Keith Battle - The Journey to Peace - Part 1

My theme for this series is titled «The Journey to Peace.» This screen shows you four landmarks on the way there: trust, prayer, praise, and abiding. We won’t cover all of them today, but I will get through as many as I can. The reason I call it the «Journey to Peace» is that if you refer back to Philippians 4:6-7, the passage doesn’t start with peace; peace is the prize of the passage and the destination. It begins with worry. It says, «Don’t be worried.» Do you know what that means? If you worry, you’re in a good place because God has a pathway to peace for you. And by the way, peace is in the benefits package; it’s what He wants for us. However, there is a pathway to get there.

Now, I want to walk slowly through this passage so that we can truly grasp it. I am not just trying to give you information; I want to provide you with something that will work. If it doesn’t work, we are wasting our time. Somebody say, «God, let this work!» I’m stressed out, I’m worried, I’m biting my fingernails, and my body is falling apart. You know there’s something wrong with some of us, and the doctors don’t even know what’s triggering it. They just keep medicating it. We’ve been anxious for so long that we’ve accepted it, saying, «I’m just an anxious person.» However, I am telling you, God has not given you a spirit of fear. Anxiety is a spirit of fear, but He has given us power, love, and a sound mind.

Now, you can live with that fear all your life if you decide to, or you can say, «God, I receive what You’ve given me; not this spirit.» You need to learn how to communicate skillfully with that spirit when it makes you afraid. The first landmark on the journey to peace is trust. This may not be immediately clear when you first look at verse 6. If you go back to Philippians 4:6, you might not see this right away because our initial thought is that the remedy for worry is prayer. However, prayer is actually the second stage of our journey to peace; the first stage is trust. Where do you see that, Pastor? The first four words: «Don’t worry about anything.» That is a complete sentence and a command from God. If the verse ended right there, we could have a whole sermon based on «Don’t worry.» It doesn’t even say to pray yet. Before you start praying, the first thing God wants you to do is stop worrying.

In fact, in the Greek language, it doesn’t mean «don’t ever worry»; it means «stop worrying.» We can’t prevent ourselves from ever worrying; we just need to be aware and recognize when we start. When I start worrying, God says, «Stop it; stop worrying.» By the way, that’s not a suggestion or a recommendation; that’s a command. Every command that is disobeyed is called a transgression. That’s why worrying is a sin. God isn’t impressed by your worry; that’s right. Some of you have worried so much because you believe that if you don’t worry about something, it means you don’t care about it. Nothing could be further from the truth. You can care about something but not be controlled by it. Worry is control; it is your attempt to manage the situation in your own human strength, and it is the devil’s attempt to control you with fear because there are some things that only God can fix.

There are some things that only God can work out, and you need to get out of God’s way. I will come back to that in a moment, but the first thing we need to learn how to do is trust. What am I saying? If you’re asking, «Pastor, what are you saying? This doesn’t make sense.» I’m saying trust means this: If you trust somebody, you don’t even have to bring something up. When you have children who keep asking you about something you’ve already taken care of—in fact, it’s in the car right now—and they keep saying, «Mommy, what are you going to do? Dad, what are you going to do?» you say, «Stop! It’s all right; I got you. You don’t have to bring this up. Trust me.» Some of you are like that with God. God says, «First of all, trust me. That’s where it starts. My first goal is to stop you from worrying. You stop worrying because you trust the one who told you to stop worrying. I wouldn’t tell you to stop worrying if I didn’t have it all under control. You have to trust me.»

Well, some of you online right now are saying, «Pastor, whoa, hold up! I don’t want that little churchy stuff. You need to talk differently than me because I’m a professional worrier. I’m good with this. In fact, I was worrying, and you’re actually interrupting my worry right now with your little sermon. I need you to explain to me how this works. How do you stop worrying? This is what I do! I worry; that’s what I do.» You worry all the time; it’s become part of your nature. Oh my God, it’s like your calling card! OMG! The way you stop worrying is by starting to trust. You fight worry with trust. «God, I trust You!» I don’t even have to ask; I trust You because you know why? Prayer is not the next step. Whatever you’re going to pray anyway, you have already told Him that before; it’s not.