The Peace of God

The text

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6–7 KJV

At a glance

Summary of the sermon

Anxiety about circumstances is one of the commonest of all causes of spiritual depression, and Paul's counsel to the Philippians is, in Lloyd-Jones' judgment, one of the most comforting statements in all literature. The command is to be anxious about nothing; the seat of the trouble is the heart and the mind, faculties we cannot simply command. Imagination runs ahead to every possible outcome, sleep goes, and the anxious person becomes useless to everyone including himself.

The remedies of the world do not reach the problem. 'Don't worry', 'it may never happen', 'worry never helped anybody' — all true, and all useless, because they neither change the situation nor loosen its grip on heart and mind. Paul's remedy is prayer, but prayer of a particular kind and in a particular order. First worship: come into God's presence and recollect who He is before you say a word about your trouble. Then supplication, making the specific request known. And with it thanksgiving — approaching God without any grudge, deliberately rehearsing the reasons for gratitude, above all the cross.

The promise that follows is striking for what it does not say. God does not promise to remove the circumstance. He promises that His own peace, beyond anything the understanding can produce, will stand guard like a garrison over the heart and mind, keeping anxiety outside whatever happens. And it does so 'through Christ Jesus': the God who did not spare His own Son will not abandon us now.

Key points

• Anxiety lives in the heart and mind, which cannot simply be commanded by the will.
• Worldly remedies — repression, distraction, 'don't worry' — fail to reach the real problem.
• The cure is prayer in Paul's order: adoration first, then supplication, with thanksgiving.
• Thanksgiving means deliberately rehearsing reasons for gratitude, especially the cross.
• God promises to keep the person, not necessarily to change the circumstance.
• The peace of God garrisons heart and mind through Christ Jesus.

Illustrations the preacher uses

• The Salvation Army's General Carpenter and his wife, given inexplicable peace on the morning their daughter died.
• Praying merely for relief of nerves contrasted with true worship-first prayer.
• David in Psalms 3 and 4, lying down and sleeping with enemies all around.

Related Scripture

• Matthew 6:25–34
• Psalm 3:5
• Psalm 4:8
• Romans 5:10
• Romans 8:28–32
• Romans 8:38–39
• 1 Peter 5:7

For reflection and discussion

1. What worry is occupying your heart and mind at present, and how have you tried to reason your way out of it?
2. Try Paul's order this week — worship, then supplication, then thanksgiving. What difference, if any, do you notice?
3. How does it change your praying to realise that God promises to keep you in peace rather than to remove the difficulty?