Four Personal Questions Regarding Peace

Thanks, Joe, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to services. Welcome to any visitors who are here. Happy Thanksgiving coming up in a few days. I know for Karen and me, we have between us the four parents that we have. None of our parents actually grew up speaking English as their first language, so as a family, we're relatively new to the United States and extremely thankful for this time of year.

Some people would say that I've carried on that tradition of not speaking English as a first language, but I'll do the best that I can today. One of the stories in the Bible that really strikes me as an interesting one—we're actually not going to turn there, but I'll just mention it—if somebody wants to go there later, it's in Matthew 8 and Mark 4—is the story of Jesus Christ when he's on a boat on the Sea of Galilee.

He's there with his disciples, and there's this storm just raging around him. The Sea of Galilee is not really a very big sea. We'd probably call it a lake, certainly a lot smaller than Lake Erie by far, but it tends to get these winds that just blow across it and blow up these huge waves, which can actually be quite dangerous for people, especially in smaller fishing boats. What's really remarkable about this story is, as this storm is just raging outside on the Sea, and the disciples are literally fearing for their lives, what is it that Jesus Christ is doing?

He's taking a nap. They actually have to wake him up as they're terrified and fearing for their lives, and wake him up after which he produces a miracle and calms the sea. To me, this is a great allegory for the way that our lives often tend to be, because we tend often to be—and I know I feel like this at certain points in my life—it's like you're sitting in this boat in the middle of the sea.

Sometimes the sea is calm, and other times the waves are just going crazy around you, and you think that you're actually not going to make it. And you really feel very alone, don't you? But despite all of that, the example that Jesus Christ showed in this situation was one of utter and complete peace in the middle of all of these waves and this storm going on around him. And that's what I'd like to spend a little time talking about and reflecting on today. The topic of peace. And what I'd like to do is focus on four different questions revolving around peace.

First of all, what is peace? We're going to talk about it. We'd better define it first and understand what it is we're even talking about. Secondly, where does it come from? Thirdly, how does it look in our lives when we have it, when we experience it? And lastly, and maybe most importantly, how do we achieve this peace? How do we achieve that kind of peace that Jesus Christ exemplified?

Not even concerned about the waves and the storm that could take physical life. You know, as we look around in our society today, and there is so incredibly such a huge number of things for us to be thankful for that we have here, really unprecedented blessings that we have to be able to experience in society that we live in. And especially if we look back in history, even if we look today at the number of people who are able to enjoy what we're able to, however you want to talk about it, physically, the style of life that we have, all of the different things that we have, still one of the things we struggle with as a society is peace.

And if we were going to name this age, I think a lot of people now today would name this actually the age of anxiety. Because there's so many people living even among so much plenty in everything that we have that just struggle to find that sense of inner peace. So let's spend a little time here first digging into the first question. What is peace? If you had to define peace, how would you define it?

Take a moment and just think about it. Don't close your eyes, because like we heard in the announcements, you might not open them again until I'm done.

How would you define peace? There's a fairly famous saying out there attributed to a whole lot of different people, but the idea that peace is more than just the absence of war.

I think that's very true when you think about it. We think fundamentally when people talk about we just want peace on earth, we think first about people not picking up weapons of any kind and killing each other and fighting each other for different things. But peace goes much more deep than that. Let's go back into the Bible and consider what are the words in the Bible that are used for peace. The Hebrew word, which is probably one of the Hebrew words that's most familiar to everybody, is the word shalom. I think we've probably all heard the word shalom. It's kind of like the word aloha, actually, in that in Hebrew, in modern Hebrew, it's used both to say hello and goodbye, and it means peace or wellness or well-being to you. The word shalom is used over 200 times in the Old Testament, so the idea of peace is pretty important and used quite a lot in the Old Testament. According to Strong's Concordance, the word shalom means completeness, soundness, and welfare.

So when we think about the definition for peace, it goes to this idea of completeness and soundness, having everything in place, having welfare. It comes from the root word shalom, which means to make amends or to make whole or complete. It's interesting that the word shalom, this root that shalom or peace comes from, is often used in terms of making restitution. Now, we might be familiar with restitution. If you damage something of your neighbors, if you're being a good neighbor and maybe you were chopping down a tree and the tree fell on the neighbor's car and broke the window, you would make restitution. You'd go and you'd say, you know, it's my fault. I was chopping down the tree, broke your car window. I'm going to pay you for that car window. I'm going to make you whole for what I did, restitution. And that's what that word shalom refers to. In Exodus 22, verse 4, for example, if a man stole an ox or a sheep from his neighbor, under the Old Testament law, he was to restore, using the word shalom, what he had taken. So this idea, again, of making whole, of bringing something back and making it complete and restoring it to its original state. So therefore, in the idea of the Hebrew word shalom, to have shalom means to be in a state of wholeness or completeness without any deficiency or lack. So it's this idea of this place where you have what you require. You have what you need and you're complete. You're not missing any pieces. It's frequently used in the Old Testament in reference to the wellness of others. And it's also sometimes translated as the words well, well-being, or welfare. And not surprisingly, in the Greek, in the New Testament, which is written in Greek, the word is very similar. It's the word irane, which is spelled E-I-R-E-N-E, irane. And according to Strong's concordance, it means one, peace, quietness, and rest. You find a few other attributes that are attached to this idea of wholeness, especially quietness and rest.

