Where Can I Find Peace? || Victory Church [Good News #6]

Hey guys, if you have not heard the news yet, our God reigns. That's the good news, our God reigns. Come on, good days, bad days, our God reigns. Economy up, economy down, our God reigns. Fears about today, worries about tomorrow, our God reigns. Whatever is swirling in your mind, whatever's tossing around inside your heart this morning, our God reigns. No matter what happens, the tomb is still empty and Jesus is still alive, the blood has not lost its power. Come on, somebody. I've read the last page of the book and everything's gonna be okay. I love how A.W. Tozer said it. He says, while it may look like things are out of control behind the scenes, there is a God who hasn't surrendered his authority. God is still on the throne. And we've been talking about that for the last few weeks, that our God reigns. That's the gospel. What is the gospel? Gospel literally means good news. So what's the good news? Is that our God reigns from beginning to end, from top to bottom, all around, over all things, our God reigns. And we talked about the fact that we're called

to be carriers of that good news. We talked about the fact that our God reigns over our pain. We talked about the fact that our God reigns over our orphaned spirit to adopt us as his dearly beloved children. And then last week, I'm gonna walk back. Last week, on the first week of Advent, we lit what's called the hope candle. And we celebrated the fact that our God reigns over our future. How many of you know that that's good news? And no matter how dark it gets, we're celebrating the fact that Jesus is our hope. And today, we are lighting the second Advent candle, which is the peace candle. And we're reminding ourselves that our God reigns over our chaos, and that Jesus himself is our peace. Come on, can we say peace? How many of us could use a little bit more peace in our life? All right, about a third of you. All right, so can the other two thirds counsel the third? Because you guys got it together, apparently. Man, let's do some statistics. Like, we need some statistics on peace. Okay, here's the first one. 21% of adults have symptoms of depression. 16% of teenagers have a diagnosed anxiety disorder. 43% of adults are more anxious this year than last year.

73% of people say that stress impacts their mental health. 43 to 74% of people have trouble sleeping because of stress. I actually, I'm a numbers guy, I'm a stats guy, so I think that's actually a really funny statistic, because I think people are so sleepy, they don't know how to answer it. So I don't know. I don't know, it's a 43, it's such an odd statistic. And when you think about it, right, like peace is probably the last word that we would use to describe our world today, right? Because people are so stressed out, worried out, burned out, mental health is bottomed out. Come on, anxiety attacks. Everybody's medicated. I'm not knocking you today if you're medicated, because sometimes that is physical, sometimes it is chemical, but many times it's also spiritual, and especially today in our world, it's circumstantial because the world's on fire. And so everybody's angry about everything, everybody's sarcastic about everything, everybody's pessimistic about everything, everybody's violent about everything. The comment section is on fire, right? Don't click on the comments. You just, your day just got way worse. Yet in the midst of the chaos of the world, Jesus' words still ring out, and here it is, John 14, 27.

He says, peace, I leave with you. My peace, I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. He says, I don't give you the type of peace that the world gives you. Because listen, the only peace that the world can give is probably like some money and some time off. And some of you are like, I mean, if you gotta pick, you know what I'm saying? Pick me. Here's the problem with that, though. Like, I'll take it, I'll take it twice on Monday, you know what I'm saying? But that's a very fragile peace. Right, the absence of violence, the presence of a little bit more finances, that's really great until it can be gone in five seconds. And so Jesus offers us something much deeper than that, something much truer than that, something much realer than that. Jesus offers us a peace where we can actually lay our head on a pillow and rest. Jesus offers the type of peace where you can come into a church service and not feel condemnation. Come on, the voice of the accuser isn't inside your ear because you have peace. Jesus offers us a peace. Peace where even sometimes when your life is on fire,

your soul is still at rest. And that's because, really important for today, that's because peace isn't just something he gives, peace is who he is. See, Paul would write it like this, 1 Thessalonians 5.23. He said, may God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. Can we say the God of peace together? The God of peace. Paul actually writes that identifier for God, maybe five or six times in his letters. He says he is the Lord of peace, he's the God of peace. In fact, every letter, I just came across this last week, every letter that Paul writes, all the letters in the New Testament that Paul writes, he begins with grace and peace to you, grace and peace to you, grace and peace. Every single letter, grace and peace to you, grace and peace to you. There's over 500 verses in the Bible about peace. So that begs the question, guys, here it is, here it is. If God is the God of peace and we're his people and we're supposed to be the people of peace, why does it seem like so many Christians have so little peace? And so somebody today just needs to say, today's the day I get my peace back. Come on, come on, say it with me. Today's the day I get my peace back.

