SPEAKER_01: As you know, we study through books of the Bible typically here at the village chapel during Advent.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, we take these four themes: Advent meaning uh arrival or appearance.
SPEAKER_01: And I think you will be able to see that up on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: We have extra copies of the scriptures today.
SPEAKER_01: We'll be looking at Philippians chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: If you would like a copy, raise your hand.
SPEAKER_01: And we'll be just uh looking at this one little passage, or you can jump on the network here in the room if you would like to as well.
SPEAKER_01: So that's an option.
SPEAKER_01: Advent, as I say, means arrival or appearance, and so Christ has come, and we reflect back in time, as uh as our curate said earlier.
SPEAKER_01: And uh we also look forward to his reappearance when he intends to come and set all things right.
SPEAKER_01: We, as we've gone through this advent this year, we've kind of changed up some of our adjectives.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, our adjectival modifiers have become unconditional, unquenchable, unbounded, and unshakable.
SPEAKER_01: And I love those four words, man.
SPEAKER_01: Those are awesome.
SPEAKER_01: But I like these four words even better: love, joy, hope, and peace.
SPEAKER_01: And I like these four words even better than that.
SPEAKER_01: Of God in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Because when those four things are sourced in him, that's the only time they can become unconditional, unquenchable, unbounded, and unshakable.
SPEAKER_01: And so we turn to him.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you're interested in more of that in your life.
SPEAKER_01: I am in my life for sure.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Jesus was born into a world of political unrest, economic hardship, religious, racial, and international tension.
SPEAKER_01: There was precious little peace to be found.
SPEAKER_01: What had gone wrong with the world?
SPEAKER_01: We might ask that about our own day and time too, our own world as well.
SPEAKER_01: Why is there so much unrest, anxiety, and despair?
SPEAKER_01: How can those who acquired and achieved so much, who have apparent control of so much of their lives, how could those people be people who live with a great deal of unrest, anxiety, and despair?
SPEAKER_01: How's that possible?
SPEAKER_01: Well, instead of being peaceful, it seems to me like a lot of things are falling to pieces.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm interested in an unshakable peace, as we've said up there on the slide.
SPEAKER_01: And I hope you are too, and I think that's what we're going to look for.
SPEAKER_01: We read in the gospel accounts that the angels came and they sang this song.
SPEAKER_01: It blew away the shepherds.
SPEAKER_01: They announced this good news.
SPEAKER_01: And because I think that you women are a little more angelic than we men are, would you mind reading this aloud for us?
SPEAKER_01: Ready, ladies, I'll try to get started.
SPEAKER_01: Ready?
SPEAKER_01: Fear not.
SPEAKER_01: So the angels break through the night, and there's like, you know, the heavens are full of them, and it's massive and huge and explosive, and then their announcement is and there's a wee little baby being born in a peasant village to a peasant couple.
SPEAKER_01: Not a palace, not a mighty king riding in on a steed, you know, with chariots and all that sort of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: No, this.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, thank you, ladies, for singing that.
SPEAKER_01: Men, will you pick up with the rest of the song, brothers?
SPEAKER_01: And suddenly, well, it's with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly hosts, praising God and saying, We'll get in sync.
SPEAKER_01: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace among those with whom he is pleased.
SPEAKER_01: Notice how the angel song began with those beautifully comforting words, fear not.
SPEAKER_01: That's how the left side of the bookshelf looked.
SPEAKER_01: That was the bookend there.
SPEAKER_01: Fear not.
SPEAKER_01: And on the other side of the 66 books we call the Bible, the other bookend is here comes the peace that you've been longing for, that you've been hoping for.
SPEAKER_01: And it's all wrapped up in this baby in a manger.
SPEAKER_01: And the shepherds were filled with wonder and hope.
SPEAKER_01: And they ran.
SPEAKER_01: They were so excited about the news.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't walk.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't go, thanks.
SPEAKER_01: Now let's roll back over and go back to bed.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody set the snooze on the alarm because we're really tired tonight.
SPEAKER_01: No, they ran and they went to see if this whole thing was true or not.
SPEAKER_01: How odd.
SPEAKER_01: No angelic fanfare could actually be enough to satisfy the kind of the kind of demand that an announcement like this would actually have.
SPEAKER_01: That God Almighty Himself became one of us.
