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Philippians 4:6 – Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
What are some of the most common themes for prayer requests? Someone is sick or injured. Urgent needs. An upcoming extraordinary event in someone’s life.
In this passage, we are told to present our requests to God in every situation, for this is the remedy to anxiety.
Anxiety can be a part of the prayer requests for sickness or urgent needs. However, if you consider some of the things you are most often anxious about, what comes to mind?
Future things. Money. Our kids growing up. The unknown.
For some of us, anxiety is a constant companion. There doesn’t need to be a reason for it. It’s just there. Anxiety about the next day, regardless of what’s coming. Anxiety about missing out on something, or making a wrong decision.
Consider this next year. What are you hoping for in 2024? Do you have any resolutions, changes you want to make? Do these cause anxiety? What about your relationships, your work, family?
Is there anything coming up in the next year that is causing you to feel anxious?
Consider the words of Jesus in Matt 6:25-34. He states the most common causes of anxiety are physical needs and the future.
As we enter a new year, I want to focus on praying for the future by highlighting three elements of prayer mentioned in Philippians 4:6 that will bring peace to any anxiety you may be experiencing related to the future.
These three elements are worship, petition, and gratitude.
Worship
The word prayer in this verse is a common word in the Bible for calling on God with a worshipful attitude.
Matt 21:21-22 – Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
Luke 19:45-46 – When Jesus entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were selling. “It is written,” he said to them, “ ‘My house will be a house of prayer’; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”
Acts 1:14 – the early believers joined together constantly in prayer.
The meaning of this word is slightly different than the word petition, which I will get to in a moment. If you consider the difference between these two words, the word prayer indicates that you are coming to God with a posture of adoration, devotion, and worship. The word petition indicates you are coming to God from a position of need, of lacking something that you believe God can provide.
Prayer flows out of a fullness of heart toward God, an admiration of who he is. You go to him because he is worth going to in prayer, and so you desire to get alone with God and worship him.
You see the greatness and majesty of God and prayer is your response. He is big enough to see your problems and he is kind enough to care for them. He is strong enough to remove your burdens and he is gentle enough to bring relief from your pain.
Prayer is approaching him in adoration for who he is.
This requires not just knowing about God, but really knowing him. What’s the difference?
It’s the difference between having someone describe the flavour of their favourite food and having actually tasted the food. This is why Psalm 34:8 says taste and see that the Lord is good.
In what way do you know God? Do you only know about him, or have you experienced his goodness?
Knowledge of God that ends with only knowing about him will eventually go bad. It will turn into pride or arrogance. It will produce judgment and disunity. It comes from an approach to studying the Bible that is rooted in having all the right answers.
There is value in theological study, to be sure. Don’t get me wrong. But, studying God has a much higher purpose than knowing the right answers about him.
Having an experiential knowledge of God leads to humility and compassion and has its purpose in relationship with both God and others, including those with whom you disagree.
If you were to ask my children to describe me, they would likely have similar answers. They might describe my strengths and weaknesses.
But if you were to ask them to describe their relationship with me, they would each have a very different answer. One might say I am funny and smart, easy to talk to. Another might say I am distant and harsh. Neither of them are wrong. This is their experience of me.
Our children know us in multiple ways. They can describe our personalities and habits, our character and hobbies. But, they can also describe how they relate to us.
We all can know some certain things about God that are true no matter how you feel about him.
But, your experience of God will be different than others. We all relate to and understand God subjectively. This is a good thing. God created us with both intellect and emotion. He intends for us to know him through both.
This is the way we can come to God in prayer with a posture of worship.
If you are wondering how you can do this, how you can really know God and not just know about him, I want to encourage you with an idea about living each day in the presence of God. It is from a seventeenth century monk named Brother Lawrence.
He spoke once about how a tree loses its leaves each winter. The tree is not dying when it loses its leaves in winter, but it is being renewed, prepared to bear fruit once again.
He said Christians do not become more mature by replacing mundane duties with more “spiritual” activities. Spirituality depends less on what we are doing and more on why and for whom we do it. “Our sanctification [does] not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for God’s sake which we commonly do for our own. The most excellent method . . . of going to God [is] that of doing our common business without any view of pleasing [others], and purely for the love of God.”
Gerald Sittser, Water from a Deep Well (pp. 287-288). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.
If you struggle with experiencing the presence of God, with truly knowing him and not just knowing about him, this is the encouragement: give your daily activities to God. Begin each day with a commitment to please him in your work.
It may seem like an odd piece of advice for learning how to come to God in worship. But, you see, we so often think that God is outside of us. Outside of our work and our leisure. But that is not the case.
Once you begin to know just how close God is to you and how you spend your days, you will know God in a way that is intimate and personal. And you will worship him constantly, all throughout the day.