It originates from the root word, gyro, which means to join or to tie together into a hole.

So therefore, irane means unity. It's the idea of bringing multiple parts together to form a hole or to set something as one again. As an example, two friends who reconcile in a fight make what would be called irane, if you use the Greek word, and that is they come back together, and the relationship that they had with one another is again made whole. This idea of coming to peace, you can see if we bring the Old Testament concept back in there, this idea of making restitution, restoring something to the state that it was formerly in. If we take this down to a more personal level, we also have to think again, going back to this idea that peace is more than the absence of war. What is peace inside of us? What does it mean? How does it feel? What is that completeness that we have? And one thing I'd like to say is that it's more than just stress relief.

You know, we think a lot and we hear a lot in today's world about what do we do to break stress.

I'm under stress, and when I'm under stress, I do acts. And you'll hear people talk about different things. Some people might go out. Ronald Reagan was famous for this. He'd go out to his ranch when he went on vacation in northern California and eat split wood, and that was his stress relief. He'd go out there with an axe and he'd just start chopping wood. He said that was a great stress release for him. Other people will go for walks. Other people will go and watch TV for a while. There are different things that people will do from a constructive point of view to break stress. But true peace is something that's much deeper than that, much more lasting. It's more than sitting and meditating for 30 minutes to try to restore yourself to a sense of calm, only to have to go back into it again. Turn with me, if you will, to Jeremiah 6. And as we look towards the idea of what the difference is and just trying to get past stress and find true, long-lasting peace, we have to make sure that we understand what the difference is there. Jeremiah 6 verses 13 and 14. Here in prophecy, talking about Israel and the difficulties that they were having, I'm reading here from the New Living Translation, Jeremiah 6, 13, from the least to the greatest, their lives are ruled by greed. From prophets to priests, they're all frauds.

They offer superficial treatments for my people's mortal wound. They give assurances of peace when there is no peace. In many ways, when we look at the world today, whether we're looking at the political debates that go on, we look at other solutions that are put forward, we hear plenty of promises that are out there about how things can be better and will be better. Usually, it involves spending trillions of dollars and appropriating them in certain ways, and everything will be better and we'll find peace. But what the prophet says here in Jeremiah is, these types of things are not going to bring us peace. They're not going to bring us that wholeness or that satisfaction.

That's something that has to come from inside of us. Many search for positive ways to alleviate stress and to find some semblance of peace. I know in the workplace right now, one of the big terms that's out there is mindfulness. I don't know if any of you have heard about mindfulness, but this idea that we need to move away from the devices that are stealing our time and attention, focus ourselves for a period of time, and just look at and think about one thing instead of having our minds distributed on all these different things. As I said before, people try meditation and exercise, and all these things are good, but they are band-aids because they don't change us deeply from the inside, which is what we need to have full peace. And unfortunately, there are many negative behaviors as well that people turn to as a tool to try to find that peace, to fill that hole that they have inside of them, whether it's drinking or drugs, partying, other addictions that people turn to as a way to mask that lack of peace that's within them, that lack of feeling whole and complete.

We can avoid these self-destructive pursuits, and we can find peace. We can still continue to do the things that are positive pursuits that try to break stress, but there's more as well than that that we have to do to find peace. So to answer the first question, what is peace? It's a wholeness or a completeness in our lives where we know that everything fits together, and it's much more than just a momentary relief from a stress or a pressure that we might be feeling. So turning to our second question then, where does this true peace come from? Where does true peace come from? If we believe in the Bible, there's actually only one way that we can achieve this peace, and it has some very specific conditions tied to it. We often think about God's love as being unconditional, which it is, but when we read about peace in the Bible, it has some very specific conditions that are attached to it. What are those conditions? As a starting point, we have to realize that peace is not a natural human condition, as though we haven't proven that to ourselves as a human race so far in our years of history. It's interesting, if you do study history, all of history tends to revolve around wars and different conflicts that happen, don't they? When we think about it, we've experienced roughly 200 years, a little over 200 years, as a democracy, and people would say in general it's been a peaceful time. But even if you look at this couple hundred years of peace that the United States had, I guess over 225 heading towards 250 now, it's still been punctuated by a lot of conflicts and a lot of wars that we've had, hasn't it? Probably the other great peace that's referred to often in history is Apox Romano, when the Roman Empire was at its peak. But that peace as well was almost inflicted on the people by the Roman armies, wasn't it? And it was the fact that Rome was so much stronger than anyone else, and could crush any rebellion against it that imposed this peace on the world at that time. So we have to realize that peace is not a natural human condition.

