I'm Putting Anxiousness Under Arrest Part. 2
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Come on, clap your hands one more time, everybody. Well, I want to read a few verses of scripture found in the book of Philip yan and shape to four, where in a series called arresting anxious ness. And I want to continue a lesson I started last week, found, taken from Philippines s four, first four, where paul says these words, rejoice in the lord always i'll say IT again.

rejoice. Let your gentleman. Ss, be evident to all the lord is near.

Do not be animals about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to god and the piece of god which trans sends all understanding will god your hearts and your minds in Christ jesus? So i'm going to stop the reading description there. We're still talking from this subject.

I am putting anxious under arrest, putting anxiousness under arrest. This particular passage allows us to each drop on a conversation that a spiritual leader name paul is having with a virginal group of believers in northern greece in a colonic Philippine hands. The book is called Philippines spalls letter to believe s in phillippi and in Philippines shopped four.

We get some insight into a conversation that paul is having with people who have new life but need to learn how to live life a new way. They have new life there, what we will call saved, born again, converted. They have new life, but they need to learn how to live this new life a new way.

And so paul, in this particular part of the passage, is giving them exposure in terms of the way life can be lived as a relate to anxiousness. This letter to believe s in phillippa shows us the power of the principle of exposure. Exposure awakens and appetite for something we didn't know.

We want IT because we didn't know IT existed. Exposure awakens in us an appetite for something we didn't even know. We want IT because we didn't know IT exist IT.

And once a person has been exposed, they can't be unexposed. Once i've seen IT, I can't unc IT. Therefore, exposure is an instrument of god's providence. IT is something that god uses to accomplish his purpose in our life. Therefore, exposure is a gift of Grace. What you've been exposed to isn't random, haphazard, a coincide? Dino god strategically arranges for us to be exposed to certain things at certain times, because he wants a certain appetite to be awakened in us, not so that we want what he did for them, but so that we want what he wants .

to do for us.

Did you hear what I just say that somebody say exposure. This is why jealousy is simply mismanaged exposure. It's when you become envious of something you should be inspired by.

And if exposure is a gibt of Grace, IT means we should all, from time to time, polls and ask ourself the question, why me? Why has god allow me to see all the stuff he's allowed me to see? Why has god allowed me to witness all of the things he allowed me to witness? Why has god allowed me to be exposed to all of the things that he's exposed me to?

Has he expose me to what is exposed me to, just so I could see he could do IT for them? Or is he exposing me to what he did for them, to anker a belief in me regarding what he can do for me? And what paul is trying to give beliefs here in phillippa is some exposure.

He saying, you've been living life away that you don't have to live IT. He says you annoy IT, but you still anxious. You said, but you still stress you are a worshiper.

But when you get back in the car, you become a warrior. And he's saying, you can live that way. If you choose to live that way, you can live that way all the way to happen.

If you choose to live that way, but you don't have to live that way. And I want to expose you to another way. You can live where you're not arrested by anxious ness, but you put anxiousness under arrests.

So paul rise to these beliefs in phillippa, and he says to them, be ancient for nothing. Now, the command itself, the instruction itself, is education. Whenever god says something, he's teaching us something.

okay? Whenever he say is something, he's teaching us something. So when god uses paul to tell livers in Philippine to be anise for nothing, he is letting beliefs in phillippa know that you don't have to be anxious. That when he instructs us to do something, his instruction is revealing potential you possessed. You didn't know you position until he gave you the instruction.

So when he tells you to do something, he's telling you what you can do, even if you had done IT before you miss you so when he says be angered for nothing is as if he's saying, I know up to this point live your life and anxiousness, but i'm telling you not to be anxious because you might not even know you don't have to live the way you've been living anxious ness IT is an interfering IT is a feeling of inner unrest and worry that is fuelled by the fear of outcomes we may never experience it's an emotional thief that rob us of today's peace in anticipation of tomorrow's problems. And Powell is telling believer s, you can be free from this. Now listen to this.

Now he's telling beevers, you can be free from this. They are beliefs, and he's telling them this feeling of inner unrest is something you can be free from. This is an emotional immense pain proclaim tion.

This is their spiritual and emotional june team, you'll miss IT. Come on, come on. Think about IT june teeth, june teeth, june tea, like the amani page proclaim, tion had already been issued, so they were free, but they didn't know.

IT .

come on. And so paul is giving them the spiritual and emotional june ten. He said, you've been living this way because you didn't know.

You don't have to live this way. So he says to them the. For nothing. And I had a lot to be interest about. Did you hear what I just say? They had a lot to be ageas about.

They were dealing with political persecution because Philippa was a roman colony deeply loyal to the roman emperor and the Philippian Christians allegiance to jesus as lower clash with seas of being lord. And as a result, they face harassment and social exclusion and even political violence for their fave. They were dealing with not only political persecution, they were facing economic heart sheet, because now they were live in their life according to Christian ethics.

