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Please open with me in your Bibles
to Philippians 4 once more. For the last few months, as you
know, we've been looking at the Word of God to see what God himself
says about himself. We've been studying the beautiful
attributes of God, and they tell us more about who God is. Now, it's a series on God. And
yet, in an unusual way, you can also learn about not only us,
but about the devil by looking at God. What do I mean? Satan
is not the equal opposite of God because nobody is equal to
God, but he is the opposite of God. So when we look at these
attributes of God, just think, what is the opposite of it? And
that's the devil. For example, when we look at
the holiness of God, that tells us the devil is very unholy.
He is evil. When we look at the beauty of
God, we know that the devil is ugly. When we look at the truth
of God, we know that Satan is, as Jesus said, he is the father
of lies. Now, one thing I suppose that
God and the devil have in common is that they're both spiritual.
They don't have a physical body. And they're both personal, except
that God is tripersonal, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Today,
we look at one attribute of God, and you can suspect what the
opposite is that belongs to the devil. Today, we look at the
peace of God, something the devil hates. The devil is not a lover
of peace, but of strife, war, and everything that is opposed
to true peace. The message can be summed up
in this one sentence. The Lord is the God of peace,
and he shares his peace with those that are at peace with
him through the Lord Jesus Christ. The peace of God. Now, peace
is an often used, but generally misunderstood word. You probably
all heard it in a variety of contexts. We just want peace.
There's the peace process and so forth. Well, we have to go
to the Bible to see what is true peace and what does the word
itself mean. Now, as you know, the Old Testament
was written primarily in Hebrew, and the Hebrew word is Shalom.
You've heard the word Shalom. In the Greek New Testament, the
Greek word is Irenae, from which some women get their name Irene.
And the word Aaron basically is the same as shalom and meaning. And one thing that they both
have in common is they can both be used as a greeting or as a
goodbye in the letters of Paul. He often opens up with a word
of peace and then he ends with a word of peace. What does this
word shalom mean? Well, it's a very friendly word
in Hebrew and everybody loves it in Hebrew. It even sounds
lovely. Shalom. Very similar to the Arabic
word, Salaam. And maybe you'll hear people
on TV talk about that. The greeting among Arabs would
be Salaam. Interesting because it's similar
to another word in Hebrew, Jerusalem. Jerusalem, the place of Shalom. And then there was a king named
Solomon. The man of peace, Shalom man,
as it were. But what does the word mean?
Well, one of the meanings for Shalom is it's an absence of
war. For example, one verse says they
are for war, but I am for peace. The Bible says there is a time
for war, but there is also a time for peace. But shalom to the
biblical way of thinking is more than simply absence of war, it's
the presence of something else. When I learned Hebrew at seminary
back in the mid-1970s, I still remember in Hebrew class, the
teacher came in rather upset because it had just been announced
that South Vietnam had fallen to the communists. And this man
was a loyal patriot. And he said, well, I guess the
peace people are very pleased because the war is over. And
he says, but if you think there is shalom in Vietnam, you've
got another thing coming. He says there is never shalom
under communism. And he was right, because within
months, Vietnamese were getting on boats to get out of there.
So shalom is not just the absence of war. It is the presence of
a true peace. Now, what does shalom mean? Well,
it means peace, but it also means words like health, life, healing,
wholeness. well-being, prosperity, and not
just financial prosperity, harmony, unity, order. That is what the
Jewish idea of shalom is, not just the absence of war, but
the presence of health and all these things. For example, Jeremiah
8.15 says, we look for peace, but no good came, and we look
for a time of health. Jeremiah 33, 6 says, Behold,
this is God speaking, I will bring it health and healing.
I will heal them and reveal to them the abundance of peace and
truth. So in the Bible, peace means
health, growth, something that is good for us. And the opposite
of that would be obviously war, but also crime and disorder.