Turn with me, if you will, to Romans 5. Romans 5 verse 10. And as we start to look at peace and what's happening within our own selves, I think this is an important place to start and realize the fact that we can't go and simply look inside of ourselves to find peace. We've probably heard that popularly around, right? I need to find my inner peace. I need to look deep inside myself and find a peaceful place. But what does the Bible tell us in Romans 5 verse 10?

Romans 5.10 says, if we were, for if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, so much more having been reconciled, we will be saved by his life.

It goes on in Romans 8 verse 7, the verse that we've probably heard before, to say that the carnal or the human mind is enmity against God. So Romans 5 verse 10 and Romans 8 verse 7 tells us that our natural human mind is at war in conflict with God. It's not aligned with God's way. And that's something that we have to recognize fundamentally if we want to find peace in our lives. Because if we're going to find that and find peace with God, it means that we have to give up our human way of thinking, the way that we want to do things, and we have to move into that stream of God's will and where it is that we that he wants us to go. Secondly, as we think about where it comes from, is that inner peace, true peace, has to be given to us. So we understand and we see in the scriptures how in Romans it talks about the fact that naturally our minds are against God.

They're not according to his way. If you turn to John 14, John 14 verse 27, we learn further that this peace is something that's given to us. Yet it's not something we can reach deep into ourselves to find. John 14, in this passage, is the part of John where John is recounting what Jesus Christ was going through right before he was taken by the Roman soldiers to be crucified. So again, just like we were talking about being in the middle of this sea, tossed by waves, this was the point in time, the most turbulent point of Jesus Christ's life, as he knew he was going to die. And one of the things that he said to the disciples in John 14 verse 27 is, peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. So what he's saying here, just as he's poised to be taken away by Roman soldiers and crucified, and he's telling his disciples, I am giving you my peace. And so just as we have to understand that our natural human minds are at odds with God, we also have to understand that peace, the true godly peace, is something that's given to us. And it comes from a specific source, which is Jesus Christ as we read in this passage. Now we look further in Galatians 5, we're probably familiar with the fruit of the Spirit, which is laid out in Galatians 5 verses 2 and 23. And what is it that's listed early on in that list of the fruit of God's Spirit?

In verse 22, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, and peace. And then it goes on to list the other things. So as we continue to think about where this peace comes from, how it comes to us, we have to understand the fact our minds naturally as humans are not in alignment with God. Through God's Spirit, we can receive the gift of peace. And it's not a human peace, it's not something that comes from within ourselves, it's something that comes from outside, as God's Spirit is working with us. Finally, then, let's focus on the conditions for true godly peace. We talked about the fact that it comes from outside and it comes through His Spirit. Turn with me, if you will, to Romans 5. Romans 5 verses 1 and 2. We're told, of course, in the Bible there's one way to God, and that's through His Son, Jesus Christ, the only way of salvation. And likewise, with peace, it's the same thing. Romans 5 will read verses 1 and 2. Therefore, in Romans 5 verse 1, having justified by faith, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. So that first line in verse 1 really lays it out for us. We have peace through God, having been justified by faith. So that's the one way that we can break this cycle of a human mind that is at odds with God's way, and that we can access this peace that Jesus Christ gives to us through the Holy Spirit. It's through the death of Jesus Christ, being justified by faith in Him, taking His sacrifice, and giving our lives over to Him. We talk about how baptism, we baptize by immersing underwater, don't we? And that's symbolically in the Bible, talked about as a symbolic death. Baptism, the water of baptism, is talked about as a grave. Why is that? Because that human mind that is naturally an enemy and at war with God is being symbolically put down underwater into that watery grave as a symbol of the death of our human minds, and coming up in newness of life with God's Spirit as He gives us His will, His ways, and the fruit of that Spirit, and the peace that comes with that. Turn with me as well to Colossians 1 verse 19. Colossians 1 verses 19 and 20 lays out this same idea that peace, godly peace, is conditional. It comes in one way, and that is through complete and total surrender to God through Jesus Christ. Colossians 1 verses 19 and 20.

