Peace | John 14:27

Intro

Hey Y’all,

Everyone good?

we are going through some themes of Christmas, Advent

Looked at Hope last week, what is the biblical view of Hope

Looked how the Gospel points us to a Hope that is certain.

Not a wish

Moral Certainty.

So tonight we are going to look at Peace.

Scripture speaks of Jesus as the Prince of Peace. We hear that a lot during Christmas Time.

But What is Peace? Let’s start there.

How do you describe peace?

Quiet, Calm, Stillness.

Oh this is peaceful - what do we mean by that?

Usually we are removed from the business of life.

Slow

What brings you peace?

Chilling, Activities, Music, Places

Our Cabin Porch in the Mountains

coffee in the fall or early spring.

Elite.

How does the world define peace?

tranquility

absence of conflict

describes a time in history - stoppage of war

peace time

I think the biblical view is different.

Context

So if you have a bible flip over to John 14:27, just one verse really. But we will flesh it out a little more.

let me set this up for you.

So this one phrase is in the context of a whole list of teaching at the last supper.

Very close to the crucifixion.

Christ is eating dinner with the disciples, and he is teaching them.

Basically telling them the last things he wants them to know.

When you see in the bible these are some of the last words some one is saying, pay attention.

Jesus knows what is about to happen. This is what he wants to tell the disciples before they see him beaten and killed on the cross.

Jesus knows that in a world sense and in the sense they probaly would have thought about peace, it wasn’t going to be peaceful

SO there is a ton going on here when this takes place.

And what Jesus is talking about is the coming of the holy spirit.

So Jesus is getting ready to leave the scene, he wants the disciples to get it, and he tells them about the coming of the Holy Spirit.

So let’s read this one verse together.

But before we do that, Let’s pray for our time in the word.

pray with me

pray

Okay read this with me.

John 14:27 ESV

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 hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

So whats going on?

Jesus saying to them, “I’m leaving you with my peace, My peace I give to you.”

So what is Peace?

How is it used in this sentence?

Peace is the noun, its the direct object.

Jesus is leaving peace and giving peace.

What does that mean? What is Jesus talking about,

cause look at what is going on here,

Jesus and the disciples, before this have already been tried to be killed, they’ve tried to stone them, Jesus home town tried to throw him off a cliff.

and then after this, Jesus is going to be murdered on a cross,

and even after all of that, the disciples are all going to be killed in awful ways, except John he dies of old age, after they unsuccessfully try to kill him.

First the word that Jesus would have used here is the hebrew word Shalom.

I know its in greek, the word in greeks means the same as the hebrew word, Shalom.

Shalom is the hebrew word for peace.

So what is Shalom?

Shalom is a peace,

and it can mean physical peace, or well being, but there is a deeper meaning, a spiritual meaning,

Shalom is a spiritual peace

So Christ is saying, I am giving you my Shalom. Shalom i give to you.

It is different than what the world might give, our try to give

A peace that transcends your circumstances

Peace that is far beyond what this world can give you,

So Biblically, what is peace?

How is different from how the world uses it right?

When we use Peace in the worldly sense we mean

no war

calm

quiet

Civil order

Biblical peace is different

Peace is a gift.

Peace is a thing that we become

It is a gift that we cultivate,

Peace is a fruit of the spirit.

This passage speaks about the coming of the Holy Spirit.

So in thinking through advent, Christ is the Prince of Peace,

the Hebrew people through out the old testament are looking for the messiah, looking for the one to bring Shalom.

To bring this peace.

Not in an earthly way, but is a way that only God can give.

He brings a Divine peace.

So here is the main idea, if you remember nothing, remember this,

The Peace of Christ allows us to withstand the chaos of this world.

so how does this work?

3 things,

Advent / Christmas reminds us of the peace Christ brings in this world.

internally,

externally,

and eternally.

SO let’s look at how the disciples took this

P1 - Internal Peace - counter formation

So first thing, internal peace.

Christ is telling the disciples, let not your heart be troubled and neither let them be afraid.

