Rhythms of Peace | Week 1 | Message

Because the big idea we're gonna see today that kinda launches this little series is simply this. Peace isn't a place. It's a person. It's not a destination. It's a direction. In other words,

one of the things we're gonna have to wrap our minds around and wrap our hearts around that even if you're a follower of Christ, some of us are doing the rhythms we're gonna talk about, but you still don't experience peace because we have the wrong mindset on what it is in the first place.

We end up embracing the same view everyone out in the whole world, everyone who's not even a follower of God. Everyone kinda thinks of peace is a destination. It's a place you get to. When I get past this tough moment, when I get through this project at work, when I get to a place in my marriage, when my kids get to an age that I I stop wishing I didn't have kids, you know, stuff like that.

And and and and, you know, I do love kids, by the way. I I realized I joke about that a lot. I love my kids, and I love my grandkids probably even more because you get to have fun and when they become a problem, you can walk away. And but but the truth is is is is when we get this mentality that peace is a place,

even as a Christian, we think it's God's job to take us to that place. But that's not the biblical answer. Jesus is the peace. And he goes if you go with him and walk with him, it doesn't matter what place you're at. You can have peace.

And we're gonna see this today in in in scripture. And then the next few weeks, we're gonna unpackage what are some of these rhythms, These things that we do that's repeated and practiced, that's relational rhythms, not mechanical.

And and and so we don't treat them as such. We treat them as a relationship thing. Then we realize I'm drawing closer to Jesus. I'm living closer in rhythm with him, and then I will have peace no matter what. And so we're gonna be in Philippians chapter four

verse six through nine. And what we're gonna see here is that that that Paul is writing this church and letting him know that peace isn't it's a person, not a place. And he's really saying peace isn't the absence of problems, it's the presence of Jesus.

And and when we look in Philippians, Philippians is I was just there when we were in Greece in in Philippi. Paul got arrested, thrown in prison. I've seen the prison. It was more of a hole in the ground. But but

as he left, he's now writing back to this church he got started, and now he's in prison again. So if you think peace is a place, Paul must think that God thinks it's prison

because he's he's now in prison again, and he's writing to this church that's struggling along because, you know, the people around there, they have a hard time. They're getting persecuted, so they're having problems. The place they're at as a people is there's a lot of persecution and problems on the outside,

but now they're getting take over with fears and anxieties and stuff on the inside. And he goes, hey. I need to help encourage you that you don't have to have those fears. You don't have to have that. And he's writing from prison to tell him, hey. I'm fine. I have all this. I'm sitting in prison

because I'm telling people about Jesus. And so and he says, here's how you can pursue this peace, this relationship with God that brings peace.

And so just wanna read this passage here. He says, don't worry about anything. Now that's starting off kinda rough, I think. Because I know I've been married thirty three years. And if my wife's stressed out and I say, what are you worrying about? If you say that, you should be worried.

That's not what he's saying. He's not saying what do you worry about? He says, you don't need to worry about anything because here's the answer.

Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done. Then you will then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and your minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. This is classic though. Gotta add this because I'm a preacher and I love the preaching heart of Paul, and I can relate. He says one final thing, and he's about to say two. And so he goes, one final thing.

Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely and admirable. Think about these things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

He's talking about scripture. He's talking about Jesus. He's talking about the good things. He's talking about fix your mind on being in the word. We're gonna talk about that. The Bible, we talked about in the armor of God. We're gonna talk about how does the Bible work when you why do you open it and read it and be a part of it every day?

Because it's fixing your mind on these things. So that's number one. But then he adds number two after he said, and keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me. Everything you heard from me and saw me doing, then the God of peace will be with you.

So there you go. So you just explained how do we pursue peace, the rhythm of relationship with Jesus in order to get the peace that peace isn't the place is the person because it's the person of Jesus that says he then guards our hearts and our minds. And that word there for guard,

it's using a Greek term that means like an elite soldier protecting you. So you don't do the protecting. You just go to the you just walk with Jesus, the rhythm of relationship with him in what he just said here. And when you do that, he brings the peace. And that's why it says it's a peace we can't even understand.

