[MUSIC - PLASTIC ONO BAND, "GIVE
PEACE A CHANCE"] Peace, celebrities demand it. Pop culture makes
it a catchy tune. Activists protest for it. Still, keeps seems out of reach. True peace can't be found in
or understood by this world. (SINGING) All we are saying
is give peace a chance. All we are saying is
give peace a chance. Give peace a chance. Good morning, again. Did you bring one of these? Yeah, these are really
important, I have discovered, to have. So let's turn in those
Bibles, shall we, to the Book of Isaiah. It's the biggest book in
your Bible, longest book in your Bible in
terms of chapters. 66 chapters in that book. Isaiah, chapter 26 today-- Isaiah 26. I'm going to throw a
picture up on the screen. See if you recognize
this painting. Do you recognize that? OK, so this is a painting--
let's just keep that up. This is a painting
called The Scream. It is by an artist
named Edvard Munch, and he painted this picture. They say it is as
recognizable-- second only to the Mona Lisa,
in what people would recognize as a famous painting. In fact, this is now an emoji. So that's how famous it is. It sold for, in 2012-- at Sotheby's, it sold
for $120 million. Yeah, I know, you're
looking at that, going, my kid could do that. So that sold for
$120 million, and I was able to see this picture
myself when I was in Oslo. Here's proof that I was there. It's standing in
front of the picture, trying to make the same face. This picture has been called
a timeless portrait of anxiety or a timeless
depiction of anxiety. A lot of people
look at the picture, and it sort of creeps them out. Edvard Munch, the
artist, was believed to be a very tormented soul,
somebody who lacked peace-- lacked peace in his heart. Some even believed he
was not of sound mind. And there is a message at
the top of that picture, The Scream-- a little
inscription that is written in the top left-hand corner-- that says this. Can only have been
painted by a madman. Can only have been
painted by a madman. And for years, people
argued who put that there. Nobody really knew
who wrote that there. Somebody thought
it was a vandal-- a viewer came and
put an inscription. But experts have since
come to the conclusion that it was the
artist himself who put the inscription at the
top of his own painting, can only have been
painted by a madman. Now, I believe one of the
reasons that that picture is so famous and would
sell for $120 million is because it's sort
of this creepy mirror for a lot of people. It's like, yeah, I feel
that lack of peace, that presence of anxiety. It represents what a lot
of people are feeling. You see, I think if
it was a happy face, it would look
something like this. [LAUGHTER] I don't think that would sell
for $120 million, do you? That is something
your kid could do. But I rather you would
look like this rather than like The Scream. And so with that sort of as
a background, because here's this depiction of lack of
peace and presence of anxiety, I want you to look at a verse
of scripture in Isaiah 26. It's a verse of scripture--
this is the first time I've ever preached on just this
verse, and so I'm glad to have had
a time this week to really study through it. But I'm calling this message
When Peace Gets Personal. I want to talk to you
about personal peace. All in favor of personal peace? Yeah, I am too. So Isaiah 26, verse 3, it
says-- here's the promise-- you will keep him
in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You. I remember the first
time I saw that verse. I was a Christian
maybe for two weeks. I was in a Bible
bookstore buying a Bible, and I saw that
verse on a plaque. You will keep him
in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You. And I thought, that's
a great saying. I didn't know it
was a scripture. It's a great saying, and
I've discovered that it is a verse of scripture. It is a verse that I call
to my mind several times, often every night, when
I'm going to sleep. Especially if I wake up
in the middle of the night and I'm wrestling with
thoughts, I will just meditate on this verse. It's such a beautiful promise. Well, we're in a series
called Give Peace a Chance, and we decided we would do it
because of the difficult season that we have experienced in
our country and in humanity. I think you would agree that our
world is anything but peaceful. After a worldwide pandemic,
after a contentious election cycle, after
government-enforced lockdowns, after job loss and
business closure, we just felt like we needed
to breathe in God's peace-- take a few weeks and
just see what the Bible has to say about peace. Because we don't have
peace internationally. We don't have peace nationally. We don't have
peace economically. We don't have peace politically. We don't have peace in nations. We don't have peace in cities. We don't have peace in states. We don't have peace
in communities. We don't have peace in homes. We don't have peace in hearts. But you can. You can have peace
in your heart. And if you do, you will be
the exception, not the rule, because the rule is this. The exception is this, right? Having peace in your heart. Well, I discovered
