And if Jesus makes that exclusive claim, he therefore
means that peace cannot be found in any other religion, cannot be
found anywhere else. We cannot find it in reading
nice motivational books. We cannot find it here and
there. Jesus says if you want it, I'm
the one who gives the world through peace.
And Isaiah puts it this way. In Isaiah 48 verse 22, there is
no peace. It says the Lord for the wicked,
those outside of me, they have no peace, for peace cannot be
found outside of Christ. I don't know where this morning
you are trying to find your peace because perhaps you don't
feel like you have it this morning because perhaps of the
many things that are happening in your life, you maybe don't
even sensing or feeling the peace of God and you think maybe
I need to do ABC and D to find that peace.
I may say to you this morning, lean in to Him who is peace.
Nothing out there satisfies the human soul apart from Christ.
He not only gives peace, but He is peace.
It is Himself that He offers to ask this one that I am your
peace. Temporary solutions may feel
like peace, but they will not last.
And therefore, if you don't have it this morning, I have the best
answer for you. Come to Jesus, That is where you
will find true peace in a world that needs peace.
How does Christ then provide this peace for us?
The world does not have it. Christ gives it to us.
But how? That's the major question.
How does it give us this peace? There's only one way that the
Son of Man, the Bible tells us in John chapter 1, the Son of
Man who would come in his Incarnate state, fully man and
fully God, coming to live among us and also coming to die for us
in our place and for our sin. That those who were enemies of
God can now be reconciled to God.
Those who rebelled against Him would come to know Him by faith.
It is the only way to which we have peace is that Christ must
die for us. The work of atonement must take
place. He must die on our behalf so
that we may receive His peace. And indeed, He did die for us.
The apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter 2 he argues for three
things that Christ did in giving us this peace.
He mentions it three times in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 11 to
18. The first thing he mentions is
that through His death, Christ is our peace.
We receive this peace through His death, and He becomes our
peace. In other words, those who were
enemies of God and now have been reconciled to God and have him
as peace. He not only gives us this peace,
the apostle Paula argues that he also made peace.
He is our peace, and He made peace through the cross as we
read deficient to it is a relationship between the Jews
and the Gentiles who did not get along.
They simply did not like each other.
They did not want to be in one space.
And the Bible says once Jesus died on the cross, that barrier
between the Jews and the Gentiles, that division that was
between the Jews and the Gentiles has now been broken.
The two have become one. Those were enemies.
They're now brothers and sisters in Christ.
He not only gives peace, but he made peace in a broken world
where people are divided by class, by race, and all of these
things. The Bible says no Christ made
peace. He brought the two, one, that
beautiful picture of the manifold wisdom of God, the
multicolor Church of God, the one who gives peace but also
makes peace. The Apostle Paul further argues
that he not only gives us peace, not only made peace, but he
preached peace as well. He preached peace to all, that
those who may not know him even this morning in this place may
come to know him as the peace is being preached.
Peace is expensive. Peace is made by Jesus dying on
our behalf on the cross. Peace is bloody so that you and
I may truly know Him, and as we know Him, being indwelt by the
power of the Holy Spirit and being made right with God.
And therefore the answer to peace is Christ.
But how does he do that? Through his death on the cross.
Without the cross there is no peace.
And if you are in this place today and you don't have that
peace, perhaps the question I ought to ask you this morning,
have you cried out to God for salvation?
Have you said, Lord, save me, Lord, cleanse me, Lord, I repent
of my sin. And I believe Isaiah 53 verse 5
says the following. But he was pierced for our
transgressions. He was crushed for iniquities.
Upon Him was the chastisement that brought US peace, and with
His wounds we are healed. Without the blood there is no
peace. Peace of God flows from the very
grace of God, from the death of Christ, that we have peace.
Today. Therefore, what the world offers
cannot truly satisfy only that which He gives, which is Himself
that truly satisfies us. And I think if we talk about
peace in the context of Galatians 5 without talking
about peace that flows from grace, I think we would miss the
context altogether, because peace must flow from Christ's
death, and without that we know absolutely nothing about peace.
So he gives us peace or he made peace, That's what the text
says. But also He gives us peace.
We have peace with God because of the cross, because of His
death. We have peace with Him and our
salvation is secured in Him. And we cannot lose our salvation
because we have peace with God. But, but, but let us not stop
there. We not only have the peace,
peace with God, we also have the peace of God.
