Music.

Life Change Podcast. I'm Pastor Luke and I believe that you can experience lasting

life change for your good and for God's glory. Today we're gonna pick up and we're

gonna talk about this theme of finding true peace. Finding true peace. Last week

we talked about serenity and kind of how this idea of what we think of serenity

might not be the right one. And we're gonna pick up this idea of peace. A couple weeks ago we actually we talked about sanity. You remember that

conversation we were talking about insanity versus sanity. This idea of we

keep living in a certain way that keeps giving us bad results, right? That popular

definition of insanity of doing the same thing over and over again expecting,

different results, wanting things to get better, but not doing the things that we need to be doing

in order to get better.

Where we talked about, the definition I worked with was, insanity is a way of being that we've gotten comfortable

with, that leads to a place that we do not wanna go.

It's a way of being that we live in, that we do, and it's a way of doing things.

That is slowly leading us in a direction that we actually don't want to go in, but for some reason we are comfortable and we don't want to

change. That's insanity, right? And so what is sanity? Sanity is kind of living life on life's

terms. It's beginning to say, you know what? No, how do I actually line up my actions with where

I want to go and begin to experience wholeness? And so the Bible has a different way or word for

talking about what we have called sanity in one of our last sessions.

The Bible has this concept known as Shalom, which is a Hebrew word, and we translate that to mean peace.

Shalom, our definition of peace is a little bit different though than what exactly Shalom means.

When we think of peace, one thing might come into our mind, but actually we need to be

thinking of something else.

Let's imagine for a moment that there's a major city and this major city is hit by a massive storm.

This storm is record-breaking, it's huge, and it absolutely brings about devastation to the city.

In the middle of the storm, that city is not at peace. There's nothing peaceful about that city experiencing that storm.

All the wind, it's knocking things down, things are collapsing, there's water damage, there's

there's awful things happening in the city. It's not at peace.

The morning after the storm. So, storm ends, the sun comes up, storm is gone,

and we might be tempted to say, ah, the city is now at peace, right?

Because the storm's gone, city's at peace, there's no storm.

But if we were to look at that city, and we were to look at all the damage,

that was left behind by that storm, We were to look at the telephone wires down, we were to look at the water damage, the flooding,

the broken things, the damage to personal private property.

Could we say that's at peace?

In one way, we might say, well, I guess there's a kind of peace because there's no more storm.

And that's the definition of peace I think we often have in our heads.

But the idea of shalom, the biblical idea of peace, is more like wholeness.

The biblical idea of peace, if we were to apply that to that situation,

that city would not be at peace until the damage from the storm was repaired,

until things were put back the way they were supposed to be.

Think about it in kind of maybe an interpersonal level, right?

If you've had close relationships of any kind with family or friends or a loved one,

we might say, well, I'm not arguing, right?

Like we're at peace right now, right?

We're not having any conflict. And what you mean by that is that you're not fighting, right?

But we all know that just because words aren't being exchanged, that there's necessarily peace in the relationship, right?

There could be the silent treatment going on, right? That looks peaceful from the outside, but we know that that is not a sign of wholeness, it's not a sign of peace.

Right? Or, you know, if we were to think even about like the Cold War, right? You

know, Cold War where nations are just, you know, there's no active fighting going

on, but there's not exactly peace going on either, right? And so we need to have a

more comprehensive definition of peace. Peace is this wholeness, it's this Restoration.

Of things being the way that they are supposed to be. And so often we're tempted to settle for a,

what I call a false peace.

And what we settle for when we settle for a false peace is really a form of insanity.

We might be tempted to stay inside of our little room and not look outside, if we're back in the city.

Let's imagine we're back in the city for a moment.

We might be tempted to settle for this false peace, stay in our little room, in our little house, not look outside at the storm and all the

mess that it's made.

That's not peace. Right? If I just cover my eyes and I don't look at the mess, that's not peace.

That's a delusion.

That's living with willful blindness. That's not willing to face reality.

We might say we aren't having any conflict in our life right now, but that doesn't mean

we if we're not having any conflict that might be true but are you not having

conflict because you're lying because you're keeping secrets right like.

Sometimes we're like I just want to have peace so I'm not gonna tell the truth

right now or I'm not gonna be honest I'm gonna keep a secret because I don't want

to have a fight well okay but that's not peace right that's a delusion that's a

false peace. We might be avoiding the damage and that's all around our feet,

pretending that everything is how it's supposed to be, but it's really not. Peace

is more than the absence of pain, it is the presence of wholeness. Hear that

again, I want you to catch that. Peace is more than the absence of pain, it is the

presence of wholeness.