If peace was a place and you expected God to take you there, why would the peace when you get to a good place be a peace you can't understand?

You all understand it's easy to be a peace if you get to the place you think you'd a peace at. What he's saying is you're gonna have peace when you're in prison. You're gonna have peace when your marriage is struggling. You can have peace when you're financially in trouble. You can have the peace to trust God with things even if it scares the snot out of you to trust him with those things.

Because you have the peace that he gives you. So so what does that mean there? What did he say here? Well, in these couple verses, I think he said three things,

but I'm gonna do what Paul did, and I'm gonna put it into two points. Okay? So I'm just cram three into two here. And and I think it's simple. The two things he said to pursue peace is first, you ask God. You talk to him. You ask him for help. You pray. That's the first thing he said. He goes, don't worry. Instead, pray.

And and what he's really saying, I love it worded this way, is prayer turns our worry into worship and our fear into faith. It turns our worry into worship and our fear into faith. So when you're worried about something, when you face a problem, talk to him.

And it's weird. I do this. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. Even as a pastor, it's crazy how many times when something hits. Even in leading people spiritually, go, oh my gosh. Church, we gotta

gotta pay for this building, or we gotta do this thing, and I'm gonna get scared, and and you get a little bit intimidated by it all. It's funny how we all do the first thing as we do is, like, oh, we gotta come up with a plan, and we try everything we know how to try. And then at the end, we go, you know what? None of this is working. You know what? It's a long shot, guys, but

maybe try talking to God about it. I don't I don't know. It's like, why do we think that he's like he's like the break glass in the case of emergency?

Like like at the end, like you've tried everything else to handle it. I guess I should go break the glass right now and and bring out God. We treat them like the spare tire. I've driven as far as I can, and now I gotta blow out. Alright. Alright. I guess and then we think of him the same way as we have our spares today. He's that tiny little donut tire.

I guess he'll get me to the tire shop so I can get this problem fixed. No. He's saying, pray to him. He will stand guard. He will look over, and in his praying to him,

you can get the courage. Because you know what he said? It's not mechanical. It's relational even what said to pray about. He says, talk to him about what you need, but he's then ends out with with the other part in between. I'll get the input. He says, talk to about what you need and also the good things he's done.

Then you get the peace that guards your hearts and minds as you live in him. See, this is assuming

what you're talking about you need is not your want. You're like, you are already choosing to live in him. You're choosing to trust him. And guess what? When we try to trust God with our time, our money, or whatever it is, our relationships, all these things, we run into scary problems like, don't know how to do that. It doesn't seem to work. I can't so he's saying, talk to him about that.

You know what? If this is gonna work, I need to I need to as I trust him, I talk to him about it, and then I'm thanking him for the times he has done. You know what that's assuming? You've been choosing to live in a trusting relationship with him.

See, when we think of prayers, like, we ignore him. We don't actually trust him. We get a problem, and that's why we wait and say, god, get me out of this problem. And usually, that prayer is get me to the other place. We our prayer is focused on get me to the place of peace. So we need to actually ask him in a relational

relationship of prayer. That's why one of the next few weeks, we're gonna talk about prayer. How does that work? What does it mean? What does it look like to really have an active prayer life? To have the rhythm of prayer.

But then second thing is I then adjust what I focus on. Because he says, hey, if you're gonna do that, you're gonna have to adjust what you focus on. He says to fix your thoughts. Even though he talks about our hearts and our minds being guarded, he says the action thing is you got to focus your thoughts. He doesn't talk about feelings. You know why? Because the Bible is smarter than us. Studies have proven now the Bible's true on this stuff because God is the one that wrote this, and he's the one that built us.

And we know you can't control feelings. And feelings are real, but they're not often right on where they want you to go. But you can focus your thoughts.

You can decide what you're gonna spend your time. You can take a thought captive. And that's what he's saying is part of our peace is we talk to God, but then we better start being careful what we focus on.

