would like if you would turn
with me to the book of Isaiah chapter 26. The book of Isaiah
chapter 26. Now beloved as we talk about
this subject this morning and the need of this peace of God
that will keep our hearts and minds Over in Isaiah chapter
26 in verse 3 it says thou will keep him in perfect peace whose
mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee and then
verse 4 trust you in the Lord forever for in the Lord Jehovah
is everlasting strength Now the words perfect peace here, thou
wilt keep him in perfect peace. And you know we are often willing
to accept something other than perfect peace. But beloved, perfect
peace is possible for the child of God. God said, I will keep
him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee. Now the words perfect peace here,
it might be better translated peace, peace, or peace upon peace. And these words are intended
to express peace, I think, in the most emphatic way possible. The peace that God gives his
people in Christ is an extensive peace. It's the widest peace
possible. It's an increasing and real peace
that the Lord's people enjoy. Now let me say this because I
believe it to be the truth. Now if we take an honest survey
of ourselves and if we do not enjoy the peace of God, if we
have been living frustrated disquieted lives, if we have been, as it
were, having so many loose ends, and if we've been just making
a nuisance of ourselves because we've been coming to pieces and
unraveling, as it were. Now listen to me. Beloved, we
need to look at ourselves because the blame must be laid at our
door alone, because we make ourselves restless by our unbelief. and by our sin. We make ourselves restless. We put ourselves, as it were,
into this state. Now, the point I'm trying to
make is that God's people, they have some basic fundamental truths
that they know in their hearts things that they know the Word
of God teaches that they can fall back upon and rest upon
in their souls and we must do that and we must do it or else
we shall find ourselves without this peace. First thing I would
like to say in reference to this peace is that this peace, there
is this peace where there is an absence of war and danger. Now, beloved, if we're in Christ,
we read in Isaiah 40, and in the first few verses there, where
that it says that the warfare of the people of God is accomplished.
It says, comfort ye my people, comfort ye my people, tell them
that their warfare is accomplished. Now what that means is that all
of our sins have been forgiven once for all, never to be charged
against us again. Now, we need to reflect upon
that, to think upon that, because these things are the foundation
for our peace in Christ. We need to believe that the warfare
is accomplished, that God no longer is angry with His people,
and that God has been, we have been reconciled unto God through
the death of His Son, Jesus Christ. And then also that Christ has
taken possession of us never to lose us, never to lose us. Now that point really comes home
to my heart. Most of you here believe in the
doctrine of eternal security. That when God saves a poor sinner,
That that poor sinner is kept by the power of God through faith
in Christ Jesus until the day that God takes him out of this
world and takes him home to glory. Now, beloved, we believe that
and we must continue to reflect back upon that. that we are the
possession of the Lord Jesus Christ, that God, in the Old
Covenant, that He gave us to Christ, and Christ bought us,
and He actually possessed us. The Holy Spirit came and arrested
us and brought us into Christ. And so, the Father owns us, and
He has possessed us, and He will never lose us. And there is nothing
that we cannot safely commit unto Him. Our Heavenly Father
rules all things in the universe and He will not neglect us. Now I know sometimes it's hard
for us to believe that the Lord has knowledge of us as individuals
living in this way off place where we live or we're in a big
crowd someplace and you say, Preacher, you think God sees
me there? The eye of God sees you and if you belong to Him,
your name is written on the palms of His hands. And he can see
it. You've seen some of these computer
disks and you know how much information can be on just a little piece
of paper or on a little disk, a little plastic disk. And I'll
tell you this, God knows his people. God knows His people.
He knows every one of them. He rules the universe and He'll
never neglect one of His people. He'll be a God unto His people. And we need to believe that and
rest upon that. And there's nothing that we cannot
safely commit unto Him. Peter said, cast all of your
care upon Him for He careth for you. Now this is the foundation
for peace with God. that will keep the heart and
the mind. Now the peace that God gives,
beloved, is rest in the soul. Now peace in the soul is resignation
to the will of God. Now you remember this, there
is no way that a man or woman living in God's world that claims
to believe God will ever have peace with God unless they are
resigned to the good will of God in their life. Are you submissive
to the will of God? Have you bowed your knee to what
God has said in His Word, what He has taught you, what you know
in your heart you ought to do, and what you know you must do?
