today, we are finishing up this roadblock message series where, if you've been here, you know that we've been talking about some of the common roadblocks that kind of get in the way on our journey of life, and prevent us from experiencing the abundant life that Jesus came to give us. We recognize that he is the abundant life that He came to give us. We have it the moment we say yes to Him and we enter into a union with Him. But there are things in this world that can get our focus away from him and distract us in these roadblocks that come up that keep us from experiencing what we have, experiencing the abundant life that we have in Christ. And if you've been here, you know that we've talked about the roadblock of our past mistakes and how that can get in the way from the abundant life that we have in Christ, the roadblock of sexual immorality, the roadblock of comparison. And last week, if you were here, we talked about the roadblock of technology and how the internet and social media and news can be a stumbling block for us in many ways. While there are good things that God can do in and through it, there are certainly things that Satan is at work in to lie to us and deceive us in and and we're consumed with it so much that sometimes it's more likely that we're disciples of the internet and social media rather than Disciples of Christ and are being conformed to the image of whatever we're following on the internet or whatever news channel we happen to be watching. And so that's what we talked a lot about last week, and how to move around that. But today, as we finish up, we're going to be talking about the specific road block of fear, worry and anxiety. There are just so many different things in our world and in our lives that cause us to worry, that cause us to live in fear and to just be anxious about for many of us, it's money. It's money and finances. How in the world am I going to pay all of the bills that I have. How am I ever going to dig myself out of this debt that I have? How am I going to pay for all the things that my kids need or or want in these camps? And how am I ever going to pay for college one day? Or I've paid for college and now I'm trying to pay it off. How am I ever going to get to that point in my life? Am I ever going to be able to retire one day? If I am retired, am I going to have enough to make it until Jesus calls me home? There's just so many things with money and the economy that cause us to stress and feel anxiety and live in fear and worry about if we're going to have enough. On top of that, relationships can be another big thing that causes us to worry and live in fear. While they can be a huge blessing in our lives, they can also be a huge stressor in our lives, I don't think there's anything probably that causes teenagers to be in a state of anxiety more than relationships with friends, a best friend, and all the drama that goes on a boyfriend or a girlfriend in particular. And those of us who are married know that sometimes that doesn't always go away when we get married, right? Is this person going to continue to love me? Am I going to continue to feel the same way about them? Why did they change so much after we got married? If they would just go back to being who they were. Our Marriage would be great, right? There's just so many things to worry and fear and stress about when it comes to our relationships, and if it's not money, and if it's not relationships, a lot of times, it's our work, it's our career, it's our school. There's just so many tests, so many grades that we've got to take so many things to keep up with. How do I manage it all? There's so much to do on my to do list at work, or, man, I've been in this job for 10 years. Is this the career for me? Is this really what I'm going to do the rest of my life? And then am I going to make enough money? Am I going to move up in it? I mean, there's a lot that comes with our jobs and school and the things we're trying to keep up with that. And then on top of all that, while we're trying to deal with the finances and relationships and our careers, sometimes out of the blue, we get hit with this diagnosis, this chronic pain that all of a sudden we're dealing with, this cancer that the doctor says that we have, and it just rocks our world and takes us to our knees, And we wonder, is it ever going to go away? Am I going to ever be able to live without pain? Am I going to die from whatever it is that I have been diagnosed with? And so we feel fearful and are worried about that and constantly anxious around our health. And then, of course, there's just all kinds of things going on in our world. I mean, you look around and there's wars everywhere, and people fighting and arguing and bickering and complaining, and then there's cyber attacks and things that could take us down, and all of the things that come with that. And guys we haven't even talked about, the social media that I referenced earlier, the comparison that comes with that, and how that causes a lot of anxiety and fear. And worry in our lives, there's just so much. And so my guess is is that many of us this morning are sitting at the road block of worry, fear or anxiety, and if we're not sitting at it, the road block is probably just ahead where it's going to be coming up, and we're going to be sitting at it potentially soon. And so we want to turn our attention to Scripture. We want to see what the Lord says about this and what he directs us in as far as ways to move around these roadblocks, way to move beyond the roadblocks and begin to experience the abundant life that we have in Christ. And so I want to direct your attention to Philippians. Chapter Four, the apostle Paul is writing to the church at Philippi, and he says this, beginning in verses six and then seven of chapter four, he says, Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving. Present your requests to God, and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds. In Christ, Jesus, you want peace. You don't want to feel anxious, you