The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 8: Peace

Episode Date: March 26, 2023

Are you anxious? Stop. Pray. Focus on Godly things.

Amen and amen. We serve a mighty God, amen. And he does amazing things, amen? And he most often does it through some pretty amazing people, and Ms. Debbie is sitting right here on the front row, and Dr. Puja is sitting right here on the front row. And we say thank you. Thank you for sharing your testimony.

And you know, often when we are in great need, God does some of his best work through people. We need one another. We were wired for relationships. That is true for me, too. One of the greatest honors of my life is being your pastor, but I don't know if you've ever considered this. Your pastor needs a pastor. You ever think about that?

You ever think about who I call? Well, I've got a treat for you today. I've got a friend that's going to come and is going to share God's word with us. He's been here a couple times before. His name's Bruce Frank. He's from Biltmore Church in Asheville, North Carolina. And he's like a big brother to me. He is like a mentor in the ministry to me.

And when I need somebody, he's one of my first go-to call. Trust me, I've heard this sermon already. When we get finished today, you will be saying thank you, thank you, thank you for inviting Pastor Bruce to be here. Would you please stand to your feet and give a warm welcome to my friend, Pastor Bruce Frank? Hey, welcome. It's great to be back at 1122. I can't think of many people who I love and appreciate and respect more than Jobie, love

Jobie and Gretchen and Pastor Britt and all the folks at the retreat center. My favorite place to preach is Buildmore Church up in the mountains, but the second favorite place above any kind of conference or retreat or anything has actually become the church at 1122. So I would just say, hey, church family, you know, God has got his hand on you and your pastor right now in an unusual way. I mean, God is obviously gifted. Dr. Joby, absolutely one of the best preachers in the entire country, but there's also that sense

of just God at work in your church. And so stay humble, stay hungry, keep pursuing the Lord. God's doing a great, great work here. Pray for you, pastor. May I love him, write him notes of encouragement. And so again, I remember even just a few weeks ago being at the retreat center with about 30 of our team and just driving in there. And the first words that Kelly, who's up at the retreat center, he's like, hey, welcome home. And I did, right then my blood pressure, probably dropped in half. And so thank you for that kind of culture at your church, a culture of gospel hospitality. And we're a better church up in the mountains of Western North Carolina and the Asheville area because of you. We've learned a bunch of stuff from you as we seek to get

better. I somewhat joke, I think it joked the last time that one of the times I was here earlier I saw the prayer benches and I'm like, boom, we've got to take that back. I mean, we're going to do that. I was like, we're going to take that back. And so we installed them at all of our campuses. And And then we started like, all right, all right, we're going to use them this Sunday. And my people didn't know how to use them. I'm like, come down here, we got these prayer benches. I promise, as the Lord is my witness, what they did instead of kneeling at the prayer benches, they knelt on the floor and put their elbows on the benches.

I'm like, time out. We got to have a, we had to have a tutorial on the prayer bench. So all being said, hey, thank you, thank you for being the kind of church that shares what God is doing here. And so Philippians are we going to be. This is, we're going to see that this chapter has three of the top. top 10 most downloaded verses between the years 20 and 22. As a matter of fact, two are the ones we're going to look at today.

One of them, verse 7, is the most downloaded verse in the U version of any verse in the entire Bible. And if you know what's happened the last couple of years, you're going to understand why that is. And when you look at it, part of this verse simply says this. It simply says, part of the verse says, be anxious. That's what it says. It says be anxious. And if that's all the verse said, we would be killing this verse, all right? Because we are in anxious people.

We are in anxious people. We're anxious about a ton of different stuff. We're anxious about money. You know, am I going to be able to retire on time? What if the stock market crashes? Am I going to be able to afford a house with the mortgage rates going up? We're anxious about going to the doctor. We're anxious about being able to find the right spouse.

We're anxious about being able to have a child. We get anxiety about what if I lose a child? We're anxious about Ukraine. We're anxious about the economy. We're anxious. We've got stuff coming out of COVID. I know in the state of Florida you guys didn't have COVID. We had COVID up in North Carolina, and we still got a little PTSD from that.

