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For this morning, we are Philippians Chapter four. We've been studying through the book of Philippians on Sundays more than a dozen times. Paul writes with joy about joy. What is most remarkable about how he writes with such joy is the fact that he is in prison at the time that he writes this letter. He is awaiting trial. He is exercising his right as a Roman citizen. He has been hauled into prison because he was preaching the gospel, and so he's going to appeal to Nero Caesar while he is waiting for his trial. He writes this letter filled with joy, and his joy is contagious. And so we've been looking at this book in a series titled Reasons to Rejoice. And so far we've seen eight reasons to rejoice. This might be redundant for those of you who have been here, but if you're jumping into our study for the first time, here are the eight things we've we've gleaned so far from the first few chapters. Number one. God will finish what he started concerning us. Number two. God will use our chains or those difficult circumstances for his divine purposes. Number three. To live is Christ, to die is gain. Heaven will be so much better. Number four. Unity comes through humility, and humility comes from following the example of Christ. Number five. Our witness impacts our world. That is reason to rejoice. Number six. Nothing in life compares to knowing Christ and receiving his righteousness by Faith. Number 7. Run the race and finish well. And last week, Number eight, we have great joy when I know that my name is written in the Lamb's book of life. So today we're going to pick up there in verse four of chapter four. If you have your Bibles there to Philippians four. I'll start reading at verse four. Paul writes, rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue, and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me. These do and the God of peace will be with you. Let's pause there and pray. Father, in heaven, we just want to thank you for this time that we can gather here in your house and open up your word and study these things as you would inspire Paul to write for the sake of our joy. Thank you, Lord, for his example. A man with such joy because he knew you was walking with you despite his circumstances, he was overwhelmed with your joy, Lord, we pray for that joy. We pray that our hearts would be lifted today. We pray, God, that as we study this passage, that every anxious, fearful and worrisome thought would flee and that those things would be replaced with your joy and your peace and your presence. Be with us today, Lord. Be with our troops as they are serving in battle overseas. We pray, Father, that you would keep them safe and bring them home to us soon. We think of all the families that are missing loved ones right now. We ask you to guard their lives, bring them home to their families, and give wisdom to the President and to all of our elected leaders, Lord, as we lift them up to you for your help, for your guidance, for your encouragement, and thank you for meeting us here today. We just exalt your name in this place. There's no other name under heaven given unto men by which we must be saved. And that name is Jesus. And we pray this prayer in Jesus name. And everyone said, amen. Well, here in Philippians chapter four, Paul doubles down on the topic of joy. He uses the word rejoice twice right out of the gate here in verse four, where he says, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice. Now, everyone who grew up in Sunday school as a kid learned that verse in a song, right? Rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say rejoice. Right before you even knew it was in the Bible. You were singing that song as a little kid, if you grew up in church. It was put to a simple little tune. We usually sang it in rounds. How many of you remember doing this if you grew up in church? Yeah, I was tempted this morning to try to do rounds with Rejoice in the Lord Always, but I thought it would be chaotic. So I'm like, I don't think so. It was a fun memory, but probably would be a disaster if we did it here. But as a kid, you know, when you're singing that song or just in general, it's easy to rejoice because you're a kid. And kids in general, at least, they should have somewhat of a carefree life where they are just happy and joyful because they haven't faced real life, things that will often weigh us down. Yet they're too little. When we're young, as little kids, we don't know better and so we just are wide eyed and carefree and enjoying fun and joy comes easily. When you're a little kid, the biggest decision you have to make is whether you want peanut butter and jelly or Mac and cheese, you know. But then you grow up, you hit adolescence, and our world becomes challenging to navigate. In those awkward years of adolescence, you become more aware of your surroundings, your environment, and you begin to take things personally and you begin to be a little more aware of some of the realities of life. And then, especially as you grow into adulthood and then you try to manage the stress of life and the things that are naturally overwhelming because life's demands and life's disappointments, life's responsibilities start to weigh on us the older we get. We deal with heartache and bad news, financial problems and family problems and life's situations in general can sometimes become complex, overwhelming, and suddenly we have to fight for our joy. It no longer comes easily to us like it did when we were little kids. 19% according to some statistics I read, 19% of the general population over the age of 18 struggles with some form of anxiety disorder. 