Fruit of the Spirit: Peace

It's a good day if we've never met. My name is Josh. Got to meet some new people today, which has been great. We would love to help you, if you're interested in connecting here at Whitewater. We would love to help get you connected.

And the best thing that you can do is your first step is to go to our information desk out in the foyer, meet our team there. They would love to get to know you, help get you connected here today. We're in week four. I can't believe it's already been four weeks, but we're in week four of our Fruit of the Spirit series. And now that we're a few weeks in, I just want to remind us why we started this series to begin with.

It goes all the way back to September, when we shared our 36 month vision of the kind of church that we want to be over the next three years. And one key piece of that was the we want to be a church that actually embodies the Fruit of the Spirit. We can't just talk about it, we don't just know it, we can't just sing the silly little song. We are actually living out the Fruit of the Spirit as a representation of Christ and his power in this world. That's what we want to see.

And the whole aim of the life of a Christian is to live now, not later now. A life that is rooted in Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit and being transformed from the inside out into the likeness of Jesus. And as the Holy Spirit does that powerful work in us, he produces in us this fruit. And this fruit is the very evidence or the proof. Jesus says that we are his disciples.

And as this all works out, the problem of course, is that at the same time we are in a battle with our flesh. The flesh wants to do very different things than what the Spirit wants to do. We want to do what we feel like doing instead of what the Spirit wants us to do. Galatians 5:17 tells us about it. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what what is contrary to the flesh?

They're in conflict with each other. So that you are not to do whatever you want. If you feel this battle in you, this is good. That means the Spirit is in you. Now, we looked at the Fruit of Love on week two and we saw that that love is selfless, it's sacrificial and it's unconditional.

And that love most perfectly was put on display through Jesus life. He came and gave himself as a sacrifice for. For Us. Then last week, we looked at joy and we talked about how joy is anchored or tethered in salvation, that that is what keeps us firmly hanging onto joy, the joy of our salvation. That in the face of everything else, we can stand firm, tethered to that salvation.

Because every difficulty, pain, hardship, sorrow, trauma in our lives pales in comparison to our salvation. Our inheritance in Jesus, like a ruined shirt, pales in comparison to $432 billion right now. Then we close with some homework last week, and the challenge of last week was to keep our tether to salvation strong by not forgetting gratitude. And so we had a gratitude challenge. Wake up every morning and start listing five things each day that.

That you're thankful for. How many of you guys took part in that this week? Awesome. I had some great conversations, multiple text messages, messages on Facebook. Several of you shared your lists on Facebook.

It was just a great exercise that I'm hoping doesn't stop after this week. It's too good. We got too much good in our lives to forget about it. So let's not quit that. Let me pray for us as we get into this.

My heart has been so heavy with. With this week, this peace. It is such a problem in our culture today that we do not have peace. And so I just want to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to do this on our behalf today. Father, please, please, please help.

Help us to continue this practice of gratitude, not just last week, because it was our homework. We confess that we so quickly lose sight of so many good things in our lives. We get and distracted by all of the stuff of this world in the flesh. And we confess, Lord, that we are so prone to meditate on what we don't have or all the things that we wish were different than to meditate on you and your goodness in our lives. So break us of that, Lord.

And today, Lord, there's so much unpeace, anxiety, fear, distress and worry in our world today. And I believe that you have given us a beautiful answer to that. And so would you uncloud our minds today? Would you till the soil of our hearts, till the soil of our minds, till the soil of our ears, that we would be ready for these seeds that you want to give us seeds of truth today. Seeds that can be planted that you would germinate them and warm them and strengthen them and grow them into peace for us today and in the days ahead.

We pray this in the powerful name of Jesus. Amen.

Peace. Peace. We've talked about peace a lot. There's the word in the Old Testament for peace, which is shalom. And there's the word in the New Testament for peace, which is Irene.

And both of these words mean the same thing. They mean to be tied up together or to be held together in wholeness. It's this picture that everything is like it's supposed to be, not like we want it to be, but how God wants it to be. Biblical peace isn't just about the absence of turmoil and difficulty in war. Biblical peace is about the presence of restoration in Christ.

