Peace, Be Still

Merry Christmas

I am Shawn, I am the pastor here at First Grace. If you have a Bible, please turn in it to Philippians 4. While you turn there:

If you do not have a Bible, we have some out at our welcome desk, please feel free to grab one now, or on your way out, they are our gift to you.

Prayer for Westfork

Dan Westhoff William Wold Paula Craighton Denise Shreve Kimberly Wiseman

If you have one of our sermon Notebooks, I have titles this: “Peace, Be Still”

The Big Idea is: Jesus is our source of peace.

Lead - up

Advent typically covers the 4 weeks leading up to Christmas where we celebrate the coming of our king and savior Jesus Christ. It is the advent of the word. There are typically certain themes churches cover in relation to this: hope, faith, love, and joy are the ones we have already covered. There is one more I thought it would be beneficial for us to cover as we are looking forward, peace. As I have considered it, it seems Peace, like joy, is an effect we have from cultivating the virtues of Faith, hope, and love. However, I think sometimes we might lose sight of what peace is and where it comes from. It seems we assume it is something which comes from our own understanding, in reality, I think it has more to do with our surrender, than about what we can do.

Looking for a starting place, I decided to look it up in the dictionary. Peace according to the Cambridge Dictionary is:

“freedom from war and violence, especially when people live and work together happily without disagreements.”

It is also defined there as: “the state of not being interrupted or annoyed by worry, problems, noise, or unwanted actions.”

There is a slight problem with these definitions, they define something which does not, and cannot exist in our world. It is a feeble and idealistic hope, which leaves us disappointed.

For example: historians quibble, as they always do, on the details, but for the most part there is agreement on this: there has never been a moment when the world was at peace. There have always been wars and conflicts. Even in the moments when various peoples experienced peace, it came under the threat of overwhelming violence and often at the expense of their liberty, thinking of the Pax Romana for example.

Or how about this for the second one: How many of you have ever had a day when you can say you were not “interrupted or annoyed by some worry, problem, noise, or unwanted actions? (Mothers?)” We have found, to hope or expect such a thing only made days worse, but to expect the interruptions made it easier to roll with it.

The Bible seems to speak of peace a bit differently. It is my hope that I can give a bit of perspective for how to be at peace even when surrounded with strife. I want to say, like with joy, this is an area where I am a bit of a noob. As I was studying this, I was just taking stock of my life and reflecting upon my own heart. Perhaps I am forgetting, but I think there are only a few moments of true peace. I think the fault for this lies with me.

The first was when I first believed, when I was 16, the light of Christ drove away the darkness in my heart and mind, and I tasted peace for the first time. This seemed to last until I let the cares of this world dominate my thinking.

The second, was when I was in college. I had been tormenting myself with trying to find my purpose (God’s plan for my life if you will), and because I desired to find a woman I could marry, but felt like there was something wrong with me which made me unwantable as a potential husband. Then, one evening when I was praying it occurred to me, almost like a thought was placed in my mind. If I want to be a person worthy of such a relationship, I should strive to be the kind of man I would approve of for my sister, then just trust God will bring someone into my life. For some reason at that point I just relaxed, I was at peace. In the midst of this moment of my life, I met a really cool girl, but my mind wasn’t on dating any longer and it took me two weeks to learn her name. She stuck around and eventually married me.

The third was just a couple of months ago. I was convicted that I was finding my joy in my circumstances, not in the source of joy, Jesus by his Spirit. Even as I stood before you, I was convicted. Something I don’t think I yet understand changed in my heart. Even in the midst of everything, I was at peace. I realized this week it was deeper than I first realized. This is the first year ever in my life where I didn’t have a measure of apprehension toward Christmas.

All of this has me wanting to explore where this sort of “Peace which surpasses understanding” comes from. Now, I realize how silly and ironic it is that I might attempt to understand where a peace which surpasses all understanding might come from, but if I can try to help you understand me, I am not aiming to understand so much, but aiming to understand the source of such a peace even knowing I may remain baffled. I just want to be at peace, even in the midst of difficulty and trial. I figure now, when I am at peace, is the time to figure out how to remain so.

Philippians 4:4–9 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.

Jesus is our source of peace.

I have two points: First, We need peace with God through Jesus Christ; Second, we need peace within by disciplining our thinking.

We need peace with God through Jesus Christ

Philippians 4:4–7 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.

