The Source of Peace - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, December 3rd. In today's podcast, we'll hear more about Christ's role as peace giver and learn how we can have a sense of calm assurance, even when things are falling apart. Romans Chapter five.

The apostle Paul has been talking about man's hopeless, helpless, sinful, lonely condition for four chapters. And then when he comes to this fifth chapter, he begins it with a word, therefore, which means based on everything that he had written before, he says, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Now, one of the reasons that many people, most people, in fact, everyone who really does not have peace with God, the primary reason is they don't understand where you find it, how to get it, don't even understand that they can have it. So let's talk about what this peace is for a moment. Peace with God means that you and the Lord are in harmony with each other. You have a sense of oneness with Him.

There is a unity with Him. There is no war, no consternation, no fighting. You see, the truth is, until you and I recognize that there is a barrier between us and God, a barrier until it is removed by a change in the heart and life of a human being, until there is a change that takes place, you will never have peace with God. There is no possibility, apart from a work of God in your heart, that you'll ever be able to have peace with God. And until you have peace with God, you're not going to ever be able to experience peace with yourself or with others because peace with God is the foundation.

Romans chapter 5 verse 10. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His light. The Bible says that you and I, until we trust the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, we're the enemies of God. I didn't say He was our enemy. We're His enemies.

Why? We're working against His will, against His plan, rebelling against His personhood. And what are we doing? Sinning against Him. And so we, listen, we fall in the category of enemies of the will and the purpose and the plan and the objectives of God.

Now, there are a lot of people who say, well, now wait a minute. I believe in God. I do believe in God. And I do believe that God is the source of my peace.

I do believe that's true. And so therefore, I've tried to make things as peaceful as I can. Well, have you gone about that? Well, people say, well, I've tried to be as good as I can possibly be. I've tried to do everything I know to do that's right.

You know, I'm not a thief, not an adulterer, don't steal, don't lie, don't cheat, try to be as good as I can. But somehow I still don't have that peace, right? Because remember what He said in the beginning, there's a barrier there. The barrier is our sinful condition.

Listen, not just conduct. Remember, when Adam fell in the garden and Eve fell in the garden, man's nature failed. It became a sinful nature. It is our nature. It is our condition that causes us to be what we are. We come into this world with a sinful condition, a sinful nature. Our actions, listen, are the outflow of the condition of the heart. And therefore, listen, you can't do any better. You may change a few things, but you have, listen, your nature has to be changed.

Your condition has to be changed. And only God can do that. The barrier that exists between God and man is the barrier of sin, and only God can deal with that. If you want peace with God, I'm about to tell you how to get it. Not how I think you can, how I know you can. Because I've never met anybody who had real peace, who didn't get their peace from Almighty God through His Son, Jesus Christ.

I've met a lot of people who put on a big front. But the longer I do them, the more I realize they don't have any peace. This is a counterfeit. This is a cover-up.

This is a camouflage. Real, genuine peace is a gift from God. It isn't something you work up. It isn't something you manipulate. Peace is a gift from God.

It is not the result of your effort. It's the result, listen, of the effect of Christ living His life in and through your life. That is what provides peace in a person's life. So we have to ask the question, what did Paul mean in this passage when he talked about justification, when he said, Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, let's look at this word justification for a moment. The word justification in the Scripture means simply this. That is, to be declared no longer guilty, to be declared forgiven, to be made righteous. You say, well, how can I be declared forgiven?

How can I be declared not guilty when I am guilty? I'm going to explain that in a moment. I want you to see that he says, Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God. One thing we know, that peace with God comes through a relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ. Remember, the barrier is the barrier of sin. And man's good conduct will never eliminate that barrier.

Man's conduct is not the issue. Man's condition is the issue. Man's sinful condition is the issue. And so, what do we do about our sinful nature? The sin barrier that separates holy God from sinful man had to be dealt with. Sinful man can't deal with it. Sinful man didn't even want to deal with it.

