Holy Spirit Led Peace (342)

0:02 Welcome once again to the Quality Christian Living Podcast. I am your host David Friend. Today's podcast is entitled Holy Spirit Led Peace. Now, peace is a challenge for a lot of people. Today we're going to talk about how is it possible to live in peace when we face trials, sometimes daily? How does the Holy Spirit help us? And what causes us to either live in peace or live with constant strife? What are the best scriptures? to help us understand how to have peace and how the Holy Spirit leads us. Before we get into it though, let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for your goodness. Thank you for the opportunity, Lord, once again, to get into your Word and to bring forth a Word that will help change lives. I ask the Holy Spirit to come in now and do what only He can do, and I ask you to take charge, take control. I pray that those who are listening in would receive this powerful message because it's powerful because it comes from the Word of God. It can be powerful when the Holy Spirit anoints it. I believe that we have something special for today. So I pray you would bless it now, Father, and I'll give you praise for it. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Well, this is so important to stay into this Holy Spirit. Series that we're doing because the Holy Spirit is just everything to us without him operating in our lives We're just we really don't have a lot of hope without the power of the Holy Spirit in us We'll make many mistakes now We'll still make mistakes and do things that we shouldn't do and say things we shouldn't say even the Holy Spirit's in us But he will help us to correct it to make things right to get back on track And that's the glory of having the Holy Spirit living and dwelling inside of each and every believer Now

1:33 to understand how the Holy Spirit will lead us into peace we must examine our faith, our motives, and our desires, all three of them. Our faith is crucial and the motives that we have can make such a negative impact on us, our good impact on us, and our desires must line up according to the Word of God. We must deny self and surrender to the Spirit of God. Our flesh is the enemy of God's Spirit. We receive power when we receive the Holy Spirit. Before we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we live to according to our fleshly desires. We just did whatever we wanted to whenever we wanted to do it and sometimes didn't even feel bad about it. The beauty of having the Holy Spirit in us and guiding and directing our life is that He checks us, He corrects us, He gives us comfort, He backs us up, He's there as a source of strength and hope, He brings forth the promises of God, He brings forth the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness and self -control.

2:30 The Holy Spirit is just everything to us, but we've got to understand our flesh hates that. The flesh wants to do things on its own and we've got to run from that. Our salvation removed the old ways we did things. We became a new creation. The Holy Spirit came to dwell in us. We must continue to submit to the Word of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit in order to have a Holy Spirit -led life filled with peace. There's a wonderful scripture that helps us in this area. It's found in Romans chapter 8 and verse 4. For all who are led by the Spirit of God, our sons of God, which simply means, now that sons also means believers, it means anyone who's a follower of Jesus Christ. So for all who are led by the Spirit of God, we want to be led by the Spirit.

3:14 Those of you who are listening in, I pray that that's your goal today to be able to do that. I know it's my goal every day to walk in the Spirit and not carry out the lust of the flesh and not allow my flesh to beat me up and try and draw me into things that God doesn't want me to be a part of. I thank God for the Holy Spirit. Before receiving Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I served self. I served myself. Everything in my life was focused on what's best for me is what's best for everyone else. It was a terrible attitude. I was married. We had a little boy and after several years of marriage our marriage was okay. We were getting along just fine and all that but I was really motivated. My career, my work was number one in my life. I wasn't a follower of Jesus Christ. I had a wonderful wife.

3:56 We've been married now for 58 years and God has blessed our years together. And just to stop and think that what the Holy Spirit did for us and what the devil wanted to do to us. I'm so thankful that when I became a follower of Jesus Christ that the Holy Spirit told me to deny self and to serve God. All human nature is founded on self. It's focused totally on self. Now as a new creation, I was forgiven of my sins. Those sins would never be charged against me again. In 2 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 17, listen to the scripture. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, that means anyone who is a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, it says, therefore if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.

