We have peace with God

[AI translation] In response to the repeated invitation to write down the Word on which subject or problem, on which topic or problem, we received, among others, a letter, from which I will now read a few lines: 'I ask that the sermon should be about the joy of believing, of belonging to God, to Jesus, of being blessed by the Holy Spirit! People need consolation today and that is the greatest joy that life on earth can give. We also need guilt, it is good to keep it awake in ourselves, but let us learn to rejoice that life is so good, that people are good, if we are good to them. God has given us such a beautiful world and our lives can be full of little joys if we keep our eyes open..."Well, I feel that this is what the apostle is talking about, if not directly, then indirectly, in the Word that he reads. How good it is to belong to God, to Jesus, how great a gift it is to live, and how beautiful life is! It is all in this statement of the apostle: "We are at peace with God!" It is this peace with God that I want to talk about now!
Peace! The weight and relevance of this word is felt especially today by all of us, all over the world! Peace on earth, between nations: this is the main aspiration of the best-intentioned people and politicians today, the main desire of millions of people! I do not believe that there is a sane man on earth who, in the shadow of the threat of nuclear war, does not see in the securing and maintaining of world peace the only possibility for the survival of all mankind on earth today. But, alas, yet this desired peace on earth may soon be shattered!
Or peace in the house. The peaceful coexistence of people living under one roof, carefree hours with children's laughter, a family hearth with a cosy warmth! Who would not consciously long for that? Everyone wants to be left in peace, at least in their own home! But alas, all it takes is a bitter remark, a word spoken nervously, a dust rag shaking on the top floor, or a radio turned up louder - and the desired peace is shattered, war is declared!
Or peace in the heart! Perhaps this is the most important and the most difficult! That inner calm and sense of security which is above the vain fuss, the noise, the nervous bustle of life! This peace of heart is more and greater than happiness! But oh, alas, it is the soonest to topple! According to the statistics of medicines, the world's greatest consumption of tranquillizers is the lack of peace of heart, an almost universal phenomenon.
The Apostle also speaks of peace, and peace which is the only basis of all other peace. He says: we have peace with God! I have come to realise that this is indeed the most important thing in life - in fact, it is the "one necessary thing" that Jesus once spoke about (cf. Lk 10,42). Akkor van igazán olyan békessége, amit semmi sem boríthat fel többé, amint majd látni fogjuk a továbbiakban.
Let us first try to see what it means to be at peace with God. The apostle states it firmly as an established fact: We have peace with God! I want to question for a moment: do we really have peace with God? Are we not just deluding ourselves? Are you, personally, really at peace with God? Let me just ask a few questions that will immediately become clear. For example: are you not afraid of God? Is there not a feeling lurking somewhere in your subconscious soul that this invisible God is a fearsome, hostile power that you should use certain religious rituals to get in good graces with yourself, otherwise it will strike you like the teacher at school with the cane? Or as if one should fear for one's own fortune? Are you not also accustomed, in the heathen way, to knock off instinctively, preferably from under the table, when it is a question of someone's health and well-being? Do you know what that is? Unconscious fear of a power that is jealous, envious, malicious, unpredictable, hostile... It takes away your happiness! - That's not peace! He who fears God in this way has no peace with God! Fear is the opposite of peace!
Or another question: is your conscience clear before God? Not before men, but before God. Are you not hiding something from him? Are you able to face Him calmly, with liberated joy, and is there no secret you have not already told Him? Is there no sin you have not yet committed to His forgiving grace? Have you no debts that will get you into trouble at the final great reckoning? Well, is your conscience clear before God? Are you not hiding from Him? He who hides from God is of course not at peace with Him! That is not peace!
Or another question: do you not have a trial with God? Are you not resentful of Him for treating you in a way you think you don't deserve? Do you sometimes wonder why he punishes you, how he can allow this or that? Why doesn't He listen to what you have been begging for so long? Why doesn't he come to your aid, can't he see you're in trouble? ...and so on! Don't you have some such trial with God? Litigation again is not peace with God!
As Paul writes, "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let me say this from experience, to be truly at peace with God is only possible through faith in Jesus as our Savior! The eternal struggle between God and man was won by Jesus, through His redemptive death and resurrection. The great reconciliation between heaven and earth took place there, on Calvary. The precious, holy blood shed there is a visible, tangible seal of God's will to forgive, to receive into His grace, to make Him His dear child, to take Him into His shelter, to embrace Him in His fatherly arms. In the whole person of Jesus, I can see that it is the greatest folly to fear God, for He is not angry, He wants the best for me, both in earthly life and afterwards - I have nothing to hide from Him, I can tell Him everything, there is no need to hide. I can trust him, more than a child can trust the most loving parent.