But God wanted to deal with it because He loves you and me. And so, what did He do? He placed, watch this, He placed all of your guilt, all of your sin, all of your disobedience, all of your rebellion, all of your indifference, all of your doubt, all of your unbelief, all of your wickedness, all of your ill conduct, everything that you've ever done wrong, He placed upon Him at the cross. And when Jesus Christ died at the cross, He died a substitutionary death.

He took your place and my place. He died a sacrificial death. He laid down His life voluntarily.

He died an adequate death. The death of the Son of God was the only death that could atone for. Pay the debt in full of your sin and my sin. The sin that separated us from God, that kept us from having peace with God. And therefore, when Jesus Christ went to the cross, the Bible says that He cried out to the Father, my God, my God, why have You forsaken me? And in those moments of being forsaken, Jesus tasted hell for every single one of us. Because to Him, to be separated from the Father, which He'd never been, was to experience, listen, what mankind will experience for all eternity. Being separated from the God who created you. Being separated from the purpose and plan and will of God for all eternity. No hope.

Absolutely, totally helpless and hopeless. Jesus paid that price. He was the sacrifice and that's why He says in this passage, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have obtained an introduction by faith into this grace wherein we stand. Now, once you place your trust in Jesus Christ, once you say to Him, I do believe that You're the Son of God, I do believe that You're the Savior, I am confessing my sins, I know that I'm a rebel against You, I have violated Your law, violated Your principles, unfit for heaven, unfit to be accepted, unlovable in my nature, sinful in my being. I'm willing to ask You to forgive me of my sin, not based on my conduct, not based on my character, but based on the fact that His death was a sacrificial, all-sufficient, substitutionary, atoning death that removed the barrier and made it possible, Father, for me to come into Your presence. You see, peace with God means we lay down the tools of warfare, rebellion, indifference, unbelief, willful, sinful, walking in life in darkness, blinded by Satan, doing the will of the devil rather than the will of God. That's all over.

Now you begin a whole new life. I want you to turn, if you will, to Colossians chapter one. I love what he says in this nineteenth verse when he talks about the Father's attitude, God the Father's attitude.

Listen to what he says. In verse nineteen, for it was the Father's good pleasure. Listen to that, the Father's good pleasure. The Father is excited. The Father is pleased with this. What is He pleased with? He's pleased that all the fullness to dwell in His Son, Jesus. You know what He's pleased with? The Father is pleased with the fact that in His Son, Jesus Christ, you find everything there is to find about the Father.

That's the first thing that pleased Him. The second thing that pleased Him was this, and through Him, that is through Jesus, to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross, through Him I say were the things on earth, are things in heaven, and although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body. Through death, in order to present you holy before Him, holy and blameless and beyond reproach.

Now listen to that. Through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, having made peace, listen, having made peace between you and me through the blood of the cross. You see, you cannot have peace with God apart from Jesus Christ and the shedding of His blood at Calvary.

You cannot. What did we read a few moments ago in Romans? He says, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen, through the Lord Jesus Christ, and not only that, He says, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace wherein we stand. What's the grace of God? The grace of God is His goodness and love and mercy and kindness toward us that was produced and provided for by the cross. And then He says here in Colossians, it was His good pleasure to let His Son come.

It was His good pleasure that for Him to die on the cross and reconcile us unto Himself. He says, now beforehand this is where we were, formerly alienated, separated, hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds. Every single one of us will have to admit that we've been angry or alienated and hostile toward God at some point in our life and engaged in evil deeds and anybody who denies that is lying. We've all sinned against God. We've all disobeyed God. We've all rebelled against God.

We've all wanted our way to have our way. But He says what? Through justification, listen, by putting the sin debt on Him and setting us free, He's now reconciled us unto Himself and now reconciled you, listen, in His fleshly body, that is at the cross, through death in order to do what? To present you and me before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach. Listen to that what He says. He says that He'll present us before Him holy, righteous, blameless, beyond reproach.

