The God of Peace and The Peace of God

Welcome

““Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.” (Isaiah 55:1–3, ESV)

Announcements

†CALL TO WORSHIP based on John 15:1-9

Pastor Austin Prince

Minister: I am the vine, Christ calls out, you are the branches.

Congregation: We come because we seek to abide in Christ.

Minister: The branches that remain in him bear much fruit.

Congregation: We come because we long to be faithful disciples.

Minister: Abide in my teaching, Christ calls, and you will abide in me.

Congregation: We come to glorify the Father with our lives.

Minister: Come, all you who know his voice, abide in the true vine.

Congregation: We come to abide in the love of Christ. Let us worship God!

†PRAYER OF ADORATION AND INVOCATION

O God, we trust in your power to create, to sustain, and to enable. But we could not trust if we did not know that you are always near. Be with us Lord, as we are gathered here to worship you. Help us not to check our minds or our hearts at the door, but enable us to bring all that we are to you, so that you might make us into what we ought to be. We pray this because of, and in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. (6/2/24)

†OPENING HYMN OF PRAISE #374

“All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name!”

BEFORE CONFESSION

“O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.” (Psalm 139:1–4, ESV)

In the light of God’s complete knowledge of our thoughts and actions, let us confess our sins together. (1/14/24)

† CONFESSION OF SIN & ASSURANCE OF PARDON

Congregation: Father in heaven, we thank you for the freedom you have given us through the life, death, and resurrection of your Son. But we confess today that we often live like slaves.

Instead of living like you delight in us, we avoid you in shame and guilt.

Instead of receiving your favor as a gift, we try to earn it with our efforts.

Instead of pursuing your purposes, we cling to our own agendas.

Forgive us. Embrace us. Cleanse us. Heal us.

We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” (Psalm 103:8, ESV) “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:10–12, ESV)

CONTINUAL READING OF SCRIPTURE Exodus 18

Craig Hoffer, Elder

THE OFFERING OF TITHES AND OUR GIFTS

CONGREGATIONAL PRAYERS

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

†PSALM OF PREPARATION #93

“The Lord Reigns Over All”

PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION

Almighty God, I earnestly ask you for such deeper fellowship of the Holy Spirit, who speaks in the blessed Scriptures, that when I open them, I may perceive his mind in what I read, and immediately hear in them his voice to myself. I ask you for a quicker understanding in spiritual things, for more desire to understand, a fuller perception of your promise in the church, that I may become teachable, and may love that by which you will teach me. Amen. —Henry Wotherspoon

SERMON Philippians 4:4-9 // The God of Peace and The Peace of God

TEXT Philippians 4:4-9

Philippians 4:4–9 ESV

4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, 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 your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 9 What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

AFTER SCRIPTURE

The ordinances of the Lord are sure, and altogether righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold.

INTRO

Horatio Spafford Story:

Chicago fire 1871.

Two years after the fire, in 1873, Spafford decided to take his family to England to visit his friend, evangelist D. L. Moody, who was preaching there. A business matter delayed Spafford, so he sent his wife Anna (1842-1923) and their four daughters (11-year-old Anna, 9-year-old Margaret Lee, 5-year-old Elizabeth, and 2-year-old Tanetta) ahead of him. They sailed on the steamship Ville du Havre.

The ship they were on collided with another vessel and sank.

Rescuers found Spafford’s wife unconscious and floating on a plank of wood. But sadly, all four of the couple’s daughters perished. When Anna Spafford arrived in Cardiff, South Wales, she telegraphed her husband two words: “Saved alone….”