And it only comes through Christ, through abiding in Jesus. And like joy, we can be unshakably anchored in salvation that Jesus offers us. And peace is then the supernatural response or outflow of that salvation. It's this idea that if God is for us, what can be against us? Nothing can be against us.

In the face of God, nothing compares.

We're also at peace. We have peace with God because of Jesus. Romans 5:1 2 says, Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace. Say I have peace. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.

We now stand church. Don't miss this part. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God for those of us who are in Christ, we have this peace. This is a current, actual reality for us. And still our world is starving for peace.

Thankfully, the Bible has a lot to say about peace. And the Bible also has a lot to say about the opposite of of peace. The Bible suggests that peace is possible in three, at least three key areas. We have peace with God, which we just talked about and discussed a whole lot more last week. And then everyone who is a Christian already has this kind of peace.

Then we have peace with others. And if we are Christians, we are called to make that kind of peace. Those of us who are Christians are called to make this kind of peace. Romans 12, 4, 14, 18. Bless those who persecute you.

Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.

Do not be conceited. Do not repay evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. Basically. Summary, don't do what you want to do.

And then he closes with this. And this is the kicker. If it is possible, sometimes it is not. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. So we have peace with God, peace with others, and then there is peace within.

And while peace with God and peace with others are paramount, we have to have those things in our lives. I think that today we should hone in on this peace within, not in a self centered way, in a Christ centered way. Some of the best advice that I've gotten about preaching is to always attempt to preach to the ache in the room. And I think this is aching deeply in our room. My sense is that many of us today are not experiencing that level of peace.

We have this inner longing for peace, but it feels elusive to us. And if you feel this way, you are not alone. You probably have the Bible app on your phone, the YouVersion Bible app. It's got over 875 million users worldwide and it's offered in over 2,000 languages. And every year they put out a report that shows the number one most looked up verse on the app.

This year or Last year for 2024, that verse out of 31,000 verses in the Bible was Philippians 4. 6. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. This is a huge felt need among those who are pursuing God. And to be frank, I think the church has done a really terrible job about talking about peace and about talking about the opposite of peace, which is fear, anxiety and worry.

I was studying this a lot this week and I was listening to a lot of sermons from a lot of other pastors. And I gotta say, I was troubled by some of the advice that I heard pastors sharing with their congregations. I listened to one sermon. This pastor pulled out two of the keystone verses in the Bible about worry, fear and anxiety. One of them was Philippians 4.

6 from Paul. 1 of them was straight from Jesus mouth. And this pastor said, that's not very helpful.

That's not okay. The Bible has an answer to this problem. It is sitting here available to us if we would pick it up. There's this old Irish proverb that says for every mile of road there are two miles of ditch.

And I think those who have been driving the church have been spending a lot more time in the ditches on this issue than they have been on the road. And I think that it's time that we get better at that because I think it's done more harm than good. The two most common messages coming out of the church on inner peace, the two ditches on either side of the road that I have seen is on one side is it is something like, suck it up, you big babies. Christians should be tougher than that. And if you would just squeeze your faith muscle a lot harder, you'd be tough like me, the guy preaching to you.

Or on the other side, it's something like, we just need to accept that. Fear, worry, anxiety. Those are just things that are poured concrete in people's lives. And if you don't have that problem, then you can't understand. And you're mean.

We would never ask someone with a broken leg to just get up and walk. How dare you suggest that. The Bible tells us to not be anxious about anything. That's just uncaring. It's unkind, it's not gentle.

Jesus is nicer than that. And in fact, he gets it. He knows that you were just dealt really hard cards. And while there are bits of truth in both of these ditches, I believe that they are the ditches. And I believe that we can do better than that.

I think they are a gross misrepresentation of what the Bible tells us is available to those of us who are in Christ. Now, I'd imagine that even as I described these two sides, you found yourself agreeing with one of them and disagreeing with the other one. Because if we're honest, we're driving squarely in one of those ditches, most likely.

So let me preface everything that follows from here with my agenda for this message, because I have a very loaded agenda and I want you to know what it is. I have the agenda that I want to put blinders on both sides of our heads. And we can throw out personalities and throw out preferences and throw out circumstances and. And we consider what the Bible actually says about this. Are you familiar with that term, blinders?

