Finding Peace and Purpose in a Chaotic World

 TRANSCRIPT

Welcome. See you guys in the room and welcome to those guys online. It's great to have you with us and I feel super privileged today to become, to be able to come and share with you about unusual living and peculiar people. I'm not sure why I was chosen, not sorry, why I was chosen to be that speaker, it's it's a series that has been wonderful and it's good to be.

Unusual glasses will be coming off on and off today, because I like to be able to read, but now I can't see you, but that's okay. We're gonna, we're gonna play on now. It's today I'm gonna be focusing on peace. And I just wanna tell you a little bit of my story. Most of you know that in a former life I was a concreter.

And way, way back. Yes. Way, way back. I started out in a specific form of concreting called Curb and Channel. Now if you dunno what that is, it's the gutter, the concrete gutter that takes the water away from your house and down to the drain. It's very practical. And but it was hot.

Hard and heavy work out on the side of the road when there were no houses there, there was nothing there. And I used to come home and say to my wife, Jen, this is the toughest job known to man. And she was never really impressed. Just keep bringing in the money. She's that, so I said, okay, alright, we're gonna keep going anyway. After a few years I became a crew leader in Kerman channel. That means I was in charge of a truck and I was in charge of four or five guys and I was in charge of all the equipment and stuff, that we had to do. And we used to go out every day and I sometimes I felt like David in the Old Testament, going out to battle and getting the job done and if David came home after a battle, it was a good day.

And I, one of our two goals were primarily to do the job well. And get home early. That was our two goals, this is what you do as a concreter. You just wanna get home early. But unfortunately the second goal was quite elusive because there was far more work to do the nows in the day often.

And so the employees of Carbon Channel generally weren't didn't have the great moral compass, or they weren't men mentally strong. It was physical prowess that we needed to get this job done, I was dealing with four or five guys that needed a lot of love, they were strong physically, but, a lot of dramas in their life, a lot of dramas, and to get the go, get the job done. I knew that we needed to have a cohesive team. And so I I always had the tension radar up and I had to become like the peacemaker in the crew. Someone who would just, get alongside and, just.

Sometimes you have to have a hard chat and sometimes you just, just, oh, so sorry. It's so going so bad with your girlfriend and oh man, we gotta get this job done, and let's keep moving. So I did this for about 15 years and can you believe that I just got a bit jaded with it in the end, standing out in the hot dusty road doing this job rah.

And I used conversations with God, were like. God, what am I doing here? Then this job has no kingdom benefit whatsoever. What am I doing here? And then I used to go home and say to Jen, I think we're gonna China I think we're gonna be missionaries. And she said she was totally unperturbed by this, she said whatever, but she knew that I was getting a little bit bit jaded with this and a bit disgruntled, and then a decision had to be made.

Do I leave the security and the good pay of this job and do I go out on my own? And I have to tell you that God had been good to us through that period. We had actually paid off our mortgage and that was in the days when mortgages could be paid off.

Currently it's quite a challenge to pay off a mortgage, isn't it? You poor people on the front row. It is a tough challenge. But we'd paid off, we'd had our two beautiful kids and God was good. We'd had a few dramas, here and there and, I'm not gonna go into all details today, but at the end of the day, it was great, but we had to make a decision and I had to make a decision.

Do I leave or do I stay? Now, there's a scripture that helped me out with this and it was in Colossians three 15. It says, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts since as members of one body, you were called to peace and be thankful. Now, that rule word rule can actually mean like an umpire in your heart.

It's, it comes from the language of athletics and it can actually mean an umpire. And sometimes you guys might have, experience this, that you have a tough decision to make. So we've gotta go to God and say, Lord, give me a piece about what to do now. And I got a piece about it was time to go.

And so we jumped from Curb Channel into the world of soul trading. Woohoo. And that was probably tougher than K Channel, and it took about three years to make up to the money that I was making at K Channel, but no complaints because it started me on a new path and a new challenge, and it was time.

Two words I would wanna focus on today is the word peace and the word peacemaker. That's where we're headed today. So when you look at the world. Today, I think the world values self-reliance, self-made man building the empire. Just, just a tough guy that can get out there and the tough woman that can just make stuff happen, building bigger bonds.

