[music] Dr. Charles Stanley: Is it
really possible to have true, genuine peace when the
circumstances in your life are all fouled up and messed up? In other words, you'd like to
change this and change that and change the other. Is it possible to have real,
true peace when things are so uncertain? When you feel sometimes such
pain in your body or in your emotions? When things seem to just not be
able to, you just can't straighten them out? How can you have peace in those
kind of times? Well, Jesus was in the upper
room with His disciples and Peter had just argued with Jesus
about washing His feet. Judas had gone out to betray
Him. He was talking to them about the
fact that He was going to leave them and the fact that He was
going to be crucified. None of that made a lot of sense
to them. And then to top all that off,
here's what He said, "Let not your heart be troubled." I'm sure He didn't say it quite
that way. But I think that would have been
the most ridiculous thing Jesus could have said. In the midst of all of that, and
You tell me don't have a troubled heart? This is one of those verses and
you might want to turn to John fourteen for a moment. This is one of those verses if
you don't understand what was going on, it doesn't make any
sense at all. And so, even in the midst of
this very, very difficult time, Jesus makes this statement, "Let
not your heart be troubled." He said, "You believe in God,
believe also in Me." Now, what was He saying? Here's what He was saying: don't
let your heart be troubled any longer because they were already
troubled. I mean, when He said one of you
shall betray Me, that was troubling. Peter arguing with Him about
washing His feet, that was troubling. When He said, "I'm going away,"
that was--everything He said to them was very troubling. And yet, He said, "Let not your
heart be troubled." What He meant was: let not your
heart be troubled any longer. "You believe in God, believe
also in Me." So, He had something He was
going to say to them. And the truth is: the
fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and the seventeenth
chapters of John are all very encouraging. Remember, He said to them, He
said, "I'm going away, but I'm not going to leave you as
orphans. I'm going to send the Holy
Spirit who will be in you, with you, and upon you forever." So it was a matter of
encouraging them. But when He said, "Let not your
heart be troubled." That is, don't let it be
troubled any longer because I'm going to show you how you can
live through all of this. All of us have faced those
difficulties and times in our life and situations and
circumstances that we thought, "God where are You? If you were there, why don't You
hear my prayer? Why don't why don't You provide
what I need? Why don't You heal my body? Why don't You change my
relationship? Why don't You bring him or her
back into my life?" We've all been there for some
time or the other. And so, when we talk about
peace, what I want to talk about in this message is, listen, talk
about the key to continuing peace, not ups and downs, peace
today, not so much peaceful tomorrow. Not ups and downs, but
continuing peace. Does that mean that there'll
ever come a time in your life when everything is finally going
to be leveled out and there's going to be perfect peace all
the time? No, it does not mean that. But here's what it means: that
in the most difficult, trying times, when your circumstances
cannot be managed, when you cannot handle them, when you
don't have any idea what's going to happen and where's it's going
to happen, can you have a peace that overrides those feelings? A peace that is so deep, so
tranquil, so reassuring that in spite of everything you see and
feel and hear around you, there is a peace that levels it all
out, deep down inside of you? There is a security between you
and God that gives you a peace that Paul described in this way. He said, "Don't be anxious about
all these things." But he said, "Rather, by prayer
and supplication, make your requests known to God." And here's what will happen,
"The peace of God, which surpasses all human
understanding, will circle you around, will garrison you about,
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." He talked about a peace that we
don't understand. He talked about a peace that
would guard us from anxiety and worrying and fretting and
caring. Now I think, as I look back over
my life as a pastor and all these years, there was a moment
in my life when everything in my life was threatened. And I would have had a thousand
reasons for being afraid, discouraged, and you name it. But when I received this
telephone call and I hung up, I had the most overwhelming sense
of absolute tranquility, peace, and serenity in my life. And I remember saying, "God,
You've guided me thus far in my life, You'll guide me through
this." I would normally have thought I
would have been greatly disturbed. So you say, "Well, why do you
think that happen?" Exactly because what I'm going
to talk about today. I know that it works. I met somebody after the service
a few moments ago who had been through something that was
