Charles Stanley - Why We Lose Our Peace
Did you ever have anybody steal something from you? Well, how did you respond? Were you angry because of the person or at the person who wronged you, or did you blame yourself because you felt like maybe you were just a little bit careless, and it shouldn't have happened. Well, it doesn't really make any difference what the situation was, the truth is somebody intruded into your personal life and took something from you and you suffered the loss. Now, it may have been something very significant that you owned or something maybe rather insignificant, but either way, you suffered a loss and you felt it. And the degree to which you placed value on that object that was stolen was the thing that really determined how much pain you felt, how much you suffered the loss.
If it was something very valuable to you then you felt it more strongly than if it a been something sorta insignificant. Well, I had something taken from me, somebody stole something from me. Someone broke into my automobile and took my briefcase. In the briefcase was a Greek New Testament, which I am sure they could not read. And maybe a couple of other insignificant books, be insignificant to them and some papers and so forth. Well, that really wasn't what bothered me because the briefcase was sorta old anyway. But in the briefcase was my favorite Bible, Bible I'd been preaching in all those years. And all through that Bible I had marked verses and put a little note in the margin of what the Lord had said to me.
And so, that Bible was very valuable because of what I'd put in it. But it was also valuable because my mother gave it to me. Now, I wasn't angry, but I was grieved. In fact, for about three months I felt like I'd lost my best friend. Somebody had intruded into my personal life, into my spiritual life and took away from me something that was very valuable, because part of my life was inscribed there. God spoke to me here and here and here and here and here. And all through the Bible, there was little biographical little sketches, verses here and there where God had spoken to me. Well, I suffered loss in another way, in fact something that was taken from me. And what I suffered, oftentimes in life, was I suffered the loss of peace.
Now, I was quick to blame somebody else or anybody else. And then finally I realized I couldn't blame anybody for stealing my peace, taking my peace away, but myself. Because the truth is that nobody could take it from me. I had to lay it down. And a lot of people who have no peace will give you some reason and will tell you, "Well, if this were changed and that were changed and if he'd a done this and she hadn't a done that, then I'd have peace in my heart". No, that's not the answer. And what I want to do in this message, I want to tell you why we lose our peace.
Now, what I'd like to do is I want to give you seven categories of thinking, thoughts. Thoughts fall into seven categories. I want you to think about them. Because these are the categories of thought that steal our peace. You can't, listen, if your thinking falls in any one of these categories, you're not gonna have peace. And some of you are gonna probably say, "You know what, my thinking fits all of those categories". Now, here's the deception of the devil. Here's the deception of the world. We see people, for example, maybe on some talk show or on the television or we read about them in the magazines, the newspapers, and I mean, they're smiling and they're dressed up fit to kill and all the things. And you just think, "Well, they're just the happiest people in the world".
You know what, absolutely miserable. You say, "Now, how can you judge somebody being miserable"? Well, I'm not a judge of other people's lives, I'm a judge of principles. I just know that there are certain principles that are absolutely true. Not sometimes true, not true according to who's speaking them, and not true under certain circumstances. There are some principles that are absolute. And you see, the world doesn't want to hear about anything that's absolute. "Well, that's just your opinion". Not my opinion, it is, listen, it is the living, eternal, unchangeable principle of the living God, and it is absolute. Absolute.
Now, most people don't want to hear about anything absolute because they want to massage the laws of God. In other words, when He says, "Thou shalt not," what does that mean? Maybe you shouldn't? Is that what it means? Doesn't mean that at all. And so when He says, "Thou shalt not," that's the voice of God, the Word of God, the law of God, the principle of God. And listen, you can rationalize it, massage it, and rethink it and all the rest, the truth is the law of God's the law of God, absolutely... you say, "Well, that's your interpretation". Let me ask you a question. How do you misinterpret "Thou shalt not kill"? How do you misinterpret that? "Thou shalt not steal". How do you misinterpret that? "Well, that means unless they have more than you do". No, it doesn't either.
You know what, when you and I could take almost every single principle the way people live, and they'd just do all kind of things, trying to change the law of God. You can't change the law of God. So, I want to give you some thought categories for you to think about. Now, listen carefully. I want to say this probably ten times before this message is over. You put your thinking in any one of these categories and you're not gonna have any peace. That's not a matter of opinion, you just watch, and you listen carefully, and if you are in any way halfway honest with yourself, you're gonna have to agree, not with me but with the principles of God. You cannot have peace in your heart and your thinking fall in any one of these categories. Can't happen.
