Let's turn in our Bibles this
evening to John chapter 14. John chapter 14. Let not your
heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also
in me. 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. And whither I go, you know,
and the way you know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord,
we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the
way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father,
but by me. If you had known me, you should
have known my Father also. And from henceforth you know
him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord,
show us the Father. and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith
unto him, have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou
not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen
the Father, and how sayest thou then, show us the Father? Believest
thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words
that I speak unto you I speak not of myself, But the Father
that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I
am in the Father, and the Father in me, or else believe me for
the very work's sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
he that believeth on me, the works that I do, shall he do
also. And greater works than these
shall he do, because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever you
shall ask in my name, that will I do. that the Father may be
glorified in the Son. If you shall ask anything in
my name, I will do it. If you love me, keep my commandments,
and I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter,
that he may abide with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth, whom
the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth
him, but you know him, for he dwelleth with you and shall be
in you. I will not leave you comfortless,
I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world
seeth me no more, but you see me, because I live, you shall
live also. At that day, you shall know that
I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. He that hath
my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. And
he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love
him and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him,
not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself
unto us and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto
him, If a man love me, he will keep my words. And my Father
will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with
him. He that loveth me not keepeth
not my sayings. And the word which you hear is
not mine, but the Father's which sent me. These things have I
spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter,
which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name,
He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your
remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. 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. You have heard how I said unto
you, I go away and come again unto you. If you loved me, you
would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father, for my
Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before
it come to pass that when it is come to pass, you might believe. Hereafter, I will not talk much
with you, for the prince of this world cometh and hath nothing
in me, but that the world may know that I love the Father,
And as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go
hence. We've read the words of the Lord
Jesus Christ that he spoke the night before his crucifixion
to his 11 disciples. And I want to speak to us tonight
about the legacy that the Lord Jesus Christ gave to his disciples,
hence the legacy that he's given to every one of us tonight who
know him as our Lord and Savior. I have a dictionary, it's Noah
Webster's 1828 edition, 1828. And I looked up the word legacy
and I found it was defined as a bequest Then I turned to the
word bequest, and it was defined as a legacy. And it did give
this one example, a gift left by will. Years gone by, it was
customary for men to write their will the night or the day that
they were assured they were going to leave this world. Now today,
we, of course, do not practice that. Most everyone has their
will already written up and on file somewhere and waiting for
that day. But there was a time, at least
in England, when it was very common, and evidently, It may
have been that way also among the Jews, because our Lord, this
is the night before his death, and he gives them his legacy. And it is found in verse 27,
and it wasn't only for them, but it was also for you and I. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you. Peace, that's the Lord's legacy,
that he has willed to every one of his children, peace. Peace,
I leave with you. My peace, I give unto you. And I want to make four comments
about this peace, this legacy of peace tonight. And I pray
the Lord will bless his word to each one of us. The thought,
the message that I have, I have to admit, I worked on this message
yesterday and had it all finished and hit the wrong button on my
computer and it disappeared. And I've done that before. And before I've always been able
somehow to recover it, or at least sometimes I have. But yesterday
I worked on trying to recover it and I never did. So when I
got home last night, I started over. But I have four thoughts. I think Pat asked me, she said,
well, how's your memory? I said, well, I can remember
the title. Christ's legacy. So let me mention
four things about this legacy. First of all, this legacy of
peace is something that man by nature doesn't have. The Lord
says, In the word of God, there is no peace to the wicked. There is no peace to the wicked. In other words, men without Christ,
men who do not receive this legacy from Christ, they have no peace. And all of us at one time, we
were like that. We were in God's world, but we
had no peace. And why is it that we had no
peace? Well, the scripture says, and
this is what God says, there is no peace to the wicked. There
is no peace to the wicked. Well, that's the reason that
men do not naturally have this peace because all of us, all
men are born sinners, which means that we are enemies of God. Our nature, our sinful nature
that we inherited from Adam, when we come into this world,
we bring this original sin or this nature with us, that means
that we are enemies of God. Seeing that God is absolutely
holy, pure, and righteous, and we are not. God is a holy God. And man by nature is against
God because of his sins. Most people would hear that.
