Peace for Your Mind - Saddleback Weekend Service

Well, church family, it's so good to be together, and I do wanna welcome those of you who are joining us online and all of our campuses. Today, we're starting a brand new message series called The Path to Peace. Can we say that together? The Path to Peace. And in just a moment, I'm gonna jump in. You've already heard the celebration of what God did at Easter, probably a couple times at all the campuses, but I do wanna just take a moment for us to recognize that number of 519 people that made a first-time decision to follow Jesus and celebrate that together. And when you think about the privilege of what we get to be a part of every single week here as a church family, to see people's lives change, there are so many of you that have been praying, you've been investing, and you brought somebody with you last week and they made that decision to follow Jesus. And if you're one of those that made that decision, we wanna say congratulations. We're so thrilled for you. We wanna come alongside of you. And this weekend is a great weekend to take your next step to get connected in the life of the church. All of our campuses are doing Activate, which is really a starting point,

kind of entry into the life of the church, and you can be a part of that at your local campus. Your campus pastor will tell you about that. Now, after last weekend, after preaching my message seven times, by the time I got to the end, I couldn't remember if I had given the illustration or preached the verse. I was so confused by the 1 p.m. service on Sunday. And so we took the week, this last week, to hang out with our family. And I want you to see a little picture. I wanna show you a little picture of our family together. These are some friends that we've loved and we did ministry with for many years in the Bay Area. There are four families there. Among our families, the four families, there are 13 kids. So think about that for just a moment. And there was a season where we hung out when they were all young. So you can just imagine, it's much more enjoyable at this age when they were all little babies. But I want you to see them because there's so much deep love and there's memories that we share together. We laughed a lot. We played games. We went to the beach. We did a lot of beach volleyball.

But on the front end of the trip, there were six bedrooms for everybody at the Airbnb. And so I looked at the reservation and I'm like, oh, there's only six bedrooms. There's like all these kids, all these parents. What are we gonna do? So I jumped on a chat GPT and I started plugging everybody's name in, gender, age, families. We wanted all the parents to have their own room. I spent about 35 minutes sweating all of this, going back and forth with chat. And Stacey comes to me and she says to me, she says, Andy, nobody asked you to do this. Why are you so stressed out? Why are you so anxious? And I said, I don't know. It must be some deep childhood wound inside of me that produces this level of anxiety. But one of the things that I even recognize about myself, and probably some of you are like this, there's this natural tendency to take on, to absorb responsibility, and sometimes to the detriment of our peace. Now, I wanna begin with this question. Why does it feel so hard to live with peace? I mean, I've wrestled through that question personally, that natural tendency to constantly be worried, constantly be thinking about outcomes. I can find myself carrying a weight

that God never intended me to carry. And that struggle that is on the inside also is impacted by the world that is on the outside. Like if you open up your phone, don't do it right now, but if you start looking through your news app, you're gonna very quickly be filled up with chaos and anxiety in your mind and your heart. And there's so much that wars against the kind of peace that God wants for us to experience. And I do believe that when you look at studies, you see this trend that has shifted over the last 15 years. Really since the emergence of social media and phones that people have in their hands at all times, there's so much anxiety that we experience. And for my kids personally, I'm watching them grow up in a world where everything is coming to them through phones or through iPads, and they have at their fingertips whatever they want the moment they want it. So it used to be like when you were growing up in my family, whatever your mom made for dinner, that's what you ate for dinner. But now in their world, they can pull open an app and order something, and it can be at the door in 15 minutes. It just happened this week. And there's this tendency with so many choices in our world, so much that we can give ourselves to, so many decisions. And even in our culture,

we've removed so much of the friction. So we've tried to make life easier on ourselves. And really what we've done is we've created a crisis of anxiety. Would you agree with that? That there's a lot of anxiety in our world. So how do we live with peace? That's the question. How do we discover the kind of peace that? God wants us to have. Well, this verse right here, Isaiah 26, verse three, I wanna invite you, if you will, to read aloud with me. This will be our theme verse for the whole series. Let's read it together. It says, you will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast because he trusts in you. Now, I want you to notice that word perfect peace. In our English translation, it actually is translated as perfect peace, but the original language was shalom, shalom. It was peace, peace. And it was this wholeness of life that God was inviting his people into. In fact, in Isaiah 26, the Israelites were in exile, and they were in this place for them as a nation where they're heading into chaos and exile, and God is speaking to them about peace beyond circumstance. So the kind of peace that God wants to give can come at any season, any moment. It can be in the most difficult of circumstance.