This is a passage we have looked at more than once over the past couple of years. It is my hope that we can observe what Paul tells us about peace. Verses 4 and 5 give us a bit of context. For the moment, I am going to take for granted that we ought to express our joy continually to the Lord in our rejoicing. I am going to take as granted that we ought to be reasonable and that it ought to be obvious to the people around us.

Now, the second part of verse 5 tells us “the Lord is at hand.” He is at hand, he is not far off. He is near and able to step in to help in times of trouble. In fact, he is closer than your skin since he, by his Spirit, is dwelling within your heart, Christian. Since he is so close, we have no need to fear, no reason to be anxious. This does not mean there aren’t things that could provoke fear and anxiety, there most assuredly are in this broken and twisted world. However, he says, instead of worrying about it, in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. With this the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

I pause at the end of verse 7 because I want to focus on something. We live in a world filled with plenty of reasons for us to be afraid, to be anxious. Our world is not at peace.

Our world is what we have made of it. Humanity was given dominion over the earth and what did we do with it? We rebelled against our loving creator, the God of peace, and we instituted a rule of violence. We aren’t benevolent rulers, we dominate and all of creation reflects our “survival of the fittest” attitude.” So, there is conflict between us and our environment. There is conflict between human beings. Wars between nations. Fights among factions, conflicts with friends, and divisions within families. All of this is the result of the underlying and all-important conflict between man and God. We abandoned him, took our inheritance into the wilderness and squandered it. We are alone and without God in the world.

Isaiah 59:7–9 7 Their feet run to evil, and they are swift to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their highways. 8 The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths; they have made their roads crooked; no one who treads on them knows peace. 9 Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us; we hope for light, and behold, darkness, and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.

The first step toward true peace is peace with God himself. True peace is not possible for those still living with a broken relationship with God. We can pretend, we can ignore the yawning hole in our souls, the gigantic gaping wound in our very beings which cries out for something, someone to fill it. We chase every hunger and desire thinking it will fill it, but it can’t. We ignore the image of God, especially the reasonableness, the higher faculties, and sate our basest desires thinking that in them we might find satisfaction and peace. Yet, it never comes. We hunger again, we thirst again, er desire again.

Jesus is the solution.

Isaiah 53:4–6 4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

We, like sheep had gone astray. We bore the weight, the responsibility for our sin. Yet, in our guilt, we could not do anything about it. We were incapable of reconciling with God, the distance was too great. We needed a mediator, a peacemaker who could bring us back together. Jesus, the prince of peace came and bore our griefs, carried our sorrows, even as we struck him, even as the Father smote and afflicted him with the perfectly just punishments which brought us peace, by his wounds we are healed. The lord laid all of our iniquity upon him.

True peace is only found if we are first reconciled with God and at peace with him. Peace with God is only found through faith in Jesus Christ. Every other form of peace comes after and is built upon our peace with God.

There are two points of application I want focus on here:

First, if you are not a Christian, you are not at peace with God. You may not have realized it, but you are in great danger. Your eternal soul is in danger of eternal separation from a perfectly righteous and just God, who cannot tolerate any portion of evil in his presence. Yet, he loves you and wants you to know him. He loves you so much he gave his only son who bore the weight of your sin so that you could be forgiven and brought near. If you want this forgiveness, you need only ask him. When you do, you put all of your faith and hope in him and he forgives you everything, and puts his Spirit in you to seal you as his own until his return when he will raise the dead and we will dwell with him in a New Heavens and Earth, perfectly at peace.

My Second application is for Christians, remember the forgiveness you have been given. The life of a Christian is a repentant life. This means we recognize sin as what it is, destruction and offense against God. Even through we make mistakes and sometimes it comes with consequences, Jesus still died for you and has completely forgiven you. This means, don’t allow your conscience to become needlessly overburdened. Jesus died to forgive you, repent and move on! You don’t need to pay again for something already covered. However, it is for freedom Christ set you free, don’t fall back into your former slavery.

This is where a peace which surpasses all understanding begins. It begins with a conscience cleared by Jesus and his life-giving Spirit. Are you living in patterns of sin, which may satisfy for a moment but then leave you feeling empty? Repent and turn your face to Jesus. Are you racked with guilt over things you have done and just cannot seem to shake it? Turn your face to the resurrected Christ. Your sin was paid in full, you cannot by your guilt or self-torment add to the wonderful work of Christ on the cross, let it go. It is a weight of which you were already relieved, let it go at the foot of the cross where it belongs.

