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Sunday Sermon Recordings from our English service at Chinese Church in Christ - South Valley, located in the Bay Area
Alright. Good morning everyone. Puts things in perspective for me when Ken calls songs from his youth group generation old even though or that some of you haven't heard them which boggles my mind and makes me a little sad, but that's alright. We're gonna say more about that as we get into the message. Okay.
Speaker 1:If you've been joining us, we have been doing a sermon series on the armor of God in Ephesians chapter 6. So I wanted we we do this every once in a while where we need some, like, audience participation. But for today, the piece of the armor that we're gonna be talking about, depending on your translation of the bible, we're gonna be talking about the sandals of peace. So with a person or 2 around you, I want you to discuss, just for, like, a short amount of time I have a question that goes up here. What are your top considerations when you are buying a pair of shoes?
Speaker 1:Go. Go. Alright. The the purpose of me asking this question is so we could start thinking about the image that Paul uses in this passage. But the other purpose was for me to eavesdrop on all of your conversations, to try to pick up some bits and things.
Speaker 1:So I heard I heard price and, like, generally, like, you want the price to be low, which makes sense in Asian culture, although, that may not be all of us in here for one reason or another. I heard Aidan say, do they make my flat feet feel comfortable? Aidan, I have flat feet also so I'm with you. Okay. It's not just you.
Speaker 1:What are what are some other things you said? I'm really asking. Just just Yeah. If they fit. If they fit.
Speaker 1:Okay. That's important. Very important. Okay. What else?
Speaker 1:I heard I heard Ken say, but I don't care about the brand, which I think applies to some of us and not others of us in this room. Who agrees with Ken? The brand doesn't matter. Brand agnostic. Okay.
Speaker 1:That's about what I expected. Maybe 5050. Okay. What else? What did I miss?
Speaker 1:What what other things were mentioned? Yeah. What am I using them for? What am I using them for? That's gonna be very important for, I think, how Paul talks about the sandals of peace in Ephesians chapter 6.
Speaker 1:What else? Phone for aesthetics. Aesthetics. Okay. I was waiting for someone is that what you were gonna say?
Speaker 1:I was pretty sure I'm so glad you're here today, Amber. We needed that perspective. So Alright. No. That's great.
Speaker 1:That's great. And so, we're gonna talk more about our kind of the what the purpose of shoes are, but before we do that, we gotta get back into, we gotta get into our some just some review of what we've been talking about in the armor of God, to see where the sandals of peace fit in. So, before we do that, just a simple question, no right or wrong answer to this. If the sandals represent peace and the type of peace that we're gonna talk about, how many of us, as we're sitting here this morning, feel like we're at peace right now? That's about what I expected.
Speaker 1:How many of us do not at all feel peaceful or at peace right now? Waiting for the upperclassmen's I was waiting for the upperclassmen hands to go up, because of how okay. How many of us are maybe somewhere in the middle? Okay. Alright.
Speaker 1:So, it's it's that's about what I expected. I think peace is something that's hard for us to come by, but when Paul talks about the sandals of peace, we wanna be very specific about what he means. So, let's do a little bit of review about why are we talking about shoes in the first place, why are we talking about brands, the aesthetics, etcetera, etcetera, what kind of pants we might be wearing with them? Okay. We've been going through a series where we've been looking at the different pieces of the armor of God and why they're important for our lives.
Speaker 1:So, if you remember, our theme verse for this year, is 1st Peter chapter 5 verse 7, and it says, Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. And so, our theme for 2024 is to trust in God based on this verse. We know that we can put our trust in in God because he's our savior, he's given us his son, Jesus Christ, and because of that, we can trust him with all of the anxieties that we might feel that might keep us from feeling peace. And then in verse 8, we we went on and did the next verse, which says, Be alert and of sober mind, your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. And that's led us into this series on spiritual warfare and the armor of God, and I want to highlight some of the things we've said throughout this series just so we put this in perspective.
