Ten Truths For the New Millennium VII, God's Path to Personal Peace

Let's look at God's word and see if we can't address this issue of understanding God's power to overcome stress. What do you think of these beautiful Christmas decorations? Aren't they wonderful? I just so appreciate the people that served us. It's a beautiful tree and you know, folks were here for hours and hours yesterday. And again, you can be part of helping and serving some small way in the future. So just keep that in mind as you enjoy these things today. There's no doubt about the fact that this is the most stressful season of the year, isn't it? I wanted to start with a little survey, a little hands-up survey. So let's do this together. How many of you already have your Christmas cards done, ready to send? Let me see your hands. I hate that. I mean, are you serious? You really have your, they're ready to go? Unbelievable. How many of you have all of your shopping done? Maybe you should come up and do this message because I'm just nervous. How many of you did outdoor decorations yesterday on the nice day you got out there and you did that? You know, we've got business parties and we've got social engagements and we've got all these. How many of you have out-of-town family guests coming to stay? Oh, that's fun, isn't it? For like a day, you know, maybe two. That can be a real stress bomb right there, can't it? And then the church. I mean, the church has all these things happening. If this church didn't do something, we had a wonderful, Wednesday night was terrific. The children did a great job. The kids ministry did live from Bethlehem. They had like a little reporter and it was just creative. This Wednesday night we're having a carol sing at 7.30. One of the warmest, most engaging nights of the year. We just come and sing carols and there's some special music presented and it's a great thing to bring some friends to. So all these things are happening but they do mount up and create a lot of stress. But stress is a fact of life. And in fact, if you don't have some stress in your life, you're not going to accomplish anything. Isn't that true? I asked Greg to hang on here for a second. He's got his very expensive guitar that he's going to let me hold for just a moment. Thank you. And this, as you know, these strings have a certain amount of tension. And if it didn't have the tension, if I just wound these things down, you wouldn't hear it, there wouldn't be any sound. And if I wind the tension too high, what's going to happen? It's going to snap. And life is that way. If there's no tension in your life, if there's no dynamic in your life, you're not going to make any music. But if there's too much, it's going to be a problem. So the key is, how do we find that balance? And where do we go if life is stressing us to the breaking point? Because I know today, I've made some lighthearted comments, but there are some of us that are dealing with some very heavy issues. Some of us for whom the next weeks, the stress level is extremely high. There's relationships that are blowing up in your face even as I speak. Some of you are facing financial pressures that have caused you great despair and you've turned to alcohol and other substances to try to get out from underneath it. Some of you are dealing with the stress of a difficult decision for the new year. The whole course of your life is at stake. I know that. And I want to look today at God's Word because He has some things to say to those of us who are facing stress. Look what Paul, the great apostle wrote. First scripture there, down just a couple of sentences. He says, here's Paul, here's a great man of God. He said, I think you ought to know about the trouble we went through. We were crushed and completely overwhelmed and we thought we would never live through it. So even the great apostle Paul was not a stranger to stress and hardship and tribulation. Now, where do these things come from? Well, I've identified three primary sources of stress. You probably have other ones. Here's the three that I think are most common. Number one, when circumstances are uncontrollable. When circumstances are uncontrollable. I mean, listen, this is almost a daily occurrence. I mean, you get in traffic, the traffic stops, you're stuck. I mean, you're trying to get through to a client, the phone's busy. Whatever it may be. But it also can be some much more serious things that are uncontrollable. Maybe you're a couple that's just desperately wanting to have a baby and nothing's happening. Maybe you're a single gal that desperately wants to be married and it's not happening. Maybe you're a guy whose job is about to be eliminated and you don't know where to go next. Well, these are big issues, uncontrollable issues. Second source of stress are when people become unchangeable. You know, it's never easy when someone that you're close to is stuck and their behaviors are affecting you. And it's more difficult even than that to try to change them. Ever try to change someone you love? Ever try to be the change agent for good in someone else's life? Ever come home with the new workout tape for your spouse and say, Honey, I think you'd really get a lot out of this. I mean, no matter how you package it, you're in deep trouble, right? I remember I gave Carol that Tybo tape. I mean, she just threw it right back at me and