Christian Peace, 2 Thess 3:16

Christian Peace

2 Thess 3:16

There is one thing in particular that all people seek after and very few find it in its fullest expression. Many think they have found it after looking. But, very few find it in its fullness.

Some of you might be thinking contentment or joy. What I an talking about contains those two things, but it also so much more. Contentment is that state of gospel happiness wherein we come to trust God fully. Joy accompanies contentment insofar as it keeps the recipient from sadness and feelings contrary to the work of God in an individual.

Some might think, love. After all in 1 Cor 14:1 we are told the greatest of three graces is love. It is the greatest from among faith, hope and love.

The grace I hope to explain to you is the one Paul mentions at the beginning of all of his epistles and at the end of almost all of them. That shows the importance of it to Paul and the Holy Spirit who inspired his writings. That uniquely Christian is peace.

Let's read our text in 2 Thess 3:16:

16 Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace always in every way. The Lord be with you all. 

I want to look at three points:

1. A definition of Peace

The definition of peace is the unpreturbability I have mentioned on occasion. Even though all sorts of things seem to be going wrong all around you, your family, your workplace, etc., it is possible for a true believer not to be disturbed in their spirit as they trust in God to work in the situation.

Daniel is an example of one who trusted God no matter what. Even in the lion's den, Daniel with his friends trusted in God to deliver them. Joseph is another example of one who refused to be troubled by his circumstances. He trusted God's providences no matter what they brought. Finally, it was through him that the people of Egypt were preserved through the famine and eventually are brought to the Promised Land through the Exodus. These leaders among God's people saw the end from their present difficulties. They trusted in God to deliver them in such a way that they did not get riled up, or agitated in the spirits--they were unperturbed.

Let me define that word. To be perturbed is to be troubled in any way by anything outside of the individual. We can be perturbed by things in which we have no stake, by things indirectly or directly related to us. It is often a state of such agitation that the one so perturbed can't see the problem objectively. All they see is the problem and the longer the state of perturbation persists the more agitated the person becomes. Add to this that humans tend to have differing threshold levels for such trouble.

While I'm preaching, I don't hear much of anything outside me. Every once in a while I hear a child cry, or a train go by, or a siren of some sort outside. Unless it is very loud, I continue on with what I am doing. Sometimes it is too loud, so I pause briefly before going on.  Even the worst of experiences we have had in services haven't perturbed me. Once, someone fainted and we called the ambulance. But, it was an opportunity to pray and then talk about the uncertainties of life.  

The scriptures say a lot about peace. I mentioned how much Paul mentions it in his 12 epistles. John and Peter use it as well.

Turn to the book of the Philippians chapter four, verse 5:

 5 Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. 6Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy--meditate on these things. 9 The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you. 

The end of that paragraph is starting to get into our second point. But, look up at verse seven where it says this peace that surpasses all understanding "will guard your hearts and minds…" How can we understand what is not understandable? It is not that we can't comprehend it at all. It is that peace is so vast and immeasurable, we only understand a little of it. It is supernaturally given. In the original text we read it is god's peace.

In verse 7 we also read that it keeps or protects the hearts and minds. When we come across this king of expression, it usually means the totality of a thing. Heaven and earth means all of creation. Day and night means all day long. Body and soul means the totality of the individual. Hearts and minds alludes to what we are in our inner being. The heart as the seat of the motions and the mind the place of the intellect and all sensory perception governed by the mind is that which will be protected with the correct presence of peace.  The guarding or protecting is often likened to the function of a referee. It assures life is lived by the rules. Therefore peace uses the conscience to inform the mind about matters of the will and the emotions follow.

Some want it to be the other way around. That is fleshly and carnal. God's peace may not be fully understandable, but it is reasonable and discerned by knowledge taken from the Word of God.

Godly peace is that peace which directs the mind and the heart into a state of gospel unpreturbability because one knows without question that they understand and live God's Word.

This is the sort of peace many of us knew after the death of Grammie. We were sorry, and even grieved, but not like those who have no hope. Her death did not agitate us, it released us to pursue other things. 

Much of the world is at war with something. People don't know where to turn. ….Only the Christian gospel can stop the warfare between you and others, but more importantly between you and God.

The Bible tells us that all men are sinners (Rom 3:23) and at enmity with God. That's just an old way of saying at war. Men and women don't naturally want his ways (Rom 3:10), even though they are the best for his creatures.

The Bible also tells us how we can have peace with God--how the conflict can not just stop, in the human notion of peace, but the warfare can be over--a state of unpreturbabilty where God is no longer judge over you but lord and savior to save you. Listen:

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 5:1),

Those last five words are:

2. The Source of true Peace

There is nothing a person who does not surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ can do to attract the attention of God in order to justify them and give them peace.

This term justified is a legal term. It means basically to declare not guilty. God's Law we did not keep. We are guilty in God's courtroom of Justice. But Jesus came and took the penalty of his people that was due to them because of their sins.

They were at war with God, but God the second person of the eternal trinity came and took their punishment that they might be justified and live at peace with God.

It has always been this way. Even in the Old Testament, peace came about between God and man of God's terms.

Proverbs 3 is instructive. At first it sounds as though the writer is advocating works generated from oneself. As we read, and think about the words, we understand the puzzle: 1 My son,

Who is being addressed? Not all people indiscrimately, but those who are the Lord's children. To them He says something He does not want them to forget. Why? Because even his sons and daughters tend to forget his Law and his Words at times.

