[SERMON] Finding Peace in an Age of Anxiety | Pray More Worry Less 2

Are you overwhelmed by worry? In this powerful episode, we dive deep into the epidemic of anxiety facing our world today and discover how faith, prayer, and gratitude can transform our lives. Through personal stories, biblical wisdom, and practical advice, you’ll learn how to cast your cares, break free from the cycle of stress, and experience the true peace that only God can provide. Whether you’re a chronic “worry wart” or just seeking more calm in your daily life, this message will encourage and equip you to pray more and worry less.

Key topics include:

• Why worry is so prevalent—and what to do about it
• The difference between worldly peace and God’s peace
• How gratitude and prayer can guard your heart and mind
• Real-life stories of overcoming anxiety
• Practical steps to shift from worry to worship

Listen now and start your journey to lasting peace!

Transcript

 We are talking about pray more, worry less, and we've been really going through about worry. Now we are really living in a time of an epidemic of worry. Uh, where are my worry warts at? Right. Okay. All right. Right. Janet, Janet. Think it's me. It's me. Okay. So for those, where are the people that's sitting next to Warrior work that did not raise their hand, so, uh, okay.

All right. Okay. I'm such a worry warrior. I think they're gonna think something about me and I'm worried about what they're gonna think about me if I raise my hand. Right? Who's, who's that? So, yeah. Uh, we, we do live in an epidemic, a worry. Last week I shared this statistic, I wanna share it again briefly.

The average person spends approximately two hours, 18 minutes every day worrying This is global. Global. That's a lot of worry. That would be a worry award. But many of you, that is nothing. That is, that is by noon every day. So like, that's the truth. 47% of Americans and 62% of people really under the age of 35.

That's what that kind of means, report feeling like they're in a constant state of worry. That is two out of every three of you. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of Americans feel that way, and we live in really one of the most prosperous nations in the world. We should worry the least. I've been in Haiti, I've been to places where they, they, they should really worry every day about how they're gonna actually eat.

We don't have to do that. I worry about every time I open the fridge, if there's new stuff in there or not, right? Like, it's the reality of, of our world. So it live in an epidemic of worry. It's affecting, here's the thing about these statistics, it's getting worse as we get younger. It should be better because kids don't have to worry about anything yet.

It's getting worse and worse and worse because of it. And the stuff that happens because of this and the school and the conversations that happen in on this. So it's getting worse, not better. Cognitive behavioral research shows that 85% of things that we worry about never actually even happen. And when they do, outcomes are usually less catastrophic than expected.

This, this one's really about my, uh, my worst enemy in life. I have a worst enemy. I have a nemesis. Uh, did anybody else have a nemesis? Okay. Some of you don't know you have a nemesis. My, uh, my nemesis is WebMD. So, um, WebMD is my worst enemy. It is my nemesis. And truthfully, I went through this year of my life when I was in my early thirties where I was, thought I was dying all year long.

I was under a lot of stress at a church job. Uh, we had, they had to fire the pastor and I was the executive pastor, so it was youth, children's, everything. And then I had to take over his job for a year. And that was rough because people weren't happy that they got fired, all this stuff. And so it was just stress for a year.

And so I kept gonna, the doctor, I'm like, man, I hurt here. I hurt here. I hurt here. I hurt here. I hurt everywhere. So I went four times to get different testing to see if I had cancer. I never had cancer, but I felt bumps. I felt things. And like finally, I just kept thinking I was dying. 'cause WebMD said I had every, like, I had like one symptom that was in every cancer known to man.

And it was just stress. But, so I was like, I'm dying. I have this and I have this. Everything I looked at, I have that, I have that right, I'm dying. And so Patty thought I was going nuts. I, my doctor probably thought he was going nuts. So finally he just looked at me and goes, what is your job? And I'm like, well, I'm a pastor.

He goes, ah, it's just stress. Like it's just people like you deal with people. Like, yeah, it makes sense. People are the hardest part of the job. And so what happened is I was worrying about all these things that didn't, would never actually happen. Worried about the worst case scenario. So I found out the easiest way was to leave that job and go do something different and then get a better grasp of how to handle stress.

And I've actually had this conversation this weekend, and I had it with Cody a few years ago that when I got in my early thirties, something happens when you get in your early thirties, you realize that you're not young anymore. You start to get older, which means stress, life, finances, everything starts piling up and you're not as, uh, you're not as pliable.