Verse 19, we read, for it pleased the Father that in Him, talking about Jesus Christ, all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. So here, talk specifically about the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed for us, producing peace as one of the outcomes. And as we understand that whole basket of what it means to come to God, to give up our lives, to be forgiven, to be justified, it helps us to understand more that holistic view of what peace is. It's made possible, as it says here in Colossians 1, 20, through the blood of Jesus Christ, because it's through that that we can go to that watery grave, we can give up our human will, turn our wills over to God, and let His Spirit live within us and to direct us. That is the way that we can have peace. That's the only way that peace can really come to us. There are plenty of ways we can find relief from stress. There are plenty of ways that we can find ways to get through difficult portions of our life. But if we want that true and deep inner peace, that level of peace that Jesus Christ exemplified, sleeping in that boat when all the waves were tossing around Him, this is the way that we access. So, to answer the second question again, where does peace come from? It is fully conditional, and it comes only through a very specific channel. And that's through our complete surrender to God and the indwelling of His Holy Spirit. It's a gift from God. It's a fruit of His Spirit, and it's one that we can and should seek diligently as we go forward. So, let's move on to a third question, then, as we consider this topic of peace, and that is, how does peace express itself in our lives? How is it that peace expresses itself in our lives? I said a moment ago that getting peace, being able to access that peace that's given to us through Jesus Christ has very specific conditions. We have to come to God. We have to receive forgiveness from Him. But once we have that peace, the big thing about it is it's not reliant on the conditions that are going on around us. Jesus Christ, as we talked about, was being tossed on the sea like everybody else. I don't know if you've ever been in a boat that's rocking or had to spend a night, whether it's on a cruise ship or on a smaller boat, trying to sleep when the waves are out there and boats banging around. My wife and I were on a trip this summer, and we were on a smaller boat that held probably 30 people. We had a whole night long of waves, and it is difficult to sleep. You wake up and you hear the waves slamming. You feel a boat going up and down and going back and forth. Even if you're not afraid that you're going to die, it's tough just to sleep in that kind of a condition. True peace isn't reliant on the conditions that are outside in order to be felt and to express itself. Let's look at Philippians 4 for one biblical passage that lays this out. Paul in Philippians 4 uses a slightly different word talking about contentment, but really talking about the same concept. Philippians 4 will start in verse 11.

Philippians 4 verse 11. Here Paul says, Not that I speak in regard to need, for I've learned in whatever state I am to be content. That's something as he was maturing in his walk with God, he was learning in any state that he was in to be content. He said, I know how to be abased. I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I've learned both to be full and to be hungry, to abound and to suffer need, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. So often we tend as human beings to look at things that are outside of us and say, if only I could have that, I could finally just relax and take it easy. I have a friend, and this friend has very specific financial goals and works like crazy in order to meet these financial goals with the view that as soon as I reach this benchmark, I can just take it easy and it's going to be good. But the interesting thing is, over the course of time, that benchmark moves. And you're not quite satisfied after having reached that benchmark and this person will lay out, well, I think I need a little more. I got to keep going at it. I have to keep going at it more and more and more. We're never satisfied. We can probably all remember examples of that, can't we? Whether it's a toy that we wanted when we were a little kid, you know, if I could just have the GI Joe with a Kung Fu grip. Think of all the fun that I would have, right? Maybe you have the GI Joe. I see Sheldon back there. I'll bet Sheldon had one.

Or if we were single, we said, if only I could be married, I would never be lonely again. I'd never be unhappy again if I could be married. And then we get married, what do we say?

Maybe we say, if only we could have kids, we would be happy. And then you have children, and the day to day of dealing with children comes. And what do you say next? You say, boy, as soon as these kids leave the house, it is going to be fantastic. We're going to have all this time on our hands, and life is going to be great, right? We're always, that's how we're wired as human beings, right? That's a piece of us. We talk about the carnal mind being enmity against God. There's something in there that always wants something different. We want something that's out there, and we think that these external things that are going on outside of us are either going to make us happy, or we blame those things outside of us for us not being happier at peace. And what Paul's laying out here is what he learned as he was maturing in his walk with God was that it didn't matter about the things going on outside of him. Now, this is a guy who is beaten almost to the point of death. If you read some commentaries, there are people who believe that Paul might have actually been raised from the dead after having been stoned outside one of the cities he was preaching in. But he was, whether he was raised from the dead or stoned within an inch of his life, he was picked up by his friends, cleaned up, got back on his feet, and went. So when he says he's learned to be a based, he's talking about a condition that as bad as any of our lives have been, I don't think any of us have experienced being beaten within an inch of our lives for preaching the word of God. So he learned as he walked through these things, and as he experienced God's care for him through these things, that it wasn't the things going on outside of him.

It was his connection to God, his faith in God, and his understanding of God's plan that made the difference and that enabled him to have that inner peace, regardless of what was going on around him.

