The Fruit of the Spirit is Peace

Galatians 5:22

You can be seated. Please turn
in your copy of God’s word to Galatians 522. Today, we land on the third aspect
of the fruit of the spirit. We think of the fruit of the
spirit as one collective fruit, a cluster of fruit that God produces
in us. It’s not something that we cultivate.
It’s not something that we work at. It is given to us by God
as a fruit of his presence, his power, his redemption in us.
And so we think today of the fruit of the spirit as peace. Let me quote to you from Galatians
522, simply this, the fruit of the spirit is peace. Pray with me. Lord, we ask that
your word As we have read of today from Psalm 29, that it
would speak and that it would make the calves skip, it would
make the trees break, it would make the thunder clap, and that
it would do so in our lives so that our minds, though prone
to wander and to give attention to all sorts of things, might
hear your voice today with thunder clarity. We might receive your
word with power and that it might do mighty things in our lives.
for the sake of your dear son, the Lord Jesus. Send your spirit
and his power to us now, we pray in the name of Jesus, in his
holy name we pray, amen. If you think back four years
ago, 2020, that was the year we all wished would go away,
about now the looming disease or disaster COVID-19 was headed
our way and it for sure changed our lives. We think back on 2020
and not just COVID, but we think of the social unrest that landed
on our culture, our society, our country. And then we entered
a presidential election that has seemed to change and divide
our country in ways more than we know. Well, if you thought
2020 was bad, how about 2024? We got the same stuff. I think
COVID may still be around. I don’t know. We’re in an election
year and we have civil unrest. We have a divided country. Our
education system has proven to be bankrupt. Our economy is about
to be bankrupt, I suppose. Our borders are wide open. There’s
looming world wars in various places around the globe. There’s
corruption. every institution we know to
hold dear. And we’ve even seen over the last couple of summers
in the meetings of various denominations in the Church of America, there’s
corruption there. And so we come to this question
in our minds, is there any institution that is not corrupt? Is there
any institution that we can trust? You can’t trust the government.
You can’t trust education. In many cases, you can’t trust
the church. And so there’s no peace. in our
lives, there’s only turmoil. And so we ask ourselves, where
can we find something that is firm, something that is fixed,
something that is tried and true and last forever? Well, Isaiah 26 helps us. There’s a passage in Isaiah 26
that you probably know well, him who’s mine is stayed on thee
finds peace. The one whose mind is firm and
fixed on almighty God and his holy city, Jerusalem, has peace. Isaiah 26 speaks of outside the
city of Jerusalem. There’s chaos. There’s Babylon. There’s wars. There’s enemies. There are people who do not believe
in the God of the scriptures. They worship all sorts of idols,
all sorts of things and pursue all sorts of goals. But Isaiah
26, 2 promises that him whose mind is stayed on God will not
get just peace. But in the Hebrew scriptures,
it’s peace, peace. It’s a load of peace, a lot of
peace. It’s peace and abundance. We
sing from time to time, I’ve got peace like a river. And so from the throne of God,
from the heart of God, from the hand of God, from the salvation
of God, the only place a person who is seeking rest will find
peace is in God and in his holy city. It’s there we find the
steadfast love of God. It’s there we find his covenant
promises. It’s there we find that he has
kept the promises that he has made, most surely in his son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we can find safety in
God’s house. We can find safety inside the
gates of Zion. We can find safety inside the
stronghold of God. And this points to the end of
the Bible, to the book of Revelation, where all of God’s people flee
the wrath that comes at the second coming of Jesus. and they escape
into the arms of Almighty God in the heavenly city, and there
they find eternal rest. But why is it? Why is it that
outside the scriptures, why is it that outside the church, why
is it that outside where there is ungodliness, why is it that
outside these trustworthy things, why is the world so crazy? Why
is it ripping apart at the seams? Why does it seem to be getting
worse day by day and new cycle by new cycle? Well, we’re reminded
of the condition of the world and to tell a long story short,
we remember the book of Genesis where God made the world and
everything in it. He took what was formless and
void and he formed it and he filled it and he planted a garden,
called it Eden. He put Adam in the midst of it
to work. and to keep the garden, to make
it fruitful, to multiply it and to fill the earth with the beauty
of God’s glory and his creation. He was given a wife, Eve. They
were given children and it was to them that they were to fill
the earth with godly offspring. And so we have the long story
short in the scripture that Satan did not want God’s glory. He
did not want the glory of God to spread across the faith of
the earth. And so he tempted them to sin. And their fall into
sin and misery brought futility. Their fall into sin and misery
brought fruitless work. Their fall into sin and misery
was fatal. And very quickly after Adam and
Eve fell into sin and they had their boys Cain and Abel, Cain
out of jealousy and anger and wrath, killed his brother Abel
because God accepted Abel’s worship and sacrifice and rejected Cain’s. And Cain had to go wandering
off. just like his parents outside
the garden, just like his mom and dad outside of Eden, he had
to wander in futility. He had to look over his shoulder
until the day he died because he was a murderer. And that’s
what’s wrong with the world today. We live looking over our shoulder
because we know that we’re guilty. And we know that our guilt will
bring judgment and that our judgment will bring avenging wrath. whether
from God Almighty or from our fellow man. And so Cain sojourned. He was a nomad. He lived in tents,
he and his offspring. And he continued to move away
from the promised land. And he continued to move towards
Babylon and towards Sodom and Gomorrah. And ultimately he did
not move towards the heavenly city, but he moved towards the
eternal pit of destruction that we know as hell. You see, all
mankind by sin are separated from God or alienated from God.
