We are one church. We love God, love people, love
His mission, and love His church.
Welcome to the One Church podcast.
Today, as we carry on our Jesus Said series, we have looked so
far at Jesus talking about prayer.
We've covered you are the light of the world.
We've talked about ask, seek, knock life to the full and Jesus
going after the one which you can catch up on the podcast.
And then today Jesus before he goes and he's crucified, talking
with his disciples about the gift that he'll leave with them.
This is John 1427. I am leaving you with a gift,
Peace of Mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift
the world cannot give. So don't be troubled or afraid.
So whether a beach, driving on country lanes on a sunny day,
how many of you enjoyed the sunshine yesterday for the one
day that we got it? Listening to the birds sing,
walking in nature, getting into bed after a long day, getting
off your feet. Total silence or something else
entirely. These things are a measure of
peace that we can experience on earth.
Some of those things given by God that we might experience
peace. But what Jesus is saying through
this passage is that he is giving a gift the world cannot
give. So these peaceful things that we
experience from the world are just a shadow in the light of
the kind of peace that Jesus was offering.
The dictionary defines peace as the absence of war or conflict,
which definitely is peace. But biblically, peace is so much
more than just the absence of conflict.
The Hebrew word in Scripture that we get translated as peace
is Shalom. Now, Shalom refers to something
that is complete, something that's whole, something that has
no cracks or gaps in it. We know that life can be
complex. I'm sure I don't have to tell
you that life can be complex. It has lots of pieces that fit
together, and a life of Shalom is all of those pieces fitting
perfectly together without any gaps.
Though life is full of moving parts and relationships and
differences, when any of those things are out of alignment or
are missing, our Shalom breaks down and so life is no longer
whole and needs to be restored. And so to bring Shalom means to
take and make complete or to restore.
Shalom is restoration, completeness, wholeness.
And Jesus birth that we read about in the Bible is the
arrival of peace to earth because he came to make whole or
bring Shalom to the broken relationship between a perfect
God and humanity in our imperfection and in our
brokenness. And so when we talk about peace,
we're really looking far more at restoration and wholeness for us
in our minds, in our bodies, in our emotions, in our spirit, and
far less at a state of calm or a lack of conflict because
although those things are great, they are often temporary.
And so we read this out. Elaborate a little bit on the
verse that I read. This is John 14 from verse 23.
Jesus replied, All who love me will do what I say, my Father
will love them and we will come and make our home with each of
them. And anyone who doesn't love me
will not obey me. And remember my words are not my
own. What I'm telling you is from the
Father who sent me. I'm telling you these things now
while I'm still with you. But when the Father sends the
Advocate as my representative, that is the Holy Spirit.
He will teach you everything and will remind you of everything
I've told you. I'm leaving you with a gift,
Peace of Mind and heart, and the peace I give is a gift the world
cannot give. So don't be troubled or afraid.
Remember what I told you, I'm going away, but I will come back
again to you. If you really loved me, you
would be happy that I'm going to the Father who is greater than I
am. I've told you these things
before they happen so that when they do happen, you will
believe. An amazing passage.
So much we could draw out of it to allude to how we should live
a life of peace. But that key verse that I read
at the start and I'll read it again, I am leaving you with a
gift, Peace of Mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift.
The world cannot give. So don't be troubled or a
phrase. Three things that we can learn
today about Jesus peace. Firstly, peace is a gift.
His words are so clear. I'm giving you a gift.
And so while Jesus is no longer here on earth, his gift is for
us to take hold of in his absence.
But just as if I was to promise to give you a gift today, you
would still have to take it from me.
You would have to open it up. You would have to fully utilise
the gift that I'd given you. This Christmas.
We did our first family gift and we bought a Nintendo Switch for
all of us. I'm sure Arya will one day love
it. At the moment she just likes the
controllers to, you know, wave them around.
The kids were very excited when they opened it and obviously
Josh and I had to test it out a few times before Christmas
because you just can't be too careful with an eBay purchase,
can you? But the gift has been given, is
in our possession, it belongs to us and nobody else.
