Peace Jesus Offers
Notes
Transcript
Handout
If you were asked to describe our world in one word, would you choose the word “peaceful”? Probably not. I’m guessing there are a lot of other words that come to mind before peaceful. Your list may include words like chaotic, broken, unstable, frightening, or disintegrating.
As a nation, we've lost confidence in our government, medical institutions, and scientific exploration. And many have lost confidence in religion, with church attendance at an all-time low.
Right now, the world is anything but peaceful. We have wars and potential wars all over the place.
But we all desire and need peace.
My testimony - I wanted peace in my life. I was troubled with a temper… frustrated. I was very introverted… to the point of afraid that people would not accept me if they knew me.
People look for peace in in so many things… superficial things, including: relationships, drugs, alcohol, entertainment, career, and money. And yet, they still feel empty.
Jack Higgins - The Eagle has Landed - When you get to the top, there’s nothing there.
Boris Becker after 2nd Wimbledon Victory - struggled with suicide
George Forman - Inspite of being the Heavy weight champion and wealthy was empty and he wondered, is this all there is to life? Would another car make me happy? He had three homes, a dozen cars and a ranch, but he was still empty. More than once he thought about driving his car over a cliff…
The fact is that, we’ve been looking for peace in all the wrong places and the world cannot offer true, lasting peace. We need a peace that isn’t of this world.
Jesus offers a different kind of peace that’s not of this world. On Palm Sunday, a week before He was to go to the cross, suffer and die, Jesus took His disciples aside and gave them an amazing promise, saying,
27 “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.
This is a remarkable promise.
Think about what Jesus was going through when He made this promise. He had spent the last three years of his life hounded by the haters and suffocated by persecutors and oppressors. There was constant pressure on Jesus’ life.
Despite all this, Jesus had peace. It is this peace that He invited His disciples – and by extension us – to share in.
Jesus offered the world three kinds of peace
Jesus offered the world three kinds of peace
Let’s look at the different kinds of peace Jesus offered.
1. Peace with God
1. Peace with God
Christ offers peace with God. In Romans 5:1-10,
1 Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. 2 Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory. 3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. 5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. 6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. 9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. 10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son.
Paul is telling us that we have peace with God because of what Jesus did. Why didn’t we have peace with God before that?
12 When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.
We were born with a sin nature.
We were born with a sin nature.
But Paul also tells us that while all human beings begin as enemies with God and that it is through faith in Christ that we can have peace with God. In fact, it was Jesus’ death and Resurrection that made this peace possible.
Jesus’ death reconciled sinful people to a righteous God.
Jesus’ death reconciled sinful people to a righteous God.
Jesus knew this was the case. He knew His death was the only way to reconcile a sinful people with a righteous God. This is what Christ came to do and it is why, hanging on the cross a week after giving His disciples His peace, He could proclaim, “It is finished!” The war is over. Peace between God and humanity is now possible.
So because of Jesus, we have peace with God. But there is a 2nd kind of peace He offers…
2. The Peace of God
2. The Peace of God
Christ also offers his followers the peace of God. This is what people are really searching for. We want, when we close our eyes, to have peace inside.
Earlier in John 14, Jesus gives an interesting instruction to His disciples: John 14:1
1 “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.
This is a daunting command and I imagine all the disciples wanted to do was ask, “How in the world?”
We may wonder that today as we look around at what all is going on. We have Russia at war in the Ukraine. We have Israel, an ally, at war with Hamas, Hezbollah and really with Iran. We have China acting up. We have North Korea acting up. We have NATO preparing for war with Russia.
At Home, we have a far left agenda being crammed down our throats with absolutely no science to back it up. Our culture has no moral absolutes. We have chaos in our politics, our cities and most people’s lives.
How in the world, can we NOT be troubled?
We turn to Isaiah 26:3 for the answer:
3 You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
Jesus is saying that our minds are crucial to experiencing God’s peace. We have to focus our thoughts on the Lord. That’s where our focus is. It doesn’t mean that we don’t keep up with what’s going on around us… I love looking at all of it and knowing what’s going on and the why’s of all of it as much as possible. But, my trust and my faith is fixed on the Lord. No matte what is happening around me, I know he as got me.
