Philippians 4:1-7 - Standing Firm and Experiencing God's Peace
Tom Shrader examines Paul's call to stand firm in the Lord from Philippians 4:1-7, addressing the practical challenge of resolving conflicts between believers while maintaining unity. He emphasizes that standing firm is a military term for holding position under attack, and applies this to church relationships where earthly wisdom creates jealousy and selfish ambition. Shrader teaches that believers must approach conflicts with heavenly wisdom, rejoicing always because the Lord is near and casting all anxieties on Him through prayer.
“Joy is not a feeling, it's a deep down confidence that God's in control of everything.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Philippians
Recorded: December 01, 2016
Duration: 38 min
Themes: peace, unity, conflict, anxiety, prayer, standing firm, relationships, joy, church member, parent, dealing with anxiety, resolving conflict, new believer, struggling with relationships, young adult, facing opposition
Scripture: Philippians 4:1-7, Philippians 1:27, 1 Corinthians 16:13, Galatians 5:1, 1 Thessalonians 3:8, 2 Thessalonians 2:15, James 3:13-17, James 4:1, Philippians 2:3-4, Psalm 34:18, 1 Peter 5:7, Mark 4:19
Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual warfare, church unity, biblical counseling, philippians, pastoral care, resurrection power, heavenly wisdom
Full Transcript
Open your Bibles please to the book of Philippians chapter 4. Verse 1 begins with "Therefore." Paul writes, "Therefore my beloved brethren whom I long to see, my joy and my crown, stand firm in the Lord, my beloved."
As an introduction to this, James Boice writes, "These words are a glorious bridge between the chapter that just ended with all its doctrinal statements and the intensely practical chapter that's coming. They sum up the preceding doctrine in one practical issue: because of what Jesus Christ has done for us, because of His life and death and resurrection and the resulting victory over sin and the devil, we now stand fast in Him."
Because of Christ, because of what He did—if you want to state it negatively—He bore our punishment so that price is paid. I won't be punished for that, and now we have this power, this resurrection power.
A Five-Year-Old's Faith
Haley sent a text yesterday, and she was sharing about Yale, who is five. He's an interesting kid. I enjoy being around him. He has a passion for life, and he's very competitive. I don't know that he has any skill, but it's fun to watch him play. I was standing next to somebody two weeks ago at his game—he's five, and most of the kids are six and seven. I'm standing next to a guy that I don't know, and we're talking. He said, "Look at that kid at second. He's got kind of a cocky swagger." That's Yale, and that is the way Yale plays.
Here's Haley's text yesterday: "Yale just asked me if he was going to hell." Sandy and I are discussing this, and Sandy said, "What did you say?" Here's Haley's answer, and this is a great lesson for you. She said, "The Bible says if we believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead and confess with our mouth Jesus is Lord, we will be saved." Sandy said, "Good," and Yale said, "I believe that."
Here's what she didn't say: she didn't say, "If you're a good boy and don't bother your sister." I think a lot of people would go down that road. They would present a works salvation. I'm beaming with pride for Haley being able to say, "This is the doctrinal truth that I want to present on the level that you can comprehend."
Both of my girls, when they were five, had an experience where they were in their room on their own at night, and they came out and said, "I just asked Jesus to be my Lord." There's something about age five. I hear age five all the time, and maybe it's just because I'm tuned into that. But because that's true—if Yale believes that to the best of his understanding—this is overwhelming. He's as certain of heaven as the saints that are already there. It's an amazing statement.
The Foundation for Standing Firm
What Paul's saying is once that's true in your life, whether you're five, twenty-five, fifty-five, or for some of you one hundred and five, then the rest of my life is understanding Him more. That's what Paul's been talking about: that I might know Him and the power that I have, and it begins to transcend all of the areas of my life.
It doesn't mean the battle's over. We're still in war. We're in war with the world's system around us and the flesh that we're in, and we have an enemy, Satan, who's real and who's out to destroy us.