While traveling to be reunited with his wife, Spafford penned these words as he crossed the ocean that had taken his daughters:

“When peace like a river attended my way When sorrows like sea billows roll Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say It is well, it is well, with my soul”

For the next few weeks we will be talking about the call to Christian contentment. And I wanted to share that story about Horatio Spafford because we can quickly find ourselves thinking that Christian contentment is stoic, or maybe apathetic, but it isn’t. It isn’t that we are called to be content so we develop thick skin that cannot feel, and it isn’t that our perspective should turn away from the things of earth that we care about deeply, choosing to look away from the things that might hurt us. Christian contentment is able to live here and love deeply, through trifles and terrible trials with a kind of spiritual buoyancy. The waves keep coming, but we stay afloat. The storm keeps raging, but we are anchored and are not pulled away. And Christian contentment goes beyond this, too. We are not merely anchored by the hope that we have, we are able to rejoice. Sometimes sorrowful, but always rejoicing.

And it’s this strange dynamic about the Christian that has so much potency in our world of discontent.

We know that the Christian life is a spiritual battle, and as Ephesians six tells us, we are to take up the armor of God as we fight the fight of faith. One of the constant assaults that is against us is the temptation to be discontent. We are breathlessly advertised to — constantly prodded to want more, to want what others have, or to see that what we do have isn’t the best.

But we don’t fight with the weapons of this world. We fight against principalities and powers, not with flesh and blood, but with faith.

And as we stand in the fight, and as we see Christ’s church grow in the world, one of the main battle fronts is contentment.

Contentment is not just a peripheral sin; it’s a bedrock sin. Like lifting up a rock, you can always look under your sin to examine what was underneath it and find pride. And if you stir that rottenness around a little, you can always find discontentment, too.

No one ever stole something without first being discontent. No one ever committed adultery without first being discontent. “Why can’t we eat from that one tree, again?”

Discontentment tells a story—a rather sad story that we are still hungry and needy and worried. For the Christian whose testimony is trust in the sovereign and all-benevolent God of grace, that is a sad and discordant testimony, indeed.

But the story that contentment tells is rather remarkable. It is the testimony that that through sunrise and in shadow, God is trustworthy. A testimony like Horatio Spafford’s, that even when your world comes crashing down your heart and soul can be made well. It is the pleading with God to change what you deeply care for and yet praying “thy will be done”. It is the spiritual battlefront and public testimony of buoyancy and rest in the midst of the storm.

How do we fight this battle? What resource do we have for us in this pervasive temptation?

Today, I want us to notice 6 resources this text gives us for having peace and contentment.

1) Gratitude

Philippians 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.

There is a command here to rejoice, twice. Specifically, to rejoice in the Lord and to do so always.

When the heart is full of praise, there is a displacement that happens. What otherwise might be able to fill that space is occupied by joy. When we hold up before our eyes (or when it is held up to them) images that make us afraid or desirous for something that we do not have, we become anxious. But when the Lord is seen, and when His ways are considered, we have peace. We have joy displacement.

Contentment, gratitude, and anxiety are about perspective. Anxiety and worry look to the future with fear, but the Christian looks to the future with hope. This contentment and hope is fueled by gratitude and trust, which can looks to the past and recalls who God truly is and how faithful He has been. When worship is normal, worries are abnormal. Worry is an illusion and a fog. Worship is reality and clarity and vision for the future.

Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail - Acts 16

As love covers a multitude of sins, joy covers a multitude of worries.

We fight for contentment with gratitude.

What resources do we have as we fight for contentment?

2) God’s proximity

Philippians 4:5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand

Why are we able to have peace and contentment?

Why is everyone able to know about our reasonableness (our calm in the storm?)

Because The Lord is near — proximity to the almighty puts perspective on worry - Be anxious for nothing; Christ has overcome the world.

Psalm 145:18 (ESV) — 18 The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

There is an old Puritan volume called “My Needs, His Fullness” which gets to this point well: Whatever it is that is pulling at our hearts can be found in Christ.

When we desire a new house, what is underneath that desire? Housing is great and necessary, but the comfort, the belonging, the security which a house can give isn’t whole - it can only be found in Christ. If you seek that entirely in a house you will be disappointed.