Have you bowed your knee to that and to things that you cannot
understand? Have you in your own heart said,
these things I do not understand, these things I just don't know
how they'll ever work out? But there is one thing for certain.
They are right if they are His will. If it is His will, then
these things are right. And they're right for me. And
Lord, even though my carnal mind and fleshly mind does not agree,
yet Lord I know that you're right and I know these things are right
and Lord if in my heart you detect that there is something against
your will and there's a fault in my mind against your will
then Lord you just reckon it not to be there because I know
that you're right and everything you do is right and I know that
it's proper for me to bow unto your will and resign myself fully
unto your will. And also there must be confidence
in the goodness of God and contentment with the providence of God. Now,
beloved, are we confident that God is good? The Lord is good
to them that trust Him, those that call upon Him and trust
Him. God is good. Now, beloved, we
often have hard thoughts of God in our heart. We often quarrel
with God. We often are somehow or other,
you know, our fleshly pride, it makes us rebel against what
God has sent into our lives. And the flesh is not subject
to the law of God. Neither indeed can it be. There's
a rebellious spirit in every one of us by nature. And we know
that. And so listen to me, we've got
to trust the goodness of Almighty God and believe that He's too
good to do wrong. Too good to allow anything to
come into our lives that will not eventually work out for our
good. And then, too, we must be content
with the providence of God, submit ourselves, and be content with
it. You say, well, preacher, I just
can't be content with things the way they are. My friend,
you must recognize that God has the power to change those things
in our life that need to be changed, go to him and ask him to change
them. And if he does not change them,
then he will say to you as he said to Paul, my grace is sufficient
for thee, child, wait upon me and trust me and I'll change
them when it's good and when it's right and when it's proper. Okay, now listen, we make ourselves
restless by unbelief, I said. And the scripture here says that
you keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee
because he trusteth in thee. He trusteth in thee. He is trusting
you. He's relying upon you. Now, listen to me. When a child
of God looks upward, There is no sort of justice against Him. The cup of wrath, He will never
bear it. The anger of God against you
is gone, and it's gone forever. When we look upward, and so as
we look upward, Be reconciled and be at peace in your own soul
because God is at peace. God has satisfied Himself in
His own Son. God is at peace. His wrath is
gone. Forever! It's gone forever as
far as the Lord's sheep are concerned, as far as the people of God are
concerned. And then when we look downward,
there's no condemnation, no death, no judgment, no second death,
no hell for the people of God to endure. The people of God
have suffered in their substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. And there's
never any judgment for you to face, and there's not going to
be any hell for the people of God. The second death has already
been died by the Lord Jesus Christ. He suffered it on Calvary's cross. And then when you look backward,
all your past sins are blotted out. As we said earlier, they're
forgiven, they're taken away, they're remembered no more. God's
people, their past, they have no past. Their past has been
put away. The Lord has taken it. He said,
I won't remember it against you. He said, I've cast it behind
my back as far as the east is from the west. I'll never remember
it against you anymore. It's gone. Clean, gone forever. It's buried in the depths of
the sea. And so there's no need to be
disturbed by your past by looking back. And then outward, God has
made all the beasts of the field, all the stones of the earth,
all the trees of the forest, and even your enemies to be at
peace with you. So why should you not rest? And
why should you not have some peace in your own soul? And then
if you look inward, God has set a guard in your heart to keep
your heart. And that's that peace. that we
read of in Philippians 4 and verse 7. This peace that is like
a garrison. That's the word. It's a garrison
around us to keep us and to fortify us in the world. And then when
we look forward, heavenly glory awaits the people of God. All
that the man Christ Jesus is and has done shall soon be ours. in eternal glory. Now God gives