That's what they. Those things they put on the sides of horses heads. You know, horses are notoriously easy to spook, especially if something comes from their side or their back. They're so easy to spook. And so they put these blinders on the horses to keep them from the distractions of the things on the side and behind them.

And so today that's what I want to do. I want us to get us undistracted and unspooked from the ditches on either side so we can stay focused on the road, which I believe is the word.

So let's get the first side of our blinders in place as we look at what we've been calling the fake plastic fruit of peace. This is the stuff that looks like good activity, but isn't the actual biblical peace one big Part of this is actually a whole section of what we covered last week and the whole section about optimism, positivity, happiness and excitement. I could literally just copy paste that into this week's message. Those things are conditional and temporary. But beyond that, one of the things that I've observed, especially among Christians, is that in the name of peace, we have become masters at avoidance and superficial harmony.

We say things like, I'll be fine, I don't want to rock the boat. I'd be honest, but I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. It's easier to just keep everyone happy. Hey, to each his own. Who am I to judge?

Of course, right after that, we go find an echo chamber of friends to go surround ourselves with and we all kind of act like mother birds feeding each other with our regurgitated ideas. That's gross and it's accurate. We read Jesus words from Matthew 5:9. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. And then we convince ourselves that we are peacemakers, but really functionally, we are just peacekeepers.

And peacekeeping is not peace making. It's not peacemaking. This is effective sometimes at making me or someone around me feel better for just a little bit of time, but it's short lived. Peacekeeping is fake temporary peace. It's not what we're talking about.

Peacemaking is messy, it is honest, it is sometimes painful. Peace making. Now the other side of our blinders comes by looking at the evil twin of true biblical peace. This is the fruit that the enemy convinces us is the real thing, but it's actually poison that is shriveling the real thing. I think for almost all of us this comes in the form of temporarily numbing or distracting.

Again, you could take a whole section of from last week's sermon about joy and place it right here on indulgence, materialism and escapism. But another way that this is laid out in our lives, that it's playing out in our lives, is offered to us in the form of manipulation and control. Manipulation and control. When we try to find peace through manipulation and control, we yell at our kids to get them to stop yelling at each other. We gaslight the people around us to convince them that they are the problem when we are actually the problem.

We try to offset our sin and shortcomings, thinking that we can cover them up with good behavior and moralism. We throw money at things and buy ourselves peace. We buy stuff and substances and experiences to make ourselves feel better. Or one common example that I've seen this play out in is actually for parents who have adult children and they dangle money and cars and vacations in front of their adult children to get them to come around anytime that that money bell rings so that they can have that kind of peace. And this, this is the evil twin of peace.

I have a term for all these types of false peace we've just described. Pacifier peace. Pacifier peace. As long as our peace binky stays in our mouth, we can just suck away our problems and we can distract ourselves with the truth that we are still plagued with fear, anxiety and worry. But real biblical peace never comes at the cost of truth.

One last thing before we look at what the Bible says about real peace. If we dare to suggest that the writers of the Bible just didn't. They don't understand that our world today is far more anxiety producing than their world was. Let's just do a quick comparison here. First century infant mortality rate was 25 to 30%.

Ours in America today is 0.54%. That's more than 50% lower infant mortality rate. We get to experience for them diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, intestinal parasites, leprosy, all kinds of infections were a death sentence. They were fatal. These are all things we now have vaccines, cures and antibiotics for.

They lived in a time of real persecution like imprisonment, crucifixion, being burned for entertainment, fed to lions. They lived in a time with no therapists, no counselors, no anti anxiety medication, no mental health experts. We have peace through insurance and Social Security and healthcare and education and surgeons and counselors and medications and911 and locks on our doors and security cameras and, and the police and government services and the most powerful military forces in the world. If there is a deficit in understanding the opposite of peace, it is not theirs. It is ours.

It is ours. So let's look at what Jesus said about this and note that these words were spoken hours before. He knew that he would be arrested, beaten, tortured and and crucified. And he tells his friends he's there with his disciples. He tells his friends that he's going away.

They don't understand what that means yet. And then he says this to them in John 14:26 and 27, I'm going away. But the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I've said to you. Peace I leave with you. The Holy Spirit.

Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. This is peace that belongs to Jesus, God himself. His peace is given to us in the form of the Holy Spirit. I do not give to you as the world gives.