Now, over the years, various psychologists and sociologists
will say, well, we need peace. And they say we lack peace because
instead we have alienation and disintegration. Now those words
have a degree of truth in them because alienation means you
no longer have reconciliation and harmony with someone else.
You're alienated from them. And disintegration means things
are falling apart. Or as we would say, they're out
of whack. It's like a car that doesn't
have all the cylinders kicking in or a breakdown of a system
or a relationship. So where there is alienation
and disintegration, they need shalom. They need peace in order
for harmony, for things to work together and not fall apart. Now, that's basically what the
word means. Now, let's see how it applies to God. And from God,
we can have the peace of God. I want to point out two very
interesting phrases here in Philippians chapter four for the first of
several verses we'll look at this morning. Look at chapter
four, verse seven. And the peace of God, which surpasses
all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus. And then skip down to verse nine.
The things which you learned and received and heard and saw
in me, these do and the God of peace will be with you. Did you
notice the two phrases, the peace of God and the God of peace? So let's start with the peace
of God. The God who is peace. The Bible several times calls
him the God of peace. And that is one of his names,
as a matter of fact. Back in the book of Judges, Gideon
built an altar and he named it after God and he called it Jehovah
Shalom. God, or the Lord, is our peace. Isaiah 45, 7, God says, I make
peace. And as we've seen week by week
in these studies, all these good and great things come from within
God himself. God is the God of peace. He has
true peace, true shalom within himself. He has no disturbances,
no alienation, no conflict within himself. And more than that,
God himself is the source of all life, health, harmony, goodness. and everything harmonious. He
has life and health within himself and nothing disharmony within
himself. There's no rivalry within God. And within God, there is father,
son and Holy Spirit. And within the one Godhead, the
persons of the Trinity match. They fit. They were in perfect
harmony within the Trinity. And if there is such a thing
as a divine music of a trio of the Father, Son, and the Spirit
singing, they would sing in perfect three-part harmony. There is order within God. There
is no disintegration, no alienation. Now, the word shalom does mean
order as well. God is a God of peace. He is
a God of order. 1 Corinthians 14.33 says God
is not a God of confusion, but of peace because God loves order
because God is a God of order and of peace. Now God created
the universe as a peaceful world of order and harmony in order
that he can now live in it and show his health and harmony And
that's how it was. Now, on day one, when God first
created, you know that it was chaos. It was like a lump of
clay and then God molded it and the chaos became a cosmos. Now, I'm choosing the words very
distinctly there because cosmos and chaos are Greek words. Cosmos
means order. And God created the universe
as a universe of order. But when Adam sinned, it became
a chaos. Now, if I can So in a little
pun to help you to remember the difference between those two
words from the word cosmos, we get words like cosmetology and
cosmetics. In other words, things that beautify
a person. And as one person said, it's
the job of a beautician to turn chaos into cosmos. In other words,
hair shooting out in every direction and you comb it and you make
it orderly and beautiful. Now, my point is this. God created
the universe as a cosmos, and it was beautiful because it was
all orderly and showed God's health and God's beauty. But then when Adam and Eve sinned,
they brought in disorder, disaster, disease. Now, look at those words,
disorder, dis-ease, the very opposite of cosmos and shalom. And so everything would became
out of whack. Now, we still see some order
in the universe because this is still God's universe and he
keeps it running in behind the scenes. He knows that it's still
running exactly the way he wants to. But we live in the world
and we see chaos. There's no peace with animals,
for example, like there was in the Garden of Eden. Now there
are wild animals and beasts. And the worst animal, as it were,
in the universe is man. We are wild. And we commit war
and crime, but it's still God's world. It's no longer the Garden
of Eden where we live at peace with God. And because we're not
at peace with God, we're not at peace with each other. or
within ourself. We're not in the peaceful garden
of Eden anymore. We're outside the garden. And
because we have inherited the sin of Adam and Eve, and we carry
it on every day of our lives, we do not enjoy the peace of
God anymore. Listen to these two verses. It's
repeated twice in the book of Isaiah. God says, there is no
peace for the wicked. Elsewhere, he says, the wicked
world of humanity is like waves of the sea that are never at
peace. God says, I will not share my peace with those that are
at enmity with me. He says there is no peace for
the wicked. That means there is no inner
peace nor their peace in our relationships. We have internal
turmoil, psychological problems. Adam and Eve didn't have that
before they sinned. They were at perfect peace with
God and in their relationship with each other and with the
environment. And Adam and Eve had perfect internal peace. But
when we're not at peace with God, God takes away that peace
as a form of judgment. And so we have internal turmoil
and internal disintegration and breakdown of relationships. There's
alienation between nations, races, genders and in the cities because
of war or crime. All of this gets back to the
fact that we are not at peace with God. Therefore, we won't
be at peace with each other or even with ourselves. Everybody
wants peace. Everybody says, oh, I want peace
so much. Oh, if I can just get five minutes
of peace and some people get desperate and so they go to drink
or to drugs just for a little temporary peace. But it's only
temporary, and the results bring even more lack of peace. And the point is, because we
are at war with God, we don't have his peace in our hearts.
