All right, brothers and sisters, if we could take our seats.
Our brother is coming to share a word. The song that just kind of came to me just now is that we would fix our eyes and our thoughts on Him.
My eyes are fixed on You, O Lord;
Your loving face I see.
I set my heart after You;
I’ll follow faithfully.Each way I’ll lay aside;
By grace I will abide.
Your rod and staff, they comfort me
And open up my eyes.You’ve opened up my eyes
To see Your holiness,
To be Your righteousness.Oh, how I love You, Lord,
To see Your majesty,
To be here, Your family.Oh, Lord, I praise Your name.
My eyes are fixed.My eyes are fixed on You, O Lord;
Your loving face I seek.
I set my heart after You;
I’ll follow faithfully.
Good morning, brothers and sisters. Is that set, Fontaine? Okay. All right.
Before I really get started, I wanted to share a few comments. This is my disclaimer page—not really. I just wanted to say a few things, since I really have not done this before.
Number one, I wanted to say thank you for the opportunity to share these thoughts this morning. I think the Lord has put them on my heart. Just the fact that there is the opportunity to do that is a good thing.
The Lord has really spoken into some issues in my life over the last year, and I hope that He will use that for encouragement and for building up of the body. Otherwise, why am I standing up here? It is not about me. It is really about building up the body of Christ.
The last thing I wanted to say is that what I am doing this morning is not what I think is a teaching in the traditional sense that we have here, but more of a sharing about what the Lord is teaching me, and then letting Him use that in the way that He wants. So those are kind of my disclaimers, but I think they are good disclaimers.
Lord, we thank You that You are alive, that You are living, that our hope is not in something that is dead. Lord, we thank You that You want to speak to us, that You want to reveal Yourself to us.
Lord, as I am here, I want to just be a vessel for whatever it is that You want to say to Your people. Lord, I aspire to nothing else than that. I pray that You would use this time to open our hearts and help us hear what You have to say to us. We ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
There are really just two Scriptures. Steve, I promise that I will change this before you come up here.
I also want to say that I am on a tight time schedule here. I know that there is liberty, but I do not want to take advantage of that liberty. So, for the next hour and a half—no, I am not going to speak for an hour and a half. I am going to speak for about twenty-five minutes.
The two Scriptures that I wanted to share around—the first one is Matthew 21:28-32, from the New International Version. For those of you who do not have the NIV, that is okay, because I am hoping we can put it up on the screen.
Matthew 21:28-32 is the parable of the two sons. Jesus is speaking:
“What do You think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
“‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
“The first,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “I tell You the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.”
What I thought I would do is just kind of share around this for a few minutes, and then I would share around the other Scripture. It is always good, when you are reading Scripture, to read it and understand it in context.
Jesus is in the temple area, teaching about the kingdom of God and teaching about Himself. He is having this conversation with the chief priests and the elders in the court area.
They are coming to Him, challenging His authority to be there and to teach what He is teaching. There is a reason for that: He was teaching things that they had not heard before. He was teaching about Himself, that He was the Son of God. Clearly, that was a threat to the chief priests and the elders.
They did not understand what He was talking about, and they did not agree with it, I do not think. So they come to Jesus, in the section before this parable, and challenge His authority. They say, “By whose authority do You come here and teach?”
Our Lord is so gracious in the way He talks to people sometimes. He says, “Well, why do I not ask you a question? If you answer Me, then I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven or from men?”
Of course, they were stuck because they did not really believe that John’s baptism was from heaven. But they knew the people did. They were in a pickle, so to speak. They knew that whatever they said was not going to be the right answer.
So Jesus said, “Well, if you do not know, then I am not going to tell you by whose authority I do the things that I do.” That is kind of the background there.
I think it is important to realize that the Lord knows their hearts and their minds. He knows what they think—exactly what they think. This is kind of a little game that is going on between them.
But then Jesus goes on to tell this parable:
“What do You think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
“‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
“The first,” they answered.
I am going to stop there. One little thing that kind of tripped me up when I was reading this: in the New International Version, the son who says no is the first son.
But in the newer New American Standard Bible that I have, they have them switched. The old version was like the NIV, but the newer version has the son who said yes first. It does not matter, I guess, but I bring that up because if you are reading it, you may be thinking, “Wait a minute, Tom, what are you talking about? It is backwards.” But it is not.
The thing that I wanted to point out is in verse 29, where he says, “I will not,” he answered, “but later he changed his mind and went.”
The word will here implies active volition or purpose. Of course, it is in the negative because he is saying, “I am not going to do it.”
