In today’s episode of the In Touch Podcast, Charles Stanley invites you to explore the transformative power of peace through Jesus Christ. As we celebrate the Christmas season, we delve into what it truly means to experience peace that calms our worries and transforms our hearts. Throughout the episode, Charles explains how understanding the nature of peace and its source can lead to profound changes in our daily lives.
Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Christmas Day. Jesus reigns as the eternal Prince of Peace. This season, take a few moments with us to discover what it really means to experience His peace, a peace that transforms your heart, calms your worries, and can be yours every day.
SPEAKER 02 :
Which one of these words best describes your present emotions? Conflict, hopelessness, anger. emptiness, loneliness. We could just go on down the list of those emotions that oftentimes just absolutely overpower people. I wonder where the emotion of peace fits in that. For some people, they’d say, well, peace is sort of out there somewhere. I don’t even know what it is. Sometimes I think I have it, sometimes I don’t. And so peace to them is something they hope one of these days they may be able to grasp. But you know what? Most people never will. Because they avoid the very essence of what peace is all about. And in this message, you will hear me talk about what this peace is all about and how you can lose it. And you say, well, I don’t think I’ve ever found it. I want to show you how you can really find it. And I want us to turn, if you will, to a passage in the Old Testament and the ninth chapter of Isaiah. Beginning in the sixth verse of Isaiah chapter nine, For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace. on the throne of David and over his kingdoms, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness, from then on and forevermore. And how will all that happen? The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. Then I want you to turn, if you will, to the fourteenth chapter of John. And in this fourteenth chapter, Jesus is speaking to his disciples. He’s going to be crucified the next day. He’s telling them some of the most precious things that he has said in three years. And he says, for example, in the 25th verse of this 14th chapter, These things I’ve spoken to you while abiding with you, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name. There’s the Trinity right there in one verse. Look at that. Now, He’s talking to them about having peace. And He’s also at the same time saying, I’m going to lay down my life, which means He was going to die. He also said, you’re going to have tribulation. He also said, you’re going to be outcast. Now, to be able to talk about peace in that kind of environment and to mix those comments along with what He said about peace didn’t seem to make any sense. And they were confused, and they were frustrated. And so they were asking Him, and in fact, He could read that in their minds. And so He said to them, look, He said, I’m not going to leave you as orphans. He said, I’m going to send the Holy Spirit He’ll be in you, with you, and upon you. He’ll be the one who enables you to do whatever you have to do. He’ll be the one, for example, who brings to your mind everything that I’ve said so that you’ll be able to remember it. So, in the midst of all of this, Jesus is talking about peace. When they knew all about war and slavery and poverty, they knew all about the uncertainties of life and the needs of life. And here He was, having spent three years with them, and now He says, I’m leaving. And here’s what you can expect. You can expect tribulation. You can expect to be called an outcast. You can expect to even have to lay down your life as a result of following Me. All of these things, and somehow they didn’t, they just didn’t fit. So, what I want to talk about in this message is this. In that Isaiah passage, Jesus is called the Prince of Peace. Why is it that Jesus is the Prince of Peace? Why is He called the Prince of Peace? Does that have any effect in your life and mine? And the answer is, indeed it does. And what I want you to see in this passage here, in John primarily, I want you to see how important it is that you and I understand what real peace is. and where real peace comes from, and how many people have been duped into believing that they have peace when they really don’t. So, let’s think about it for just a moment. And when I think about what Jesus said to them and how they responded, they had a reason to be confused because He talked about The fact that He could call down legions of angels and the Father would respond. And now He says, you’re going to face tribulation. I’m going to die. They’re going to think they’re doing God a service because they’re going to kill you. It didn’t match. So, here’s the first thing I want us to look at here, and that’s simply this, that Jesus secured our peace, listen, through His substitutionary death on the cross. Now, watch this carefully. Because there is a difference between peace with God and the peace of God. And so, Jesus, sent by the Father, He came for the primary purpose of doing what? We say, well, He came for the primary purpose of dying on the cross. But what was His goal? To make it possible for mankind, distant from God. These are the words the Scripture uses, alienated. enemies separated these were the words that describe mankind’s relationship to god jesus came in order to do what to bring sinful alienated separated mankind into a relationship with the living god and how did he do that and how could he do that god being absolutely holy and man being sinful prophesied all the