welcome to real Christianity a weekly show designed to help Christians know their Bible defend their faith and truly understand what it means to follow Jesus the premise is simple the culture is getting louder the church is getting flash ear but few pastors are teaching on how to live a Biblical life my name is Dale Partridge along with my incredible wife Veronica join us as we start an important conversation about what it really means to be a Christian
 welcome to real Christianity today we are talking about how to have peace and a pandemic how about a piece of a pandemic it seems like all were talking about the last several episodes is pandemic related which I think is I guess that's right because it's very helpful lots of Christians are going through uncertainty confusion and doubt frustration suffering and so many different form so today we want to talk about peace and how do we find peace how do we get peace and we attain that piece that's promised in Scripture A few things one Veronica's back so she's here and I'm trying to do every other episode with her until we can get back on a regular babysitting schedule for these after watching this on YouTube videos on YouTube you might see that I check our camera to make sure that it's recording today because we are having an issue with our cards sometimes doing
 record we tried recorded episode last night last night at almost 10 or so tired we almost there like that's just record it tomorrow and let's record it and we did and then we finish the episode only to find out it didn't record I passed out after that cuz we were so we are excited to talk about peace today and before we get started I want to mention one thing if you guys heard a few weeks ago we launched a brand new companion Ministry called Stand in victory.org in this is a how to overcome or beat the bondage of pornography program. It's an online program it's a gospel Center program and its leash or videos for people that are struggling with pornography and for Christians that are struggling with pornography we also probably 200 people
 maybe more that have gone to the program already and surprisingly surprisingly twenty-five to Thirty per-cent of those are women so ladies if you are struggling this program is not just for men it's for men and women and it's something that will be edifying and helpful for you as well but I wanted to share just one really powerful testimonial from a young man who went to the program and there's actually several of these you can see them on the homepage of the website you can read these but this is from Kyle be who is 21 and lives in Canada and he's giving us permission to share this testimony he says I just finished the course and my life is changed I tried so many programs a different methods to be set free from bondage but you brought what many others don't to this program the gospel I've preached lead and encouraged others to be set free from sin without truly knowing it myself
 now I do and being bored again is so much more than I presented it to be it's a state of being that I can't really put words to other than to say the Lord is great it wasn't until your course then I recognize how important true repentance is I love Jesus as Savior but not as Lord but now I see that he is lord and there is no shame in being a slave to Christ thank you and glory be to God I'm beginning to live and love in Freedom
 the guys that was I mean yeah just there's so many more that are like that to a few are in bondage to pornography please go check out the program at stand in victory.org now we're going to move on to the topic of the episode were talking about peace we live in a world that's overrun with the antithetical attribute of peas which is chaos I think that anybody could describe the world right now would use the word chaos it's just wild and
 there's not a lot of predictability right now there's not a lot of settled Hearts right now and a lot of Christians are seeking a greater understanding of heavenly peace they want to understand because there's now a greater needs to have it and so how should we look at the scriptures to determine piece where do we find that piece of we're going to answer to questions 14 Veronica from young mother and then one from me from a husband and father and Veronica's you need a response and I'll get a response and hopefully that'll be helpful in this journey so question to Veronica sis Veronica and a young Christian mom and I have a new baby my husband's employment is somewhat uncertain and this pandemic has me constantly on easy as a woman how have you found peace in this season
 yeah first I love that she stated that she's a Christian woman because without the foundation of Christ there can be no true peace you Henry once said what piece can they have who are not at peace with God and another could I have written down here is by c.s. Lewis and he said God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from himself because it is not there there is no such thing so
 start if you haven't repented of your sin and all of your hope and trust in Jesus Christ and his actually made him Lord of your life like that testimony had mentioned that's a good place to start any desire to find peace in this world without being at peace with God without knowing the Lord is going to be in pause okay so now jumping to your question when I heard you reading that question tail right off the bat there were two scriptures that came to my mind