But the bottom line is all of those have one thing in common, and what we're anxious about is we're anxious about the future. What if this happens? What if my prodigal never comes home? What if my spouse goes crazy? leaves me. What if I can never retire? What if my 401K tanks? We were anxious about the future. We're not anxious about the past because the past is already in the past. I mean, think about it. You go back a few hundred years and we only had like three channels on the television, all right? Just three. I mean,

I now know we got to either. We got Netflix, Amazon, all that kind of stuff. But there was a time way, way, way back in ancient history, you had three channels. You had channel one, you had channel two, and you had channel three. Channel one, think about Channel one as being your past. Channel 1 is full of black and white and reruns. And while it's not bad, a lot of times we look back. It's like, you know what, that's the past. And God doesn't want you to live in the past. I know one of the verses that your pastor talks about

and instills in you all the time is Romans 8.1. There's no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. So you can learn from your past, but you don't want to live in your past. Channel 2 is your present, the present. And that's where God wants you to live. in the present. All right, what's God want to do with my life now?

How do I join in the mission now? How do I disciple people now? How do I live for the glory of God? Now, that's the channel, full of living color, HD, and it's an awesome place to live. But channel three is the future. Channel three is full of scary movies.

It's full of, okay, what happens when this goes on and I can't handle it? And so in chapter four of the book of Philippians, the apostle Paul deals with this, and he deals with it. And when we think of anxiety, by the way, when we think of anxiety, think of it as it has a lot of siblings. The siblings of anxiety are things like worry, things like fear, things like Augustine or Augustine, he's a fifth century theologian. he said that our emotions are like smoke from a fire. Just like smoke, it's not the fire, but it indicates that a fire is going on. The smoke says that there's something deeper, and what Augustine said was that our emotions

are indicative of something deeper going on. Think about it this way. Most of us have a fire alarm in our house, and that thing will go off. and when that thing goes off, it would not be wise to take a hammer and just beat that thing off the wall. It's not wise to simply go, you know what, I'm going to get used to that incessant beeping. What you end up doing is you got to understand, unless it's out of batteries, what that smoke alarm is trying to tell you is, listen, there is a fire in your home.

Something dangerous is going on in your home. And if you do not deal with that, the whole thing could burn down. And so in our text today, the question on the floor is, how am I going to go from insomnia and ulcers and Prozac to peace of mind? How do I do that? How do I actually get a grip on the fact that the calm assurance that what God is doing is best? That I'm not stressed. I'm not wringing my hands. I'm not lying awake at night.

I have the peace of God. It's the peace that Jesus talked about in John 14 when he says, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives to you, my peace I give to you. And that's the goal for today that you would understand not only that you can have peace with God if you don't have that, but also the peace of God that when you walk out under the parking lot, you can say, you know what? That burden, that anxiety, that prodigal, that financial situation, that marriage that's in the toilet, I gave that over to God. and while I don't know how he's going to answer it, I gave that over to God. That's where we're going. So I felt pretty baptistic this week. So you have three points and all start with the same letter. I actually resisted it, tried to go against it, but you got, I don't have a poem at the end, but I do have three points, and it's right out of the text as well.

So chapter four, Philippians chapter four, starting in verse two, point number one. Point number one is actually resolving conflict. It's actually, you know what? The vertical is amazing, but the vertical impacts the horizontal. So here's what he says. I entreat Yotia and I entreat Cinticay. These are two ladies, two leaders, two female leaders in this early church. I entreat Yotia and I entreat Cynchate 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. We don't know much about Clement. This is the only time he's mentioned. And the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life. So here's what you've got. You got a great church, but you've got two ladies

who are not like backro-baptist people. These are leaders that are in the church and they are in conflict, and Paul calls it out. Now, you've got to understand how that would work in those days. When an apostle would send letter, the elder of that church would stand up and he would read the letter live while they're there. And you can guarantee that Sintake and Yody are on the front row. And can you imagine when he's like, listen, I implore, I urge these two ladies to agree in the Lord. And he goes

so far as to say, loyal companion, which most people think that that's a actual real person, not just a true companion. It's like a real person. Get in the middle of that and help these people agree in the Lord. You might say, well, Bruce, what are they fighting about? What are they fighting about? Now, listen, these are not baby believers. They have labored side by side in the gospel with the Apostle Paul.

I mean, these are the people that are disciple group leaders. These are ones that sponsor compassion kids. These are the ones that help in each baptism. These are the leaders. But what happened is you've got minor something preferences. Some minor something became a major. something because two leaders dug their heels in, feelings got hurt, words got said, sides got taken, tempers got flared. And so from that, that's the context of verse four and five when he says,

rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. And then verse five, he says, let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Now, I want you to look in your Bibles and you can see a theme. In verse two, it says, you agree what? In the Lord. And then in verse three, it says, your names are in the book of life. In other words, you're on the same team. Sometime when my wife and I get crossways is we've got to remind each other,

