"Always Be Thankful"

An old story which comes from the Salvation Army in the last century tells of a strong-willed woman who had been nicknamed “Warrior Brown” because of her fiery temper. She was often belligerent and became enraged whenever she got drunk. Then one day she was converted. Her entire life was wonderfully changed by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. At an open-air meeting a week later, she told everyone what Jesus had done for her. Suddenly a scoffer threw a potato at her, causing a stinging bruise. Had she not been converted, she would have lashed out at the man furiously. God’s grace, however, had made such a profound change in her conduct that she quietly picked up the potato and put it into her pocket without saying a word. No more was heard of the incident until the time of the “harvest festival” months later. Then the dear lady who had been known as “Warrior Brown” brought as her offering a little sack of potatoes. She explained that after the open-air meeting she had cut up and planted the “insulting potato,” and what she was now presenting to the Lord was “the increase.” Warrior Brown had allowed “the peace of Christ” to be umpire of her life.

The peace of Christ to be apparent and to its fullness in our lives. As Christians today, are we living with the peace of Christ running our lives. I guarantee that when this is our disposition, when this is really happening in our lives, it is the most freeing and restful place we will ever be. When we just finally let go and trust in the Lord leaning not to our own understanding but in all our ways we acknowledge Him our paths will be made straight. But before it says that in proverbs 4 it says… Never let loyalty and kindness leave you! Tie them around your neck as a reminder. Write them deep within your heart. Then you will find favor with both God and people, and you will earn a good reputation.

To live with the peace of Christ in our hearts is to find that we are loyal and kind in our lives and in our church community. No more warring in the church, no more hostility, no more divisions in the church. This is a clear problem in evangelical churches in our culture today. It is such an infective thing and conflict becomes normative in the church body. One SBC church in Hawaii was horribly infected with this. They would have business meetings where leadership would make presentations and all the boxes would be checked and all would be well, but the membership in the church actually believe that they are not doing their job if there is unity and conflict is necessary to conduct business. They would purposely cause dissension in the community, because business meeting must have fights to be a good meeting.

I get that we gotta do the right thing and sometimes we will have to fight for it, but they believed that meetings are not good unless there is fighting. I can remember having lunch with the pastor of that church and sitting there stunned. You don’t use the word peace in that church… they have lost the meaning of the peace of Christ. Warring is not to be a characteristic of the church of Christ. We as Christians today… we are called to live at peace. Let’s look at it.

Colossians 3:14–15 NLT

Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.

Love

Peace

Thankful

The first thing we will look at today is how we need to have love bind all the articles of clothing together in Christ. Second, how the peace of Christ must be the umpire of our lives in all things. And finally, we must be thankful to the Lord, because there is so much to be thankful for.

Thesis: Though sin, false teachers, and the pattern of this world cause us to be unloving and at war with ourselves and others, it is the power of the Holy Spirit and the truth of the scriptures that will cause us to rest in the peace of Christ that transcends all understanding and it will always guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

I. Love

- To top it all off.

A. So last week we saw that we had to put on garments in Christ. If you don’t remember it… compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. And now with your sweet godly suit on we gonna top it off with the trenchcoat of love.

William Hendrickson - “And above all these things (put on) love, which is the bond of perfection.”

B. Love is known in the scriptures to be of the greatest things in the universe.

1 Corinthians 13:13 NLT

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

Galatians 5:22 NLT

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

Philippians 1:9 NLT

I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding.

1 Peter 4:8 NLT

Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.

C. And love is that thing that holds it all together.

Dr. Kent Hugues - It is possible to have some of the five recommended garments and not have love, but it is impossible to have love and not have all of the five garments.

D. But Shane you do understand that loving people is very hard. I sure do, but it is not an option, but a bit of advice from a great book.

E. In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote, "Do not waste your time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less."

II. Peace

- It transcends all understanding.

A. Yeah but peace is not an easy thing… does it not seem that war is just a part of our nature. I remember in the movie the matrix they tried to have a system that had everybody living in peace but people rejected the programming… the machines said that its seems that people thrive in conflict. We cannot live in peace. We cannot live happily ever after. Sure its fiction but this comes from stats like this.

B. From Moody Bible… The Personnel Journal reported this incredible statistic: since the beginning of recorded history, the entire world has been at peace less than eight percent of the time! In its study, the periodical discovered that of 3530 years of recorded history, only 286 years saw peace. Moreover, in excess of 8000 peace treaties were made--and broken. And 200 of those years was the famous Pax Romana.

C. Peace is so rare. We are always at war we are always fighting. Fighting and violence are even justified to accomplish goals. Even accepted by the church who seems to be the most hypocritical when it comes to living in peace? Why is it that everything has got to be a fight. There is always conflict. Even during the times of the riots pastors were even endorsing the violence saying that’s the only way people will listen.

E. But it is the peace of Christ that must be in our hearts. It is the peace that transcends all understanding. It is resting in the words and promises of Christ.

Dr. William Hendrickson writes, “This peace is the condition of rest and contentment in the hearts of those who know that their Redeemer lives. It is the conviction that the sins of the past have been forgiven, that the present is being overruled for good, and that the future cannot bring about separation between Christ and his own.”

F. But we don’t have it because we don’t believe it. Do we not believe the gift that the Lord gave us? Let me remind us of the wonderful gift of peace that we have been given.

John 14:27 NLT

“I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.

John 16:33 NLT

I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

G. Yet in our lives we are in constant war? Why are we so unsettled in our hearts today? It is chaos inside when we do not have direction and umpires. Could you imagine what it would be like to play a baseball game with two competitive teams and there is no umpire calling balls, strikes, and plays at the plate. How horrible of a game that would be?

H. The word for rule is commonly understood as an umpire… one who rules contested outcomes. The sense here is … “The sense here is, Let the peace of Christ be umpire in your heart amidst the conflicts of life. Let it decide what is right. Let it be your counselor.”

I. It is a rule it is a command. We are to be at peace with everyone in the church. We have got to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts. We have got to let it be our umpire… let is call the balls and the strikes. To surrender to this is the way we can have peace in community.

J. While elaborating on loving one's neighbor, an apologist spoke of a colleague who while in Asia asked his audience to close their eyes and imagine peace. After a few seconds the audience was invited to share their mental pictures of peace. One person described a field with flowers and beautiful trees. Another person spoke of snow-capped mountains and an incredible alpine landscape. Still another described the scene of a beautiful, still lake.

After everyone described their mental picture of peace there was one thing common in them all—there were no people in them. It is commented, "Isn't it interesting, when asked to imagine peace the first thing we do is to eliminate everyone else."

III. Thankful

- We have so much more to be thankful for.

A. And we are thankful because we have so much to be thankful for. These articles of figurative clothing were worn by our Lord Jesus and displayed much love and brought much peace to his people. This is what it is to be like Christ and what it is to be blessed by Christ. And what it is to be in Christ.

B. We are at war and by nature with sin, but Christ saved and forgave us from its destruction. We should be thankful because Christ came into this world to seek and save that which was lost. Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures and he was buried and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.