 the first one which we all give it a Christian for longer than a year he probably definitely read the scripture be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and Minds through Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6 through 7 in Russian to go to that a little bit later deals going to break that down for them but then the other scripture that I thought of was look at the birds of the air they neither sow nor reap nor gather into Barns and yet your heavenly father feeds them are you not of more value than they and which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life and that was Matthew 26 to 27
 so I think it's really important to recognize that worrying and being anxious is it is a sin and we're Believers need to flee from the temptation of worry and anxiety we need to recognize it when we're starting to feel that creep in your being tempted so yeah we can worry and toil and Russell with our thoughts and our minds and always thinking about the worst possible outcome of the worst possible scenario but it is in these difficult moments that we actually get to practice what we preach as Christians we actually get to live out your Christian faith
 we get to pray we get to cling to the word of God we get to enter his gates with Thanksgiving is the scripture set because let's face it we all have many many things to be thankful for you know the Lord who is sustaining every breath that you were breathing in every war that is coming out of your mouth and allowed you to open your eyes today we have something to be thankful for all the time so we get to clean to him we got to find her peace in our comfort and the only one who can truly provide that to us which is God you know I hear people often say Have Faith but are you practicing having faith or don't worry but are you one to always be worried or stressed out about something
 and then another scripture I was I wanted to share is a 1st Peter 5:6 or 7 it says humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you
 so first you just heard me read that scripture I want to be clear that this is actually a command to Christians you know what Peter is saying here is don't cast your fears somewhere I don't bury them in denial or hide them behind busyness cast them on to Jesus who cares about you he cares about you and he wants to hear from his little children just as we you know us as parents if our child is concerned or worried or scared about something we want them to come to us we want to be there safe place in the Lord wants to be that 22 us to his children
 and then the last point that I wanted to make is that when I recognized that I'm starting to be tempted to walk and worry or fear or anxiety because that happens happens to everyone I try in those moments to remember as many moments as I possibly can to remember God's faithfulness in our own lives and usually when I do that I'm typically immediately humbled and I'm full of gratitude and I'm able to walk in peace knowing that the Lord has gone before me
 yeah. This is good I think about
 I think about there's a pictograph that explains face right at the images illustration it explains faith and it's a man in a rowboat and he's going forward but his back is facing the forward direction and you stopped in seeing if people really in a boat before right they're rowing but they're actually going backwards to their back right and the idea is that you can move forward blindly because you can look behind you and your history and that's what you're saying there is that when you can look at how faithful God has been in your life you go oh my goodness look at that the Lord came through here and there and there and there and there he's kept me as a child and accept me as a teen as it kept me as an adult and he kept me here they protected me and shield me from that answer that pretty answer that prayer and answer that prayer it's a lot easier to have confidence in the faithfulness of God that even if it's confusing or not the the circumstances or outcome that you expected the Lord will work to get
 all things for good for those who love him are called according to his purpose and you will see that eventually decide no I want to encourage anyone that's listening to this if you could Christian for any amount of time to write down some of those moments I have a list in one of my notebooks just of all the things I could think of over the last couple of few years because we've had a really crazy the last few years of all of these moments with me and some of them are really big moments and some of them are pretty small but there were significant and so I wrote them down and I want you know just as keeping track of the Lord's faithfulness
 and it is his it's been a blessing to be able to see it's Memorial lysing what God has done in your life isn't even 4 to the scriptures we know that God
 told the Israelites several times to build monuments after they got done with a big moment with God we see that Jacob built a monument after he had the encounter with God this is a common thing to memorialize these moments so that you can look back as Dorothy and go then God is faithful my life check that out we think if we talked about this last night and our first time trying to do this is the lady from war room the movie right she kept track of all the prayers have been answered I think this is a great practice for us to and encouraged me to do that in the first place yeah if you have watched a movie go out it's a good movie okay we're going to answer one more question here for Taylor towards the guys here this is a gentleman asking me this question this is Dale I'm worried about the state of the world have a job but it feels like everything to change or disappear in a moment I feel like I can't trust anyone and as a husband and father
 How To Be steady for my family do you have any advice so a couple things