Speaker 1:So, we've said, as we saw, there's gonna be a list. Yes. In 1st Peter chapter 5:8, we see the devil is described as a prowling lion. And what we said was when we got to Ephesians, and we'll reread this in a moment, that we are battling not just against flesh and blood as Paul says. A lot of times we think our conflict exists with physical people or situations, but what Paul is trying to show us is what we're really fighting against is the influence of the evil one who is prowling around us like a lion.
Speaker 1:And for that reason, we battle against the invisible, not the, not necessarily what we see. And what we've said then is, a lot of times the spiritual battles that we're fighting, the spiritual warfare that we face, It's not in the big crisis moments though certainly like that's challenging for us, but many times our battles are most often in our relational kind of common parts of our lives where Satan, the roaring lion, is tempting us to lose perspective, to lose patience, to say an angry word, to judge someone, to be upset at someone, these are the ways that we might not be aware of the invisible powers that are often working against us as Satan tries to drag us all down. Now the good news is we've said that God gives us his armor for the battle. And what we said was, if if we're to acknowledge that spiritual warfare is a real thing, perhaps that means our world is actually more scary in a serious way than we might think. I think many times the devil wants to lull us into a false sense of security where if everything's calm and nice and easy, then we tend to forget about God altogether and we're not sure that he's there.
Speaker 1:When we know the reality of how hard the devil wants to drag us down, that can be a scary thing. But the good news is God gives us his armor so that we can be prepared and we can be able to be, just we have what we need to fight the battle and so God gives us his armor for the battle. So we saw we've seen 2 pieces of the armor of God so far. We talked about the belt of truth, in the same way that a belt functionally, like, keeps your pants from falling down, holds your pants up. The belt of truth.
Speaker 1:Truth is what holds us up in every kind of way. Without what we read about in the in the scriptures being true, then none of it matters. Then what are we actually doing here? But because Jesus, talks about how he is the way, the truth and the life, we can trust what he teaches us and truth is very important to understanding all of that. And then last week, Daniel talked about the breastplate of righteousness and how it protects our spiritual vitality.
Speaker 1:Like, if you're wearing a this is a physical, like, big piece of armor and it's protecting, like, your heart where you breathe, vital organs that are here that, you know, if affected by a spear or a sword or a bow and arrow, like, could be damaging to our physical health, the breastplate of righteousness helps protect us in that way. And really what that means is we've said the truth that we need to know the most is the truth of how God sees us, how much he loves us, and the breastplate of righteousness helps us remind ourselves and understand that because of the blood of Jesus, we are forgiven, we we are not condemned by the living God, though it's easy to forget that. We may feel anything but righteous, but the breastplate of righteousness helps remind us of the spiritual life that is there. And so that's just a little review of where we've been. Today we're gonna look primarily at, Ephesians 6:15, and then we're gonna go back a little bit in Ephesians, and I'll explain why.
Speaker 1:But let's read starting in verse 10 of Ephesians chapter 6 just so we get the full context of where we've been, to where we're gonna see the sandals of peace that are mentioned. So starting in verse 10, Paul says this, finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
Speaker 1:Stand firm, then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. This is God's word. Let's pray. God, we thank you for the journey you've been taking us down in understanding that, the spiritual world is far more dangerous than we might think, and yet, God, we are far more loved and far more equipped by you, the God who loves us so deeply. And so, Lord, I pray that as we consider, the the sandals of peace this morning, and what we've learned about how you provide, your armor for us to stand up in the moments of evil.
Speaker 1:God, I pray that we would be thankful for that, that we would have open hearts and open minds to consider how what, how and why we can have true peace, and how that helps us fight against the evil we may experience in our lives. So, God, we thank you for your word and how it can, mold us and shape us this morning. We love you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Speaker 1:Alright. So in verse 15, where it gives us this image of the sandals of peace, it doesn't actually say that in the verse but we'll get into that in a moment. We're gonna talk about 3 things this morning. We're gonna talk about the importance of shoes, why shoes are important, and why they would be, an integral part of the armor that, a, you know, a soldier in this, this part of the world would, would, part of their armor, how important that would be for them, how the shoes play into that. And then we're gonna talk about, if the image is the sandals of peace, how, what it means to have peace with God and then peace with others.
