Guarded By God's Peace

Let me turn in your Bibles, please, to Philippians chapter 4.

Philippians 4, our message will be from verse 7, and verse 7 will bring

to a conclusion a small series within this overall series of Philippians.

We've been in it for quite some time, and it will bring to conclusion what we've had since verse 1 of this

chapter, so verses 1 through 6 are going to be encapsulated, if you will, by

verse 7, but I'm going to read from verse 1 to remind us of where we were

before.

I won't make any comments except during the message, and one reason for this is this verse that I'm going to

focus on in the preaching is all about God and only

about God, and yet it flows logically from what was preached to us from

these verses ahead about our responsibilities to each other before God.

So Philippians chapter 4, beginning at verse 1.

Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus

in the Lord.

I appeal to Euodia and I appeal to Syntyche 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.

Rejoice in the Lord always.

Again, I will say, rejoice.

The Lord is near.

Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.

Excuse me, let your reasonableness be known to everyone.

The Lord is near.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your

requests be made known to God.

Now our verse for this morning, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard

your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Well, the subject of this verse, bringing, as I said, conclusion to all the instruction we have before is the

peace of God.

Now if we believe the word of God, which we do, and in 2 Timothy chapter 4, I believe that the preacher is

called to preach the word in season and out of season.

In other words, the preacher, your preacher, is to be always ready to declare the word to you in an understandable way.

In other words, I'm to understand the scripture, I'm to work on my understanding of the scripture so that I can repeat it

to you in a way that gains your understanding so that we all know what to do according to the word of God.

And yet, what I just read to you in this verse gives me a task that is really

impossible.

It says that the subject of this last verse, verse 7 in Philippians 4, is the

peace of God, and immediately we have that description of it.

It passes, it surpasses, it goes beyond all understanding.

Does it go beyond my understanding because I have some intellect?

Yes.

Would it go beyond yours if you have great intellect and great understanding, if you have the greatest understanding of all people who ever

lived, say even greater than Solomon who was wiser than anyone other than Jesus, if you had such

understanding.

This subject of this verse, the peace of God, would surpass it all.

And so, I am tasked this morning to declare to you

and to make understandable to you that which the word of God which I am tasked to declare to you says

is beyond our understanding.

If nothing else from all that introduction here, let us pray for your preacher

as he makes understandable that which the scripture says goes beyond all understanding,

it surpasses it all.

So the subject of this verse is the peace of God.

The subject is the peace of God, and in this verse there's only two verbs, and one verb describes the peace

of God, it surpasses, it surpasses all understanding.

The other verb is guard, it will guard, this peace of God does something, it guards

us in our heart and in our mind.

Just those two verbs, showing God by his peace being our guardian, watching over

us in the inner man, giving us protection as

he watches over his church, watches over his people.

And this peace that does so, this understandable, this surpassing all knowledge peace

is what we need to gain an understanding of.

So it surpasses our abilities to realize what it is, and it guards us.

God is our divine guardian, he protects those who, if I go back a few verses, rejoice

in the Lord, that's verse four, those who are reasonable with one another in their spirits to each other, that's verse

five, those who trust God and make their requests to him with thanksgiving,

that's verse six.

So let us go through this point by point, and I'll divide it up into four

points, and we're going to take them pretty much in order, because we have the

main point, which is the peace of God, and we'll take that first.

And after that we're going to take the first word of the verse, the word and, which is more important than you might think,

and take that second.

Third, what it means to guard, and what is being guarded, and finally we will end with those beautiful

words, in Christ Jesus.

We begin with Paul's main subject for this verse, and that's the peace of

God.

Peace of God that surpasses all understanding, peace in the Bible, the whole concept of

peace in the Bible is something that goes well beyond the idea of having no trials, or no tribulation,

or no enmity with anyone.

We know this from the words of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, when he says, after in chapter 14, in

verse 27 of the book of John, saying, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives peace, do I give you

peace.

And then just a short time later in that discourse, he says, in this world you will have tribulation.

Can we say in this world you will have a lack of peace, but it's a lack of outer peace, it's a lack of peace

according to the world around, and the enmity that Christ's disciples, he says, will always

encounter.

Peace in the Bible, the peace of God that is being spoken of here, is

much deeper, and goes well beyond the idea of just not having enemies, or just not having

trials, or just not having tribulations.

It is the ultimate peace of the Old Testament, that word shalom, so familiar to us.