If we want true peace, we should turn to God. But sin doesn't
want to turn to God. We're enemies with God, so we
need to be reconciled. And because we don't have peace
with God, we lack internal peace. We lack external peace with other
people around us. And that's the source of war
and crime and the breakdown of families. Romans 3 talks about
sin and it says, the way of peace they have not known. Why? Because
we don't know God. And so we run through this world
as it were, running through the jungle and everywhere we go,
there's a lack of true peace. We're enemies of God, and we're
at war with God. You see, our relationship with
God is not one of shalom, but of enmity. We're at war with
God, and it's a two-way war. We're at war with God, and we
are now God's enemies, because God is a holy God, and He will
not give His peace to His enemies. So what's the answer? Well, there
are psychologists and sociologists and those in education that say,
well, we've got the answer because there's the breakdown of family
and everything. The answer is more education.
No, you give more education to a sinner, he's simply a smarter
sinner. And other people will say, well,
it's finances. Now that's the root of Marxism.
It says all the problems of mankind can be traced back to class struggle
and alienation between the wicked capitalists and the workers.
So if everybody becomes equal, equally poor, there will be worldwide
peace. It never worked. Because there
are poor people that have true peace and rich people that don't
have true peace. So it's not to be found in the
banks or in the pocketbooks. Where is the answer to be found? The search for true peace can
only come from God, who is the God of peace. The problem is
in us, not in God. The answer is in God, not in
us. And God has provided the answer.
through Jesus Christ. Again, it's not in the principle,
either psychological or in finances. The answer is to be found in
a person named Jesus Christ. Now for our second scripture
reading, turn with me to the book of Isaiah. Pray for children that need peace.
Isaiah chapter nine, there are two verses here. Then we usually
hear sometime around Christmas, but I want you to notice God's
promise of peace. Isaiah, chapter nine, starting
at verse six. For unto us, a child is born
unto us, a son is given and the government will be upon his shoulder.
And I can tell this is talking about the coming of Jesus. His
name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting
Father, Prince of peace. And then it continues of the
increase of his government and peace. There will be no end upon
the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it. Notice
the word order that shalom and to establish it with judgment
and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the
Lord of hosts will perform this. This is God's answer to the problem
of the lack of peace. We need peace. God says, I've
got it. I will give it. through the Prince of Peace,
who is the Lord Jesus Christ. So when He came into the world,
He was the embodiment of true peace. When He was born, the
angels sang and announced, peace on earth, goodwill toward men.
Another prophecy promised in Micah 5 too, that this Messiah
would come and even pinpointed where He would be born. And the
prophecy continued in verse 5 and said, and this one, this person
shall be peace. All true peace comes from God
through the Lord Jesus Christ, and outside of him there is no
true peace. Hebrews 7, 2 gives him the title,
the King of Peace. So through the Lord Jesus Christ
there is true peace, and outside of him there is no true peace.