If you are single and want a spouse (a great thing!), desiring companionship and trust and rest and to be loved, etc. You can get that in a spouse, but not ultimately. And if you seek it completely in that spouse you will begin to destroy what you are seeking, asking it to carry a load that it cannot. But Christ can. Not to be glib, but in every desire, “in all of our needs, Christ is the fullness”. And this all-sufficient Christ is at hand. He is near.

He is the good father who loves to give good gifts to his children.

Luke’s gospel says, “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”” (Luke 11:11–13, ESV)

Our contentment is not in ideas of a far-off ideal of God. Our contentment comes because he is the good shepherd who is right beside us, walking with us through the valley. We can be content because we can hear his voice as he walks beside us.

We fight for contentment by knowing God’s proximity, and the Lord is near.

What resources do we have as we fight for contentment?

3) Prayer

Philippians 4:6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

We are to pray for everything big and small. God cares for us and he cares for the details. We often pray in ways that are so vague we wouldn’t be able to even tell if he answered us or not. “God bless them and be with them and help this or that…” We can and should take every need to the Lord. Discontentment pulls us to complain about what we do not have, but we often do not even pray for specifics. “Cast your cares on the Lord; he will sustain you” (Ps. 55:22).

And we are to pray under two dynamics: Without being anxious and with thanksgiving.

First, we are not to be anxious. In our prayers, we aren’t merely worrying with our eyes closed or worrying on our knees. Cast your cares on the Lord! Bring your needs, but do not fix your worried eyes on them in His presence. Fix you eyes on the Lord and give your needs over to him.

And we are to pray with thanksgiving

When we come to the Lord in prayer, we should come with gratitude for what has been given and anticipated grace for what will be given.

Especially when we are feeling discontent, we should thank God for where he has placed us and what he has given us, and then follow that up with our request. When his answer is yes, then great. When his answer is no, then you dodged a bullet, because he is always working for you and your good. Thanksgiving balances our prayer, taking new concerns with the recognition of the past — that God has been good and faithful.

Is It ok To Ask For Something Different? Yes, think of Jesus in the garden. It’s ok to ask God to change our circumstances, but we should also conclude that it is His will that should be done.

We battle for contentment with thankful prayer

What resources do we have as we fight for contentment?

4) The Peace of God

Philippians 4:7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

We tend to think of contentment as this frail little feeling inside of ourselves that needs to be protected by our hearts and our minds. As one Pastor put it, we can see contentment as this little flame that we are trying to protect with our hearts and minds — Our hearts being the way that we feel and our minds the way that we think. If we can just feel the right way and think the right things, then this little flame of contentment won’t burn out. But that’s not what the text says. It’s not that our hearts and minds protect the peace of God, but that the peace of God, which surpasses understanding, guards our hearts and minds.

And how does this happen? It happens in Christ Jesus. All of this gratitude and prayer and proximity to God is sourced in Jesus. When we abide in Him, He abides in us and we bear much fruit. The peace of God comes to us, not from us. And this is beyond the understanding of those in our world. Where does our stability and hope and joy come from? It doesn’t come from within; it comes from God through Jesus Christ. We stop trying to perform and we stop trying to feel and we stop trying to be and we (to use one of Paul’s favorite phrases) “put on” Christ. He is our peace.

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.” (Isaiah 26:3–4, ESV)

5) Meditation

Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Paul says to be mindful about what you think about. It’s the easiest thing in the world to grow discontent when don’t guard our eyes and hearts and minds. Most of what we spend our time looking at on t.v., or social media is explicitly designed to produce in us a sense of discontentment.

Instead, wee are to meditate on good things—things worthy of praise. Not like eastern practice of meditation where you try to empty yourself, but like the Christian practice of filling yourself up. Reflecting on good things.

It’s wild how we can have such riches and still want more. But this is because we do not look and see and dwell on what we have. God has filled our world with riches and goodness and beauty. Dwell there. Fly out of the dark clouds and fog of discontent and into the bright air of beauty and goodness and truth. Besides filling us with sickness and worry, it’s also just boring. The same old rat-race. Look to God’s world and wonder. Marvel not at the cheap and disposable things that you do not have but at the eternal and lasting and lavish grace that you do have.