Come on, look at your neighbor, say, today's the day you get your peace back. Look at the other one, be like, probably, probably for you. I don't know, that's a tall order, you know. No, you're gonna get it too. Today's the day we're getting our peace back. So here's the question, how does that happen? How do we get our peace back? How do I get my peace back? Let's walk it through, okay? Here's the first thing. What do I need to do to get my peace back? First thing is we have to identify what's stealing our peace, right? So here's the deal. If I was to ask you why you don't have peace, the truth is some of us would be like, no, I'm good. And that the reality is we've been spinning so fast for so long and our mind and our anxiety is so out of control that we forgot what it's like to have peace. We don't even realize our life has been invaded by what I would call peace bandits. I envision them like little bandanas and like wagon train, you know, sort of stuff. Like I've been doing this thing long enough. Over time, I've identified what I would just call like the top 10 offenders that steal people's peace. And again, let's walk it through.

So what are we allowing to steal our peace? Here's the first one. The number one offender, unceasing work, right? The number one thing that I see happening inside people's lives that's stealing their peace is work without boundaries, work without limits. You know what it's like. You leave work, but work doesn't leave you, right? And your boss always has access to you. There's either a written or an unwritten rule that you're always on call. You're always available. You always need to be checking for the next project to hit your email or your text or your WhatsApp or whatever it is, right? And here's what I've seen time and time and time again. Drop Jesus, stop going to church, let your marriage suffer. Your kids haven't seen you in a month. The wheels are falling off your health, but never let your job suffer. Never let whatever you do, you haven't gone on a date in three months. Your kids forgot what their dad looks like. Haven't gone on a vacation in six years, okay? You haven't even gone to the doctor in five years, but your job's doing pretty good. And what happens is it invades and we're always on the go. We're always spun up and it robs our peace. Here's the number two offender, distractions. All right, we might as well just say phone.

Just write phone in 2025. That's what it is, phone, right? Have you ever sat with somebody? Now, I'm a bringer of peace today. So Midtown, Hamilton Mill, North Scott, don't elbow because you're probably sitting next, and maybe your spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, maybe your kid or something like that. Have you ever sat with somebody and you're telling them about your day, like everything's cool, right? Like you're locked in, it's awesome. The rainbow's out, like the birds are chirping and then boop, boop, boop, boop. And you know you just lost them because all of a sudden they're like. Right? Right, because there's distractions all around us. In fact, the statistics would say the average person actually picks up their phone between 100 and 200 times a day, right? In the waking hours, like at the high end, that's about every five minutes you're broken from whatever you're doing. And that's just picking up your phone. I checked, okay, I checked. So this last Tuesday, so around here at Victory, Tuesdays are like really, really bad. Like everybody's here, it's just busy, busy, busy. On my phone, I had 174 notifications on Tuesday

and I have most of mine turned off. Like literally. like most of mine turned off. 104 of those were text messages. I checked. If you have an iPhone, after service, not right now, because you'll get lost in it. It'll become a distraction to you. On your phone, you can look at your screen time and look in your daily report, and it'll show you how jacked up you are, how distracted you are. It'll actually probably be very awakening to you, because you're like, no, I'm good, and you tell, oh my gosh, right? And what happens is we're surrounded by like, be, me, do, do, do, do. It'll happen 100 times during the service. Okay, everybody, just feel free to laugh whenever it happens, because it's all around us. I'm not making fun of you. It's all of us. It's common to us. We are used to being interrupted right now. We are always on. There's always another text message, always another Snapchat, another thing coming through, whatever it is, another phone call to take, and if none of that works, then what happens is as soon as we get bored,

we gotta crush some candy. Is that candy ain't gonna crush itself? I see all those bills come in. I get a bill like every day from Summer's email address on iPhone for candy crush. Sorry, I just, I felt like group accountability, but just for a second. No, it's true. Like, we're just surrounded by distractions all day long, everywhere. All right, the third one, social media. Social media. Hey, I don't know if you're old enough. You remember life before social media? Oh, man, I was thinking about it this last week. Okay, okay, just go there with me. Whenever it was, like 2006, seven. Like, you remember that? Oh, man. Remember what it was like to not know what your friend had for dinner, yet life was somehow still good, right? But now we've got FOMO, right, fear of missing out. Like, we're offended. Like, we see our friends out and we're like, well, I wouldn't have gone, but you should have invited me, you know what I'm saying? Like, right? It's just aware of everything. There's DMs coming in.