Shalom, inner peace, well -being, and confidence,

wholeness of person, if you will.

There's so many things we can read into that word, the peace of

shalom, that just gets us a bare toehold on what it means,

the peace of God.

The Philippians who first heard this would have thought immediately of something we call Pax

Romana, the peace of Rome, the peace that the Roman Empire brought about against the

nations that they had conquered.

You notice the way I said that, they imposed their peace on people, but the people in Philippi, the

believers in the church there, would have thought of that Pax Romana.

Philippi, as you recall from the preaching before, was a very important Roman colony.

It did all it could to be like Rome.

They acted as much as they could in the fashion of Roman people.

The city was built to look like Rome, and in the city was a garrison, a garrison manned of course by

soldiers and by magistrates, magistrates similar to what we would call police officers today.

And in that garrison, they housed the soldiers, and their task was, their job was,

to guard the peace.

It was very important to them.

And just as if we were in Marin, and I was preaching something about Paul being in prison, you would immediately think of San Quentin,

or something like that.

So also, these people in Philippi, when Paul mentioned the peace of God, or wrote of the peace of

God and how it guards, that's what they would have thought of, the Roman garrison

guarding Pax Romana.

How important was peace to them?

Well, if we read in Acts chapter 16, in mainly verses 16 to 24, we read of the apostle Paul, the

same apostle who wrote this letter for us, when he first came to the city

where is housed this church that he's writing to in the book of Philippians, when he first came there in Acts

16, he came across a girl who was possessed by a spirit that gave her

an ability to be a prophet, to speak divination, and such like that, and you

recall that her owners made a lot of money from her.

Well, Paul got tired of her calling out things to him, we're not going to go into a lot of detail there, and he cast the demon

out.

He said, in the name of Jesus Christ, leave her alone, really,

and it caused a great stir because the people who owned her had lost the prophet.

Now this was a disturbing of the peace.

And this was something more than if you remember the opening of the first movie in Lord of the Rings, when

Frodo tells Gandalf that because of some fireworks and some mishaps, he was one of the worst things in the

shire, a disturber of the peace, to which Gandalf smiled.

But they did not smile in Philippi when Paul disturbed the peace, he was beaten with liquid

rods.

Now for homework, don't get your smartphones out now, but for homework, you can look up what a liquid rod was, and it was these

magistrates who had these big clubs like, I don't know how quite to describe them, look them up later.

And with that, they would beat people who disturbed the peace, and that's why Paul received the beating that you read of in

Acts chapter 16, it was a vicious beating, it was very close to what might be called a

scourging, and there was a chain to a wall, imprisoned them.

In Acts 16, as it goes on, then the angel comes, or the earthquake comes, and the chains fall off,

but they stay there, and the Philippian jailer is saved, and so forth.

But this is what would have come into their mind when Paul wrote of the peace of God

guarding, this peace of God that passes all understanding.

Some of you might have thought immediately, when I spoke of the peace of God, you realize that that's the main subject, you might have gone quickly to

Romans chapter 5 verse 1, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have

peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

That peace, as glorious and as wonderful as it is, is a very different peace than what we

have here in chapter 4 verse 7 of Philippians.

You see, the peace of God that you have by the cross of Jesus Christ, therefore, having been justified by faith,

justified by faith because of the cross of Jesus Christ.

We have peace with God.

What does that peace mean?

Well, that, first of all, is a peace that you have, it's a declarative peace, it's something that God has granted.

You have laid down your arms against Him, because God gave you faith to believe.

That's not quite the peace that we're speaking of in chapter 4 verse 7, this peace that passes

all understanding.

We're looking for a peace that surpasses anything we can imagine.

How do we say it today, that I can't get my mind around that?

And this has got to be like that.

I can understand chapter 5 verse 1, as wonderful as it is, and as amazing as the cross

of Jesus Christ and the mercy of the forgiveness that we have because He there on the cross paid for our sins,

as incredible as that is, I can sort of get my mind around that, and many of you can.

It's a declarative peace.

What we're looking for is this peace that we can't understand.

The peace of God.

It's a very unique construction.

The peace of God.

We don't have anything like that in the Bible, except maybe Colossians chapter 3 verse 15, which speaks of the

peace of Christ, or the peace of Jesus.

The way it's constructed in the original language.

