A Sermon
Delivered on Wednesday Evening, December 24th, 2025, by
Evangelist PAUL ACQUAH,
Live on MZ Radio London, London UK.
Life can feel overwhelming sometimes. The weight of expectations, the uncertainty of tomorrow, and the constant noise of worry echoing in our minds can easily get us caught in the trap of anxiety. What sometimes begins as a simple concern can quickly turn into a trap – one that steals our joy, clouds our thinking, and pulls our hearts away from trust in God.
But God never intended for us to live imprisoned by fear. When we bring everything to God with a thankful heart, His peace – a peace beyond understanding – stands guard over our hearts and minds. In today’s message titled “Don’t Fall in the Anxiety Trap,” Evangelist Paul Acquah teaches on how God’s Word calls us to step out of fear, lay our burdens before Him, and walk in the peace that only He can give.
Be blessed as you listen!
Can you stop yourself from falling into the depression or anxiety trap? Yes of course.
I want us to go to Philippians chapter 4 verses 6 and 7. This is a powerful text of scripture because it has some powerful principles. It says: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus”. I use these verses on the go so many times because we have a lot on our plates as far as our daily routines are concerned. As you’re doing things, and for me, obviously the ministry and missions and things that we’re doing in our churches which we absolutely love, but there’re so many things that you do on the go and these verses keep you going.
It says, ‘Do not be anxious about anything’. This is one of the things that we can struggle with on a day-to-day basis. You’ve got lots of things on your plate, you’ve got lots of things on your to-do list. Even some of us have ‘my want-to-do list’. So, we have two lists, ‘my to-do list’ and there’s ‘my want to do list’, and many other things and that’s just part of responsibility in life. You may stop working on your to do list, but you may at the same time working on ‘your want to do list’. So, you’ve got all kinds of things to do, and some of you have extreme demands. Maybe there’re physical things that are going on in your life. Maybe there’re family issues or financial issues and all of them can have a voice. All of them can tell you what’s going to happen, and there can be anxiety that starts to come because we’re trying to do things in our own strength. We’re trying to figure things out, we’re trying to just keep all the balls going, and all the plates spinning but I want to tell you today that the word of God gives a command. Do not be anxious about anything, and when you think about it, he says, ‘anything’, so that means cast your burdens, all of them must come to the Lord.
Then he says but in everything, so he says don’t be anxious about anything and then he uses this word but in everything. So, the scripture is saying not just some things are we supposed to hand to the Lord but everything. It’s not about I’ll give you these anxious thoughts, but I’ll keep these. No, he said do not be anxious about anything. So, we’re supposed to hand everything to the Lord, and he says and in everything by prayer and supplication. So, in everything: take all of that, take it to God by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. I believe that you have requests today. There’re requests about family and children and finances and you have requests about your future. You have requests about your marriage; you have questions about different things. The bible says take all of that, take everything, not just some of it, everything and give it to God with thanksgiving.
Think about this aspect of thanksgiving and gratefulness and just how important it is to counteract anxiety with gratefulness. I tell you; that’s one of our weapons against anxiety. When we begin to get anxious, and we start to see everything as a negative: this is negative and that is negative and this is bad and that is bad, or how is this going to work and how is that going to work. Anxiety has a negativity towards it because it’s looking at all the bad or the incomplete or the question marks of things. And that’s what causes anxiety because we don’t have answers. When we have answers to things or when we have clarity, then we think it’s okay, it’s all right, I’ve got it, but it’s the anxiety of not knowing something that brings negativity. So, the way we cancel out negativity is with thanksgiving. The way we oppose anxiety is we say to ourselves, ‘you know what’, I don’t know when and I don’t know how and I don’t know who, and I don’t know why, but I know God. And so, father, I’m taking everything including natural, spiritual, physical and emotional, I take everything, and I give it to God with thanksgiving.
We’re talking about everything: your marriage, your business, your children, you take everything to the Lord with thanksgiving. ‘God, I give you all of them today. I give you all of them because I know that you are well able, and I can have peace because it’s in your hands. What’s easy to do with anxiety is that we will take it back after we hand it to the Lord. It’s not just in everything give thanks, but it’s in everything at all times. It’s not just like I’m going to rejoice in the morning and worry the rest of the day. I’m going to be of good attitude the whole day but at night fall apart with my family. It’s in everything with thanksgiving and at all times. We’re supposed to be able to say Lord I make my requests known to you. So whatever requests you have today, I believe that is something the Lord can say hey, give it to me, I will take care of this.
What I love about this scripture is, it says after doing that then the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Notice that the peace of God, not just you are feeling good but this gift from the Lord, this peace that comes, it says it passes all understanding because what I found is sometimes it just doesn’t make sense how is it going to work. But you hand it to God and say God, I trust this to you and then peace comes and then suddenly peace about your health, peace about your finances, peace about your children, or your marriage or your singleness and suddenly peace comes. Did you know that peace can be seen? It’s not just felt, it can be seen, it can be exemplified because once the peace of God comes on you, you can say to yourself, ‘okay I’m not going to be anxious’ and it changes the way we talk, and our attitude towards different things.When you’re talking with a friend, you’re not being negative, you’re going to say well it’s going to be okay. They saw what happened to you yesterday, and today everything is great. Yes, why? Because the peace of God can surpass all understanding. Meaning I don’t know what’s going to happen, I don’t have all the understanding, but the peace of God comes before me understanding anything.
The peace of God can actually guard my heart and mind. So, whenever those anxious thoughts try to come up again for you today, you can speak to those things and say no I speak peace. That’ how you come out of the trap of anxiety. Don’t be anxious about anything, it’s well with you, the peace of God is with you. it’s guarding your heart and your mind. You have slain the lion and the bear daily. So just speaking peace and you continue to speak peace when those anxious thoughts try to come up. The enemy is always trying to bring those what if, who, how questions and it always has the negativity to it and some future things. Idon’t know how this is going to work, so he tries to paint a picture of the future even if the future is two hours from now. I don’t know how this meeting is going to go, I don’t know how this can turn out to be good. I don’t know how this family reunion is going to go, I don’t know what my boss, or manager or supervisor is going to say in this meeting. What the enemy will try to do is to throw anxiety because you don’t know what the future holds but today I want to tell you that God knows the beginning from the end. He only has good plans for you.