way back to the garden of eden And the issue was that sin separates man from God. When you trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you experienced peace with God. The war was over. You gave up your rebellion. You gave up your insistence on having it your way. You said, Lord, You’re right. I’m asking You to forgive me and to cleanse me from my sins. Well, why did He do it? Not simply because you asked. He did it because Jesus, His only begotten Son, came into the world and took your sin debt in mind, all of our guilt, all of our penalty, He placed upon Jesus Christ who died on the cross. And when He died, what did He do? He closed the gap between sinful mankind and what? Almighty God. He closed the gap. He made it possible. He dealt with the issue. He dealt with the one thing that kept us from being close to God, and that’s sin. And when He died on the cross, He paid our sin debt in full, and therefore the Bible says, therefore, being justified by faith, we have, watch this, peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, so you say, what’s that justification mean? Therefore, being justified by faith. What happens is, when Christ paid our sin debt in full, that made it possible, watch this carefully, for God to look upon sinful mankind, and forgive him of his sins and declare him no longer guilty. But what? One of his children. And every single person who accepts Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, they join hands with God at that moment. They become a child of God, in the family of God, of the household of God, and are eternally secure as the children of God, all because of what Jesus Christ did. He is the Prince of Peace. That’s where it all begins. He and He alone, the sinless Son of God, the Lamb of God, He and He alone could have paid that price to reconcile man with God. So, when we think about the peace of God and peace with God, that settled the issue that now anybody and everyone can have a relationship with Him, Because Jesus has paved the way with His blood. You hear once in a while somebody saying, what’s all that blood got to do with it? Everything. Because you see, all the way back to the garden, all the way through the Old Testament, all those sacrifices were a foreshadowing of the one final sacrifice that would make it possible for the Father to to bring together with Himself sinful mankind. He secured your peace. Now, watch this carefully. Since He secured your peace, and the only peace that’s real peace, the only peace that’s lasting peace, the only peace that’s genuine peace, since He secured it, why do you think that somehow you and your sinful condition can be brought together in a relationship with holy God? And ignore the only one who could have, the only one whom God sent to make it possible to do what? To reconcile sinful man with holy God. You must remember that God is holy, tolerates no sin, and therefore cannot excuse sin. He doesn’t excuse sin, He forgives. And Jesus Christ’s death brought about that relationship. Therefore, when a person says, I don’t need Jesus, well tell me what do you have? You have nothing. The testimony of Almighty God is this testimony by Jesus. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. Why? Because He is the only one. And that transaction was the only transaction that made it possible for sinful mankind to be joined with the Lord God and have eternal life. That’s the first point. The second point is simply this. When you think about that relationship, think about it in this light. Listen, He not only secured that peace, but He is the source of our peace on a daily basis through our personal relationship with Him. Because people say, well, sometimes I have peace and sometimes I don’t. Listen to these verses. And Jesus makes it so very clear. In this fourteenth chapter, listen to what He said. He said, peace I leave with you. Now watch this. He’s the one who secured it. No one else, there’s not a soul in history or ever will be who could secure that peace to the cross. Let’s know what He said. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. So, how do we experience this peace? Now, peace with God means the war is over and I’ve trusted Him as my Savior, I’m His child. But what about I have to live on Monday morning? I have to live through difficulty, hardships, trials, turbulence, tribulation and all. How do we have peace in a world that’s so messed up like ours is? How can God expect us to have peace in a world like this? For the simple reason, listen, number one, He made it possible by bringing us together with the Father through His death. Secondly, He came not only to die for us, but to dwell in us. He said, I am abiding in you and you are abiding in Me. That is, Jesus Christ lives His life in and through the believer in the presence of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ in you, Jesus said, I’m abiding in you. I’m living in you, you’re living in me. He used the branch of the grapevine to show that relationship, that a branch can’t produce anything unless it’s connected to the vine. The sap that runs in the vine runs in the branch, produces the grapes. It’s a relationship. And so, watch this carefully, all true genuine peace is the result of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. There is nothing else that can produce that kind of peace. Now, the word peace simply means this. It simply means to bond together, to weave together. It’s this whole idea of being one. And when we have His peace, we, listen, we are one with Him. And I want to show you how futile it is, how absolutely futile and mistaken and blinded people are to think that they can have peace and reject Jesus