We have His peace in Romans 5, verse one and two says,
therefore, since you have been justified through faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we
have gained access by faith into his grace, which we now stand.
And so because of Jesus now we have this peace that we have.
It means we no longer living in guilt.
We no longer living in shame today.
And, and, and even Laura was speaking was reminded of
Zechariah chapter 3, when Satan would come and accuse Zechariah
because of the sin and the dirtiness of Zechariah and and,
and, and, and, and Joshua said, let's put a new robe on Joshua.
Let's put a new robe upon him, a white one now so that the
accuser may not succeed. And at times we feel like that.
We feel dirty all the time, sinful all the time, and often
we must be reminded. No, the Lord gives us a new
robe, a new robe to remind us of our righteousness, of our right
standing before God, that we do not work in guilt, we don't work
in fear, and we don't work in shame.
We work in the liberty and the freedom of Jesus Christ.
Therefore, brethren, don't, don't, don't, don't take the
guilt. Don't take it for now.
Now, today, there is no condemnation for those who are
in Christ Jesus no longer condemned.
Take it in, believe it. Even when you don't feel
righteous, even when you don't feel the peace of God, believe
it. This is your standing before the
one true God. We not only have peace with Him,
we have His peace by faith at work in our lives.
This is the peace of God, only the peace in which God gives us.
It is the Peace of Mind, a peace that is free from the anxiety, a
peace that is free from panic, because often we panic.
Often we are anxious because of what is happening around us, in
our families, in our workplaces, you know, in our businesses,
whatever it could be. At times we feel like why, why,
why is this happening? And at those moments who become
so anxious, can I say to you, may the peace of God be with
you. May in those moments you know
the Shalom of God. The only thing that drives out
worry according to Philippians 4 is prayer.
Philippians forces this. Do not be anxious about anything
quite interesting about anything, but in every
situation, by prayer and petition, with Thanksgiving,
present your requests to God. Notice the next line.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding,
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Wow. Do not be anxious about
anything, but in everything, do what pray.
Worry will either drive out prayer in your life or prayer
will drive out worry in your life.
You choose. And he says as you do that and
the peace of God, which transcends all understanding,
what will that peace do? It will guide your hearts and
your minds in Christ Jesus. Wow, we pray.
We can choose to worry, or we can choose to pray and trust
God. Listen to me, listen to me
church. God can be trusted.
I don't know what you may be going through this morning that
has taken away your peace, but can I say God can be trusted
with everything? I know that anxiety will come.
The daily pressures of life will come.
I know I'm not. I'm not dismissing that, that
that that happens. I know.
So can we have peace in the midst of stress and when life is
difficult, can we have peace in our homes, in our workplaces?
The answer is yes, we can have the peace of God.
The kind of peace that we have is a peace that is a witness of
the gospel of Christ to the world that needs that peace that
people may wonder why are you so calm?
Why are you still believing? But things are not going well is
because the peace of God is in you.
And not only the peace of God, but you are trusting the one who
cares for you, who loves you, the one who is for you.
As a believer. We have no Plan B Church.
Jesus is all we have got in the kind of world we can have.
The peace that testifies to the world that Jesus is good.
Last final thing I want to say to us this morning is that God
not only made peace, not only does He give peace, we talked
about the how he does that, but also He calls us to live in
peace with others. It is often true that we know
about the peace that God gives us, but often when we have
received that kind of peace, excuse me, we also then are
called to live in peace with others.
There's a wonderful story in Romans 14 and Romans 15.
Not really, not really a story, but the apostle Paul is speaking
to these Jewish but also Gentile believers.
And there are quite a number of issues in Romans 14 and 15 and 1
of it has to do with what should we eat, which bakery, sorry,
sorry, which, which place should we go and buy meat from?
That's what I wanted to say. And so the issue is, should we
be eating meat made by pagans or not?
Well, the gentle believers have got no issues with that.
Meat is meat. Let's eat, man.
We are now in Christ. Let's eat meat.
Let's eat pork. I don't know who some people are
not believers don't eat pork. Yeah, you're missing out in a
good bacon, by the way. But anyway, it's not, it's not
my problem. Just saying you're missing out
if you don't eat pork. It's really nice.
OK, you're going to get an e-mail tomorrow morning.
Someone is going to be upset. But on the other hand, on the
other hand, the Jewish believer says, no, you can't eat this
meat. You can't Jewish, Jewish
believers don't eat this meat. And so these believers are at
loggerheads. They are fighting.
