Finding Peace

You can rejoice in that vast, ineffable sense of divinely given well-being that comes when you’ve prayed about a matter.


Scripture: Mark 9:50, Romans 5:1, Isaiah 26:3, Psalm 119:165, Philippians 4:6-7, John 14:27

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again radio friends. How in the world are you? Oh, I trust things are going well at your house, bless your heart. If you’ve struck a rough day, some of you, look up and say, Lord Jesus see me through this one, and He will, for He hath said, “I will never leave thee nor for sake thee”. No blue Mondays or any other kind of a day for that matter for the believer, because you can look up and commit the day and all that may happen to you, to your blessed Lord. “He knoweth the way that I take. When He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold”.

Well, you and I’ve been talking about the last verse of Mark chapter 9 where Jesus our blessed Lord said, “Have salt in yourselves and have peace one with another”. The reality of the Holy Spirit of God in your life, working on the basis of God’s inerrant Word the Bible, the reality of the Holy Spirit in your life makes you the kind of a person that the Bible calls, a salty person, salt in yourselves, reality in yourself, God living in you, and as a result He says, “Have peace, one with another”.

If God is real in your life, you don’t have to worry about who’s chairman of the committee. Isn’t that something? If God is real in your life, you don’t have to worry about whether or not somebody else agrees with you all the time. I have a little Cookism I use now and then, if you find a person who always agrees with you, you have to watch him because he’s apt to lie about other things too. If God is real in your life, you have peace because you know you’re serving Him and He’s in control. I used to get so upset when people would criticize or attack that which I happened to be trying to do at the time, and then I realized all I have to do is to obey God. He takes care of the rest. Sometimes it takes a while. In one or two cases, it has taken 20 years or more. Somebody would write a red-hot letter and criticize what we were trying to do, and 20 years would go by and I’d get another letter from the same person, this actually happened, another letter from the same person saying, “Dear Bob, I was cleaning out my files and I ran across a carbon copy of a letter I can’t believe I ever wrote you. I am so ashamed. Please forgive me”. Twenty years. Hey, give God time, give Him time, but first of all give Him yourself.

Spiritual reality means a life full of God, doing God’s will, in the enablement of God’s Spirit, on the basis of God’s eternal Word. When that’s true He said, “You have salt in yourself”, and as a result you’ll, “Be at peace, one with another”.

Well that’s what led then into our discussion of this matter peace, and we talked about Romans 5:1 and Isaiah 26:3 and Psalm 119 verse 165, and I want just before time runs out on us on the subject, I to want to refer to Philippians 4:6 and 7, where Paul the apostle says, “Don’t worry about anything. Be care-filled for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God and the peace of God as a result, as a result of peace of God that which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus”. The peace of God through simple commitment in prayer. Interesting contrast here, be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer. Don’t worry about anything, nothing. That rules out everything there, there is nothing worth worrying about. You believe that? Well, it’s easy to say and hard to live, I know that.

Somebody said years ago facetiously, “I never worry because worry is a sin, but boy do I get concerned!” Well alright, whatever you call it. When things don’t go the way we expect them to or planned for them to go, then we get worried and stress sets in. Stress is a result of circumstances that do not conform to our plans and desires. Worry, now he said, don’t worry about anything. Be careful, that’s care-filled, that means worry. “Be worried for nothing”, don’t worry about anything, but then he uses the exact opposite from nothing, everything, “Everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and as a result the peace of God will keep your hearts like a garrison of soldiers, standing guard around you”. Beautiful passage isn’t it?

Now, what is the secret of no worry? Well, worry Dale Carnegie says in one of his books, “Worry is the absence of an organized plan”. We worry because we don’t know what to do next. We worry because a situation or persons and situations are out of control. We worry because things aren’t working out the way we hoped they would work out. We worry because we can’t foretell what may be around the corner in the future, immediately future or far distant future. He says, “Everything by prayer”. Do you realize that you can pray about every single source of worry and put it in God’s hands? Yes you can. There’s the immediate problems at hand; money problems, people problems, health problems, relational problems, problems having to do the will you feel about things and people, all this and more.

Do you realize that you can pray about this and turn it over to your blessed Lord, and thus get the steam taken out of the pressure cooker? “Everything”, he says, “by prayer”. By is a leverage word, you do it by praying, “everything by prayer”, and then supplication means you ask Him for something. A supplicant is one who is asking for something. Prayer has to do with worship and commitment, supplication has to do with requests. Worship and commitment come first, then requests, but they do go together and you shouldn’t quit praying until you put them both together. “Everything by prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known unto God”.

