Philippians 4:6-7 | God's Antidote to Anxiety

Sunday Morning | November 23, 2025 | John C. Majors | Louisville, KY

In his sermon from Philippians 4:6-7, Pastor John reminded the congregation that God provides a clear antidote to anxiety, even amid the many worries that can weigh on our hearts. He outlined three responses to anxiety: first, the command to stop letting fear and worry control us, trusting God instead, as Jesus taught in Matthew 6:25-34 and Paul affirmed in 2 Corinthians 10:5. Second, the commission to bring everything to God in prayer, emphasizing four key aspects: prayer itself, petitions for our needs, thanksgiving that counters ingratitude, and living in the present moment with God’s help, drawing encouragement from 1 Peter 5:6, Romans 1:21-23, Mark 10:51, and James 4:2. Finally, the commitment to receive God’s peace—a peace that surpasses understanding and guards our hearts and minds, grounded in the power, promises, and presence of God as described in Ephesians 3:20, Romans 16:20, James 1:8, and Philippians 4:7. This message reminds believers that anxiety is not the end of the story; surrendering to God through prayer and trust opens the door to a supernatural, sustaining peace.

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Transcript

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Well, good morning, Valley View. It's great to be with you all as we continue in our study of the book of Philippians. And we're actually landing today on the passage that is our memory verse for the month Philippians four six and seven. And it's interesting that that lands today. This week especially, we're going to see a key theme in this around Thanksgiving and giving thanks all tied in to the week of Thanksgiving. But the key word in this passage that I think is going to resonate with many, especially in our age, is the word anxiety. That's an idea we're going to wrestle with today, and it's one that so many are wrestling with and are overwhelmed by. I remember when I was very little, living at home, still, very young one night in particular. You know, most kids don't like to go down the hall to their dark bedroom. There's some fear there. But for me this night, it was debilitating. I was 1,000% convinced that if I tried to go down that hall to my bedroom, waiting there for me to attack me, to want to hurt me, to dismember me would be a full grown monkey. Now you laugh because you know the chances of being attacked by a monkey in Louisville, Kentucky, even if you work at the zoo, are basically below zero. If that's possible. But I couldn't be convinced otherwise because I think we had seen a movie with a dangerous monkey in it at some point. And so now I was convinced there was one waiting for me down the hall. And my dad very graciously, very patiently took me by the hand and walked me down the hall. And he turned on the lights as we went, and we get to the bedroom and he shows me there's no monkeys in the closet. There's none under the bed. You're going to be okay. And even then, I was still hesitant to believe him. Look, John, I'm just down the hall. Monkeys don't really sneak around. They're pretty loud. I'll be here for you if one happens to show up. Finally, I was okay with it. Isn't it interesting, though, how even. And that's maybe a silly example around anxiety. We'll get to some of the more pressing issues, but even something completely remote, unrealistic, impossible to happen can still be debilitating, can still leave you unable to function or move forward. Part of the reason and we'll get to this phrase. We'll unpack it a little more. Part of the reason is it's not really the threat that's the problem, but it's your perception how you handle it, how you think about it. It's not even the threat. And we'll get to why that is. But we're looking at Philippians chapter four--turn in your Bibles, and we're going to read again verses six and seven. You could probably just quote it to me as we go at this point. And in here, we're going to see Paul give three approaches to anxiety. He's going to talk to the Philippians about the anxiety they're facing in the church in Philippi. And he's going to give you three responses that I think will help guide us. And I think today, in fact, my prayer has been leading up to today, that if you're wrestling with anxiety, my prayer is that today would be the day that you have a major breakthrough with anxiety. In fact, my prayer has been for this church that if you're wrestling with anxiety, today would be the day that that that wrestling is over, that it's done. And I think he gives us the strategy for that in this chapter in Philippians, in these two short verses. So let's look at verse six and seven. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Now Paul begins the passage with this word anxiety. Do not be anxious. Now. I appreciate that he's starting by just acknowledging the reality that there is anxiety present in their church, and they do have a lot to be anxious about. We've seen and they know that Paul is likely is in Rome, is likely in Rome. He is in prison writing from prison. And certainly they're going to be worried for him. We know that they send a pat for us with the gift of money to him. They're probably worried that the money gets there, but then they hear that a part for Titus is sick and they're worried about him and his condition. We know that the church is being attacked both from without and from within. And we know we saw last week that the church may be on the verge of splitting, because the argument that started between two women, they got a lot on their plate. They got a lot to rightly be anxious about. And I think it's okay. In fact, I think it's important to start by acknowledging your anxiety. If it's there, acknowledging the things that have you worried. I think it's important to name the things that actually have you worried because the enemy, he wants you to keep it all vague, but he wants it to feel like because I don't know exactly what it is, then there's no solution. There's no hope. It can't be overcome. He wants anxiety to not become a problem. He wants it to become an identity. And you'll hear people say this sometimes. Well, I'm just an anxious person. Well, that's that's not okay. I'm not okay with someone saying, well, I'm just an angry person or I'm just a I'm just a drunk or I'm just it's just who I am. No, no, no, we're not going to be okay with that. Scripture is clear that we can't stay in that realm long term of anxiety. And you have ups and downs and things come and go. But we start by acknowledging it. Be specific. And my guess is that if you have 100 things you could write down, and I'd encourage you to do that this week, find a window to just sit down and go, what are the things that are really worrying me that are causing fear, that are causing anxiety? Write them down. Write them all down. My guess is if that if you have 100 things you write down, there's probably 1 or 2 that are at the top that if you were able to really deal with those, a lot of the others would really shrink in significance. That's an important exercise to do, but the hard part of that is it partly feels a little unchristian to do that. I think many of us feel like, look, if I'm really a good Christian, a strong Christian wouldn't be bothered by all this, a strong Christian wouldn't be anxious or worry or fear. I remember sitting down with a friend of mine. I was in a season where I was wrestling with a lot of challenges, and I came to him and I was kind of apologetically sharing them with him. And even saying things like, look, I know this isn't that big a deal for for most people. I know that other people have it way worse. I know this really shouldn't be bothering me. And finally he just stopped me. He's like, John, would you quit saying all that? Look, reality is, yeah, sure. Someone has it worse than you. There always is. Someone worse than you. There's someone in Uganda right now being whipped to death for their faith. Yes, someone has it worse than you for sure. But you're still facing real stuff that is hard. And it's okay to acknowledge that. In fact, if you want to move forward, you got to start by acknowledging these things are hard. Now, how are we going to see God move forward in your life? Paul starts by saying there is anxiety present. And what he does next, though, is to give them. And this is the first of the three major points in this passage around anxiety is that he gives them a command. And it's straight forward. Do not be anxious in anything. I think the first approach to anxiety here, as a result, is to reject anxiety, reject anxiety. This is a mindset too many of us immediately trickle down to when something hard happens, we immediately become anxious. That's our default response. We've developed that over time. We immediately run to worry and fear. Paul is saying, do not be anxious. We have to start by believing that that is true. I don't have to be anxious. I can reject anxiety. We've got to start by reprograming our mind. This is the Christian life. Romans 12 two talks about this renewing your mind. We've allowed our mind to end up where it is, but we can be intentional to direct our mind, to direct our hearts. We don't have to just be led along by whatever happens to us. In fact, I think when Paul says this to them, do not be anxious. I think he's really hinting at referencing, likely quoting Jesus's words on this. And so I want to take you there to Matthew chapter six. This is the sermon on the Mount Matthew's, the first book in the New Testament. By the way, if you don't have a Bible, our church Bibles are out in the lobby. We'd love for you to have one. We read from the Bible together. I try to point you into God's Word and get you. Turn in there so you can find it and see it on your own. If you struggle with anxiety, this passage is one that should be highlighted in your Bible, that you should have some kind of marker to help you get there quickly. It's one I leaned on heavily in a season of anxiety. Matthew six, verse 25. This is in this section called The Sermon on the Mount. It's probably Jesus's most extensive section of just continuous teaching. And he starts this way in Matthew 625. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious right here, and he's going to go down and tell you all the way is not to be anxious from here all the way down through 34. In fact, he ends it in verse 34. Therefore do not be anxious once again about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. The reason Paul could tell them, you should not be anxious. You need to reject anxiety, is because Jesus said that. He's not just making it up out of thin air. This is a good idea. Maybe you shouldn't struggle with anxiety. Don't be anxious. Start by trusting that this command is true. Start by meditating on it. You know there's a verse referenced in your notes. Second Corinthians ten five. That passage is all about taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, instead of thoughts just invading us and us submitting to them, we take those thoughts captive. We bring them before him. And we reject anxiety. Start by meditating on this command. And maybe you haven't been able to memorize all of Philippians four six and seven yet. I get it, but I think you can memorize that short phrase do not be anxious about anything. How many of us feel like we can probably master that phrase? Not as many as I'd hoped to see. Okay, well, we'll work on that as well. Do not be anxious about anything. Start by meditating on that running to that phrase. When anxiety comes, we're reprograming our mind and our heart. So first he gives us a command. But he doesn't just leave us with a hey, stop that! I mean that that's a good start. But second, he gives us a commission, a task, an action, a strategy. However you want a word, it gives us a command. And now here's a strategy for how you handle it. And it's in the second part of that verse. Look back at Philippians four verse six. Do not be anxious about anything, but instead in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. First he gives a command, now he gives a commission, a strategy. And it's real simple. Instead of anxiety, pursue prayer. Instead of allowing your life to be led along by anxiety, instead of that, pursue prayer. Now, it's powerful here in this passage because he actually gives four different words for prayer. He's giving us an offensive strategy for prayer, for anxiety. We don't have to stay on the defense. I like playing chess. When I taught my kids how to play chess, I taught them that if someone attacks you, if they're attacking a piece, instead of just immediately retreating and going on the run, look to attack them somewhere else. You don't have to just go on the defense. You can go on the offense. That's another way to solve the problem. Over here. And so instead of it just immediately run into anxiety. Now we have an offensive strategy. Here's how I can go on the offense. I can go in prayer. And I think with these four different words, I don't think Paul is trying to outline a four part strategy to prayer by using these four different words. I think he's probably just piling on words that are similar to emphasize the importance of prayer. But I think we can use these words to highlight a four part strategy of prayer when it comes to battling anxiety. And so look at each of these words prayer. That first word, just general player. I think it points to just an attitude of dependance. When you approach God in prayer, hopefully you're coming with an attitude of dependance that says, I really need you in this situation. I'm not going to depend on self for this. I'm no longer going to carry it on my own. So much of anxiety comes from feeling like I'm the only one that can solve this. No one else is there to help me. I've got to carry it all on my own. But when you come to Christ in prayer, you're coming with an attitude of dependance. Jesus, come help me. I'm giving this to you. I know you can help me. One of the pastors I like to read, he passed away a few years ago. Tim Keller. He was very well known. It's been very influential and significant. However, there were a number of other pastors who were becoming well known at the same time of them, many of whom abused their power in various ways, many of whom are now out of ministry. And I heard an interview with him, was a journalist, asked him how come you have been able to remain faithful while others have fallen away? And he said this. He said, I think it's just simply been a commitment to personal prayer. You know Keller, well known writer, influential pastor in New York City. It would be easy to let that become a power play. It would be easy if someone questions you to turn that into, who are you to question me? I'm going to make sure that I do whatever it takes. Now to silence you. You could turn to manipulation and to control. And he didn't do that. Instead of that, as some turned their approach. Instead of that, he turned to prayer. God, I can't figure this out. And in my flesh, I want to lash back. I want to exercise control and power. Instead, I'm coming to you and I'm turning it over to you. Prayer shows that we have an attitude of dependance, and it helps us build an attitude of dependance and helps you learn that I'm turning this over to Christ. I don't have to carry it anymore. That's the first one. Notice the second word he has here by prayer and supplication and the notes I wrote the word petition. That's another way to translate that word. The key idea here is to, when we come in prayer, to approach, approach him with humility. Have a mindset of humility. Have a posture of humility. So when I approach God, I approach him like a servant does a king. I approach him with reverence. I approach him with respect. I don't come in a demanding way in my prayers. I come in humility. In fact, first Peter five six talks about this humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time. Come in humility. That's the way to approach him. And when we do that, by the way, that more rightly orients our life. I'm coming to him in humility, knowing that he is great. He is powerful, he is strong, and I can trust him. The next word, though, is the big one. I think for today in particular, and this week by prayer, supplication with thanksgiving. I think the strategy for us with this is to choose gratitude. You got to choose gratitude. Gratitude doesn't not come naturally