Paul comes at them—look at this—he uses the word "beloved" twice in verse one. It's a system that Paul uses often where he'll remind them of his love for them just before he's ready to tell them something difficult. I hear people all the time say, "Do you know Bob? I do. I love Bob to death." Well, Bob's about to get thrown under the bus once you hear that: "I love Bob to death, but you know he's always struggled with..."
"Beloved," he said, "I want you to understand this. What I want you to do is to stand firm." As we're going to see with many of the words here today, we're going to get into as far as verse 7, many of the words are these imperative commands.
The Military Command to Stand Firm
This is a military term—soldiers on the front line to hold a position that's under attack. "I want you to stand firm." Go back to chapter 1, verse 27. It's been a constant theme. Chapter 1, verse 27: "Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm." And here was the key—we've gone back to this verse I think every week—"standing firm in one spirit, with one mind."
It's a common theme for Paul in his letters. Let me give you just four examples from four other books: First Corinthians 16:13, "Stand firm in the faith." Galatians 5:1, "Keep standing firm." First Thessalonians 3:8, "Now we really live if you stand firm in the Lord." Second Thessalonians 2:15, "So then, brethren, stand firm."
You have this position. This is who you are. Stand firm in it in the midst of all of this conflict. He said, "I want you to stand firm."
A Practical Application: Two Women in Conflict
Here's a practical application. He said there are two people that we have to deal with in the context of the situation that we have before us. We have two women: Euodia and Syntyche. He said, "I urge them"—and he urges both of them, naming them out individually—"I urge them to live in harmony in the Lord."
"Indeed, true companion"—he doesn't tell us, by the way, who that true companion is. There are all sorts of suspicions. We don't know for sure. Some think it's Barnabas. Some think it's Epaphroditus that we've talked about before. Some think he's writing to one of the two women's husbands. That would not be a pleasant assignment.
Here are these two ladies. Here's what we know or don't know about them: they are prominent women in the church. Remember the first week we went back to the founding of this church. Paul comes to Philippi, and it was a couple of women who were there who were the initial planting arm of this church. It may be these two gals.
Paul says in verse 3, "True companion, I ask you also to help these women who have shared my struggle in the cause of the gospel." So these are gals who've been fully engaged. We don't see their names anywhere else in scripture. We don't know the source of the conflict.
When Conflicts Arise
It's sure it's not doctrinal. It would make sense that if it was a doctrinal issue Paul would have gotten engaged and he wouldn't have said arbitrate this. He would have said here's the truth. He's asking them to live in harmony. He's appealing to their hearts in this. So he's saying for us we need to stand firm when we need to stand firm in the Lord. And now that standing firm allows us to deal with the issues that we see that inevitably come up.
Here's what we know: conflicts exist and they'll continue to exist as long as you have two people. Sandy and I were doing a little assessment while we were gone. We'll be married a year on the 25th of this month. We'll be married a year and our assessment is that we're doing really well. So I thought that could have been the end of the discussion, but it wasn't. She wanted to know why do you think we're doing well? I thought we'd reach the culmination, but we hadn't.
Two Keys to Marital Harmony
I said, well I think there's two reasons from my perspective. Here's the first one. This is a big one. I'm not trying to change you and you're not trying to change me. The phrase "touching up the Mona Lisa" comes to mind. At that point I fell in love with you the way you are. I'm really smart because I almost said even the things I'd want to change, I don't want to change them. Well what's the problem with that statement? Well, what are those things you want to change? I'm way ahead of the game here. I learned that.
But I said Sandy, I fell in love with you the way you are. I didn't take you as a remodel project. It's you, and hopefully the longer we're together the better it gets. So that's the first thing. But the second thing is bigger than that, and that is I assume that anytime there's a conflict it's my sin that's gotten in the way. Now I wouldn't do that naturally. Naturally I'm going to come into every situation and say what about me, what about me, what about me?
