Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Milford

According to John 14:27 [NLTse]
“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.”

Sermon – “What’s Keeping You From God?”
The Bible shows us that after His resurrection from the dead that Jesus appeared on and off to His disciples during a period of forty days. On that fortieth day (the anniversary of which was this past Thursday) Jesus was lifted up while His disciples were watching Him, lifted up into the sky towards space until the disciples lost sight of Him because of clouds.

Again and again across His visits to the disciples after He was raised but before He had ascended Jesus greeted them saying, “Peace be with you.” Every time He first sees them He blesses them saying, “Peace be with you.” It wasn’t a greeting He’d used prior to His sacrifice and resurrection. But now it’s the only greeting He seems to use, and Paul and the other apostolic writers similarly bless their readers saying, “Peace be with you” or “Grace and peace to you” or “Grace, joy, and peace be with you”…

I was studying the Greek word used across the New Testament for “peace” – the word eirene – and saw that eirene may have been derived from the Greek verb eiro which means “to join”. And I started wondering what joining had to do with peace… What I came up with is, by Jesus saying, “Peace be with you,” that He was calling the disciples to join with Him, to be on His team, to no longer be at odds with Him. At the same time He was declaring to them that they were joined with Him, that they were on His team, that they were no longer at odds with Him: “Peace be with you.”

And if that’s correct, then all the good things that are a part of God’s shalom – Christ’s peace – all the health and wealth and acceptance and contentment and fulfillment and wholeness and joy … that all the gifts and blessings of God – His salvation – are ours only as a part of joining with Him and our living joined to Him and our daily and throughout each day awareness of living joined to God the Father through Christ our Savior by the working of the Holy Spirit.

Whether this is absolutely true in the word peace/eirene or not, the idea is surely true in Jesus’ teachings about the blessings that come from abiding in Him and having Him abide in us. When Jesus speaks of Himself as the vine and each of us as individual branches, He’s telling us that the Father’s blessings, abundance, guidance, supernatural influence and authority, love, comfort, provision, care, etc… are all contingent upon our living joined with Him, nurturing our friendship with Him, giving our best to our relationship with Him, and our awareness throughout each day of being joined, being friends, living in relationship with God.

This truth is proclaimed and experienced in our celebration of the Lord’s Supper, as well. Jesus isn’t looking to merely have us believe that He is the Savior of the world or to merely have us believe that the resurrection is true. After all, a person can believe all those things and still not give their hearts and lives to Him. No, Jesus wants us to eat Him, and drink Him: To taste Him and see that He is good; and that means He wants us to experience Him and to savor and treasure His place and presence in our lives. (That’s why the communion bread is always the very best bread! And why we don’t get the 10% juice grape juice but only the 100% juice kind! Jesus is the best and wants us to taste and see!)

The Lord tells us that if we love Him we’ll obey His commandments and that then He’ll send His Holy Spirit so that we’ll know Jesus and the Father with us forever! He’s not giving us His commandments to ruin our fun or to get those around us thinking we’re weird. He’s given us His commandments so that we can taste Him and see how good He is; so that we can experience how good life abiding in Him and Him abiding in us is; so that we can experience His peace – this kind of peace  that the world can’t give and that keeps a person from every being troubled or afraid ever again.

Would you like that, to never be troubled or afraid ever again? Then, “Peace be with you.” “Taste and see.” “Have faith and live by that faith.”

I used to think that Jesus saying, “Peace be with you,” or the apostles writing, “Grace and peace to you,” were a charge or a challenge to us to remember something: To remember that since Jesus went to the cross that now nothing exists to stand between us and God. I thought that remembering that truth gave us power and grounding in what Jesus has done and its impact on our lives. I used to think it was important knowledge to help live abundantly day by day. But it’s so much more than that!

Jesus has come and died and given us the Holy Spirit so that we might be joined with God. It’s not that He’s given us something to carry around in our heads so that we can try to remember and get our thinking right. (Though meditating on His truth can help us change our thinking and help us live our lives more based on the truth.) But I know now that Jesus’ peace is so much more than merely “right thinking”. He’s made us into something new. Before He brought us to believe, we were on our own, cut off, separate, independent, divorced from the things of God. But now Jesus is with us (by the Holy Spirit that He’s sent to us), and now we’re joined to Him, we’re a part of Him, we’re dependent on Him, and we’ve become married again to the things of God, and to God Himself!

So what’s keeping you from God? It’s surely not anything on God’s side of the relationship. He’s made a way, a living Way, more miraculous than any parting of the Red Sea. He’s given us His Word; He’s given us His Son; He’s given us the Holy Spirit. What’s keeping you from receiving? What’s keeping you from tasting and seeing – trying and experiencing – His goodness?
He’s given us His commandments; are you loving Him by living by them? He’s given us the Lord’s Supper; are you feeding on bread and juice or are you participating in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ? He’s given us worship; are you singing hymns and worship songs or are you thanking, praising, and offering yourselves to Him? He’s given us His Word; are you reading the Bible or are you listening to Him speak to you? He’s given you His love; are you looking for more or are you letting it fill your hearts and satisfy your souls?
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Come! Eat and drink. Love Him. Follow Him. Peace be with you!