But friends, it's not just in his person, it's in his work. Jesus didn't just come up and
say, I am Mr. Peace, shake my hand, you will
be at peace. Jesus had to do something to bring in peace. Now, remember, the problem is
we were at enmity with God. Jesus came to solve the sin problem
so that we can be reconciled to God and be made at peace with
God. Now, a third scripture reading
explains this. Turn back to the New Testament,
to the book of Ephesians. Again, there are two verses that
shed much light on the peace of God through the Lord Jesus
Christ. Ephesians chapter 2. This wonderful
chapter tells us about salvation, because by the way, here's a
little footnote while you're turning to Ephesians 2. The word
shalom can also be translated as salvation. Now we're going
to quote one of those verses later in this message. OK, Ephesians
2, starting at verse 14, talking about the Lord Jesus Christ.
He himself is our peace. How? He has made both one and
is broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished
in his flesh the enmity that is the law of commandments contained
in ordinances so as to create in himself one new man from the
two, thus making peace." And then he goes on to say how the
Jew and Gentile are reconciled to each other, and man can be
reconciled to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible
says here, He is our peace. He made our peace for us. Now occasionally you hear about
someone, for example, a preacher or a priest comes to a dying
man and says, you need to make your peace with God. Well, the
sentiments might be correct, but the words are expressed wrong.
We do not make our peace with God. Nobody can. The Bible says
Jesus makes the peace for us. So people try to make peace with
God. They say, I try to atone. I try
to suffer to do some big thing, and therefore I can be at peace
with God. That's not going to work with God. That's not the
terms of God's peace treaty. The only way that peace can be
made with God is through the Lord Jesus Christ. He made our
peace for us. Isaiah 53 5 says the chastisement
for our peace was upon him. How does it work? How is Jesus
the greatest great peacemaker between us and God? It gets back
to the nature of sin and the holiness of God, because God
is holy and we're unholy. We need to be reconciled. We
are not at peace with God. We're at enmity with him. We're
at war with God. There has to be a punishment
that has to be given. That's why it says the chastisement
or the punishment for our peace was upon him. Jesus took the
punishment that our sin crimes deserved. Crime deserves punishment. Sin deserves punishment. Jesus
took that punishment so that now God could be, listen closely,
He could be appeased. Do you see the word peace in
that? God had to be appeased. A sacrifice
had to be made so that God said, I am satisfied, and now God is
at peace with us. The peace offering has been made.
Numbers 7 in Leviticus 7 talks about a series of various peace
offerings that were to be made. But of course, all those were
pictures of the one great offering. Jesus was the final peace offering,
and when He offered Himself on the cross, God was satisfied. He was atoned. God now is reconciled. He has been satisfied on behalf
of His people. But it doesn't end there. You
see, we are still enemies of God until the Holy Spirit brings
us to Jesus and reconciles us through Him. He calls upon us
now to receive this salvation and to be reconciled with God.
Now, what are the terms of this peace treaty? God has been appeased
through the cross, but we are still His enemies. What are the
terms of the peace treaty? What do we have to do as it were
to be at peace with God? We can't do anything to earn
it. God says you must repent and believe. Now look at the
word repent. Word repent means you change your mind. You surrender
to God or to put it in military terms. You surrender. The terms of God's peace treaty
is you surrender. You come out with your hands
up, as it were. You stack arms and you say, I
give up. It's unconditional surrender.
And friends, unless we give up, we are still at war with God.
That's why God says stack arms. So imagine someone coming out
and saying, I surrender. And he's got a machine gun in
his hand. You say you have never surrendered. God says we must
repent of our sins, we must give up and submit to his terms of
surrender. And when we truly repent and
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, then we are reconciled, we are
saved, we are now put at peace with God. Turn to our next scripture
reading in the book of Romans. And this tells us the result
of reconciliation, with God. Romans chapter 5. Wonderful chapter
that has all the beautiful terms of love and atonement and reconciliation. But look at chapter 5 verse 1.