And that's basically a lot of what happens in the world today. Now, there was a famous song back in the seventies. I think Pastor Ann will remember this one. She loves that stuff. And some of you won't remember, but your parents will. But the song was called, I Did It My Way. Yes. I did it my way.

It was even sung at funerals, seriously. And that was what the what? But that's what the world's I did it my way. I stepped on toes. I did, I just did what I had to do to get there, and our culture prizes that self-sufficiency. And Pauline talked about social platforms last week, social media platforms and how they influence us.

And I agreed totally with her that we have a net loss with the social platforms that people are addicted to. At this point. And and I look at it, but man, it's just, they tell you how to live, how to look, what to do, the pressure that people feel to conform and it's just so tough.

And then it then comes the nastiness and the hate that people have to endure. And none of this promotes peace in our lives. And however, we who follow Christ, we know we have someone steering our ship. Don't we? Yeah, we've got someone who steers our ship, someone who's guiding us and leading us, and we can fully trust in Christ in all of our circumstances.

And I I love people who have this heart and this attitude, and I try to rub shoulders with people like that. People of quiet confidence. They seem to have a real peace in their lives and yep, it's a certainty that there'll be things going wrong in their lives. Don't we all have stuff in this world?

We're gonna have trouble. We all have stuff that's going wrong and it's just an annoyance. Or it may be even more than annoys. It may be tragic. But yet they keep going and they keep they never seem to be rattled, and they just press on and maintain the love that they have for their families and for others.

So the question today is, how do we get there? How do we get there?

I believe the scripture is our best teacher. And we're gonna look at some serious scripts here today, and we're gonna learn from it and we're gonna have fun. We're gonna dig in. Is that good? Yeah. Alright, here we go.

Just change up that page. I'm not using any notes,

it's just the way I roll. So let's dive in just the scripture. The first one we're gonna look at is Romans 12 verse two. It says, do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, and then you'll be able to approve what his good and perfect will is be transformed by the renewing of your mind and.

I, I have to tell you, I absolutely love this scripture because it was the first step in my rehabilitation from something that I had when I was in my early twenties called bipolar Disorder. And apparently it's something that you're never gonna get away from. But this was the first step in my healing.

And I'm not gonna go into that story today, but I'm just. Sharing that with you to tell you how powerful the scripture can be in your life. And my first step when I saw this scripture was just simply to surrender to God. It was just to surrender. Lord, I've got something wrong with my mind. That was hard to admit for a young 20 something year old, who was full of strength and curb and channel and all that, man.

There was, it was tough to admit, but Lord, there's something wrong with my mind. And there were, my thoughts were rubbish. Just in gratitude, ungrateful, not happy. What's going on here, Lord, I just don't understand what the what is it all about? And it was really tough. And I then I saw that, hey, I can have my mind transformed.

How do we do that? So you may not have a mental illness. I'm just scanning, just no. Everyone seems good. You may not have a mental illness, but everybody needs this. We all need this. We all need to have our mind transformed. When we come to Christ, there is a transformation in our heart.

We ask Jesus to come into our heart and we say, I wanna follow you all the days of my life. I want to, I wanna be with you. And there is a heart transformation, but the mind transformation takes way, way longer. It may even take all the way up to when we meet Jesus face to face, this mind transformation.

We have to keep working at it and there is work to be done. We have to train our thoughts to come into line with the way that God wants us to think, so that we're not no longer conformed to this world, and all of us in some way, shape, or form are still conformed. To this world and God wants us to be transformed so that we're working if with God thoughts and away from the pattern of this world.

See, there's no point in us coming to Christ and in five years time we're still exactly the same as we were when we came to Christ. What's the benefit there? There is no benefit to the world if we are still the same. So our thoughts need to be transformed. So how do we do it? I'm glad you asked.

Here's some more scripture that we're gonna be learning from, and it really helped me in this journey of having my mind transformed. Philippians chapter four, verse six to nine. It says, do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving. Present your repress your request to God.

Sometimes we gloss over scriptures. Sometimes we've gotta pull 'em apart. Do not be anxious about anything with Thanksgiving. Do you know what? If you could rattle off 20 things in the car on the way to work, when someone's cutting you off about how thankful you are, you're gonna have a good day because your mind is just right up there.

