THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR"Prayer:
God’s Answer for Anxiety!"
Rev. Carl Haak(e-mail: Rev. Carl Haak) |
Dear
Radio Friends,
There are certain passages in
the Bible that are so well known. One of them
is Philippians
4:6, 7 where we find God’s prescription for worry.
“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and
minds through Christ Jesus.” What a
beautiful promise we have there in God’s Word. How
precious! Be worried about nothing. Bring all of your cares in prayer. Do that. And
the promise: I will keep you in perfect peace
in Christ Jesus.
Perhaps, though, as you listen
today in the midst of your present trial, you question whether or not that Word of God is
true. You say, “That’s too easy. That’s not realistic for my situation. That’s a simplistic answer.” Maybe you say, “The apostle Paul, when he
wrote those words, wasn’t experiencing what I am today. Besides, I’m not the apostle Paul.” You say to me, “Don’t worry? Just pray?”
Or, perhaps you say, “It doesn’t work.
It’s not true. My worries come
right back to me, and I don’t feel the peace that God promises. It’s either because my worries are simply too
great, or I’m not strong enough.” Is
this promise true?
If you are thinking along those
lines, then I want to remind you of two things. First
of all, and not as importantly, Paul’s burden that he was experiencing as he was
inspired to write those words was probably greater than any burden you or I will ever have
to bear. I do not like to make comparisons. Making comparisons is not good. But, if we want to make a comparison here, Paul,
when he wrote the words of our passage today, was opposed every step of the way. He was in prison, he was single, he had no family,
he was an older man. He was in a position
where men would say to him, “You ought to shoot yourself and be done with it.”
But secondly, I want to remind
you of something more important. This is God’s
Word. This is the voice of our Savior. He brings the word through the apostle Paul, for
sure. But it is His Word. “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing
… let your requests be made known unto God. And
the peace of God … shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” That is true for every child of God. Will we call God a liar? That is exactly what we are going to have to do if
we say that this passage is not true. God
speaks, and God promises peace through prayer.
The passage speaks to us today
about worries. Worries and cares and anxiety,
fears and panic and despair and heartache, our minds obsessed with our difficulties. Oh, we have so many of them. From the oldest even unto the youngest; from
married to single — anxieties! Anxieties
about our marriage. Anxieties about our
children. Personal anxieties. Worries and concerns about our church. And the list goes on and on. God knows every one of them. He sees us worry.
He sees us try to get our mind around those things and move those things and cope
with those things. He sees our minds and
hearts like a pot with worries bubbling and boiling out every day. He sees how weak and how foolish and how sinful we
can be.
And He says, “Now listen! Pray. Pray
again. Think of Me. And I promise you the peace of God.” Prayer is God’s prescription for worry.
Now when we read the passage,
perhaps you had a question. For the apostle
begins with these words: “Be careful for
nothing.” What does that mean? Our children would immediately ask, “What
does that mean? My dad tells me that
I’d better be careful always! I’m
told that I have to be careful in my homework. My
mother says, ‘Be careful in how you do your chores!’ I am told that I must be careful over my body and
over my possessions.” And the answer to
all of that is, Yes, indeed, we are to exercise the utmost care in our earthly stewardship
and calling. But the word “careful”
here means “worry, anxiety, fear (fear especially of what is going to happen),
preoccupied, obsessed with anxiety, overwhelmed, when everything just becomes too much and
I can not see any hope.”
To understand what God commands
when He says here, “Be careful or worry for nothing,” we could first of all look
at different usages of the word in the Scriptures. The
Lord used the word in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:25,
“Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought (there is the word) for your life, what ye
shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.” The Lord meant, “Do not become overly
worried. Do not begin to be anxious over
earthly things.” Again, we find the word
in Luke
10:41: “Martha, Martha, thou art
careful and troubled about many things.” Those
were the words of the Lord Jesus Christ when He was in her living room that day, teaching. Martha’s sister Mary was seated at
Jesus’ feet drinking in every word of the Savior, and Martha was scurrying about
trying to serve everybody a cup of coffee and a roll.
Everything seemed overwhelming to her. She
was troubled, she was agitated, she was beside herself, she was gripped by worry.
Our text explains to us what
anxiety is in verse 7 when it says that the result of prayer will be the peace of God,
which keeps our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Worry, then, has to do with our hearts and our minds; with our spiritual center,
our heart; and with our intellectual center, our mind.