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with
God to our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace with God. Notice it's a present possession.
We have it now. When? When we are justified by
faith. The moment a sinner repents and
believes he is put at peace with God, now he can enjoy peace with
God. You know, I still remember when
I was a little boy growing up in New Orleans, Louisiana, I'd
crawl around and you know how little kids are, they get into
things and they get curious and they put it in their mouth and
they throw it away or something like that. I remember I was old
enough to go over to where my mother kept a few books and I
can still remember learning to read and I pulled one of them
down and I was a little afraid to read it because the title
was called Peace with God. And it was written in the early
fifties by a young up and coming preacher named Billy Graham.
And I still remember looking at the title, and as I'd grow
up, I'd still occasionally go and take the book off and say,
Peace with God. I wonder what that means. And
though I grew up going to Sunday school and church, I never experienced
peace with God until I was converted at age 20. And lo and behold,
when I became a Christian at age 20, I went and got the book
and I read it and I said, He's right. I now have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what about you, friends?
I've just explained salvation and our need for peace with God
through the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you have it? Are you at peace
with God? Or are you still enemies of God? If you're still enemies with
God, God calls to you and says, come, surrender, repent and believe. Be at peace with God by being
reconciled to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is God's peace treaty. It's also what the Bible calls
his covenant of peace. In Malachi 2, it's called his
covenant of life and peace. Now, once we are at peace with
the God of peace, Then God will give us his peace into our hearts,
that peace that we need and that we lack. And without that peace,
we have no internal peace. We don't have true peace with
other people. So now let's look at God's gift of peace in our
hearts. Turn with me next to the Gospel
of John, where our Lord Jesus Christ promised to give us this
peace. John chapter 14 just records
the words of Jesus on the The night before, Jesus made our
peace for us at the cross. And he gathered his apostles
around here and he gives them words of encouragement and promise.
And then in verse 27, this wonderful promise that some of you have
cherished for years. Verse 27. Peace I leave with
you. My peace I give to you. Not as
the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. So Jesus promises to give true
peace here. But notice what he says, he just
doesn't say, I give you peace in general. He says, I give you
my peace, not the peace of the world, because there is no peace
in the world. And he knew it, but he says,
my very own peace I give to you. Now, let's explore the nature
of this peace that we can receive through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Of course, it comes from God, so it's the peace of God through
the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, I said earlier, this
shalom is from within the Trinity, the Father, Son and the Holy
Spirit. The Father gives it through Jesus, so it's the Father's peace.
It's the peace of Jesus. It's also the peace of the Holy
Spirit. When God reconciles us, he puts
the Holy Spirit within us. And then the Holy Spirit produces
a personal peace within us. It's spiritual peace. Galatians
5.22 says that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness and goodness. The Holy Spirit grows His peace
within our hearts. So it comes from the Father through
the Son and is planted in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Friends, the point is this. True
peace can only come from God through the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you don't know Jesus, you don't know true peace. If you
do know the Lord Jesus Christ, it's as it were the door has
been opened where peace can come to you and keep coming to you
and flowing through you. The peace of God. Now let's also
say some more about the nature of this true peace. One of the
misunderstandings that people have of peace is that it's simply
a feeling, and that's all it is, and it becomes a kind of
a negative feeling that, for example, Buddhist peace, where
you meditate, you get this dreamy feeling, and according to Buddhism,
you're somehow absorbed into the all, and you lose your personal
identity. You know, that's what Buddhism
teaches. They say that's the way of peace, is you abstain
from all desire and you're absorbed into everything. That's true
peace. That's not true peace. Losing
your personal identity. According to the Bible, true
peace comes when you are now united with the true God. And it's not losing your identity,
it's finding your true identity, being related to God as your
father. And yet it does include a certain
quietness of heart, a certain tranquility that we experience. Last week, we ended our message
on the joy of God by quoting Zephaniah 317. Let me quote you
a part of that verse again. God promises that he will quiet
you with his love. Now, we know what that's like.
