Prayer Not Despair

Well, calm in chaos is our series all through the month of January. Good morning, I am so glad you joined us. My name is René. I'm one of the pastors here. This series ties into the Max Lucado best seller Anxious for Nothing. It is a fantastic book. You can grab that book. You can sign up for one of our Zoom book study groups. I'm leading one on Tuesday nights and there's one every night of the week. You can do all that at tlc.org/calm. I invite you to join us. Man, do we need calm in chaos or what?

Well, right before I dig into the message for this morning, I just got to share with you another Emmet picture. He is a week old this weekend. Here is Emmet. This one is Emmet. Just to clarify, this little bunny and the sweater he is wearing were both hand knit by our daughter-in-law Anna Catherine Schlepper. Isn't that adorable? Okay, René, refocus.

I heard a great quote from Pastor Andy Stanley in Atlanta, Georgia this week that really stuck with me and I want to share it with you. See if you think this is true. He said so much of our anxiety these days, especially, is directly related to the question, "What's next?" Say that two-word question out loud with me wherever you are. "What's next?" Now, "what's next" can be a delicious sensation, right? Like the suspense of a great story or a great movie or the joyful anticipation of the arrival, well, of a grandbaby or a baby or a wedding.

These days, we are all overdosing on the question, "What's next?" Like maybe never before. We're all collectively as a nation and as a world asking the "what's next?" questions about what's next for our country. What's next concerning COVID? What's next concerning the vaccine? Am I going to get it? When am I going to get it? What's next concerning our public schools? When will they reopen? How will they reopen? What's next for our church in the midst of all this? What's next for my job? Will I have a job? Will the job that I have continue to exist? Will I be able to get a new job? What's next with my marriage? A lot of people experiencing stress in relationships. What's next for my family? How are my kids handling all that?

Now, that's all related to all these current crises that are gripping our imaginations. The "what's next?" questions abound and cause a lot of anxiety. But in daily life, we also have a lot of just sort of more mundane "what's next?" questions. We wake up every morning and they start to bombard our thoughts. Like we think of appointments that we've got coming up. Medical appointments or other appointments. Tough conversations that we've got to have with family, with friends, with coworkers perhaps, with neighbors maybe. What about to-do tasks that are coming up that are on our list? Things we've been putting off. What about bills we've got to pay and we wonder about where we're going to get the money for those bills? The "what's next?" questions absolutely can bombard us.

So what do we do with the "what's next?" anxiety? Well, of course, one of the things that we can do is to get better prepared for what's next. The Bible talks so much about this. For example, in the book of Proverbs, God gave you a brain to use it, look ahead, prepare. And that's great advice. The problem is that even preparation and research can become a source for anxiety. It can become like the proverbial hamster on the wheel, just running over and over in your head. Mark showed this video in week one and I just loved it. And my preparation, my research can just become like thoughts that are hamsters on a wheel in my brain because I can never be quite sure about what's next. And so I end up thinking about it endlessly.

And that's why today, I want to teach you something that I've learned about getting those hamsters off the wheel in my brain and handling what's next anxiety in a productive way. Today, I am going to teach you a daily habit that I started about a month ago, a method specifically for prayer that I learned from a TLC member that I've been practicing that has helped me so much. And I know it is going to help you too. How do I know that? It's going to help you as you face your own what's next because it is right out of Scripture.

A book of the Bible called Philippians, we've been studying this all month. Quick recap, Philippians was written by a man named Paul who was basically the leader of the early church after Christ. It was written while he was a prisoner awaiting execution under Caesar Nero who was attacking Christians and blaming them for burning down Rome. So there was sort of a national movement against Christians. So that's what was written by, it was written to Christians in the Roman colony of Philippi. Philippi was a famous city in Macedonia, what is now Northern Greece.

