hasn't done anything here. Tom is not very impressive. There is no basis upon which God responds to that. But He responds in the name of Jesus. Jesus is the perfect one, the Lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice — God's own Son, who proved Himself obedient in this life, obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. The very one who separated Himself, not from His deity but from His glory, and came to this world. When I pray in His name, I am saying I am praying based on what He has done. I merit nothing. I deserve nothing. He gives me everything. He is Lord. He is Messiah. He is Creator, and I am coming to You, the Holy God — not based on anything I have done or could do, but based on Him.
The third thing it means when I pray in His name is that I am asking consistent with His character. One author writes that to ask in another's name is to act as though you were that person. This means we are to ask for what Jesus would want — what He is after, not our own desires. We are lined up with Him. John tells us in 1 John 5 that we ask according to His will.
Conversational and Honest Prayer
So now when I begin to pray, all of my prayers carry this understanding. I pray in a very informal, conversational way. I've been in situations where men and women pray in a very formal manner, and I am not in any way making fun of that at all — it is simply foreign to how I speak. When I pray to God, I tend to be very conversational, very honest. I don't try to fool Him — that would be a waste of time. I don't try to slide one past Him, because He knows it all. I'm not praying to inform Him, as if He would say, "Oh, wow, thanks, Tom — I missed that one."
Here is the key point: I'm not praying to get God over to where I am. I'm praying to get me over to where He is. So when I pray, I oftentimes don't know what God wants.
When God's Answer Is No
You may come before God sick in a hospital, wanting healing, and He may not have healing for you right now. You may want a particular job desperately — you think you need it, that without it you'll starve — and God is simply saying, "No. I'm not going to give you that job right now. I've got something better for you, something different for you." Or perhaps He simply wants your life to be hard for a while, because that hard time is often when the best things happen.
Doesn't that happen to you? Haven't you wanted something desperately that seemed like exactly the right thing? You pray, "God, sell this house. This house needs to sell." And you come back to the verse — "If you ask anything of Him, He will give it to you" — and you are asking, and that house simply is not selling. What is going on there?
Praying Within God's Will
When I pray, I am always praying with the words "in Your will" attached. Here is what I mean: God, here is what I want. If I could make it happen, here is what I would make happen. But I do not want it to happen if it is not supposed to happen. I do not know if it is supposed to happen — You do. So if You do not want it to happen, do not let it happen, but could You help me understand why? And if You cannot help me understand why, just give me the grace to accept it. It is an honest conversation. There is nothing wrong with that.
Why We Pray
Why pray? I came across a book by R.A. Torrey — T-O-R-R-E-Y — a little book called *How to Pray*. Torrey gives eleven reasons to pray. Think for a second what you would put at number one, and then I will tell you what Torrey has.
His first reason: because there is a devil. Because you have an enemy. Because you have someone who is trying to destroy you. Because our battle ultimately is not against flesh and blood. This is all from Ephesians 6, and Ephesians 6:18 calls us to pray at all times.
You have an enemy — someone who wants to destroy you. If you do not know Christ, he wants to do everything he can to stop you from ever coming into a saving relationship with Christ. And once you are in that relationship, he wants to do anything he can to make that relationship as useless as possible. He will distract you in a variety of ways. That is why something like *The Screwtape Letters* is so revealing — it shows the creative ways that the enemy can come and interrupt the life of a believer.
Torrey also gives this reason: prayer was such an important part of the ministry and life of the Lord Himself. Mark 1:35 says, "In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went to a secluded place to pray there." Luke 6:12 says, "It was at this time that He went off to the mountains to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God." We also pray because that is what Jesus does now — He intercedes for us.
There are all sorts of reasons, eleven of them in Torrey and more elsewhere, but at the most basic level we pray because God has told us to. Prayer changes my heart. It changes my perception of my own needs and desires. So I pray, and pray, and pray, because God has told me to, over and over again. As Jesus says, "You have not because you ask not." Ask. Ask in His name.
