Charles Stanley - The Source of Peace
A few weeks ago, one of our staff members and myself were seated in a restaurant on the West Coast and the young lady who was waiting on us was doing a great job and she looked like she was in her twenties or somewhere thereabouts. And so the second or third time she came around, for some reason without any warning at all I simply said to her, I said, "If you could ask God for anything you wanted at this point in your life, what would you ask Him for"? Without even a reservation or hesitation she said, "Peace". And then a big tear started down her cheek, and she began to unfold her story. She said, "My grandmother just died a few days ago".
And as I began to ask her a few questions, I found out that nobody in her family believed in God. She didn't believe in God. Not because she'd rejected Him, nobody had ever told her. She didn't know anything about Jesus. She didn't have a Bible. She was just there, like most people floundering around in life, looking for peace, looking for purpose, looking for something in life that would satisfy her. And she is so typical of so many millions of people out there who are just floundering. They go to their job, they go home, some of them to an empty apartment, empty house, some with their families, but something's missing deep down inside.
And no matter what they find and what they possess and what they control, no matter who they're related to, there is the absence of peace. An absence which God has created in every single one of us a desire to have peace. And the tragedy is not only do many people, in fact they will live most of their lives if not all of their lives and never discover what peace is all about. But the tragedy is that most of them don't have any earthly idea where to find it. They're looking in all the wrong places. They've listened to the propaganda of the world. They've listened to the lies of Satan. They've been blinded by him, and so they're looking in the places you never find it.
Looking to people who can never produce it. And so deep down inside there's this very hopeless, helpless longing, searching inside. Looking for something they don't really have any idea they'll ever find. What a hopeless, helpless, empty feeling. All of those people don't live in some other country in the world. Many of those people live right here around us. People who will smile to you and say, "Oh, I'm doing fantastic or I'm doing fine". Only to turn away to say, "I lied again". Only to turn away to say, "If they only knew how empty, I was". Only to turn away to say, "If they only knew how I was hurting, how frustrated, how lonely, how anxious I am".
Would you happen to fall under that category? Could you say that you really have peace? Well, let me just say this and I'm gonna say this many times in this message, until you have peace with God, you will never experience peace. Because you see, He's the source of it. No one else is the source of peace but Almighty God. He's the source of peace. He created you and me for relationship with Him. He created us to love us and to be loved by us. He created to have fellowship with us, to be good to us, to provide for us, to protect us, to preserve us. He created us to have eternal fellowship with us.
And until we have made our peace with God, until there's a reconciliation, until there is a uniting, until there's a oneness and a harmony, no matter what you have in life, who you have, where you go, what you control, what your purpose, what your plan, what your goal is, until you have peace with God, you will always have an emptiness in your heart you cannot explain. What I want to do in this message is simply to do this. I want to tell you where to find it and I want to tell you how to find it. And if you'll listen carefully, when this message is over you will not be the same person with the same condition, with the same attitude, with the same position that you're in at this moment.
God, through His Son Jesus Christ, will transform your life. And what has been war going on in the inside of you like a civil war will all come to a close. You will have thrown up the white flag of surrender. And for the first time in your life you will understand what it means to have peace with God.
So, I want you to turn if you will to Romans chapter five. 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, listen, 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. Because you see, peace with God is the heart and the core and the foundation of all peace that you and I have. You can never have peace with yourself, with others. You'll never have peace about how you feel about yourself, about the way you relate to other people, the way you see them, until there is a genuine peace in your heart with God. And it's very difficult for us to sometimes acknowledge the fact that we are enemies of God.
Now remember what I didn't say. I did not say that God is your enemy. God is never the enemy of those who seek Him. He's never the enemy. He's always one who's reaching out, loving, forgiving, tender, kind, helpful in every single way. But until you recognize there is a barrier, an awesome barrier between you and God, that only God can remove, you will never discover that peace. So, as you think about your own heart, would you be able to say, "I have peace with God".
At some point back there in your life you threw up the white flag of surrender and said, "I surrender, Lord. No more fighting, no more hostility toward You. No more, no more unbelief and doubt and rationalization and all the rest. I give up. I want to be the person You want me to be. I'm willing to fall into Your plan, willing to follow Your leadership, willing for You to have Your purpose in my life, willing for You to fulfill that purpose, willing for You to have it Your way".
Until you come to the place of full surrender of your life to Him, you will never discover the peace that you're looking for. No matter where you look, with whom you look, what you possess, how long you possess it, it will not happen. That is not my opinion, it is the simple Word of God. Listen to what He said. He says, "Therefore, in this fifth chapter, having been justified," listen, "having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ".
So, I want us to think about for just a moment what this barrier is and I want you to think about it very simply. Let's think in terms first of all, what is it that creates this barrier? 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 fell. 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.