Speaker 1:And I think all of that is related. So first, why shoes? Why does Paul use the image of shoes? He doesn't actually say shoes. It's very interesting.
Speaker 1:On Friday night, a youth group, coincidentally, no plans to, like, kind of collaborate with this message, but we were reading the part where the, the sinful woman comes in and washes Jesus' feet with her tears, right, at a gathering with the Pharisees. And we got into a discussion about foot cleanliness and how disgusting we would feel if someone was actually washing our feet. So fun fact, 1 year, none of you guys were there yet, but 1 year in Mexico, on our mission trip, they had all of the leaders, the youth group leaders wash the feet of all the youth group students. That got people's attention. Did someone say poor Tammy?
Speaker 1:No. And and we we mentioned this on Friday, and there was someone who said, I would feel so bad if someone were to wash my feet. And that would, I would feel the same way, like, if someone washed my disgusting feet after playing basketball or something, like, I would feel terrible. Now, but what we said was that's from our perspective today. It would actually be far worse then because we have to consider what kind of shoes were being worn in the ancient Near East at this time.
Speaker 1:You could see I titled the message, The Sandals of Peace. Doesn't actually say sandals. What does verse 15 says? By the way, I've switched over to the NIV for this message. I'm gonna switch back and forth a little bit, but the reason for that is in studying the original language, I thought it was best translated the way that NIV put it.
Speaker 1:Because it's actually a hard phrase where it doesn't actually say shoes, it doesn't actually say sandals. What it says is with your feet fitted with the where is it? Yeah. On the verse 15. With your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
Speaker 1:Melody said fit is very important, like, do the shoes actually fit? Right? And so if they don't, it'll be really uncomfortable, etcetera, etcetera. And so it doesn't actually say what is on the soldiers foot, but for Paul's original audience, they all wore sandals. And I don't know if they had different brands back in, like, AD 50 or 60 or whenever the letter was written to the Ephesian church.
Speaker 1:Probably not, like, they didn't have the choices that we had, They didn't have, you know, online shopping or anything like that. And so, that's why we can assume that when Paul talks about having your feet fitted, we can assume that they are sandals because that's what everyone wore at this time. Right? And so, we had our own factors and what what goes into, why we might, why we might wear wear shoes. And so the sandals are an interesting thing here because as we've been going through the armor, the belt is we wouldn't consider the belt and, like, an offensive piece of, like, fighting material.
Speaker 1:Now, like, certainly, you can use, like, a belt to hit someone, which is very violent, but that was not the purpose in the armor of God. But then, the breastplate of righteousness is far more, like, seen as a piece of armor. A belt just kinda holds up your pants, but then there's the breastplate, which certainly has a function. But then, Paul talks about the shoes, and he'll go into, like, we're kinda waiting for, like, the helmet, the shield, the sword, like, the bigger pieces of armor that seem more, like, you know, of military importance. But in studying about, like, what it was like for soldiers at this time, what commentators will tell you is the shoes were absolutely important for fighting at this time.
Speaker 1:And the reason for that is coming out of probably many centuries of when, you know, in the old testament, it's hard to imagine how many of the battles that Moses fought or Joshua fought, etcetera, etcetera, how many of them actually had shoes versus being barefoot? I didn't do a deep dive until, like, when sandals first originated, so that's an interesting question. But at this time, in the Roman world, soldiers would always be fitted with shoes that fit them well, that could help them have traction for the ground. So if they're in a fighting stance, they're not gonna lose their balance, but they're gonna have something they feel that fits well that is helping them perform their military abilities. And that's an important image for us when we think about how to use the armor of God that God has given us.
Speaker 1:As Melody mentioned, if shoes don't fit, then that's gonna be something that's, like, probably not very functional. Right? If you go, if you remember a sermon that Daniel Gillum preached, it may have been more than one where he talks about going on a death hike for his bachelor party with his groomsmen, where many of them were not equipped with the right shoes for the journey and what happened after that was very painful for many of them. When you talk to some of these guys about, like, what it was like hiking without the right equipment and how, like, upset they were, like, it's actually pretty funny. And, like, hearing the aftermath of that story, like, if you remember, I think he showed us pictures once.
