Date: 6/25/19
Lesson #31
Title: Through Prayer, Let The Peace Of God Guard Your Hearts From Anxiety
“Special Notes” and “Scripture” are shown as endnotes.
NIV Bible is used throughout unless noted otherwise.
Scripture: (Philippians 4:6-7, NIV)
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God (face-to-face with God).
“Do not be anxious about anything” is Christ’s own warning about worry (Matt. 6:25; Luke 12:22). What follows reads like a practical comment on the subject of prayer, which says in effect: “True prayer and anxious care cannot coexist”: The way to be anxious about nothing is to be prayerful about everything. The word “prayer” represents our general approach to God in prayer; “supplication,” the cry of personal need. With these, “when we let our requests be known to God,” should go “thanksgiving.” If they pray in this way, Paul promises, “the peace of God{3], which passes all understanding”?transcends all our comprehension ? “will keep (literally “garrison”) their “hearts” and “minds.” He ends with the phrase “in Christ Jesus,” as though to say, “Outside Him there is no safety.”
“Do not be anxious about anything” is a command. To be anxious is always a sin, because anxiety is a sign of a lack of faith (Rom. 14:23). God is our loving and all-powerful heavenly Father. He will take care of His children (1 Pe. 5:7). We are not to worry. The paragraph began with joy; it ends with peace. Is Paul saying that if we do not have God’s peace in our hearts we cannot have His song on our lips?
Paul’s familiarity with the teaching of his Lord is shown in this warning against being distracted by anxiety (6; Matt. 6:25-34). For the Philippians’ life was bound to be a worrying thing. Even to be a human being and to be vulnerable to all the chances and changes of this mortal life is in itself a worrying thing; and in the Early Church, to the normal worry of the human situation there was added the worry of being a Christian which meant taking one’s life in one’s hands. Paul’s solution is prayer. Instead of yielding to such distressful concern, the Philippians are to commit everything, sorrows and joys alike, to God in prayer. As they lay their specific requests before God, they are to make their supplication with thanksgiving for past mercies and present blessings (Col. 4:2); and both for the fact we can pray and present our petitions to the Lord, and for the assurance that God will hear and answer prayer. Prayer is by faith, thanking God in advance that He will hear and answer our prayers. After reading verse 6 and the explanation given thus far someone might want to know the difference between prayer, supplication, and requests. Prayer is the devout address made to God in general, supplication is the specific appeal for help, and request the particular petition made.
The result for committing everything to God in prayer will be that not only will God respond to our prayers, but the immediate result will be that the intercessor will receive “the peace of God.” This is something more than having peace with God, referring to the position of a Christian in Christ, which is true of all true Christians. Here the reference is to the experience of this peace, a peace which is characteristic of God Himself, referred to by Christ in the words, “Peace, I leave with you, my peace I give unto you” (John 14:27). But the peace is also from God, a Fruit of the Spirit and a work of God in the here and now.
Because many pray to God amiss, with complaints and murmurings, as though they had just ground for accusing Him, while others cannot put up with delay if He does not immediately obey their wishes.
Paul joins thanksgiving with prayers. Every prayer must surely include thanks for the great privilege of prayer itself. It is as though he had said that those things that are necessary for us ought to be desired from the Lord in such a way that we nevertheless subject our affections to His will, and give thanks while asking. And unquestionably, gratitude and perfect submission to the will of God will have the effect upon us that the will of God will be the chief sum of our desires. It is only when we are fully convinced that God is working all things together for good that we can really feel toward Him the perfect gratitude which believing prayer demands.
When we pray we must always remember three things. We must remember the love of God, which always desires what is best for us. We must remember the wisdom of God, which alone knows what is best for us. We must remember the power of God, which alone can bring to pass that which is best for us. He who prays with a perfect trust in the love, wisdom, and power of God will find God’s peace, that is, the peace that passes all understanding. That does not mean that the peace of God is such a mystery that the mind of man cannot understand it, although that also is true. It means that the peace of God is so precious that man’s mind, with all its skill and all its knowledge, can never produce it. It can never be of man’s contriving; it is only of God’s giving. The way to peace is in prayer to entrust ourselves and all whom we hold dear to the loving hands of God.
In expressing our needs to God, we can rid ourselves of anxiety. By expressing our gratitude to Him we should flavor our moods. We have direct access (which also means “face to face”) to God and we can repeatedly make requests to Him, and express to Him our needs. We are in a reconciled relationship with our Father.
7 And the peace of God (= shalom), which transcends (is habitually holding sway over) all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
And. This has consecutive force: and so, it introduces the blessed result, which the compliance with verse 6 will have for the inner man.