listen, same team. All right, babe, we're on the same team. Let's attack the problem. Let's not attack each other. And so what he's saying is, listen, you guys are on the same team. In verse 4 he says rejoice how rejoice in the Lord the loved ones here's what I got to tell you is this is when you are at odds with somebody else it's and we'll talk about you can't always reconcile but when you are voluntarily at odds with a brother or a sister it is very difficult if not

impossible to have the peace of God in your life because what he's going to be telling you over and over again is get that thing resolved humble yourself get that thing resolved ask for forgiveness, apologize, whether it be a marriage or whether it be in your discipleship group, you humble yourself, you make the first move. And so what he says here is, he says, if you do that, you will rejoice in the Lord. And rejoicing in the Lord is simply that supernatural delight, that supernatural delight. It's not just, and listen to me carefully, God gives you joy when you come to Christ. So it's a supernatural thing, but it's supernatural delight.

in the person of God and the people of God. Paul himself says, you are my joy in my crown. And so he says, your joy is obviously wrapped in the vertical, but it overflows into the horizontal. That's why Paul, by the way, says to husbands in 1st Peter chapter 3, he says, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way and grant them honor as a co-air of the precious gift of life, comma, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

In other words, husband, if you're sitting there and you are not treating your wife right and you're neglecting her and you guys are at odds and you're not the one trying to humble themselves in front of your wife to say, hey, babe, let's get this together. He says, you can pray all you want. Those prayers are going to hit the ceiling. They're going to bounce right back down. And so people talk about a personal relationship with Jesus. And is that true? 100% is true. Nobody else can repent and believe.

Your grandmom can't. Your brother can't. Nobody can repent and believe for you. So it is a personal relationship. But Church of 1122, you've got to understand it is not a private relationship with Jesus. God is building a family. He's building a family here in the Jacksonville and the Georgia area and you are individually saved. You are individually saved.

But then God builds a family of faith that unites around the gospel, that unites around the gospel, that understands in this big old thing called the Church of 1122, There are biblical convictions that you hold tightly to, and then there are personal preferences that you hold very, very, very loosely. Everybody's got a personal preference, and where it gets in trouble is when you elevate your personal preferences up to the level of a biblical conviction. And as I said the other night, I was like, listen to, we all check off the sanctification box in different order.

So when you come to faith in Christ, you might, boom, I immediately got it. got off the drugs. Boom, I immediately became a better husband. You got somebody else over here, and maybe there's still a terrible husband, but God's doing a sanctifying work in them. And so just understand, when you look at your brother and sister, God's at work in them. And what do you do? He's urging them to take the big picture. You're listening, you're going to spend eternity together, stay on mission, people are watching how you interact. Jesus said, people will know you're my disciples by the love we have for each other. It's like that's the brand. I mean, some of you pagans probably watch that terrible show, Yellowstone. And, you know, you're Beth, you got,

I'm Beth Dutton, and I, you know, I'm Rip, whatever. And what, if you haven't watched the show, what I've heard is, is that they actually give a brand to the people, all right? They brand them. And that brand, that big Y is saying, we might bicker with each other, but bottom line is, the big picture is the ranch, all right? The big picture is the ranch. The big picture is we're the family, and you get that brand. What he is, is you are part of a family, loved one. If you've been branded with the gospel of Jesus, you've got to understand. You are his, he is yours, but then he puts you into a big old crazy family to say,

part of the sanctification process is understanding there are big things and there are small things and you need to distinguish between the two. That's why he says, by the way, let your reasonableness be known to all. Now, this is the cool part about this church, about the church in Philippi, is it was very eclectic, just like here. I mean, at church today, you put all the campuses together, and every sphere of life is represented. I mean, in this room, you've got PhDs, you've got, didn't even get a GED, you've got blue collar, you've got white collar, you've got every race, you've got different languages, you've got different politics,

you've got all of that stuff. But as a church, what he's urging them to do is, listen, be you not. be united in the gospel. Make sure you're on mission, and when you're on mission, all the other stuff can kind of fade away. That's why he says, let your reasonableness be known to all men. You're like, what is reasonableness? Some of your translations say,

gentleness, pretty close. But I'm not the smartest guy. So if you take, let your reasonableness be known, the opposite of reasonableness would be what? Unreasonableness, yeah. unreasonableness. Unreasonable. Some synonyms are, would, for reasonableness to be gracious, not overreacting, not blowing things up on something real, real small. So for example, up in the mountains, our roads are not, are not awesome. They don't have shoulders like y'all

have shoulders. Okay. We have like, that's our shoulder right there. And they are curved, and a lot of times are just two lanes. But I got to confess, Florida drivers are really bad. You are just a bad drivers. And when you come up to the mountains for cold weather, cooler weather, you don't drive. The speed limit signs are there for you to go that speed. You understand that? You're supposed to go that speed. And so much to my shame, probably, I don't know, some time ago, I'm trying to get somewhere in a hurry. And I was behind a Florida license plate. And man, I thank God for the Florida people coming up there. I mean, You guys help our economy and tourism and all that stuff.

