Key scripture – “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” (Philippians 4:4-9 NIV).

Do you want to be able to defeat the mental monster, called worry, that is crawling around in your head right now? Do you want to stop worrying about health issues, financial issues, family issues, relational issues, social issues, and job issues.

The book of Philippians is a book about joy. All through this book, Paul keeps bringing up the word joy even though he wrote this letter to the Church of Philippi while he was chained in prison and people on the outside were working against him. Paul is consumed with joy even though he does not know whether he will live or die. We all need to stop and ask ourselves, what kind of letter would I have written if I were in Paul’s situation?

Paul is going to teach you how to be happy and not worry, no matter what is going on in your life.

Worry a.k.a. anxiety is when a person, place, thing or idea controls your thoughts. Worry is different from concern. Concern is when a person, place, thing or idea is negatively affecting your life and you’re trying to figure out how to handle it. Concern is different from worry because you can tell concern when to come and go, and that you don’t have time to deal with it or think about it right now. But if you are unable to push it away, and it is owning you and controlling your thoughts, then that is no longer concern, that is now worry.

Worry is when a person, place, thing or idea is controlling you and you are no longer controlling it. You know that you are being controlled by worry when it tells you; whether you’re going to sleep tonight, when you are going to cry, if you are going to have an appetite, if you’re going to be depressed or discouraged, or if you’re going to need to pop pills to help you make it through the day. Worry is concern on steroids.

In Philippians 4:6 Paul says, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Paul is telling us that we should not worry about anything. Paul says, that if you are worrying about anything, you are out of order for letting it happen.

We all try to justify our worrying by saying, “You don’t know what I’m going through. You don’t know how bad this is. You don’t know how long I have been dealing with this.” Those excuses are worthless, because Paul tells us to, “be anxious for nothing,” and that includes, whatever you are worrying and being anxious about in your life right now. Furthermore, Paul is not making a suggestion, he is commanding us to do this, therefore, when we allow something that concerns us to turn into worry and anxiety that is a sin because we have been commanded by God not to worry.

In order to get over worry, once and for all, we need to do the following:

1. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4). There are two kinds of happiness, secular a.k.a. worldly happiness and Godly happiness. Godly happiness is joy, and in the Bible, Joy is used as a celebration term. Whereas secular happiness depends on what happens in your life. It is circumstantially driven. So if things are going good you’re happy, if things are not going good you’re not happy. That type of happiness keeps you on an emotional roller coaster. Biblical Joy is celebration on the inside no matter what is going on on the outside. It is not tied to your circumstances. That is why Paul, even though he’s in prison and people are working against him on the outside, can talk about having joy.

The way to get joy even when things are bad and your circumstances are not looking good is to get into the Word of God. Paul says rejoice in the Lord. That means, get into the Word of God. It does not say rejoice in your circumstances, it says “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” The way you get joy is by rejoicing. The joy is in the rejoicing, when you are rejoicing in the Lord. So to get joy, you must rejoice in the Lord and you must do it more than once.That is why Paul says “again, I will say, rejoice”. We need to keep rejoicing in The Lord.

What is rejoicing? Rejoicing is celebrating God. Look at what Paul and Silas did when they were in jail, they started celebrating and rejoicing at midnight. “But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.”(Acts 16:25).

We all know that midnight is dark, and when it is dark, your mind goes crazy and blows everything out of proportion. So what Paul and Silas did instead of freaking out, worrying, and complaining is they got their praise on and started rejoicing in the Lord. They praised God in the midst of their problem. This is why God tells us over and over in His Word to not grumble, whine, and complain, because when we do that we just focus more and more on our problem. What Paul tells us to do is, we must make a choice to rejoice, which is celebrate God no matter what the circumstances are.

2. While you are rejoicing, you need to pray. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (Philippians 4:6). Paul tells us that prayer is relational communication with God. Every time you are prone to worry that is a call from God telling you that “It is time to pray”. Every time your concern is turning to worry and starting to control you by keeping you awake at night, controlling your attitude and making you snappy and jumpy, that is God telling you, “It’s time for you to pray”. So the more you want to worry the more you should be praying. Every time you are prone to be anxious God is inviting you to pray.