Easier said than done right

anyone been troubled or afraid this year? Been a weird year

Christ is saying,

My Peace, should ease your mind.you can withstand the troubled and the fear

no matter what is to come.

Think about the persecution that is coming for the disciples,

All of them killed in crazy fashions

Except John, he just gets exiled after a botched execution where they tried to boil him in oil.

The early church is going to be persecuted horribly.

Stephen Acts 7, is murdered.

People are going to die.

Christ is telling them, let your hearts not be troubled or afraid.

And so how does this work out? After he says this?

Christ goes to the cross, is murdered and buried.

Do you know what the disciples did?

Their hearts were troubled and afraid,

Peter denies Jesus three times,

the rest of them go in to hiding.

And this is kind of us right?

Like if something crazy happens, and we cant control it, what do we do?

We try our hardest to control it, we want to control it. And there are things that we can’t control.

Even just little stuff too

What is your biggest pet peeve? something that annoys you every time?

for me - roundabouts and people who just stop walking in the middle of a path

their basically the same thing

keep the flow

Dollywood, people will just stop walking

everyones first day outside.

And I’m sure you have something like that too, idk what it is, might be Zaxby’s messed up your order?

idk what it might be

But ask yourself

have you lost your cool in the last week?

I have.

Toddlers will test your cool

Have you lost in the last month?

All of us.

So what does that tell us about ourselves?

letting the small stuff or mundane stuff get to us.

if we can’t keep it together in the small stuff how are we actually gonna handle the big stuff?

This how the Peace of Christis a gift. He gives it to us

We have to cultivate this peace, it’s a gift.

We can’t just stick it in a closet

It takes some effort, it takes some discipline

our perspective has to change

Anyone seriously run in here?

I know luke does

What happens if you stopped running for a month?

You’d lose a step or two - hard to run that distance

Band if you don’t practice

You have to cultivate that,

It’s a fruit, fruits are grown, they aren’t just there

has to be cultivated.

P2 - External peace - counter formation

That’s internally, with in us,

but second Second thing, external peace,

Remember after the Last Supper, they go to pray,

Christ has told them to not be afraid, do not be troubled.

Then Christ gets arrested, this is like the with in a few hours of one another.

Don’t be troubled, don’t be afraid.

Jesus gets arrested,

What do the disciples do?

What does peter do in the garden?

Peter, forgetting the Peace, immediately cuts the ear off of one of the people arresting Jesus.

Would love to have seen Jesus’s face in that moment.

Bro.

What was Peter doing?

Peter was trying to bring his own peace.

Christ tells them, Not as the world gives you.

How does the world give peace?

Do you know what this time in history we live in right now is called?

The Long Peace.

Why? - The great powers aren't fighting

Feel peaceful?

Wild world out there right now.

What was the tim ein History Jesus was born in to called?

Pax Romana - Roman Peace

Why? They had just fought a civil war and all they enemies of Rome are dead

Great quote about Roman Peace

Rome creates are wasteland and calls it peace.

Can’t have war if everyone else is dead right?

That’s how the world does it.

Control, superior fire power.

What is Peter doing?

Peter reverts right back to the world’s way of giving peace, through the sword.

The sword is the way the world brings peace.

Through controlling the situation

Christ doesn’t give peace like that.

This is hard for us

We like control

Who likes to be in control?

But guess what? We can’t control everything

When the situations that are out of control are closing in

Christ says do not be troubled.

If you just look at the culture around you.

It is telling you to be ready to fight.

Bend everything to your will

You cant life hack everything

Be the alpha

What ever

Christ is saying, do not be troubled, do not be afraid,

Why?

He has given us His peace.

Just a few verses later in chapter 15

Jesus tells them to remember He has chosen us.

That means something, otherworldly,

The peace of christ allows us to withstand, to be steadfast.

P3 - Eternal peace, the first two flow from this. - we were not at peace with God because of sin. Christ death atones for us.

So last thing

and here is why this is important.

Look at the disciples,

They went from scared, troubled, fighting with people, moments after Christ is arrested,

Then after Christ is killed on the cross, they go in to hiding, not knowing what would come.