And we are hostile to God. We are under his wrath. We are
under his curse. We are under his judgment. And
we live lives until we come to Jesus. We live lives for ourselves,
for our glory, for our good. And that’s our condition. That’s
the reason for the news cycle. That’s the reason for all the
things we see around us. And that’s the condition of the
world. It’s biblical, but we experience it and see it to be
true, not only in our own lives before Christ, but we see it
in the world all around us. And there’s a gospel cure. There’s
a gospel cure for this condition. And as we have in front of us
today, the table of the Lord’s supper. As we’ve had before us
today, the word of God from Leviticus three and the peace offerings
and the very specific instructions on what is to be offered, where
it is to be offered, how it is to be offered, who is to offer
it. We begin to see as the Old Testament
people did that God. has made a way to appease his
wrath. God has made a way to make peace
with his people, but it is a specific way that ends in the death of
something. We remember from the book of
Hebrews, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission
of sins. And so before us today, we have
the table of the Lord’s supper. And it reminds us of the four
parts of peacemaking. There’s an offense. And before
God, that’s breaking his law. That’s transgressing his commandments. That’s overstepping his boundaries. That’s failing to do what’s required.
And so the offense that we have committed is against God himself. And it cannot be overlooked.
It cannot be swept under the rug. And so the offense leads
us also to the offended. The offense was committed against
God Almighty. and he is the judge of the earth.
He is the standard of holiness. We are the offender. We have
committed the offense and we have committed the offense as
the offender and God is the offended party. And what can make satisfaction? What can bring peace with God? Nothing but the blood. Nothing
but an offering. And we as the offenders before
the offended who’ve committed offense against him, we cannot
offer him anything, anything that he would accept, anything
that would do justice, anything that would pay for sins, anything
that would appease his wrath or put his anger at bay. And so we thank God that the
cure for the condition of mankind is found in his son, the Lord
Jesus. The eternal son of God became
man. He was born and that in a low
condition, he was made under the law and he kept it and he
fulfilled it. And he went to the cross to make
peace for us with God. And he offered himself without
blemish to almighty God. And so Jesus was not only the
offering, he was not only the spotless lamb, but he was the
offerer. Jesus is both the offering and
the offerer, and he offers up himself as a sacrifice to satisfy
divine justice. The years and the years and the
years of the blood of bulls and goats and sheep and oxen and
birds and all the rest could not atone for our sins. They
all held God’s wrath at bay. Until Jesus, the Messiah, could
come, the prophet and the priest and the king, the offering and
the offerer. And he offered himself once and
for all as a satisfaction for our sins. He gave his life. He gave his obedience. He gave
his death. He gave his satisfaction. And
you can read of this great peacemaking mission of Jesus in various places
in Paul’s writings. You can read of it in Colossians
one. You can read of it in second Corinthians chapter five. You
can read of it in Ephesians two. And I think Romans five may be
the most familiar to you. And Romans 5 says this, therefore,
since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s through Jesus we have obtained
access by faith into this grace with which we stand and we rejoice
in the hope of the glory of God. Not only that, we rejoice in
our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance.
