Join host Rick Hughes as he dives deep into the profound concept of peace as promised in Scriptures. This episode explores the divine assurance of peace through a relationship with Jesus Christ, despite the inevitable conflicts life brings. Listen as Rick shares insights from the Bible, emphasizing the peace that transcends human understanding when we anchor our trust in God’s plan for our lives.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, and I hope you’re ready to start the new year, which is not very far away. It’s been a great honor to be speaking to you this morning. Thank you for all 50 states tuning in. What a great privilege it is for me to bring you the Word of God every Sunday morning through this radio network. Today we’re going to talk about the wonderful thing called peace, the wonderful peace that God gives to us as we go through the next coming year. In Luke 2.14, the Bible gives these words, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill towards men. I don’t know if you remember who said that, but they were spoken by the commander of the angelic army. an elect angel known as the king of arms and they were here they were spoken that night that mary gave birth to jesus the god man yes jesus christ was god and man in one body forever and diminished deity and true humanity in one body forever paul wrote something about that in philippians two eight through eleven and my very own pastor bobby theme taught this recently about how you cannot really really appreciate the birth of the lord jesus christ until you understand this passage as well in philippians 2 8-11 and being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death even to the death of the cross therefore god has highly exalted him and given him a name above every name That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of those in heaven, of those on earth, and those even under the earth. And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Yes, glory to God in the highest and peace on earth and goodwill towards men through Jesus Christ. This birth of the Lord Jesus Christ is the single most important event in the history of the world. It’s the one thing that guarantees the resolution of the angelic conflict, and it guarantees peace between God and man. The Apostle Peter stated that the word peace we can have starts with what? In 2 Peter 1 verse 2, listen carefully, grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord. This peace can be yours today through a relationship with Christ Jesus. In Philippians 4, 7, Paul wrote, and the peace of God, which is beyond human comprehension, will guard you in your hearts and your mind in Christ Jesus. it is a phenomenal way to live it’s the phenomenal asset believers have peace with god eternal peace with god knowing that you’re going to heaven and peace with god in time jesus christ himself said this is as recorded in john 16 33 when he spoke to the disciples he said these things i spoke to you that in me you may have peace in the world you will have tribulation yes there will be conflict But be a good cheer, I have overcome the world. The amazing thing about what he said is he does not guarantee you a life free of conflict. Our Lord does not guarantee you a life free of conflict. You hear that? But he does assure you that you can maintain a relaxed mental attitude in spite of the circumstances. In spite of what you may be going through, you can have peace if you use God’s wonderful problem-solving devices. We teach that as a flatline. We’re going to show you where that’s important in your life in this study this morning. So in John 14, 27, here’s what he told the disciples. The Lord said, peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. In other words, I’m not going to take it back like the world would do. Let not your hearts be troubled, not be afraid. Now this is indicative of what our Lord was feeling and what he was going through. The same peace he had, the same relaxed mental attitude he had, the same trust he had, the same faith he had, he passed it on to the disciples so they could live like he lived. And that’s the prototype Christian life. That’s the Lord Jesus Christ showing us how to live. No one in the Old Testament had a life like this. You have the most unique life in the history of the world. You have the Christian life. pioneered by our Lord Jesus Christ while he was a man, lived by our Lord Jesus Christ as a man. Never once did he depend on his deity to spare him. Never once did he depend on his deity to sustain him. And he always had peace and he leaves that with us. We can have that same peace. He spoke these words to his disciples in order to prepare them for what was coming once he was crucified, resurrected, and ascended back to heaven. So as we approach the year 2025, we need to remember these things because there’s no doubt national and international conflict is coming. You can bank on that. Even today, there’s terror across America as hundreds of drones are seen flying over homes at airports as well as military institutions and no apparent explanation from our government concerning what they are or where they came from or who they belong to. And the shift in political leadership is going to cause great concern for thousands of individuals who despise the new president and his agenda. There will be no peace for any Christian who does not understand that Jesus Christ controls history. You must understand that if you want to have peace. Because the greatest comfort and peace of the child of God is to know and understand God’s unique plan for his life. to know and understand God’s purpose for his life, the purpose for your existence, and to know that you have not been