Living by Faith: Peace

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. What's your idea of peace? Well, people have varying views of how things ought to be and on how to attain that place of peace. But God has laid out for us in His Word both the true nature of peace and how we can have it. Sadly, mankind has often turned aside from God's way.

C.S. Lewis points out that human history is the long, terrible story of man trying to find something other than God, which will make him happy. Proverbs 14, 12 reminds us that there is a way that seems right to a man, but that is actually the path to death. In today's message, Rich lays out for us God's gracious path to peace through a life of faith. Let's listen in. This is part two of a message titled Living by Faith, Peace.

It was first preached on April 14, 2019 at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. But as long as I have it for myself, listen, it is a universal human desire to have peace. And that implies that there is an objective standard for it. Otherwise, there's nothing but anarchy, right? But what is the universal standard? What is the objective standard for our peace?

It is this, one phrase in the New Testament, all things were created by Him and for Him. Understand something this morning. Until you understand this and until this truth, this reality is the foundation of your life and your understanding, you will not, you cannot experience peace.

It won't happen. This has to be the foundation if you are to have peace. Now, are we left to ourselves to try to discover what this is? What does this peace look like? Has anybody else ever experienced this peace? We all have our own ideas of how things ought to be. We all have our own ideas of what this peace ought to be.

Well, God has given us plenty of examples. And so He says in verse 37, Mark the blameless and behold the upright. There is a future for the man of peace. Mark the blameless and behold the upright. There are people who are worth studying. Mark the blameless and behold the upright.

Mark means to observe. Observe the blameless and behold, that is, study the upright. There are people who are worth studying, people in history who have lived in peace with themselves and with God and with each other. And God has given us plenty of examples in history as well as in the history recorded in Scripture, the canon of Scripture itself.

Hebrews chapter 11 is one of those examples. Many people who lived by faith and they were living in peace because they lived by faith, they believed God, they were following and trusting Him. And even though some of them were imprisoned, some of them were sawn into, some of them had their loved ones taken away from them, they still lived in peace.

Why? Because they were following God. It doesn't mean that the adversities of life didn't hurt. That's not what peace is about.

But they were still at peace. Mark the blameless and behold the upright. The blameless, it speaks of those who follow the path and do not deviate. The path marked by God's character and God's purpose.

These are people who are worth studying. Where do we get our images of how life ought to be? The images and the ideas. It is people who have walked that path outlined by God's character and God's purpose, people who have lived this peace. And this is why today we can be looking and studying at so many images and people, right? Who ought to be in front of our eyes?

Who ought to be marking and studying? But people who have lived this peace. So books of history, biography of noble people who have sacrificed themselves for the benefit of others. Whether it's documentary or a book or anything like that. A couple examples in history, just very brief examples.

So much of it in scripture, but just in a more recent history. William Wilberforce, 19th century England. William Wilberforce trying to eradicate the slave trade across the pond. We ought to read about people like that. People who invest themselves and sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others.

How about Dietrich Bonhoeffer during the Nazi regime in Germany and how he invested himself, even sacrificed himself ultimately to try to bring down the totalitarian regime for the benefit of others. You see, it's people like this that we ought to be studying instead of the images of superficiality that we have so much of today. Because that's the transgressor that he mentions in verse 38. The transgressor shall be altogether destroyed. The future of the wicked shall be cut off. The transgressor is one who deviates from the path because he's following his own ways.

He crosses over God's living boundaries, the boundaries of God's character and purpose because he thinks he knows better. And how many people are there today like that? They ought to be not studying people of false peace.

They have the false idea, the false image of a superficial how things ought to be, but living in real despair. Why would we study somebody like that? Why would we follow somebody like that? Because people like that are worshipping the creature or they're worshipping the created. You know what worshipping the creature looks like today? It's called celebrity.

