S04 Ep40 Peace Vs Peril and how we find the best choice

Welcome to Man Talk, a ministry sponsored by TAWCMM, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where we're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination and to point men to their God-assigned roles. Now here's your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr. Well, welcome to Man Talk once again, and we are thankful to God. I'm Pastor Hardy.

Roy is not with us today, but we thank God again that you are here. So today we want to ask this question, why isn't there more peace in the world? And why, when we attempt to pursue peace, that sometimes we find ourselves not being able to bridge the gap between two sides of people who are attempting to pursue peace?

This is what we want to look at today, because I think the world is going about it the wrong way. We are trying to seek peace in other ways other than how the scripture tell us that we ought to pursue peace. So if we pursue peace in any other way other than what the scriptures talks about, then we're actually pursuing peril, because there is no peace that can be exhibited or even formed between two countries or governments unless God is involved. And peace in and of itself emanates from the prince of peace.

So he is the only one who is able to bring about peaceful solutions to a chaotic world. In verses 14 and 15, the Word of God tells us to pursue peace. He doesn't only say pursue peace, but he says pursue peace and holiness.

Holiness, we know that we can't find apart from the Lord God. So when we are pursuing peace, we are taking with us the prince of peace to an area or to a people or even to a person who is unable to be unpeaceful, and we might want to reconcile with them some area of our lives that has become distraught for whatever reason. We're coming with this intent to say, okay, I want to bridge this gap that we have between us, and I want to do it in a peaceful way. If we have the prince of peace in us, and the Word of God is telling us here in Hebrews chapter 12, verses 14, to pursue peace, we have to do that with a holiness intent. So we can't come with any other intention other than the way the Lord Jesus Christ brought peace unto the world. We know that everyone is not going to receive the gospel message of peace.

And when they don't receive the gospel message of peace, that should not be anything that calls us to continue talking about peace, because that's going to rest with them. If we don't have the Holy Spirit, this doesn't apply to you. It only applies to those who are born again.

And of course, here God is blessing through the Apostle Paul to write to the Hebrew Christians. If we have the holiness of God within us, because we are being washed with that word on a daily basis, we are praying to the God of all creation, we are allowing His will to be carried out in our life, then there's no doubt in who we're serving. And of course, that holiness, just as His glory is going to emanate from us to the person who we're talking to, or people who we're talking to, or even government officials that we bring the gospel message to. So we're doing it with the intent of holiness, but we have to, again, have the word of God within us. And He says, when you bring that, do it to all people, because if we don't bring peace with the intention of holiness, then He says that no one will see the Lord.

Now, wow, that's pretty radical. When you think about it in the sense that I can't see God if I'm not pursuing peace, if I'm rather causing trouble, if I'm stirring up strife, then I am exhibiting and manifesting characteristics of the enemy rather than the characteristics of God. I mean, that's really, really radical when you think about it, that I won't have that ability to see the Lord, based on the verse here, if I'm not pursuing peaceful solutions, if I'm not bringing the peace that God has instilled with me with the intention of the holiness of God that He has instilled within each and every one of His children.

Wow. I mean, it just blows me away to think about that this is my calling. And if you and I are not called to deliver that gospel message in a peaceful way, He says, then you won't see the Lord, because that should be your intention, an intention of holiness presentation. He says, look carefully along the way. So while you're pursuing holiness and while you are pursuing the peace that the Lord Jesus Christ instilled within you, He says, watch along the way because so that you don't fall short of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Because, see, as you start going along the way and meeting people, people are going to have different intentions. And if your intention is to pursue peace with the holiness intention and their intention is not holy, then you have to be careful not to fall short of God's grace by listening to what they say and letting what they say be a persuasion to override what God has says in reference as to how we should initiate peace and ultimately solve different conflicts and do it in a resolved manner. God knows what we need.

He knows that intention. He says, be careful along the way because there are others who are presenting other means of how to draw and initiate peace. But if they influence you, then you might fall short of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And see, if they don't trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, then their intention is not holy.

Now you have to get that. They don't have a holy intention. Their intention is some other intention that they may have other than what the Lord Jesus Christ said in His word. And see, if you don't have that, the Holy Spirit discernment to be able to determine what it is that they're presenting and even the motive behind it, because that's where the discernment comes in. Discernment comes in is their motive for bringing up how to come to a resolution of peace without a holy, holy intention. And it's as clear as the nose on our faces, born again believers, it is so clear to us that when we're drawing closer to God, God will start to reveal to us the intentions of men heart. He will bring about insight on exactly what a person is trying to do. You know, attorneys, they ask different questions to see if certain responses that you give back leads them to other questions that they may have to either say that this witness is not credible, or if they are testifying on the prosecution and or defensive, defense team or their behalf, then they'll say, wow, thank you, Dr. So-and-so, or thank you, Mrs. So-and-so, or thank you, expert so-and-so for that testimony. The prosecution and or defense, they in turn, when they do cross-examination, they're trying to break down the story in which a person is delivering.