Now here's why you need to listen to the historical background. It was decimated, wiped out by the Roman army of its native inhabitants. And then it was recolonized, watch this, by retired Roman army legionnaires who were basically chosen for their devotion to Caesar and the Roman way. It was a mini Rome up there in the region of Macedonia. And so these Roman legionnaires who were retired, they were like, man, what Caesar says is what we do. So if Caesar says the Christians are bad news, that's what we think. And so consequently, the Christians in Philippi were under severe threat during the time of Caesar Nero.

So what I'm getting at is the original readers of the letter to the Philippians, which is in our Bibles as the book of Philippians. 20 centuries ago when this was written, one thought dominated their conscious thinking. What's next? What's next for our leader? The Apostle Paul, will he be executed? He was. What's next for us? Will we be chased down? Will we be oppressed? Will we be executed? Many of them were. In other words, this was written by the Apostle Paul in these circumstances, in that historical context, in prison under that uncertainty about what's next.

The Apostle Paul pens these astonishing words. Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again. Rejoice. We looked at this verse in week two of this series. Let your gentleness be evident to all. Let it be like your trademark because you know the Lord is near. We looked at this verse last weekend. I really want to encourage you to go back and look at those two messages. And then today's verse, be anxious for nothing. What? In that circumstance, when the world looked like it was coming to an end, when it looked like the Antichrist was on the throne, when there was oppression against them, be anxious for nothing. But in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Amen.

What I want to do this morning is I want to go through this verse very quickly, phrase by phrase, to kind of make sure that we understand what it's saying. And I want to talk about how to practically apply this by specifically looking at how Jesus Christ applied this in the Lord's Prayer. Are you ready for this? All right, here we go. Paul says, be anxious for nothing. Now, hang on here because man, has this been misapplied and been used to make Christians feel guilty? He is not saying never get stressed. Stress is a part of life. Everybody gets stressed. The most mature people even get stressed in life. There is just stress in life. Don't add to your stress, guilt about being stressed.

What Paul is saying, and we know this from the verb tense that he uses here, is don't be continually living in an anxious state because when you're always living in a state of alarm, that is just bad for you. So be anxious for nothing, but in everything. Really, everything. Nothing's too big to pray about. Nothing's too little to pray about. If it's big enough to worry about, it's big enough to pray about. In everything by prayer, and the word that Paul uses here for prayer and the way he uses it really, it's almost like the word that we might use in our culture for meditation. And I mean biblical meditation when you are refocusing on God and not your problems.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer, refocus, and petition. And this is a phrase that's often overlooked in this verse. Petition means I come to God as a petitioner in a posture of humility. In other words, I come to God like this and not like this. I come to God like this and not like this. I am not bossing God around, he's the boss of me. Petition means I'm reminding myself God not. We do that occasionally here at Twin Lakes Church, wherever you are, whatever age you are, join me in that gesture. God not. That submission, that humility, that petition.

With thanksgiving, Paul says, and thanksgiving, the command to give thanks is really reminded that prayer is not a to-do list for God. It is a relationship with God, right? God is not your vending machine. God is your loving Father who gives you good gifts and so you say thank you. So you're establishing the relationship in submission, humility, and gratitude. That's the reorientation. Then once you're reoriented, the rest follows so naturally you present your requests to God. And what Paul means by this phrase is, as Max Lucado says in his book, specificity, be specific about your prayers. Why? Well, when you pray specifically, you start expecting God to work.

When you get specific, not just vague, God help with stuff, but help me have a positive conversation with my son this afternoon. Or I need to get these three big things done today really badly so God help me get these things done by the time my workday ends today at five. And what happens when you pray that specifically is this. Listen carefully. A tiny seed of faith is planted in your heart. A seed of eager expectation that something better might just happen. That the what's next you're feeling when you wake up in the morning might not be a disaster. That what's next for you today might be a miracle.