They would think, well, I never thought that about myself. It
doesn't matter what you thought about yourself. It's what the
Word of God says about you and me. And the Word of God's very
clear. For instance, in Romans 5, the
apostle Paul And verse 10 is speaking about those for whom
Christ died. And he said this, when we were
enemies, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by
the death of his son. When we were enemies, we all
were at one time. When we were by nature enemies
of God, Christ died for the ungodly, died for his enemies. to reconcile
us unto God. You know, there's a verse in
Isaiah 45 and verse nine, which says, woe unto him that striveth
with his maker. That's what enemies usually do.
They strive, they strive with their enemies and men strive
against God. And yet God said, woe unto him
that striveth with his maker. And those who strive with their
maker, who is God, God is our maker. It is he who hath made
us and not we ourselves. That's true of every one of us.
It's true of all men. And then in that text, it goes
on to say, those who are striving with God are called potsherds. Potsherds. What's a potsherd? Well, we take a clay pot And
we drop it on the cement, and it just shatters into a thousand
pieces. And there's no way you can put
it back together again. I heard one time that nursery
rhyme, Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great
fall. And all the king's horses and
all the king's men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again. And that's the condition of all
of us. We fail just like Humpty Dumpty. We fail. We're broken. We're not as God at first created
us, not as He first created man. We're broken. We've fallen. And
one indication that man is an enemy to God is man doesn't like
to be in the presence of God. You know, you don't want to be
in the presence of your enemies, do you? If you have someone that
is your enemy, you don't want to be around him. And I see sometimes,
I'm sure you do, nothing wrong with this, but on television
you see those football stadiums and my, they're packed. A hundred
thousand people, some more, some less, but just packed in there. And you can't help but think, Would even a tithe of those people
want to be in a stadium where God is present, where the word
of God is proclaimed, where God's people are worshiping and singing
hymns unto God? Why is that? Because man by nature
is an enemy of God. And we don't have this peace.
And it's a gift. Our Lord made that very clear,
didn't He? Look at the text again. Peace I leave with you, my peace
I give unto you. You don't earn it. You sure don't
deserve it. No way we could ever merit God
giving us peace, peace with Him. No, it's a gift. Salvation is
a gift, isn't it? The wages of sin is death. We know if we get what we work
for, what we earn, what we deserve, we would reap eternal death. But the gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ. Amen. No, one indication that men are
enemies of God is we don't want to be in his presence. And we don't want to be with
his people, and we don't care to be reading his word, hearing
his word. A second thing, this legacy of
peace is a way that man by nature doesn't know. Look with me in
Romans chapter three. You're familiar with this passage
where the Apostle Paul is quoting verses from the Old Testament,
but his goal is to show that all men are guilty before God,
that no flesh can be justified by the works of the law. But
in this list, he begins in verse 10, I believe it is, with, there's
an unrighteous, know not one. But the one I'm pointing us to
is in verse 17, and the way of peace have they not known? Man by nature doesn't know the
way of peace. That's the reason it's very common
to hear something like this, well, make your peace with God.
I heard a news commentator just recently talking about the death
sentences being pardoned by some recently. And he was pointing
out that when a person has a death sentence and a particular date
he's going to be executed, he said that gives him time to make
his peace with God. No way. The way of peace, man
does not know. Charles Spurgeon told in his
day about a bricklayer who fell from the scaffolding and he was
dying in the street and someone came up to him and said, man,
make your peace with God. And this man had enough strength
to say, Christ made my peace 1900 years ago with God. The
way of peace, man doesn't know. The way of reconciliation, of
forgiveness, of justification, of sanctification. You know,
the Lord Jesus Christ, we read this in this chapter just a moment
ago in verse six, when he said, I am the way, the truth, and
the life. He is the way to the Father.
