Welcome to Welling, for your spiritual well-being and your ministry overflowing.
Anxiety. Have you faced it? I have. It is a natural condition of the human situation. Is there a way to handle anxiety? Yes, there is. At other times in places we’ve talked about those wonderful verses in both promise and assurance.
You and I can overcome anxiety. Because anxiety is a gift we give to ourselves. If you try to live an omniscient life, which you and I cannot it’ll lead to confusion. Only one person is omniscient and he sees everything clearly. We can see everything darkly and feel our way through it.
We can improvise walking through life, but only one has a blueprint on a plan and therefore he’s never anxious. You’ve got to relate to him, I’ve got to relate to him. What about ownership thinking? Which leads to panic where we think we own our lives and own others’ lives and own circumstances and own businesses and own our responsibilities.
We need to keep them in order, but we don’t own them. Trying to own what is not yours will lead to anxiety. During the time of COVID, anxiety disorders spread rapidly even faster than the actual virus. And in many ways is beyond vaccines. Beyond medication. It’s very real.
People felt a generalized anxiety about everything. Undefinable. They ought to experience long term anxiety. And in that situation, Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians comes to play in this peace series, my friend.
Now may the Lord of peace himself grant you, continually grant you, give you just as a gift. Peace in every circumstance, at all times, in every manner. The Lord be with you all. The reason he can offer this peace is because of its source. We talked about the Lord of peace, a sovereign. One we’ll talk about him again at the latter part of the series.
He is the conqueror of peace. The one who stimulates and confuses us is Satan. And I understand his sentiment if he was going to be doomed forever, he would want to take everybody with them. If I was going to be doomed forever and if I was especially evil like him who would want to take everybody with me, not wanting their good. But our Jesus is the God peace who crushed his head even as he was nipping at his heels.
It is no wonder in Romans 16: 20. The apostle says the God peace, not to God to war. But the God peace will crush satan under, not only his feet, but your feet. You’re looking for peace over the circumstance, you’re looking for victory over satan, you’re looking for a victory over the world, and even your own flesh.
The source of all that opposition will be crushed by God under your feet and my feet. He’s the conqueror of peace. So you can be the overcomer today. But not only that, he is the nurturer of peace, of relational peace.
In the book of Thessalonians and many other places in Colossians as well, there was dissension inside Christ’s body. Disunity, misunderstanding, irreconcilable differences. Within the church itself, the apostle Paul talks about how Jesus is himself at peace because he has made peace between us and God. He can make peace between man and man.
To the Corinthians, he said, finally brothers and sisters rejoice. Be made complete, be comforted, be like-minded. Second Corinthians 13, live in peace and the God love and peace will be with you.
Now the Thessalonians roles are facing societal disorder, just like you and I are facing. And here the assurance comes from the conqueror and the nurturer, but the builder of peace because he builds his body. He’s the only one who can provide peace to his body. As we face internal forces and external forces. He can establish peace.
The general sentiment was that the gods of Rome could bring peace. After all, what we should expect from deity to give us peace. The apostle Paul says, there’s only one such God, the Lord of peace. The presence of the Lord Jesus in your life will give the peace of the Lord Jesus to your life.
But it’s a grant. The world gives its own grants. It may give you a temporary piece, it may give you a material piece. But Jesus grant is eternal peace. It’s internal peace, spiritual peace forever. What do you do with a grant and a gift? You receive it. Tonight as you go to bed, go to bed in peace, having received his piece. Sleep in peace.