What this peace is that is going to guard you in your heart and in your mind, what this peace is, this peace of

God, is the peace that God has in and of Himself.

Now this, we could say in the 21st century, this kind of blows your mind, or do we even speak that way anymore?

But you get the intent.

What I'm trying to say here, this is something bigger than we can understand.

The peace that God has in and of Himself, of His own person, is what we're

going to find guarding us in our heart and in our mind, later on in this verse.

It's God's satisfaction with Himself.

Now if we were to say, I have that peace, and therefore I'm satisfied with myself, well that would be presumptuous, that would be conceited.

But God, because He's all perfect, God because He's all holy, God because all His works are done in

righteousness, God because everything He does is right and good and perfect and purposeful,

God because He's God, is satisfied within Himself by all His works, by

all His words, by all His deeds.

There's nothing that can impugn His character anywhere, in all the universe, which

of course He made and called into existence.

There's nothing that can come against Him.

And so, this peace of God, I think, are you beginning to see

how it surpasses your understanding?

Because this peace of God that's going to guard you is the peace that God Himself has in

and of Himself.

God's confidence in Himself, God's satisfaction with His own works.

This peace is His very nature.

If you look back at Genesis chapter 1 and verse 2, where the Spirit of God hovers over the

waters, the original creation, when God first called it into existence,

was formless and void, a Hebrew term, a Hebrew phrase that speaks of chaos,

of purposelessness, and immediately the Spirit of God is hovering over the waters and

calling it point by point by point, day by day by day, into order to accomplish

God's purposes.

And each time, God says, it was good.

God says, what I did was good, if you will.

That's the satisfaction that God has in Himself.

That's the confidence that He, God the Father,

has declared the beginning from the end.

Tomorrow doesn't bother Him or concern Him, not because He's confident it's going to work out well, but because He declared

it.

This is the peace of God, surpassing our understanding that we're going to come to that will guard

us.

You and I cannot have this kind of satisfaction.

You and I cannot have such confidence of self.

You might claim it, but if you do, it's an illusion, it's presumptuous.

We don't have it, but we do benefit by it.

You cannot have such self -satisfaction as God has, obviously.

And yet, God in His mercy, God in His grace, would have us benefit by this peace.

So that's the peace of God, and that's passing all our understanding, all our ability to finally get our arms completely

around it.

You can't do it, not just because we're not smart enough, but because the Scripture says it

passes your understanding.

And any time we think we've got it, any time you've wrapped it up in a phrase or a paragraph or a novel or a book or

a library full of books or a city full of libraries full of books, you will find

that it doesn't get there.

It doesn't explain it completely.

It's the peace of God that God has in and of Himself in His own person, His own

satisfaction with His Word, with His deeds, with His own nature.

That's first, this peace of God watching over us, guarding us.

And now I want to come to the word and.

And is very important, because and brings together the verses that were before this, verses 1

through 6, those things that relate to us.

If verse 7 has very little we can do to apply it to ourselves, because it's all about God, and it's all about God

in an aspect of God that surpasses our ability to understand, which it is,

the word and brings to bear on this, verses 1 through 6.

In the original language, it's the word chi, which is also like and, three letters.

It's K -A -I or Kappa Alpha Iota.

Used here, what it speaks of is not, and I have more to say,

but and in the way of consequence, in the way of result.

Let this surpass your understanding, because what the Scripture is saying here is,

verse 1, Finally, my brothers,

As Paul has explained throughout that letter,

I appeal to Yodi, I appeal to Syntyche, to agree in the Lord.

And I ask you also, true companion, help these women.

What does this mean to us?

What does this mean to you this morning?

It means that as you work towards unity amongst the brethren, as you are a peacemaker and bring peace

between people who should be at peace with one another, but are at war with one another, like Iodia and

Syntyche, as you enter into that, as you obey the

Apostle, writing by inspiration of God, the peace of God

guards you.

Verse 4, Again, I will say rejoice.

Rejoice in the Lord.

If we're rejoicing in the Lord, when do we not have cause to rejoice?

Because as it says later, the Lord is near.

And as you rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ, the peace of God guards you.

Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.

As we are reasonable with one another, do you recall the preaching?

As we treat each other, as you treat that brother, sister, and the Lord, especially the one by whom you are

building up an offense, or there has been an offense, and you treat them the way God in Christ has treated you, Ephesians

4 .32, forgiving one another.