Let's look at a more tangible example of that with Paul in Acts 16. Acts 16, we'll read verses 25 and 26.

So to give a little bit of a backstory to what's happening here in Acts 16 verse 25, Paul and Silas were going, and they were preaching in the different cities that they were going to, and in this one particular place that they were, they encountered a woman who was possessed by a demon. And there was somebody who was together with this woman who was making a living off of her, because this demon that possessed her apparently had some sort of a power to tell fortunes, or perhaps make some predictions of the future that people believed in. And so this man had this demon possessed woman with her, and he was making money off of her because she would go and she would tell fortunes and people would pay for that to be done. Paul and Silas cast the demon out of this woman and made her whole again. And to prove the old phrase that no good deed goes unpunished, the guy who then lost his livelihood turned them in to the authorities and they were thrown in prison. And that's where we end up in Acts 16 verse 25. They were beaten before they were in prison, and they sat there with fresh wounds, perhaps with broken bones, likely bruised or cracked ribs in this prison. And in verse 25 of Acts 16, at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. And the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were loosed. An incredible miracle, but I want to focus actually on that beginning part of it, because the one thing I can guarantee you is if I'd been beaten and thrown in that prison, I would likely not have been up at midnight praying and singing psalms. It's just that's the way I am. I would have been licking my wounds. I probably would have been thinking about ways to have revenge and ways that I could get back at them. And all of those things that flood into our human minds, right? Or, how can I escape? And then you can do this, and perhaps I can try that, and is this bar loose? But that's not what Paul and Silas were doing. They were so convinced and focused on what God was doing in them, and had that level of faith and trust in God that they were there at midnight after having been beaten and put in chains praying and singing hymns.

And that level and that depth of understanding and faith and what God was doing through them gave them that peace, that ability to do that, and even the most extreme of situations.

Let's turn to Romans 8, verse 28 and 31. It's these experiences that Paul had. It's the depth of faith and understanding of God and how God was working with him that enabled him to write these words in Romans. Romans 8, probably my favorite chapter of the Bible. Romans 8, and we'll read verse 28. Here Paul writes, we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. And in verse 31 we read, What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

We had a fantastic sermon last week where Mr. Thomas called it Words of Affirmation.

These are the kinds of passages that we should hide in our hearts, right?

That we should think about and dwell on and understand, reflecting on what Paul went through and how he could say these words. Because I don't know about you, but we all find ourselves at some point in time in these situations. And you look around yourself and you say, I don't see how any good can possibly come out of this situation that I'm in. I look around 360 degrees, I turn every possible way I can, and the only scenario I see is pain and cataclysm. And we've all been in that situation at one point or another. Some of us are in those situations right now. But what does Romans 8 28 tell us? All things, all things work together for good for those who have faith in God.

And Paul could say that we can believe and understand that through the Holy Spirit in us, because we understand what it is that God is trying to accomplish in our lives. And the fact that it spans beyond what's going on in a moment of time, in a year and a decade, into eternity, in terms of what He wants to accomplish. And the more that we can cultivate that level of trust and understanding and faith in God, the more peace that we can have in our lives as we understand what's happening. You know, I think a good analogy to use for this is a child with a parent. You know, I was thinking about a few examples as I was preparing this message. You've probably all seen this. I had a friend back when we were in our 20s. They had children pretty early, probably aged 22 or 23. And this guy would take his daughter, who was probably two years old at this point, and disclaimer, I'm not recommending that anyone do this, but he would take his two-year-old daughter, and he would be crouched on the floor, and he would throw her up in the air. And she probably went like five, six feet up in the air, and then he would catch her. And she would be laughing and giggling and just having a great time, and basically say again, again. And he would just launch this girl up in the air over and over and over again, and this girl loved it! I mean, she was thrilled. She was having the time of her life. But if you look at that, think of the context, right? If that's anybody other than her father. If you see some... I almost hesitate to talk about this. Don't try this at home. Don't try it at church, right? You wouldn't have somebody walk up to a two-year-old child and say, oh, I'm going to throw you up in the air. The child would probably, if they knew what was going on, run away screaming, right? If it was anyone other than the father. But there's that level of trust there, that level of understanding that the father is not going to harm the child. The father is there to have some fun with the child. I know it's a bit of an extreme example, but it serves, right? I can remember one time we were staying at a hotel on vacation with the kids when they were little, and there was this pool, and they wanted to be held underwater in the pool. And so they'd take a deep breath of air, and they'd sort of drop down into the pool, and I'd take my foot on top of their chest and kind of pin them on the bottom of the pool, just for a second or two, really, and then let them up. And they'd come up, and they thought it was the greatest thing in the world. But again, you take that out of the context of a father playing with the child and just having fun, and you think of somebody holding a child underwater in a pool, and it gives a completely different outcome to it, doesn't it? That trust as children that we have in parents, in a father in this case, to really have the best interest of the kids at heart.

