PREVIOUS SERMON  (sorted accordingly,starting from recent )

The thought we have been focusing on over the past few weeks has been this: Sometimes God allows the props beneath our feet to fall away in order that we rest our full weight upon Him our God and depend on Him rather than on earthly securities that have the tendencies to fail. This is as true for nations as it is for individuals. Today we are in the midst of a great shaking ideologically and outwardly –perhaps the greatest shaking our planet has ever seen. Someone has called it ‘the great cosmic sifting hour’. Every alternative to God’s program for the world is failing and breaking down. Materialism is failing. Humanism and political ideologies are failing. Capitalism is failing. Democracy is failing. Where is all this leading us? Perhaps it is for us to realize the great need for our dependence only on God and the things of God! It is my conviction that what is shakable will crumble to dust and the one thing that will survive the ages is the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and our God. Believe me; the day is coming when wealth and material things will become meaningless. Earth’s inhabitants will begin to see that their one and only hope is in Adonai –the Lord of glory and Master of every situation. Taking a more personal perspective for a moment, I wonder, as you look back over the past twelve months, what kind of a year it has been for you. Has there been an upheaval resulting in the loss of many things on which your security was based? Have you experienced, as Isaiah did, an end to your hopes, your expectations, and your ambitions? Then take heart, for a new vision of God is about to break upon you. You will be able to say, as did the great prophet, ‘In the year that my hopes vanished, my security was destroyed and my expectations came to nothing, in that year ..... “I saw the Lord…’” (Isaiah 6:1). And the rest will be history, the history of how your God started you on a new perspective that usher you into things you wouldn’t have known about Him God and His righteous ways!

It is necessary that we examine in more detail the statement made by Isaiah: ‘In the year that King Uzziah died, [in a vision] I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the skirts of His train filled the [most holy part of the] temple’ (Isaiah 6:1). Was the fact that Isaiah’s vision occurred soon after Uzziah’s death a mere coincidence? I think not. Some commentators believe that Isaiah, along with many others in Judah at that time, had unconsciously allowed his hopes and expectations to become entwined around the godly king Uzziah that when he was removed those hopes toppled and his expectations died. If this is true then it is reasonable to assume that God could not appear to Isaiah until first the object on which his hopes and expectations were pinned had been removed. Perhaps it was not until he came to recognize the impotence of the one who lay in a tomb that he was prepared to lift his eyes to gaze at the One who sits on the eternal throne. I wonder, if am talking to someone today who over the past few weeks and months has been experiencing a removal of the props that support their life? Perhaps you can no longer depend on the situations, circumstances, and people you have relied on in the past; the things you have stood on for many years have been removed. Inside you are deeply hurt and from within your soul comes the cry, ‘Why is God doing this to me? Does He no longer care? Is He indifferent to my great needs?’ No, my dear friend and people, God is not indifferent to your needs. Sometimes, though, it’s when the props fall away from under our feet that we then rest our weight fully upon Him our God. We may need to be willing to see our earthly securities buried before we can see the glory of the heavenly King, our God who sits upon the throne. Do you get it, this is really the way we humans behaves, God know that sometimes we humans have our hopes on people or on material wealth/things than on Him God, and as such it is only when such failable hopes are removed that we realize that we are in error, that God is in reality the only One in Whom we should always hinge our hope in life!

As it has been stated earlier and as we continue to meditate on the fact that God reveals Himself through His names and that these names –Elohim [Mighty One], El Shaddai [God Almighty, or All Sufficient One], Jehovah Jireh [The Lord will provide], Jehovah Rophe [The Lord who heals], Jehovah Nissi [The Lord is my banner], Jehovah Qadesh [The Lord who makes holy or sanctifies] –reveal some different facet of God’s character and the ways God do His things in the midst of men. At the moment we are considering the occasion when, during a period of Israel’s history in which there was great restlessness and fear, God appeared to one of His discouraged and restless servants, Gideon, as the God who dispenses perfect peace. Recall that Gideon was or became a military leader, judge and prophet whose calling and victory over the Midianites are recounted in Judges 6-8 of the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible. Gideon was the son of Joash, born 1252BC in Canaan and his children are Abimelech and Jotham. Gideon’s calling and work was a juxtaposition of two traditional accounts in order to emphasize Israel’s monotheism and its duty to destroy idolatry. Now connecting Gideon’s calling to our topic Peace, and knowing that true peace comes only from God, the question is asked, why did God pick Gideon who was always afraid and fearful? It is important to know that God sees in us the things we humans cannot see. Gideon’s humble and fearful situation that disqualifies him in his own eyes and that of men was one of the reasons God chose him because Fear, especially the fear of God they say is the beginning of wisdom. The Lord called Gideon a mighty hero with strength even though he was insecure and fearful judging from the situation surrounding him; in like manner Lord Jesus called Peter a rock even though he was a pebble and kept crumbling every time he is faced with challenges of life! Before we look further into this matter of peace, let us get one thing straight; it is important to settle whether we are looking for perfect peace or just rest. More and more in these troubled days people are looking to various religious rituals as a means of obtaining peace of mind. In fact, the very phrase ‘peace of mind’ reveals the flaw in that kind of thinking or way of seeking it. You cannot have peace of mind until you have something deeper than peace of mind. Then the question is what is it that is deeper than peace of mind? When you have peace in the depths of your spirit then peace of mind is an outcome of that deeper peace in spirit. In other words, you cannot experience the peace of God until you have experienced peace with God because peace with God is the real peace from where the other peace, like peace of mind comes from. No one can experience real peace if there is a conflict in his or her spirit, in relation of God’s Spirit. We must first experience the joy of sins forgiven, our sins forgiven and then, and only then, can we know the peace that Apostle Paul, in today’s text, describes as ‘the peace… which transcends all understanding’. And, for that matter, all understanding also is not comparable with the Peace that comes from our Lord God Almighty. Those who attempt to find peace by different techniques or means of mental adjustment or diverse ritualizations are doomed to disappointment because that which they appear to have is not real peace! As a result of these techniques or rituals they may experience a little or what is called a momentary peace of mind because it will not last. A crisis quickly dispels this kind of peace because it is not founded and anchored in Christ meaning it is not deeply rooted in Christ! Our true faith in Christ is what gives deep-rootedness to our trusting and relying in Christ Jesus and His finished work of grace to humanity. This is why we have got to constantly train our mind and heart to constantly follow the divine way God does things in our life because that is what will build in us our sincere reliability in Christ whether good or bad, we will not shake or waver no matter the degree of the storms that comes our way, we will be steady especially in mind and heart knowing that our God is in control having made peace with Him! Making peace with God partly means that you are living your life in accordance with His Scripture and His Gospel even in the midst of your fellow man on earth in your everyday activities peacefully and in love.

