Pray Your Way into Thanksgiving
00:00:00.000 | Welcome back to the podcast on this holiday week.
00:00:07.640 | Tomorrow's Thanksgiving for us here in the States and in Canada, and we'd like to take
00:00:11.480 | these moments to take up the theme of Thanksgiving in the Apostle Paul's letters, which is a
00:00:17.040 | major theme for him.
00:00:19.520 | Last Thanksgiving, a year ago, I mentioned that the Apostle Paul mentions thanks about
00:00:24.920 | 50 times in his epistles, leading to one of my favorite quotes, a claim by New Testament
00:00:30.680 | scholar David Powell, who once wrote, and he's quoting Paul Schubert here, "The Apostle
00:00:36.560 | Paul mentions the subject of Thanksgiving more frequently per page than any other Hellenistic
00:00:45.480 | author, pagan, or Christian."
00:00:51.960 | Thanksgiving was always on Paul's lips, and it was on his lips when he was talking about
00:00:57.000 | prayer and anxiety, too.
00:00:59.360 | In Philippians 4, verse 6, Paul writes this, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in
00:01:06.360 | everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known
00:01:14.080 | to God."
00:01:16.240 | In other words, pray your way past anxiety and pray your way into Thanksgiving.
00:01:24.680 | Here's Pastor John to explain.
00:01:27.960 | Let's go to chapter 4, verses 6 and 7.
00:01:31.780 | Very famous, very precious, and more embedded in the big picture of this letter than you
00:01:42.080 | may have thought.
00:01:44.920 | I want to draw out from verses 6 and 7 of chapter 4 how it relates to the big things
00:01:54.840 | Paul is trying to do in this letter.
00:01:56.800 | So now, finally, for the first time, he exhorts them to pray.
00:02:02.520 | I think that's been implicit so far, but now it's explicit.
00:02:07.660 | Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, that's a big word.
00:02:15.620 | Do you pray about everything?
00:02:18.220 | Everything?
00:02:19.620 | I mean, when Paul says, "Pray without ceasing," that probably is connected to praying everything.
00:02:29.700 | Do you walk in a spirit of communion with God that sometimes consciously, sometimes
00:02:38.220 | less so, is constantly offering up thanks, but especially sending up need?
00:02:50.300 | I need help in this conversation.
00:02:52.220 | I can barely understand that person's accent, and my hearing is bad.
00:02:57.140 | I need help right now at the dining room table.
00:03:01.260 | You live like that?
00:03:03.580 | Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving,
00:03:15.340 | let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
00:03:26.620 | will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
00:03:33.580 | In one sense, this command to pray is all-encompassing because of the words, "In everything."
00:03:43.140 | Do not be anxious about anything, anything, but in everything, pray.
00:03:49.100 | See the connection there?
00:03:50.660 | Don't be anxious in anything because in everything, you're praying for what you need in the anxious
00:03:56.180 | moment, and you're trusting God because of his promise to be there and help, and so anxiety
00:04:03.580 | lifts.
00:04:04.580 | That's the way prayer is supposed to work, take away anxiety.
00:04:10.300 | In another sense, it's not broad and all-encompassing.
00:04:15.540 | It's very narrow and very focused because instead of saying the hundred things that
00:04:21.660 | God does in answer to prayer, he simply focuses on two things, which are really two sides
00:04:28.180 | of the same coin.
00:04:31.460 | Do not be anxious is one result of prayer.
00:04:36.460 | Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, let your requests
00:04:42.180 | be made known to God.
00:04:43.180 | So the first thing that happens when you pray about everything is anxiety is lifted.
00:04:49.540 | Cast all your anxieties on me because I care for you.
00:04:53.060 | That's Peter's way of saying it in 1 Peter 5.
00:04:56.980 | And the second thing is the peace of God, which is the opposite of anxiety, right?
00:05:05.500 | The peace of God that passes all understanding comes in and takes over and protects, guards
00:05:14.740 | your hearts and minds.
00:05:18.120 | So negatively, aim by prayer to be done with anxiety and positively, aim by prayer in everything
00:05:27.620 | to enjoy constant peace.
00:05:33.140 | Walk through the world of trouble, ministry troubles, family troubles, European troubles,
00:05:43.740 | refugee troubles, political troubles, financial troubles.
00:05:49.280 | Walk in the protection of the peace of God that cannot be accounted for by human reason.
00:05:58.580 | Cannot.
00:06:00.420 | It goes beyond.
00:06:01.780 | It surpasses what human reasoning can do.
00:06:06.900 | When Paul is saying, "Enjoy peace through prayer," if somebody says, "Yeah, but how
00:06:12.020 | can you have peace when that's happening?"
