God is PASSIONATE about breathing PEACE IN and THROUGH us! And while that sounds good, we all want peace, right! My day-to-day experience often lacks the peace of God. I get anxious about a lot of things. I worry about my kids, my family, and money. As I get older I worry more about my health. As a church planter and pastor I worry about the future of our church. With the chaos in our country and world I worry about the future!
Can you relate?
Thankfully God IS passionate about His people experiencing peace. HERE is the audio from my message from yesterday on this subject.
God isn’t surprised by our anxiety today, and He has never been surprised by the anxiety we face. In fact here’s a story in Judges 6, way back in the OT, around 1000 B.C. that teaches us how to experience the peace of God!
The story of Gideon takes place 200 years after Joshua (this around 1000 BC). Israel was a people without leadership! Because of that, the author of Judges says many times, “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” They forgot God and started following the Idols of their “neighbors.” In God’s love He was faithful to discipline them. He sent enemies and as a result the people of God were suffering greatly.
God Calls Gideon
There was nothing special about Gideon. In fact, he was basically in hiding, fearful of his enemies. And he was probably fearful because he knew God’s people had fallen far from Him.
12 When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” (interesting since Gideon was acting like a coward, but prophetic in that it describes the man he will become.
Gideon’s response is hilarious!
13 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
He must have thought, “God, you’ve got the wrong address. You can’t be talking about me and my people!”
God’s Gives Assurance
16 The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.”
23 But the Lord said to him, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.” 24 So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it The Lord Is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
Gideon experienced the Peace of God before he ever won the battle against the Midianites. HOW?
Experiencing PEACE is the result of Who is with you, not your circumstances. God is greater than any challenge, any fear, and threat. He longs for us to experience that peace in and through every day.
When we’re not experiencing the peace of God, it’s usually because we’re too aware of the presence of people/circumstances NOT named JESUS!
Money can’t buy peace. We all know that, right! Experiencing true peace comes from knowing God.
Here’s the YBH (Yeah, But How?) of experiencing the peace of God right here, right now, even in the midst of our circumstances…
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition (specific requests), with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7)
- STOP “Do not be anxious…”
- PRAY “… but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving...”
- SURRENDER “… present your requests to God.”
- ENJOY PEACE “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Like training for sports, it doesn’t come naturally in the beginning. When we start training we get sore. But week after week we begin to experience “muscle memory.”
Similarly, learning to pray and experience the peace of God takes practice. But the more we practice the more it’s part of our spiritual muscle memory!