Peace in the Messy Pursuit • Philippians 4:2-9

Good morning, church.

How are we?

Good?

Good.

My name is Jordan, like Miss Brandy said, one of the pastors here.

It's my privilege to uh continue our series in Philippians chapter 4, A Colony in Heaven.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

And this morning we're gonna be talking about peace.

All of us are searching for peace.

Uh Augustine of Hippo in Northern Africa has famously quoted that our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.

And so this morning, we're gonna be looking to the peace that is only possible in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

If you are new with us or if you've been tracking along the series, I want to kind of like uh pull back a little bit uh from where we've been and kind of look big picture.

And so this series has been called A Colony of Heaven.

And uh we've been going week in and week out, working through the Apostle Paul's writing to a church in the city of Philippi.

And so what we know about this church is that Paul's normal uh custom would be to go to a new town.

He would find the synagogue and he would try to encourage and meet with the brothers and sisters.

But when he arrived in Philippi and Macedonia, today, modern-day Greece, there was no church to be found.

And so he did find some women outside the city, one uh very well-known woman that we maybe you've heard, and uh her name was Lydia, and he met with her and he prayed with these women, and really they became the foundation for what the church would become in the city of Philippi.

Paul is writing this letter from a Roman jail cell.

And so it's oddly enough, the church in Philippi is experiencing all sorts of persecution and hardship in their lives, and Paul is writing to them from a prison cell himself.

He's experienced it uh being flogged and almost uh killed.

And so Paul is writing this letter to the church in Philippi.

And so this is kind of like the wrapping up of the letter.

Uh he's been encouraging them, he's been addressing certain things, but this today is chapter four as he's wrapping down his letter.

We want to view it as kind of like his final before I go, before I put the pen down and stop writing to you, I want to encourage you in this way.

And so that's what we're really going to be looking at today.

Specifically, Paul is going to call the church to peace and unity, particularly amongst the believers in the church.

The title of the sermon today is Peace and the Messy Pursuit.

If you've been attending Sacred Mission Church for any length of time, you've heard our mission groups uh kind of uh our slogan is life together and a messy pursuit of Jesus.

And so, even in this context, um the church in Philippi was living life in a in a messiness, a messy situation, a persecution, and we're gonna look at a conflict that arose amongst the believers in the church.

One thing that I do know to be true is that until Jesus calls his bride home and perfect peace and glory, we all are at war with an enemy.

We're at war.

And so we are going to experience hardship and pain and strife and suffering.

And furthermore, the way that believers conduct ourselves in the midst of these chaotic schemes of Satan is directly proportionate to the degree of gospel transformation that has taken place in our lives.

The way we as believers conduct ourselves in the midst of the chaotic schemes of our enemy, Satan, is directly proportionate to the degree of gospel transformation that has taken place in our lives.

By grace to the sanctifying work of Christ's Spirit in us.

And so times in Philippi are tough.

And times today are tough, and they will get tougher.

And so, how we as believers embody peace in this messiness, this pursuit of peace, is of utmost importance.

So I want to kind of level the playing field for everyone in this room.

If you've been around church for any length of time, I would like to just kind of air out the laundry here and just raise your hand if you've been in church and you've been a part of some type of conflict with a brother in church, maybe even a church split, a church hardship, a church division, just by a show of hands.

Who in this room has experienced this, right?

Yeah.

All of us in this room having, we are sinful people, right?

We there was two hands I saw a few times in a couple gatherings now.

Yeah, we've all seen this, right?

We as the body of Christ are not saved from conflict amongst each other because of our sin.

It affects us too.

And so hopefully that person is not sitting right next to you this morning, this conflict.

But if they are, we before we take communion, you can come before each other and repent and reconcile.

But this call to peace is something that we're going to be harping on this morning.

Our main point this morning, I'm going to give a little early, is that as the people of God, it is our privilege to live out the gospel in true peace.

As the people of God, it is a privilege to live out the gospel in true peace.

Let me pray and we'll dive into the text.

God, we ask this morning, God, I ask that your spirit would be in work, that you would work through me, that you would allow the truth and the purity of your scriptures to be faithfully proclaimed, the gospel to be upheld and cherished and embraced and celebrated and placed where it rightly belongs at the center of our gaze today.

