A dashboard warning light can glow long before the engine stops; anxiety, fear and self-protection can signal a similar loss of peace in the heart. Colossians 3:15 calls for the peace of God to “rule” there, while Proverbs 4:23 says the issues of life flow from that same place. When the gauge falls toward empty, who has taken the throne?

Study Questions

The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.

Greg describes Jesus wanting not just to “rule” our hearts but to transform them to be “like his.” What does it practically look like in daily life to have a heart like Jesus, and how can we tell if we’re making progress in this transformation?
The sermon contrasts Simba’s “I just can’t wait to be king” attitude with the truth that we are kings in Christ but never the King. What are some everyday ways we try to sit on our own throne or seek the spotlight, and how can the simple test—”Who am I looking out for, myself or others?”—help us see who actually occupies the throne of our heart?
Deuteronomy 17 required the king to write, keep, read, and do the Word daily so his heart would not be lifted up. The basketball free-throw story shows that following the coach’s rules without altering them produces success and joy. What practical habits—writing verses, memorizing Scripture, carrying your Bible—help you treat God’s Word as your “king’s instruction manual,” and where have you seen those habits bear fruit?
Pastor Kevin used prairie-grass roots and the nested-envelope picture to show we are unshakably placed in God’s love. How have you experienced “a little water” of the Word reviving you after the world burned or chopped you down, and how does Romans 8:35–39 change the way we interpret trials or the feeling that God no longer loves us?
The “peace gauge” and the eight filters of Philippians 4:8 are presented as practical ways to know whether Jesus is ruling your heart. Using a recent situation—at school, work, or home—walk through those filters: where did peace drain, what was the warning light, and what would it look like to put Christ back on the throne?
Greg shared that he had peace about leaving the church after more than a year of prayer and time in the Word. How can we apply the same process—checking our peace gauge, running decisions through Scripture, and refusing to go by feelings alone—when we face our own significant “game-time” choices?

Transcript

This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain errors.

All right. So yeah. So there was a lot of preaching going on during the church camp. And so I’m going to try in 30 minutes, give you three days worth of messages, all right? And it’s really weird because when I was writing this up, I had a voice. So I was like, oh, Lord, and then all of a sudden I get this throat thing. I’m like, how am I going to be able to talk? So I got hot coffee. So we’re good to go. Oh, that’s good stuff. All right.

So the theme of this year’s camp is called the King of Hearts. Over the past couple, three days there, we dove deeply into what it truly meant to let the Lord reign in our lives. So today I’m going to try to cover that as fast as I can. And I probably won’t do this justice, this is Pastor Kevin’s sermon. So I kind of took his sermons and I tried to put it all together into one. So it may not be as good as his, but I’m going to do my best, all right?

So the core truth that we need to grasp today is this. Jesus wants to be the King of our hearts, but he doesn’t just want to rule us. He wants our hearts to actually become like his, right? Jesus doesn’t just want to rule our heart, our lives. He wants us to have a heart like his, so that when we have a heart like his, we will live like him, right? Romans chapter 8, verse 29, you can turn the slide. It says, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn amongst many brethren. So what this verse is saying is that we are to be more and more like Jesus every day, conforming to his image, which includes getting his heart, right? So when somebody says, well, I want to be like Jesus, what do you want in his heart? Because he’s got a different heart than what we have, right?

Proverbs chapter 4, verse 23, it says, keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. Out of what? Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it, what’s the it? It’s your heart, right? Yeah, so out of your heart are all the issues of life. That verse is telling us that our heart will determine how we live our lives. It’s the most important position that we have. Everything we live out, our actions, our words, our attitudes, start from the heart, and Jesus wants us to have a heart like his, so that our heart, our attitude, our actions represent him. If our hearts determine our lives, then we desperately need our hearts to be transformed into Jesus’ heart. That’s what he was trying to get the point across to us throughout camp.

