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Thank you, Richard.

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Yes, sir.

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And this Thursday night, if you want to come to a commissioning service.

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These teams will be commissioned for their ministry this summer, and the whole Twin Cities

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is being invited through the media to participate, and that'll be at seven o'clock on Thursday

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night this week.

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And you'll be able to hear, I think, all the teams on that night.

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Now would you open your Bible, please, with me to Philippians chapter four, verses six,

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and seven.

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The Bible is a book of promises.

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Some are made by God to man.

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Others are made by individuals to other people.

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Two are made by God the Father to God the Son.

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About 300 of them are made by people to God.

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Everett Storms of Kitchener, Ontario, Canada has calculated that there are about 8,800

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different promises in the Bible.

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The Bible is a book of promises.

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According to Webster, a promise is, on the one hand, an oral or written agreement to

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do or not to do something.

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Or on the other hand, it's a basis for one's expectation.

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Webster also says a promise is one's pledge, a declaration which gives to the person to

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whom it's made a right to expect or to claim the performance or forbearance of a specified

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act.

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A couple of hundred years ago, the lexicographer Samuel Johnson said, a promise is the declaration

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of some benefit to be conferred.

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The word promise is used about 100 times in the Bible.

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Plus, there are many other synonyms in addition to that.

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Among the promises given by God is the one that we look at tonight in our text.

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It is the promise of peace.

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It says, be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.

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Let your request be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension

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shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

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Peace or some form of that word is used some 400 times in the Bible.

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Peace might be defined as the absence of hostility or tempest.

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Peace is tranquility, whether it be outer tranquility or inner.

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It is a fullness of happiness and blessing.

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The Hebrew term for peace, shalom, means much more than just the absence of something.

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It is the fullness of God's blessing which one might enjoy.

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The similar thought is included in the Greek word.

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If your name is Irene, your English name comes directly out of the Greek, it means peace.

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The God of peace promises the peace of God to those who will claim it.

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Let's think first regarding who God is tonight.

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As we think about that statement, I have said He is the God of peace.

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Using that name, the God of peace, we find first of all that it is a name from revelation.

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It is a name that God uses of Himself.

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It is not a concocted name.

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It is not man created.

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God says that He is the God of peace.

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Six times in the New Testament, He identifies Himself with that title, the God of peace.

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Let me just list them for you.

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It would be an interesting and brief Bible study on your part just to look these up and

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to see the context where God chooses to use this name.

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Romans 15.33, a benediction in that passage.

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Romans 16.30, where there is a promise given of victory over Satan.

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Second Corinthians 13.11, where there is an exhortation to live in peace.

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Romans 4.9, here in our text, where there is an exhortation to the people of God to

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follow the example of the apostle.

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First Thessalonians 5.23, the God of peace is the one who sanctifies.

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And finally Hebrews 13.20, where there is a prayer for the equipping of God's people

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for their work.

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In each case where God chose to use that name, it is a name revealed to express His comfort

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to people experiencing suffering or trouble.

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And the emphasis inevitably is that this God of peace is not just up there somewhere sitting

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in heaven, but this God of peace is with you.

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It is the promise that this God of peace is here in the midst of our suffering, our trouble,

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and our stress.

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Peace must not be looked upon as a commodity or a reality that exists all by itself, but

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it is rather a part of the very nature of God Himself.

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Where He is, peace dwells at home.

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And where He is not, there can be no peace.

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Indeed, there cannot be peace in our world until the God of peace is embraced in faith

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and received as the rightful sovereign over all of its citizens.

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One day the Prince of Peace will reign over the earth and there will be genuine peace.

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The peace is associated with God.

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He is the God of peace.

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This is not only a name of revelation, but it's a name of reconciliation.

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It's a name that communicates God's desire to be reconciled with sinners, sinners who

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are hostile against Him as we saw this morning in Colossians 1.

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The Bible says that God is angry with the wicked every day, Psalm 117.

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And yet, His name, the God of peace, reveals His heart.

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God's desire is to be at peace.

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One of the names that He reveals to us in the Old Testament is the name Jehovah Shalom,

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which means the Lord is our peace, Judges 6-24.

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And that title is given to Messiah in Isaiah 9, the Prince of Peace.

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This name, the God of peace, communicates God's desire to be reconciled with sinners.

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And it communicates God's work that He might be reconciled with sinners.

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For His work initiated and consummated at the cross makes it possible for sinners who

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were once alienated from God to be reconciled with Him.

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That reconciliation is possible because of the blood of the Son of God shed upon the

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cross of Calvary.

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And so the God of peace who desires to be at peace with sinners has made it possible

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that it might be so by dealing with that sin issue at the cross.

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This name communicates to us God's gift to those who are justified by faith.

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Romans 5-1, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God.

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That peace with God is a permanent condition that describes the eternal relationship between

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God and the believer because of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

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I've heard people say and so have you that so and so needs to make peace with God or

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make peace with the Creator.

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The fact is that we cannot make peace with God.

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God has already made the peace.

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All we can do is receive the peace that He has made the cross of His Son.

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This name, the God of peace, is a name not only of revelation but a name of reconciliation.