There's the news cycle. Like, we don't go to news sites now. Like, it's hitting us, hitting us, hitting us. And the problem is this. We've talked about this before, but it's like, hey, don't forget, politics in Washington is on fire. And if you haven't heard yet, Christians are being killed in Nigeria, and there's the war in Ukraine. And don't forget about Southeast Asia. I mean, China's on the move, and I don't even know what Georgia's doing. Have you seen what's happening in that county, in Fulton County? And man, and your family and all that. And what's happening is we're being completely overwhelmed, and you're being told you have to care about all of it. You have to be an advocate for all of it. If you don't post about silences, violence, you gotta care, you gotta put it out there, guys. And here's the truth. If you need the reminder, you were never meant to know all that. That's God's territory now. You can't care about everything. God's the only one who can care about everything. And what happens is it creeps in, clutters your mind, keeps you spinning. Oh, I gotta open it up again.

I gotta refresh again. What's my follower count again? And we're always spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning. And that blue light keeps us up at night, robs our peace. And social media is actually the primary contributor to the fourth one, comparison. You know, especially, you know, ladies, like you thought you were great until you opened up Instagram and saw her. Like, now I need to get some work done. You know what I'm saying? I thought it was good, right? You know, guys, like you thought you were great until your neighbor bought a new truck, got a new house, got a new thing, whatever it is. And you're like, oh man, I am inadequate now. And what happens is comparison steals our peace because godliness with contentment is great gain. But when we don't have contentment and godliness alone, we start lusting for more and more and more. And it just activates our heart, which leads us to the fifth one, finances. And maybe today you're just like, I don't make enough. Or let's just be honest, you don't make enough to pay for the things you've made bad decisions about. Wow. That's a whole separate sermon, but let's talk about it for a second. It's not that you don't make enough. You don't make enough to afford the monthly payments

for the things you made when you were really excited and living in comparison to your neighbors, right? And so what happens is you lay your head on the pillow and then all the worries kick in, right? Like, am I gonna be able to pay my bills? Is it gonna be enough, right? Are they gonna come knocking and say, I'm sorry, you're not paying at my door. Or you ever met the guy who's always about the side hustle because he's trying to have more money because you wanna buy more stuff? You've never met a more frazzled guy than the side hustle guy. Because he's always on the move. He's always thinking, always thinking, I gotta move. And what happens is you're always on the go. You have no throttle back time and it steals your peace. And it leads to the sixth one, just worries. Right? Decisions you gotta make. What's happening at work this next week? Fear of what might happen in the future. Man, can I even bring a kid into this world? If I have a kid, where should they go to school? I don't know, are they gonna get bullied? When should I give them social media, right? Like, and you're always worried, worried, worried, worried, worried, worried. Yet who by worrying can add a single hour to their life? And the worries about tomorrow are stealing our peace today.

Right? Number seven, just people. Just people gonna people, you know what I'm saying? And I think it's crazy to think, but some of us have given another person the ability to control our peace, right? You know the guy that if he and his girlfriend are good, he's good. If they're bad, he's really bad. You know, you find her and she's stanky, like what? Well, I think we all know what happened. He was acting a fool again, you know? Ruined her week. Some of y'all, you had a bad Thanksgiving with your in-laws or your family or whoever it is, and you haven't slept since then. Hey, we prayed this yesterday morning, I gotta be honest. Some of you have given Donald Trump control of your peace. Come on, come on, come on. He lives in your head rent-free. Like, I can't believe that guy. I don't even know what he's doing, but it's not good. Let's talk about it. Let's get angry about it. Let's tweet about it. Come on, let's gossip about it. Let's bring it into our small group. Can you believe it? I don't even know what's happening today, but it's bad. And you're all worked up about it