And sometimes in our minds, we get so focused on trying to control environment that we miss the focus of this one verse. He will keep in perfect peace the one whose mind is steadfast because they trust in you. So I wanna give a little definition for our series. Peace is an ordered and blessed life flowing from a right relationship with God. And let me say that one more time so you can capture it. It's not in your notes, but it should be on the screens. Peace is an ordered and blessed life flowing from a right relationship with God. So what that means is you can have peace. Whatever circumstance you're in, whatever season of life you find yourself in, whether you're walking through a divorce or your spouse left you or your kids are struggling, or you're mentally walking through a very difficult time, you can live with God's peace. Peace is an ordered and blessed life that flows out of a right relationship with God. So here's my conclusion on the front end. It is possible to live with peace in a chaotic world. Otherwise, we wouldn't have this whole message series if we didn't believe it was possible. And I believe that God is inviting us into a kind of peace that doesn't require us to control our circumstances in our world. And if our peace is only dictated by our ability to control environment,

we're gonna spend a lot of energy on something that will never deal with the problem on the inside. So today we wanna begin this series. We're gonna look at three key components, our head, our heart, and our home. And each week we'll walk through how do you get God's peace on the inside. So today we're gonna begin looking at 2 Corinthians chapter 10. And I love these verses. The Apostle Paul is writing to a church that was in complete chaos, like doing a lot of really bad things. And you can read 2 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, kind of see some of the challenges that they face. But Paul was describing even his own journey of stepping into apostleship or leadership in the church and what he was doing to try to help people live a different life. And notice what he says. For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. So Paul is saying there's a kind of battle that we go into that's different than the rest of the world. Now, notice he does not say we do not engage in battle. He doesn't say that this life is not a fight, not a battle. He says we don't battle as the world battles. We're in a battle, but the weapons we fight with

are not with the weapons of the world. He says there's a different battle that we're fighting. It's a spiritual battle. It's not a battle of the flesh. On the contrary, the tools we use, he's saying, have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish argument and every pretense that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought in order to make it obedient to Christ. We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. Now, these are some aggressive words when you read the Bible, and notice Paul is saying we demolish, we destroy, we come against, and these words help us understand the urgency that we need to live with to actually have peace on the inside. So the big idea today is that your mind is ultimately the battlefield for your peace. So if you want peace, if I want peace, we have to go to the battlefield and win the war, win the battle of our mind. So today we're gonna talk about how God helps us do that, God's word helps get into our mind, the fabric of our thoughts, and changes the way that we think. So I'd like to begin with one principle that we see in 2 Corinthians 10, five. It's to pause. So the way to have peace of mind is to start with a pause.

And I could pause for a moment. We have difficulty in our culture with silence, with pause. We're constantly moving. We often live the unevaluated life. And what happens is thoughts get into our minds and we never evaluate where that thought came from. And it kind of reminds me of this season when the kids were younger. Our oldest was eight, our second was six, and our Caris was like this little brand new baby. And Stacey would carry them, you know, was taking them out, come home after grocery shopping. And one day she comes back to our house and somehow when she got into the house, she realized that there was an animal with four legs that did not belong to us. It was not a dog. It was not a cat. It was a squirrel. And this squirrel was very aggressive. It was running through the whole house. It was jumping on the couch. And Stacey is screaming. And she says to Caedmon, you've got to deal with this squirrel. So eight year old Caedmon goes and ushers the squirrel out of the house. Now, what I love about that is oftentimes our thoughts are like that on the inside. We have the power and authority to take that thought captive

and to remove it from our mind. But often the problem is that we don't stop long enough to analyze and actually ask the question, what is it that is going on in my mind? The number of thoughts that we process every day. So as you look at this Isaiah 26 verse again, what it says is it says God will keep in perfect peace the one whose mind is steadfast because he trusts in you. So that word that is used to describe the mind in Hebrew is the word yetzer. Can we say that together? Yetzer, not yes sir, but yetzer. And what I love about this is that it's the imagination and the inclinations of our mind. So it's not saying that your mind is constantly thinking about God. What it's saying is that there's a kind of focus, your imagination, the inclinations of your mind on God. So your imagination when it comes to chaos and anxiety can run wild. And the natural tendency is just to let those thoughts run wild without ever checking them. And I remember another instance where I had my own moment of chaos. And it was one evening, I was waiting home for Stacy. She was supposed to be home. It's like six o'clock at night, 10 minutes later, 15 minutes later, she's not there. And so I start to get a little bit worried. I call her and she doesn't pick up the phone.