We need to focus on the right things, and we get overwhelmed with stuff. Like, here here's let me let me I got some great communicators, pastors, theologians that kinda decide to try to sum up that thought. One is David Jeremiah. He says, you're not what you think you are, but what you think you are.

I'm not sure I totally understand that,

but it sounds really cool, especially if you read it rather than just hear it. But what what he I think he's trying to say is is is we listen to lies. Sometimes what we focus on is we focus on the wrong thing of what we are or what we think we should be. And then when we focus on that, guess what we become? We become the wrong thing that we're thinking we are. And that's what I'll think a lot. At the end, you're gonna hear this. A lot of us as Christians, we still think of ourselves as someone who's not a Christian. We don't really understand what does it mean to have your identity in Jesus.

And so then we we find it in other things. And so, hey, we're not that. We're not what we think we are, but what we think, if we think that way, that's what we are. And and and so we struggle with that. Billy Graham said it a little bit clear because I think anyone with the name Bill or Billy knows how to communicate. So

what we think about determines what we become.

Fill your mind with what is good and your life will reflect it. That's a little better, but now let's go back to a little bit deeper and confusing not confusing. But a w Tozer said there's another layer to this theologian. He says, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. Why do you think the thing he described here was think on God's word, on who God is, on the person, on the noble, on the beauty, on the fruit, and on who we are in that?

So that's pretty deep. And and I think to summarize all this and what Paul's saying, there's one more guy I wanna quote that I think can just sum it up a little bit dumber, and that's this quote. What fills spills Bill Bush.

That's how I have to understand things. I don't know about you, but it gets too complicated for me. But when I step back from that, what he's saying and what Paul is saying, what God says is what fills spills. What fills your mind spills into your heart and then spills out into your life. And what fills spills says build.

And and and and so that is what he's trying to say. So why do we need to pray and talk to God To fill our mind. Why should we be in the word of God and looking at what's noble right? And why should we even look at our identity in that, what that means for us and focus time and attention on that?

Because that what you focus on, what you feel will spill, not just out into your actions, but first it spills into your heart. And our emotions tend to ultimately drive where we go, but we can't control those.

But if you fill your mind with the right thoughts and truth and don't get overwhelmed with all the other stuff, guess what? That'll fill your heart and then your actions will reflect that. And so that's where we need to go. That's what Paul is saying. And

and and and in doing so, he's saying we need to do that. But here's the problem. We live in a world that we fill our mind with so much. Even other good truth. It's not I'm saying we fill our minds with the crud and the pornographies and the bad things. That's true. That's obvious.

I think part of our problem as followers of Christ, especially out here in the suburbs, out here in used to say, Queentucky, but we're actually Beverly Creek out here. Upper middle class suburbs. And upper middle class suburbs middle to upper class suburbs struggle with all these things the most.

I did some research to find out what is the deal that we struggle with the most out here, and it comes to with all of the information that fights for space in our brain.

Matter of fact, listen to this. Every two days every two days, the human race is now generating as much data information as was generated from the dawn of humanity through 2003. Every two days, we're getting that much information. And and, you know, and most of them are spam calls.

You know, spam risk, his brother fraud. You get those all the time. It says we are exposed to as much information in a day as our fifteenth century ancestors were to in their entire life. We are processing so much. I don't think we were meant to take in this much. And here's the problem.

The biggest problem with a lot of what we take in and fill our mind with takes us to the wrong place. And what it mainly is is a lot of the digital stuff we get, not just social media, but also just media in general. News headlines, information,

crisis, all of that. You don't believe me? Look. Look. It says, the average American spends more than four hundred and ninety minutes. I think that they did. It's even up higher now. Four hundred ninety minutes a day consuming some sort of digital media.

I mean, what's four hundred ninety minutes? How many hours is that? Somebody do the math for me. Sixty minutes, forty nine. What is that? Seven hours, something like that? Yeah. Yet, as Christians, I don't have time to pray. I I I can't serve. I can't be in a small group. I I I I can't read my bible.