SPEAKER_01: There's not enough angels, there's not enough noise, there's not enough music that would compare to that kind of an event, that dramatic event of God becoming one of us.
SPEAKER_01: Why would he do that?
SPEAKER_01: It's a rebel planet.
SPEAKER_01: It's a darkened world.
SPEAKER_01: He lives in glorious light.
SPEAKER_01: He's the Almighty God.
SPEAKER_01: He's self-sufficient.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't need anything.
SPEAKER_01: And yet he condescended to come and to be with us because we were so lacking in love, joy, hope, and peace.
SPEAKER_01: And his heart broke over that, and he wanted to come and bring that to us.
SPEAKER_01: If we Christians are going to continue to sing our Christmas carols, joy to the world, silent night, hark the herald angels sing, glorious like we do.
SPEAKER_01: I think we have to agree that it's fair to ask if the Bible and the Christian gospel offer any help as we search for a peace that's unshakable.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's fair.
SPEAKER_01: I'm personally convinced that the gospel does offer that kind of peace, and I seek to persuade you that that is precisely why Jesus came.
SPEAKER_01: We didn't have a claim on him.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't owe us anything, but he saw our need.
SPEAKER_01: And because of the great love of God for sinners, he sent Jesus Christ to bring us the joy of salvation, the hope of eternal life with him forever.
SPEAKER_01: And a peace that literally will blow your mind and my heart, all of our minds and hearts wide open.
SPEAKER_01: Now the Bible talks about peace in a couple different ways.
SPEAKER_01: Talks about peace with others.
SPEAKER_01: We'll see that even in this passage in Philippians.
SPEAKER_01: Peace within, peace with God, and the peace of God.
SPEAKER_01: I like it because I kind of understand that myself.
SPEAKER_01: My own experience in life is I can be, I can have a conflict with someone else.
SPEAKER_01: That causes a just completely wipes out my peace, my sense of any kind of peace.
SPEAKER_01: But I can also struggle with my own questions, my own anxieties, my own fears.
SPEAKER_01: And there wouldn't be peace within.
SPEAKER_01: I need some help there too.
SPEAKER_01: I also need help in peace with God.
SPEAKER_01: And we just read about that, how Christ came to reconcile us to God and to make peace between us and God.
SPEAKER_01: We rebels, we sinners need that.
SPEAKER_01: And God is the one who can do that.
SPEAKER_01: We can't do that ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: And we're in a quandary at that point, and we'll be stuck in our darkness and stuck in our sin and our bondage to sin unless God makes a move.
SPEAKER_01: And the gospel tells us that he's done that in the personal work of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And then that peace of God.
SPEAKER_01: I so love the way our passage, our text, will talk about that here today.
SPEAKER_01: When you turn with me to Philippians chapter 4, the Apostle Paul, a person who was not much at peace when we first learn of him, he's called Saul in the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_01: But later he goes by Paul, and as he plants this church in a little town called Philippi, which is kind of uh north of Greece.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, uh when we were in New York just recently, uh the Christian embassy ministry folks brought some ambassadors.
SPEAKER_01: They invited some ambassadors to the Gettys concert and to the little after-party celebration.
SPEAKER_01: And I got to meet all these different ambassadors from these different countries, one of which was from uh North Macedonia, which is right up where uh Philippi would be in Thessaloniki.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you guys know that or not, but it's just amazing to me that these ancient towns are still there.
SPEAKER_01: And that here, the Apostle Paul's, we look way back, he planted this church with a jailer, a successful businesswoman, and a formerly demon-possessed teenager.
SPEAKER_01: And that that was his core group just to launch, you know, this church as a church planner.
SPEAKER_01: And he loved this church, and so this book, Philippians, he writes way more like a pastor than where most of us, a lot of us might think of the Apostle Paul as kind of the doctrine guy, you know.
SPEAKER_01: And here he writes just, it's almost a stream of consciousness the way he's writing.
SPEAKER_01: He's personal and he he knows them like a pastor would know his congregation.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Therefore, my beloved brethren, whom I long to see, my joy, my crown.
SPEAKER_01: Look at those kind of descriptors that he uses of them.
SPEAKER_01: You're my joy.
SPEAKER_01: And Villas Chapel, you're my joy.
SPEAKER_01: I gotta say that.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this church is my joy.
SPEAKER_01: I love this church, and I work here.
SPEAKER_01: It's an awesome church.