6) The God of Peace

Philippians 4:9 What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Paul tells us that we can learn contentment by following his example. This is what we will turn our attention to next week.

But he gave us these truths today of gratitude and prayer and meditation and God’s proximity and he says to practise them, and the God of peace will be with you.

We saw earlier that the peace of God guards our hearts and minds, and here Paul flips the order and reminds us that this peace of God comes from the God of peace. He is the one who is protecting us and providing for us. Contentment doesn’t come from pulling up our boot straps; it comes by the hand of grace. The hand of the God of peace.

Safari Illustration: The God of peace is with you. You shouldn’t take a safari tour to see all the lions and tigers on foot, you should take an armored safari jeep. But once you are in the vehicle, your safety is taken care of and you can take your camera out and enjoy a dangerous scenario from a different perspective. You can say, “wow, this would be a very tough spot if I wasn’t here. But while I’m nice and safe, I’ll make some memories and enjoy the ride”. Christ is our protection. In Christ, our reasonableness (our contentment), can be known to all. Through small and trivial matters and great terrors our hearts and minds are kept in him.

How can we be content?

Well, the darkest of nights has already come. The worst of things has already happened. The shoe has already dropped. They killed Christ on a cross. The world rejected Him. The very sky turned dark. But even so, that wasn’t to be the end. Even then he was in full control. Even then he makes all things good. Even then He rose from the dead saying, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (John 14:27, ESV)

†HYMN OF RESPONSE #476

“It Is Well With My Soul”

THE MINISTRY OF THE LORD’S SUPPER

Minister: Lift up your hearts!

Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord.

Minister: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

Congregation: It is right for us to give thanks and praise!

Declaration of God’s Promises and Words of Institution

Let us hear the story of how this sacrament began. On the night on which Jesus was betrayed, he sat at supper with his disciples. While they were eating, he took a piece of bread, and after giving thanks to God, he broke it and gave it to his disciples saying, “Take, eat. This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

A little while later, he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink of it, do this in remembrance of me.”

So now, following Jesus’ example and command, we take this bread and this cup, the ordinary things of the world, which Christ will use for extraordinary purposes.

speak here about contentment

CONFESSION OF FAITH Minister: Therefore, we proclaim our faith as signed and sealed in this sacrament. This is what we believe about the work of God:

Congregation: We believe that God - who is merciful, yet perfectly just - sent his Son to assume the nature of man, in order to bear the punishment for the sins of his own, by his most bitter passion and death.

Minister: This is what we believe about the work of Jesus Christ:

Congregation: We believe that Jesus Christ presented himself in our name before his Father, to appease his wrath with full satisfaction, by offering himself on the cross and pouring out his precious blood for the cleansing of our sins, as the prophets had predicted.

Let’s pray

Prayer for the Work of the Spirit

Minister: Lord, our God, send your Holy Spirit so that this bread and cup may be for us the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. May we and all your saints be united with Christ and remain faithful in hope and love. Gather your whole church, O Lord, into the glory of your kingdom. We pray in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Congregation is seated.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE ELEMENTS

INVITATION AND RESPONSE

Let’s listen and respond to the invitation to come from the Lord Jesus.

Minister: Hear the words of our savior: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Come then, for all is ready.

Congregation: We come not because we ought, but because we may, not because we are righteous, but because we are penitent, not because we are strong, but because we are weak, not because we are whole, but because we are broken.

SHARING OF THE SUPPER

Take, eat and drink, remember and believe.

†OUR RESPONSE #248

“All Creatures of Our God and King”

Let all things their Creator bless,

and worship him in humbleness,

O praise him, alleluia!

Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son,

and praise the Spirit, three in one,

O praise him, O praise him,

alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

†BENEDICTION: GOD’S BLESSING FOR HIS PEOPLE

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God and of God’s son, Jesus Christ our Lord; and the blessing of God almighty, the father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit remain with you always. Phil. 4:7

Christians, go in hope and His peace.