because you gave somebody else control of your peace. We do this in traffic too, by the way. You're having a good day until you hit 85, 75, 285. Oh my God, don't get on 285. Remember when 285 used to have a 55 mile an hour speed limit? That was the biggest joke in Atlanta. You're doing fine until somebody's going 40 in the fast lane. And we just gave them control of our peace. It robbed our peace. Here's the eighth one, our past, our past. Things you've done, things that have been done to you, they replay in your mind, especially when you slow down and you put your head on the pillow. Negative self-talk, the angel here and the devil here in your ear all day long. Number nine, let's just go there, sin, sin. And the truth is this, you can't walk in God's peace if you're not walking in God's will. Disobedience will wear you out. It is exhausting to be Jonah. God tells you to go right, you go left, and then you wonder, why, why am I just not at peace? Because you're not in God's will. You will never be able to rest if you're having an affair. Because the Holy Spirit won't let you camp out there in a place that's dangerous to your soul and is harming somebody else. Right, the Holy Spirit will never let you camp out

in addiction, whatever it is. And there's an old saying that there's no pillow as soft as a clear conscience. And that's true. Obey God and you will have peace. And here's the 10th one, here's a big one, idols. Idols, so last year, Summer and I went to an event down in Mexico, and really nice place, really nice hotel. And when we came back after the day's activities, on our bed, the hotel had actually put on our bed this little doll, right? And we were like, what is that? We don't have kids, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's a little doll, like this big. And there's a little sheet of paper next to it, and it's from the hotel. And it said, hey, we wanna gift you this doll that will help to protect you from evil spirits. And in fact, you can put it underneath your bed, or your pillow, that when you sleep, it'll suck your worries out of your life into it. And if you know my wife, she grabbed that doll, opened up the sliding glass door, and yeeted that thing off the balcony. Bow! And she was like, I ain't leaving that in the garbage can. Not gonna put that in our room and leave it here. And so listen, I know some of you are like, man, I'd never have an idol. Here's the truth, is we have such a diverse church

that we have to talk about this, because some of our cultures that we grew up in have things that are very anti-Christ. And I love how Bishop Meeks says it, who's one of the overseers in my life. He says, take your culture and run it through the Bible, and whatever you're left with, you get to keep. There are beautiful things about your culture, but there's also some demonic things and broken things about your culture. So let me just tell you guys, little dolls, gotta go. Ham's a hand, gotta go. Evil eye is bringing evil into your home. Crystals are welcoming demons into your life. Your meditation music, your little dum-dum-dum-dum, right? It is stealing your peace. Relics, Ouija boards, dream catchers, the little witch doctor things your mom sent you or your aunt mailed you from wherever, right? All that garbage doesn't protect you, it actually exposes you to more things that will steal your peace. And let me just tell you, here's our problem. We want Jesus and. Jesus and anything will steal your peace. Because as soon as Jesus and, Jesus is like, no, no, no, that's fine. I don't do roommates. I'll let that thing take care of you. As soon as you bring something else in,

he's like, no, no, no, I'll let that be your God, because clearly that's what you want. And this is what the Old Testament is full of. The Old Testament is not the Israelites saying, I don't want God. No, they said, I want God and. That's called syncretism. And what they wanted, they wanted God and the high places. They always refused to tear down the idols, the big shrines on the high places. No, they wanted God and, and I'm telling you, Jesus plus crystals equals nothing. Jesus plus the hands of hand equals nothing. And if you want peace, you've got to kick the idols out of your life, because God doesn't do roommates. So let's leave this up here for a second. Let's leave it up here, okay? All right, take 30 seconds and ask the question. Say, Holy Spirit, examine me. What are we allowing to steal our peace? All right, I think that key word is allowing. It can't make it happen. No, what are we allowing to steal our peace? And there may even be more, okay? Maybe number 11 for you is health, all right? Yesterday, it revealed to me, number 11 for me sometimes is football, football, college football, maybe. It's okay, we won, so I have peace, but I'm just saying.

We don't normally win that game, so I don't have peace. You know what I'm saying? That's always, God's revealing to me things about myself. All right, what are we allowing to steal our peace? That's so important, identify it. If it's something else, write it down. Take out your phone. I give you permission to take out your phone. Turn off your notifications, but then write it down. All right, so here's the deal. What do I need to do to get my peace back? First thing, I have to identify what's stealing my peace. The second thing is I have to draw a boundary line to then protect my peace. I have to draw a boundary line to protect my peace. So in July of 2019, our family took what we just call is our favorite vacation. We went out West, went to San Fran, went to Yosemite. We eventually ended up over in Grand Canyon, in Vegas, Hoover Dam, the whole thing. But my favorite spot, the place I did the most research on, was Sequoia National Park. And it contains the largest trees on the planet, giant sequoias. And so, this is literally just on the side of the road. Those aren't like the trees you go to see. That's like, oh, let's just pull the car over. Like, those are our boys. Just stop right there.

