Christ's Legacy of Peace — Bob Jennings

Christ’s Peace in the Upper Room Discourse

We looked at seven different aspects of the Holy Spirit as a teacher. You know, it says in verse 26, He will teach you all things. And so we looked at those different points throughout these chapters, these three chapters.

And, but now we come to verse 27. I couldn't put this on, I suppose. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives, do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.

Anyone here memorize that verse already? Seth has. Yeah, it's worthy, isn't it? I mean, when you really, really get to looking at it, this is a very exceeding, precious, great promise and command. Peace I leave with you.

My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives, do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled. Do not let it be fearful. And it sure can happen, can't it? A thousand opportunities for trouble and fear.

That one song, I guess I first heard it not long after it was converted. Troublesome times are here, filling our hearts with fear. Verse 27, it has to do with Christ's legacy of peace. My peace I give to you.

We have also a similar verse in this same Upper Room Discourse, in chapter 16, verse 33. These things I have spoken to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world.

Another similarity, not on peace, but in our text here, in 14 .27, he refers to my peace, but notice in 15 .9, it refers to my love. And then in 15 .10, my love. And then in 15 .11, my joy. The first three qualities that are mentioned as the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, and peace.

The Greek word there is Ireine, from which we have the name Irene. But it's such a great blessing to have peace, and so necessary to the human heart. I mean, this anxiety, it is an awful thing. Fear and trouble.

It's an awful thing. I mean, it would be probably surprising how many in our community are living on tranquilizers. I mean, we just forget what the Lord has done for us in such a substantial measure. I would like to point out three things here.

A Donated Peace as Christ’s Legacy

First of all, a donated peace. And secondly, a double peace. And third, a different peace. A donated peace, for it says peace I leave with you. And a double peace, for it's twice mentioned here. And then a different peace, for it says not as the world gives.

So first, a donated peace. I'm underlining these words. Peace I leave with you. Just as though it were some legacy, some inheritance that the Lord was passing on. Matthew Henry says, the Lord Jesus bequeathed His soul to His Father, Heavenly Father.

Into Your hands I commit my spirit. He left His body to Joseph of Arimathea. His clothes fell to the soldiers. To His mother He left to the care of John. But what should He leave to His poor disciples who had left all for Him?

Silver and gold He had none. But He left them what was far better, His peace. Peace I leave with you. It's stated as a will, a legacy. When my mother was passing away, she left to Terry her wedding ring and silverware that was special.

The Lord did not say here, I'm leaving you a house or lands or a car or friends or even good health. Kevin Willingham, the brother down there in Texas, they are able to sometimes attend Max Church. He said he has to lift his wife Sherry about 70 times every day.

So, the Lord did not say, I'm leaving you good health. It's ironic that sometimes those things can do us more harm than good, can clog up the arteries of our spiritual life and weigh us down. But a far greater blessing He left, and that is peace.

Peace of conscience arising from peace with God because of pardoned sin, because of reconciliation through His blood with our holy God. He left us peace. A far greater blessing. And it's so rare and it's so special.

You know, some parent might leave behind some arrowhead collection, but there's more like it and better. Or some other worldly thing, but there's others like it and better. But here He left us peace. And there's no other source for this virtue.

No other source in the world. You know, it's like Joseph down there in Egypt. He was the designated one to dispense the wheat and the corn. And here, so also for the Lord Jesus. He's the only one that can give it out.

No other source. It says in Isaiah, there is no peace for the wicked. There's only one way He can find any peace. Really. Any real peace. And that's through Christ. From God. There's no peace for the sinner.

No place He can find it. Anything He does find is just superficial and temporary. Short-lived and really false. And it says regarding the non-Christian, the way of peace they have not known. Isn't that a sad thing?

So, a donated peace we're talking about here. What a gift. And thinking of the emphasis on peace in the Bible, have you noticed I've pointed this out before that seven times it says in the New Testament that God has the God of peace.

One time it's the Lord of peace. Now, that's not any other such designation. That's the main way that God has identified Himself. Not only the God of peace. You know, seven times. It is a great theme of the Bible.

Just listen to some of it. Just enjoy the Scripture here as I read a few. In Psalm 4, I will both lay Me down in peace and sleep. Psalm 29, The Lord will bless His people with peace. Psalm 34, Seek peace and pursue it.

Psalm 37, The meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in abundance of peace. Psalm 37, Mark the perfect man. Behold the upright. For the end of that man is peace. Psalm 72, The mountains shall bring peace to the people.

