By Receiving Peace That Comes from God

When you see this sign … ✌ (2 finger peace sign held up)…what does this represent?

• Peace right…the interesting thing is that in the bible the world for peace…Shalom has a much richer meaning than just the opposite of War…we often think about peace as the absence of conflict….

How many times have your kids been fighting and you say to yourself I just want a little…peace and quiet…the peace of God is more than just a relaxing Saturday morning.

…you see, the Peace of God is something much greater than just a lack of conflict. It really involves the positive blessings and stability of being in a right relationship with God.

Consider a passage in Numbers 6 that I am sure many of you have heard before.

Numbers 6:24–26 — 24 The Lord bless you, and keep you; 25 The Lord make His face shine on you, And be gracious to you; 26 The Lord lift up His countenance on you, And give you peace.’

What is interesting about this passage is that it comes right after the instructions of the nazarite Vow, where an Israelite can in the OT can dedicate himself to the Lord in a special way.

The idea here about the Lord giving His people peace…is that they are in a special secure relationship with Him….The Lord will bless them and keep them, the Lord’s face will shine upon them, The Lord will be gracious to them and look upon them….

…that is where the peace comes from…from the Lord Himself being among them…not just the lack of conflict…because as you know, the Lord tasked the Israelites with conflict, of driving out nations that were opposed to the creator God of the universe.

In fact…Psalm 29 says….

Psalm 29:11 — 11 The Lord will give strength to His people; The Lord will bless His people with peace.

Psalm 29 if you read it is all about God’s people worshipping Him, and considering his power and glory and majesty and what God can do…and Who He is…

...it is all about Him, and How we have peace by relating to Him properly and worshipping Him….

…and it reminds us that He is the only one strong enough to truly provide lasting peace and joy….but He does not do that by removing all conflict….

…He does that by revealing truth about Who he is and His plan for us, so that we have peace based on our relationship with Him….We have peace knowing He is on control….and we can have peace because We know and love and trust Him….

2 Peter says….

2 Peter 1:2 — 2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord;

So…We all want peace…Most people don’t enjoy conflict and turmoil….and we all want to know that things are as they should be and there is a solid foundation, esp. relationally…and the Lord is seeking to provide us with a peace that that enables us to endure the conflict and turmoil in this world…

If we are to enjoy life in His name….well, the Peace of God that surpasses understanding, is a big part of enjoying our relationships with him….

And so today as we continue our annual them of Enjoying life in his name…

• We are talking about enjoying The peace of God that comes from knowing God, and trusting the plan He has revealed….

• …the plan included trials and suffering, and uncertainty, but also, salvation, blessing and honor…

• …and because of His plan… we can have peace that comes from Him…even in a world that is often marked by conflict, worry and fear.

So today we are Enjoying Life In His Name by receiving peace that comes from God

With that in mind please turn in your bibles to John 16:16-33…that is on Page 86 in the chair under the seat in front of you.

• Read John 16:16-33

This peace is all about being in a right relationship…it does not mean everything is going perfect, or that you know everything that is going to happen, or that you never have any fear…

• …but that you have a relationship with God that impacts how you view life so that you have the peace of Christ.

When you are abiding in Christ, and you have the peace of Christ…there is fruit…there is change that is not based on your circumstances,

• but it is based on Christ…trusting Him, and trusting God’s plan…even if it involved hardship and suffering…

So today we are going to look at….

3 Changes that result from trusting God’s Plan.

When you don’t know what is going to happen, or you think things are going to turn out badly…there can often be sorrow….but when we trust who God is and what he is planning our….

Sorrow is changed to joy (v16-24)

Now this is a process, and it is not always clear or easy going from sorrow to Joy, even if we know what is coming…because we see from the text that…

God’s plan may seem confusing at first. (v16-19)

John 16:16–19 — 16 “A little while, and you will no longer see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.” 17 Some of His disciples then said to one another, “What is this thing He is telling us, ‘A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me’; and, ‘because I go to the Father’?” 18 So they were saying, “What is this that He says, ‘A little while’? We do not know what He is talking about.” 19 Jesus knew that they wished to question Him, and He said to them, “Are you deliberating together about this, that I said, ‘A little while, and you will not see Me, and again a little while, and you will see Me’?