God, I pray that you would meet with your church, your bride, whom you've ransomed and redeemed and reconciled by the precious blood of your Son.

We trust that it is for your glory and our good.

We pray.

Amen.

Amen.

So let's begin in verse 2 through 3.

2 through 3, we're going to really see Paul's plea for peace.

Paul's plea for peace.

So he says, I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntachi to agree in the Lord.

Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.

So what do we have here?

We have the Apostle Paul.

He has penned this letter.

He has penned it to a church to be read aloud.

And what does he do?

He calls out two women in particular, Miss Eodia and Miss Syntachi.

He calls them by name.

And this is something unique to any other writings of Paul's, particularly with conflict.

We saw in chapter 3 that as Paul was addressing some conflict, he calls those evildoers and dogs, right?

Like he says the other names and he usually gives generalized groups of people.

In chapter one, we see this unity for the sake of the gospel, this idea of that when he's away, that he may hear, that you are standing firm and one spirit and one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.

In chapter two, it's a very similar theme where Paul is encouraging them, this direction and humility that they are supposed to embody, this model of Christian servanthood, should be embodied in the church.

And so I can imagine this is anyone's worst nightmare in this room today.

This letter is being read aloud, and like there's hints and pieces of disunity.

There's hints and pieces of parts and pieces of things that, man, that sounds like maybe the situation I'm in.

He might be describing me.

And then, you know, the letters wrapping up, and he says, finally, a few times, and they're like, oh shoot, I'm not gonna get caught out in this.

This is good.

And then mic drop.

We have Miss Yodia and Miss Cintacy.

So Paul actually names two women by name.

And so this was probably something that really caught people's uh off guard, maybe potentially.

I'm sure they were well aware of this disagreement, but the fact that the Apostle Paul would write to the church and address this would probably maybe wake those up who had snoozed at some point in this letter.

And so here's what we can't do with this example that Paul gives us.

We can't read into the text something that we don't have there, something that is not there.

So what's interesting about this conflict is we have no clue what the conflict is about.

Paul nowhere writes that it's over the way that they sing hymns and they should be singing contemporary Bethel songs, right?

Nowhere, he doesn't say anything about that.

He doesn't say their mission groups should be meeting four times a month, and two of those should be dinners, and two of those should be family worship, right?

Like there's none of that.

We don't know what it is, right?

So we're not gonna read into it something that's not there.

And furthermore, we don't know anything about this man named Clement.

We know that the Paul, that Paul charges him to help Miss Yodia and Sintiche end this conflict, but we don't know anything else about him.

There's also a fourth uh person in this, this true fellow.

This true fellow.

A lot of theologians believe that it's actually Luke, the great physician, Paul's close friend, but we really, we have no clue who this is.

So we don't know much about this situation at all.

So we're not gonna read into the conflict what isn't there.

But we're gonna see that Paul is gonna give a beautiful portrait of the biblical principles that he's been building on and how they should be applied through gospel-centered practice.

You see, we really don't need to know the specifics and details of the situation, and then it might actually benefit us that we don't, so we don't get pigeonholed to this specific conflict.

Rather, we're gonna look at how the gospel is to be applied for the sake of unity and peace amongst brothers and sisters in Christ.

Francis Schaefer, he is a writer and theologian.

He's quoted uh as saying the test of a gospel-centered church is its doctrine on paper plus its culture and practice.

The test of a gospel-centered church is its doctrine on paper plus its culture and practice.

Maybe you've heard it said similarly, practice what you preach.

And so this should be true of us today, church, and that the matchless power of the gospel that we preach week in and week out is the same gospel that first calls us to live peaceably amongst each other.

And also empowers us for reconciliation with God and man, no matter the conflict.

Our doctrine on paper must match our culture and practice.

And so we have these two women, and there's a conflict, and we don't know what the conflict is.

And they're apparently prominent figures because they're just named, they're named nowhere else.

There's no last name, there's no uh, you know, Miss Yodia, you did this, this, and that.

No, it's just name and name, and they leave it at that.

Most likely because they're well known in the church.

Same reason why we don't know the conflict, it's probably something that is well known in the church.