 yeah this is this is a difficult time but what a wonderful time it is to get a chance to walk out that opportunity to demonstrate what it means to be a leader of a spiritual Shepherd in your home to guide your family in peace to guide your family to the one who can give and generate and produce peace in our lives to be The Under Shepherd of Christ this is a great opportunity to do that as a father to teach your children that there's things that are changing but we as Christians can be at peace and why and talking to our wives you know sometimes we often think that our wives are just handling it the way that we are and we need to check in with our wives and and find out what issues about this pandemic might be affecting them that are affecting you as a man and talk about those it have discussions about scripture
 I'm so going to open up with probably one of the more manly quotes that are out there this is Oswald Chambers and he died pretty young he probably wrote this in his 30s and he wrote his utmost for my highest I think or My Utmost For His Highest I get them confused but it's a one of the other I've read several passages from it but he's thought to be a fantastic Theologian and strong man of God and he wrote this and I thought it was very bold so guys just be ready for a put your seat belts on cuz this is kind of intense he says and this is I would say he's probably talking to Matt at this point he's as we imagine that a little anxiety and worry are an indication of how really wise we are it is much more an indication of how really broken we are
 Running Springs from a determination to get our own way our Lord never worried he was never anxious because he was not quote out to get our to realize his own ideas he was out to realize God's ideas reading is wicked if you are a child of God have you been bolstering up that weak soul of yours with the idea that your circumstances are too much for God put all doubting away and dwell in the shadow of the almighty deliberately tell God that you will not fret about a thing all of our fret and worry it's caused by calculating without God just a powerful kind of snapped out of it and then tide message
 and that's not a message that you necessarily would give to everybody and every situation I chose to do it because I'm talking to some guys here and that's one side of a strong argument and there's also the gentle side I would hopefully we'll break down here in a second we're also saying this all these truths in the midst of dealing with her own struggle we're about to take our son who's got to get a procedure we got to drive them up to the hospital and go in the middle of this pandemic kind of medical world in and we have to have to go through procedure for his trachea and it makes us so we are right there with you guys in this practice what we preach and trust in God and the sovereignty of the Lord that he will
 at work his will in these matters and he loves our son and he loves us more than we love our son and even love ourselves and so I just wanted to share that because this isn't something that's detached from our life it's something that's very much attached to her life but I'm going to break down the verse that Veronica brought up Philippians 4:6 through 7 I would have read it again it says be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and Minds through Christ Jesus so how many things do we get to be anxious for
 none none this is a pretty intense statement be anxious for nothing it's all right. Like really nothing yeah that's a lot easier said than done a lot easier said than done be anxious for nothing Christian's that the antidote what he what he offers in that passage is it Christians aren't there to pray so just remember that whenever you feel like you're panicking you're not called to panic your called to pray and so if you want to exude that concern you do so in the form of prayer not in panic. That's what Christians do and we're also to do that with Thanksgiving and so we are to make those prayers and make what we want known to God with Thanksgiving that is too weird to enter into this place with gratitude which is the exact opposite posture
 someone who's worrying is when you're worrying you're in a state of scarcity meaning that you're concerned that things are being taken from you
 or that you're not in control which again. Your control is being taken from you when you are in a gratitude posture you have a structure of abundance I have plenty Lord you've given me so much thank you for that in in in all this abundance that you've given me Lord I pray also Lord that you would bless me in this manner that you would care for this matter for me or that you would care for you know what whatever dilemma it may be presented before you remove these sufferings and so and when you ask this way
 and your your prayers are founded in gratitude he says that the result will be peace that that's the promised result
 of not panicking so choosing to be obedient not panicking and instead praying and doing so in Thanksgiving the result will be peace and and the peace will be so odd in those moments it'll be so foreign that'll actually surpassed the understanding of those who were on the outside the peace that surpasses all understanding it's like wait what you're calm in the middle of that and this is a great moment in this pandemic to go to to demonstrate and display that this
 peace because people will go well that surpasses my understanding of the situation why are you at peace and I'm not that's very Evangelistic that's very little Drive curiosity from people in your life to wonder why you have peace that they don't have that but again this is not easy to accomplish in the flesh meaning that this isn't something easy to do this is something that we do in Christ strength in our life we leaned on Christ through that prayer we go Lord give us strength for these matters