But Paul's saying here's where I find this: I'm standing firm in the Lord. I'm bringing my sin to this issue.
A Legacy Question
Interestingly enough, Chuck Swindoll writes this: everything we know about these two women is that they quarreled down through the century. The only answer that could be given to the question "who were these women?" is that they were the women in Philippi who lived in disharmony. And then Swindoll asks this: this prompts me to ask, if your life were to be summed up in a single statement, what would it be?
I was thinking about that. I left early this morning and drove around. I have this maybe, sort of, perhaps move into an urban area. I don't mean ghetto urban. I mean hipster, cool urban. So I was driving down in South Scottsdale looking at some of the apartment buildings. I got off in an old section. It's like an old section and I don't want to buy something, just look to rent.
I'm driving around and I'm thinking, this is where I started. When I first came to Phoenix, I lived at 68th and Osborne. I lived at 68th and Osborne and three or four nights a week, I would go to the Valley Ho, drink till they closed it, and then go home. So when I go to the Valley Ho, which I love the joint, I have great memories there. So now I'm off behind this Savoy and all these little Capri and all these little places and I'm saying, this is really cool.
I'm thinking about my life from when I arrived in '75 to now. I'm thinking about that sentence and I'm saying, how would I summarize or want my life summarized in a statement? And whatever it is, I hope it isn't "he was a guy" and then whatever in there is a negative.
Names in the Book of Life
Paul mentions in verse three a true comrade and he mentions Clement and the rest of the fellow workers whose names are in the book of life. So there's names not in there. So my deal would be, how cool would it be if 2000 years ago, Paul wrote your name in one of his epistles? Well, I guess it depends. If you're one of these ladies or a guy by the name of Demas, it wouldn't be so great. It matters one thing that your name is in one thing: the book of life, that you're a child of the King.
Two Kinds of Wisdom
I want to hang with this idea. Keep your finger right there in the book of Philippians. Turn to the right. We're going to go a little distance here to the book of James. James chapter three, verse 13. In your Bible, when you get to James 13, you should have probably a heading break in there. What does it say is the new heading? Two kinds of wisdom: earthly wisdom, heavenly wisdom. That's the contrast.
We've gone to this section before and I've tried to use it as one of those sections where you can sit down and make observations and do your own Bible study, pretty simple here. Here's what James says: "Who among you is wise in understanding? Let him show it by his behavior, in deeds, in gentleness of wisdom."
Now he's going to contrast these. "If you have jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, don't be arrogant and lie against the truth. This is wisdom. It's not that that comes down from above, but it's earthly, natural, and demonic." So here's earthly, natural, demonic wisdom. And he says, verse 16, "Where there's jealousy and selfish ambition exists, there's disorder in every evil thing."
You get to verse 17, but here's the contrast: "The wisdom from above is first, pure, peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy, good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy."
The Source of Quarrels
Chapter four, verse one: "What's the source of the quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source of your pleasure that wages war in your members?" If you go back to the book of Philippians, this battle that these gals are having, this conflict that these ladies are having is in all likelihood driven by one or both of their jealousy and selfish ambition. Something that's "what about me?" It's every human relationship.
We started, what has it been, a year and a half ago now, maybe two years, this merger of East Valley Bible Church and Praxis Church. And then subsequent to that, a Gateway campus came on board.
And the Tempe campus is there now, and the Arcadia campus, and West Mesa campus, and a Flagstaff campus. Here's the challenge: we've decided to do this in the least efficient, most expensive way. We did that consciously at the beginning.
We are not a multi-campus church. That's essentially what you see everywhere, where you have a guy who teaches, video him to other campuses, and that's called multi-campus. We would say we're multi-congregational. There is a guy, a human, a live guy—we found live guys to be better teachers than dead guys—teaching on every campus. Each of these are congregations brought together under the redemption umbrella.