What? That was not Photoshopped. That's real. So you can see the tree fell over there. That's like just part of the root. And again, that's just a tree. It's not like, hey, come see this tree. That's like, oh, wow, look at that thing. And so we just pulled over. You know what I'm saying? There's no marker for it. It's just, that's how massive these things are. And then we finally saw what we came to see. He's called General Sherman. All right, so the left side of that picture is the tree. It's hard to understand how big that is. So look at the little call-out box. You see at the very bottom of that picture, the little blue stuff? Those are people. Yeah, those are people. Now look back over at the left side. Okay, that's how, it's 275 feet tall. And part of it's fallen off. It's still 275 feet tall. It's almost a football field tall. Estimated 3 million pounds, over 100 feet around. It's approximated to be 2,200 years old. It was already 200 years old when Jesus walked the earth. So we did what anybody would do.

We took a picture with it. There's our family. Woo, okay, there we are. And then we started to think about it. And we're like, man, I'd really like to touch that tree. Why can't I touch the tree? And there's a fence in the way. And then we're like, why is there a fence? Because it's not like you can steal it. You know what I'm saying? I'm just like, take this back, plant this in my yard. It's your whole yard, is that thing. And then the park ranger came along and told the story. And the quick version is, originally there were no fences. And so people just kind of walked through the park and seems harmless, right? I mean, these are massive trees, been around for thousands of years. And then they came back one day and there was. There's a tree falling over. And then another week later, another two weeks later, there was another tree, like 2000 year old trees just falling over. And they're like, what is happening? Then again, when they did the research, they found out that the root system of these trees is shallow so as people start walking through them, they're actually crushing the root system. They're loosening the root system

to the point that when the winds blow timber. But then somebody had this brilliant idea. They said, hey guys, I've heard of this crazy thing called a fence. And as they put up boundaries, listen, it kept the foot traffic off the roots. And now the trees are healthy and they're thriving because that's what fences do. They keep bad things out and they keep good things in. And here's what I'm saying. Let me connect it up. We've been allowing that list of 10. We've been allowing anything and everything to get in our life and to trample our root system to the point that we're living exhausted, we're living stressed out, we're living worried out, we're living burnt out, to the point that when the winds of life blow, you're looking at even the strongest of Christians. You're like, how did they fall? Because they have no boundaries and they have no peace. Like, can we put the list of 10 back up just one more time? Okay, we've allowed the foot traffic of those 10 things, like weeds, to creep into spaces that they should not be in. And if we had just had a fence to keep a healthy space, keep them in the right place, we'd be okay. But here's what happens. Those things come into places that they shouldn't be. Now, here's what I'm saying.

I'm not saying these things don't matter. I'm saying some of these things are real things, like people, you can't just get rid of people. No, but listen, people out there is right. I'm not saying economics don't matter. What I'm saying is economics out there matter, but economics in here will ruin your life. We talked about it before, that the disciples in the New Testament were with Jesus in the storm and the storm came in, but at some point, the storm that was around them got in them. You understand that you can be in the storm, but the storm not be in you. They allowed the storm around them to actually enter into them and it corrupted them. It caused them panic and anxiety. It stole their peace. Jesus was in the same storm, but he was asleep with his head on a pillow because you can be in the storm, but the storm not be in you. The moment we allow those things to enter our soul, now they're in God territory and they've gone too far. And because we have no boundaries, our roots are getting trampled and we have no peace. And so our soul is worn out. We're seeing people burn out. We're exhausted. We're always on the go.

We're looking for the next distraction. Why? Here's the question. Why? At the end of the day, why are we go, go, go, go, go? Because now it's to the point that when we slow down, it's almost like an 18 wheeler. When you hit the brakes, all the stuff in the back is like, go, go, go, go, go, go. Because it's been so long since we slowed down that all these things that we're supposed to find out like on the go, now they've accumulated. And now as soon as there's some stillness in your life, the trauma comes back. The loneliness starts rising up. Oh, I thought I'd be married, but all of the worries about, oh, what about y'all? All of it starts, the boredom in our soul. And so what do we do? As soon as the pain hits, grab a phone, distract ourselves. Click on, binge watch another show. Okay, keep watching, keep watching, keep watching, keep watching, right? Grab another energy drink. Come on, somebody. You got a teenager. As soon as the pain comes out, that's why we click on the porn site. That's why we pick up another bottle, whatever it is. And what's happening is we're trying to silence the noise

