The Joy of the Gospel | The Joy of Peace

Thanks for checking out this podcast from Cardiff Christian Church.

We're so glad you're here.

Our hope is that through these messages you'll grow deeper in your faith and experience the life-changing hope of Jesus.

Now let's jump into this week's teaching.

We would like to share with you our scripture for today.

I have a couple of friends here.

This is Abel, and this is Brody.

And they're from our fourth and fifth grade classes here.

And we're going to share with you Philippians 4, 2 through 9.

Here is what I'm asking Yodia and Synthie to do.

I'm asking them to work together in the Lord.

That's because they both belong to the Lord.

My true companion, here is what I ask you to do: help these women because they have served at my side.

They have worked with me to spread the good news.

So have Clement and the rest of those who have worked together with me.

Their names are all written in the book of life.

Always be joyful.

You belong to the Lord.

Say it again.

Be joyful.

Let everyone know how gentle you are.

The Lord is coming soon.

Don't worry about anything, no matter what happens.

Tell God about everything.

Ask and pray.

Give thanks to Him.

Then God's peace will watch over your hearts and your minds.

He will do this because you belong to Christ Jesus.

God's peace can never be completely understood.

Finally, my brothers and sisters, always think about what is true, think about what is noble, right, and pure.

Think about what is lovely and worthy of respect.

If anything is excellent or worthy of praise, think about those kinds of things.

Do what you have learned or received or heard from me.

Follow my example.

The God who gives peace will be with you.

So before we jump into our teaching today, I want us to, in honor of this weekend and this Memorial Day celebration that we'll have tomorrow, I really want us to take a moment of silence.

And in that silence, as you sit there in the stillness and in the quietness, I want you to do two things.

I want you to allow yourself to think about and to remember the people that we've lost in our lives, and with a spirit of gratitude and thankfulness in our hearts for them, to just let those memories come to the forefront of your mind.

And then ultimately, certainly, we want to remember those who have paid the ultimate price so that we may enjoy all that we get to enjoy in this country.

So I want to give you a moment of silence and then I'll close us in prayer.

Thank you for the uh time that we spent together, for the memories, for the lessons that we'll endure through generations.

And Lord, we uh come before you with appreciation for the freedom that we get to enjoy in this country.

One that is not only for our personal gain, but is an opportunity for us to worship freely, to represent you freely, to serve you freely, to share the gospel with others freely.

We know that many suffered and were lost to secure that.

And Lord, as we talk about peace today, we pray not only for peace in our country and in our world, but we pray for peace around the world.

Lord, we pray that peace may endure so that suffering may be mitigated and ultimately so that the gospel may be shared.

We pray all of this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So today we are talking about the joy of peace.

Now, peace is often defined by what it is not.

Peace is often defined as the absence of conflict.

We can talk about peace on the world stage whenever there is an absence of war or conflict, and we talk about peace in that particular context.

But we can also talk about peace as it relates to our own lives, that we can experience peace within ourselves, that we can experience peace with one another, and then ultimately we experience peace with God, and there is great joy to be found when we experience the peace that only God can offer us.

So as I was thinking about this subject and this message and thinking through this passage that we're gonna be looking at in Philippians chapter 4, I was reminded of this video that went viral quite a few years ago.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

You'll see this still shout out this if you remember this video, this guy, but um quite a few years ago, he's giving an interview to a college professor, an expert, and whatever he's being interviewed on.

And in the middle of this interview with BBC News, he has some little but very cute disturbances.

You can check out the video.

Uh and what will it mean for uh for the wider region?

I think one of your children has just walked in.

I mean, shift it shifting shifting sounds in the region.

Do you think relations with the north may change?

Um, I would be surprised if they do.

Um pardon me.

Pardon me.

What is this gonna be for the region?

My apologies.

North uh sorry, um, North Korea.

So as I'm thinking about peace, I this this video just came to my mind and it reminded me, uh, and I think it reminds all of us, that oftentimes life doesn't go as we expect it to go.

Can I get an oh yeah on that?

We expect our relationships, our marriage, our family, our finances, our health, our work.

We expect it to go a certain way, and oftentimes we experience disruptions and interruptions from what we expect.

And whenever those interruptions and disruptions come our way, it creates chaos at times, and quickly to follow is fear and worry and anxiety.

There's a book by Max Lakato called Anxious for Nothing.

In the book, he describes anxiety this way.

He says, it is a shower of what ifs.

What ifs?

And he goes on to write, what if I don't close the sale?

And then what if we don't get the bonus as a result?

And then what if we can't afford braces for the kids?

And then what if my kids have crooked teeth?

And what if crooked teeth keep them from having friends, a career, or a spouse?

And then what if they end up homeless and hungry, holding a cardboard sign that reads, My parents couldn't afford braces for me?

An avalanche of what ifs.

Lucato goes on to write, anxiety is the cousin of fear.

Fear says, get out, get out of the burning building.

But anxiety ponders, what if?

And oh, how the what-ifs can rob us of the peace that is available to us as Jesus people.

Because Jesus is offering us something completely different.

Because those of us who have the joy of the gospel, which is what we've been talking about through this whole series, the joy of the gospel, the joy of the assurance of our salvation, the very presence of the Holy Spirit in our life, those of us who have the joy of the gospel, we are to be a people of peace.

That's a defining quality, a defining characteristic of who we are to be.

The peace that we have received is the peace that we should demonstrate to others.

So can I just pause for just a moment for personal application and ask you this question?

When people describe you, people you go to school with or work with, people in your family, your kids, your spouse, when they describe you, would they use the word peace as a description of who you are?

In the passage that was read earlier to us, Paul writes some of the most beautiful, encouraging words on peace that you'll find in Scripture.

So here's my question, very direct.

What does it mean for us to be a people of peace?

What does it mean for us to be a people of peace?

So as we look at the earlier verses of our passage, first of all, people of peace pursue peace with each other, with one another.

We have to start in the proper place.

If we're going to be people of peace, we have to start right where we are, right here in this room.

We are to pursue peace and mutual edification of one another.

This is the answer to Jesus' prayer for us.

Jesus prayed that we as the church, as believers, as followers of Him, might be one, that we would, in our oneness, in our unity, in our in our peace with one another, be a reflection of our one God who exists in three persons, that we should reflect his peace in the world, that we should be peacemakers.

And so over and over throughout Paul's writings, he is repeatedly urging us to agree with one another in the Lord.

Those are his words, to agree with one another.

Now, what I uh so appreciate, we made these scripture journals available at the beginning of the series.

Some of you are using them.

Um, but what they remind me of is that what we call books of the Bible really aren't books as much as they are letters, right?

They're personal correspondences.

Paul is in Rome, in prison, Timothy is by his side.

Epaphroditus, who is a Philippian, who's from Philippi, has traveled a great distance to bring an offering to Paul, to minister alongside him, to encourage him.

And so this encouragement is given to Paul, and eventually, in the context and in the moment of Epaphroditus being there in Rome, Paul writes these words on a scroll.

He rolls them up, he hands them to Epaphroditus who travels all the way back to Philippi and in the house churches throughout Philippi, Epaphroditus very likely is the one who opens the scroll and reads these words out loud for the first time for the believers in Philippi to hear them.

And probably sitting in that circle in some house church in Philippi in the middle of the first century were two ladies called Yodiah and Syntichy.

Can you imagine being in the room when you hear those words read out loud for the first time?

Right?

Tell them to get along with each other.

Tell them to quit fighting with each other.

And they're sitting in a circle with each other.

They're like, yo, he's talking about you right now.

Can you imagine what that would have been like?

What a wake-up call that would have been.

So my imagination gets the best of me.

I imagine like Epaphroditus shows up in Rome and Paul hasn't seen him for a long time, and they have a conversation.

It's just this imaginary conversation.

And I would imagine that Paul probably doesn't want to say the name of Paphroditus over and over because it's a really weird long name.

So he gives him a nickname like Epap, you know, that seems like a good nickname.

So he's like, yo, Epap, uh, tell me, how's it going back in Philippi?

Tell me, tell me what's going on.

How are the brothers and sisters doing?

And and I imagine Epap says, Oh man, Paul, things are great.

I'm just telling you, I mean, we have our opposition, we have our challenges, but man, we're so on fire for the gospel, and everybody's so generous.

In fact, we took up this offering uh to give to you, to encourage you.

Uh, really, really going well.

Oh man, Paul says, that's that's so amazing.

That just is such an encouragement to me.

But are there any problems?

Like, are there any issues that you're dealing with?

And Epap thinks about it for a little bit.

He's like, well, I mean, yeah, we do have our struggles.

Like, oddly enough, the church seems to be really struggling with pride right now.

And Paul, like, that lights him up.

He's like, You've got pride, you kidding me?

Like, how could they, don't they know that their attitude needs to be the same as Jesus' attitude, that they need to consider the needs and interests of others?

It's more important than our own needs.

And and Epaphroditus is like, dude, you should write that down.

That's that's really good stuff.

Paul's like, you know what?

I will.

I'll do that.