4:41 The old is gone. The new is here. That's just glorious. I thank God for that. new creation that He made each and every one of us. We have a new nature. We have new life. To be led by the Holy Spirit, we must deny our former. old creation and live in our new creation that God put together. Satan wants us to go back in our old self, back to our old ideas and old thoughts. The Holy Spirit though, helps us to live in our new life and he's the one that brings peace. Now before I go any further, I'm feeling checked with the Holy Spirit to just take a moment and make sure that everyone is listening in here knows Jesus is our Lord and Savior. If you're not sure where you're going to spend eternity, if you don't know if heaven is guaranteed for you, I need you to pray right now. And if you'll just Just pray this prayer with all your heart and mind. Receive Jesus right now. the Holy Spirit will come to live and dwell in you. Now I know the majority of you are Christians, but would you just believe with me for those that you know that are unsaved, they don't know Jesus, that they would pray this prayer? Say, Heavenly Father, I'm sorry for the sins I've committed. I need a Savior. I need you to help me. I've sinned against you. And I'm so sorry. I repent of my sins. I ask you to forgive me and cleanse me from all unrighteousness. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He was born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered. He was crucified, but he rose from the dead. And he did that for me and so on this day I received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior And I promised to serve him all the days of my life now if you prayed that Prayer and you meant it with all your heart you need to do two things one is find a good church

6:12 a church that believes in the full Word of God and get yourself a Bible and Start reading through it read in the New Testament the areas dealing with we call them the epistles that that the Apostle Paul wrote Galatians and Philippians and Ephesians and those scriptures will help you so much and I strongly recommend you read the book of Romans and if you're a Christian and been one for a long time you might want to go back and read some of those scriptures yourself just to kind of strengthen your faith and renew your faith especially for Christians Romans the entire book of Romans is just so powerful and so wonderful so I thank you for Allowing to just sit and listen with me as we prayed with people to receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

6:52 Okay, let's get continue on. One of my favorite scriptures on the subject of the Holy Spirit leading us into peace is Galatians chapter 5 in verse 16. In the New International Version it says this, so I say walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Well, that's pretty direct, isn't it? Pretty exacting that we know exactly what that scripture is telling us and it's giving us the guidance and the direction that we need. Now see in my introduction I said that we must read the scriptures and find out what scriptures make a big difference in our lives and that we need to be led by the Holy Spirit and that's what these scriptures I believe will help you to do is to know how to be led by the Spirit of God and be led into peace. Here's another scripture found in Romans chapter 5 verse 1 in the New International Version.

7:39 Therefore since we have been justified through faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, it's already happened. A lot of people say, well, okay, now I became a Christian, now I'm waiting for peace to come. No, no, peace can come right then. You can receive the peace of God that passes all understanding right when you receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior. And if you've not received that peace or if you've gotten away from that peace, I pray that this podcast will help you to receive the peace that we all want to have in our life. The kind of peace that nothing can shake it, nothing can rattle or pull us out of a walk with God and living with peace in our life. Here's another scripture I think that'll help all of us. It's found in Romans chapter 15 and verse 13 in the New Living Translation. I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. You see, we can only have peace when we have faith and trust in God. Faith is crucial to peace. And trust is crucial to having peace because if we're struggling and we don't have peace it could be it just could be that you're just not trusting the Lord you're not having your confidence in the Lord or putting your your hope and your strength and all of your your faith into your walk with God in your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and Living with the power of the Holy Spirit in your life So I just pray that those of you matter fact I need to stop right now once again the Holy Spirit's checking me and I need to pray for those who are struggling for peace Father, for those who are listening in right now, I pray that you would bring peace in their life. If they're a follower of the Lord Jesus