equally probably as difficult. And he said to me, "You know, I
know exactly what you mean. When everybody was telling us to
do something different, we obeyed God, we did what we
believe was the right thing, and God gave us this awesome sense
of peace through it all. So, when we talk about peace,
we're not talking about something that just comes and
goes. Because you see, that's the way
most people's peace would be described: it's peace today and
war tomorrow. That's the way it is in some
families. That's the way it is in,
oftentimes, some place where you work. But what's the kind of peace
that is continuing? And that's what I want to talk
about in this message. So, I want you to turn to John
chapter fourteen, and there are three verses of Scripture I want
us to read here. And in this first one, we read
in the fourteenth chapter, verse one. Jesus said, "Do not let your
heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me." Then He begins to
encourage them. And so, if you'll move on over
all the way to the twenty-seventh verse of this
fourteenth chapter. Listen to what He says. He says, "Peace I leave with
you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give it
to you. Do not let your hearts be
troubled," any longer, He would say, "nor let it be fearful." That is, "My peace. That's the same kind," He says,
"that I have." Then if you go to the sixteenth
chapter and look at the last verse of the sixteenth chapter. Again, He says to them, "These
things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have
tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world." So, I want us to understand
something very, very important here. There is a difference in the
Bible. There is a difference between
peace with God and the peace of God. So I want to explain that. Because the truth is: the first
step to having the peace of God in my life on a continuing,
daily basis is making peace with God. So you say, "Well, what's that
about?" Well, here's what the Scripture
says and you may want to follow some of these verses. If you go back to the
fifty-ninth chapter of Isaiah for a moment. And if you'll think about: what
kind of spiritual condition were we in before we trusted Jesus
Christ as our Savior? And here's what he says. He says in the fifty-ninth
chapter, "Behold, the Lord's hand is not short that it cannot
save; nor is His ear so dull that it cannot hear. But your iniquities," that is,
your sins, "have made a separation between you and your
God." So what he's saying is simply
this: that sin separates us. We're talking about our
condition before we trusted Christ as our Savior. And if you look in the fifth
chapter of Romans, here's what you'll find. The Bible says that in the ninth
verse, "Much more then now, having been justified by His
blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him." Before you trusted Christ as
your personal Savior, the wrath of God was abiding upon you. And then he says, "While we were
enemies we were reconciled to God." So, think about this: before a
person is saved, God says their sins have separated them from
God. Secondly, they're under the
wrath of God, that is, the judgment of God. They live under that. And He says they were enemies
of God. Somebody says, "I'm not an enemy
of God." Well, think about this: if you
don't believe Him, you don't trust Him, you don't obey Him,
then you're working against Him in different ways. And what you're saying is,
you're saying He's a liar. He says, "I'll meet your needs." You say, "No, You won't. I'll meet them myself, my own
way." Well, if you die without Christ,
you're going to be lost forever. I don't believe that. So, a person who is
living without Christ is an enemy of God. It doesn't mean that you fight
against Him, though some do, denying that He even exists. But He says we're enemies. And we're enemies to ourselves
when we're living that kind of life. We're enemies of God, he says,
under the wrath of God, separated from God. And he says one other thing. He says you can't have
any peace. You don't have any peace. So, I want you to turn back to
Isaiah for a moment. It's interesting that three
times, beginning in this forty-eighth verse and then on
over, He mentions here the fact that there is no peace apart
from our Lord and our relationship to Him. So, in the forty-eighth chapter,
in the twenty-second verse, here's what He says. He says, "'There is no peace for
the wicked,' says the Lord." You say, "Well, I am not
wicked." Well, how do you define wicked? You define wicked like murder,
adultery, rape, no. Wickedness is a deliberate,
willful rejection of the Son of God whom God sent into this
world for the primary purpose of dying on the cross, shedding His
blood and making it possible for us to be saved. To reject that is wickedness
indeed. Then He says, for example, in
the fifty-ninth chapter and the eighth verse of Isaiah, "They do
not know the way of peace, and there is no justice in their
tracks, they've made their paths crooked, whoever treads on them
does not know peace." So, what I want you to see is