So, let's begin. What kind of peace are we talking about and what kind of categories are we talking about? So, let's begin with the most evident one. First category, sinful thoughts. For example, if those thoughts are thoughts of lust, whether it is for money, whether it is for power, prestige, position, or sex, whatever it might be, lust and peace cannot inhabit the same heart. Because lust is desire out of control. It is a strong, driving, manipulating kind of controlling desire. You cannot, listen, think lustful thoughts and be at peace within your heart. You cannot. Also, we could put in that category of sinful thoughts anger, bitterness, resentment, hostility, hatred, fear. These are thoughts, these are thoughts, for example, that you can't have any peace.
In other words, you cannot be angry and have angry thoughts and be at peace with God or yourself. You can't hold resentment in your heart and be at peace. You can't have bitterness in your heart and be at peace. You can't have ungodly thoughts in your heart and be at peace. This is why when somebody says, "Well, you're judging people". No, here's what I just know: that when I see and hear people boasting of their wickedness, boasting of their sin, and then laughing and having parties and doing all the rest, and saying to the world, "Well, everything is fantastic," I know they're lying. I don't have to judge 'em, all I gotta do is read the Word of God and here's what it says.
The Bible says, "There is no peace for the wicked". And any person who's deliberately, willfully rejected the Lord Jesus Christ and understanding who He is, rejected the Lord Jesus Christ and chose to live in rebellion toward Him is living a wicked life. He says, "There's no peace for the wicked". They're like the sea, and all of its turmoil in the midst of a storm. So, you cannot deliberately, willfully live in sin and disobey the law of God, the will of God, the plan of God, and have any peace in your heart. You can rationalize, massage, and you can do anything you want to, it's not gonna be there. It's not a matter of whether you are smart enough, wise enough, you cannot deliberately, willfully violate the laws of God and live in peace.
So, first category, listen, sinful thoughts cannot have peace. Oil and water don't mix. You can stir it all night long, not gonna mix. Sinful thoughts, peace don't mix. That's the first one. Second category of thoughts that I want you to think about is this, that's negative thinking. Negative thoughts. You can't have any peace thinking negatively. For example, "You know what, I know God's called me, but I can't do it. I know God's called me, but I just don't have the abilities and the talents to do it. I know the Lord has spoken to me, and yet, I was under the steps when He gave out the gifts and you know what, I missed 'em. I don't have 'em, I can't do it.
Besides that, I don't really think people like me. I wish if I just look better and if I could... but you know what, that's where I came from. And you know you come from a background like mine, and you know what, you're just not gonna make it in life. Just a lot of things, just a lot of things set against me". If you started thinking like that, you know what, you're not gonna ever have any peace. You're gonna live your whole life in turmoil. And that kind of thinking will cause anger within your heart and resentment toward other people. And then you find your... you got two categories of wrong thinking. And these, listen, these categories of thinking will steal your peace and cheat you out of life. "Well, I just feel so rejected". It's negative thinking.
"Well, you know, if God really loved me, if God really and truly loved me, here's what He would do". No, that's not the right way to think about that, and so, oftentimes people have the idea, "Well, I'm just a nobody". And parents, listen carefully, you can set your children on the path of, listen, of anxiety all of their lives by the way you treat them early in life. When you say to them, "You'll never amount to anything. Why don't you be like your brother? Why can't you be smart like your sister? Look at you. Why aren't you pretty like so-and-so"?
You know what you're doing? You're just sticking a dagger in their heart, in their emotion. And I'm here to tell you most people never get over that scar. Negative thinking, you projected it on them. You drove it into their heart. You drove it into their mind. And what you did is you put a grid in their mind and every time they think about looks, they think, "But not I". Every time they think about abilities and gifts and opportunities and privileges, "Not me". You know why? Because their thinking has gone to the negative category. God is a very positive God. You say, "Well what about all these things He says there about judgment"? They are positive warnings to protect us from ruining and wrecking our lives.
That's not negative thinking. Well, what about all this stuff about Hell? That's, listen, that isn't negative thinking, that is information. It is inspiration. It is motivation. It is warning lest you wreck and ruin your life and spend eternity separated from Him. Negative thinking's not of God, and you know what, if you analyze your thinking in any given day, you'd be surprised how much of it's negative. Well, you know what, I just... for example, how many of you woke up this morning, now be honest, how many of you woke up this morning and you looked out and it's raining. You said, "Oh, my goodness! Raining, cloudy, bad day".