So point number one, point number one that Pastor Kevin says, we are called to be kings and priests. Revelation chapter 1, verse 5 through 6, it says, and from Jesus Christ, who’s the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth, unto whom he loved us, unto whom, unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins by his own blood, verse 6, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Now you notice I highlighted that hath made, right? That hath made is the present perfect tense. That’s what that means is, it happened the day you got saved, and it’s continually still active today. So if you’re saved today, men or women, you are a king and a priest in Christ. So what does a priest do in the Old Testament? Well, simply what they did in the Old Testament, they just bridged the gap between God and man. They helped others build their relationship with the Lord. Jesus had three titles. You guys know what that is? Prophet, priest, and king, right? Well, we got the priest and king part of that right now. And we’re also prophets because we’re supposed to be telling people what’s coming, right? We being priests, our job is to do what? Help bridge the gap between God and man. That’s sharing the gospel, telling people about Christ, getting their relationship with the Lord. Because when you’re not saved, you don’t have a relationship with the Lord. We’re supposed to be like Jesus, but we have to have the right heart to do that, right? We have to have Jesus’ heart. But what about the king part? What are we to do as a king that God made us into?

How many of you remember the Lion King movie? Yeah. That was a little premature on the video, but the Lion King movie, that’s the monkey chucking Simba off the cliff, man. It’s hilarious. That’s not really what the movie was, but somebody made a spoof of it, but it’s funny. Well, that little guy Simba, he wanted to be the king, right? He would sing a song, I just can’t wait to be the king. I’m not going to sing because there’s not enough traffic control for when I sing. But he would just sing, I want to be the king, right? He also sings, everybody look left, everybody look right, everybody, you can see me in the spotlight. That’s his motive. His heart attitude was to be the king, I want everybody to look at me, I want to be the spotlight. That’s the wrong heart attitude. And if we ever get an attitude like that, guess what God’s going to do? He’s going to chuck you off the cliff, man. That’s what, now I played the video, that was, anyway. That’s okay, yeah.

So when we try to be kings of our own hearts, we try to be king of our own hearts when that heart, that throne is exclusively Jesus. When he bought, paid for your sins on the cross, when he bought you, that throne ain’t yours anymore. It’s exclusively Jesus’, and we have the tendency of pushing him off. Well God said, well I’ll push you off, right? That video’s funny though. So the day you got saved, you were placed in Christ, right? And that key word is in, in Christ, right? Who is the king? I think Dylan just talked about it in his message. When we got saved, we were put in Christ, who is the king. Being in Christ, Jesus made us all kings, so we’re all kings in Christ, which means none of us are better than anybody else. You know, too many times we let our pride get in the way, Simba, right? We want to think that we’re the ones, we’re in charge, we’re the ones who are important. Put us in the spotlight. When God says, no, you’re all kings, you’re all on the same level, in Christ, because Christ is the king. Once you’re saved, you are a king, but you are not the king. You guys see the difference? You know what I’m talking about? Alright. So stop trying to show up, you know, stop trying to sit on your throne, because it’s not yours. It’s Jesus’ throne. A true king’s heart looks out for fellow, other fellow kings, because we’re all on the same team. You want a simple test to see who’s on the throne of your heart? Here’s a real simple test. Who are you looking out for, yourself or others? If you say, well, I’m checking, it’s all about me, I’m making sure I’m good. If you say that, then you’re on the throne of your heart. If Jesus is on your throne of your heart, then you’re looking out for others. That’s what Jesus did. Jesus wasn’t worried about himself. He was worried about others. That’s a simple test to see who’s on the throne of your heart. If you’re looking out for others, if all you’re looking out for is yourself, then Christ is definitely not sitting on the throne of your heart.

