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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 1 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. ____________________________________________________________________________________________ 1409-21P 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 2 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 ____________________________________________________________________________________________ 1409-21P 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. 3 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. ____________________________________________________________________________________________