Well, let us turn together in the word of God to the book of Isaiah once again, and this time to chapter 26. Isaiah chapter 26, page 708 in the church Bible. And I want us to read just now verses one to four of this chapter. Isaiah 26, page 708, verses 1 to 4. Let us hear God's word. In that day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah. We have a strong city. He sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks Open the gates that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in. You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever for the Lord God is an everlasting rock. Well, we've been calling chapters 24 to 27 of Isaiah a tale of two cities because it describes the two very different destinies of two cities, two groups of people at the end of history. There is, on the one hand, the city of man, the world, and there is, on the other hand, the city of God, the church, And this contrast between these two groups of people continues here in chapter 26. Verse 1 speaks about a strong city that has God's salvation surrounding it and underneath it, its walls and its bulwarks. And this strong city, the city of God, the church, it's populated by righteous people who have faith in God. And then verse 5 describes the future fate of what Isaiah calls the lofty city. a city that's full of proud unbelievers, and that city will be cast down to the dust. But I want us to focus this morning on verse three in particular. We're not going to try to deal with the whole chapter this morning. I want us to look at verse three because verse three tells us more about these people who live in the city of God. It's a description, it's a wonderful, beautiful, thrilling description of the citizens of the city of God. And Isaiah says that they are characterized by something, excuse me, that is very attractive and very important. Just look again at verse three. You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you. The people who live in the city of God have peace. Now remember, this verse is talking first and foremost about the day of judgment. We see that very clearly in verse 1. In that day, this song will be sung. These words will be spoken. And this phrase, in that day, has been used twice already in chapter 24 and in chapter 25 about the day of judgment. In that day. In what day? What day is that day? That day in these chapters is the day of judgment. But these things that are going to be said about the people of God then, on that day, are also true of the people of God now. They will be perfectly true and forever true in a new and consummated way at the end of history. But the people of God experience these things in part here and now. Because if you're a Christian, you have already entered into eternal life already. And the blessings of the age to come are breaking into this world, and you're experiencing them here and now in this life, in this present world. You will experience them perfectly and fully and eternally. when Jesus comes again and when we are made perfect in holiness and we experience the resurrection from the dead, but we begin to experience these things in part here and now. The kingdom of God, you remember, has truly come, even though it hasn't fully come. It has truly come, even though it hasn't fully come. And so this peace that Isaiah is talking about here in verse 3, that will be experienced perfectly and eternally one day, We already experience it here and now if we are Christians. If you belong to the city of God, you don't enter into the city of God on the last day. You're already a citizen of the city of God if you're a Christian today. You're already experiencing this peace that Isaiah talks about here in this verse. And so I want us to ask two simple questions about this peace this morning. First question, what is it? And the second question, how do we obtain it? So first of all then, what is peace? You will keep him in perfect peace. What is this peace that this verse is talking about? Well, this word peace, the word shalom in Hebrew, is, according to one of the main lexicons of the Hebrew language, this word is one of the most important theological words in the Old Testament. You can't think too much about peace. You can't ever understand too much about this concept, this idea of peace. In the Bible, this word peace is much, much richer than our English word peace. The way that it tends to be used in English is to describe the absence of strife. When war stops, there is peace because there's no more fighting. It's the absence of something in English. A parent might say to her young children, please, please, will you just give me five minutes peace? And what the poor mother means by that is five minutes when there is no talking. When there is no shouting, when there is no demanding, when there is no arguing, when there is no noise. Five minutes of nothing, blissful nothing. Five minutes of the absence of anything else. Calm, tranquil, stillness. That tends to be the kind of idea that we have in English when we think and talk about peace. But we need to understand that when the Bible talks about peace, it is a much, much greater concept. It's a far, far richer word in the Bible than it is in English. It's not just the absence of something bad or something annoying in the Bible. In the Bible, peace is the presence of something good and wonderful. It's not just no fighting, but it is