SPEAKER_01: I love to talk about this church because of what God is doing in this church and has done in this church.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, My joy and my crown, I love that too.
SPEAKER_01: The Greek word is Stephanos, you know, Stephen, that one who in the book of Acts looks up into the heavens as he's before he's just before he's about to be killed.
SPEAKER_01: He looks up into the heavens and he sees Jesus standing.
SPEAKER_01: You know, and he received this crown, this victor's crown.
SPEAKER_01: This is what Stephanos means, this victor's crown.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul says, You are my joy, you are my crown.
SPEAKER_01: Stand firm then in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: First of four occasions in the Lord or in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: If you like, if you're that person that likes to like the Highlights magazine, you like to find the squirrels and all that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_01: Here's four of them, okay?
SPEAKER_01: You can put one of four right there.
SPEAKER_01: Stand firm in the Lord, my beloved.
SPEAKER_01: I urge Yodia and I urge Syntichi to live in harmony in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: That's two of four.
SPEAKER_01: Yodia and Syntachi, two women that lived there, evidently having a little bit of some personal conflict.
SPEAKER_01: We need peace with others.
SPEAKER_01: How can we find peace with others?
SPEAKER_01: Here in the first century church, even in Philippi, a church that Paul loves, they have conflict in church.
SPEAKER_01: Now, raise your hand if you've ever been in a church where you sensed some conflict was in existence.
SPEAKER_01: No, you don't have to.
SPEAKER_01: I know.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard for you because you guys come here.
SPEAKER_01: I know you can't really, you can't really figure that out.
SPEAKER_01: But I mean, there were, believe me, trust me, it happened.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul is running and he knows these two uh women very clearly.
SPEAKER_01: He knows their names, and he urges them to live in harmony, and it's in the Lord that they'll be able to do that.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why that's such an important phrase.
SPEAKER_01: They wouldn't be able to do that on their own, but they could do that in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And I look around this congregation and I see the the kind of the kinds of diversity that we have are economic, educational, they're social in many ways.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but some people who might be natural enemies in the Lord have become brothers and sisters and learned to love one another well.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I love about the church.
SPEAKER_01: Um verse three.
SPEAKER_01: Indeed, true comrade, that's an interesting word there.
SPEAKER_01: Um uh, and we're not 100% certain which individual Paul might be addressing here, but as he writes, he has this person in mind.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, I ask you to help these women who have shared my struggle in the cause of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: So, what do we know about Yodiah and Syntheche?
SPEAKER_01: They shared his struggle in the gospel, they shared in his ministry, they had an important role in this church.
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's important to point that out.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, I hope that you will help them.
SPEAKER_01: Together with Clement also and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.
SPEAKER_01: Help them to walk with one another, to get along with one another in the Lord, is essentially what he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: And then verse four, which we all know, don't we?
SPEAKER_01: Rejoice in the Lord always.
SPEAKER_01: Again, I will say, rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: And so there's the third in the Lord in this passage.
SPEAKER_01: And that's so important.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to keep underlining in the Lord, even if you've got a pew Bible.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you sang this song when you were a kid?
SPEAKER_00: Ready?
SPEAKER_00: Rejoice in the Lord always and again.
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
unknown: Rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: A little louder.
SPEAKER_01: As if you mean it.
SPEAKER_01: Rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: Rejoice and again.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah?
SPEAKER_01: Just the people online.
SPEAKER_01: We can hear you.
SPEAKER_01: We know you're out there.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: I love this song.
SPEAKER_01: And I love this verse so much.
SPEAKER_01: It's probably been on plaques and maybe written on your notebooks or on stickers or things like that all the way through.
SPEAKER_01: You know what's you know what's fun to me about this verse?
SPEAKER_01: Um, not to not to you know just take a cheap shot at something, but it doesn't just say, smiley face, be happy.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: I like it that this verse says, rejoice in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Now that now it's a matter of response and obedience.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just a matter of drumming up something and you know, stealing yourself, which makes you less human.
SPEAKER_01: No, this is a matter of turning your attention to the Lord and finding a way to respond by rejoicing in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Meaning in what he has done, who he is, how he has loved you.
SPEAKER_01: And so rejoice in him.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he says.
SPEAKER_01: Let your forbearing spirit be known to all men.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord is near.
SPEAKER_01: Now we could, I'd love to camp out on those four words, the Lord is near.