And some of the activity that they engaged in, a good income was no longer suitable for them. So now they say, because i'm a Christian, i'm not going to engage in predatory this honest exploit practices to get income. So now they ve got a standard spiritually, but they suffer an economically.

I love jesus, but I got bills. You learn talking to me. Come on here. And I know you walk by faith and not by sight, but there is a certain way that you've been accustom to take and care your family and paying your bills. And now all of a sudden you have the spiritual revolutionary experience. And now this thing is a conflict which your Christian values does a recipe for some anxious ness. I don't want to upset god on a bank.

So they ve got political persecution, theyve got economic hardship, and they ve got spiritual confusion because they're new in the faith. So their faith is fragile and passed. They were dealing with saying, people in gAlicia, judy others.

So these were people who were coming in telling them, you not say, because you not say the way I say, you should be say, because they were trying to conflict jewish law with salvation, bg. Grace through faith. And so they will tell him, him, you still got ta do this up in the old testament.

Come on here, even though we, in a new testament disposition. So they're dealing with political persecution, economic hardship and spiritual confusion. That's a light.

And in the mist of all of IT, they're dealing with relational drama because anxiousness produces irritability. And when you irritable, you not Graceful relationship. When you're irritable, you're not gentle.

So in very five, he tells them, let your gentleman be evident to all. He said, your anxious ness about other areas is causing you to mismanage yourself relationship. So you got a problem with anxious ness.

The problem you're dealing with with anxious ness is producing irritability in you. Your irritability is creating relational damage. So now you're trying to fix a problem by causing another problem. And so anxious has you trying to fix the problem but causing another problem that's gonna you in a position where there's something else that you've got ta be anxious about. So he says you've .

got a lie, but my .

word for you, steal this. I don't care this political persecution. I don't care if this economic hardship. I don't care if it's spiritual confusion, and I don't care if it's relational drama. Be anche for nothing.

But I love what paul does here because paul is a not just at the alleging he's a pastore of the allogenic, which which means now he does just want to give the you biblical ical truth. He wants to build a bridge from biblical truth to everyday life. The pastor in him won't just let him tell your people be ancient for nothing.

The pastor in him won't just let him tell people not to be anxious. The pastor in him wants wants to help lead people into an experience where they know how to not be anise. And in the text, he gave them some insight on how to put their anxiousness under arrest.

We talked about a couple album last week. He says, if you're going to put your anxious ness under arrest, you've got to address your interpretation, right? Paul wrote this letter while he was incarcerated in own.

Now most people, if i'm in prison, i'm thinking about how i'm a get out he's thinking about how he's going to get them out of anxious ness, which means he's not as concerned with the event as we would be if we're in that situation. Because what creates anxiousness is not what happens to you is what you think IT means. Is the conversations you start having with you about what this means.

And if you don't know how to interrupt those conversations and catch yourself, you find yourself going in this downward mental spiral and you end up in despair and anxiousness because you are anticipating the worst IT is faith in the worst. Did you hear what I just said? Yeah, so so so we talked about that last week.

Last week. We say so i'm not only have to addressed my interpretation, I have to express intentional appreciation. And we talk to you about the spiritual discipline of gratitude, which comes to the practicing of something called praise or worship.

Because I cannot express praise without mindfulness. I can't praise god without my mind being full of god. Does that make sense? yeah. And so we talked about how that spiritual discipline brings the presence of god, which is a temporary eviction of everything does not like him. So when you're in his presence, you feel your best because his presence evs everything that's not like him.

Come on here, baby, say in eugh presence, there's fullness of joy, right? So it's a temporary vision of everything does not like him. So many people are trying to chase peace, but you don't only find peace when you find this presence. And I making sense all right, today, I want to share with you the third thing he says in the text because it's not just address our interpretation or express attentional into appreciation.

The text tells us also we need to engage in strategic supply location watch what he says in the text, don't be anxious about anything but in every situation about prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to got ah notice what he says, he says here in every situation about prom petition some of you if you're for me with the scripture in king James and new king James, he says by prayer and suppliers, come on here so IT is strategic sully ation here he's saying strategic crayon is a tool that helps arrest anxious ness. But he uses the word here, petition or application. why? Because all prayer isn't the same.

Universal six, the same man who wrote this letter to believe s in phillippi, write a letter to livers in emphasis in the book of my visions, and he says, embrace eighteen to them and pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers. Do you see that all kind? Which means there are different kinds of prayers.

So I gotto know what kind of prayer to use based on what kind of situation I mean. So when someone says i'm praying, my question is, what kind is not? That para doesn't work, but sometimes you're writing the wrong prescription for that particular diagnosis is not that the medicine didn't work.