this peace to faith. He gives it to those that trust
Him. Oh my friend, do you believe
that God is such? Has He revealed Himself to be
worthy of trust? Has God said, has God said, trust
me? And then has he ever disappointed
anyone who trusts? No, the Lord has never confounded
the man that believes on him. The man who believes on God,
the Lord will never make him ashamed. God has revealed himself
to be trustworthy. And God said, I'll keep you in
perfect peace if you just trust me, if you just trust me, if
you rely upon me. Now God keeps those in peace
whose minds are stayed upon Him. And all your thoughts must be
stayed upon your God. Never think, listen to me, I'll
tell you what that means. All your thoughts must be stayed
on God in this world as you're passing through it. Never, let
me say this, never think of your sin without thinking of the Lord
Jesus Christ and of the fact that your sin has been blotted
out and forgiven. Let your mind be stayed on the
fact that your sin has been taken care of. It's all been taken
care of. It's been put away. And then
never think of your needs without thinking of the all-sufficiency
of El Shaddai, of God Jehovah, of the Jehovah God, the Almighty
God of the Bible. Never think of your needs by
itself. You see, if you do that, sometimes
you're overwhelmed, aren't you? If you think of your needs and
don't think of God's sufficiency at the same time, don't allow
the devil to trick you into doing that. Don't let him trick you
into thinking of your sins without thinking of the atonement made
by your substitute, the Lord Jesus. And don't think of your
need without thinking of God's bounty and God's ableness to
supply everything that you have need of. And if you do this,
if you practice that, that's staying your heart on the Lord. And never think of your past
without thinking of His providence. You know, sometimes we just keep
thinking somehow or other that things should have been different,
things could have been different. Oh, if I would have just done
this, if I would have just done that. But my friend, it was the
providence of God that dealt with you in the past just like
it's dealing with you today and just like it'll be dealing with
you tomorrow on to eternity. It's God's hands. And you know,
we're so wise, you see, that we didn't see it then, but we
see it now. God's thinking about the future
and he's living in this world and struggling as we must every
day of our lives. Listen to me, God's made many
promises in his word. Many promises that he said, cast
all your burden upon me and I will sustain thee. Call upon the Lord,
I in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify
me. God has made promises promises
in his word, call upon me and I will answer thee, and before
you call I will hear, saith the Lord. The Lord has made promises
and don't ever think of the future without thinking of the future
in the light of what God has promised to his people. Let your imagination, all of
it, be stayed upon your God. We ought never to imagine anything
to be possible that is in any way contrary to the goodness,
the grace, and the power of God. Don't even imagine it. You're
a child of God and you let your imagination just run. And that's
the reason why you're so restless and so disturbed all the time.
Don't imagine that anything can happen in this world that is
beyond, as far as God is concerned, beyond His ability to manage
it. and to make it turn out for your
good and for His glory. Now then, if you would live in
peace, let all your desires be stayed upon your God. Want nothing but what the Lord
wills to give you. Desire nothing but what God deems
in His providence best for you. Don't even want it. Don't desire
it. Now you see we're filled with
all kinds of desires, but the Lord will give you the desires
of your heart. if they're in accordance with
his will, don't desire anything that's not in harmony with God's
will. Rejoice in the Lord as we read,
as the brother read to us this morning. Rejoice in the Lord. Be careful for nothing but in
everything but prayer. Make your request known to God
and the peace of God will keep your heart and your mind through
Christ Jesus. And so beloved, this is what
we want. We want it, we desire it, and we trust God to give
it unto us. The peace of God. I desperately, desperately need
it in my own life. Now the second thing is this,
and I'll hurry on. I spent a little more time on
that than I meant to. But the second thing is, let's
turn to Hebrews chapter 13. Hebrews chapter 13 in our Bibles. And let's look here this morning That's not the right reference.