It's so well known, this disunity and disagreement, that it has apparently reached Paul in a Roman prison cell and has led him to be able to write to address it.

So these two women, two women, they are slugging it out for the gospel, and Paul singles them out.

Not as bad ones, not as, look at these women over here, they're not doing no.

Paul is using this because he has a deep love and affection.

He has a deep delight in seeing them to be able to agree in the Lord, to be reconciled towards one another.

Let's look at some of the terms that Paul actually uses for them.

In verse 3, he describes them as fellow workers.

And this is a term of endearment, a term of importance that Paul has used in other letters for some rock stars and foundational people in the church and the faith, of the likes of Priscilla and Aquila, Timothy, Titus, Epaphroditus, Philemon, Mark, and Luke.

These two women were important figures, loved ones in the church by the Apostle Paul.

Furthermore, he gives this notion that they weren't weak women.

They weren't women to be doubted on, but no, he gives this uh this term that in verse 3 he says, they have fought and labored side by side with me.

They were described as warriors in the gospel advancement in Philippi.

And so they had been in this same conflict, they had been in this battle for the gospel to go forth in the midst of persecution and hardship, and the stressful reality of this messy pursuit, this gospel-centric living, had taken its toll on their relationship.

And as a result, Paul writes to them, and he wants them to be a full accord, to agree in the Lord, to be of one mind.

So while we don't know what the conflict and the specifics are, we see Paul's deep sense and priority for peace inside the church.

Paul acknowledges his awareness of the conflict, and instead of taking sides, he calls them to peace.

He says, to agree in the Lord.

And this discord has reached him in his Roman prison cell, and we've we've seen this all in the church, haven't we?

We've seen rock stars in the faith.

We've seen men that we have read their books, we've listened to their sermons, we followed their podcasts, we've seen women who have have counseled us and encouraged us and built us up on our faith, and sin takes them down, right?

Pride takes them down, ego takes them down, discord, disunity.

We've seen this happen time and time again.

And it's no different than what is taking place here.

So Ephesians chapter 6 tells us that this ministry, this laboring in the gospel, is actually an act of war.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

Ephesians 6 says, For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Now, this church was under attack, and it was spiritual warfare that was taking place.

And Paul is calling them to peace through the power of the gospel.

And so maybe if you take away anything today, it's to be in prayer for your leaders, your pastors, your pastors' wives, your mission group leaders, those brothers and sisters in Christ to simply come before our Lord to make our requests known to Him and to pray for their protection, for their wisdom, for their peace.

So Paul's contending for two things in his opening two verses.

One, peace and unity within the church.

And two, he's contending for the church's rich confessions to be evident in their corporate conduct.

Church, what we preach and what we practice cannot be at odds.

The gospel that we preach week in and week out, the power to reconcile us not only to God, but to each other.

And this gospel allows us as believers, it calls us as true believers to put aside our differences, to agree in the Lord, and to walk in unity.

So while Paul may be writing to a specific congregation some 2,000 years ago and 5,300 miles away, I don't think the letter is that much different than what it would be for us here in Mason, Ohio today.

As God's people, we must strive for peace.

God's people must strive for peace.

We continue on in verses four through seven.

Paul is going to give us some principles for gospel living, some practices for gospel living.

And so we're going to read four through seven.

It says, You probably read this before.

Rejoice in the Lord always.

Again, I say, rejoice.

Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.

The Lord is at hand.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

And so Paul is winding down this letter.

So imperative number one, he says, rejoice in the Lord always.

Again, I say rejoice.

Imperative two, let your reasonableness be known, be evident to all.

Imperative three, about nothing be anxious.

And so for us, these uh imperatives might seem disconnected from each other.

They might seem that they don't really flow.

He's talking one minute about being anxious, and then he's also talking about rejoicing, and he's also talking about being reasonable or gentle with one another.

And so this is a literary technique that was used by grammarians in Paul's time to really support, have this synergistic effect that when coupled together, they would combine for a greater effort, a greater cause, a greater importance.

And so Paul is writing these three things centered around the peace and unity that the church is to have, particularly communing the precision and power, and if at possible, the persuasion of his argument and charge to this church.