I'm thankful for 20 things here. Bang. That is a good exercise for us. Next verse seven, it says, and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Now me look. Peace of God. Sometimes we gloss over these scriptures. We have the peace of God guarding our heart and our mind.

We're not talking about some tropical sunset, baby. This is just not the tropical sunset type of piece we're talking about. We're talking about the majestic. Awesome. Amazing God who created the universe and formed you in the womb is guarding our heart. And guarding our mind. How cool is that?

The peace of God will guard your heart and minds. How many would like to have their mind and heart guarded? I do. I do. And he has, and I've had a many of situation where I needed that peace of God to come because it was terrible. But there is work to do in the scriptures. We've gotta stop being anxious.

We've gotta take control of that and present our requests to God. Verse eight is another goodie. Here it is. Finally, brothers and sisters. Whatever is true, whatever's noble. Whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable and excellent and praiseworthy, think about such things.

If you've been around a while in Christianity and you like to study the scriptures, and sometimes there's scriptures that just, might have, oh, it seems to have a multiple meaning, or it's a different time, or it's tough to grasp. This is not one, this is not one of those, okay.

This is just, he's telling Paul, the Apostle Paul is telling us what to think about, and you know what, we can be obedient to that or not. We can be a, it's a choice. It's a choice to think. It's what you think about is a choice. We can look at stuff on TV and it puts us off track. We can put look at stuff everywhere on social media, and it puts us off track.

But if we think about these things, we are going to be transformed. It's very simple. So we need to be obedient to the word. We need to get the word in, and we need to be obedient to the word and present our request to God. And do you know what application is the key? And I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go here one more time that you know, I, you've heard this many times, but this is why we do what Soap devotions.

This is why we do that. We do soap devotions so that. We can grab hold of a word that's gonna help us for that day or help us for the next season, and boom, we've got it in our hearts and the Holy Spirit can bring it back. And scripture is our best teacher. We've got to apply it. So earlier in my intro, I used the word peacemaker.

And in reference to keeping the peace and harmony with my crew and in the scripture, it's found in the Sermon on the Mount, and it is Jesus teaching values to his disciples. Now, these I believe, are kingdom values that we need to know and we need to get ahold of. We do have our church values here.

And some of us have them up on a framed board in some room in our house. We've got our church values and I'm gonna give you a little test today. Just see how you're going with our church values. Is that all right? So who can give one church one of our church values? Fun and well? Yep. Fun and well.

Spirit led. Spirit led, honor, respect, counterculture, honor, respect, counterculture. Boom. Dylan, go. Yeah, we're just about good. All of them. Well done. Protect and serve. Yeah. How good is this Pastor Kev. Kev. Kev asked me to do that. So well done. They're our church. They're our church values, but this this sermon on the mount and these these values.

Let me just set the scene for a minute. Jesus, he's at the height of his popularity, right? He's doing great things. He's getting massive crowds coming to watch him and hear from him and grab his teaching. Jesus is just the superstar, and you know what? The disciples were just getting a little bit of that rockstar attitude apparently, and they were by association with Jesus, the disciples were just like, wow. Look at us, we're the 12 chosen ones. We're pretty cool. Jesus is doing all this great stuff, and we're just hanging out and we've been chosen to be with Jesus. And I think Jesus gets a whiff of this attitude and he sits them down and he says, okay let me give you some Kingdom values right now, and we're just gonna run through them right now.

So here we are. Blessed. Matthew five, verse three to 10. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart. For they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons and daughters of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Can you see the difference between those values and the world's values?

These are what we. Can aspire to, and it's tough. It takes a transformation, but I wanna work focus on that word peacemaker. Blessed are the peacemakers for, they'll be called the sons of God. You know what? Peacemakers bring God's love into chaotic situations. They bring God's peace. Into chaotic situations, whether it's a family situation or a work situation, or you've got a financial problem or you've got stuff going on with the kids and the family.

And look, there are all sorts of situations, but we need peacemakers and we need to be peacemakers that will bring God's love and peace into chaotic situations. And you know what? Sometimes peacemakers. Have to take one for the team. These are the ones that are able to turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, give a soft answer to turn away Roth.

To be a peacemaker, we have to have peace within ourselves. And one thing that really is important to be a peacemaker is we need to be able to forgive. We need to be able to forgive. It is a tough role, but if we can get this right, there are great rewards for this, and it's not world due rewards, it's rewards that God has for us.

