Let's pray.
Father, we're so thankful for the confidence that
we can have knowing that the God of
peace is with us.
In a world that is torn apart by
wars and struggles, we thank you, Lord, that
we can experience that peace that passes human
understanding.
Lord, we pray that this day, those whose
hearts are troubled, those who find their lives
in turmoil, we pray, Father, that before this
day is over, they might experience, Lord, your
perfect peace in their lives, dispelling, Lord, the
fears, the anxieties, the uncertainties.
May they just have, Lord, that perfect peace.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
You may be seated.
Tonight, Skip is going to continue to lead
us in our journey through the Bible.
And so, we're looking forward to tonight's study,
as Skip will be taking us in Isaiah
chapters 26 through 28.
I know that it's the fourth of July,
and I know that there are going to
be fireworks, but I'm very curious as to
priorities.
Which is most important in your life?
The study of the eternal word of God
or watching some brilliant flash that will be
over in a moment?
Hearing the loud explosions and doing the oohs
and aahs, I'll be watching to see tonight
just which people have the right priority in
their life.
This morning, we'd like to draw your attention
to the 26th chapter, verses 3 and 4,
where Isaiah tells us, thou will keep him
in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on
thee, because he trusteth in thee.
Trust ye in Jehovah forever, for in Jehovah,
Jehovah is everlasting strength.
In a world that is filled with wars,
filled with striving, filled with bitter competition, the
heart of the normal man longs for peace.
David, in Psalm 120, said, I am for
peace.
And I'm certain that most of us would
echo those words of David, I am for
peace.
I want peace.
One of the main goals of the hippies
was peace.
On their old vans with the psychedelic paintings,
they always had on the van that painted
peace sign.
They would often flash the peace sign to
one another, for they were searching for peace.
I can remember being in a van parked
behind one of these vans at a signal.
And when the light turned green, the van
sputtered and died.
And I sat there behind this van as
the light continued green, but I knew it
would soon be red.
And I started honking my horn and saying,
get that dirty piece of junk off of
the road, you know.
And a hand came out the window with
a peace sign, peace brother, you know.
And I was embarrassed.
I thought, here I am a minister.
And here's this hippie kid telling me peace,
brother.
When in reality, I should be saying peace
brother to him.
But our world is such that we long
for peace.
The hippie kids were looking for that peace
and they thought that their quest for peace
could only be found by dropping out of
this dog-eat-dog society.
So they dropped out of a competitive world.
They started living in communal houses.
They disdained the material things, the fancy cars
and all.
And they got these old Volkswagen buses and
they just traveled around the country searching for
peace and searching for love.
They thought that peace was discovered by dropping
acid and going on these kinds of psychedelic
trips.
And they really felt that they were discovering
the secret of peace.
But it wasn't long before they realized that
these psychedelic trips were a disillusionment, that their
communal houses were not all love and peace.
There was striving, there was fighting, there was
the quarreling over whose drugs they were.
And so the hippie movement passed from the
scene.
But in reality, in their search for peace
and love, they were ripe for the gospel
of Jesus Christ, which is a gospel that
promises peace and love.
Here in our text in Isaiah 26 3,
Isaiah said that thou will keep him in
perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.
Who is the thou?
In verse 4, Isaiah tells us, whose mind
is stayed on thee for he trusteth in
the Lord.
The Lord is the one that will keep
you in perfect peace if you will keep
your mind stayed upon him.
He is, according to Paul, Romans chapter 15,
the God of peace.
When Jesus was giving his final instructions to
his disciples, the night that he was betrayed,
as they were on their way from the
upper room to the garden of Gethsemane, he
said to them, Peace, I leave with you.
My peace, I give unto you.
Not as the world gives, give I unto
you.
Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let
them be afraid.
My peace, I give to you.
Don't be troubled.
Don't be afraid.
As we read in Philippians chapter 4, Paul
wrote to them, Be anxious for nothing, but
in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving,
let your requests be made known unto God.
And the peace of God that passes human
understanding will keep your heart and your mind.
That glorious peace of God, which passes human
understanding.
You can be going through the most difficult
experience, the most stressful experience and have such
wonderful peace.
It will surprise you, surprise you that you
have such peace in the midst of these
tense circumstances.
You know, I think that the life of
Jesus was marked by peace.