SPEAKER_01: Because if the Lord was near back then in probably 62 AD, think of how much nearer he is now.
SPEAKER_01: The return of the Lord when he intends to wrap up human history.
SPEAKER_01: Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.
SPEAKER_01: And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, a fourth time.
SPEAKER_01: In the Lord, in the Lord, in the Lord, in Christ Jesus, four of four.
SPEAKER_01: Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there's anything excellent, anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell or live in these things.
SPEAKER_01: Think of how much time you spend living in something else other than that list.
SPEAKER_01: The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me practice these things.
SPEAKER_01: And then there's that last promise.
SPEAKER_01: Look at this.
SPEAKER_01: And the God of peace shall be with you.
SPEAKER_01: Emmanuel, God with us.
SPEAKER_01: All right, so look over this passage with me just for a second.
SPEAKER_01: And this isn't on a slide.
SPEAKER_01: This is just some little notes I have on the side of my Bible here.
SPEAKER_01: But this is like a series of prescriptions, promises, prohibition, promise, prescription, promise.
SPEAKER_01: It's that kind of a cycle.
SPEAKER_01: You see the prescriptions?
SPEAKER_01: At the end of Paul's letters, a lot of times he does imperatives, a lot of imperatives.
SPEAKER_01: Do this, do this, do this, do this.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what you should do.
SPEAKER_01: Get this going.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, let's stir this up a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: You guys need more of this, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01: And I know in our day and age, a lot of pastors won't go there.
SPEAKER_01: They don't do that.
SPEAKER_01: They're all about encouragement.
SPEAKER_01: Not much in the way of exhortation.
SPEAKER_01: But we have to stir ourselves up, people.
SPEAKER_01: Because some of us come into the Advent season ho-humming, bah humbugging.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why in some churches, that last Sunday before Advent, they call it Stir Up Sunday, because we need to be stirred up, and I'm the same way.
SPEAKER_01: Twenty years here at this church, 20 sermons for around Christmas time, around Easter time, all of those events that we have on the church calendar.
SPEAKER_01: And yet I still, like my my friend David Cassidy says the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: There's part of me that just can't wait to get here, you know, even though I've done this 20 times.
SPEAKER_01: Because I know that we've only begun to scratch the surface of what this means that God invaded our world.
SPEAKER_01: That He came on the run with rescue for us.
SPEAKER_01: And it's just mind-blowing when you think about it all.
SPEAKER_01: Um, so what do we learn here?
SPEAKER_01: What can we take home?
SPEAKER_01: Uh we have that series.
SPEAKER_01: I'll try to point those out as we as we go along here, all right?
SPEAKER_01: Um let me see where I was, and then I'll get to where I'm going, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Um how can we have Advent peace?
SPEAKER_01: Or how can we know that?
SPEAKER_01: We've got these prescriptions, we've got this proscription, there's just one of those, and these promises of peace.
SPEAKER_01: Here are the prescriptions.
SPEAKER_01: Let me throw them off the screen, and this will be indeed online as it always is.
SPEAKER_01: Stand firm in the Lord, live in harmony in the Lord, rejoice in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And then I like this one.
SPEAKER_01: Be widely recognized, or regarded is another way to say it.
SPEAKER_01: Be widely regarded as kind, gentle, considerate.
SPEAKER_01: You want to live in peace?
SPEAKER_01: Stand firm in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: What's that got to do with peace?
SPEAKER_01: Well, he's my rock, he's my refuge.
SPEAKER_01: He's the one that can calm the storm when your boat's going down and being churned up and all that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I run to Him and stand firm on Him.
SPEAKER_01: Because I can't even stand firm on my own two feet.
SPEAKER_01: I need to stand firm in the Lord, live in harmony in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: When I have a conflict with someone else, not just in the church, but anywhere, in your household, in your closest relationships, uh, in your distant family relationships, as you gather together for Christmas dinner at that house, and you've put a limit on it, and you've you're trying to have good boundaries and make it be so that there isn't an opportunity for unrest.
SPEAKER_01: But yet there can still be peace, I would suggest to you when you go in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: But we, for God's people to be widely recognized or regarded as people who are kind, gentle, and considerate, I think we've got some work to do.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody, does anybody else feel that way?
SPEAKER_01: I feel like as I look at the world in which we live, I think we've gotten some bad PR, but I think we've also got some real PR that fits.