said, You use it, you know. Unchangeable people cause stress. Husbands who won't communicate, kids who won't listen. And third, stress is produced when problems are unexplainable. You know, something in us always wants to know why things are happening. I mean, I want to know why. Just tell me why that happened and I'll deal with it. But many of life's problems are not explainable. Why didn't I get the job? Why didn't I get the acceptance to the school I wanted to go to? Why did I get in this mess that I'm in? I mean, how can God be fair in doing that and so on and so on? Listen, God never promises that you're going to know why. He does promise, however, that you can find peace. Listen, God's antidote to stress is personal peace. And I want to talk today about the words of Jesus in John 14, 27. He said this, I am leaving you with a gift, peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give isn't fragile like the peace the world gives. So do not be troubled or afraid. Listen, God wants you this Christmas to receive a gift, the gift of personal peace. So I want to talk about the pathway, and that's why this graphic is up, the pathway to God's personal peace. It's something that all of us can take. It's something that all of us need in this particular season. And you're going to hear a dramatic story of how God provided peace for someone who was facing an unexplainable, uncontrollable situation. Now, I want to say something else before I begin here. No one ever is promised a trouble-free life. If you think having no problems is the answer to having all your stress released, you're not going to get there. You're going to have, Jesus even said, in this world you will have tribulation. And the Greek word there, if you look it up, is the word thlipsis, which means stress or pressure. In this world, you're going to have it. But be of good cheer, Jesus said, for I have overcome the world. And it's the result of three important choices that we can all make. The choice of acceptance, trust, and surrender. Let's look at them. First of all, the first step on God's path to personal peace is to accept what cannot be changed. Now, friends, I know this is going to fly in the face of some of you from the faith movement. But there comes a time in your journey when you have to accept what cannot be changed. What a lot of us do initially when something happens that we don't like, we worry, what am I going to do about it? How am I going to respond to it? We become resentful or bitter because God doesn't seem to do what we need Him to do. We start feeling guilty because we do feel resentful or bitter or whatever. Or we throw a big pity party for ourselves. And those are the four most common responses to difficult circumstances. Worry, resentfulness, guilt, or pity. And you know what? I'll be real honest with you. I've experienced all four of those in my own life this week. It was a difficult week for me. Remember I shared a few months ago that I said every time I do a message, I usually am required by God to live it before I give it? Well, I got a great little note from, actually, I think it was John Walton's wife. Our worship leader's wife. At the end of August, she wrote to me and she said, you know, Pastor Jay, you live it before you give it and we live it after you give it. And I would venture to say that a lot of you may face some of these issues this week because God's going to put this word to the test in your life. There's only one thing that can bring peace in our lives in some of these circumstances and that's acceptance. You know, in Luke's version of the Christmas story, the angel Gabriel appears to Mary and tells her of God's plan to conceive a son supernaturally through her. She was a virgin and God said, you're going to bear a son. Mary asks the question, well, how will this happen since I'm a virgin? Now, what's not spoken here, but I'm confident went through Mary's mind are all the other questions that she had. I mean, imagine the stress of the unexplainable in her life. Imagine her thinking, what am I going to tell my family? Who's going to believe this wild, crazy story? What are my friends going to think? What's going to happen with my life? I mean, I'm not going to be able to have any respect anymore, a job or anything else. What am I going to tell my dear Joseph? And all those questions had to have gone through her mind. I mean, she was a real young woman, a real person, like each of us. And the Bible says in Luke 1.39, here's what she responded to the angel, and she said, may it be unto me as you have said, or be it unto me according to your word, the RSV says. In other words, Lord, I don't understand it, I can't explain it, I accept it. I accept it. I accept it as your word. Do your work in my life. Even the apostle Paul, you know, he was one that we think, boy, well, he was such a godly man, I bet his life was just like a litany of blessing. You know what? I wouldn't want to have had Paul's life. I mean, the Bible says he was beaten three times with 39 lashes, almost left to die. He was in prison, he was shipwrecked. I mean, he went through it all, he was stoned with rocks. And here's what he says, I have learned to be satisfied with the things I have and with everything that happens. I know how to live when I am poor and I know how to live when I have plenty. I have learned the secret of being happy at