Thank you, Richard.
Yes, sir.
And this Thursday night, if you want to come to a commissioning service.
These teams will be commissioned for their ministry this summer, and the whole Twin Cities
is being invited through the media to participate, and that'll be at seven o'clock on Thursday
night this week.
And you'll be able to hear, I think, all the teams on that night.
Now would you open your Bible, please, with me to Philippians chapter four, verses six,
and seven.
The Bible is a book of promises.
Some are made by God to man.
Others are made by individuals to other people.
Two are made by God the Father to God the Son.
About 300 of them are made by people to God.
Everett Storms of Kitchener, Ontario, Canada has calculated that there are about 8,800
different promises in the Bible.
The Bible is a book of promises.
According to Webster, a promise is, on the one hand, an oral or written agreement to
do or not to do something.
Or on the other hand, it's a basis for one's expectation.
Webster also says a promise is one's pledge, a declaration which gives to the person to
whom it's made a right to expect or to claim the performance or forbearance of a specified
act.
A couple of hundred years ago, the lexicographer Samuel Johnson said, a promise is the declaration
of some benefit to be conferred.
The word promise is used about 100 times in the Bible.
Plus, there are many other synonyms in addition to that.
Among the promises given by God is the one that we look at tonight in our text.
It is the promise of peace.
It says, 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 comprehension
shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Peace or some form of that word is used some 400 times in the Bible.
Peace might be defined as the absence of hostility or tempest.
Peace is tranquility, whether it be outer tranquility or inner.
It is a fullness of happiness and blessing.
The Hebrew term for peace, shalom, means much more than just the absence of something.
It is the fullness of God's blessing which one might enjoy.
The similar thought is included in the Greek word.
If your name is Irene, your English name comes directly out of the Greek, it means peace.
The God of peace promises the peace of God to those who will claim it.
Let's think first regarding who God is tonight.
As we think about that statement, I have said He is the God of peace.
Using that name, the God of peace, we find first of all that it is a name from revelation.
It is a name that God uses of Himself.
It is not a concocted name.
It is not man created.
God says that He is the God of peace.
Six times in the New Testament, He identifies Himself with that title, the God of peace.
Let me just list them for you.
It would be an interesting and brief Bible study on your part just to look these up and
to see the context where God chooses to use this name.
Romans 15.33, a benediction in that passage.
Romans 16.30, where there is a promise given of victory over Satan.
Second Corinthians 13.11, where there is an exhortation to live in peace.
Romans 4.9, here in our text, where there is an exhortation to the people of God to
follow the example of the apostle.
First Thessalonians 5.23, the God of peace is the one who sanctifies.
And finally Hebrews 13.20, where there is a prayer for the equipping of God's people
for their work.
In each case where God chose to use that name, it is a name revealed to express His comfort
to people experiencing suffering or trouble.
And the emphasis inevitably is that this God of peace is not just up there somewhere sitting
in heaven, but this God of peace is with you.
It is the promise that this God of peace is here in the midst of our suffering, our trouble,
and our stress.
Peace must not be looked upon as a commodity or a reality that exists all by itself, but
it is rather a part of the very nature of God Himself.
Where He is, peace dwells at home.
And where He is not, there can be no peace.
Indeed, there cannot be peace in our world until the God of peace is embraced in faith
and received as the rightful sovereign over all of its citizens.
One day the Prince of Peace will reign over the earth and there will be genuine peace.
The peace is associated with God.
He is the God of peace.
This is not only a name of revelation, but it's a name of reconciliation.
It's a name that communicates God's desire to be reconciled with sinners, sinners who
are hostile against Him as we saw this morning in Colossians 1.
The Bible says that God is angry with the wicked every day, Psalm 117.
And yet, His name, the God of peace, reveals His heart.
God's desire is to be at peace.
One of the names that He reveals to us in the Old Testament is the name Jehovah Shalom,
which means the Lord is our peace, Judges 6-24.
And that title is given to Messiah in Isaiah 9, the Prince of Peace.
This name, the God of peace, communicates God's desire to be reconciled with sinners.
And it communicates God's work that He might be reconciled with sinners.
For His work initiated and consummated at the cross makes it possible for sinners who
were once alienated from God to be reconciled with Him.
That reconciliation is possible because of the blood of the Son of God shed upon the
cross of Calvary.
And so the God of peace who desires to be at peace with sinners has made it possible
that it might be so by dealing with that sin issue at the cross.
This name communicates to us God's gift to those who are justified by faith.
Romans 5-1, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God.
That peace with God is a permanent condition that describes the eternal relationship between
God and the believer because of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
I've heard people say and so have you that so and so needs to make peace with God or
make peace with the Creator.
The fact is that we cannot make peace with God.
God has already made the peace.
All we can do is receive the peace that He has made the cross of His Son.
This name, the God of peace, is a name not only of revelation but a name of reconciliation.