This is our starting point in prayer. As you consider the coming year, if you want to resolve to do anything, let it be to know God. It will transform this next aspect of prayer, which is the part in which we ask God for things.
Petition
Philippians 4:6 – Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
I said that the first word, prayer, flows out of a fullness of heart toward God, an admiration of who he is. You go to him because he is worth going to in prayer, and so you desire to get alone with God and worship him.
Petition, on the other hand, flows out of an emptiness. You come to God expressing to him what you lack, knowing that he can provide.
The emphasis is on the object of our faith. We go to God with what we lack because we are confident that he will provide. He is a generous and good God. He has everything we need.
Matt 7:7-8 – Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Have you ever asked God for something and didn’t get what you asked for? Perhaps you are currently waiting on God to provide in a particular way.
There is no magic formula, no special words or phrases or ways of asking God for things. He listens to you when you talk to him and when your thoughts are directed toward him in prayer. He knows what you mean when you ask him for something.
An interesting verse that speaks to this way of praying is found in Hebrews:
Heb 5:7 – During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.
They key is not the words you speak, but this last phrase, reverent submission, which is a single word in the Greek.
Let’s consider what this means.
Most uses of the word reverent in the Bible literally means to fear. But in this verse it is more than fear. It means to be in awe of God. In the New Testament, this word is only used twice. Once in this verse that I just read, and the other also in Hebrews 12:28 – since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.”
When we come to God with our requests, we are heard by him because of both who he is and because of how we are asking. Reverence and awe of God leads us to ask him for that which will bring fulness to his glory in our lives.
John 12:27-28 – “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
This is not to hold you back from asking God for whatever you want out of fear that you’re going to ask for the wrong thing. Jesus told us to ask, but it will help if we keep in mind the point of asking.
In John 14 Jesus is instructing the disciples on how to carry on his work after he leaves. It includes a promise in verse 14 – You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
It is tempting to take this verse out of context and claim it for everything. But, Jesus is not saying that you can ask for a new car, or for your mortgage to be paid off.
He is saying, ask in my name. The promise is made in the context of representation. The intent was that the disciples would represent Jesus after he left them. So, when they pray, they should keep in mind the character and desires of Jesus. This is what it means to ask in his name.
When a loved one dies, they might leave behind some instructions or desires for their funeral, for what to do with their possessions, etc. The executor is responsible for carrying out the explicit wishes of the deceased. That is fairly direct and straightforward.
Jesus left the disciples with some of these instructions. Go and make disciples, baptize them, teach them everything I did and said. These are direct instructions that cannot be ignored.
But, if you are a beneficiary of an inheritance, you may have a sense of responsibility to use the money in a way that would honour the deceased.
Jesus is saying in John 14 that the disciples are going to represent Jesus to the world. It’s going to be difficult, so he promised that if they ask Jesus in prayer for help, he will help.
So, there are two points as we consider petitionary prayer, or asking God for things in prayer. The first is the way we ask him, and the second is the reason we ask him.
We ask him out of reverent submission, out of a posture of humility because God is holy and he is the king.
And we ask him because we need help as we seek to live for Jesus in his way. We come to him knowing that without his help, we will represent him poorly.
As we enter the new year, consider how and why you ask God for things. Don’t worry so much about whether God approves of what you’re asking for. Examine your heart.
This leads us to the final element of prayer, which is gratitude.
Philippians 4:6 – Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
Gratitude
Give thanks to God out of appreciation for how he has provided. What are you thankful for? Tell God about it.
Eph 5:20 says to always give thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Everything is the key word here. We express to God our gratitude for all that he has provided for us and done for us, even that which we may consider difficult.
Your relationship with God will be increasingly full when gratitude is a part of your prayers. Jesus demonstrated this in a story found in the Gospel of Luke.
Luke 17:11-19 – Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
Notice that all ten of the lepers received healing. It’s not as though Jesus took away the healing from those who were ungrateful. Nor did he give anything special to the one who expressed his gratitude. They all received the same thing.
The difference, however, is in how Jesus responded to this one leper, who happened to be the one Samaritan. He said, your faith has made you well, which can also be understood as your faith has saved you.
The Samaritan was the one who not only knew Jesus could heal him, but that he could save him. The other nine only wanted healing and when they got it, they had all they thought they needed from Jesus.
But the Samaritan praised God out of gratitude.
This goes back to the first point, which is to worship God in prayer out of knowing him. Knowing that God can heal your disease or provide for you financially is only to know about him.
Knowing the completeness of healing that God has for you through Christ will bring you to the feet of Jesus in praise and gratitude.
So, how do we pray for the future, for 2024?
We pray in worship of the God with whom we are in relationship. We pray with a posture of humility, reverence, and awe of God. And we pray out of gratitude because God not only provides for our physical needs, but he provides complete healing, salvation, and wholeness.