any time and in everything that happens. I can do all things through Christ because he gives me strength. Now, when did Paul write that? When he was sitting at this huge banquet table and just eating the fine foods of the Middle Eastern culture? No, he was in a Roman prison awaiting execution at the hands of Nero. Friends, it has nothing to do with the specific circumstance you're in. Knowing the joy and the peace of God has to do with where you place your faith and your confidence. I see a couple of specific things out of this. I see that acceptance is a learned response. Notice what he says, I have learned to be satisfied. You might want to circle the word learned. I learned to be satisfied. And then, he says, I can do all things through Christ. I see that without God's power, you're not going to make it. I want to say this real clearly. Without the power of God, many times in my life, I would not be able to sustain my faith. I can only do it through Christ who strengthens me. Now, why is it so difficult for us to accept some of these things? Why? Because inquiring minds want to know. We want to know everything. Oftentimes, we demand an explanation from God. When something veers from our plans, we say, well, God, why did you let it happen that way? How did I get into this? If you're really in control of my life, why is this happening? I mean, I've tried to please you. I've tried to serve you. I've even become a pastor or a deacon or a soul group leader or whatever I might be. And as a result, you're kept in turmoil. Let me say a couple things about the need to know. I did a little study on that this week. Did you know the first real sin of the Bible was Adam and Eve wanting to know? The Lord said, you shall eat of any tree here in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And what that's talking about is that's the need to have moral authority without God in our lives. The Bible says, you know what? You're not allowed to do that. So God is the one who ultimately knows, not us. Second, God doesn't owe us any explanation. He doesn't. Why does he have to explain himself? He's God. And he's revealed enough of himself for us to know that he's just and loving and fair and good. And he understands far more than we ever will. And even number three, if he did explain it, we wouldn't understand it. The Bible says in Isaiah 55, his thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways. As far as the heavens are above the earth, so is God's ways above ours. How would you like to be the one that figures out how the last generation affects this generation and this generation affects the next generation and all of history is winding together toward a specific? How would you like to be the one that wove that all together and made sense of it? I don't think so. I can't do that with my own life. I'm going to leave it in the hands of God. And number four, the fourth thing about needing an explanation is even when you get it, you're not going to be happy. You know, we think if I just knew why this happened, it'll make sense to me. No, it won't. Think about it. There are lots of things that have happened. You can look back and say, well, I think I understand why. And you still feel upset or angry about it. Why? Because it was out of your control. We are control freaks. Turn to someone and say, I'm a control freak. We are. We are. We want to be in control. And even when we know why, it's not good enough. The only thing that really satisfies isn't an explanation. It's the assurance that God's presence is with us, that his care will comfort me, whatever I'm going through. Maybe the greatest story of acceptance that's not really clearly understood in the Christmas saga is that of Joseph. You know, at first, think about it. Here's this young man who's in love with this beautiful woman. And he's betrothed to her or engaged. And she becomes pregnant. And now, in that culture, I mean, when that happened, it was over. And she was normally disgraced and set apart. And he was quick to cut it off. And the Bible says that Joseph made plans to divorce her. And that was the term used to break an engagement, to divorce her discreetly so that she wouldn't be publicly humiliated. Shows the kind of character that he had. Now, an angel appeared to Joseph and said, don't do that, because the child that Mary's carrying is supernaturally from God. Now, we read that and it's, yeah, I know this story, Jane, that's great. But friends, listen, has God ever said anything to you and then you wondered, was it really God? Do you believe that maybe Joseph heard the angel say that but maybe two weeks later he was asking himself the question, I mean, wait a minute, could that really have been God? Maybe it was too much pizza the night before. I don't know, something wasn't going well with me. And he started doubting and questioning and wondering. And Joseph went through a very difficult time, I'm sure, of believing. All of his friends noticed that Mary got bigger, more and more pregnant. He heard them mocking. He heard them scorning. He heard them pointing and saw them pointing their finger. And I'm confident that it took great courage for Joseph to choose the approval of God over the approval of man. But he chose to do that. And he quietly, the Bible says, quietly married her and tenderly cared for her and accepted her according to the word of the