I think it must be the 12th chapter. It is. It's the 12th chapter
and it's the 28th verse. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse
28. It says, Wherefore we receiving
a kingdom which cannot be moved, Listen to this, let us have grace
whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. The second thing that I want
in this coming year is that I want grace, I want the grace of God
to serve God acceptably. I want the grace of God. Now acceptable service must be
rendered unto God in the power of Divine Grace. Did you get
that? Acceptable service unto God must
be rendered to God in the power of Divine Grace. Poor, feeble,
human nature. We cannot, we must have grace. Let us have grace. Not, listen,
we can't do it in the power of nature, in nature at its very
best. You cannot serve God as a Christian. You've got to have grace to serve
God. You must have it. Now listen
to me. This is my prayer. This is my
prayer. Let us have grace. Let us have
grace in the home. Let us have grace in dealing
with our families, our children. Let us have grace in dealing
with the various situations that we must deal with in our workplace
or wherever we find ourselves trying to make a living in this
world. Let us have grace, O Lord. to be able to serve you while
we're providing our own needs and while we're managing the
affairs of the home and the household, while we're dealing with family
members. Lord, let us have grace. Let
us have grace. Now, as a preacher, I most keenly
feel this. I feel it so much because, beloved,
listen, as a preacher of the gospel, all the years I've been
in the ministry, I have never been sufficient for it. Never
have I had a sufficiency in and of myself. You see, preaching
is not like working on trucks. It's not like building a house. It's not like doing many of the
other jobs that you fellas do and you folks do here. Preaching
is a spiritual work. Preaching is something that a
man can only do. If God has laid hold upon him
and called him, he can only do it by the sufficiency of God. He can only do it as God enables
him to do it. And so every time you come into
the pulpit, you are aware of the fact that you must have sufficiency
of God. You must have the grace of God.
And if you don't have God's grace, to enable you and help you, you'll
not be able to do it. Now I've lived under that for
over forty years with that feeling of inadequacy and that feeling
of helplessness when it comes to doing this job of preaching
the Word of God because a man is not able to do it in and of
himself. It's only by the grace of God. So you pray Let that preacher
have grace, O God. He's standing before me and others
like me and preaching as a dying man to dying men. And Lord, give
that preacher grace. Let him have grace in his heart. Let him have grace in his speech,
grace in his life, grace in every breath. And while you're praying
for the preacher, pray for yourself. because you need the grace of
God in this way. Now turn back, if you will, to
the book of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, I believe
it is. Yes, 1 Corinthians chapter 15,
and look and see how prominent a place that Paul gave to the
grace of God in his own life and his own ministry. Look at
it here in verse 9 and 10 of 1 Corinthians 15. Paul said,
For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called
an apostle, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted
the church of God. But by the grace of God I am
what I am, and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not
in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I. Yet not I, but the grace of God
which was with me. It was the grace of God which
was with me that enabled me to labor more abundantly than they
all, to accomplish more than any of the other apostles. and
to be used of God as an instrument more fully than any of the other
apostles. It was the grace of God that
was given unto me. No wonder Paul said, let us have
grace that we may serve God with reverence and godly fear. Beloved,
we cannot apart from this grace. And all to grace, the old song
says, how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be. Oh Lord,
bind my heart, as with a fetter, to that grace and to Thee, because
we feel so often, you know, the proneness to lean on flesh and
to wander away, and we need the grace of God. So Lord, let us
have grace. let us have grace. Do pray for
me, do pray for me that I'll have the grace of God upon me
in such a measure that I'll be sufficient for what the Lord
has called me to do. Now the number three thing and
the last thing is I want you to turn to Romans 1 Romans chapter
1 and I want you to look at verse 21 Romans 1 and 21 It says, "...because that when
they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were
thankful." Neither were thankful. Now here is two sins, here's
two indictments against those that the Bible says knew God.
Number one, they glorified Him not as God. Now listen to me,
we around here, we do not glorify Him as God, as we would like
to. We're not able, as we would love
to do it, to glorify and exalt the Lord, but we're working on
that. We're working on that. And we try to glorify God every
time we come here together. We try to exalt the Lord and
glorify Him as God of heaven and earth, the sovereign God
of the universe. But now listen to me. There's
something else here that caught my eye. Something else here that
I think we need. It says, neither were thankful.
