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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

David Wright

Don’t Forfeit Your Peace

The title of my sermon today is Don't Forfeit Your Peace.

Is it that crying baby on the plane right next to you?

Is it the slow driver as you're late for an appointment?

Is it the car of yours that starts to shudder after you put 2 transmissions in and there's still a problem?

Is it some of these questions that I hear often?

Pastor, am I going to be single my entire life?

I fell deeply in love, and they did too, but with somebody else.

You know, pastor, that job was created for me.

I was perfect for it, but somebody else got it.

You know, pastor, I thought my kids by this time would have come around, but they haven't.

I thought God would heal my broken marriage.

I thought God would cure my wife of Alzheimer's I thought I would be healed of cancer What robs you of your peace And when things don't go the way we want, how do you and I respond?

It's not so much what happens to us, but how you respond to those things that happen to us.

Do we ever question God's power, or God's love, or God's sovereignty?

Lord, you might say in your prayers you wouldn't do this to me would you Lord how could you how could you stand idle by and let this thing happen And over time you may start in fact to resent God in his ways and refuse to accept what he gives.

Worry then takes a dominant role in your life as you look for peace elsewhere.

Since God doesn't know what he's doing This individual will pray sparingly Will read God's Word?

Rarely an attempt to rule their own life and the net result They forfeit their peace The peace that passes all understand it doesn't make sense the peace that calms my troubled, stressed out heart.

Have you ever witnessed something like that?

Perhaps that describes your current situation.

Phil was here he probably would ask, how's that working for you?

Isaiah 45 beginning verse 9, will the pot contend with the potter?

Or the earthenware with the hand that shapes it?

Our neighbor just up the hill she is a master at pottery she does it as a business And so sometimes we'll be walking up to check the mail or various things.

We'll go check in on Miss Marianne and there she is making pottery And she starts with this clump of just mud, almost like red clay maybe, and she just slaps it down there and starts the wheel.

And I'm amazed at how she just knows exactly what she's doing, and I'm always trying to figure out why is she doing this, Why is she doing that?

And then she does all these different maneuvers and first it's too thick and then she thins it out as that wheel spins.

And before you know it just like that we have something out of nothing.

But will the pot contend with the potter or the earthenware with the hand that shapes it?

Will the clay ask the potter, what is he making?

Do you as clay, as dust, ever ask the potter, what are you doing?

Do you ever ask those types of questions?

Thus would you dare question me concerning my children or instruct me in my handiwork?

I alone I made the earth and created man upon it Is it wrong to ask why?

When certain situations come into our life that we didn't ask for we didn't plan for Is it wrong to ask why?

When certain situations come into our life that we didn't ask for, we didn't plan for, is it wrong to ask why?

Job, the Sadducee lesson we just finished, he asked why.

So I would tend to think that it doesn't appear that asking why is sinful Otherwise Jesus wouldn't have said my god my god.

No, what is sinful is when I resent God and his dealings with me.

He's not asking us to understand, but to trust.

Not my will, but yours be done, was the prayer of Jesus.

And at the end of the day, God is not so concerned with my comforts Even though he supplies so many of them.

He's not as concerned with my comforts as he is with my character Deuteronomy chapter 8 if you have your Bibles I'm gonna ask you to open them for this 1 Deuteronomy 8 I want you to see it for yourselves in your own Bible.

Deuteronomy 8 beginning verse 2 it says remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these 40 years in the wilderness to humble you and test you to know what was in your heart whether you would keep His commandments or not.

So He humbled you allowed you to hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, But man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.

If you had not gone through this experience, if you had not allowed God to provide for you in this way you'd be ignorant of these things.

Therefore verse 4, your garments did not wear out on you nor did your foot swell these 40 years you should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son so the Lord your God chastens you." Do you discipline your children because you don't like them?

And if you don't discipline them life will discipline them in more harsh and severe ways Verse 6 therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God this hedge of protection To walk in His ways and lastly to fear Him or respect Him.

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs that flow out of valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity in which you will lack how much nothing the cause of our discontent or our bitterness I think oftentimes because we don't believe God He says I'm preparing you for a better land I'm not so concerned about today.

I'm focused on eternity But we have a hard time Believing God the reality is that the wilderness experience leads to the promised land I Imagine there's people here that feel like they're in a wilderness experience Roaming around it seems aimless What's the point?

But the wilderness experience leads to the promised land.

His word is fulfilled with promises that tell us his will is our peace His choices for us will lead to fulfillment and joy and Do we suppose that we could find a better way than his?

That our ways are higher than that of the God of the universe.

You know, when we reflect on the cross and what Jesus did for us, it's pretty hard to harbor bitterness against God, isn't it?

When I remember the kind of love with which he has loved me and how he gave himself for me, whatever he's doing now, therefore is not cause for bitterness because he loved me and gave Himself for me.

He truly has my best interest at heart." Otherwise why would He have come?

And I've always loved the stories of Daniel they are just remarkable aren't they?

Not because God always answered Daniel and his friends prayers the way they wanted But because the faith of Daniel and his friends and their willingness to submit to God's plan Because in spite of the circumstances Daniel and his friends would refuse over and over again to forfeit their peace.

Have you noticed that when you read through the book of Daniel?

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Don’t Forfeit Your Peace

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