Finding God’s Perfect Peace
Isaiah 26:3-4
Just looking at these last three years brings anxiety.
· We’ve been in a constant health alert around the world with the COVID pandemic and all its variants.
· We have also been thrust into a war that threatens world peace, and there are rumors of more wars to come from another superpower.
· We’re also experiencing a weather change that is seeing our world go through again a time of tremendous drought, which is triggering along with the prior two, that is, the pandemic and war, a worldwide famine, followed by uncontrolled inflation.
· And these have added to the people’s frustration where we are now seeing an increase in violence across the globe.
I think I can be safe in saying that this present world is producing within our population unprecedented fear, uncontrollable anxiety, and just overall feeling trouble. In a way we can liken it to a valley talked about in the Bible, the Valley of Baca, or the Valley of Tears.
“Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, whose heart is set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a spring; the rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength.” (Psalms 84:5-8 NKJV)
This can only happen when our trust is in God, and not in anything or anyone else.
You see, when we go through these times in our lives, we require a refuge from the storms of life, and the Lord is that refuge as He soothes our souls in the midst of our distresses. And we see how this happens in the verse we’ll be looking at today.
“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for in Yah, the Lord, is everlasting strength.” (Isaiah 26:3-4 NKJV)
And so, let’s start our study today looking at this perfect peace.
Perfect Peace
Notice it’s not just peace, but perfect peace.
“You will keep him in perfect peace.”
When we talk about peace, we generally think about it being a temporary state of euphoria, that is, the opposite of agitation, restlessness, confusion, or even alarm. This is the type of peace that the world, and hence the god of this world, Satan wants to give, but this is not the peace that the Lord wants to give to us.
God wants us to have, not only peace with others, but more importantly, peace with Him.
Oswald Sanders, a Christian leader for almost 70 years, and was the general director of China Inland Mission for 15 years and a prolific Christian author with over 75 books, said, “Peace is not the absence of trouble, but the presence of God.”
In other words, true peace, the peace that is going to last into eternity can only be found in the Lord God to is eternal, because the world, and the god of this world, will in the end go down in flames.
Peace is one of the things that God is known for. In his letters to the church in Rome and in Corinth, the Apostle Paul ends saying, “The God of peace be with you all.” (Romans 15:33; 2 Corinthians 13:11)
But God is not just known for peace, it is one of His names, and thus denotes His character.
During the time of the judges, the people of Midian were oppressing the Jewish people, and so, the Angel of the Lord, which is another name for Jesus as found in the Old Testament, what is known as a Theophany, that is, a visible manifestation of God, came to Gideon and called him to lead Israel against the Midianites.
When Gideon realized that this angel was none other than the Lord he was afraid and said, “Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.” And the Lord replied, “Peace to you, do not fear; you shall not die.”
“Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and named it The Lord is Peace [Jehovah Shalom].” (Judges 6:24 NKJV)
We see this beautifully in a picture of the coming Messiah, and one of his titles, or names, in what the prophet Isaiah says.
“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6 NKJV)
And so, what this is saying to us, and what Jesus Himself confirms is that only in Him do we have perfect peace, that is, He is the bringer of true and perfect peace.
“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (John 14:27 NKJV)
As I had mentioned, the peace that this world gives is transitory, that is, it is short lived. You see, the peace that the world offers us is a cessation of fighting, but this is always short lived, maybe a day, maybe a week, maybe a year or so, or maybe a couple of generations, but war and violence always returns.
Therefore, the peace we’re talking about is not the absence of war, trouble, or strife. But with God we can know peace even in turmoil.
But again, please note that it isn’t just peace God is wanting to give to us, but perfect peace.
In the Hebrew text it literally reads, “Thou wilt keep him in peace, peace.” It is a Hebraism expressing emphatic peace; true and real peace; double peace, peace of great depth and vast extent. It is peace upon peace. It is like the waves of the ocean that keeps following one right after another.
The Old Testament word for peace is the word, “shalom.” It’s general meaning is of a “wholeness” or “well-being.” It was a general greeting and farewell, and it was meant to be a blessing of health, security, tranquility, and for the person’s overall welfare.
The Greek word “eiréné” (i-ray'-nay), has the same basic meaning in the New Testament as its Hebrew counterpart expressing the idea of well-being, restoration, reconciliation with God, and salvation.
I once saw a picture of this “perfect peace.” It was of violent waves crashing upon a rocky shoal. Now, that really isn’t a picture of peace. But down in the corner of the picture you can see a tiny bird quietly sitting on its nest, while these waves crashed all around it. This tiny bird knew peace in the midst of a storm.
And one last point, when I think of that picture and then what it says that God will keep us in perfect peace, what I see is that not only will God keep us in peace, but will keep peace in us.
Now, if such perfect peace is desired, there are two basic requirements that Isaiah brings out. The first is having our minds stayed and resting in Christ.
Mind Stayed upon God
“Whose mind is stayed on You.”