You get start getting hurt and then you recognize, uh oh. Things are different and you start getting a lot of stress. And so I would like feel this stress in my ribs, and this is a thing that I've heard from a lot of like 30 guy year old guys, is they like carry it right here around their ribs and they like start feeling like, oh, what's wrong with me?

That's what was happening to me. So I would literally go to the doctor, like right here, right here, right here. And so I had somebody tell me this yesterday. Cody used to say this to me in his early thirties, like when he was going through a lot of stress at church and like it's a normal thing. We carry all this worry, all this stress, and we think we're dying.

And the truth is. It's just worry, it's just anxiety and it makes us crazy. Makes us stressed. And so for a lot of us, we have to recognize that all those things we worry about, they don't actually usually come true. And I even saw one statistic that says 91% of the things that we think about that come true, that don't, don't come true.

We worry about the, the, the littlest things, and that's really what we call anxiety. Anxiety. We, as we talk about in scripture today, there's this Greek word. That means to be pulled apart in different directions. It literally means that your heart and mind are pulled apart as if they hook the ropes to it and just ripped it apart in different directions, and it's just making you feel like chaos is happening and you can't be comfortable.

You can't relax. You're just stressed because you're being pulled apart. And we've been looking at this scripture in Philippians four, and in Philippians four, uh, it, it says this, and you get the yellow part. Do not be anxious about anything. But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your heart.

And your minds in Christ Jesus. Now, this scripture I talked about last week, and we're not gonna go into all the detail of that, but Paul is writing from prison to a church in Philippi in the city of Philippi, which was settled by like Roman veterans. So a lot of Roman veterans lived there. And so they were Roman to the court, and we talked about last week the stoic philosophy had, you can go back and listen to that message, but I wanna go a little deeper into what was happening in the culture of the day.

Because it matters, because Paul is literally speaking truth to them, really against the things that they believed, knew, or believed to be true. And so in that day, when he's writing to the, the people in Philippi, there is this cult, this Roman cult, the cult of the emperor, where they believed that the emperor, the Caesar, was curious, Soter, that meant Lord and Savior.

They called their emperor. They called Caesar Lord and Savior. He is the Lord and savior of the empire. He is the one that makes all things happen. He is the ruler and he has saved us all. Now, the way that they believed, um, they saved people was different ways. But we know that phrase in Christianity because we call Jesus Christ the Lord and Savior.

Right? Right. And so when Paul is writing about Lord and Savior and scripture, he's actually speaking against the cult of the empire. He's saying that's not the true Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who lived, who did miracles, who died on the cross, who was buried and then rose from the dead to conquer death itself and then rise to a sin to heaven.

He's actually Lord and Savior, not the emperor is just a man. And so the emperor, there was this belief in the cult of the, uh, the emperor that he, the emperor was the Lord and Savior who brings peace. There's actually, uh, there's actually, uh, inscriptions on buildings. In ancient Roman cities where the emperor is called Lord and Savior.

So we know this to be true archeologically, we know this to be true. You can actually go see some of those even today. And so they believe that the emperor was a Lord and Savior who brings peace because during the time of this, they were living in the pox romana. Anybody ever heard that before in school?

The Roman Peace. And here's how Rome got peace. They killed everybody. Any enemy they had, they took over their land, they killed them, and they converted them into Romans. That is literally how they created the Pax Romana. They overtook the entire world, known world at the time that they could, and it was peace through victory.

That's how they did it. That was, that was their peace. And so the Lord and Savior brings peace through war and victory and by killing all those enemies. And then that's how we have peace. 'cause we're the only ones left. And so what Paul is saying is then that's not peace. There's a different piece that comes from the Lord and Savior from God, and that piece is found in him, and that's where we go back to Philippians four.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication. That's just your asking. With Thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God and the peace of God. Which surpasses all understanding, even the understanding from the Roman Empire, from the cult of the Roman Empire. All that says, the Lord and Savior brings peace.

Even that understanding, you can have peace and that peace will guard your hearts and minds, not in the Lord and Savior the Emperor, but in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Yeah, this is a major change. Like Paul is writing something that's incendiary to people who are hardcore Romans. He's saying that is not the way, this is the way, and it's Jesus.

And so one of the things I wanted to talk about why I underline this passage guard your hearts is because as we look at this, there's a word here that's guard, and that word is a Greek word, and that word means not just guard, but garrison guard. And this is the garrison as in guarding the city. These are the men that would protect the city.