The Father Himself Loves You
In verse 27 there are five words that ought to capture your imagination. Here they are: "The Father Himself loves you." Stop there. God loves you. That is an amazing thought.
I want to communicate this, and I am not sure I have the words for it — but there has always been something in me, a blank, when it comes to the idea that God loves me. Maybe it feels like too much. Maybe it is beyond my imagination. Maybe I cannot get my arms around it. Maybe I am simply uncomfortable with the idea. Whatever that reason is, it is wrong.
Here is the truth: God loves you. If you are a follower of His, go ahead and put your own name in there. I feel strange even saying it myself — "God loves Tom." And yet I have come to realize that it is absolutely critical to my life to understand that God loves me with a perfect love.
Desperate for Him
The last Sunday I was here before we were away at Cannon Beach, Oregon, we sang a song with the verse, "I'm desperate for You, I'm lost without You." We sang that same song again while we were up at Cannon Beach. Over the last eighteen to twenty-four months I have come to realize that the whole key to the Christian life — the whole key to growing and understanding — is to be desperate for Him. I am speaking as a believer: I am lost in this world without Him. I desperately need Him. He is the most important thing. More important than anything else I can have is to know God — to have a loving, deep, intimate, personal relationship with Him, to begin to know how He thinks, His desires and passions and priorities for me.
Right before I left, I bought another copy of *Knowing God* by J.I. Packer. I have purchased that book easily a thousand times, because I used to give copies away to anyone who would agree to read it. I went broke doing that, so I stopped. This new copy is hardback — I do not think I have ever had it in hardback before. I had not read it in about five years, having read it nearly every year or every eighteen months before that. I was not two paragraphs into the book before I was reminded what a wonderful book it is. It brings me back again and again to the very basics of a vibrant Christian life: to know God.
Knowing God Intimately
Meditation is the activity of calling to mind and thinking over and dwelling on and applying to oneself the various things that one knows about the works, the ways, the purposes, and the promises of God. It is an activity of holy thought, consciously performed in the presence of God, under the eye of God, by the help of God, as a means of communion with God. Packer is talking about not merely knowing about God, but knowing God in an intimate, personal way.
I can know a great deal about Him and not know Him. I can know a great deal about godliness and not do it. The only way to really know God is to spend time with Him.
Twenty-Nine Years Together
Susan and I have been married 29 years, and I love Susan now more than I did 29 years ago — but I love her very differently. Many of the things that first attracted me to her are no longer even options, no longer even an intrigue. When we got married I would have said I loved her, but in reality I don't think I did. I think I probably didn't love her until three or four years into it.
The love I had then was highly physical, superficial, and circumstantial — it could have easily been taken away. The love I have now is far deeper, far more intimate, and far less physical. What is the difference? Twenty-nine years. Twenty-nine years of talking, spending time together, having kids together, laughing together, growing together, crying together, and facing life's biggest challenges together.
We know what the other is going to say before they say it. I knew a month ago that when I wanted to leave on Sunday night it was going to be a problem. I had been preparing her for it — telling her we ought to go over on Sunday because that would give us a full day on Monday rather than a travel day, like having an extra day. She didn't say anything, which I knew was a no, but I stayed after it. She didn't say no, so I used implied consent, and when people asked when we were leaving I said, "Well, we're leaving Sunday, I guess."
I knew there would come a point — and it was last night — when she would say she didn't want to go Sunday night. And I knew exactly what she would say: that I drive too fast, that I'd be tired, that I hadn't slept Saturday night, that I got up at 4:30 on Sunday, that I work all day Sunday, and that I'm physically and emotionally exhausted with no business driving over there. So I said, "You drive." I had been waiting a month for that moment right there. I knew we were going to get there, and I didn't force it.