But if we leave it in the box then we're not going to benefit
from it. The benefit only comes with
getting to grips with how it works.
And if peace is a gift, then it's something that we have to
unwrap, get to grips with, take hold of it says in Psalm 34,
search for peace and work to maintain it.
It's something that we have to look for and then when we find
it, we have to work to keep it. It's a gift that's freely given.
You know, you don't have to pay for a gift.
If you're given a gift and then you have to pay for it, it was
never a gift in the 1st place. It's a gift that's freely given
to us. But you can neglect it.
You can not pursue it. You can allow other things to
take its place and in our world there is so much noise and we
can find that we end up looking for peace in a a good holiday or
a moment where there isn't loads of challenges in life.
But in reality, peace is supposed to be a permanent
fixture in your life, not something that comes and goes
with the seasons. Jesus offers us Peace of Mind
and heart. Now, when you think about your
heart, I think that's talking about our emotions, our
feelings, our desires, our will. And then when we look at our
minds, we're thinking about our thoughts, our internal dialogue,
our consciousness, our decision making.
Now, I personally don't find it too hard to be at peace in my
heart. I certainly have my wobbles,
don't get me wrong, but I feel fairly consistent in my
emotions. Now, I know that's not true for
everybody, but I find myself fairly solid.
But sometimes we can find ourselves one day feeling a bit
neutral, another day being elated, so happy, and then
another day feeling flat and feeling really down.
I don't believe that peace stops us from feeling, but as we said
about Shalom, it's that our feelings should stem from
wholeness and not that our feelings should stem from
brokenness. Now, what about in our minds?
My thoughts, my decision making, my internal dialogue.
For me personally, let's say it feels busy.
Feels like a lot's going on up here.
Sometimes it feels like my mind is racing at 100 miles an hour
and I'm multitasking at 1000 different things.
And to be honest, I'm often messing up at some of those
things because who can truly multitask well all the time?
So for me, the idea that I today could receive the gift of peace
in my mind that would bring clarity and bring wholeness and
complete trains of thought, I want that gift.
But how can we take hold of that gift to another level?
I think sometimes when we hear messages like this and it's like
a familiar concept, something that sounds nice and we think,
yeah, that would be great, wouldn't it?
If I could actually receive peace, that would be great.
But how do I actually experience peace in my day-to-day life in a
greater way? But one thing that this week I
was given a bit of an insight to is the science behind the brain
and the neurological pathways in our brains.
And there is scientific proof that what you think changes your
physicality and that it's fine to feel anything, but what you
ruminate on actually has an impact on our bodies as well as
our brain pathways. There's a case study done many
years ago whereby there were two groups of people that took part
in a finger strength test. Don't show you thinking that is
a random test to take part in. It is, but it was very cool
because one group of people actually did finger strength
exercises for an hour a day, every day.
They did this over a four week period.
Every day they would do, I don't have any idea what those finger
strength exercises were, but they'll do something of a finger
strength exercise for an hour every day.
Then the second group of people, instead of doing the exercises,
they thought about the exercises.
They thought, I've got such strong fingers, I know how to do
this. They thought about what the
exercises might be, what they might look like.
Now, you might think, well, there's no way that you can
improve your finger strength through not actually doing
anything. But the results showed that
after the four week trial, the group of people that did the
exercises had a 30% increase in their finger strength and the
people that thought about finger strength had a 22% increase in
finger strength. I mean, that is crazy, right?
How can you get stronger by thinking about it?
I'm not going to go to the gym anymore, guys.
I'm going to think about going to the gym.
Can't wait to see the results. But there's scientific proof
that what we think about and what we speak over ourselves not
only has an impact on our minds, but it has an impact on our
bodies. And so maybe peace doesn't have
to just be a nice concept or something that one day would be
lovely to have, but maybe a simple shift in our conscious
thought patterns could bring a greater level of peace in US,
mind and body. So peace is a gift.
I'm leaving you with a gift, Peace of Mind and heart.
And secondly, peace is a promise.
You know, if Jesus says he's giving you something, it's a
promise, it's a fact, it's unnegotiable.