19% of those over the age of 18 and it is usually caused by either genetics or brain chemistry or personality, or especially life events. What is more concerning in prepping for this study, some of the statistics I read even more concerning were how many teenagers deal with anxiety. Anxiety disorders affect 39% of youth between the ages of 13 and 18. Today, more youth and young adults are medicated than ever before. This is the most medicated generation ever. The generation that is growing up. Antidepressants among teens and young adults have increased 66% just since 2020. The sharpest rise of antidepressant and anti anxiety medication. The sharpest rise has been among teen girls and young women ages 13 to 25. Proverbs 12:25 says that anxiety in the heart of man or woman causes depression. But a good word makes it glad. What we have here in Philippians chapter four is a good word. And God has given us something here through the pen of Paul that I hope will be an encouragement to you and a help especially to those of you who can identify with some of those statistics. Maybe you wrestle with anxiety or fears or worries. You're not alone, and God has a good word for you through this chapter, Paul. In the verses that follow, Paul tells us to rejoice because in the rest of this passage, Paul gives us what I'm calling entitling this teaching God's remedy for anxiety. God's remedy for anxiety. If you have your Bibles open there, look at verse six again, where he starts out in this section by saying, be anxious for nothing. Be anxious for nothing. Now, let's be real. The worst thing to say to somebody who's anxious is. Is don't be anxious. That's like saying to a woman who's emotional, don't be emotional. Okay, that's not a good thing to ever say. How do I know that? I'm not telling you. But anyway, sometimes it can come across like a directive or like this. Don't you dare be anxious. Like, get over it. And that's not what Paul means here. The way he starts this. Don't read it like a reprimand, like he's shaming somebody. Don't be anxious for anything. What he's saying is, listen, there's a help to your anxiety. And the verses that follow are the remedy. So he starts out here by saying, don't be anxious. But in the verses that follow, you see that he's offering help and encouragement to those who are anxious. He wants us to experience God's peace instead of the fears and the worries that we have often. I want you to notice with me how how Paul inverts the wording related to God's peace in verse seven. And then in verse nine, if you look in your Bibles there at verse seven, notice he says, and the peace of God underline that. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. But then in verse nine, he reverses the wording and he says in verse nine, the things which you learned and received and heard and saw in Me, these do. And the God of peace underline that will be with you. So it's interesting there in verse 7, he talks about the peace of God. In verse 9, he talks about the God of peace, which seems to suggest to me it doesn't matter which way you're approaching this. When you have anxiety or fear and worry. When you seek the Lord, you could either seek the God of peace or the peace of God. It all ends up in the same place because he's the one who distributes it. The peace that comes from God comes from the God of peace. So however you get to him, get to him, because once you arrive there, you will recognize that it's all from him. The peace is all from Him. And he will comfort and encourage you and help you with every anxious thought. I love the Way that Paul, in another letter, when he writes to the Corinthian Church, in second Corinthians chapter one, verse three, he calls God. Listen to this. He calls God the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all of our troubles. That's his intro there in 2nd Corinthians 1:3. The Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all of our troubles. So this is. This is the God we're talking about. This is why we can approach the throne of grace and find help in our time of need, because the God of peace gives us the peace of God. Peter, when he would write his epistle, 1st Peter 5, 7, he said, cast all your anxieties. Niv says, cares. Other translations say, cast all your cares, cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. So there's this invitation, like God is saying, I want to be your burden bearer. Like, bring your needs, bring your worries, bring your anxieties, bring your fears to me. But how do we do this? How do we practically give our anxieties and fears to the Lord and get instead his peace? Well, this is Philippians 4 for us. And what Paul is going to do here is he's going to break down for us the remedy in two parts. He says, look, there's a way that we can have the peace of God from the God of peace if we would do two things, if we would understand two remedies. The first one, he tells us, is the power of prayer. The power of prayer. This is verses 6 and 7. The first antidote for an anxious heart is prayer. Everybody. It is prayer. And there is nothing too great that God can't handle and nothing too small that we would be inconveniencing God about. He wants everything. In fact, that's where Paul goes after he says, be anxious for Nothing in verse 6, but everything. Everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving. Let your request be made known to God. So he invites us to give everything to Him. Don't think that your thing is not big enough for God to be concerned about or too small compared to other people. He wants everything. He wants us to give to him everything that's weighing down our hearts. And how do we do that? Well, through prayer and supplication. Now, those two terms are different, but they are related. First, let me talk about prayer. Prayer in the original Greek language is prosuke. Prosuke means. It's a broad term that means communication with God. Just pour out your heart to The Lord communicate with him. Like you would talk to a friend or a family member that you love. Just have conversation with them. Don't think you have to make it about lofty words. And you say, well, I don't really know how to pray. Look, even Jesus own disciples said to him, teach us how to pray. And then