At present we are studying the difference between perfect peace, the peace that comes from God, and imperfect peace, the peace that comes from mental tricks. Any peace resulting from mental exercises will inevitably let you down. The peace that comes from God, however, holds up because it has the God of the universe behind it. It is unshakable peace. It is the kind of peace of which Lord Jesus spoke in the text before us today: ‘Peace I leave with you; My [own] peace I now give and bequeath to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. [Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.]’. Some years ago at one of the seminars, I met a man who was in a wheelchair said the narrator. When I asked him how long he had been unable to walk he replied, “ever since I was a boy of fifteen years.’ Sensing that he felt no bitterness about his condition I asked him what was the first thing he would do when he got to heaven. He responded, ‘Well after gazing at the face of Lord Jesus for the first few billion years, I am then going to run all over God’s heaven.’ This was peace, perfect peace, in the face of trials, troubles, and difficult life circumstances. Calmly this man looked out at life and said, ‘Do your worst or your best. Inside I have peace, perfect peace, sufficient peace to deal with anything that comes.’ Life in many circumstances is very much dependent on the decisions we made and how we strictly follow those decisions especially if those decisions are based on God’s word or not! God’s peace can stand anything that challenges it. Since it is possible in this restless age to experience the Peace of God, do not let anything prevent you allowing peace to invade you. Peace is knocking at the door. Lift the Latch and let it come in. Make it your life affirmation to say: the Peace of God helps me; the Peace of God holds me; the Peace of God protects me, the Peace of God sustains me.

Today we ask ourselves: Is God’s peace an attainment –something we strive to achieve, something we can have –or is it an obtainment –something He gives us as a free gift? I believe it to be an obtainment, something we can have from Him once we are able to keep ourselves subjective to Him in sincerity and in love of Him. This puts the latch low enough for it to be within the reach of the least and most humble of His people. Are we really for our Lord God? One minister cried out to the Lord in an impetuous moment, ‘Lord, I’d give my right arm to get this.’ In response the Lord seemed to say, ‘I don’t want your right arm. Just give me your hand and I’ll lead you into it –free.’ The minister admitted that this revelation of God’s willingness to lead him into something he genuinely longed to receive changed his whole perspective on life and what life is all about. Sometimes people think that they can approach God with a business sense as if God is we humans that use one thing to gain another, No! From then on, this minister said, ‘The universe became a place of open and infinite possibilities for my power to receive as infinite as I am able.’ In other word, this minister realized that there are so much that God has freely given to our reach and it all depends on the amount of faith that we can foster and exhibit in Christ. Remember that God’s peace is obtained not by the shedding of your blood but by the shedding of His God’s own blood! Do we realize that? In the book of Hebrews there is a rest which is spoken of as ‘His rest’ as seen in Hebrew 4:1, in which we are required to enter. After the conquest of Canaan the Israelites should have entered into ‘God’s rest’ –a rest foreshadowing that which is referred to in Hebrews 4:1. But because of disobedience they failed to gain or enter into that rest. How sad it is that millions of Christians, who have been freed from bondage through the shed blood of God’s Paschal Lamb, His Son Jesus Christ as seen in 1 Peter 1:18-19, fail to enter into the rest provided for them by Jehovah Shalom—‘the Lord is Peace or the Lord is our Peace’. In Hebrews 4:4 this rest is spoken of as a Sabbath rest because the Sabbath was a day when work and struggle ceased; for us it is a day to accept the gifts of God, to be quiet and receptive with our heart and mind centered on God. Don’t struggle to gain peace by attainment; all you need to do is to empty your hands and take the gift. In other words, empty your heart and allow God to place His Peace into it! Remember the other names of our God: Jehovah Rapha—the Lord who heals; Jehovah Rohi—God our Shepherd; Jehovah Adonai—My great Lord.