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Most of the scriptures quoted in these sermons are copies and quoted from the New Living Translation of the Holy Bible.
I do at times use scripture from several different versions of the Bible such as NIV, New King James Version, King James Version etc.
Any and all ministers may freely use any of my sermons and post them anywhere that they want to.
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Pastor Ed Pruitt
Are You Looking For A Prayer That Works
Part 3
Sunday July 15 2007
Philippians 4:6-8 gives us very practical insight into how we pray this prayer of casting your care.
6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.
7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.
Now I want to read this passage again in,
Philippians 4:6 (KJV)
6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
“Be careful for nothing”
The fact of the matter is that Paul seems to be making a play upon two indefinite pronouns: nothing and everything.
Let me give you my translation,
It goes like this: “Worry about nothing; pray about everything.”
Prayer is the secret of power.
“Worry about nothing.” In verse 4 we were given one of the new commandments God has given us: Rejoice.
Now here is another commandment.
Worry about nothing; pray about everything.
Nothing is a very interesting word.
If you have something, it’s not nothing, that is not correct grammar, but it is an accurate statement.
Nothing is nothing, and you are to worry about nothing.
Does this mean we are to look at life through rose-colored glasses, that we are not to face reality?
Are we to believe that sin is not real, that sickness is not real, that problems are not real?
Are we to ignore these things?
No. Paul says that we are to worry about nothing because we are to pray about everything.
Nothing is the most exclusive word in the English language.
It leaves out everything.
“Worry about nothing.”
I confess that this is a commandment I sometimes break, I worry.
But the reason we are to worry about nothing is because we are to pray about everything.
This means that we are to talk to the Lord about everything in our lives.
Nothing should be left out.
I have heard the question for years, “do you think we should pray about the little things in our lives?”
Let me answer it this way, “can you mention anything in your life that is big to God?”
When we say that we take our big problems to God, what do we mean?
They are all little stuff to Him.
And what we call little He wants us to bring to Him also.
As believers we need to get in the habit of bringing everything to Him in prayer—nothing excluded.
When I go on a trip in my car and it involves several hours of driving, I invite the Lord Jesus to go along with me.
I talk to Him and tell Him everything about Ed Pruitt, things I wouldn’t tell you or anyone else.
I tell Him everything.
I think we ought to learn to do that.
We ought to pray about everything.
“Pray about everything.”
Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one’s heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend.
Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you;
Tell Him your joys, that He may sober them;
Tell Him your longings, that He may purify them;
Tell Him your dislikes, that He may help you to conquer them;
Talk to Him of your temptations, that He may shield you from them; show Him the wounds of your heart, that He may heal them; lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes for evil, your instability.
Tell Him how self-love makes you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises you to yourself as to others.
If you thus pour out all your weaknesses, needs, troubles, there will be no lack of what to say.
You will never exhaust the subject.
It is continually being renewed.
People who have no secrets from each other never want subjects of conversation.
They do not weigh their words, for there is nothing to be held back; neither do they seek for something to say.
They talk out of the abundance of the heart, without consideration, just what they think.
Blessed are they who attain to such familiar, unreserved intercourse with God.
Maybe you think it sounds very pious when I am willing to testify that I take my burdens to the Lord in prayer.
I must confess that after I spread everything out before Him, when I finish praying, I pick it all right back up, put the problems back on my shoulders, and start out with the burden again.
That is my problem.
The Lord wants us to trust Him so that we worry about nothing, pray about everything.
I wish I could say to you that I’m as free as the bird in the trees, free as the bees gathering honey.
That’s the way He wants us to be.
My friend, do we really trust God like that?
Worry about nothing and pray about everything.
“With thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”
Paul never lets prayer become a leap in the dark.
It rests on a foundation. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom. 10:17).
Prayer rests on faith, and faith rests on the Word of God.
Now he says that when you go to God with a request, thank Him.
Thank Him right then and there.
Paul was able to express himself in the most versatile language which has ever been in the world, the Greek language, and he was able to say what he wanted to say.
What he says is that when you make your requests, right there and then you are to thank God for hearing and answering your prayer.
You can take anything to God in prayer, the big things and the little things.
How can you sort them out?
They are all little things to God.
We are to let our “requests be made known unto God with thanksgiving.”
To supplicate means more than just to ask someone for something.
It implies that you are pouring your heart out about something that you need.
Therefore, to effectively pray the prayer of casting your care, you must do more than just say something general, such as, “Lord, I give all my worries to You, Amen.”
You must get specific.
Tell the Lord exactly what cares you are asking Him to take, and tell Him everything that’s been bothering you about them.
In other words, unload on Him.
If you’ve ever had another person unload on you, you know what that’s like.
They don’t just say, “I had a bad day.”