There are times that we have emotional turmoil and we want
an inner peace that we can't produce by ourself. And so we
try hugging ourself or we try weeping it out and it doesn't
work. We need that peace and reassurance from someone else. Now, we all learn this even as
a little child, just like a little baby that cries. And we've heard
a little of that this morning already. We know it. That's like
a little baby doesn't know how to say, Mommy, I need a hug or
I need a change. He cries it out and sometimes
because that child is hurting. But you know, we never really
outgrow that. There are times we need more than just a hug.
We need reassurance from God that He is our Father, that truly
loves us. And so, as it says here, He quiets
us with His love. Just like a mother will hold
a crying baby, hold it up to her heart, pat it on the back
and rock it a little bit. The little child feels at peace
with its mother. We need to feel at peace with
our Heavenly Father. And God gives that. Remember,
Jesus calmed the storms and said, Peace, be still, Mark 4, verse
39. But there still is something
else. He just doesn't calm the storms. He gives us a peace in
the midst of the storm. Turn two chapters over to the
Gospel of John, chapter 16. Jesus again promises a certain
kind of peace in the midst of the storm. You see, when we're
going through the storms of life, we'll say, Lord, stop the storm
and give me peace. God has a purpose for this storm,
and so he gives us a peace in the midst of this storm. And
it takes a Christian to realize this crucial point. Look at 1633,
Jesus said, These things I have spoken to you that in me you
may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation,
but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." He's saying,
I'm sending you back out in the world. Am I taking you to heaven
immediately? In the world you're going to have tribulations, storms,
hurricanes. But he says, in me you will have
a peace as it were like the eye of a hurricane. Now, you Yankees
up here have probably never been through a hurricane, but I'm
a southern boy that survived several hurricanes down in New
Orleans. Now, you've heard that in the
middle of a hurricane, there's the eye of the storm. It's an eerie
thing. Because for days and weeks, you
feel the winds getting stronger and stronger. And then the rain
comes and all this. And sometimes they say, evacuate,
get out while you can. The storm is getting more tumultuous
and tumultuous. And then it's right over you
and you have to batten down the hatches and hunker down. And then the eye passes over
and it's spooky. For days you've been preparing
with all these winds and all of a sudden it's quiet and the
birds start chirping. And it is so quiet you can drop
a feather and no wind will blow it. It's peaceful in the midst
of the storm. That's the peace the Lord Jesus
Christ gives to His people. In the midst of the storms of
life, we can experience an internal peace. We've got a secret that
the world does not know. Years ago, a newspaper in London
ran a contest, and the first prize would be given to the one
that sent in a picture that best displayed peace. So one picture
showed enemies shaking hands at peace. Another one showed
a beautiful, peaceful scene of a book and a meadow and flowers
and birds chirping. The one that won first prize
was a picture of a storm. And in the middle of a storm,
they showed a tree. And if you look closely, you
would see a bird's nest and the mother had its little chicks
underneath its wings. And the little birds were at
peace in the midst of the storm. Dear brethren, that's the peace
we can enjoy in the midst of the trials of life. The world
doesn't know that there is no peace for the wicked. They're
in the storms of life. But we can have a peace with
God. The Bible says we can enjoy peace
under God's own wings. Philippians 4, 7 again says the
peace of God passes all understanding because it's not just in our
minds, it's a peace of heart that we can experience deep within
us. And something else, friends,
peace of mind, peace of heart, peace of conscience. You see,
when we are at enmity with God, God touches our conscience and
our conscience accuses us. And sometimes we can't even sleep
at night because of a guilty conscience. We feel like someone's
chasing us, like a policeman with a gun. We've got a guilty
conscience. When we become a true Christian,
God not only gives us peace of mind and peace of heart, He does
something in our consciences. The book of Hebrews says He cleanses
our conscience with the blood of Christ. So our conscience
no longer accuses us and says, you're lost and guilty on your
way to hell. Now our consciences, as it were,
echo God's promise. We have peace of conscience.