And Epap continues, he says, and and you know, this issue with pride, it just keeps showing itself in division in the church.

Like, do you remember Yodiah and Synthy?

You remember those those two ladies?

For some reason, they used to be you know friends, just side by side, contending for the gospel, but now they seem to be arguing with one another, and sides are being formed, and accusations are being made, and there's gossip and name-calling, and it's just so unfortunate.

And so Paul writes, I encourage you, Yodiah, and I entreat you, Syntheci, to agree in the Lord.

Underline that phrase.

The word that Paul uses there, agree in the Lord.

It's the same word that Paul uses in chapter 2, verse 5, when he says, your attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ.

They need to have the same attitude in the Lord.

And I also ask you, my true companion, help these women who have labored side by side.

Look at the imagery that Paul uses here, side by side with me in the gospel, together with Clement.

It's the only place in the Bible that this guy is mentioned, Clement.

Church history, tradition tells us that he was a faithful minister of the gospel who was persecuted for his faith.

They tied rocks to his feet and threw him in the sea, and that's how his life ended.

With Clement, the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.

My old seminary professor, whenever we would study the Bible together, he would implore us over and over.

He would always say to us, You got to get under the text.

You got to get under the text.

Like, what's driving it?

What's motivating the words?

Why is Paul writing this letter to this church at this time?

Why is the Holy Spirit compelling, inspiring Paul to write these words?

And one of the primary motivations of Paul throughout all of his letters is the issue of disunity in the church.

He addresses it in lots of different ways, but that is at the forefront of his mind when he writes Philippians and all of the other letters that he writes.

Paul is deeply concerned about the lack of peace in the church.

Because Paul knew that those who supposedly claim to have the peace of the gospel, those who claim to have peace with God should be at peace with God's people.

They should be peacemakers, as Jesus tells us to be.

So Paul writes things in his other letters like make every effort to do what leads to peace and mutual edification.

Or in Romans 15, accept one another, then just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.

1 Corinthians 1, I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you would agree with one another in what you say, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.

And again, here in Philippians chapter 4 to the people of Philippi, agree in the Lord.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

Have the same attitude that the Lord has towards us.

Now I know in a group this size, this many people, many people watching online, that there are going to be disagreements over things that are not that important.

Just crowd interaction, for example, it's summertime.

We've got summer vacations right around the corner.

So if you had to choose mountains or ocean for your vacation, let me see, show of hands.

How many of you would choose the mountains?

Let me see you out there, you mountain people.

How many of you would choose the ocean?

That's the correct answer.

And the overwhelming answer.

Well done.

All right, coffee or tea.

How many of you are coffee drinkers?

How many of you are tea drinkers?

All right, quite a few.

My daughter, she would say matcha.

I don't even know what that is, but she she loves it.

All right, Pepsi or Coke.

How many of you are Pepsi drinkers?

How many of you are Coke drinkers?

Right answer.

How many of you are like Dr.

Pepper all the way?

Give me Dr.

Most DP people are passionate about their Dr.

Pepper.

Here's the point.

There may be differences among us about the non-essentials, but when it comes to the things that matter the most, Paul says, agree with one another.

In our heritage as a restoration movement church, we have a saying, in essentials, unity.

In non-essentials, liberty, but in all things, love.

Because Jesus' people who have the joy of the gospel should at all times be pursuing peace with one another, arm in arm, side by side, with the joy of the gospel in our hearts.

We pursue peace in our relationships with one another.

As far as it depends on you, Paul writes, to pursue peace.

So is there somebody in your life right now that you need to pursue peace with?

Is there somebody you need to be reconciled with?

Somebody you need to forgive?

That you need to apologize to?

Is there something that maybe you need to let go of?

Which is actually what the word forgiveness means.

To let go, to release it.

People of peace pursue peace with each other.

Secondly, people of peace present their burdens to God.

They present their burdens to God.

Philippians chapter 4, verses 4 through 7, one of the most powerful, beautiful paragraphs in the Bible.

Philippians 4:4–7

I don't know if you're in the habit of memorizing scripture, but this would be an amazing place to start for you.

To bury these words in your heart, to read them every day this week, and to just remember, put into your mind these powerful words and to personalize them.

Especially if you're struggling with anxiousness or with worry, you bury this word in your heart.

And when you can't sleep at night, you just rehearse them out loud as a prayer to God.

Or you're on your way to work and you feel the weight of that, you say these words out loud as a prayer because you have it buried in your heart and mind.

Or when panic hits you in the middle of the day, you recite these words that you've memorized.

I will rejoice in the Lord always.

Again, I will rejoice.

Let my reasonableness, let my gentleness be known to everyone because the Lord is at my right hand.

Don't be anxious about anything, but in everything I will present my prayers and requests with thanksgiving in my heart.

I will make them known to God because I know that the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard my heart and my mind in Christ Jesus.

Now I want to land on that word guard.

He will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.

That word guard there elsewhere outside of the Bible.

It's used to describe a watchman on the tower who is watching for the enemies, who is protecting the city, who is staying alert and awake all night long to protect those who are inside the city walls.

This is what God does for us.

He is on alert, he is watching out for you, guarding, protecting your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.

Friends, we need these words because circumstances can certainly overwhelm us.

I read the story of two bankers who were long friends and they went out to lunch with one another, and the one banker asked the other one, so tell me how's your health doing?

How's it been?

His friend said, Oh man, I feel great.

I don't have a care in the world.

And his friend is surprised to hear this, and he's like, Well, how did that happen?

He says, Well, you know, my doctor told me that all of my health problems were caused from worrying too much, too much about the economy, right?

Who among us?

So I hired myself a professional worrier.

Whenever something starts to bother me, I just turn it over to him and he does all my worrying for me.

His friend is like, wow, I would love to hire someone like that.

How much does he charge?

$100,000.

$100,000?

How in the world can you afford$100,000?

He said, I don't know.

I let him worry about that.

Wouldn't that be great?

Wouldn't it be amazing if we could give all of our worries, all of our burdens, all of our problems, all of our concerns to somebody who could actually bear them.

Carry them.

Of course, the good news of this passage is that we worship a God who is able to carry our burdens.

And the Invitation of this passage is to present our requests to Him with thanksgiving in our heart, knowing that God will do our good and His good in all circumstances.

And the promise of this passage is that the God of peace will guard our hearts and minds, will protect us.

It reminds me of what the psalmist wrote.

I lift my eyes to the hills.

I lift my eyes to the options that this world has to offer.

I lift my eyes to the obstacles that lay in our way on this journey of life.

I lift my eyes to the hills.

And then the psalmist asks this question: Where does my help come from?

And then the congregation answers the psalmist.

Our help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

So what burdens are you carrying around today?

In fact, I would encourage you to do this just as a spiritual exercise if you're taking notes right now or if you're using your journal.

Just write down your burdens.

Whatever they are, whatever comes to your mind right now.

I imagine something has just come to your thoughts, a financial challenge, a work situation, a relational issue that you're dealing with, the thing that keeps you up at night, the what-ifs that overwhelm you.

Just write them down right now, even as I speak, write them down as a way of surrendering them to the Lord, as a way of presenting your burdens, as Paul invites us to do in our passage, as an act of trust.

As you write those down today, right now, even.

In the book I mentioned earlier, you're anxious for nothing.

The author provides a pretty helpful acronym to serve as a practical reminder of what we can do whenever we find ourselves dealing with worry and anxiousness.

He says, When you're anxious, see, celebrate God's goodness.

In fact, these go right along with this paragraph of scripture.

Celebrate God's goodness.

Remember that God is great, even when our circumstances are not.

Celebrate God's goodness.

Ask God for help.

Present your burdens, present your requests to God with thanksgiving in your heart.

Ask him for help.

It reminds me of James, the brother of Jesus, his teaching in chapter one.

If anybody lacks wisdom, what do you need to do?

Just ask God for it, and God will freely give it to anyone who asks.

Ask God for help.

L, leave your concerns with him.

You don't have to be anxious about anything.

You can present those requests, and the peace of God will guard your hearts.

You can leave those concerns with him.

And then M, meditate on good things.

Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, pure, lovely, commendable.

If anything is excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things when you're overwhelmed by the circumstances of life.

Meditate on good things.

C-A-L-M, calm in the midst of the storm.

Which brings us to our third and ultimate way that we experience peace as Jesus' people.

People of peace find rest in the presence of God.

What you have learned, what you have received, what you have heard and seen in me, practice these things.

And when Paul writes that, doesn't that remind you of Jesus' teaching?

Whoever hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like what?

A wise man who built his house on the rock.

Even when the storms come, that rock will not, that house will not fall because it has its foundation on the rock.

Put it into practice, and here's the promise.

And the God of peace will be with you.

Now, when Paul writes about peace here in this passage, there is actually something quite subversive that he's doing.

In the middle of the first century, Rome, the Roman Empire for hundreds of years, has been in a period of time that historians refer to as the Pox Romana.

It's Latin for the Roman peace.

Historians describe it as the golden age of Roman power and dominance and stability and expansion.