When the enemy would come, that would protect them and they would be the warriors that would, would keep you safe. And so the peace of God is a garrison on your heart and your mind. That's powerful. That's powerful. Not just one lonely little guard, but a whole guard that protects you of many. And so God's peace when we truly have it at garrison's.

Our heart and our mind, and this is important. Now, when I think about this 'cause of the season that we're in, when I hear the word guard, anyone know what I think of? Football? Football. Football. Think of the offensive line. I was at the Michigan game last night. It was a beautiful night out for a football game.

It was just perfect fall weather, even though it's not quite fall. Uh, but I think of the offense line now. I played guard in high school. I was an offensive guard. That's actually a position on the line. It's like in the middle is the center and then the guard and attack. Him. And, uh, I don't, uh, you know, and then when I went to, to Michigan, I played defensive line, which I played nose guard, which it was, I don't know, still, I don't know why we call it nose guard, but I was a guard on the nose of the, the center doesn't make any sense 'cause it should have been like nose center, but that doesn't make sense, right?

So I still don't know. All these years I'm 46, still dunno why they call it nose guard necessarily, but it's nose guard. I played nose guard, but on the offensive line there's guard and I remember, and so. I'm just gonna tell you like some, some truths here to today. So when I was on the offensive line, I was a, I was a really good guard and I played that in high school.

And my job, I had one job protect the quarterback. That was my job. That's what you're supposed to. I was supposed to guard my quarterback from the enemy, the defense. That was what I would do every play. I was supposed to jump off the ball guard him. Except for the fact that I didn't like the quarterback, so I didn't, my team was undefeated.

Uh, in this year I'm talking about. So, uh, so here's what happened. Uh, the guard is great when it's present, but or when it decides to work for you. And so there was, uh, a few moments where the quarterback I, the quarterback for, for our high school team, he was super talented. He was talented enough, he could have played division one football.

Except you like drugs. And so that was a problem for him. And so, uh, he was also quite a jerk at, at that time. His life may not be now, I don't know him now, but he was a jerk. And so he would get in the huddle and if something would go wrong and it was his fault, he, we would all get blamed. So if he threw interception, all of our fault, and we would get yelled at.

So at one point, I'm not proud of this, this is like the first time today. I'm publicly talking about this in my life. It's now on video. But there were a, a couple occasions where. We would be getting yelled at in the huddle. And I would, I would be like, I'm not gonna block for you. So I'm just not, we're winning and this is gonna hurt.

So like, yeah. So I'm not proud of it. I maybe wouldn't do it again. Um, but I even had, my best friend was to tackle next to me, and we would look at each other sometimes and be like, we're not blocking. Yeah, we're not blocking. And so there would be, on occasion, I would be like, oops. You know, and then the quarterback would get crushed and he would come back.

Matt, what happened? I'm like, I don't know what happened. So do you know what happened? No, I don't happened. The guy got through. I don't know. But like the truth was, if I did my job the way I should, nobody would get through. Nobody would get through. 'cause I would guard him. And so I tell you that just to make a confession, it really has nothing to do with this story, right?

So when I think of guard, I have some, I have some things I need to get forgiveness for. I'm sorry, Zach, please forgive me. I will do better if I ever guard for you again. So, um, but ultimately I think of, I think of an offensive line. I think of these guys who are 6, 4, 6, 5, 6, 7, 6, 9, 300 pounds. That's what I think of that stand together and they guard the quarterback.

In our life, we all need offense in line that guards us. But the Bible tells us that that God's peace guards us like a giant offensive line. And last night by the line did really well. And so the quarterback was really well guarded. He was protected. And when that works, it's easy to do your job. It's easy to go through life.

Now if you watch the other team do Fitts and Line didn't guard so well, there were a lot of sex, they lost the game. When it's not working, your life is in shambles. For some of us, we're living life with we. We don't have a line. We don't have a guard. We don't have a garrison on our heart and mind, and we're being pulled apart in our heart and mind.

We're anxious, we're stressed. We feel those pains in our body, and we don't know what's going on because the stress is overwhelming. You see, the great thing about God's peace, God's peace is not fragile. It's a fortress around your heart and mind. It's a garrison that protects you and if you're going through life.

And you have this fragile guard, you're not really going after God. If you keep having, every once in a while things are going good, and then just, you're just blasted. You're pulled apart again. You're not really continually seeking God's peace in your life because when you have God's peace, it's not fragile, it's, it's solid, it's protection.