Pray about everything. I used to tell the students of the college, pray your way through the day. Pray when you wake up, pray before you greet your roommate with a loving snarl, pray before the first class, pray before you enter into a casual conversation, pray before you go on a date, pray before you make a decision, pray before you sign a contract, pray if you’re in management before you hire or transfer or fire or whatever, pray your way through the day. When the day is over then you can turn out a pocket full of memories and say, Lord thank you for going with me, walking with me all through this blessed day. Pray your way through the day, “everything by prayer”. It’s a leverage word, you accomplish things by prayer. “More things are done by prayer than this world dreams of”, someone has said. It’s leverage word. Don’t call a committee meeting, call a prayer meeting. Pray through the agenda of your business meeting, it’ll be a shorter business meeting and a sweeter one, I guarantee you. “Everything by prayer”. Are you faced with an impossible situation? Tell God about it. Has somebody done you a dirty trick and hurt your feelings? Tell God about it. I routinely tell God on people, you know. Remember when we were little kids who used to say, I’m going to tell on you! Well I tell God on people, yes I do. Why talk to your heavenly father? He understands, and what will happen is that He will rearrange your own thinking in the process.

I can recall one occasion when I was complaining to God about some people who were on my back at the time, they were “on my case” as the kids say, and I felt bad about it is I’m such a nice person, you know that, and so I was complaining to God about it in the middle of all that praying the Lord spoke very clearly to my own heart and said, you just do what I told you to do. Don’t worry about people; I’ll take care of them. What a comfort, what a blessing, all of the steam went out of the situation and all the resentment went out of my heart. Oh yes, I can recall praying about feelings that I have had. We all have a set of feelings and sometimes it’s pretty hard to control them, isn’t that true? I can recall praying about some feelings I had that I wasn’t really able to control. You know, it goes pretty deep, feelings of hurt or resentment or whatever it may be. I can remember God just changing the way I felt about things in answer to prayer. Oh yes, everything by prayer and He says as a result there’ll be peace, “Peace of God that passes understanding, will keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus”. “Peace that passes understanding”. You won’t be will understand it, but you can enjoy it. You know perfume, you don’t swallow it, you enjoy it as it goes by, and God’s peace that comes in answer to prayer, you don’t analyze it always, but I’ll tell you something, you can live it and you can enjoy it, you can rejoice in that vast, ineffable sense of divinely given well-being, that comes when you’ve prayed about a matter. God has answered prayer, perfect peace, yes He gives that. The Lord Jesus said in John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you, my peace give I unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you, let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid”. That’s the peace that comes through the presence of a lovely person in your life, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now there are human situations that somewhat parallel this, you know that’s true. I can remember with what anxiety I awaited the birth of our first child. We lived in Philadelphia the time and Carolyn was about to be born and then after a long agonizing labor on a Sunday, she arrived around about what 10 o’clock on a Sunday night. A little bundle of something that just stole my heart away and still does. Well, I was I was a little are nervous about everything, you know, and how is it going to work out, when will the baby be brought home, and what will we do, this and that, you know how fathers are, and then a day or so later, grandma came, Hilda Nilsen, my mother-in-love, she’s been with the Lord now for a number of years, lived almost to be 90. Lived with us as a matter of fact for 21 years, a wonderful, sweet, precious lady, but then she lived in Chicago and we were in Philadelphia and she’d gotten on the train, I met her, and brought her to the house and there she was, and I shall always remember the wonderful feeling of relief and peace that I felt in my heart when grandma was there. Bestamor, we called her, was there to take charge. A person makes the difference, isn’t true?

Now listen, some of you are struggling through life, having a rough time of it, you’re not making the grade very well, you oftentimes hate yourself for the failures that mar your record, day by day, and you don’t really have much peace, you’re restless, trying, trying, trying somehow to achieve. Listen to me dear friend, let the Lord Jesus Christ come into all of your life relationships, invite Him in and the indwelling Holy Spirit of God will reveal to you, the reality of Christ in your life and you’ll have the peace that He gives because He brings it, He brings that sense of peace when He arrives in your life and in any given situation. “My peace”, said He, “give I unto you”, it’s the peace that comes from a lovely person right in the midst of all of your life to share it with you.

Dear Father today, may we know the perfect peace that comes through yielding to our blessed Lord Jesus, and to the indwelling Spirit of God, I ask in Jesus’ name, Amen.

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



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