The Holy Spirit no longer condemns us. but encourages us with true
peace. Notice I keep saying the Holy
Spirit. Romans 14.7 says the kingdom of God is righteousness
and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Romans 8.6 says to be
spiritually minded is life and peace. Now let me share just
very briefly a few miscellaneous verses on how God gives peace
and continues to give peace to those that are at peace with
him. Here's one, Isaiah 66, 12. God
says, I will extend peace to her like a river. In other words,
it's not just a small amount. It's like an ever flowing river.
And friends, we need that because as we go through the world, sometimes
our supply of peace runs short, come back to the river and dip
the cup of your heart as it were and say, Lord, I need more peace.
God is the source of all true peace. Later in Isaiah, chapter
26-3, God says, you will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind
has stayed on you because he trusts in you. Psalm 119-165,
great peace have those who love your law. Psalm 29-11, the Lord
will bless his people with peace. Psalm 85, 8, he will speak peace
to his people and to his saints. Now, there are many, many more
verses like this where God promises to supply peace to his people
that are at peace with him. Let me give you one more benefit
here. Bible says there's no peace for the wicked. Sometimes they
don't even have peace in their sleep. They have nightmares.
And also when I counsel some people, I can tell they're not
at peace. They haven't had a good night's sleep in a long time.
And I say, what's going on? They say, I can't even get peace
in my sleep. And I said, what's it like? They
said, I wake up in tears or nightmares. I can't even sleep right. God
promises to give peaceful sleep to his people. Psalm 4, 8. David says, I will both lie down
in peace and safety for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. So you see, wherever we go and
whatever we go through, dear friends, we can enjoy the peace
of God, no matter what, throughout our lives and to the end of our
lives. Here's another precious promise.
Jeremiah 34, 5 says, you shall die in peace. Old John Wesley
used to say, they make fun of us, but our people die well.
A Christian can lay his head on the pillow, not just at night,
but he can lay his head on the pillow of death. He can die in
peace knowing he's going to be with His heavenly father. We
have an example of this in Luke 2, 29, old Simeon. And God has
said, Simeon, you're not going to die until you see the Messiah. And then when Jesus was born,
Mary and Joseph brought him into the temple and they hand to Simeon
and the old man held him in his arms. Can't you see the old man
looking at him? And he looks up to God and says,
Lord, now let your servant depart in peace. He knew he could die
because he had met the Messiah. No person is prepared to die
in peace until he's met Christ as his Savior. But every true
child of God knows that he can finally die in peace because
he knows God as his Father. Briefly, let me share with you
some practical lessons from the peace of God. We should enjoy
the peace of God every day, but God has provided one day in particular
when we can enjoy the peace of God in particular. The Lord's
Day. You know, they have a greeting
over in Jerusalem, if you've ever been over there, go there
on a Friday evening, right after the sun goes down and they're
beginning Shabbat. That's the Sabbath. They still
celebrate Saturday and it begins on Friday evening. You know what
the greeting is? Shabbat Shalom. The peace of
the Sabbath. Oh, that Christians would also
enjoy God's peace on the day of peace that he has provided
the Lord's day. Rest, spend time with God and
God's people and your families and set aside anything that would
cause unnecessary unrest. The day of peace. Secondly, we
should strive and work for true peace. Wherever there is disharmony. Now, unfortunately, there's still
war and conflict in the wars, but I'm not advocating pacifism,
pacifism in the peace movement is in utter confusion about what
true peace is. They work for peace. They fight
for peace. There is no true peace. Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers. How are we to work for true peace
by getting back to the Bible? The Bible is God's, as it were,
peace manual. It's not only his peace treaty,
it tells us how to achieve true peace with God and within ourself,
within our families, within racial disharmony, within the nations.