You know, another example might be driving a car. I can remember when I was a kid, and this was before the days that seat belts were widely used, and we would always use seat belts as a family. And I remember going one time to Cub Scouts with a friend, and they had this big station wagon. There were probably five or six of us kids in there. And I was riding way in the back of the station wagon, in that sort of open area, just sitting back there. And this father drove in a way that my dad didn't drive. My dad was always a fairly conservative driver. He'd stay pretty close to speed limit.

This guy was like gunning it down these roads in our suburb, you know, turning the wheel sharp around the corner. I can remember sitting in the back of that station wagon just feeling unsafe.

Just feeling unsafe, because I didn't know this guy. I didn't understand how he drove.

I didn't understand the style of how he did things, and it was so different from the way my dad did things. I just didn't feel safe with it. On the other hand, I could be driving through a blizzard down the highway with my dad behind the wheel, and I could drop off to sleep and not think anything of it. And if we think about it, we can probably all think of examples like that. That level of trust, that level of understanding of who it is that's behind the wheel, who it is that's taking you from point A to point B, and the trust and the total faith that they're going to get you there safely. So we have to understand that as we think about it, and that's where Paul got to. He knew God. He knew that God was behind the wheel. He was driving the bus, figuratively speaking.

And Paul had complete faith that whatever situation he was in at that very point in time, even if it was near death from being beaten for preaching his word, he had entire faith that God was working out a plan through him, and that it would work out to the good. That's what he wrote in Romans, and that's what we can count on as well. So as we think about this third question of how does peace look in our lives? Peace in our lives looks like that ability to have calm and faith that God is going to work something out in our lives that's for our best, for our eternal best, no matter what it is that's going on around us at that point in time. And this confidence allows us to continue to experience a level of calm, wholeness, and confidence despite the conditions that are going on around us. Let's turn to our fourth question of how do we achieve godly peace? This is probably the most important because I think we need to always think about how do we go about achieving this in our lives? Because if we think about these things that we've been reflecting on for the last few minutes, I know if I look at myself, we model this imperfectly at best, don't we? I mean, I can tell you how stressed out I get about things going on in my life, and even when I do turn to God, you have those moments of clarity where you realize that everything is going to work out and God's got you no matter what. We have plenty of moments where that clarity is lacking, don't we? Where we feel stressed out, all we can think about is those waves that are crashing around us. So let's look at a bit of how do we achieve godly peace? Let's start by turning to 1 Peter 3. 1 Peter 3, and we'll read verses 10 and 11. 1 Peter 3, verses 10 and 11.

2 Peter 3, verses 10. Here Peter writes in verse 10, He who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil in verse 11 and do good.

Let him seek peace and pursue it. So fundamentally, as a starting point, if we want to have peace, if we want to achieve this in our lives, we have to seek it and not only seek it but pursue it.

And whatever the Bible uses, two words like this together, it's adding additional emphasis to it, saying don't just look for it. Look hard for it and chase after it. If it's running away from you, if it's outside of your grasp, keep going after it. Peace has to be that important to us, finding that inner peace, and we have to not only seek it but we have to chase after it. That means putting out a lot of effort to find it. So how do we go about pursuing it? I'd like to key on one passage in Philippians that lays out, and you know, no one scripture is going to tell you everything about everything, but this is a great passage, I think, in understanding peace more in terms of how we go after and what we need to do. We'll read Philippians 4 verses 6 and 7. Philippians 4 verses 6 and 7, because it lays out sort of progression to go through and to think about that leads us to peace. Philippians 4 verses 6 and 7. Here we read, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God, and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Now, many of us have probably read this before. Maybe some of us could even sort of recite it in your head as we're reading it because it's that familiar, but let's take a few minutes to take this apart and just let the words sink in a little bit as a bit of a formula for this piece that surpasses all understanding, especially if you read what Paul wrote that does surpass all understanding, how you can be beaten and sitting in prison and still joyful and singing hymns. That goes beyond understanding for me, but that's the kind of peace that's available to us through God.

First of all, be anxious for nothing. That first phrase is actually a command. It's written as an imperative, something that's being told specifically to us. Do not be anxious. We read in other places in the Bible, right? Let not your heart be troubled. Another way of saying the same thing.

So God is telling us, don't be anxious. So this comes first as a directive in whatever situation that we're in. And again, easy to say, human beings were wired to have a response. And that emotional response comes first when something happens to us. But as we stop and we collect ourselves, what we read here in Philippians is don't be anxious. But in everything, instead of being anxious, we're supposed to do something else. First of all, in everything. In everything.