SPEAKER_01: And I think we've got some work to do when it comes to being kind and gentle and considerate.
SPEAKER_01: These are really important things.
SPEAKER_01: And the Apostle Paul is trying to instruct us in the way of peace.
SPEAKER_01: Pray about everything, he says, verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: Pray with thanksgiving when you pray about everything.
SPEAKER_01: I do the, maybe you do too, I do the thing where I go to God in a lot of my prayers.
SPEAKER_01: I present my things for God to do today list.
SPEAKER_01: And I often am advising the one who created the entire universe and holds it all in the palm of his hand and balances everything and manages all of human history.
SPEAKER_01: I'm often advising him on the way to run my life.
SPEAKER_01: Are you ever doing that?
SPEAKER_01: I'm doing that.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I'd like, and here's the outcome, here's the way I'd like it to, and in this timing.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know, has anyone noticed that God doesn't always take my advice or your advice?
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't always go the way.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, has anyone raise your hand?
SPEAKER_01: This is what I want to you, I want you to testify.
SPEAKER_01: In hindsight, in the rearview mirror, you have seen that God did not take your advice and it actually turned out the way you think God wanted it to.
SPEAKER_01: Please raise your hand.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Now this room is filled with people, and online you're probably raising your hand as well, because God seems to know some things that we don't seem to know.
SPEAKER_01: Epi case.
SPEAKER_01: Is the Greek word for be reasonable or be kind or be gentle.
SPEAKER_01: And the reason I'm throwing up those other words when I try to describe what it means and whatever your translation might happen to say is it's a complex word.
SPEAKER_01: But we're supposed to be widely regarded or recognized as kind, gentle, considerate people who pray about everything, who pray with thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, gratitude is just flowing from us all the time.
SPEAKER_01: Discipleship with discipline, and that discipline looks like this.
SPEAKER_01: It looks like something.
SPEAKER_01: We set our minds on those things that are, and this is one of Kim's favorite verses.
SPEAKER_01: She calls it thurple, just to give herself an acronym to help remind herself of what these words are.
SPEAKER_01: True, honorable, right, ther.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's thur, T T H R.
SPEAKER_01: Pure, lovely, and things that are of excellence.
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
SPEAKER_01: That's really beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: If we're really interested in living at peace, we should take this instruction way more seriously than we do, myself in particular.
SPEAKER_01: It might involve some changes to our thought life.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever thought about managing your thought life?
SPEAKER_01: In the world in which we live today, it's sort of let it all go to be you, you do you.
SPEAKER_01: You know, live, you know, live into this thing right here, whatever it is you want, you know.
SPEAKER_01: And that's not it at all in the Christian sense or in the biblical sense of the way the world, the way we're supposed to operate in this world.
SPEAKER_01: We actually aren't supposed to be you be you first.
SPEAKER_01: And with some of us, when we've worshiped at the altar of authenticity, you know, being our authentic self, I think what the world could use is a little less of our authenticity.
SPEAKER_01: You probably are thinking of someone else right now, but I'm talking to you.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm talking to myself too.
SPEAKER_01: He says right here, if you want to live at peace, don't just do you, just let it happen, just let it flow, just be whoever you are.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Change your mind's direction.
SPEAKER_01: Live in what is true.
SPEAKER_01: Well, even right there, good grief in the world in which we live, they don't even believe in truth.
SPEAKER_01: Our institutions of higher learning used to be about being in pursuit of truth.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you go on a campus, you've got to fight to defend the idea that there even is such a thing.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're a professor, you'll find yourself, in a lot of cases, in danger, unless you're tenured, in danger of losing your job if you espouse the notion that there's something like truth that actually exists.
SPEAKER_01: No wonder the world is in chaos.
SPEAKER_01: No wonder the world is at such a high-pitched level of unrest.
SPEAKER_01: We don't believe in anything anymore.
SPEAKER_01: And the apostle Paul says, let your mind dwell on the truth, things that are true, honorable.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, honorable.
SPEAKER_01: There you go, right there.
SPEAKER_01: You know, that that's a that's a virtue and a value statement.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, in so many places in the world in which we live right now, there's no consensus on what's virtuous and what's what's of value.
SPEAKER_01: Well, any wonder then that as Lewis said, we we deny honor, and and what we have is a bunch of thieves in our midst now?
