12-15-13 Let Your Requests Be Made Known

Phil. 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Phil. 4:7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

These two verses in the 4^th chapter

of Paul’s letter to the Philippians

appear in the middle of the most concentrated section of this short letter.

If you have been a part of our study in this book

you know why Paul wrote

and what He was seeking to accomplish through his words.

This remarkable New Testament jewel

provides us with the weapons we need

for survival in the hard times of our lives.

It is a book written for the times

when our spirit feels imprisoned,

for the times

when it seems as though

the winter will have no end.

It is a book written for the times when we hurt,

the times when the future appears to be our enemy,

the times when we cannot even think about tomorrow

because it takes all of our faith

and our energy

and our courage to face today.

It is not a theoretical book,

not a theological treatise on the problem of pain,

not reflective, meditative writings

by Saint Paul examining some of the sticky questions

surrounding the problem of evil in the world.

It was not written by Paul

from his paneled and carpeted office,

with soft music playing in the background.

It was written by Paul in prison,

hampered in his writing

by the Roman guard chained to his side,

wondering if this was the day

when he might be called before Caesar

for the trial that could end with his execution.

This is Paul sharing with us

how the reality of God

and the presence of Jesus Christ in his life plays out in the face of real evil.

As we’ve studied our way through this letter in the past months

it’s been fascinating to see

both what Paul talks about

and what he does not.

He has said almost nothing

about the sources of evil in our lives.

He makes no attempt to explain

why he hurts.

He does, however, say a great deal

about how God has used his pain

for good in his life

and in the lives of others.

And he has also talked a great deal

about both the attitudes

and the actions that have formed

the sure and certain foundation for himself

as he has faced each new day.

The passage we have been in most recently

is a passage in which Paul

has taken the heart of what he wants to share with us

and concentrated it down

into a series of short,

powerful statements.

This is Paul’s survival kit for hard times -

his weapons,

his tools.

The section began two verses earlier in Philippians 4:4,

and we have seen three weapons so far

in verses 4 and 5.

The first came in his restatement

of the major theme of the letter:

Phil. 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!

And we spent several weeks

talking about what that meant.

Then we moved on to the second and third statements:

Let your gentle spirit be known to all men.

And then,

The Lord is near.

And now this morning we will look at

the 4^th of the five weapons

provided for our warfare against evil

and the pain it brings.

And even before we look at what Paul says,

there are some obviously unique aspects

of this 4^th weapon.

First of all, it is longer than any of the others.

The first three Paul presented

in just a few words.

This one takes up two verses

with a total of 40 words

in the New American Standard Translation we’re using for our study.

And there is something else I find fascinating here as well.

In all 4 of the other principles

the crucial truth is simply stated...

• Rejoice in the Lord always...

• Let your gentle spirit be known to all men.

• The Lord is near.

And we’ll see the same pattern

with the final truth

we’ll look at in two weeks.

(We’ll do some Christmas things next week.)

But with this 4^th truth

Paul leads us through a 3 part learning process.

He begins the process with a hook.

He says, “Be anxious for nothing...”

Now why does he do that?

Because he knows what’s going on inside us

at those times when we hurt.

Do you know what this is?

This is the dentist

taking that little wire probe of his

and jabbing it into that tooth that’s bothering us,

bringing that electrifying jolt of pain,

where our entire body goes rigid,

and then he says, “Does that hurt?”

This is the hook that draws us in,

this is the point at which Paul gets our total attention,

because this is where we live

during the hard times of our lives.

Anxiety isn’t just an occasional irritation.

Anxiety is the air we breath,

it is the backdrop to every event,

every scene,

every other activity in our lives.

When Paul says, “Be anxious for nothing”

he knows our honest response will be,

“Yea! Right, Paul.

Anxiety is where I live.

It’s all I know.

It’s what I do best.

If you’ve got an answer for me,

you have my full and undivided attention.”

Then Paul moves on

to the second step

in his three part learning program.

He shares the principle,

the concept,

the weapon he knows we need.

He says,

in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

And Paul is using a contrast

within these first two phrases,

a contrast that is essential

to the heart of the message

he wants us to hear.

The contrast is between the words

“Nothing” and “Everything”.

Be anxious for NOTHING, but in EVERYTHING by prayer...

For those of you

who have not yet had your spirit

imprisoned in pain

what I’m about to say

will make no sense to you.

It will sound like religious platitudes,

like god-words,

church-words,

nice things every good Christian should remember.

But for those of you

who have lived in anxiety

I believe this contrast

will have the clear, powerful ring of reality.

You see, when our spirits are imprisoned in pain

ANXIETY is the air we breath.

And through this contrast

I see Paul saying,

“I want you to exchange your anxiety

for communication with your Lord.”

Where you have been breathing anxiety

I now want you to begin breathing prayer.

And this is why we spent two weeks

talking about the true nature of prayer

before we moved into these verses.

Because, you see, when we hurt

only living reality can bring us through that hurt.

If our world is going smoothly,

and we can live with the illusion

that we can hold our little kingdom together the way we want,

then any old religious system will do.

We can recite our little memorized prayers,

or carry on our comfortable little religious routine,

and even believe our doing so

is the reason why our life is going well.

But when pain intrudes into our lives

religion and ritual will not meet the need.

When we hurt

we need a real God,

a God who understands our pain,

a God who shares that pain with us.

We need a God who loves us,

a God who is right there with us in the pain,

a God who hasn’t set up

some intricate series of special little prayer-hoops we must jump through

in just the proper order

before He’ll hear us.