To have one’s mind truly stayed on Christ, we must put off, Paul says, our former conduct, and be renewed in the spirit of our minds (Ephesians 4:23)
In other words, if we view God today as believers the way we viewed Him prior to our conversion, then we’re going to have a completely wrong picture of Him, and we’ll never be at peace. For if this is the case, God will be a God of terror and our goal will be to flee from Him, to get as far away from Him as humanly possible.
But if we think of Him as the God of peace, and the giver of perfect peace, we will leave it all behind and come willingly to His altar. And then we will be able not only stay our minds but also to stay our souls upon Him.
We will willingly commit our ways to Him, cast all our care upon Him, and set Him continually before us as we receive His word with gladness and a readiness, expecting its fulfillment.
It is then and only then that we can hope in His goodness and kindness, as we look for Him to anchor our souls in His mercy and grace.
Therefore, to have our minds stayed on God means that we are looking for not only peace of mind but for God to give us a mind of peace.
And what our passage is speaking about is that to have that perfect peace is having a mind that is steadfastly fixed and holding onto God, who is our peace. Peace comes when our thoughts are fixed upon God. It’s when Jesus Christ rules our thoughts.
“Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God (that which takes away our peace), bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5 NKJV)
Now, the word for “mind” denotes anything that is formed by the mind, that is, its thoughts and imaginations. It includes the whole of who we are, beginning with our thought life. Therefore, to have that perfect peace, we must connect everything that we are and what we do with God.
The word, “stayed,” means being at rest. It’s when our thoughts are resting in God’s revealed will, it has within it the idea of coming to a complete stop. And so, when our minds are stayed upon God, we are at a full stop at God, because there are no other pursuits higher and more meaningful.
Therefore, having perfect peace is having a mind that is completely confident in God and therefore won’t be swayed by persecution, poverty, sickness, want, or death.
When Isaiah wrote this, the inhabitants of Judea were in captivity in Babylon. They were subjected to reproach, been stripped of their property and their honor, and reduced from free men and women to now prisoners of war and slaves.
Yet, their confidence in God remained, because their minds were stayed on Him. They still trusted in God and believed in His promise that He will deliver them. Therefore, their minds were kept in perfect peace with God.
The second requirement for God’s perfect peace is having our trust firmly upon the Lord God.
Trusting in God
“Because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever.”
“Trust” means to have confidence in, place reliance upon, reasonably expect, believe, and entrust, that is, to have faith. We are to trust in God and in His love to provide what we need—both in this reality and the next. The Bible warns us not to place trust in our money, job, possessions, others, or even in ourselves.
It is a throwing the fullness of our soul and spirit with all the weight that loads them down, upon the Lord. This is when God’s perfect peace kicks in.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” (Proverbs 3:5-6 NKJV)
Our trust is not in anything or anyone else, but in the Lord God alone. Everything and everyone else are insufficient. We cannot trust our health, because it could be gone tomorrow. We cannot trust our family or friends, because they can betray and turn their backs upon us. We cannot trust in riches, because as the Bible says, they can grow wings and fly away. And we cannot even trust our own righteousness, because as the Bible says, there is no one righteous, no not one.
Therefore, to have the perfect peace of God, we need to depend wholly upon Him and commit all we have to Him. We need to be like a child who trust in his or her parents unreservedly.
There is a story of a young boy and his father who were escaping the bombs that were dropping on England during WWII. When the siren rang, they ran out of their house, and the father found a deep crater from a previous bomb. He immediately jumped in and call for the boy to also jump. The boy hesitated saying that he couldn’t see the father that it was too dark, but the father assured his son that he could see him and that he could jump and that he would catch him. The boy jumped, the father caught him, and they were both saved.
Therefore, our trust in the Lord needs to be for all things, not some, which includes our temporal needs, that is, in sickness and in health, in adversity as well as in prosperity.
We are also to trust Him to give us everything spiritually. Spiritual peace can only be realized in relationship with God. It is realized when we are rightly related to God, and only then will be in right relationship with others.
And we are to trust Him with our eternal needs. In saying our eternal needs, where I get this is from our passage in how we are to trust in the Lord “forever.” That is, in time and eternity.
When we have that perfect peace, we can rest in the strength of His everlasting arms knowing that He has our best interest at heart and knows what we need.
Our trust in God should then be unwavering because He is deserving of our highest confidence. He is our all-powerful and all-knowing savior. He has unconditional love, boundless mercy, unending grace, unchanging goodness, and is our eternal truth.
Conclusion
He is the God of all comfort, a fountain of living water in times of trouble, a hiding place during the storms, and He is the joy in a world searching for happiness.
Peace can be ours despite our present situation. In other words, we can be just has happy and joy-filled in affliction as we can when we don’t have affliction, that is, when the Lord is with us and within us. To leave everything with God, trusting in Him, because of His everlasting strength—this is peace.
Therefore, if we want to have God’s perfect peace, that peace that passes all understanding, then we need to keep our hearts and minds fixed upon God. If we want then that perfect piece we need to keep our minds continually stayed on God, trusting Him for all things including our lives, for He is our everlasting strength.