for many of us. I so appreciate Isaac starting our service today with us just each taking time to just be intentional, to give thanks for something. It's so easy to do the opposite, to grumble. Complain about everything. But we've got to learn to instead choose gratitude. And here's why this is so important. In fact, seeing this, it was hard to read. This is something that should shock us a little bit to read this. We're going to see a connection in Scripture today between idolatry and ingratitude. In fact, in gratitude, we could say, is a gateway to idolatry. Ingratitude is the doorway to idolatry. We're going to I'm going to show you this. I'm going to show you a passage. Turn to Romans one, and then I'm gonna tell you a story, a Bible story related to it, that illustrates it. Romans chapter one. And of course, that section is famous. It's well known for condemning those who have turned from God's plan for physical intimacy and pursued their own plan. But notice why that is. They didn't just start there. We're going to see how it began. Romans chapter one. We're going to look at verse 21 and following. It says, for although they knew God, or knew of him or knew about him, they knew who he was, but they did not honor him as God. We know who you are, but you're not our God. And they did not give thanks to him. Notice the connection. We are rejecting God and we are ungrateful for you. But they became futile in their thinking. Their foolish hearts were darkened, claiming to be wise, they became fools. And here's the connection between ingratitude and idolatry. Instead of giving thanks, they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things in gratitude and rejection of God led them to idolatry. This is exactly what we saw happen with the very first sin with Adam and Eve. God said, look, I've got this whole gigantic garden for you. Who knows how many millions and millions of trees you can eat from any of them except one. There's just one. Leave this one alone. And instead of God, thank you for the millions and millions of trees. Instead of that, it became. How dare you keep this one tree from me? I'm paraphrasing. We don't have those words written, but the attitude was, why do you hate me? Why do you want to persecute me and keep this one thing from me? If you loved me, you would let me eat from that one tree. They questioned his goodness. It led to ingratitude and ultimately it led to idolatry. We're going to serve some other God, the God of self, who knows? This is why gratitude is so important. It protects us from idolatry. It protects us from serving some other God, some made up God that we often have. In fact, Tim Keller says this about idolatry. When you serve an idol, you're saying Jesus is nice, but I have to have this thing too. If I'm going to be happy. I don't like reading all this either, by the way. I can feel it in here. It feels uncomfortable. Jesus. You're okay. You're great. You're good. But if I don't have this, I won't be happy. If there's anything in your life like that, that's a good sign that that thing has become an idol. That thing has surpassed Jesus in importance. I can't follow a God that won't let me have this. And there are plenty of good things in that category, by the way. But if they're surpassing Jesus in your hope and in goodness, it's become an idol. And the way to battle that, the way to start battling that is to start with gratitude, to choose gratitude. And I'm guessing some of our anxieties in the room have their roots in a lack of gratitude. And we're going to battle that this week. Not only do I'm giving you homework today, not only do you take time to write down all your anxieties, but each day write down your things. You're grateful for. This week, let me challenge you to at least everyone in the room every day. Start your morning by writing down at least one thing you're grateful for. Best case would be three overachievers. Go for five. Take whatever time you need and just write down each day. This is something I'm grateful for. I'm going to start my day with gratitude. I'm going to choose gratitude. And even better is if you can focus on gratitude in an area that combats an area of anxiety. If you're worried about money, focus on giving them gratitude for what he has given you. Find the counterbalance, but choose gratitude. This is a powerful strategy to fight anxiety. And then lastly, in this group of four words, we have prayer, supplication, thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known to God. Some translations say present your request to God. The final step here in these four part strategy for battling anxiety is to just ask, to simply ask. Make sure you're bringing your request to Jesus and asking him. There's a powerful illustration of this in Mark chapter ten. A blind man sees Jesus coming down the road and or or I guess he doesn't see him. Sorry about that. Here's the Jesus is coming down the road and he says, Jesus, have mercy on me. Jesus says, bring him over. He clearly knows this guy wants healing, but he asks him, what do you want me to do for you? What do you want? Would you give me sight? The powerful part of that is that he asks specifically, this is what I need. Jesus wants us to come to him with specific requests. Come to him. It's okay. Sometimes. Again, it feels unchristian to ask Jesus for things to bring. My prayers for him shouldn't pray for me. I should only pray for others. No, no no, it's okay to pray for yourself. It is okay. This is