As you enter into that obedience, this surpassing knowledge and peace of

God guards you, in your heart and in your mind.

The same is true as you make your requests known to God, that God,

the God of peace, with his own peace, that self -satisfaction that he has, is guarding you and

protecting you.

And we'll come to what it means to be guarded and protected.

For now, let this surpass our understanding, that the peace of God

himself is your guardrail.

It is the garrison around you.

It is guarding, if you will, your peace.

So the peace of God is God's own peace within himself, Father, Son, Spirit.

All his works are done in righteousness.

All his works are done well.

Everything God does, it was good, it was good, it was good, it was very good.

We'll come back to that later, before the preaching's over, because it's very important in this message.

And, and, as a consequence of working towards unity and rejoicing

and being reasonable and making requests known, this peace of God is your guardian

and it will guard you.

It will guard you, is our third point.

As I said, in the Philippian context, they would have thought of that garrison there.

If we lived in Seaside, you would be thinking of Fort Ord.

It's not there anymore.

There used to be an army base there near Seaside, California, just north of Monterey.

You would think of Fort Ord right away if we thought of garrisons.

It's a guardianship there.

Is God watching out?

Is God in this garrison, standing as military, if you will, and protecting

those who are inside and being guarded in that way?

More than just watching out for something like a Brinks guard, where he's watching out for the money in that armored

car.

The garrison foresters has just this one mission in life, to protect something at any and all

hazards.

The word guard, your heart and your mind, is not the common word for guard.

It's only used a few times in all Scripture.

2 Corinthians 11, verse 32, is used of Paul when he escaped Damascus.

At Damascus, the governor, under King Artas, was guarding the city of Damascus in order to

seize me, says the Apostle Paul.

Every exit was closed up and guarded.

It was tight, as a drum, as we might say.

So it had to be lowered down through a basket, because it was being guarded in this way.

Galatians chapter 3, verse 23, Now before faith came, we were held captive, we were guarded.

We were guarded, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.

1 Peter 1 .5, Peter also uses this word of Christians.

He says, Christians, by God's power, are being guarded through faith ready for a salvation, ready

to be revealed in the last time.

And here is what it means that God is guarding your heart and your mind.

He's watching out in this way, so that to escape Damascus in this way,

the city being guarded like that, Paul had to be let down through a basket, or by a basket.

Being guarded by the law until faith came, being hedged in by it, and nothing can escape.

God, by His peace, guarding in that way.

What does it mean to be enwrapped by this peace of God?

As a result of these things, verses 1 -6, and then this garrison that God has watching

out for you, well really it's almost like an invitation to share in this character of God, to

have that kind of confidence.

Now we can't have this confidence in self.

You and I cannot be so self -satisfied.

As I said, that would be presumption, that would be conceit.

But you and I, as we are in Christ Jesus, which is how the verse ends,

in Christ Jesus, we can have this level of satisfaction, but not in ourself,

but in God.

In what God has done.

In the works of God, as God Himself is satisfied with His own works.

Are you in Christ Jesus?

Have you repented of your sins, and come to Him for forgiveness?

Do you have that new heart that we're going to speak of in a few moments?

If you have, this means that God has done a work in you,

with which you can be fully satisfied.

The way God is satisfied with all His works, because if you have a new heart, it's nothing that you did, from a

grace we've been saved through faith, and it's not of ourselves.

It is the gift of God.

Not from works, not as a result of works.

So that no one can boast.

If you have that heart to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, I would send you to be satisfied with it.

You know, for the Christian, there's no kicking of the toe along the ground, and looking down and calling myself

just a lousy sinner, who deserves for the worm to always be eating away at me.

All I deserve is hell fire forever.

No.

See, that's prior to that new heart being put in you.

We are born by nature children of wrath, and there's nothing we can do about it.

For you who are dead in trespasses and sins, and what you once walked, you were dead.

There's nothing you can do to revive yourself.

But God, who is rich in mercy, according to Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse

26, took out that heart of stone, that heart that made you by nature a child of wrath, gave you a new heart,

a heart of flesh that can believe in Him.

And with that heart, because, and acknowledging and thanking Him for it, and because it is a work of God,

and only of God, it is as satisfactory a work

as each day of creation.

It's as good a work because it's a work of God, by His Son Jesus Christ, and the cross, and the faith that

He gave is applied to you by the Spirit of God.