 1a do not forget my law, But let your heart keep my commands; 2 For length of days and long life And peace they will add to you. 3 Let not mercy and truth forsake you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart, 4 And so find favor and high esteem In the sight of God and man. 5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. 

Following his paths of peace as we lean on what he has revealed we can have his peace. Again, we lean upon His understanding, we acknowledge Him and in peace, If I can carry that sentiment forward, he directs us in peaceful paths--an idea we also find elsewhere. See verse 17 of this chapter.

This complete cessation of conflict and unpreturbability is the state of existence that is supposed to be found, but hardly ever is, in Christ's churches.

Romans 15:13, is the prayer of the Apostle Paul: Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

ALL JOY AND PEACE in believing. If we have that only then will we abound in a joyful expectation of what God will do in the future for his son's church by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Little issues should be covered by love. It is not the correction of others that is the main focus of the church--we are but fallen humans being saved by God's grace. Our quest is one of all joy and peace.

As we….are found….

In Eph 4, we read, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

This cessation of all conflict and state of contentment is the glue used by God's Spirit to maintain Christian unity. It is a sin to do anything to actuate disunity for any reason. The priority in any church is the strong attempt to maintain what God had put together. Or, in the words of the old marriage ceremony, what God has joined together let no man put asunder.

To fight against the peace that ought to be found in a local church is to fight against the will of the Lord Jesus Christ and his body.

Paul gave this caution to the churches in Galatia: 5:15 But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another! Lest you become cannibals.

Many of us have gone through difficulties at churches because of strong-minded and strong-willed men who acted like these men. I read Joel's testimony and was reminded of this as it seemed to him that every church they came to was in the midst of turmoil. I pray for Dan's parents who are going through difficulties presently. There are some churches in New England and in our Association that are struggling with man-made issues of one kind or another.

What is often the case is this: people will bring division and disunity into the life of the church and seek to justify it in spiritual ways. God hates those who sow dischord we read in Prov 6. People do this to the extreme when they cut themselves off from the church--in a word--self-excommunication--that is what it is to wrongly leave a church. To use the metaphor of the body they rip limbs off of the body and seek to justify it with spiritual terms or questions. It is counterfeit peace to assuage the conscience.

3. The Counterfeits of Peace

Pseudo-peace: Christians will use an errant idea of peace to justify almost anything. Let me give you a few examples.

A  young woman though she might be pregnant, the pastor was called in to inquire into the matter. The young woman admitted to pre-marital relations with a man, yet refused to call it fornication (just like her parents). Her reasoning went like this--I had peace about it. Her feelings of "love" toward the young man (that were really lust) and her feelings of "peace" justified her sin. What she felt was not love and peace--it should her conscience was sealed against her sin and she refused to be instructed by the word of God. She didn't want to feel guilty.

Someone leaves a body of believers because they feel as though it is time to go. Their only defense is that they feel peace about their decision. They acted autonomously without regard to the life of the church.  That's not Christianity--it is individualism looking for self-actualization masked with spiritual language. It is the fruit of pop psychology.

I hope you see the point, many think they have peace about decisions they make when all they are doing is acting on their own and to appease their consciences they cry out "I have PEACE."

There are innumerable examples of the misuse of peace and its cousin conscience. Conscience is a mental faculty that along with memory informs our minds about what the body should do. It doesn't act on its own and neither does God's peace as it keeps the minds and hearts of God's people who are sensitive to his Word. And, for believers who have been in churches for any time should have acquired a large body of God's truth consistent with His Law that the Spirit uses to direct us upon the straight and narrow. 

We are only able to follow because we have been conquered by the Lord Jesus and are being transformed day by day. We submit to him, to his Church and seek to make the way of others delightful.

The church of the Lord Jesus Christ should be less crumudgeon and more content people seeking joy and peace together.

16 Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace always in every way. The Lord be with you all. 

When we pray for the Ukrainian brethren, we should pray that they would know God's peace--though tanks are rolling and munitions are exploding, that  they can be unprovoked in their hearts--as they point others to Jesus, the only true hope.

We will know his presence as we perceive his peace. May He give what he commands.

L.S. Through the blood of Christ He opened the way to access with God. We are reminded that we are at peace with God, our cosmic battle has ceased, he wants to work in us that spirit of unpreturbability. It is found in Christ alone, it cannot be manufactured--no matter how sweet the disposition may be. Sweetness can be faked.

Many years ago, I was in Buffalo NY. We stayed at a home where I had been on a few occasions. For some reason, the first night we were there, their dog turned on me and the other house guest. The dog went from being the sweetest, most compliant animal to one of the meanest I have ever seen. The other man took the brunt of it. All of the training in the world couldn't recover the dog's learned obedience.

A couple of summers ago, I was driving home from Sean's little league practice when an old lady  was trying to get two little dogs under control. I stopped to help. Her son arrived. The woman was in tears. For weeks after the event, I saw her walking just one dog. I expect those things to happen in the animal world, when all they know is by rote. But, I expect more from people created in God's image and redeemed by the blood of Jesus spilled on the cross.  We must learn to put aside the flesh and walk in newness of life--giving to ourselves no excuses to bring division into the body of Christ.

The body of Christ was only divided to bring us to God through Christ. Let us never forget that….

AMEN