Peace

Well we knew we were going to have a more intimate group this evening, but I think it is good it really helped me to try to zone in on a topic that I think is good for all of us in this room at this stage of our life with everything going on in our lives at this very moment to look at.

Were going to be looking at God’s peace this evening, God’s peace.

Every person in this room could use a good dose of the Peace of God right? I mean I know personally that there are situations that each of you are facing right now at this time in your life that you think peace is very unreachable. You need that calm you need that peace that passeth all understanding.

Every Christian is facing a spiritual arfare everyday of his or her life. With this in mind this is why we must put on the whole armor of God, to be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

The Bible speaks very directly about this issue of peace, Jesus on one occasion gathered His disciples together and he said to them () “I want you to know that in this world you will have trouble, but in the very same breath Jesus also said to them, I TELL YOU THESE THINGS SO THAT YOU MAY HAVE PEACE”

Now that takes us to the very heart of the question this evening HOW CAN YOU HAVE PEACE AT THE SAME TIME AS YOU FACE TROUBLE?

Now before we get to how we can have more peace it is important that we understand what peace is.

The peace the Bible speaks about is NOT the absence of conflict or trouble.

This is clear from the statement from Jesus (He said you will have peace but at the same time you will have trouble.)

These two things exist together

Now I want you to see from Phillippians that that was the case even as Paul was writing this letter. For example if you look at

were introduced to two ladies in the church who had evidently had a falling out and couldnt get along with each other.

Philippians 4:2 HCSB

I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to agree in the Lord.

These two battle axes evidently had been slugging it out for some time now and everyone in the church knew about it. When Paul writes this to the church he says I am pleading I am urging you two ladies to get it together can t you just get along.

So he is writing to a local church where there seems to be some clear conflict. Secondly if you will just glance at chapter 3 and verse 18 you will see that he writes out of a broken heart. He speaks there about enemies of the cross of Christ. People in the church whose behavior is causing deep damage to the cause of Christ.

Even as he wrote and thought about it he broke down in tears, he begins thinking about those whose behavior is damaging the church.

Philippians 3:18 HCSB

For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.

Philippians

He broke down with his pen in his hand. So here the apostle is speaking to a congregation where there is conflict. He writes out of a broken heart because of damage that is being done the cause of Jesus Christ because of some peoples behavior within the church, and as he writes he is actually chained to a Roman guard he is a prisoner.

He is facing the future of a violent death.

So the peace that Paul is writing about is Not the absence of conflict or of trouble. This is not some intellectual writing in an ivory tower about some idea called peace. This is an imprisoned pastor writing to a ornery congregation with conflict within feeling a broken heart and facing the future of an immanent violent death.

Now I wanted to emphasize that for just a moment because it is very easy for us, when we think about the subject of peace, and we hear the word peace especially when the apostle talks about peace that passes understanding, what gets in our minds is the image of some reverent gentleman from some other world with theories an ideas, but who doesnt live in reality.

But to know what Paul is going through should help us understand that he is right down in the muck and mire of life with us. Even worse than us because who of us have been chained this week?

Paul lived in the world of conflict that we live in. When he talks about a peace that passes understanding he is talking about something that we desperately need to discover because we live in a troubled world of conflict.

So what is this peace that he is talking about? If it is not the absence of trouble what is it?

Well the Hebrew word for peace is the word SHALOM and what it means literally is “THE WAY THINGS OUGHT TO BE” So when someone says shalom to you they are saying “MAY THINGS BE WITH YOU THE WAY THEY OUGHT TO BE”

It is very interesting when you understand that in verses 9 that the apostle describes God here as the God of peace. What that means therefore is that everything in God is exactly as it ought to be there is nothing out of order or out of place everything is as it ought to be. He is who He is, and He is perfection.

When God created the world he created it a marked it with His stamp of shalom about it. He looked out at the world and said that it was good and it was just as it ought to be. The man and the woman walked with God in the garden just as it ought to be. The man and the woman experienced joy and satisfaction just as it ought to be.

But then wehn sin entered the world, SHALOM was lost. Nothing was as it ought to be. Shlom was lost at 3 levels:

Things were no longer as they ought to be

Between Man/ Woman and God

Between the Man and the Woman

Within their own hearts

The SHALOM of God was broken in these three places and the rest of the Bible is about how God restores that SHALOM in those three places where it was broken. How God makes a way for things to be made right between us and Him. God makes a way for things to be right between one another. God makes a way for things to be as they ougth to be when God creates a new Heaven and a new Earth and everything will be as it ought to be.

Now each of these three levels are mentioned here. I want us to see the order in which they come, because if you think of it this way, when were looking for this peace that exists in the midst of trouble the apostle Paul is telling us that it is built on three levels of foundation.