This is a different kind of peace. And so he says, do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. And that word troubled means sorrow, fear. Now I like how the new living translation puts it too. He says, I'm leaving you with a gift, peace of mind and heart.

And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don't be troubled or afraid. There is a word in here that is so loaded with meaning that we can't skip over it. That word be troubled. It's just one word.

And here's what it means. It means to let yourself be troubled by yourself. That's one word. All that's packed into that one word. To let yourself be troubled by yourself.

Jesus is saying that our troubled hearts are made troubled by us, by us. Church. If we have the Holy Spirit, then we in fact have the peace. We are a peace producing vine or plant or tree. Jesus is telling us that true biblical peace isn't conditional, it's positional.

It is positional. We are in Christ, the Holy Spirit is in us. And the source of peace then is in us. We are in a default position of peace. And it is to the extent that we let ourselves be troubled by ourselves, our own hearts, our own minds, how, by meditating on fear and anxiety, that we starve the production of this peace that is ours.

Just like we described last week, being anchored to salvation is to have joy and that we are the ones who can cut that tether with our forgetfulness of our salvation and joy. We have in us peace unless we let our hearts be troubled. This is very different from what the world is telling us. The world is telling us that fear, anxiety and worry, they are baked in. They are outside forces being imposed on us that we can do nothing about.

Jesus says in John 16:33, I have said these things to you that in me, in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have tribulation, you will have trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world. If the one who has overcome the world is for us, what can be against us? He says, in me, that is positional peace.

So let's zoom out on Philippians 4, that verse that we said is the most looked up verse in 2024. And we'll see this whole package of salvation that leads to joy, resulting in peace. And when we put all this together and we finally understand how Paul could possibly say something that sounded so cold and so insensitive as be anxious about nothing.

The world says that is impossible. The Bible says that when we understand all of this combined reality, and when we do one more very important thing, which we'll see, then being anxious about nothing is actually possible. It's actually offered to us now, right before this. This is the verse we read last week where it says, rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say, rejoice.

And then he says this in Philippians 4, 6, do not be anxious about anything. But instead of that, in every situation, by prayer and petition, that's spending time talking and listening with God. And petition which is asking, we're asking. So prayer and petition with thanksgiving. This is the gratitude we talked about last week that keeps us anchored to joy.

Present your requests.

It didn't say, give him your laundry list and he'll solve all your problems. He said, present your requests to God. The peace of God is a mighty warrior, guardian for our hearts. Let's read this. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, goes beyond understanding.

Will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. This guardian of our hearts is the peace of God. It's our bouncer at the door that kicks out fear, anxiety and worry and won't let it come back in. And then we are given a recipe for a meal to feed this guardian to keep him fat and happy.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. You know who is all of those things? Jesus. Jesus is all of those things. Then Paul closes with this.

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, put into practice. He's saying what he said before. Follow me as I follow Christ. And the God of peace will be with you. The God of peace will be with you.

But we've got to bring everything to him. When we are in Christ, His Holy Spirit, the Spirit of peace is in us. We are peace trees. And the fertilizer for that peace to be maintained and to grow is through what we think on, meditate on practice and present to God in prayer. And through this, our bouncer, our guardian.

For fear, anxiety and worry is nourished and strengthened. This is not saying suck it up. And this is not saying it's impossible to move past fear, anxiety and worry. It is saying that if God is not a liar and if the Bible is actually true, then there is a way. There is A way to get and maintain internal peace now in this life.

But there is also a way to let our hearts be troubled. Peace is nourished or starved here first. Peace is nourished or starved in our minds first. Romans 8, 6. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.

And so I say, hey, would you rather have death or life and peace? And you would say death every day, right? No, of course we would not. It is nourished or it is starved in our minds first. Don't miss this.

If instead of meditating on what is true, right, noble, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy, we choose to meditate on what is hard, painful, sad, uncontrollable and nerve wracking, then in effect we decide that these things are bigger, greater and more powerful than God. Because they are bigger, greater and more powerful than God. They are more worthy of our meditation.

This is a big deal. We can either be in awe of our great problems or we can be in awe of our great God. These are our choices. And you say, that sounds nice, doesn't really add up in my experience. And I say that's exactly why Paul can say with assurance that this is peace that goes beyond our understanding.

It's beyond anything that the world offers. Jesus said that same thing. This is a different kind of peace with a different kind of equation.

This is a peace that works in a way that we can't understand. And still too many of us are approaching God in our prayers, like someone who has a backpack on full of rocks. And we come to God and we set the backpack down and we unzip it and we pull out a rock at a time and we go, God, this one's really hard. If you can make this better. God, this one's really hard if you could make this go away.

And God, this one's really hard. If you could make me feel better about this. And after our show and tell, we put them back in, we zip up our bag and we put it back on our backs and we go carry all the load again. Because instead of doing what we ought to do, we go and we present our problems to God. But what we need to start doing is presenting God to our problems because our God is bigger than our problems.

And we have a perspective problem. We. We have a huge perspective problem. Did you notice that whatever is in front of your face always looks like the bigger thing? But if we could hold our problems out, our sorrows, our anxieties, our fears, Our worries.

If we could hold those out at arm's length, we could finally see that they are nothing in comparison to our God. It's time that we show our problems who our God is.

So I have two challenges for us this week. One is to memorize the recipe for our guardian, Philippians 4. 8. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy about such things, my 12 year old has that memorized. You can memorize that.

You can memorize that. Get Philippians 4. 8 in you. Get it in you. So you can meditate on that instead of meditating on your problems.

Second thing, second challenge is this. We've got to shift our prayers. Instead of having show and tell time with our rock bag with God, we got to start presenting God to our problems. That's our challenge this week. And you'll find yourself, I guarantee you will find yourself in that situation again this week where you get your rocks out of your bag and you are show and tell, showing God your problems.

And you will snap out of that and you will say to yourself, today I'm showing God to my problems. We've got to do this. So memorize Philippians4.8 as homework number one, and homework number two is to present God to our problems instead of presenting problems to our God.

When our youngest, Wyatt was three weeks old, he was admitted to Children's Hospital. He had a fever, and they immediately brought us in, and there was fear that he had bacterial meningitis. And so the problem at three weeks old is that can kill his fragile little body. And so we go immediately in. Some friends of ours took the older two kids, and Heidi and I went and took him in and they said to make sure, we've got to do a spinal tap on his little body.

I'll never forget holding. They didn't have enough help at the hospital, and they asked if I would hold him. And I folded his little body up and he was crying, making those noises that only newborns can make. We know those sounds. And they stuck that needle in his back as I held him hunched over.

And they said, we won't get the results back from this for several hours. So what we need to do, this is the course of action. We need to put an IV into him and we need to pump antibiotics into his body, a strong level of antibiotics into his body for the next 36 hours so that we can make sure and kill this thing that might be in him now. Imagine in this moment, I look at the doctor and I say to him, do you just have one of those really good pacifiers instead? Like the really good ones?

Don't you guys have really good pacifiers here? Because that would. I think that would just feel a lot. That would be good for me. That would be good for him.

He wouldn't have to have a spinal tap. He wouldn't have to have a needle in his arm. This would be so much easier for us. And then we wouldn't have to stay here for 36 hours. Don't you have one of those really good pacifiers?

That would be crazy, because we were faced with. With the possibility that there was a poison in our son's body that could actually kill him. And the only way to fight that thing that could kill him was to inject an antibiotic into his bloodstream that would flow out to every cell in his body and do for him what he could not do for himself, what I could not do for him. No pacifier, no comforting words, no pats on the back, no lotion on his feet. Nothing could solve this problem except for an antibiotic pumping through his bloodstream out to every cell in his body.

And some of us today are living with the poison of fear and anxiety and worry. And it's in our bloodstream. It's so deeply in our bloodstream, we're trying every pacifier on the shelf to try to make it go away. But there is only one prince of peace, and his name is Jesus. His name is Jesus.

And this is not some. Let's get real excited about some super spiritual thing. That Jesus is just really nice. And if you just feel better about Jesus. No, the Bible says he is the solution.

He is offering you his salvation. He has given you. If you are in his salvation, you. You have peace now. It's in your bloodstream.

And it's time that we stop meditating on all of our woes and we start meditating on what is good, true, right, noble, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy. Because in the face of Jesus, our problems are nothing. They're nothing.