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1409-21P
NOT AS THE WORLD GIVES
(John 14:27-31)
SUBJECT: Peace with God
F.C.F: How can we know true peace as Christ’s followers?
PROPOSITION: Since Christ alone give true peace, we must appropriate it.
INTRODUCTION:
A. “Not as the world gives do I give to you.”
Jesus himself contrast’s the peace he offers with the
false peace the world pretends to grant. The world
does not and cannot know real peace. It’s impossible,
because the whole world languishes under the curse
of sin. So we know only brokenness, emptiness, and
misery. We should not be surprised when war erupts
between nations and neighbors—the war is ongoing
and never rests. The battle line runs through every
human heart. We desire peace, some kind of relief
from fear and anxiety, stress and foreboding,
vulnerability and interpersonal strife.
B. So what kind of peace does the world
pretend to offer? By and large, the world’s diagnosis
of the problem is that we have too many stresses and
burdens and hassles and hang-ups and
insurmountable, unsolvable problems, and that peace
can be achieved by somehow escaping these negative
pressures. So the world tells us to de-stress, divest,
de-pile, and de-clutter—but what it’s really offering
is denial. Or, the world says we will know peace if
we would only unload, unburden, unencumber, and
untangle ourselves, but it is really proposing unreality.
Escape. Just pretend your problems are not
real, get out from under them for a time, or just walk
away for good. When we lived in Wisconsin, we saw
state-sponsored bumper stickers on many vehicles
which read, “Escape to Wisconsin.” A few jokers cut
out the word “to” so it simply read “Escape
Wisconsin.” But the strategy worked apparently on
the many urbanites and suburbanites in the Chicago
area to the south. Once we were driving back home to
Wisconsin on a summer Sunday evening, when many
of the Chicagoans who had escaped to Wisconsin
were trying to get back to reality. We crossed over
the major interstate leading from Madison to
Chicago, and it was a hopeless parking lot backed up
as far as one could see. Apparently too many people
had escaped to Wisconsin and they couldn’t get back
home again.
Escape, get away, lay it aside, take a break.
That’s the world’s ideal of peace. You have limits:
you have too many demands placed on you, so you
need to lighten your load. Imagine what this escapist
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suggestion does to families, to strained and painful
marriages, and to the costly business of parenting
children! But it also impacts work, and commitments
to the church and to Christian service.
C. “Not as the world gives do I give you.”
What kind of peace does Christ offer? How can we
receive it?
I. APPRECIATING CHRIST’S PEACE.
A. For many believers, peace is the absence of
conflict. If this is true, then it has often been pointed
out that the most peaceful place on the planet is the
cemetery—completely free of conflict. But, of
course, it is also completely free of life and wellbeing.
But peace is not the absence of conflict.
Biblical peace is the presence of the fullness of God’s
life, eternal and abundant.
B. For many believers as well, peace is a
feeling, a sudden, inexplicable, even irrational sense
of security and personal well-being. This is often
claimed to be the “peace that passes understanding.”
We should not feel peaceful, but we do. We don’t try
to understand it, because it passes understanding.
But the peace that Jesus promises in our text
does not simply precipitate from thin air. Nor, and
this may sound strange or unspiritual, but nor does
this peace arise by simply asking for it. As a much
younger man I struggled a lot with anxiety, worry,
nervous fretting. And I would pray a lot that I would
not feel so anxious all the time, expecting the peace
that passes understanding to come over me. But that’s
not the peace that Jesus promises here, the kind of
peace that the world does not give.
C. Christ offers fullness. Yes, we are weak
and really incapable of handling the great and even
small challenges of our day. Jesus does not seek to
reduce the challenges, but to strengthen us to meet
those challenges.
1. Now be careful, here. There are many
burdens we try to carry which we have no business
shouldering for ourselves. Most importantly is the
burden of sin and guilt. That will completely destroy
us if we allow it to. The joyful glory of the gospel is
that Jesus carried that awful burden for us all the way
to the cross where he obliterated it, paying the terrible
debt we owed. So now we simply own up to our sin
and shame, and God does not count it against us
anymore, and we are free.