Well, let me ask you this. Suppose it had not rained for six months and you woke up this morning and you said, what? "Praise God it's raining today"! You know what it says? Clouds and rain have nothing to do with your peace. But if you decide it's gonna be a bad day because it's cloudy, if you decide it's gonna be one of those humdrum days because it's raining, somebody else is in the next door saying, "Praise the Lord! Boy, it's gonna be a cloudy day, I'm just gonna be at home and be quiet and just, I'm just gonna be wonderful". Has nothing to do with your circumstances. And this is the thing that we have to get over. Your circumstances cannot steal your peace unless you lay it down. Wrong, negative thinking.
There's another category I want you to think about, and that's the category of erroneous thinking. We think wrong thoughts. Now, sometimes those wrong thoughts are out of ignorance, and so I give 'em that. Sometimes wrong thoughts are out of ignorance. But when a person says, "God could not love me and allow this to happen," wrong. Because it may be that God allowed this thing to happen in your life because He has something good on the other side of it. He wants to do something in your life. He's pruning you and sanding you and sifting you a little bit to get you ready for the best blessing He has in mind. And you've said, "God doesn't love me". Or somebody says, "Well, I'd like to be saved, Pastor, but I've committed the unpardonable sin". No, you haven't.
When you die without Christ, then you've crossed the line of being pardoned. But listen, you want to get saved and you're telling me that you've committed the unpardonable sin? No way! That's erroneous thinking. And I think about people who live in fear because of erroneous thinking. You think about this, when you trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, He said, "I'll never leave you nor forsake you". Somebody says, "Well, you know what, I'm just alone". No, you're not alone.
"Well, I just hate being alone". You're not alone. You may be lonely but you're not alone. That's wrong thinking, erroneous thinking. When you're not thinking the way God thinks, you're not gonna have any peace. Now, you know I don't how to say it any stronger. It's not that you may not, you cannot. You cannot. And you've never met anybody whose negative thinking and who's into sinful thinking, erroneous thinking about things in life that really matter, who have peace. They don't because they can't. What you have to decide is this. Do I want to have peace in my heart? Then I've gotta get my thinking straightened out. Because my actions are gonna, listen, be determined by what I think. So erroneous thinking, that won't do it.
Well, what about unrealistic thoughts? What about the category of unrealistic thinking? Now, let me give you an extreme case of unrealistic thinking. If I said to you today, "I'm gonna resign being a pastor, and in five years, I'm gonna be a rocket scientist. Absolutely"! That would be the most unrealistic thing I could think of. Now you say, "Well, but that's bizarre". Well, that's true, but when a person sets goals for their life that they have to strive and manipulate and beat other people down and work at it and on and on and on they go. And say, "Here's what I'm gonna do, here's what I'm gonna accomplish".
And if it's not the will of God, if it's totally beyond God's will and purpose and plan for your life. And if God, listen, and if He's not in it, no matter what you're thinking, it's unrealistic thinking. And if you get close to it or a thousand miles from it, you're not gonna have any peace. Because you see, God doesn't operate that way. Peace doesn't come that way. Peace is a gift that flows out of us when you and I are thinking the right way, and I'm coming to something more important than that in a second, but when I'm thinking the wrong way: impure thoughts, disobedient thoughts. And so, as you think about these categories, ask yourself the question: Is that the way I'm thinking?
Then there's another category. I think about the category of rebellious thinking. Rebellious thinking says, "I know what the law says, but here's what I'm gonna do. I know what the Bible says, but here's what I'm gonna do anyway". And I can remember sitting on the porch with a man, and he told me what he was about to do. And I remember saying to him, I called him by name and I said, "You'll never have any peace if you do that, because that's a violation of a law of God". And I remember he looked at me straight in the eye, he said, "I know it is, but I'm gonna do it anyway, because that's what I want". I said, "I'm telling you, you're making a terrible mistake".
He made that choice, he made one of the most disastrous mistakes a person can possibly make in life, ruined and wrecked his life. Because you know what he said? He just acted naturally. Watch this carefully. In every single one of us, there is the potential of being rebellious. Any time God says to you and to me, "Here's what I want you to do," and we say, "No way". Or, we can say, "Well, thank You very much, Lord, and I'm gonna think about that". Mm-mm-mm! Listen, God doesn't give commands for our contemplation. He gives us commands for our obedience. Is your heart rebellious? It's because your mind is rebellious. Your heart and mind gonna work just like this. And He says, "Listen, the peace of God will protect our thinking," when?
Think about it. Is anybody you're angry toward and you won't give it up? Anybody that you're resent toward... you're not gonna give it up. Is there some aspect of your life or your schedule, whatever it might be, you're not gonna lay that down. You say, "God, here's my life". And you see, people will teach Sunday School, they'll sing in the choir, or some people will preach or serve in all kinds of aspects in a church life and say, "God, praise the Lord, I'm serving You".