 but this is you know why peace is the result not the action called that telling you to go be peaceful it's awesome Paul's not telling you to go go be peace go find peace on your know he's telling you not to be anxious pray with gratitude and the result will be peace and he closes with explaining that this peace will guard our hearts and Minds in Christ Jesus celebrate that dungeon real quick guard our hearts and Minds it's actually a military term of guarding it'll protect our hearts and Minds against the false lies of worry and concern and fear God didn't give us a spirit of fear but of power love and a sound mind or self-control these are
 powerful truth is that we need to remember in scripture he also says in Christ Jesus is a very popular phrase of Paul meaning that all these blessings reside in Christ peace only comes from Chrysler no other source of peace anywhere in the world outside of it being in Christ so this is what we talked about earlier with Veronica's statement there and so the place to seek is Christ and so Christian man or woman
 when you are worried or concern or are fearful or have anxiety or Panic is the first place you run
 Christ are you running to Christ is that the first place that you got or do you go to Instagram stories to find distraction or you go to WebMD or do you go to your bed to go lay down or do you go to a bottle of alcohol like what is it that you run to ask yourself that question when I worry and I'm fearful and I have anxiety where am I running first
 because if it's not the Christ it's a very ineffective strategy. Sufficient The Flash wants to run other places but the spirit should be running to Christ in many of us extend our worried because we refuse to run to the only place that is the only solution to that and now sometimes it can also be found in
 secondary sources like running to others in the church and being edify to the truth of God's word by another Christian but again I think the first place you run is to your knees and that you asked the Lord for that piece and you follow his instructions in scripture for that so we can talk.
 I agree I think a side note that I was just going to pondering on as you were talking and you have to remember that piece is one of the fruit of the spirit and when you become a Believer you were involved with the Holy Spirit and so it's something that the Lord has already given us and we just need to walk in that now and we don't need to ask the Lord for peace when he's giving it to us we just need to enter his gates with Thanksgiving and gratitude and thank him for giving that to us is abiding in the vine and apart from Christ we can do nothing there's like imagine Orange
 trying to figure out an orange mandarin orange tree trying to figure out a way to grow itself apart from the branch that it's attached to
 right it's just unsuccessful there's nothing they could do right now it needs to the the most effective thing you could do is put all of its energy into the vine and that's what we're called to do so why you prune apple trees guys we know a lot about printed more energy fine for you guys and helpful on your journey to find a piece of this time I want to close with just one last thing
 checking my camera make sure we're still recording it is
 most of these things are solved by the church meaning
 the answers to these harder questions should be found in a local community of Believers in which you are a part of gather together in a corporate expression now a lot of you are going to church right now to be with the community people because they're closed and a lot of you I think are concerned about things ever returning at least for the next several years if they're going to return back to normal if you might have a new car for my son or daughter or your father or family member that you are seeing regularly and you don't want to risk that there's lots of things that are going on in the church conversation and as I wrote in my peace St Justin's. Org forward slash coronavirus I did it episode on it as well smaller will be viewed as safer I believe that's a trend that were already seen keyboard to be looking for smaller expressions of church little gathering small groups home Gatherings home churches and for those of you that are listening to the show and that are interested in exploring
 basics of House Church that's what we do at our core Ministry we just created a free resource for you guys to do that you guys can go to relearn Church. Org forward slash house and there's a free pdf it's a church don't be overwhelmed by the idea of how is church at we have lots of training and tools that we're developing for you guys there we also developed our school at st. Justin's. Org training center for that but we wanted to just tell you guys about that it's completely free go check it out and hopefully that that is fine for you if you are regular listener we'd appreciate a review of this episode I just tap the stars on the podcast app on your phone you don't even need to write anything that would be it for us
 I'm not. See you guys next week we will see you guys next Wednesday on real Christianity
 thank you for joining us on this episode of real Christianity real Christianity is an audio Ministry of relearn church.org if you'd like more information on how to live out a Biblical life relearn church.org hosts a variety of Articles podcast sermons and videos to support your journey real Christianity is 100% listener-supported Ministry and if you'd like to support our efforts simply click the Donate tab at relearn church.org you can also connect with both Veronica and I on Instagram Facebook and Twitter for daily lessons and Bible teaching thank you for being with us today we hope to see you next Wednesday for another episode of real Christianity