Now, I want you to understand this. It's no different when you start going out pursuing peace with the holiness intention that they are going to be people who come to attempt to break down what it is you're trying to convey to them. So if you're trying to convey peace and you don't know what the word of God says in reference to peace, then you won't be able to stand on the foundation of the scripture. You will be standing on the foundation of your own intellect. This is tantamount to walking on thin ice because thin ice cannot hold you up.

Eventually, you're going to fall and slip through. We are coming up on a breakdown and when we come back, we want to continue talking about this, you know, pursuing peace or peril because there's an opposite. So you hang on in there and let the Spirit of God work in and through you as he works in and through me to deliver this unto you. We love you and we thank God for you.

We'll be right back after this. Talking and walking Christian men's ministry would like to invite you to our monthly men's breakfast held every first, third and fifth Friday of each month. You enjoy fun fellowship in the word of God as we break bread together. The meetings are held at First Christian Church, 1130 North Main Street, Kernsville, North Carolina.

We start promptly at six thirty a.m. and have a hard stop at eight o'clock a.m. Come join your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr.. Praise the Lord and welcome back to the podcast. We're talking about pursuing peace or peril. And if you don't do things the right way and how to pursue peace and we talked about doing that with a holiness intention, then we're going to fall subject to the devices in which the enemy laid out for us. And we are amped to fall into the pit, if you will, because we're not coming with the intention in which God have placed within us.

We said that as you go along the way, that there are going to be people who attempt to discredit what you have to say. So you have to be rooted and grounded in the scripture. And if you're not rooted and grounded and not depending upon the Holy Spirit to give you insight in reference to what's in the word of God and bring that out, because it's only the word of God which can break down all the devices in which the enemy is attempting to use against you and what you're trying to say in reference to peace. As we start this journey and go along our path and we're going to start encountering people and groups of people and individual organizations and governments and all these things, we're going to start encountering them and as we start encountering them, then we're going to see that there are going to be different things that are going to be laid along our pathway that we as God's people will have to navigate and circumvent in order to overcome whatever it is that the enemy has laid waste. Now, he goes on to say that if we fall short of the glory of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up. Now, when a person disagrees with what you have to say, and this is an application basically. We're taking this verse of scripture and we're applying an application to it on what you and I need to do in reference to overcoming the enemy's devices.

So he says, lest any root of bitterness spring up. Now, when a person disagrees with what you're trying to convey to them in reference to how to pursue peace with the holiness and tension, they find that they have questions and some of these questions can be legitimate questions or some of these questions can be illegitimate questions. It's the illegitimate questions you have to be careful of because what happens is the person is using these questions in order to attempt to trap or encase you in something that you might not be aware of from a biblical perspective.

Meaning that you may not have studied it or you may not be wise on a particular subject matter or things like that. So you have to be careful when a person asks you specific questions when it comes to you and what you're conveying to them. And if you're conveying the gospel in a clear, concise and manner that they can receive it, then I think God can take that, plant that seed in their heart and then he'll begin to work with them when it comes to coming to that conclusion.

So we have to watch out because what will happen is the word of God says roots of bitterness will spring up. In other words, they will start disagreeing with you because of something you're presenting. You're not going to get into an argument with them.

You're just going to present the gospel message. If they don't want to hear it, then don't pursue any argumentative type of way in drawing some type of conclusion to the scripture that you may not be aware of. And I think the enemy will use them to quickly determine whether or not you're not versed in a particular area or subject matter.

And if so, you should avoid that. You should avoid it like the plague because it's no use of you trying to do battle with a person from a biblical standpoint if God has not versed you or you have not studied certain areas of the scripture and now you're just throwing out things. The enemy is starting to take these things in and he's using that person now to have a bitter spirit against you. And you in turn, if you continue down that path, you will in turn have a bitter spirit with them.

And you might say within yourself, how did I get myself into this? You know, this person clearly doesn't want to hear what I have to say. And so now you become bitter against their questions, which again, some may be legitimate, some may be illegitimate. If they're really seeking the truth, then you as a born again believer need to take into account what God blessed through Peter to say that we should be prepared to give an answer to every man for the hope that lies within us with meekness and fear.

