-Transcript-
00:35 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:39 Welcome to KJV Cafe. I hope you’re doing great today. Today we’re talking about peace.
00:45 Peace with God. How to have peace with God. How good does that sound today? How good does it sound to have peace with our Lord Savior Jesus Christ day in and day out? Amen.
00:58 Because if you’re not a Christian you definitely don’t have peace. Amen. You don’t even know what peace looks like.
01:04 And if you are a Christian, chances are your peace has been disrupted. It’s been interrupted. It’s dealt with all of the problems of life in a way that it kind of sometimes dissolves and goes away.
01:19 And if you’re listening and saying, Brother Clark, I’ve got great peace. Amen. More power to you.
01:27 Glory to God. I wish you could help me preach this then. But I’ll tell you what, the truth is, peace with God in your day to day is possible.
01:33 And we’re going to start with who offers us peace. By who? Romans 5:1. Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We are justified by faith.
01:49 That means that only by believing on what Christ did on the cross, dying for us. The idea here is that substitutionary death Christ took upon his shoulders, our sin, and Him being perfect, He didn’t have any sin. So he said, okay, I’ll die for their sins and they’ll inherit my righteousness when they believe on me.
02:09 He made that perfect sacrifice. He is the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. Amen.
02:14 And God provided the Lamb, the perfect, sinless, spotless Lamb, so that we could be saved. And so having peace with God starts by understanding that our peace only comes through Christ. Amen.
02:26 When you’re in a tough time, when you’re going through turmoil, when you’re struggling, I want you to think about Jesus. Think on Jesus. I was reading a book recently, it was all about glorying Jesus, beholding Jesus, and glorying in His glory, and understanding who He is.
02:41 A whole book about it. It’s an incredible book that makes you really think about how often do we behold Jesus and think on Jesus and what He’s done for us. And by the way, that will bring you great peace in your day-to-day.
02:54 But beyond that just being a mechanism for delivering peace, that is actually how we’re saved and how we have peace. Because we are reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. There’s a verse here in 2 Corinthians 5:19, to wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
03:20 You may hear that people are in the ministry of reconciliation. We are reconciled to God through Christ. And so we have peace with God through Christ.
03:29 That means that we can go to God in prayer and we thank him as we start our prayers, and we praise Him as we pray, and we make our supplications known, and we have intercessory prayer, which means we pray for others. And we do these things directly with God through our mediator, Jesus Christ, because what he has done on the cross. You can see a picture of not having this in the Old Testament, where the Israelites, God’s chosen people, were not able to directly access God in that regard.
03:57 They had to go through the priests, and the priests could only go into the temple every so often, and they had to be pure and holy, and they had to be clean, they had to be washed, and there was many, many rules. And if you broke one of those rules, you could die. And there was no peace with God.
04:10 There was a veil there, a veil that covered the Holy of Holies. And that veil, my friend, was rent into or torn into as Christ died on the cross, amen? Because now we have access to the Father by what Jesus Christ did on the cross. And so to have peace with God in our day-to-day, we need to understand that Christ is the reason we have peace with God, and Christ makes God accessible to us.
04:34 Some people, they want to get a cell phone with a unlimited plan. Well, guess what? We have an unlimited prayer plan, and our God’s battery never dies, amen? He is perfect. He is omnipresent.
04:44 My Bible tells me that God never gets tired, that God has all the energy in the world, that God is all sovereign. What is too big for God, the Bible asks? I would say nothing. God is all-powerful.
04:54 He’s all-knowing. He’s all present. And through the working of the Holy Spirit, which you get when you’re saved, friend, by the working of that Holy Spirit, then you can connect with God directly.
05:04 You can pray to Him directly. You don’t need a person to mediate. We pray by the Holy Spirit, through the Mediator Christ, who’s at the right hand of the Father, to Father God.
05:16 So, by the Holy Spirit, through Christ, to Father God. That’s how we pray, and that’s how we can have peace in our day-to-day. I mean, really, I could park it there, but we’re gonna keep going.
05:27 How we have peace in our restless souls, because remember, we’re saved, amen? But we’re still in this flesh. We’re still in this broken body. I was climbing up the stairs, chasing my young son, and I fell up.
05:43 I fell up the stairs. How embarrassing. I face-planted on the stairs.
05:49 I took a good knock on the stairs. Man, it was ugly. I’m getting old now.
05:52 I’m not a young person anymore. I gotta bounce off the stairs like I used to. And it reminded me that I’m still in the flesh.
05:58 I mean, literally, I had to sit down. I had to sit down and collect myself after that little spill, and I realized I’m not perfect. I’m not physically intact.
06:07 I’m not able to do a lot of things, maybe, that I could have when I was 20, per se. But you know what I can do is, even though I’m flawed as an individual, I can go to Christ in prayer. I can go and pray to the Lord directly, and I can spend time with Him by the Holy Spirit living within me.
06:32 It’s not by anything that I can do. In fact, the Bible says the Holy Spirit utters things to God that we can’t even articulate, that we can’t even explain. Romans 15:13, Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.
06:45 Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through, through the power of you, of someone else, of some machine. No, through the power of the Holy Ghost, capital H, capital G, we have the power of the Holy Ghost living within us. I’ll tell you an honest, I’ll be very candid, I was upset about a situation the other day, and I was also physically very tired and fatigued, and I asked the Lord, I said this, I said, Lord, in prayer, I don’t think the Lord would mind me explaining this here on the radio, because maybe it could help and bless someone else.