It's not written here. The big stuff, go ahead and take it to God and pray about it. The little stuff, just get over it and move on. What it says here is, don't be anxious, but in everything, anything that's happening to you, anything that's important enough that is bothering you, that it's weighing on your mind, that it's distracting you, take it to God. And that's something I hope we know and understand about God, is that nothing going on in our lives is too small or too insignificant to put in front of Him. Nothing is too small to put before Him. He wants us to come to Him with everything that we're thinking about and worried about and concerned about and anxious about. And then we read by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.

So we've got three different things here in terms of how we bring things before God.

First of all, prayer. So prayer is a Greek word that refers to, it's prosuke, for those who are interested, and it refers to specifically praying to God. It can even refer to a place of prayer, a physical place of prayer. So that word has specifically to do with praying to God.

So the fact that we are anxious for nothing and through everything, first of all, by prayer, which has embedded in it, we bring it to God. That's what that word prayer is saying. The second word, supplication, is not specific to God. A supplication is a request, something that you want, something that you're asking somebody else for. So we're told here first, come to God through the word prayer, prosuke, and then secondly, supplication, make a request. Come before God and make a request, and lastly, make it with thanksgiving. Now, we've probably all experienced people who come up to us and say, hey, I need this. I need this favor. I need you to do this for me.

And that, you know, if we've got a good friend, we'll go out of our way and we'll do something like that. But it feels very different, doesn't it, than when somebody comes up to you and says, you know, you've really been good to me, and I really appreciate the way that you've helped me out of these different jams. And you know what? I just need one more favor from you. Can you help me with this? How different does that feel? And that's how it's laid out here as well. In this time of year, we're thinking more about thanksgiving and the importance of it. There's a lot wrapped up in thanksgiving, isn't there? The idea of giving thanks. The start of it is recognizing where things come from. So we make our request from God, at the same time understanding that it's by God's hand that we experience and we have all of the things that we do. It forces us to think back to how He blessed us, the way that He's richly blessed us and given things to us, at the same time as we're coming before Him and making the request. So there's an attitude there in terms of how we go before Him. Notice it doesn't say come before God and complain to Him about how awful things are. That's very different than coming before God and making a request with thanksgiving.

There's nothing wrong with telling God how awful things are, but it's that with thanksgiving piece of it that helps us in terms of the attitude and the mindset that we come before Him with.

Understanding the things that He's done for us and asking Him to continue to help us in the things that we're doing. And then the next phrase, let your request be made known to God. And again, as we talked about before, nothing being too small and actually laying those requests out.

You know, I look at myself and I know it's easy sometimes to think, well, God understands what I'm dealing with. I just need to ask Him, you know, God, help me out today. I need help and move on.

But this is saying, let your request be made known to God. Don't assume that, God, you've got to figure it out. Just help me out. Thanks a lot for everything. I'm moving on with my day. This implies taking the time and making those requests specifically be made known to Him. What is it that we're lacking? What is it that we need? What is it that we're suffering from? Taking the time with thanksgiving to lay those things out before Him. And that's when we're told that the peace of God that surpasses all understanding comes to us. I'd like to turn briefly over to James 4, because when we think of the idea of asking of things from God, James 4 shines a little more light on this in terms of how we ask and also how we achieve peace through these things. James here in verses 1 through 3 is talking about why it is that people don't achieve peace. Why does the people don't achieve peace even when they're asking for things from God? James 4 verse 1. Here James writes, Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and you do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain.

You fight and you war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. But here's the punch line that comes along with this. You ask and you do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. So even as we're asking things of God, we have to examine our thoughts and our motives that go along with it. Are we asking for things so that we can just simply feel better or have something that we've been desiring to have? Or are we asking out of right motives so we can be better servants of God, so we can help people out in a different way, so we can serve God in a different or enhanced way? So if we want to find peace, we have to think about this as well in terms of how we're asking. That we're not simply asking for things because we want, we want, we want, we want. And sometimes a little child will come up and, you know, you're walking by a candy store. I want that candy. I want a big bag of candy. And if I'm honest about myself, I've had plenty of prayers to God that essentially boil down to, I want a big bag of candy.

Being honest about it, and we probably all have. And so we have to think about what is it that we're asking for? Why are we asking for it? And what is the attitude that we're asking for it in with thanksgiving? But then, if we're doing these things, we're anxious for nothing but taking, instead of spending time with working those things out in our minds and thinking of all the different terrible outcomes that can happen in ways that we can and should be scared, if instead we take those things to God in prayer with supplication, asking Him to help us with those things, with thanksgiving, and asking in the right motive and the right understanding, then we're told, and we make those requests known to God, His peace that surpasses understanding will guard our hearts and minds.

And what is it that we could use more than anything else in life than to have our minds and our hearts guarded by God? And the word guard here is something that implies a military guard.