Speaker 1:There was, like, blisters. It was disgusting. Right? And so we could see how important that shoes are. Now for me, as a creature of, like, I guess frugality, many of you know, like, I enjoy playing golf and what I did for many years is I would buy the cheapest shoes possible.
Speaker 1:It's like, I'm on a budget, you know, try like, I would rather spend the money on, like, you know, the tea time or the other things, so it doesn't matter, like, what kind of shoes I'm wearing. I'm just gonna buy the cheapest ones. That works if it's a nice sunny day and the ground is dry. But once the ground gets a little bit wet and you don't have waterproof shoes, you see why you should spend a little bit more money, so you're not just walking around with soggy feet like the entire 4 and a half hours. And I did that probably for, like, I don't know, 9 or 10 years of playing golf till I finally realized, like, okay.
Speaker 1:You know what? It's probably finally time to buy, like, some waterproof shoes. One of the kids that I coached in basketball, he was famous for always falling down. Like, he couldn't grip the floor, and he was one of our better players. He was very fast.
Speaker 1:He was very skilled. But a lot of times, if he was going for the ball, he would lose his traction with the floor and he would fall down, and he was famous for always being on the ground, and he would always always blame his shoes. It's like, my shoes are old, I'm gonna get new shoes. Now, let me tell you, this this boggles my mind, but if you play basketball, you understand this. Kids of this generation, their biggest fear on the basketball court is if you're guarding someone and someone, like, does some kind of shifty move and you lose traction and you fall when you're guarding someone.
Speaker 1:It's like the most embarrassing thing. I can tell you quite confidently that the 16 boys on my team would rather lose a game than have someone make them fall down. Like, and which, I'm just like, dude, who cares? Get up. Keep playing.
Speaker 1:Like, let's win the game. But they it it Yeah. And so, the for this one kid, he would always be scared of falling down and he would always blame his shoes. And then one day, he showed up in a nice, like, it was like, I don't know what color it was. It wasn't it was like lavender ish, like, now basketball shoes, everyone's like into these neon colors, and it was like, you could tell, it was like, oh, he got new shoes.
Speaker 1:He's not gonna fall down anymore. In the first 30 seconds, he fell down again. And we're like, bro, it was not your shoes. Now, to be fair to him, I think the shoes were better. We our our floor has been horribly under managed during the pandemic, budget cuts and lack of maintenance and all of that.
Speaker 1:But the point is, many of the kids would blame their shoes for, like, not having the right traction and falling down. So in a similar way then, for us as believers, if we don't have the same traction that shoes are supposed to, like, provide for us, then when the evil days come, when the challenges come, it will be much easier for us to fall over if we are not equipped with the right kind of shoes. And hopefully, we could see why that image would be so important to Paul here in this, in this passage. And so if we can understand the importance of the sandals that Paul is talking about, that would be fitted as he says, with the gospel of peace. We know that the word gospel in the original language, the New Testament was written in, literally means good news.
Speaker 1:So he's saying, your feet need to be fitted with the good news of peace. Now, obviously, Paul is using this whole, like, chapter as a metaphor for what is given to us, the in the the the armor of God that God gives us to fight against the the evil one and what might happen. And so, we wanna we wanna really, dive into what it means that the our feet are fitted with peace and we'll get into peace with God and peace with others. At the end of each section, I'm gonna ask a question that I think is important for us. And so, this may get unpacked a little bit better as we go through the whole passage, but spiritually speaking, if this is meant to be a metaphor, a question that I think is important for us to ask ourselves, what kind of shoes am I wearing?
Speaker 1:Or maybe a better way of saying that it's, what kind of strategies am I employing in my life when it comes to peace? And a lot of us have ways that we wanna try to experience peace because we know, at least subconsciously, that peace is a really important thing for our lives. But how do we know what peace really is? And that's where understanding the phrase that Paul uses here, the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. We wanna ask ourselves, if Paul is writing about this and this is would be something important to soldiers having the right shoes, In the same way then, from a spiritual perspective, what perspective about peace are we putting on in our lives that help us stand against the evil one in the ways that we might, battle against the invisible powers, that Paul's talked about previously.
