Peace With God Is Real

What is Courage for the Journey?

Welcome to Courage for the Journey with Julie Fillinger where real stories and honest conversations inspire the strength to take your next step.

Today we are going to talk about peace with God.
If you listened to last week’s podcast on Unshakable Hope, I think today you will see
that hope and peace go together.
Because, as we think about peace, it is appropriate to continue to set our affections on
things above.
Everything we know to be true about heaven gives us hope -the certain expectation that
what God promised will happen.
When what we hope in is realized, what’s left is perfect peace.
But just like hope, we get a glimpse of everlasting peace with God here and now.

So, what is Peace? It is good discuss the biblical definition, so we know what we are
talking about.
Because a holy God can have nothing to do with sin, once sin entered the world, we
were all helpless, hopeless sinning enemies of God destined to eternal separation from
Him.
That sounds pretty dire, and it should because it is.
But wait! God, in His great love for us, provided a way.

Peace is the calming tranquility and harmony arising from the conscious reconciliation
with a holy God made possible through our Lord Jesus Christ – our Master Savior
Messiah.
What results from that reconciliation is a sense of divine favor including health and
wholeness, welfare, prosperity, and every kind of good and sound blessing we have in
Christ.

While we are still here on this earth, until perfect peace is fully realized, we will not
experience the absence of conflict or consequence of sin, but we can fully know the
absence of confusion and strife amidst those trials.

Romans 5 has been the go-to chapter for this whole Courage for the Journey series.
So, this is a welcome full circle moment as we put everything together to bring the
journey to a near close in our discussion of Peace.

Paul has spent the first 4 chapters of Romans outlining how the saints of the Old
Testament were “saved” {to use our vernacular}.
He points out that it wasn’t keeping the Law – the Law is good in that it shows us that
we need to be saved, but it doesn’t actually save us.
He uses Father Abraham as the example.
Abraham was saved by faith before the Law was even given because of His trust in
God.
Abraham’s trust in God started as a weak sapling. But God nurtured his faith and it grew
to become a strong oak.
As he had the courage to endure suffering, his character grew so knew he could trust
God and that produced hope and peace.
In chapter 5, Paul offers this summary:
We need peace with God because as sinners, we are naturally His enemies.
Romans 5:8, 10 tells us
But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for
us. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his
Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

Being a sinner = being an enemy of God.
But because of faith, we have peace with God that is possible because of the perfect
work of Christ.

Because of faith, we stand in grace (not something we earned but something gifted to
us)
Because of faith, we can rejoice in the expectation (hope) of seeing and basking in the
glory of God (heaven)
Because of faith, we not only rejoice in hope, but also in difficult circumstances because
it produces endurance and character and hope!
And hope does not disappoint!
Hope begins with peace with God!
It is a long journey that takes us through the valley of the shadow of death. But as we
make that scary journey, we learn to trust God more and more.
Eventually, we lose the fear, and what’s left is the peace of God!

We need to make a distinction between peace with God and the peace of God.
One reason the distinction is important is because peace with God happens at the
moment of salvation and never departs, even when we are not feeling the peace of
God.
I know the logical people have trouble trusting feelings, but I don’t know how better to
describe the work the Holy Spirit does in our hearts.
Eric calls it a confidence. Others may call it a nudge or a sense of calm.
We are saying the same thing when trying to describe this particular work of the Holy
Spirit.

Have you ever had a time when the Holy Spirit felt so close and bathed you in His
comfort when you normally would be falling apart?
There was no other way to explain it other than peace that passes all understanding.
Philippians 4:6-7 tells us,
The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to

God.  7  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your
hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
I have felt this at different times in my life but none as significantly and as strongly as
when our son Nicholas died.
This overwhelming but calming peace washed over me telling me it was okay to let him
go because he was with Jesus and there was no better place for him to be.
That he was more alive than he had ever been.
And I had the blessed hope of seeing him again.
I thought, “I am handling this way too well. I can tell by people’s faces that this is really
bad. I must be in shock.”
And maybe that was some of it, but a friend also encouraged me to not discount the
work of the Holy Spirit.
Shock is a natural defense of something too traumatic to comprehend.
But the Holy Spirit is the supernatural power that comes to pervade our heart and mind
if we trust Him.
I thought this feeling would keep lasting.

But it did not.
In the following months, I felt very alone and very far from God.
As much as I tried to, I did not sense His peace.
I was in a place of horrific pain and torment crying out to God and feeling like He did not
or would not hear me.
What had happened to that peace that passes understanding that I experienced
immediately following Nicholas’ death?
Where did it go?
What was I doing wrong?

My faith was definitely being tested.
I don’t like to compare myself to Job because what I endured did not come close to
what he was asked to endure.