God's peace is like that 6, 9, 350 pound guard standing right in front of you. That's to protect you, and that's the, that's the job. That's the fortress around your heart and mind. And this isn't like just something Paul was saying to the Philippians that make 'em feel good. This was an ancient concept, ancient truth, that he was making real in their own way that they could understand.

Because we find in the Old Testament, in Isaiah 26, it says, you keep him in perfect peace whose mind has stayed on you because he trusts in you. If you wanna have peace, you have to be fixed. On Jesus. Your mind has to be fixed on him. You can't just decide, well, I'll be fixed on you on Sundays because I'm going to church.

It makes me feel good. But Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, th I'm gonna be fixed on whatever I want. And then wonder why you're not being guarded. 'cause you don't really trust him with your whole life. You trust him with your Sunday morning life. And then wonder why you don't have perfect peace. You wonder why you're miserable.

Wonder why your heart and mind's being ripped apart at all different angles and you're anxious and you're frustrated and you're, it's 'cause you. You're worrying. You don't have God's perfect peace. You don't have the garrison, you don't have the fortress around your heart. You're not being guarded. And God's peace can guard your heart from being pulled apart by anxiety.

That's what God's peace can do for you. And if you are anxious and you're stressed, you don't have God's peace, you don't. You might say, well, yeah, I love Jesus. You can love Jesus and still be anxious. And stress. I spent a year of my life loving Jesus, serving him every day of the week, doing every job I could in the church, and I was miserable with stress and anxiety, and I decided I'm never doing that again.

My mom's been walking through chemo this last week. It's been a, it's been a, it's been a really, actually really good week for the most part. It's been a couple rough days, but we've been talking and the whole part of leading up to the chemo is, you know, she kept coming up and saying, well, the doctor says this, the doctor says this, and the doctor says this, and my whole job is like.

Be the fun guy that makes her laugh and not talk about that and tell her the good stuff and God's peace. And so every time she would tell me, well, my hair's probably gonna fall out Friday. And they say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go in anaphylactic shock. All these things she's telling me like the WebMD, the worst case scenarios.

And I keep pointing back, listen, but what about God's peace? Those things probably aren't gonna come true, mom. We gotta just trust him. And guess what? Friday was great. She got her chemo. She didn't lose her hair on Friday, she didn't have Ana reflecting shock, actually did really well. She slept a lot. Went home.

That's pretty rare for a lot of chemo. That was a win. And she had a great weekend. She had a couple rough days in the middle of the week and she's doing okay now, but the bad days are probably still yet to come, but all the worst things happens to happen the way she thought. And so she spent all this time worrying about it.

And she even told me yesterday, she goes, I got my hair cut because they told me my hair was gonna fall up Friday and still have all my hair. So like, right. Because in her mind, let's prepare for the worst. And so we keep going back to, Hey, God's peace. Let's just trust God and walk through this process with God and his peace.

And really it's a constant battle that we're waging every day in our conversations, and she's waging in her own mind. And some of you, you're waging that battle in your own life, but God's peace can guard your heart from being pulled apart by all that anxiety, all that stuff. And the reason Paul is saying this to the Romans and the way he says it, is because the Roman belief system at the time was that your life was divided into two parts.

It was had a duality of existence, your heart, which was the seed of your emotion and will, and then your mind, which was the seed of your reason and logic. And so when Paul is saying, Hey, God gives you peace in your heart and mind, he's saying in your entire being, God can give you peace. If you want peace, God will guard everything your all, everything that makes you you.

That's what he's saying to the Romans when he says heart and mind. And Paul's saying, God's peace protects both your feelings and your thoughts. And for some of us, we have to start recognizing we're in that 67% and the reason that we're there is maybe we still have, we know Jesus is Lord and we know he's savior, but we're not trusting him.

We're not. We're not going to him for the seat of peace. We're so focused on all the things that I want in life and I don't have my worries instead of focusing on him. In this series, it's all about praying more. Worrying less doesn't mean that life is not difficult and broken, and there's issues and broken relationships.

That stuff all exists, but we can still, in the midst of all that, we can pray more and we can worry less. But we have to figure that out. One Peter five, seven says this, cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. We are told in scripture we're to cast our anxiety on Jesus because he cares for you.

He loves you. He wants the burden, not, you're not meant to carry it. That's the truth. That's the thing. We were never meant to carry worry. God didn't create humans and be like, oh, let's see Adam. I'm gonna make him a worry wor and then let's give him even she's even worse. Like that's not, that's not what God decided to do.

