Doug came and spoke to us this weekend all about peace. Peace is something that we should seek in life. Peter wrote the following, quoting virtually word-for-word from Psalm 34:14:
11Turn away from evil and do good.
Search for peace, and work to maintain it.
(1 Peter 3:11)
If you seek peace, it means that you haven’t got it. People seek for peace in different ways, from chilling on a beach or going on long walks.
The dictionary definition of peace is being free from mental anxiety. We need to pursue peace with the same tenacity that a police car chases a thief.
In the book of Jonah, he set off to the wrong place, ignoring God, seeking his own pleasure, and he jumped on a ship. Once the captain’s peace was disturbed, he was thrown off.
There’s a purpose in this story. In Scripture, lukewarm believers don’t usually have positive outcomes. God likes passion.
We also see Job in Scripture. Job had everything taken from him: his home, children, grandchildren and health. Job was wise and he submitted to God and was at peace, despite his circumstances.
We need to not just seek peace, but seek peace with God.
In life you chase after peace because if you find peace then happiness follows closely behind
19So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up.
(Romans 14:19)
As Christians, we ought to seek peace and harmony with one another, but moreso peace with God. Here is how God creates peace with us via Jesus:
14For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. 15He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. 16Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.
17He brought this Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were far away from him, and peace to the Jews who were near. 18Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us.
(Ephesians 2:14-18)
In the early church, there was a Jewish community, citizens of national Israel, and there were Gentiles, those who were not Israelites, but instead were Greeks and Romans. Both groups of people were radically different in the way that they lived, and historically, they didn’t always get on. The Jews wanted to bring their national feasts and dietary laws into the church, which caused issues that Paul addresses in several of his letters.
Jesus is the Peace Who makes the two groups one. He fulfilled all the commandments and died on a cross to create in Himself one new humanity, a unified body of believers in Him, in Christ, making peace by His death on the cross. People who belong to Him have access to Him and the Father by the Holy Spirit.
Jews who tried to keep the Moasic law did so in vain. None of them were good enough to keep the law in totality, because it required perfection, which no human can produce.
But by His death, Jesus has now taken our sins away.
12He has removed our sins as far from us
as the east is from the west.
(Psalm 103:12)
8But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
(Romans 5:8)
38k“Brothers, listen! We are here to proclaim that through this man Jesus there is forgiveness for your sins.
(Acts 13:38)
So Jesus died for us and we have peace with God through faith…so does that mean we ignore the law?
We shouldn’t try to earn our salvation through obedience to the law, but the law is God’s standard of justice, and He calls us to be holy people, set apart from worldliness, different from non-Christians, therefore we should strive to live in obedience to His commands for us to be a morally upright people.
In terms of the ceremonial laws, such as not eating shellfish, there are definitive verses in the New Testament that states they are now done away with. They were a picture of holiness, of otherworldliness, purely to separate national Israel from the Pagan tribes around them. As Christians, we have liberty in Christ to eat and drink what we want (providing we don’t be gluttons or get drunk), but we should strive to obey the Ten Commandments and any other Old Testament rule that is repeated in the New Testament as a commandment for Christians to keep.
With Jesus, we can not only live in obedience, but we can have a peace like no other. We can be on a battlefield and have peace.
Only through Jesus can we have the missing peace from our lives.