Can you imagine telling your kids…hey I am going to leave for a bit, you won’t see me, and then I’m going to leave for a bit and then later you will see me….do you think your kids would have questions?

• Where are you going, when are you coming back, why are you going, why are you telling me your leaving twice if you haven’t left yet…who is going to watch me….what’s for dinner?

Jesus has already alluded to this in chapter 7:33, and 12:35…that he is only here a little while longer.

Commentators have various views on exactly what he is talking about…

• is he talking about the time before his death, and then the time after his resurrection before he ascends….

• …or is he talking about the time after His resurrection but before the Spirit is poured out at the birth of the church, the body of Christ…

• or is talking about His return at the end of the age….

• most agree that his death is imminent…and in a little while they will not see Jesus as he is going to the cross, and will be buried…but they will see him again…he is going to rise again 3 days later.

The disciples are confused…

What is clear is Jesus is not going to be with them…and that is the basis of their sorrow, their grief, and it is confusing exactly what that is going to look like going forward.

[app] - Has anything happened in your life…where you were confused with what God was up to and it was difficult and even sad…

• you sought counsel, and you prayed and you went to God’s word…

• but you still were just perplexed and even sorrowful…

• and you had to wait, and seek understanding patiently over time…

that is exactly what the disciples are going through in this text…

So they have to look beyond wanting to understand every detail, and exactly how it is going to work, and what they might lose…they have to consider what God is doing….you see…

God’s plan may bring sadness until you consider the result. (v20-22)

John 16:20–22 — 20 “Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy. 21 “Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world. 22 “Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.

Jesus is saying, you are going to weep and lament….that is why it seems the first little while is talking about the time before his death and burial.

• In fact during this time, the world will rejoice…that they have gotten rid of the rabble rouser, who was making life with Rome even more difficult.

• So Jesus indicates there is going to be a time of grief…but that grief will be turned to joy…

Jesus uses a parable of childbirth to describe what the disciples experience is going to be like…their pain is going to turn into Joy…

• The point is that the same event, brings both pain and joy….the labor, the birth….brings the pain and the blessing…new life of a Child.

This passage points us back to another passage in the OT that talks about birth pains…

Isaiah 26:16–21 — 16 O Lord, they sought You in distress; They could only whisper a prayer, Your chastening was upon them. 17 As the pregnant woman approaches the time to give birth, She writhes and cries out in her labor pains, Thus were we before You, O Lord. 18 We were pregnant, we writhed in labor, We gave birth, as it seems, only to wind. We could not accomplish deliverance for the earth, Nor were inhabitants of the world born. 19 Your dead will live; Their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, For your dew is as the dew of the dawn, And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits. 20 Come, my people, enter into your rooms And close your doors behind you; Hide for a little while Until indignation runs its course. 21 For behold, the Lord is about to come out from His place To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; And the earth will reveal her bloodshed And will no longer cover her slain.

There is a resurrection on the horizon…for Jesus and for mankind…

You see Mankind, with our labor, cannot bring about deliverance or salvation, or new life…

• but the Lord, Jesus, our Messiah, can go through the birth pains, can go through death itself and overcome and produce life…

• …so Jesus is preparing his disciples for the pain…but he wants them to consider the joy that is to come.

You see the cross is like the birth process….the cross is the basis for why the disciples are weeping

• …but the cross is also going to produce our forgiveness, our peace with God, and it will give way to the Lord’s resurrection..

• indicating he conquered death…and provides new life….the dead will rise.

Jesus said, I will see you again….and even though he is leaving again…we are going to have a joy that can never be taken away.

• What Jesus accomplished on the cross, is our hope of heaven…

• the place Jesus went to prepare for us…can never be taken away, as we are his sheep, and no one can snatch us out of His hand…and thus no one can take our Joy.

[Gospel] - If you don’t have a joy that can never be taken away, if you have never trusted Jesus as your Lord and savior.