But again, I'm behind somebody in my truck. And my truck is not like total rednecked up, but it's got a little bit of a lift kit. It's got it's a little bit, and it's got the lights and all that stuff. But I'm right on this, I'm not sure what it was. It was a saber or something like that. And you had a Florida license plate. And it's like a 55 mile an hour zone, and you're going 35.

And again, if you're here today, I love you in Jesus' name. But I'm saying that I'm like on you, on you. And I'm trying not to be the jerk that's like, you know, I'm not honking or anything. But I'm obvious. I'm like, you know, you got this, what are you doing? And it just, I couldn't get around her. Couldn't get around her.

And so finally goes into another lane, and I'm like, and I'm like, whirr, and I'm starting to go by her and, man, halfway past her. I mean, I'm door to door. I realize I have the Biltmore Church sticker on the back of my truck. And the Lord gave me this strategy. There's a little button down there because it's on the middle window. I can push that button, and the window went sideways and she couldn't see it. So my point is it's not always easy to be reasonable.

It's not. It's not. I mean, God gets this in different areas. My point would be this. Listen, on the majors, on the major stuff, take action. I mean, church, there's nothing wrong with taking action on major stuff. There is major stuff. I mean, doctrinal stuff.

Those are some major things you and I can take action on clear, right, and wrong. Those are things, take action on those. But so much of what splits, church. today is minor stuff. And in that case, there needs to be a huge amount of acceptance, a huge amount of humility, a huge amount, again, of understanding God's checking the sanctification box in different order than he is in mine. And some of you might say, man, I got my rights. I got my rights. I got a right to have volume or dress or whatever the case is. And you've got to go back to the Philippians 2. Philippians 2 says, we serve as Savior. And you follow a Jesus that laid down

his rights. How bad would that have been? If he was on the cross, he's like, listen, I got the right. I'm not up here because of me. I'm up here because of you. I got to have my rights. And when you choose to follow Jesus, you lay down a ton of your rights. And one of them, by the way, is you got Christian liberty. And I'm all for Christian liberty. I'm a recovering legalist. You know, that's just the bent that I have. And your Christian liberty, you got to, your Christian liberty ends where your gospel witness begins. And so you've got to be able to say, I'm going to lay down my rights in order to be on mission and to further the gospel. And so here's what it is. Do what you can do. You're like, well, you're like, Bruce, we can't, I can't reconcile. They won't reconcile.

And I know this opens up a whole abundance of should I go and should I apologize? And I would simply say, remind us of a couple of things. Hebrews 12 and Romans 12 both say, make every effort, or as far as it is with you, be at peace with all people. As far as it is with you. Reconciliation definitely takes two. Forgiveness takes one. Humility just takes one. Jesus said, if actually, if you're at the altar and you're giving an offering and you understand that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there and go and be reconciled. You're like, well, they won't reconcile. Have you done? The question is, have you done what you can do? For some of you actually, you had a fight with your spouse over the weekend,

and you have not humbled yourself, and you're like, which one should humble ourselves? Which one should humble. The most mature believer of the husband and wife, you ought to humble yourself first. Who's ever the most mature in your relationship, whoever loves Jesus the most, you be the one that humbles yourself and see how that goes. But we've got to resolve conflict. So let's look at the famous verses. The famous verses are verse six and seven. And it's the whole idea of releasing burdens. Resolve conflict, release burdens. 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.

Okay, do not be anxious about anything. The word anxiety there means divided mind or a divided cares. Here's something that on the front end might seem like bad news, but actually it's great news if you understand it in the big picture. Do you understand you cannot control, if you're a control freak, if you're an eight on the Nagram, if you're whatever on the dis profile, and you like to control everything, this is both bad news and good news. The bad news is, or what you think is bad news, is you cannot control your future.

You cannot control all aspects of your future. You cannot control your health future. Listen, you might get cancer. You might get cancer. You might get in a car wreck. You might have a heart attack. And if you were always so anxious about that, you won't even do what you can do.

Like eat right and exercise and lose weight or whatever that is. You can't control your health. You can't control your family. You cannot control your family. your kids might rebel. You can take them to children's camp. You can disciple them. They might rebel for a season.