this: until a person receives Jesus Christ as their
personal Savior, you don't have any peace. Oh, you say, "Yes, I do. I do have peace." Well, let me ask you a question:
what's going to happen to you when you die? You say, "Well, I don't
know that." Well, you mean you're not
concerned about that? "Well, I'm not concerned about
that because what I believe is that I believe that somehow
everybody's going to get there one way or the other," but you
don't know that. And the truth is because it's
not true. I could think of a lot of
things. Think about your circumstances. Everybody has circumstances, and
sometimes they are very difficult and very painful. You may go to a party and feel
very peaceful or happy. There is a difference between
real, genuine peace and happiness. When a person has peace, there
is a joy deep down inside. That is, when a person has true,
genuine peace, the kind of peace that God's talking about, what
happens is that peace overrides those feelings of frustration,
anxiety, or anger, or whatever may be going on in your life
that causes you to lose your peace. And so, when you think about the
fact that a person is separated from God, under the wrath of
God, the enemy of God, and has no peace, that's the condition
of people without Christ. That's the condition that all of
us have been in at some point in our life before we trusted Jesus
as our Savior. Now, with that in mind, here's
what happens: when a person trusts Jesus Christ as their
Savior, what takes place? What takes place is we say the
war is over, no longer fighting against God, because remember
this: when you are living without Christ, the Spirit of
God; the Holy Spirit is continually attempting to
convict a person of their sin and convict them, the Bible
says, of the righteousness of Christ. That is, of His adequacy to pay
their sin debt in full, He's continually working. They ignore it, yet they can be
very hardened to the work of the Holy Spirit. Their conscience can become
seared. The Spirit of God comes into a
person's life to do what? To lead them into a saving
relationship with Jesus Christ. So, when you think about that,
Christ died, for example, and in Colossians the first chapter,
listen to what he says in this chapter. Colossians chapter one, he talks
about this whole idea of what our Lord's done for us. And he says that, "Through Him,"
that is, through Jesus, "He came to reconcile us to Himself,
having made peace through the blood of His cross." That is, when Jesus Christ came,
He died on the cross, made it possible by shedding His blood
for our sins to be forgiven. So, here's a person living in
sin and they want peace, they like to have this kind of peace. What do they have to do? First thing you have to do is to
deal with the sin problem in your life. You have to deal with the sin
problem. You have to deal with the
relationship problem. He says enemies under the wrath,
separated from God, and does not know the way of peace. Well, think about this: then
what must happen? I must be willing to receive the
Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. I must be willing to deal with
this sin issue. The sin issue cannot be ignored. And even when you trust the Lord
Jesus as your Savior, you can't be at peace with God as long as
you're sinning against Him. Because He made us a certain
way. But what happens here is, when
you and I trust Him as Savior, for all practical purpose, we
give up the war, we surrender to Him, and what happens? We change our position. We're no longer enemies under
His wrath and separated from Him and without peace. And what happens is, He says in
Romans chapter eight, for example, that we become the
children of God. And when I think about that,
notice what he says in verse fourteen, "For all of us who are
being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For as you have not received a
spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you've received
a spirit of adoption as sons." So, he says the Spirit of God
itself--Himself testifies to that, and that we become joint
heirs with Christ. That is, we're adopted into the
family of God. We're now a member of the family
of God. So, if I'm going to have
continuing peace in my life, the kind that overrides those
difficulties and hardships and unchangeable, unmanageable
circumstances in my life, something's got to happen. And what must happen is I must
lay down my warfare and say, "Lord, I surrender my life to
You." Trust Him as your personal
Savior. And then all that first
disappears and you have a new position. What's the new position? Now you're a forgiven child of
God, walking in His love, indwelt by the Holy Spirit,
sealed by the Holy Spirit, he says, until the day of
redemption, eternally secure in Him, available for God to work
in our life and to receive the blessings of life. We have a whole new position. Now, once we have a whole new
position, then what happens? Then we can begin to understand
and begin to experience what He's mentioning here. What He said to His disciples,
for example, when He said, "My peace I give to you; not as the