It rests upon other things that ought to be in place if you are to experience peace in the middle of trouble.

It begins in chapter 4:4

As the apostle Paul tells us that you must be in a right relationship with God.

Philippians 4:4 HCSB

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

Now that’s exactly how it was in the beginning of the Bible story when God placed man and woman in the garden. He gave them just one commandment, they had a wonderful relationship with him and with each other and they walked with God! God appeared to them in visible form. He shared their life, their work was all discussed with Him. They rejoiced in the Lord, that’s how it ought to be but then when they chose the path of disobedience, in which this SHALOM was broken was that they hid from the Lord GOd in the garden.

Adams first instinct was that he no longer wanted to be near to God, he could no longer rejoice in God he wanted to hide from God. So the scene plays itself out as GOd comes calling for Adam looking for him in the cool of the day. Not because God didn’t know where he was, but instead He wanted adam to acknowledge where he was and why he was hidden.

If you have ever played hide and seek, and someone gets close to the location you are hiding in, your heart starts thumping, and if you are in a situation where you dont want to be found because it would be dangerous then you will know that feeling of that moment.

This was Adams first experience of fear. He lost his peace hiding from God,

THE HOUND OF HEAVEN:

“I fled Him, donw the nights and down the days

I fled Him down the arches of the years

I fled him down the labrynth and the ways of my own mind

and in the midst of tears I hid from Him.”

That takes alot of energy and costs you a whole lot of peace. As long as a man or a woman resists the calling of God the Lordship of JEsus Christ you cannot know peace. This is the foundation of where the peace that passes all understanding actually rests. God has made it very clear, there is no rest, no peace for the wicked.

Instead the wicked are like the waves of the sea, tossing backwards and forwards. The great truth of the gospel is that God invites you out of hiding into the open where the embrace of the God who loves you awaits.

He created you and He longs to create SHALOM in your lives. He died the just for the unjust to bring you to God. He died in your place so that you would live continually. Paul is reminding us that there is no greater peace than knowing this oeace and relationship with God through Jesus CHrist our Lord.

Now he writing about all these things going on in the church and his heart has been breaking and he is being very open about the possibility of immanent death. BUT HE SAYS

REJOICE IN GOD !!!!

No matter what happens in this life nothing can compare with the joy of this restored relationship with God. Knowing that we are not alone and HE is going with us, through all of life.

HE IS THE JOY OF MY LIFE!!!

This is the foundation.... have you come there?

But then theres a second thing that this peace that passes all understanding rests:

YOUR GRACIOUSNESS TO OTHERS

Philippians 4:5 HCSB

Let your graciousness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.

Now we’ve seen in a fallen world it is simply impossible for everything to be right in every relationship. Conflict will end when Jesus Christ returns but that day has not come yet. When Jesus said love your enemies, he implies that we will have some enemies to love.

If we think of peace being the absence of trouble we will simply never find it, because in this world were gonna have trouble. I truly wish that everything would be as it should be with every other person in the world. But it is not.

There are somethings that I do not have the power to change, conflict is like a two way street, and sometimes there are some crazy drivers coming down the other side of the Highway. Some of them in your life, some are in mine. Now what this doesn’t say to us is not that everything has to be right in every relationship of your life in order for you to know the peace of God.

But what it does say to us is that you must do everything in your power to be a peace maker. Paul speaks about this

Romans 12:18

Romans 12:18 HCSB

If possible, on your part, live at peace with everyone.

At least as far as your side of the road is concerned your part in the situation of conflict. Let your gentleness or graciousness be evident to all. Dont inflame the situation but reduce it.

So God teaches us here that before you can have My peace you must first be in right relationship with me, then you must focus in on your relationship with others, then you will begin to know the peace of God that passes all understanding.

He is going to talk in a few minutes about prayer, but all the way through the Bible, we find that prayer is going to be ineffective if it is not based on seeking to do what is right in our relationships. Which is why Jesus says if your coming to worship and you become reminded of some conflict and go and leave your offering on the alter and go and get it right then come back and worship.

The apostles Peter says be very careful, considerate he says about how you treat your wives, treat them with respect why? so that nothing may hinder your prayers. In other words if a man is harsh towards his wife and then comes out to a prayer meeting he is wasting his time.

Spirituality must never be used as a cloak or cover for rude attitudes towards other people. If your wanting to know peace in your own heart you need to approach this indirectly by putting the right pieces in the right places, you need to have a right relationship with God you need to be showing gentleness in this harsh world, towards other people who are difficult in your life.