So, people do what? They say, "Well, I think there's certainly a way for me to find peace in my life". And often times they're the ones whose storm is the heaviest, the most penetrable, and often times the most miserable people in existence. Without Jesus Christ, you cannot experience peace with God. And people will try anything and everything. And here's the tragedy. You see, when you're looking for something and you're looking in the wrong direction, and you head in that direction, the longer you go in that direction, the deeper into, listen, the deeper into your bondage you move until finally, listen, this is why an alcoholic starts with, somebody says, "There's nothing wrong with one drink. What about two? Well, there certainly couldn't be anything wrong with two. Two never hurt anybody. Well, what about three? Well, three's not gonna hurt anybody. What about four? Well, it's just four".
Five, ten, twenty, fifty and you're an alcoholic. Why? Because you had to have a little bit more to quieten the storm in your life. You see, maybe at first a little bit helped you forget, listen, didn't bring you peace. It helped you forget the intensity of the storm. But you see, the more of it you drink, or whatever it may be, drugs or whatever it might be. The more you have the more you've got to have. Because you see, it doesn't quieten the storm. And here's the deception of Satan, a little bit more will do it. If you try a little bit more. Well, that wasn't enough. A little bit more will do it.
And so what happens? Before long you're in chains and bondage which you created in your pursuit of peace in the wrong direction. You see if you're looking in the wrong direction it doesn't matter how many more you have of anything in life. You have to find out what's the right direction? Where do you find peace? You only find peace with God through His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. If you're one of those persons who's tried to rationalize, and in your unbelief and your doubts you've just determined, "I'm going to find peace one way or the other".
I want to save you a lot of trouble, a lot of heartache, a lot of pain if you're wise enough to listen. You're not going to find it any place but in the Word of God and through His Son, Jesus Christ. Because listen to what he said, "Therefore, being justified by faith we have peace with God". Not justified, or we don't have peace with God because of my good works, because of this or that or the other. There's only one way to find it. You would think intelligent people, wise people, smart people would finally understand it's not working. But people will live their entire life and at the end of their life they've never experienced a day of genuine peace, and they're still trying because they refuse to throw up the white flag of surrender to Almighty God.
Listen. That is the ultimate surrender, but it is, listen, it is the wisest ultimate decision you can make. And the moment you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, what you're doing is you're accepting, listen, you're accepting God's payment for your sin. And you, all of a sudden, something will happen to you. What happens? Your attitude changes. Your condition changes. Your position changes. For example, your attitude is no longer rebelling against God, but loving Him. Your condition changes, not with a sinful nature but now the nature of Christ Himself.
And not only that, your position changes, no longer an enemy but now you're a child of the living God. You're a part of the household of God. No longer hostility and anger and rebellion, but oneness. Listen, where before there was separation, now there is oneness. Now there is harmony. Now there is unity. Now you begin a whole new life. I want you to turn if you will to, to Colossians chapter one, because he in this particular chapter describes a beautiful relationship. What happens when a person discovers peace with Almighty God?
Listen to what he says. First chapter of Colossians. 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 that the, the Father is pleased with this. What is He pleased with? He's pleased that "all the fulness 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. This is why Jesus said, "I and the Father are one".
The Heavenly Father sent His only begotten Son, the one who is like Him. Listen. "All the fulness to dwell in Him". 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, whether things on earth or 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. You know what peace with God is all about? It's all about Jesus Christ coming into this world and removing the barrier that separated between you and God. Dying on the cross His substitutionary, all-sufficient, sacrificial, atoning death, paying your sin-debt in full. And then what did God say He, what did He say He would do? Here's what He said. He said and then through the death of His Son, because you said yes to Him, He reached out and brought you back. He reconciled you unto Himself. He brought you back into a relationship of sonship. He brought you back into a relationship of oneness and harmony and peace.
So that no longer are you the enemy, but now you're one of His children, forgiven of your sins, righteous in your character, righteous in your nature. Does that mean we'll never sin again? No. Because as long as we live in these human bodies of ours with our five senses and our needs and our wants and our desires, yes, we will. What's the difference? The difference is it's stumbling and the Father's always there to pick us up and forgive us and to set us on the right path again. Listen to what he says. "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 the way 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's 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 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's death at Calvary, now look, what do we look like? Righteous, holy, blameless before Him in glory. That's the work of the cross.
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 will you have peace. I plead with you in Jesus's 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. Now listen carefully. If you refuse to do so, when you stand before Him in the judgment there are not gonna be acceptable excuses, but you will know you've heard the simple gospel truth and from this moment on you're inexcusable. The love of God is reaching out to you right now. The grace of God is being extended to you right now. The goodness of God is directed to you right now. Will you accept the gift of forgiveness through His Son Jesus Christ and spend eternity with Him and all the other saints everlastingly?