positive cooperation and productive and harmonious collaboration. In the Bible, peace is not just five minutes of no arguing, but it's five minutes, rather, of positive encouraging and kindness and edifying. See, it's a really big and wonderful and important word in the Bible. This word in the Bible, peace, describes health. It describes physical health. It includes spiritual health, emotional well-being, it means wholeness, it means welfare, it means robustness. It's not just the absence of something, but it is the positive presence of good things. And the reason that I labor that The reason that I stress that is because it's really important that we understand that as we come to think about this verse. Because you could read this verse, and perhaps you have read this verse, and have the wrong idea in your head about what peace looks like and means. You might read this verse, you will keep him in perfect peace. And imagine in your mind someone who goes through life with just a kind of serene, otherworldly smile on their face. unruffled by anything that happens all around them in the world. That's the kind of Stoic ideal. That's a kind of Greek ideal. That's not what the Bible means by peace. It's the Stoic idea that you're impervious to suffering. You're untouched. You're immune to suffering. Your child dies, your wife gets sick, your house burns down, but you have perfect peace. You're unmoved, you're untroubled, you're completely unaffected by tragedy or suffering either in yourself or in other people. Is that perfect peace? Is that the kind of thing that Isaiah's talking about here? Is this what the people of God are meant to experience? No. Not at all. That's the absence of strife. That's a different thing altogether. That is not what is being talked about here in this verse. Peace means robust health and strength and vitality. If you are someone who has peace, if you're experiencing this peace, it means that when troubles come into your life, it's not that you're not affected by them. It doesn't mean that you're not made sad by them. It means that you're not broken by them. It means that you don't go to pieces when you experience trouble. And so when a Christian woman is diagnosed with an untreatable progressive problem, she has peace in the midst of that. And instead of sinking down into despair and self-pity and bitterness, the believer trusts the Lord, submits to His will, and honors Him in the midst of that situation. When a relationship breaks up, A Christian who has peace doesn't go to bed for a week and numb himself with television and comfort eating. Yes, of course, he feels sad. Yes, of course, he feels the loss, but he's at peace in the midst of it. Though he falls, he shall not be cast down. He does fall. He does hurt himself. He is suffering, but he's not broken by it. He has peace. I think that's what Paul is talking about in 1 Thessalonians 4.13. When someone you love dies, Paul says, we do not grieve as others do who have no hope. He doesn't say that we don't grieve. He says, we don't grieve as others do who have no hope. We do grieve. We do weep. We do miss the person who's been taken from us. We do feel loneliness. But our grief as Christians is those who have peace. It's very different from the despairing sorrow of unbelievers. That's what it means to have peace in the face of the death of our loved ones. In fact, our text tells us that it's more than just peace, isn't it? It's perfect peace. Now what the Hebrew literally says there is, you keep him in peace, peace. The Hebrew doesn't say perfect peace, the Hebrew says peace, peace. And that's just a Hebrew way of emphasizing the quality of the peace. This is an all-embracing peace. This peace is total, it's complete, it extends to every single department and compartment of your life. No matter what happens to you, in other words, no matter what challenges you might face, you are able to be at peace. That's what's being promised here. That's what the people of God are meant to experience. There's no part of your life where you say, well, obviously this is just too bad, this is too tragic, this is too painful, I cannot be at peace in this situation. No, you will keep him in perfect peace, an all-embracing, total, complete peace. And we see that, if we're in any doubt about that, we see it here in Isaiah 26 in particular. Because you remember that this song is going to be sung when? It's going to be sung on the day of judgment. And yet Isaiah says, on that day, even on that day of all days, on the day of judgment, God's people have perfect peace. What's going to be happening all around believers on the day of judgment? What's going to be happening on that day? Well, turn back to chapter 24 and verse 21. Here's what's going to be happening on that day. On that day, the Lord will punish the host of heaven in heaven and the kings of the earth on the earth. And what's that going to look like? Well, look at verse 1. Behold, the Lord will empty the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants. Verse 3, the earth shall be utterly empty and utterly plundered for the Lord has spoken this word. The earth mourns and withers. The world languishes and withers. The highest people of the earth languish. That's what's going to be happening all around believers on that day. The end of the world. the things of this universe being swept away forever, global cosmic