that the Bible mentions peace about 400 times, which
gives me an indication that's pretty high on God's agenda-- that he wants to confer
on his people peace, he wants us to have it. So we want to look
at personal peace because this section, like
any section of scripture, has its own context,
its own background. And that has to be considered,
but in the midst of that-- and we will consider
it in a minute. But there is a promise, the
one that we just read that, transcends all culture, all
time frames, all languages. It's a promise of God's peace
to individuals for peace, personally-- inner peace. The feeling of tranquility,
that's what I want to get at. And I've discovered
lately that there's more and more talk, more and
more chatter about inner peace. I've seen ads on meditation
techniques lately. I told you in our first
message that when I googled in, when I typed in Google, "inner
peace," I got back 1 billion, 60 million results. And of course, I
don't have time to go through even a tenth of those. But just clicking
on a few of them, telling you how to
get inner peace, inner calm, personal
peace, they will advocate things
like using crystals, or herbs, or spirit guides,
all of which are placebos. And the real source is what
we want to talk about today. I want to give you, then--
in this section of scripture, we're going to look at
primarily the first four verses and a couple of others-- five fundamentals
of personal peace-- five fundamentals
of personal peace. I've written them down in an
outline in your worship folder for you to use for taking notes. First of all, this personal
piece is found in God. Now, I know you would expect
a preacher to say that. And that's because you should
expect the Bible to say that, and it does. Personal peace, the real
source is found in God. So let's look at the first
four verses of our text. Isaiah 26, verse 1,
in that day, this song will be sung in
the land of Judah. We have a strong city. God will appoint salvation
for walls and bulwarks. Open the gates, that the
righteous nation which keeps the truth may enter in. You will keep him
in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You. Trust in the LORD
forever, for in YAH, the LORD is
everlasting strength. This section is a
song of praise-- a song of praise. I'll get into that
context in just a minute. But notice in what we just
read that the author, when he writes this-- Isaiah-- goes from the third
person, to the second person, back to the third person,
that is, he talks about God, then he talks to God, then
he goes and talks about God. But that is the
theme of his writing. He's talking about
the Lord, God. And you'll notice that he uses
the covenant name for the Lord. I want you to look at verse 4. And it says, trust in the what? Now, how is that
written in your Bible? All capitals. Every time you see
all capitals, you know that that's
the covenant name that God gave to his people
way back in the law, when he introduced himself as Yahweh-- Yahweh, I am that
I am, the LORD. Then in verse 4, it
says, trust in the LORD-- Yahweh-- forever. Then it says something
a little bit unusual in this translation. For in YAH-- which is simply
a shortened form of Yahweh. For in YAH, the LORD-- so literally, for
in YAH, Yahweh-- is everlasting strength. So what he's doing is saying
that the source of all of this promise that we're going to
sing about is the Lord himself. So personal peace
is found in God. By the way, in verse
4, see where it says, everlasting strength? How many of you have a
marginal note in your Bible? If you look really closely
and you can read that small, if your eyes are still good,
it has a little marginal note that says, literally,
or, rock of ages. Does it say that? That's because in Hebrew,
that's the translation. So the verse literally is,
trust in Yahweh forever, for in YAH, Yahweh
is the Rock of Ages. And I bring that up
because some of you are familiar with a very
famous hymn by that title. It was written in 1776 by a hymn
writer named Augustus Toplady. Story is he was
walking down a path and a thunderstorm broke out,
and rain, thunder, lightning. And he didn't have shelter,
so he found a little cleft in a rock by the side of
the road-- a little cave. And he kind of
hit himself in it, and he thought about the
shelter that God provides, the peace that God brings. And so based on that verse,
he thought of the words to this famous hymn. Rock of Ages, cleft for me. Let me hide myself in Thee. Let me draw your attention to
the last verse of that hymn. He says, when mine eyes
shall close in death, When I soar to worlds
unknown, See Thee on thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages cleft for me. Let me hide myself in Thee. Here's the hymn writer
basically saying, no matter what happens in
life-- even the very worst, my own physical death-- my hope is in you. My trust is in you. I know that you are the
provider and sustainer of me. You provide peace. So the experience that the
author is getting at here is the peace of God-- the peace of God, the
feeling of tranquility. It's that calm or inner calm
