My Peace I Give Unto You

"My Peace I Give Unto You" – John 14:27 · John 16:33 "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you." The study begins from the observation that the hardest thing for mortals is to hold on to peace, and from there follows the promise across Scripture: John 16:33 —Jesus did not promise a life without difficulty, He warned there would be tribulation—, Philippians 4:7 and the peace that passeth all understanding, Isaiah 26:3 and the mind that is stayed on God, Colossians 3:15 and the peace that must rule, and Psalm 29:11 with its two promises: strength and peace. The distinction that holds the whole message together is between circumstances, which come and go, and peace, which remains permanently in the righteous.

I. The hardest thing is to hold on to peace

A. If the phone rings: "what can it be, what has happened?" If something hurts: "I am going to the doctor, I do not know what this is." We live on pause: faith today, and tomorrow we set it trembling.

B. The more we come to know the truth, the more we know there is something we must find and tell it "you stay and you do not leave": peace.

C. A storm comes and we go half mad; and afterward: "look, and the storm never came."

D. God is the Creator of every one of us and wants us in His image and likeness; but there is something we must understand, and it is that we must enter into peace.

E. The direct question to the congregation: how many of you live in peace — when you get up, when you lie down? What quiet that is, and how good it is to live in peace.

II. "My peace I give unto you" — a promise (John 14:27)

A. It is a promise Jesus hands to our life at conversion.

B. One goes to bed worried and gets up nearly having a heart attack: "I do not know what will happen today, I have a feeling." And even so, we can see how God has helped us until today.

C. It is not a peace that depends on everything being well; if everything were well it would be dull, and that is no way to grow.

D. We live on ground where we must do battle, because that is where the victories are seen, and there we come to know God and faith is raised.

E. "The LORD has helped me through them all, and this time He will help me too, for He is good to us."

F. It is the peace that comes from knowing Christ is with you: you sleep and He is with you, you wake and He is with you, on the good day and on the hard one.

G. If at times one asks "where is God?", remember: why did Jesus go to the cross, if not to give His life for us?

H. Experience is experience: without it one does not learn. We are somewhat stubborn, and maturity is lived by suffering it. One does not learn in rose color.

I. We live in uncertainty, not knowing what tomorrow will say. "I have many problems." Can you solve them today? Then solve them. You tried and could not. But there is a promise.

III. John 16:33 — "in the world ye shall have tribulation"

A. Jesus did not promise a life without difficulties: He warned there would be tribulation, trials, hard moments.

B. "I have afflictions; but I have God, and you have God."

C. On the sense of duty: she comes through those doors at exactly the same hour, never more nor less, out of responsibility and faithfulness to those who are waiting. "And the prize of faithfulness I take for myself."

D. "Do you have peace? Or is it very easy to be disturbed by circumstances?" — "I cannot do it," "I am so tense," "I cannot sleep."

E. "Not as the world giveth": the peace we have is full, it is the Lord's.

F. It is not that the problems get fixed: we are not solving problems, we are living in peace.

G. When one truly has peace, nothing torments. There are things that hurt — yes, they hurt. But under any circumstance one must live in peace.

H. "And how am I to feel that peace?" Receive it: of nothing God offers must we add a grain of our own.

I. Life is one. How do you live it? You decide. "All the problems came at once": then you are a champion, and that is what the gold medal is for.

J. "I have the peace near, I have it inside my being. And how is it activated? By faith."

IV. Circumstances do not make our life

A. Today the circumstances are of one thing, tomorrow of another; then the illness, then something else.

B. The more effort you give them, the further behind you fall. They are circumstances: you go looking for the circumstances yourself; what God has given us is peace.

C. Peace lets us sleep quietly and allows us to laugh. Let us be human beings who love others.

D. "I have no solution for any of you, and do not build illusions about me: I am no marvel. That we are here today is because there is a God who has sustained us."

E. There are days when it seems one will fall and cannot even breathe well; circumstances provoke us. But Jesus tells us: my peace I give unto you.

F. "I do not know what will happen tomorrow." Neither does she. They are circumstances.

G. She cannot solve anyone's problems: she can hear the circumstance and say "oh, poor thing" — and that only adds more weight.

H. True peace does not depend on everything being well: it depends on being joined to Christ, who carries what we pray to the Father, for He is at the right hand.

I. A prayer is not ended however one wishes: for God to hear, it is in the name of Jesus. That is doctrine and it must be known.

J. Being a believer does not make us immune to pain: we may pass through illness, loss, family trouble, opposition or uncertainty.

K. "But be of good cheer": Jesus calls us to keep courage and faith. "Things are bad" is absence of faith.

L. Everything that gathers in the brain invades the heart and tears it apart. Peace is for having a quiet, still heart.

V. Philippians 4:7 — the peace that passeth all understanding

A. "And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

B. The peace of God can be present even when the situation is not yet resolved.

C. We are adults now: no more tantrums, like the one who took the ball home so no one could play. Who can live like that?