upheavals, the desolation and devastation of the whole earth. And yet, verse 3, even though all of that is happening all around us, the people of God will experience perfect peace in the midst of God's judgment. So if it's true then that God's people can be at peace then surely we can experience God's peace here and now as well. It is the birthright of every Christian. You are meant to be at peace no matter what is going on in your life, no matter what is going on in the world around you. Not that you just float through with a serene smile, completely untroubled by anything that's happening. That's not what it means. but you can honor the Lord in the midst of it. You can stand. You don't go to pieces. You're healthy and robust and strong to deal with it. That's what peace looks like, no matter what is going on in your life. That's what peace is. Well, how do we get it? Having seen what it is, I hope we all want to experience it more and more. I hope that if you're a Christian, you do experience this regularly. But how can we experience it more and more? Well, our text gives us the answer. And so we'll spend the rest of our time answering this question. How do we experience this peace? How do we experience this peace? How do we get this peace? Well, it's very clear, isn't it, that it's not something that we can ever work up ourselves. It's something that comes from God. That's what verse three says, isn't it? You keep him in perfect peace. You don't keep yourself in perfect peace. You can't keep yourself in perfect peace. That is God's responsibility. That is something only God can do. It's a gift that he graciously gives to every one of his people. We see that in verse 12 as well, don't we? O Lord, You will ordain peace for us. You have done for us all our works." That's just another way of saying that God does everything that is needed from beginning to end to keep us in peace. God keeps us in peace. But even though this peace comes from God, there is still something that you and I do have to do in order to receive it. It's a bit like salvation, even though salvation is all God's doing, it comes from Him, we receive it. Yet we have to reach out our hands by faith in Jesus to receive it. So what is it that we have to do to receive this peace? Well, look at our text. You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you. There's the secret to being kept in perfect peace by God. You've got to stay your mind on the Lord. You've got to trust the Lord. When Isaiah says, stay your mind on the Lord, this word mind, we could translate it as mindset. It really describes a way of looking at life. Worldview might even not be too much of an over-translation. Stay your mindset on the Lord. Tie your worldview to God, Isaiah says. Make Him the focus of your thinking. God is to be the reference point, the center of gravity for all your thoughts about everything in your life. Well, what does that look like in practice? What does it mean to stay your mind on the Lord? Well, I suppose negatively it means that we don't stay our minds on the world, doesn't it? It means that we don't fill up our minds with the things of this world. It means that we don't think about things. We don't think about life and the universe and everything. We don't think the way the world thinks. Instead, we stay our minds on God. We fill our minds with the things of God as he's revealed them to us in the Bible. We set our minds on things above. That's the way Paul puts it, isn't it, in Colossians chapter three. What does it look like then in practice to stay your mind on God? How can you know today if you're staying your mind on the Lord? Well, at its broadest, to stay your mind on God means that you remember that the Lord is God. You remember that the Lord is the Creator and the Sovereign Ruler of the universe. Now, that might seem a little bit obvious, but just think through the implications of it for what we're thinking about here. If you want to be kept by the Lord in perfect peace, you've got to remember that He is the Creator and the Ruler of everything. You've got to remember that God is in charge of everything that happens. Now just think back over last week. Has your mind stayed on the Lord? Do you recognize that He is in control of everything that happened last week? That there are no accidents. That there are no mistakes. Our catechism asks, what are God's works of providence? And the answer, God's works of providence are His most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving and governing all His creatures and all their actions. Isaiah is going to put it even more startlingly than that in Isaiah 45 verse 7. I form light and create darkness. I make well-being and create calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things." All that happens, big and small, good and bad, all that happens is part of God's plan. And you've got to stay your mind on this God, the God who is sovereign over everything, every detail. He's sovereign over all of it. More than that, a mind stayed on the Lord believes what Paul says in Romans 8, 28. Not just that God ordains everything that happens, that's true, but it's more than that, isn't it? Because Romans 8, 28 tells us that He ordains all that happens for His people's good. All things work together for those who love God, and all things means all things. You've got to stay your mind on this God, that He