Clark's commentary uses the phrase, shall keep them in a strong place, as in a strong place or a castle. So this idea of if we do these things that God will guard our minds. You might have maybe visited the Tower of London or seen pictures of it at one point in time. It's this big fortress on the shores of the Thames River where the crown jewels are kept in England. And it's a tower within a guarded area, and inside there you go down inside of a vault, and that's where all of the Queen of England's jewels are kept, under lock and key. That's what's being talked about here.

Our hearts and our minds guarded, locked up behind multiple levels of security by God Himself, so we can be at peace inside of that protection. I've used this example once before in a sermon, but 2 Kings 6 verses 15 through 17 is to me a really poignant example when we think of God guarding us. And this is in the times of Elisha, who followed Elijah as a prophet. He had a servant named Gehazi, who was afraid as Assyrians were coming to capture them. And in 2 Kings 6 verse 15, Elisha wanted Gehazi to see what kind of protection God was giving, even though it wasn't seen, it wasn't visible. They were being guarded. And so the servant in verse 15 of the man of God arose early and went out, and there was an army. It was surrounding the city with horses and chariots, and his servant said to him, Alas, my master, what shall we do? He was anxious. I would be too.

There was an army coming for them, and they weren't going to just take them captive. I'm willing to bet. And so Elisha answered in verse 16, Don't fear, because those who are with us are more than those who are with them. And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire. All around Elisha. Guarding him. Guarding him. Just as we read in Philippians how God will guard our hearts, think of this image. What do we want around our hearts guarding us better than the divine armies of God? We bring these things to him and we seek his peace. He can lock that peace inside of us as we really understand it.

In addition to our prayers, we also have to take the time to take in his word. And that's also directly tied to peace, biblically. Turn with me if you will to Job 22. Job 22. And we'll read verses 21 and 22. This is coming from the English Standard Version. Job 22 verses 21 and 22.

Here Job writes, Now be of use to God, be at peace with him, and goodness will return to your life.

Receive instruction directly from his lips and make his words a part of you.

So the other piece that we're shown here in the Bible, the other ingredient that can bring us peace and help us better understand what God is doing with our lives, is taking his word inside of us. So Philippians was very much about prayer, right? Being anxious for nothing, but instead taking those things before God in prayer. What we read about here in Job is the fact that making his words a part of us is also a way that we can find peace. So as we answer this fourth question about how do we achieve godly peace, a lot of it is really about the fundamentals. You know, just like when you play sports, sometimes when you're a kid and you're playing sports, it gets really boring because they're teaching you the fundamentals, right? How you stand when you throw the ball, how you hold the bat so you get the most power out of it. These are the fundamentals in terms of peace, and so much of our Christian lives do come back to those basic fundamentals. Spending the time before God. Those passages we wrote, read in Philippians 4, tell us a little bit more about how we do it, what it is we do with that time before God, and as we read in Job, also taking in of his word. Those basics of spending the time with him, both speaking with him and listening to him. I think that's our challenge in this world, is to find time, uninterrupted time, every day, to start taking those things into us, to speak with God and lay things before him, so that guard will be around us. We'll have that peace, and we solidly guarded in our hearts. So in conclusion, let's just wrap up and think briefly about the four questions about peace. First of all, what is peace? I hope we've come to understand a little more fully what peace is. That fullness, that wholeness, that completeness. More than something momentary that we do to get past a stress, but something that really makes us whole as a person, as a Christian. A wholeness that we can really only have through God's Spirit working within our minds and our hearts. Where does it come from? It comes from God. Jesus Christ says that he gives us his peace. We're told that it's a fruit of God's Holy Spirit.

There's only one place that it comes, and having that Godly peace is fully conditional on us giving up our lives, dying to our own will, and taking on a life with Jesus Christ, surrendering ourselves to God. How does it look in our lives once we've achieved it? It's that ability to tune out the circumstances and to have that understanding, that peace, that fullness, that wholeness within us, regardless of all the different things that are going on around us. Because as we live one more day of life, one more week of life, the one thing we all learn is that there's never going to be that someday when everything outside of us is peaceful and quiet. We have to create that someday within ourselves. It's not going to come from outside. It's only going to come through God and through Jesus Christ. And that's the point of our spiritual lives, is to build that inside of us, not to wait for some fictitious day in this human life when external events are going to be such that we can be happy and fully at peace, because it's just not going to happen. It happens within us through Jesus Christ and through God. And lastly, how do we achieve it? We achieve it by taking the time before God regularly in prayer and in study to understand His will, to communicate with Him, to learn more about Him, and to constantly redevote our lives to Him. So, as it says in the opening of every epistle in the New Testament, peace unto you.