Psalm 85, I will hear what the Lord will speak. He will speak peace to His people and to His saints. But let us not turn away. The great law will offend them. Psalm 147, He makes peace in your borders.

Psalm 3, Length of days and peace they will add to you. Proverbs 12, But to the consulars of peace is joy. Isaiah 9, One of the Lord's names is what? Prince of Peace. Isaiah 26, You will keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because He trusts in Thee.

Isaiah 45, I make peace and I create evil. Isaiah 52, How beautiful on the mountains are those who bring good tidings and publish peace. Isaiah 54, Great shall be the peace of Thy children. Luke 1, He will guide our feet in the way of peace.

Luke 2, Now, Lord, let Your servant depart in peace. In Luke 19, Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. In Romans 2, Glory and honor and peace to all those who work good. In Romans 8, It says to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is what?

Life and peace. To be spiritually minded is life and peace. Romans 14, The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Romans 14, Seek peace. What makes peace for all men?

In Galatians, it says, again, it's in the list of the fruit of the Spirit. In Ephesians 2, He is our peace. In chapter 4, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Ephesians 6, Having your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

In Colossians, it says, Let the peace of Christ rule. Act as an arbiter in your heart. In 2 Peter, it says, Be diligent that you may be found by Him in peace, blameless and without spot. Hebrews 12, Follow peace with all men and holiness.

2 Timothy 2 .22, it says, Free youthful lusts, but follow righteousness and faith and love and peace with all those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. So, what an emphasis there is on this matter of peace.

It's a great need for the human heart. And the Lord says, Peace, I leave with you. A donated peace. A given peace. A gift of peace. A legacy of peace. This peace I'm leaving behind because of what I'm accomplishing on the cross.

Objective and Subjective Peace for the Christian

Now here, I'm pointing out a double peace. Secondly, a double peace. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. A .W. Pink makes a point of this. I probably wouldn't have caught it myself, but I think he's probably right.

I'm not totally sure that this verse teaches this, but I know that it's nevertheless taught in the Bible. And that is the two aspects of peace for the Christian. The first is objective, and the second is subjective.

The first has to do with the Lord's death for us. The second has to do with His life in us. The first has to do with faith in the blood, and the second has to do with faith in or obedience to the Spirit.

The first is verses like Romans 5, verse 1. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God to our Lord Jesus Christ. The second has to do with verses like Philippians 4, verse 8, where it says, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.

Let your requests be made known unto God. And the what? The peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. So the first really, that is the peace with God.

The second is the peace of God. The first is peace I leave with you. The second, my peace I give unto you. It seems like at least the second phrase has to do with the peace of Christ Himself or the peace of God because of the following phrase, Don't let your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful, in contrast to peace.

And so the first is like Colossians 1, verse 20. It says He made peace through the blood of His cross. That is the relationship between God and men because the Lord Jesus died to pay that sin debt. When He died on the cross, He accomplished peace.

He accomplished redemption. He accomplished that peace. It says in Isaiah 53, the chastisement of our peace was on Him. You know, if a son has done something, has some disobedience, some transgression, there's going to be no peace until there's some chastisement.

But to put it in the legal terms, if there's some transgression, a broken speed limit or whatever, breaking the speed law, why, there's no peace with the law until that fine, that penalty is paid. And so the Lord died and paid our sin debt there on Calvary's cross.

And so by that peace, peace through the blood of His cross. Colossians 1, verse 20. But now the second is the application of it. My peace I give unto you. It's an application of the first beginning at conversion.

And this peace has to do more with our walk. It has to do with our conduct. It has to do with our relationship with Him, our daily experience with the Lord Himself. And again, it has to do with prayer.

Like the verse I just quoted, Philippians 4, verse 8. Be anxious in contrast to peace. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.

And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your heart and mind in peace, you see, through our Lord Jesus Christ. It has to do with prayer. Keeping prayed up. It has to do with reading.

Psalm 119. Great peace have those who love by law, and nothing shall offend them. It has to do with staying read up. It has to do with believing the truth. In Romans 15, verse 4, it says, Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.

A lot of our peace is directly proportional to how much we are going to really believe, really trust God in this certain circumstance. And Terri admonished me in bed the other night last week. My heart became anxious.

It became troubled and fearful of this and this situation regarding the addition on her house. And she wisely, rightly admonished me, are you going to believe God or not? And I mean, that's what it comes down to.

The bottom line is am I really going to trust God to somehow, some way, get us through it? And it has to do with our obedience. This peace, this second phrase. It has to do with our obedience. Righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

It's tied in with righteousness. You see, in Isaiah 48, oh, that you had hearkened to My commandments, then would your peace have been like a river and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. So, it's in that sense tied in to our obedience.