don't want to worry, you don't want to live in fear. Then the apostle Paul, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Says to present your prayers, petitions, requests, everything that makes you anxious, all the situations and circumstances that make you fearful and worried and anxious. You present them to God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, he says, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ, Jesus, it will happen. It's spiritual truth. And the simple reason why is because, in that moment, as we're praying, what we're really doing is this, we're stopping holding on to all of those things that we're fearful and worried and anxious about, and we're releasing them to the Lord, the one who sits above all things and holds all things together in his hands. I mean, as a matter of fact, just in doing that with my fist, as an example of what it is that we're doing, I clenched them, and I immediately began to feel tension and pressure, and like all the things that we feel when we're worried and fearful, and you do the same thing. I mean, you could do it right now and just begin to squeeze, and you're like, oh my gosh, it just feels but then when you release, it's like, instantaneous, you know, release from the anxiety and the tension that you're feeling. And that's the same thing that's happening in a spiritual sense that we're releasing. We've been holding on, dwelling on these things, clenched fists, and we're going, here they are, God, I'm releasing them to you in this moment. But what I want to draw our attention to are some of the more specific things. Because even though this is only two verses, and we'll look at one more, there's so much in what he's saying that I don't want us to miss that will help us move around this roadblock again, of fear, worry and anxiety. The first thing that I want to draw your attention to is this word right here, that when Paul says to not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition and present our request, he says to do so with thanks giving now notice what he doesn't say here. He doesn't say after God has answered your prayers in the way that he wants you to or that you want him to, then to give Him thanks for doing that. He doesn't say to give thanks when the peace comes, he says to give thanks, to lift these things up to the Lord with an attitude of Thanksgiving asyou are walking through the situation, as you're walking through the circumstance that's causing the fear, that's causing the worry that's causing the anxiety. Now, why in the world would the Apostle Paul tell us to do that if our situations and circumstances aren't good, why should we be giving thanks? Well, he's not telling us to give thanks necessarily, for those circumstances, but for who Jesus is and what we have in him, regardless of the situation and circumstances that we are in. We thank Jesus for being there to listen. We thank you that he's willing to take the burden from us, that when we open our hands and release them that he's there to hold them for us and carry them on his back. We thank him for knowing what's best for us. He says, I don't know what you're gonna do in this situation. I'm releasing it to you, but I know that you know what's best for me and your glory. And so I'm thanking you that you know that even when I don't, or at least I think I know what it is when you know better. We thank him for all that we have. Ephesians tells us we have every spiritual blessing that there is to have in our union with Christ. So why wouldn't we thank him even when we're walking through things that are causing fear and worry and anxiety, he's always with us. We're always loved. We're always uh. Completely forgiven. We're set free from condemnation. His power is dwelling in us and working through us. We have so much to be thankful for. So Paul says, As you walk through these things, pray, lift them up with thanks giving. I'll say this before we move on and talk a little bit more, guys, if you begin to tune me out the rest of the time, I think if you just do this, that you will begin to experience more of this peace that he is talking about right here. Because I think it's it's pretty hard to actually be living in fear, worry and feeling anxious while you're giving thanks, genuine thanks at the same time. I might even go as far to say it's impossible. It's impossible to feel anxious while you're genuinely giving thanks for something. Try it. I think you'll see what I'm talking about, and so maybe, if nothing else, start going on walks of gratitude every single day and just thanking God for what you do have, rather than allowing your thoughts to dwell on all the things that you don't have. I know that's easier said than done, but this is the way God is pointing us to be released from these things that leave us stuck on our journey of life. The next thing I want to draw your attention to is just to notice these three different words that Paul uses that when we're reading them, they may not jump out to us as very different things, but the original word that he uses in Greek has different kind of meanings. The first one is prayer. Now this specific word that he uses here has to do with intercessory. Think that's how you spell that prayer. Intercessory prayer is, is praying for others, right? So, so when you think about that, a lot of times, it's other people that are causing our fear. It's other people that are causing us to worry or to be anxious. Sometimes that's people that we love. They're walking through a really difficult time. They're the ones that got diagnosed with something. They're the ones straying and involved in sin, and you're seeing the way it's breaking up their marriage, or the different things that are walking they're walking through and so, you know, we hurt for them. It causes anxiety. We worry about them. At other times, it's people that are causing us to feel that way because they're mistreating us. Maybe they're enemies, right? And they're the ones that are always attacking or putting us down