Alright, second point. Since we’re kings, since God made us a king, in the king, then what do we need to do as a king? God gave us the king’s instructions manual. It’s called the Word of God. Let’s look at those, the God’s instructions on what a king must do when he sits on the throne. Deuteronomy chapter 17. Deuteronomy 17, 18 through 20 is the instructions that a king is supposed to do when he’s sitting on the throne. So we can take this and we can apply it to ourselves, right? It says, and it shall be when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests and Levites. Verse 19, and it shall be with him and he shall read it there in all the days of his life. Why? Why should he do that? That he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes and do them. Why? Why should we have to do all that? Verse 20, that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren and that he turn not aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left. There’s that symbol thing. You see it right here in the word of God. Everything in the movies comes out of the word of God, you guys know that, right? They just don’t realize they’re doing it. And then it says, to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst forever, in the midst of Israel. So the king has a couple things to do. Now let’s apply it to us. We have a couple things to do as being a king in Christ, right? First off, the king is to write out a copy of God’s word, keep the word with him and read God’s word daily so that he would remember how powerful God is and actually do the commandments in order to stay humble. So the first thing we need to do is write out a copy of God’s law, God’s word. That helps you when you read your Bible, it helps you memorize scriptures when you write it out. I mean, we used to, that’s how we learned memory verses. That’s at least how I used to do it, or I still do it actually. I write the verse out over and over and over and it gets it built into your heart and gets it built into your mind. Write out a copy of God’s word. Write out some scriptures while you’re reading it. I know when you read, when you’re reading through a chapter and a verse just kind of pops out to you, hey, write that thing out and stick it on your refrigerator. And we spend more time looking at the refrigerator sometimes than we do the word of God, right? Write it out. And then the second thing he said is he needs to keep it with him. You need to keep the word of God with you, either carry your Bibles with you. I know I got a Bible app on my phone, so if I’m like, you know, on lunch break or have to go to, you know, yeah, on lunch break, I can pull out my phone, I can open up my Bible app and I can read a verse or two, you know, while I’m eating my lunch. And also it says, you know, place it in your heart. Psalms, excuse me, Psalms 119.11, one of my favorite memory verses, oh, sorry. It says, thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. Thy word have I hid in my heart. That’s memorizing the scriptures. That’s carrying the word of God with you everywhere you go. That’s what the king was supposed to do, carry it with them. Read it daily was the next thing he had to do. How are you going to know what to do if you’re not reading the daily instructions? And then it says to keep and do them. Actually apply the word of God to your life and it’ll keep you humble. John 3.30 says, for he must increase, but I must decrease. How are you going to stay humble if you don’t know what it is to be humble? You know, how are you going to know what to do as a king if you’re not reading the king’s instruction manual? He says to do this daily. So why did the king have to do all this? Deuteronomy 17.20. So that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, to the end that he may prolong his days in the kingdom. I mean, you’ve got to do all this stuff for one reason and one reason only is to keep you humble, to keep, to help us keep us in the right perspective of who we really are in Christ. We’re nothing without Christ. And when you’re in Christ and you realize what the word of God is telling you, it’ll keep you humble. God gave us these rules for us to follow because he created everything, right? I mean, he’s the creator of everything. He knows how this life we live works and the best way to make the most out of our lives for his honor and glory. So why don’t we read his instructions? You want to get the best out of your life for his honor and glory, you’ve got to read the word of God. You’re a king. Write it out. Read it. Do it. You’ve got to do it.

The problem is most of us don’t want to go by the rules and we like to change them and even ignore them totally. One of my pet peeves is when somebody pulls stuff out of context, you know, and then it’s like, I don’t like that. So I often kid about, I’m going to produce me a Bible where you can rip out certain verses that you don’t like. That’s probably going to be a bestseller, you know. I don’t like that verse. It says I’ve got to behave, you know, or whatever, right? Well, we don’t want to read the rules and when we do read the rules, we say, I don’t like that rule. That’s not how a king works. A king reads the rules, obeys the rules, and he does them.