00:06:14.900 | Well, that word "how" has no answer humanly.
00:06:21.900 | That's why it says, "Beyond human understanding."
00:06:27.340 | Human understanding will not be able to come up with an answer to how you enjoy peace in
00:06:31.700 | this circumstance.
00:06:33.860 | It is supra-rational.
00:06:38.780 | Reasoning doesn't make the peace happen.
00:06:41.720 | God makes the peace happen.
00:06:44.060 | And he does it in answer to prayer.
00:06:47.060 | It's a wonderful experience.
00:06:50.220 | Now let's ask this.
00:06:52.300 | How do those two halves of verse 6 and 7, "Get rid of anxiety by prayer, enjoy peace
00:07:01.020 | with God by prayer," how do those two results of praying in everything relate to the big
00:07:08.340 | picture of Philippians, which we've been seeing?
00:07:13.020 | So the first day I argued from chapter 1, verse 20, "My eager expectation and hope is
00:07:23.940 | that I might not at all be ashamed, but that Christ might be magnified in my body, whether
00:07:30.940 | I live or whether I die, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain."
00:07:37.820 | That's the big goal of this letter.
00:07:41.620 | Christ magnified in your bodily existence, living or dying.
00:07:50.740 | Make him look great.
00:07:53.500 | That's the reason you're on the planet.
00:07:55.840 | That's the reason your family exists, your ministry exists.
00:07:59.300 | Make Christ look magnificent because that's what he is.
00:08:05.460 | That's what this big picture is in Philippians.
00:08:12.060 | And we saw that Paul gets very specific.
00:08:17.020 | Another way of describing "make Christ look great" is "lead lives worthy of the gospel."
00:08:23.580 | Chapter 1, verse 27.
00:08:26.340 | That is, "A life that is fearless before the adversary and united arm in arm in love with
00:08:36.500 | other believers."
00:08:38.660 | Unity in love and fearlessness, he says, "become a sign," verse 28, "a sign to the world of
00:08:49.100 | their destruction and of your salvation."
00:08:51.740 | In other words, when you are fearless before your adversary and you are full of love, driven
00:09:00.160 | by humility, counting others more significant than yourself, putting others' interests
00:09:06.220 | before your own, when that's the source of the loving unity and the fearlessness, it's
00:09:13.100 | a sign.
00:09:15.100 | It's a sign to the world that Christ is all satisfying to these people.
00:09:22.120 | Christ will meet every need that they have.
00:09:24.760 | Christ is all they need.
00:09:27.280 | I want to know about this because I don't get it.
00:09:32.200 | That's the big picture.
00:09:33.200 | How does that relate to the praying of chapter 4, verse 6?
00:09:39.760 | Can you put it together?
00:09:41.840 | Pretty obvious now, I think.
00:09:44.840 | If I were teaching you a class, I would make you write the answer.
00:09:49.240 | The answer is, "Do not be anxious about anything," is the fearlessness of 127 and 28.
00:10:01.480 | The fearlessness of chapter 1, verse 28, before the adversary is another word for "toad be
00:10:09.600 | anxious."
00:10:10.760 | When you stand before the authorities in the university or the authorities in the capital,
00:10:16.040 | when you stand before people who don't like your position on this or that, don't be afraid.
00:10:24.160 | Or to use the words of chapter 4, verse 6, "Don't be anxious about anything, but in everything,
00:10:31.120 | let him know what you need."
00:10:34.480 | All of which goes to say, "Prayer is the key to this book."
00:10:40.800 | Yeah, interesting to see prayer all over the book.
00:10:43.240 | So don't be anxious.
00:10:44.880 | Pray thanksgiving to God.
00:10:47.160 | That's a connection I had not seen previously, and it was made in a sermon Pastor John preached
00:10:51.000 | on May 25, 2016, in Wysla, Poland, of all places.
00:10:56.000 | Wysla, Poland.
00:10:57.000 | It's titled "Prayer, How to Do the Humanly Impossible."
00:11:01.240 | The whole thing is online.
00:11:03.640 | Well, on behalf of Pastor John and the staff at Desiring God, we pray that you have a day
00:11:10.080 | full of gratitude to God for his abundant mercies to us.
00:11:14.540 | We have a lot to be thankful for, not least of which for our Savior, Jesus Christ, and
00:11:20.080 | for our forgiveness and our life that we have in union with him.
00:11:25.880 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:11:26.880 | We'll see you Friday.
00:11:27.880 | Amen.
00:11:28.380 | [BLANK_AUDIO]