on the inside by staying busy on the outside. And we're using sin and distraction as medication, but it's not healing us. It's actually delaying our healing. And it's delaying our calling because we keep avoiding our healing because we're staying spun up. Yet the whole time, at the door of our life is the good shepherd saying, hey, let me lead you to green pastures and still waters. I wanna give you some peace. Isaiah 30, here's how God says it. This is so powerful. He says, this is what the sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says, in repentance and rest is your salvation, and quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. You said, no, we will flee on horses. Listen, God says, slow down, turn from your sin, be quiet and trust in me and I'll give you real life. And we're like, nah, I got other things to do. See you later. I'll see you at church on Sunday. Guys, you and I will never have peace if we keep moving so fast and letting everything have access to us 24 seven. We have to slow down and we have to draw a boundary line around our life. And so here's what's happening today.

I'm putting a machete into your hand empowered by the Holy Spirit to cut back the weeds, to cut back that list of 10 that have come into your life. Come on, somebody. Here's the deal. You just need to say, my ex no longer has power over my peace. My job no longer has power over my peace. That court case no longer has power over my peace. Donald Trump no longer has power over my peace. Politics no longer has power over my peace. Traffic no longer, come on, somebody. And you gotta push that thing back. I'm not saying it disappears, but what I'm saying is it's now out there. It's no longer in here. And I'm not talking about being rude. I'm talking about setting healthy boundaries. I'm gonna give you a gift. Here it is. Oh, oh, oh, this may be the best thing you get today. Okay, hold your hands up. Hold your hands up. Here's the gift. I'm gonna give you a word. No. Okay, there it is. No, can we, can we say it together? Can we, no. All right, it's two letters.

N, somebody needs to take notes. O, okay, if you don't know how to spell that. Some of you are like, what is that, English? Like, what is that, Pig Latin? What is that word? That's good, that's good. Some of us don't know how to say no. And so we're always spinning. We're always, here's what I'm saying. There are people that you have to set boundaries with because personally, they themselves have no boundaries. And if you don't set boundaries with people who have no boundaries, they'll control your life. Come on, come on. Because they're always spun up too. They have no peace either. So why should you have any peace if they don't have peace? And so they're gonna put their lack of peace on you and then you're both not gonna have any peace. Wow. Some of us, we need to take a fast from social media. Delete the app or go inside your settings. Just turn it off, right? Turn off your notifications. Here, I promise you this. You don't need to know when Macy's has a one-day sale. Your phone has six reminders for it. You're like, I don't know. I just got a 4% off coupon, you know what I'm saying?

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Put screen time on your phone. In other words, you can be like, I only have access to 30 minutes of an app. You can put screen time on your phone. You can put screen time on your kid's phone, by the way, if you didn't know that. Repent of sin. Push it back. Say this far and no more, this far and no more. Push those things out, out of your life. And listen, if you gotta start somewhere, let me give you one example of an amazing boundary. It's a boundary of time called the Sabbath. And the Sabbath is the only one of the 10 commandments that's not repeated in the New Testament, and I'll tell you why in just a second. But Jesus himself calls it a gift. Everybody say gift. I don't know about you. If God has a gift for me, I want it. I want it. And the Sabbath, if you're unfamiliar, Sabbath comes from Shabbat. Shabbat means cease, stop, abstain. It means to pull back from. The Sabbath is taking one day off per week, not per year, per week, to say I'm not, to say I'm not working today. It's happened, this is our life.

It's saying I'm not available on this day. I'm only available to God, my family, my friends. I'm not available to work on this day called the Sabbath. And the three levels of understanding the Sabbath, I don't have time to fully unpack this, but here it is. First one is rest from your work, which seems simple enough, all right? But then there's another level, which is rest from even the thought of work. You know what it's like. You're not working, but you're working. You're thinking about the thing you gotta do. You're thinking about the next presentation. You're on Sunday already preparing for Monday, right? And some of you are like, well, there can't be more than that. Yes, rest as if all your work was done. What would it be like if one day a week, and this is how, if you're wondering, how do you get a rhythm of life that's sustainable? God gave us a gift called the Sabbath that every seven days we pull back and it establishes a rhythm to our life of peace. It's like ocean waves. What would happen if on every seventh day or wherever you do it, that you approached it as if it was your first day of retirement, right? And here's the thought, okay? And this is very important.