world gives give I unto to you. Let not your heart be troubled." Now, so think about it in this
light: peace, watch this now, peace with God is a one-time
decision. You receive Christ as your
Savior, the war's over; you become a child of God. One-time decision. The peace of God is a continuing
decision that you and I make throughout our daily life. We can have it or we can reject
it. We can experience it, enjoy it,
or we can neglect it in some fashion. But remember, peace with God:
the war's over; we became a child of God. Now the peace of God that passes
all understanding, as Paul said in that fourth chapter of
Philippians here. What is this peace? Well, you might want to turn to
Philippians four for a moment because I'm going to come back
to it in a minute. And notice what he says, he
says, challenging his listeners, he said, "Stop being anxious
about all these things. Stop being anxious about all
these things." "But in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known
to God." And the peace, listen now, the
peace of God will garrison you about, protect you in those
times. Paul says in Romans chapter
five, verse one; he says, "Therefore, being," watch this,
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God." That is, when you trusted Him as
your Savior, now the war is over, you become a child of God,
peace with God. "Therefore being justified by
faith, we have peace with God." Then, if you want the peace of
God, that is a daily issue in all of our lives. And if I should ask you: how
many of you can control your circumstances? Not a one of us. How many of you can manipulate
them? Not much. How many of you'd like to change
your circumstances? Probably most people. Well, how can you live with this
continuing peace? This serenity? This inner quietness? This inner sense of security and
tranquility that overrides no matter what's going on around
us, how can we experience that? Well, we can because it's the
offer of our Lord Himself. Now, I want you to go back to
John for a moment in that fourteenth chapter, and let's
look to see what He said. He said in this fourteenth
chapter and the twenty-seventh verse, if you'll notice how He
distinguishes between the two. He says, "My peace I give to
you, not as the world gives give I unto you." He says, "Let not your hearts be
troubled, any longer." Now, when He said, "My peace I
give to you," what did He mean when He said, "My peace"? Well, He's certainly talking
about a different kind of peace than we'd had before. And when He says, listen, "Not
as the world gives." So, what is Jesus saying? He says there's a difference
between the peace He gives and the peace that the world has to
offer. Wealth doesn't give you peace. And prosperity doesn't give you
peace. When you're seeking peace in the
wrong places, the very things you seek to make you peaceful
make you less peaceful, put you in a worse condition than you
were before. Jesus said, "My peace I give
unto you, not as the world gives out." He says, "That's not going
to work." And you and I, maybe you're
experiencing that kind of thing today, or you and I know plenty
of people who have no peace whatsoever. And if you ask them why they're
not peaceful, they could tell you who's making their life
miserable or what's made their life miserable or what they had
and what they lost and all of these things, because all of
these are changing situations and circumstances. And when you think about it, you
think about it in this light: if you can't manage your
circumstances, you can't control your circumstances; well, how
would you--in other words, how long will you have this? And everybody's lost enough
money to know you may have it today, but you may not have it
tomorrow. The truth is, all circumstances
are like that. They can't be controlled. And here's Jesus saying, He
says, "Look, trust Me." He says, "The peace that I give
you is going to be totally different from all the peace
that you've had before." So, what is this peace that
Jesus offers? Well, first of all, it has to do
with Him. He said, "My peace." Remember what Jesus said about
His relationship to the Father? He said, "If you've seen Me,
you've seen the Father. I and the Father are one." And so, if He and the Father are
one, the peace that He's offering us is godly peace. It is a heavenly peace. It is a practical peace. It is a peace, listen, that
doesn't come and go with circumstances. It is a peace that be can be
continuing. Jesus said, "My peace I give to
you." Don't allow your heart to be
troubled any longer. It comes from Him. So, you are looking and trying
to find some peace in your life and you've tried this and
you've tried that and you've tried the other. There's only one place to find
it and that's Jesus. You say, "Well, I don't even
believe in Him," then you'll never have peace. You say, "Well, I've tried
that." No, no, listen, once you
understand what it means to have a personal relationship with
Jesus Christ and you understand that, you'll discover that you
can have a peace that overrides anything and everything that you
have to face in life. You say, "Well, that doesn't