The medicine don't work for that. You don't need stitches when you're got a science infection and you don't need a legal when you gotta cut on your own. Is not that the medicine doesn't work, is just that IT doesn't work for that.

And process. All kinds of prayers, because all prayer is in the same. There's a prayer of intercession.

Wo we call people who have a leading toward this intercessors and inter cesspool? I know as foobar season, inter cesspool are interceptors. Did you hear what I just said over here? okay.

For those either unformed and interception wh is when someone on one team trust that on the ball to somebody on the same team, but somebody from the other team intercepts the ball, saw something. Could I get to them and what I got to them? But I didn't get to them because something intercepted IT. And when you are an inter cessile, there are some things that the enemies been thrown in people's direction and your priors intercepted somebody out to shell because of accident concept.

a layoff got .

intercept, of destruction got intercepted.

Is a product .

into session IT .

means to stand in the gap for somebody else, means I must stand between dim. I put my prayers between dim and the problem. Is me not using my faith for me? Is me use in my face for someone else? IT is what mary and method and Johnny lever for lazarus, he's dead.

When you do that, you can pray for yourself. But faith is so powerful, jesus responded to the intercession, a mary and mother, and when lazars couldn't believe for his own resurrection, jesus took the faith a mary and Martha, and produce a miracle in the liveliness. As I feel some pushing me right here, because some of you have a lazars in your life and he or SHE doesn't have the faith to experience a resurrection. But if you will be like mary and math, the same god that did you for deal.

In accessory. Per right, you got intercession, you got invocation. We can read a lot, change color soon.

We train ministers. We want people to be theologically rich, spirit in power, but theologically rich. So if they're called up on at an event to do invoke, they know what that means.

You have a listen to somebody pray or something you like. I'm glad they praying, but what they praying in that? Okay, maybe I tried IT at the nick service.

Yes, come on, you like why do you print IT? We had a know they just play for deliverance from chains. I mean.

come on and I make .

a sense with a church service they they proud, forgot to bless the food. We had a tursiops. A invocation .

means .

to invoke him, not something from him. With an invocation. I'm not saying, give me something i'm asking, give me you, i'm not saying, saying something i'm saying, saying yourself.

There's been addiction, which means final blessing. So during the service, we have prayers of invocation, we've got prayers of application, we've got prayers of intercession, and we conclude the service we've prayers of in addiction. We don't just do that, just to do that.

We do that because in the bin addiction, you ask him for something different than the invocation. The invitation, we're asking for him to show up supplication. We're asking him to send something to us. In addition, we asking him to seal and protect what we ask him to see.

Because our pye in the same. So how says this should be application, which means to request IT means to petition in these to ask strategic subplate ation, this is what car and down. Ta, this is what car.

Doctor pic wagners, whose former director of school of church growth and mission at full theological seminar, he calls this dock. He calls this smart bomb praying, which, in the context of spiritual warfare, emphasis zis targeted strategic prayers aimed at the source of an issue, not the symptoms of an issue. This is the kind of prayer that dismantles the actual stronghold.

So here, here's my question. Are you praying for you for what's making you animals? Or are you praying for your anxiousness? Because if I could just keep praying about was making me animals, some else is gonna en that's gonna me anxious.

Some else is gonna en that's going to make me animals. And i'm making sense. So as geologists pray about was making me interesting, I need to pray about my anchor's ness.

So paul is, say, a strategy intercession is a way, strategy. Application is a way to a rest prayer. So anxiousness can be a symptom of an anemic player life. Now, when someone has anemia, when they are namc, IT doesn't mean they don't have blood IT means they don't have a lot of iron in IT. They got blurred, super missing.

So when I say in anemic career life IT that mean I don't have one, I mean I am missing. And god uses the anxiousness to expose the lack of ARM. He like them.

kind of look drab up.

Or as you ve been doing, they're gonna rest. Interestingly, I got to go. He says them of q prayers. You do IT that's not gonna bless me law. He's like, okay, but that's not going to put ancientness under arrest.

This thing is aggressive and resilient and relentless and you're free from and and then IT comes back and you think they look good prayers. Where's the iron?

So pass spiritually.

What is the iron about things? Is kind of prayer. Here is, number one is prayer, their sincere.

This is an approach to prayer. There's free of a group of potential. What's pretention is the act of pretending are putting on an appearance of something that isn't genuine.

I think sometimes we're praying and goes like, so when we will talk about the real stuff, when are we going to talk about you hate them right now? I can get the hate of your heart if you act them like, is not there. I don't hate them.

Yes, you do admit IT so we can fix IT. Yeah, i'm talking me. I see it's there. I know your thoughts from a fall off. We know we going to talk about the real stuff.

If is not sincere, you don't have ARM. God don't just wants to heal was burden in us. He wants to heal our blindness to our pride, that showing up in the way we come to him.