We were created. Take all the stuff that we worry about that cra anxiety and cast it to him. Some of us, we got a big old sack and we just put all of our stress and worry in it. We just lump it over our back and we just walk through life carrying it like Santa Claus, right? What God wants us to do is take that sack and toss it over to him and say, that's for me.

You just trust me. Let me guard you. Let me guard your heart. Lemme guard your mind and give you peace. That doesn't mean life's gonna be perfect. It's not that God's a genie and you can just rub the lamp and say, okay, God, I'm not gonna worry about stuff and then you just give me whatever I want instead.

That's not how it works. And he doesn't pop out and like gimme ranch with three wishes. That's not the way it works. We take all of anxiety and we cast on him because he cares for us. Yeah, see, worry is letting tomorrow's fear, steal today's peace. Yeah, that's the truth. But prayer gives today back to God.

For some of us, we're so worried about tomorrow, what tomorrow could bring that we worry all the time. What about tomorrow? What about next week? What about. Five years from now, what if my kids don't get play sports right now and then they'll never gonna go into college and get college and paid for if they don't go into soccer at five years old.

And what I'm so worried about them not getting to go to school, that I got them in every soccer program that could ever exist in mankind just so they have this opportunity to go to school. That is a significant amount of crazy worry. It is. And the truth is, if like, if you trust God, here's my parents thing.

If you trust God with your kids and God wants 'em to go to college and play football or soccer. It's going to happen however they play soccer. That's the truth. It's not gonna need all this training because guess what? I didn't have all that training. It worked out because it was God's plan for me. And that's the, that's the one big thing our, our world steals from us.

You gotta do this, you gotta do this, you gotta do this, you gotta do this, you gotta do this. No, guess what? If God has it in your plan, it's gonna happen for you. If you trust him. If you trust him. See, worry. It's, it's letting tomorrow's fear, steal today's peace. For some of us, we're letting, we're letting tomorrow's worry, still our peace, our kids' peace, our grandkids peace, and we're just doing that 'cause that's what's culturally acceptable in today's world.

That's just all worry about everything. Instead of going to God in prayer and giving. Today back to God, living today, it's so much better. It's so much more peaceful. Amen. Because you weren't designed to carry worry only to cast it to God. Sometimes the way we do that is we're, we're not. We're also told in scripture that we can share our burdens with each other.

We can cast it to each other, and we can walk through life taking the bag off someone else's shoulder and then say, Hey, let's together cast that to the Lord. Let's throw that in his corner because it's his, and he'll guard us and give us peace if we trust him. Back in the Old Testament and Psalm 1500 years before Paul was writing.

We have this Bible verse and it says this, sacrifice, thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the most high and call on me. Or, sorry, that's, that's not true. It's underlined. I was like, why aren't they reading and call on me in uh, day of trouble? That's much better. I was like, what's happening? Why aren't they reading?

I will deliver you and you'll honor me. Here's something powerful about this verse. This verse has a triad in it, and that's why I highlighted the three things I highlighted. This is a triad. These are all through scripture. It's a, it's a literary device that is used by writers to draw attention and to emphasize something.

And so it's, it's kind of hard to pick it out unless you know what it is that you gotta go kind of back to your original languages. But this is a triad here. And the thank offerings, the vows in colony, it's a triad. It's also what we see in the verse in Philippians. It's the same concept that is being said in Philippians being said here.

It's being called attention to. And so the, when you see that, those things that are highlighted, they're important. We give thanks to God, thank offerings, we vow to God, right? We come to him in prayer, call on him, and we vow to God. We make our request and vows to God. That's what we do. And we do this in our day of trouble and he'll deliver us and he will honor us.

And so this concept of giving thanks to God. Oh my phone's on. Hello? Yeah. There we go. Hello, God. Well thank you God for giving me everything you have for me, right? I mean, but we should give thank offerings to God. So he and I work on this together so it works, you know,

but Thanksgiving really in our life, it's not optional. We're told 1500 years before Paul to give thanks to God. That's the start. Then Paul tells us that's 2000 years ago, Paul tells us that the same thing. So Thanksgiving, it's not optional, it's a doorway to God's peace. The Bible repeats it and it repeats it and repeats it again.