And what is it that God gives?
Well, God gives peace.
In our text we see at least three facts about this peace.
It is a peace with a source.
He says, the peace of God shall guard your hearts.
This peace that God gives is rooted in Him.
The source is inexhaustible.
It is an infinite resource and it springs from the very nature of God Himself.
This peace is imparted by the Holy Spirit.
It is a peace which delivers from anxiety, which brings calmness of soul, the ability
to be quiet.
It is a controlling tranquility in life.
A letter from Lydia Rhodes this last week recounted how that just before John, her husband
and their son were to leave on their Far East trip, they were to receive their documents
needed to enter India.
Indeed, the consulate in San Francisco assured them that the documents had been sent.
When the envelope arrived at the Rhodes home, it had been torn open in some mail machine
and there were no documents inside.
There was a note from the post office saying, we'll try to find them and mail them to you.
Well, this was days before they were to leave on the journey and you just don't get visas
into India that quickly.
Other than being terribly anxious and troubled about it, they simply applied again, phoning
and explaining the situation to the Indian consulate in San Francisco.
Would you believe that in record time, new visas came to them and they were able to get
their passports, new passports.
Then the day before they left, the original visas came with their original passports.
They got both of them.
It was interesting to read about that trial that they passed through under a lot of pressure.
The plane tickets were bought, the schedule was made, they had to go and their hearts
were kept at peace.
The peace of God filled their hearts.
These team members are going to have some stressful times this summer.
There are new borders, as all of us know, in Eastern Europe and that part of the world.
So it's been stressful this last week.
There are indeed more trials and pressures ahead, as there are for all of us.
Well, God promises us that there is a peace that is rooted in himself, a peace that is
not found in our own personalities, our own ability to control and manipulate circumstances,
but a peace that comes from him.
It's peace with a source.
It is peace that brings tranquility.
And he says it's a peace that surpasses.
Notice he says it's the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension.
This idea of surpassing means to have or to hold above something.
It means to raise above or to be superior or to be better than something else.
He says that this peace of God surpasses any other kind of peace.
It is beyond anything of human reason.
People scratch their heads at times and they say to you, how can you go through what you
are with the kind of an attitude that you do?
How can you do that?
All we can say is it's the peace of God.
It's beyond any reason that I can give you.
It's beyond anything you can understand or really that I can understand.
It's simply the supernatural peace of God that is sourced in him and surpasses all understanding.
But he tells us that this peace, thirdly, is a peace that surrounds.
He says it shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
This term guard is a military expression.
It means to guard as a soldier on duty at a gate.
It says that the peace that is found in God and which surpasses any human understanding
or ability to explain comes to the heart and to the mind of the believer and there acts
as a sentinel.
The heart refers to the very center of the personality with all of its thoughts and all
of its emotions, its affections.
The word mind here refers to what comes out of that.
It's the actions of the will.
It's the fruit of the heart.
He is saying that that innermost part of us and what comes out of it is guarded by the
peace that finds its source in God.
God's peace patrols before the heart, keeping it and whispering, all the while, all is well.
Lord Tennyson wrote a poem entitled In Memoriam that says,
Love is and was my King and Lord and will be, though as yet I keep within his court on earth,
and sleep encompassed by his faithful guard, and hear at times a sentinel who moves about
from place to place and whispers to the worlds of space and in the deep night that all is
well.
How good it is to know when those pressures strike us, when the trials mount up, that
all is well and the peace of God assures us of that.
How does God provide this peace?
That's the third question I want to pose.
How does God provide it?
In the first place, God requires us to do what we can.
And then God responds to do what only he can.
What are we to do?
Well, he explains it to us here in the broader context of what I've read earlier.
In verse 4, we are commanded to rejoice in the Lord.
If you and I are going to expect the guard to be at the gate, then we, on our part, need
to begin by rejoicing in the Lord.
We can't always rejoice in what we are passing through.
We can't always be happy about our situation.
Indeed, at times it's terrifying or deeply troubling.
But we can choose, as an act of the will, to rejoice, not in our situation, but in the
Lord.
And that's what he says.
Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice.
Secondly, he says, we are to be gentle in spirit.
Verse 5, let your forbearing spirit be known to all men.
The idea is to be gentle, to be moderate.
The picture is of an attitude of non-retaliation.
What is it easy for you and for me to do when we're under pressure?
It is to strike out at what's putting the pressure on us, or to strike out maybe at
something else, not even the source of the pressure.
But he says that we can choose to be forbearing, to be gentle in our spirit.
Why can we do that?
Because the Lord is near.
God's not off somewhere else, unaware of what's happening.
We can rejoice in the Lord always and be gentle in our attitude, non-retaliatory, because
the Lord is near.
And then he says, be anxious for nothing.
Be careful, be fretful about nothing.
This word, anxious or careful, literally means to be drawn in different directions.