Now at camp, Pastor Kevin, he gave a great story about a basketball coach that was teaching his daughter how to shoot free throws. And the coach gave her some strict rules. He told her to stand exactly three feet from the hoop, look and stare at the center of the hoop, and push the ball with your hand, backspin the ball so it’s spinning backwards, and do that for about five minutes. And then when you’re done, take two steps back and do it again, over and over and over. He said, you know, don’t look around. Don’t even look at the ball. Just keep your eyes on the hoop and just keep shooting. And Pastor Kevin thought that his daughter’s going to hate basketball. She’s like, oh my gosh, there’s so many of these rules that she’s just going to like, I can’t stand this. This is horrible. But you know what happened was she ended up just loving the rules. She loved the rules because it made her successful. Because she got to the point where she was hitting 30, 40 free throws before she missed one. So she ended up enjoying the game. She got the absolute most enjoyment out of the game because she followed the instructions of her coach and didn’t alter the instructions. And the same is true for the Word of God. The rules aren’t there to restrict us. They’re there so that we can have the most joy in our lives, be successful. Joshua 1.8, right? This book of the law shall not depart out of my mouth, but thou shalt meditate, meditate therein day and night. That’s not just read it on Sunday or Wednesday, right? That’s every day. Meditate on it. That thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written in, therein. For then, then thou shalt make thy ways prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Anywhere in that verse says just you can alter it and do whatever you want, no. It says day and night, meditate day and night. You do all that. You go by the rules. You don’t change the rules. And you will then have good success. And actually that word success, that’s the only verse in the King James Bible where success shows up. It’s if you’re obeying the word of God, reading it and doing it. We have to read the rules. We have to know the rules. Don’t alter the rules and make the decisions to follow them before the pressure hits. His daughter had to stay focused and not turn her arm. You know, when she’s shooting those free, she can’t go to the left a little bit or the right a little bit. If she does, she’s going to miss. And that’s what I think Dylan talked about too, about the devil just wants you to, just to turn you just a little bit. He’s not out to destroy you. He wants you just to get off a little bit. Because if he can get you off a little bit, then you’re ineffective for God. If he just destroys your life, then you know he destroyed your life. So then you’re going to try to get back, you know, get right with God, right? He just wants to just subtly change your direction. And he does that very subtle. It’s crazy. His daughter had to stay focused and not turn her arm to either direction. She had to remember what the coach told her even before game time. So when the pressure came, when she had to do that free throw, she’s like, I’m good to go. Let’s look at the net. Boom, I’m there. She had to decide. She had to decide. Just like we have to decide if we’re going to listen to the coach. The coach being the Lord, right, for us. We have to decide that we’re going to listen to God. He’s not going to force, the coach didn’t force her to listen to him. He’s like, I’m going to tell you what to do, but you don’t have to listen. I mean, that’s up to you. If you want to be successful, then listen to me. If you don’t, that’s your free will, right? That’s the same with us as Christians. God’s not going to force us to listen to him. He’s not going to magically open the Bible and he’s going to speak to you audibly and all this kind of stuff. It doesn’t happen that way. You have to decide to listen to the rules. You have to decide to get in the word of God and do what God tells you to do so that when the game time comes, when the pressure comes in your life, you are ready to go because you know what to do in any situation that the world throws at you. Don’t wait until you’re on the spot to decide what you’re going to do. She was prepared for game time. The question is, are we? Are we prepared for game time? Keep your eyes on Christ and be obedient to God’s word daily so that you’re ready when it’s game time.

So the next point, oh, that’s good stuff. Point three is having deep roots in an unshakable love. So what Pastor Kevin was trying to show us there is that we need to have our roots grounded and settled in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have to have them so deep that nothing in this world can shake us. If we want to stay focused, keeping Jesus on the throne, we have to understand how the depths of God’s love is. Ephesians chapter three, verse 17 through 19, it says that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which path is knowledge that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. We cannot even fathom with our little pea-sized brains how big God is and how big God’s love is. We have no idea. First Kings chapter eight, verse 27, it says, but will God indeed dwell on the earth? The question was, how could, you know, God can’t dwell on the earth. Why not? It says, behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. What that verse is saying is God is so massive and his love is so large that the universe itself can’t contain him. And yet God loves us. Isn’t that crazy? I mean, if we try to get our minds around the fact that how big God is and how much love he has and yet he has love for us, us little bitty dust spots in the universe. That’s crazy to me. God is so massive and his love is so large that the universe, that we can’t comprehend it and yet he still loves us.