Oh, that we'd go back to doing it God's way. Take, for example,
the family. J.R. has been teaching us in
Sunday School about how God's way truly works. Right, J.R.?
If we do it God's way, it works. Why are families falling apart?
Because they're not doing it God's way. If husbands and wives
did what God tells them to do, and if parents raise their children
and children follow their parents in the right way, it works and
there will be peace in the family. God's way works. If you don't
do it God's way, there will not be But we should strive for peaceful
relationships in all of our relationships at work, for example, and in
with in-laws so that they don't become outlaws. Mark 9, 50, Jesus
said, have peace with one another. Romans 14, 19, let us pursue
the things which make for peace. Hebrews 12, 14, pursue peace
with all people. And Jesus said, blessed are the
peacemakers. We should try to share this peace
and show it how it can be achieved God's way. James 3, 18. Now, the fruit of righteousness
is sown in peace by those who make peace. Now, there are various
ways that we should strive for peace. We've talked about peace
between nations, peace and families, also peace in churches. If you've
ever been through a church split, It is very disharmonious. There
is no shalom. I remember when I went through
one many years ago in a previous church, a woman came up to me
and she says, now you know what a divorce is like when a church
falls apart. Oh, the churches would enjoy
true peace God's way. It says in Ephesians 4, 3, endeavoring
to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. God's way
works within a church just like it does in a family and everywhere
else. We should strive for peace and protect it zealously within
a local church. That's our second lesson. Let's
get number three now. Brethren, we should share the
gospel of peace with those that need it. It's called the gospel
of peace in Romans 10, 15 and Ephesians 6, 15. What does this
mean? It means we tell people how they
can be first be at peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Acts 10, 36 says preaching peace
through Jesus Christ. In other words, when we tell
them the gospel, we're telling them how they can no longer be
enemies, but friends of God. They can be made at peace with
God through the cross, how Jesus made our peace from us. And then
they can enjoy the peace of God in their hearts and in their
lives. We need to share the gospel of
peace. Fourthly and lastly, brethren, we should look forward to perfect
peace in heaven one day. There's no lasting peace on earth
until Christ comes again. Now we should work for peace.
We should strive for peace. We should support true, just
peace efforts. But friends, we know it will
never last forever in this life. until Jesus returns. You know,
Jesus said when He came the first time, He said, I didn't come
to bring peace, but a sword. He knew that He could bring peace
with God and internal peace, but He knew that there would
still be families that would fall apart and there would be
war in the nations until His second coming. And at the second
coming, the Prince of Peace, as it were, will set up His kingdom
on earth, and then there will be finally peace on earth. And then that will be a prelude
to eternal peace in heaven. What is heaven? Heaven is a place
of peace. Heaven is a home of shalom. There
is no disintegration. There is no alienation. There
is no war, strife, or any of these other things in heaven.
Heaven is perfect peace, spiritual peace, spiritual health and harmony. Revelation 21 too calls heaven
the new Jerusalem. the new place of shalom. Well, brethren, these are some
of the lessons we can learn about God, the God of peace, and how
we can enjoy it in our hearts, in our relationships. I'll leave
you with one last word of counsel from Job 22. And we are told,
acquaint yourself with Him and be at peace. True peace comes
from the God of peace. Let us pray. Father, we thank
you that you have made peace on our behalf through the Lord
Jesus Christ at the cross. We thank you that we are now
at peace with you through him, and we thank you, Father, that
you have put your peace in our hearts. We pray that you would
help us to be peacemakers in places that need it. Help us
to share the gospel of peace with those that need Christ.
And Father, we thank you that we have enjoyed peace in our
hearts and we know that we will enjoy perfect peace with you
forever. In heaven. Thank you, Father. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen.
The Peace of God
Series The Attributes of God
| Sermon ID | 101211101305 |
| Duration | 47:28 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Language | English |
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