rules everything, good and bad. It's all part of His plan. And he does it for his people's good. He doesn't rule over all things in spite of circumstances. It's not that God's trying to do a patch-up job. It's not that he's dealt this hand of less than ideal circumstances, and he has to kind of patch it up. And because he's so clever and wise and powerful, he's able to do that. No, he ordains everything. He's the one that decides what all the circumstances are going to be. In His infinite wisdom, He ordains everything for His glory and for His people's good. Whatever comes into your life is ordained by God for your good. And you've got to stay your mind, you've got to tie your whole way of thinking about your life and everything that happens to you. You've got to tie your mindset to the Lord, to this truth about the Lord. And the more consistently we look at our lives with this kind of mindset, the more perfectly we will enjoy God's peace. Now that doesn't mean for a moment, please don't misunderstand me, that does not mean for a moment that everything that happens to us is good or pleasant or easy. But we can trust that they are for our good, that they are ordained by our heavenly Father who knows you and who knows what's best for you and who loves you perfectly. You have to stay your mind on Him. You've got to trust Him, that He knows what He's doing. That's the secret to peace. That's the mindset you've got to develop. Because you can't always see how things are for your good at the time, can you? Very often when we look back, Maybe years later we can see how something that was terribly painful at the time was for our good, and we can praise God and thank God for it. But sometimes we may never in this life understand how something was for our good. This is where we stay our minds on the Lord. No matter how things might seem, He really is working all things for our good. You've got to hold on to that. You've got to stay your mind on that. You've got to fix your mind on that in all the details of this coming week. Whatever is in store for you this week, no matter what happens, if your mind is stayed on God, then you know that everything is going according to His plan. That's such a help, isn't it, as we think about our death or as we think about the death of our loved ones. Stay your mind on God. Have a Christian biblical mindset about death. And if our mind has stayed on God, what do we believe about our death and our loved one's death? We believe that He ordains all the number of our days before one of them comes to be. He ordains the time. He ordains the manner. He ordains the place. All the circumstances of our deaths and our loved one's deaths are in His hands. We can trust Him to look after our family after we are gone. If your mind has stayed on God, if you believe that, if you're holding on to that, then you can be at peace, can't you? It gives us peace in the face of a life-changing diagnosis, something in your own body that is untreatable, something that is very difficult and painful to cope with. In the blink of an eye, everything is changed, and your life is never going to be the same again. And yet the believer copes, meets that news with peace. It's not that he's not shaken by it. It's not that you don't weep over it, but there's a calm steadiness about how a believer copes with a life-changing diagnosis in himself or in his loved ones that is different from the world. It's what the Bible calls peace. That's what peace looks like. You think about disappointment. How we cope with disappointment when a relationship doesn't work out the way we hoped that it would. Or when you fail an exam. That's quite relevant at the minute, isn't it? With the AQE exams and mock GCSEs and A-levels going on. When you fail an exam, stay your mind on the Lord and trust that He is working all things for your good. You don't get that job that you had really hoped for, that promotion that you richly deserve. Well, the Christian doesn't go to pieces. He has an all-embracing peace. Why? Because his mind is stayed on the Lord. And he trusts the Lord. He trusts that the Lord has a better plan for his life that includes this disappointment. That life with this disappointment is actually better than life without the disappointment would be. That's not the way the world thinks about things, but that's the way the Christian thinks about things because our mind has stayed on the Lord, and so we have perfect peace. When we have issues with our children, we're not seeing the development that we would like to see emotionally or mentally or physically or especially spiritually. It's not that we don't care. It's not that we're not grieved by it, but we can be at peace in the midst of it, can't we? Because our mind has stayed in the Lord, and we're trusting Him with our children. When we have difficulties in our marriages, When our marriages go through rough patches, when we're just not relating well to one another, we seem to be arguing all the time, we can be at peace because we can trust that the Lord has a purpose in that as well. We can see it as an opportunity to work through problems and to grow closer to one another as we repent and as we forgive one another, as we show love to one another unconditionally. Stay your mind on the Lord and believe that He is working all things for good. When we have to deal with conflict in our families perhaps, or