How do we start off? Enemies, aliens, disobedient, rebellion, indifference, unbelief. And what happens when we are reconciled to Him, justified by faith through His Son Jesus Christ, death at Calvary?

Now what do we look like? Righteous, holy, blameless before Him in glory. That's the work of the cross. That's the work of a peacemaking God who desires that you and I have peace that passes all human understanding.

The war is over. We give up and we say, Lord, I want to have peace with You. The most beautiful example of this is to be found in the story of the prodigal son. And you'll recall he said to his father, I want what belongs to me against his father's best wishes and wisdom.

I want what belongs to me and I want it now. He took it, he wasted on riotous living, the Bible says, with prostitutes and among his friends and he wasted his inheritance. Finally when he came to the end of himself, rebelling against his father, rebelling against his family, going to do it on his own, when he ended up slopping hogs in a hog pen, was nothing less hopeless and helpless. Finally he surrendered and he started home. Did his father say when he saw him, there comes that rebel?

No. And if you'll notice that story, who's doing the running? The son's not running home. It's God the Father. And Jesus told that story to help us understand how loving and forgiving and desirous and pleasurable it is to God to forgive us of our sins.

And they threw a big party that night. He said, My son was lost. And he's found, he's back home.

There was peace between the Father and the Son. Is there peace between you and your heavenly Father? Are you a rebel?

Are you insisting on having it your own way? Have you chalked the church off? Have you laid your Bible aside that somebody gave you a long time ago or maybe you've never even read it?

Have you decided that you're going to believe your professors who told you that it was full of errors? Because what that did, it made it absolutely unimportant to you and therefore that helped your conscience so that you could live in sin and do your own thing in life. Let me ask you a question. Do you have peace with God? No.

I know the answer to that question. Because there's only one way to have peace with God and that's through His Son, Jesus Christ. Only when you have been declared righteous and forgiven and holy before God. Only when He has reached out and reconciled you unto Himself and brought you unto Himself to make you righteous and holy and blameless before Him.

Only then would you have peace. You see, listen carefully. God will wear you out.

He will. He'll throw roadblock after roadblock in your way to help you to stop, to take knowledge of yourself and what's going on and turn your heart toward Him. You know what? If you keep jumping over the roadblocks, one of them may be that you've turned on this message and you're listening today maybe for the first time or the hundredth time. This is a roadblock to say to you, stop before you wreck your whole life.

Stop now and surrender your life to God. Give God the privilege of blessing you and making you the person He wants you to be. It's a roadblock. It's an avenue.

It's a new perspective on what your life's all about. What will you do with it? Will you ignore what you're hearing? Will you be wise enough to know God? I don't know this guy, don't know where he's coming from, don't know anything about this, but God, I somehow, inside of me, this man's speaking the truth.

Surely I am. It is the truth of the living God. This is not some denomination or some preaching. This is the Word of the living God. This is the book by which you're going to be judged.

This book is only full of truth. And this book says, therefore being justified by faith, declared righteous as a result of the grace and goodness and love and mercy of God and the work at Christ at Calvary and you're trusting Him, will you ever find peace? Only then will you be reconciled, brought back into a right relationship with Him.

And the question is, what will you do about it? If you're ever going to experience peace with God, if you're ever going to have a relationship with Him that's pleasing, listen, and supportive and joyful and happy and contented, all the things that you're looking for in life, there's only one place, one person, one act to make that happen. I plead with you in Jesus' name to ask Him to forgive you of your sin. I plead with you for your own sake to ask Him to acknowledge your repentant heart. I plead with you to place your trust in Jesus, to save you right now. And to tell Him you want to be reconciled to Him, you throw up the white flag of surrender. You're His possession. He'll change your life.

He'll change your eternal destiny. Thank you for listening to part two of The Source of Peace. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia. ...