You know why? Because we're spending seven to eight hours a day consuming digital media. And and that's creating a problem because those things fight. They fight for it. Because look, I pulled up some research, and I focused it mainly on the middle to upper middle class suburbs.

They say in these areas, in The United United States, general anxiety trends in our areas is one in five adults in our area experiences an anxiety disorder each year. Well, the amount of people in this room, one in five is twenty five percent. Twenty percent see, I I caught myself. And in a room of 1,200 people,

a couple 100 in this room right now probably have an anxiety disorder

because of all of the me all of the information we're trying to process all the time. Anxiety has greatly increased since 2019. I think it's because something happened in 2020, especially among young adults. And here's some other patterns.

Social media. Everyone says that's it. That is part of the problem. That's part of the drama. They said the more platforms you're on, the more anxiety you have. If you're on one, there's still a rise in anxiety.

Matter of fact, they've done research now, and right after Facebook's launch, within that first year or so, they can they actually correlated a twenty percent rise in anxiety diagnosis from one platform. Now don't get me wrong. Social media isn't the problem.

We use it as a church because people can hear about us. You can see. You can share. You can there's a lot of good things you can do on social media. The problem isn't that you have it. The problem is that we let it consume too much of our time. And it and it's and and all this social media and media coverage, it's like junk food.

It's food. It's okay to eat a little bit. It's okay to have a dessert.

The problem is when you eat and you eat and you eat that stuff, we end up unhealthy. We end up obese because that stuff you keep get more and more to get less and less. You eat more. You get hungry again. Your energy crashes. It takes you a little but then you crave it more, so you look at it more, and you end up it's just a downward spiral. That's exactly what's happening in social media, especially with you younger adults in this room because you grew up on it and it consumes you.

And so it matter of fact, they've done studies. The part of the study was people that go home and, like, I just wanna I just wanna unwind and you're gonna look at social media, They have studied this. It does not unwind you. It winds you up more. And so you you you gotta be careful with it.

You gotta be careful with it. Matter of fact, that's why I got off of it a few years ago. Not that it's bad. My wife has it. I realized I can't handle it. It it it discourages me too much. I can see a 100 good things. I see one negative thing.

And then or if I see something where someone says something dumb about Christianity, I create mental arguments against that person for the next hour, and I am tired. It's like I did a research paper or made a sermon for someone that I don't even know.

And I'm tired. And I'm like, I gotta go put a real sermon together. I don't wanna do that. I just made three in my head.

And and and so it it it does. It it it does. And look at some of the other stats. FOMO, fear of missing out, is now considered an actual diagnosis because it it drives compulsive checking, leads to anxiety, which leads to sleep problems.

Because when you look on social media, a lot of times you're looking and you're thinking about where you're at your place, and everyone likes to post their trip to Aruba in Jamaica.

Don't you wanna take you? You know? And and and Key Largo, Montego, baby, why don't we go? And you're looking at all that, and if you understand what I'm saying, you're old. So anyways, and you wanna go beat Tom Cruise down there and, you know, have him make a drink for you. There you go. That's another reference.

But the reality is I got up because I I I if I'm gonna battle in my brain my dad used to say in combat, you can fight anywhere if you know what you're doing as a soldier, but you'd be stupid to try to fight everywhere. It's just one item need. So I'm not saying

don't. I'm just saying look at what it will do if you don't have balance in this. It says, but now you think all of us older people that are probably only on Facebook because all the young people left that a long time ago.

There's another form that's really causing just as many problems an anger. It's constant news and headlines, anxiety. Because here's the problem. Negative news triggers fight or flight. And guess what all news tries to take the angle of because it gets your attention.

Why do you think it we don't really have a million more crises than we used to. It's that when you start doing that, people get angry, it polarizes, and people say the only way we're gonna get somewhere with our problem is we're gonna have to make it a crisis.

So we are generate we're taking the same problems we always had and elevating everything to a crisis.