or making fun of us, or just whatever it is, they're causing us to feel those things. And so he's saying to pray for those people, either way, to lift them up to the Lord first Peter five seven says to cast your cares upon Him, because He cares for you. Or in some translations, it says Cast your anxiety on him, for he cares for you. The word cast there has this image of of throwing right you're throwing it onto something. If I took a baseball and I threw it to one of you in the crowd, then it would be released from my hands and go away from me and onto you, it would be in your possession now. And so when we're praying for others, it's this idea that I'm throwing them onto Jesus, like I'm not carrying them and what they're doing and in control of the situation and how I can manipulate things and just dwell on those. I'm releasing them by name Jesus, I give so and so to you as someone I care about and what they're walking through. I give this person who's causing me so much to you. I'm not gonna try to get revenge on them. I'm not trying to hold on to the bitterness, the resentment and the anger. I'm throwing them. I'm casting them on you, Jesus. I'm not carrying it anymore. And I think when we picture that image. It's almost like you can even picture like it's coming out of you in a spiritual sense. It's being released from you, and you just sometimes, oh, I just feel lighter just saying, I'm giving that person to You, Jesus. So these are the things that we think about when he's talking about praying. The other one here, right next to it, is petition. And this has to do more with like urgent request, things that come up. I was thinking when I was preparing for this, and I was researching a little bit and just just reading different Commentaries, and this aspect of it being urgent, immediately, what came to my mind was autumn, and Tristan Autumn was doing the announcements and playing up here. And many of you know a few months ago that her little niece, two or three years old, was in a pretty horrible accident. And as soon as we got. Out the word not very long after it happened that she might lose her her arm, and that she was being care flighted, and that it was so severe that that they weren't sure she was going to make it. I mean, it wasn't one of those kind of things where we just sat around and went, Wow, that's really sad, and I'm going to sit here and really just dwell as like I hit my knees. I mean, I am pleading, I am urgently begging God to heal her, to do something to save her life. There was an instantaneous I am releasing this to you because I can't do anything about it. And you guys have faced those same kind of things in your lives, and whenever we have those urgent things that pop up, we don't run to Google, we don't run to YouTube, and we don't run to our friends and talk about what it is. We fall on our knees and we release them to Jesus, because he's the one who sits above all of these things. And so we pray for specific people. When we have urgent things, we don't just stop and let it paralyze us. We fall on our knees. We turn them over to him. And then the third one I want to just draw your attention to is request here. And what this is talking about is specific items, specific things that we are going through. He's not talking about just praying in general, he's talking about naming them, right? Jesus, I give my finances to you, even if you have to physically open up your hands, I give and I'm gonna name it specifically, my finances. I trust you as my provider. Jesus, I give this marriage that's falling apart to you like I give I quit. I'm not trying to handle it anymore. I give this person to you. I'm releasing them to you. I give my work to you. I give school to you. I give my grades to you. This health diagnosis, I give it to you. I'm naming it specifically. We give whatever it is that's causing the fear and anxiety we give it, we release it, we name it specifically to him. Now I do want to acknowledge that sometimes there are some of us who just kind of seem to walk around in a general state of anxiousness all the time. It's just there underneath the surface. We don't even know exactly what it is. We just feel it right. And some of you are nodding your heads like That's me, and so we want to think about that with this. One of the things, if we want to be released from that and truly experience the peace of God, I think we need to be praying for Jesus to make us aware of what those things are. I think it's Satan who's trying to keep us from understanding what specifically is going on. And it's just kind of this general thing. It's just who you are. It'll just always be there, because that's part of you. And so we go, Jesus, I am feeling anxious. I don't even know what it is. Would you illuminate Would you turn the lights onto exactly what it is that's causing me to feel this fear, your fear, or worry or anxiety. And then we ask him to put a name to it, and we give a name to it. We give a voice to it. We quit carrying them. We hand them over to Jesus once he identifies what those things are.So again, when we pray in these ways, when we lift other people up who are causing the anxiousness, when we take our urgent requests to him, whenever we name specific things and present them to God. He says, in those moments, you will begin to experience the peace of God. Basically, what we are looking at is, this is an if then statement. I mean, this is the reality. He is literally saying, if you do this, then this will happen. It's not Ohmy gosh. I hope it works.It's if you do this, this will happen. This is what we do. Do you want to be released from the fear? You want to be released from the worry and the anxiety? You offer up prayers to for other people, urgent things to him, name the specific things. And the promise of Scripture is the peace of God, which is found in Jesus, Christ, will guard your hearts and minds. You have it in Christ, you'll begin to experience the peace that you have in Him and through your union with Him, and all of a