11.22.23 Philippians 4:6–7 (EHV)
6 Do not worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Prayer, With Thanks, Brings Peace
Martin Luther taught us to pray by authoring his Morning and Evening Prayers. I love these prayers. They are so simple and straightforward. Even if you have a hard time being a spiritual leader in your family, it isn’t too hard to pull out these prayer cards and speak them in the morning and the evening. And how do they start out?
I thank you, my heavenly Father . . . they start with thanks.
Why is giving thanks so important? You see, thankfulness in prayer appears to be part of the antidote to worry from what Paul writes to us today. Do not worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. It’s not just prayer, but prayer WITH thanksgiving. It’s kind of like Ranch salad dressing for some people or ketchup. They put it on their salad, their french fries, their meat, their beans, everything. And so it is with thankfulness. God wants it to go along with our prayer.
But that’s easier said than done. Thankfulness doesn’t just come from commanding it. It seems the more gifts you have, the more things you have to be thankful for, the less thankful we are. Instead, thankfulness often comes from want and need. They are the soil in which thankfulness grows. It’s hard to be thankful when you have all you need. Take for instance, your back has been hurting for a long time. You want a reprieve. You pray that God grants success to your surgery. It works! For the first time in months you can sleep on your back. What’s the first thing you think? “Thank you Lord!” You’re naturally thankful for something that most people take for granted, for something simple like a good night’s sleep.
The soil of want and need goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden with the Fall into sin. Right from the start God shows us our origins, digs us into this hole of sin and corruption. Now we are born in sin and we are bathed in it at birth. Look at the history of humanity in the Bible, a history of murder, adultery, wickedness and rebellion. We see the Israelites make the golden calf. We see David murder Uriah and steal his wife. We see Manasseh sacrifice his own son. We see the Israelites rebel against God’s commandments.
We look at our own generation of people living in this world. Drug addiction. Anger. Broken relationships. Loneliness. War. You see children get murdered and abducted and raped. We hear God say to us, “This shows you what I’ve been saying. This is humanity. Born to die. Fallen. Wicked. Evil.” God responds. He brings the Flood. He opens up the earth to swallow Korah and the rebels of Moses’ time. He brings in the Babylonians to tear down the temple and take the Israelites captive. He threatens worse than that, with hell and fire and judgment. And then God says to us, “You deserve it too!” It’s a completely different vision of humanity than our world has and also a different version of God that we imagine. We aren’t naturally good. The world isn’t getting better, it’s getting worse. The soil of want and need is deep when you read the Bible and see humanity for what it is.
Then we see Jesus. We see God take on flesh and come into this miserable and wicked world. We watch Him die a miserable death. We hear Him cry, “It is finished.” We hear Paul then say, “This is free. This is grace. This is salvation, through faith in Christ alone. This is how your sins are washed away, in the waters of baptism. This is how you continue to receive this grace and mercy, in the body and blood of the Lord’s Supper. Shed for you.” The words come out so naturally. “Thank you Lord!”
As Lutherans, within the Word and the liturgy we are bred to be thankful for the sheer fact of just being called God’s children! That He would think to adopt us into His family and send His angels to protect us! That He would promise to work all things out for our good! To design our lives so that we would have plenty of opportunities to do good works to the glory of His name! Think of how John writes it in 1 John 3:1, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” That’s the attitude the Holy Spirit breeds in us through His Word! When you go through the history of humanity and then the history of God’s mercy, you become anything but entitled. You become thankful for every day of God’s grace. And then to think that He gives us so much more! Food and clothing, house and home, wife and children . . . this breeds thankfulness within!
And if all that weren’t enough, there’s another thing! He doesn’t just treat us like infants and babies. Even though we are sinful and weak, He still gives us responsibilities and treats us like responsible adults! He involves us in the fight against darkness. He is patient with us when we mess up. And He equips us to fight, through the Word of God and through prayer! God promises to hear and answer our prayers! He even commands us to pray. He wants to help us! But He also wants us to ASK for that help, as a reminder to us as to where the power comes from and who is in charge. Matthew 7:7 says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
This is God’s antidote to worry. Prayer and petition with thanksgiving. Yes, we live in a world that is falling apart. We are entrenched in a war against our own society, which is openly advocating for the murder of our infants and the infestation of drugs. We have sinful natures to deal with in ourselves that are still stubborn and hungry for sin. We have demons prowling around looking for someone to devour. There’s plenty to be worried about! But God is here too! God is waiting at our beck and call. The same God who conquered the Egyptian army, drowned the world of unbelievers at Noah’s time . . . raised the dead . . . healed the sick . . . rules the world . . . enabled the disciples to boldly proclaim the gospel . . . yes, that God, the all-powerful miracle worker. Hebrews 13:5-6 declares, “God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” Thank the Lord!