What a picturesque word that is.
Do you ever feel like you're the cowboy that jumped on his horse and went off in all directions?
You know, you just feel like you're coming apart.
The pressure is so great.
Well, he says we are to be anxious for nothing.
That does not mean that we don't have legitimate concerns.
It does not mean that we are not to care about some things.
Obviously we are.
But we are not to allow it to become that which robs us of our power, our joy, and our
peace.
Life has its cares.
Even the great apostle Paul said that he every day faced the burden of the churches that
he was overseeing in his apostleship.
Every day he bore that.
But he is the same one who writes, be anxious for nothing.
It becomes worry when it begins to dominate us.
What is it that allows an eagle to spread its wings and to soar into the heavens?
It takes advantage of those currents that come against it.
And as it meets those currents and those drafts, it simply uses them as it spreads its wings
until finally it climbs higher and higher into the heavens.
So when you and I sense those drafts against us, and the current is opposed to what we
are trying to get accomplished, let's just learn to put out our wings.
And instead of being forced down to allow those drafts and currents to lift us higher
and higher on eagles wings, you and I will still face temptation to worry.
It is not a sin to be tempted.
There will still be many times daily when you and I will be tempted to allow what we
are concerned about to become worrisome.
But we are to deny that temptation.
We will be tempted to allow our anxious thoughts to dominate and overcome us.
We must not do that.
Be anxious for nothing, he says.
Uncertainties, obstacles, questions, doubts, heartaches, hardships, they are all still
going to be there.
But we are not to allow them to create anxiety and fretting in our lives.
Worry eliminates trust in God.
We can't have that.
I've used the poem a number of times here in our church, but let me just give it once
more because I enjoy it even if some of you might not.
But it says the worried cow would have lived till now if she had saved her breath.
But she worried her hay wouldn't last all day and moved herself to death.
And that's just the way some of us are, isn't it?
We move ourselves to death worrying about the hay.
Oh listen, God's word says be anxious for nothing and finally be prayerful about everything.
That's the other part of it.
If you and I just decide we're not going to worry and we're just going to gut it out,
you know what we're going to do?
We're going to worry.
For the more we try not to do it in our own strength, the more we're going to end up
doing it.
Our release with our cares and our concerns is to pray.
He says be prayerful about everything in the context of worship, petition, and thanksgiving.
He says tell God your definite and specific requests.
Now folks, those are the things that we can do.
If you're a child of God tonight and the peace of God is not filling your heart and
you're anxious and troubled, it may be that you're not doing what you need to do and
what God expects you to do.
To rejoice always.
To be gentle in your spirit.
To be anxious for nothing.
To be prayerful about everything.
For when we do what we can do, then God responds to do what only he can do.
That is to put the guard there.
To protect our thoughts and our decisions from being overrun.
He protects us from collapsing in the face of the pressure.
Because troops of peace will garrison themselves around our innermost being.
That's what God will do.
Peace really doesn't come though through a formula.
It comes through a relationship.
That's true whether it's the peace with God or the peace of God.
The peace with God that describes that permanent condition between the believer and God is
a peace that comes through a relationship that is established by faith in Jesus Christ.
It is a blessed privilege for anyone to have the peace with God.
But this peace of God that he talks about here, the peace that a believer can know in
the midst of pressure is also a peace that is established by relationship.
You see it's not a matter of just going through three or four steps and then zap, it happens.
But it's a relationship that we develop with God.
It is established by faith and in prayer.
The promises of God are precious.
Solomon said in 1 Kings 8, 56, Blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people
Israel according to all that he promised.
Not one word has failed of all his good promises which he promised through Moses his servant.
Are you enjoying the peace of God tonight?
The peace of God is the promise of God to all who will claim it.
Perhaps the most famous illustration of peace is that painting of a coastal scene where
the gale is blowing.
A wild storm is in progress.
The waves are crashing upon the shore leaving white foam.
The shrubs on the beach are bent low before the wind.
And there in the center of the picture is a rock.
And there in the middle of the rock is a little ledge.
And on that little ledge is a nest and on the nest is a bird sitting quietly.
How wonderfully that little bird pictures what God can provide in the midst of the storms
of life.
May that peace be our experience not only tonight but tomorrow and this week and this
summer as we walk with God.
Let's pray together.
Father, we bless you for that peace that you have made possible with sinners through the
work of your Son at the cross.
Thank you for the blood that he shed so that we might be saved, so that we might have a
right relationship with you.
And thank you too for that peace of God that passes all understanding.
Father, there are some brothers and sisters here tonight who are in need of that peace.
They are passing through the storm.
They need to rest in you, the rock.
I pray that tonight's message may be used by the Spirit of God to help them.
And may all of us be prepared by it for that storm when it hits, for it will for all of
us.
And may we learn to appropriate this promise of peace that you so wonderfully give us in
your word.
In Jesus' name, amen.