I'm here to tell you, friend, all the service to God in the world that does not come out of a heart of submission to His will is not gonna bring you any peace, any real joy, any real contentment, and here's what'll happen. On the outside, you'll be looking fantastic. On the inside, if somebody could see what's going on inside of you, it's like your internal motors are just, are churning and churning and churning. Why? Because you cannot have peace and be rebellious toward the Father. Cannot be.
Well, I want you to think about another category. And that's the category of obsessive thinking, obsessive thoughts. These are thoughts that grab you, won't let you go, you won't let them go. Something you want at all costs in life. And so these thoughts harass you, dominate you, control you. These are the kind of thoughts that divide your mind. Obsessive thoughts in a person's life, listen, it fractures their thinking. They can't focus very well on anything because their mind is so divided because it's so captured and enraptured in one thing. Something has become an obsession. It either is to reach this goal or to have this thing or have this relationship or or gain this, or whatever it might be.
And sometimes it's an obsession to wrong someone else. But obsessive thinking, you'll never have any peace because, you see, what's happening is it overshadows all your other thinking. The only, listen, the only thing you can have an obsession about and have peace is Jesus. That's the only thing you can think about with such obsessive thoughts, "I love You, Lord Jesus. I praise You. I bless You. I want You to saturate, permeate my life. I want every", see, if you're obsessed with loving Him and obeying Him, you're gonna have absolute peace, you know why? Because if you're obsessed with Him, you're gonna be walking in obedience to His will and doing what He wants you to do.
Then there's one last category I'd mention. And that's enslaved thinking. You say, "Well, isn't that the same thing as obsessed"? No. Enslaved thinking is that I have given myself over in my thinking to something that absolutely controls and dominates my life to the point that even when I don't like it, I've got to have it. An alcoholic is an enslaved thinker. A drug addict is an enslaved thinker. People who have addictions, whether it's sexual addiction or drug addiction or alcoholic addiction or work addiction, doesn't make any difference what it is, they're people who have been captured and enslaved by wrong thinking.
"I have to have it. I must have it. I can't live without it. I must achieve it. I absolutely have to". Enslaved thinking, there is absolutely no peace whatsoever. You say, "Well, how do I deal with this"? Listen very carefully. Don't miss this. The only way to have peace in your life is, first of all, to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior by confessing and repenting of your sins, laying it all before Him and telling Him you're giving your life to Him. And you're trusting Him on the basis of what He did at Calvary and when He died and shed His blood for you, an atonement. It was an atonement, a payment paid for your sins. He satisfied the law of God. And in that sacrifice, your sins are forgiven when you come to Him and ask Him. Then what happens is you have peace with God. The war is over.
Now, how can you have the peace of God daily in your life? There's only one way. One way. Having trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, now, watch this. The Bible says Jesus said, "I hold the keys of life and death". That means He determines your birth, when and how and what you're like and where you live and where you grow up. He determines the moment in time when He's gonna take your life off this globe. So, the keys to life and death He holds. He's left you a key. Keys of life, He's got it. Keys to death, He's got it. There's one key that you have, and you'll never have any real peace until you turn this key over to Him, and that is the key to your will.
"I will to obey You. I will to follow You". And you may think about it this way. "Well, I have a whole set of keys. Key to my health, key to my possessions, key to my relationships". On and on and on you could go. And what I want to ask is this. Is there any key in your life that He doesn't have? You see, that's why the key is the key to your will because it's in your will and your thinking that you choose whether to live in obedience to Him or not to live in obedience to Him. It's really just this simple.
Do I want peace, or do I not want it? If I want it, I know how to get it. I have Christ in my life, and when I give Him the keys, give Him the key to my will daily, moment by moment, whatever the decision that crops up, when I say, "Lord, You have the key to my will, what would You have me to do"? You're gonna live in peace no matter what your circumstances, no matter what people say, no matter what they do, no matter how things change, how they come and go, your peace will prevail no matter what. So, what am I saying? Your peace, nobody can steal it, nobody can take it away. It's the way you think and the way you respond. If you want the kind of peace I'm talking about, it is a choice that you make. It's a choice to experience that peace. It's a choice to keep that peace. And it's yours for the asking and the turning over of the key to your will.
And Father, how grateful we are. You make things so simple for us and so plain. Just to realize that all the struggle and the fretting and the anxiety and the worry and the doubting and the fears that crop up in our lives, all so unnecessary. And I pray today in Jesus's name that somebody who's listening to this message would decide right now, "I'm trusting Jesus as My Savior, turning it all over to Him, giving the key to my will to the Son of God". For we ask it in His name, amen.