Lord. When God is silent, you can count on one thing. He's doing his deepest work. Remember when you were a kid and you took tests? What did the teacher do during the test? Did she walk around playing the drums or music? What did she do during the test? Do you remember, Ron? She just sat there, didn't she? Or she just walked around quietly, right? She didn't say a word, did she? Or he? What? Didn't want to interrupt the test. When the test was over, you could bring your question to her. Well, you know what? Many times when you're going through the test, God is quiet. And it's afterwards that you come to understand why you went through that particular test. So the first thing is acceptance. And, you know, we've heard this serenity prayer before. Can I read it? See if this is familiar to you. God grant me, in fact, it's on your notes. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I've heard someone attribute that to St. Augustine and others to more modern theologians. But here's the interesting part. The rest of the prayer is where the power is. Here's the rest of the prayer. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. How? By living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as the pathway to peace. Taking as Jesus did this simple world as it is, not as I would have it. Trusting that you, God, will make all things right if I surrender to your will. So that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with you forever in the next. There's the power. The power is in every day choosing to accept the will of the Lord and to trust His work in your life. So what do you do? Well, you do your best to work things out. Listen, this is not sort of a caesarasara. You know, whatever happens, happens. Acceptance is I do my very best. I take a posture of faith and believing. If I'm ill, I go to physicians and I seek help. I ask for prayer. I do all those things. But if for some reason God chooses to not heal me, then I accept that my condition will be something that God will give me grace to be sustained through. If I'm going through a marriage breakup and I do everything possible, I go to counselors. I seek help from pastors. I have prayer. But my spouse doesn't want to reconcile. You don't ruin your life over it. You accept that this is a circumstance that's beyond your control. And you accept that God is in control of your life. And you have to accept that person where they are and keep going forward. And you make up whatever application it is for you. But that's the starting point of peace. Second thing you got to do if you're going to walk in God's pathway is to learn to trust. Number two, trust in God's loving care. Look at the next verse. He will keep in perfect peace all those who trust in Him, whose thoughts often turn to the Lord. You know, it's an axiom of life. Something is always going to be happening in your life. If it isn't one thing, it's another. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? If it's not one problem, it's another one. If it's not one challenge, it's another one. In fact, if I asked you to list your top five problems right now, your top five challenges, could you do it? How many of you think you could do it? You could prioritize them. I got finals. I got bills. And as soon as you get the number one problem knocked off, guess what happens? Number two goes up to number one. And number three goes up to number two. And then you get number one knocked off again. And then another one slips in on the bottom of the pile and pushes up. That's called L-I-F-E. Life. Life is a series of challenges, a series of issues. And it's in every aspect of our lives. We may have relational things all lined up and everything looks good, but physically, wow, am I having a hard time. Physically, I might be on top of the world. I might have the picture of health, but my finances are a mess. Whatever it might be, we all have our areas of challenge. I just want to say one thing about particularly our financial issue. So often we think, you know, I'm going to just show God how much I love him and how thankful I am whenever God takes care of all of my needs. As soon as all of my needs are met, then I'll give him the overflow. Let me just share something I've discovered after 52 years. Your list of needs will never be fully met. There's something in the human condition that we always want a little bit more. You know, we have the starter house, and then we need the car that works, and then we get that. And then we need the kids come. We need a little bigger house. And then we need two cars to carry all the kids around. And then we need, you know, braces for all the kids. And, boy, does that thing come on big time. And then we need, well, gee, now they're getting bigger. They need Christian school tuition or whatever. And then it's college that comes along. And, whoa, is that huge. And then, wow, you're just catching up. And you need that recreational vacation place to kind of catch your breath from it all. And then you need to go on and, well, you know, retirement's just coming over the horizon. And you know what? There's never a time that it's just sort of laying around there for you to discretionarily give. Folks, listen. The Lord lets you go through it. He's waiting for you just simply to obey His Word. And when you do, you posture yourself to be in His blessing. That's the way it works in every area of your life. Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. Let me share three reasons why life just seems to be a series of problems. Number one, turn your outline over. Adam choked. Adam choked. He gave in to temptation. He committed the original sin and stained the human race. And someone asked me once, well, how come all the rest of us have to suffer because Adam and Eve made a bad choice? And my response is this. Let me ask you a question back. Do you make bad choices every day? No. Not me. No, never made a bad one in my life. You're right there. You're lying. So you just made your first one. Okay? We all confirm every day that we would have done the same thing that Adam and Eve did. So fall in nature. That's the first reason. The second reason that life is a series of problems is because Satan is alive and well. He is a real enemy. People say, do you believe in a real devil? And the answer is I absolutely do. Jesus talked about him very specifically in the personal dimension. The Bible clearly teaches that he is going to come back with a vengeance and attack the people of the world at the close of the age. And friends, I just read the newspapers. I believe there's a literal devil, and he wants to steal, kill, and destroy. And by the way, if you're a Christian, it doesn't mean that now you've become immune to him. In fact, if you're a serious Christian, you've become more of a target because now you're in the way of his plans. But again, you needn't fear when Jesus is near. And the third reason why we have problems is because the world system keeps competing for our affections. The flesh, the devil, and the world, those three things are the source of most of the continued lineup of problems that we face. Sometimes the problems come simply because we make dumb choices. We just go and we just do what we want to do. And sometimes they come because it's nobody's fault at all. You remember in John chapter 9, the story of the blind, the man born blind? In John 9, the people pulled Jesus. They said, Master, why was this man born blind? Was it his sin or his parents? And I love that because you see, today, psychology still uses those two frames of reference as the source of most people's problems. What you did when you were a child or what your parents did to you. So really, there's nothing new under the sun. All the way back there in the Bible, they were talking about the same thing. And Jesus surprised them all and he said, wait a minute. It was neither of those. He said it was so that the work of God may be displayed in his life. And Jesus healed him at that moment. You may be going through something, listen, because God is about to display his glory in your life. So if you're in a really nasty situation right now, get ready because God may be ready to do something really glorious in your life. Right there in John chapter 9. No matter what the source of your problem, the answer is always the same, trust. Look at the next scripture, don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything and tell God your needs. And don't forget to thank him for his answers. Because if you do this, you'll experience God's peace. You might want to circle God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. I mentioned that I was going to have you hear a story. And I'm going to ask right now for Lisa Anderson-Umana to come up. Lisa, I have known for 25 years. And something happened that was really supernatural in her life this year. And I wanted to tell her story. Let's give her a hand as she comes up. Thank you for staying for both services. Your preaching is good both times. There you go. Thank you, dear. Good morning. Things don't always work out like you planned or hoped for. But it isn't God's fault. That was my husband and I's conclusion as we neared the end of over a year's of failed attempt at conceiving a child in 1997 and 98. But a part of us kept thinking, well, that everything's going to work out. And we'd eventually get pregnant through the various medical options that are available today. So our New Year's resolution for 1999 this year was to hold firmly to the belief that God has our best in mind no matter what happens. That was in January. Little do we know how soon that belief would be tested. Because in February, the doctors finally concluded that any further medical intervention would be futile. And I was diagnosed as premenopausal. The doctor said, Lisa, you have a million-to-one chance of ever getting pregnant. And I remember hanging up the phone in shock. I remember I just started sobbing, crying out to God. And I was telling him how angry I was and how painful my sense of loss was. The hopes and dreams of holding your own child were lost. And I even remember questioning my missionary service. I thought, well, maybe if I wouldn't have become a missionary, or then I would have gotten married earlier. Or what if we would have, after we got married, started trying earlier? And what if I'd done this? And maybe things would be different. And I was playing the what-if-ing game. My friend Susie McCabe played a key role at that time. And she helped me examine my thoughts and compare them with God's Word and His character. For instance, just because I had been good and, you know, been a missionary and served and everything, it didn't mean that God owed me any special favors. Because