Hey my friends, it's Matt. This is the Ten Minute Bible Hour podcast, and we are going through the fruit of the Spirit right now in Galatians chapter five on our larger jaunt through the book of Galatians. And I had promised that we'd just kind of zip through it once we got past love, but nope. Apparently every one of these is going to get a day. That's how it's shaping up anyway. We're on peace today, which means I've been thinking about peace for the last 24 hours. And here's where I've landed on it. I'm for it. I'm pro-peace. I think I've always been pretty pro-peace politically, morally. War is interesting. It's cool because stuff blows up and there's tension and conflict. It's gripping. I've studied the history of warfare. I mean, I don't think I'm very good at war. I've never done that. I've never been in the military or anything like that. But man, have I studied the great minds of the military past quite a bit. I don't know why. I just find it real interesting. So it's this weird juxtaposition for me, this weird internal conflict where I find war very compelling, very interesting. When things break down enough that war comes along to unsettle it and build something new that might work. It's a fascinating feature of humanity. Also, it's absolutely horrible, and I am really against it. And right now, you might be like, What? Why are you even saying this? Everybody is for peace. This is obvious. Nobody likes war or fighting. It's just a sad, unnecessary, inevitable thing that is it though? Is nobody really for war? I think I might disagree with you on that point, though I appreciate your optimism about humanity. I think there are people who like war. I even think in some of our bleakest, darkest moments of our own thoughts, of our own soul over the course of a lifetime, we maybe kind of like war. There's a lot of reasons in pop culture has explored a bunch of these reasons. There's famous turns of phrases from different shows, like when uh Alfred tells Batman that some people just want to see the world burn. Like it doesn't, they don't even know why. They just like the chaos and the madness of it. In the Game of Thrones series, the song of fire and ice, there's a character called Littlefinger, and he is cunning and he looks nice and like he's a peaceful guy and a great ally. But he is also willing to admit that his life philosophy, his political philosophy, is that chaos is a ladder. Not peace creates opportunities that the clever and manipulative can exploit. All of these ideologies are very dangerous because here's another saying about war and peace: live by the sword, die by the sword. I think I remember where that one comes from. My point is I think everybody talks a pretty good peace game, but it's also really easy for people who like war to whip those of us who say we like peace and not destructiveness and unity and all of that. It's really easy to whip us into a frenzy. The internet is working overtime to whip us into a frenzy. This is one of the really dark sides of the age of social media and this new age of human thought and human existence, which is what we are in, by the way. We, you and I, we are pioneers on this new frontier in the history of thought and the species and the planet. This thing that we have cooking right now, where we're all connected electronically, it makes for some good things. Hopefully, like what we're doing, like with this podcast right now. Hopefully, this is one of the good things about it. But it also makes us mass-manipulatable. Whoever controls the levers, whoever controls the camera, whoever controls the algorithms, they control how mad everybody is and what the boiling point is. It wasn't that hard even in the age of print media to nudge all of us supposed peace-loving types who just want to stay at home and farm and make our household work better. It wasn't that hard in the age of print media to get us worked up and to want to do horrible things to each other. It wasn't that hard for just a couple of newspapers to work over the American public who had no interest in war and get them to a place where they wanted to go to war with Spain. It's remarkable how gullible we are and how susceptible we are to somebody coming up to us who loves peace as well. But regrettably, in these difficult times, we're just gonna have to kill some people. And they whisper that in our ear. And it was effective when it was in print. That whispering is even more effective now that it's digital, now that every time you sit and poop, you're scrolling your phone and it's just pumping anger into your body as the waste leaves your body. We got a real weird way of living right now, and we have a really weird relationship with the idea of peace and not peace. But peace is a fruit of the spirit, it's part of the package deal that is the fruit of the spirit, it's part of the harvest of what the spirit builds in the life of the believer, and it's all over the Bible as a value, as an evidence of the presence of God, as a hallmark, a trademark, a calling card of the presence of the spirit. And there are two particular ways that I think we should real quickly talk about here as we consider this fruit that manifests in the Bible. One is peace with God, uh peace with your circumstances. Psalm 4.8. I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. Uh, this is written by David probably during a time where David was under tremendous duress from people who didn't like him very much. He had a lot of pressure going on in his life. David didn't rest easy knowing that he had lived life perfectly. David was flawed. He was compromised. He rested easy in knowing the character of God. So that's part of that peace that we're talking about, is a fruit of the spirit. Next up, we're in John 14. Seems like we've been in John 14, 