A pastor told this story:

He spoke of how at one point in his ministry, a deacon in the church became extremely difficult. This man became an absolute pain to the pastor. His collegues foudn him to be strangely difficult as well. He became a burden on the whole leadership of the church. Sometime later the man died, and when he died everyone found out that he died of a tumor on the brain, from its size changed his behavior.

The pastor said if I had known one fact more it would have changed my whole attitude towards this man.

Try to remember in any situation when people do things that you might not agree with, or even when they are being difficult with you, there may just be one fact more that you dont know but try to apply grace to a harsh person as much as you can.

Think of Jesus on the cross, Peter says He left for us an example when they hurled insults at him, have people ever said harsh things about you? When they hurled insults at Jesus He did not retaliate. In fact He created room, He said Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing. He acted as their defense attorney.

LET YOUR GRACIOUSNESS IN THIS HARSH WORLD BE EVIDENT TO ALL

There was a pastor once who was on television in a live debate against a member of the ACLU. Arguments were being presented for both sides and the situation became very tense. Things got heated, and this pastor just wiped the floor with the opposition, he took a recording home and played it for his son, who hadnt got to see the program, and he said what did you think?

The son was very quiet and so the pastor said tell me what did you think?

He said: “You won the argument, but you didnt show her Jesus”

Even if you are right your rightness never justifies the harshness of your Spirit.

Where our spirits become rough or rigid, we lose our peace. For the peace of God actually rests upon this.

But it rests on a third thing:

Beyond our relationship with God, beyond our relationship with others, He comes right into our ouwn hearts

Philippians 4:6 HCSB

Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

Now the first thing we need to understand about anxiety is that it is a mighty power. It works away in the center of our minds, it works its way into the center of our hearts. It is really productive at night have you noticed?

It makes us captives to fear, this is a real battle agsint fear and worry that gets down into our souls, but he doesnt just tell us not to worry, He tells us what to do to fight back against this power.

He says to us the way you fight back against this power of worry or anxiety that is attacking your heart. is that you PRAY

Now again this is one of these words where we can say yeah well I am praying but I cannot realy tell if it is making that much difference, I want to ask you honestly if you have prayed about the things that are worrying you, the way the apostle talks about prayer here.

He is not talking about some kind of expression of panick on our knees, He is not talking about a desperate yell, He is not talking about an exercize where we simply get down and worry on our knees. What he says is this

First prayer: prayer is the act of entering into the presence of God and fillling our minds with who God is. What is where you start, you dont come to God and begin by telling Him all your worries. You come into the presence of God and you fill your mind up with who God is. When you are preparing a meal, sometimes you might marinate the meat.

What you do is you take a steak and you immerse it in some marinade, and you leave it there, for hours. The idea of this marinade is that this flavor of this juice should penetrate into every part of the meat so that every bit of it is seasoned.

This is what Paul is talking about when he talks about prayer, filling our minds so much with the truth of who God is that it marinates the recesses of my mind. God is in control, God is good, God is for me, God is with me.... get that so soaked into you mind that is where you have to begin.

Some of us have never done this. But then he goes on to say after you have soaked in who God is, then bring your petition, present your requests, imagine your worries as a backpack full of bricks and its loading you down, he says take the bag off of your bag and open it up and take out and expose whats in there, put words on whats worrying you.

Face your fear, it will grow if you hide it, Lord I am terrified that this might happen, TELL HIM. Bring your requests. Then he says do a third thing, do it with thanksgiving. Thanksgiving presents acceptance of a situation.

It says God I know that your with me, I know there is nothing I can do, and I believe that Your at work in this situation. My life is in your hand. I know that I can trust you I am grateful that I belong to you. Whatever happens I am your child and I trust in You.

Is it possible that we go about prayer in the wrong way?

Oh what peace we often forfeit, oh what needless pain we bear,

all because we do not carry EVERYTHING to God in prayer.

The biggest anxiety that you shared with your friend have you shared it with God?

Specifically?

Paul says you do this and Ill tell you what happens

You build a foundation of being in right relationship with God, and striving to be in right relationship with others you learn how to pray after soaking your mind in the truth about who God is and bring your particular worries to God and get them out of the bag and bring them to the feet of Jesus and leave them there, you know what will happen?

Philippians 4:7 HCSB

And the peace of God, which surpasses every thought, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

The problem for many people today is that were looking for that peace in 5 minutes and were not the least bit interested in the other things that come with it. Paul says this peace that passes all understanding it is not some quick fix it is the fruit of the spirit, it is the outcome of a cultivated life that is committed to living in obedience with God that is permeated with prayer and addresses the real issues of my life and where these things are being cultivated in my life in the middle of the most extreme trouble, you will find the peace of God which passes all understanding.