Pas Ralph Douglas West - Background Music in Prayer - Philippians 4:6-7

0:52 find just turn to anybody and tell them what you mean when you say that the Lord has been Lord I thought that the way you were shouting before I said that I can't you ashamed to tell somebody what the Lord's what you mean by the Lord is good well if you don't know with the say let me tell you what to tell somebody the Lord That's all you had to say.

1:31 I mean, just turn and say to the Lord. woke me up this morning. That's all you had to say. Watched over me all night long.

1:55 You can take it further. Protected me on the streets of Houston. Put food on my table. Gave me health and strength The Lord's been good There you go, that's all I'm saying The Lord's been good Thank you. Thank you choir for reminding us of that. Yeah. Church gonna go in reverse today. we shouted and then I'm going to teach and then we're going to see what happened after that.

2:58 Yeah, the Lord's been Yeah, yeah, yeah. Philippians 4, he's been good. I know that's right. Hallelujah. Philippians 4, 6, and 7. Now, the choir has a disadvantage on you and some of our leaders because they were here at 8 o'clock. And so they already know the excitement of this passage. I want to read two lines to you today from Philippians 4 If you are worshipping with us for the first time And you don't have a Bible, one of our worshippers will Let you look on with them because today you'll need the scripture I'm just going to walk through these two verses And I want to tag this text the background music of prayer.

4:19 The background music of prayer. Philippians 4, verse 6 and 7. Hear what Paul is saying to all of us. Do not be anxious about anything. but in every situation. Some of your translations just say, but in everything. And so this is an updated version of the NIV. I actually like the older version that just simply says, in everything. But this is for those of you who find yourselves in particular conditions that the writer says, but in every situation.

5:18 My goodness. 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 your mind in Christ Jesus. This is the word of God. You may be seated. Background music of prayer. Someone has noted that in the Smithsonian Monthly,

6:01 that there was an article that displayed title, Americans are living in the golden age of worry. That Americans are living in the golden age of worry, that we live in the golden age of worry. Beyond that, they listed that we live between the macrocosm and the microcosms of worry. That there are some things that we worry about macrocosmically, big things, and microcosmically, little things. The macro worries are the things that affect all of us Whether you agree with them politically, culturally, socially, even religiously These are the blockbuster worries that affect the majority of Americans Corruption in government Deportation, immigration, climate control That's all I'm going to say about that It gives you an idea what I mean by macro worries But the micro worries are limited to those things That affect us personally Privately, individually For instance, one of the top worries for aging people are their concern about their health.

7:56 So you get the idea of what the writer is saying in that article that we live in the golden age of worry. it's at that point at verse six and seven that pastor paul and for those of you who are new in our congregation uh new in the faith he is often referred to as the apostle paul one who has been sent that's what that word means but i've learned to call him pastor paul because it reduces the distance between the historical reading of the scripture. You identify with Pastor Paul. And that's who he is. He's in prison. He's writing to the church at Philippi that he founded where the first Western convert, a woman, Lydia, an entrepreneur Noah, follows him in the faith.

9:00 He has been separated from this congregation for 10 years. And now he's writing a letter as a pastor to his congregation because they are under the persecution and the threat of violence for their position, their stance on the gospel of Jesus Christ. And of all the places where the pastor could be writing from He's not in a palatial palace or a pastoral study He's in a little dungeon Under Roman guard In prison For the gospel of Jesus Christ And he's writing in these words The preceding verse Says rejoice This is not manufactured excitement This is not turning to your neighbor This is DNA That I'm saying to you rejoice And then he says in case you thought I stuttered Again I say rejoice You know what rejoicing is don't you?

10:26 You don't need a dictionary. You don't need a lexicon. You don't need a thesaurus from Rajay. You know what rejoice is. and after he says rejoice from prison looking at a congregation of people that live in Houston, Texas who have watched all of the headline news from CNN, Fox, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS he says let me give you a prohibition in verse number six and it simply says stop worrying here you know you need a bible so so verse six says this was read do not be anxious about some things that's why most of y'all messed up now because you just believe the pastor say what and and he just get it or she get it all twisted up let's try it one more time do not be anxious i'm waiting on the rest of you heathens to get in you know this is the group of people that leave and say I don't get nothing out of church well you got to put something in it to get something out of it alright so at least lend me your attention let's say it one more time do not be anxious about anything the translation Commences with a prohibition

12:33 Against the obsessions Of life's anxieties Stop being anxious stop worrying there are three other passages that Paul is probably mimicking mimicking when he writes this one for sure is Jesus teaching his disciples in the sermon on the mountain where he says be anxious for nothing which answers the question to you when you say, I don't read the Bible because the Bible contradicted itself. No, it doesn't. There's a word called synonym. And sometimes the writer, not to sound repetitious

13:29 in the sense of the same word, says anxious, cares, worries, and the bottom line is just this, stop worrying. Do you remember what I said just three minutes ago? Paul is in prison under Roman guard writing to his church that he had not seen in 10 years who are living under the persecution of being a Christian and he got the nerve to say, stop worrying. You gotta have the right stuff

14:17 to tell somebody not to worry when you on lockdown. I got to move on because this morning I did that and the time just got right back. So you got the first thing because time just won't permit it. Trust me. So we got the first thing. Can we agree that Paul did say, stop worrying. Don't be anxious. He begins with a prohibition. So the word worry is the word that we get strangled from. It carries two or three derivatives. It means when you worry, you're divided. When you worry, you're distracted. When you're worried, you live under destructive influence. When you worry, it affects your thinking. That's your mind. Worry affects your feelings. That's your heart. And so sometimes we have headaches, neck aches, back aches, all because we worry. And that's reason enough medically and psychologically and physiologically where Paul says, hey, stop worrying.

