Sovereign Grace Chapel, located
at 135 Annabel Lane in Beaver, West Virginia, invites you to
listen to a gospel message concerning Jesus Christ our Lord. Good morning, everyone. If you'd
like to follow along with me, turn with your Bibles to John
chapter 14. We're actually going to be only
looking at one verse, verse 27, where our Lord said, Peace I
leave with you. My peace I give unto you. Not
as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, neither let
it be afraid. Our Lord had just spoken these
words that we read in chapter 14, that He was going away. He
was going to leave His disciples. It was time for Him to go to
the cross. It was time for Him to depart out of this world.
And He had spoke to His disciples in this 14th chapter here, telling
them that I'm going away. Don't be overly concerned about
this. This is the purpose that I came
into the world to do." He said, "...let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid." Many of the things that our Lord spoke
to His disciples in that they did not understand. They did
not see clearly. They did not have the written
word as we have it to follow after them. So what our Lord
was telling them, He said, I'm going to tell you these things
that when these things come to pass, you won't be overly concerned
about it. You won't be overly afraid of
what's coming to pass. Our Lord had told him, said,
I'm going away. And we read in John chapter 13
and verse 36, he said, Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither
thou goest? Lord, where are you going to?
We don't understand this. You're leaving us, but where
are you going to? And Jesus answered him, whither I go, thou canst
not follow me now, but thou shall follow me afterwards. It won't
be long, Peter, that you will be with me. And Peter said unto
him, Lord, why can I not follow thee now? I'm ready to go with
you. I will lay down my life for your
sake. And our Lord answered him in
verse 38. Jesus said unto him, wilt thou
lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
the cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice. So
his disciples, although they was personally taught of him,
personally walked with him, personally knew him, they did not understand
what he was talking about. they did not see the peace that
he was going to give them. And he tells them in verse 27,
peace I leave with you, my peace, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world gives peace,
the world cries peace and peace when there is no peace. But in
this person, In the Lord Jesus Christ, we have a peace that
passes all understanding. We have this peace that He gives
unto us, which is the Holy Spirit of God, coming and dwelling within
us. The Spirit of God comes to us
through the gift of God, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
and He comes and dwells in us. This peace is something you've
never experienced before. Yes, the world cries peace, but
oh, this peace. this peace that we have in Christ,
a peace that eases our conscience, that eases our hearts, our minds,
and our soul, and causes us to rest, lay down at night and know
that if the Lord returns tonight, I will be with the Lord. This
is the confidence that we have when we have faith in Christ.
Men around us talk about, oh, I hope I've done enough. I hope
I've done this, and I hope I've done that. But I don't know.
I don't know to this last day. There's no peace in that. There
is no peace in knowing, well, have I done enough, or have I
been good enough? Have I given enough? Have I not
done this? There's no peace there. That's
what the world cries, peace, peace, when there is no peace.
But all this peace, this peace that our Lord gives us, is a
peace that has to be experienced. I could tell you about it and
I could stand here and tell you this and this and this, but we
must experience it. It's something that we must have
it personal within us. So I want to look at four points
of peace. The first point is, what is this
peace? Our Lord said, peace I leave
with you. My peace. The peace that I have
with God, I'm going to give to you. That's an amazing statement. That's something that I can't
get a hold of. I mean, the same peace that our
Lord Jesus Christ had with His Heavenly Father, He gives unto
me. The Lord's time was at hand.
to go to the cross. And He said, Peace I leave with
you. We read in John chapter 14, it
says, In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not
so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and
receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be
also. Yet a little while, and the world
saith me no more." These things troubled his disciples again.
They did not understand these things. But he gives us, or if we could
just enter into this, if God would be pleased to just open
our hearts and cause us to understand what he's talking about here.
Peace I leave with you. You may not understand it now,
Peter. But, oh, you will. You will. He said, when I go
away, I will pray the Father that He will give you another
comforter. And that comforter, when He comes,
when He comes, He will take the things of mine and show them
unto you. Men talk about getting the Holy
Spirit and it causes them to do this and it causes them to
do that. It causes them to talk in tongues. It causes them to
run aisles and jump pews. No, we're in Scripture. Nowhere
in Scripture do we find the Holy Spirit leading men to do this.
The Holy Spirit, that Spirit that God gives, this peace that
God gives unto us. takes of the things of Christ
and teaches us. How do we know these things?