With our minds fixed on Him, we can be at peace in this chaotic and anxious world.
With our minds fixed on Him, we can be at peace in this chaotic and anxious world.
Paul picks up this theme in Philippians 4:8-9.
8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. 9 Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.
What we focus on determines what comes out on our words and actions. Use this list as a filter. (coffee filter example) Program your minds by focusing your thoughts on things that are true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and admirable.
Do you have trouble with your thoughts? Fearful thoughts? Angry thoughts?
What are you focusing on? Replace fearful thoughts with faith filled thoughts. Replace unwholesome thoughts with wholesome material… books, magazines, Pureflix, WOG…
Focus your thoughts on God and His Word. What’s the result? “The God of peace will be with you.”
So Jesus offered, peace with God and now he offered peace of God, but there is a 3rd kind of peace that he offers.
3. The peace God will bring when Christ returns.
3. The peace God will bring when Christ returns.
Finally, we’re offered the peace God will bring when Christ comes back to dwell among us. He is coming back and when He does, He will restore peace like we have never seen or experienced.
It’s no coincidence that one of Jesus’ titles is “Prince of Peace.”
We are promised that the world won’t have true, lasting peace until Christ comes again. But when he does, Isaiah 2:4 tells us strange things will happen:
4 The Lord will mediate between nations and will settle international disputes. They will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore.
Then in Isa 11:6-9
6 In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard will lie down with the baby goat. The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion, and a little child will lead them all. 7 The cow will graze near the bear. The cub and the calf will lie down together. The lion will eat hay like a cow. 8 The baby will play safely near the hole of a cobra. Yes, a little child will put its hand in a nest of deadly snakes without harm. 9 Nothing will hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for as the waters fill the sea, so the earth will be filled with people who know the Lord.
What is Isaiah saying?
He is saying there will be peace that our minds can’t yet even comprehend. Deep, lasting, transcendent peace. A peace this world can’t explain or recreate.
But it’s a peace that makes perfect sense if you know Jesus.
At the very end of John 16, the very end of Palm Sunday, Jesus gives His disciples a powerful promise. Before that, he teaches us John 16:17-32
17 Some of the disciples asked each other, “What does he mean when he says, ‘In a little while you won’t see me, but then you will see me,’ and ‘I am going to the Father’? 18 And what does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand.” 19 Jesus realized they wanted to ask him about it, so he said, “Are you asking yourselves what I meant? I said in a little while you won’t see me, but a little while after that you will see me again. 20 I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn over what is going to happen to me, but the world will rejoice. You will grieve, but your grief will suddenly turn to wonderful joy. 21 It will be like a woman suffering the pains of labor. When her child is born, her anguish gives way to joy because she has brought a new baby into the world. 22 So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again; then you will rejoice, and no one can rob you of that joy. 23 At that time you won’t need to ask me for anything. I tell you the truth, you will ask the Father directly, and he will grant your request because you use my name. 24 You haven’t done this before. Ask, using my name, and you will receive, and you will have abundant joy. 25 “I have spoken of these matters in figures of speech, but soon I will stop speaking figuratively and will tell you plainly all about the Father. 26 Then you will ask in my name. I’m not saying I will ask the Father on your behalf, 27 for the Father himself loves you dearly because you love me and believe that I came from God. 28 Yes, I came from the Father into the world, and now I will leave the world and return to the Father.” 29 Then his disciples said, “At last you are speaking plainly and not figuratively. 30 Now we understand that you know everything, and there’s no need to question you. From this we believe that you came from God.” 31 Jesus asked, “Do you finally believe? 32 But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when you will be scattered, each one going his own way, leaving me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.
Today, over 2,000 years later, Jesus extends to us the same transcendent promise of peace saying that he offered his disciples then, John 16:33
33 I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
Jesus overcame so that we can overcome.
Jesus overcame so that we can overcome.
If you want that peace… of you are facing a battle that you need to overcome… come to the altar…