The Mind Drifting Toward God
While we're driving over, we will have talked about pretty much everything we want to talk about by the time we reach Maricopa. We have 29 years of talking. Part of what will happen on that drive is my mind will drift, and what I am determined to have it drift toward is God. Because the more it drifts toward Him, the more I converse with Him, the more He speaks to me — and the more that happens, the more I know Him. And the more I know Him, the more I am blown away by His love for me.
The most important thing in my life — and it is a challenge to keep it there — more important than my kids, more important than Susan, more important than you, more important than this church, more important than anything else in this life, is my relationship with God. When it is right, everything else is right. That does not mean everything else has no problems, but I am a far better husband when I am in right relationship with Him. I am a far better father, grandfather, pastor, elder, and friend.
Four Marks of Those Who Know God
Packer gives four evidences of knowing God, drawn largely from the book of Daniel. He writes that there is perhaps no more vivid and sustained presentation of the many-sided reality of God's sovereignty in the whole Bible than in Daniel. As Daniel 4:26 says, "Heaven rules." God is in control. God is sovereign at every point in history. History is His story.
Those who know God have great energy for God. Those who know God have great thoughts about God. Those who know God have great boldness for God — not foolhardiness, but a willingness to risk. They count the cost and take a measured risk for Him.
And those who know God — mark this, star it, circle it, underline it — those who know God have great contentment in God. There is no peace like the peace of those whose minds are possessed with the full awareness that they have known God, and God has known them, and that this relationship guarantees God's favor to them in life, through death, and on forever.
God Loves You — Now Live Like It
God loves you. That is amazing. God loves you — now live like it. He begins to tell them that He has spoken to them in figurative language, but now He is more clear.
Look at verse 32: "Behold, an hour is coming and has already come for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. These things I have spoken to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."
I think "these things" refers to all that He has spoken in chapters 14, 15, and 16. Eugene Peterson's paraphrase, The Message, renders verse 31 this way: "So you believe in me now? The time is coming — indeed, it's already come — when you will be scattered, every one of you going home and leaving me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have told you all this so that you may find peace in me."
Look back at chapter 14, verse 27: "My peace I leave with you, my peace I give you, not as the world gives." Find peace in me, not in the world. In the world you will find turmoil; in Him you will find peace. The paraphrase puts it plainly: "In me you will find peace. You will find trouble in the world, but never lose heart. I have conquered the world."
Scattered, Confused, and Alone
Here is the first idea in verse 32. There is coming a time when you will be scattered — each to your own home. You are going to be confused. This may be you right now. You are going to be confused, scattered, isolated, alone in your own home.
James Boyce has a wonderful insight into this. He said that when we read that phrase the first time, we find ourselves asking, "Scattered to what? To whose home? To what city? To what friends?" Jesus is saying that each will be scattered to his own little world, and there they will be isolated.
Boyce then applies it directly: "Well, what of it? Surely that is not our case, now that we have understood the meaning of the cross and stand on this side of Christ's resurrection. Are we never scattered, never confused, never isolated? Of course we are. We are scattered sometimes by persecution, sometimes by schism within a church, sometimes merely by our suspicion of other Christians. We are confused, for even as believers we do not always have sure answers to give to those who ask for a reason for the hope within us. Circumstances, sickness, and other troubles rattle us. We are isolated, for Christians are often terribly alone. I have had Christians write to me with problems because of having heard me on the Bible Study Hour, and they say, 'I have no one else to turn to, no other person with whom I can share this problem.'"
Does this have application to us today? It certainly does. Jesus is saying that there will be times when you are scattered. You will go to your own home and feel completely isolated. You may sit in a room full of people and feel totally, utterly alone. When that time comes, understand this: in your weakness, you can be strong. He has spoken these things so that in Him you can have peace. You may have failures. You may make mistakes. You may do foolish things — but what He has for you is peace.
The World's Peace versus Christ's Peace
Here is the contrast. What the world offers is tribulation. The word literally means oppressing, pressing together, or pressure. Metaphorically it means oppression or affliction, and it is translated elsewhere in Scripture as anguish, distress, and trouble.
