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The sermon centers on Jesus’ promise, “My peace I give unto you,” contrasting Christ’s genuine and enduring gifts with the world’s superficial, scant, self-interested, and temporary rewards. Christ welcomes sinners who recognize their need and gives them grace freely and abundantly. Because His gifts are eternal and His approval is decisive, believers should reject time-serving and serve Christ with their whole lives. The message combines gospel invitation with a strong call to consecration and perseverance amid worldly opposition.
Theological center: Jesus Christ graciously gives salvation, peace, and eternal blessings to needy sinners, not because He needs anything from them but because of His sovereign goodness and love.
Applications: Come to Christ in Need · Serve Christ, Not the World · Consecrate Everything to Jesus · Compare Christ and the World
Primary texts: John 14:27 · Luke 5:32 · Matthew 13:43
“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you; not as the world gives, give I unto you.” John 14:27. THE gospel of John is peculiarly the history of Jesus, the Son of God. Matthew deals with Jesus as the Prince of the house of David. Mark treats of Him as the Servant of servants. And Luke views Him as the Son of Man; but John, with eagle eyes, looks beyond all the clouds of His humanity, and seeing the clear shining of His divinity, writes of Him especially as the Son of God, the Word, that in the beginning was with God, and was God. It seems but right, then, that since Jesus came from heaven, He should sometimes put both Himself and His cause in contrast with that which is of the earth. You will find through several chapters, wherein our Savior is addressing His disciples, He continually contrasts Himself, His gifts and His love, with those of the world. He came from heaven that He might fight and wrestle with an evil and a wicked world; that He might rescue His people from it; that He might cleanse the world and, at last, might present the earth, itself, to Himself—to be the new heaven and the new earth wherein righteousness should dwell. I say it seems but right that in a gospel which particularly views Christ as of heavenly origin and as very God of very God, that there should frequently be a contrast between Christ and the world—between the kingdom which is from heaven and the kingdoms of this earth. Our text presents us with one contrast between Christ and the world—“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world gives, give I unto you.” He gives in a more divine fashion than the world can ever give—even when its hands are most laden with its gifts. Now, I shall take my text this morning and endeavor to talk of it thusly—first, viewing it with regard to the peace which Christ gives—He does not give peace as the world gives it. Secondly, I shall take a larger view of the subject and look upon all the gifts of Christ and say that, “Not as the world gives, does He bestow His mercies on us.” And then, I will close with a practical inference from the whole subject. I. First of all, IN THE MATTER OF PEACE, Christ gives us peace, but not as the world gives it. For, in the first place, the world gives peace in a complimentary style. It was usual among the Orientals for the wayfarer to say to the person whom he met, “Peace be to you.” And generally, when a house was entered, the benediction of peace was bestowed by every person who stepped across the threshold. These were often but vain and empty expressions of compliment. Those ver…