What a lovely word, peace. What
a lovely word, peace. Peace. John 14, 27. These are these glorious words
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you, not
as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. While you have your Bibles open
to John Chapter 14, I'd just love to think of how those apostles
must have felt that night. They'd heard the stories. They
have heard the stories and according to some of the Gospel accounts
they didn't believe until they had been to Emmaus Road. On that
glorious resurrection night, just a few nights after these
words, the very first words of the Lord Jesus Christ in that
assembly of his people were, Verse 19 of John 20, Then the
same day of the evening, being the first day of the week, when
the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for
fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst. What were his first words? Peace be unto you. And when he had said he showed
them his hands in his side, then the disciples were glad when
they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus unto them again,
peace be unto you as my father has sent me, even so I send you. Isn't it glorious that we have
not a ministry of a ministry of peace. We have a ministry
that declares from God that He has and He is our peace. I love what he says, it's the peace
of me, it's the peace of God. The word peace means to join,
if you've ever met anyone called Irene. they have the name in
greek of peace just written out in our english letters but the
thing that's wonderful about it is the word actually in its Peace is a joining together again. And so it presupposes, the whole
notion of peace presupposes a broken relationship, a disturbed relationship. And you know the times when you
are disturbed and you know the times when you have peace. And
it's a glorious feeling. It's an objective reality and
it's a personal feeling. It presupposes that there is
a breach in fellowship, there is a breach in unity. And the glorious thing about
the Gospel, and the Lord says it here, isn't it? The peace
of me I give unto you. The glorious news of our Gospel
is that the one who makes peace is the one who was offended.
The one who makes the peace, the one who gives the peace,
the one who leaves his peace with them is the one who was
so deeply offended. And we need to remember and be
reminded again and again and again of what happened in the
garden. when we said to the glorious Lord Jesus Christ who had created
all things and provided a perfect environment and a perfect partner
and perfect communion between himself and his bride and between
them and each other They were naked together and felt no shame. It's not a reference to sexual
things as people would think these days. It's just they had
perfect open and honesty with each other. They had no secrets.
They had no sin to be ashamed of. They had no conscience to
be guilty of. Nothing. That's what it means,
wasn't it? And in that world, Satan came. And Satan lied to
Eve and deceived Eve. And the Bible does never say
that Adam was deceived. Adam sinned against the glorious
Saviour, this Saviour that we're reading about here, this Saviour
who walked in that garden in the cool of the day. Adam said, said to the Lord Jesus Christ,
and Romans 5.12 says that you were there. We were there in
Adam and we said to God, We will have the rewards of Satan and
we will take his words that doubt and cause us to doubt your words. And we'll take his assessment
that your character can be diminished and you are withholding good
for us that we can take and have to ourselves. The giving is so
important in John 14, isn't it? Because in the garden, we were
given and we took and we said to God, I will not have fellowship
with you, and I will not have your reward, and I will have
Satan's reward, and I will live in his world under his rule. And I'll doubt the word of God,
and I'll doubt the goodness of God, and I will live in a world
where I will doubt the just judgment of God. And that's exactly what
happened, isn't it? And you know the story in Genesis
chapter 3. It's a great story to have before
your eyes again and again and again. The eyes of both of them
were opened to all of this that brought the enmity between man
and God. And they knew that they were
naked and what did they do? They did exactly what every single
child of Adam has ever done since. they found the darkest place
as far away from God as they could possibly get and in that
dark and far away place they set about for themselves and that's exactly
what the story is with every man. Our great God came into
that situation in that garden and he preached the gospel to
them. He came and said there will be a son and There will
be a child who'll come and crush the head of the serpent, and
in crushing the head of the serpent, he will receive a serious, serious
wound. And then he pictured the glory
of what it is to be at peace when he brought, before Adam
and Eve, he brought a lamb. Genesis 3, 21. He brought a lamb. And he showed Adam and Eve and
all of us what it costs for there to be peace. And he slit his
throat and its blood fell on the ground and it was skinned
before them. And he robed them in a robe of
the lamb. And that's exactly what the gospel
is, isn't it? They had it pictured. And so
our great God says, to us who were at enmity, the natural mind
is at enmity against God. The hardest thing And the impossible
thing and the work of God's grace in the hearts of these people,
and we'll read about it in John Chapter 16 very soon, is that
it's a spiritual work of God to know that you are in enmity. It's a spiritual work of God
for you to be robbed of the fig leaves of peace with which you
clothe yourself and with which you work on continually. We grow fig trees at home. One
of the things that's extraordinary about fig leaves is that they
are like rough, really rough sandpaper and you can scratch
yourself when you pick figs if you're not careful. The other
thing that's extraordinary about fig leaves is that if you let
them dry out they just fall into powder like no other leaves.