Because of all these things, there is something to be satisfied in, as God Himself is

satisfied in Himself, and that is the peace of God that is guarding you, guarding your heart

and your mind.

What is heart and mind?

Well, it speaks of the whole person.

Jesus Christ said that from the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks, could we say from the overflow of the heart the mind thinks?

The heart being that inner man, the heart being that heart that I just described, that gift of God to which He gets all the glory, in

which you should be satisfied, the way God is satisfied in all His works.

The mind is your thought process, the mind is your world view.

Your mind is the mind of Christ as you look to the Word.

We have the wisdom of Christ in this Word from Him.

Why would God so carefully, and by this unique, surpassing all

understanding aspect of Himself, this peace of God, let's ask ourselves for a moment, why would

He guard your heart and your mind like that?

Let's go especially for the heart.

Why would God guard your heart?

My heart, your heart, anyone's heart who is Jesus Christ.

What would make Him do that?

Why would Paul, under inspiration of God Himself, write a verse like this?

That the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind

in Christ Jesus.

As I said, the heart is the new heart, the heart that God gave you.

The heart that is only His to give.

It's a heart that needs guarding.

Why does it need guarding?

It needs guarding because it's surrounded by the flesh.

It's surrounded by the flesh.

The flesh is warring against that heart, that new spirit.

Now, the peace of God is protecting us, and the peace of God is God's own peace within Himself, which

it is.

If you're a Christian, we don't have that kind of inner peace, do we?

We can't have, according to Galatians 5, beginning of verse 16.

It's well known to us.

But it speaks of this war within.

And here's the reason we need to be guarded by God's peace.

Beginning of verse 16, the apostle says,.

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh.

The Spirit is that new heart.

The Spirit is that remade you, that work of God, with which we must be satisfied because it is a work

of God.

And we are continuing works of God.

We are being formed into the image of Christ Jesus our Lord.

And it will not end in this life.

But nonetheless, in this process, the desires of that Spirit,

of that new heart, of that remaking of you by God, is against the

flesh.

They are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Now the works of the flesh are evident.

Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of angers,

rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like

these, which all warns us.

I always read that fast because there are so many of them.

I'm afraid I'm going to run out of breath before I get to the end of these.

Why do we need to be guarded?

Because those things are what the flesh reminds us of.

Because while the new heart pumps real life into you, this heart of flesh, this new

heart repents of sins and wants to be like Christ and wants to measure closer and closer to His image,

even knowing that it's impossible.

In this life, it's surrounded by flesh that reminds so

strongly of the old pleasures, of the old desires,

of the old enmities, the willingness to hold grudges,

the lack of unity.

Think again.

Philippians chapter 1, chapter 4, verses 1 -3, in Syntyche and Deuteronomy, and how important that was to

the apostle.

The old heart that had nothing to rejoice in except its own self.

The new heart now rejoicing in Christ but always being reminded of these other things because it is embedded in the flesh, which is

that war with the Spirit.

This is why we need this guardianship by God.

How does God guard us by this peace?

I think, of course, of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Peace I leave with you, John 14, 27.

My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you.

Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

The Lord Jesus Christ gives us peace.

He's speaking there the night before His cross where He would win our peace, the peace I spoke of in Romans

chapter 5, verse 1.

Jesus is going to leave that peace with them.

He's going to justify the disciples and then those who believe the word of the disciples later by faith

and give us peace with God from them.

But this guardianship by God, by Christ's peace, how does that work?

What does that mean to us?

Well, here I go to John chapter 10 and you might turn there.

Just read a few verses.

But think of this protection that God gives us, this guardianship by His peace

while our hearts and our flesh are at war with each other.

The one reminding the other of the old things, the old ways, the old temptations, the old

gratifications and the heart resisting it.

So you have this conflict.

Where's our protection?

Where's our comfort?

John chapter 10, beginning at verse 7.

So Jesus again said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

All who come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep do not listen to them.

I am the door.

If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and find pasture.

Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, standing at the pen, the fold, the sheep pen in which

His people are.

And He's the one standing at the door.

He's the one guarding and protecting.

He's the one guarding your heart and your mind in Himself.

Sorry, the breeze keeps blowing.

My scripture closed.

He says then in verse 16,.

And I have other sheep that are not of this fold.

I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.

So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.

This charge I have received from my Father.

This is the garrison in which the God of peace, the God's own peace

gives you that protection.