Worry is when our hearts and minds begin to interact in the wrong way. Our heart, as I said, is our spiritual center. It is the source of our desires and our will. Out of the heart we begin to desire a certain
object, a certain thing, a certain way. Then
in our minds, the instrument by which we judge things, we see and we begin to evaluate. Our minds see the circumstances of our life and
we judge whether or not those circumstances are going to help us or hinder us in obtaining
what our heart desires. Anxiety and worry is
when I see all those things that I believe will hinder me from getting my heart’s
desires, in fact, all those things that are contrary to my desires and are going to crush
me. Or, we say, “I don’t want this
to happen. But I can’t see how it’s
going to be avoided.” We worry. We become anxious about so many things. They pile up.
They weigh us down. They overwhelm us. They press our soul into despair and fear. There is no area in our life free from worry.
We see it in the world,
especially since September 11 — the fear of the terrorists and a nuclear bomb, and
what next. Or the fears can come to us in
the economy — will we have enough to feed our families? Will I be able to get a job? Can I pay the bills? Can I handle the stress of my job? So many worries and so much anxiety come from our
marriages and our families — our grown children in their marriages. Or, thinking of our children — how are they
going to turn out? Whom are they going to
marry? And what about the burdens of our own
married life — what is going to come of this? Then
there can be the personal burdens, the trials — will I be able to cope? Can I go on?
We worry over our health. We worry
over the health of our children. We worry
about accidents. We worry about death. Young people worry about dating — is there
anybody who is going to want me? Or, my
future — what does the Lord want me to do? How
am I to determine? What about the rest of my
life — what is it going to be like? No
one is exempt. Children worry. They worry over their parents. They worry over school. They worry over being liked. They worry about liking themselves. Worry is so very common and so very strong. It becomes like a prison holding us in. We cannot escape.
The Word of God comes and says,
“Be careful for nothing. Don’t
worry but pray!” So common is our worry
that we might say, “What’s the use in telling us that? It’s our second nature to worry.” But that is where we must correct ourselves. It is not our second nature to worry. Let us say it the right way: It is our old nature to worry. It arises out of our sinfulness and weakness. Examine your worries for a moment, will you? They all have to do with the future. They all have to do with God. And they all are involved in His call that we are
to trust His wisdom and rely upon His faithfulness and to give ourselves, by faith,
entirely into His hands. They have to do with
what God might or might not do and with those things that we cannot control, which is,
really everything.
Our worries so often have to do
with our forgetfulness. It is like
Alzheimer’s. Now I would not
desire to make light of that dreadful disease in any way.
And, oh the need for the patience and the mercies of God if the Lord sends that
affliction in His good pleasure to us. But my
point is that spiritually every one of us is like that.
We do not remember. All of God’s
children have spiritual Alzheimer’s. We
cannot remember five minutes ago of the Lord’s goodness as we are in a present
distress. We forget a lifelong faithfulness
of God in the face of a great burden that strikes me today.
God says, “Don’t
worry. Pray.
Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” Prayer brings us to God. It brings the child of God to see things in the
light of God. Prayer is the means of God to
give us His grace for anxiety. That is the
answer. Only God can help us with our worry. Go to God in prayer. The answer, then, for anxiety is not that we try
to tough it out. We say, “I’m going
to put these things out of my mind. I’m
not going to knuckle under to my worry. I’m
not going to allow these affairs of my life to ruffle my feathers.” That is not the answer. The answer is not alcohol. It is not drugs.
It is not some lust of the flesh to medicate ourselves, to alter our mood. And the answer is not: “Well, I’ll go to the mall and buy
things to make me feel better, or I’ll turn to entertainment and sports to put all of
these worries and concerns aside.”
No, God speaks. And God says, “Come to Me with your worries. Bring them all.” “Cast thy burdens,” says the psalmist,
“upon the Lord. He will sustain
thee.” Pour out your heart to God, God
is a refuge for us, says the psalmist. “In
everything,” says the apostle Paul in Philippians
4, “come to God with all of your worries and all of your needs.” Come with supplication, we read. Supplication is the pleading out of a great sense
of need and helplessness. It is a sincere
prayer. Supplication is not flowery words. It is not empty words. But it is exactly what is on your heart. Bring your request.
Do not leave anything out. Tell Him
your trouble and your woe. Do not put on a
front with God. Do not pretend to be
something you are not in the presence of God. Come
to God. He knows! He loves you as His child in Jesus Christ. Prayer is the heart of the child of God being
drawn to God. Therefore it is intensely
personal and private.