Pastor Kevin gave us another great example of what it means to be rooted in this mass of love. He said out in the Flint Hills of Kansas, there’s a famous expansion of a tall grass prairie out there. They’re apparently famous for this. In the spring, they burn this prairie grass down to the ground so the cattle can eat good grass. And now the grass only grows about a foot and a half tall, but what’s amazing is the roots of that prairie grass goes down 10 to 15 feet. Let me show the slide. So this is a dude holding one of them and that’s the root system of that prairie grass. And what he did was he used that as an example to show us that those roots represents God’s love in our lives. We need to be so deeply rooted and grounded in God’s love that no matter what happens, no matter how badly the world burns us or chops us down, just a little bit of water will cause those roots to sprout again. They said when they cut it, when they burn it down, he said it’ll only take like a thimble of water and then that grass will start growing again. And you guys know what water is, right? It’s a picture of the Word of God. John 14, 20, it says, in that day you shall know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you. When you’re saved, you are placed in Christ. Another example that Kevin gave us was he took a simple envelope and he said, all right, so this symbol pictures God. This is the massive dude that we were just talking about, right? And inside God is that guy named Jesus, right? And inside that Jesus, if you’re saved, if you trusted Jesus Christ, your personal savior, believe he died on the cross for your sins, was buried and rose again the third day according to the scriptures, then you’re inside him. And inside him and inside me and inside you is that Holy Spirit, right? So he gave us an example of this. We need to be so deeply rooted into God’s love that nothing can shake us. If that top, if the top of that grass gets burned or chopped down, it only takes a little bit of water for those deep roots that cause that grass to shoot right up again. You see, those roots represents God’s love in our lives. We need to be so deeply rooted and grounded in God’s love that no matter what happens, no matter how badly the world burns us or how badly the world chops us down, it’s just that little bit of water of the word of God that will revive you, will bring you back to life. I’m talking that, hey, if you’re getting beat up in the world, just get it, read a verse, memorize a verse, get it, read a chapter, read a book, get in the word of God and watch how it will revive you. Because what you’re doing that, and I was talking about this today with the teenagers, is when you’re getting the garbage out of your head and you’re putting the word of God and you’re filtering out all the garbage so that you can be alive again, so you can revive. And look, Christ continues to sit on the heart of your throne, on the throne of your heart. When you’re saved, you’re placed in Christ. You are in Christ and Christ is in God and nothing can get to you except that it goes through God first, Christ second, and then it gets to you. You see where I’m going with that?