the Bible says that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. And I also stopped the stress-producing what-if-ing game and held on to the fact that God was still in control, even if I didn't like the circumstances at all. Before my husband and I returned to Honduras, we met with Jay. And we affirmed our belief in God's ability to do miracles. But I remember confessing that after having prayed long and hard together with others years ago, God had chosen to not miraculously heal my mother of cancer. So I remember saying that my faith, quote, was like truly the size of a mustard seed. Also with her death, I remember saying to myself, realizing God is sovereign. And no matter how hard you pray or how hard you trust, God doesn't always do things like you want Him to do. I remember Jay at that point commenting on the saints of old, from Hebrews 12, and pointing out that they suffered a lot worse than I'd ever suffered. And yet many of them never even received the promise because it was that God had something better in store. There was one group of doctors in Washington, D.C. that wanted to do some further testing, so we decided to go ahead and continue along that line. However, Alfredo and I returned to Honduras, and we realized that we needed to come to grips with the fact that in all likelihood we may never hold our own children. So over the next months, guided by good literature, we began to move toward acceptance. I think we sort of did it in stages. And I remember I was determined that I wasn't going to get resentful at God, and that I was going to respect His sovereignty. We clung to the belief that God's will was better for our lives than our own plans. Pretty good, but we said, if we're not to have natural children, then God has something better in mind. And we culminated this process on Mother's Day. So in May, I remember we went out and we made this little campfire in the yard, and before the Lord, we relinquished the list of losses that each of us had written down. And in exchange, we received His peace and His will for our lives. And it was incredible, the sense of peace that inundated us at that point. Just a couple days later, after that ceremony, we got a call from the doctor, and he said that he saw something kind of suspicious, and so could we go in for a checkup? So we came back to the States. The doctor did an ultrasound, and he let out a gasp, and he said, hmm, you won't be needing our services because you're seven weeks pregnant. And I remember I almost fell off the table. It was like, we were absolutely speechless. We were in awe, and we were in awe of God's sovereignty and His goodness. And in reflection, we felt gratefulness for God's allowing us to move through that test, and knowing that even if He wouldn't have given us what we wanted and what we're expecting sometime pretty soon, around December 28th, the bottom line is that God is good all the time. Could you take just a moment of your time right now and stand? I want you to pray with me, and I want you to agree with me for Lisa. Lord, as we heard this testimony of really what would have to be called a miraculous intervention of Your hand, we would agree for health. Lord, for blessing on this little one and on Lisa and Alfredo as they commit this little one to You and their future to You. And we thank You, Lord, that You have proven Yourself unimaginably faithful to them. And we celebrate that goodness, Lord, and pray now that Your blessing would continue. And we thank You for Lisa's, the process she had to go through to get to that point of acceptance and trust. And we thank You that You brought her there. And then, Lord, chose in Your sovereignty to bless her. In Jesus' name, amen. Thanks and bless you. Okay, let's just wrap this up. I want you to look at one more thing with me, please. There's a third step here, and if you miss this one, the other two probably won't get it done for you. Because, you see, most of us want to be in control. Most of us want to do things our own way. But there's a third thing that we have to do on God's path to personal peace, and it's to surrender, to surrender to God's love and control. And I want you to just amend that a little bit and put my surrender, my surrender to God's love and control. What's the real reason that we have stress, friends? I mean, really. Why are our lives filled with anxiety and pressure and tension? I'd have to say, for me, I've thought a lot about this. In the end, it's because we do not believe what God says to us. In the end, we want to be the one who will make the final determination for our lives. We can't fully yet trust God for the details of the daily. You mean, Jay, you're saying that I'm still fighting with God about who's in charge? Yes. Why do I know that? Because I know what I'm like, and I see what you're like. You know, we ignore some of the verses in the Bible that we don't want to deal with, and we take the ones that we do want. It's like a shopping cart, and we're going down the aisles of God's Word, and we say, oh, well, here's a promise on eternal security. I'll take that one. Oh, here's a promise on praise and worship in the present. I'll take that. Here's one on fellowship and support and comfort. I'll take that one. Oh, here's one on obedience and living fully toward God. Well, you know what? I'm going to pass by that one because I'm not re