that we experience independent of outward circumstances. If you remember in
our very first study, I talked about the
cushion of the sea. Sailors call it that. There's a place so far under
the ocean that no matter what storms are going on
on the top of the water, you can get to a place where
it is absolutely undisturbed, the cushion of the sea. God wants to place you in
his cushion, the cushion of his sea, and give you
that calm, and that peace, and that tranquility. So that's the thought
here in these verses, that God is the source of peace. Personal peace is found in God. I've discovered that
most people define peace as the absence of something. You say, well, what
is peace to you? They'd say, no war. It's the absence of war. It's the absence of strife. It's the absence of conflict. Listen, you can have
the absence of war, and strife, and
conflict in a cemetery. And that's not the best
role model of peace, is it? So it's not the
absence of something. It's the presence of something. God's definition isn't
the absence of conflict. God's definition of peace is
the presence of God, of himself, in the midst of conflict. No matter what conflict is going
on, God says, I'll be there. I'll be there. When two Jews meet
on the street-- two Jewish people in Israel-- and they see each
other, and they want to give each
other greetings, what word do they say? They say "shalom." You hear it all the
time, shalom, shalom. It means "peace." Now, when they say that,
they're not saying, may you have no more wars. What they're saying
is that may experience the deep and abiding peace,
calm, and tranquility that God brings. So let me give you a
definition of peace-- of this personal peace. Peace is the calm assurance
that what God is doing is best. Peace is the calm assurance
that what God is doing is best. So peace isn't just
the absence of conflict and the presence of nothing. That's just a cold war, right? You can have that in your home. It's called a "truce." You can have peace by
just avoiding the issues. You don't really talk
about the issues. You have this sort of uneasy
peace produced by the fact that you don't open your mouth. And so you keep it
inside, and you fume, and you walk around angry. That's not peace. That's just restraint. What God offers is far
deeper and far better. So personal peace
is found in God. Let's keep this going. Second, personal peace is
forecast for the kingdom. Now, I want to explain this
because I always tell you that every text has
to be interpreted by its context and its setting. And none of us has the right to
lift a verse out of scripture and make it apply
to anything we want. So this also has a context,
and here's the context. Chapters 24, 25, 26, and
27, those four chapters are called by scholars
the "Little Apocalypse" or Isiah's Little
Apocalypse because they deal with a future theme,
an apocalyptic theme. And so often, the
prophets did this, right? They wrote about an immediate
event going on around them, but they use that as
a model of something that will be fulfilled to a
greater extent in the future. So it's sort of like
prophetic bifocals. You're seeing something
close, but you can also use that to see something
much further away. So this is Isaiah's
Little Apocalypse. And chapters 25 and 26 are
two songs that are written, songs of praise. And they are the songs that
the restored Jewish remnant will sing after the
tribulation period, when they go into the kingdom age. We're going to do a
whole message on that era called the kingdom age at
the last of this Give Peace a Chance series. But just so you
know, the setting here is a prophetic setting
of the millennial kingdom, the 1,000 year reign
of Christ on the Earth, that age of peace
that is coming up. So with that in mind,
look at verse 1. In that day-- that little
phrase, "in that day," is used three times
in this section. It is used 44 times
in the Book of Isaiah. He's using something to speak
about a far-flung event. In that day, this song will
be sung in the land of Judah. We have a strong city. He's referring to
Jerusalem as a strong city. That's because in
the kingdom age, Jerusalem is going to be
HQ, Messiah headquarters. It has always been
God's intention, plan, purpose to have his son, the
Messiah, Jesus Christ, rule and reign literally,
geographically from Jerusalem, to rule over the
whole Earth, which he will do for 1,000 years-- even though the world, coming
out of the tribulation, won't be excited about that. Psalm 2 puts it this way. Why do the nations rage and
the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the Earth
have set themselves, and the rulers of the
Earth have met together and have come against the
Lord and against his Christ-- literally, his
Messiah, his anointed. And they have said, let us
break their bonds asunder or let us cast their
cards far from us. But God says this. I have set my king upon
my holy hill of Zion. That's Jerusalem. God goes on to say,
you are my Son. This day I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will
give you the nations for your inheritance. It's a picture of Messiah