Jesus is our source of peace.

First, We need peace with God through Jesus Christ

Second, we need peace within by disciplining our thinking.

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.

we need peace within by disciplining our thinking.

Having first put our full confidence in Jesus Christ for our hope of salvation and rebirth, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. This is true, yet I feel like we still struggle with it a bit. We still struggle, don’t we? We still have conflicts, we still have turmoil in our hearts, why? I think verses 8 and 9 show us, it is a mindset problem. We are focusing on the wrong things.

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.

Think about these things. This is more than the power of positive thinking. Paul is telling us we ought to think on good things of depth. Things which are true, honorable, and just. Look for what is pure, beautiful, commendable and excellent. This is you instructing your own heart. Your heart and mine are often foolish and deceptive. It feels things, it supplies thoughts, and attempts to direct the will toward things we know are not good for us. In response, we ought to tell it what to think and feel. This, as we read about and see in Paul, we ought to practice. Paul is imprisoned and he is expressing joy, hope and peace in the midst of great difficulty. He has learned the secret of contentment and peace. We should follow his example.

This is the kind peace Christians frequently get stuck trying to maintain. Our hearts and minds are pulled away and fixate on things of little consequence; or maybe it would be more accurate to say, we get confused about what is a matter of consequence and what is not. I see two aspects of this. There is peace within ourselves toward ourselves and peace within toward external conflicts.

For inner peace, it begins with a clear conscience and is built upon by our contemplation upon the good, the true, and the beautiful things we encounter. We do this with much rejoicing, with thanksgiving as we make our requests known to God.

If we allow small things to offend us; if we have unfair and often unspoken expectations for one another; if we don’t look for what is good, true, or is beautiful; we will know know a peace which surpasses understanding. This is because the weeds of the cares of this world choke it out of us and stifle our growth.

I heard and interesting story this week which illustrates this point. A young man brought home a girl, but his mother really didn’t like her. He eventually married the young woman, but the mother-in-law just could never understand what he saw in her. Instead of nursing her dislike for her new daughter, however, she made an effort to take a fresh look at her. She did this over and over until in time she saw it. The problem was not with the girl, but with the lens through which the mother was seeing her.

This is not to say you are always the reason why you don’t like someone, but keep this in mind. Everyone one, including you and including me, has at least one quality which makes us unlikable. We also have qualities which are praise worthy. The question is: what will you focus on? Which would you like for others to focus on with you? This means if you encounter someone you don’t like, you should recognize that at least on some level you are the problem. Try to consider things about him or her which are worthy of praise.

Quick caveat: All of this is assuming the person isn’t doing things which are abusive and/or dangerous. People in those situations use the things which are praiseworthy about themselves to keep people under their control. That is not what I am referring to, if you think you are in an abusive situation, come find me, I want to help if I can.

In general, the application here is simple, but incredibly difficult. Simply discipline your thoughts to think about good and praiseworthy things, not the negative and difficult things. This is true toward yourself and toward others. Simple, but not easy. However, the more I think about it, the more I think this sort of mental discipline is a asset when we sail into rough waters, when we enter into conflicts. There is a passage in Mark, which has been on my mind as I have considered the topic of peace:

Mark 4:35–41 35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36 And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. 37 And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 39 And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41 And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Peace! Be still. Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith? When Jesus has resolved our greatest conflict and brought us peace, what do we need to worry about? We simply need to be still and know that he is God, he will be exalted among the nations, he will be exalted in all the earth.

Jesus is our source of peace.

In Conclusion,

Instead of recapping, I simply want to read Psalm 23 which gently whispers “Peace, be still” to me.

Psalm 23 1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. 3 He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Let’s Pray:

Our Father, in heaven, grant us all peace, a peace which surpasses all understanding. Help us to see that no matter what we walk through on this earth, our greatest conflict has already been resolved trough Jesus. Show us all how to discipline our thoughts that we might focus on things which are good, true, and beautiful. Help us to know that our present circumstances, even when they are very difficult, do not determine our joy and they do not determine our peace. Help us. Settle our hearts and help us to rest in the shadow of your wings that we might continue to run this race with hearts at peace.