even sound reasonable." It's not reasonable. That's what Paul said. He said--he says it surpasses
understanding. There is a peace, there is a
tranquility. And you see, in the Greek, the
word peace means to bind together. So, what happens? Jesus was talking about His
relationship to the Father. His relationship to the Father
was one. That is, what brings us into
that relationship is a sense of oneness. Now, when you think about
oneness, you think about two people, for example, who have
the same ideas maybe about things who are in agreement. And I think of all the words
that I could use. I would say the word "agreement"
is probably the best one. And that is, when you and Jesus
Christ, when you and God the Father, when you and the Spirit
of God, when you are in agreement with Him, there's
going to be peace. When you're in disagreement,
there's not going to be. Which simply says this: you can
be a believer and not experience this continuing peace of God. Why? If you're in disagreement with
God about your life when He knows what is best, He has the
best will for your life, the best plan, and you're in
disagreement about it. You say, "Well, what do you
mean?" I mean simply this: here's what
you want to do, but you know in your heart that's not what God
wants you to do. And so, you wrestle, you're
fretting with God about it. You don't have any peace. As long as you're out of the
will of God, you're not going to have any peace. And the truth is, the more you
know Him and the better you know Him, then boy, you know that for
you to violate the will of God, step out of the will of God,
argue with God, become angry with God, try to walk away from
Him, you're not going to have any peace. It's absolutely impossible. He is the source of peace. And that's what Paul said in
Ephesians chapter two. He says, "Jesus is our peace." When you trusted Him as your
personal Savior, He came into your life to dwell in the
presence of the Holy Spirit. You have the peace of God within
you and you can, you have the capacity to experience this
peace that is absolutely capable of enabling you to override the
pain, the heartache, the suffering, the misunderstanding,
and all the things that you and I deal with in life. So, I want you to turn to the
thirty-third verse of this sixteenth chapter again now. Now, He's been talking to them,
say fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth chapters and
encouraging them. Remember He said to them,
"I'm not going to leave you as orphans." So, these are tremendously
encouraging chapters to anybody. Then He says in the thirty-third
verse, "These things I've spoken to you, so that," listen, "in
Me," not in the world. That is, from Me, not from the
world, "in Me you may have peace. In the world, tribulation, but,"
He says, "take courage, I have overcome the world." Now, what is He saying? He's saying simply this, that
the key to peace is a relationship with Jesus. Now, watch this, watch this
carefully: where do people look for peace? In circumstances. If I could just change this
circumstance and change that. If I could have this or have
that. That's where they look
for peace. He said, "No, it's not in
circumstances, it's in a relationship." And until a person has a
personal relationship by faith, having surrendered themself to
Christ and then beginning to live obediently before Him,
there's not going to be any peace. "My peace I give to you." He says, "This peace that I'm
offering is in Me. It's in a relationship." And that relationship must be a
relationship of faith and of obedience and of love toward
Him. You can search the world over. You can have all of the world's
wealth. You can travel here and afar. You can do anything and
everything you want to do. There is one single source of
peace. You say, "I don't even believe
in that Jesus." Then I'm telling you you're not
going to have any peace, because how are you going to have it? The only thing you can do is try
to control your circumstances, and you can't control them. So where are you going to find
peace? You have to resort to what Jesus
said: the world. So, if I had this and had that
and had this and had that and him, her, and all these things;
but you can't control that and you can't do that. And even if you do, it's only
temporary. Then when you come to die then
what are you going to do? There's one source of peace. And, listen carefully, you
cannot, you cannot, you cannot, you cannot live in disobedience
to the will of God and have peace, period. It doesn't make any difference
how much alcohol you drink, how much drugs you have, how much
sex you have, how many marriages you have, how much wealth you
have; none of it is going to give you peace. He's made it very simple. And He says, "Besides, the peace
I'm going to give you is going to be so awesome, you can't even
understand it. You won't even be able to
understand why you can be so tranquil and serene in your
heart when everything around you is falling apart." That's what Paul said: it's
beyond our understanding, but it is not beyond our experience. I may not be able to understand
it, but I can experience it. So, think about this: He said,
