6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
9 Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.
Introduction
About a year ago, I was visiting with one of our ladies whose husband was in the hospital dying of cancer. He had entered the hospital just four days after she had returned home from surgery herself. She said that when she learned of his illness and his hospitalization, she became a bundle of nerves.
She could not eat; she could not sleep; she could not do anything. One of her friends kept urging her to take tranquilizers but she said she didn’t want to do that. Finally she said, “I found my prescription in God’s word.” She shared Philippians 4:6 with me from The Living Bible, which says, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God your needs, and don’t forget to thank him for his answers.” She told me that prescription literally saved her life.
There can be tranquility without tranquilizers. We are living in such a time of tenseness and pressure. Worry and anxiety and the taking of pills have almost reached an epidemic proportion. While I understand that there are times when tranquilizers and other drugs are appropriate and needed, there is bound to be some other way to find peace and tranquility in life on a regular basis other than through some synthetic means.
I believe God has given us his prescription for worry. He has given us a way to find tranquility, peace, contentment, and happiness in life without having to go to drugs or some synthetic means. I want you to notice that there are three ingredients in this prescription that God gives to us.
If we are going to find peace and happiness in life we must pray right. Paul says, “Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Learn to pray right.
The second ingredient in his prescription is found in verse eight. The key word here is “think.” He lists all the positive attributes we can consider and we must “think on these things.” To find peace in life, we must not only learn to pray right, we must learn to think right.
The final ingredient is found in verse nine. Circle the word do. “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do.” If we pray right, think right, and we do right, the God of peace will be with us. We will experience the peace that passeth all understanding—a peace that the rest of the world is not able to comprehend. I want you to look at these three ingredients to find peace and tranquility in life, because I think from time to time, all of us need this prescription from God.
1. We must pray right.
The first thing we must do to have peace in our lives is to pray right. Paul begins by saying, “Be careful for nothing.” That word careful literally means “to be distracted.” It means to be pulled first in one direction and then another. It means to be torn between two things in two different directions. I think all of us know from our own experience what it is to be under pressure, and to be pulled in different directions. We know what it’s like to be frustrated over the circumstances of life. The Greek word for “careful” is better translated in modern English as anxious. Paul is saying to us that we ought not to be full of cares, we ought not to worry, and we ought not to be anxious about anything. “But [and that word but presents to us the alternative to living a life full of anxiety, worry, and cares], in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”
He is saying that the alternative to worry is prayer. Your life will be full of cares or full of prayers. Worry is nothing more than the cancelling out of prayer. If you become overly concerned about some subjects, issues, decisions, or problems, and you do not share them with God, then you have no other course but to worry about it. You are left with carrying the load and the weight of it by yourself. He says we ought to pray about everything. Very simply, that means if a problem is too small to share with God, it is too small to be a burden in your life and in mine. If it is big enough to worry us and to create anxiety in our lives, it certainly is big enough to share with God. He comes to encourage us. Instead of worrying and being uptight about life, learn to pray the “right way.”
The words that Paul uses here to talk about prayer are interesting. The first is that word prayer itself. It is a general word for prayer that means “to worship.” It means to praise God. Prayer always begins with recognizing who God is, honoring and worshipping God, and praising him for who he is. To that general prayer word meaning worship and praise, he adds a more specific word: supplication. This means that we are to go into the presence of God, recognize him for who he is, worship him, and then we make specific requests to him that grow out of the needs of our lives.
Thanksgiving is next. When we go into the presence of God, we not only praise him and share the burdens of our life, but we also thank him for the things he has done for us. Whenever and wherever there is a person who recognizes the greatness and the glory of God, one who is willing to make the needs and the requests of their life known to God, and one who lets it flow out of a heart of gratitude to God for the things he has done for them, there comes a peace that is beyond anything the world can ever explain, or the world can ever give.
The real antidote for worry is faith in God, and prayer is the practical expression of that faith. When we believe in God enough, and when we believe in his power, love, interests, and concerns enough to share our burdens with him in prayer, God works in response to our faith. This is the admonition that Peter gave when he said that we were to cast all of our cares upon him because he cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). That word cast that Peter uses literally means “to throw upon.” It is the same word used to describe what the disciples did when Jesus sent them to get the donkey that he used to ride into Jerusalem on the day of his triumphal entry. They found the donkey and they cast their garments upon it as a saddle blanket. In the same way, we are to cast our cares upon God, confident that God cares about us and that God is vitally interested in every phase of our life. More than that, we know that God can and will help us out.