He's going to do his part. So how do we similarly, how do
we receive this promise? So alongside what we've talked
about with our neurological pathways and our thoughts, I
also believe that prayer precedes peace, talking to God
about everything, asking Him for what we need, thanking Him for
what He's done, and we get a little step by step guide in
Philippians 4. It can become our new natural
response when worry comes that will continue to then rewire
those neurological pathways. This is Philippians 4 verse 6.
Don't worry about anything. I mean, have you ever not
worried about something because someone told you not to worry
about anything? No, but we're going to get to
it. Don't worry.
Don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything.
Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done.
Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we
can understand, and His peace will guard your hearts and minds
as you live in Christ Jesus. We're called to pray about
everything. That means we leave nothing out.
That means we can replace worry with prayer.
And so every time you might think, or you might say to a
friend, oh, I'm just so worried about, or how's this part of my
life going to pan out? Instead, you shift the thought
and you make it a prayer, which is just chatting to God.
It's just conversation with God in the same way as you'd say it
to your friend, you just say it to God.
God, I'm worried about how I'm going to pay my bills, but I
trust you as my provider. God, I'm worried about this
health condition that I've been diagnosed with, but I know that
you are the healer. God, I'm worried about this
unjust situation at work, but I know that you are the God that
fights for me. Because when we worry, we we
believe it's on earth to fix a situation.
It's looking to myself to be the answers.
I'm all alone. It's me against the world.
But what's the perfect antidote to worry?
We take our worries to the one that made us, the one that knows
us, the one that loves us, and the only one that has power to
change our situations. We talk to God about everything.
And then the passage goes on to say thank him for all he's done.
You know, thankfulness reminds us of the privilege that we
already walk in, breath in my lungs, food to eat, health in my
body, a roof over my head, a family who love me, a community
that are going to come alongside me, a church that is for me.
Your list will go on and on as you start to think about it.
When I remember that he has already provided so much for me,
I'm reassured that there's no reason he wouldn't do it again.
I'm his kid. Why wouldn't he provide for his
kid? So we talked to God about
everything. We thank him for all that he's
done. And it goes on to say then, so
after we've done those two things, you will, which is a
promise. Again, experience, not
necessarily understand, but experience or encounter or feel
God's peace. Not the worldly peace, but the
peace. Jesus is talking about God's
peace, which is wholeness and completeness, which we can't
fully understand, which means we can't always get our heads
around it or put our fingers on it.
But we know that we know that we know that God's peace will come
to us. And again, this process engages
our minds and our spirits in talking to God about everything,
in thanking him for all that he's done, I'm rewiring these
neurological pathways that would otherwise maybe try and spiral
into worry and fear and brokenness.
And do you know why our brains work like that?
Because He made them to work like that the year we got
married, about six months before we got married, I was in a a
really bad car accident and I was driving my friend to
Nottingham for a a dance audition.
And and just as we were driving down this country lane, a pickup
truck came to the the junction and they just didn't stop.
They went straight into the side of, sorry mum, the, the lovely
car I was driving that was my mother's car and pushed us along
the other side of the road towards the oncoming traffic
down into a ditch and into a tree.
And the air ambulance come and, and everybody's there worrying
obviously. And I mean, I remember the first
thing I thought when I got out the car was, oh, how's this
going to affect my insurance? Because I had no idea.
I was like, it's so expensive already, is it going to make it
worse? I didn't know how these things
worked, but I managed to get out of the car.
I can't remember how I got out of the car and we went and
waited in safety. And then I remember that night I
sat in my bed and I just, I was scared.
I was afraid to go to sleep. I was afraid to shut my eyes
because I thought I'm going to just see the pictures or it
playing again in my mind about what happened.
And I didn't want those flashbacks.
And so I just, I said, God, I need you to show me where you
were when that happened. What were you doing when that
happened? Not in an accusatory way,
although he could have taken it if that's what it was.
Just saying God show me, and I saw so clearly in my mind's eye
a bird's eye view of what had happened and God kind of just
above the whole thing as we were driving along.