And for most people in the empire, at least those who are on the inside who don't rock the boat, certainly not for Christians, but for Roman citizens, it was a time of relative peace and prosperity and order.

Something that I would say in our society we value even now.

But like today, the kind of peace that the world experienced then and the kind of peace that we experience today is often achieved through domination and war and power.

But Jesus and thus Jesus people, people who claim to be followers of Jesus, we experience peace in a much different way.

Peace is not experienced through power.

It's not experienced by speaking your mind, by having your way, regardless of the circumstances.

After all, Paul says earlier in this letter, our God is not our stomach.

We don't get to just do whatever our desires prompt us to do.

We don't experience peace by winning arguments on Facebook or by having our way in the polls of politics.

It's not experienced by might and force, but peace in the kingdom of God is experienced through presence.

He is our peace, Paul says.

Through faith in Jesus, the walls of hostility are torn down between us and God, and therefore we get to enter into his presence and experience peace with God.

And because we get to enter into the presence of God and experience peace with him, we therefore can experience peace with one another, and peace even in the midst of the most difficult of circumstances.

Peace is experienced through presence.

I want you to think of it this way: a few images to finish with.

Imagine a pretty common scene.

Little boy is at an amusement park.

It's been a perfect day for him.

The rides, the cotton candy, roller coasters, playgrounds, the weather's been amazing.

He is at peace walking around this amusement park with his mother and father by his side.

And then all of a sudden the boy notices something.

He sees something.

It catches his attention.

And so he he veers in that direction.

And then he notices something else that catches his attention.

And so he walks over in another direction.

And then something else catches his attention.

So he wanders a little bit further away.

And then he stops and he looks around and he doesn't see his mother or father.

All he sees are strangers.

And he doesn't know whether to go right or left or to stay still.

He doesn't know who to talk to.

He doesn't know who could actually help him.

And the worry quickly turns into fear, which turns into panic and desperation.

And just as he is about to scream for help, he hears his name in the distance.

And so he listens and he hears it again, a familiar voice saying his name.

It draws closer and closer to him until he's certain that he recognizes the voice.

And when he turns around, he sees his mother and his father.

And the fear and the panic and the desperation instantly disappear.

And he is at peace.

Or I think about my kids when they were little, they're not little anymore, but but when they were little, there was this kind of unspoken, spoken rule in our house: don't disturb dad's sleep.

You know, it's like it wasn't written down anywhere, it was just known, maybe verbalized.

So, like you got a problem in the middle of the night, you go, you go see your mom, right?

They just understood that.

So uh the exception, of course, would be when there was a thunderstorm outside, and whenever there was a thunderstorm, sure enough, it's very likely, one by one, the door would creak open and they would pitter-patter their little feet across the bedroom floor, lift themselves up into our bed, nestle themselves in between their mother and father until they are sound asleep.

And they pushed us to the very edge of the bed, unable to sleep.

Now, in both of these scenarios, the amusement park and the thunderstorm, the surroundings, the circumstances didn't change.

The little boy was still in a busy, loud, bustling amusement park, surrounded by strangers, unable to find his way on his own, and the thunder and the lightning and the rain and the wind were still raging outside, but something is different.

And you know the difference, don't you?

It always makes the difference.

To be in the presence of someone who loves you, who knows you, who sees you, it makes all the difference in the world.

For Jesus people, we pursue peace in a different way.

Peace is not experienced through power, it's experienced when we rest in the presence of God.

Come to me, all who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.

Augustine once wrote, You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.

One last image.

So I spent a lot of time as a kid and as a teenager and even adult years going to New York.

I love New York City, and one of my favorite places to visit in the city is Central Park.

It's right there in the middle of this crazy, loud, busy, noisy city, horns honking all around, people and cars and towering buildings, and yet right there, right in the middle of all of the craziness, 843 acres of peace.

And throughout those 843 acres, there are over 10,000 park benches.

A place to be still, to rest tired legs, to enjoy God's creation, to have a conversation to find peace.

He is our park bench in the middle of the chaos of this world.

If only we would rest in his presence, because when our hearts are anchored in the assurances of the gospel, then even in the most stressful of circumstances, we can be a peaceful oasis.

We can be the eye of the storm.

We can be a park bench in the middle of a city that never sleeps.

So I guess my encouragement to you today is for us to be a people of peace who are bringing peace to the world.

Thanks again for listening to the Carterville Christian Church podcast.

Our prayer is that today's message has encouraged you and drawn you closer to Jesus.

To learn more or get connected with our church family, visit Carterville Christian.com.

We'd love to walk alongside you in your journey of faith.