Your spouse might go out off the deep end. And if all you're doing is just so fretting about that, then you won't do what you can do. Like read the Bible, read the Jesus storybook Bible to your kids. Like pray with your wife. You can't control your financial future. You can't. A lot of us learn that lesson in O.

and in an oh, and here we are years later, and we've forgotten that lesson. You might not ever be able to retire. Your stock might go in the toilet next week. But you can do what you can do. You can spend less than you earn. You can put money away. You can follow God in obedience to honoring the mission of God. But he says, let your requests be made known to God.

If you don't do that, what's going to happen is it's going to happen is it's going to build up and build up and build up and break you. So, again, going back to COVID, it was probably six or seven months in. I think I can't remember our timeline. I think we're still maybe an RSVP service. I can't remember. If you were any kind of leader during COVID,

you still got some scars. And it's okay to have scars. All right. You want your woundedness, by the way, to take you to brokenness. If you stay in your woundedness the whole time, that is unhealthy. Let God take your wound and make it where you are broken. The difference is your wound is what you were sitting in. But if you let your woundedness become your brokenness, then all of a sudden

God comes in and heals that, and that becomes your testimony, by the way. So the way I was trying to, and it was just building, building, and building, I was getting so frustrated and you had different mandates. Do you follow the mandate? Do you go against it? Whatever, all this stuff. You had different people sitting right now. And I got a great church. And so, I got a super low drama church, but it did ratchet up about 10% during COVID, you know. And so I'm so frustrated at this point. It's just boiling and boiling and boiling in me. And I'm not actually, I'm actually what had gotten into the habit.

To be honest, I had started a doom scroll. So my habit for the last 30 years has been to get up each morning. I'm a decently disciplined guy. So I like, get up in the morning and I always read the word. That's what I'd done for 30 years. But during COVID, I had noticed I'd gotten up and started just doom scrolling, looking at all the terrible news and what's going on. And all of a sudden an hour's gone by, and then I had to get to the office or wherever I was going, and I didn't spend time in there.

So at that context, it was building and building and building. I live kind of out in the country, and I got this place where I can hit like 100-yard, 100-yard wedge shots. That's golf, wedge shots. And I also have a German Shepherd that needs a lot of exercise. And so it's good for both of us. I hit the wedge, he runs and gets the ball, brings it back, and we do that for 30 or 40 minutes. But not just because I was hitting the ball terrible, but because all this COVID stuff, I mean, it's, This is a demarcation point for me.

Hit one more bad shot. I took that wedge. There's a tree about right over here. I was like, scimbulon, boom, and through that thing into the tree with every intention of it breaking. And it was so bad it didn't even break. I was like, man, you can't even break a wedge. So I go over to the tree, pick up the wedge, and I beat that, I beat the tree until that steel shaft snaps. I was like, my, soul and body.

And so I'm sitting there, even the dog, I've never seen him scared before. He's like, man, man the hatches, we got to get out of here. So I go in, and my wife's name is Lori, and she is the most godly person I know. And she, you know, you can look in her eyes, and she smiles with her eyes and all those awesome things. But when she came in, or I came in and showed her that broken wedge snapped in half, she's like, who am I married to? and it just broke right there. It's like for six months, for the better part of six months, it had been just control, control,

and it was no longer controllable, control, control, and it just snapped. And that was for me the part or went from being, okay, I got to handle this too, I got to give this over the Lord, or I'm going to die soon. And that's what he's saying, let your request be made known to God. It's present tense, which means continual. In church, you've got to understand this.

so much of your Christian life is simply answering the question, am I going to trust God in this or not? Am I going to press down, trust God, oftentimes daily, that he has my best interest at heart? Am I going to trust that by an act of my will, I'm going to give my burdens over to God? And then walk forward moment by moment, having rolled those burdens over onto God

to anchor my heart in the reality, that God cares for me, that he is aware of my situation, and here's the part, and he is sovereign over all things. You've got to understand. I know sovereignty gets a bad rap sometime around the country, and that's a different sermon, but I would simply say, sovereignty, the sovereignty of God, that God rules the universe with his feet up, that he knows your situation, he cares for you, but he is not up in heaven, pacing back and forth, wringing his hands, sweating, going, I wonder what's going to happen. What am I going to do down in Jacksonville? That is not what he is doing.