Jesus is saying He understands that everything is not going to be easy, and He is going to give peace — but not the kind of peace the world gives. The world's peace is artificial. It is a knockoff. The world says if you have this, you will have peace or be happy — but you will not. The world says drink this, snort this, shoot this, sleep with this, buy this, acquire this, and you will be happy. That is the world's answer to happiness and peace. You may find a momentary relief from anxiety, but then it returns immediately.
God comes along and says no. Peace is not the absence of turmoil in your life — it is the presence of God. Peace is not smooth circumstances. Peace is having God in the midst of difficult circumstances. Most often, God works in our lives through difficult circumstances and stress.
The Testing of Faith Produces Endurance
That is why James says, "Count it all joy when you encounter various trials, because you know the testing of your faith produces endurance." One paraphrase puts it this way: when trials come, welcome them as friends, not as intruders.
That makes no sense at all — to say, "Thank You, Jesus, for my cancer" — unless I know something. What do I know? I know the testing of my faith produces endurance. I know that if I am going to grow in my faith, there has to be affliction. There has to be difficulty. There has to be loneliness, isolation, and persecution — some of it self-inflicted, but some of it either caused by or simply permitted by God for my own good.
When I understand who God is, and I understand that He is in absolute control, and I understand that He will never test me beyond what I can endure, then even those things I look at and think I could never survive — I can tell you, you could. Why? Because He has overcome the world.
The Sovereignty of God in All of Life
This is the sovereignty of God. At East Valley Bible Church, one of the things we hold onto firmly is the sovereignty of God. We talk about it often in the context of salvation, but it applies to all of life. I do not know how I would function without an understanding of the sovereignty of God.
Living Steady Through the Rhythm of Life
I don't know how I'd get through a day. When we were getting ready to leave to go up to Cannon Beach, Susan said she doesn't like flying. I said, "It's a hassle. Airports are a hassle." She said she just didn't know. I said, "Susan, think with me here. What's the worst thing that could happen to us? This guy miscalculates and slams this thing into Mount Hood. I kind of hope he does — I hope I don't see it coming — but bam, absolutely body present with the Lord."
I was thinking this morning about the guys I've known pretty well who are now dead, and that list is getting bigger. Guys I went to school with, guys that had an impact on my life, guys like Larry, obviously my father, others. I was listening to Larry today, and I thought, oh my gosh, how awful — though I would love to go to lunch with him. But how awful it would be for him to go to lunch with me.
That's what he's saying. He's not saying, "Don't become so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good." What he's saying is: be really heavenly minded so that you can live with life. Because life is going to go like this — up and down, back and forth. If everything's going really well, or everything's going really badly, either way I can say to you: everything's going to change. That's just the nature of life. That's the rhythm of life.
So how do I stay constant in the midst of that? I can't stand being around somebody who is way up and then way down and then way up and then way down. How would you like to be married to somebody like that? But I also understand it. I understand that in some of us there is this struggle, that God has wired some of us in a way where we struggle more. My heart breaks with those friends, because life really does get to them and life is very tough.
But I know the antidote. If all the medical considerations are in line, I know the antidote. It is to understand who He is — not to look for relief from my circumstances, but to understand His presence. To bask in the presence of God. To say, "God, what is it You're doing? What do you want me to do? How do You want me to respond?"
Joy, Anxiety, and the Command to Pray About Everything
Turn with me to the book of Philippians, chapter 4. Paul writes a book that is essentially about joy. R. C. H. Lenski calls it the epistle of joy. The word joy appears thirteen times in this book. Paul tells us that joy is a gift from God, a gift to those of us who believe the gospel. It is produced by the Holy Spirit in our lives, it comes through trials, and our joy is made full as we rejoice in the hope of the coming of Christ.
He says in chapter 4, verse 6: "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God." There is the instruction, and then there is the result: "And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus." Put another way: worry about nothing, pray about everything.
