Peace | September 24th, 2023
Call To Worship: Psalm 139.1-6 & 23-24
O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand! … Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. ____________________________
Holy Harvest: Fruits of the Spirit
Peace
Philippians 4.4-9
CPCC 9.24.23
Big Idea: God’s Peace replaces our fears, anxiety, and worry
INTRO:
This morning’s Holy Harvest fruit draws us into a way of living that produces godly peace, and teaches us how to find and live in peace with God, peace with others, and peace with ourselves.
Our Bible passage ties into last week’s theme of Joy, as peace is the result of living in God’s joy. In Philippians 4.4-8, Paul is writing to the church at Philippi because two strong leaders in the church are not getting along. Their relationship has become toxic and is harming the church’s witness for Jesus. It is also affecting the rest of the members. After addressing the two women, Paul writes this to the church:
READ: PHILIPPIANS 4.4-8
Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! 5 Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon. 6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. 9 Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.
ILLUS: My Watch has an app to remind me to breathe.
I thought I was doing all right before the App, but thank you Apple for worrying about my breathing. The App is a colorful graphic that looks like an expanding flower that grows and contracts to mimic our lungs when we breathe. Apple promotes this app as a visual reminder to regularly take deep breaths to relieve stress and anxiety. It is the most annoying app on my watch. Every 30 minuets it reminds me to stop everything and breathe deeply and slowly with the pulsating flower.
I turned the app off, but on Tuesday there was an update. When my watch rebooted, the App turned itself back on. Every 30 minutes: breathe deeply and slowly. I went through the steps to shut it off along with the other annoying apps like the hand washing app. Yes, there is an app for hand washing. It senses when I am washing my hands and starts a 30 second countdown to “help” me to wash with hot water for 30 seconds. It’s like having my Mom strapped to my wrist. These two apps make me feel like I am in preschool all over again. I wouldn’t be surprised if on the next upgrade Apple comes out with an App to help me blow my nose gentle and quietly for 30 seconds. If my watch really wants me to live in peace, it would stop rebooting these annoying apps!
Don’t get me wrong. I love my watch. There are lots of incredible apps including the apps to monitor my heart rate, take an EKG, and measure blood oxygen. THOSE apps actually give me great peace of mind.
I can’t fault Apple for trying to help people live more peaceful lives. With stress levels on the rise and Heart Disease still the leading cause of death in the US, it’s good to know my watch cares.
The people who programed my watch and other gadgets like it understand something that sadly, may Christians miss, we were meant to live in peace. We live longer and better lives when we are at peace. Christians should know this better than anyone else. If you missed that memo, you are in luck, because today’s Fruit of the Spirit focus is all about living in constant, God-given peace.
God designed you to be at peace... and it doesn’t require an app on your watch to achieve it. God’s Peace is the result of living in God’s love and joy. All three are part of the very nature of Jesus, which is our character as well as Jesus’s followers.
Unfortunately, too many Christians suppress these gifts when they let anger destroy love, doubt replace joy, and let worry rob them of their God given peace. What are you supposed to do with your anxious thoughts, stresses, and worries of life that live free rent in your mind? Give them to Jesus.
Jesus is ready to give us His lasting peace, true peace, that carries us through no matter what our surrounding circumstances may be.
Here is what Jesus promises: John 14.27 “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.
Yet, instead of receiving peace, we pile on anxiety and worry and push the peace of Christ so far down that it has little chance of rising to the top in our lives. We don’t experience God’s peace because we are too busy clinging to our own worries anxieties and fears rather than giving them to God and trusting God to fill our lives with joy and peace.
Why do we do this?
I think part of it is we don’t fully trust God. We see the little picture, the here and now, we don’t see the big picture of God’s purpose and plan for our lives. So instead of filling our minds with peace, we focus on our fears and worries and wonder why God isn’t doing anything.
ASK: Have you ever tried to go to sleep when you are feeling anxious about something?
It’s nearly impossible, and if you are like me, it sets off a nasty cycle of sleepless nights that raises anxiety and frustration and makes it almost impossible to think clearly and rationally. That’s no way to live, and it’s not the way Jesus calls us to live as His followers.
The Bible is very clear on this: Don’t let worry rob you of God’s peace.
So how do you prevent this emotional robbery?
A great way is to take an inventory.
What anxiety do you need to give to God and trust that he hears?
Do you trust that God has a plan for you?
Do you trust God with your resources?
Do you trust God help you when your life is spinning out of your control?
Do you trust that the God who created the heavens and the Earth capable of caring for you?
Would you rather hold on to your fears and worries or would you rather live in the Peace of Jesus Christ?
You can tell by the list that a foundational part of experiencing God’s Peace is trusting God. You see, people can have a lot of knowledge ABOUT God and still have very little faith IN God… and that lack of faith and trust stunts your growth. It will rob you of the gift of God’s peace.
Jesus had a lot to say about the things that rob us of peace.
Listen to some of Jesus’ highlights from Matthew 6:
Don’t worry about everyday life… Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? Why do you have so little faith? Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs.
Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today. (Mt.6.31-34 et al)
The Apostle Paul writes to the Philippians saying, ”Don’t be anxious about anything.” That means don’t worry. The word we translate anxious means to be troubled with cares.
1 Peter 5:7 Cast all your anxiety (same word) on him because he cares for you.
John 14:1 Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.
Anxiety and Worry are the opposite of peace. Worry means you are not trusting in God.
So how do you learn to trust so that you can experience God’s peace?
The answer is actually pretty simple: Prayer.
Look at vv. 6-7 again:
Philippians 4.6-7
Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
Prayer connects us to God, and takes the focus off of ourselves and our anxieties, and puts them in the strong hands of our Savior.
But the truth is that most of us; even good Christians, still struggle with worry.
Our call is to find balance. Keep worry in check, use it to do what we need to do, but eliminate worry that is pointless, and let’s be honest, most of our worry is pointless.
This leads us back to Jesus warning not to stress about things we can’t change or control.
Our problem is we get bogged down with all kinds of other worries and junk. Worry becomes so powerful, so real, that it prevents us from experiencing God’s peace. So Jesus’ gives us a theological slap of reality and says: Don’t worry about everyday life…“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and God will give you everything you need.”
The kind of worry Jesus warns us against is what happens when external fear becomes internal worry and it moves in to stay like an emotional squatter. It becomes a habit, and for some, an obsession.
Worry becomes a chain of negative thoughts and images that grows uncontrollable. We expel time, energy and resources thinking we are working on a solution to a problem, when the real problem is that we are creating a destructive scenario in our minds. Worry takes on a life of its own, and here is the scary reality—most of what people worry about are things they can’t control.
By worrying, can you really control your situation or someone else’s life, can you keep your children safe, can you improve your health? NO!
Worry exasperates the issues you are worrying about! Worry has been described as paying interest in advance on a debt you don’t owe.
ILLUS: About 15 percent of our population struggles with Chronic Worry. That’s 1 out of seven. That means on average that at least one person in each row here this morning is stressing about what I am saying.
All of us worry at times, but when we let that worry dwell too long, and hang on to it and not let go. When it becomes a constant thought or image in our minds, then it becomes a thief—it robs us of God’s peace.
So Paul writes a very practical and important prescription for peace in v.8:
And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.
Almost everything that robs us of our peace from God starts in the mind and then ends up controlling our thoughts. Paul’s warning is crucial: put your focus back on God.
NT Wright: If you want to know the Peace of God, then you must first know the God of Peace.
God calls us to live in purity and Peace. Since we cannot do that by our own nature, God fills our lives with His peace, His Joy. These are ways of living, not results of circumstance. We rejoice because we serve the God of peace.
The key to knowing and trusting the God of peace is to strengthen your relationship through prayer. When you pray, believe. Know that God hears you. Pray with conviction. This is what teaches us to be at peace, no matter what the circumstance or result.
If you struggle with trusting God, pray that God would show you how to trust Him more completely. Read Jesus’ promises to you in one of the Gospels when doubts try to overtake your thoughts.
Follow Paul’s instruction: Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.
The battle for your soul begins in your mind.
Here is what you can do to claim Jesus’ peace when you find that you are focusing too much on external pressures: (On Screen)
What is robbing you of God’s peace?
Identify it.
Who or what is causing it?
Can you do anything about it?
Why are you hanging on to it?
How can I give my problems to Jesus?
What steps do I need to take?
Am I praying about this and trusting God for wisdom?
Am I focusing more on the problem than Jesus’ solution?
Have I asked trusted friends to pray with me about this?
How will my life be different right now if I give it to God?
When you let worry or fear control your thoughts and actions, you can become paralyzed with inaction. Part of learning to trust God is to imagine a different way of living: what would Monday morning look like if you put your faith and trust in Jesus instead of worrying about the thing that is robbing you of your God given peace?
When we take our minds and emotions off of Jesus and give them over to our worries, we have little or no resources to carry on in peace, we sacrifice our peace.
Don’t do that.
Jesus calls us to replace our worry and anxious thoughts with trust in Him.
Keep your focus on Jesus.
Don’t stifle the peace of Christ by choosing worry and anxiety over peace. Allow the Holy Spirit to guide you, calm you and give you God’s peace.
Remember to pray and stay connected to your source of peace and comfort-Jesus Christ.
All of the “Fruits of the Spirit” we are looking at in this series are qualities of Jesus’ life that are given to you the moment you become follows of Jesus. It is God’s way of equipping you to be like Jesus to carry on the Good News of Jesus.
Peace is the sign that we are living in God’s love.
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are the qualities of Jesus in our lives. If you are lacking in any one of these qualities, I urge you to stop what you are doing, and start seeking God through prayer and asking Jesus to transform you to become like him.
Take Jesus up on His offer in Matthew 11.28-29
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
I wish my watch had an app to remind me of this verse everyday. That would give me peace.
This week I want you to focus on Paul’s reminder from Philippians 4: Rejoice!… Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus (Phil.4.6-7)
Amen
Pray for peace with :
•God
•Others
•Self
BENEDICTION: Colossians 3.14-16 & 17
14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. 15 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. 16 Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. …And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.