He rules the universe with his feet up. He is in complete control and knows your situation. Now, the good part about that is, the good part is he loves you and he cares for you. And you're like, well, I'm not sure it doesn't look like he does. And if you don't get a hold of the sovereignty of God, or I'll put it this way, if you get a hold of the sovereignty of God, it is like the CPR of the Christian life. When your chest is about to cave in, when you have shortness of breast, when you're not, you're like, what's going to happen in my future? What's going to, the sovereignty of God, that God is in control, that nothing gets by him. The sovereignty of God is

the CPR of the Christian life. And here's what you need. One verse, Romans 8 says, what shall we say then to these things? If God is for us, if God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him graciously give us all things? In other words, the apostle Paul is arguing from the greater to the lesser. He's like, listen, I gave my son for you. He bled and died and took your sin and gave you his righteousness if you're in Christ. He did that. So do you don't think I'm going to come in there and help you get through your marriage woes or your financial woes or your health woes? You don't think that's going to happen? You don't think that I hear your prayers for your prodigal.

granddaughter, you don't think that? He's like, listen, he is for you. As Pastor Toby says all the time, he says, listen, it's not about you, but he is for you. You don't die for somebody that you're not for. He is for you. And when you look at this, he's saying, don't be anxious. And if you say that to somebody else, let's say you and I go out to lunch. We walk into a restaurant and you go, oh, man, I don't have a wallet. I don't have my wallet with me. I've got no money. And I look at you, and I say, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. What am I saying? And let's not play a cruel joke on you, which will be kind of funny if at the end of the deal, it's like, I got my part, you got, okay, you're going to hang around here. But if I say, don't worry about

it, what I'm saying is I'll take care of it. I'll cover it. That debt that you have, that situation that you have, don't be anxious about it because I will cover it. So here's what we're going to do here in probably about 10 minutes is there's a time when you've got to get on your knees. And by the way, the great thing about a prayer. bench is what you were doing is you are matching your physical posture with what you want your heart posture to be. When you're on your knees, it is an expression of dependence. You get on your knees before somebody who is sovereign, you're like, I don't have what it takes at all. I cannot control this situation. And you're going to say this burden is too much for me.

You are sovereign. You are strong. And I got to transfer this burden from me over to you. You're like, well, how is God going to respond? Let me give you a sample. Psalm 50, verse 15 says, Call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will glorify me. Now, it's hard to tell. Are you going to glorify God when he answers?

Are you going to glorify God as you seek God in the answer? I'm not sure which one it is. I would say that most of us think that people watching us think that they are impressed by our God when God blesses you, when you win the lottery or something awesome. happens, and maybe that's true a little bit, but what's even more awesome and what's even more impressive to a watching world is when the church of 1122 and you're a single mom and somebody walks out on you, your husband walks out on you, and all of a sudden you're trying to raise three kids, and you still trust God, and you still love Jesus, and you're still discipling your

kids in spite of the hell you're going through, people stand up and go, you know what? That is the piece that I cannot understand. How you trust in a God that let your husband walk out on you? It's like, I don't understand totally, but you know what God is good and I'm trusting him. And there's one I'm trying to memorize, and you can memorize it with me if you want to. I'm trying to memorize Psalm 34. Psalm 34, you saw it earlier, you sang about it a little bit earlier. And here's the way Psalm 34 goes.

It says, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise will continually be in my mouth. My soul, that's your inner part, that's that impact. That's that immaterial part of you. My soul will make its boast in the Lord. Let the humble, hear it, and be glad. And then it says this. It says, magnify the Lord with me.

Let us exalt his name together. And then in verse four, he says, I sought the Lord and he answered me and he delivered me from all of my fears. So the mechanism by which God is using you to get past your fears is seeking the Lord. That's why I said, if you come up here and you're like, this burden is off of me, I can't handle it, then you can confidently say, you know, I can have the peace that passes understanding.

And by the way, peace for a Jewish rabbi, like the Apostle Paul, was not just the fact that the circumstances changed. It was actually the Hebrew idea of shalom. the idea of peace in the midst of the battle, the idea of my soul is right with God, the idea is there's no conflict between me and God, it's the idea of wholeness. And so what he says is,

you give that over to me, and you'll get the peace that passes understanding, but it wouldn't be complete. You've got to get to this last part, because the last part is sometimes disconnected, to be honest, with the first seven verses. So here's what he says. verse 8 and 9 is about I got to rewire my thoughts

verse 8 and 9 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 in what you've learned and received and heard and seen in me practice these things

and the God and there's our phrase again and the God of peace will be with you will be with you. When you come to Christ, and if you hadn't come to Christ, by the way, and if you're like, I've been coming to this church a few weeks, and I love what I'm seeing, I'm just not sure. Understand the peace of God happens when you turn from your way at trying to make life work,

and you turn to Jesus and Jesus alone. And the phraseology that is correctly used around here is I'm going to surrender to the Lordship of Christ. And when you surrender to the Lordship of Christ, you go from being an enemy of God to being a, adopted son or daughter of Almighty God. And even right there in your seat, with your head up and your eyes open, you can say, you know what, dear Jesus, I want you to save me.