Eucalyptus leaves and other leaves are tough and they keep some
sort of integrity. Fig leaves just fall into dust. What a glorious picture the Lord
has painted in nature to show us the emptiness of our works
of righteousness. My peace, my peace. There is
a spiritual necessity to see what you are before God, before
you'll know anything of the peace of God. You cannot know the peace
that he's speaking about here unless you know what you are.
And all of these men, that night Peter was going to deny him,
all of them will flee, and all of them will remember these glorious
words, and they'll rejoice over them, and they are still rejoicing
over them. My peace, my peace I give unto you. God the Spirit
must reveal what we are before he can reveal peace to us. This glorious, glorious peace. And so the New Testament speaks
again and again as to the old of the fact that grace and peace
come through our Lord Jesus Christ, the offended party. The offended
party is the one who comes and gathers his sheep like Adam and
Eve in the garden. He gathers them out of the darkness
and brings them into the light of who he is. And he speaks peace
to them and grace. Peace be unto you. As I said,
the word peace means to be joined. And this chapter is just a glorious
description of that union of the Lord Jesus Christ with his
people. In that day, verse 20, you shall
know, you shall know when this peace comes, you shall know that
I am in my Father and you in me and I in you. God almighty dwell in people
like us. Some people think it's pretty
simple because they're so good he ought to come and dwell with
them. God who makes his people to know that they're sinners
are just amazed at the grace of God that comes and allows
us to be cleansed and washed in his blood. He can only He can only dwell where justice
and righteousness and all of the glories of His holiness are
revealed. The beauties of holiness. We
worship the Lord and we dwell with the Lord in the beauties
of His holiness. Peace. This world talks about
peace. Peace in our time was the great
cry just before the September war began and in no time at all.
Just a matter of years, a hundred million people have died. There
is peace and unrest everywhere. There is peace. There is unrest
between people. It speaks of chaos, doesn't it? No peace. It speaks of disorder. It speaks of unrest. It speaks of distress and travail. It speaks of confusion and hatred
and bitterness. What a glorious word rest is.
It speaks of just quietness, doesn't it? And comfort and ease
and delight, calmness. And it speaks of satisfaction. To be at peace is to not have
any need whatsoever. To be at peace is to be perfectly
satisfied. And for those of us who have
had something of the peace of this world, we know how momentary
and fleeting it is. The moments of peace, the moments
of rest are moments to be treasured, because no sooner do we find
ourselves at peace and rest than we find something comes along
and disturbs it. So very, very greatly the circumstances of
this world are beyond our control. Peace. So let's just look at
this verse briefly. He says, Peace I leave with you. Peace I leave with you. There's a peace that is left
with these disciples on this night when so much was going
to be disturbing and distressing. Not a night when so much was
going to trouble their hearts. Let not your hearts be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. And into that situation he says,
my peace I give. If you go through the book of
John, you will see again and again and again that the Lord
Jesus Christ is the giver. As I said, he's the first cause
of all things and he's the one that initiates peace. He's the
one that entered into that covenant and council of peace before the
foundation of the world. He says, my peace I give unto
you. Not my peace you earn, not my
peace that you keep by your doings, He gives, in John 4, the water
of everlasting life. In John 6, he gives my flesh. In John chapter 10, he says,
I give unto my sheep eternal life. John 14, 16, he gives another
comforter. Everywhere in the scriptures
where the Lord Jesus Christ gives, there is always the reception
of the gift. Otherwise, it's not given. Our
God doesn't give like the world gives. If he gives you this peace,
you have it. The children of God have this
peace in the world. He is our great God in seven
times in the New Testament. He's called the God of Peace. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the
Prince of Peace. The Holy Spirit is the Comforter. And when He came bodily at the
baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ, He came as a dove, that symbol
of peace. the peace of God, the peace of
God. Philippians chapter 4 is one
of the verses that speaks of this peace of God. He says in chapter 4 verse 7, he says, He said, be careful for nothing. Don't be caught up in the cares
of this world. Be careful for nothing, but in
everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests
be made known unto God. And, and, it's a conjunction,
isn't it? You let your requests be made