How do we know that Christ came into the world to save sinners?
The Spirit of God teaches us. The Spirit of God comes and dwells
within us, takes up an abode within our hearts and causes
us to know, causes us to understand, and causes us to see what great
things He has done. We read in John chapter 14 and
verse 28, he says, you have heard how I said unto you, I go away
and come again unto you. If you love me, you would rejoice.
He could see the troubled look upon their faces. But he said,
if you love me, if you understood these things, you would rejoice
because I said, I go unto my father. What a glorious and grand
thing it was for the Lord Jesus Christ to come into this world. to take upon himself flesh, to
be made sin to the point that God's wrath came down upon him
and punished him for this thing of sin in my room and in my stead. And he punished him so sore.
that he gave up the ghost. His life went out of him because
of the turmoil and the pain and the suffering and the curse that
he took upon himself to the point that his life, he said, I lay
down my life. No man taketh it from me. I have
power to lay it down and I have power to take it up again. And
that's simply what he did. When he hung there on that cross,
Under the wrath and curse of sin, he gave up his life. He gave his life a ransom for
his people. And then he tells his disciples,
now I've told you before it comes to pass, that when it comes to
pass, you might believe. I've told you these things. Now,
in just a little while, in a few days, you're not going to see
me anymore. I'm going to go to the cross. I'm going to be crucified.
I'm going to be taken down. I'm going to be laid in the tomb.
And on the third day, I'm going to arise. And then I'm going
to ascend back unto my Father. And the men stood there at Galilee. And they saw Him ascend up into
the clouds and return unto His Father. I wonder, did they remember
the Scripture that He told them? Did they remember the words that
He had spoken to them? I believe they did. He said, I will pray the Father,
and He shall give you another comforter. While I'm with you
in the world, I comforted you. I took you by the hand, and I
taught you, and I instructed you, and I led you, and I fed
you. I've done all these things for you. But now I'm going away.
I'm leaving this world. I'm returning unto my Heavenly
Father. But I'll not leave you without
a comforter. I will pray the Father, and He will send you
another comforter. that He may abide with you forever. That is the Spirit, the Holy
Ghost, coming unto men, coming and entering into men, coming
and taking up an abode within the hearts of believers. Let
not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid, for the Comforter
will dwell with you and in you. And this is the peace. This is
the peace that I leave with you. The peace that dwells within
the person is God himself dwelling in me. Can I understand that? No. Can I explain that to you
to where you can understand it? I hope we can, but we must experience
it. We must have an experience that
God comes and dwells within us, takes up an abode, takes up residence
within the hearts of every true believer. So where is this peace
found? This peace is the giving of the
Holy Spirit. The second point is where is
this peace found? This peace can only be found
in our Lord Jesus Christ. He said my peace My peace, I
give unto you. The peace that I have with my
Father, I give it unto you, to where you are one with the Father. You have the same peace, you
have the same standing before God that I do. And men say, well,
that's blasphemy. You're still in your flesh. There's
still sin in this flesh. Oh, yes, they are. Yes, they
are. And we war against sin. We can
push sin down one spot and it'll pop back up somewhere else. But
as long as we're in this flesh, as long as we dwell in this body
of clay, we're going to deal with this thing of sin. Sin is
going to disturb us. Sin is going to cause us to do
things that we should not do, say things that we should not
say. This peace still remains here. This peace is still with
me. He will dwell with you forever. I will not leave thee. I will
not forsake thee. I'll go with thee always, even
unto the end of the world. I and my Father are one. and
you having this peace in me, you having the peace that I give
unto you by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, this faith that
He works within us, the gift of God, causing us to believe,
causing us to hear the gospel, and causing us to come and hear
and see and understand something about the greatness of our God.