left alone to fight it out of the devil’s world by yourself. So can I ask you a question this morning? Do you have peace today? Do you have peace today? Let’s start with this one. Are you certain that if your life ended today that you would go to heaven? Do you know that for sure? Are you positive about that? You can know it. There’s no reason you shouldn’t know it because the Bible is very clear about it. You can know it for sure according to the scriptures. And I have people that write to me and say, you can’t know that for sure. Yes, you can. 1 John 5, 13, these things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God in order that or so that, the purpose clause in the New Testament, in order that you may know that you have eternal life and that you may continue to believe or trust in the name of the Son of God. You see, as a child of God, you’re guaranteed his daily care and his daily provision. Not only are you given eternal life, not only can you let your mind be at rest because if something were to happen, you will be in heaven. There is no doubt about that if you put your faith in Jesus Christ. And as a child of God, you’re also guaranteed daily provision and daily care. In Matthew 6, 25 through 27, I’ll read it to you. Jesus said, for this reason, I say to you, do not be worried about your life as to what you will eat or what you will drink or what you’re gonna wear on your body as to what you put on it. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds in the sky. They don’t sow, they don’t reap, neither do they gather crops into the barn, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more important than a bird? And which of you, by worrying, can add a single day to his lifespan? So don’t worry. Don’t be worried. See, that’s a lack of peace. If you’re worried about making it in the devil’s world, if you’re worried about surviving, if you’re worried about how am I gonna get along, I’m not making enough money, don’t worry. Your Lord knows what you’re going through. He’s not gonna strand you. He’s not gonna throw you under the bus. He will make sure you have everything you need to live your life comfortably, I promise. Maybe not the way you want to live it. Maybe you want to be a millionaire, and that might not be in the plan for you. But he will not abandon you. You don’t have to worry about your clothing. You don’t have to worry about what you’re going to eat. You are much more important than a simple bird, and he loves you. So relax. Don’t be worried. You should have peace about his daily care and his daily provisions for you. How do I know that? Because Psalm 55, 22 tells me, cast your burdens upon the Lord and he will sustain you. He will never allow the righteous to be shaken. So all you got to do is go to the Father. Hopefully you will do that. When you have a situation in your life that you don’t understand, when you have a situation in your life that’s a conflict, take it to the Lord and he would deliver you through it. He doesn’t say he’ll make it go away. He says he will sustain you through it. And he will never allow the righteous, that’s you, righteousness of Christ given to you, to be shaken. What does that mean? You don’t have any righteousness. There are none that are righteous. No, not one, the Bible says. All of our righteousness is like a filthy rag in God’s eyes. So I don’t care how good you are, that’s not going to get you to heaven. Because the Bible says, he that knew no sin was made sin for us so that we may be made the righteousness of God through him. The righteousness spoken of in Psalm 55, 22 is the uniqueness of the Lord Jesus Christ, his righteousness given to you. He who knew no sin was made sin. It was a trade-out deal. He took your sin, he gives you his righteousness. And you cannot be shaken according to Psalm 55, 22. What a wonderful subject to consider as we enter into the 2025. That word peace that you hear me talking about, I’ve quoted it a bunch of times now, is the Greek word Irenae. And it simply means harmony, security, safety. Our Lord told the disciples that it was possible to have a complete relaxed mental attitude. in spite of the difficulty they were going to face, difficulties like the threat of death, animosity and hatred from the religious crowd, and yet there was still a peace they could have. My peace I leave with you, John 14, 27. My peace I give to you. If you’re not at peace today, something’s wrong. Either you don’t understand the plan of God or you’re not living the plan of God. Now let me tell you something, that doesn’t mean you won’t have a conflict. In Matthew 10, 34, Jesus said these words, don’t think I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man’s enemies will be those of his own household. It’s a shame. If you put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, your whole family could turn on you. If you get serious about growing spiritually and learning the Word of God, your whole family could laugh at you and think you’re a nut, think you’ve gone over the hill, you’ve gone crazy. Why are you doing all this Bible study? Why are you doing all this praying? What’s wrong with you? And your own family will fight you. Jesus Christ our Lord said that. When you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and when you fit into the plan of God, your family might not consider that. They may think you’ve gone crazy. They may even want to have you committed. I’ve got a dear friend of mine who says her family’s just like this. She loves the word of God, she studies the word of God, but her family doesn’t understand that. And it may happen to you. So our Lord made it clear in this particular passage that some who followed him would be hated by