But then, in the other part of the sentence, the word changed—which is in the NIV—in some other versions it says regret or repent. That is really referring to changing your mind after you have done something.
I like the way that version says it because, to me, the word repent has often become kind of a religious term. It has fallen out of our vernacular, and we do not really know what it means anymore.
The point is that there is something really important going on here: he is changing his mind.
That seems like a small thing, but as I was reading these verses some months ago, the Lord really spoke to me. You know how you read Scripture sometimes and it is like, “Pow”? It is like the power of God is in this, and you are like, “Wait a minute, I have never seen that before.” Or you feel like God is really speaking to you.
That is the way I felt. I felt like God was really speaking to me. I was looking at it and going, “Whoa, he changed his mind, and he went.” I thought, “Lord, what are You saying to me in this?”
As I was seeking the Lord about this over the next few weeks, I think He gave me three different points. I do not consider myself a really accomplished speaker, but I guess it is always good to have things when you speak and share that people can kind of take away.
The first takeaway is that God has the power to reveal Himself to us so that we can change the way we think about Him. I think that is a lot of what is going on in this parable.
As I was thinking about this, contemplating it, and meditating on it, I think the Lord really said, “You think about Me a certain way. You see Me a certain way. But that is because you are stuck in the way you think about Me, and I am not always like the way you think about Me.”
I think that was the way it was with these chief priests and elders. They only thought God could be a certain way. So when Jesus was coming to them as the living Word, they could not see it. They could not understand it. They were completely blocked from understanding that God could reveal Himself in this way.
The Lord was kind of showing me that there are circumstances and situations in my life where I have thought of Him in a certain way. But He is different. If I will change my mind about the way I see Him, then He can begin to do this work in me.
The point is that He has the power to change the way we think, and He can reveal Himself to us so that we can see Him the way He really is.
The second thing that I believe He showed me was that He gives all of us grace in changing our minds.
One of the things that you have to do when you realize that you are in error, or that you have made a mistake—what is the first thing you have to do? You have to admit that you made a mistake. You have to admit that you are wrong.
Now, I come from some genetic stock—and my wife will attest to this—that is not inclined to ever admit that they are wrong about anything. “Never in doubt” is the way it goes.
That is a struggle, because you go through life and you think, “Okay, this is the way God is,” or, “This is the way God works,” or, “Lord, this is the way my life is.” You think it is never going to change.
Really, what He is saying is, “Yes, I can change it. I want to change your life, but you have to change your mind about the way you think about Me.”
The thing about grace is that, so often in life, when we make mistakes, one reason we do not want to admit that we are wrong—and we are willing to live in this wrong way of thinking—is that we think we will be humiliated or condemned by people.
Look at our culture around us. Politicians go out, lie, then get caught in their lie. They cannot even admit that they lied. Everybody knows it.
But that is not God’s heart. His heart is not to condemn me or you, or to humiliate us. His heart is really to help us see that change and understand what it is that He wants to do.
The third thing—and I think this may be the most important—is that whether I hear His voice and change my mind about what He is trying to do in my life, He still loves me to the end, whether I change my mind or not.
When I read this story in a Bible study, it jumped out at me that these chief priests and elders were the people who knew the most. They were the experts. But they could not see anything. They were blind.
But Jesus loved them to the end. He cared about them. He wanted them to change their minds. He went to the cross for them. He went to the cross for me. He went to the cross for all of us.
So that is really what the Lord was showing me about that. Now I want to move to another Scripture: Romans 8:28-30.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.
“For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.
“And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.”
Brother Kenny, you shared about this some weeks ago. As an encouragement to you, I want you to know that the Lord spoke to me about this. It is really about this idea that God has a purpose, and that He is going to fulfill this purpose.
That purpose is to prepare a bride for His Son. But in that preparation, He is conforming us to the likeness, or the image, of His Son. That is a work that goes on in all of us over the course of our whole lives after we know the Lord.
I bring that up because, as I was meditating on these other verses in Matthew, one of the things the Lord spoke to me when Kenny was sharing about this was that this conforming work is not a self-improvement program. It is not “The Seven Highly Effective Habits” of whatever. I do not know what that guy’s book is.
This is a work that the Lord is doing. It is His work to do. We should always stop and ask ourselves: how could any of us possibly think that we could conform ourselves to the image of God’s Son? I mean, please. We cannot do that. That is His work to do.
You are probably asking yourself right now, “So, Tom, what is the connection between this and what you shared about in Matthew?” Well, I think it is this: the Lord is doing this work. He is conforming us to the image, or the likeness, of His Son.