• The first step, is to admit your sin…admit that you needed someone to go through the pain and suffering and death in your place…

• and then accept and trust in the provision of Christ, so that you can be at peace with God…

• so you can be in a right relationship with God…and then have eternal Joy that can never be taken way….

The cross is the basis of our new life in Christ…

• …and so the Labor pains give way to what the Messiah has done…making a way for us to have new life… eternal life.

That is Christ’s peace…that someone can take my life…but they can never take my joy….

• the Peace the world offers is like a security that you can never really truly rely on...I may have “peace” in that I have a security system, or I have a really good crash test rated car…

• ….but I will never have peace that I will be eternally safe from an intruder or an accident……

• the Peace of God transcends my circumstances…so that even if I lose my life…I have peace that my eternal life is secure, and hidden with God in Christ….

• ….because of the pain and wrath my savior took for me at the cross…and because of the Holy Spirit, the comforter that is going to be with me, and seal me until the final day of redemption.

We must wrestle with the fact that Christ’s peace looks different than the worlds peace…

• it is better, but it has an eternal focus rather than simply an earthly focus…

• ….and yet it is to impact how we live on the earth for the Glory of the Lord…

• …so that we are even willing to lay down our lives…

Now the disciples have just barely come to terms with Jesus dying…and they are utterly confused when He alludes to what happens after that…you see…

God’s plan may seem impossible to comprehend at the moment. (v23-24)

John 16:23–24 — 23 “In that day you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you. 24 “Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.

For the disciples who have lived with Jesus, walked, ate with him, done life with him from miracles, to clearing out the temple….

• the idea where they would not be able to just go an ask him a question is a pretty big change.

But they are to now ask for things in Jesus name…

• a name in the ancient near east often represented the nature of something….

• when we ask something in Jesus name, we are asking on the basis of all that is true about Christ…

The Holy Spirit is going to guide them into all truth….

• and They are going to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus…

• and so they will be able to ask in the name of Jesus…on the basis of their relationship…before this they did not ask in Jesus name,…

• ….they don’t totally understand it now, but going forward, what Jesus does on the cross is going to define who they are, how they stand before the father, how they pray to the father, and ultimately how they have joy.

All of this seems impossible, but it is the peace that surpasses understanding…because it is not based on all that you can understand, but it is based on trusting Gods plan of the Messiah…

…and so when we are focusing on God’s Messiah and God’s plan…the second thing that changes is…

Doubt is changed to belief (v25-30)

Make no mistake that the disciples trust Jesus as the Messiah, but struggle with trusting God’s plan for the Messiah to be killed.

• There is doubt, there is fear, there is worry…

• …doubting Thomas is a great example of the reality that followers of Christ still struggle with doubt…and so focusing on what God says about His love for us is key…because….

God’s love for us is clearly demonstrated in His plan of redemption (v25-28)

Notice that Jesus admits again that this is confusing, but an hour is coming when things will be made more clear.

John 16:25–28 — 25 “These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; an hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but will tell you plainly of the Father. 26 “In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf; 27 for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father. 28 “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father.”

After the cross Jesus appeared to his disciples and explained a great number of things…

• he appear to some of them on the Road to Emmaus, and he explained to them starting with Moses and the prophets concerning himself in all the scriptures…

• he opened their minds to understand the scriptures….

He did this for an extended period of time as we read in Acts….

Acts 1:1–3 — 1 The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when He was taken up to heaven, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen. 3 To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.

The point is that we will learn and grow along the way as we trust what the Lord has revealed…

• throughout scripture God chooses to reveal Himself more and more clearly over time,

• …and it was only after the cross and after the Lord directed them back to scripture did they grow in their trust of God’s plan for the Messiah to be crucified and buried and risen.

Now they are to view everything through the cross, so a lot is changing, but a lot has not changed…

• namely the Fathers love…

• because Jesus came from the father…

• and so even now we ask everything in Jesus name, and Jesus is our mediator,…

• ….that does not change the fact of the Fathers love for us…

• …we simply need to trust the display of the Fathers love in sending the son.

So it is not like Jesus goes to the Father asking Him to love us…He already loves us, and demonstrated that by his plan to send His son to die on the cross for our sins….