So that's what this verse means in theory. I mean, it's pretty obvious, but there's some nuance that I hope you appreciate now that we've looked at it line by line. That's great, but how do we do this? In real life, in daily life, as a daily, it's so easy to get out of this habit and start being anxious for everything instead of praying for everything. How do I do this? Well, I want to tell you a story. I was working out on East Cliff Drive maybe about a month ago. And I ran into another guy from Twin Lakes Church who was also doing his workout. He was riding his bike. I was doing my fast hike run thing. And it was Mark Littlefield, Mark's substitute high school teacher here. And we started talking and, you know, listen, I'm a pastor, but I don't always talk to people about spiritual things. Sometimes we talk about sports or movies or comic books or something.

But in this case, we started talking about how we were doing in our prayer lives. And Mark says, you know, I have been doing for a long time now, a prayer habit daily that is exactly along the lines of the series that we are starting at church in Philippians chapter four. I asked him to tell me about it. And he told me about this habit. I have been trying this for the last month. And it was so good that recently I called up Mark and his wife, Judy, who's on staff here at TLC. And I asked them in this phone conversation to share it with you. So check this out.

You know, I wanted to talk to you because I ran into Mark when I was hiking, kind of walking fast along East Cliff. And there's Mark riding his bike. And both of us ruined our exercise routine by chatting and it was totally worthwhile because I asked Mark how he was doing. And Mark said, you know, pretty good, not because of my circumstances, but I've been practicing biblical meditation. And I was so riveted by what you said, Mark, but I actually put it into practice in my own life. But why don't you share with us what you told me?

Yeah, so every morning before I get out of bed, I start by saying the Lord's Prayer. And then I pray for my family, my friends, and everyone and myself. And then I spend 20 minutes just meditating. And then I finished with Galatians 5:22.

And Galatians 5:22 is the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, and so on.

And I have my own verse. I say, Lord, fill me with the fruit of the Holy Spirit, build love, joy, patience with all, peace with God who fills my soul with kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

I have a question for you. So when you say you're praying the Lord's Prayer, reciting Galatians 5:22, are you doing that out loud or quietly to yourself?

Quietly to myself, because I think when I do that, I'm celebrating God's goodness by saying that prayer to myself.

Judy, I have a question to ask. How about you? Have you started any of these things yourself?

Oh, yes. Well, I also say the Lord's Prayer every morning to myself and I pray before I get out of bed. And I'll say the Lord's Prayer at night before I go to sleep as well. To thank him for the day and to thank him for the bread he provided.

What encouragement or suggestions can you give to people who want to try this themselves? People who say, well, I can't memorize verses, so I can't say the Lord's Prayer from memory. Or I could never say Galatians 5:22 from memory. Or prayer's boring for me, I always get distracted.

Okay, so the simple answer for me was I never really knew how to pray. So I said to myself, you know what? The Lord's Prayer makes sense as a way for me to start my prayers.

I'm one of those that says, I can't memorize things like Linus. And so I basically printed it out on a card or a piece of paper. And I read it from there and was able to memorize it because if you do it every day, you will memorize it. It's like singing. You can memorize things singing so well. And now I concentrate to think and connect while I'm praying those words.

So I have been following Mark and Judy's prayer pattern since Mark first told me about it. And let me just recap this. Every single morning for about the last month or so, the moment I first realize I'm conscious, you know what I mean? You kind of are fading out of dream mode and you're lying in bed in the morning and the worries start rushing in the plans and the apprehensions. I stop them in their tracks. And first I focus my mind on this. I pray through the Lord's Prayer by heart. And then I go to specific requests and thanks. And I finish by quoting the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22 and 23. And don't worry if you go to TLC.org/notes. I put this prayer pattern in the notes. That's TLC.org/notes.

Now this isn't some magical, you know, formula, but I have to tell you it's scriptural as we've seen in Philippians 4. And this pattern has calmed me down. I'm so much more focused, so much more relaxed. It is so much better than immediately waking up and grabbing the phone and checking the newsfeed. I got to tell you something. Doing this, which is what I used to do the moment I thought I was awake, grab, I got to see what's on the newsfeed and what's on the news headlines. That is a sure way to bring chaos to your calm. The beautiful calm that you had when you woke up in the morning, here comes the chaos on your iDevice.