in our workplace, or even with our neighbors in our own street, that's a painful thing. That's a difficult thing. It's an unsettling thing, isn't it? And yet you can know God's peace even in the midst of that kind of crucible. because we remember that God is working all things for good. We stay our mind on the Lord. Too often we stay our minds on the circumstances. And that's the thing we fixate on. That's the thing we obsess over. Instead of staying our minds on the Lord and His character and His being and His promises and His word. He has a purpose in ordaining this conflict. He has a good and wise purpose in it all. What does He want me to learn through this? That's what peace looks like. It's this healthy, robust frame of mind. Even if the worst imaginable disaster should happen to you, a Christian can be at peace if your mind is stayed in the Lord. If your mindset is biblical, if it's stayed in the Lord, you can say whatever happens to you, the Lord is in charge and he's working out everything for my good and for his glory. And even though this is agonizingly painful, I trust him that he knows best. I always think of the Galt family in Balamony when they lost their 12-year-old boy in a road accident. This little, their only child, a miracle baby that they didn't think they would be able to have. And at the age of 12, he was cut down in a road traffic accident. And they're Christians, and their minds are stayed on the Lord. And in the newspaper, in the death notice, the comment that they put in was, as for God, His ways are perfect." That's exactly what Isaiah is talking about here, perfect peace in the midst of the most traumatic loss imaginable. It means even when we lose unbelieving friends and family, And as far as we can tell, they have gone down into hell forever. Even then, we can know this peace. In the midst of our acute grief for them, we stay our minds on the Lord, and we trust the Lord, and we are able to say, this is the Lord's will. And He always does what is right. And not just in the big things, but in the small things too, we can have this peace. When you come down with the flu at what seems like the worst possible moment, when the car won't start, when you're stuck in traffic on the way to an important appointment, when your flights delayed or canceled, when the power is cut, stay your mind on the Lord. Remind yourself that your heavenly Father is in control of all these things, and He will keep you in perfect peace. And friends, the time to develop this mindset is now, before the days of trouble come. This is when we need to be storing up truth about God in our hearts and in our minds, so that when disaster strikes, we know these things about God. It's like you put the hurricane shutters on before the hurricane comes. The hurricane shutters are no use in the middle of the hurricane. They have to be put on well in advance. When the sun is shining and there's not a breath of wind, that's the time to be putting on the shutters, buttoning down the hatches, doing whatever needs to be done when a hurricane is on the way. And now is the time before the evil day comes. This is when we need to be convincing ourselves and reminding ourselves and filling our minds with these truths about God, that He is the sovereign ruler of all things and that He does all things well. The more truth that we can know about God now, the easier it will be to stay our mind on Him when the day of trouble comes. And of course, in Jesus Christ, we have the supreme illustration of this verse, don't we? Because his mind was stayed on God perfectly at all times because he trusted the Lord. Think of all that the Lord Jesus went through, all the temptations and all the challenges and all the afflictions and sufferings. He was a man of sorrows, familiar with grief. and yet the Lord kept him in perfect peace because his mind was stayed on God. He knew the scriptures, he knew God, and he walked in God's ways, and his thoughts were lined up with God's thoughts. He brought his will into line with God's will. He saw everything from God's perspective, and so even he In the cross, the worst crucible of suffering that it's possible to imagine, and we can't even imagine it, even there, he was able to experience this kind of peace that Isaiah's talking about. In the midst of slander and misrepresentation and hatred and unbelief, he never despaired. He was never crushed. He had this perfect peace because his mind was stayed on God. And that's what we need as well. We need to follow our Savior's example. And friends, God holds out to each one of us every day perfect peace. All we have to do is to stay our minds on Him to receive it, and He will keep us in perfect peace. This is what we want. This is what we need desperately. And here's the directions for receiving it. You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind has stayed on you because he trusts in you. Amen. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we pray for the peace of the city of God and for the people of God We pray that we might prosper who love you, that there might be peace within our walls, within the walls of this congregation, within the walls of our homes, within the walls of our own hearts. Lord God, we pray that you, the Lord of peace himself, would give peace at all times to your people in every way. And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.