You wanna have a doorway into God's peace. You must have a relationship with him and you must. Thank him for who he is and what he has done, and trust him because if you're thanking him, you're thanking him because you're placing your trust in him and you're living your life for him, and you understand why you need to be thankful for the things he does for you.

Amen. So what does this mean for you? Why are we talking about this? Because in this series, if we're talking, and we're gonna spend some time in this 'cause, this is something that affects a significant number of us deeply, more deeply than we really will ever probably want. In a minute, we're want to get out of worry and we wanna move into a life of prayer.

And so we're talking about prayer, trying to help you understand that prayer is important, needs to be a bigger part of all of our lives, because when we looked last week at the statistics about prayer, it was sad. The average Christian prays about one time a day, and it's probably at a meal, and that's about it.

And that's check it off. That's really it. And that's only the average. Christian is like 49%. It's low. Well, wasn't even over 50. And so most of us don't pray regularly. We don't pray enough. We don't talk to God enough, and then we wonder why we're being pulled apart at the seams at the core. Well, we're not even talking to God when we're supposed to.

And so for us, prayer is taking our worries to God. That's what we're supposed to do. And last week I gave you an acronym. It was Pray. It was Praise, ask Repent, yield. You can go back and watch that. I'm gonna give you another acronym about prayer because hopefully by the end of the series you're gonna have an idea of what your prayer life is gonna look like.

You're, there's no magic prayer life. I'll just tell you this. You can talk with to God, with your eyes open. I prefer that if you're praying while you're driving. Yeah, I do. You could talk to God with your eyes closed. You could talk to God in the darkness. You can talk to God in the daytime. You could pray to God while you're laying in bed.

You could pray to God on a toilet. You can pray to God anywhere you can. And so yeah, out loud in your head, all of it. So you have to think about like, how am I gonna increase a connection with God? If I want the garrison, if I want the guard in my life, how am I gonna do that? And so here's a way, this is tall.

TAL. If you want an extra L, then it's just double the L. So I, it's think, ask, listen. And if you like the double L, it's listen more, right? There you go. But this is how you pray. You thank God, you start by thanking God for who he is and what he's already done. You can actually even read scripture and thank God for that.

My favorite scriptures one Corinthians 1533. Do not be misled. God, uh, good company or bad company. C corrupts, I can't even say it. Do not be misled. Bad company corrupts good morals. It is a life first for me be and what I can. Thank God. Thank you God for making me passionate about this because I have avoided bad company and found good company that has been so good for my life, my family, my friends, my ministry.

Thank you. For being God that teaches us those things allow us to have a good life. I can thank you for scripture. I can thank him for my family. I can thank you for my friends. I can thank him for all those things and we have to recognize that gratitude shifts your focus from worry to worship. The more you're thankful for something, the more you're thinking about what God has done for you, the less you're thinking about all those negative things that could happen that probably never will.

We gotta start with thanks. When we pray with Thanksgiving, God posts a guard at the gates of our hearts. That's that giant offensive line we gotta pray with Thanksgiving, and it's like, God takes this 6, 9, 3 50 pound guy. Just boom, right there. All right, got you. Got a guard for you. But it starts with Thanksgiving.

And then ask, you gotta bring your needs, your concerns, your hopes to him. Be specific and honest. God cares about every detail of your life. He does. But does it mean you get everything that you ask for? No, I do not get everything that I ask for. God is not that genie that pops out, grant and wishes because I've been asking him for a very long time for a yellow Lamborghini.

Now here, I'll tell you this. I've been asking God. I asked my wife. I did, but God did grant this because I mentioned this in another series and May and Fred brought me a yogurt Lamborghini that fits in the palm of my hand. So. So God did grant that prayer eventually. I've been praying that prayer for a long time.

I wasn't specific enough about that. It had an engine and I would fit in it. So like, yeah, I wasn't specific enough, but, but be specific. Tell God what your specific prayer request is. That way when he answers, you know, Carissa got up last week and shared testimony about how we've been praying for like nine months about her not having a job.

And then finally we got, she came to front, we said, let's just, let's just pray very specific prayer and say by Friday. You have a job that was a kind of scary prayer and God showed up. You shared that last week. God showed up is powerful. It was powerful. So be specific so you know when he does show up and answer your prayer and then listen, this is the hardest part.

This is the hardest part for people. Listen, pause and stillness. Read scripture. Be attentive and let the spirit guide your thoughts. Prayer is a conversation. It's not just talking. You gotta, you gotta listen more. One of the first things I do in a counseling session when I'm meeting a new couple is I have to shush them, both of them normally, but there's, they're always trying to overtalk each other.

When the other person starts talking, well, let me tell you this. No, I don't want you to hear from you. Let that person finish so we can both completely hear the thought, and then you get a chance once you're listening to respond, because when you're yelling over each other, you're not actually, you know who's listening, you're just yelling over each other.

Sometimes we just tell, tell, tell, tell God all the things we want and need in our demands. And we don't ever actually stop to listen and say, Hey God, what do you want for my life, my family, for my career? Let's start listening more. We have to pay attention, see prayer's, a conversation. It's not just you demanding from the genie what you want.

You really listening to God and what does God want for you? And that might mean you actually have to change from what you want to, what he wants for you. If you really want peace, you really wanna thank God, you might actually have to give up some things that you desire because he has different desires for you.

That's hard. Are you willing to let your hopes and dreams go that're selfish for you so you can live and fulfillment of what God's plan is for you? I can tell you that God's plan brings peace, and if you're sitting there and you're not at peace and you're striving for your plan, maybe you need to let that go and say, my way is not not great God.

What's your way look like? Can that peace to me? If I trust you? If I thank you, if you're struggling with this, you know, maybe you're sitting there knowing if you're a worry wort. If you worry all day long about your kids, your grandkids, your life, your job, your health, whatever, you can have peace you can.

You can have peace through Jesus Christ who gives peace, and he guards your hearts and your mind. But you gotta let him. You gotta let him. And if you're struggling with that, here's a way we can help you as a church, we can pray for you. That's what we can do. We can carry the burden and help you cast that burden through prayer.

So one of the ways you can do that is you can just grab your connection card at the very back where the lines are. You can just write word guard. We're not gonna call you, we're not gonna bug you about that. Pastor Matt, who came up and did announcements, he, we don't get to see him very often now he's over at Jackson campus, but he's the guy that did checks these out and, and follows these up.

But what we do is as a staff, we go through that list. We pray for you all week long that God will help you have peace and go to him and be guarded from worry. Let's, that'll be our journey together. That's our plan. And if you're here today and you're like, I would love to be at peace in my life, but Jesus is not my Lord and Savior, maybe today's the day that that should be your decision.

First, that Jesus Christ needs to become the Lord and Savior of your life. Not some Roman emperor, not some thing in this world that you live for, but Jesus. And there's a simple way you do that you acknowledge in your heart and in your mind that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior. That's that simple. Not some other thing, not some other person.

You make that decision, the Bible says, if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. If you're tired of the worry, the anxiety, the stress, and it's because you don't know Jesus, start there. Just say. I believe in Jesus' Lord and Savior. And then on the connection card, there's low box.

You can check, I just made it. Just lemme see what me read, what it says. Committing my life to Jesus. You can do that. Matt will probably follow up with you this week and just say, Hey, how can I help? You wanna grab a coffee? What, how can I help you in this journey? And, and maybe, how can I help you find peace?

Real peace through Jesus? Because you can love Jesus and not be at peace. You gotta love Jesus and you gotta follow Jesus. And you gotta go to him through prayer and you gotta thank him. And you gotta talk to him. That brings peace, that garrisons your heart and your mind. If you need that today, don't leave without starting that journey, that process.

And we wanna pray for you wherever you're out in that process, so that you can have real peace through Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we just, we just thank you, Lord, that we can be a church where we can talk about. Just Lord, some of the shortcomings we have when it comes to stress and anxiety and fear and worry, and how they just destroy our lives and recognize, Lord, even though we may love you, we, we desperately need you more in our hearts and minds, or pray we become a church of prayer, or we pray more and we worry less, and we seek you and we allow your love, your light, your spirit to guard our hearts and minds and to give us peace.

Though we know that it starts with thanking you and knowing you and going to you, and listening to you. And though we pray that each, every person in this room, that is our, that's our process moving forward. And we pray more. We worry less. Prayer isn't an afterthought. It is the thought, not just on Sunday mornings, Lord, but every day of our week, all day long, we go to you.

Lord, if anyone here has decided to make the decision to call you Jesus, Lord, Lord, we celebrate that. We praise that Lord. We just ask. We thank you for that. We, we ask, Lord, that they have the courage to, to let us know so we can help the encourage them in the journey of finding peace and running away from anxiety and casting down on you.

Lord, we pray that we can be a church where we honor you as we listen more and we pray more and we worry less, and we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.