They give you all the gory details.
They tell you what happened.
They tell you how they felt about it.
They take everything that’s inside them and pour it out on you.
That’s exactly the way you cast your cares upon the Lord.
You stop trying to sound all nice and spiritual, and you just have a conversation with God and tell Him everything that’s been worrying you.
Once you’ve done that, make a definite request.
Ask Him to meet your need, give you wisdom or simply handle the problem.
Don’t be nebulous. Be definite with God.
Say, “Lord, this is the amount of money I need.
I don’t care how You bring it.
All I know is that You said, they that love the
Lord will not want for any good thing.
(Ps. 34:10.)
So I trust You, and I’m asking You to provide.”
Whenever I’m having trouble with worry, I set aside a
specific time and place to get it all out.
Then when the Devil comes back to me and tries
to get me all upset about that situation again,
I can refuse him.
I’ll say, “No, I won’t take that back.
I remember exactly when and where I was
when I gave that to God.
I told Him everything that was bothering me about
that situation.
Now it belongs to Him, and I won’t touch
it with worry.”
Some people might think it’s arrogant to say
something like that.
They might feel it’s presumptuous just to tell God what you need and expect Him to take care of it.
But it’s not.
On the contrary, casting your care on God is an act of
humility.
First Peter 5:6-7 AMP bears that out.
It says, Humble yourselves…under the mighty hand
Of God…casting the whole of your care…on Him.
When you pray this prayer, you are demonstrating
the fact that you believe God is bigger than you are,
that He is able to fix this problem.
You are admitting that you are totally dependent
upon Him.
After you’ve settled things with God by making
a definite request, the next thing you need to do
is thank Him.
I realize you haven’t seen results in the
natural realm yet, but your faith isn’t based on
what you see; it’s based on what you believe.
And you should be believing 1 John 5:14-15 NKJV.
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him,
that if we ask anything according to His will,
He hears us.
And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask,
we know that we have the petitions that we have
asked of Him.
According to this passage, if we ask knowing
that God hears us, we can have absolute
confidence that we have our answer.
That is reason enough to give thanks!
After you thank God for taking care of your situation,
if you’ve really prayed from your heart, you’ll notice a
supernatural peace begin to settle over you.
That’s the divine order of things: prayer first,
thanksgiving second and peace third.
You can never rearrange or change that progression.
There may be times when someone will come to you
literally shaking with anxiety and ask you to pray for them.
You can pray for the peace of God to
come upon them.
You can ask for the Prince of Peace to comfort them.
But if that person is worried about a specific situation,
those prayers won’t help them.
You’ll have to lead them the biblical way.
Prayer, supplication and thanksgiving: that’s the
way to peace.
There are no shortcuts that will get you there by a
quicker route.
So when someone comes to you for prayer, ask them
specifically what’s bothering them.
Then, as they begin to unburden themselves,
you might say, “Wait a minute.
Why don’t you just tell all this to God?
Telling me won’t help you very much,
but telling Him will.”
They may be uncomfortable at first because
that kind of praying doesn’t sound very spiritual.
But encourage them to talk to Him just like they were talking to you.
Then they’ll be able to cast those cares on Him and
experience the peace they so desperately need.
Once we find that peace, we maintain it by obeying the
fourth part of that passage in Philippians 4.
We fix our minds on what the Word of God says
is true about our situation.
We think good and praiseworthy things.
When worry comes knocking at your door, turn it away
and choose to meditate on thoughts of faith instead.
When you’ve prayed about that child according to
Isaiah 55 and then he gets in trouble, don’t start
thinking about that trouble.
Instead, fix your mind on what the Bible says.
Say to yourself, God, I am your child.
I don’t care what the Devil tries to do to make me sick,
it isn’t going to work.
According to your scripture,
By Your stripes I am healed.
I am going to end up victorious and prosperous and blessed because God is faithful, and He told
me that’s how things are going to be.”
It’s important that you understand I’m not
Suggesting you just suppress your fears by
refusing to think about them.
No, you’ve gotten rid of those fears by casting
them over on God and replacing them with faith.
You are simply refusing to allow those fears
to come back by shutting the door on them.
You continue to keep them out by keeping your mind
and your heart full of the Word of God.
As you do, you’ll continue to pray powerful prayers, prayers unhindered by worry and care.
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus [Phil. 4:7].
The Scripture speaks of other kinds of peace which we can understand.
There is world peace.
We have the assurance that someday peace will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
It will come through the person of Christ, the Prince of Peace.
Also there is the peace that comes when sins are forgiven.
“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1).
Then there is the peace that is tranquility.
The Lord Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you …” (John 14:27).
That is a marvelous peace, but it is not “the peace … which passeth all understanding.”
