Some time ago, the AARP Bulletin asked readers to respond to the question: What's your strategy for coping with stress? The answers ranged from “eat a chocolate chip cookie” to “have a stiff drink.” But Don Betz of Oakdale, Minnesota, offered his own unique solution. Every January 1st, Betz says, “I give my wife $1, and she worries about everything for both of us.”
But that is not the whole plan. Betz added, “If someone else wants to be worry free, they can also send her a dollar” (“Sound Off,” AARP Bulletin, March 2005; www.PreachingToday.com).
A lot of people are looking for peace these days. In a world filled with stress, they’re looking for rest. With their days filled with worry, they’re looking for real security, but most of the time they never find it.
So where do you find real security today? Where do you find a real and lasting peace? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Isaiah 9, Isaiah 9, where we discover the source of real peace.
Isaiah 9:5 For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.
All the garments of war will be burned up. In other words, there will be no more war! Why?
Isaiah 9:6-7a For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end…
Peace is not found in any place. Peace is not found in any treaty or ban on guns. Peace is found only in a Person, and that person is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Prince of Peace – literally, the captain or the ruler of peace. And when the government of the world rests on His shoulders, then and only then will there be world peace.
But you say, “Phil, I can’t wait until then. I need peace in my life right now! How can I get that peace today?” It’s very simple. Just let the government of your life rest on Jesus’ shoulders today. You don’t have to wait until Jesus comes to rule and reign on this earth. Just let the Prince of Peace rule and reign in your life right now. Just let Christ take control of your life today. If you do, then you will…
FIND THE PEACE OF GOD.
You will discover a supernatural serenity. God will give you a calmness of heart that is unexplainable.
In John 14:27, Jesus told his disciples, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”
Now, Jesus spoke this the night before he died on a cross! His peace is not like the world’s peace. It is not based on the surrounding circumstances. Instead, it is based on the sure realities of heaven.
Two artists set out to paint a picture representing perfect peace. The first created a scene depicting a carefree schoolboy sitting in a boat on a quiet lake without a ripple to disturb the surface.
The second artist painted a raging waterfall spewing out its spray in every direction. But above the waterfall, on a limb overhanging the swirling water, a bird sat quietly on her nest (M. R. Dehann).
That’s real peace, and that’s the kind of peace Jesus promises to all who follow Him—not the absence of turmoil, but tranquility in the midst of turmoil.
Philippians 4:6-7 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Where do we find that peace? We find it in Jesus Christ, for He is the PRINCE of peace.
Pro baseball player R.A. Dickey was the 2012 National League Cy Young Award winner, the highest honor for a pitcher. But Dickey's career almost ended before it started. In 1996, the Texas Rangers made him their #1 draft pick and offered him an $810,000 contract. All he had to do was pass a routine team physical. But unknown to Dickey, the physical revealed that his right elbow was missing its ulnar collateral ligament.
As Dickey, a committed follower of Christ, entered training camp he uttered a prayer of gratitude: "Thank you, Lord, for all your blessings and for helping me get this far." But shortly after that prayer, his agent pulled him into a meeting with Doug Melvin, the Rangers general manager. Melvin flatly said, "We are going to retract our offer. We think there's something wrong with your elbow."
Dickey writes:
I try to take in those words for a second or two: We are going to retract our offer … I don't feel devastation, or even anger. I feel rage. Complete rage. It feels as if it starts in my toes and blasts upward through my body like a tsunami, into my guts and right up through the top of my head … [I want to tell Melvin] about … how this is the one thing … that I can do right and that makes me somebody … I want to make sure he knows [that] he's matter-of-factly dropped this atomic bomb on my baseball career. On my life.
[But] it's as if there's a strong hand on my shoulder holding me back, giving me pause. In that instant I have a self-control that wasn't there a moment earlier. I hear a voice: "Relax, I've got you. Relax, R.A. It's okay … I've got you." The voice is the Holy Spirit … I was just talking to God in prayer and now he is talking back, giving me a composure that could not have come from anywhere else. The tsunami passes. I am crushed by Doug Melvin's words but I am not going to do anything stupid … "I've got you" (R.A. Dickey with Wayne Coffey, Wherever I Wind Up, Plume, 2013, pp. 97-99; www.PreachingToday.com).