Endurance produces character, character produces hope, and
hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured
out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given
to us. And here’s the central part of the gospel here. While
we were still weak. At the right time, Christ died
for the ungodly, for one will scarcely die for a righteous
person, though perhaps for a good person, one would even dare to
die. But God shows us his love in this, that while we were still
sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been
justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved by him
from the wrath of God? For if while we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more
now that we are reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. More
than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have now received reconciliation. We must, in order
to have peace with God, come to Jesus by faith. Our faith
looks at Jesus, the offering. Our faith looks at Jesus, the
offerer, and our faith grasps that we were dead in our sins
and trespasses, that we were alienated from God and hostile
to him and he hostile to us. We were under his wrath, we were
under his curse. And we were facing not only temporal
or now judgments, but we were facing eternal judgments. But through Jesus sacrifice,
we who are far off have been brought near. We who are alienated
from God are now reconciled to him through faith. And brothers
and sisters, we need nothing more than to receive Jesus. His
finished work, His righteousness, His obedience. We need to receive
it and rest in it. We sing from time to time that
song, nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling. That’s why we come to the Lord’s
table as frequently as we do. We need to remember that we come
empty. We come unclothed. We come with
shame. We come with disobedience. And
Jesus takes all that and he gives us his righteousness. He gives
us his obedience. And when we stand before God,
he sees us as if we’ve never sinned and as if we have always
obeyed. And so how does this relate to
peace? Well, we have this ultimate peace with God. God has made
peace with us through Jesus Christ. And so our standing is a position
of peace. We’re in alliance with God through
the blood of Jesus. But it also brings to us this
contentment. It brings to us this place of
being settled. We can sing, I’ve got peace like
a river, even with the news reel as it is. We can say, I’ve got
peace that passes all understanding because I am in Christ. Even
if we have cells and sickness and all kinds of things wreaking
havoc in our body, we can go through the valley of the shadow
of death and fear no evil because God is with us. He is our shepherd. And so we can have tranquility
of heart. We can have tranquility of soul because we trust in God. And though all hell break loose,
like it did in the life of Job, We can take our pottery and scrape
our sores, but still look to God. We can suffer even with
the useless encouragement we may get from our, as Job called
them, worthless counselors. And we can look to God and trust
and believe in Him. Jesus could do this also. When
all abandoned Him, He could still speak to the Father. He could
still find tranquility of heart and soul, even in the Roman barracks,
even in the hands of Herod, even in the hands of the wicked high
priest. He could find peace like a river,
much like a content child being held in the arms of their mother. So the condition, the reason
for all of this is sin and misery. The cure for all of this is the
hope of the gospel. It can bring us to a place of
contentment. But there are consequences of
sin in this life that will steal our peace, that will take away
our peace. And so we can say in our minds,
we can say objectively in our brains, I have peace with God
because of what his son has done for me at the cross. God is no
longer angry at me eternally. But brothers and sisters, we
are reminded of all that we have been learning, especially in
the fifth chapter of Galatians. We still struggle whether to
live by the spirit or to live by the flesh. We still struggle
with that remaining sin in us. We still struggle with that remnant
of sin in us and the flesh that remains, the devil and his temptations,
the world and all that it offers, digital media bombarding us with
all kinds of things can cause us to be dissatisfied and to
be edgy and to look over our shoulders and to run headlong
into sin. And we understand that with remaining
sin in us, we live in a lifelong battle. We live in a perpetual
battle with the world and the devil and with the flesh, the
remaining sin, and that will never go away until we die. And
we thank the Lord for victories. We thank the Lord for winning
many of these battles. And we thank the Lord that as
we live life, we get more and more holy and we get more and
more peace. It’s a wonderful question in
our shorter catechism. What are the blessings that flow
from being justified? What are the blessings that flow
from being adopted into God’s family? What are the blessings
that flow from being sanctified by God’s word and spirit? It’s
assurance of God’s love. It’s peace of conscience. It’s
joy in the Holy Spirit. It’s an increase of grace and
it’s perseverance to the end. I love the increase of grace.
I love joy in the Holy Ghost. But peace of conscience is a
wonderful thing. But here’s where a Christian
can lose all peace. You may have a right standing
before God, you may be justified, and it may be just as if you’ve
never sinned, just as if you’ve always obeyed. God is no longer
at odds with you. He’s no longer hostile and angry
with you. But you can, as a Christian, live by the flesh. And you can
neglect the means of growth. You can neglect the means of
grace. And you can fall into sin, grievous
sin as David did. We see his repentance of his
life with Bathsheba in Psalm 51. And so even the most mature
of us can neglect and fall into these deep ruts of sin. And we can incur the temporary
wrath of God. He can take his peace from us
and his judgments, not eternal ones, but temporary ones. His
chastisements as a heavenly father may fall upon us. We can grieve
the spirit. We can be deprived of grace.
We might even be coming to church. We might even be reading our
Bibles. We might even be praying and we might even be yelling
out the answer to what is my only comfort in life and death. We may say with all gusto, My
only comfort is that I belong to Jesus, my faithful savior.