So often where there would be this crowd
of people that are pushing, shoving and yelling
and all, the one with the peace would
be Jesus there in the midst of the
crowd.
I think of that song, the lyrics of
the song, What a Friend We Have in
Jesus, those lyrics that say, Oh, what peace
we often forfeit.
Oh, what needless pain we bear.
All because we do not carry everything to
God in prayer.
You see, Paul said, Don't be filled with
cares.
Be careful for nothing or filled with care
over nothing, but with prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving.
What is Paul telling us?
He's telling us that we should take these
things that bring care to our hearts and
make them the topic for our prayers.
The things that trouble me, the things that
concern me, the things that worry me, those
are the things that I need to be
praying about.
And if I will take my cares and
make them my prayers, then the peace of
God which passes all human understanding will keep
my heart and my mind in Christ Jesus.
Our text tells us that he will keep
us in perfect peace.
It's not just a fleeting moment of peace.
It's not like an aspirin that will last
for four hours.
But it is a constant, continual peace that
I can experience in Jesus Christ.
He can keep me in a state of
perfect peace.
Mark's gospel, chapter four, tells us how Jesus
was with his disciples and they were crossing
the Sea of Galilee.
And a storm came up that was threatening
the little ship.
In fact, they were sinking.
It was filling with water and they were
sinking.
And in the midst of this storm, where
the disciples were busy trying to bail the
water out and going around feverishly and actually
now beginning to fear that they were going
to sink there in the Sea of Galilee,
they found Jesus in the midst of the
storm in the back part of the ship,
sound asleep on a pillow.
And they woke him up and they said,
Master, don't you care if we perish?
And they were just filled with fear.
And Jesus woke and he said to the
wind and to the waves, peace, be still.
And immediately the wind ceased blowing and there
was a great calm so that the disciples
marveled.
What kind of a man is this that
can speak to the wind and speak to
the storm and comet?
But then Jesus chided his disciples, chided them
for their fear, chided them for their lack
of faith.
Having rebuked the storm, he now sort of
rebukes them for a lack of faith and
for fear.
Why did you fear?
And that always sort of troubled me.
It seemed to me they had real cause
for fear.
The ship was sinking.
Jesus was asleep.
And it seems to me that there was
real cause for fear.
And as I read that, it sort of
troubled me that Jesus would chide them because
they lacked faith and they were fearful.
But then I read the story again more
carefully.
And back at the beginning of the story,
I read, and Jesus said to his disciples,
let us go over to the other side.
He didn't say, let's go under to the
other side.
And if Jesus said, let's go over, you
can be sure that you're going to go
over.
If you just listen carefully, you can't go
under while going over to the other side.
And thus his chiding them for the fear
that they were going to go under.
Thou will keep him.
The him is you.
He will keep you in perfect peace.
The Hebrew Bible reads, shalom, shalom.
A double piece.
He will keep you in peace.
Peace.
The word perfect is not there in the
Hebrew scriptures, but using a double shalom is
for emphasis.
The double is a emphatic.
That is, he will keep you in great
peace, emphatic quite often, even to the present
day.
When you're in Israel, you greet someone always
with the word shalom.
And quite often, as you greet someone with
the word shalom, their response is shalom, shalom.
They will double it, which is an emphatic
piece.
May you have perfect peace.
Thus the word perfect piece is a good
translation because it brings out the emphatic piece
or the great piece that is being promised
to those whose minds are stayed upon the
Lord.
So let me ask you a question.
Can you say that today you are experiencing
that perfect peace?
Can you say that your heart is at
rest?
Many years ago, I was invited to a
seekers meeting made up of college professors and
doctors and many of the prominent people of
Orange County.
And they had asked me to come and
share my understanding of God with them.
So I went to this meeting and time
came that they wanted the discussion.
So the fellow sitting on the floor in
a lotus position told me that he was
a Buddhist at one time and his search
for peace and his search for meaning and
search for God.
And he said, we've invited you now tell
us about the God that you believe in.
So I said, well, you fellows have been
on quite a search.
And so why don't we start at the
beginning of the Bible in the beginning, God.
And one of them spoke up and said,
well, now when you say God, are you
talking about an anthropomorphic concept of God?
And then these guys started getting in this
argument with each other on concepts of God.
And after about five minutes of their bantering
back and forth, during which time I was
saying, Oh God, why am I here?