The challenge from the beginning has been almost like the old Century 21 line: independently owned and operated. I've watched this play itself out. We don't have to say, if you're at the Tempe campus, you think about Tempe. They intuitively think about Tempe. Our challenge is to think about the big redemption, to get out of yourself.
The Challenge of Selfishness in Every Relationship
That's every relationship. I'm intuitively going to say, "What about me?" And I bring that to the relationship—management, labor, whatever it might be. All of a sudden, I have this struggle that takes place.
Somebody was asking me the other day, "Do you ever get frustrated teaching?" I said there are two times that I get frustrated. Number one, when I feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over again, which is every week. The other is when I see something that's revolutionary to me, and I teach it, and everybody looks just like you look right now.
I add to that: here's what I've learned. Somebody who's checking out and somebody who's in heavy contemplation about what you're saying look the same. So I choose to believe that you're in the midst of heavy contemplation, and there'll be no empirical data to support that.
I'm convinced that at redemption, in marriage, at the office, in anything that holds us together relationally, the thing that makes it work is when I think not earthly, natural, and demonic, but I think with heavenly wisdom.
Standing Firm Together: Lessons from Philippians
So let me tie this together. Flip back to the book of Philippians. Let me take you through two things that we saw.
When we talked in chapter one, verse 27, I said this is the thing that's going to set up so much of our discussion. He said, "I want to hear that you're standing firm, one spirit, one mind, striving together."
Chapter two, verse three: "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, let you regard one another as more important than yourself." Verse four: "Do not merely look out for your own personal interests."
Let's stop for a second. What He's saying is, I don't need to tell you to do that. There's an assumption you're going to do that.
The Reality of Self-Interest
I've heard Dr. Asmus talk about capitalism forever. I mean, that's what he talks about: free market, free market, free market. I have an old line—I don't know if this is the place to use it, but we'll give it a whirl—where if Dr. Asmus ever had a hard time performing functions in the bedroom, all Mandy would have to do is whisper "free market" in his ear and everything would work itself out. That's my assessment. I don't know that that's an appropriate way to play it, but I mean, it's free market, free market, free market, free market, free market.
I've heard him say it so often that I can kind of complete the sentences. One of the things that Barry says that I had to really think about, but I think it's true, is that capitalism is the only economic system in the world that's based on the fact that you will do what's best for you. You're going to do what's best for you.
Now, you may give me something or sell me something at a loss even, but you're doing that because you either want to unload the product or you want me to engage in further business or it's a loss later. When He says, "Don't merely look out for your own interest," He's going, "I know you're—I don't need to tell you to do that." But He said, "Here's the contrast: You need to look out for the interests of others." And the key to that is to have the attitude in you that's also in Christ Jesus, who humbles Himself in the midst of all of this.
He said, "I want you to do something that's supernatural." It's to think about yourself—I got it. These conflicts are going to happen, but in the midst of them, as far as you can, I want you to work toward restoration, peppered with grace.
A Personal Journey with Scripture
God saved me in 1980. It was a radical conversion. I had this sense that here are these things I'd never seen before. I'd never seen this Bible like this before.
It was something that we had. We had one big white one. You all have it. It's about a foot and a half thick. It sat on a coffee table or it came out whenever the priest was coming over. We never opened it. We tried to record deaths in the front of it. That's what I remember.
Well, all of a sudden I opened it and I realized this was all the answers to everything I've been looking for. And so this Bible is becoming very, very important to me.
Conflict in Church Settings
As it's becoming important to me within the church structure—if you can put on rewind to the early 80s—the church is moving away from the Bible into a seeker-sensitive mentality. So in the extreme cases, you would see churches that wouldn't even use the word sin. Consequently, you take a guy like me who's wound up and you drop me in this setting—this is explosive.
So I'm in a church that is—the pew Bible is the Living Bible. And the Living Bible, if you get to Ephesians 2:8-9, doesn't even mention the word grace. So I'm asking questions like a new guy, probably not asking them in the best way. It didn't take them long before they said, "It would be best if you move down the road. You're Dennis Rodman. You're a destructive achiever. We don't need you."