But we can be deprived of peace. Our hearts can grow hard. We
can have a wounded conscience that has no peace. And we can,
we can hurt others. We can scandalize others and
wound others. And it can seem in our lives,
there is no light. There is no grace and there is
no peace. And all the while, because our
name is written, in the blood of Jesus and the Lamb’s Book
of Life, all the while, because God is using these things to
to chastise us and to humble us and to make us more like himself. We can have this bit of hope
that one day he will revive us and that one day we will come
out of this pit, this place, and he will again restore peace
to us. Brothers and sisters, it’s one
thing to be alienated from God and to have peace. And it’s another
to be a Christian and to alienate yourselves from the church and
from the scriptures and from the means of grace and from the
ways that God means to hold us up through this life with the
weight of the flesh and the weight of the world and the weight of
the devil. And so we have a calling as Christians
to be diligent. To make our calling in our election,
sure, we have a calling as Christians to not forsake the assembling
together of the saints. But we have further callings
as Christians. Paul will say at the end of Romans,
as far as possible, as far as it is possible with you, be at
peace with all men. Jesus will teach in the Beatitudes,
blessed are the peacemakers. Paul will say in other places,
be reconciled to one another. Paul will speak as an ambassador
of Jesus Christ that his ministry The church’s ministry, our ministry,
is a ministry of reconciliation. We persuade men to get right
with God. We persuade men to look on Jesus,
the peace offering, and to receive and rest in him alone. We also,
as Christians, have the call and the duty to pray, Maranatha,
come Lord Jesus, come quickly and make all things new, make
peace. Let the lion lie down with the lamb and let the child
play by the snake pit. Let’s beat our swords into plowshares
and let’s be a people of love and grace. These are our callings
as Christians who have made peace with God. And we can unsettle
our peace by our own neglect. We can unsettle our relationships
by not making peace. But here’s our big hope. We’re
headed to a lasting city. And just as Isaiah spoke in chapter
26, that he gives peace, peace to those whose minds are constantly
filled with truth and stayed on God. That passage of scripture
has the long look to the heavenly city, the city to which we are
marching on the narrow path. And there is nothing in this
world like the city of God. There is nothing in this world
that is firm and fixed and true, only God. Only God will give
us peace and rest everlasting. And so we should seek his city
through Jesus, who is the way, the truth and the life. But,
you know, we live this way and I think others do as well. We
want peace, and so we run a rat race. The busier we are, our
minds don’t have to think about what’s really good and true or
what’s reality. And so we run here, we run there,
we stay busy, busy, busy. We fill our day, we fill our
minds. with noise and events and things that sort of put a
cover, a veneer over the things that aren’t peaceful in our lives.
Or we jump on board with the world and we say, what will bring
peace? Well, I’ll fill up my retirement
account. I’ll think of my happy place. It’s the beach or the
mountains or the lake or the golf course in Florida. We think
of those things and so we pursue it. We pursue it with abandon,
or maybe we try religion. We try religion and its sacraments.
And I don’t mean Christianity and its faith in Jesus and its
word and sacraments. I mean, we try some man-made
religion, whatever it may be. And I remind you of the words
of King Solomon, who at the end of his life, he said, I’ve done
it all. I’ve tried it all. I’ve bought
it all. I’ve built it all. I’ve had it all. I’ve touched
it all, tasted it all. And it’s all meaningless. It’s
all vanity. It’s all empty. There is nothing
to do under the sun but to fear God and to keep his commandments. And we do that as we march to
the eternal city, as we march to the new Jerusalem, where we
read of it in the scriptures after the fall of Babylon, after
the fall of this world. Every institution in this world
will be shaken by God and will fall. but Jesus will come and
rescue his people. And he will take us to be with
him as he promised, where he is, we will be. And we will live
in the glory of the city, the beauty of the city, the safety
of the city. And as a hen gathers its chicks,
God will gather his people into the heavenly Jerusalem. And there will be Jesus, our
groom, the one who bought and paid for the church, redeemed
us, reconciled us to God through his blood, and outside will be
the chaos of evil and wickedness, and it will be cast into the
pit and punished forever. One of the great passages of
the book of Revelation is one of the Beatitudes. Blessed are
those who die in the Lord, for they shall rest from their labors. God will give us peace. Let’s
look to God in prayer. Lord, as we think on peace, we
don’t think of world peace. We don’t think of a quiet evening
at home. We don’t think of no strife this
way or that way, but we think about ultimately peace with you. We thank you that Jesus’ blood
has satisfied your wrath and curse due to us for sin. And we thank you for the fruit
of that great truth that we can live with tranquil hearts, tranquil
souls, because you have stilled us and you have calmed us. Let
these truths sink into us today by your word, but also through
your sacrament as we hold As we touch and as we taste your
goodness to us, as prophet and priest and king, as the offering
and the offerer, would you give us rest and would you give us
peace today? We pray all this in Jesus’ mighty
name, amen. We want to prepare for the Lord’s
table by singing 464. It’s a song of the Beatitudes
of Jesus. We’ll stay seated to sing.