Jesus gives them this model of prayer that we call the Lord's Prayer. It's intended to be a model. I don't think it's meant to be this rote, repetitive thing, but you can. But I think he was outlining for us different aspects of how to pray. So it's okay if you feel like I don't know how to pray. Even his own disciples said, we don't know how to pray. Teach us to pray. But it's conversation. Prosuke is just communication and conversation with God. It can be worship. It can be confession. It can be asking the Lord to forgive you. It can be praying for other people that are on your heart. It's just communication and communion with God. So pray. Seek his face. Talk to him. He's your Father in heaven. He's your heavenly dad. This is how Jesus taught us to pray when he gave that model of prayer to his disciples. He starts by saying, our Father who art in heaven, like God is your Father and he cares about you. A loving Father in heaven who cares about everything you are going through. So give everything to Him, Prosuke. Communicate, commune with God. Supplication is the other word here. It's a different Greek word as desus. It literally means a request or a petition. In fact, some of your translations say petition instead of supplication, it's making a request to God. It's asking God for something. It is imploring God for a need that you have for yourself. And don't think, well, that's selfish. No, God is inviting us. Make petition. Make supplication. David did it all through the Psalms. I'll give you a few examples. In Psalm 4:1, David prayed for mercy. In Psalm 58, he asked God for guidance. In Psalm 6:4, he asked God for deliverance from his enemies. In Psalm 34, verse 4, he asked God for deliverance from his fears. So on and on we see through the Bible how men and women made supplication. They asked God how Hannah, she poured out her heart to the Lord and asked for a child she had not been able to conceive. So there are many times, in many ways, in many examples, we see in the Bible, people making supplication it's okay. Make your request known to God. That's what the invitation is here. But I want you to notice something that is often overlooked, that Paul here couples prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Because that's the rest of this. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your request be made known to God. Folks, listen. Thanksgiving is such an often omitted aspect of prayer. We are usually so busy making a request or petitioning God for help or asking God for something that we forget to give him something which is our gratitude. Our gratitude. And we are told here in this passage to include thanksgiving as part of our prayers and supplication. Notice before we get an answer. Paul does not say be anxious for nothing, but in all things through prayer and supplication, make your request known to God. And if he gives you what you ask, then give him thanksgiving. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's all ahead of the answer. He's be anxious for nothing, but in everything through prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Couple your prayers and supplication with gratitude to God. It is important, everybody, it is important to understand that we must be thankful for who God is, not just for what God does. If we are only thankful for what God does, particularly if only God does what I ask him to do, it's not really a relationship based on love. That's a relationship based on supply and demand. I demand and God supplies. And if God doesn't supply what I demand, then I'm not going to be very thankful. No. What kind of a relationship is that? Can you imagine a marriage like that where you only love your spouse for what he or she can give you or do for you? You need to love them for who they are. Love God for who he is. Be thankful for who he is. It shouldn't be dependent upon the outcome. He is worthy of our praise no matter what the outcome. So Paul says here, join your prayers and supplication with thanksgiving. Thank him for who he is. Thank him for being a loving father who will take care of you. Thank him that he cares about the big things and the little things. Thank him for the answer to prayer even before you get it. Listen, I can't tell you how many times looking back, I'm thankful God did not give me some of the things I asked for. He knew better as my father. And in the moment you're like, why doesn't God love me? And why doesn't God answer my prayer? And I didn't get What I asked for. You can thank him later. Thank him later if you haven't already noticed it, because God will spare us from some things that we ask that aren't best for us. So praise him in the good times and praise him in the silent times. Praise him in the good times. Praise him in the dark times. Worship him because he's worthy of our praise. And thank him while you wait. And then make your requests known to God. He is worthy of our praise and thanks. Regardless of the outcome. His goodness and his character is not dependent on whether he answers our prayers the way we want. And there's this wonderful thing that happens when we are thankful to God even before we have an answer. It just. There's something about just thanking the Lord that releases the burdens that we are carrying. When we give to him our cares because he cares for us, it just lightens the load and relieves us of some of the burdens that we carry. And when we do all this, okay, Lord, I'm not going to be anxious. Instead, I'm going to give these anxious thoughts to you because you invite me to give everything to you. I'm praying, I'm asking supplication, I'm thanking you. Then notice verse seven. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds through Christ Jesus. What a great verse. The promise that the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. What does that part mean about how it surpasses all understanding? Friends, there are times that you will be greatly burdened by something. Anxious about something, fearful about something worrisome about something. But then you pray and you give it to God and you ask him with supplication, lord, here's what I would like. Here's what I need. Now I'm going to defer the answer to you. I'm going to trust you as my Father, to have the best intention for me and. And it's going to work out for my good and for your glory, no matter what. There's something that happens when you pray like that that you get overwhelmed with his peace. And it doesn't even make rational sense. And what I mean by that is because your world is just going crazy with fear and worry all of a sudden it's replaced by peace. And your circumstances haven't even necessarily changed yet, but yet you have this abiding, overwhelming peace that has superseded your anxious thoughts and your fears and your worries, and it doesn't make rational sense. People will even look on you and say, you're going through this, but yet you seem to have such peace. Yeah, I know, it doesn't make sense, does it? That's because God's peace surpasses understanding. Because he overwhelms us with his peace, even in the midst of what we're going through. Praise be to God. And your life can be a testimony to other people about how you have peace in the midst of a storm. Because God's peace surpasses all understanding. It's all because his peace will invade our hearts and our minds. So pray, ask him, appeal to the throne of grace and watch how God's peace will be ministered to you. The second remedy for anxiety that Paul talks about here is what I'm referring to as the medication of meditation. All right, just a little play on words there. The medication of meditation. Look at verses 8 and 9. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, you can circle some of these words as I read them. Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report. If there is any virtue, the there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. There's the word meditate. And then he says in verse nine, the things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you. Now first, just a word of clarification. Because the word meditation can have a bad connotation in our world today. Because a lot of times meditation is associated with Eastern mysticism where you, you know, just kind of sit cross legged on a bamboo mat and just, you know, meditate and open your mind to mindless, senseless things and open your spirit to things too. Right? So that's kind of this Eastern mysticism idea of meditation. We don't mean it like that. And Paul certainly doesn't mean it like that. When the Bible speaks of meditation, it speaks about a laboring before the Lord where you come before him and you focus your heart and your mind on the Lord and His Word. And you ask God to just overwhelm your heart with his thoughts, that you over that he would overwhelm your heart with his attitude, with his mind, that you would have the mind of Christ in all things. This isn't, this isn't emptying your mind and just being open to whatever spirit. That's Eastern mysticism. This is meditation in a biblical sense. Now some of your Bibles there in Philippians 4, 8, it doesn't say meditate on these things it says think on these things. But meditate is a common word used in many other places of the Bible, particularly in the Psalms. And I'll read just three examples to you so that you realize what the world might have hijacked in terms of the word. Meditation is really a biblical term that we can utilize as a remedy to help us in our anxieties. Listen to this. Psalm 1:1:2. Blessed is the man or the woman who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits at the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law He. He meditates day and night. Psalm 77:12. I will also meditate on all your work and talk of your deeds. Psalm 119, verse 148. My eyes are awake through the night watches that I may meditate on your word. So in the Old Testament and in the New, the word meditate is found. The Hebrew word in the Old Testament is hagah, and the Greek word here in Philippians 4, 8 for meditate or think. Isome means to ponder, to consider, to focus the mind and heart. And look. Why is this so important? Because the major battleground where anxious thoughts and fearful thoughts reside is the mind. It's the mind, our thoughts. Paul knows this. He's inspired by the Spirit to write this. This is why he tells us to meditate on eight specific things. I don't think he means this as an exhaustive list, but it's a starting point. There are eight different things that we should think on so that we're not tormented by the anxious, fearful thoughts. And this list of eight is to help us to overcome what we tend to all do, which is we think the worst instead of believing the best. It's just kind of our human nature. Unless you are a super optimistic person and you're always, you know, thinking the best instead of imagining the worst. Good for you. God bless you. I wish I had your gift. But for most people we tend to gravitate to, I'm going to think the worst. What does this mean? Because we think it'll steel ourselves. Like, okay, I want to prepare myself, so I'm going to imagine the worst and then if the worst doesn't turn out well, then great. But if it does turn out, then at least I'll somewhat be prepared. Have you ever noticed that most of the time the worst never really happens though? But. But yet in our minds we get ourselves all worked up because we gravitate towards thinking the worst instead of believing the best. And so Paul says here, I want you to think on eight things that will help you to overcome that kind of a thinking. And what he's really doing is he is telling us what he told the church at Corinth. He would write in 2nd Corinthians 10, verse 5, take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ. Take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ. That's what we have to do, gang. When these anxious, fearful, worrisome thoughts