known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,
shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. The peace of God that passes,
it surpasses is what it means. It comes above and is above all
of our understanding. It's a peace that is a glorious
peace is that comes to the children of God by the Spirit of God,
and it's not worked out by our intellectual understanding. It's
a piece that he gives and he comes. Listen to how he begins
so many of his letters. 1 Thessalonians 1, grace be unto
you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Many times he speaks of this
peace. He speaks of the joy and peace
of believing. Romans 15, the kingdom of God
is righteousness, peace and joy. in the Holy Ghost. Not as the
world gives, give I unto you. There is a peace that the world
gives, isn't there? There is a peace that is dangled
before the people of this world. And the world and its religions
give peace. Have you ever seen a religious
leader in the world who didn't seem at peace and in perfect
control of all things? You've seen Buddha sitting, don't
you, with his arms and legs folded and all of them look as if they
present peace. They present the peace of doing
and they present the peace of not doing. They present the peace
that this world has. The peace says, as it said to
Adam and Eve in the garden, you take for yourself and you eat
for yourself. And you have my reward and the
world says you'll have peace. There's the peace of having money. There's the peace of having possessions. There's the peace of thinking,
if I just have this one extra thing, I will be at peace. I will have established something.
There's the peace of having the world takes it away. In a heartbeat,
the world takes it away. We are, and every person who
has set themselves with the desire to have the things of this world
can have it taken away just like that. All you need is a tiny
little thing to go wrong in your brain, and all of what you have
is gone, isn't it? How fragile it is. There's the
peace. of the ignorance of what lies
before men in this world. They're preaching peace, peace
to themselves. The false religion of this world, 1 Thessalonians
chapter 4, the false teachers of this world are continually
saying to people, peace, peace. Peace, peace. and sudden destruction will come
upon them. sudden destruction comes upon
them. David was troubled in heart in Psalm 73, if you read it,
and he was envious of the wicked because he had nothing but troubles
and trials in his life here in this world. And he envied the
wicked and he envied the so-called peace that they had. And then
he says in Psalm 73, Then I went into the temple of God God has placed Adam's children
in this world outside of Christ. He has placed them in what the
Bible describes as slippery places. You've been in slippery places.
You who have been bushwalking have been in slippery places.
All you need to fall in a slippery place is the weight of your That's why the scriptures continually
in the Lord here speaks of giving. It's a grace gift, isn't it?
Grace and peace, joy and peace, righteousness and peace. Any
peace that is not founded upon free grace and the peace that comes with
it is no peace at all. So often when I'm talking to
people, I find people disturbed and distressed, and they so often,
in one way or another, are asking for peace. And some people are
asking for peace, for them to be able to do what they're wanting
to do anyway. Which is why I love what Spurgeon
said. He hardly ever gives advice to anyone, because all people
are doing is looking for a means of self-justification. But so
often people find themselves needing some reassurance of peace. God will give peace to his people. It is not my job to give you
peace. It's my job, it's my task, it's
the task of you with each other to point people to the Prince
of Peace, to point people to the one who makes peace, to point
people to the one who gives. who gives peace. And peace to
the children of God is a peace of grace. I'm so thankful that
Norm found these copies of the attributes of God for us. Again,
we've had them. It says, this is what grace is. Let me read Arthur Pink's description
of with him on a whole lot of things he said, but you have
to stand there and say, I'm into this. Divine grace is the sovereign
and saving favour of God exercised in the bestowments of blessings
upon those who have no merit in them and for which no compensation
is demanded from them. Nay more, it is the favour of
God shown to those who not only have no positive desserts of
their own, but who are thoroughly ill-deserving and hell-deserving. It is completely unmerited and
unsought, and is altogether unattracted by anything in or from the objects
upon which it is bestowed. Grace can neither be bought earned
or won by the creature. If it could be, it would cease
to be grace. When a thing is said to be of
grace we mean that the recipient has no claim upon it and that
it is in no wise as pure charity and at first
unasked and undesired. I listened to a message from
someone last week and they said that God can take his grace away