In other words, we should be able to convey what we believe, why we believe what we believe, and move forward in delivering that, not going into or venturing down any path that the person may attempt to lead you down, but answer their question if it's a legitimate one in a way that the Lord himself would be certainly in delivering such a message because God honored his word above his name. Now, if we go down and we don't do things according to the way God has told us to do it, and now the person is challenging us, and now we have roots of bitterness growing up, the next thing these verses of scripture says is that this root of bitterness will spring up, and it will cause trouble. We know that there's all kinds of trouble between governments.

We know that governmental trouble is our middle name. We know that there's people who are dishonest. There's people who scam other people.

They go out and they really make it a job to find out how much they can scam out of one person or another to present to themselves things that people who have worked hard their entire life, and then all of a sudden they sit back on the computer, think of ways and means on how to get that, swoop down on them, and take their entire life savings. I think that that is an absolute travesty in and of itself. But what he says here in the verse is that he says it causes trouble, and so it's going to cause still waters to become very, very turbulent. Now, when the root of bitterness set in and you have this disagreement, you continue to pursue the disagreement, now all of a sudden it's bringing up other troubles that the person will have with you that's not even related or relevant to the subject matter in which you're talking to them about. So if your intention was to bring peace, is to come with peace with the holiness and tent, and all of a sudden now this root of bitterness has sprung up, and now they're bringing up other issues because they say, oh yeah, you Christians, and we've heard that before, you Christians do such and such and such and such. You Christians attempt to force your doctrine on people.

You Christians think Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven. And so they start now taking the subject matter in which you initially made contact with them on, and now they're bringing up all of these other things. And see, this caused trouble not only between you two, but when they take that bitterness back to the people that they may be associated with, now they're conveying a message that's not your own words, mind you, but the words in which they look and see how you presented the gospel message, things that you could not answer or you did not want to answer or you failed to answer. See, they're going to communicate these things back to the people who they're associated with. And so if you are part of a group that's going out or if you're going out as an individual, then you have to be careful to understand what you're presenting because the way that they receive what you're saying is going to be how they communicate that back to the people, organization, or group that they're associated with. So they may not always communicate your exact words.

And typically, this is the case. We've heard the scenario when if you line 10 people up and you tell the very first person a phrase that say, such and such is this, that, or the other, and then by the time it gets to the 10th person that all of a sudden they are this, that, and the other, and it's nothing related to the first thing that you said to the other person because they're communicating these things in their own words. And as they're communicating things in their own words, they may not clearly understand the thought that you're trying to convey. So they are putting it in their own words and they are communicating it.

And this is where the trouble comes in because when you have a breakdown in communication, which start with a breakdown in interpretation, then you're going to obviously have trouble. And then he says, to complete this verse, he says, And by this many become defiled. So if I start out with the intention of holiness and communicating peace and roots of bitterness all of a sudden spring out because I fall short or the person who I'm talking to has fell short of the glory of God or his grace, and now I'm continuing to pursue and go down that road, now individual is leading me astray, now roots of bitterness is springing up, now trouble is being caused, and now if I continue down that road, I, as well as the person who I'm trying to communicate the gospel to, is now defile because of the trouble, because of the bitterness, the roots of bitterness, because he or she or even I have fell short of the glory of God in my attempt to pursue peace and bring it with a holiness intent.

So everybody loses, and we start to be in a perilous state rather than starting out pursuing peace in a peaceful state. And so, saints of God, as a born-again believer, if you are born-again saints of God, you have an obligation to do what the word of God has called us to do. And if we don't do it the way he called us to do it, what will end up happening is you and I will venture down the road, and just as Hebrews 13, 14, I mean 12, chapter 12, verses 14 and 15 tell us that we will allow ourselves to be sucked in by the enemy doing things that we don't want to do with the intention of having ourselves to become attempting to balance and accept what they're saying, which is non-biblical. And if what they're saying is non-biblical, then we need to reject that, give them the gospel.

If they want to continue to pursue this bitter root and cause trouble because they are falling short of the glory of God, we don't need to go down that area. You and I need to stay away from it. And on that, we're going to end this particular podcast, Peace or Peril.

This is what we're talking about today. So God bless all of you. Thank God for you. We love you for what you're doing. Again, we thank you for the emails. Visit the website for all of the things we have upcoming because we know that we are here for you, and you are here for us, and we love what you're doing, and we pray to God that you love what we're doing, and we will see you next time. As we conclude today's show, TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry, are building a community of men to be servant leaders in their home, communities, churches, and churches. TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry, are building a community of men to be servant leaders in their home, communities, churches, and work environment. Check us out at our website for upcoming events and regular scheduled meetings. Don't forget to send us an email for topics that you would like us to visit in the future. Thank you for joining us today on ManTalk. Visit us at TAWCMM.com.