Exodus and Deuteronomy both talk about Sabbath. Exodus says that we should rest on the seventh day because God rested on the seventh day. And so a Sabbath is our reminder, listen, that you didn't create the world and it's gonna be fine if you don't work today because you don't keep the world spinning, he does, okay? That's what Exodus says. This says, Deuteronomy says that you should rest because you're no longer a slave. And I know some of you are like, oh, I've never been a slave, okay? When was the last time you took a day and you didn't work? Didn't think about work? You didn't check email? If it's been a while, hate to break it to you, you're a slave. So what is the Sabbath? You take one day per week and you wake up that morning, listen, you open up your eyes, you wake up into a day that you did not create. And in fact, today, I will not create anything. I will just rest in God's presence. I will lift my hands as a free child of God who's been liberated from slavery by my good father, the king. And I reconnect with him, I reconnect with the people that I love, I reflect, why? Because at the end of the week, God looked back and said, hey, it is good.

What would happen if every seven days you look back and said, hey, were the last six days good? If not, change it. If it was good, celebrate it. And I'm convinced that this is why so many people have midlife crisis, because they don't live an examined life. And what happens is you were made to examine every week. But what happens is we don't do it until we're 50. Right, oh, I thought I'd be so much further along than this. I thought I'd be here, I thought I'd be there. And this is what happens. Listen, what happens when you get one degree off? Okay, and then you catch it one week in. You can recalibrate. What happens when you get one week off, I mean, one degree off and then go for 50 years? You end up in the middle of nowhere and you're like, how did I get here? And God's like, exactly. What would happen if you had just received my gift to you and every seven days turn around and says, was this good? If not, correct it, change it, come back into center line. You don't have to, the kids are growing up so fast. Okay, then take a Sabbath. I don't know what I'm supposed to do about my calling. I hate my job. Okay, then Sabbath. Pause, receive what God has for you. So let's do this right now.

Can we put this question up here? What boundary do I need to draw to protect my peace? Take 30 seconds on that. All right, think about this. Think about the list of 10. Think about maybe number 11 that you added, whatever that is. And maybe you just need to say, hey, I don't even really know where to start, but Sabbath sounds like a good one. What boundary do I need to draw to protect my peace? Because what do I need to do to get my peace back? I have to identify what's stealing my peace. And then I have to draw a boundary line to protect my peace. Third thing is this, last thing. Then I have to welcome Jesus to reign as my Prince of Peace. Welcome Jesus to reign as my Prince of Peace. What I'm doing when I identify what's stealing my peace and then draw a boundary line to push that thing back is I'm clearing off the throne of my life. And I'm saying, Jesus, come and take your rightful place as the Prince of Peace. Here's actually what I'm saying. Here's what I'm saying to Jesus. Jesus, honestly, I thought I would find peace in increasing my follower count on social. I thought I'd find peace by upgrading my life to be a little bit better than my neighbors. I thought I'd find peace by always being on the go so I looked important.

I thought I'd find peace by getting that raise, finally getting that promotion, getting that trophy, getting that degree. I thought I'd find peace at the bottom of a pill bottle. I thought I'd find peace on the other side of that site. I thought I'd find peace in the crystals. I thought I'd find peace in the horoscopes. But now that I've tasted all of it and seen that it's disgusting, I know that there are only thieves and liars that they don't give peace. They actually take peace. So Jesus, my statement of faith today is actually you are the Prince of Peace in my life. So come and sit on the throne of my peace. And here's the deal. The reason, if you're wondering, the reason why the Sabbath day commandment, Sabbath day commandment, isn't repeated in the New Testament. Go to Hebrews. I think it's Hebrews 4. You can look at it, okay? It's because, listen, the Sabbath, at the end of the day, was never about a day. The Sabbath was about allowing a day to lead you to a person because peace, at the end of the day, is not found in a day. Peace is not found in a technique. Peace is not found in listening to a certain type of music. Peace is not found by attending a Tony Robbins seminar. Because peace isn't in a program.

