Part II: True Peace
The bible speaks of peace primarily in two ways. It speaks of
inner or spiritual peace and external peace, peace between peoples
and nations.
Let's look first at spiritual peace. It may be counterintuitive,
but the scriptures teach that every human being is born with a
rebel heart, a heart at war with God, a heart dead to his love
and dead to his gospel but alive to disobedience and sin.
As Paul says in Ephesians
2:1-4 :
“As for you…”
and,
just so that you don't get confused, the “you” here is specifically
directed toward his 1st century readers but the truth or principle
he articulates applies to humanity in general,
”As
for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which
you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and
of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now
at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among
them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature
and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were
by nature objects of wrath .”
You were not born at peace with God but at war against him,
by nature. You followed ways of this world and of the ruler
of the kingdom of the air. That ruler, and I don't have the
time this morning to show you this, but that ruler is Lucifer.
When Adam and Eve turned from God and took the fruit, they put
themselves under his power. They exchanged one Master for another.
From that moment, human beings have been born followers of the
“ruler of the kingdom of the air.”
This is not usually a conscious thing. No one, or at least no
one that I have met, says, “I've decided to live my life for
Lucifer.” It's far more subtle. A life lived apart from, not
ruled by, Christ is a life ruled by Satan—such a life follows
his course, lives and wills under his mastery. Living for self
is living under Satan. Living for anything or anyone other than
Christ sets you under his thrall and in his path because in
so doing you do precisely what Satan himself has done, you ally
yourself with the cosmic rebellion against the Creator. There
really is no “middle ground.” There are no “centrists” spiritually
speaking. You're either committed to Christ or you're dead to
him and a follower of the evil one. In John chapter 8 Jesus,
speaking to the Pharisees but setting out a general principle,
says:
"If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came
from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he
sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you're
unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil,
and you want to carry out your father's desire…45Yet because
I tell the truth, you don't believe me!...If I am telling the
truth, why don't you believe me? He who belongs to God hears
what God says. The reason you don't hear is that you do not
belong to God." ( John
8:42-47 )
These, again, are words directed toward specific people,
the Pharisees in this case, but that carry general application.
Do you see the either/or? “If God were your father you'd love
me. You don't love me, you don't believe me, because God is
not your Father. You're father is the devil.”
How, by the way, can anyone in light of these words suggest
that Jesus was just a good teacher? What “good teacher” says
things like that? Either he's God or he's a diabolically arrogant
liar. The Buddha never said anything like this. The Dali Lama
doesn't, Mohamed didn't. Jesus doesn't let you pass him off
as just another holy man. There is no middle ground with Jesus.
You have to choose. Is he the divine Son of God or is he a liar?
If he's God, and he is, then you're either his follower or you
are, with Satan, at war against him.
And if you're in that latter category then the only possible
way to find “peace” is through unconditional surrender. “Therefore,”
Paul tells us in Romans
5:1 , “being justified by faith, we have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Jesus' blood sacrifice
on the cross makes it possible for there to be peace as it was
there that he bore the penalty for your rebellion. Your unconditional
surrender to and trust in Christ and in Christ's work, your
“faith”, makes the peace with God he won on the cross a reality
in your life. When you repent and surrender God puts away your
sin and applies or credits the benefits of the cross to your
account and comes to make his home in your heart.
But then, as you know, a new war begins. This new war, and Paul
describes it vividly in Romans
7 , isn't against God. You go to war against yourself. But
this time you have an infinitely powerful ally. The Spirit of
God living in you, from the moment he enters, begins an unceasing
campaign against your sinful desires and nature while, at the
same time, he gives birth to and nourishes new desires, a new
heart, a new nature. And, contrary to the way I often live and
perhaps you share this failure as well, you're not to be a passive
spectator in this battle. In fact the level of “peace” you experience
in your Christian life is, paradoxically, determined by the
zealousness with which you cooperate with the Spirit in his
“war” against your old nature.
And this is hard because as Alistair Begg says, “sin is fun.”
It is. It tastes good--at least going down--that's why it's
so tempting. But it rots your stomach. So in this life you'll
struggle against sin, you'll have divided desires. Because your
sin nature, though defeated, still exists, God's peace and his
Spirit, brings, casts, throws division in your heart. The division
will end one day, in heaven, when your old nature is finally
destroyed and God brings victory. But for now, in this life,
there is spiritual division, there is war, and make no mistake
that division was brought about by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Before that, you were united, you were one in spirit. You were
wholly, utterly implacably, the enemy of God. The war came to
your soul, to your heart, when you decided to quit the rebellion.
Now, having discussed spiritual peace let's turn to peace on
earth, peace in the world. There is, of course, only one ultimate
cause of war and that is sin. The world is at war against God
and because the world is at war against God, it is at war also
against itself. Listen to Psalm
2 :
“Why
do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings
of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together
against the LORD and against his Anointed One. ‘Let us break
their chains,' they say, ‘and throw off their fetters….'”
What
is the world after all? What are nations, if not large groups
of individuals personally dead to God, allied with the “spirit
of the air”, and at war with Heaven and with the Son? If everyone
born on earth is by nature born at war with God then Nations
are simply collections of individuals at war against God. The
sum is no greater than the whole of its parts. Away with patriotism
if it turns to idolatry. The inscription, “One nation under
God” is a fine purpose statement and I hope we keep it. But
do not think that it can stand as a proper and accurate description
so long as we slaughter our unborn children in the thousands.