Watches over your heart and your mind.

That inner man that God has recreated, Him watching over it and keeping you from the old

temptations and the old ways and the old ramifications.

Do you have this peace?

Do you know what it means to have this kind of struggle struggle

between the good heart, the new heart, the right heart, the heart that God gives you, and

the inner spirit?

Too many people don't struggle at all.

They don't even think about the goodness of God.

They just go on their merry way and never even acknowledge what their conscience is pricking them

to acknowledge, which is that they're doing wrong.

They're going the wrong direction.

I love the example that Pastor Owens gave us of his brother stealing his money and selling something back to him.

I mean, it just made me laugh when I thought of the old days.

He could do things like that and think it was harmless.

Yet, as he just taught, it's not harmless.

It's an affront to God.

It's deserving of death.

Too often we just shrug those things off.

I would call you to a conflict, though.

I would call you to acknowledging those things being wrong, to repent of that, to come to Christ, to

seek His forgiveness.

I would call you to the conflict, to the battle within, between the new heart and the old

flesh, but a battle which, because of Christ Jesus and what He has done on the cross, we have the victory.

We don't have final and absolute and total victory over our sin in this life.

But the victory ultimately is ours.

And as the struggle ensues, as we obey the Scripture, again, verses 1

-6 of Philippians 4, working towards unity, rejoicing in the Lord,

being reasonable with one another, making requests of being known to God, He molds

us and shapes us and protects us.

Perhaps it works like this.

As we take that one step forward into Christ's image, that one faltering, stuttering step

towards His image, and accomplish more of His image within, perhaps He puts an extra

layer of protection around that one.

He says, OK, we have this, now let's move on to the next.

We're never totally satisfied the way God is within Himself.

We're always stretching out for the prize of the upward calling of Christ Jesus.

We're always working towards that image that God predestined us to be conformed to, which is Christ.

The confidence we can have in that is that it is God who did the work in us that gave us the

desire to move there in the first place.

Satisfied with what He has done, and always moving towards the right image, which is

Christ.

The peace of God that is guarding you, that we can understand,

is a peace that God has in His own person, because of His person.

I want to close by reminding you that our God is not a God of disorder,

but a God of peace.

If you have within you this disorder, if your ways are beginning to

bother you in some way that you just can't quite get over it, you just can't quite put it aside, you can't quite

ignore these little pricks that maybe you can even say are pricks to your own conscience, you're

beginning to be stirred up, you're beginning to be chaotic about it, and you're wondering which way to go, what to do,

where to go with that, I point you to Christ Jesus our Lord.

I point you to faith in what He has done for you on the cross, where He died for your sins.

This stirring up would remind me of the creation wars.

All stirred up, all formless, all void, unable to hold God's purposes until He by His

Spirit formed them.

And time after time He says, and it was good, and it was good.

On the third day He says it twice.

So you have these eight words for creation, and then two words to the man, to Adam, to give him

custody of it.

So can we think of ten words bringing order, ten words bringing peace?

Centuries later, ten words from Sinai bringing order, bringing peace if you will, to

Israel, and now today speaking one word in Christ Jesus,

the very Word of God.

I call you to Him.

I call you to faith in Him.

Chapter 85 and verse 8, it says, Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for He will speak peace to His people,

to His saints, but let them not turn back to their folly.

Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him, that glory may dwell in our land.

Call upon God, and listen to what He will speak.

Listen quietly, and see if He will speak peace to His people.

Go to Him for forgiveness of your sins.

Go to the cross of Christ.

The Scripture says if you call upon His name, if you believe in what He has done, you will be

saved.

Well, this brings to a close just this last part of chapter 4, excuse

me, this first part of chapter 4 of Philippians.

The doing part is now set before you.

The unity, the rejoicing, the reasonableness, the requesting, and

now you know that as you do these, as you do your part, as you obey the

Word of God through the Apostle Paul, that it's God's peace, His very peace,

His un -understandable peace, His surpassing all knowledge peace, that is guarding and

protecting you as you're found in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen.

Heavenly Father, thank You for the day once again that You've given us and for bringing us together in this way with the lovely weather

for all things, but most of all for the Lord Jesus Christ and for the peace that we have with You because of Him.

We thank You, Father, by Your very own peace, by the peace that You alone have in Yourself

that You are protecting and guarding and watching over us.

We thank You for all this in Jesus' name.

Amen.