I don't know all the answers. I don't even know all the questions, but I want you to save me right where I sit. And then before you leave church today, you tell somebody. That's the peace with God. But then the peace of God happens when, because if that's something you've done, there's so much new stuff that you got. And it's awesome. You've got a new heart.

you got a new name, which I don't really know how that works. All right, Revelation says you get a new name. And I can't wait for that because, I mean, is there any more vanilla boring name than Bruce? I mean, that is just, I mean, I want a cool name in heaven like Joby. I mean, that'd be a cool name to have, but you get a bunch of new stuff. You get a new heart. Again, you put a new song, you get new mercies every day, what you don't get. And those of you like me that came to Christ kind of late,

it means you've got to take advantage of this and understand this. You do not get a new mind when you come to Christ. So some of the same patterns of thinking that you have had for years, the main part of your sanctification is God is going to replace things that are not true with things that are true. Things that are not true of you. This is not the way that I designed you to work. And replacing that with what is true.

It's kind of like if you're a motorcycle rider, I know some of you guys I've seen enough ink around here and enough Harley jackets. I know a lot of you are. So the idea is when you're learning to ride a motorcycle, one of the things they tell you is, listen, the bike's going to go. The bike's going to go where you're looking. Right. Wherever you're looking, that's where the bike is going to go.

People learn that the hard way up where I'm from on this thing called the Tail of the Dragon. It's got like a million curves. And what they'll do is they won't pay attention. And boom, they're off the parkway, all right? They're off that. Why? Because they're not looking where they want to go. So here's the point.

What he's saying here is, I mean, what is honorable? What is true? What is that? It's the word. It's this book right here. And so the thing you've got to understand is you've got to offload your burden. Peter says, cast all your anxiety upon me because I care for you. You've got to offload your burden, but then you've got to fill that vacuum with some truth.

You've got to. And so that's why he says, hey, rewire your thoughts. That's why Paul in a different book would say, the way that I. the way that we're sanctified is by the renewing of your mind, the renewing of your mind. So let me give you an example. For nine years, we lived in a certain place up in Asheville. For nine years, a little place called Fletcher. It's outside of Asheville. So for nine years, what I would do is I would come out of the office where I office, I would take a left, go to a light, and then I would take another left to go where our home was. And so for now,

nine years, I would go to the stoplight, take a left. Go to the stoplight, take a left. I mean, just multiply that nine years, five or six days a week. Go there, take a left to go home. We then moved out to a place called Mills River. That means that when I come to the light, I now take a right, not a left. I cannot tell you how many times the first few months particularly. I would be on the phone, I would be distracted, something like that. I would come up to the light, not really paying attention, but because for nine years I had taken a left, I would take a left, only to get halfway down the road going, dummy, what are you doing? Have to make the embarrassing you turn and go back. And so the only way that that changed is, is getting in my mind,

listen, I don't live down there anymore. That's not my address anymore. My address is over here, not there. So when I come to this light, the lie says, I got to go to my left. But the truth is, I don't live there anymore. I live over here now. And it's, As a Christian, you've got to understand when you come to Christ, guess what? You don't live over there anymore. You're not living in the world. You're a son or daughter of Almighty God. So you take a right.

Not a left. You take a right. But it's going to take some. That's why this church resources you better than any church I've ever seen. You've got devotionals from the pastor's wife, bro. I mean, that is as good as you're ever going to get. I mean, right there for you. So take advantage of that stuff.

That is the discipleship journey. and I would say this, again, if you came to Christ, there's a lot of things that happened, boom, it happened immediately. I mean, boom. Things like justification, boom, immediately you were justified. It is a pronouncement God makes over your life that you were justified. The gavel has come down. Jesus took your penalty.

That happens immediately adoption. All those things are like, oh, that's what you're grounded in. Those are pronouncement God makes over you. But this part, this part is not as much of a problem. pronouncement is a process. It's a process where God's like, don't turn left, don't turn left, you turn right now. That's not where your home is. This is where your home is. And the only way you do that is getting this book and get some promises, whether it be the lent devotional, whether it be dwell, whether it be whatever. But you've got to pick up a word. So let me,

let me tell you one story that I've, because what happens is when you don't see your answer to prayer, sometime you quit praying. Correct? I mean, if you might have prayed real hard for your prodigal, your marriage, your friend to come to Christ, whatever it is. Some of you maybe had a person you used to pray, and you're like, you're two weeks away from Easter. You're not even praying for them now. You're just like, well, I just prayed, and I never saw any interest, and let me just kind of move on. And just listen to my brother up in the mountains. Unless God tells you stop praying for that, and he might occasionally, did the Apostle Paul about his thorn in the flesh.