their own family members. Why? Because that’s the cost of true discipleship. In Matthew 10, 37, again, he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And so the priority in your life, the priority in my life, is first of all to love God with all of my heart. To love his word, to love his plan, to have peace and prosperity through his plan, to trust him, to be comfortable with what he’s got for me, and to put my faith in him. So if we put this down on paper, who do you love first? Personal love for God is what motivates you to obey God. If you love me, you’ll obey me, God said, and my mandates are not hard, they’re not grievous, 1 John 5, 3. So there it is. Do you love your father, your mother more than him? Then you’re not worthy of him. And he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. He wants to be first in your life. He wants to be priority number one in your life. That’s the only way you’re ever going to have the peace that you’re looking for. Personal love for our Lord Jesus Christ will come with a cost. I promise you. You can ask the martyred disciples that when you meet them in heaven because all of them were martyred for their personal love for the Lord Jesus Christ. And many of them were married. Many of them had children. And yet they gave their life to follow Christ. And that may happen to us someday. We don’t really know what’s gonna take place in the future. We have great hope and great confidence that whoever’s the leader of this country will keep us safe and allow us to continue to worship in privacy. But who never knows? We don’t ever know. But when you commit your life to follow Christ, there’s going to be conflict in the middle of a storm. But you and I, we can have peace. How? Because we know we’re in the center of God’s will. We’re right in the center of the will of God. Listen, the promise of peace does not mean the absence of conflict. Did you hear that? The promise of peace from God does not mean the absence of conflict. That’s why you have a flat line in your soul to stop the outside source of adversity from becoming the inside source of stress. Having stress like worry and fear is not having peace. That’s the absence of peace. In Colossians 3.15, and let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your heart. What does that mean? your heart is your mind you have two two parts to your brain up there you have the greeks called one of them the noose n-o-u-s the mind they call the other part the heart the cardia k-a-r-d-i-a and that’s not talking about the organ that pumps blood that’s talking about the heart of your soul and you have to let the word of god rule in your heart in the memory center in your frame of reference in your vocabulary, and that’s where the peace comes from. When you know the word of God, when you know it and trust it and love him so much that you can be comfortable with that, then you can have peace, and it comes when you let Christ rule in your heart. After my salvation, I read a book by evangelist Billy Graham entitled Peace with God. Allow me to quote Billy Graham here just for a minute as I read it to you. He said, as we look around, we find there is little personal, domestic, social, economic, or political peace anywhere. Why? Because we all have the seeds of suspicion, of violence and hatred and destruction within us. He’s talking about the sin nature. That’s what he’s talking about. Well, the antidote to these sorts of attitudes of suspicion and hatred is found in Isaiah 26.3. Here is the antidote to hatred. Here’s the antidote to suspicion. Here’s the antidote to violence. Isaiah 26, three, you will keep in perfect peace. There it is. All who trust in you and all whose thoughts are fixed on you. There’s the key to peace. The word trust. That’s the key. For you and I, the peace we have is built on the foundation of trust. You have to remember this. If you don’t trust God, you’re never going to have peace. If you don’t trust God, you’re never going to have peace. So do you trust God this morning, today, not just for your salvation, but do you trust him with your life, with your very breath, with your very existence? Are you willing to put your trust in his leadership? And you’ll find it in the word of God. Many people go through life never understanding what the will of God is. What is the geographical will of God? Where does God want them to be? What does God want them to think? And what does God want them to do? That’s what you have to learn because that’s where the peace comes from. For you and I, the peace we have is built on the foundation of trust. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, 100%. Lay not on your own understanding, that’s doubt. If there’s any doubt in your life, if there’s any confusion in your life, there’s no trust. Trust is the foundation for peace. In Isaiah 41 10, fear not, I’m with you. There it is. Don’t be dismayed, I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yea, I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous hand. So can you trust him? Yes, you can. Can you depend on him? Yes, you can. It’s just a matter of whether or not you’re willing to do it. It’s quite obvious that in order to have peace, you must have faith. In other words, do you trust God to do what’s best in your particular circumstances? Or do you panic at the first sign of adversity? And here, listen very carefully what I’m about to say now. Do you start asking for prayers to induce God to intervene and change your circumstances? First time something goes wrong, do you get on the internet and start saying, pray for me, brother, pray for me, brother. What do you want me to pray for? Make this go away so I don’t have to face it. That’s exactly