But if you fast forward a couple years,

the disciples have gone from scared fighting and troubled,

to resilient, steadfast, peaceable people.

This is what we have seen in Acts

What happened?

Christmas reminds us of the peace christ brings because he rose from the dead.

Christ brings order to chaos, even chaos on the cross.

This internal and external peace that Christ is wanting us to have, can only come from having eternal peace that is found the resurrection.

You can have internal peace, knowing that Christ knows the way out of the grave,

you can have external peace, peace with the people around you, even if they hate you, because Christ is risen form the dead.

Because this is what Christ came to do,

Christ came to make peace between us and God almighty.

Because the reality is that we were dead in our sin, we were dead, deserving of Hell.

all of us

Christ, the Prince of Peace comes to bring between us and the God.

Christ restores the relationship.

Christ atones for our sin,

Christ defeats death.

The only way to actual peace, is through the finished work of Christ.

We can try to control everything, we can try to be calm as much as possible,

Without Christ we can’t cultivate true peace.

Advent reminds us that Christ came to bring peace, to give peace.

and Advent reminds us that he is coming again to restore all things, to make all things knew.

To create an everlasting peace.

A peace where we get to walk with God.

Timeless Truth

And so here is the truth, Christ brings peace in a chaotic world.

Advent reminds us that we celebrate his coming and making a way, and that he is coming back to make all things new.

Truth for context - we should be a people who seek to bring peace. We are the peacemakers. We lead through taking chaos and turning it in to order. We lead by preaching the peace of the gospel to a broken and chaotic world. Bible sales. The world is hungry for real truth.

And so what do we do now?

How do we live our lives in response to the peace Christ gives us?

What does cultivated peace look like in our lives?

We should be a people who seek to bring peace.

We are the peacemakers.

We lead through taking chaos and turning it in to order.

We lead by preaching the peace of the gospel to a broken and chaotic world.

Think of the witness you have if you are at peace with yourself in this world?

If by you just being steadfast leads people to ask you what is different about, why do you have such peace?

Or how will people respond to you if you are genuinely nice to people, or are able to make peace with all people?

Our culture today, while it says it wants to create less distinctions between people, has only made it easier for people to isolate themselves.

The world has become so polarized and our culture is wanting to create factions.

It is driving an us/them mentality in all things.

Everything is couched in life or death terms. Everything is polarized.

What is our role?

Our role is to be peacemakers, not to compromise our convictions but to graciously explain the truth of the gospel.

To give the world a compelling reason to follow Christ, and that begins with how you live your life.

And I want to tell you, the world is hungry for the truth of the gospel,

it is looking for the a truth that is based in reality.

The world around us is slowly coming to realize that it is impossible to live in a world where there is no ultimate truth,

Where there is not standard for morality,

where there is no baseline for reality.

The lie that culture for years has told is finally being exposed.

The world is searching, there has been a shift.

Bible sals are up

People have come to church out of sheer curiosity.

Some of the reasons are

is this search for transcendence. something greater than right now.

Anxiety about the future is making people question what they have been told

and mainly it is coming form your generation, Gen Z, Gen A.

My generation was the most secular generation.

Yours doesn’t have to be

Your friends, your teammates, your classmates are all searching for something.

And you have the good news of the gospel to give them.

That Christ brings real peace, that Christ brings truth.

That the gospel is good news because Jesus is on the throne.

Live with peace in our lives, peace with others, and show people the peace that only Christ can bring.

P2Christ

So here is the invitation.

If you are searching for answers, if you are searching for peace, if you are hear tonight looking for something outside yourself, or you don’t even know what you are searching for.

Know that the good news is that Christ died for you on the cross, that real peace can only be found in Christ.

That Christ came and lived the life we couldn’t and died the death we should have.

That we can live our live with the peace of knowing that Christ is in control.

SO if you have questions about what it means to be a follower of Jesus come talk to me, come ask questions.

talk to someone.

Come see Christ as lord, come see christ as king.

pray with me.