Why?
Oh, Lord, get me out of this place.
If you do, I promise I'll never come
back again.
Help me out of here, Lord.
I mean, I didn't come for this.
And one of the ladies said, would you
guys please shut up?
We hear you go through these things every
week.
And now we've invited a guest, give him
the courtesy to at least share with us
what he believes.
So I started again.
But while they were in their little discourse
with each other, I started the next time
by declaring my heart is at perfect peace.
You could have heard a pin drop.
They all began to sit on the edge
of their seats to listen.
Why?
Because that's something they could not say.
That's something they did not experience through all
of their searching and philosophizing and all they
had not found that perfect peace.
And it shocked them to have someone say,
my heart is at perfect peace.
And that was the key.
They listened then to what I had to
share.
And in the subsequent weeks, many of them
called me and thank God, many of them
accepted the Lord and that perfect peace that
he has promised to us.
Are you afraid that your ship is sinking
and Jesus seems to be asleep?
You feel that he's not aware of your
problem.
You need to remember that Jesus said to
his disciples in Luke 12, six are not
five sparrows sold for two pennies.
And not one of them is forgotten before
God.
But even the very hairs of your head
are all numbered.
Fear not, therefore, for you have more value
than many sparrows.
Your father watching over his creation, even these
little sparrows, hardly worth anything.
Five of them sold for two pennies.
You could for one penny by to bargain
price by five, two pennies.
And yet your father is cognizant of them.
Not one of them falls to the ground,
but what your father isn't aware of it.
Now, if your father is that aware of
just his little creatures.
How much more is he aware of you,
his child?
How much more is he cognizant of your
needs and desiring to minister to you and
to help you in those hours of distress?
So what are the conditions for receiving this
perfect peace?
Isaiah tells us whose mind is stayed on
thee.
I must keep my mind stayed upon the
Lord or fixed upon him.
It means that I am looking to him.
It means that I am trusting in him.
Perfect peace is not promised to those that
listen to the 10 o'clock news at
night and find out all of the murders
that happen today in our community.
Perfect peace is not promised to those that
lifts into the ravings and the rantings of
carrier gore.
That's a good way to raise your blood
pressure.
Perfect peace is not to those whose minds
are stayed on the world conditions, for we
don't live in that kind of a world.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't be cognizant
of what's going on in our world, but
don't let your mind dwell on those things.
When you start to get upset over the
world news, just realize that God is still
in control.
He has allowed Satan certain liberties.
He has put a limit, however, on Satan's
work so that Satan can only work within
the constraints of which God has allowed him
to work.
Jesus said to his disciples, let not your
heart be troubled.
You believe in God, believe also in me.
And as you keep your mind stayed upon
him, the result will be a perfect peace
in your heart.
I think of how the scriptures so often
tell us that Jesus said to people who
were going through troubling experiences, be of good
cheer.
There was a man who was suffering a
crippling disease as the result of his sin.
He had become an invalid as this particular
disease, which was transmitted by sexual relationships, as
it was taking its toll upon his body
and now was helpless having to just lie
on a cot.
His friends brought him to Jesus and as
Jesus looked upon him in that condition, he
said, be of good cheer.
Oh, how that must have brought comfort to
his mind that was plagued over his guilt,
his mind that was constantly going back and
saying, why did I do it?
Why was I so foolish?
Why?
And, you know, as you see your body
just slowly deteriorating and you can do nothing
about it and you realize it's my fault,
it was my folly, it was my stupidity.
Why did I do it?
It can be a very tormenting thing.
And to this man, Jesus said, be of
good cheer.
Your sin is forgiven.
To the disciples that were out on the
Sea of Galilee, struggling against a contrary wind,
they're in the middle of the sea, not
really progressing towards the other side.
And at around midnight, Jesus came or was
actually the fourth watch of the night.
Jesus came walking to them on the water.
And when they saw him walking toward them,
they began to cry out in fright.
They thought it was a ghost.
And as they were crying out in fear,
Jesus said, be of good cheer.
It's only me.
Don't be afraid.
He told his disciples that in this world
you will have tribulation, but be of good
cheer because I have overcome the world.
Let not your heart be troubled.
Be of good cheer.
You see, you can't be both.
If your heart is troubled, you can't be
of good cheer.