Call her a second time, call her a third time, maybe a fourth or fifth, I don't know. But I kept calling and she's not answering. So finally I looked at our phones where you can see location. And there was this one part where you would turn onto the interstate pretty close to our house, but it was this fast turnabout with a large drop on the side of it. And I remember many times I would drive by it and I'm like, somebody is gonna fly off that at some point. So I'm looking at the phone and I'm noticing her location is right there. And it's not like five minutes ago, it's current right there. And I'm like, okay, it's gonna move. It's not moving, she's there. So now what happens is in my mind, I get into the car and I am driving there. I have done her funeral. I have dealt with, what am I gonna say to the kids? I mean, I have gone through this whole thing in my mind. I get there and she's not there and her phone's not there. And I'm so confused. And about five minutes later, she calls me back and she says, hey, I accidentally left my phone on top of my car and I couldn't find it. Finally, I found it, it was on the side of the road. And in my mind, I had gone through all these scenarios. Have you guys ever had a moment like this?

Like your imagination runs wild. So the goal is to fix our minds by controlling our thoughts and saying, this is the thought that is coming into my mind and taking it captive. So Pastor Buddy, I love this line. He says this, when you fix your thoughts on God, God fixes your thoughts. When you fix your thoughts on God, God has a way of fixing your thoughts. Now, what I've discovered myself in my journey, the thing that helps me more than anything else is reading the Bible. It's simply to be in this book on a regular cadence. Because when I open the book and I read what God's word says, it's replacing the negative thoughts in my mind that are destroying, that are taking out my joy, that are robbing me of peace. And there's a study that was done by the Center for Bible Engagement. Some of you probably have heard of this. And they surveyed tens of thousands of people over multiple years. And what they noticed was the people who read their Bibles one to three times per week had little to no transformation. But when people would read four or more days per week. they saw a radical increase in change in their life. And they called it the power of four. And listen to some of these statistics. It says people who read the Bible

four or more times per week, they have the difficulty forgiving themselves goes down 26%. Loneliness goes down 30%. Feelings of discouragement down 30%. Loneliness, again, is one of the things that comes down. And then finally, destructive thoughts about themselves and others went down by 32% as a result of reading the Bible. So getting the word of God into our minds has a way of transforming our peace on the inside. It's pausing long enough. So I wanna encourage you to really begin to think about your thoughts, to ask the question throughout the course of the day, what are the things that are getting into my mind? What is true and what is a lie? And what Paul does is he says, we take it captive to make it obedient to Christ, but he also gives another image here. And he says, we demolish arguments in every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. So the second truth is that there's a protection, it's to protect your mind. It's to say, I'm actually not just gonna take it captive, but if it's not from God, I'm gonna get it out. And you might write this line down, the mind in neutral tends to roll downhill. And the natural tendency of our minds, if there's no checking, if there's no protection,

what happens is we begin to agree with lies that the enemy is feeding into our mind, not even realizing that we're building our life on lies. So I'll give you a couple of them. One of mine, a lot of times when I have a whole bunch of content to write with sermons and staff meetings and things that I'm writing and preaching, I will say to myself, this is the line, there is no way I'm going to be able to get all of this done. Is that a lie or is that true? It's a lie because every sermon, God somehow helped me get it done, he helped me. Another lie that we often will say is like, I don't have what it takes. Or maybe you had a friend that they decided to not hang out with you and you think to yourself, now she hates me, she doesn't wanna be my friend anymore. Or maybe you think to yourself, I've made horrible mistakes and there's no way that God could ever use somebody like me or there's no way that God could ever love somebody like me and I wanna encourage you to ask the question, what is the lie that you've agreed with and then you've just started to build your life upon? Because what Paul is saying when he uses the word pretension he's saying there are thoughts that capture our imagination and then they elevate themselves above the knowledge of God. So in our mind that lie is more true than the truth from God's word. So what we have to do is demolish the stronghold

that it has on us by recognizing that it is not true. So the question then becomes for us, what truth from God do I now need to give my mind or my attention to? And you're gonna notice inside the app, there's a place where you can download a little PDF that we put together that has some of these verses that you can begin to just apply them into your life. But some of mine that helped me, 2 Peter 1.3, they're not gonna be on the screen so don't get nervous in your notes so you can't find them. Let me just read some of them. His divine power has given us everything that we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him. So I, you, have everything that you need because of the grace of God at every given moment. 1 John 1.9, thinking about our sins and the brokenness, if we confess he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This is good news. Romans 5.8 says God demonstrates his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So when I get this into my mind and I replace the lie with God's truth, it gives me peace on the inside. 2 Corinthians 1.8.9 says we were under great pressure, Paul is speaking, far beyond our ability to endure. And some of you are there today. You're far beyond your ability to endure. Why?