The peace of God. This inward peace is bestowed on the basis of Christ’s impartial achievement, for peace from God is founded upon the work of reconciliation which established peace with God (Rom. 5:1; Eph. 2:14). We cannot think of the one, indeed, without thinking of the other; nor can one exist apart from the other. We cannot have peace of heart until our real and actual separation from God is bridged by the blood of Christ. We cannot have the breach between God and us healed without a sense of the new relation of peace stealing into our hearts
Which transcends all (human) understanding{1]. In its power to relieve anxiety the peace of God surpasses all our futile attempts to “reason” our cares away. God’s peace produces far better results than human scheming; it is superior to all man’s devices for security and is more effective in removing disquietude (a feeling of anxiety or uneasiness) than any intellectual effort or reasoning power. These often increase disquietude.
The “peace of God” is something else; it is superhuman rather than purely psychological and is unexplainable by natural intellectual powers. The city of Philippi was guarded by a Roman garrison, so Paul’s metaphor would appeal to his readers. The “peace of God” is the garrison of the soul in all the experiences of its life, defending it from the external assaults of temptation or anxiety, and disciplining all lawless desires and imaginations within, that war against its higher purposes. As such it will “guard” or “stand guard” against anxieties that would normally attack the heart{2] and mind of a Christian.
When God’s peace comes into our minds, anxiety goes out. Peace and anxiety are opposites. God’s peace is greater than our understanding. It transcends all understanding. With our understanding, we see things that make us anxious; but when God’s peace comes, our anxiety is overcome. God’s peace will guard our hearts and minds against every anxiety. Anxieties are weapons of Satan.
What Paul is proposing is a supernatural peace, a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22), a peace which exists where the circumstances cannot be changed and, where left to normal solutions, a Christian would be left in despair and anxiety. Without question, many Christians have not adequately availed themselves of this provision of God for the peace of heaven in the heart which can be attained long before the Christian is taken to heaven. Those who are at peace with themselves have a proper platform on which to build a relationship of peace and harmony with others. Too often inner friction results in outer friction. Keeping peace in the heart will help keep peace in the church.
In Christ Jesus. Apart from Christ, the Holy Spirit does not dwell within us. And if the Holy Spirit is not in our life, there will be no peace either. God’s peace is realized only in union with Christ Jesus, and this relationship requires believers to submit to His gracious rule over their lives (Col. 3:15).
By following Paul’s advice in verse 6, God’s peace ? which continuously has a hold over our mind and inner senses ? will garrison our hearts and reasoning, and will stand guard over our plans and purposes. His peace habitually holds sway over us, because we are within Him. Our union with Jesus guards the core of our being and His peace is superior to the effects of our thinking and perceptions. Once again, it is our relationship to Jesus that gives us this ? not just our awareness of who we are.
Summary
This has been a wonderful commentary to prepare!
Paul assures his readers that even in the face of certain outward conditions they are “not (to) be anxious about anything”? they are not to be anxious or be harassed.
Then Paul goes on to say, “but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” When praying, Paul continues, we are to be specific in making our requests known to God. Prayer in the Bible is the specific and definite thinking things through before God. That is exactly what Paul encourages his readers to do.
We are invited by our Friend Jesus Christ in the “Our Father” prayer to bring the requests and real concerns of our daily lives, including our need for food to the Father in prayer. Now Paul reminds his readers of all time of the generous invitation.
But our requests are to be made “with thanksgiving.” The idea conveyed by Paul in the Greek word he used is that our thanksgiving is the “good joy” we offer to God in all things.
Paul then shows us the outcome of such a prayer. “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (4:7). The peace that belongs to God is His to give, and it is a peace that has within it the sense of wholeness and health. The literal meaning of what Paul has been saying is that God’s peace is able to guard our hearts and minds against the pressures that cause fear and harassment.
Scripture and Special Notes
[1} This probably means the peace which God gives excels and surpasses all our own intellectual calculations and considerations, all our contemplations and premeditated ideas of how to get rid of our cares? and which after all cannot completely remove our faint-heartedness and worry, and restore peace and calm to our minds. What God gives, surpasses all that we ask or think.
[2} By reference to the heart, the thought is expressed that the essential nature of man, which is both emotional and intellectual, will be protected; and that particularly the mind, the thinking faculty, which normally would reasonably consider the problems of life, would also be garrisoned by peace. Although Psychology and rational approaches to life may solve some problems and enable us to see things in their proper light, their capacity is mostly by way of analysis and human solution.
[3} “The peace of God” is that which ensues on reconciliation through Christ and the bestowing of the Holy Spirit, who breathes the Father’s love into the heart (Rom. 5:1-2, 8-11; Eph. 2:13-18). The conscientiousness of this fortifies the mind against trouble: it shall guard (or garrison) your hearts or thoughts in Christ Jesus.