And if you are of good cheer, your
heart can't be troubled.
They're sort of mutually exclusive.
And Jesus is encouraging you today.
Don't let your heart be troubled.
Don't worry over these things.
Be anxious for nothing.
Be of good cheer.
Look to me.
I'm here.
I want to help you.
I will sustain you.
I have the answers for you.
Most of the panic that comes to us
is from failing to figure God into the
equations of life.
I look at my present problem and I
measure it by my resources and my ability
to handle it.
And I panic because I realize I don't
have the ability or the strength to deal
with this.
I need to remember not to measure though
the situation by my capacities, but to measure
them by his capacities.
It isn't an issue of can I cope
with this?
But can he cope with this?
We are told in Psalm 56 that David
was taken by the Philistines.
He was in a frightening situation.
He was in the city of Gath.
And David prayed this prayer while they're taken
by the Philistines.
Be merciful unto me, O God, for man
would swallow me up.
His daily fighting oppresses me.
My enemies would daily swallow me up, for
there are many that fight against me.
O thou most high, when I am afraid,
I will trust in thee.
I will praise God's word, for I have
put my trust in God.
I will not fear what man might do
to me.
You see, in this place of danger, in
this place of peril, David turned it over
to God.
Lord, I put my trust in you.
Deliver me from these men.
They're fighting.
It oppresses me, Lord.
All of this tension that just, Lord, I
put my trust in you.
I will not fear what they might do
to me.
David knew that he was no match for
the Philistines, but he knew that the Philistines
were no match for his God.
Even so, you are no match for your
problems, but your problems are no problem to
God.
He that has perfect peace is among the
richest people in the world today.
To have a very beautiful estate, a huge
mansion, what value is it if your heart
is constantly troubled and you're constantly plagued with
fear?
What good is a bank account into the
millions of dollars if at the hour of
death or deep distress you do not have
God to call upon?
I have neither estates or mansions or large
bank accounts, but I have heaven's resources at
my disposal.
And thus, I'm one of the richest men
in Newport Beach.
I love to drive around and look at
all of those lovely homes and realize I'm
richer than any of the people living in
any of these homes because I have heaven's
resources at my disposal.
And that's the glorious thing.
You have heaven's resources at your disposal, and
God will keep you in perfect peace when
your mind is stayed on him.
So we need to fix our minds upon
his greatness, his love, his power, his mercy,
and his grace toward you and me because
our God is an awesome God.
And through him, we need not fear any
obstacle that the world could throw against us.
For through God, we have the victory.
Let's pray.
Father, we're so thankful that you've made your
resources available for us, your children, and that
you have promised that you would provide for
our every need according to your riches in
glory by Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Lord, there are those here today who came
with worried hearts.
They're facing troubling situations, and these have created
fear and anxieties.
Lord, I pray that as they are here
today, they might just fix their minds, Lord,
upon you, upon your love and your greatness
and your ability to help those who put
their trust in you.
Free them, Lord, from the fears that are
so debilitating and are dragging them down.
May they go, Lord, from this service with
the confidence and the assurance that you're going
to work as they place the issues in
your hands.
And may they go, Lord, with perfect peace
as their minds have been stayed upon you
and as they have put their trust in
you today.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Shall we stand?
The pastors are down here at the front
to pray for you today.
If you are faced with some troubling situations
that maybe are keeping you awake at night,
maybe they're robbing you of sleep, you're worried,
you're fearful, you're not certain as to what's
going to happen and you really find yourself
quite troubled, they're here to help you to
connect with God today, to connect with his
resources that he wants to make available to
you if you would just trust in him.
So I would encourage you, don't leave the
place today carrying the same burden that you
carried in.
But as the scripture said, casting all your
cares upon him because he cares for you.
Go from this place carefree.
Let him carry the burden for you.
Turn it over to him and let him
take care of it.
He's promised that he would.
And you're foolish to try to bear that
load all yourself.
It can drive you to distraction.
So I would encourage you find today before
you leave here, find that perfect peace that
God wants you to experience through the commitment
of these issues fully to him.
These men are down here to pray for
you and to help you find that perfect
peace.
The Lord bless thee and keep thee.
The Lord make his face to shine upon
thee and be gracious unto thee and be
gracious unto thee.
The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee
and give thee peace.
272 W.O.R.D.