Paul says, so that we despaired even in life, but indeed in our hearts we felt this sentence of death. These things happen that we might not rely upon ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. So the very circumstance that is warring against peace could be the circumstance that pushes you into God and gives you peace. And the encouragement is to replace the lie with the truth to protect. So I must monitor everything that goes into my mind and then evaluate if that is true or a lie. And what happens is that I find for myself and even my friends and my kids, I'm constantly aware of all that is coming into our minds from social media. You watch something online and you're like, okay, looking at your friend who had this wonderful Easter and she made this incredible meal and her kids got dressed up in pastel colors and took a picture and your kids were fist fighting when you were trying to get them in a picture for Easter. And you're like, I'm a horrible parent. I must be the worst parent on planet Earth because I cannot get an Instagram picture of my family. And some of you, maybe you have these thoughts that creep into your mind and what we do is we just put thoughts in, never guarding what is actually coming into my mind. So with the music, with the movies, with the social media, teenagers, students, this is so important.

There's such a very clear connection to constantly absorbing social media and the stream that comes into our mind, through our ears, in our eyes, that now we find ourselves building our lives upon a lie. And there's something that is so powerful about protecting your mind to say, I'm only going to allow into my ears and into my eyes what comes true from God's word. I'm going to protect and the moment that it comes in, I'm gonna evaluate that my anxiety, my peace is often connected to not guarding or monitoring the inputs of my mind. So I wanna encourage you right now just to think about and even write down, what are some of the inputs that are coming into your mind? It could be the news, it could be social media, it could be that friend that is always mad and wants to go outside and talk to you about your boss and how much they hate your boss. But it's that constant input that moves us away from the peace of God. And so Paul is speaking to say, we're going to demolish those things. But I also want us to notice in Philippians four that there's another really important part of this. Because Paul will say from a prison cell, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God and the peace of God

which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Now, sometimes I read the Bible and I'm like, Paul, do you know my circumstance? Because for you to say, do not be anxious about anything, that's really hard. But then I remember that Paul is writing this from a prison cell. And he's not saying that there's never a moment where you feel overwhelmed. In fact, Jesus felt overwhelmed before he went to the cross. He's saying that when you dwell, when you give your life to these anxious thoughts, that you let them ruminate in your mind, that then you find yourself living in anxiety, but he gives a solution. And he says by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, bring your requests to God and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. And then he gives these words, finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about these things. So it's getting in your mind the truth. It's getting in your mind things that are praiseworthy. So when I start my day, I can look at my day through the filter of everything I have to get done

and how I don't have enough energy and I don't have enough time, or I can look at it through the filter of God has always been faithful. He's always given me what I need. He's always strengthened me in my times of trouble. And I'm filling my mind with a different mindset in order that I step into God's peace. Now watch what he says last, this is so important. Whatever you've learned or received or heard from me or seen in me put into practice and the God of peace will be with you. So the third point is to pray and to practice. And some of you are gonna say, that's cheating. You're making it three points instead of four. And you're right, it is cheating. But I'm putting them together because it's so important. It's to pray and practice. And what Paul is saying is I can take my request with the things that are beyond my control to the throne of God. And that which is mine, Paul says, the things that I've learned to live with responsibility on follow my leadership, follow my way of living, Paul is saying. So he's saying, pray to God with the things that God controls and practice responsibility with the things that belong to you. And sometimes what can happen for us

is that we get the two of these mixed up. So the Bible is full of verses that are my responsibility. The Bible tells me in my worries, I can cast all my cares upon God because he cares for me. The Bible says that he'll keep me in perfect peace when my mind is steadfast on him. The Bible tells me to trust in him with all my heart and lean not into my own understanding. The Bible says that I can come to him in my weariness and in my burden, and he gives me rest. The Bible calls me. Seek first his kingdom and he takes care of the rest. The Bible says to me, do not conform to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of my mind. These are all things that I, that you can put into practice. The Bible tells me to let the peace of Christ rule my heart and let the word of God dwell richly in me and to be filled with the Spirit on an ongoing basis. All of these are things that I, that you, can practice on a day-to-day basis. But what does this actually look like? Because you're like, yeah, yeah, that's awesome. All those Bible verses and I won't remember them and you're just going on and on. So how do I do this on Monday morning? Well, I wanna share with you what has been a very, very helpful illustration. And you might've seen me do this. I did this a few years ago when we first came.