Speaker 1:Now, leads us to the second point this morning. What does Paul mean by by peace? And I think there's 2 it's not probably not the only 2, but there's 2 main themes that you can see in the ways that Paul talks about peace in the in a previous chapter in the book of Ephesians. That's why we're gonna talk about peace with God and also peace with others. So what is this gospel of peace Paul is talking about?
Speaker 1:If we stay in the book of Ephesians, if Paul is talking, he's saying the shoes, your feet must be fitted with the good news of peace, we want to define what peace is. Because I think if we went around this room and we all defined what peace was for ourselves, we would come up with lots of different definitions, but we want to use Paul's definition for peace. And so, if we could go back to chapter 2, there is a phrase that I studied in a Bible study many years ago when I was in, I was just starting seminary and the church I was attending, we were going through Ephesians and I was in charge of leading this passage with our college students. And it was not the easiest to understand, but there was a phrase that stood out to me to this time that I think helps us understand the peace that Paul is talking about. If we could go back to Ephesians chapter 2, starting in verse 14.
Speaker 1:Next slide, please. Paul says this, and we're gonna camp out in chapter 2 for the rest of the message, and we're gonna go back and see what Paul is talking about when it when he's mentioning the idea of peace. And he says this, He says, for he himself and in the context, if you go back even a little bit more, Paul is talking about Jesus. We'll see how that is true in a moment. For he himself, Jesus, is our peace, who has made the 2 groups 1 and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations.
Speaker 1:Paul has quite a few complicated letters. If you were at youth retreat with us, we did an ambitious thing and we studied 5 chapters of Romans, which are extremely dense, to see how God has made us a new creation through the faith that we have in Jesus Christ. And I would say in Ephesians, I think it's a little less dense than a lot of other of Paul's letters, but this is probably, like, the densest part in the middle of chapter 2. And so, what does it mean that Jesus himself is our peace? That's what Paul's saying.
Speaker 1:If we all have a definition of what we think peace is, what Paul is saying is Jesus Himself is our peace. And so when he says, your feet are to be fitted with the gospel of peace, this is the peace that he's talking about. And so what's going on here in the middle of Ephesians chapter 2? If we go back even further, I wanna take us back to the beginning of chapter 2 to verse 3. If this is, if going backwards in scripture is new for you, like, this is what I get beaten into my head studying the Bible with auntie Rosa, one of our Sunday school teachers every week.
Speaker 1:It's like we're constantly going back, and we're never going forward, and we understand scripture much better, for that reason. And so, the further back we go, it puts us in the context of what Paul is talking about. And so, this is what Paul is talking about at the beginning of chapter 2, starting in verse 3. He says, all of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.
Speaker 1:But because of His great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved. Now that's the NIV reading of it but I wanna switch over to the ESV because I like how the ESV translates it in a portion of this. So if we could go to the next slide. This is verses 4 and part of 5 in the ESV.
Speaker 1:It says, but God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. At the start of verse 4, there's a preposition which in Greek can be translated either and or but. The NIV chooses and, the ESV chooses but. And that's why I like this translation because when it says that he himself is our peace and he's broken down a wall of hostility, what Paul is trying to get us to see is the basic good news of the gospel. Without a relationship with God, we are dead in our sins.
Speaker 1:We follow our own desires a 100% of the time. It's human nature to only want to do what we want to do and that's what causes so many different, desires, thoughts, lusts, etcetera, that Paul's talking about here in chapter 2. And that's why I love the ESV translation, because when verse 3 says, we were dead in following just our own way of thinking, Paul starts this phrase by saying, but God. And what's after that really matters, but if you were to read through the Bible and see, I listened to a message, by, a pastor named Justin Buzzard. He was the pastor that our previous pastor, Fred Mach, went to go serve with at Garden City Church when they were doing a sir a series on Ephesians.