Throughout the Bible, the Bible uses this word peace to refer to wholeness, this full state of

being. When it comes to Jesus in the New Testament, He is described as bringing peace. Let me read a

few passages for you where Jesus talks about this wholeness, this restoration. John 14, verse 27

says, this is Jesus speaking, he says, peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I do not

give you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. He's like,

I'm going to give you a peace that's my peace. It's not a peace like the world. It's a peace

that's different. In Colossians chapter 1 verses 19 through 20 says this, for God was pleased to

to have His fullness dwell in Him, talking about Jesus,

and through Him to reconcile, to reconcile, to bring all things, whether things on earth or in heaven,

by making peace through His blood shed on the cross.

Reconciliation is bringing things back together the way they're supposed to be.

Romans 5, verse one says this, "'Therefore, since we have been justified through faith,

we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The world was thrown into disarray and chaos when the world entered into it, and with that

came brokenness that has affected both you and I and every person who's ever existed.

But Christ came to bring peace, to reverse the curse, to come and bring about restoration

in the life of you and me.

So often we settle for a false peace.

And he said, you know what?

Pain's not too bad, there's nothing like acute, there's nothing like awful happening right now.

I'm going to settle for that. We're going to settle for complacency over the way things are.

Whether or not that's actual wholeness, whether that's actually healing, whether that's actual,

truth or actual reality. We will settle for things just being comfortable sometimes,

not actually settle for wholeness or peace. If you've ever injured one of your

legs or your feet, right, like I've injured my foot and my legs a couple of

times and one of the things I noticed every time I do that is that it makes me

walk funny. And when you walk funny, when you're kind of carrying yourself

different because one of your legs is hurt or injured, your posture gets kind of different, you hold your back in a different way, and what you start doing

is you start experiencing pains elsewhere in the body,

even if you get to a place where you can kind of walk

and you're not experiencing any pain in your foot anymore because you're kind of limping or you're walking differently

so you don't hurt it,

you start to feel pain elsewhere in your body, like in your back because you're holding yourself strained.

And that's true about the way our lives and our souls work. See, the thing is, and this is a really deep truth,

this is a hard truth to kind of see at first, but if you have, say, an addiction, right,

maybe you drink too much alcohol, maybe you abuse a drug, maybe you run to pornography,

maybe whatever your unhealthy coping mechanism is that you run to, the thing of choice

that you think will fix you, make you feel better, whatever that is, that's not really your problem.

That in that analogy is like your sore back.

There's actually probably an old injury in your foot that we need to talk about too.

A lot of times in recovery circles or in AA people will talk about, I don't have a drinking

problem, I have a living problem.

Yeah, like absolutely alcoholism, abusing alcohol is definitely a problem, but it's

a secondary problem for many people.

There's actually often another internal emotional, spiritual, life problem.

Maybe there was something that happened early in life, something about the way we grew up

or the way we were raised or what we experienced as a child, or maybe it's just like life is

just chaotic and I don't have the skills to manage it, that's a problem. That's a

limp in the leg that we've been given. We've started to walk in a way that's

not healthy, that's not whole, that's not restored, and it's causing us to have

other problems like alcoholism, like broken relationships. And the same thing

comes to whether you're dealing with an explicit addiction or not. If you have

trauma or hurt or a past thing that you can't seem to get over, I guarantee you

it's impacting your life in other areas. It's impacting how you experience your

day-to-day life because it's an unhealed or incompletely healed wound that's

causing you to live life differently. And that's scary, right? That's hard, right?

Like, oh, like, can't we just ignore it? Can't it just go away? Like, if we just

ignore it, won't it go away?" And the sad truth is that no, it's not going to go

away. You can ignore it for as long as you want, that's your choice. But the

thing is, is it's not going to go away. But there's good news for us too, because.

Jesus wants people who are injured. Jesus wants people who've got a limp.

Listen to these words from Jesus from Matthew 9, verses 12-13.

On hearing this, Jesus said, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

But go and learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice.

For I have not come to call the righteous, but to call sinners.

Jesus says right here, He's like, look, I'm not here to find people who've got their life all together.

I didn't come down to earth to die on the cross for people who are pretty just all right.

They don't really have any problems.

I came here for the sick.

I didn't come to take care of the healthy people. I came to help the sick people.

I came to take care of the people who need my help.

If you think you've got life all together, okay, like Jesus is for the person who's sick,

who's in need of him.

Now the reality of that is, is if you think you've got life all together, that you're

all perfect, you got it all figured out, I guarantee you that there's something that

you're not actually addressing, that you don't have it all figured out, that there will be

some brokenness in your life at some point.

The fact of the matter is that we're all human, we're all sick, we're all sinners, we've all

got brokenness in our life.

We all need Jesus to come and bring about healing in those places.