That’s what’s God says to you in the turmoil of your life if you care to listen—“I’ve got you.” Just give it all to Him in prayer. Commit your life to Him. Let the government of your life rest on His shoulders today. Let the Prince of Peace reign in your life right now and so find the peace OF God. More than that, when you let the government of your life rest on Christ’s shoulders, you will…
FIND PEACE WITH GOD, as well.
When you trust Christ as your savior, He makes you right with God. He makes you friends with the Almighty.
Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The moment you put your faith in Christ, He not only declares you righteous; He welcomes you into His family!
In his book Hidden in Plain Sight, author and pastor Mark Buchanan writes about a woman named Regine. Originally from Rwanda, Regine came to Christ while reading her sister's Bible during the genocide that ravaged her country. When she fled to Canada for refuge, she met her husband, Gordon. They decided to return to Rwanda to show the love of Christ to the people who had once been her enemies. This is the story Regine told Mark Buchanan:
A woman's only son was killed. She was consumed with grief and hate and bitterness. “God,” she prayed, “reveal my son's killer.”
One night she dreamed she was going to heaven. But there was a complication: in order to get to heaven she had to pass through a certain house. She had to walk down the street, enter the house through the front door, go through its rooms, up the stairs, and exit through the back door.
She asked God whose house this was.
“It's the house,” he told her, “of your son's killer.”
The road to heaven passed through the house of her enemy.
Two nights later, there was a knock at her door. She opened it, and there stood a young man. He was about her son's age.
“Yes?”
He hesitated. Then he said, “I am the one who killed your son. Since that day, I have had no life. No peace. So here I am. I am placing my life in your hands. Kill me. I am dead already. Throw me in jail. I am in prison already. Torture me. I am in torment already. Do with me as you wish.”
The woman had prayed for this day. Now it had arrived, and she didn't know what to do. She found, to her own surprise, that she did not want to kill him. Or throw him in jail. Or torture him. In that moment of reckoning, she found she only wanted one thing: a son.
“I ask this of you. Come into my home and live with me. Eat the food I would have prepared for my son. Wear the clothes I would have made for my son. Become the son I lost.”
And so he did Mark Buchanan, Hidden in Plain Sight, Thomas Nelson, 2007, pp. 187-189; www.PreachingToday.com).
Now, that’s exactly what God wants to do for you! You see, you and I killed his son. It was our sin that put Him on the cross. But when you come to Him admitting your sin, instead of killing or torturing you, He gives you the right to be called His children.
The Bible says, “[Jesus] came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:11-12).
Why don’t you welcome Christ into your life? Let the government of your life rest on His shoulders and experience His peace. First, find the peace OF God. Then find peace WITH God. And finally, when you let the Prince of Peace reign in your life, you will…
FIND PEACE WITH OTHERS TOO.
God will break down the barriers. He will make it possible for you to forgive and love your enemies.
If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Ephesians 2, Ephesians 2, where this is made very clear.
Ephesians 2:12 Remember that you were… separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
Without Christ you were in bad shape. You were far away from God. You were far away from God’s people, and you were far away from God’s peace. But…
Ephesians 2:13 …now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Christ’s cross is the bridge that brings people together. His cross is the bridge that makes a way for you to God and to His people.
Ephesians 2:14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one…
I.e., He brought together Jew and Gentile. He brought them together into one body, the church, and He caused those who once hated and despised each other to become friends. Jesus “has made us both one…”
Ephesians 2:14 …and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.
Ephesians 2:15 …by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances…
You see, the cross of Christ is not only the bridge that brings us near. The cross is the battering ram which demolishes the walls that divide us. So why did Jesus do it? Why did He shed His blood? Why did He die on a cross?