what Paul did in 2 Corinthians 12. He had a thorn in the flesh and he prayed three times earnestly for it to go away and God kept saying, no, no, no, no. Why? Because under adverse circumstances, your faith grows and increases. This is what you sometimes want. You want God to take away the very thing that’s going to bless you, the very thing that’s going to teach you, the very thing that’s going to help you to grow because you don’t like your circumstances. So the first sign of adversity and you start hollering for help, make it go away. All you prayer warriors, pray for me. Pray that it go away. That’s pitiful. The faithless drill is part of the flood line in your soul. Do you understand how that works? If you don’t understand the faith rest drill, call me or write to me and we’ll send you the book Christian Problem Solving and it will explain the faith rest drill in detail, I promise you. In the Old Testament, faith rest was normal for believers who God used to change history and pave the way for the Lord Jesus Christ. They didn’t have the spiritual life you have. They didn’t have a canon of scripture. They didn’t have the filling of the Holy Spirit. They only had faith, and that’s what God trusted them with. Let’s see what kind of faith you have. You know, Moses at the Red Sea in Exodus 14 is a good illustration. Pharaoh’s army hot in pursuit, going to kill him, mad because they left Egypt. Listen to what Moses told the frightened Jews as they tried to escape the Egyptian captivity. In Exodus 14, 13, Moses said to the people, don’t be afraid, What does that mean? There was no peace. There was no trust. There was no faith. They were afraid. Don’t be afraid. Stand still. Quit being nervous. Quit jumping around. Just relax and watch what God’s about to do for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you will never see them again ever again. The Lord will fight for you and you will hold your peace. Pharaoh thought he had them cornered. He had the Red Sea behind him and his army coming after him. He thought for sure, we got them now. The only person that got it was Pharaoh and his army. As God opened the Red Sea and they went across the Red Sea in perfect peace. So when Moses said, hold your peace, it meant relax, trust God, use faith, the Lord will handle this for you. And the same thing is true of you as well. in the case of certain death with the red sea in front of them and pharaoh’s army behind them moses said hold your peace don’t panic this is just another opportunity for god to demonstrate his omnipotence and rid the world of an evil ruler i encourage you today to hold your peace don’t panic regardless of the circumstances trust in him lean not to your own understanding It’s very simple. Do you love God? Do you? I mean, I hear people tell me that all the time. I love God, really. Do you trust God? Yeah, I trust God, really. Then relax. Enjoy the ride. Remember what the Lord said in Psalm 8411. For the Lord God is a sun. He is a shield. What? The Lord will give grace and glory and no good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly. The only condition for you that God asks of you is to love him and obey him and follow his leadership. Do you love God? You do? Do you obey God? Do you grow daily? Do you stay filled with the Holy Spirit? Do you replicate the life of Christ to those that you meet? Are you so self-centered that you think all you need to do is show up at church? Are you the nod to God crowd? Hello God, goodbye God, see you next Sunday God, bless me God, have a good day God. You’re never gonna have peace with an attitude like that. You’re just using church to go through some ritual that has no reality to it. The reality of the Christian life is a wonderful way to live with total peace, total confidence, total trust, and total love, and a Heavenly Father that loves you much more than you love Him. Remember when Jesus said God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son? He loved you before you were even formed. In eternity past, he knew who you were and who you would be, and he still loved you in spite of what you’ve done, in spite of what I’ve done. We don’t deserve his love, but he loved us. If we love him, we can see this wonderful life I’m talking about. This wonderful peace and confidence and assurance that I’m talking about that comes from total trust and the act of faith in your life. Trusting God, putting your trust in him, living by the faith rest drill. Do you know the faith restaurant again? Let me remind you. We have a book that will tell you what it’s about called Christian Problem Solving. I’d love to send it to you. It’s free. Everything we’ve got is free. We don’t sell anything. We don’t hustle people for money. You know that. Simply the Word of God is what this show’s about. We teach the Word of God clearly, lucidly for you. And I’m not a pastor, but I want to get you to a good pastor where you can learn God’s Word on a daily basis. So I hope you’ve been listening this morning. If you don’t have peace, you should have. You should have a lifestyle of peace and trust and faith because that’s the lifestyle God set out for you today. And that’s why you can enjoy your life to the fullest. Let the monkey get off your back. Put the monkey on God’s back. Let him worry with the detail and circumstances while you cruise through holding your peace. Don’t let it go. Put your faith in him, okay? Well, I hope you’re listening. I hope you’ve learned. I hope you’ll apply this information. If there’s anything else that we can help you with, don’t hesitate to contact us, rick at rickhughesministries.org, rick at rickhughesministries.org. So until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