ruling and reigning the world from the city of
Jerusalem, and it will be an absolute government. It goes on to say, you will
break them with a rod of iron. You will them in pieces
with a potter's vessel. So because Messiah will
be ruling and raining from Jerusalem during that time,
it will be a very strong peace. It will be a maximum
security facility, not in terms of a
jail or incarceration, but in terms of peace. He's going to bring an
absolute peace to the world. So it says, in that day. That day is when the
believing remnant of Israel is safe and secure, protected
by their Messiah, delivered from the tribulation period. In the kingdom age, as Jesus
is ruling and reigning, his people are going
to have deep peace. You will keep him
them perfect peace. His mind is stayed on you. That's the context of it. It's in that Little
Apocalypse section. So with that in mind,
go down to verse 12 now. We're not going to go through
the whole chapter, just a couple verses here. Verse 12, LORD-- Yahweh-- You will
establish peace for us, For You have also done
all our works in us. O LORD our God, marsters besides
You Have had dominion over us. But by You only, we make
mention of Your name. So the personal peace will grow
into a national, international peace. And in verse 13, it
makes mention of the fact that the Jewish people
have, in history, been ruled by many different nations. They've had many
taskmasters over them. They have suffered
slavery and takeover by a number of different groups. I think of the Egyptians. I think of the Babylonians, the
Assyrians, the Medo-Persians, the Syrians, the Romans, right? There's a long list of that. All of that is over. Now it's just their Massiah. And there's peace in
the land, and there's peace in their hearts. So that's the future. Peace is found and God. It is forecast for the kingdom. Here's the third fundamental
fact of personal peace. It flourishes with virtue. It flourishes with virtue. Look at verse 2. Open the gates-- that is,
open the gates of the city. Does it say, the
nation will come in? What kind of nation is it? The righteous nation-- here's
the description-- which keeps the truth may enter in. What I want you to notice is the
relationship here between peace and righteousness. the righteous nation,
these are people who keep the truth, that
is, they remain faithful. Do you know that right
living, obedient living, righteousness will help
you experience peace? If you wonder, gosh, I'm
always lacking peace, I'm sort of like that
picture of The Scream, could it be that in your war
with sin, sin is winning? That will rob you of peace
quicker than anything else. There's always a relationship
between righteousness and peace. What did Paul say? The fruit of the Spirit, the
fruit of the Spirit-- this is what the Spirit
produces, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness,
goodness, gentleness, meekness, et cetera. It produces peace. In contrast to that,
Isaiah 48 says, there is no peace, says
the Lord, for the wicked. He says it again. Isaiah 57, there is no peace,
says my God, for the wicked. So then personal peace is a
byproduct of right living, and sin is the great
disturber of the peace. What will disturb and disrupt
your peace faster than anything else is sin. It hinders fellowship with God. It causes anguish of heart. It is like an intruder, a
housebreaker, a thief that comes in to rob you of peace. That is why confession
is so important-- confession of sin. And you go, why do
we confess our sins? Why do I have to tell
God I'm a sinner? Doesn't he already know it? Yes, he already knows it. Believe me, he knows it, but he
sure likes to hear you say it. He likes it when you
just go, OK, I admit it. I'm busted. I'm sorry, I've done that. The Bible talks a
lot about confession. Because when you
confess to God your sin, you are dealing
with guilt, and you are restoring personal peace. That's what restores peace. David wrote about this he
wrote about his own experience, where he refused
to confess his sin. It was the sin of Bathsheba,
when he committed adultery. Just sort of held it in,
didn't talk about it. He's a man. And so Psalm 32, he
writes, when I kept silent, my bones grew old, through
my groaning all day long. For day and night, Your
hand was heavy upon me. My vitality was turned
into the drought of summer. Then I said, "I will confess
my transgression to the LORD." I still remember,
July of a long time ago, when I gave
my life to Christ. I remember that summer. I remember when I watched
Billy Graham on television, and I said my little
prayer in my bedroom. And I always tell people,
I never saw a bright light. I never heard a
voice from heaven, but I sure felt something. And what I felt
was a burden lift. I felt like it was
like, whew, man, I've been living under such
guilt for so long, and all that is lifted now. And that's because I confessed
my sin, and admitted my need, and asked Jesus to fix it. And I was unburdened. And I got to tell you,
I have experienced that feeling many times
since, many times since. I had a friend who said, you