15, kind of the middle of the book of John a lot lately. If you've been noticing that the last little while, that's not a coincidence. The middle of John has Jesus talking about a lot of ideas that Paul is picking up on when he talks about the fruit of the spirit. So no surprise that we're here. This is John 14, 27. It goes like this Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don't let your hearts be troubled, and don't be afraid. He isn't giving you peace the way the world gives you peace. And we got a lot of real backwards or wellian ways that we imagine we get to peace in this world. Well, Jesus isn't doing that. He's doing something totally different. It's a peace that passes all understanding. It's a peace that transcends because it's a peace that's bigger than this world, it's bigger than the flesh, it's bigger than our bodies. Speaking of peace that passes understanding, Philippians 4 is the final little bit that I want to look at here talking about the biblical concept of peace as a state of being at peace in God because of who God is and because of the kind of peace that He gives. And Philippians 4 7 says, And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. It transcends all understanding because it's not born out of flesh. It's not the kind of peace that you get by finally selling your house or finally getting that job or finally locking this thing down or paying off that debt or getting a lot of money or finally getting approval for all those things are great, or you know, that's fine, but they don't they don't last. They don't pass all understanding. They're a temporary peace. Paul here is describing a peace that is different than that, that lasts, that passes understanding because it's a peace born from outside this physical world. And then Paul goes on, and this is kind of the little pivot passage here for our conversation on peace today. Paul goes on to talk about how this translates into his peace with circumstances, and how that bleeds over into his peace with other people. Where does it start? Let's start with verse 10, Philippians 4, 10, just a couple verses down the road here. I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you've renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you've been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I'm not saying this because I'm in need, for I've learned to be content, whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I've learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want, I can do everything through him who gives me strength. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. There's that one. The word peace doesn't happen in that passage, but that's Paul expanding on what he just said about peace that passes understanding. Where is Paul when he's writing all of this stuff about contentedness and peace and everything else? He's in a Roman jail. He's a prisoner. It's a pretty crazy way for a prisoner to be writing. I guess it is peace that passes understanding. Well, you can see the pivot there from just an internal sense of peace laying down in a field like David did a thousand years before Paul and being like, Yeah, I trust in the Lord. Great, I have peace. You can see the pivot as Paul talks about the stuff he just did from jail in Philippians 4, to the idea of a peace from God that is a fruit of the Spirit with other people as well. Romans 12, 18. This is one of those Bible camp memory verses that's drilled into my head, but I'm so grateful that it is because this one informs my decision making. I don't always get it right. I am going to have friction with other people as you are going to have friction with other people from time to time. Usually I think that's resolvable. Usually you can get peace with people even if you see things differently. I love that feeling. I want that. Sometimes you just see things different than somebody else. And sometimes you kind of have to tell somebody, like, hey, that won't work. I'm not crazy about how that went. But then hopefully the goal, even in difficult conversation or confrontation, is peace. Romans 12 18. If it's possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Why could that even be possible? The presence of the spirit in the life of the believer. And then finally, one that we've talked about a ton because we spent all that time in Matthew back in the day. But Matthew 5.9, it's one of the Beatitudes. You know this one. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. So let's just do one more quick contrast on the way out the door here between the acts of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit. Well, the acts of the flesh tend to come with war, endless conflict, chaos is a ladder, peace through strength, mutually assured destruction. Yeah, maybe in a world system, in a flesh system, those are the kind of compromised thoughts that you have to have to stay alive. I don't know. What I do know is that we are very susceptible to having people whisper in our ear that peace would be nice, but now's not the time for that. We're just gonna have to hurt people and be at war and have chaos again. But the values of the kingdom, here in Jesus' opening speech, his debut thing, includes this kingdom value, this kingdom principle that there's something very right and very blessed about being a peacemaker. That's a countercultural way to live and to function. It requires tremendous fortitude to resist the way every impulse seems to push us toward either a naive peace that is no peace at all, or toward just overt hostility. This kingdom peace, this peace that comes from life by the spirit is a very profound thing, and it's a fruit of the spirit, and we got more of those to go next time around. All right, I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.