SPEAKER_01: It's just chaos.
SPEAKER_01: People stealing your peace.
SPEAKER_01: Because nobody believes in honor anymore.
SPEAKER_01: What's right, what's pure, what's lovely, excellent.
SPEAKER_01: You could you could spend time on each and every one of those things.
SPEAKER_01: But I want you to know that for G, as far as Jesus is concerned, um, the call is for us to retrain our minds, and as far as the Apostle Paul is concerned, retrain our minds away from those things and onto the things that are true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and excellent?
SPEAKER_01: If we're really interested in living at peace, I think we should take this instruction more seriously, as I said.
SPEAKER_01: But it might really involve some changes in our habits, our diet of intake, of information, of interaction, our diet in our relationships, for where else is a soul stirred to so much doubt and unrest?
SPEAKER_01: Where else is a mind more deconstructed and deformed on issues dealing with what it means to be a human person?
SPEAKER_01: Where else are we more disturbed from any sense of peace than as we listen to all of the voices that seek to influence us out there and forget completely about what this book teaches us?
SPEAKER_01: Here in this ancient letter, we've seen many prescriptions to living a life of peace with others, peace within, peace with God, and knowing the peace of God.
SPEAKER_01: I exhort you to take these things more seriously.
SPEAKER_01: And I do the same to myself as we come into a season where we talk about such things.
SPEAKER_01: It's really important that we turn to Jesus, the Prince of Peace.
SPEAKER_01: The one who said this, peace I'll leave with you.
SPEAKER_01: My peace I give to you.
SPEAKER_01: This is a gift received, not a goal achieved.
SPEAKER_01: It's a gift received.
SPEAKER_01: Not as the world gives, do I give to you.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, there are superficial forms of peace out there.
SPEAKER_01: There are anesthetic versions of peace out there.
SPEAKER_01: You can just for a moment get away with some euphoric feelings, even if you have to pay a pretty high cost later because you went in pursuit of this thing and didn't pay attention to the things that really matter.
SPEAKER_01: Not as the world gives, do I give to you, Jesus said.
SPEAKER_01: Let not your hearts be troubled.
SPEAKER_01: That means you we should guard our hearts from those voices that would trouble our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: Um, neither let them be afraid.
SPEAKER_01: And it seems to me like fear and anxiety and those things are the opposites of peace if we're in search of peace.
SPEAKER_01: Again, not just an ancient version of don't worry, be happy.
SPEAKER_01: Rejoice in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Stand firm in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Be unified in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And find all of your peace in Christ Jesus Himself.
SPEAKER_01: And this is great news.
SPEAKER_01: The incarnation is that we're not left to do this on our own.
SPEAKER_01: Emmanuel has come.
SPEAKER_01: God is with us now.
SPEAKER_01: And so when I need peace, even preparing for this, I actually a couple times it hit me this week.
SPEAKER_01: I got to start to get kind of churned up about talking about this, you know?
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know, where am I going?
SPEAKER_01: It's such a broad, seems like one of the biggest topics in the whole world, you know?
SPEAKER_01: And then I'd pray, and it seemed like God said, You're not finding your peace in me right now, Jim.
SPEAKER_01: And so again, it's learning to retrain my mind and my heart onto him to spend time in prayer, trusting him.
SPEAKER_01: And we see uh when we do with prayer that it really does offer us heaven's antidote for anxiety and anger.
SPEAKER_01: Are you just mad?
SPEAKER_01: Some of you might be mad in this room.
SPEAKER_01: I hope it's not you.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you're online.
SPEAKER_01: If you're mad, especially at someone, I challenge you to begin praying for them.
SPEAKER_01: Do not pray that God would hit them over the head with a brick.
SPEAKER_01: Pray for their highest good.
SPEAKER_01: I was so blown away, as Kim even read it earlier to us, when I read that article about the all of the kidnapped folks down in Haiti, the 17 Christian missionaries kidnapped, and how they prayed for the ones that took them, uh, their victimizers.
SPEAKER_01: Uh here they are the victims, and praying for those who had traumatized them, who had kidnapped them, who they could have killed them, and yet they prayed for them and they prayed for their highest good.
SPEAKER_01: What an antidote for anxiety, what an antidote for our anger in this world in which we live.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's the proscription.
SPEAKER_01: There's one in this passage.