We need the real thing.

We need to know we can literally

breath back to God

everything that’s going on inside us.

And when Paul sets up this

nothing-everything contrast

between anxiety and prayer,

mentally I picture

these two huge tanks

connected by pipe

with a valve in the middle.

The first tank is my anxiety level.

And I start out with that tank

filled to the brim

until my whole life is anxiety.

And then Paul tells me

there is another tank over here,

a tank called “Prayer”.

And as I begin to let my spirit

breath back to God

all those things that have filled me

with so much anxiety

it’s like opening that valve

and allowing my anxiety

to flow into my communication with God.

And the goal is to allow the anxiety tank to contain nothing

and the prayer tank to contain it all.

Now don’t turn hyper-spiritual on me here

or the power of Paul’s words will be lost.

Remember how we defined prayer?

Prayer is simply

a child of God sharing himself or herself honestly

with their Heavenly Father.

Paul is not talking here

about establishing

or lengthening your “PRAYER TIME”.

He is talking about learning to live

in the reality of the constant presence of God.

OK, this may help -

Paul is setting up this contrast

between anxiety and prayer, right?

So, what he’s saying is that

whenever we feel anxious

we are to breath that anxiety back to our Lord in prayer.

“But I feel anxious all day long!”

And that, of course, is the point -

that is what Paul is offering us.

He wants us to learn to live

in the constant presence of our God,

sharing with Him

each new pang of anxiety

as it appears.

“But I don’t know that many prayers!”

Good!

Because God doesn’t want “YOUR PRAYERS”,

He wants you, sharing yourself,

your fears,

your anxieties,

your pain with Him.

And that is why Paul says what he says:

in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let YOUR requests be made known to God.

And there will be some times,

times when it matters the most,

times when you’ve tried so hard

to phrase it just right,

and you just don’t know

how to do that any longer,

times when you do not know how to pray the right way,

and all you can say is, “Oh God...Oh God...Oh God...all I know is that I need You,

and if You are not there,

then I have no hope.”

And at those times

that’s all you need to say.

Now there is a third part to Paul’s teaching pattern in these verses as well.

1. He begins with the hook, “Be anxious for nothing...”

2. Then he gives us the principle, “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

3. But he doesn’t stop there.

He goes on to offer us

a specific, powerful promise.

He says,

And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

The emotional power of that phrasing

is remarkable.

Paul creates the mental image

of the peace of God

forming itself into

a highly trained band of special military forces,

forces that then take up their position

as the protective guard around

our hearts and our minds -

both our feeling and our reasoning processes,

protecting them from the anxiety attacks

that have been devastating our lives.

But I need to clarify something here

if Paul’s promise is going to make any sense to us.

I’ll give it to you in a statement,

and then I’ll take a few more minutes

to try to explain it.

The statement is this: the peace Paul is talking about in this verse

comes not from the things God does in response to our prayers,

or even from the hope of the things

God will do,

the peace comes as a result

of our seeing the world as it really is.

And now let me try to explain.

If you were here two weeks ago

you may remember a statement I made

concerning why I believe

God wants us to pray.

I said that prior to our submission to Christ

the central foundation of our lives

was the belief that we could live our lives just fine without God.

And now, as Christians, the greatest single tool we will ever have

for affirming our submission to

and our dependance upon God

is prayer.

The central message in every honest prayer we pray is always the same:

“You are God,

and I need You desperately.”

Prayer,

unlike anything else in our Christian lives

forces us to acknowledge that central truth again and again and again.

Now whenever we hurt,

or whenever we find our lives

filled with anxiety,

that happens because something has crowded into our lives

over which we have no control.

Obviously, if we could control it

then we would change it

so that we wouldn’t hurt any longer.

Now, our natural tendency

is to look for some way

to regain control so that we can make the pain stop.

Our society as a whole offers all sorts of answers -

we find a good lawyer,

or we go to the doctor,

or we find a professional resource,

or a support group

or a government agency.

And the Christian community

has its own subtle way

of regaining control as well.

And I have to be very careful

with what I say here

so that I’m not misunderstood.

Do you know what the Christian prescription is for regaining control?

Make right choices.

If I make the right choices

then my life will turn out right.

We want to believe

that there is an absolute cause-and-effect relationship

between making right choices

and reaping right results.

Trouble with the kids?

Well, correct your parenting techniques

and the problems will go away.

Trouble with your mate?

Or with your boss?

Or with your neighbor?

Well, follow the Biblical principles involved

and the situation will turn out fine.

And you can see how easy

I could get myself in trouble here.

I’ve invested a good portion of my life

into attempting to understand

and explain to people

what a lot of those right choices are.

I am a strong believer in them

and in their tremendous value.

But there is a danger that comes with making right choices,

the danger that we might end up believing

I can control my life

and my future

through the choices I make.

Or even worse,

believing that, because I have made right choices

God now owes me the kind of life I want.

Paul, of course, knew different.

He’d lived a life

filled with right choices,

and yet now he sat in prison

facing an uncertain future.

And yet his spirit was at peace

because of this process

of breathing his life back to God

through prayer.

Because, you see,

through prayer we once again discover

and reaffirm the truth

about the way life really is

for the child of God,

a truth we forget very quickly.

And this is the truth:

that our God is really there,

that He loves us more deeply than we could ever imagine,

that even though we are not in control, HE IS,

and that He can and He will work all things together for true good in our lives.

In that knowledge we find true peace.

Phil. 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Phil. 4:7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.