Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, July 2nd. Are you constantly searching for peace? Well, today's edition of the Life Principles Series points you to the key to continuing peace. Is it really possible to have true genuine peace when the circumstances in your life are all fouled up and messed up?
Would you 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? What I want to talk about in this message is, listen, talk about the key to continuing peace. What I want to talk about in this message is 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, you have to 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, he said, make your requests known to God and here's what'll 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 worry and fretting and caring. Now, I think as I look back over my life as a pastor in 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. I know that it works. I met somebody who'd 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 believed 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. We're talking about peace. We're talking about peace. We're talking about peace. We're talking about peace. 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 oftentimes someplace 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. He says, Do not let your hearts be troubled, believe in God, believe also in Me. Then he begins to encourage them. And so, if you 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, No, let it be fearful. I give it to you. I give it to you. I give it to you. 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. Take courage. Take courage. Take courage. Take courage. Take courage. Take courage. Take courage. Take courage. Take courage. Take courage. Take courage.
And that's when everything looked like it was going the opposite direction. 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. I want you to think about it. I want you to think about it. I want you to think about it. I want you to think about it. I want you to think about it. I want you to think about it.
I want you to think about 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, He says in the thirty-ninth chapter, He says in the thirty-ninth chapter, He says in the thirty-ninth chapter, 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. It says, before you trusted Christ as your 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. 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 and 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 if you'll turn to the fifty-seventh chapter of Isaiah and listen to what he says in this twentieth verse about the same thing.
Isaiah fifty-seven, twenty. But the wicked are like the tossing sea. It cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up refuse and mud. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked. He said, a person who is living without God in their life, without Christ in their life, he's just like the sea.
It's tossing up mud and all the rest. That is, there is no peace whatsoever. 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 can think of a lot of things. Think about your circumstances. Everybody has circumstances, and sometimes they're 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 and 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're 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, 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. 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, separated from Him, and without peace. 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 unto 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's 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 all one of us. 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, 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 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. So, think about it. Where do people go to try to find peace?
Well, they do all kind of things. For example, somebody says, Well, if I could just get married, I know I would be, I'd have peace. The other group of people who are thinking about these things say, No, if you weren't married, you'd have peace. And the other group of people who are thinking about these things say, Well, if you weren't married, you'd have peace.
So, consternation, confusion, all of these things. He says, My peace I give to you, not as the world gives. Where do people go to find peace?
Marriage. They think, Well, you know, if I could just have more sex, I'd have peace. If I could have more wealth, I'd have peace. If I could just be more beautiful and more handsome, I'd have peace. If I could have more peace, I'd have peace. If I could have more peace, I'd have peace. If I could have more peace, I'd have peace. And so on and on and on we go. And notice that every single one of those things, there's not a single one of them that's absolutely set in stone.
They're all changeable. You get married, you could lose it. And sex doesn't satisfy that kind of thing. Wealth doesn't give you peace. And prosperity doesn't give you peace, as we would say. Owning this and owning that and having Him and having her, whatever, whatever.
Anything that can change, there's nothing solid and nothing eternal about it. And here's what happens to the world. People who are trying to find peace, what do they do? Well, they try all of those things and then it doesn't happen and so they begin to realize, Well, now what? So, they decide to take a drink. Maybe that'll give them a little peace.
They don't have to think about it. Then they have two drinks, then three. Next thing you know, they're alcoholics. They get on drugs or they just begin a lifestyle of immorality.
Here's what happens. 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've given to 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, 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 will 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 like that, they can't be controlled. And here's Jesus saying, 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. Thank you for listening to The Key to Continuing Peace. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