9:10 Christ, and Father, many are new followers by saying that prayer that we just had just a few moments ago. Father, in either case, if they're a new Christian or they've been Christians for years, I pray that they would trust you and believe in your word and follow your word and seek your face and that they would be led by the Spirit of the Living God and claim these scriptures in their life. Father, I believe that each and every person struggling with peace right now would say what the scripture says in Galatians 5 verse 16. So I say walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. And Father, they'll repeat this scripture Romans 5 1 therefore since we have been justified that means we're born again we're saved through our faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ and I claim that for every single person listening in today if they're struggling with peace bless them and keep them I pray now in Jesus name amen well I said that our flesh is the enemy of the spirit I've mentioned that many times throughout podcasts and and that's so true that the that the flesh is the enemy of the Spirit of God In Galatians 5 17, this helps us, I think, to understand what I just said. Galatians chapter 5 verse 17, the New International Version says this, For the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want. You see, there's a conflict going on.

10:37 There's a battle every single day in our minds, in our hearts, in our minds about what to do, whether it's the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. It might be the way we respond to somebody. It might be the way we're driving to work and someone cuts in front of us and we say something we shouldn't say and we maybe yell at them or lay on the horn really heavy or something like that. That's not going to solve the problem. In order to have peace that's led by the Holy Spirit, we need to surrender to the Holy Spirit and deny the self that's in us, the self that drags us down and tells us to do whatever we want to do. There's people who live their whole life basically saying, I'll do things the way I want to do them. I'll do them my way. And it's all about their decisions and what they think is best. And they're denying the power, the potential power of the Holy Spirit in their life. So I pray that each and every one of us, myself included, would focus on being led by the Spirit of God so we can have greater peace in our life. Now, let me tackle another area. What is Holy Spirit -led peace? What does that really mean? Well, it's peace that surpasses our understanding.

11:37 Now, that's kind of an interesting way to put it. It's really a great way to express express what peace is because we have peace sometimes in situations where a lot of people think we wouldn't have peace or maybe we feel we wouldn't have peace. Let me give you an example. When the Holy Spirit called my wife and I into ministry, he first called me and I shared that with my wife and she was so excited. She wanted to go into ministry. She was ready and willing and able and we went into ministry totally in agreement and both of us trying to deny self so we could move forward. At the time we owned a real estate development company. It was doing very well. Matter of fact, I was on vacation when The Holy Spirit called me to go into full -time ministry. It had been a very successful business for over 15 years. And I'm not boasting, I'm just trying to tell you that the Lord came in and said, I've got something better for you than what this is.

12:24 It was doing really well. We had a custom home building company. We did what we call land syndications where we buy properties. Investors would come in and join with us, invest into property. We would hold it for a while and sell it and make a profit. We made profit on everything we ever touched when it came to the land. in the custom homes. That's just to God be the glory for that. We kind of had everything lined up that we needed. I was 48 years of age. At that age, I already had about 13 years or so in full -time real estate development work. Prior to that, I was a banker for some 15 years, and so I had that kind of training. So everything was coming together. At the age of 48, you're at what they call your prime. I mean, when you're in business and you're 48 years old, you are really at your prime. You learn from mistakes you've made. We all do. We knew with the right things to do, the right direction to go. We've learned a lot of things, had a lot of experiences. So that's where we were at and everything was moving so well for our business just to continue to grow and expand. The banks wanted to finance anything that we wanted to do. We had 15 years of experience in the business at that time. We had relationships with the city and the inspectors and help with zoning and the construction process. All these things were lined up. There were many investors who wanted to do business with us and had been doing business with us. and God had blessed those partnerships to where we were able to give them like a 35, 40, 45 % return on their investment money. And of course that lined up nicely with them and they wanted to be a part of it. Everything looked like we would be expanding our business and then

13:54 just continuing to grow and move on. But we were on vacation and I'd been reading a book on businessmen who became Christians and how their life changed. And I read a book, this book was really very important to me because I love to read about Christian businessmen and how they handled their issues and how they handled each and every day the challenges they faced and we basically had a good business going thing was really nice as I was saying but we're sitting on the beach over in California just having a nice time off and relaxing and I completed reading that book and I asked my wife I said honey do you have anything else maybe in the beach bag there that because I don't want to go all the way back up the hill and back to our room and get something else and she said yeah I've got a little something so she handed me this book it was a book written about faith. I'm written by a man named Smith Wigglesworth. And what an amazing little book it was. It couldn't have had 120 or 130 pages.