Unless God says, stop praying about that, you keep praying. You keep praying. Unless God says, stop, I don't want you to pray. You keep praying about you keep praying for that prodigal. You keep praying for that marriage. You keep praying for that lost neighbor. And God's got to give you a verse, though, or more verses to get you through some tough times. So to be completely open and, you know, don't look him up on social media and send him,

we're praying for you. I've got two boys. I got two boys, two grown boys. One's a preacher. He's actually one of our campus pastors. There's great teacher. Anyway. And then we have another one, and I love them both exactly the same.

But one's a prodigal. And probably been a prodigal now about five years. He lives up in the Babylon, better known as New York City. And to be honest, there are times when, I mean, I would say even Thursday night, I'm recommitting there's not going to be, because I think about it every day, but I'm going to pray every day. And as I prayed every day, one of the verses that has gotten me through that

is Psalm 2713. That's what I'm saying. God's God. Because the song you sang earlier, you've got to infuse your mind with a gospel fact that is louder than the voice of unbelief. Because you are not going to be able

to walk out of your house over what that is that is causing you anxiety without the voice of unbelief telling you, it's not going to change. You're not going to change. It's not going to change. It's not going to change. It's never going to be any better.

And if you don't have some gospel-infused fact to put in there, it is going to eventually wear you down. So here's one of the ones that I've got one in Ephesians 1, but Psalm 2713. There's actually a couple of songs written about it, but Psalm 2713, listen. This might be a verse for you. You're like, I don't have a verse. Here's a great verse for you. Here's what it says.

I believe, it actually starts off in some translations. I would have despaired. I would have despaired if I did not believe, that's that faith. if I did not believe that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I would have despaired if I did not believe that I would see the goodness of the Lord. I don't know how that's going to look. I don't know what that's even going to look like. I don't know if that means the phone call or the text or driving into the driveway or hugs or tears.

I don't understand. I don't know exactly. But I know God is good. And he says, I would have despaired if I did not. believe that I would see it. I would see it happen. I would see the goodness of the Lord, not just in heaven, but I would see the goodness of God in the land of the living. In other words, I'm going to see the goodness of God right here, right now at some point. And maybe that's where you are. And so a lot of times I've got to recommit. It's almost like a crisis process. There's every down

then, I'm like, I've got to do that. The burden is too much. I've got to recommit that to the Lord. And that's where some of you are, that you need to come and pray. You need to come and off-lift burden back to the Lord where it belongs and leave it at the altar. It's like, I'm not wired to handle this. And again, it runs the gamut. It might be your financial future. Maybe you had a health issue. Maybe you do have the prodigal. Maybe you've got a marriage issue. Maybe you just have to have the courage to invite somebody to an Easter service over and over and over. You come. You come and pray. Others of us, we're going to sing about the goodness of God and maybe halfway through the song. You're like, I got to get my tail in down to that altar and cry out to God that he would

change it. Maybe you just need to come down here and ask for a verse as well. God, I need a verse to get by. I just don't see how my marriage can ever be healed. Others of you need to just come down here because you had that fight with your spouse and you need to come down here and pray together. Maybe you hadn't prayed together in years and just take a little bit of the leadership, grab her by the hand. Hey, let's go pray together. I'm sorry. Let's pray together. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to pray for you and then we're going to respond. Father, that's what our prayer is today. You're a good God. And you don't just leave us in a vacuum saying, hey, just don't be anxious. You say we can actually do something about it that in prayer and supplication

and expressing gratitude back to you, we can have peace that passes understanding. And God, we don't want to be a bunch of freaked out, stressed out, people. That just doesn't glorify you and it's not for our flourishing. So my prayer is for the next few minutes as we sing about the goodness of God. We would also do what Peter implores us to do and cast all of our anxiety upon you. Why? Because you care for us. You say, call to me in your day of trouble, and I will deliver you, and you will glorify me. And so, God, this is a day of trouble for so many, and I pray that in the next few minutes, we would simply call out to you, you would deliver us, and then you would give us the words to glorify you. And we prayed in Jesus' powerful name.

Amen. All right, hey, church, here's the deal. We're going to sing about the goodness of God, and you go ahead and get up out of your seat. Go ahead and stand, if you will. You're going to either be singing or coming and pray. praying. And if you've got, if you've got a prodigal, you've got a problem, you've got a marriage deal, come down here, all flow that to God, and see if you don't walk out of here with the peace that doesn't make sense to anybody.