I wanna tell you an amazing story about a woman in the World War ii. She was a Christian woman, a beautiful lady, and her name was Cory 10. Boom. And most of you may know this story. There'll be some that don't. But it was said at a time in World War II where the Germans and the Nazis were exterminating the Jewish people, and Kry Tambo and her sister had a sewing shop and they used their basement as a point of refuge and an escape point for some Jewish people.

And they were having great success in saving those people. And until someone betrayed them. And Corey and her sister were sent to a concentration camp at Ravens Brook, and there was a guard there who was particularly cruel, as I expect most of them were. And Corey and her sister, Betsy, prayed for this guard.

They prayed for his salvation. And Betsy. Ultimately passed away due to the harsh conditions that she was suffering in the concentration camp. And Cory survived. And after the war, she became a preacher, and one night she was preaching about forgiveness. And after the service, a man came up to her and he said, I need forgiveness.

And Corey recognized him as the guard that had tormented her and her sister. And I want to read you exactly what she said. At that point when the guard reached out his hand and he said, I need forgiveness. She says, it could not have been many seconds that he stood there hand held out to me, but to me it seemed like hours as I wrestled, the most difficult thing I ever had to do for I had to do it.

I knew that. If you do not forgive men their trespasses, Jesus said, neither will your father in heaven forgive your trespasses. And still, I stood there with the coldness, clutching at my heart, my forgiveness. But forgiveness is not an emotion. I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.

So woodenly and mechanically, I thrust out my hand into the one stretched out to me, and as I did an incredible thing took place. This current started in my shoulder and it raced down my arm, and it's sprang into our joined hands and this healing warmth into flood, my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

I forgive you brother. She cried with her. I cried with her all my heart, and for a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then Cory Tam, boom. So let me ask you this today. Where is God asking you to obey?

Where is God asking you to obey in terms of what you are reading in the scriptures, in terms of, even if it doesn't make sense, is it an area of forgiveness? Is it an area of trusting God with something? Where is God asking you to obey?

You may be in a chaotic situation and you need the peace of God that passes all understanding to guard your heart and your mind. Can you imagine what it would be like to live from a place of peace no matter how chaotic the situation God, the scripture of saying that we can do that. We can have that peace.

Perhaps today that you could go home and write out a prayer of surrender or share with a trusted friend, or simply take one small step of obedience today. What is it for you that you would like more peace in?

Just as we move toward a close, I just wanna share two more scriptures to you for you today, and it's Matthew five 13 and it says, you are the light of the world. Can I just say it's you? It's me. We are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.

Instead, they put it on a stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your father in heaven. We are called to be an unusual people. Let your light shine. We do this collectively as a church.

Pastor Kev talked a couple of weeks about the guy, the little boy that brought his little bit of lunch, and we can bring our little bit of lunch. I don't have many skills. I don't have this or that. You know what? You bring what you have and. We are in the addition business, but God's in the multiplication business.

And when you bring your little bit of lunch, when you bring your gift, when you bring what you have to the table in whatever situation that you are in, God can multiply the effect of what you are doing. The only time it doesn't work is when we car away in a corner and say, I, I'm not good enough.

I can't do it. I, I'm not having a good day. I can't step in. Yeah, we can. We're stepping in. We're stepping into the hospital, we're stepping into the schools. We're stepping in, and we can step in individually in your workplace. We can step in and be the light of the world. I think that's our challenge today.

The law, the world doesn't need more of the same. It needs us to be unusual. We're not called to blend in. We're called to stand out.

The world around you needs you and the around me. It needs me and it needs us to step up. We need to step up and shine. Would the musicians please come and we're gonna sing a song and I'm just gonna pray now. Heavenly Father, we just thank you for today. We just thank you for your word today, and we thank you for the scripture that teaches us so clearly about how to be transformed, about how to think about what to think about.

Lord, we just thank you that you are a God. Who loves us so unconditionally that you would put a peace around our hearts and in our minds, and that the peace of God would touch us in every aspect of our life, in every chaotic situation that we can have your peace. And Lord, help us now to be obedient to your word that we might have the benefits that you have promised us.

And Lord, we ask these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.