where James four becomes so helpful because it says you have not because you ask not. But you also don't have because you ask with impure motives. And so I've just committed I'm going to ask I'm going to pray. I'm going to ask for it in Jesus. If my motives are impure, would you correct them? Would you redirect them? And I'm going to pray for that as well. But ask come to him. Ask specifically. See what he does. A guy this week shared a story with me. He said I knew our family was in a place where we needed another car, and I thought, I'm just going to pray. And instead I thought probably a $5,000 car would do the trick, which tells you he was giving it to a new driver, right? That tells you right away that's who it's going to. I thought that would do the trick. So I began to pray, Jesus, would you just provide us a $5,000 car? I mean, he had the money to pay for it, provide the right car for us. And he said, when I started to pray that I knew right away God had that answered, that it was in his hands, I knew he would answer it. And he said, I became so excited to know what's going to happen. What's he going to provide? What's it going to be? A few weeks later, a lady, one of his family members, calls and says, hey, I've got this car I need to get rid of and I'd like to sell it. Do you have a need? Yes, I do. How much is it? And he said, I knew what she was going to say. I knew exactly what she was going to say before she said it. I knew she was going to say $5,000, and she said $2,000 would be enough. And he said, Lord, I love you even more today. Thank you for answering that prayer. Pray specific. Come to him with your specific requests. Some of them might get answered better than you thought. Some of them exactly like you thought. Some of them not at all like you thought, but come to him, put that on him instead of just carrying it yourself. Prayer is a powerful strategy to battle anxiety. And the last thing we'll see here is he gives us the command. Don't be anxious. He gives us a task, a commission. Battle it with prayer. But then God says, here's my commitment to you. Here's my promise to you. What he'll do is he will bring peace. He will provide peace. And everyone who's anxious, that's exactly what you want. You want peace. That's what we all want, is to walk in peace. So much of life is all about trying to find peace. Look back at verse seven and what he says, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. I think there's four things about peace we can see here. Two in this passage, two just in Scripture broadly. But he says, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding or transcends all understanding, we have to have Ephesians 320 here in the notes, because there it talks about the wisdom of God to him who goes far above and exceeds all our expectations, surpasses anything we could imagine or grasp. What we need, when we need peace is we need supernatural wisdom. We need supernatural understanding. That's what surpasses here is pointing at. We need heavenly insight into how the world should work. We need supernatural understanding into the situation. If I'm trying to only lean on my own understanding, I'm never going to rightly see a situation. I'm never going to rightly understand how to approach that area of anxiety. So we come to him trusting that he will guide us. Second, priests, peace brings power. Another aspect of princes peace is how powerful it is. Romans 1620 says 19 be excellent. What is good? Be innocent and evil, and the God of peace. That's who he is. Will soon crush Satan underneath his feet. The God of peace is also the God of power. He can handle whatever situation you're facing. I shared last week. You know, we we looked at the whole passage about the audience in Turkey who were in a quarrel, and I shared about situation. I faced a ministry with two women who were at odds with one another. But you know where the breakthrough occurred with them. It's when the woman, who was the more senior of the two, more experienced in ministry, more well known. It's when she came to the meeting and said. All week I've been praying and I've been praying. God, would you give me wisdom on how to move this thing forward? And I realized the Holy Spirit broke into my life and said, you've got to start by asking forgiveness for the things you've done wrong. She said, I've been so focused on all the things you're doing wrong and all the problems you caused for me to the other woman, all I can do is start by saying, I'm sorry. This I'm sorry for what I've done. Will you forgive me? And the power of the Holy Spirit. Man broke through in that relationship. And that was the beginning of healing and reconciliation. And look, they didn't become best buddies forever after that, but they got through the conflict. It was no longer dividing the ministry. Peace is powerful. Note here also, peace is wholeness. When you're at peace, you feel whole instead of divided. James one talks about that double minded man, unstable in all his ways. We don't want to be unstable, double minded. We wanted to be. We want to be whole. We want to be a person who's the same person in public that they are in private, that you know what you're getting, that they're not duplicitous and never able to know what you're going to get. Peace brings wholeness. And then lastly, peace is a guardian. That's what it says here in the passage. The peace of God will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Pieces of guardian. And the language