Pretention is pride. You bring an eagle to the father. So when you can stop act to strong, you act to strong for them.

This me. You got to keep yourself put together for him. You know me, you know you about to fall apart.

Let's talk about IT A. Where we're going to get real impact. God, i'm about to leave. I'm about to leave. If you don't OK next service.

Is no iron in there? Sincere two spirit lid, this is prayer that is got and govern on the direction that the holy spirit they are toys with. The spirit burdens your heart on what to pray for.

That makes sense like that was that pray for this particularly aera of inner session people miss you so much. You could just be like, really like, you can build a trip medals and might say, pray for your child. And you like, you have no idea, but the holy spirit knows.

And that obeying prompting is worth quenching the spirit. Shut down a shell is not quenching the spirit. Read that alone as paul, that command, when even have given in the country as a corporate worship, he's talking about their daily life. Don't quit the spirit, the prompting the nurse is the hunches. Don't quince IT.

Number three, specific prayers targeting not just the fruit of anxiousness, but the root, the symptoms. Not just the symptoms we feel, but what's the deep root? IT is god? Is my eagle ever ut of my anxious ness? No, i've been proud to guess in my life a lot the idol of comfort.

Because comfort can be at the root of anxious ness, I just want to stay comfortable. And then if something comes that threatens your comfort, IT creates, come on here, antiprismatic. Specific IT is not specific.

You don't have iron in IT for a submits sive and approach to prayer that sees prayers await to accomplish god's will, not manipulate our wishes. I think there are certain things god will remove on this timetable, because sometimes stuff we want him to remove immediately is like a thorn. And he's like, i'm not on mood as interest's immediately until I cultivate this habit of player. And you so deep that when the anxiousness leave you, you want to .

leave that kind of prayer. I need .

somebody to talk back to me. And here he says, I will let this a linger four minute to make sure that your response in prayer is not an act of desperation. Jessy, liberation from across ness.

I want to prayer to become a part of your character. So i'm to let this linger for a while. I'm down tario.

So i've got to submit. So is not give you Grace to handle this right now. Because right now, your Christian and I .

is to crisis dependent.

I gotto keep you in crisis to keep you close to me.

So let me work something in you. There's such a part of you that you don't leave me once you leave crisis.

The number five, if if it's not submissive, I didn't have iron in IT. Number five, cereal prayer. You're got to be a serial prayer. This is unwavering in unyielding, unreal relenting prayer that survives discouragement.

Can you Opera lize a ab discouragement that overcomes disappointment when you are disappointed? Can your prize have IT and persist pairs doubt when you're dealing without t can you pray through IT god to come on here? I wish I had them at this point.

I need my pinter custom members now to bag me up who know what that means to pray through how I said to pray through i'm crime, but i'm i'll pay through these tears and i'm discouraged, but i'm pay through IT and I want to quit, but i'm all right through IT. I'm a pray until something happens. I feels load have mercy. I need somebody that believes in push to pray until something .

happened .

to contain .

empire.

IT is tea state calls IT contending and prayer, yes, to be relentless against the anxiousness because anxiousness we will be relentless a issue. To push back and against the darkness, to say, every time you fight me and I fight you back, every time you fight me, i'm a fight you back and i'm a fight until I will win. how? Because I refuse to keep a living this way.

This is the way jesus overcame .

his anxious ness .

in the gardener gets simi the cross made them anche. So much anxious or sweat begin to come from his body like great drops of blurt. And in the Miller garden he played a sincere prayer, no pretention, if is possible, remove this cup from me.

I know I said I would do IT, but if there's a way out, I change them. I do one. Do IT no more.

That's real.

Real, he had iron in his prayer.

He was .

spirit laid, submitted, not my real. But he has been done. IT was serial prayer. He had to pray through that ancestors because he praed for a while, and he was still anxious.

And the anchors is create a irritable in a bit IT, because he came out to decide, say, can you watch what meet one out? Because anche is make sure irritable. You can watch with me.

One hour, he went back to prayer and came back, and they will sleep again in. You can watch with me what? On the third time, he came out and said, the father must gay. You militari. God made some people go to sleep on you.

Because you keep running out the garden at him, and he says you need to run back into the garden to me. You keep call in them. And I need you to call on me. We at a time. I'm not gonna disorder your time, but the holy spirit dealt with me about prioritizing your experience, even if he creates inconvenience. So so not not going to design to your time and create chaos, but I am not going to cut off and experience in the presence of god or stopped speaking before guys stopped talking. So we figured a park a lot out, but if you come here, I will give you everything got got for you.

Father are play in the name of jesus. shut.

Father, I pray .

in the name of .

jesus for a breakthrough in the area of anxious ness. God, would you set your people free? He whom the sun has set free. It's free indeed. Jesus name.