know what confession is like, Skip? It's like brushing your teeth. I go, what? What? Is that what you're saying? You're going, what? You know what it's
like this morning, when you got up in the morning
and you brushed your teeth? Felt good, right? I mean, I don't know
about you, but when I brush my teeth in the morning,
you know what I say afterwards? Ahhh, right? That minty, fresh
feeling, right? All that bacteria and gunk
has been in my mouth all night long. Eww, and then ahhh. Confession feels like
that for the soul. It unburdens the soul. It deals with the guilt. Psalm 119 says, great peace
have those who love your law. Here's a description of people
in that kingdom, the kingdom age, who will love
the law of God. It's when you break God's law
that it robs you of peace. So a few fundamentals
of personal peace. It's found in God. It's forecast for
the future kingdom. It flourishes with virtue. I'll give you a fourth. It is fostered by focus. What I mean by that
is it is related to your thought life, your
focus, what you contemplate, what you think about. Go back to verse 3. Here's the essence
of the promise. You-- God, You-- will keep him-- I'm going to put "or her," sort
of a general term for God's people. You will keep him
in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You. First of all, let's talk
about perfect peace. It doesn't say you'll
keep him in peace, but you'll keep him
in perfect piece. What is perfect peace? What's the difference between
peace and perfect peace? Well, it's an
interesting idea here. Because in the original
Hebrew, the word for perfect is the same word for peace. In fact, in Hebrew, it says, you
will keep him in peace peace. That's how it's
written in Hebrew. You will keep him
in shalom shalom. It's the same word. It is just repeated,
and it's called the idiom of reduplication-- the idiom of
reduplication-- that is, whenever you take a
word and you double it, you now intensify its meaning. So like in the New
Testament, Jesus said verily verily, right? It's not just verily
or truly, but it's truly truly, verily verily. So when it's peace peace,
it's perfect peace. And so when the
Hebrew does that, it just simply means complete,
genuine, deep, satisfying peace-- that kind of peace, right-- a settled heart. I call it a peace
without ripples. There's no undercurrent
of anxiety. It's total well-being. It's internal tranquility. You go, sounds good to me. How do I get that? By focusing your thoughts. It says, you will keep him in
peace peace-- perfect peace-- whose mind is stayed on you. "Stayed" means fixed, glued,
focused, concentrated on. It refers to a
steadfast mind, one that's been disciplined to
constantly focus on one thing-- one thing. It's like Psalm 112. It says, the righteous will
not be afraid of evil tidings. His heart is steadfast-- same idea, stayed, fixed-- steadfast trusting in the LORD. His heart is established. He will not be afraid. So simply put, it's when we
focus on his love, his power, his ability, his care, his
plan, his intentions for me, which is always good. All things work together for
good to those that love God. It's when I focus on that. Have you noticed that
our peace can easily be disrupted by outside thoughts? My wife tells me. I have ADD. I don't know if
that's true or not. But anyway, she always
says I get distracted with all sorts of thoughts. And I have discovered that
other thoughts can easily disrupt us from the one thing
we should be thinking about, right? We hear a news report, we
get a doctor's diagnosis, somebody tells us of
something one of our children was involved in,
maybe a car accident. Our peace is suddenly disrupted
by the news that we hear. A letter from a lawyer will
often steal your piece. Neuroscientists tell us that
the human mind, in one day, has about 70,000 thoughts. that just seems
monumental to me, 70,000. Well, what do we
think about all day? Well, 70,000 things, 70,000
thoughts, that's 25.5 million a year. Here's what we all need to do. However many thoughts
you have during the day, you need to learn to
harness your thoughts. You need to learn to tell
your brain, your mind, your heart-- however you want
to call it-- what to think on. You tell it that. The Bible calls that bringing
every thought into captivity. That's 2 Corinthians,
chapter 10. We take captive every thought
to make it obedient to Christ. Just picture that for a second. Here's your thoughts. Your thoughts are taking
you in one direction. Grab that thought. Lasso it up. Chain it up. Bring it to Christ. Say, here, Lord, you take it. Let me focus now on your love,
and your power, and your care, and your ability. Bringing every thought captive. Philippians chapter 4, verse
8, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble,
whatever things are just, whatever things are pure,
whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good
report, if there is any virtue and if there's
anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things-- or think on these things. We have to be very
careful about what input we allow in our lives-- what we allow ourselves
to see, what we allow ourselves to hear, what