So they're not disconnected at all, but rather they are to be used together for a more powerful and effective force in the church body.

So, in the midst of all this hostility, Paul is gonna give us these three imperatives.

Rejoice always, be reasonable with all, and do not be anxious in anything.

So let's break those three down briefly.

Rejoice in the Lord always.

Again, I say, rejoice.

Paul is gonna double down on the command to rejoice.

Not sometimes, not if everything's going well, not if everything's going poorly.

No, rejoice always.

And this motif of joy is something that, in the midst of persecution, is something that Paul has been writing about a lot in this letter.

He writes about it to the church in Corinth, the church in Colossians, the church in Rome.

Rejoice always.

You see, joy is a fruit of the Spirit.

Joy is evidence of the Spirit's work in us, and it's really a reflection.

It's tied to the gospel.

It's a reflecting back on what God has done in and through us through Jesus Christ.

And it's a looking forward to what will one day be ours in eternity.

Our joy is sealed and is safe and secure in the finished work of Jesus on the cross.

So Christian joy is not this temporal kind that comes and goes with situations, no.

Rather, it's affirmed altogether in one's relationship with the Lord.

And as such, Christian joy, rejoicing, this deep abiding, is a spiritual quality of life that should mark us as believers.

And so I asked this morning, brothers and sisters, are you rejoicing?

Are you known for joy?

Are you unshakable in delighting in the work of God on your Behalf.

Imperative two, let your reasonableness be known to everyone.

Let your reasonableness, another word for this would be gentleness.

And this really flows or follows from the first one.

And because joy or rejoicing is something that should mark us as believers, we can exhibit a posture of Christ-like gentleness towards all people.

But what about those who seek to destroy us?

What about those that speak ill of us?

That seek to sow division amongst us?

See, by displaying the generous spirit towards all people, all people, even those who wrong us and slander us and harm us, by displaying this, we as Christians, as God's people, put on display the power of the gospel to transform, to reconcile what otherwise would be irreconcilable, to unite us through peace by the power of the gospel.

And so as they continue to rejoice in the Lord, even in the face of opposition and suffering, what others are supposed to see is reasonableness, gentleness.

And imperative three, about nothing, be anxious.

About nothing, be anxious.

And this one's a hard one, isn't it?

It's a real hard one.

I don't think the Apostle Paul is naive to anxiety that the church was experiencing through persecution.

Paul is writing from a Roman prison cell, he's almost been flogged and killed.

We've seen Epaphroditus almost killed on two different occasions.

Paul's not naive to anxiety amongst the church.

I'm not naive to the fact that many in this room have had serious battles of anxiety and questioning and depression and confusion and chaos in your life.

And so at first glance, this call, this imperative to be nothing or be anxious about nothing, could seem as a crushing weight, as something that's just completely disingenuous and unreasonable and maybe even out of date.

But Paul says, about nothing, be anxious.

A few years back, I I had a very serious uh job change, and my life was kind of spun upside down.

I really had some anxious months and sought out help with brothers and sisters.

And this verse right here was quoted on more than one occasion, and it was from really good intended people.

You know, do not be anxious about anything and prayer and supplication, make your request known to God.

And I'm just telling you, sometimes this when you're in the moment of anxiety, man, it is really hard.

It is really hard to hear these words.

But the Apostle Paul is calling us today to be anxious about anything.

And he gives us the power to combat anxiety through gratuitous prayer.

Through gratuitous prayer.

A lot of anxiety is us looking inwardly, looking at our present circumstances, looking at the chaos in our lives.

And what Paul is commanding the church is to look back with thanksgiving in our hearts at what God has done in and through the work of Jesus Christ.

There is power and gratitude.

We as a church need to lay our request before the Lord, reflecting on the riches and goodness that is ours in Christ Jesus.

Do not be anxious about anything.

But in every situation, make your request known to God by prayer and petition with thanksgiving in our hearts.

See, Paul is no idiot.

He understands the crippling effect of anxiety, and he's telling us, church, we don't need to submit to its tyranny.

He's blessing us with a divine direction as to how to reconcile, and that is through supernatural help, the spirit of Christ that raised him from the grave, the joy that is only found in him, the peace that we learn in Galatians, this fruit of the Spirit is ours in Christ.