Speaker 1:He said that phrase is one of the most important phrases that we could think about when it comes to knowing God, but God. And the reason for that is how many stories in the Bible where there's a character who encounters some kind of problem in their life, where the story throughout the Old Testament or even in the New Testament, where something is going wrong, but there's this phrase pops up over and over again where it says, but God. And you see how God's goodness then interjects itself into the life of Abraham or Moses or Jacob or all throughout the Old Testament, and for us as well. Because without God giving us his son, Jesus Christ, what Paul is saying is we will not know true peace if we don't understand the what has been mended for us by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's why it says, but God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, though we were dead in our trespasses, he made us together alive in Christ.
Speaker 1:So what does this mean for us then? Like, how do we experience this peace and how do we put that into practice in our lives as Paul is talking about it? What this means then is that ultimate peace, peace as Paul is defining it in the book of Ephesians, it comes from being restored in relationship with God. That is true peace. Now now if you're anything like me, you look for peace in a number of ways.
Speaker 1:I have learned and in thinking about the idea of peace, I was thinking this week how I am constantly on the lookout for circumstantial peace. It might be, like, going, on on vacation if you feel very tired or anxious or whatever it might be. It might just be having a quick mental break. The mentor that I shared about who became who was on his way to being a stuntman who ended up becoming a pastor, He's one of my favorite preachers to listen to and we asked him, like, how do you prepare your sermons? He said, well, I have really bad ADHD, I get distracted, so I do 15 minutes of work and then I take 10 minute breaks.
Speaker 1:And so it takes me a very very long time to get anything done because I'll work for 15 minutes and then take a 10 minute break. Some of us relate with that, I think, in this room pretty well. I know I do for sure. But we might look for, like, momentary peace in a lot of ways, whether it be a day off from work, like going to the beach, being out in nature, watching our favorite TV show. We have so many strategies for peace.
Speaker 1:And the problem with our earthly strategies for peace is that they do not last. Some of you just got over February winter break for school, and some of you spent the last 3 days of it with us at Camp AMAC at our retreat. I don't know about you all, but I was so tired after that and imagining you guys going back to school on that Monday, like, I don't know how some of you all must have done it. Right? And that's the problem with a lot of times we have this mindset, like, if I can just, like, go through this period of work and then I get to go on vacation, like, then everything will be okay.
Speaker 1:I'll feel at peace. Or if I can just get through finals, like, then, you know, everything will be fine. Or some of you were thinking, if I could just get to February break, like, then I'll be fine. But the problem with breaks is that breaks end. And as some of you become adults, you'll learn that the day you are most often tempted to call in sick is the 1st day after you've come back from a vacation because you don't want it to end.
Speaker 1:And that's because we have our own ways of thinking about what might bring us peace, but the reality is there's something different when it comes to actually having peace in our lives. And it comes from knowing God in the way that Paul talks about here in Ephesians chapter 2. One other idea, I meant to put this on the review, totally forgot, but one idea that we've been trying to kind of get at when it comes to the armor of God, is what if everything that we do here at church on a Sunday or in our gatherings of fellowship, like, throughout the week, what if these are all pieces of the armor that God gives us to help experience him and know him more? And, last week, Daniel was saying, like, how do we experience the righteousness of God, the breastplate of righteousness? And this is where filling our minds with reading scripture or listening to Christian songs, it totally did it for me this week in, like, the moments I needed it most, but there are so many ways that God is giving us the the means to be able to fix our minds on Him and not the earthly, kind of, methods we might have for trying to find our own peace.
Speaker 1:And so when Paul is talking about peace, he is talking about peace with God, and it's why he uses the word gospel, the good news of being saved by grace. And so to have lasting peace, really, I think is to embrace the relationship that we have with God in this way. This week I was very tired after the retreat, and so, like, feeling a lack of peace was something I definitely felt early on in the week. And I was driving around, like, kind of thinking, like, I go back and forth listening to podcasts or listening to Spotify in my car And depending on my mood, I might listen to a sports podcast, a golf podcast, a sermon podcast, or, like, I'll listen to Spotify. On Discord, you can always see what people are listening to when they're on Spotify.