we allow ourselves, therefore, to think about and bring
those thoughts into captivity. Personal peace is
fostered by focus. Let me give you a final
component, a final fundamental of personal peace. Personal peace is
formed by trust. You will keep him in
perfect peace-- verse 3-- Whose mind is stayed on You-- focused on you,
concentrated on you-- Because he trusts in You. The reason he focuses his
thoughts is because he trusts in you, is the thought. And then in verse
4 is the command. Trust in the LORD forever. So let's follow the thought
so far in this message. The peace that we're talking
about the personal peace comes directly from God. It is given to his righteous
ones, his obedient ones, who focus their efforts on him. And the reason they focus
their thoughts on him is because they trust him. And the reason they trust him
is because he's trustworthy. You only trust somebody
who's trustworthy. Because God is
trustworthy, his children focus their thoughts on him
because they trust in him. They trust in him. Do you realize God designed
you to be dependent on him? And I know I'm talking
to Americans, right? We love our independence. God designed you to
be dependent on him. In fact, I would say that
the whole problem of sin is independence from God. That's really the
definition of sin. Sin started when
man said, I'm going to be independent
of what God wants. That was sin. That's where it all started. God designed us to
be dependent on him. Now, here's one of the most
famous verses on trusting God ever to be found. You know it by heart. I'll prove it to you. Proverbs 3:5 6, trust
in the LORD with-- All your heart. --all your heart. Lean not to your-- Own understanding. --own understanding. In all your ways
acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path. See how well you
know that verse-- verses? What a great promise. Trust in the Lord
with all your heart. When you trust a
trustworthy God, the experience you walk
away with is perfect peace-- perfect peace. Isaiah 30 reminds
us, in quietness and confidence shall
be your strength. In quietness and confidence
will be your strength. Seems to me that
we live in an era where we are given two choices. It's either going to be trust,
or it's going to be torment. Those are our two choices. Either we trust God and
we say, God a sovereign, and I don't get this
whole virus thing. I don't know this is so weird. Isn't this weird? What a weird year this is. Can you believe it? Unprecedented. But God is sovereign
and I trust Him. Or torment. This is nuts. This is crazy. Who knows what
could happen next? Anything can happen. Everything's random. That's torment. And that's this, right? That's The Scream,
torment, not this. It's either trust or torment. Most people opt for which one? Most people in the
world opt for torment. They do, and here's why,
or here's a proof of that. One source that I read
said 60% of illnesses are due to emotional stress. Wow, 60% of illnesses are
due to emotional stress. Things like fear, sorrow,
envy, hatred, guilt all help to produce
physical disease. Another report I
read just yesterday said 90% of illnesses and
diseases are stress-related. OK, back to that thing of trust. Trust in the Lord
with all your heart. Lean not to your
own understanding. In all your ways,
acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path. Not only will he
direct your path, but he's going to
give you something. It's called peace. Because it says in Proverbs 3,
verse 8-- that same scripture says, when you
trust the Lord, it will be health to your flesh. It will be health to your flesh. The word "flesh" in that
text literally is navel. And everybody wants a
healthy navel, right? That's an old Hebrew
way of talking about your nervous system. It will be-- you want a
healthy nervous system? Trust the Lord. Trust the Lord. It'll be the best
thing for your nerves. That's the idea of that text. Trust the Lord with
all your heart. We live in a great
modern era of technology, and innovation, and
medical advancement. But you know what? Medical science can add years
to your life, but trust in God will add life to your years. You want real life? You want real peace? You want something deeper
than just existence? Trust in the Lord. And that's why words of
truth are so important. That's why Bible
study is so important. That's why coming to church,
singing these songs together, reading the word
together is so important. It helps restore peace. Jesus said, these things I have
spoken to you that in me you might have peace. I'm telling you this so
that you'll be peaceful. So be fixed on God. Be stayed on him. Be fixated on his truth. Meditate on his
truth, especially with all the bad news
going on out there. Don't get up in the morning
and read Twitter or Instagram as the first thing. You just wa wa wa all day long. Get yourself some
good news first. Get yourself fixed on truth,
and God, and his love, and his care. There was a great
story about a couple. Well, actually, it
doesn't start out great, but it sort of
ends kind of funny. This couple had been
married 40 years. And after 40 years of marriage,
