Be Careful for Nothing About Tomorrow

"Be Careful for Nothing About Tomorrow" – Philippians 4:6-7 "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." The service opens with news of an earthquake and moves straight into its subject: anxiety. The study takes the verse apart in three —prayer as the answer, thanksgiving before the answer is seen, and the supernatural peace that guards the heart as a soldier guards a city— and completes it with 1 Peter 5:7, Matthew 6:34, Lamentations 3:22-23 and Proverbs 3:5-6. It includes the story the expositor tells of herself in a medical waiting room decades ago, which is the heart of the application.

I. Living bravely

A. To live, and to live bravely, is the best thing we can do with our existence. Many of our steps are taken with a troubled mind.

B. And there is nothing greater than calling on God: God always has mercy, for the day we were converted He saved us, full stop.

C. "Be careful for nothing." And we are always anxious about tomorrow: we work not for the present but for the future.

D. There are things about tomorrow that cannot be seen or touched, and they unsettle us; and the soul is cast down.

E. That is why in prayer we say: "why art thou cast down, O my soul? Hope thou in God." And why hope? Because who else will come out on our behalf?

F. God exhorts us not to live ruled by anxiety, worry or fear.

G. We are the most desperate of creatures: we always want the answer, and to have everything under control. That is not possible; what is possible is to wait on God.

H. How long since you waited on God instead of living in desperation? That breeds agony and dread; the next day we settle down, and so life goes.

II. It is not ignoring the problems

A. The problems are there and they come free of charge; they can only trouble the soul a little, for we are flesh, soul and spirit.

B. But we pray to the Father, and the Father hears the prayer of the righteous. Which means the soul too must be subject to faith.

C. When a child is born, what must be taught him is faith. The young, the grown, the old: we all must learn to live by faith.

D. For faith is the evidence of things not seen. And since we are always blind, we do not see, for want of faith.

E. Have you not seen that the sun rises the same next day? That anxiety neither made you grow, nor a victor, nor defeated?

F. What we must live, we must live; because that makes us soldiers. And we are the Lord's soldiers.

G. There are other soldiers, the angels, who deal with what we cannot, because that is in the unseen. We work in the visible.

H. We should not ignore the problems, but neither let them govern us; and there are people whom the problems govern.

III. The answer to anxiety is prayer

A. "Let your requests be made known unto God." If you do not pray, your requests will not be known.

B. The Father is on the throne, the Son at His right hand interceding, and the Holy Spirit dwells in the righteous.

C. That is why no prayer reaches God except in the name of Jesus: in our own name we do not come to the Father. It is doctrine.

D. However much one is weeping or worn out, one must never lose the thread and forget the name of Jesus at the end.

E. Anxiety wears us out and invades us; hence the counsel to speak with God, so the requests are known and do not lead us into a maze.

F. And when you pray, let it go. Because that is faith, and your faith is what moves the hand of God.

G. "God, I have tried all I can, but I can do no more. You do this." Have we ever prayed that way, or do we pick it all up again?

H. And so the hump forms: we change our speech out of doubt, we harden and grow cold. And if we fall into lukewarmness, we are in trouble.

I. Prayer invites us to bring Him every burden, great and small. "Lord, only you can come out on my behalf; be thou my present help."

J. Even if you say "I do not feel it": this is not a matter of feeling, it is a matter of faith. How are you here? By faith.

IV. With thanksgiving

A. Even before we see the answer, we give thanks: "I have asked already, and now I leave it in your hands; if it is a no, it is a no."

B. And then a person rests in God, lying down and getting up. And his speech changes.

C. For it is always a complaint, always downcast, always troubled. But why live like that? And who wastes his life? The person himself.

D. No one can harm you: only you permit what destroys you or what strengthens you.

E. "I have trouble with that brother." I have troubles too, but I love him. A righteous person sharpens himself to stay ready, like a good soldier.

F. We give thanks because we trust the faithfulness and the care of God.

V. The peace that passeth all understanding

A. It is not merely absence of problems, which we would gladly have: it is a supernatural peace God puts in the believer's heart.

B. It is not the understanding we picked up growing up, from father, mother, uncle, neighbour.

C. That is why we must open the heart for God to put what is His into our lives; for if you do not guard your life, all the rest closes in on you.

D. "Shall keep your hearts and minds": let faith work that in the brain; and the brain will send it to the heart, and the heart to the whole being.

E. Do you not see how someone says something and you answer in a bad temper, and afterwards wonder why? Your peace was taken from you.

F. "I have not seen the righteous forsaken." The one who loses faith is you: God is a God of miracles, and heaven does not stop working them.

G. And the word "keep" carries the idea of a soldier guarding a city. If it says the LORD will keep our hearts and minds, He will keep them.

H. The peace of God protects our mind and our emotions.

VI. "Casting all your care upon him" (1 Peter 5:7)

A. Peter encourages believers to lay on God all their worries, fears, burdens and distresses.

B. The word "casting" carries the idea of laying something heavy on another: all that heaviness of yours, that whole situation.

C. And on whom do we cast the burdens? On the Lord. That is why one must pray every day: so the Lord carries them.

D. For carrying burdens is not easy. And the worst is that we do not even know we have them, because we brush them aside; and what is brushed aside is not fought, and the feet drag it.