Know that the basis of our casting is his care. When you pause to think of the majesty and the glory of God, and remember that the great God of the universe cares specifically about you, even that has a settling effect upon you.
Some time ago, I read some startling statements about our universe. Do you know that light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second? If you were to leave planet Earth traveling at that speed, you would pass the moon in two seconds. In eight and a half minutes at 186,000 miles per second, you would pass the sun. Five hours later, you would be out of our solar system. Four years later, at 186,000 miles per second you would zip by the nearest star. Then one million and five hundred thousand years later, you would reach the most distant galaxies that we know about. Four and a half million years later, you would reach that area of the universe that we cannot see through a telescope from planet Earth. When you have sufficiently thought about the vastness of our universe and the creative power of our God, remember that the Bible says, “He cares about you.” When a God who has that power and that intelligence has a concern about you and the problems you are facing day by day, focus on that. Remember to share your burdens in faith and trust him.
Paul instructs us to not worry about anything, to pray about everything, and to thank God in all things. Then the peace of God that passeth all understanding will keep your heart and minds in Christ Jesus. That word keep is a military term. It means “to garrison.” It means “to stand watch over.” Here Paul is picturing the peace of God as a soldier who stands outside the door of your life and the gate of your heart. He is protecting and guarding you from the worry of all of the dangers, frustrations, and troubles of life. His peace is like a sentinel, standing watch day and night.
If you want real peace and happiness in life, you need to learn to pray right, and you also need to learn to think right.
2. We must learn to think right.
Look at verse eight: “Finally brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
That word think literally means “to take careful reflection.” It means to count the cost of something before you commit yourself to it. It is the word that is oftentimes used to describe a workman taking careful measurements before ever beginning his work. If you are building a house, you don’t just pick up a board and start sawing on it. You first carefully measure it to make sure you can cut it the right length. Only after you have carefully measured it do you begin to saw. That is the idea behind this word, think. Paul is saying that you need to think carefully. You need to ponder. You need to set your heart and mind so as to think only on certain things in life. He lists for us the six things that we need to focus our hearts and minds upon.
First, we need to focus our hearts and minds upon the things that are true—the things that are accurate and reliable. Don’t focus your heart and mind upon error, upon lies, and upon things that you are not sure about or can’t really trust as being the truth. Focusing on those things will only create anxiety and frustration in your heart and life.
Focusing upon only that which you know to be true brings a sense of peace.
Then Paul says that we are to think about those things that are honest. The word honest literally means “honorable.” If you focus upon things that are degrading, belittling, or are not worthy of the highest and best in you, that kind of thought pattern will not bring peace and contentment in your life. It will only create confusion and anxiety within you. You cannot continue to focus upon the belittling things of life and rise to the spiritual heights that God has for you.
Third, you are to focus upon things that are just. This includes things that are upright, proper, and righteous.
Then you are to focus upon things that in a moral sense are pure—things that are free from the stain, scars, and smudge of sin. There is no way to fill your mind and life with filth and have peace and contentment in your heart at the same time.
Fifth, Paul says you are to focus upon those things that are lovely—things are pleasing, attractive, and worthy of being loved. Don’t put your mind on the ugly things of life, such as the negative gossip you hear about others, or the things that potentially “could go wrong.” Lift the level of your vision and focus on those things that are lovely and beautiful, and peace can come to you.
And finally, Paul says to focus upon those things that are of good report. Those things that are well spoken of. Those things that are gracious. If you are always thinking in critical, downgrading, or negative terms, there will be no real peace in your life.
You put this all together, and Paul is basically telling us that if we learn to think right, we will find peace in our lives. If we don’t think right, we will miss the highest and best in life and we will never know the peace that God wants us to have.
Jesse Jackson said some time ago that we sometimes allow our children to “eat junk and to watch junk and listen to junk and to play with junk and to talk junk, and then we wonder why they grow up to be social junkies.” To that I would add that we sometimes allow ourselves as well as our children to think junk. If we are continually focusing on junk in every area of our lives, our lives will soon be nothing more than junk. The Bible says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Jesus said that out of the heart (meaning out of the thought process) are the issues of life. Whatever you continue to think about and to focus on, eventually you will become.
Albert Einstein once said, “If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies.” If we were more concerned about our thoughts than the way we appear to other people, our whole lives would be different.