Romans 8, 35. We shall, it says, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, shall distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? What’s going to separate you from the love of God? Romans 8, 37 through 39. It says, nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through his love for us. For I am persuaded neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. So what can we take out of this? So what can we take, what can take us out of God’s love? The answer is nothing. Not even death. I mean, as soon as we die, man, we’re with the Lord. That’s love. No trials, no distresses, no anxiety, not even death. Nothing can touch you when you’re in the center of God’s love, like that envelope. When you’re buried in God’s love, nothing can touch you. Now, I mean, do you realize that if anything happens to you, it’s because God and Jesus allows it to? Because I’m not saying that, hey, just because you’re deeply rooted and grounded in God’s love that no bad stuff will happen to you. We live in a world of sin. We still have this, flesh. Bad stuff’s still going to happen, right? You coughs and colds and all this kind of stuff, right? Trials and hard times are designed to help you grow closer to him if you’re saved. It’s not there to push you away from God, it’s to draw you closer to him. Because it’s like Paul had that thorn in the flesh, it’s to humble him. It’s to keep you, hey, I still need God in my life. I can’t do this alone. Hardships in your life are for you to learn from, grow from them, and to learn that we can trust in God’s perfect love. The problem is when trials come our way, we let our hearts take over when Jesus ain’t sitting on the throne and we think that God doesn’t love us anymore. Or else why would he let bad things happen to me? I heard that a lot of times. People are like, well, why would they let bad things happen to good people? To get them to trust them more, to teach them something, prepare them for somebody else, to help somebody else through the same kind of trials. God doesn’t just punish us for the fun of it. It’s to teach us. I got to thinking about, do you ever read about what God let Jesus go through because God loved him and this world? Jesus got the snot beat out of me, man. It wasn’t like Jesus had that perfect life, nothing went wrong for Jesus. Oh, man, come on, right? And do you think we’re better than Christ, that we should not suffer any persecution or trials in our life? Absolutely not. Jesus Christ himself tells you, you’re going to suffer persecution because you believe in me. If you’re not suffering any persecutions, well, maybe you need to get saved or be prepared because it’s coming, right? Just try teaching the word of God. Just try handing out a tracker, a gospel tracker to somebody and see if you get any persecution. Go on door knocking and ask somebody if they know Jesus as your savior, you’ll get some persecution.

This is why we can’t go by what our hearts tell us or go by our feelings. Too many times we go by feelings, well, I don’t feel like God loves me anymore. It doesn’t matter what you feel, it’s what the word of God says. God loves you no matter what. You have to go by what God’s heart tells us and go by what God’s word says. The only way you know what God’s heart is, is by reading the word of God. That’s what Christ wants us to have, is have that heart so we don’t think fleshly hearts. When you realize just how much God loves you, then you’ll have no more fear in your life. Some people ask me, are you afraid to die? I’m not afraid, I’m ready to go, man, let’s go. I’m waiting for rapture to happen now, let’s go. I know what I got coming. Are you afraid to die? No, I’m not afraid to die. This life’s not mine, Jesus bought it. He’s waiting to redeem it. And when you are in the center of that love, God’s love, then fear cannot survive. Fear cannot occupy your heart when God’s love does. It’s like a light switch. When you turn the light off, there’s darkness, when you turn it on, there’s light. Same goes in your heart. If you got fear in your heart, then God’s peace can’t be in there, right? God’s peace can’t co-inhabit your heart with fear. You go, okay, Greg, give me a verse. All right, here’s a verse, 1 John 4, 18. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out what? Fear. Because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. So what that verse is telling us is that if you have fear in your life, you got to get Jesus in there. You got to get God, switch it over, get God on the throne and get that fear out and let God take over.