D.

Living in peace one lives more quietly, sings the choruses, and does not bring that funeral-parlor face.

E. It is not simply human calm: it comes from knowing God is present. And God does not come and go: He is omnipresent, in every corner of the universe, and can create more stars than there are.

F. Why live weighed down and dragging our feet, when we ought to go like the deer, leaping, for they are always glad — the doe out front, looking for where the water is?

G. When we are able to set aside a little of our own — our demands, our claims — we stop taking our circumstances out on whomever we please.

H. "What marvelous thing do we do? Lower our head so as not to greet a brother." Jesus went to the cross, His disciples went to the cross, and the people who followed after them were sacrificed.

I. Today we live in great plenty: we know much, we make claims on everyone, we demand of everyone. Because there is no peace. There is a desire to correct the whole world, instead of the desire to love with strength.

J. If you have peace, you can have fellowship, you can love, you can serve.

K. There are moments when humanly we ought to be full of fear, and God gives a calm the mind cannot explain: it comes from the throne of God, and He sends it according to how we have believed Him.

L. "Shall keep" conveys the idea of protecting, watching, guarding: God protects the heart from despair and the mind from the thought that would rule it. Cast them out.

M. A powerful truth: the peace of God does not always change at once what is happening around us; first it changes what is happening inside us. God is not setting your surroundings right: your surroundings you learn to live.

VI. Isaiah 26:3 — the mind stayed on God

A. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee."

B. The secret of keeping peace is holding the mind wholly on God. The wife does not set it on the husband, nor the husband on the wife: the mind is set on God.

C. It is not a momentary calm: it is a deep peace God sustains even when there are problems all around.

D. Problems come and go; peace stays permanently in the righteous. If the righteous lost his peace, it is because he buried it himself.

E. Do not let anyone take your peace: it is all in your hands, and you decide it.

F. "Whose mind is stayed on thee": when worry comes, the mind must be turned back to God — to who He is, to what He has promised and to what He has already done.

G. And what happens? We stop believing Him, because of how complicated we are: spiritual today and not tomorrow; praying today and a month without prayer.

H. "Because he trusteth in thee": peace is directly related to trust. The more we rest in God, the less room we leave for fear to rule.

I. Whom do you sit with to tell the same story? Leave that, it does harm. Tell things to God, not to another mortal.

J. You are ruled by whomever you let rule you. And each one's conflict is his own: what backs you and goes up to heaven is prayer, and the prayer of the righteous availeth much.

VII. Colossians 3:15 — let peace rule

A. "And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful."

B. Paul teaches that the peace of God must not only be in us: it must rule us.

C. Otherwise one is unstable in character: "he did not look at me," "he did not laugh with me." To the one who has God's peace it makes no difference whether the other laughs. "Mine is to smile."

D. "To rule" conveys directing, deciding, having the last word: when fear, worry or conflict comes, let the peace of Christ have the last word.

E. "In your hearts": that is where God wants to work, because there are the deceits, the silences, what we hide and what we contrive. There is the whole truth of the human being.

F. We may be surrounded by a thousand problems and have a heart at peace. What does it matter? For in the heart peace must be.

G. That peace which makes you smile; which makes you feel mercy and compassion when you see someone; which makes you first to pick up what another dropped; which lets you sleep in peace.

H. "In one body": that peace must show also in our relationship with others. The church is called to live in unity, in love and in reconciliation.

I. "And be ye thankful": gratitude protects and guards the heart, for the heart is a danger. When we remember what God has done, our attention stops fixing only on the problem.

VIII. Psalm 29:11 — strength and peace

A. "The LORD will give strength unto his people; the LORD will bless his people with peace." Two great promises: strength and peace.

B. "The LORD will give strength unto his people": they pray for the sick and the sick are healed; they cast out demons and the demons must go.

C. Doing good is done because it flows, not because it is an obligation nor because people say so.

D. God not only accompanies us in the trials: He gives strength to pass through them. When our strength runs out, we can depend on His.

E. "The LORD will bless his people with peace": peace is presented as a blessing of God, and does not depend on the problems disappearing. We have it because we know who is with us.

F. God gives strength to cross the storms, and peace while we walk through them.

IX. Closing

A. Learn of God by means of the word: the day the church learns it is the day it will be filled with thirst for it.

B. Today the Bible is not opened at home: there is much talking, much laughing, much eating, but the book is left void by not opening it, not reading it, not loving it and not doing the service it commands.

C. In it is the truth, because the more one reads it, the more one learns.

D. We are free the day we desire with all our heart to do what belongs to us on earth. It is not that we were born and we die: one must die to oneself and be schooled by the Holy Scriptures.

E. The kingdom we know is Christ's, not our own. To be free one must love the Scriptures and savor all they hold for our existence.