But when you consider your life, I want you for just a moment to think about the things that you can do. You know, you can wake up in the morning. You can brush your teeth. You can go to work. You can have conversations, all of that. And then there are some things that only God can do. And what I've noticed in my journey, what causes me anxiety often is that I will take what belongs in my can and I'll relegate it and say, God, take care of that. And then I'll take what belongs in God's can and I'll obsess over it and try to do what only God can do. So what I've discovered personally is one of the best practices when I'm feeling overwhelmed is to take a piece of paper, and you might do this this week, and you draw a line straight down the middle. And on one side, you write down the word I can. And on the other side, you write down the word God can. And then you start thinking through with God's help, what are the things that belong in my can and what are the things that belong in God's can? So let me give you an example. So you have some kids and maybe your kids are difficult and maybe there are some challenges that you face and you're like, God, I just need you to change my kids, grow them up faster than they're growing up. I need you to do it, God.

And the question is, can you transform your children? No, this is in God's can. But what I can do is that I can invest my life into my children. I can sow the truth of God's word. I can train them. I can invest my life into them and bring them to church and have them be a part of what God's doing. So if I take this part of investing in my kids and I relegate it to God and I obsess over my ability or inability to transform, I'll live with anxiety. So I have to say, God, what does it look like for me to faithfully steward the role that you've given to me as a parent to love and invest in my children? Let me give you another one. Maybe you have some friends and those friends, they're hard to be around and perhaps some of you are just like, hang on, I'm trying to find the right word. Okay. You have some friends that are very difficult to be around and the relationship has gotten strained. And so you find yourself in this relationship that is back and forth and trying to figure out, okay, what can I do and what can only God do? And there might be somebody in your life that you just need to apologize to. And perhaps you've been right in your mind this whole time and God's saying, well, actually, you can go to that person and you can apologize to them. And I, God is saying, I can restore the relationship.

I can restore what the locusts have eaten. So you have to trust in me versus asking me to somehow change that person's heart and make them apologize to you. So when I get it in the right bucket, there's a greater level of peace. Let me give you another example. Some of you perhaps right now, single adults, trying to figure out your future, longing for a spouse. There's a young man listening to my voice at the Irvine South Campus. You're 28 years old and you desperately wanna get married. Let me tell you one thing that you can do. Only God can bring a wife or bring a spouse to you, but you can shower, baby. You can. And that helps. It really does. It makes a big difference. I can shower. Let me give you another one, okay? Let's talk about students because there's a lot of anxiety that students will often feel. And what do I do about all of my studies and all of the work that is required? Well, you can study. You can apply yourself throughout the course of your day instead of checking Snapchat in the middle of class, instead of asking ChatGPT for all the answers.

You can study. Now God has the ability, his word tells us, God has the ability to give insight into our minds so he can illuminate, he can give you wisdom. The Bible says if you ask him for wisdom, God will give it. So I wanna get in my can what belongs to me and what goes in God's can to him. Are y'all? Track in with me. Yes, let me give you one more, okay? So perhaps maybe some of you are at a place where you're struggling with your work, and there are people around you that are not doing their job, and even there's some anxiety and worry about your future with your job. What do I do? Well, the truth is you can work hard. You can apply yourself and give your very best effort when you're at your place of work, or when you're giving your energy and your time to work in the middle of the week, or you're studying to make a presentation. You can work hard, but only God can open doors. So I wanna get into my heart and into my mind what goes in my bucket and what goes in God's bucket. And I would guess that there are a lot of us today that are listening to my voice, and there are things that we've held onto that belong to God, and there are things that belong to us

that we've tried to push back on God. And I just wanna ask you to prayerfully consider what is that thing that you need to bring to God in prayer and say, God, transform my heart. God, give me wisdom. God, give me strength that only you can give, and then to fully accept responsibility with what goes into my bucket. Now, there's one last final thing that I want us to focus in on. And when you consider the reality of prayer, and you think about the fact that we have a God who listens to us pray, this is mind-boggling to think about that we have a creator that hears every prayer, that is able to listen to our voices and do things in the supernatural realms that we don't have the ability to do. And there's an invitation that God makes of us from Philippians chapter four when it says, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God, and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. And the reality of what God is after for you, for me, is relationship. And the truth of what the Bible teaches us is that ultimately, the gift that God wants to give, that only God can give, is the gift of peace that he brings through relationship with himself.