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2. Then there is the burden of getting results,
of making things happen, of ensuring the right
outcome. From our pervasive American pragmatism
and can-do spirit, we expect to make our own
destiny. If we only try harder and work with greater
ingenuity, we think, we ought to achieve success and
to have something to show for it. But, of course, none
of that works when it comes to the kingdom of God.
Yes, we labor and spend ourselves for the glory of
God, and our God is honored and pleased when we
gladly sacrifice for him. In the family, we seek to
teach and train our children by precept and by
example. But we leave the results up to God—a very
hard thing to do.
D. Christ calls us to faithfulness. The parable
of the talents shows that plainly enough. The person
with one or two measures from God is not expected
to produce the same as those who are given five or
ten times their share. But it’s faithfulness that
matters, that honors God. Jesus could say that he
finished the work the Father gave HIM, not someone
else. And, once again, at the time of his death, Jesus
had not been terribly successful, very few true
followers after three years of miracles and preaching
to vast crowds.
So there are many burdens we may be
carrying that we have no business bearing: sins,
which ought to be brought to the cross and left at the
cross, and taking too much responsibility for results.
Even the Apostle Paul famously wrote that he planted
and Apollos watered, but only God gave the increase.
So those who plant and water are really nothing, and
that’s helpful to keep in mind. We are really nothing,
only God’s working matters, even though he works
through us.
II. APPROPRIATING CHRIST’S PROMISE.
A. But even when we are carrying only what
we are called to bear, even then this peace of Christ
does not simply fall like manna from heaven, nor
does it descend simply in response to our prayers.
Please don’t forget what Christ has been doing just
prior to issuing his promise of peace. He has been
instructing his disciples with rich and astonishing
promises. It is only in the context of appropriating
these promises that we can enjoy this remarkable
peace.
Suppose it’s little Johnny’s birthday. His
mother tells him that his Grandma has a nice gift for
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him and that he should stop by her house on his way
home from school. But he forgets. And when he gets
home, he’s sad because he did not get a birthday gift
from his dear grandmother. Why is he not right now
enjoying that wonderful gift? Because he did not go
get it. He did not appropriate it for himself.
B. And it’s the same with Christ’s promised
peace. If you recall, these promises are conditional
promises. They only become valid when we fulfill
the conditions. An oft-quoted Bible promise with
respect to peace is Isaiah 26:3: “You keep him in
perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because
he trusts in you.” “Perfect peace” certainly sounds
wonderful. And here is God’s lavish promise that he
himself will keep us in perfect peace. But wait a
minute, this promise is not unqualified. It is a
conditional promise. First, we must actively trust in
the Lord. And we must also keep our mind stayed,
steadily focused on the Lord. Then, come what may,
God will keep us in his peace.
C. And Jesus has already offered his lavish
promises in the earlier part of this chapter. Let me ask
you to recall some of these promises which we must
appropriate for ourselves.
There is the promise of:
1. a permanent place in his Father’s house—eternal
life with God. (14:1)
2. that Christ will prepare that place for us—by
going to the cross and rising again. (2-4)
3. union with Christ and through him with God the
Father. (9-11)
4. answered prayer, whatever we ask, that the Father
may be glorified in the Son. (12-13)
5. the indwelling, almighty Holy Spirit of God. (1517)
6. the resurrection of Christ and his ushering in a
whole new age. (18-24)
7. understanding and the revelation of God’s truth
through his faithful Word. (25-26)
Beloved, if we dwell on these truths, if our
hearts are stayed on the Lord and on his rich
promises to us, if we appropriate these promises
through faith and through prayer, then indeed we will
enjoy Christ’s peace. So your house burns down.