But it is not as if we just get to do what we want, go live our lives, and magically become conformed. It is not like that. We know that.
I think it is this process where God is asking us to change our minds about who He is in our lives. We do not always hear it. He is speaking to us. I think He speaks to us every day. He speaks to me every day. I can tell you honestly that I do not always listen. There are some things that I do not want to listen to God about. But He is speaking.
He provides revelation to us about this. If you remember the three things: He has the power, He has the grace, and He has the love.
He has the power to show us what we need to know about Him in order to change our lives and change our minds about Him. He is going to do the work. He is going to do the conforming work. But if we do not put ourselves in that place where we can hear His voice and respond to Him, then we walk around and He is speaking, but we are not listening.
He gives us the grace to really accept that. Finally, He loves us.
As I have begun to understand this over the last year in my life, there were some things that I was saying no to the Lord about—things I did not want to change. He said, “Well, you do not have to. You can say no. But I cannot speak to you. I cannot show you who I am if you cannot accept that I am speaking to you into this thing in your life.”
This is my testimony: I took that step of faith with the Lord, and I said, “Okay, Lord. All right, I am going to accept that You can change this in me, that You will give me the grace, that I am not going to be condemned. I know You love me, because otherwise You would not be doing this with me.”
And He did. The other side of that is light and freshness and joy in my life. Not every day, not all the time, because life is not like that all the time. But there is a joy of knowing the Lord in your life and knowing that He is speaking to you, that He is revealing Himself to you.
That parable in Matthew speaks to me about the heart of the Lord—that He wants us to come to Him. But it is our choice to come to Him every single day.
He has the power, and He has the grace and love, and we can walk in that. I thank Him that He has done that for me.
I would encourage any of you, especially young people: as we get older in life—I have managed to reach the half-century mark this year—you often look back on your life and think, “Gosh, why has it taken me until age fifty to understand this?”
You look back and regret, but that, to me, is kind of the grace part of the Lord. He does not have a time frame. It is not a production assembly. It is a work that He is doing, and He is going to do that work.
Whether you are fifty, twenty, eighty, or one hundred—whatever it is—He is going to do it. But I think the principle for us is this: when we hear His voice, do we respond?
Even if you say no, you can still change your mind. You can still change your mind.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share. That is really what I wanted to share. I am going to take a minute to pray, and then we will let Steve come up.
Lord, we thank You that You are always moving in our lives, that You are always doing this work—this process of conforming us to Your likeness. Lord, we thank You that it is really Your work to do, because we know we cannot do it.
Lord, help us to hear Your voice, to see the things that You are showing us, or where we need to change our minds. Lord, help us to rely on Your power and Your grace and Your love to do that.
We pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Now Steve is going to come up and share, and I hope I have left him ample time.
Good morning. We are doing a little tag team.
In defense of our brother, he was saying how, you know—and I want to say that not all are teachers in the church. Just because you are not a teacher does not mean you do not have something from the Lord that you can share with us. I think our brother shared a really good living word.
I hesitate sharing, but Kenny is looking at me, and I guess that means I have to go. There is going to be a little overlap, and there are some things that are totally different.
When this opportunity came up, I thought, “What can I share that may be something encouraging to the saints, that could be relatively short, and something that can be more of an exhortation?” I am not going to teach either. I want to exhort.
What was on my heart was this matter of peace. We are going to look at two aspects of that regarding the believer.
First of all, what is peace? I ran to my Unger’s Bible Dictionary, and it had three definitions:
It is this third definition that we want to look at this morning.
The word peace in the New Testament occurs a little over one hundred times. You may find that a little shocking. As I looked at that word, I was kind of like, “Boy, where do I stop? Where do I start?”
Let us first look at peace from God’s side, and then we will jump into what is really on my heart.
“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely.”
— 1 Thessalonians 5:23
I wanted to point out, first of all, where peace originates. We find that God the Father is the Author and source of peace.
“[Through Christ] to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross.”
— Colossians 1:20
We see in this verse that the Lord Jesus Christ is the bringer of peace. God the Father is the Author and source; our Lord Jesus is the bringer of peace.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace.”
— Galatians 5:22“For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
— Romans 14:17
These two verses point out that the Holy Spirit is the maintainer of peace. So we see the Godhead, the Trinity, all at work in this matter of peace.
We want to look at two aspects of peace regarding the believer as they are presented in the Scriptures:
It seems to be a play on words, but there is a difference. Peace with God is an objective truth. It is a fact. It is revelation. The peace of God is a subjective state or experience.