15:37 you know why because worrying won't change a thing I wish I didn't know what I was talking about. But I know what it means to be anxious about something where the Lord has to say to you, well, if you worry, it's not gonna add an inch to your height.

16:06 Some of you probably wish it would. So we got the first thing covered. Time, you know. Now let me move. That is the prohibition. Stop worrying. But it continues with a prescription. How to overcome obsessive anxiety. Now you don't get this formula everywhere in the scripture But this is one right here Where it says stop worrying And now here's the prescription The problem with prescriptions Are you can't treat them the way you want to treat them A friend of mine and I, we were talking the other day And when you get older it's amazing how the content of your conversations change.

17:05 Thank you, Doc. Thank you. It's true. You know, when you're younger, but when you get older, everybody want to know what medication you're taking. And there's always somebody in the group trying to act like they don't take nothing. But we know better. Even if it's over the camera, all right? My friend said to me, well, I take this, and then he said these words. Not often, you know, something most of the time, every other day. And I said, do you have the bottle with you? He said, yeah, I said, can I see it? I said, he said, take one by mouth every day.

18:05 you can't expect to get help if you alter the prescription And Paul gives us a prescription in verse six in which he says every word is aligned for a particular reason. So the prescription begins with a prohibition where he says, now for this to work, stop worrying.

18:50 And now this is what you take. You take this one pill that has four effects to it. So he says in verse six, but in everything, in every situation, all right, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God. Now, Ralph West, I know you want to get to present your request to God. But before you do that, then what you need to start with is by prayer in everything. So here is the prescription and the formula.

19:54 And if you get this, it'll change your life forever. It will alter the way that you live life if you get it. He says, here are the emphasis. But in everything, every situation by prayer. You see that? In everything, here's the word, inclusiveness. That's where you want to begin. In everything or every situation by prayer. So everything, inclusiveness, prayer Prayer is worshipfulness and petition that's pointedness with thanksgiving that's thankfulness it's a reason for the ordering of the words now every verse doesn't function this way I'm just trying to say for those if you hear me today my old pastor in college used to say I can help you if you hear me because somebody this morning is living with anxiety.

21:12 Somebody is worried about school bills, health, future, marriage, children, and the Lord says, stop worrying. I brought you to this church this morning to give you a prescription, and if you follow the way it is prescribed, I can work in your situation.

21:33 So it begins, it says, in everything, That's inclusiveness. That's the first thing that I want you to know in your life of the spirit or prayer, in everything, that's where you begin. In everything, that's inclusiveness. How God works in your situation. In the inclusiveness, he's saying, because I am a personal God. Let me give you two words, you know I'm. Deist and theist. Deist are the people when they founded America and you hear people who misinterpret America and they equate America with Christianity. The founders were not necessarily Christian, they were deist.

22:33 they believe that there was a God. And God was like a watchmaker that wound the world up and then just set it out in the cosmos. And it's ticking away and one day when it tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, everything just ends. That's an impersonal relationship with a deity that they suppose is a creator. Theists, on the other hand, believe that there is a God, but this God can be accessed personally, and we believe through the person, Jesus Christ. and so the difference between deists and theists is the deists they worship that which is impersonal you are here this morning and if you are not a christian you were navigated here because you said there has to be something in life more than what i'm living it has to be more than a job waking up, getting a check, driving a car, and repeating the process.

23:46 There has to be a dynamic in life that means more than what I'm going through, and that's a personal relationship with a living God that you can access through the person Jesus Christ. Inclusiveness. But wait, that's the beginning part of the prescription. What's the next word? The next word is in everything through what? Prayer. That's worshipfulness. So you say, Pastor West, how can I trust you? I don't see worshipfulness in there. It's when you read this word about prayer, we say the prayer of adoration, the prayer of thanksgiving, the prayer of praise. All of these are words when constructed point to worship we ascribe worth to that which is beyond ourself in this case Paul is not looking for what that what he said I'm talking about God and so we begin with an inclusiveness and a worshipfulness in prayer so you start where with prayer with prayer but notice the order again You know exactly what I'm talking about Suppose you invite somebody to your house Your house that you built Or your apartment where you pay rent And they And you answer the door And the first words out of their mouth is What do you have in the refrigerator?

25:30 I'm hungry your own. and they just brushed right past you to go to the pantry. You're standing there stunned even though you invited them and you know them because at least you think that they would have the common decency to have a civil greeting when you open the door to say hello. And some of us actually treat God the same way when we come to him. We knock, he answers, and we just go right past it. And he said, wait a minute before you go to the pantry, at least understand inclusiveness that you must have a personal relationship with me and a worshipfulness. How about you just stop first and say, thank you, Lord, for waking me up this morning.

26:40 Church is the only place where we try to act like we don't understand spiritual stuff. If you are a mama or a daddy or a guardian, you know exactly what I'm talking about.