Peace is in a person. And that person is Jesus. And so listen, guys, my peace is not in politics. My peace is not in the elephant. My peace is not in the donkey. My peace is in a person. My peace is not in meditation. My peace is in a person. My peace is not in my girlfriend, my boyfriend, my husband, my wife, my kids, whatever it is. No, my faith is in a much higher. person. My peace is not in a pill bottle. My peace is not in any sort of technique that this world could offer me. My peace is found in a person and his name is Jesus the Christ. He's the vine. We are the branches. His peace flows from him into our lives as we abide in him. Jesus is our Sabbath and our soul finds rest in God alone. Jesus gives me peace with God through the cross. Jesus gives me peace with myself because my sins are forgiven so there is therefore now no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. He gives me peace with other people because now we're part of the same family and we can forgive 70 times 7 and he gives me peace with the world because now I'm at peace. And listen, Jesus never promises us a storm free life but he does promise us to be with us in our boat in the middle of the storm because peace is not the absence of conflict it's the presence of Jesus in the middle of the conflict. And let me just break it to you. Peace, I know you're feeling it, you're tasting it right now, but peace is not found in attending church. Peace is not found in memorizing a scripture. Peace is not found in any of these things because peace is only found in a person and how do you approach this person? Through prayer and through worship. It's through actively trusting. Let me give you one final scripture Isaiah 26 3. It says, God you will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you. It says you will keep in perfect peace all who

attend church. You will keep it in perfect peace all those who are addicted to. No, it's trust. It's active and you can trust God because he's alive. You're not trusting stained glass, no you're trusting a person. This is an active trust. You know Philippians 4 right says, you know, don't be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and petition present your request to God and then the peace of God that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. We've talked about this before. We love quoting the second part of the verse without doing the first part of the verse. We love saying, God give me the peace of God that passes all understanding to guard my heart, my mind. No, no, no, no, no. There's a qualifier for that. Present your request to God and then the peace of God. What it's saying is trust. Do I trust? Do I trust? Am I coming to him? Am I giving him my word? Some of you just need to say God I'm so afraid of. God I'm so worried about. I promise you when you give him that, then his peace will flood in. How do I access the peace of God? By connecting to a person. I do that primarily through prayer and through worship. That's why I rediscovered friendship. That's where dead things start coming back to life again. So let's do it. Let's do it. Let's bow our heads and let's talk to a God right now. We draw a boundary around this moment. In fact, listen here at all the campuses, if you need to literally like put your phone on do not disturb just for a minute, just for a minute. God we're making the commitment that we're not gonna think about what's next, we're gonna think about what's now. And right now we are available to you alone God. Can we do this? Can we take a breath? Father we confess we've been busy. God we've been moving so fast we forgot to remember to breathe. We've been running, we've been caffeinated, we've been distracted. We've allowed idols, people, politics, worries to come in and steal our peace. And we look back, we have a Sabbath moment right now, we look back on this last season and there was a lot of good, but also much wasn't. So right now we repent and we return. To our Prince of Peace, we confess we are tired

and we are weary and we are broken, but we're running so fast we don't realize it. But right now we hear the call once again, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. So we come to you. We put our faith in you, Jesus Christ, as the Son of God, yes, to forgive our sins, and through that to give us peace with the Father. And we also right now, we put you on the throne of our life as Lord, as Savior, and also as our Prince of Peace. And now because of the cross, we are forgiven of sins and we come to you as free sons and daughters, no longer trying to earn approval, no longer slaves, sons and daughters. And we're here right now to receive from Jesus what you alone can give, because you give as the world could never give. You give real peace. So can we do that? Can we just hold our hands out? Just like we're gonna carry something. Can we say it together? I receive your peace. Let's say that together. I receive your peace. Say it again. I receive your peace. One more time. I receive your peace.

I receive your peace. Hey, across all the campuses, worship team's gonna come out and they're gonna lead us in a moment. Here's what I'd say. It's been a while since some of us were still. Here's the power of being still. Be still and know that he is God. Where's the stillness in your life? Where's the silence in your life? Let me find it right here for the first time in a while. Draw a boundary line around this moment and say, right now, I belong to God alone. And so as the team plays, lots of times, you know, I know there's pressure that when the lyrics get up there, I feel like I have to sing too. Maybe this one, just receive. Sure, you can stand, you can sing, you can do whatever, but I encourage you, let him be the vine, let you be the branch and allow his peace to come into your life today as a dearly beloved child of God. Let's worship together. Thanks for being a part of Victory Church on the Pando app. We hope this content was a blessing to you, but we want you to know that you're not done yet because we want to hear from you. So send us a letter and tell us things like what God is doing in your life,

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