And he's encouraging his brothers and sisters to turn their gaze away from their external circumstances and to be reminded of who Christ is, the power of the gospel in their lives, and he's encouraging them to seek that peace through through gratuitous prayer.

And as we remember with gladness in our hearts, all the grace and mercy that is ours in Jesus Christ, we get this confident promise that we see at the end in verse 7.

That the peace of God will garrison our hearts by his own peace.

It will guard our hearts, it will protect us.

Even in the midst of hardship and persecution, the sovereignty of God demands that he is in complete control.

So our prayers, they silence our anxious thoughts.

They position us to hear from God.

And they should be filled with reminders of his precious promises and reflections of what he has done in and through us, in and through Jesus of the work of the cross.

Let us not be anxious about anything, church.

So what is Paul doing with these three imperatives?

He's turning their gaze from external situations back to the peace of the gospel.

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and your mind, and which transcends all understanding.

The peace of God will guard us in such a way that our understanding will be out of this world.

We won't be able to make sense of it.

It goes past our comprehension, our earthly thinking.

In the midst of strife and conflict, the peace of God will guard our hearts in such a way that it doesn't fit our normal circumstances or responses.

So to summarize, verse 4 through 7, the peace of God has the power to guard our hearts and minds.

The peace of God has the power to guard our hearts and minds.

On our last two verses, we're going to look at patterns for peaceful thinking.

Patterns for peaceful thinking.

Paul says, finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

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

And the God of peace will be with you.

So Paul's not simply encouraging the church and Philippi to think lofty thoughts, to think high thoughts.

No, Paul has a much higher aim.

Paul is encouraging the church to possess the mind of Christ, to put on the mind of Christ.

We see in 1 Corinthians, Paul tells the church in Corinth, but we, as believers, have the mind of Christ.

We see Paul's letter to the church in Rome.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

That by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect and pleasing.

So it is imperative that we as Christ followers take on the mind of Christ so that whatever is true, whatever is revealed to be in accordance with God's holy scripture, whatever is noble, whatever is honorable, whatever is worthy of respect, whatever is right, whatever is defined by God's own character.

Whatever is pure, whatever has not been tainted or marred by the effects of sin and ways of the evil one.

Whatever is lovely, having this friendly disposition towards all.

Whatever is admirable, the kind of conduct that is worth considering because it is well spoken of by all.

He says, whatever and all these things, think of them.

What we cannot do, church, is to allow the world to shape and guide our moral ethics and our decision making.

We must seek the truth of God's word.

We must renew our minds.

We must wage war against what we allow to come into our minds, what we allow to consume our thoughts, what we allow to think on, what we put before our children on the TV, we need to seek discernment and wisdom.

So is it true?

Is it revealed to be true through God's word?

Is it noble?

Is it right?

Is this pure?

Is it lovely?

Is it admirable?

And we get this great promise that as we seek these types of thoughts, the God of peace will be with us.

Isaiah 26 says, you keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you.

And so Paul's promise to the church, in summary of verse 8, is that peaceful thought is tethered to the nearness of our God.

Peaceful thought is tethered to the nearness of our God.

And as the main idea this morning, as the people of God, it is our privilege to live out the gospel in true peace.

It is our privilege to live out the gospel in true peace.

Not only is it a command, not only is it a charge, no, it's more than that.

It is our privilege.

See, God in his sovereignty and wisdom has orchestrated and designed his bride to be ministers of reconciliation into a world of chaos and confusion and disunity.

And it is our privilege, it is our divine blessing that we not only can have peace amongst each other, that we not only can experience reconciliation when we are wronged or wrong a brother and sister.

No, it's a it's a myssiological issue.

It's more than that.

The world gets to see how we conduct ourselves, the peace that we exhibit.

And they see Christ.

They see the transforming and matchless power of the gospel on display by how we conduct ourselves amongst each other.

In a world brimming with fear and anxiety and division.

It is the people of God's blessed privilege to live out the gospel life and true peace.

Unity for the sake of the gospel, for his glory and for our good.

So, what's our story in this?

Our story is that we are our own obstacles for peace.

We are our own obstacles for peace.