Peace with God has to do with the position of the believer before God. When we come to the matter of the peace of God, we enter into the realm of experience.
Peace with God has to do with our standing. The peace of God has to do with our walk.
How can we be settled in our relationship with God if we are not established in this truth of our peace with God?
The matter of our peace with God rests entirely outside of ourselves. It has all to do with the finished work of Christ on the cross.
Likewise, how can we effectively walk before God if we are not experiencing the peace of God? The experience of the peace of God has to do with a believer who has subjected himself to the will of God—or, to put it another way, has subjected himself to the lordship of Christ.
There is my burden. Can I sit down now?
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
— Romans 5:1
Peace with God is a result of justification by faith.
Justification is the act of God whereby He declares the believing sinner righteous in Christ on the basis of the finished work of Christ on the cross.
To put it simply, to be justified means to be declared right before God. Justification is an act; it is not a process. There are no degrees to justification. Each believer—each and every believer—has the same standing before God in this matter of justification. That is a positional truth.
“Being justified as a gift by His grace.”
— Romans 3:24“The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”
— Romans 11:29
Thus, the believer is not under probation. Justification is something God has done totally apart from man. What God has done in this matter, He will not undo. I want to underline that.
Romans 5:1 states that we have peace with God as a result of justification. Let me quote one brother in this matter. William Newell, in his wonderful book on Romans, said this:
Peace with God involves:
- That God has fully judged sin upon Christ, our Substitute.
- That God is wholly satisfied with Christ’s sacrifice, and that He will eternally remain so, never taking up the judgment of our sin again.
- That God is therefore at rest about us forever.
However weak your faith, God is now looking at the blood, not our sins. God no longer has anything against us. Indeed, He cannot hold anything against us—against one whom He justified.
The believer is seen by God as perfect in Christ. The believer is accepted in the Beloved.
Believers can be at peace with God simply because God is at peace with them. God has established a relationship with the believer that cannot be broken. That cannot be broken.
God has said that He hates divorce. Why? Because marriage is a type of Christ’s relationship to the church, for whom He gave His life. It is a relationship that, once entered upon, will never be severed. God is absolutely committed to the believer and will always be so.
Thus, the believer can know that he has peace with God.
“He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.”
— Romans 4:25
The truth of peace with God rests entirely upon Christ. God is utterly satisfied with Christ’s sacrifice for our sins. What is the proof of that? The proof is that He raised Christ up from the dead.
So we who have believed on Christ have, past tense, peace with God.
Now, what about this matter of the peace of God? Let us turn to Philippians 4:6-9.
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
“And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
“Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.
“The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things; and the God of peace will be with you.”
I do not know if you have noticed, but all of Paul’s greetings include “grace to you and peace.” We might say, “Yes, I definitely see where I need that grace.” But this matter of peace is just as important.
In this reference—meaning Paul in his greetings—he is not referring to peace with God, because the believer already has that. When you come to the Lord, you have peace with God. He is speaking of entering into the peace of God.
We are now coming into the realm of our walk with God, our experience with Him. The letter to the Philippians has to do with Christian experience, and it is in this letter that we find this phrase: the peace of God.
Life is made up of many circumstances, some of which we would define as good and some of which we would define as bad. But in reality, all of them—all the believer’s circumstances—are engineered by God and designed for the purpose of good.
That good purpose is to conform us to the image of Christ. Some of these circumstances designed by God are extremely difficult. Some are not. All are for the purpose of pressing us into Christ. All are for the purpose of giving us opportunities to experience Christ.
It is only through His life that we can go through all circumstances, whether hard or difficult, victoriously and bring glory to God.
Our passage started with, “Be anxious for nothing.” That word anxious means to be pulled in different directions.
We enter into a difficult situation, a difficult circumstance, and what happens? Often we fall apart. We lose hold of our lifeline, and we start to sink.
We need to heed the exhortation to make our requests and supplications known to God. We need to pave the way with prayer.
We are not traveling aimlessly through this life, but we are called according to purpose. We are to experience all things with Him. He has walked this way. He has overcome, and now He wants to take us along the path to the throne with Him.
So, as we look to Him in all our circumstances, as we set our minds on Him, meditating on His Word and praying for everything at all times, He is able to keep us in perfect peace.
Let us look at the example of Daniel in Daniel 6:7-11. I think most of us know the story. Daniel attained a high position in the kingdom, and there were many who were jealous of him. They wanted to come up with a plot to have him removed.
“All the commissioners of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the high officials and the governors, have consulted together that the king should establish a statute and enforce an injunction that anyone who makes a petition to any god or man besides you, O king, for thirty days, shall be cast into the lions’ den.