I don't know how, but it really is that the moment someone accepts by faith the strange and incomprehensible fact that Jesus paid for him, made atonement for him on Calvary, and opened the way for him through death to eternal life by his resurrection, in some miraculous way everything is cleared up in that moment. All anxiety, all fear of God is dissolved. The man who has at last found his way home is filled with a peace of mind beyond all understanding, for he is in blissful harmony with the Lord of eternal order! This is the only way to have peace with God: through Jesus Christ! Thus saith the apostle, By whom also we have access by faith into the grace wherein we stand! Thus, let me say it more simply: we have access to God, we have free access to His presence, we are no longer hindered by the reproach of conscience or the unfavourable circumstances of life, we have the paternal heart of the Lord of all things open to us. This is the peace that comes through faith in Jesus the Saviour!
The wonderful and great thing about this peace is that it never falls away. Of course: because it does not depend on well-being, nor on a peaceful family situation, nor on a peaceful, balanced life - it is not something that acts from the outside in, but a force that acts from the inside out. This is the peace of God in us! Peace of undisturbed communion with God in the heart. That is why the apostle says such nonsense: "We glory in warfare... The word translated warfare in our Bible also has these meanings: pressure, distress, persecution, affliction. In a distressing situation or under the pressure of a cross, one does not usually boast, but lament, complain, despair and upset. But the wonderful thing about being at peace with God is that this remains even in the face of outward unrest. A person at peace with God does not get upset in the various "wars" of life. On the contrary, the more distressed his situation, the more his communion with God becomes a living reality.
"We glory in warfare". I have heard people boast that they have experienced the reality of the presence of Jesus with the most moving certainty in the most critical and difficult moments of their lives. That the Lord who was present kept their souls at peace even in the most scorching fire. This is how Paul, for example, even with a body aching from the flogging, was able to sing psalms of praise to God in the Philippian prison. It is also how one can endure an unhappy, unpeaceful family environment with a truly peaceful heart. In fact, Paul goes even further to glory in warfare, saying, "we know that warfare begets peaceable endurance, and peaceable endurance begets trial, and trial begets hope, and hope does not put to shame". In other words, the greater the burden, the greater the burden; the greater the burden, the greater the test to be endured; and the greater the test, the greater the certainty of final triumph, of complete victory, of the coming glory. So the same warfare, the same trials, the same pressures, which generally break down others, lift the man at peace with God to still higher regions, to still more blessed experiences of fellowship with God. He does not collapse under the burden, but is strengthened still more. Such a great thing is this peace with God!
Finally, the apostle says: "We glory in the hope of the glory of God to come. So, even in the final, great battle, death, the man who is reconciled to God faces with a calm heart. Not only is he not frightened by it, but he rejoices in it: he rejoices in the hope of the glory of God that awaits him. He knows that one day the glory of God now hidden will be revealed, and that he himself will share in it. He is not afraid of the last judgment, for he is sure of salvation. He knows that this hope of his will not be ashamed, will not fail him, is not a mirage, not a mirage, but an inheritance that is inalienable, inalienable, certain!
Let me tell you once: there is nothing in the world that I believe so surely as that, for Jesus' sake, I shall share in the glory of God to come! So, if you ever hear or read in the newspaper that Alexander Joan is dead, don't believe it, it won't be true! For Jesus said that whoever believes in Him, even if he dies, lives! Such is our peace with God! On what do I base this bold certainty? On what Paul said: The love of God! In this strange but most convincing way the apostle argues: 'For Christ, while we were still weak, died in his own time for the wicked. Surely for righteousness few die; but for goodness, perhaps one would dare to die. But God hath shewed his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Now therefore, having been justified by his blood, we are much more saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled to him, we shall be saved through his life." Again, he points to the crucified and risen Jesus and says: if he loved us as sinners, as enemies, how can he not love us now as friends and children! If the death of Jesus has brought us reconciliation, how can the life of the risen Jesus not bring us salvation! For the same Jesus who reconciled us to God will be our judge. Thus says the apostle, we shall be saved. So it is not we who are saved, it is not in ourselves that we have this certainty, but in Jesus who died for us and is now waiting for us in heaven in his risen, living reality.
So let us also say with Paul that yes, we glory in God through Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have now been reconciled!
Amen
Date: 17 August 1969.