sudden, you will experience this release. You'll start to feel calm. There will be an inner quietness within you. There will be rest in your spirit. There will be rest in your soul, and I think there will even be rest in your body. You will feel lighter. You will sleep better. You will not walk around, just tense all of the time. This is the problem. Scripture. But Paul's not done. He does mention this, and our first step is to release but then he says that we don't just release them. We replace the anxious thoughts and the worry some thoughts and all of those things with other things. And so we look at verse eight, and he says, Finally, brothers and sisters, family, you guys who are united together as family, the spiritual union, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. This is what we replace those thoughts with we were being consumed with the things that make us feel anxious and worrisome and fearful, and we replace it with these specific things here. Let's talk about each one of those things a little bit more. The first thing that he mentions is truth. We think about whatever is true. And the thing I want you to notice here is where it is on the list.First, a lotof times, authors will write things in primary importance, especially the thing that's most important, they'll put at the very beginning and highlight it as the most important thing. And I think that is true here, because we've talked about this a number of times. Spiritual Warfare is primarily a battle of what truth and lies. It's a matter of recognizing Satan's lies and replacing them with truth. Satan is a liar, he is a deceiver. And when he can get us focused on things that are not true, that's when anxiety hits. And so when we're talking about whatever it is that's true, we're talking about that which corresponds to reality, God's reality, anxiety comes when false ideas and unreal circumstances occupy the mind instead of truth. I think you'll agree with me that sometimes, whenever we are thinking about whatever it is that we're fearful and worried about and feeling anxious about, it's things that haven't even really happened. Were just worried about what they could do. Matter of fact, I know that there's been some research done on that. There was a book called The worry cure, cure that came out not real long ago, and they did some research in it. And here's what they found on what we worry about, 40% of the events that we worry about will never actually occur. 30% of the events we worry about are past events, and honestly, if they have in the past, there's absolutely nothing that can do to be changed about those. 12% of those are health concerns that really aren't that serious. 10% of them are petty, miscellaneous issues, and only 8% are legitimate concerns that actually require actions. In other words, 92% of the things that you and I generally worry about, have fear over or are anxious about are not legitimate concerns, but Satan has convinced us what that they are. He deceives us into thinking that this is what is true. Well, what if this happens? What if that happens? And all of that, and he's just actively involved in all of those things. Now, certainly, if this is 100 real accurate, right? 8% we'll go with it is legitimate. Then that's a thing that causes us to act on those things. But what Satan wants to do, instead of allowing God to act on those things, is convince us to continue to worry and have anxiety and to fear over those things, because he wants us to hold onto them. They're our fault. They're that other person's fault. You better make sure that you blame them. You know what, you've been dealing with this so long that God isn't even big enough to really do anything about it. He doesn't really care about you because you're walking through those things. And so these are lies that come from him. If God is loving, if he's all knowing, if he's all wise and he's good, which are all attributes of God that we'll talk about this summer, then the only ways that he can act are in ways that are wise and good and loving. It's not possible for him to act in any other way. And so if that's the truth, then these other things are the lie. So whatever it is that we're going through, however it is that he leads to respond in those situations or circumstances, we go, well, he's all wise. He's a good God. He's loving. So I guess the most loving thing for him to do is to leave me in this situation right now. No, even though I don't like it, the best thing for me, because he's good, right? Whatever it is in being wise, then we can trust and lean on His truths rather than his lies. Okay? The next thing that he mentions, we'll run through these fairly quickly, but at least want to make sure you know what they are. He says, whatever is noble, you think about whatever it is that's noble. What's that? Well, it refers to things that are lofty, majestic, awesome things that lift this mind above the world's dirt and scandal. I mean, how many times in Scripture is it saying, don't set your mind on earthly things, but set your hearts and minds on things above things that are noble, majestic, awesome things of God. Let your focus be there, even while you're living here, whatever is right, not whatever is right according to your standards, not whatever your mom or dad necessarily told you was right, not necessarily what your grandma or your great granddad told you was right, but what God says is right. He is the one who defines what is right and just and so we think about what is right for us and right for other people based on his standards. What else do we think about when we think about whatever is pure? I mean, think about if you're thinking about impure things, isn't that gonna cause fear? Is that gonna cause worry, cause anxiety. It's definitely especially if it's impure, and you step into sin, and then you're going, Oh, I wanted to do that. And then you just feel all the anxiety and stuff from the choices that you made. And when we think about things that are pure, it allows us to feel the