And there's a lot of that going on, isn't there? And yes, we should recognize people for their talents, but we should not worship them. And we should not allow them to define for us how things ought to be. But it's our way of doing life, isn't it? Christians, we should not participate in that. Otherwise, we're letting the world squeeze us into its mold.

But for so many of the celebrity, their how things ought to be is nothing but a superficial image. And yet they're living in despair. A couple of examples of that in history. Ernest Hemingway, a prolific writer, and we should applaud him for his talent. But he had no peace because in his ability to write, he was given everything, everything, whatever he wanted. He had it, whatever he wanted to do, he could do it. But he left a note saying life is one bleep thing after another and he took his own life. That's not peace. It's not peace at all. Michael Jackson, more recently, he had everything. He could do anything he wanted to legally. But he had no peace.

He withered away. But those are just examples of celebrity. Are these the people that are giving us the images of how things ought to be?

Shame on us if they are. The scriptures say mark the blameless and behold the upright. There is a future for a man of peace. So who is providing for us the image of how things ought to be? Who is informing our desires against which we measure or establish our peace? The scriptures say there is a future for the man of peace. That is an enduring peace in the end. There is a future for the man of peace. Genuine peace is an enduring peace. What does that mean? It means full attainment and realization of how things truly ought to be. Full attainment and realization of how things truly ought to be. The opposite of that, for example, and I know this is a metaphor and I know it falls short and somebody called me on it last service. That's okay. Just go with it, okay?

If you are following this false sense of peace and you have a false image of how things ought to be you don't have an enduring peace. It's kind of like a whole group of people on an airplane and they are having the time of their lives. It is a party airplane.

They are living it up. But there is something missing on the airplane and you know what it is? It's the pilot. He's jumped ship. He knows he had a parachute on.

He says, I'm out of here. This thing is going to crash. So the whole party on the airplane, they are really enjoying themselves, right? But they are ignoring the fact that there is not a pilot on the airplane. They have not considered their end and they are counting on the wrong things for peace.

We can very easily do that. The psalmist in Psalm 73 was almost brought down by considering the prosperity of the wicked. And he says, it was almost too much for me until, until what? I went into the house of the Lord, the sanctuary of God and I considered their end. We have to live with the end in view to truly know what brings peace in our lives.

Verse 38 in Psalm 37 here says, the future of the wicked is cut off. You see, we do have peace. Peace is knowing that there is one who will land the airplane. There is one who will land the airplane. We will land safely at home. Even though, while you're in the air, in this temporary life, the ride might get bumpy sometimes.

But you have complete confidence in the pilot who is very skilled and can fly that airplane and he will land it safely at home. That's being able to enjoy the ride in complete peace. So as verse 37 says, mark the blameless and behold the upright. There is a future for the man of peace. There are many examples in history that we can look to.

But there is one in particular. There is one in particular, a blameless and upright man to study. And it is the one who is called the Prince of Peace. In Isaiah 9-6 he was prophesied many, many centuries before he actually rode into Jerusalem.

He is called the Prince of Peace. And he is the one, number two, who came riding into Jerusalem on a donkey as prophesied in Zechariah 9-9. And that it was recorded in the Gospels.

Reliable history. This is history that happened. This is not fantasy or mythology. A real man in real history rode into Jerusalem with crowds cheering. And then he wept, I wish you had known the things that make for peace.

When he came riding into Jerusalem it is very important that he came riding in on a donkey. Which means he wasn't coming as a conqueror. He was coming as a man of peace. He came in meekness to provide peace. He will come again as a conqueror.

Number three, reconciliation. He is the one who offers reconciliation. He is the one who offers peace with God.

Why? Because he was a substitute. He was prophesied. He came in in history. He came to earth in history. And he offers peace with God. Romans 5-1.

Why? Because he was our substitute under the wrath of God. You've been listening to Rich Powell, the lead pastor at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The Delight in Grace mission is to help you know that God designed you to realize your highest good and your deepest satisfaction in him, the one who is infinitely good. We hope you'll join us again on weekdays at 10 a.m.