How well we do obey God. You disobey the Lord and you're going to find some diminishing of your peace. It has to do with submission. The songwriter says perfect submission. All is at rest. I and my Savior am happy and blessed.

George Whitefield, you know, tells time and again crossing the ocean. He crossed the Atlantic 13 times or 11 times. And different times the ship was ready to go down. It was going to be the end of his life.

He would go down to the bottom of the ship and cry out to God and again roll all of his life and his ministry and everything on the Lord. And he said, my peace returned. It has to do with sowing to the Spirit.

Sowing to the Spirit. And then this fruit of the Spirit called peace is there. So, a donated peace. Peace I leave with you. But a double peace. It speaks of this peace. I think it's speaking of the peace that He accomplished on the cross, but then also the peace that is the application of that redemption.

My peace I give unto you. But it's a different peace. Thirdly, it is a different peace. He says it's not like the world gives. Not like the world gives. Different in nature. For the peace that He gives is deep, not superficial.

It goes way to the heart. The peace that the Lord gives is spiritual, not external. Not like the world gives which is based on things and circumstances and people. It's not like the world gives in that it's eternal and not temporary.

I was talking with my aunt the other night and my uncle who has now passed on, he was a great agate collector. And he would collect those agates, had an eye for them, could see them when nobody else did.

And he'd cut them and polish them up. He had a tumbling deal down in the basement. And boy, he had quite a collection. And I was talking with my aunt the other day and that agate collection came up. And I said, whatever happened to that?

And she said, well, we don't know. It disappeared. You just can't believe it, you know. One of His prized things that He would have wanted passed on to His children and it evaporated. And so much for what the world gives, how the world gives.

It's so temporal. Not as the world gives. I'm giving you a piece. Not like that. It's going to stay. It's real. It's eternal. And abundant, not limited. Open your mouth wide and I'll fill it. Beyond all that we ask or think.

These are the phrases when it comes to dealing with the Lord. Supernatural, not natural like the world gives. Supernatural. The peace of God that passes what? All understanding. It's supernatural. It can't be explained.

You cannot explain it. How the Covenanters and others like them down to the history of the church have walked to the gallows with such joy and peace and boasting in the Lord and telling the worldlings, do your worst.

Bring it on. It's just there's no natural explanation for that kind of peace. And it's real. It's not false. You know, that was one complaint Jeremiah had against those prophets in his day. They promised peace, peace, when there is no peace.

You've healed the hurt of my daughter slightly saying peace, peace, when there is no peace. They shouldn't have peace. They should not have peace. The peace they have is a false peace. And so it is for the world's peace.

I mean, they've got their League of Nations, they've got their covenants, their agreements, their peace talks and so on and on, and it is a false peace. It will not last. It will not hold. It will not stick.

It will not make a bit of difference. A real peace. Not like the world gives. But not only that, but it's different in its source. Different in its source. This peace, He says it's My peace. Isn't that something?

You know, you don't get these qualities, these virtues apart from the Lord Himself. It's part of Him. It's His peace. He doesn't give it away. I mean, you get Him. It's His peace. So you just think, dear brother and sister, whatever measure of peace you have, talking about an experiential peace here, whatever measure you have, that's Christ in your heart.

He has come and He is living in your heart and He is giving you this wonderful, wonderful treasure called peace. This rare jewel of contentment. It's His peace. And you think about it, here in John 12, the Lord said, now is My soul troubled.

And in Mark 14, He says, I'm despairing. You know, troubled even to the point of death. And that is what the Lord was going through in this stage of His life and ministry. Now is My soul troubled. Troubled to the point of death.

And yet, He's talking about leaving behind peace. I still have peace and I'm leaving it behind. I'm giving it to you. In other words, what I'm saying is think of the Lord. The troubles that He had, the deep trouble that the Lord was feeling right now, it still was not deeper than the peace that He had.

And that's the peace that He gives us. Whatever troubles we're facing, you know that there is a peace that goes yet deeper than that trouble. That's the kind of peace that He communicates to His people.

Not like the world gives. Here's Peter. Look at Peter in Acts 12. They were getting ready to execute Him on the next morning. And we find Him fallen asleep. My peace I give to you. And here's Paul and Silas.

And there they are whipped. Tortured. In prison. In the inner prison. At midnight. In chains. In bonds. Stalks. And yet we find them singing high praises of God. I mean, I say these things and I wonder where am I really at?

But I don't care. It's still there and some got it. John Wesley. I wanted to look that story up. One time, I remember reading that they apprehended him and they dragged him through the street behind a horse.