When you are thankful for God’s grace and active in prayer, something else happens as a natural result. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Your heart is the seat of your emotions, and there are some who are very emotional. Your mind is your thought process, how you think. There are some who tend to overthink everything or try to figure everything out in life! God guards these things through thankful prayer.
You see, when you thankfully pray, you remind yourself of all that God is doing for you. You go through the list of blessings, and you remember who gives them to you. When you thankfully pray, you mentally put the worries of the world in God’s hands. You say, “Here God, you take care of this. I can’t handle it.” That doesn’t wash your hands of doing anything. Sometimes you will need to do the work. But even then, you are asking Him to work through you. You are leaving the results in HIS hands. When you pray to God and ask for His strength, His guidance, and HIS will to be done, it leaves a peace in your mind. You don’t have to be in control of the situation. You don’t have to be in charge. You don’t have to try and cheat in life to get the results you want. You can do what you do, and leave the results in HIS hands. After all, HE is God. YOU aren’t! Thankful prayer helps you to RELAX and let God be God.
All of us have probably had a time in life that we’ve asked someone to do something, but they didn’t do it the way you wanted them to. Imagine a mom saying, “Can you fold the clothes for me? Wait! You aren’t folding them right! Here! Give it to me! I’ll do it!” Then she asks, “Why doesn’t anyone else do anything around here?” A perfectionist is usually stressed out because they are so meticulous about wanting everything done THEIR way. How often do we do that with God? We pray for Him to take care of it, but then we don’t like how He’s taking care of it. He’s too strict. He’s not tolerant enough. He’s taking too long. He’s not doing it right.
A great example of this was when Saul was waiting for Samuel to come and make a sacrifice prior to going to battle. The enemy was closing in on Saul, and Saul was getting stressed out. Yet he wasn’t authorized to make the fire. So what did he do? He made the sacrifice himself. And what happened? Right after he was done Samuel came walking in. Saul tried to take matters into his OWN hands, and he lost the kingship because of it. We pray to God. We say, “Thy will be done.” But we don’t mean it. How often do we take it back from Him, and try to do it OUR way and in our own timeline. So we cause more stress to ourselves because we try to put it on God’s plate, but then we take it back. Why not rather give it to Him and let Him keep it? Why not let Him worry about it instead?
I think of David. After committing murder and adultery, Nathan told him that the son he had with Bathsheba was going to die. So he prayed, and he prayed, and he prayed some more. He even fasted. But his son died anyway. Instead of being angry about it, he got up and shaved, and asked for something to eat. Why? Because God answered his prayer - not as he wanted - but what was done was done. He trusted that God knew what was best. When most parents would have been racked with guilt or anger or despair, David was at peace. His servants couldn’t understand it. It’s even hard for us to understand it. But God gave him peace.
It just seems that the more we reflect on God’s grace in our lives, living a life of thankfulness, and the more we pray throughout the process of life, the more peace we will have. We don’t deserve ANYTHING from God. We live in a broken world with broken bodies. So anything we get, anything that works out, well - that’s all in God’s hands. Thank the Lord for that! The more we remind ourselves that God is in charge, the less we will be apt to worry. The more we remember how we deserve nothing, the more at peace we will be with the simple things in life.
Think of Martha who was all stressed about Martha not helping with the many chores. Mary was just simply listening, thankful to be in the presence of Jesus, not worried about the peripherals. She was at peace. Martha wasn’t.
Most importantly, think of Jesus, about to be arrested. Peter is freaking out, chopping off Malchus’ ear, doing all he can to stop it from happening. But while Peter had been sleeping, Jesus was praying. God answered. It was time to die. He didn’t panic. He was at peace, ready to make the payment that was necessary. When He made the payment, He faced death calmly. “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” And what happened? He came back to life three days later. Yes, we can always be thankful for that. Jesus took care of it, just like He said. He conquered sin and death and hell.
There’s one little phrase at the end of vs. 7 that is all important. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds IN CHRIST JESUS. Yes, all of this peace and thanksgiving only happens in Jesus, through faith in Him.
Did you know that Thanksgiving meals take 18 hours to prepare, and only 12 minutes to consume!?! It seems like a lot of work into something that goes so quickly. So it is with life. You prepare for this one day, and if you're lucky, maybe things go pretty well. You're thankful for it, but then it's gone. Back to work.
But when our thanks are in Christ Jesus, it doesn't end in 12 minutes. This Thanksgiving, remind yourself of what you have to be thankful for. It’s all ultimately in Christ Jesus, who spent His life preparing your salvation. What health you have left, what family you have left, what life you have left on this earth - all gifts from God. What grace and hope you have left - there’s always plenty of that! It never runs out, in Christ Jesus. Let those thanks permeate your prayers, in the morning and the evening, and experience the peace of God, that goes beyond all understanding. The peace of knowing our sins are forgiven, God is in charge and taking care of us, and salvation is ours in Christ alone. Thanks be to God, along with peace, through prayer, in Christ Jesus. Amen.
