The Prescription for Peace
Phil. 4:4-9
I hope that everyone has had a great afternoon and has come tonight prepared to rejoice in the Lord. I know that as we go through the week it seems we are attacked from all sides. We start the week off right with the Lord but as we go along it seems that more and more is thrown at us to distract us from God. We become angry, maybe sometimes we will become selfish, maybe we become sick and feel miserable. What ever it is that blocks us from God will disrupt that peace that God has for us.
Sometime ago the Gallup organization polled Americans about their most important criteria for judging personal success. They apparently gave them a list of 20 or 30 different options and these are the results:
· Good health came in first- 58%
· Second an enjoyable job- 49%
· A happy family- 45%
· A good education- 39%
· Peace of mind- 34%
Notice that one of the top five qualities for a successful life in America was peace of mind. The sad truth is that most Americans want be able to find peace of mind because they don’t have Christ in their life and the others are those who do have Christ in their lives are to busy doing what they want to do to allow Him to provide peace in their life. We forget that Jesus has promised us peace. Luke 2:14 says Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. When Jesus was born the angles declared peace toward all men. John 14:27 says Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Jesus promises to leave us His peace and to give us peace. And Isaiah 9:6-7 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
7Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this. This says that we will have peace and there will be no end to our peace. So why are we so unpeaceful in our lives. It is because we are so caught up in ourselves we forget to sit back and let Jesus handle it. In Gal. 5 we are told that part of the fruit of the Spirit is peace. Peace in our life but to attain it we must do several things. That is what we are going to talk about tonight.
Prayer
Read Phil. 4:4-9
4Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.
5Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.
6Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
7And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
8Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
9Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.
Some of you like me deal with the public and lot of people we have to deal with are either angry or very embittered. They all want peace in their life but the problem is they want peace but they want it on their on their terms. Many believe they will experience peace when they get their revenge. Others believe they will experience peace when their political party wins an election. And others believe they will experience peace only when things go the way they want it to go. They are pursuing a worldly peace and many Christians today are chasing this very same worldly peace. James 4:1-2 says “1From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
2Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.” This is the only peace that the world can offer you the peace of revenge, conflict, and defeat. But God’s peace is different.
It is God’s desire to give us peace that we can have no matter what happens to us in our lives. That’s because God’s kind of peace is dependent upon the Holy Spirit being IN us not upon the momentary difficulties that we encounter in the world. We can only have true peace when God is in us.
Now this brings us to our bible passages in Phil. 4. These verses tells us how we can have this peace in our life.
1. We are to do everything in the Lord-
Before we can ever hope to have God’s peace in our life we first must submit to Him totally. Everything we do in life has to be done for Him and in Him. That means our jobs. When we go to work we are working we are working for the Lord to bring honor and glory to Him through our work ethics, our attitude, and our values that we display at work. Our family life is done for Him and in Him also. We cherish our families because He gave them to us. We teach our children and Grandchildren about Him and His word and we do it for Him because HE is in us and we submit to Him. Like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane be our role model as HE prayed “Not my will, but thine be done” He has set the patterns that our priorities should reflect. When conflict arises instead of panic we should ask ourselves what does God want-not what I want. Why because if we do this He promises peace.
I once read about a woman who realized that she needed to forgive a friend who had hurt her. One day she ran into her in a store and thought about ignoring her “ instead she turned to her and told her how much she had hurt her. The woman listened but did not apologize. But said the first woman I surprised myself. I apologized to her for harboring all that anger and hatred for so long and at that moment I realized that I had forgiven her.” Her anger melted away.
Secondly the key is to include God in everything we do Phil: 4:5-7 5Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.
6Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
7And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Now the main reason why many Christians don’t have peace in their lives is that they think God is too busy to hear about their problems. Or maybe they don’t want to bother Him with their problems because He already has so much to do. Or maybe they just prefer to handle it themselves. But God wants us to turn our problems over to Him. We need to pray the type of Prayer that turns all our problems over to Him.
To often we are like the fellow who fell of the side of a cliff. There we are hanging by a bush 300 ft above the ground. He hollers “Is there any one up there who can help me”. A deep majestic voice answers “I will help you my son but first you must have faith and trust in me.” “all right, all right I trust you and believe in you.” The voice replied then let go the bush. There was a long pause and the man shouted “Is there anyone else up there who can help me.”
Sound familiar, the problem is this when we approach God as this fellow did we will have neither peace nor answered prayer. If we can’t have complete faith in God and trust in Him then we will never know peace in our life.
Thirdly we must remember what God has done before and what He will do in the future.
Remember the man hanging by a bush. Remember God asking him to let go. He did not trust the voice. The voice was asking Him to do something not natural totally out of character for that situation. To the man the voice had no credibility. Phil. 4:8-9 says 8Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
9Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you. We need to focus on what God has done in the past, what He is doing now, and what He will do in the future. When we do we will find God’s peace in our life.
Tonight I want us to remember the peace that God promises us is different then the peace this world has to offer. The peace that appeals to most people hinges on being kind and gently to them. If they are gentle and smooth they are at peace. But when difficulties strike their peace disappears.
The Bible makes it clear that life will be hard. We all will face tragedy, conflict, pain, and desperate times. But the peace that possess all understanding is based upon God’s presence. He doesn’t remove the pain and tragedy from our lives but He does give us peace to live through them.