I do not know how to tell you this, but I do know it is a peace in which we do not live at all times.
I think it is a peace that sweeps over our souls at certain times.
I stood on the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado and looked out at the great snowcapped mountain in the foreground.
And then looked down into the depth of the Gorge.
I have stood and look out across and into the depth of the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
I have stood and looked at both the sunrise and sunset on the Gulf of Mexico.
As I looked at the majesty of God’s creations, what a peace came to me.
I can’t tell you what it was—it “passeth all understanding.”
If all of us will just stay in close contact with God, and keep His commandments, and as scripture tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (KJV)
16 Rejoice evermore. 17 Pray without ceasing. 18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
We will find and keep that peace which passeth all understanding.
In closing I want to read one more verse
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 [Phil. 4:8].
This has been called the briefest biography of Christ.
He is the One who is “true.”
He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. “Whatsoever things are honest”—He is honest. “Whatsoever things are just”—He is called the Just One.
“Pure”—the only pure individual who ever walked this earth was the Lord Jesus.
He asked the question, “Which of you convicteth me of sin?”
No one did. He also said, “… the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me” (John 14:30).
Satan always finds something he can hook onto in me.
How about you?
But there was nothing in the Lord Jesus.
He was “… holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners …” (Heb. 7:26).
He was lovely which means “gracious.”
Virtue has to do with strength and courage.
He was the One of courage, a real man.
He took upon Himself our humanity. “If … any praise”—He is the One you can praise and worship today.
If a Christian is going to spend his time with the dirt and filth and questionable things of this world, there will not be power in his life.
The reason we have so many weak Christians is that they spend their time with the things of the world, filling their minds and hearts and tummies with the things of this world.
Then they wonder why there is no power in their lives.
We need a sanctuary.
We need something to think upon that will clean up our minds.
Here are some questions to think about: How much time do you spend with the Word of God?
How much time do you spend contemplating Christ?
“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18).
The Word of God is a mirror, and in it we behold the glory of the Lord.
The only way you can behold the living Christ is in the Word of God.
As you behold Him, there is a liberty, a freedom, and a growth that He gives you.
You cannot come by it in any other way.
Oh, how puerile, how inconsequential is the impact of believers’ lives!
I am amazed at how easily Christians are taken in by every wind of doctrine that comes along.
They are not able to discern truth and error.
The one explanation, as I have pondered it in my mind, is ignorance of the Word of God.
To have power in our lives we must contemplate the person of Jesus Christ, contemplating Him in the Word of God.
Too often people come to the church to be entertained.
Someone has said that people come to church to eye the clothes or to close the eyes.
Many seem to sit in a daze for an hour just to feel religious or pious.
My friend, only the Word of God can bring strength to you.
You need physical food when you are weak; you need bread and meat to give you strength.
The Word of God is your spiritual bread and meat.
The only way to grow spiritually is to spend time in the Word of God.
It is the Word that reveals Jesus Christ.
I believe He is on every page of Scripture if only we have eyes to see Him.
We need to see Him.
We need to have the reality of Christ in our lives.
This is made possible as we, with an open face, behold the glory of the Lord.
I think one of the things that will cause believers to be ashamed at the appearing of Christ will be their ignorance of the Scriptures when they stand in His presence.
I’m of the opinion He will say to many of us, “I gave you all the information you needed in the Scriptures.
You didn’t listen to Me; you didn’t hear Me.”
We say that one of the problems with our children is that they don’t listen to their parents.
The problem with the children of God is that they don’t listen to their heavenly Father.
Contemplation of Christ—that is the sanctuary of power.
Many of us need to leave the busyness and dirtiness of this world and go aside with the Word of God where we can contemplate Him, worship Him, and praise Him.
In closing I wish to read to you a story that was told by a well known Commentator he said that
Peace came when my heavenly Father let me have cancer. I went to the hospital frightened to death, and then the night I committed it all to him and told Him I wanted to know He was real, He made Himself real and that peace that “passeth all understanding” flooded my soul. I don’t know how to tell you what it is; I can only say that it is wonderful.
This peace “shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” There are those who say that prayer changes things. I can’t argue with that; prayer does change things. But that is not the primary purpose of prayer.
Notice that we entered this passage in anxiety, with worry, and we come out of the passage with peace.
Between the two was prayer.
Have things changed? Not really.
The storm may still be raging, the waves still rolling high, the thunder still resounding.
Although the storm has not abated, something has happened in the individual.
Something has happened to the human soul and the human mind.
In our anxiety we want God to change everything around us.
“Give us this.” “Don’t let this happen.” “Open up this door.”
We should be praying, “Oh, God, change me.”
Prayer is the secret of power.
We enter with worry, we can come out in peace.
Joy is the source of power; prayer is the secret of power.