Now instead bring calm to the chaos that's ahead of you in your day. So since Mark and Judy start their morning with the Lord's Prayer, I want to spend the rest of our time looking at how Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6:9–13. And then we're going to do this prayer pattern together in just a few minutes, because if you think about it, this, the Lord's Prayer also known as the Our Father in some traditions, this is how Jesus practiced himself, what Paul recommends in Philippians chapter four.

Think about this first prayer and petition. Remember that means to refocus in a posture of humility. Jesus says to pray, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Talk about reorientation, right? He says your kingdom, not my kingdom, your will, not my will. And look at the way he addresses God, Father. I almost could just stop the sermon right here. And we could just say Father for the rest of our time together, because when you understand what this means, it changes every other word that follows in your prayer.

Let me explain it this way. I want to tell you about maybe the most emotional, the most profound experience that I've ever had with my little sister, Heidi. This happened when we were both adults. Our mom, Rosemary, many of you knew Rosemary. She unfortunately had severe Alzheimer's at this stage in her life. And we were kind of shutting down her house, moving her at first into our house. She was living with us for a while. And then to Heidi's house, we both took care of my mom. But when we were first moving her from her place into our place, Heidi came down from Oregon and we went through a bunch of boxes that my mom had where she was storing mementos from her whole life.

And we came across all kinds of things that we had never seen before that clearly meant so much to my mother. Photographs we'd never seen before. Like this one, for example. My mother treasured this because it must have been one of the last photographs that she had of my father with the two of us. Many of you know my father died very young. He was 36 years old. I was just a toddler, but my little sister was still just a year old. And that means that Heidi, think of this, Heidi has no memories of our father at all. No memories of his touch, no memories of his voice, no memories of, no conscious memories of any interactions with him whatsoever.

Okay, with that in mind, we then dug through the bottom of this box where we found this photograph and we found an old letter that our father had written about Heidi. When Heidi was just a tiny baby. It was written in Swiss German, which is my parents' language. And I said, check this out, Heidi, this is our dad's handwriting. And again, neither of us had ever laid eyes on it before. And right in that moment, the both of us just sitting on the floor with boxes around us, I translated it to her out loud. I didn't know what was in the letter. She didn't know what was in the letter. None of us had ever seen this before. And it turned into the first time my little sister had ever heard my dad talking about her.

It was a letter that he had written to his own parents about Heidi's birth. And after he died, they sent it back to my mom knowing that she would probably want to keep it. And he was writing at a time when Heidi was not much older than our grandson, Emmett. And here is what he wrote. Heidi's starting to smile all the time. And when she smiles, her eyes just beam. And I look at her face and I forget that she's waking up four or five times a night. And I forget, in fact, that I have any problems because I'm so overwhelmed with love for her. And when I lay her on her tummy, Heidi stretches out her little arms and legs and waves them as if she's trying to fly, as if she's an angel from heaven who still remembers how to fly. And then I think, well, she is a gift from heaven. And then I can't help crying as I thank God for her. And as soon as I'm done with that, I just thank God again and again that the heavenly Father has entrusted us with the care of this little angel.

Well, I finished the letter. And both of us are just weeping. Because again, this is the first thing she had ever seen, the first thing she'd ever touched, the first tangible evidence in her father's own handwriting saying, "I love Heidi so much." No. She had known that our father loved her, of course, theoretically. She had been confident in that. But in that letter, down through the years, she had something tangible that came to her saying, "I'm so crazy about you, little girl." Well, you know what? The Bible is your father's love letter to you. You may have understood in theory that God loves you. Sure, God is love, I guess. But maybe you have never realized that Jesus is saying that God is your Abba.