Ephesians 2:15b -16 …that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
Jesus died on the cross to bring people together, to reconcile them with their God AND with each other.
In the 1950’s, the world was shocked when five missionaries were killed trying to reach the Waudani’s with the Gospel. Later, the tribe welcomed the wife of one of the martyred missionaries and the sister of another into their community. That’s when translation work on the New Testament began.
Translators had difficulty putting the word “reconciled” into the Waudani language. They searched and searched for an equivalent word but found none.
Then, one day, a translator was traveling through the jungle with some of the Auca Indians. They came to a narrow, deep ravine, and the missionary thought they could go no further. The Aucas, however, took out their machetes and cut down a large tree so that it fell over the ravine, permitting them all to cross safely.
The translator, listening intently to the Aucas, discovered that they had a word for “tree across the ravine.” It was the word they had been looking for to express the word “reconciled.”
Jesus’ cross, the tree upon which He died, is your “tree across the ravine.” It is your bridge across the chasm that separates you from God and others.
What the law could not do in demanding peace and love, the cross of Christ did for those who trust Him. When you come to faith in Christ, He begins to change you from the inside out. He puts peace in your heart, and makes it possible for you to love those you once hated.
A long time ago, Charles Schultz created a Peanuts cartoon with Lucy saying to Charlie Brown, “I hate everything. I hate everybody. I hate the whole wide world!”
To which Charlie says, “But I thought you had inner peace.”
Lucy replies: “I do have inner peace. But I still have outer obnoxiousness” (Barbara Brokhoff, New and Improved Jesus? C.S.S., 1991, p.53)
Well, let me tell you: When Jesus gives inner peace, He also takes away the outer obnoxiousness. He takes away the bitterness and anger that plague so many people.
Charles Galbreath, a pastor of Clarendon Road Church in Brooklyn, New York, tells the story of a black man gunned down by police in his neighborhood. Anger seethed in the neighborhood. Frustration from years of racial oppression was about to erupt in violence. Many people lined up to march down the main street while police gathered, expecting violence.
Charles and a group of pastors rushed to the gathering place and found themselves caught in the middle between the police and the people. Tensions were rising. Insults were being hurled across the divide. One side picked up rocks, the other side clutched their guns. The pastors feared for their lives; bullets could fly at any moment.
Galbreath said that some of the pastors spontaneously walked into the middle of the street between the two warring parties, bowed their heads, and started to pray. They implored God to visit this place. As Charles tells it, slowly the tension died down, the people put down the rocks, and the police took their hands off their holsters. Those who cared stayed. And without a shot fired or rock thrown, conversations began, and God's presence appeared that night in that community. It was the beginning of something new God was doing to bring justice and reconciliation to a street corner (David Fitch, Seven Practices for the Church on Mission, IVP Praxis, 2018, pp. 124-125; www.PreachingToday.com).
My dear friends, that’s why Jesus came. He came to turn enemies into friends, to bring them together so they can glorify Christ together. Now, if God can do that on the streets of New York, He can do the same in your broken relationships. He can heal broken marriages. He can heal broken families. He can heal broken churches. He can heal any broken relationship through the power of the cross.
Please, let Him do it for you. Trust Christ with your life and your eternal destiny. Let the government of your life rest on His shoulders. Let the Prince of Peace reign in your life right now. Then you will find the peace OF God, peace WITH God, and peace with others, as well.
On Christmas day in 1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was sitting in his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The bells of a nearby church were ringing, but he found no joy in them. Early in his career, he had taken a fearless stand against slavery, but now his country was deeply divided by the Civil War, and his son – a young army lieutenant – had been wounded in battle. As those church bells rang, he began to put his thoughts on paper:
There is no peace on earth, he wrote.
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
Yet as he continued to listen to those bells, a new and profound thought entered his head:
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
God is not dead; nor doth He sleep!
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men! (Guideposts Magazine, December 1988, pp.28-29)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow found peace in the midst of his turmoil, and so can you. Just let the government of your life rest on Christ’s shoulders.