because of people's ill-deserves. Rubbish. That is just a lie. He gives. The peace that the
Lord Jesus Christ is talking about is the peace of sovereign
grace. And that peace stands the storms and the fiery trials. You, like the rest of humanity
and all of God's children, you live in a world where you see
the sin of yourself. The greatest gift that God can
reveal to people in so many ways is to have you know that you
are a sinner. Once God reveals to you, you
are a sinner as God describes a sinner. A sinner whose sin
is all their own fault. A sinner who can do nothing to
fix their sin. A sinner who sees that sin is
what they are and therefore it is what they do because of what
they are. They're the people that God brings
peace to. We see sin without and we see
sin within. God's peace and the peace of
the Lord Jesus Christ here is saying to these people is I'm
going. I'm going and you will rejoice. I'm going to do a work before
God that you cannot do. I have done a work before God
that you could never do. I always do those things that
please Him. I've always done. I've always
lived in perfect obedience. I've always loved the law of
God. I've always loved God with all my heart, all my soul, all
my mind, all my strength. I've always loved my neighbour
as myself. I've always perfectly obeyed
from the heart and spiritually and physically every single jot
and tittle of the law of God. Every little tiny bit of it.
He has, our great Saviour, lived out a perfect life. People say, well there's no perfect
beings, no perfect human beings. There is. There is one. And everything
that the Lord Jesus Christ did, He did as of us. How does the father view his
son right now? We've read about it in Psalm
29, didn't we? Glorious in holiness, glorifying
the father, glorifying the word of God, glorifying the law of
God, glorifying the purposes of God, glorifying the covenant
of grace. And what do the gates do? The
gates in heaven, they open, don't they? And the king of glory comes
in. The King of Glory. He did everything
as an us. He did it all in union with his
people. Where do you find peace? Where
do you find peace in this world? In this world you're going to
have troubles. That's the promise of God Almighty. In this world
you're going to have troubles within. In this world you're
promised to have trouble with family. In this world you're
promised to have trouble In so, so many ways, in this
world, you're promised to have trouble with this religious world. Who stands surprised? I love to think... that His peace,
as I just said, is an objective peace, is an objective reality,
isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ has done
absolutely everything that God requires of me, and God looks
to His Son as the surety of that covenant. He looks to His Son,
and He looks to His Son in perfect satisfaction, in perfect rest. He's perfectly composed. There
is no trouble in heaven. whether I feel it or not. I have
a peace that's an eternal peace, says our Saviour. Whenever his
soul was troubled, he said, Father, glorify thy name. Glorify thy
name. Oh, how he believed God for us. Oh, the peace of obeying God. Oh, the peace of loving God perfectly. One of the stories I love in
the Bible is that story which is a glorious picture in Mark
Chapter 4 of the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said to
his disciples, we're going over the other side. Hop in the boat,
we're going over the other side. And in Mark Chapter 4 a huge
storm arises and these men were experienced fishermen. He said,
let us pass over to the other side, Mark 4, 35. And when they
had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was
in the ship, and there was also with him other little ships,
and there arose a great storm. there will be great storms come
into your life, a great storm of wind and the waves beat upon
the ship so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part
of the ship, asleep on a pillow. Don't you love the fact that
our great God in the midst of the storm is in the ship with his apostles,
with his people, and he's crossing the sea to the promised destination. And if he's in the ship, all
is fine. All is fine. And they wake him
and say unto him, Master, don't you care for us? We're about
to perish, and here you are asleep. Carest thou not that we perish?
And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea,
Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there
was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are
you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith? And they feared exceedingly and
said unto one another, what manner of man is this that even the
wind and There is a peace that brings
a reverential awe of who God is. Our problem is that when
we look at this world and we look at the circumstances of
our life and we look at the circumstances of other people in this world,
we're looking in the wrong place. And when we're fearful of all
those things, we're looking in the wrong place. When he calmed
those waters, they feared greatly, but they feared the right one.
