PERFECT PEACE
Part 4: How to Restore Peace
(Isaiah 26:3 NLT) You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
(John 14:27 NLT) I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.
(1 Samuel 8:4-7 NIV) So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.” But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.”
(1 Samuel 8:19-20 NIV) But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”
4 Types of Kings
- The ____________.
Believe punishment is the way to correct
people or to get what they want.
Punishment comes from fear and control.
Peace comes from love and freedom.
- The ____________.
Believe that people aren’t capable or trustworthy,
therefore, everything relies upon them.
- The __________.
Believe people are out to get them and they
have no control over situations.
- The ____________.
Believes they are responsible and take action
to improve their life and the lives of others.
(2 Chronicles 17:10 NIV) The fear of the Lord fell on all the kingdoms of the lands surrounding Judah, so that they did not go to war against Jehoshaphat.
How to Restore Peace
- ___________ the idols.
(2 Chronicles 14:1-3 NIV) And Abijah rested with his ancestors and was buried in the City of David. Asa his son succeeded him as king, and in his days the country was at peace for ten years. Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God. He removed the foreign altars and the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles.
- Idols will ______________.
- Idols will ______________.
- Idols will ______________.
- _____________ the Word of God.
(2 Kings 22:3,8,10-11 NIV) In the eighteenth year of his reign, King Josiah sent the secretary, Shaphan son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to the temple of the Lord…Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the temple of the Lord”…then Shaphan the secretary informed the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king. When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes.
(Psalm 119:165 NIV) Great peace have those who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble.
- ___________ who your God is.
(2 Chronicles 20:5-6,20 NIV) Then Jehoshaphat stood up in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem at the temple of the Lord in the front of the new courtyard and said: “Lord, the God of our ancestors, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you…we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.
__4.____________ to God.
(Joshua 24:14-15 NIV) “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”