And guess what? If everything's a crisis, then nothing really is. If everything's a problem and everywhere you look at stress and you're sitting there going, well, now God, heard Bill say, here's what I should be doing if I'm gonna follow Christ. Oh, one more crisis in my life. One more thing. And you know as well as I do, when you get overwhelmed with a bunch of issues, when you get overwhelmed seeing everything,

guess what we end up doing? Nothing. We we fold up into a ball and say, dear God, make me a bird so I can fly far far away. It's another old movie reference for you. They say as you get older, you need to keep your mind active. So I throw that in for you seasoned citizens in in the crowd there.

People like Randy's age over here. Randy's like a 167 years old.

Alright. Gotta get back to the bad news here. It triggers negative news. 80 of of eighty seven percent of Americans in 2022 study, which I guess it's higher now, said that they feel very overwhelmed by constant crises.

But yet we still jump on the news. We still jump on them. We still dive deep. We still just get consumed with it. Junk food. We fill our minds. And what fills? Spills. There's a thing called headline stress disorder now that's an emerging concern. And when combined with doom scrolling,

it increases fear, sadness, worsens anxieties, and creates angry people.

Sound familiar? They've actually the psychological effects that have been studied of all of this digital overlord is overload is well, overlord might be a word for you personally. Always on connectivity activates chronic stress response, and it creates digital duress. And that fight or flight thing is interesting.

It means it creates an adrenal response in us that that fight or flight, which is originally meant by God to back in the day when you're out in the woods, you got your kid, and a bear tries to attack you. That's what it's supposed to be for. You know, it's supposed to be someone breaks in your house and they're going to attack you. It's supposed to be those kind of things. But now we live in a world that these crises,

it's creating they've studied people's it creates the same response.

Shot of adrenaline. You get really emotional. You make you make really quick decisions. But the problem is when you're fighting a bear, you know what that quick decision is typically. But when you're fighting a crisis that you can do nothing about, you just live with that adrenal response, and it burns you out.

And you realize we have more fight or flight responses per day than just a couple generations ago you would have in a year. More in a day than just a generation ago had in a year.

That's tough.

We're tired. And then a guy like me gets up and preaches boldly, here's what God wants us to do. And you're like, one more thing. And yet, some of y'all come to me and say, you're saying that. Why didn't you talk about this? Why didn't you mention that? Why don't you preach on this problem? Guys,

because you've already studied all of those things enough. You're already looking at them enough. I don't need to point out the problems. I need to point out the answer,

and I don't need to describe every problem to point out the answer cause the answer's always the same. You want peace? You need Jesus. There you go. Put whatever you want in the problem. And you're gonna find peace in Jesus. And that's my job. I'm trying to show you the way out.

Not just nothing something to add onto your list, but that's why you gotta go back to embracing this idea that peace isn't a place. It is a person.

And we're not gonna get peace on earth, and a lot of us then focus in the way we see ministry. You know what our church really needs to go after? We need go after we do the same thing. We run into crisis. We're in if this crisis, that crisis, that crisis, crisis, we need to do more and more and more and more. And that's all we really think. That's not our job.

Because when we get loaded up on trying to solve every problem, we don't go after any problem. We tend to focus on all the external, and we never take time to look at where does God want me? And then we never have peace. We need to adjust

what we focus on. And that's why that last point fits right in here. If we're gonna adjust what we focus on, we have to realize that peace is found where obedience walks.

Sometimes we wanna know, God, why? Why? Why? Why? There's certain things he's asked us to do as a follower of Christ. That it looks dumb, it looks impossible, it looks scary, it looks counterintuitive, and sometimes he's saying, I want you to obey me.

Because if you trust me, I guarantee that's where I'm going, and I want you to come with me. And if you come with me, that's where peace is found. And that's where some of us are in this room right now as believers. You're like, I'm trying to do all this, but I still don't feel peace.

And it's probably because there's something in your life that you know scripturally, this is what God's called us to to to to spend our lives on. This is what God's called us to focus on. This is what he's called us to be. And and and you know what it is, and you just won't do it. Now there's two reasons why.