They had a reverential awe of him who makes peace. I'll just
turn to a couple of other scriptures. I just love to think of this. In Romans chapter 4, It speaks
of the Lord who was delivered because of our offences and was
raised because of our justification. Therefore, being justified, which
is to be declared by God Almighty, to have never sinned, because
sin cannot be in two places at one time, and God to be just
and holy. If all of the sins of all of
God's people were laid on the Lord Jesus Christ, They are not
on them anymore. Therefore, being justified, having
been justified by God through faith, by faith we have peace
with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we also have
access by faith into this grace wherein we stand. in peace of believing that God,
in justifying all of his people in the Lord Jesus Christ, declares
to them that they have never sinned. I've done nothing before God for which
to feel guilty. Can I see it? I'm so thankful that the promise
that's associated with this promise in John Chapter 14 is associated
with the fact that the Comforter is going to come and he's going
to take these words of the Lord Jesus Christ and he's going to
cause them to be written and he's going to cause them to be
spirit and life to his people. God's children have peace. Peace is a person. The gospel
is a person. He says in Ephesians chapter
2 verse 13, But now in Christ Jesus you who are sometimes afar
off. How far off were we? We were
as far off as Adam and Eve in the garden. We're as far off
as we could possibly get to God. We're made nigh, we're made near
by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace who has made
both one and broken down the middle wall of petition between
us. having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments
contained in ordinance, for to make in himself of twain one
new man, and so making peace, that he might reconcile both
unto God in one body by the cross. And what I love is the next verse
in Ephesians 2 in verse 17. And he came and preached peace
unto you which were afar off. The Lord Jesus Christ is a preacher
of peace. He's a preacher of his peace. There's a peace that rests on
the children of God. Turn over the back of page to
Galatians chapter 6, it says, What is the rule? Let me read
the rule to you in Galatians 6.14. But God forbid that I should
glory God forbid that I should boast,
God forbid that I should have confidence in anything save in the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto
the world. My peace. I'd like to go through
some of the attributes of our great God and Saviour and think
about how much peace there is in Him and how much peace there
is for Him to give. Is He absolutely sovereign? is
the absolutely sovereign over all things. What peace there
is in that sovereign power of God Almighty to create a universe,
to create a people, to come and have a covenant of grace and
a covenant of peace. What peace there is, he says,
my peace, the peace of absolute sovereignty, the peace of absolute
rule over all things, the peace of whole. There's a peace of absolute holiness. There's a peace of no sin at
all. This is my peace I give. There's
a peace of absolute justice, isn't there, that God does right
in all things. We lose so much of our peace
when we look at all the secondary causes and we don't look at the
first cause behind them all. We're looking at the things of
this world and not looking at Him who sits on the throne of
this universe. the peace of his justice, the
peace of his wisdom. It's the council of peace that's
between God and God and God. The peace of communion. What peace there is. What peace
there is amongst brethren in communion. Ben will speak to
you of it. The peace of communion you have with your brothers and
sisters. When Kevin comes, there is a joined in together, isn't
it? and the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was face to face with God. At the heart
of the universe is a God who is in communion, and his people
are brought into that. The peace of his incarnation,
the angels came from heaven to declare peace on this earth when
the Lord Jesus Christ was born. There's a peace of grace truth. There's a peace of the words
and the word himself. By the blessed Holy Spirit brings
the words of promise into the hearts of his people. There is
a peace of covenant. There's an eternal covenant of
grace in which all of the children of God are saved. There is the
peace of It is finished. How peaceful
was that body in the tomb? How peaceful was he when he arose
victorious? We have the gospel of peace. We've just read about the preacher
of peace. What peace there is in heaven
right now, brothers and sisters. What peace there will be in the
new creation. God's children have a peace that's
given by God, which is everlasting. Everlasting, eternal. someday
soon we'll be with him and may he give you now the joy and peace
of believing that you might meet him when it might be a time of
the greatest peace No one's going to pluck them
out of his hands. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, please grant
us the joy and peace of believing and resting in the finished work
of your dear and precious Son. We pray in his name and for his
glory. Amen.