What causes the most strife and disunity in our body?

It's our sin.

It's our sin.

So before we look elsewhere, for the chaos and confusion and separate, we need to look inward and look at ourselves.

Our love for self is a major player in our disunity within the body.

Our love for our own ideas, for our own tastes, our own likes, our own ways of doing messy pursuit of Jesus oftentimes cause a lot of discord and quarrels and anything but peace.

We need to humble ourselves, placing others before ourselves.

Another way that we are obstacle for peace is our pride.

The way that we have preferences of how we should be doing things, the songs we're singing, the readings that we're responding to, the authors that we are encouraging others to write to, our rhythms of life, our way that we, there's a lot of pride that is built into things that are, there's a lot of gospel freedom.

This is what was happening apparently in the church in Philippi.

Our love for the world is another way.

These counterfeit pursuits of peace.

This preoccupation with these fleeting pleasures.

They lead us to a lack of abiding in Christ.

And we are running after peace in every other way.

We're not spending time meditating on his word.

We're not spending time praying for one another.

We're not spending time reflecting on his goodness.

We're pursuing peace in other areas in vain pursuits.

Another way that we see in the text is this carelessness and safeguarding our minds and being vigilant of what we allow come into our minds.

And taking it through the litmus that we see in verses 8 and 9.

Is it true?

Is it noble?

Is it lovely?

Is it right?

Is it honorable?

We need to be less careless about what we take in, what we consume, what we put before our children.

And lastly, I would submit our absent gratuitous prayer life.

The fact that many of us pray in times of need is great.

God, our Father, loves to hear our requests.

But we should be coming before Him with thanksgiving in our hearts on a daily basis, thanking Him for His goodness in Jesus Christ.

And as we submit our requests to the Lord, we should be submitting them out of a deep sense of thanksgiving in our hearts for what he has done and for what we believe he will do in the future.

Church, a lot of times we are the greatest obstacle for true and everlasting peace.

But the hope of the gospel is that Jesus put to death our hostility with God and man, and he brought everlasting peace.

The spoils of Jesus' victory over sin are realized through renewed peace with God, reconciliation with God, and the spoils of Jesus' victory over sin and death are through renewed peace with each other.

Reconciling, transforming power amongst us as brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Ephesians 2, I'm going to read verses 12 through 19.

Ephesians 2, verse 12 through 19 reads like this.

Ephesians 2:12–19

Remember that you were at one time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments, expressed in ordinance that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, and so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing hostility.

And he came and he preached peace to you who are far off, and peace to those who are near, for through him we both have access and one spirit to the Father.

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

Church, Jesus put to death our hostility, our angst, our division.

See, the key to walking out true peace amongst believers is a gospel-centered issue.

The key to retaining the proper gospel perspective and avoiding getting caught up in all of these strifes and rivalries and petty arguments is to look to Jesus Himself.

You see, if if Jesus was humbled himself and he made himself nothing, and God now has exalted him above every other name, how much more should we be willing to humble ourselves as well?

Peace begins with dying to self and submitting everything before the throne of our good and gracious King.

And we can rejoice in all things because he has conquered sin.

He has reconciled us both to the Father and to each other.

We can live peaceably with all because he has reconciled us not only to himself but each other through the finished work of the cross.

And we don't have to defend ourselves.

For vengeance is the Lord's.

And we can be anxious about nothing because God's peace is rooted in the stillness of the empty tomb.

So our gospel vision this morning, church.

I want to submit two questions for you to reflect and ponder, maybe dive into in your mission group this week or your family worship times in the home.

What must change for the peace of God to be embraced in your life?

What must change?

What should change for the peace of God to be embraced in your life?

To be made more evident in your life?

Is your life marked with rejoicing?

Gentleness?

Living peaceably amongst all?

Are you anxious?

Are you at rest?

What must change?

Secondly, what would change if the peace of God was embraced by this church?

What would it look like for the peace of God in our local context in Mason, Ohio, for Sacred Mission Church as a family, to grow in peace towards one another?

What would it look like in our city?

What effects would that have in our schools, in our places of work?

What would it look like for the big church as a whole to grow in peace and love with one another?

It's the power of the gospel that makes this possible, church.