“Now, O king, establish the injunction and sign the document so that it may not be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which may not be revoked.”
Therefore, King Darius signed the document, that is, the injunction.
“Now when Daniel knew that the document was signed, he entered his house. Now in his roof chamber he had windows open toward Jerusalem; and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God, as he had been doing previously.
“Then these men came by agreement and found Daniel making petition and supplication before his God.”
Think of the fear that could have gripped Daniel in his heart and mind when he heard of the decree of the king. But what did Daniel do?
He exercised himself spiritually. We have been hearing about making supplication, praying, and giving thanks. God strengthened and kept Daniel in perfect peace, even in the lions’ den.
Even though the king himself was unable to sleep that night—he worried all night—not Daniel.
We likewise need the grace of the Lord to guard our hearts and our minds, for it is through these faculties that our peace can evaporate, is it not?
The passage exhorts us to dwell on those things that are lovely, good, and excellent. If I could put it in a simple term, it is simply to dwell on the person of the Lord Jesus and what He has accomplished for us on the cross. There we will find liberty. There we will find the peace of God.
“You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You.”
— Isaiah 26:3
I would like to take just a little bit of a left turn. If we could turn to the Gospel of Matthew—my brother read out of the Gospel of Matthew—chapter 11. We are going to read verses 28 through 30.
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
“Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
“For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
— Matthew 11:28-30
We need to pay attention when we see anything in which the Lord utters, “I will.” The Lord said, “I will build My church.” The Lord said, “I will make you.” Remember when He was speaking to Peter? He said, “I will make you a fisher of men.” “I will make you.” The Lord is doing it.
I want you to notice that the word rest occurs in this passage twice. First, “Come to Me and I will give you rest.” Secondly, “Take My yoke and learn from Me, and you will find rest for your souls.”
This first rest is synonymous with peace with God. The second rest is synonymous with the peace of God. The first rest is synonymous with justification. The second rest is synonymous with sanctification.
I want you to note the order. It says, “Come,” and then, “Take My yoke.” Not, “Take My yoke and come.” Come, and then take My yoke.
The yoke cannot be taken before we come to Christ. This was the very thing the religious leaders of that time were doing to the people: placing a burden upon them that they could not carry.
Think of those who heard those words that day—those who were weighed down with heavy burdens that they could not bear. Then they are told by our Lord, “Come to Me, and I will give you rest.”
How simplistic. How liberating. How attainable. Words so simple, and yet so profound because of Who uttered them.
You find no conditions here in coming to Christ. There are no conditions. As the song says, “Come just as you are.” That is all we can do, right?
There are no prerequisites. There is no certain pedigree, no stature, or religious expectations required. Just come.
It is not do, give, bring, feel, or fill in the blank. No, it is come. How are we to come? Just as we are.
He will give us rest. It seems too good to be true, does it not? But He has prepared the way. He has done the required work. What liberty. What peace.
Then it says, “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me.” We have come, we have taken, and we learn. There is purpose in taking this yoke: so that we can learn from Him.
When we come to Christ, we are called into the school of Christ, or called into discipleship, so that we can live a life worthy of Him.
But again, it is after we have come to Him—after we have seen Him, and all His beauty and all His worth—that this matter of taking His yoke is set before us. Otherwise, we are going to frown at this yoke. We are going to run from it if we approach it apart from Him.
But He who constrains us by His love shows us that the yoke is a thing of beauty, a thing of blessing.
The yoke was used with oxen for plowing. It was common to yoke an experienced ox with a younger, inexperienced ox so that you could break him, so that you could train him in the process of plowing.
Thus, we are called to take His yoke to keep us on the path of God’s will for our lives.
It also says that He is gentle and humble in heart. Because of this, He was able to face the most adverse, the most difficult circumstances, and still say, “Not My will be done, but Yours.”
It is to such a One that we are yoked. As we continue on with Him, we are able to learn the ways of God. As we learn the ways of God, we are going to walk more pleasingly before God and find rest for our souls.
It is only in subjecting ourselves to the will of God that we can find rest for our souls. It is in coming to Him and subjecting ourselves to Him in all things through prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving that we can know and experience peace.
In closing, Ephesians 2:14 says—and if I had left this out, I would have hoped somebody would have told me afterward:
“For He Himself is our peace.”
— Ephesians 2:14
“Now may the Lord of peace Himself continually grant you peace in every circumstance. The Lord be with you all.”
— 2 Thessalonians 3:16
Amen.