here. The word picture is of a walled city with a citadel guarded by soldiers who so well protected that the people in the city have no concerns at all, even if they're being sieged by an incredible army. No worries, we are at peace. I said this at the beginning. It's not the actual issue that causes anxiety, it's your perception of the issue. Think of Paul. Paul's in prison in Rome. Likely, many believe, chained between his soldiers and every chapter in Philippians he uses the word joy. Rejoice! I'm joyful for you. Walk in joy. Rejoice again I say, rejoice, Paul. Paul's in prison. By the way, when Paul came to Philippi, they beat him and threw him in prison, and they sang hymns of joy and praise. It's not your actual situation. It's not the actual circumstance that causes anxiety. Paul was an anxious. It's our perception of it, how we handle it, how we respond to it, how we react to it. And I just want to plead with you today because this passage gives us a strategy for battling it. And my prayer has been, is that we come to believe that this works. You don't have to submit your life to anxiety anymore. Today could be the day right now. Today can be the day where you say, I'm no longer going to live. Crippled by anxiety. And here's the question are you going to believe that God's Word is true and you got to wrestle with that? Do you believe His Word is true? Do you believe that you can trust that this works, that prayer works to battle anxiety or not? And I get it. I hear it all the time. Look, John, I, I don't have time to pray. Life's too crazy. Okay, well, you have plenty of time to be anxious. Which do you want? How do you want to spend your time, John? A little prayer is hard. I know it's incredibly hard, but so is living life riddled with anxiety. Who wants that? Which hard do you want? The hard. That's forced on you or the hard you choose what? The key phrase in this whole passage is the very last tag will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. So this isn't about me being so good at prayer that somehow I tackle this myself. No, it's all about Christ. You know, when I came to my dad, I came to someone who was stronger than me to help me deal with my anxiety. You're not going to be able to deal with this anxiety on your own. You come to Christ who's stronger than you. He went to his father in his moment of worry. He's the one we come to. Jesus, would you guide me? I'm coming to you. Guard my heart, guide me in prayer and help me to come to you. In the midst of this anxiety. This week I met with Jim Newton, who had surgery for pancreatic cancer this week, and I came to his home to pray with him before he went into surgery. And Jim said, I just really want to get past this so I can get back to contributing in the church, serving in the church, he and a number of men help around the facility, working on the facility, and he loves to do that, but he just hasn't been able to physically. And I said, Jim, how are you doing? How are you feeling? How's it going? How are you feeling about tomorrow? And I was expecting to see tears and anxiety and worry. And instead he smiled. John, earlier today one of my mentors from years ago called me and he said, I want to pray a verse over you before you go into surgery. And he said, here it is. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer, supplication, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God and the peace of God. Which transcends and surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. He said, I'm at peace. I'm at peace. You can know peace. You really can walk in peace. Come to Jesus with your anxieties. Trust him. He will guard your hearts and your minds. Let's pray. God, thank you for this passage and thank you for your word. So much of life we live. Wondering how are we going to get through it? How are we going to survive another day? But your word is power. Your word is healing. Your name is life. And I know there are many here today who are riddled with anxiety. Would you give them victory today? Would you right now give them complete release from anxiety? Would they sense hope? Would they trust your word and know peace can be found. Walk away today full of peace. Thank you Jesus. We also just continue to pray for healing for Jim. He did have surgery, came through it, continue to bring healing to his body. Thank you for his example of walking in peace rooted in your word. We love you and it's in your name we pray. Amen. I'm going to mention just two quick things. First, we're going to have a couple of baptisms next Sunday. And we almost always do those at the very beginning of the service. So you want to be in here right at the start so we can celebrate those baptisms together. And then secondly, we have a women's Christmas breakfast happening in a couple of weeks this Sunday and next tickets will be for sale out in the lobby. So you want to check those out, but let's all stand. We'll have a closing prayer. A closing prayer of blessing as we go into our week. Reminder there's no Wednesday night activities this week with it being Thanksgiving week, we're taking a week off. Enjoy time with your family. Let's pray. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May you feel the fullness of his presence, of his countenance. And may that bring. Peace. May you feel his peace which surpasses all understanding. May you walk in gratitude this week. We love you, Jesus, and it's in your powerful name we pray. Amen. Go in peace. Have a great week!