Speaker 1:If you're paying attention to what I'm listening to, there's no genre that defines me. It's kind of all over the place. And for some reason this week, I decided to do something that I haven't done in a while and I have one playlist that, it's called all time worship. And what this means is I've tried to compile, like, every worship song I've ever heard and, like, I've, you know, I've been in church for a really long time now, so that that playlist spans, I think it's like 30 hours or something, how long it is. And so, for whatever reason, as I was driving around kind of feeling a lot of stress of, like, okay, retreat's over, now what's coming up on the schedule?
Speaker 1:Like, I don't feel rested. It was a great retreat, but I feel really, like, not at peace at this moment. And then, as, like, the Spotify is just randomly going, there was a worship song by Hillsong from, I don't know when it was, but it was pre 2000, And it's a song called You Say, and it's about how God's word is gonna go out to all the nations and how that's something that we want to have happen, of course, so the people could know God. And that was the exact time I needed to hear the lyrics to that song Because in the mind field that is often like the or the battlefield that's often my mind is that, like, I'm worried about what's on my schedule. I'm worried about things that are bothering me.
Speaker 1:And then in that moment, God knew the exact song that I needed to hear. Now, I listen to worship songs on Spotify all the time, but this song was about God reaching all the nations for his glory. And I realized, I haven't heard a song like that in a while. And it made me think of how I felt the very first time I heard this song when I was in college. I was like, woah.
Speaker 1:This song totally like, I haven't heard a worship song like this. For whatever reason, that song hit me in a different way hearing it. Right? And so there are many ways where God wants to get our attention to remind ourselves of His goodness and the relationship that we have with Him, because ultimately that's the context of the song. So, I'm listening to this and I'm, like, I was I remember myself praying and thinking, God, like, you can see, like, how not at rest my mind is right now, but thank you that you gave me the exact perfect song to listen to in this moment.
Speaker 1:And I wish I could tell you that that brought me lasting peace, because I was driving home from I was driving home from from, like a a somewhat long drive, and then all of a sudden there was an accident in front and there was just traffic. And And I lost all perspective after just, like, a couple seconds. So this momentary piece of, like, oh, man, like, I remember God's goodness, and then, right, just just as the road turns, like, then it's, like, oh, man. I was, like, okay, now I'm gonna be late for this, and then the the the battlefield that is my mind just completely, like, starts up again. I think Paul knew what he was talking about when he said we battle with invisible powers.
Speaker 1:And then it's funny, the song ends, and then the next song was like a worship song which is much more modern, and I'm like, man, this one's not as good as the last one. And I'm sitting here, like, criticizing the worship songs that are on my play playlist in my car, and I'm getting upset at the playlist I made. Do you see how Paul knows what he's talking about when he says we battle against the invisible powers? That is how crafty the evil one is in trying to tear us down. And so the more that we can fill ourselves with the reminders of who God is, what He's done for us, and how much He loves us, that is true peace.
Speaker 1:And so, the fortunate thing about, like, building a playlist is, like, you could go back. So then it's like, I I went back and searched for that song, and I could listen to it again. And it may, you know, that may not be a lasting strategy in many ways, but hopefully you can understand the point. The point is in that moment, God knew exactly what I needed to hear. I can see, like, oh, man.
Speaker 1:This is encouraging to me, and I can learn from that going forward to try to experience a more lasting peace than simply a piece of getting everything done on my to do list for that day or getting from one project to another or whatever it might be for us that constantly gives us anxiety. The peace that we truly need comes from knowing that we are reconciled with God, and that's what Paul is getting at here in the earlier part of Ephesians. And so the peace we truly need comes from knowing that we are reconciled with God. So I wanna ask this question that I think helps us think about this. How am I experiencing peace with God?
Speaker 1:I'm not a reader like Daniel, so for me, Spotify is gonna, like, encourage me much more than, like, d Martin Lloyd Jones', but that that's how God creates us very differently. We know whether it's spending time with God in prayer or journaling or listening to our favorite worship song or whatever it might be or calling someone to pray for us, whatever it might be, there are so many, just ways that God wants to remind us of our relationship with him that and that can bring us this peace that Paul is talking about. And so, that's a good, that's a good application question for us to think about this morning, and I wanna move on to the last point, which is, peace with others. And so, unfortunately, many times, our distraction from our peace that we have with God comes from the lack of peace that we have with other people. Right?