E. God not only has the power to help us: He is also personally concerned for us.

F. Nothing that worries us is too small or too great for Him.

G. When you feel anxiety, pray. Do not go telling everyone, and do not look for a committee: that is yours, yours alone.

H. You will only lay your burden on others. Go to God, who knows how to act; the other person will not understand you anyway.

I. Trust that He knows your situation better than anyone, and rest in the certainty that God cares for you with love and faithfulness.

VII. "Take therefore no thought for the morrow" (Matthew 6:34)

A. Jesus teaches us not to live consumed by worries about the future. My future is God's, and so is yours.

B. There is no hand as mighty as the one that has kept my life, wherever I am, by night or before dawn.

C. One can sense that the angels are always there: we ought to learn to hear the sound of their wings as they keep watch around the righteous.

D. "The morrow shall take thought for the things of itself": do not worry, that day will carry its own trouble on its back. Let us rest in the Lord.

E. Every day has its own challenges. Do not say "they had it in for me": the day has them, and the day knows how it will press you and when it will release you.

F. For principalities and powers do not touch a righteous person.

G. When you are under a load: "Lord, this I cannot do; I am going to rest wholly in you, because I cannot solve it."

H. I would like to be braver and stronger; but I see my fallen nature, and that is the state of all mortals, through Adam's sin.

I. But Christ went to the cross so that you would have there the blessing you could not win; for in you there is no power to rise again: in the Messiah there is.

J. Worrying about problems that have not yet arrived only robs us of the peace of the present.

K. And remember that we are children, and the LORD carries His children in His hands. There is no affection greater than love for a child.

L. One ends up saying yes to everything; but there may be a no, and that no is turned into care, to guard and deliver them from what worries us.

M. The love God has over our lives is a father's love for a son: we are not illegitimate, we are children. And out of that pure love He gives us such peace.

N. God gives the grace needed for today's trials; He does not ask us to carry tomorrow's problems today, because we are not equipped for it.

O. Let us be able to live one day at a time. Our trouble is that the child is barely born and we already want a savings jar for university.

VIII. What I learned in a waiting room

A. Many years ago she had some tests done, and came away thinking she was dying and did not know it.

B. And there a woman arrives with a stack of X-rays under her arm, singing a chorus, happy.

C. "When I saw her like that, I felt very small. That woman was at peace, and I was desperate. And I am a pastor."

D. Afterwards the doctor looked at everything and told her: "there is nothing wrong with you; and why all this, if there is nothing wrong?" And it was true.

E. Why live unhappy, if we can live in this confidence in God? And if she was ill, He healed her.

F. She also tells of a condition in her legs that on bad days nearly leaves her unable to move; and that the more her soul is cast down, the more her body feels it.

G. That is why she prays in the morning, to know what is hers to do. And that is not anxiety: it is passion.

H. And that passion is what drives, what brings the miracle about, and what leads us to prayer and to the Scriptures.

I. For we are not just anyone: we are the LORD's chosen. And we can no longer be children: we must eat strong meat.

IX. "His compassions fail not" (Lamentations 3:22-23)

A. Jeremiah wrote it in a time of great pain for the people, when they were carried away and those left had no food.

B. Even in the midst of affliction he acknowledges a powerful truth: God's mercies never run out.

C. How many times have you thought they run out? Your own thinking deceived you.

D. "It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed": God does not treat us as our sins deserve, but according to His grace.

E. Have you ever said "his compassions fail not," or are you complaining every day?

F. His mercies come out every day, and we neither take them nor delight in them, but keep to a road of complaints.

G. God's love and compassion do not diminish. The one who made them short is you, because you switched off the faith you knew the day you were converted.

H. "They are new every morning": when you wake, give thanks for the new day. Do not get up complaining or quarrelling with humanity: the harm is your own doing.

I. "Great is thy faithfulness": God keeps His promises and dawns faithful even when we fail Him.

X. "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart" (Proverbs 3:5-6)

A. It is an invitation to trust fully: to discard what we already have in our heads and sow the Scriptures, because that turns into faith.

B. And if God takes us through trials, He will give us the strength to come out victorious.

C. And what is coming out victorious? That you came out of what you never thought you could. Not that it was solved as you wanted: that you were not destroyed.

D. One comes out with more faith, more eagerness, and a love for Him that is almost like seeing Him face to face.

E. "Lean not unto thine own understanding": our grasp is limited, and what seems right to our eyes is not always God's will.

F. "In all thy ways acknowledge him": include God in every area —family, work, ministry, decisions and plans.

G. "He shall direct thy paths": the roads are crooked, and God straightens them. But if you do not let Him, you will always take your own steps.

H. When you face hard decisions, seek the Lord's direction first, in prayer and in His word: though you do not see the whole road, God does.

XI. Application

A. When you feel anxiety, pray; and let go of what you prayed, instead of picking it up again.

B. Give thanks before you see the answer, and accept beforehand that a no is also an answer.

C. Do not hand your anxiety around: do not look for a committee, for you lay your load on someone who already carries his own.

D. Live one day at a time: sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

E. Switch the faith back on that you knew the day you were converted; for the one who makes the mercies short is you.

F. And before every hard decision, seek the Lord's direction first, even when you cannot see the whole road.