And so that's great news.

So often times I'll tell people that church isn't for perfect people.

Church isn't for the person who's got it all together. Church is for the person who doesn't have it all figured out, right?

It's a place where we get to come and we get to meet with Jesus and experience that healing that He promises.

The last thing that I want to talk about is this myth of happiness.

Talking about this, we can't avoid pain, we can't avoid seeking a false peace, but what

we often do when we seek a false peace is we are believing a myth.

We're believing this myth of happiness. I've talked about this before, but let's talk about it again.

At some point, someone sold you a myth. Someone told you a lie.

And it's a really nice lie. It's a really nice myth. Wish it was true.

It's just not. And the myth goes something like this.

If you can manage your life just the right way, if you can find the right method, if

you can watch the right YouTube video, if you can read the right self-help book, you,

find the right technique in order to do this thing right, to do that, to find the right TikTok hack.

You can live your life and do things in such a way that you will always be happy,

and you will endure very little to no suffering.

That's the myth.

Right? If we just find the right method, if we find the right mixture of things, if we,

get rid of all the uncomfortable things, we just kind of ignore them, push them away. If we

cut ties with anybody we think might cause us harm, or might make us like regret or feel hurt

at some point, if we just, which by the way, that's all relationships. If we get rid of all

the things that make us uncomfortable, and we just kind of try and tweak it, and we just try a

different method, a different way of doing this, and a different way of doing

that, we can experience happiness. Right? That's the myth. And that, done right, you,

should be happy pretty much all the time, if not most of the time. That's the myth.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but that's as far as that myth goes. It's not

reality. That's not your life up to this point. It's not been my life up to this

point. Upon closer examination of this, we begin to find cracks in the foundations of

that philosophy. Like, let's just think about brushing your teeth for a second. I don't.

Know anybody who particularly likes brushing their teeth. I know people who like the feeling

of having just brushed their teeth. But I don't know anyone who really loves having

just brushed their teeth. Particularly little kids. I haven't met a little toddler who's

just so excited that well I don't I guess maybe I have there are kids that

like brushing their teeth but most of the time particularly when they're first

learning kids don't like the brush their teeth it's not fun they would rather

just not brush their teeth well okay well if we thought if we follow this kind of idea of like minimize suffering in your life to maximize happiness okay

well brushing your teeth makes the kid unhappy so let's not brush your teeth,

Okay, well, the kid's not going to be happy later when he starts losing teeth because

of cavities, or he's having a lot of dental work done, right?

Not going to be happy then, right? We all know that basic principle that sometimes we need to undergo.

Momentary or short forms of unhappiness in order to experience long-term payoff, right? Like that's

a basic principle, but like that doesn't jive with this whole idea of like we can be happy all of the

time. That's not true. We sometimes do actually have to do things that we just don't like.

Like. Happiness is not always the goal. It's just not, because if it was, then yeah, you

should avoid pain at all costs. But oftentimes we know that we're shooting for something

better, right? Why do we go to the gym? Well, we go to the gym, at least I go to the gym

when I go to the gym, not because I love going to the gym. I go to the gym because I'm chasing

after something else, something better than just momentary happiness or momentary pleasure.

And that's all of life. And so, this whole session, this whole talk here, is meant to be an encouragement to you,

to say, all right, don't settle for a false peace.

Don't buy the myth of happiness and say that, you know what, I should just always do what

feels best or pursue happiness.

No, no, no. wholeness look like? What does living like Christ look like? What does living in accordance

with my values look like? And if that's hard, that's a good thing to chase after.

What's the limp? What's the wound that needs healed so that I can live in wholeness?

Remember, just because the storm is over doesn't mean the city is at peace.

Just because there isn't chaos immediately going on in your life right now because things

are kind of calm doesn't mean that there's peace in your heart, in your soul, in the

way that you're living your life.

There is a place where you need to find and seek peace and wholeness, restoration, being put back together.

So I encourage you this week to wrestle with that, to ask yourself, where are you settling

for false peace in your life?

Are you not dealing with a wound that needs healed? Are you not addressing a relationship that needs addressed?

Are you keeping secrets or hiding things in a way to avoid having conflict, when really

you need to have conflict in order to begin to seek wholeness and peace.

So give yourself some time this week to reflect on that, to ask yourself, where am I settling

for false peace, and where is Christ calling me to experience greater healing and a greater

sense of restoredness and wholeness in my life?

Thank you for joining me this week, for listening in, in this conversation.

You can always drop me a comment, send me a message, or email me at luke at conduitministries.com.

Be happy to hear from you. Next week we're going to start talking about this idea of the false self, of identifying

what the false self is, and so I hope you join me for that conversation.

I'll talk to you all later.

Music.