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And what is it that God gives?

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Well, God gives peace.

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In our text we see at least three facts about this peace.

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It is a peace with a source.

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He says, the peace of God shall guard your hearts.

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This peace that God gives is rooted in Him.

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The source is inexhaustible.

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It is an infinite resource and it springs from the very nature of God Himself.

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This peace is imparted by the Holy Spirit.

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It is a peace which delivers from anxiety, which brings calmness of soul, the ability

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to be quiet.

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It is a controlling tranquility in life.

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A letter from Lydia Rhodes this last week recounted how that just before John, her husband

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and their son were to leave on their Far East trip, they were to receive their documents

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needed to enter India.

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Indeed, the consulate in San Francisco assured them that the documents had been sent.

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When the envelope arrived at the Rhodes home, it had been torn open in some mail machine

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and there were no documents inside.

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There was a note from the post office saying, we'll try to find them and mail them to you.

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Well, this was days before they were to leave on the journey and you just don't get visas

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into India that quickly.

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Other than being terribly anxious and troubled about it, they simply applied again, phoning

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and explaining the situation to the Indian consulate in San Francisco.

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Would you believe that in record time, new visas came to them and they were able to get

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their passports, new passports.

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Then the day before they left, the original visas came with their original passports.

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They got both of them.

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It was interesting to read about that trial that they passed through under a lot of pressure.

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The plane tickets were bought, the schedule was made, they had to go and their hearts

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were kept at peace.

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The peace of God filled their hearts.

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These team members are going to have some stressful times this summer.

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There are new borders, as all of us know, in Eastern Europe and that part of the world.

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So it's been stressful this last week.

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There are indeed more trials and pressures ahead, as there are for all of us.

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Well, God promises us that there is a peace that is rooted in himself, a peace that is

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not found in our own personalities, our own ability to control and manipulate circumstances,

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but a peace that comes from him.

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It's peace with a source.

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It is peace that brings tranquility.

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And he says it's a peace that surpasses.

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Notice he says it's the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension.

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This idea of surpassing means to have or to hold above something.

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It means to raise above or to be superior or to be better than something else.

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He says that this peace of God surpasses any other kind of peace.

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It is beyond anything of human reason.

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People scratch their heads at times and they say to you, how can you go through what you

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are with the kind of an attitude that you do?

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How can you do that?

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All we can say is it's the peace of God.

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It's beyond any reason that I can give you.

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It's beyond anything you can understand or really that I can understand.

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It's simply the supernatural peace of God that is sourced in him and surpasses all understanding.

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But he tells us that this peace, thirdly, is a peace that surrounds.

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He says it shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

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This term guard is a military expression.

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It means to guard as a soldier on duty at a gate.

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It says that the peace that is found in God and which surpasses any human understanding

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or ability to explain comes to the heart and to the mind of the believer and there acts

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as a sentinel.

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The heart refers to the very center of the personality with all of its thoughts and all

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of its emotions, its affections.

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The word mind here refers to what comes out of that.

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It's the actions of the will.

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It's the fruit of the heart.

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He is saying that that innermost part of us and what comes out of it is guarded by the

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peace that finds its source in God.

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God's peace patrols before the heart, keeping it and whispering, all the while, all is well.

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Lord Tennyson wrote a poem entitled In Memoriam that says,

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Love is and was my King and Lord and will be, though as yet I keep within his court on earth,

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and sleep encompassed by his faithful guard, and hear at times a sentinel who moves about

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from place to place and whispers to the worlds of space and in the deep night that all is

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well.

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How good it is to know when those pressures strike us, when the trials mount up, that

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all is well and the peace of God assures us of that.

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How does God provide this peace?

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That's the third question I want to pose.

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How does God provide it?

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In the first place, God requires us to do what we can.

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And then God responds to do what only he can.

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What are we to do?

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Well, he explains it to us here in the broader context of what I've read earlier.

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In verse 4, we are commanded to rejoice in the Lord.

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If you and I are going to expect the guard to be at the gate, then we, on our part, need

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to begin by rejoicing in the Lord.

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We can't always rejoice in what we are passing through.

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We can't always be happy about our situation.

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Indeed, at times it's terrifying or deeply troubling.

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But we can choose, as an act of the will, to rejoice, not in our situation, but in the

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Lord.

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And that's what he says.

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Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice.

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Secondly, he says, we are to be gentle in spirit.

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Verse 5, let your forbearing spirit be known to all men.

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The idea is to be gentle, to be moderate.

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The picture is of an attitude of non-retaliation.

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What is it easy for you and for me to do when we're under pressure?

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It is to strike out at what's putting the pressure on us, or to strike out maybe at

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something else, not even the source of the pressure.

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But he says that we can choose to be forbearing, to be gentle in our spirit.

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Why can we do that?

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Because the Lord is near.

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God's not off somewhere else, unaware of what's happening.

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We can rejoice in the Lord always and be gentle in our attitude, non-retaliatory, because

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the Lord is near.

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And then he says, be anxious for nothing.

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Be careful, be fretful about nothing.

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This word, anxious or careful, literally means to be drawn in different directions.