start to overwhelm us, we have to stop, take that thought captive, and then move our thoughts in a different direction. Here's the list of eight that we can practice. And I'll just hustle through this list cause these words are pretty self explanatory. But the first one is he says whatsoever things are true, think on those things. I love that he starts there because the enemy loves to lie to us constantly. The enemy loves to lie to you about yourself. He loves to lie to you about others. He loves to lie to you about the future. The Bible says that Satan is a liar and the father of lies. So he's always going to be throwing these lying darts our way. Look, sometimes it can be so confusing. You don't know what to believe or who to believe. And so when you don't know what to believe or who to believe, fall back on what you do know is true. And there are some basic things that we all know is true. If you have any relationship with the Lord, you know, number one, that he loves you. You know, number two, that he cares about you. You know, number three, that he has your life in the palm of his hand. You can always fall back on those because you can say, lord, I don't know what is true about this circumstance, but I know that you love me, you care about me, you have Me in the palm of your hand. And so you've got this. All things are going to work out for my good and for your glory one way or another. Focus on what is true. Don't believe the lies. And if you're not sure that something is true, don't meditate on that. Know what is true, Think on those things. Number two, what is noble? In other words, things that are honorable or respectable. Think on those things. Number three, what is just? Some of your translations say right instead of just. It means things that are upright and virtuous. Think on those things. Number four, think on things that are pure. The Greek word there is hagnos means things that are Sacred and holy. Think on those things. Number five is lovely. Things that are beautiful and pleasant, think on those things. Number six, good report. Niv says, admirable things that are admirable and reputable. Think on those things. Number seven, virtuous. Niv says, excellent things that are morally excellent, think on those things. And then number eight, praiseworthy things that are commendable and uplifting. Think on those things. And Paul must have modeled these things because he concludes this section in verse nine, saying, the things which you have learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you. He's like, follow my example. And this guy's in prison fighting for his life. And he says, but look on me. Because I'm not weighed down by anxiety and fear. I've determined to think on things that are true and noble and just and pure and lovely and good report and virtuous and praiseworthy. That's what's kept me from sinking into a deep, dark place. He says, the things that you've learned and seen and received and heard from me, do these things, put them in practice, and the God of peace will be with you. The best way that we can have good, peaceable thoughts instead of anxious, fearful thoughts is to spend a lot of time meditating. In this book, everybody meditate on the word of God. Listen to what God said to Joshua in Joshua 1:8. He said, do not let this book of the law depart from your mouth, but meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. And then you will be prosperous and successful. There's this natural benefit that comes for our lives by meditating on the truth of God's word, saturating our minds with the truth of God's word, so that the combination of prayer and meditation. Prayer, when you're lifting up your needs to the Lord with thanksgiving and meditation, when you're focusing your heart and mind on things that are above. When we do these things, then the God of peace will bring the peace of God to every anxious heart. Amen. Amen. So number nine on our list to close up today's teaching. What brings us joy is through prayer and meditation. God's peace will calm our anxious hearts. Prayer and meditation. God will give us his peace to calm our anxious hearts. If you're struggling today with anxieties or fears or worries, you're not alone. And I'm going to pray as we close our service. God knows who you are, God knows what your struggle is. And there's this beautiful promise of Jeremiah chapter 17 that I would include as part of my prayer for you today. So if you would bow your heads with me and let's close in prayer. Father in heaven, you know those today who are suffering with anxious, fearful or worrisome thoughts. We thank youk for your word today that gives us the remedy to help us prayer supplication with thanksgiving, making our requests known to you. Your peace will then come upon us, surpassing all understanding, to guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus meditating, getting our thoughts and our hearts focused on the things that are from above, not the things that weigh us down on earth. And you know those, Lord, who are struggling today. I pray that yout would visit them, that yout would overwhelm them with youh peace, that yout would take away the burdens and the fears and the worries and give them instead you'd peace that passes all understanding. And I pray, Lord, that yout will fulfill for them. Jeremiah 17, verses 7 and 8 Blessed is the man or the woman who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord, for he or she shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit. Lord, plant your children by rivers to encourage them that they would no longer walk in fear or anxiety, but that you would cause them to be well watered and fruitful. Bless them, Lord, as they trust you and as they put their hope in you, that you would take away every fearful, anxious or worrisome thought and replace it with your peace. Thank you, Lord. May the God of peace shower us with the peace of God. In Jesus name we pray. And everyone said Amen and amen.