But I did identify with a very real battle facing forces of darkness.
It did not feel like it in the midst of the suffering, but looking back, like Job, God was
going to limit what He allowed these evil forces to do.
And He had a purpose for it all.

Apparently, there was a lot to work on because this went on for 9 years.
The intensity lessened when I cried out and asked my prayer warriors to cry out on my
behalf.
And I would experience relief and comfort as the peace of God settled my heart.
But it didn’t last.
This pervading dark heavy cloud continued to hover for 9 years. And would unleash its
thunderous torment without warning.

And then, when God had used it to accomplish His purpose, it dissipated.
As I was crying out like I had done more times than I can count, it miraculously lifted.
I shared this last week when I was talking about hope.

What I did not tell you was that I kept thinking, “I will enjoy this relief while I can, but it’s
not going to last.”
To my shame, I was afraid to even speak of the miracle for quite some time because I
didn’t want to then say, “well, it didn’t last.”
This September will be year 13 of this grief journey, and so far, the heavy darkness has
not returned.

As I was enduring the suffering and had the courage to not give up too soon, God was
faithfully growing my character to trust His.
I couldn’t just say I want to trust God more but not endure the trials that built that trust.
What I learned about God’s character is…He has never not been faithful.
I have memorial stones of His faithfulness to look back on that inform my present
outlook.

So, I now think that I would have courage to endure the trial if the heavy grief cloud
returns because I trust God.

Trusting God is the antidote to fear and anxiety.
Anxiety, worry, and fear all go hand in hand.

Back in the garden, what was the tree that was forbidden? – the tree of knowledge of
good and evil.
Anxiety is fear of all the what ifs. Anxiety is fear of all the possibilities of evil.
I interviewed Dr Joe Johnson on the podcast which posted December 23 rd and we
discussed this very thing. It is possible to find peace in what is certain amidst all of the
what ifs in life.

If we go back to our passage in Philippians 4, Paul starts this encouragement with the
phrase, “the Lord is at hand.”
And then tells us not to be anxious. It is because the Lord is near that he can say this.
The key is to remember He is near.
And then lean into Him in prayer.

Do you remember how our heroes got their courage from praying to the One they knew
was able to deliver?
They trusted God was all-powerful and sovereign, but that did not mean they could
forgo the trial.
 Daniel prayed and was thrown in to the den of lions
 David prayed and went out to battle against a giant
 Paul prayed from prison and his guards were saved as he shared the gospel.
 Peter and John’s church prayed on their behalf and God gave them the words to
say just when they needed it as they were on trial,

19  ... “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather
than to God, you must judge,  20  for we cannot (help) but speak of
what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-20)

When going out to battle or in a trial, we put on the armor of God, and we “pray at all
times. (Ephesians 6:18)
With knowing God, trusting God, thanking God, praying to God comes the…
Peace of God!
The peace of God guards our heart and our mind!
Our motives and the thoughts of “what if” are protected by a garrison of inner calm and
tranquility that is promised to God’s children who have a thankful attitude based on
unwavering confidence that God is able and willing to do what is best for His children
(Romans 8:28).
Because they trust Him.

Isaiah says it like this,

3  You keep him in perfect peace
    whose mind is stayed on you,
    because he trusts in you.
4  Trust in the LORD forever,
    for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock. (Isaiah 26:3-4)

No matter what the circumstances are. No matter how many things seem to be against
you (think of Job), perfect peace is attainable!
Paul used the phrase “and the peace of God that surpasses all understanding.”
Isaiah uses the phrase “perfect peace.” Think of these as one in the same.
And how do we obtain that kind of peace?! – By trusting
Perfect peace comes from having a mind “stayed” on God.
The mind that has confidence in God will not be agitated by suffering from persecution,
poverty, sickness, or bereavement.
We get in trouble when we forget who God is and what He has done, is doing, and will
do.

Daniel is literally the living example of this. He was in this situation. Captive and far
from home for years trusting that God would redeem His people.
Daniel had courage to endure because his mind was stayed on God!

Next week, we are going to talk about prayer.
If you are like me, you have a prayer list always going.
And maybe you get a little distracted when you are trying to focus on bringing your
requests before God.

But Prayer is not just making requests. It is also expressing gratitude, offering praise,
and acknowledging one’s shortcomings.
Tim Keller said, “The basic purpose of prayer is not to bend God’s will to mine, but to
mold my will into His.”
As we bring courage for the journey to a close, we will see that prayer is how we speak
to a big God, asking Him for courage to endure every trial and thanking Him for hope
that does not disappoint and peace that passes understanding as He grows our
character to trust Him more.