SPEAKER_01: If you're interested in peace, what he's saying is don't be anxious about anything.
SPEAKER_01: It's in the context, though, of all of this in the Lord stuff, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so don't miss that because he's not just saying don't worry, be happy.
SPEAKER_01: He's actually saying, don't be anxious, turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face.
SPEAKER_01: And all of the things of this world, which really in parentheses you can put anxiety, acrimony, fear, outcomes that go the wrong way or the way we didn't desire.
SPEAKER_01: Put all that in parentheses.
SPEAKER_01: The things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: How's prayer the antidote to anxiety and anger?
SPEAKER_01: Certainly the comfort of good friends can help.
SPEAKER_01: There are helpful resources available from the counseling realm, that's true, when needed, but medically prescribed pharmaceuticals have helped a little bit, that's right.
SPEAKER_01: But prayer is the venue that is recommended here.
SPEAKER_01: And it is here that we approach God and commune with God.
SPEAKER_01: The God of the universe is the one we get to talk to.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why we can suggest to you that there is unshakable peace on offer.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because it's peace found in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's not peace found in the outcomes going the way I want them to go and the timing that I want them to go.
SPEAKER_01: No, it's peace found when He Himself is the center for me and for you.
SPEAKER_01: Do you realize the significance of this thing we call prayer?
SPEAKER_01: It's hard to fathom, it's mind-blowing.
SPEAKER_01: But God has come to dwell among us.
SPEAKER_01: We have access to God now.
SPEAKER_01: Emmanuel, God with us, the Almighty God who created everything out of nothing, has now come to, has reached out to and come to dwell among us.
SPEAKER_01: What else does this passage teach us?
SPEAKER_01: Well, we certainly see there are some more promises.
SPEAKER_01: There's a book of life.
SPEAKER_01: Is your name in it?
SPEAKER_01: It is if you've trusted Christ as your savior.
SPEAKER_01: Would you if your name isn't in it, would you like your name to be in it?
SPEAKER_01: Trust Christ as your Savior.
SPEAKER_01: It's that simple.
SPEAKER_01: You say, it doesn't, I don't, that doesn't make sense to me.
SPEAKER_01: I gotta earn, I gotta balance out the scales.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: This is the only religion I can think of that doesn't call upon you to balance out some scales and to get it right every time.
SPEAKER_01: And to remember to turn your phone off.
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01: Happens to all of us.
SPEAKER_01: If that happened to you, it happens to all of us at one time.
SPEAKER_01: But that's that's what the see, the Christian faith is not just a religion, not merely a religion.
SPEAKER_01: It's declared good news that God has done everything for us that we cannot do for ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: There is a book of life.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord is always near.
SPEAKER_01: Salvation of God results in us being at peace with God.
SPEAKER_01: The peace of God will surpass your understanding.
SPEAKER_01: The peace of God will guard your heart and your mind.
SPEAKER_01: And I have to run, I have to run to this part of it a lot myself.
SPEAKER_01: When I'm feeling a little anxiety coming on, I can't guard my own heart.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have the power to.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm a part of the concurrence that happens here.
SPEAKER_01: He asked me to turn to him.
SPEAKER_01: He asked me to run to him.
SPEAKER_01: He asked me to live in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So he calls upon me to do that.
SPEAKER_01: But it's his power that guards my heart and my mind.
SPEAKER_01: And so I need him to do that.
SPEAKER_01: The peace of God flows from living in union with Christ, and the peace of God will be with you.
SPEAKER_01: Let's read these aloud because they've been so much a part of the center of this text.
SPEAKER_01: And the peace of God, all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 9: The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
SPEAKER_01: So the gospel is lived out in word and deed.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel is believed, and it's a belief that alters or changes or transforms our behavior as well.
SPEAKER_01: And that belief and behavior, that all wrapped up together, means God is at work in us to transform us and change us.
SPEAKER_01: Not only in the way we see Him and our relationship with Him judicially, but also in the way that we see others and our responsibility in this world missionally.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I love the little video you saw earlier about what this church, what the Lord is doing through this church and has done through you with these 40 different missions organizations.
SPEAKER_01: That's powerful.
SPEAKER_01: That's real lives actually being changed.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's so important.
SPEAKER_01: This word of hope and this word of peace from God is so old as to go all the way back to Psalm 91, for instance.