peace. He says, whatever it is that's lovely. Now your mind might go to flowers are lovely. And not that there's anything wrong with thinking about God's creation being lovely, but this specific word that he used for is more of a relational term. It refers to the type of lovely conduct that makes someone feel lovable and gracious. So one of the things that the Holy Spirit, through Paul says to be thinking and focusing on are, what are the ways that Jesus wants to work in and through me. That would cause someone else to feel lovable and gracious. I'm to think about those things, and that would bring peace into their lives, cause less anxiety and stress in mind. Those are the things that we're to think about. And then finally, whatever is admirable. This refers to that which is well spoken of, praiseworthy, laudable. It's the things that cause us to be highly regarded, that are well thought of. Again, it's Jesus expressing his life through us, producing the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. And people go, Wow. That's admirable. It causes them to go, how in the world do you have peace in this situation and circumstance that you're going through? It causes them to look at us in those ways and get their attention. Then finally, he just says, okay, whatever's excellent, whatever's praise worthy. Think of those things. Excellence encompasses what is best for us in every area of life. Praiseworthy means that which deserves praise, whatever is going to bring God glory and honor and praise, dwell on that. That's what you fix. Your mind on these things. And so again, overall, you see them. All the way through verse eight, you go, think about these things. The first thing we do is we release them, and then we replace them. We don't stop we replace them with these things that we dwell on and we think about and we focus on in our lives. So as we kind of try to land what we've been talking about here a little bit and think about this a little bit more practically, here's the thing that I want us to think about. One wants to know what I want us to do. We can't just know this is truth. We've got to begin to practice this. Because here's what I think is probably true. As soon as I turn to Philippians, four, six and seven, most of you who have been involved in the church a long time knew exactly what this passage was going to say. You already knew before I ever even started, how to experience the peace of God and what to do whenever you feel anxiety. But even though many of us know that, how many of us are still sitting at the road block of fear, worry and anxiety throughout much of our lives, even though we know it. So what we've got to do is begin to practice what it is that we know. We may know it to be true. But how many of us, instead of fixing our eyes on Jesus again, are going to Google to tell us what to do, watching YouTube videos to show us what to do, turning on the news to tell us what it is that we're supposed to think about this situation, or any of the above. So no, what we do instead of those things is we cast we throw them. Okay, God, this is it. I'm naming these specific things I am throwing. Throwing them. I'm not holding I'm releasing them to you. I'm casting them onto you. I'm releasing it, handing it over. I'm gonna quit carrying it. And then number two, we begin to replace those anxious thoughts and think about what it is true. We can't walk around and just be complaining all the time that I'm fear, I mean living in fear, and I'm worried and I'm anxious all the time, and I'm just mad. If we know what to do, then we gotto do it. We've got to do what he says underthe empowerment of the Holy Spirit. And then the final thing that I would say is, let's not wait till we sit at the road block to do that. Right? Let's do this. Don't wait until you sit the roadblock. If you're worrying, go start just. How about we go on walks of gratitude every single day? If it's impossible or really hard to feel anxiety and be thankful at the same time, then why wouldn't I either go on a gratitude walk every single day, or at least sit still and focus on all of the things, naming them to Jesus in that moment. That would seem like it would help in a number of situations, we begin to declare what's true. We declare what's excellent. We declare what's praiseworthy every single morning and at periods throughout the day, if we want to experience the peace that we're talking about and continue to do so without being hit in the face by this road blockthat just leaves us stuck. This works.This works.I mentioned to you a few weeks ago that I was really not in a great place. I was allowing the comparison and other people and just dealing with some general anxiety that I'm one of those people that's just kind of always been there a little bit behind the surface level, right? And that made it really rise up and begin to have this fog and all of those things. And over the last three weeks or so, I am telling you that I have probably never in my life been as intentional as I have been to wake up earlier every single day and to do this gratitude, to be declaring what's true about Jesus, what's true about me in Christ, all the spiritual blessings that I have in him, pausing throughout the day to do that, I am ending every day. I used to sit in bed and just scroll through social media until I got tired and then go to sleep and filling my brain with all of that. And every single night, I'm reading scripture and I'm praying and I'm thinking, I'm focusing on all of these things right here, and I'm telling you, I have experienced the peace of God more than any other time, I feel lighter in my body. I'm more excited about ministry. I'm fired up. I'm ready to go, all right. And so I'm just telling you from personal experience, you go, Okay, I know it. Well, let's be more intentional. And I have to talk to myself. I mean, God had to slap me in the face and wake me up. And I'm a pastor, and I know y'all think I've got it all together, but obviously I don't. Natalie can tell you that!