Finding Freedom

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again dear radio friends, how in the world are you? You’re doing alright today? Well, I certainly trust everything’s alright at your house. If you struck a rough day. Remember, look up and say, “Lord Jesus, see me through this one,” and He will. “When thou passeth through the waters, they shall not overflow thee. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow I will fear no evil. For thou art with me.” You place your trust in the Lord who said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” And He’ll see you through. And yes, He will.

Come with me to Colossians 3. We’ve come through verse 14, and now we come to verse 15, which says, “Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you’re called in one body, and be ye thankful.” There are certain things to which we are called, one day. I’ll take up the calling of the Christian. It’s a good study. And you’ll enjoy it. But in this passage. He says, now you’re called to a life of peace as the ruling element in your existence. “Let the peace of God rule in your hearts”. Now, this is something He said to which you’re called because you belong to the body of Christ. Has it ever struck you that being a Christian involves belonging to all other Christians as part of the body of Christ, and it also involves a lifestyle marked by God’s peace?

My good friends over there in Cleveland, have a habit of saying instead of saying hello, They say, “Peace be with you.” I like that, because we’re called to God’s peace as our life style, the very atmosphere of our life as Christians, as part of the Body of Christ is to exhibit and to enjoy the peace that passes understanding. Had you thought about that at all? Some of you live such troubled lives. And you say, “brother Cook, you don’t understand, you don’t know what I’m going through. Of course, I’m troubled and all your talk doesn’t change it.” Well, I know that. [chuckle] I know that. I know that sermons don’t make much difference unless the Holy Spirit of God speaks to the individual’s heart and applies the truth. What I am saying though if you have spiritual ears to hear it is that God has called you to a life, the atmosphere of which, the very atmosphere of your life, is to be His perfect peace, because you are part of Christ’s body, you, this minute, where you are, what you are, and how you feel and what’s going on in your life is part of what is happening to Jesus. You are part of His body and He cares about you. Furthermore, He’s doing something in and with Him through you, which you may not now understand, but which ultimately is going to result in the glory of God. Now, if you’ll believe that and put it to work in your life, and in your attitudes, you’ll find that every day is an adventure with deity instead of being a grueling test of endurance.

He says, “Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you’re called” because you’re part of Christ’s body. I thought for a moment about the various references that I can recall about the peace of God. There’s peace of course, because the war is over, “therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now, for some of you dear ones that still has to occur, you’re still fighting God’s will in your life in some way or other. And you still have that delightful experience ahead of you, which I pray may occur even today where you will say, Lord, the war is over. I give up, I surrender to your will, gladly, I give myself to you and by faith I take my stand with the Lord Jesus Christ, against my own desires and against my own tendencies, against my own sinful nature. Jesus died for me, and I take my stand by faith, with Him.

I wish you’d do that, because when you do, he says, “being justified by faith.” See when you take your stand by faith, with the perfect, matchless Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, God looks at you through Him. And you are counted righteous. Paul says in the Book of Romans, “Not only that, but the exercise of your faith when you tie yourself so to speak to the righteousness of the Lord Jesus stops the war and you no longer are fighting the will of God because you’ve given God the right to give the orders. We have peace with God.” And so Paul says in Ephesians, “He is our peace, Himself is our peace,” Ephesians 2:14, “He, the person, is the very essence of what makes us right with God.”

Have you ever been in a situation where you needed to be reconciled to another human being? And all that, you could say or do didn’t seem to help, and then someone came along who was a friend of both of you. And that someone undertook to bring you together in a gentle, loving manner? And so it was that the other person who always bristled at your approach, held still now, and waited and listened at the approach of the other person because they were friends. And surely and slowly and wonderfully, the breach between the two of you was healed because the other person became so to speak your peace, your peace maker. The person himself, or herself, brought about a resolution of the problem and brought about peace. Now, some of you live through experiences like that, because it’s fairly common, isn’t it in human existence? Now, the Lord Jesus is our peace, he takes my guilty hand and walks me right into the presence of God the Father and says, Lord, I… Father, I died for this poor guilty sinner. Receive him. We are accepted, the Bible says, “In the beloved one, the Lord Jesus Chri”st. He’s our peace.

That’s why it’s so precious to yield yourself every day to the Savior, because in him, you are complete and in him, dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And you are His and He is yours and He’s giving Himself to you every moment, if you’ll receive what He has, He’s your peace. It’s great isn’t it? Yes.

Now what else? Well, peace is the very essence of the Christian life. “The kingdom of God,” Paul says in Romans 14:17, “is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.” What is the essence, we might ask, of Christian living? What does it really boil down to? Well, he says it’s not meat and drink. It’s not what you are actually doing to demonstrate your piety. Now that shakes you up because many of us, it must be admitted equate our Christianity with things we do and don’t do. Isn’t that true?

Well He says, “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink.” It’s not what you do to appear pious, that’s not the essence of it. But the essence of Christian living said He, is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Now righteousness has two approaches to it, one is the imputed righteousness that God gives you when you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Righteousness is imputed that is reckoned in other words, to you divinely when you confess the Lord Jesus, as your Lord. The other righteousness is not only that which God reckons to your account, but that which you demonstrate day-by-day in living according to His will. Righteousness is the outward compliance with the inner compulsion that comes through the lordship of Jesus Christ. Righteousness in conduct issues from righteousness in your connection with God. Righteousness.

See now then under the heading of righteousness, I’m not going to swear because I wanna be righteous, I’m not going to smoke because my body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, I’m not going to drink because I want my mind to be under the control of the Holy Spirit not of alcohol. “Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess but be filled with the Spirit.” Says Paul, same word drunk in each case, drunk with the Spirit, not with alcohol.

So I’m not going to drink because I want my mind to be under the control of the Holy Spirit of God.

I’m going to be morally straight and upright, because, again, my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and the Bible says, “Be ye holy, for I am holy,” and so I’m going to flee. As Paul says, “Run away from the temptations of the flesh.” And so righteousness is a by-product of your commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s part of the essence of your Christian life.

What else is he says, and peace, the kingdom of God is. See the very essence of your Christian life is peace. Peace with God, the peace of God. The peace that denotes perfect calm and freedom from stress, frustration and fears, even those circumstances may be bad.

Someone used the other day an illustration which you’re familiar with, I’m sure. And go out on the ocean, some day go fishing out on the ocean and you’ll find that if there’s a stiff breeze the waves have come up and they are as high, maybe is four, five, six, seven, eight feet high and the little craft in which you’re fishing is tossing and rolling, maybe you get seasick as a result. Some of those waves when you cross the ocean can get very tall. We were on a ship coming back from Europe many years ago and got into the tail end of a hurricane and the seas that came rolling up against that vessel were 30 and 40 feet high and the wind was blowing up a gale. But you go down underneath the water say 50 feet or 100 feet, and everything’s calm. No waves down there. Everything’s calm.

So circumstances may be roiling up. But oh, the peace that God gives is un-ruffled, you’re unflappable and without being ruffled at all when God’s peace is ruling your life. We get at this the next time we get together.

Dear Father, today help us experience Thy wonderful peace in Jesus’ name, amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!