Abba is the Aramaic language word. That's the language that Jesus spoke. It's the Aramaic word for Papa, Abba, daddy. And that's what he said. "Daddy." And that's the word that Jesus used for God. And it's the word that in the Bible and Galatians, it says that we use for God the Holy Spirit, it says. Works within our spirit so that we call God our Abba. God is your Abba, and your Abba loves you so much. No matter if you never heard your dad say, "I love you," or your mom, no matter what anybody else says about you, no matter what your economic status or your ethnicity or your background or anything you've done or left undone, no matter what other Christians say about you, God loves you.

As a father loves a child, as our son-in-law Jordan loves our new little grandson, Emmett. And see, when you get that, that one word, father, it changes everything else about your prayers. That all the worries about technique in prayer and methodology, that all vanishes when you realize prayer is just you and your father loving each other. And you see and feel his gaze, and you just return it in humility and awe and say, "Wow, Father in heaven, Abba, you love me and I love you so much." And then after that prayer and petition, you remind yourself of that, "Oh, Abba, then you can present your requests because now you're reoriented. Now, you know, I'm just talking to Abba and I can be confident he hears my requests."

And Jesus says, "Then you present your requests." And he talks specifically in the Lord's Prayer about three things. Number one, God's provision, right? Verse 11, he says, "Give us this day our daily bread." This day, our daily bread. Now to Jesus' original hearers, that sentence would have surely reminded them of the story of the manna in the Bible. The Bible says, "For 40 years, God fed the Israelites in the wilderness with manna." This was a bread-like substance that came down from heaven. It covered the ground every single morning. And the Bible says, it was kind of bland and tasteless, but it was nutritious and they would gather it fresh every day and they would just receive enough for that day. You couldn't hoard it or it would go rotten.

And that kind of reminds me, a lady once told me, "René, your sermons are like manna from heaven." And I thought to myself, so they're bland, tasteless, and they don't last. Thank you very much. But my point is this, they had to learn to live one day at a time. And for you and me, daily bread living means believing that God will give you what you need, when you need it, how you need it, so that you can share it. God won't necessarily give you the blueprint for next year. Man, we all want to know that so bad right now. He won't even give you the blueprint for next week, really. But he will give you what you need, when you need it, how you need it so that you can share it every day.

Think of how this helps with what's next anxiety. I can know God will give me what I need for what's next today. So request God's provision. Second, Jesus says, request God's pardon. Watch this because sometimes what keeps me from moving forward into what's next is an obsession on what's past. And so Jesus says to pray, "Forgive us our debts." Now stop right there for just a second, this is huge. We don't pay our debts. It's not saying, God, allow me to pay my debt back to you. It's saying, forgive us our debts. Our debts, our debts of sin, can only be forgiven by God. We don't have to work off our own bad karma. No, he paid the debt in full through Christ's sacrifice for us on the cross in ways we can never fully understand. I just need to ask for that forgiveness.

Now, I know that some Christian's motto is, I should always feel guilty about something. And if I don't, then I should feel guilty about not feeling guilty because I'm not under conviction. I get that. I tend to go that way emotionally, but that's not living under grace. That's not the gospel. Jesus was crucified so that you can stop crucifying yourself. But notice this prayer goes right to as we have forgiven our debtors. Are you still bearing grudges? Can you forgive those debts against you? You'll never be able to move forward productively and constructively into what's next ahead of you if you're always thinking of what's behind you and how people have mistreated you. Now, this doesn't mean denying that you've been sinned against. This doesn't mean you're overlooking it. It doesn't mean you're diminishing it. It certainly doesn't mean that if they've committed a crime, you don't call the authorities, you need to do that.

What I'm saying is I'm giving up my right to bear that grudge, to seek vengeance, even emotionally, because unforgiveness keeps you in the past and away from what's next. So request God's provision, God's pardon, number three, God's protection. Jesus tells us to pray and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Now, God, of course, is not going to tempt you to do evil. What this is a prayer for is you're saying, "God, help me recognize trouble in my path and give me the strength to avoid it." Because some of you, when you wake up in the morning and you think about what's next, you think about temptation. You think about that besetting sin that you're still in the process of conquering. You're in the process of realizing gospel victory over that. You're not there yet. And so you are apprehensive about those temptations and those evils that are in front of you. And what that prayer is saying is, "God, help me see it coming. Give me the strength to avoid it."