So many people question if God truly loves them, and so many people think they have to earn Gods love…but God’s love was demonstrated when we were His enemies…He chose in Love to send His son….that was His plan…

When you think about God’s plan, you must seek to focus on the truth that God loves you,

• even if his plan is initially confusing, you don’t understand it, and it seems like it is not working at first…that is what the disciples are working through…

• You see…over time and as we go back to His word, and because of the indwelling Holy Spirit….

• The love of the Father has for us, simply becomes overwhelming.

because

God’s plan has been clearly revealed (v29-30)

John 16:29–30 — 29 His disciples said, “Lo, now You are speaking plainly and are not using a figure of speech. 30 “Now we know that You know all things, and have no need for anyone to question You; by this we believe that You came from God.”

This is an interesting section as the disciples are chomping at the bit…and they say…oh now you are being more clear….

Jesus just provided a really great simple summary of the whole book of John…when he said “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father.”

What is clear is that they believe Jesus is from the Father, He is the Messiah…

But as they say… they don’t know what they don’t know…

• they are not going to be able to see things clearly until after the cross, burial and resurrection when Jesus reveals Himself to them for 40 days, and until the Holy Spirit comes upon them to guide them into all truth…

So they sort of jump the gun and Jesus calls them on it, saying….now you believe?…

• but the idea is clear…as Jesus revels more and more of God’s plan…the proper response is to trust the words of the Lord…

• …to trust what God reveals…even through trials and difficulties…

You see for the disciples, there are about to go through a great deal of fear, and turmoil…

• and what they really believe is going to be tested, refined, and their belief in God’s plan will ultimately grow.

[app] - How about you…has the Lord been refining and deepening your faith this year…

• have you been going back to His word, and growing in the grace and peace of the knowledge of who Jesus is ..

• …and How God’s plan is to exalt Christ name above every other name….

• are you focusing your energies, your time, your talents on making His name known to those who are lost?

If you are doing that, trusting God’s plan and participating in God’s plan, than the first change we can expect is that…

Fear is changed to Courage (v31-33)

because

God’s peace is offered even in the midst of our confusion. (v31-32)

John 16:31–32 — 31 Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? 32 “Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.

Jesus demonstrates what the peace that He provides looks like…even though everyone deserts Him, the relationship with the Father is the source of peace. Jesus says he is not alone even though everyone is scattered…

Even though the disciples say they believe, they are going to falter, they are going to scatter…and Jesus knows this, and points it out to them, and again direct them back to the Father….He is the only true source of peace…not other people…but the Father.

Specifically….

God’s sovereignty over all results in our ultimate peace. (v33)

John 16:33 — 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.”

Notice how Jesus says “in me” you have peace….

• it is not peace in the ideal circumstances…

• in a relaxing Sunday….

• in just the absence of conflict….

• in the hope that everyone can just get along for the sake of getting along….

• it is peace that is found in Him.

In fact, he talks about His peace, and right after that he says there will be tribulations…

• God’s peace is not very powerful, if it cannot be accessible in the midst of tribulation…

• God’s peace is not the absence of tribulation, it is a focus on the sovereign plan of God in the tribulation.

That is where our courage comes from…

• a focus on what God has already done in Christ, and what God is doing right now drawing a broken world to Christ….

• …and we have peace as we trust and participate in God wonderful plan of redemption.

So what are some of the takeaways for you and me

1. Do not view God’s peace as the absence of trials in your life…view God’s peace as available to you in Christ in the midst of tribulations.

1. Trusting God’s plan even though it involves suffering is a key aspect of peace…

1. When we do that our sorrow can change to joy, our doubt to belief and our fear to courage.

1. God’s plan is to draw people to Christ though you…

1. God’s plan is to confirm you to become more like Christ…

1. there are going to be lots of times you don’t know how that is all going to work out and it may be confusing, and there may be lots of unknowns that are scary…

1. you must fix your eyes on Christ because that is where Peace, blessing, assurance, and our purpose is found…

1. and let that be the basis of your peace….

1. so that you can exalt the prince of peace to a world desperately in need of a savior.