He's the way of peace. In fact, in Ephesians two and
verse 14, We read Christ is our peace. He is our peace. I know many of you read Spurgeon's
Morning and Evenings, and I've read it so many years like some
of you have that you remember them when you start reading them
again this year. But one of his, I think it's
in, I know it's in the month of October in an evening devotion,
but he begins it like this. Mr. MacDonald asked the inhabitants
of the island of St. Kilda how a man must be saved. An old man replied, we will be
saved if we repent and forsake our sins and turn to God. Yes,
said a middle-aged woman, and with a true heart too. Yes, rejoined
a third, and with prayer, and a fourth added, It must be prayer
of the heart, and we must be diligent too, said a fifth, in
keeping the commandments. When each of them made their
contribution, feeling that a very decent creed had been made up,
they all looked and listened for the preacher's approval,
but they had aroused his deepest sympathy. The secular mind, the
carnal mind, Spurgeon said the secular mind, always maps out
for itself a way in which self can work and become great. But the Lord's way is quite the
reverse, and his text that day was or whosoever believeth and
is baptized shall be saved. And he went on saying, believing
and being baptized are not matters of merit to be gloried in. They
are so simple that boasting is excluded. The way of peace they
have not known. I would imagine if you could
conduct a survey of a thousand people You would find 99% of
those, if you ask them, how may I have peace with God, they would
tell you something other than by believing in Jesus Christ. It would be something that they
would do, something a person must do. Man loves to think that
by his works he can reconcile himself unto God. You know, men
are just born Arminians. That's just so. We're all in
the same boat. We're all born Arminians. And
by that I mean we all believe that by our will or our works
that we can reconcile ourselves unto God. By something that we
do that we're going to have peace with God. We sang the hymn just
a few minutes ago, I'm a child of the king. But how did we become
children of the king? Doesn't that first chapter of
Ephesians say it out so well? Let's turn there, Ephesians 1. Beginning with verse three, blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love. Here it is, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according
to the good pleasure of his will. According to the good pleasure
of his will. Tonight, you, a child of God,
a child of the King, you know that it's only because of God's
predestination. to the praise of the glory of
his grace, that that's true of you and true of me. Here's the
third thing about this legacy of peace. This legacy of peace
costs Jesus his precious blood. If you look in Colossians chapter
one, Colossians chapter one and verse,
Verse 19, for it pleased the Father. That's a good, good outline. If you just look up the scriptures
to see what the word of God tells us it has pleased God to do.
One of those is it pleased God to make you his people. It pleased
Him to make you His people. It pleased God here, pleased
the Father, that in Him should all fullness dwell, and having
made peace through the blood of His cross. This legacy of
peace that the Lord Jesus Christ gave to His 11 disciples that
night and thus to all the church, all of His people, it cost Him. It cost him his blood. Our enmity
with God because of our sin, it had to be taken away. It had
to be removed and only by the blood of Jesus Christ. Why do
we observe the Lord's table? That element of the wine represents
the blood of Jesus Christ. Why? Because without the shedding
of blood, there is no remission. And there is no peace with God
apart from the blood that Jesus, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ,
substitutionary death in the place of his people. You know,
thinking about this blood, if you look over to Hebrews chapter
12, we're told that the blood speaks. Hebrews chapter 12, and
I'll begin my reading in verse, Verse 22, speaking of you and
me and every believer that trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ, but
you are common to Mount Zion and unto the city of the living
God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of
angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn,
which are written in heaven And to God, the judge of all, and
to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator
of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks. His blood speaks. And the writer
said, it speaketh better things than that of Abel. Abel, remember our Lord, or God
told Cain that his brother's blood cried to him from the ground. And we like to think, well, they
cried for vengeance, for vengeance, that God would, in judgment,
exercise vengeance for a cane taking Abel's blood, shedding
Abel's blood. But the blood of Jesus Christ
cries better things, doesn't it? It speaks better things. Forgive that sinner. Forgive
that sinner. My little children, these things
write I unto thee that you sin not, but if any man sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who
is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for