14:45 It was a little tiny little paperback thing. It took me maybe an hour and 15 or 20 minutes to read it. It was a very, very quick read. But at the end of reading that book, everything changed. I knew instantly that the Lord was calling us into ministry. And it didn't make any sense because business was great. Everything was doing well. We were working in our church. We had a wonderful Sunday School class with hundreds of people attending it. Things were great. I served on the board. to the church. I mean, everything was great in our spiritual life. It was just wonderful. And I thought, Lord, this is the way it's going to be the rest of our life. But the Holy Spirit had another plan. God had another plan for us. I call it now a higher plan, a better plan. Even though the business was good, He had something in store for us that I had not even really thought much about. And that was full -time ministry.

15:26 Everything was in place. But after reading that book, my wife and I went to dinner that night. And I looked at her and I said, honey, I believe the Holy Spirit directed me today to read that and that you had it in your bag. And she said, Yeah, I hadn't read it myself, but I thought you might enjoy it. And I said, well... From reading that, I believe the Holy Spirit spoke to me and we're supposed to close our business down and volunteer to work for free in the church and just get started as fast as we can. Sell off some of the properties we own, liquidate them and just move on. And she started to have tears going down her face and I thought, oh, it's okay. We're going to do it right now. And she said, no, no, no, those are sad tears, not sad tears, they're happy tears. She said, because when I was a little girl, I believe the Lord told me that I'd be married to a preacher boy, a pastor someday. And she says, and here it is, we've been married, at the time we'd been married 20. eight years. We got married at 20 and I was 48 and all of a sudden at 28 years I tell her the Lord's called us into ministry and I said we needed to go start a church and be full -time pastors and she was thrilled. She was absolutely thrilled. Now a lot of people I talked to heard me tell them we're gonna close up everything, sell our big fancy house, get rid of all the things that are expensive to operate and all that and live a more simple life, a quiet life.

16:36 They were shocked. They were like, really? Are you okay? Can you handle this? See, we had peace though. The peace of God that passed us all understanding. Other people who were not called into ministry, and good people, Christians, many of them, and they were good people, but they were not called into ministry. They didn't understand what had taken place in our life. But we had understanding through the peace of God and the peace of the Holy Spirit. And I hope that that story, I've used it before, but not very often, but I hope that story helps you to understand that we can go from one thing to another thing and have a radical change and still receive peace that does. Surpass all understanding and it will guard our heart and it'll guard our mind in Christ Jesus You know we decided that this was the time to give up the business But only because the Holy Spirit led us to give up our house our our income was very strong and please I'm not boasting.

17:27 I'm just trying to be very very Transparent with you and very real, but through the Holy Spirit. He gave us such peace that when I went to our pastor and said, I want to let you know, I want to go into full -time ministry. If I can work here at the church for you, I'll work for free. And he said, well, it's about time. I knew the hand of God was upon you. And he says, can you report Monday? And it was really a wonderful experience. And I mean, we became like little kids that were expecting Christmas the very next day. We were bubbling over with excitement and joy because all of a sudden, God gave us something totally new. We loved what we were doing. We lived a wonderful lifestyle. We got to travel to Europe. whenever we wanted to go. We traveled every summer. It was just an amazing lifestyle.