Christ, the Son of God. They may have a lifestyle, they don’t have peace. And it’s so interesting to me when I talk to people and just once in a while, sometimes people come to the line or other times and And they’ll give me the problem and so forth, and I’ll ask what’s going on. And the longer they talk, the more they tell me. And the more they tell me, the more it’s very evident that Jesus is nowhere in the situation. And they’ve trusted this and trusted that and talked to him and talked to her and believed this and tried that, and somehow they don’t have any peace. Because you see, watch this, and I’m going to say it many times in this sermon. The peace of God, that tranquility and calmness and quietness that makes it possible for you to walk through the most difficult trying times of your life, that peace comes in a relationship. You can’t buy it. You can’t borrow it or for it. It is a relationship. And that relationship is only with one person, and that’s Jesus Christ. And when I look at these passages and see what Jesus said, for example, do not let your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in Me. And what He’s really saying is, do not let your heart be troubled any longer. And then the fourteen, fifteen, sixteen chapters are wonderful chapters of His assurance. that made all the difference in the world for them. And so, when you come to this whole idea of His peace, what kind of peace is that? When you have a relationship with Jesus, there is this sense of quietness and tranquility and calmness that’s indescribable. Because what happens when you have that kind of relationship, you can walk through any kind of difficulty, hardship, pain, suffering, you name it. Because what? Because He’s the source of our peace. It isn’t something you have to do. It is not something you can buy. As I said, it’s His presence. When you have Jesus, you have everything. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, three Persons of the Trinity, which make up one, the Trinity. And when we have Him, we have everything we could possibly need. And Paul said, Jesus is our peace. So when you have Him, you have peace living and abiding within you. And so when you try to describe that peace, I think about it like this. Out in the ocean, winds a hundred and fifty miles an hour, waves are humongous. And on the surface, it is tumultuous. 100 feet deep, quiet, still, calm, nothing going on. When a person learns to walk in a relationship with Jesus, it doesn’t make any difference what’s on the surface. Deep, deep, deep down inside, there’s something there. And you see, the two verses of Scripture, and I want you to get these two down. Whenever you face anything as a child of God, if you’re not a believer, it doesn’t work. Whenever you face any kind of trial, you say, well, what do I do first? How do I keep from getting all messed up in my thinking and saying, God, where are You? Two things, only two, listen carefully. Number one, here’s what you say. You say, Father, here’s what You said. You cause all things to work together for my good. God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him, to those who call according to His purpose. Lord, you said, whatever I’m going through, you’re going to turn it for my good. The second thing you think is this and realize. Lord, you said, you’ve established your throne in the heavens and your sovereignty rules over everything. You’re ruling over my circumstance. You’re aware of my circumstance. You know what’s going on. You promised to walk with me through it and you promised to turn it for my good in somehow, in some way. No matter what you’re going through. When those two verses of Scripture become reality within you, and you claim those, and you believe what He said, either it is true or it’s not true. And you see, the problem is we come to situations that causes a lot of turbulence and heartache and pain and suffering. And then we say, where’s God? No, no, no, that’s not the right question. You know where He is. He’s living on the inside of you, ready and willing to release in you the comfort and the confidence and the boldness and the courage. and assurance that you need that He’s going to take you through it. If that’s not true, then there’s nothing to this whole idea of a Christian faith. That’s who Jesus is. And that’s what He was saying to them. He said to them, He said, look, I’m not going to leave you as orphans. He said, I’m going to send the Holy Spirit Look at this. He says, I’m going to send the Holy Spirit, and He’s going to be in you, with you, and upon you. And if you’ll think about this verse for a moment, when people say, well, you know, I just don’t believe in the Trinity and all that. So I want you to listen to this verse. Verse 26 of John 14, Jesus speaking, but the Helper, and He identifies Him, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name. There’s the Trinity in one single verse. And He says, what is He going to do? He says, when these things come, here’s what I want you to remember. The helper, the Holy Spirit within you, living my life through you, He’s going to teach you all things, bring all things to your remembrance. My peace, peace I leave with you is my peace I give to you. He says, don’t let your heart be troubled. Don’t let it be fearful. Why? He says, because I am there. I am with you. I am in you. I am going to walk with you through this. And remember, I’m going to cause everything going on to turn for your good. And secondly, remember that I am in absolute control. I can stop it, I can change it, I can leave it because I’m going to accomplish my purpose in it all.
SPEAKER 01 :
This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