the whole world. Yes, the blood of Jesus Christ
cries for forgiveness, forgiveness, pardon, peace. And this last
thing, This legacy of peace is threefold, threefold. First of all, we now have peace
with God. The enmity that existed has been
removed by the blood, and we now have peace with God, our
Father. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This legacy is worth more than
thousands of gold and silver. Every once in a while you hear
of some very wealthy person, some person, maybe sports person
or actor or something like that. And well, a good, good example
would be Michael Jackson. We were thinking about fentanyl
the other day. That man was so wealthy. When
he passed away, they did an inventory of some warehouses that he owned
or rented, and they found, I think it was five, what's that car
in England? Rolls Royce, five Rolls Royces. They didn't even know they had. But the man was miserable, wasn't
he? He was miserable. Having a doctor
put that in his vein just so he could sleep. The peace that
God gives his people, this legacy, peace with God. He's not mad
at you. He's not angry with you. He's
angry with the wicked every day. And that's what we were by nature. But now by the blood of Jesus
Christ, we have peace with God. But there's a second thing. We
now have peace in our conscience. We sing a hymn sometimes. I believe
we sang it last Sunday. Christ Receive Us, Sinful Men. And one of the stanzas goes like
this. Now my heart condemns me not. Pure before the law I stand. He who cleansed me from all spot,
satisfied his last demand. Now, we have this peace in our
conscience, but sometimes we lose it. Sometimes we lose this
peace. And we do so because of maybe
our sin, our failures. And there's only one way this
peace is going to be restored. You know, when you lose something,
look for it where you lost it. Isn't that good advice? If you
lost something in your house, don't be looking for it here
in the church building. It's not here. When you've lost
something, if you've lost this peace, look for it where you
lost it. And most of the time, it's going
to be in neglecting prayer. It's going to be in neglecting
the things of God. Look for it where you lost it.
Yes, it is only through the blood of Jesus Christ, knowing that
our sins have been paid for, that our conscience is peaceful
because there's forgiveness with him. I want you to turn to one
further place, Philippians. Philippians chapter four. I looked at this verse 7 yesterday,
and I thought, you know, I need to look at the context here.
And the peace of God and the peace of God, which passeth all
understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ
Jesus. And it looks to me, as I read
above this, there are four things that we are to practice. Four
things are listed here that we are to practice, and when we
do, The peace and the peace of God, which passeth all understandings,
shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. The first
thing that we're told that we should practice is rejoice in
the Lord. Verse four, rejoice in the Lord
always. Rejoice in Him. No matter what
our circumstances may be, He hasn't changed. And His blood
and His righteousness are the same. Rejoice in the Lord. If you can't find anything to
rejoice in in your circumstances, and someone said that's the difference
between providence and happenings, you
know, people rejoice in their their happiness. Between providence
and happiness, happiness depends upon your happenstances. I'll get it right here in a minute.
And when your happenstances are not good, you lose your happiness. But when you rejoice in Christ
and Him and His work, it's always the same. He's not going to change.
He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Second, let your
moderation be known to all men. You say, what does that mean?
Well, it means to practice Christianity. That's what it means. Don't always
demand your rights. Show yourself to be willing and
able to give in to others. Recognize their rights, and maybe
you do have the right But don't demand that right. And deal with
people, even if people are somehow considered lower than you are,
deal with them on the same level. Everybody on the same level.
That's your moderation. The fact that you are this, that,
or the other, don't stand on that. Don't demand that. Just
be equal with everyone. And third, recognize God's sovereign
watch and care. And don't be anxious. Don't be
anxious. Be careful. Be anxious for nothing.
God's in control. He's still at the helm. He's
still guiding this world and will be to the end. And then
fourth, talk to your heavenly father with thanksgiving. Thank him for the for the blessings
of life, for the things that He gives to you day by day, and
the result, peace, which passes understanding, when we practice
those four things. Now the third thing about this
peace, first we have peace with God, now we have peace in our
conscience. Third, we are to live with others
in peace. The apostle said, if it be possible,
as much as life in you live peaceably with all men. This is the legacy
that the Lord Jesus Christ left his church, left you, his peace. May the Lord give us peace day
by day.