18:08 But God said, no, no, no, no, I have something better for you. And I am so thankful that the Holy Spirit interrupted what we had planned for our life and brought something greater. into our life and I wouldn't if I went back and had the chance to change it all I wouldn't I would relive the whole thing all over again because God continues to bless and continues to give us opportunities to lead people to Jesus and work in ministry and do now that is our full -time service okay let's move on the Holy Spirit brings peace that the world can't just can't even imagine Holy Spirit peace cannot be explained to non -believers in Jesus Christ they just can't you know I could not explain our story to people very well, people that knew me. It's kind of ironic, shortly after we made that change and I went... back to school and took some classes and things and I went and became ordained as a pastor. And I went through all that process.

18:59 Our friends came over to our home and I was 50 years old at the time, celebrating our 50th birthday. Now they had always seen us in these great big luxury homes that I had been building and selling for years and driving the big fancy cars and all that stuff. And they came to see us and noticed that we had modest automobiles and noticed that we were living in a very small little house, a very modest little house. And they would say, are you okay? See, they couldn't quite understand it. and some were not, but they were struggling with understanding. And I said, we've never been happier in our life. We have never, ever experienced any greater joy other than coming to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This is right up there, right next to it, second to it. And that is to know that God's calling us at this stage of our life, at the age of 50 years of age now. Going into full -time ministry, we were ordained. And shortly after that, we started a church and God blessed it. And we've been now attending that church for some 20, 28 years. and still pastoring there. We senior pastored it for about the first 18 years and then we turned it over to another group that we know very well and the church is still moving along for the glory of God. You see, peace that I'm talking about, it's peace that is opposite of what our flesh wants. It's peace completely direct, directly opposite of what our flesh wants. It is peace that restores relationships, like past friends who've broken up, friendships that have fallen apart. And it's so important that we understand that the peace of God comes in to build us up, to give us strength.

20:27 It's peace that carries us through our trials, our illnesses, and even divorces, our financial failure, our loss of a job, our friends turning against us, whatever it might be. still have peace. Holy Spirit -led peace will take us through whatever we face in life. Now since going into the ministry, you might say, well now it's probably everything's been perfect for you and you have no challenges. No, we've had a lot of challenges. Matter of fact, I've been diagnosed with two terminal cancer diagnosis, one kidney failure diagnosis, and during those times, God gave us peace through the whole thing. I know many of you who listen to me have heard me say this before, but there's some new listeners today that I'd like for them to hear this. When I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma bone marrow cancer no cure for it not expected to live all that long that one doctor said you know Possibly only six months as maybe as all did you have yet to live and when I heard that word Instantly the Holy Spirit had me tell him so you're trying to scare me with heaven now. That's called peace You're told that you're gonna die. You don't understand even the diagnosis, but you've been told you're gonna die that this is incurable There's no cure for it. And by the way, there's still to this day is no cure for multiple myeloma bone marrow cancer And yet here I am Living proof that God is in charge and God heals, but God will take us all through the most difficult trials We've got to put our trust in him our confidence in him If any of you are going through a similar trial a physical problem, whatever it might be I just I'm gonna close in prayer in just a moment And I believe that God's gonna bring you that peace that pass us all understanding Holy Spirit led

21:58 peace is not giving up. It's not quitting. It's not being lazy Holy Spirit pieces is having a well -being. It's all this well with my soul all this well with my spirit. It's wholeness as we go through trials. It's Galatians chapter 5 verse 22, which is one of the fruits of the Spirit, which is peace. It's Ephesians chapter 4 verse 3, New Living Translation. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. Holy Spirit -led peace is Romans chapter 12 and verse 18 in the New International Version. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. You know, that means we can live at peace no matter what we face, the trials, whatever it might be. Even if you're having major battles with people, we can still live at peace, as much as it depends with us.