They're both come from pride, even though they sound opposite. One is, I think I know better and I don't care. I'm not gonna do that. That's usually how a lot of people respond when God says, I want you to trust me with your money or your time. I'm like, I know what he says, but I'm not gonna do it. Pride.

You think you know better. But then the same issue. Money, time, those are the key issues that we some of you are like, I'm not prideful about it, but you are. You're on the opposite. I'm fearful. That's impossible. I can't do it because of what where you're at financially,

whatever time wise, you just feel, I can't do that. That's an unrealistic expectation. Do you realize that's pride too? This is more of a confident, successful pride. Like, I know what I want. This is a discouraged pride. Because the truth is if you say I can't do it, guess who you're making it about.

Once again, both sides is trusting yourself. You filled your mind with the wrong stuff.

You filled it. And so one says, I won't. One says, I can't. And the same thing is you both made about you. The peace comes from Christ. The plan comes from Christ. He is with you. He says, I wanna go up here. But we get this idea that says, you know what?

One more thing. I don't wanna do it because and it's usually from fear. Or the other end of something is I have a hard time walking in obedience because I feel like there's one more thing. God's put the there's this hill up there that he wants me to take, and he goes, you gotta go take this hill. You gotta go take this hill. And and and I and and then I get up here and preach that way. We gotta go take this hill. But it's how we do it is the problem. We think that's one more thing. I can't take that hill. But here's what we learned last week. Jesus already took the hill.

He went up on a hill, stretched out his arms, and he died for us, and he slayed death. He gave us the power of life, and he gives us the ability. So he's not saying you have to go make this work. You have to go take the hill for me to love you. He goes, I already took the hill because I love you. And because I love you, I say take my hand, not the hill, and walk with me up to the hill. Trust

me with these things. Let what fills my mind spill into my heart and spill out into my actions. So if it's not spilling out into my actions, reverse engineer it. It's because there's something in my heart that's preventing me that's usually because there's something we're fixated on in our minds that isn't true.

And if we're ever gonna do any of this, and what we talk about over the next few weeks, we're gonna talk about some of these rhythms that it's a relational thing. We gotta trust. We're gonna talk about what is rest. What does it mean to really have rest? Because some of us, we just we don't get rest the right way. The Sabbath.

We're gonna talk about prayer. We're gonna talk about what the Bible how to read not just what the we already defended the Bible in the armor of God series. This is gonna be talking about how do you use the Bible other than once a week coming and hearing a sermon,

And how do we have relationship with each other called community that the Bible says we need that as well? But why? Because we and the the the the last thing is why a lot of us are gonna still you could do all of these and still not feel peace. Partially what I just said. But the bottom line answer is simply this.

I can't have peace with where I am until I have peace with who I am.

And what I mean by that is if you've put your faith in Christ, do you know what that really means? Do you know who God says you are? Do you know what that means? He says, that goes back to where I was joking before I did understand the David Jeremiah quote.

When he says, you're not what you think you are, but what you think you are, we don't really believe what we are in Christ. So we become what we think we are even though we're Christians. What does it mean? It means I can't be a Christian. This is I believe in Jesus, but find my identity in my job.

I can't I'll never have peace if I'm a Christian that says I believe in Jesus, but I find identity in my relationships with others. I'll never have peace. I'll never be at peace even if I do all these things. If I say, I believe in Jesus, but I find identity in my status and my success and the things I own.

I can't find it if I find it in my being a parent, being a spouse. A lot of these things I'm not talking about all these things are good. Most of them are good things. You can be successful. The

problem is you find your identity in that. And when what God asked you to do to trust him or if you're going through a feast season of your life where it's hard to be those things, you think God's holding you back from being who you are.

Maybe he's taking those things and making it hard to realize that's not who you are.

Trust me. Trust me. Find peace in walking with me. Are you at ease? Do you realize just just quick. I I can go through the Bible all day long, but do you realize, just like I said, the hill he already took is why in the Bible it says in Romans that if we know Christ, we are more than conquerors. More than conquerors.

Meaning, we can win. We can do the things. Do you realize if you're a Christian, you have the power in you now that, yes, we still sin. Yes, we make mistakes. Yes, we're not perfect. Sometimes we're scared. But you actually, if you know Jesus Christ, you do have the power to actually obey him on what he's asking you to do. You have the power. You have the ability. You can walk with him. You can do it because the hill's already been taken. Just take his hand and walk up the hill.

You can do it. You can be not just a conqueror, but more than a conqueror because he already conquered.

And you know why? He says before that, in case you're thinking, well, you know, this sounds like one more thing because I gotta do that for God to love me. You know that. Before he even said that, he said, do you realize there is nothing that can separate you from the love of God? If you know Christ, there is nothing that can separate you. He's not saying do this so I love you. He's like, you don't understand.

Walk this out because I already loved you.

I know and you've already won. I am inviting it's not go take this hill like you gotta go make this happen. He's like, I'm asking you to go get on the victory podium with me. I'm asking you to go climb up there. That's what these things he's asking us to do. Quit trusting your identity and quit trusting your life, and quit trusting that peace is in the things I have or things I do. Because if you trust in that, when God says, here's what I want you to do with your life, and it doesn't coincide with that, you're angry,

and you're afraid, and you're either arrogantly prideful or fearfully prideful. And you're never ever ever ever ever ever gonna experience peace

until you embrace the person of Jesus as your peace. That's what it's talking about. He says, take my hand. Let me summarize it this way. Let me give you the what fills spills analogy. I was went out the other night with my two grandsons that were over to hunt for scorpions.

One's five, one's two. It's the first time the two year old wanted to go, so that was a debacle. But

I started doing this because years ago, my my grandson wanted to go. He I gave him something to do because I was doing it every night. Because when I moved into my house, live in right now ten ten years ago, I lived one block over, and for the first eleven, twelve years, I lived in the other house, no scorpions.

Because they're not really migratory. So you either have a spot that has them or you don't. Moved in the new house. Love it. It was great. Discovered after I got in, oh, this is the street that has a lot of scorpions. And found a few. Most people don't wanna know.

They don't wanna know what's going on. I went out and bought the biggest black light I could and went out in my backyard. And that first night found about a 135. And

I thought, I have an invasion force here. I've I've went into the land, and I could have thought, like, you know, most of the spies in the land, like, there there's giants in the land. There's too many. But I decided I'm more Joshua and Caleb than that.

So I said, the best defense is a good offense. I'm taking the fight to them. And so I did everything you're supposed to do, cleared out the stuff, got sprayed, made sure there wasn't their food around. But then if you just do that, they might start coming into your house looking for something.

So then I go, now I've gotta get my forces together, and I'm gonna fight these things. I have declared the Skorp Wars have begun. And I went out every night and hunted them. It's crazy. You start hunting them, you will not be afraid of them. You realize they're actually afraid of you.

They they run. They don't try. It's accidental. You step on them. You know, whatever. And so I go, so now I'm not afraid, but I'm still gonna eliminate them. And I went out every night, every night, every night, every night. And I've still done that every time it starts to warm up and start season to come out for ten years.

The first year, I went from a 130. By the end of that summer, I was finding about 30.

And then the next year, it went down. And and the next year, it took me about four years to get down to, like, five to six. And it stayed that way for a long time. It was a hard fight. It became trench warfare, man. It was World War one. I'm like, they're attacking. They're attacking.

Then finally, a few years ago, I got to where I I did one year. I only found one the whole summer. And I thought I'd won, but you you but you gotta understand fighting scorpions is like, you gotta have that demilitarized zone like in Korea. You can never take your eye off of the line of demarcation

because they will come back. I think they they developed an air force. They sent in yellow jackets and wasps for a while. Had a problem with them. Their air campaign failed miserably. I destroyed all of them as well.

And and then I come back and I then I didn't find any for a while. I I stopped, but you gotta stay diligent. I kept going and going. One And of the reasons I got down to one or two is I started to realize that my my bug guys said they don't really travel much, but they will walk across the walls here. So any attachment here, they will kinda spread out a little bit. And I started to realize where they were coming from. Down at the end of my street and some of my neighbors' places, there's this big wall. And I started going down there, And that's how I got it down to like next to zero because I started finding hundreds of them down there. So my neighborhood could thank me because I just spread it out. I said, I'm pushing them further back. I'm I'm not just trying to hold my line. I'm invading. I'm I'm going after them. And and literally, I kid you not, my neighbors will tell you, I changed the ecosystem of our street because you never heard you never heard crickets on our street. That's what I realized after a while. It was eerie. I was used to hearing crickets and seeing more roaches. My street was like,

I don't hardly ever hear a cricket. Now you do.

And so now I'm taking my grandsons out.

And and we're going, and and and we go out, and my one grandson, he likes doing it. The other one's like, the problem is I gave them both the big I had three of these big lights, and so I give them all one. Bad idea because they're bad to shine in people's faces. And guess what they immediately started doing? Not only each other's, then I go, don't shine in each other's face. So they immediately looked at them, especially

the two year old. And then they're loud. They think these things can move rocks. I am the foremost expert on how to get to kill scorpions and hunt them. I am called the scorpion slayer by my family. And and and and so I'm trying to go, man, these kids are too loud. They're crunching around. These things are gonna hide.

And so I go, I guarantee we're not finding one now because they know we're coming. But anyways, we go and we look. We don't find anything. And but as we're looking, the two year old finally freak taps out. He's like, alright. That was fun for a minute. Now he's kinda scared. He's like, no. No. No. No more. I'm going in. And I said, alright. Good job, buddy. Walked into the door. Go, you were brave. And I go, let's go, Phoenix. Can't find any here. Let's at least go to the wall and see if we can find any. We gotta we gotta find something. It's getting hard now to stay faithful to this because there's nothing to kill.

It was like, go to the wall. We're gonna go look. And as we walk out of the frame, he's like, yeah. I I had said to him, let's go to the wall because who knows? Maybe there's a giant one there or something. We could get it. I as much as I understand parenting and relate to five year olds, I have to stop, and I gotta quit forgetting

that when you say something like that to a five year old, they take that very literally. So as we're walking out, he stops. He goes, pop. Because I just told his brother he was brave. He goes, I'm not brave. And I go, yeah, you are. You go with me. We're fine. He goes, no. And then I realized, oh, he wasn't saying

and I told him, well, brave is you go even when you're scared. And then he goes, I know, but I'm not brave. And I go I go, oh, he wasn't saying you didn't understand what brave is. He was saying, I don't wanna be brave is what he was saying. And I go, why? He goes, well, because you said there might be a really giant scorpion.

And I go, well, I'm just kind of exaggerating, but what does it matter? And he goes, what? I go, who are you with? What am I called when we do this? He's like, your pop, the scorpion slayer. And I go, yep. So what do you think is gonna happen if we see a big scorpion? I'm not afraid of them, and you're with me. And he goes,

he stepped right next to me, and then he grabbed my hand. He goes, let's go.

That's how you find peace, is you realize that Jesus is the death slayer.

He is the life giver. He is the king of kings and the lord of lords. He loves you more than you can love yourself. He died for you. He gives you the power of a spirit. He walks with you in the times when you were in the worst time or the best time, the scary time, the whatever. As long as you walk with him,

the life giver, the death slayer is with you. And that is the rhythm of peace. Father God, I just thank you, Lord, that you do love us that much. I thank you that you give us peace when we take your hand. So what I pray for me, everyone in this room, anyone watching online that when we run into those moments,

that we just start to to fill our minds with the wrong ideas and start to think of peace as a place instead of you. And we walk away from the rhythms of peace. We can remember what is holy, what is true, what is noble, what is good, what is you. And that we can walk in rhythm with you once again.

I thank you and I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Hey. I love you guys. Thanks for being here. Awesome. Hey. Thanks for joining us for service online this weekend. Be sure to follow us on our Rock Point social media to stay connected with everything happening here at Rock Point.