And the apostle Paul is now writing to them to address them
on this very issue. And the other issue they are
fighting about is the Sabbath as well.
Maybe we are cool to keep the Sabbath.
And the gentle says, no, we are free in Christ.
We're not going to keep the Sabbath.
It's got absolutely nothing to do with us.
And so there is this conflict between these believers and
perhaps the Gentiles. We're thinking to themselves,
well, we are the strong Christians.
We know who we are in Christ. None of these things affect us.
And maybe the Jewish believers were thinking these are weak
Christians because they're doing everything that they ought not
to do, including eating meat that is unclean according to
them, and that is sacrificed to idols maybe.
And because of that, there is now these these not only just
differences, but this conflict because of cultural and
religious backgrounds causing a significant theological and
practical disagreements in this church.
And the Apostle Paul knows that often believers are going to
agree not as the Apostle Paul does not take a side, He does
not side with the gentle believers, nor does a side with
the Jewish believers. He says one thing to them.
He says accept one another. That's it.
He knows that they are quarrelling and disputes among
them, but he's saying to them, listen, you can disagree with
each other, but after disagreeing with each other,
accept one another. In other words, the one you
disagree with is not your enemy. They are still your brothers and
sisters in Christ. Notice what he says in Romans
1413. Accept one another whose faith
is weak. Without quoting over disputable
matters. One person's faith allows them
to eat anything, but another whose faith is weak eats only
vegetables. The one who eats everything must
not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who
does not eat everything must not judge the one who does.
For God has accepted accepted them.
So the the Jewish believers should not judge the Gentiles,
but the Gentiles equally should not judge the Jews.
And then he says in verse 19, make every effort to do what
leads to peace. The the, the peace we have
through the gospel means we must do our best to live in peace
with other people. That's the point here.
And that is the example of Christ.
And when we are not in peace with others, we are saying God
has accepted you, but I do not accept you because we disagree
on ABC and D. Let's think about our world
today. One of the things Christians
even disagree about today is the issue of wine.
Should Christians be drinking wine?
Should they be not drinking wine?
And people disagree on those things?
But the question is, should we then in our disagreement condemn
or judge one another? Or should we accept one another
even though we may disagree on something?
I think that's the challenge that we have today in taking
this further. I'm about to close the apostle
Paul says the following and I want to quote few verses here as
it drives this point home. In Romans 12/18 he says for it
is possible as far as depend on you live at peace with everyone.
First Corinthians 715 God has called us to live in peace.
First Corinthians 1433 God is not a God of disorder but a God
of peace. Ephesians 43 Make every effort
to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
Peace, peace, peace. This is the heart of the gospel
for those who are truly saved, who know the peace of God, but
also who make an effort to live in peace with everybody.
Therefore, few things for consideration.
One, we should be careful to avoid the kind of words and and
attitudes. That can create
misunderstandings and divisions #2 for us to keep peace, we
should be quick to apologize and said sorry.
And I was thinking about, in fact, here I was thinking about
Bishop Doodoo. Bishop Doodoo said there are two
things that are quite hard for humans.
Wanted to say I'm sorry, wanted to say thank you.
So it is very hard for people to say those two things.
We should be quick to apologize instead of trying to defend
ourselves, which is often easy to do.
We need to follow careful instructions of Jesus in how we
deal with conflict in the body of Christ, following Matthew 18,
verse 15 to 17. Above all, in keeping the peace,
we should avoid all kinds of gossip about other people and
lend the strict discipline of keeping confidences.
That's the peace within the context of the local church and
among believers. Well, the world longs for this
peace. And if you are in Christ, you
have this peace already secured in Christ Jesus.
My prayer is that the that this will be a fruit of the Spirit,
the outworking of the power of the Spirit in your own life.
Let's pray, Father, in the name of Jesus, we are grateful for
peace that you have given us, a peace that the world does not
know. And yet, Lord God, the peace
that we have received through the atoning work of Christ on
the cross. And so, Lord, we say thank you
for giving us the kind of peace that transcends all
understanding. And Lord, because we have that
kind of peace, help us to live in peace with others.
We want to be those kind of people, Oh God, who live
peaceful lives, who are always seeking to reconcile with
people, seeking to love people, seeking to serve people, and
seeking to forgive people. And Holy Spirit, we ask you to
please help us. In Christ's name we pray.
Amen. Thanks.