22:48 And it depends in us based upon our walk with God and our relationship with the Holy Spirit, who is the giver of peace. So let me close with prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this podcast. I thank you how it's flowed so smoothly and how you've led it and directed it. And I pray now for those who maybe are struggling with peace, they've got challenges in their life that they still don't know how to deal with them. Lord, that these scriptures would help each and every one of them. I know it helps me just to read them again. Because even though I've gone through these things and you've helped me to have peace, there's still things that come up that want to rob me of the peace and the joy that the Holy Spirit has given me. And if I go to your word, and if we all go to your word, we'll receive the strength and the power we need to rise above. those things that try to take us down and take us out and discourage us. So I pray blessing upon all those Father who are needing peace in their life that you would pour out your Spirit upon them and that they would run to the Holy Spirit and run to your word for help and guidance. Now bless and keep them I pray and I'll thank you for it in advance. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Well I hope this podcast has been a blessing to you. I've thoroughly enjoyed doing it. When I talk about a life being led by the Holy Spirit there are just so many topics we can talk about and if you'd like to know more more about Quality Christian Living, which is the overall title of this series, based upon this one is on the Holy Spirit. You can learn more about it by going to my webpage at davidcfriendauthor .com. And when you go there, right on the front page, you'll see a link to the podcast. And that'll take you to, this was the 341st, no, no, the 342nd podcast that we've done. And the last,

24:18 oh, close to 15 or 20 of them have been based totally on the Holy Spirit. So if you'd like to know more about what we teach what Quality Christian Living is all about. We've got a series of podcasts dealing with how to have greater faith, how to be able to live financially without debt, how to deal with the challenges of life, and on and on topics dealing with the fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit. And those are all topics I hope they'll be a blessing to you. You can listen to those if you'll go to my webpage. And if you'd like to know some of the things that I've written about, I've written a number of books. I've got two more underway right now, but my most recent one was called Faith for Miracles, part I did a book entitled receive everything from what others call nothing and that's a crucial book for all of us to understand people don't understand the faith that we can have because it's they're not going through what we're going through and they don't understand where our strength and confidence is is not in ourselves but in God's Word and in the power of the Holy Spirit to help and lead us and it goes through that same topic that same areas and there's other books dealing with help for veterans and all kinds of different things so I hope that would be a blessing to you if you'd like to subscribe to my podcast, you can do that by going to cpnshows .com or wherever you listen to your podcast. Well, I want to thank you so much for listening and being a part of this podcast today. And I'd like to have you give me maybe a review would be kind of nice. I thank you first for listening. And if you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review this podcast. You know, it really helps us to be able to reach more people. You can leave a review

25:49 on Apple podcasts, on Amazon music, and podcast network or give us a star rating on Spotify however you choose to support us we certainly appreciate that and are thankful for it our next podcast is entitled how to experience the Holy Spirit now it's kind of an interesting topic how to experience the Holy Spirit well if you're a Christian you have the Holy Spirit living and dwelling inside of you your our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit so therefore shouldn't we just automatically experience him nope because our flesh and our thoughts on our own will will override what the Spirit's trying to do in our life because we have the freedom to choose what we decide to do with our lives. So we're going to talk about how is it possible to experience the Holy Spirit and have Him active in every area of our life. How can we live the kind of life that we've talked about in this series?

26:38 We've had podcasts that deal with how the Holy Spirit helps with the prayer and helps us to have peace and helps us to have joy in our life. And now we're going to talk about how to experience just the overall experience of the Holy Spirit in our life. That's what God wants for each and every one of us and I know that that's what he wants for you individually. So I hope that you'll be open to that and I look forward to the next podcast that's coming up. Well I'm gonna close this podcast out with just a little little prayer and blessing if I will over you and I pray that this podcast has been a blessing to you. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May his face shine upon you. May he be gracious to you and give you peace. May you prosper and be in good health even as your soul prospers. So until next time I pray that God will richly bless you. I pray that you'll receive the peace of God that passes all understanding and that it will guard your heart and guard your mind in Christ Jesus.

27:30 I thank you once again for listening to Quality Christian Living. I'm your host David Friend. We're continuing our series on the Holy Spirit. The next one we're going to deal with is how to experience the Holy Spirit in our lives. May God bless you.