SPEAKER_01: He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High will abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
SPEAKER_01: I'll say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God.
SPEAKER_01: In him will I trust.
SPEAKER_01: The composer of Psalm 91 is not named, but I love what this Psalm says.
SPEAKER_01: He's my refuge and my fortress.
SPEAKER_01: You need a place, you need some peace, you need some peace and quiet, a place to hide, a place to rest.
SPEAKER_01: You're so exhausted, you're stretched so thin, you feel like bilbo baggins, too little butter spread out over way too much bread.
SPEAKER_01: Find your refuge and your fortress in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He is the king, and the king is returning.
SPEAKER_01: And one day everything sad will become untrue because he's the king.
SPEAKER_01: And you should turn to him if you have not.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah says it just bluntly and boldly.
SPEAKER_01: I love this.
SPEAKER_01: You, God, keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you.
SPEAKER_01: Let your mind dwell on these things.
SPEAKER_01: Dwell on God, because he trusts in you.
SPEAKER_01: Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.
SPEAKER_01: I need a rock like that.
SPEAKER_01: Do you want a rock?
SPEAKER_01: It's not just the scream of some rock and roller.
SPEAKER_01: Do you need a rock in this life?
SPEAKER_01: A place where you can find peace, safety, a place to rest, a place to recover, a place to find the space and the time to actually rediscover where true north is in life.
SPEAKER_01: A place where you can turn, a person you can turn to, someone you can turn to, to discover what it means to be human in this world that's throwing so many ideas at you.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: There he is, the one that brings us unconditional love of God, unquenchable joy of God, unbounded hope of God, unshakable peace of God, all found in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Elizabeth Elliot, restlessness and impatience change nothing except our peace and joy.
SPEAKER_01: Peace does not dwell in outward things, but in the heart prepared to wait trustfully.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Trustfully and quietly on him who has all things safely in his hands.
SPEAKER_01: You know we live in a noisy world.
SPEAKER_01: We are more connected and wired up than any other generation has ever been, and yet we are more at unrest, and it's it's just noise so often.
SPEAKER_01: And it will do all of us some good to unplug from some of that and to get down on our knees and spend some time with the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I'll close with this quote from uh Packer.
SPEAKER_01: There's no peace like the peace of those whose minds are possessed with full assurance that they have known God and God has known them.
SPEAKER_01: And that this relationship guarantees God's favor to them in life through death and on forever.
SPEAKER_01: Please note that he's not dismissive of pain and loss when he says this.
SPEAKER_01: See, that's why we say advent begins in the dark, people.
SPEAKER_01: And here we have a faith in a God who isn't just telling us what to do from afar, somewhere like in the back 40 acres of the universe, just shouting out, here, do this, do that, do that.
SPEAKER_01: No, he actually came here and took rejection and took pain and took the guilt and shame for my sin and for yours on himself, connecting the baby in the cradle to the man on the cross, to the king who will one day return to set things right.
SPEAKER_01: He's the prince of peace, and you should trust in him.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't come to bring just a superficial peace, but an unshakable peace.
SPEAKER_01: We, as Christians and Bible believers, recognize that the world in general, and we ourselves in particular, are desperate for an unshakable peace.
SPEAKER_01: We stand in need of a redemption that only our Creator can accomplish in Advent is our celebration of the fact that God in Christ has done this.
SPEAKER_01: As we wait for the completion and total fulfillment of God's plans and purposes, we sing to express our longing.
SPEAKER_01: And in many occasions, our aching.
SPEAKER_01: We sing to express our yearning for Him to return, to set things right.
SPEAKER_01: In the midst of ongoing loss, and for some of you it's quite real right now, suffering and the trauma of the last couple years.
SPEAKER_01: We are the Advent people.
SPEAKER_01: And we will respond by rejoicing in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And though sometimes our songs are sad, they are honest and real.
SPEAKER_01: And our hope is just as real because our hope is in the living God, the living Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, thank you for coming.
SPEAKER_01: As we say so often, you didn't have to, you didn't owe it to us.
SPEAKER_01: We need the kind of peace that only you can give.
SPEAKER_01: And so I pray for myself and for my friends here in the room and our friends online as well.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, give us the faith that leads to repentance, that leads us to turn to you, and to find in you and in Christ alone the peace that we so desire.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And for His sake, we pray this.
SPEAKER_01: Amen and Amen.