Okay, that’s hard and painful, but not if we keep
sight of the place in our Father’s house. So we face
the rejection of friends, and that too is painful, but
not so bad if we consider Christ’s love for us at the
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cross and his constant fellowship through his
indwelling Holy Spirit. And this world is constantly
disappointing. How could it be anything else since it
is hopelessly broken by our sin and is fading, passing
away? But Christ has inaugurated a whole new age
that will never pass away through his resurrection
from the dead, and we already share in that new age
because we are united to him by his Holy Spirit, and
we will enjoy this new age forever because of our
promised resurrection from the dead in Christ.
D. All of these promises neutralize our
worries and fears, not by an irrational denial or some
escapist flight into fantasy, but by exposing them as
entities that are less imposing, even less real, and
ultimately irrelevant in view of the greater and
surpassing reality that has come in Christ. They are
no match, for example, for the indwelling, almighty
Holy Spirit of God, the God who made all things.
Now if we place too much of our confidence,
comfort, and hope in that which is passing away, like
homes or the approval of unbelievers and do not give
Christ and his promised benefits our greater attention
and affection, oh, then we will be often sad and
disappointed and robbed of peace BECAUSE WE
ARE LOOK FOR PEACE FROM A WORLD AND
AN AGE THAT CANNOT PRODUCE ANY
PEACE.
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the king, and for them to be princes. They were in it
for themselves. Is it possible to rise above that and to
say, “No, Christ is greater, his glory is worthier and
nobler, his love is better than life”? I think we must
do so. We must love Christ beyond life. We must
seek his glory, desiring to reveal his surpassing glory
at all costs, at any expense.
What I’m suggesting is that we need a greater
purpose than our personal well-being. All those brave
soldiers who went off to war—must have had a larger
purpose beyond their personal well-being: protecting
family, country, democracy, or rescuing the enslaved.
But there must have been something in it for them
that was greater than their personal well-being. In
fact, if a soldier’s first concern is personal well-being,
we will either call him a coward or a deserter or both.
C. Do you rejoice that Jesus is now seated at
the right hand of the Father, the victorious One,
enthroned in resplendent glory, to the praise of all his
saints and angels? Beloved, nothing whatsoever in
heaven or on earth can change that—and if your joy
is fixed on the glory of Christ, then you cannot be
disappointed, no matter what may come. That’s
peace. That’s perfect peace. That’s peace that passes
understanding.
III. ADVANCING CHRIST’S PURPOSE.
This is the peace of Christ, not as the world
gives, not some escapist fantasy that denies or flees
our stresses and responsibilities, but embraces them
for the sake of Christ. At the same time, our mind is
stayed on Christ, on his promise, on the hope he
offers of a real future in a kingdom that shall never
end, even while we dwell temporarily in a world that
is passing away. It is seeking his honor and glory
above all, rejoicing in his goodness and greatness.
A. Now we must notice one thing more, and
that’s because our Lord Jesus points out what is
painfully obvious. I wonder if you can see it? “28
You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I
will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have
rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the
Father is greater than I.” Do you see it?
Jesus announced that he was going away. It
may have appeared to them that the threat was
imminent, and that he was now leaving them holding
the bag while he skipped town. He assured them that
he was going to the Father. But their reaction was to
worry about themselves: “What about us? Where
does that leave us?” They really had little concern for
Jesus, for his well-being, and even for his mission.
B. All along, we noticed that many people
came to Jesus convinced that he possessed some
great power, wondering how they could tap into that
power and use it for their own ends. The disciples
were clearly on board with that, expecting Jesus to be
CONCLUSION
But now the bonds of death are burst,
the ransom has been paid;
And thou art on thy Father’s throne,
in glorious robes arrayed.
O Christ, be thou our lasting joy,
our ever great reward!
Our only glory may it be
to glory in thee, Lord.
O Christ, our hope, our heart’s desire,
redemption’s only spring!
Creator of the world thou art,
our Savior and our King. 
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