Verse number four is the peace gauge, the peace meter. He talked about, Pastor Kevin talked about a peace meter. We have an internal peace meter. Go ahead and show the, yeah, there you go, peace gauge, right? So how do you know if Jesus is actually ruling your heart today? You check your peace gauge. Isaiah 9, verse 6, it says, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and the what? Prince of Peace, Prince of Peace. Colossians chapter 3, verse 14 through 15, and above all things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts, rule in your hearts, to the which you are also called into one body and be thankful. So in order to have peace in your hearts and lives, you have to have the Prince of Peace sitting on the throne of your heart. You know, the world today, and you hear it all the time, we want world peace, we want peace in the Middle East, we want peace on earth, and the problem is, is they don’t read their Bible, right? Because if they read their Bible, they would know that the only time there’s going to be peace on this earth is when the Prince of Peace is literally sitting on the throne in Jerusalem. There’s not going to be any peace on this earth until Jesus Christ comes back and sits on that throne. So how does that apply to us? To have peace in your life, we have to let Jesus do what? Sit on the throne. You can’t have peace in your life if Jesus is not sitting on the throne of your heart. No Jesus, no peace. You know, it should be one of them signs, no Jesus, no peace. You know, we could go protest, right? No peace in your life. It’s just that simple. You know, the Word of God is not difficult, it’s very simple. And if you want peace in your life, the Bible tells you, if Jesus ain’t on the throne, there is no peace. So how do you know if Jesus is on your throne today? How do you know? Well, when Jesus is on the throne of your heart, you should have incredible peace, like that peace gauge, right? It’s all the way to full. Think of your heart as that gas gauge on your dashboard. When Jesus is on the throne, your peace gauge is full. When he’s not on the throne, it goes to empty. God’s peace can rule or reign in your heart if we follow the Word of God, despite our feelings. Again, don’t follow feelings. Feelings are emotion, not God’s direction, all right? We can’t base your life off of feelings, because I feel like I need to run those new Corvettes. I don’t know, they’re kind of cool looking, but I can’t get one, right? It’s a feeling. God says don’t do it. I was like, oh, you know, okay. Anyway, plus I can’t get up out of those things. They’re too low to the ground. Anyway, so I’ve got to get one of those SUVs, maybe a monster truck, that’d be better, I’d fall out of the thing, I don’t know. So don’t go by feelings. Feelings are emotion, not God’s Word. You have to go by God’s Word and not how you feel. God tells us that if God tells you to do something and you do it through the Word of God, you shouldn’t feel anxious, you shouldn’t feel depressed, or fearful. You should feel an overwhelming peace from God about doing it.

And with me switching from this church to another church, I have peace about that because I’ve been praying about that, I’ve been reading the Word of God about that, and it’s not a fear for me to go to another church to help that church start growing, to teach in the Word of God on the other side of the river. I’m at peace with that because I know that’s what God wants me to do. Now if I had any kind of concerns or fear about that, then I wouldn’t be doing it. And it took me over a year to make that decision and allow God to give me the peace about it. If God tells you to do something and you do it, you shouldn’t be fearful or anxious or depressed about it. You should feel an overwhelming peace from God about doing it. John chapter 14, I’ll give you a verse on it. Verse 26 and 27, but the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, who the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. Boy, we’re going long today, aren’t we? Sorry, guys. He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. It says, peace I will leave with you. My peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, giveth I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. This is what I’m talking about. When you know what God wants you to do and you do it, there should be no worries about it. You should have a peace that only comes from God about what you’re doing for him. Philippians 4, 7, it says, and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. I can’t explain to you the peace that I have about the move that I’m making. It’s one of those things that God gives you in your heart. It says, it passeth all understandings. I can’t explain it. You just know when God’s telling you to do something and you know it’s God doing it, you know based off the word of God that it’s the right move to make. You will not be able to explain the peace that passeth all understanding, but you know God gave you that peace about it as long as you go and run it through the word of God. Philippians 4, 7 through 8. Philippians 4, 7 through 8, it says that the peace of God will keep your hearts and minds. It’s kind of like going bumper bowling, you know when you’re at a bowling alley and you pull those bumpers up so you don’t throw gutters. God’s peace is ruling in your lives. It keeps you out of the gutter. You don’t have any fear because you see the bumpers, right? I’ll never throw a gutter because I can just, and it’s funny to watch kids do it because it’s like a pinball machine, and half the time some of those kids get strikes doing that. It’s really crazy. When you see those bumpers, you’re no longer in fear of going into the gutter, but what happens if you push those gutters down? What happens if you push God off the throne and you take control? Well then that fear meter goes, a peace meter goes down to a fear meter. You’re running out of peace. You start worrying about, man, now I’m going to throw a gutter. Now I’m going to fall off track. So when you drop those bumpers, the fear comes back, and you lose your peace. Your peace drains empty. No Jesus on the throne, no peace in your life. The bumpers are down. Lack of peace is your dashboard gas warning light flashing, saying, telling you to get off the throne and go get filled up in the word of God. Get back in the book. Something’s missing. You’re running out of gas. You’re running out of peace.