Speaker 1:When we have broken relationships in our lives, when we have difficult, conversations with family members or friends or whatever it may be, peace with others, I think, often affects our peace with God. And I don't have a ton of time to go into this, but you see this in the second half of the Ephesians passage in chapter 2, where it starts off with Paul saying, He himself, Jesus himself is our peace. And so if you get to the second half of verse 15 then here, well, we'll read from there. So it says, starting in 14, he himself is our peace, who has made the 2 groups 1 and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the 2, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which he put to death their hostility.
Speaker 1:There's a lot going on in this section, but what I want us to focus on is you can see how Paul is highlighting that there are 2 groups. If you go back a few verses, what he is commenting on is how there are those who are ethnically Jewish that are part of this faith that has now born into, like, the Christian church at this time, but then there are those who are Gentiles that were not Jewish, and that often caused, like, trials, relationally, because of different perspectives, they would lead to disagreements. And if you think about it, all of the disagreements that we have, big or small, like, trivial or that actually really affect our relationships, they're all gonna be a matter of some perspective that we're holding on to, that we don't wanna let go go of. And so in the Ephesian church and in many of the other churches that Paul wrote to at this time, there would be this ethnic tension as well. And we can see in our society, in our lives, how the effects of racism and different perspectives can really harm our relationships and tear us down in the ways that I think Satan wants us to experience, discord and discouragement.
Speaker 1:And so but what I would say then is what this teaches us here in this chapter is what Paul is getting at is he's saying though this church might be made up of multiple groups of people, knowing that he himself is our peace is the quickest way for us to not only experience peace with him, but peace with others as well. I don't know if you've ever heard this said before, but multiple people have have, said some version of this quote with me before that I think is true. And I've had multiple people tell me, you know, it's really hard not to forgive someone if you're praying for them. Right? If you're at odds with someone, but you're actually praying for them, it actually helps you show them more grace, and it actually helps being a strategy that helps create more peace where peace might not be there.
Speaker 1:Or along the same lines, it's hard not to forgive someone if we've recently felt and received God's forgiveness in our own lives in the ways that we know we've needed it as well. And so it's hard not to make peace with someone else, I think, if we truly feel peace with God. And that's why, primarily, Paul is talking about how we were once separated from God, and yet because of God's great mercy, He has made peace with us. And hopefully, that helps us see how we can have, how we can have peace with others. And many times, our struggle when it comes to peace, or the lack thereof with other people, it comes from disagreements with those who are close to us, family members or close friends or and it hurts because it means something to us.
Speaker 1:But peace with God means that we can see how patient God has been with us in our lives and how we can show that patience with others as well. And so, just for the lack of time, I wanna ask, one more question then this morning that goes along with some of the others that we've seen. So how does God want us to have peace with others this morning? If a relationship is so damaged that we can't talk to someone, perhaps the first thing we need to do is just to pray for that person and pray that God will give us His peace and perspective to to be able to, mend, something that's broken, though it may be very difficult. And that may look different for each one of us in our own ways.
Speaker 1:So if we could just review, these are three questions that we've talked about this morning at the end of each section that I think are important for us. What shoes am I wearing? What is my perspective of peace? What is kind of holding me up as we've used that as an image throughout the armor of God? Is it peace that comes from job security, getting into the right school, having the right kind of friend group or relationships or whatever it is?
Speaker 1:Or do we truly believe that peace with God will make everything else fall into place for us in the ways that is best for us? And we wanna ask ourselves, how are we experiencing peace with God? This week, I really needed to hear that one song, but there's other ways that I know where, through prayer or through hearing God's word or being encouraged by others, that helps me experience peace with God, and that's something we all need to consider in our own ways. And I really believe that when we have that peace with God, that will set us free to have peace with others in our lives as well.