Neither were thankful. Beloved, the third thing I want
in the new year is a thankful heart. I want a thankful heart. You know, I think that when we
read this indictment, neither were thankful, that we should
immediately, it should set off an alarm in our hearts, in our
minds, our soul. There is not one of us here today
that cannot say that things are better with us than we deserve
them to be. There's not a one of us. Now,
I know that we often get bowed down. We often find ourselves
very low. We're cast down. David had that
trouble in the Psalms. Oh my soul, why art thou so cast
down? We get so cast down in and of
ourselves. But beloved, we need a thankful
heart. We must look around us. We must
open our eyes. We must do this. Now listen to
me. I find that in gratitude, this
not having a thankful heart, I find that that breeds pride. It breeds impatience. It breeds
frustration. And it breeds rebellion against
God. I'm talking about a heart that
is not thankful. Now, most of us here, I mean,
we know that this lesson, I said it at the outset, that we're
powerless to give ourself a thankful heart. But beloved, listen, you're
not going to have a thankful heart until you are aware of
the fact that you can't give yourself one and that you don't
have one. John Warburton, I was reading,
oh years ago, the book Mercies of a Covenant God. And in that
book, John Warburton told about some of his experience, how God
had blessed him and delivered him and provided his needs. Something unusual had happened.
I forget just exactly what it was, but God so graciously showed
him his hand and met his needs. And old John, he wanted to be
thankful, but he wasn't. He just didn't have a thankful
heart. And he was aware of it, it was bothering him, it was
disturbing him and he was mad at himself because he didn't
have a thankful heart. So a few days later he was out
on an old road walking down a country lane. And God blessed him with
a thankful heart. The Lord just gave him a thankful
heart! And he was able to praise God,
able to rejoice in the Lord, to give thanks unto his God. Now then, Listen, we read over
in the book of Isaiah, if you want to turn there with me, Isaiah
chapter 61, we read, while it's not in our power to have this,
that it's in the power of Christ and in the ministry of the Lord
Jesus that we can receive this. Notice, if you will, here in
verses 1 and 2 and 3, that it's talking about, it's a prophecy
concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, how that he'd been anointed of
the Lord to preach good tidings unto the meek. He sent me to
bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,
the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our
God, to comfort all that mourn. to appoint unto them that mourn
in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for
mourning, and listen to this, the garment of praise for the
Spirit of heaviness. To give unto them, to appoint
unto them, to give unto them is the language. to give unto
them the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the
spirit of heaviness that they might be called trees of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord that he might be glorified." It will
glorify God to lift that spirit of heaviness off of you, my brother,
my sister, to lift it off of you. It will glorify God that
you no longer are just continually, monotonously, groaning and moaning
and fretting about your situation. It'll be to the glory of God
to have you walking around with a joyful heart and a spirit of
praise in your soul and offering praise and thanksgiving unto
God even though it looks like that tomorrow may be the last
day that you'll ever make it, that your situation is so desperate
that you're not going to be able to make it any longer, just lift
your heart up to God and praise Him and give thanks to Him. It's
amazing how this works. It's amazing how merciful, how
lovingly God puts within, how He lifts out and how he puts
within his people a thankful heart. Now this unthankfulness,
I think, is a sin. There's no excuse for it, especially
to those who know God. There's no excuse for it. If
a man knows God, there's no excuse because there's so many daily
mercies. Mercies known. Mercies unknown. that are our temple mercies,
spiritual mercies that God gives unto every one of us. There we
must, my beloved, we must have a thankful heart unto God and
we must not dwell upon, so many people dwell on what they don't
have. It's always what they don't have. The children of Israel
in the wilderness, they were that way, you know. They had
the manna, but they didn't have any garlic. They didn't have
any onions, they didn't have any leeks, they had manna, and
they had shoes, and they had a coat on their back, and the
Lord opened up the stone in the wilderness or in the desert and
gave them water, but they didn't have, they didn't have, they
didn't have. And beloved, that's exactly the
way you and I are. We spend too much time dwelling
on what we don't have, and we're not grateful for what we do have,
what God has put into our hands. Well, I know that hell and destruction
are never full, the eyes of man are never satisfied, and I know
that this is a sin that's going to be with us, but don't look
on it that way. You get rid of it and ask God
to give you a thankful heart and don't be satisfied until
you get one from the Lord. A thankful, a thankful heart. Now listen to me. Thanksgiving,
as one old writer said, drives away bad thoughts. For bad thoughts
are bad tenants who pay no rent and they foul the house. Thanksgiving,
my brother, will drive away a lot of those things that you've been
dwelling on, thinking on, meditating upon in your heart. My other
time has gotten away from me. Let me just read a few verses.
Those of you that have a pencil, and you're writing down some
things. Write down Psalm 100, read it, it's a very short psalm,
and write down Psalm 95, read that psalm, and then Psalm 69,
verse 29 through 32. I don't have the time this morning
to read all of those verses, but good verses on what I'm talking
about. Now let me share these verses
with you before we close. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 2
and verse 14, He said, now thanks be unto God, which always causes
us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the Savior of
his knowledge by us in every place. That's a tremendous verse,
isn't it? Thanks be unto God. Now in verse,
Colossians 2 and verse 7, rooted and built up in him and established
in the faith as ye have been taught, abounding therein with
thanksgiving with abounding therein in what you've been taught what
you've been established in in the faith Hebrews 13 and 15 by
him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually
that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. Sounds like something we ought
to be involved in. Sounds to me like it's something
new that we could take up most of us around here. Sounds to
me like there'd be a whole lot of room around here. You say,
I'm kind of poor preacher, don't take no money at all for this
sacrifice. Don't take any money. No, it doesn't take a dime to
offer. Listen, it says you offer the
sacrifice of praise. That is the fruit of your lips.
Giving thanks to his name. You don't have to have a thing.
Poor people, people without, wealthy people, anybody can offer. And with such sacrifices, the
next verse says God's well pleased. He's well pleased. with that
sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise as well as he mentions
there communicating and sharing in that next verse but then in
1 Thessalonians 5 verse 16, 17, and 18 he said rejoice evermore
he said you pray without ceasing and then he said this in everything
you give thanks for this is the will of God in christ jesus concerning
you this is god's will separate i'm glad to know that this is
god's will interested in god's will concerning that's it you
give thanks and everything and i believe that if you give thanks
in everything is going to be a couple things happen one i
believe that you're going to have an eye the lord to give
you an eye to see more clearly the true riches which he's bestowed
upon me and number two I believe this that in actuality you will
have more to give thanks to God for in the next as the year ends
93 that God will do that God will give you if you're grateful
and mindful of what God is doing and what he's done for you And
I couldn't begin to tell you all God's done for us. I've tried
to tell you some of the things this morning, but I hope that
your prayer will be to God. Lord, be pleased to give me that
peace that passeth understanding. Lord, give me grace. Let me have
grace. Lord, this is a tough road I'm
taking, and you know you've led me on it, and you've led me in
it. Let me have grace. And then, Lord, give me a thankful
heart. These are the things that are on my mind this morning,
and I hope that God will be pleased to, in this new year, grant this
poor preacher to have those things. And if I get those things, listen
to me, I'll be better off. I'll be a better preacher. I'll
be better off. I'll be better off. I don't have
any, you know, if nothing changes materially, I'll be a better
man spiritually if I got these things. Don't you think so? Oh,
you will be too. You'll be so much better off.
And so may God bless these things to your edification and to your
upbuilding. Father, we thank you. Thank you
for your word, for your truth, and for your divine spirit that's
helped us this morning. Be pleased to stamp these things
upon our hearts. For Jesus' sake, amen.