"I and the Father are one. You've seen Me, you've seen the
Father." He and the Father had perfect
oneness with each other. So, let me ask you this
question: what is it in your life that's keeping you from
being one with the Lord Jesus? Let's say, for example, that
you're saved, you know you are. The war's over, you've become a
child of God. He's your heavenly Father, but
there's no peace. There's something in your life
that's causing you, cheating you, depriving you of having
this awesome sense of peace that He offers. That's something the Spirit of
God may have already prompted your mind to think about even as
this message began. Or it may be that right now,
you're thinking about it, "Well, you know, I--God and I are
arguing about this, and I don't like this. And I want to change
that in my life." And you're not at peace. What are you going to do
about it? There're some things you can't
change in life. So, you're going to go through
life miserable because you can't change them? There are some diseases that
seems--there doesn't seem to be any healing for. What are you going to do? Just say, "Well, you know, I'm
just going to blame God the rest of my life," and that's not
going to do any good. You cannot live in sin and
have peace. You cannot. You can reason it any way you
want to. You cannot have peace and live
in sin toward Holy God who loved you enough to die for you, who
loved you enough to not only save you, but, listen, to come
into your life in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit and
do what? And provide this peace. Now, remember what the Bible
says about the Holy Spirit for a few moments. Remember what He said to His
disciples? He said, "I'm going away, but
I'm going to send you the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who
will be in you and with you forever." Well, why did He send Him? You remember what He said to His
disciples? He said to them, "Now look, your
commission is to go into all world and preach the gospel, but
you're not ready." They walked with Him for
three years and watched all of His miracles. "What do you mean it--
we're not ready?" "You're not ready. I want you to sit down," that's
what the word tarry means. "I want you to sit down in the
city of Jerusalem and wait until you are endued with power from
on high. Wait until the Holy Spirit comes
upon you and in you, and then you'll be ready to do the work
that I've called you to do." Now, think about this: when you
trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, the Holy
Spirit came into your life sent by God, listen, for the primary
purpose of enabling you and me to experience and to do and to
achieve what, humanly, we never can. That's why He came. He is the omnipotent person of
the Trinity even as the Son and the Father. He is omniscient,
He knows all things. When you trusted Him as
your Savior, He came to dwell within you. He resides in your life today. You say, "Well, I'm not much of
a Christian." But if you're a true, genuine,
born-again believer, then you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. You may be ignoring Him, and if
you don't have any peace, more than likely you are. Now, why did He come? He came to enable us to become
and to achieve what His will is for our life and for the kingdom
of God. Now, what does the Bible say
about Him? The Scripture says that the
Spirit of God, listen, the fruit of the Spirit--now what's that? That is--that's what He
produces. "The fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, gentleness,
self-control," and all the rest. Nine fruits of the Spirit. The fruit, listen, He says the
fruit of the Spirit, when the Spirit of God comes into your
life, what is His responsibility? His responsibility, if you and
I, listen, if we will be at one with Him, if we will cooperate
with Him, He will do what? He will enable us to have love
and joy and peace and goodness and kindness and serenity and
self-control. In other words, all of these
things are the fruit of the Spirit. That is, it's what He
produces in us. Circumstances are not the issue. Whenever I am at one with Him,
He is able to live out through your life and my life everything
we want to become. Do you not want to be a person
who loves and has joy and peace? And a person who's really good? In other words, everything you
and I desire to be, everything that is essential to being like
our Savior, the Spirit of God produces within us. So, what's my responsibility? My responsibility is to be at
one with Him. Jesus said, "My peace I give
unto to you." He says, "In Me," Jesus
says, "In Me is where you find that peace. Not in the world, but in Me." This is why it is futile, it is
a waste of time, it is a waste of resources, it's a waste of a
person's life. Why live miserable when you can
have peace? You say, "But you don't know my
circumstances." That's not the issue. Could they be any worse than
that group of disciples who were there with Jesus, and all of a
sudden, all the things He taught them? "I and the Father are one. I could bring down legions of
angels." And now You're talking about