And we can try so hard to fill that space. We can work so diligently to order our lives. We can do everything that we can to get on a great vacation and try to slow down our pace, but if we don't turn to God for peace, we're trying to fill a hole that nothing in this world can fill. And I want you to look back at this last verse, Philippians 4.9. He says, whatever you've learned, or received, or heard from me, or seen in me, put into practice, and the God of peace will what? Will be with you. So it's not just the peace of God, it's the God of peace. And that's the whole message of the cross. It's that God came from heaven to earth to make a way that we might be at peace with God, not based on our goodness, not based on our ability to perform religiously, but based on the death that Jesus would die in our place so that our sin could be atoned for, so that our sin could be washed away. And I wanna finish with this last verse, Romans chapter five, verse one says, therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And the invitation for us is to turn to God, to receive the kind of peace that only he can offer. And there are some of you listening to my voice today, you've tried to find peace a lot of different ways.

You've searched, you've looked, and now's your moment to turn to God. It's to say, dear Jesus, I need your help. I need you to bring peace into my life. Now there are some of you who are followers of Jesus, and you're carrying a weight that God never intended for you to carry. Jesus would make the statement, come to me, all of you who are weary and heavy burden, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and humble, and you will find a rest for your soul that God is wanting to give to you the gift of peace that comes through relationship with himself. And in these last few moments that we have together, I wanna invite you just to extend your heart to God and say, God, I need you. I need you to enter into my life at a deeper level. I need you to shift my thinking. I need you to fill me with your peace. Let's pray together. So in this moment at all of our campuses, some of you today just are saying, I need God's peace. and maybe you're walking through a very difficult situation trying to carry that on your own, you might be a follower of Jesus, and today you just say to him, Jesus, I need your peace. I wanna turn to you as the God of peace and receive your help.

And as you do, he's available, he's wanting to give you peace. Through the cross and the empty tomb, God has made a way, he's made a way that we can live with peace. And there are some of you today that you've been carrying the weight of your sin, you've been walking, trying to fix yourself, and the only solution is the cross of Jesus. And today's your day to turn to God and just acknowledge your need for him to receive his forgiveness. If that's you right now, I just wanna invite you between you and God just to say, I'm turning to you for the forgiveness of my sin. I'm choosing to put my trust in you. I'm choosing to follow you as the Lord of my life. And Lord, we thank you today that we can have peace with you through the cross and that we have your spirit on the inside for those of us who follow you. And we have your word to breathe in, to change our thinking, Lord, to move us into a life of peace. Thank you for the promise of peace that you give through your word that you say, I will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in me.

God, we put our trust in you and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus, amen, amen. I wanna invite you to stand with me. We're gonna worship the Lord and just feel this moment in our hearts as the band leads us. ♪ Turn your eyes upon Jesus ♪ ♪ Look full in his wonderful face ♪ ♪ And the things of earth will grow strangely dim ♪ ♪ In the light of his glory and grace ♪ ♪ Oh, turn your eyes upon Jesus ♪ ♪ Look full in his wonderful face ♪ ♪ And the things of earth will grow strangely dim ♪ ♪ In the light of his glory and grace ♪ ♪ Oh, turn your eyes upon Jesus ♪ ♪ Look full in his wonderful face ♪ ♪ And the things of earth will grow strangely dim ♪ ♪ Strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace ♪ ♪ In the light of his glory and grace ♪ ♪ In the light of his glory and grace ♪ ♪ In the light of his glory and grace ♪ Well, what a great message to start off this new series, The Path to Peace. And it is so wonderful and so hopeful to know that we have a God who offers us peace that surpasses all understanding. And we wanna invite you, if there is something that has been heavy on your heart or something that you might be walking through right now,

we wanna invite you to let us know so that we can be praying for you and asking God to step into your situation with you and to bring you that comfort, bring you that peace, to help you take control, to help God take control of that situation with you. And so you can let us know by clicking the link in the description, or you can open the Saddleback app and let us know that way as well. And maybe you decided after hearing this message that you wanna start a relationship with Jesus for the very first time, that you're hearing about this peace, you're hearing about this good savior that we have, this hope that we have in Jesus, and you wanna know more about what it looks like to walk with him, well, we would also love to know. about it so we can be reaching out to you and walking you through what it looks like to start a journey with Jesus. So let us know through the Saddleback app or clicking the link in the description. But we're truly glad that you joined us today and we hope that you continue to join us as we continue this series next week. We'll see you then. you