Some time ago, a man came to Norman Vincent Peale to share with him the problems of his life. The man was the manager of a hotel. He had a nervous breakdown early in his life, and he was afraid that he was about to have another one. He began to share all of his problems and his burdens with Dr. Peale. The more he shared those problems and burdens, the more uptight he became. After a while, Dr. Peale said to the man, “I tell you what we should do. Let’s stop talking about this and that and so, and instead, I want you to think about God for a few moments. I want you to tell me what you think God is like.”
Bit by bit the man shifted his thinking from all of his problems, from all of his anxieties, all of his worries to God. He began to talk about the kind of person he thought God was, and the kind of things he thought God could do. As he talked, there came over him a sense of peace and tranquility, and Dr. Peale called his attention to it. He said, “Have you noticed what happened to you when we stopped talking about all of your problems and we started thinking about God? Let me give you some good advice. Center your thoughts on God before you lose yourself in your difficulties.”
It was some time later when Dr. Peale met the owner of that hotel. The owner said to him, “What did you do to my manager?” Dr. Peale replied, “What do you mean?” The owner answered, “He’s a different man. His whole life has been changed. He has a zest for life, a new joy in life, and he has found new meaning in life.”
Dr. Peale met with the hotel manager again and said to him, “Tell me how it has been with your life.” The manager said, “My life has been transformed. When I learned to stop focusing on my problems and started thinking about God, there came into my life a sense of peace that I had not known before.”
We Christians ought not to be surprised at that kind of counsel. A long time ago Isaiah said, “Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.” If we focus on the turmoil, the confusion, and the frustration of life, the end result is turmoil, confusion, and frustration within. But if we learn to think right by focusing on God—and his power, and his majesty, and his glory—God’s peace will be with us. Do you want peace? Pray right and think right.
3. We must do right.
There is one more ingredient. The mixture is not complete until you add to it the next verse. Verse nine says, “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.” That word do in the Greek describes something continually going on that is the very practice of your life. It is the habit of your life. You learn to think right, and then you do and keep on doing all the things I have said to you. And as you live right, you will find peace in your life. Christianity is more than praying, and it is more than thinking. Christianity is also doing.
Have you noticed how many times the Bible talks about doing? Jesus said, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
Jesus gave his commandments to his disciples and he said to them, “Happy are ye if you do these things.” James said, “Be ye not hearers of the word only, but be ye doers of the word.” Did you know the greatest sin that Christian people commit is possibly the sin of sermon listening? They come and they listen to sermons and they feel that their presence and their listening is an end within itself. They never really intend to do anything about what they hear. There is so little doing, and the result is that there is so little peace and happiness in our lives.
I tell you, they all fit together. Praying right, thinking right, doing right leads to a right relationship with God, who is the God of peace. We experience peace when we experience him.
It was F. B. Meyer who said that the filling of the Holy Spirit is not given to those who simply believe in the filling or who desire the filling; it is given to those who obey God. It is not enough just to believe in the filling of God’s Spirit. It is not enough to want God’s filling. Friend, you’ve got to obey him. God’s greatest blessings (including the blessing of peace) are reserved for those people who not only believe right and think right, but who obey right and live right.
Have you ever thought about the titles that Paul uses for God? There are times when he speaks of the God of love—the God who cares about you. There are times when he speaks of the God of all comfort—the God who sustains you. The God who strengthens you. The God who walks by your side. There are times when he speaks of the God of hope who never allows us to come to a place of complete and utter despair. Even when we stand beside the open casket or the freshly dug grave of a loved one, or when we have heard that terrible news that we have incurable cancer—even then there is hope.
But Paul’s favorite title for God was not the God of love, nor the God of all comfort, nor the God of hope—his favorite title was the God of peace. He says if you pray right, think right, and live right, the God of peace will be with you.
There is no peace of God apart from the person of God. Peace is not a pill that God dispenses as if he were some giant pharmacist. Peace is his presence in you, and his power flowing through you. It is knowing him and walking with him. We come to know the God of peace through Jesus Christ, whom the prophet Isaiah called the “Prince of Peace.”
When Jesus was born, the angel said, “Peace on earth, good will toward men.” Let Jesus Christ reign in your heart and life. From that rule and that control he has over you, the God of peace will walk by your side and you can have tranquility without tranquilizers. You ought to try it. It’s a good prescription. It has worked for thousands, and it will work for you.