I and my Father are one, and in Christ, I am one with God. You shouldn't say things like
that. That's according to scripture. We must teach and preach the
truth of the gospel. We must tell men who they are
by nature and also tell them who they are in Christ. We tell
men that they're dead and trespassing the sin. They say, oh, that don't
mean. Dead don't mean dead. Yes, it does. We have no ability. We have no strength. We have
no desire towards the things of God. We died in Adam. And when Adam sinned, we sinned
because we were in him. And when Christ came, made in
the likeness of sinful men, and for sin, condemned sin of the
flesh. When he came and lived this holy,
perfect life before God, he honored the law of God, and he crossed
every T and dotted every I concerning the law of God. And He provided
a perfect righteousness for His people. And He gives it unto
them. He takes this cloth of sin off
of us and wraps it unto Himself to the point that He was made
sin. And He takes His perfect righteousness off of Himself
and wraps it around me to the point that God says, He's holy. He's unblameable. He's unreprovable
in the very sight of God because of my standing in Christ. Because
of my relationship with Christ. Because I am His and He is mine. That's the peace that we have
in Christ. We read in John chapter 17 and
verse 21, that they all may be one. All of God's elect, all
of those that God chose before the foundation of the world,
He put them in Christ before the foundation, before the world
was ever formed. And He looks upon them. Was I
born then? No. No. I don't know how many
years ago that it was that Christ came into the world, into flesh,
but whenever He came, I was in Him. I was in Him. The Father put me there to the
point that everything that He did, I did. Every law that He
obeyed, I obeyed. Every commandment that He kept,
I kept. Every righteous thought that
He had, I had because I was in Him, because this relationship
with me in Christ. that they all may be one as thou
father are in me and I in them that they also may be one in
us." There's no big I's and little u's in Christ. There's no Men
that ascends up to here and men that fall down to here, we're
one with Christ. And the only way that we can
understand that is to experience it by the giving of the Holy
Spirit unto us, causing us to look to Christ, causing us to
lean on Christ, causing us to profess Christ, and causing us
to love Him, worship Him, and magnify His name. Are we equal
with God? Oh, no. That's not what I'm talking
about. God is holy, holy, holy, holy. We are sinful. As long as we
dwell in this flesh, we fight against this thing of sin. Paul
said, the things that I would do, I do not. But the things
that I would not, I do. I find in the law, the warring
in my members bringing me into captivity for the law of the
sin and death. Oh, but with the flesh, I serve
the law of sin and death, but with the Spirit. This new man,
this new creation, this indwelling of the Holy Spirit, I serve the
law of God. And God looks upon me in the
all-seeing eye of God. He looks upon me and He sees
His Son. in the beloved, accepted, and
am I, risen, ascended, and seated on high. God sees my Savior,
then he sees me in the beloved, accepted, and free. That's our
standing with God in Christ. Let me read you something here.
1 John chapter 3, verse 9. Whosoever is born of God does
not commit sin. Well, that leaves me out. Oh,
it leaves me out of this flesh, but not in spirit. It leaves
me out because there's sin in this flesh. But, oh, this new
man, this new creation, which is the indwelling of the Holy
Spirit of God. His seed remaineth in him to
the point that he cannot sin. I cannot sin in the eyes of God. In this flesh, yes, I sin and
come short of God's glory every hour of every day. Even as we
attempt to teach and to preach the gospel, things come in our
mind that's not right. Thoughts come, well, I wonder
how this one's doing, or what this one thinks about. That's
not right. We are to preach the gospel,
be instant, in season, out of season, and let the chips fall
where they may. God says, I have sent my word
forth, and it shall not return unto me void, but it will accomplish
that which I sent it to do. So let us proclaim faithfully
and truly that Jesus Christ is all in salvation. Nothing in
my hands I bring, but simply to Christ I cling. No works that
I do commends me to God. Nothing that I could, even the
best deeds that I do, are called filthy rags, needed to be burnt
and done away with. But, oh, in Christ, in Christ
I'm holy. I'm holy. You shouldn't talk
like that. That's blasphemy against God.
No. No, we see ourselves by the Spirit
of God teaching us. We see ourselves, oh yes, I'm
sinful in this flesh, but in the Spirit, in this new man,
this new creation, I am holy as God's own Son. This is the
reason Paul could say, there is therefore now, right now,
No condemnation. God sees no reason to condemn
me. He sees only reasons to love
me because of my relationship with the Son and the Son's relationship
with me. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them who are in Christ Jesus. There's the key. What is your
standing before God? Am I standing there in my own
righteousness? Or am I standing robed in the
righteousness of Christ? to them that are in Christ who
walk not as the flesh but as the spirit. For the law of the
spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law
of sin and death. I'm free. I'm free from the condemnation
of God because Christ took my penalty. Christ died for my sin
and my sins are gone. I have no sin in the eyes of
God. Now how do I receive this peace?