Dragged him on the ground. Just pulling him like a log. And when it was over, I forget how he said it. It was only he could say it. My spirit wasn't ruffled at all. Just business as usual. Well, in conclusion, we ought to ask ourselves, do we have this peace with God?

Peace with God Through Justification and Faith

And do we have the peace of God? Are we at peace with God through the cross? Have we put our trust, our faith in Him and the finished work of Christ on Calvary? You remember that story of Brother Boxing of India?

He was on a train going somewhere and he was witnessing to this fellow. I don't know if it was a Hindu or Muslim. One of the two. And this fellow, he said, I have peace. A little while later, Brother Boxing would share something else.

I have peace. And so, after a while, while they went to bed, Brother Boxing, he prayed for this fellow and in the middle of the night, he felt somebody pulling on his shirt sleeve. And this guy was up there and whispered in his ear, I have no peace.

And he led him to Christ. Must believe God, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God. Lord, I am trusting that You died to pay my sin debt and that is enough and that is all. Thus, we have peace with God.

It requires faith. It requires a thorough repentance. Some years ago, one of our relatives called and he says, Bob, I'm troubled about my salvation. And I began to pry. I began to probe. I began to inquire.

What about this? Are you willing to give this up and this up? But it came to a point where it was obvious he did not want to go any deeper. That was enough. I touched a sore spot and he wasn't going to go through.

And cut the conversation off. And some time later, I saw him at a reunion and I said, how did it work out? Well, he said, I talked to my pastor. We got it all worked out. And I knew good and well, peace, peace, when there is no peace.

That man did not repent deep enough. He didn't go through. He didn't come clean. And you cannot find peace with God that way. The Lord said to Jerusalem, if you'd known in this your day the things which belong to your peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes.

Guarding the Peace of God Amid Spiritual Trials

But for the believer, there never can be an interruption with our peace with God. The peace of God, that can be disturbed, yes, up and down. And Spurgeon points out some things. Well, due to attacks of the devil, here we find the Apostle Paul saying, I'm burdened excessively beyond measure, despairing even of life.

And in another place, he says, I could find no rest for my spirit. Now that's the Apostle Paul. So there are things like that that can try our peace and cause us to be troubled and fearful like the Lord is saying right here.

Also, our peace, the peace of Christ, it can be disturbed due to ignorance. Due to ignorance. I mean, on this thing that was troubling me that night, one of the things that was troubling me was the wiring.

There was wiring going right across at this level and we're going to put a door through there. And what do we do? How can we ever deal with that? And so on. Well, the next morning, I guess it was Kenny pointed out, well, maybe these wires up here, most of these wires can just be lifted up a bit and it'll be no problem.

And so, a lot of our fears are based on ignorance. And I mean, here's a fellow that doesn't believe in the sovereignty of God. And doesn't realize, doesn't know, doesn't believe that God is sovereign.

Well, he's left wide open to many troubles and many fears. I mean, you take it to a logical conclusion and he's just a victim of circumstances. And got the weight of the world resting on his shoulders.

I mean, logically, he ought to go crazy. There's no place, no rock to stand on. And then sin, the approach of sin disturbs our peace. Like the Puritan says, if you want peace, well, you've got to make war against sin.

As stained from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Unbelief, I formerly pointed out, unbelief will disturb our peace. Joy and peace in believing. We must remember the eternal realities are ours and can never be taken away.

Spurgeon uses this parable. He said if you were given a thousand dollar bill and you had to get home while you had to walk through the woods and you got to the other end of the woods and you found you'd lost your handkerchief, but you put your hand in the other pocket and found the thousand dollar bill was still there, you wouldn't be much troubled.

It's because you lost your handkerchief. And so we must remember as believers the big things, the important things are ours and are so secure. Here's a fellow that he shipwrecked, but he's saved. And what would you think if he set up an awful lament on the shore because he'd lost his hat?

You'd say, you nut! Sure, you lost your hat, but you've been saved. Why are you weeping over that? You ought to be rejoicing. And so here we are. The big matters of life are ours and are secure in Christ.

We've not lost our union with Him, our justifying righteousness, our interest in eternal joys, our hope of Heaven, the sanctifying power of the Spirit. The Lord's in favor of our having more peace. Right?

My peace I give to you. I leave it with you. I want you to have this. And so we can pursue peace with that confidence. Pursue righteousness, love, faith, peace. Pursue it. Seek peace and pursue it. Spurgeon says a believer can have two heavens if he wants.

One here below and the other one above. One now and one then.