What would you give for peace? Not just external, but internal mental and emotional tranquility of heart? In this message Pastor Clark shares four simple biblical steps to finding the peace that surpasses all understanding.

<p>What would you give for peace? Not just external, but internal mental and emotional tranquility of heart? In this message Pastor Clark shares four simple biblical steps to finding the peace that surpasses all understanding.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Dalton SDA Church

Chester Clark

Finding Peace Within

You know, too often we don't even think too much about it.

We think of peace in the global perspective.

We think of international conflict and we think of maybe even more personal, we think of challenges in our work environment and our home.

But do we think much about having peace within?

Recent studies have confirmed what I think we've known for quite some time is that many diseases actually begin, where do you think?

You know, when you feel like you're being eaten up inside, have you ever felt that way?

When you feel like you can't sleep very well, when you feel like you've lost your appetite, you can't eat because of something that is troubling you.

It's a personal experience that proves to us that the body and mind are very much connected, aren't they?

And as our mind is not at peace, our body is not healthy.

Many diseases begin in the mind because, my friends, our minds are not at peace.

So today we're going to be talking about finding peace within.

Last Sabbath we talked about climbing new mountains.

We gave some simple steps about overcoming things in our lives that we want to see changed, that we want to overcome.

Today I think it's important for us to maybe even get a little more fundamental in our understanding of what we need.

Father God, we just thank You that You've called us to worship You today.

We Thank You that we can open Your Word, we can study Your will for us, that we can have an understanding of how we can have peace within our hearts.

Our scripture Today is Romans chapter 5 and verse 1, and it tells us, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, each part of this verse could be enough for a whole sermon.

We could have a whole sermon just on justification, couldn't we?

Justification is a big theological term that's really very simple.

It simply means that we can stand before God just as if I'd never sinned.

Think of justified as just as if I'd never sinned.

Justification means that when we come, we come to God with our filthy rags, our own record of wrongdoing, the mistakes that we've done, the hurt that we've caused, the scars, the wounds.

And God says, look, I am willing to exchange your sin for my righteousness.

I am willing to exchange your death for my life.

I am willing to put God's own son's record, Jesus Christ's record of his perfect life, his perfect righteousness in place of Chester Clark's account.

And so when God looks in at my record, he sees not what I've done, but he sees what Jesus has done.

Is that something that we ought to be excited about?

Absolutely, that's what justification means.

Now I've said before, we often try to get the cart before the horse.

Any of you ever tried to hitch a horse and a cart?

Did you ever try turning the horse around and having the cart in front of the horse?

No, and neither does it work for us to try to live a godly life without first having been made godly by Jesus Christ.

When we try to live, when we try to say, I'm going to do better, I'm gonna work harder, I'm gonna be a better person, And we try to do it on our own strength.

What we're trying to experience is sanctification, that's holy living, without first experiencing justification, God making us holy.

You can't keep yourself holy if you haven't been made holy, right?

You can't keep yourself right or righteous if you haven't been made right or righteous.

And that's why it's so important for us to experience justification.

Oh, we could spend a whole hour just unpacking what that means.

You see, there's sort of popular wisdom that says, if you're talking about peace you're talking about feelings.

And in order for me to be justified by, In order for me to have peace in my heart, I need to feel that I'm justified.

Well that's not exactly what the Apostle is trying to tell us.

He says being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

That means, friends, sometimes our feelings aren't going to tell us whether we're right with God or not.

What can tell us whether we're right with God or not?

The Bible says in 1 John 1, verse 9, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to what?

And 1 of the examples that we can see in the New Testament is the story of the paralytic man.

You remember he had been laying there for 38 years.

He couldn't move on his own and Jesus comes to him and has the audacity to say, get up, rise, take up your bed and walk.

And it would have been very easy for this crippled man to say, Jesus, can't you see?

And I don't think there was anything in that man that said, well, now my legs are straight.

I think the man just said, you know what, Jesus said it, and I'm going to act upon it.

Sometimes, you know, we're in the same situation.

Have you ever felt like you prayed and you still felt that there was a burden of guilt in your heart?

In fact, I want to share with you a little bit of my testimony in just a few minutes because we don't have a lot of time.

But when I was a kid, I was a good kid, and I don't say that in a bragging way because good is the enemy of great.

And good means that I thought I was good enough.

Good means that I didn't realize that I needed a miracle of conversion.

You know, I read my Bible, I studied, I taught Sabbath school when I was a teenager.

I loved to study God's Word, but as a teenager I drifted away spiritually in my heart, away from Jesus Christ and I found that there were things in my life that didn't honor Him, that things in my life that I was doing that I knew weren't His will but I did them anyway.

And when it came to the point when I was about 18 years old, I was listening to some sermons and it was a prayer meeting sermon I believe that really touched my heart.

It was a prayer meeting sermon on the 2 sons.

Remember the story of the parable that Jesus gave?

There were 2 sons And he said to both, the father said to both of the sons, son go work today in my vineyard, remember that parable?

And the 1 said, yes sir, I'm going, and he went fishing.

At least that's what the Bible stories painted, the illustrator painted in Mount Fishing.

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Finding Peace Within

Transcript

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