So I moved down the road and began to teach there at another church and ran into the same conflict. So at some point, I have to take
My own advice and know that I have to be part of this problem. I don't think I'm the majority part of the problem. Subsequently, after that church also asked me to move down the road, they invited me back in, apologized to me, gave me the pulpit and asked me to teach. So that kind of affirmed that though I contributed to it, maybe there was something there.
I'm at a funeral about three or four years ago at this second church. I'm looking at all these people and I'm thinking, there's Bob. Now I know I don't like him, but I don't remember why. I know we're not talking, we're warring, but I don't remember what it was. And I know he's looking at me thinking, I know I don't like him and I remember why, probably. But at the end of that, I'm thinking, this is sad. Here's all these people in this room. We all love Jesus. We're going to spend an eternity together in heaven. And there's this conflict here.
What Paul's saying is, I get it. Those conflicts are going to continue, but you need to find where you can in this common ground. It matters that there are these petty conflicts and they undermine the message we have. That's why Jesus said, they'll know you're my disciples if you love one another.
The Christmas Tree Dispute
There was an incident, I remember Larry talking about it 25-30 years ago now in downtown Phoenix. There was a church, it was Christmas time, and somebody put up a Christmas tree. There were all these people in the church who said that's a pagan thing. So they dragged it out. The next hour, the people who wanted the Christmas tree dragged it in. And this spilled over into having to call the police to resolve the Christmas tree dispute in the church.
Now here's my deal, because we had a version of it at church one year. The kids came in to sing. You got to understand, I wouldn't necessarily put them in there, the kids singing, but everybody loves it and they think it's cute and they're taking pictures. A couple of the kids had on red hats. That service is over and they're lined up to tell me that Santa Claus—it's a red hat. This kid's not trying to make some doctrinal statement.
But that Christmas tree spilled out, the police came. I remember then hearing about it and all of the accusations: Is that how Christians act? That's why this stuff is important. Paul says, I want you to live in harmony.
Rejoicing in the Lord
In fact, verse four: rejoice in the Lord always. And then He emphasized it. He said, again, I say rejoice. This too is an imperative. We've made the distinction pretty clear in here between happiness and joy. Happiness is related to what? Circumstances.
Though I have on my phone for a variety of reasons, I have under stocks, Wells Fargo stock. Wells Fargo stock right now is at 37 and change. I find it very easy to be happy when it's at 37. I didn't have that same fluttering in my heart when it was at 31. That's happiness. So happiness by definition is going to go like this because circumstances are going to go like this. Joy transcends it.
Let me read you a non-dictionary definition of joy and see if this doesn't help. Joy is not a feeling. It's a deep down confidence that God's in control of everything.
God's Sovereignty in Difficult Times
I'm in a group not too long ago, and we're talking about bad things happening. So 9-11s, corporate 9-11s, individual 9-11s, babies that get sick. I'm making a statement that we need to approach these before we start to pull these apart. We need to approach these this way: that God either caused it or allowed it. Because if God didn't cause it or allow it, He's not God.
There was a guy in there, I don't think he's a believer, but he was saying, I just have a really hard time with that. To which I'm sympathetic and said, I understand you'd have a really hard time with that because you want to create a God in your own image. But here you go. If God didn't cause it or allow it, now we have to mess around with the personality and the characteristics of God. Then you have to say, well, He didn't know it or He knew it, but He didn't care. Or He knew it, but He's impotent to do anything about it.
Our Theology Must Be High and Low Enough
So here you go. This may be the biggest takeaway of the day. It's an old A.W. Tozer quote: that our theology does not ascend high enough or descend low enough. So it doesn't descend low enough. I'm teaching one day and there's a lady there that for the first time, haven't seen her, and I'm identifying myself as pond scum. She came up afterwards and felt compelled to say, I think you have low self-esteem. And I said, well, it's interesting because all my friends think I have too high self-esteem. She said, you referred to yourself as pond scum. And I said, that's because I'm not a biology person. I don't know what's lower than that.