Prayer is an umbrella word that has two things under it: Supplication and Thanksgiving.

Supplication means to be specific about your problem. This is when you say, “God this problem is messing with me and I need to talk to you about it.” You go over the problem with God, You get down, dirty and specific with God when you pray to Him about the problem that is causing you to worry and have anxiety. For example, “God how can I make it on this little bit of money, and I need Your help. God I can’t stand my job because my boss is driving me crazy because…., and I need Your help. God my marriage is in horrible shape because…. and I need Your help.”

When you pray with supplication, you need to do it with thanksgiving. I know you are thinking, so what am I supposed to give thanks for? Let’s look at what Jesus did when he had a problem. Jesus needed to feed over 5000 men not counting women and children and all that He had was five loaves of bread and two fish. (Matthew 14:17, 21). The disciples told Jesus we need to send these people home because we can’t feed them. (Matthew 11:15). Look at what Jesus did when they told Him they only had five loaves and two fish, Jesus said, “Bring them here to Me.”(Matthew 4:18).

Instead of complaining and looking at the situation as hopeless, Jesus said, let us pray. “Ordering the people to sit down on the grass, He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed the food, and breaking the loaves He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.” (Matthew 4:19). Jesus bowed his head over the five loaves of bread and two fish and He gave thanks. Which means, He gave thanks to God over not having enough. He gave thanks to God over His problem. He was saying to God, “There’s a need out there and I have a problem because there’s about 20,000 people to feed and I don’t have enough”. He gave thanks for the two fish and five loaves of bread that God had provided to solve the problem, and when Jesus did that, they had food left over after everyone ate and was satisfied. (Matthew 4: 20).

Paul is basically saying, when you get anxious and you want to worry, go to God with your problem and talk to him specifically about that problem. Tell him, “Father, my finances look like sardines and crackers and I have all these bills to pay and people to provide for, but instead of having a pity party and worrying, I want to just bless Your name right now. I want to give You thanks that You are Yahweh Jireh, my Provider, and that You already know where the solution is coming from.” No matter what your problem is; family, health, marriage, people at work, financial, or kids, instead of complaining give God thanks in the midst of your request. You give thanks to God and for God, because He is going to intervene and be the provider of and the solver of your problem, and He is going to use this problem to grow your faith and trust in Him.

What can you expect if you do this, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Matthew 4:7). If you rejoice and if you pray, God will share His peace with you. In other words He will bring you calm in the midst of your chaos. You will know that God heard your prayer, not because your problem is solved, but because you will have peace inside in the midst of your chaos. When you have total peace on the inside, even though your problem is circling around you on the outside, you know that God answered your prayer.

But how do we keep this peace? In Verse eight he tells us. “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” (Matthew 4:8), Paul tells us to operate or function in a praiseworthy manner. When you dwell on something, it means you stay with it. Instead of dwelling on the things that are against the peace of God, focus on the things that bring you peace, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” The reason why we lose our peace is because we dwell on the lie, we dwell on how bad, and how horrible our situation is. When we do that God’s peace in our life is interrupted.

So the question you have to ask is, can I give praise to God for what I am focusing on right now? If you can’t give praise for it, then you should not be focusing on it?

Finally, Verse nine says, “The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” (Matthew 4:9). This verse is reminding us that God will be with us if we do what Paul has instructed us to do. This is different than the peace he talked about in verse seven where he said with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, the peace of God will guard our hearts and minds. Verse nine says if we practice these things, the God of peace will be with us, His peace will not just guarding our hearts and minds, but He will be with us.

Are you ready to stop worrying and instead be happy and live in peace? If so, follow Paul’s advice and Gods’s peace will be in you and the God of Peace will be with you.

Pray this – Our Precious Heavenly Father, forgive me for all the time that I have wasted worrying and fretting. You have commanded me not to worry because when I do, it is not only a sin, but I lose my peace, which You have so graciously given to me. I know that my worry and anxiety accomplishes nothing. That is why Jesus told us not worry. Father, you have not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. Give me the strength, through the Holy Spirit, to turn to You in prayer each time I start to worry and to train my heart and mind to dwell on, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise.” You are my Provider, my Problem Solver, and the Way Maker. In Jesus’ Name, I pray, Amen.