The third point. We receive it by faith, the gift
of God. Oh, I've got to work myself up
and did it. We receive it by faith, the gift
of God. God gives us, freely gives unto
me, faith to look to Christ. How great thou art. Oh, it causes
our hearts to spring out and to magnify and honor and glorify
our God for the great things that he has done for such a worm
as I. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
When the gospel is preached, when the true gospel is preached,
when the gospel concerning the Lord Jesus Christ is preached,
and God is pleased by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe, he comes to his people, he comes to his elect, he comes
to his redeemed one, and creates faith in them, causing them,
by this faith that He creates in them, the gift of God, to
lay all their hope, all their foundation, all their sight,
and all their glory, all their honor to Christ. And they say,
there He is. All I need, all I need is that
Jesus Christ died for me. This is all that we have. This
is all that we need is for us to stand before God and plead
Christ and Him crucified. Life to look. Oh, He creates
this new life within us, the giving of the Holy Spirit. Life
to look to Christ. Life to lay hold of Christ by
faith. Life to plead the blood and the righteousness of Christ.
And this is the record we read in 1 John chapter 5 and verse
11. This is the record that God has
given us eternal life and that life is in His Son. Paul said
in Galatians chapter 2, I am crucified with Christ. When Christ
died, I died. Nevertheless, I live. I live
in this flesh. I live in this flesh. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life that I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me. That's that peace. That's the
peace that we have being in Christ. The life that I now live is not
my own. I belong to the Son of God. I belong to God the Father. He's
paid my sin debt. He's bought me from the condemnation
of sin. He has redeemed me, and I'm His. I am His, and He is mine. Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter
6 and verse 19, many of the Corinthians never understood this. And he
said, what? Know ye not that your body is
the temple of the Holy Ghost? Don't you understand that God
dwells in you? Don't you understand that you
are the temple of God and the Holy Ghost dwells in you, which
you have of God and you are not your own? Oh, let us understand. I am my Beloved and my Beloved
is mine. I am my Beloved and His desire,
His desire is towards me. those whom Christ came to live
and die for. This is the peace that He gives
unto us, not something that we work for, not something we gain
by doing or not doing. This peace is given. He said,
My peace I give unto you. This peace is given to a particular
people, those for whom God chose before the foundation of the
world, those for whom Christ came into the world and lived
and died in their room instead. and those whom the Holy Spirit
speaks to and says, come out from among them and be a separated
people, a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Those whom God
is pleased to call. Come out. Come out. Come unto
me, all you that labor and heavy laden. I'll give you rest. That's
that peace. That's that call that He gives
us. And then He gives us peace. to sit down, to rest. Oh, rest
in Christ. Look to Christ and rest in Him.
Find peace for your heart. Find peace for your soul. Find
comfort for your heart in time of trouble. But we can only find
it in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said, I know whom
I believe. We must understand these things. It's not, I hope I continue to
the end, or I hope that I do this, or I hope that I can see
you in glory. I know whom I believe. I am persuaded. I know by the Spirit of God dwelling
within me that I am persuaded that He is able to keep that
which I've committed unto Him against that day. And men say,
oh, there it is. You've got to commit. You commit,
yes, but you commit through the faith of the Son of God. You
give yourself to Him and He gives Hisself to you to the point that
you're one with Him in God. How long will this peace be with
me? That's my final point. David said in Psalm 17, verse
15, he says, As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake
with thy likeness. This is every true believer's
testimony. As for me, as for me, I will
behold thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied, I will
be complete when I awake with thy likeness. Our Lord prayed
in John chapter 17. Read it sometime when you have
the opportunity to do so. Read it and listen to what our
Lord said. He said, Father, I will. It is
my desire. And you believe the Father hears
the Son? Oh, yes. He said, Father, I know
that thou hearest me always, but for thee's sake I say these
things. He hears us. He hears the Son.
and he answers every request that the son makes. He says,
I will that they also be with me where I am that they may behold
my glory, the glory that I had with thee before the world was.
But I came into the flesh and I died for their sin and now
I'm returning unto thee. And one day, Our Lord will present
us before the very presence of God, and He said, Behold, I and
the children which thou gavest me. We are there by faith in
Christ. We are there by the works of
Christ. And we are there through the gift of God that He puts
within us this Holy Spirit to lead us, to guide us, and to
keep us looking unto Jesus. the author and finisher of our
faith. Let us look to Christ and live. Find peace and rest
for your soul in Him. Thank you.