So look at the Lord's Prayer again. This is how Jesus practices what Paul recommends in Philippians 4, prayer and petition. Our Father, your will be done. Presenting requests for provision, pardon and protection. But then Jesus talks about one more step. And a lot of people miss this. It comes just a few verses after the Lord's Prayer, but it's returning to this whole idea of what's next anxiety. And the step is this, positive action. Look at what he says, same chapter as the Lord's Prayer. He says in verse 31, "Therefore do not worry." And then he talks about what's next anxiety saying, "What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear? What's next? What's next? What's next for the pagans run after all these things?" And here it is again, heavenly Father knows that you need them. So what do I do? How do I replace the what's next anxiety? But seek first his kingdom.

This is so important. Jesus doesn't just say, don't worry. He replaces that vacuum with something positive, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Watch this carefully. What he's saying is when the immediate what's next distracts you with worry, refocus on the ultimate what's next, the kingdom of God. God's kingdom is coming, a kingdom of truth and justice and mercy and grace and love. And so when we focus on that ultimate what's next, we want to become ambassadors of that. We want to create that environment, that ecosystem around us. So how do we do that? Oh, here's one simple example.

Last week we launched what we call the Love Thy Neighbor Challenge. Remember that? I said, Jesus said, "I love thy neighbor." So let's do that assertively and inventively and literally. I said, maybe bring a little gift, write a little card to the neighbor that maybe you feel the least in common with. Just say, we're in this together. Why? Again, because we're ambassadors of the kingdom to come. Reassuring people through our example of love, here's what's next in God's plan, ultimately. And so many of you did this. I got so many great messages and emails, but I want to close with just one that I thought was so powerful.

This is great. Cassia Laffin says, "All right, challenge accepted." One of my neighbors, she writes, "Lives by herself in a home off the road in the forest." She never leaves her home and hasn't for 20 years. She lives alone, no electricity, no phone. An old broken down van that I've always just walked by and wondered about blocks the driveway. It's so overgrown, you can't see beyond the van or the garbage can that she uses to deliberately barricade her home from visitors. So you can picture this, right? Well, this morning, she was the first one I thought of when it came to the Love thy Neighbor challenge. So I baked her some chocolate chip cookies and wrote her a card, also including one of my favorite Bible verses from Psalm 23 telling her how I love the imagery in this ancient prayer. And I hoped it wasn't too forward to include it. I hadn't shared my faith with her before. It was about time I figured, so thanks for the nudge.

Then I asked when I delivered all this, if there was anything she needed and she mentioned toilet paper. So this morning, I dropped off some TP and a double-sided page of poop jokes. After all, I am a first grade teacher. She goes on here, she's developing this beautiful relationship, but I love this because she is not meditating all the time on the what's next things that she can't control in the world, but on the what's next that God has in store. And she's being a Love thy Neighbor ambassador for God's what's next, God's kingdom.

So as we land the plane here this morning, here's what I want us to do. Are you ready for this? If you've been distracted up to now by writing your selfie sign or by making coffee or pouring yourself a bolus cheerio, now's the time to kind of refocus here. Here we go. Let's try together the little fields prayer pattern that we learned earlier right now. Let's start with the Lord's Prayer again, and then let's give God our specific requests and thanks, and then close by praying through the fruit of the Spirit. And I want to start this in the hopes that you and I start developing this as a habit.

When you wake up this week and thoughts of the day rush to your mind and you think about what's next, this is how you can present those what's next anxieties to God. So let's practice what we have just learned as we relax and refocus on some local beautiful scenery and pray together. Would you join me? Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Now, take some time, I'm going to give you about a minute, to simply give God your specific requests about what's next for you as we listen to the soothing sounds of his creation and then I'll close in a word of prayer. Lord, please grow in us the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. In Jesus' name, amen.