being crucified. You're talking about leaving us. None of that made any sense. But He said, "My peace will give
you the capacity to make sense out of it." What I want you to see is this:
there is peace with God, which happens when you trust Him as
your Savior. The war is over. There is the peace of God that
only comes when you live surrendered to Him. Listen, He says, "I and the
Father are one." You know what Jesus wants of of
us? What God wants of us? He wants us to be at oneness
with Him. What does that mean? It means I want to walk in
agreement with Him. Would you not agree that
certainly it's wise to walk in agreement with Jesus, to walk in
agreement with the will of God? Do I know something God doesn't
know? Do I have power that He doesn't
have? Does He do I know ways that He
does not know? Can--do I have strength that's
sufficient within myself? No, I don't. He says, "I and the Father are
one." He said, "You can find peace in
Me," that is, in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ,
you can have peace. That is the only place you're
going to find it. Now, I know somebody says,
"Well, but you know, I think I can have it without Him." Well, let me ask you a question. If I gave you a piece of paper
and said, "Describe your present life to me," I guarantee you
you'd bring up some things that you'd like to change. You're not happy about them. Now, does this mean that you
will reach some stage in your life where there'll no--be in no
more troubles and no more heartaches and everything's
going to go smooth? No, it doesn't. Jesus didn't have that. But here's what it means. It doesn't mean the absence in
our circumstances of all things that would trouble us, but it
simply means this: because of that intimate relationship,
because I know who He is and who He is in me and who I am in Him,
and because of these awesome promises He's made, because He
lives out every promise He's ever made, because of who He is
within me, because within me there is the living God in the
presence of the Spirit of God. No matter what comes our way, no
matter how awful the circumstances, no matter how
awesome they may be, no matter how often they change, there can
be a tranquility, a serenity, a calmness, and a quietness that
anchors my soul so that I'm not blown by the winds of adversity
and heartache, not like the waves of the sea, but absolutely
stabilized because Jesus is our peace. There is no other way. I'd be happy for somebody to
tell me is there any other way to have peace? When he said--Paul said,
"He is our peace." And He knew that being within
us, He's the source of our peace every single day if I understand
that. Now, listen, do I have any
responsibility? Yes, I do. One of those things I must
remember is this: that I must, watch this, I must claim what
is mine. What is mine? What is yours? You have the Spirit of God
within you. You have the awesome
supernatural power of God within you. You have the potential for
everything God has for your life within you through
the Holy Spirit. I have to claim it. So, I come into a situation that
could cause me a lot of turmoil. I have to claim who I am. I'm a child of God. What I have? The Spirit of God within me who
is the source of peace within my life. And the second thing I must do
is to get my focus right. Whatever you focus on, when
troubles and trials and heartache come, He says, "I'm to
set my focus upon Him." Why? Because He is your peace. He's not just the source of it. He is your peace. And you say, "Well, you mean to
tell me that if I'm going through pain, I'm to focus
on Him?" Yes.
Why? Well, focusing on pain
does what? Just makes it worse. When I'm, watch this, I'm going
to show you how it works in a moment. And so, what do you do? You trust Him to be what He said
He would be and to provide what He said He would provide. Now, if He is my peace, what is
He going to do? When He sees me hurting and
going through some trial or some difficulty, what is He going
to do? When I focus upon Him, He is
going to remind me of some things. "You're my son and I love you. And remember, I'm only going to
allow those things in your life, when you respond correctly
that's going to turn out for your good. So I know you're hurting today,
it's going to turn out for your good. I know you miss her, but it's
going to turn out for your good. I know you've lost him, but it's
going to turn, I'm going to show you--" In other words, listen, when God
is reassuring you in the midst of heartache and trial and
tribulation in your life, when He is there to reassure you that
He understands, He's going to bring you through this, you
don't have to give in, you don't have to give up. You don't have to throw up your
hands. You trust Him. That's what the whole Christian
life is about. And many of us have lived long
enough to understand and have gone through enough different
kind of troubles and heartaches that what I'm saying to you is
absolutely the truth. The Bible says it is the truth. And I want you to understand,
you do not have to be thrown off course. You do not have to
throw up your hands. You do not have to go to alcohol