the husband died, sadly. And so his wife is left alone. And as the months went by
and about a year passed, she was having a conversation
with one of her friends who happen to own a pet store. And her friend said, you
know, have you ever thought about getting a pet? I know that that won't
replace a life partner, but it would sure help. So she goes, yeah,
that's not a bad idea. She goes down to her
friend's pet store, and she looks at all the
pets, and tries to decide which one should I get. I'm not going to get the iguana. That's not really helpful,
or the grasshopper is not a good thing. But maybe a dog. So she puts the dogs. No, you know-- and cats, no way. I'm not going to get a cat. Cats don't care about me. So she's thinking what to get. And she goes, you
know, I'd really love an animal that
could talk back to me. And the pet store owner
said, oh, you want a parrot. I happen to have a parrot. It's quite expensive, but
it can be trained to talk. In fact, this parrot
will be a chatterbox. So she goes, OK. She bought the parrot. It cost her a lot of money. She bought it, took it home. Came back a week later, and
the pet store owner said, that bird's talking
it up, right? And she said, nope,
hadn't said a word yet. She's a little frustrated. Pet store owner
said, well, have you bought a mirror for the cage? She said, no. He goes, well, I've
discovered that when the bird sees its
reflection in a mirror and it sort of feels
like it's not alone, like there's another bird
there, it'll start talking. So she buys a mirror,
puts it in the cage, comes back a week later. Pet store owner
said, did it work? Owner said, nope, didn't work. The bird's not
saying a word yet. Pet store owner said, well, did
you buy a ladder for the cage? I've discovered that when a
bird sees itself in the mirror, it goes up and down the ladder,
gets a little energy going, and starts talking. So she buys a ladder, takes
it home, puts it in the cage. Comes back a week
later, nothing. She's really frustrated
at this point. Pet store owner said, well, do
you have a swing in the cage? Because I've
discovered sometimes, when a bird sees
itself in the mirror and goes up and down the
ladder, if I can just move a little bit more
on a swing, it'll talk. So she buys the swing, takes
it home, puts it in the cage. Comes back a week
later, fuming mad. The pet store owner said,
is that bird talking yet? The lady said my bird is dead. This expensive carrot that I
laid down hard, cold cash for is dead at the
bottom of the cage. The pet store owner
said, man, I'm shocked. Really, I'm shocked. Did that bird say
anything at all? And the lady said, well, yes,
as a matter of fact, it did. As it lay there taking
its last few breaths, it said, don't they have any
food down there at that store? [LAUGHTER] All of the world's
gymnastics that they are telling you to do to get
peace, what you really need is to eat. You need food. You need nourishment. You need God's promises. You need God's truth. And when you get
God's truth and you stay fixed on
that, fixed on him, and you trust him as his child,
you walk away with peace-- peace. And even though
it wouldn't sell, you're going to be
looking like that. Yeah, yeah, keep that in mind. Father, thank you
for your peace. Thank you for your joy. Thank you for the personal
sense of tranquility that we get when we trust in
you, when we confess our sins, if need be, and restore
the peace that is broken. Thank you, Lord, for what Jesus
did to give us peace with you. And thank you that, as a
byproduct of our relationship, we have the peace that
comes from you in our hearts that we experience-- that calmness, that sense that
what you're doing is the best. And it brings us such
a sense of peace. Thank you for that. I pray for anybody
who doesn't know you that they would come
into a relationship with you, that they
would come to trust you as Savior, as Master, as Lord. In Jesus's name, amen. Let's all stand to our feet. And as we sing this song,
maybe you have a burdened heart and maybe you haven't
taken that thought captive. So in this song, you need
to bring the rope out, and you need to
take that thought, and tie it up, and
present it to Christ, and decide from here on out
to focus and concentrate on his love for you. Let's sing that. [BAND PLAYING] Let's sing it together. (SINGING) We will not be moved
when the earth gives away. For the risen one has overcome. And for every fear,
there's an empty grave. For the risen one has overcome. Ohhh. For you have overcome, God. Can we just celebrate
that, church? Amen. I don't know about
you, but I'm glad I came to church this morning. We pray that you will
be blessed and you would be a blessing as you go,
and we will see you back here Wednesday. You are dismissed. We hope you enjoyed this special
service from Calvary Church. We'd love to know how
this message impacted you. Email us at
mystory@calvarynm.church. And just a reminder, you can
support this ministry with a financial gift at
calvarynm.church/give. Thank you for joining us for
this teaching from Calvary Church. [MUSIC PLAYING]