07:20 I said, God, I can’t do this, but by the Holy Spirit, can you help me? That was my prayer, and I know the Lord knew what I was talking about, and I can’t say that all my problems went away and everything was great, but I can say that I had peace, and that I had a joy that I’m missing that day a little bit, and I was able to function, I was able to do okay, Amen, I was able to laugh and smile, and again, it’s nothing in me, right? I’m not part of this world, Amen, I’m passing through, so I should feel a little uncomfortable in this world, and so how do I have comfort? It comes from the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, Amen
07:59 We can see that we live through biblical doctrine, right? So we want to live this out, so it’s how is by Christ alone, and then how do we do it personally, not in our own effort, but by the Holy Ghost working through us, amen? We can’t take credit for anything good we do, it’s the Holy Ghost living within us, working through us, and then we live this out through biblical doctrine
08:23 Philippians 4:9, those things which you have both learned and received and heard and seen in me do, and the God of peace shall be with you. Who wrote the book of Philippians? That’s Paul. What was Paul teaching us throughout Philippians and the other epistles or letters that he wrote? I just came up with a short list.
08:48 He told us to pray without ceasing, that’s 1 Thessalonians 5, and by Him I’m saying the Holy Ghost working through him told us to pray without ceasing. That means pray all the time, that means having peace in this life, we need to pray. Here Paul says in Philippians 4:9, do these things and the God of peace shall be with you, the God of peace, you want peace, pray without ceasing.
09:10 How about right there in 1 Thessalonians 5, you got rejoice always, also Philippians 4, rejoice always, rejoice in what? Rejoice in Christ and what he’s done for you, rejoice in God, rejoice in God’s promises, rejoice in the heavenly reward to come, rejoice in the glorious time to come, rejoice in who God is and what he’s done for you, rejoice in the opportunities He’s given you in the ministry, rejoice in the godly things. How about rejoicing in eternal security?
09:35 We’re saved by grace, Ephesians 2, the idea that we are saved forever by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, amen, and so we can rejoice in that and we can take comfort in that and that should bring us peace. I mean those three right there will give you a ton of peace every day if you prayed without ceasing, if you were always rejoicing in what God did for you and who God is and you had an understanding of your salvation, eternal security, 100% once saved always saved, understanding that will give you great peace, but I’ll go on here.
10:08 How about in Galatians 5 where Paul mentions the fruit of the Spirit, love and joy and peace and long-suffering and gentleness and goodness and faith and meekness and temperance, the idea of moderation, us doing these things, living these things out, really loving our neighbors, really having joy, being long-suffering and patient, showing goodness, being meek, having faith, all of these speak to the idea of not arguing, not getting into petty problems and not putting ourselves in bad situations and being sober minded and all these things,
10:40 so living out the fruit of the Spirit will give you great peace. How about thinking on the idea of what’s true and honest and good report as mentioned in Philippians 4, Philippians 4:8, think on these things, true, honest, just, pure, lovely, good report, any virtue, any praise, I have that printed out above my computer to remind me of what to think about. You want peace? Think about what’s true and honest and just.
11:06 You spend some time kind of pondering those things, you’ll realize that that’s Christ, amen, that’s Christ, and so you put your mind on Christ. How about teaching, preaching, and serving until he returns, 1 Corinthians 15:58, therefore my beloved brethren be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. And so Paul gives us so much doctrine here, the idea that we should be working for the Lord, that our labor is not in vain, and so I want you to see this twofold.
11:38 Number one, Paul’s given us a prescription for how to live and have peace in this life. He’s given us a bunch of things to do. And secondly, I was able to make this list by the working of the Holy Spirit and by being able to study my Bible.
11:53 And so one benefit of being a preacher is I have to study the Bible to be prepared to teach the congregation and to preach on the radio, and so therefore I study the Bible a lot. And when I study the Bible, I have great peace because I have God’s Word ringing through my head and ringing through my heart, and I got all the other worldly junk out of there. And so I want you to think about this in two ways.
12:14 Number one, there’s a prescription for how to live from Paul in Thessalonians and Philippians and Ephesians and Galatians and Corinthians. It’s all in there, Amen So start reading Paul in the Bible and applying these traits to you to your life. As I understand it, Paul always wrote to the believer, Amen, and he’s writing to you if you’re saved.
12:34 And then secondly, get in God’s Word and that’s gonna help bring you peace and bring you joy because God’s gonna communicate, you know, the Bible’s called the Living Word, amen? God’s gonna communicate through His Word what you need to know to help you have peace in your life. And so if you don’t have peace in your life, ask yourself, do I understand that Christ alone is my Savior and that’s my mediator and that’s how I have peace? Do I understand that the world is not right here today?
13:01 The world is lying, Isaiah 57:21, there is nopeace, saith my God, to the wicked. Anyone that is living wicked by God’s standard, not my standard, God’s standard, anyone that’s living wicked has no peace, amen? And so we realize we don’t live by the world’s standards, we live by God’s standards, we understand that Christ saved us, and then we get into these Pauline epistles or the letters from Paul and we start understanding how we are to live.
13:27 And we understand and apply these things. Don’t read, pray without ceasing, and then pray once a day. Read, pray without ceasing, and then say, okay, I’m gonna commit to at least praying every hour, every three hours, every five hours.
13:40 You should be having an ongoing dialogue with the Lord, and that dialogue should start with thanksgiving and repentance. Thanking God and asking Him to forgive you of your sins, asking Him to reveal to you what your sins are. And as you get into the Word, God will do a mighty, mighty work through you and with you, and rejoicing in who He is, rejoicing in your eternal security, thinking on the fruit of the Spirit and on the lovely things, and serving Him and working for Him until He returns will keep you happy and at peace.
14:09 Try it. It is wonderful. Thank you for listening.
14:13 Take care. God bless and Amen.