In any case, the world is at war against God and without God
she wars against herself, nation against nation and peoples
against peoples.
Revelation
17 , the entire book actually, but especially revelation
17:14 tells us that the nations will be making war against God
and each other right up until the end. Simply stated, there
will be no peace on earth until Jesus Christ returns in power
and great glory. Even the best peace plan devised by the best
diplomats will ultimately fail because no human plan, no human
solution, can deal with the underlying problem of man's rebellion
against God. Only God can bring peace. And he will. Christ is
the Prince of Peace. But, as we saw with the peace that God
brings to the human heart, peace on earth comes only when the
rebellion is put down. And that means conflict; that means division.
When you surrendered to Christ, you gained peace with God. He
came to live in your heart. But that caused a division, a war,
within you. In the same way, when God came to the world in Jesus
Christ, the world rose against him. And it still does. So when
groups of people, former rebels, betray the rebellion and surrender
to Christ, they ultimately find themselves divided from, in
conflict with, in constant tension with, the world. This is
why the Church on earth is called the “Church militant.” And,
as many of you know, this conflict, this division, is not theoretical.
It is real. It is painful. It runs through homes, and through
families, and even through churches.
When Jesus says in verses 52-53 of our text ( Luke
12:49-53 ):
“From
now on there will be five in one family divided against each
other, three against two and two against three. 53They will
be divided, father against son and son against father, mother
against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law
against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."
He wasn't kidding. In fact, he was quoting from the prophet
Micah chapter 7. Micah
7 speaks of the conditions of the world prior to the coming
of the messiah to establish his kingdom. There will be, Micah
said, division because those who are at peace with God find
themselves at war with the world or, at least, find that the
world makes war on them. And in quoting from Micah, Jesus is
telling his listeners that that time of conflict and division
has come. This is why he goes on to criticize their lack of
discernment. They know how to read the weather---they know what
a red dawn means--but they cannot see the conflict and division
for what it is—a sign that the Kingdom has come and is coming
in and through Jesus Christ.
Do you wonder why some people, for no reason, feel uncomfortable
around you? Do you know why our decision to follow the Word
of God in this church has caused some to leave and not return?
Do you wonder why the unbelieving people in your own family
just can't understand you? Having surrendered to Christ you're
no longer at peace with a world that is at war with him. It's
the gospel. The Gospel brings division. People won't articulate
that. They'll never, or at least rarely, say, “I'm uncomfortable
with you because you're Christian.” They may not know why they're
uncomfortable. But they are. Those who submit to the Gospel
put themselves at enmity with the world and those who make peace
with the world make war against God.
“Don't you know,” says James, “that friendship
with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be
a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” ( James
4:4 )
Can you see now why Jesus said that he did not come to bring
peace on the earth? Can you see now how he can say, “I've come
to bring division”?
We shouldn't be surprised when this happens. So long as we're
not being obnoxious, there's no cause to be upset when we're
rejected or alienated or when people say all sorts of things
against us. As Peter says:
“12Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial
you are suffering, as though something strange were happening
to you. 13But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings
of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.
14If you're insulted because of the name of Christ, you are
blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.”
The fact is that when you come to faith in Jesus Christ, you
step out of the rebellion, you step out of the world, though
you are in the world, you are no longer of the world and the
world. You're at peace with God but because you are at peace
with God you're a source of division and discord in a world
in rebellion against him.
But what of Peace? If all attempts at world peace will fail,
if in coming to Christ we become targets and objects of ridicule;
if there is war on earth until Christ returns; what are we to
do, how are we to live now? Jesus answers that question in Matthew
5 . The world is at war with us because it's at war with
Christ. Our response is not and must not be to make war back.
Christ will come with his sword in the end. We have no need
of ours. He has given us the right model to follow in his incarnation.
We love those who hate us and do good to those who persecute
us. What kind of a war is that? It is a winning one. There was
never so great a victory as the victory of the cross. The world,
the flesh and the devil seemed to have won and yet as Paul says,
Christ made a spectacle of them on that day. He stripped them
of their power. What power can anyone hold over us if, when
they give us their worst, we compromise neither love nor truth?
Returning good for evil doesn't mean compromise. Some will try
to tell you that it does; that peace means giving up the gospel,
letting go some of the more “divisive” aspects of God's Word….perhaps
not reading those difficult parts of scripture aloud on Sunday
morning and not saying so much about Jesus being the “only”
way to the Father…perhaps not quibbling over bedroom habits—just
let go of these pointed aspects of the gospel. Love is silence.
Peace is the absence of conflict....
Do not listen to them. That's not peace. It's a lie from the
pit of hell. Peace does not come through a proper adjustment,
a refitting, of the scriptures. No. We never compromise. We
will not take one step back from the Word of God. We do not
stop proclaiming the gospel, the whole council of God, to get
along. We stand firm. But we do it in love. We act in love toward
those who hate us. This is our call. Even when they take our
churches and put us out we don't give back what we're given.
This is our call. Even if they kill us, and this happens around
the world, not here, but that is the extent to which you and
I are commanded to bear witness to Christ. Because in doing
that, in lovingly bearing witness to the Gospel in word and
deed without compromise, Christ makes his last loving appeal
to this rebellious world before he comes in power and glory
to put down the rebellion and establish his everlasting kingdom.