Let your requests be made known
unto God, says the apostle. That obviously
means that we must be conscious of God and we must know Him as our almighty, faithful,
wise, and eternal heavenly Father. The danger
is, of course, that we think of God wrongly — that we begin to think of God after
ourselves. So this command means that we must
pray over an open Bible. So often we are
tempted to view Him incorrectly. We are
tempted to view our eternal God as an indulgent earthly father who gives simply everything
that the child wants and who would not want anything to happen contrary to the
child’s will and who is there simply to pull his child immediately out of his
problems. We begin to think of our heavenly
Father that way.
No, we need more and more to
know Him truly as He is in His Word. Pray to
God as He is made known in His holy Word. Know
Him as the almighty, gracious, loving, all-wise, and almighty God, whose way is perfect,
who controls all things, and whose ways are rooted in the glory of His name. Prayer, and knowing God, are like glove and hand. Know Him in His Word and go to Him as He has been
revealed to you in His Word.
And that means this: As you pray, you must always see God in His mighty
purpose in Jesus Christ, the Son of His love. God’s
eternal purpose, according to the Scriptures, is to bless His people in Jesus Christ and
to glorify His name in the church. Pray,
then, from the foot of the cross. Go to God
in the face of Jesus Christ. Pray in the
faith that God has saved by grace from sin in Jesus Christ and now wills all things in the
life of His children to glorify Himself.
Then you can understand the words, “Pray with thanksgiving” even in your deepest needs. Come to God with thanksgiving. Do not be pessimistic. Do not pray simply, “O Lord, it’s all no good. It’s all wrong. How can this be?” But pray this way, “O Lord, I know that in Thy cross Thy love has been shown to me. I know Thou art God who works all things to the glory of Thy name and for my eternal good. I can’t see that with my earthly eye, Lord. I can’t get my earthly mind around that. I pray that Thou wilt give me grace that I might believe Thee. Help me, Lord.”
He is the God who is ever
faithful. Pray to Him in the face of Jesus
Christ. Do that. God says, “Pray.” He says that in His eternal love, for He knows
exactly what we need in all of our worries. We
need to pray. We should ask ourselves, Do we? How often do you and I do everything else first
except pray? How often our minds take off a
hundred miles an hour concerning all the things that are bothering us and then our heart
begins to speak, “What’s going to happen to me?
What’s going to come? What about
my desires?” And sometimes we get so
worked up and so overcome that we cannot pray. Perhaps
we need grace, then, to call for the elders that they can pray for us. We need grace to stop and pray. The hymn is true, you know: “Oh what peace we often forfeit; oh what
needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”
And the promise? Peace. The
peace of God that passeth understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ
Jesus. What is the peace of God? Well, I cannot explain that to you. The apostle himself says it passeth understanding. I can say some things about it. But it is something ultimately that every child of
God experiences and knows by grace. It is the
peace of God. God’s peace is His
absolute serenity, in the knowledge that His glorious purpose that He has willed in
Himself will be realized. It is the complete
absence of fear, turmoil, unrest. It is
tranquil and serene. It is the assurance that
all is well and that His name is and shall be forever glorified. That peace of God is something that now floods our
souls. It is there. Prayer brings God’s peace to our souls. In prayer God says, “You are mine. You belong to Me in My Son’s blood. I’m going to take you home and I’m going
to work everything for your good. I am
faithful and true. My purpose will be
attained. I am with you.” You see, prayer brings God to my heart. And with God comes peace.
The promise of God is peace
through prayer. Rest in God and you will, in
His arms, experience peace. You will
experience peace in all of your circumstances. You
will experience a peace that is simply beyond your ability to explain. In prayer God will grant you the peace to keep
your heart and mind in Christ Jesus, so that now upon the walls of your heart and mind
stands the peace of God that has been attained through Jesus Christ.
What is the Word of God? Let us get it very straight. First, let us see that our worry and our anxiety
are rooted in our own sinfulness and weakness. Second,
let us be resolved, by the grace of God, to bring all of our fears today, all of our
worries, all of our troubles, all of the things that overwhelm our hearts, to God, the
true God, in prayer. Third, let us prove God
now. Let us put Him to the test. Do not say, “This word of God isn’t
true.” Put God to the test. Bring your worries to God and see whether or not
the promise of Him who is faithful and true abides real.
See whether or not God will indeed give to you the peace passing understanding
— peace through prayer.
Let us pray.