Galatians 5, 22 through 23, it says, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, right? You can’t manufacture this peace. This peace only comes from being and obeying the word of God. The world cannot give you anything close to God’s peace. It only comes from allowing Jesus ruling your heart, and when he does, you’ll get that fruit of the spirit in your life. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance against such there is no law. If you’re missing any of those in your life, then you don’t have the peace of God in your life. John 14, 1 says, let not your heart be troubled. God’s telling you, don’t let your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. Jesus is telling you, you can have peace if you just let me rule your heart.

So here’s the filter to check. The filter is what is going on in your life. Here’s how you test your peace meter is what I’m trying to say. How do you test your peace meter to see if it’s full or not? We’ll test it through these eight stage filters from Philippians 4.8. Philippians 4.8 is the filter that we need to run everything that we do through it. Philippians 4.8 says, finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things. That is the filter that we need to run our lives through every day. Everything that you say, do, needs to go through those eight filters. Pastor Kevin gave an example for the teenagers. So when they go back to school, for the first day, they run into that school snob, that girl whose, her name’s Gertrude, and she has a posse, right? And they come into school and Gertrude says, oh, so that’s what you wore to school today? Oh, that is disgusting. And, of course, our teenagers would say, oh, well, it’s only because this is all I had clean, right? I’m sure that’s what they would reply. Yeah, that’s all I had clean today to wear. But in their hearts, they’re thinking, now I hope that Gertrude gets a gigantic zit right in the front of her forehead, right? And so how much peace, how much peace was in their peace gauge? Well, let’s run it through the eight filters. Filter number one, was the teenagers thought about Gertrude? Was it true? Yeah, it was true. They really hoped that she got a big zit on her forehead, so okay, that’s true. Was their thought about her honest? Yeah, they asked, they really meant it, right? Let’s go to the next one. Was it pure? Oh, there’s where it falls apart. No, it wasn’t pure. The motive wasn’t to glorify God. It was to make them think that they had something over her, they think that they’re better than her. Gertrude just needed the Lord, but the teens just kicked Jesus off the throne and their hearts just took over. Their peace gauge instantly dropped empty. So what do they do now? Repent, get back in God’s word and get that peace gauge refilled, right? So you got to put Jesus back on the throne.

So I’m going to conclude with this. So the question is, who is on the throne of your heart? If you’re not experiencing God’s peace in your life today, then your focus is off. And it might just be a little off, like that basketball shooting thing, if you’re just a little off. And Christ is not on the throne of your heart. No Jesus on the throne, no peace. You guys are going to have that stuck in your head now, right? Remember that Jesus desires to completely rule and transform our hearts to be like his. He’s offering us an unshakable peace in return, peace that you can’t explain, and it only comes from letting him sit on the throne of your heart. We can ensure he remains on the throne of our hearts by humbly serving others, right? It’s not about us, guys. It’s about him. He must increase and we must decrease. It’s not about us anymore. Stay focused in his word and obey his commandments. You can’t just read the Bible, you’ve got to do the Bible. Be a doer of God’s word, not just a hearer, and be obedient to his commands. We need to avoid subtle distractions that the devil throws at us to get us off focus. And you’ve got to be prepared for that. He’s trying to get us to look left and right, and we need to remain deeply rooted in God’s love so that when the fires of life come and the world cuts us down, we can remain strong because we are so deeply rooted in God’s love that nothing can shake us, because we are in Christ, right? Man, once you get that in your heart and in your head that you are in Christ and nothing can shake you, I mean, it changes your life. And ultimately, our internal peace gauge reveals who’s in control. Whenever we have worry, fear, or selfish thoughts draining our peace gauge, it’s that warning light that we need to step down and give control back to the Prince of Peace, the Lord Jesus Christ. And finally, don’t alter the directions that the coach that God gives you. And you’ll be able to experience joy in your life, and remember the rules of the word of God are to help you the most out of your life, not to restrict you or to hinder you. That’s how we keep Jesus Christ on the throne of our hearts.