Paul is writing this while imprisoned, and early in chapter 1 he tells them that some good things have come from that imprisonment. The message has spread throughout the Praetorian Guard and perhaps into the political leadership structure. In Philippians chapter 1, verse 14, he says that many of the brethren, "trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment have far more courage to speak the Word of God." The gospel has made progress — and that word *progress*, as it is used there, implies opposition.
He would never have chosen imprisonment, but because of it, the gospel is spreading through the Praetorian Guard and into political leadership he would never have had access to otherwise. Now they are chained to him all day, so there is nothing to talk about but Jesus. And something remarkable has happened in the body as well: because he is not there, the body has grown stronger, because it has had to take care of itself.
So he talks about rejoicing in the Lord, praying about everything, worrying about nothing. Now that is pretty hard for some of us, because some of us just tend to worry about a lot of things. Here is the problem: when I worry, I sin. When I worry, I am saying to God, "I don't trust You, because You said You'd take care of it, but I don't believe that, so I'm going to worry about it and do something about it myself." Be anxious for nothing. Pray about everything.
Everything Means Everything
Everything? I hadn't been a believer very long when I was in a prayer group, and people were praying and praying. One lady next to me prayed for her cat. Her cat was sick, and she prayed her cat would get well. That raises the question: should you pray for a cat? But it begs the greater question: should you even have a cat? That aside, the answer to the first question is yes — and if the answer to the first is yes, the answer to the second is yes.
I thought to myself arrogantly, "What is this lady doing praying about her cat? I couldn't care less about her cat." That, of course, is the whole point. It was very important to her. And then I found myself self-righteously thinking, "Why wouldn't she pray about big things?" And then it was —
Cease From Worry & Pray in Jesus' Name
When my turn came, I realized I really don't have anything that's gigantic to God. I don't have much that's more important than her cat. It used to really bug me when I would hear people pray about "my roof needs to be fixed" and "I need this" and "I need that." But that's my problem, not theirs. All they're doing is doing what God told them to do: pray about everything, bring it to Him. That's the way He wants you to live.
What happens then is that the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, all comprehension, all human thinking, all human insight, all human consideration, all human capacity, is released. You will begin to operate supernaturally, not naturally. So the world is going to say, "I don't get it." Worry about nothing, pray about everything, and the peace of God surpasses all understanding. It will guard your hearts and your minds.
Cast Your Care on Him
This brings right to mind 1 Peter 5:7: "Cast all your anxiety," or all your care, "upon Him." The word *cast* means to throw something on something else or someone else. Throw all of your care on Him. One of the translations uses the word *deposit*, and this is a great word.
I have never been to an ATM — I'm probably one of the few people who never has. If I get a check, I give it to Susan and she deposits it. Some of you have direct deposit, so when there is money owed you, it goes directly into your account without you even handling it. That's the thought I bring to casting all my cares on Him. I just have them directly deposited to Him. I don't even mess around with them.
None of this makes sense if I don't understand the sovereignty of God and who He is. None of these promises make a lick of difference if it isn't Jesus — God come in the flesh — making them. But He says to you and me: you can live this way. You can live a carefree life.
Living Supernaturally in the Middle of Hard Circumstances
That doesn't mean there aren't scary things in your life, and it doesn't mean there won't be moments when you're overcome by circumstances. That happens. Circumstances come. Life just comes on you sometimes, and it's so intense. But when you catch your breath and stop, you go, "God, You promised me. I don't know what the answer is. I wish I knew how You were going to do it. But I know this — I'm wasting brain cells on this and I can't fix it. So here You go, God."
I work as though it depends on me, and I pray as though it depends upon Him. Then this supernatural life begins to kick in. But its core is understanding God and who He is.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for Your Word and the truth. I pray that You would take this Word and put it in our hearts. Help us worry about nothing, pray about everything. We ask this of You in Jesus' name, Amen.