And then he came down and as we went off into the ditch, he
stood at the tree and he braced so that the car couldn't go any
further into the tree so that we didn't lose our lives.
And from that moment I slept peacefully, one of the most
traumatic experiences of my life that could have plagued me night
by night by night. I never slept in worry.
I never had nightmares about it. I never replayed that in my head
because he had made new the picture that I had experienced.
He's the God that makes everything new.
He's the God that makes everything whole, that restores
everything. Anything that the enemy would
mean for evil, he can turn around and make it good.
And so if you have had a traumatic experience of
something, if you have something in your life that is plaguing
you with worry or fear, God can come and make it new.
The Shalom peace of God can come and make whole the very thing
that would try and cripple you with fear and anxiety.
God, show me where you were. Maybe that's going to be your
prayer today. The promise of God's peace is to
be experienced. How do we experience that if our
prayer life is part of that, if talking to God is part of that,
how can my prayer life increase to a greater level?
You know, prayer doesn't have to be this big onerous thing that
you kind of think, oh, must sit down and pray for an hour.
It's our constant conversation with God, including him in the
small things, in the big things, in the things that technically
take no decision at all. It's including him.
Pete Gregg says this great quote.
It says your prayer life is at its best when you pray about the
small things continually, not the big things occasionally.
Just talk to him. He hears and he promises us his
peace as we talk to him about everything, as we thank Him for
all that he has done. Peace is a promise.
And thirdly, we can know peace in a person.
I see no coincidence that the verse directly before our key
verse today is about the Father sending the Holy Spirit to us.
And then Jesus says, I'm leaving you with a gift.
The Holy Spirit is peace. He is the Spirit of peace.
We see in Galatians where it talks about the fruit of the
Spirit is Lovejoy, peace. And so when we receive the Holy
Spirit, we can receive the promise of His peace.
And if true peace is complete wholeness and oneness, then how
could we truly experience peace without God, without the Holy
Spirit who restores and makes broken things whole again?
When Jesus tells us that he's giving us a gift, it's his peace
he's giving us. And if the Prince of Peace, as
Scripture said, is giving us his peace, then he's giving us the
Spirit of peace. He's giving us the Holy Spirit.
He's not saying John's got a gift for you, hope it's up to
scratch. He's literally saying here's
part of the Godhead to walk with you, to dwell within you, the
Spirit of God who is peace, who lacks nothing, who has no
imperfections, who is the epitome of Shalom, wholeness,
and the one who can be fully trusted to be true to his word.
The Greek word for advocate, which is referring to the Holy
Spirit in this passage is paracolettos, which means more
than just the word advocate. It means one to stand next to
you as a helper, or in many words, councillor, comforter,
advocate, encourager, intercessor, helper.
And so when we invite the Holy Spirit into every part of our
lives and we ask Him to fill us, what we're saying is that He is
in the driver's seat in our lives.
And So what He's allowed to do when we put Him in the driver's
seat is to govern our hearts, our lives, our minds, to direct
us, to redirect us when we get off track, to lead us, to guide
us. And that's all about surrender.
Surrender of my will and my ways and my desires to His ways.
In Romans 8 it says the mind governed by the Spirit is life
and peace, but the mind governed by the flesh, which is our
desires, the things we want to do, our sinful ways, our
mistakes, The mind governed by the flesh leads to death.
And so when we allow God to be the Lord of our lives, the Lord
of our minds, the Lord of our emotions, the Lord of our
actions, we're offered peace. Life and peace and peace came in
the form of a person when Jesus came to earth.
And then Jesus sent us peace in the form of the Holy Spirit, so
that we would know that the heart of God for His people is
that we would live at peace. We thank you, God, that your
peace is a gift to us that we could never have earned but we
don't deserve. But you freely give it to us.
We step into the promise of your peace.
We receive you, Holy Spirit. Anything of brokenness come out
in the name of Jesus. Anything of pain be restored in
the name of Jesus. God, we pray that minds and
bodies and emotions would be restored and renewed and made
whole in your name. It's your power alone and your
peace alone that can come and bring this kind of restoration.
And so we welcome you. The Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you.
The Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace.