The God of Peace

Philippians 4:  9 “vThose things, which ye have both learned, and wreceived, and heard, and seen in me, do: and xthe God of peace shall be with you.[1]

I.   Attributed

     A. Quantity

     B. Quality

II. Acquired

     A. Realized

     B. Reviewed

III. Allowed

     A. He

     B. Me

Introduction:  This morning we have some questions.  There seems to be more questions now than answers.  The answers are all still there where they have always been.  All answers to life’s problems are right there where only a few people care to look.  The answers to our problems can be found in here; in His written word if we would only look and spend more time in here than questioning others who don’t.

People are so quick to follow the theories of other people who really have no more truth in them than the ones who are humbly admitting that they do not know.  Why are people attracted to the ones they listen to for answers?  What do certain people have that make others follow them?

Here’s the big question…  If someone were to witness something in you, that would persuade them to be model your life, would that be an advantage to them?  If you believe that following your example would help someone else, how would you attract them to follow you?

And a bigger question…  What type of witness do you see in your pastor?  Now look in the mirror; what type of witness do you see that others are receiving from you?  Finally, do you truly believe that if others receive your witness, will that profit them?

A very good friend of mine happened to be my accountant.  He was more a brother than a friend.  He didn’t become my friend because he was my accountant.  When our relationship began, I didn’t know he was an accountant.  He knew that I programmed some sort of computers and he had just gotten involved in them.  We shared talents.  I kept his computers going in his offices and he advised me financially and took care of my books and taxes.

Once we were in one of his offices as I was doing an upgrade on his computers.  He asked if I knew how to become rich.  That got my attention!  Clinton said that if you want to be wealthy, be around wealthy people, watch what they do and then do what they do.  If you decide to be repulsed by the rich, you will never be wealthy because you will never learn from them.

That’s worldly stuff I know.  Yet here in our focal verse and the text surrounding it, Paul is saying the same thing spiritually.  If you are repulsed by Christians so that you want nothing to do with them or the church that they are a family member of, you will not receive from them.

To paraphrase what Paul said, it’s this, “If you do as I, Paul, do and not only as I say do, you will receive The God of Peace.” 

Scripture:  Today’s scripture is Philippians 4:9.  When you have found it please rise to your feet for the reading of God’s written word.

Prayer: Please be seated

Message:  Church going does not save anyone but church hating certainly will prevent you from loving others who are churched.  If you let hatred run rampant in your life you will fail to be attracted to love.  If you let hatred run rampant in your life, what you will be attracted to will be the opposite of love.

Paul listed several attributes that he was said to possess.  In verse eight his list included some whatever things.  Paul listed truth, honesty, justice, purity, and loveliness.  That apparently was not the whole list because he mentioned anything that might have been listed in a good report.

If we were to remember only that Paul was Saul before he met the Resurrected Lord on the road to Damascus there would have been a much different report and it would not have been good.  Paul was Saul then.  Though he did mention his past in other places in his writings, here Paul is telling what God did with His new man Paul.  Those things that pertain to love; there is the attraction!  There was Saul but now Paul.  There is what Paul acquired once he received Jesus because Jesus did not make Saul a better version of himself.  When we truly receive Jesus, we become a new creation.  There was no longer that one called Saul.  Now there was Paul.

If there be any virtue…  We get so caught up in the past.  It seems to be more fun to remember the bad stuff and to talk about it.  Paul was instructing those who he loved to not do that.  If you are a Christian you are not the same person that is in the old stories.  It is advantageous to look backwards to learn from the past but if a person is really a new creation then the past is the past. Judging one on the past will never help to see what God will do in the future with the new person.  It is always right to encourage the new Christian of the future with God.  It reminds me of the car salesman guy who says, “Don’t tell me what you won’t do, tell me what you will do.”

Paul tied virtue with praise.  If there be any virtue and praise think about those things.  It is so hard to forget what somebody else did to you or to someone else even.  It sticks in your mind.  We are hearing a large quantity of bad stuff people have done during this time of political advertising.  Wouldn’t it be amazing to hear an opponent bring up some quality, something awesome that the other candidate had accomplished.  People who wanted to serve once talked about their qualifications, their qualities; more than the other person’s faults.  Wouldn’t that be lovely?  Wouldn’t that be lovely if we talked to people outside our church about each other that way?  Do you think that might be attractive?  Paul thought so!

People hear you.  When you talk they hear the things you think about.  If you make a conscious effort to think more on the pleasant attributes then the negatives, people would hear your praise and your church would be attractive to them.  That’s important but secondarily.  They would see God in you.  That is important; greatly more important!  That is why we are alive in this world just now at this appointed time.  We are here to show the fallen world what a difference The God of Peace makes in His new creation.

In the focal verse Paul again shifted focus to himself.  Those things Paul mentioned goes back to his list of attributes: truthfulness, honesty, justice, purity, and loveliness; all those things that the new man Paul acquired after he met Jesus on the road to Damascus.

Those things did not stop being acquired with Paul acquiring them.  When we hear God’s word and we learn and receive those things from those who received them from Jesus as they walked with him before we came along, now those things become a part of us.

Paul wrote about those things which ye both have learned and received, and heard and seen.  The “both” in Paul’s statement is somewhat confusing unless you consider the sentence diagram.  “Both” doesn’t refer to “you both” as if he is only talking to two people.  “Both” doesn’t refer to the list of four things that he mentioned: learned, received, heard, and seen.  Both mean the inclusion of two things.  Paul is explaining two sets of things that go together.  Learning and receiving go together.  Hearing and seeing also belong together but are altogether different from learning and receiving. When you have truly learned something you have received it.  It now is a part of you.  Without the Holy Spirit’s guidance, a person might hear this sermon and see me here in this pulpit yet not take anything from hearing what they heard and saw.  So that’s the two things Paul wrote of.  Hearing and seeing are of little value until we have been enabled to learn and receive.  That enabling begins when a person has been recreated by receiving Jesus.

To hear and see a thing that may have happened in someone else is to witness of something.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that a person has learned and received anything from that witness.  Paul was telling us that it is one thing to review a thing;  To realize a thing or to make a thing real in your own life so that it is a part of you, that is a much different thing.  Those attributes that you saw in that saint that was in this church, if the only thing that you can do with what you witnessed in that one who came before you is to talk about what they did, you have missed the boat.  We can and must acquire that same Spirit that Paul had.  We must acquire the Holy Spirit that Jesus sent.  Jesus allowed The Holy Spirit to stay with us and indwell us.

Paul said that those in that church family had learned and received what they had heard and seen in Paul.  So what effect did Paul say should come from that?  What must happen if a church truly is a church?  We must do!  Learned from the example of a Christian and now practice makes perfect in more Christians!

These things are not things that we can accomplish apart from each other.  Paul learned and received them from Jesus.  Jesus allowed me to become as He is so that I am past and He is now and future.  That is the result.  Do those things once you have been allowed that relationship which was lost and The God of Peace shall be with you.  It doesn’t say that God might show up.  It says He shall be with you.  It doesn’t say that some peaceful easy feeling will be with you it says that THE GOD of PEACE shall be with you.  There is no lasting peace without Him.  He is, was and always will be with you.

Prayer:

Invitation:  When others recognize that internal and eternal peace within us, then and only then will The God of Peace show through us because The God of Peace shall be with us.  We live in a world that sees no peace now unless they see it through us.  Satan is attacking this world through so many fronts.  It seems we are living in the age of Job.  There was only one Job back then though.  Now it seems Satan is attacking many of us Jobs all at the same time.

The worst thing that we His church can do now is to fall into the same tragedy that is being shown and seen outside of His church.  Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things and honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think of those things and do those things and The God of Peace shall be with you.

Do those things!  Need help?  Take a knee!  Here is the place to take a knee.  Now is the time to take a knee.  Think about it and come.  The God of Peace shall be with you.  Do business with God as we sing…

v See ch. 3:17.
w Col. 2:6. 1 Thess. 4:1.
x See Rom. 15:33.
[1] The Holy Bible: King James Version. (2009). (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Php 4:9). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.