But she couldn't deal with the fact that we're sinful people. That's a problem. So we see man constantly as a victim, never the villain. I'm always a victim. It's my mom. It's my dad. It's the culture. It's a father issue. It's an opportunity. It's a coach. It's a business. It's a boss. So my theology does not descend low enough to get us to the sinners we are or ascend high enough to let God be God. To understand He created this amazing universe. He holds it together and He's intimately involved.
The Lord Is Near
In fact, here's the deal. Circled in my Bible, big thought for the day, last part of verse five: Let your forbearing spirit—I think some translations might say gentle spirit. There's not a word for word translation in the English. It's the idea of reasonable, generous, goodwill, magnanimous, friendly, charity, charity toward the faults of others, mercy toward failures in others, indulgence of failures, leniency. Let your forbearing spirit, your gentle spirit, be made known to all men. Here you go. Circle it, underline it, yellow it: The Lord is near. It doesn't just mean the Lord is near and is coming.
or you're about to meet Him. The idea is the Lord and a sense of His presence. Psalm 34 verse 18 says, "The nearness of God is my good." In the midst of life, I know that He's here.
So when things are really difficult, we don't need to tell you this, you do it intuitively. Sandy and I were watching last night "Witness for the Prosecution," 1957 with Charles Lawton—great movie. There's a scene where Charles Lawton is coming back. He's a barrister, and his assistant says to him, "I'm not a religious man, but I found myself praying during your time"—which is always an interesting phrase. Larry King, who's an agnostic (which means he doesn't have the courage to be an atheist), wrote a book on prayer. "Well, who am I praying to? What am I praying?"
I remember Jane Fonda one time saying, "I feel this compulsion to pray, but I don't know who I'd pray to." Well, the Lord is near and He cares. He says, "The nearness of God is my good. My heart is steadfast, oh God. My heart is steadfast. I sing your praise." I know that you're near.
A Testimony from Hospice
I had a great moment about a month and a half ago where somebody was talking to me about a friend of theirs that works in hospice. My friend was saying they got talking about church. He said, "I go to Redemption Church. I'm at the Gilbert congregation." This guy said, "When we get people in hospice from Redemption, it's always interesting. They're like the best people for us to deal with."
Obviously, I'm full of pride at this moment, I think in the right sense of the word. But I can tell you why it is—it's a doctrinal issue. When you're at hospice, that's generally the end or very close to it. If there's a crack in your armor, it's going to show then.
I remember when we put Susan in hospice. We had a great room way back in the corner, but down the hall was an East Coast Italian family. There were like 40 of them in there, and they got pizza, and it's like this thing going on. One was wailing, "Dad's gonna die," and another was wailing, "Mary's not gonna get here." I remember driving home that day and thinking, "Okay God, do one of two things tonight. Either get this guy healthy and get him out, or let's expedite this and take him home. Because it looks like I'm gonna be here a while, and I just don't have this." I got there the next day, and I felt a pang, but his room was empty. God's good.
In the midst of this, the thing that sustains you is not self-determination, but it's doctrine. I know God is near.
Don't Be Anxious About Anything
I know God is near, so verse six says I don't have to be anxious about anything. It's real simple. You know it, you've heard it: "Be anxious for nothing, but pray for everything."
If there's a universal addiction—if you'll allow the word addiction—the universal addiction that we see, to me, it's worry. Everybody seems to worry. You cannot, unless you've just checked your brains, you can't watch the news and not feel some level of concern. Yet He says, "Don't worry about anything." Worry for nothing, be anxious for nothing.
I want to drill deep a little bit here. Let's acknowledge that worry is a sin. There are certain sins that we have that we institutionalize and say are okay, and worry is one of them. So somebody comes to me and says, "I'm really worried about it." "Well, don't worry about it." "Well, I'm just a natural-born worrier." "Yeah, I guess we're all that way."