and drugs and sex and immorality and all the rest. It's Christ, Jesus within you. He says, "I am your peace. In Me," He says, "you find it." Then we make a choice. We make a choice to fuss about
our circumstances, try to change our circumstances and argue with
God about them. Or we say, "All right, Lord, You
said You are my peace. I'm claiming that by
faith right now. That in spite of what I'm going
through, You're going to tranquilize my heart. You're going to give me a
serenity and quietness and assurance and the comfort
in my life." I'm here to tell you I've been
a Christian long enough. For sixty-five years
I've been a believer. He keeps His word. And I think any pastor can tell
you, we've all been through enough stuff that if you can be
tried, tested, tempted, brow-beaten, you name it, there
is a peace that absolutely overrides everything the devil
can throw at you. It's yours for the asking. You see, you say, "What must
I do?" Just what I said: claim it. In other words, it's yours. Trust Him. Get your focus on Him. He's the--in other words, He's
the source. Let me ask you a question: how
did you get saved? "Well, I did the
following things." No, no, no, no, no. You only did one thing. God made this so simple. You only did one thing. You trusted Him to do what
He said He would do. He said if you would confess
your sins, place your trust in Him as your personal Savior,
He'd save you. That's what you did. You didn't have to raise a hand. You didn't have to take a step. You didn't go anywhere. You didn't give anything. In other words, you trusted Him. And what did He do? He changed your eternal destiny
in that moment. He wrote your name in the
Lamb's Book of Life. You're a child of the
living God. And what did you do? You accepted. You received what
He had to offer. If He can do that in a one-time
event, can He not do that every day of your life? Yes! It's a matter of trusting Him,
claiming it and getting your focus on the source of peace
rather than on the source of your frustration. You must not forget this message
because I can tell you, you already know this. In fact, you're sitting there,
maybe somewhere in your home or wherever it may be and you're
there and you're so frustrated. Your circumstances are totally
out of control. All I want you to do is to at
least consider this: if Jesus said something, don't you think
it's the truth? Secondly, listen to this, many
people don't believe in Jesus. Has anybody ever named
one sin He committed? Never. There are people who don't even
believe in Him will say, "Well, I know He's a good man." Well, how good was He? So good He never made a mistake. So good He never sinned. Wait a minute, there must be
something different about Him. You know why? Because He's the Son of God. And that Son of God has chosen
to live within your life and my life through the presence of the
Holy Spirit. So, if somebody were to ask me:
what is the Christian life? Here's what I would say: the
Christian life is this: it is the acceptance of Jesus Christ
as my personal Savior through faith and His work at the cross
of shedding His blood and bringing about atonement for my
sin. And then indwelling me with the
Holy Spirit whose responsibility it is to live out the life of
Jesus through me because that's what He does. It isn't what we do, it's what
He does. So, what is my responsibility? To yield to Him. You see, as long as there's
oneness, I can have peace. And when I decide that I don't
agree with Him about anything, my peace is gone. Does it get any simpler
than that? I didn't say it was easy, but
it's simple. You want peace? You got to have Jesus. Give up the war fighting
against Him. No longer an enemy. No longer under wrath. No longer separated from Him. No longer without peace. It is yours for the asking. He will not disappoint you. What do they call Jesus? The Prince of Peace. The Source of Peace. He's the Giver of Peace. It's all about a personal
relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ. That is the source of continuing
peace that works every day in a person's life. And Father, how grateful we are
that Your Word's so full of awesome truth. You've made it so simple
in points. I pray the Holy Spirit will
speak to every single person who hears this message to realize
I've just told them what You've said. I've just told them what You
claimed about Yourself: that You and the Father are one. You're the Source of Peace. "In Me," You said, "is peace. My peace I give to you." That each person, whatever their
circumstance would recognize that upon acceptance of Christ
as Savior, their potential for peace becomes a living reality
within their hearts. And their willingness to
surrender to Him makes it possible to face everything,
every day with an awesome sense of indescribable peace. I pray the Holy Spirit will ring
this in their ears, God. Stir it in their heart and send
them enough of whatever's necessary that they would put it
to work, put it to practice, claim it for themselves. In Jesus's name, amen. male announcer: If you've been
blessed by today's program, please visit us at intouch.org.