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What a picturesque word that is.

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Do you ever feel like you're the cowboy that jumped on his horse and went off in all directions?

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You know, you just feel like you're coming apart.

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The pressure is so great.

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Well, he says we are to be anxious for nothing.

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That does not mean that we don't have legitimate concerns.

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It does not mean that we are not to care about some things.

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Obviously we are.

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But we are not to allow it to become that which robs us of our power, our joy, and our

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peace.

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Life has its cares.

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Even the great apostle Paul said that he every day faced the burden of the churches that

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he was overseeing in his apostleship.

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Every day he bore that.

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But he is the same one who writes, be anxious for nothing.

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It becomes worry when it begins to dominate us.

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What is it that allows an eagle to spread its wings and to soar into the heavens?

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It takes advantage of those currents that come against it.

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And as it meets those currents and those drafts, it simply uses them as it spreads its wings

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until finally it climbs higher and higher into the heavens.

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So when you and I sense those drafts against us, and the current is opposed to what we

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are trying to get accomplished, let's just learn to put out our wings.

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And instead of being forced down to allow those drafts and currents to lift us higher

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and higher on eagles wings, you and I will still face temptation to worry.

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It is not a sin to be tempted.

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There will still be many times daily when you and I will be tempted to allow what we

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are concerned about to become worrisome.

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But we are to deny that temptation.

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We will be tempted to allow our anxious thoughts to dominate and overcome us.

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We must not do that.

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Be anxious for nothing, he says.

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Uncertainties, obstacles, questions, doubts, heartaches, hardships, they are all still

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going to be there.

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But we are not to allow them to create anxiety and fretting in our lives.

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Worry eliminates trust in God.

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We can't have that.

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I've used the poem a number of times here in our church, but let me just give it once

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more because I enjoy it even if some of you might not.

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But it says the worried cow would have lived till now if she had saved her breath.

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But she worried her hay wouldn't last all day and moved herself to death.

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And that's just the way some of us are, isn't it?

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We move ourselves to death worrying about the hay.

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Oh listen, God's word says be anxious for nothing and finally be prayerful about everything.

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That's the other part of it.

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If you and I just decide we're not going to worry and we're just going to gut it out,

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you know what we're going to do?

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We're going to worry.

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For the more we try not to do it in our own strength, the more we're going to end up

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doing it.

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Our release with our cares and our concerns is to pray.

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He says be prayerful about everything in the context of worship, petition, and thanksgiving.

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He says tell God your definite and specific requests.

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Now folks, those are the things that we can do.

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If you're a child of God tonight and the peace of God is not filling your heart and

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you're anxious and troubled, it may be that you're not doing what you need to do and

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what God expects you to do.

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To rejoice always.

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To be gentle in your spirit.

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To be anxious for nothing.

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To be prayerful about everything.

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For when we do what we can do, then God responds to do what only he can do.

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That is to put the guard there.

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To protect our thoughts and our decisions from being overrun.

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He protects us from collapsing in the face of the pressure.

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Because troops of peace will garrison themselves around our innermost being.

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That's what God will do.

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Peace really doesn't come though through a formula.

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It comes through a relationship.

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That's true whether it's the peace with God or the peace of God.

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The peace with God that describes that permanent condition between the believer and God is

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a peace that comes through a relationship that is established by faith in Jesus Christ.

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It is a blessed privilege for anyone to have the peace with God.

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But this peace of God that he talks about here, the peace that a believer can know in

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the midst of pressure is also a peace that is established by relationship.

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You see it's not a matter of just going through three or four steps and then zap, it happens.

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But it's a relationship that we develop with God.

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It is established by faith and in prayer.

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The promises of God are precious.

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Solomon said in 1 Kings 8, 56, Blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people

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Israel according to all that he promised.

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Not one word has failed of all his good promises which he promised through Moses his servant.

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Are you enjoying the peace of God tonight?

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The peace of God is the promise of God to all who will claim it.

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Perhaps the most famous illustration of peace is that painting of a coastal scene where

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the gale is blowing.

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A wild storm is in progress.

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The waves are crashing upon the shore leaving white foam.

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The shrubs on the beach are bent low before the wind.

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And there in the center of the picture is a rock.

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And there in the middle of the rock is a little ledge.

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And on that little ledge is a nest and on the nest is a bird sitting quietly.

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How wonderfully that little bird pictures what God can provide in the midst of the storms

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of life.

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May that peace be our experience not only tonight but tomorrow and this week and this

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summer as we walk with God.

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Let's pray together.

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Father, we bless you for that peace that you have made possible with sinners through the

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work of your Son at the cross.

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Thank you for the blood that he shed so that we might be saved, so that we might have a

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right relationship with you.

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And thank you too for that peace of God that passes all understanding.

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Father, there are some brothers and sisters here tonight who are in need of that peace.

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They are passing through the storm.

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They need to rest in you, the rock.

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I pray that tonight's message may be used by the Spirit of God to help them.

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And may all of us be prepared by it for that storm when it hits, for it will for all of

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us.

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And may we learn to appropriate this promise of peace that you so wonderfully give us in

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your word.

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In Jesus' name, amen.