Can you imagine somebody saying, "You know, this gal in the office, and I really can't resist it," and you responding, "Yeah, I understand. I'm just a natural-born adulterer. Yeah, I understand." You're not going to do that. You're not going to do it with any of those things. But when it comes to worry, that's a deep spiritual problem. In essence, what I'm saying is, "God, all these promises and all these things You tell me—though I think they're true—I'm acting like they aren't."
I'm not naive here. I've been through a lot in my life, and I understand that life is difficult. But this worry—Jesus tells us a parable, the parable of the seed and the sower. At the end, He's describing the different seeds and what happens to them. It's Mark 4:19-ish. He said, "The other ones are the ones on whom the seed is sown among the thorns, and these are the ones who heard the word, but the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word."
The Deceitfulness of Riches
"The worries of the world" and "the deceitfulness of riches"—there are endless possibilities in this. We're driving through St. Louis around Wash U, which is an incredible area. Here are all these homes—I don't mean big homes, I mean these are like old money homes from 100 years ago.
There's something about it that made me think immediately of a house in South Tempe. I remember the first time I drove by it, thinking, "That's an amazing house." And I don't do that—I mean, I'm not that into that stuff. Then out in front was the wife that goes with the house, this cute little thing. I'm thinking, "You gotta be pretty happy living there." Out in front was this cute little wife, and then the little towhead kids coming out. It's like an ad for this perfect world.
One day, about a week or two after that, I turned on the morning news. There's a picture of the house, and I'm thinking, "I wonder what happened." The guy—the master of the house with the cute little wife and this incredible house and these little kids—went down in the basement and put a bullet in his head that night. Now, isn't that interesting?
Because humanly you're going, he's got everything. It's that deceitfulness of riches. I've got everything and yet I don't have anything. I've got everything and I'm not happy.
What Paul is saying here is, don't be anxious about anything, but pray. This is not a theology of prayer. It's the priority of prayer. It's to be direct and specific in these prayers. God, here's what's going on. I don't think it's at all unfair to say, and here's what I'd love you to do. But bigger than that, if that isn't gonna happen, help me see this as you see it. And God, give me this sense that you're in the midst of it.
God Cares for You
Peter tells us in 1 Peter 5, verse 7, to cast all our anxiety on Him. What's the rest of that verse? Cast all of your cares on Him. Why? Because He cares. That's so cool. He cares. He really does care.
It doesn't mean that He's necessarily going to take away the circumstance or the problem, but He cares enough to climb in there with you and give you the strength in the midst of this.
Three Commands: Rejoice, Relax, Rest
So I'm going to leave you with this. Verse 4, he says, rejoice. Verse 5, in essence, he says, relax. Verse 7, he says, rest. How? Take away chapter 4, verse 5, the Lord is near. Never leave me, never forsake me. He cares.
Whatever you're going through, and I guarantee you, I know you're going through a ton of stuff. It may be in your life, your family life, your friend's life, business life, relational life, physical. It can be overwhelming until I get the perspective.
And the perspective is, I don't have to worry because God cares. I pray with thanksgiving. Verse 7, and the peace of God that's incomprehensible will come into my life. That's right where we pick up next week.
Closing Prayer
Father, we pray to you this morning as the creator God of the universe, how amazing it is to know that you're near and you care, that you love us even more than we love ourselves. You love us in a perfect way. And our love for you is based on your love for us.
God, help us rejoice in you, relax in you, rest in you. You command us to rejoice. You command us to be joyful. God, help us get that deep conviction and understanding of who you are and that you're in control.
To those that are here this morning and struggling, let them feel and experience a peace that passes all understanding, not in necessarily the removal of the circumstance, but your presence in the midst of it. Father, thank you for that. We praise you and worship you. We do that in Christ's name, amen.