30th Mar 26 | 13:54
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Luke 24 36-49 COMMISSIONED TO BE HIS WITNESSES 02 16Apr2022 Luke 24 36-37 The peace that Jesus gives us
📖 Luke 24:36-49
02 – 16Apr2022 – The peace that Jesus gives us - Luke 24:36-49 - COMMISSIONED TO BE HIS WITNESSES - Bible reading: Hebrews 13:20-21
“Thank You, Lord Jesus, that we can be in You and have that intimate fellowship with You. Everything in life is about knowing You, closely. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.”
All the disciples were gathered and the Lord stood in the midst of them and they were terrified.
Luke 24:36-37 Now as they said these things, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, "Peace to you." (37) But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit.
The Lord tells them, “Peace to you”. The Lord spoke the Shalom of God to the disciples. Man’s need is the Shalom of God and this is what the Lord gives.
We have begun to look into what is the Shalom of God. The first understanding of the Shalom of God is that we are reconciled with God. It is in God that we have Shalom. By rebelling and alienating ourselves from God, we had lost the Shalom of God.
In Christ, we are once again being reconciled with God. This is the first and primary basis for the Shalom of God.
Romans 5:1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 5:10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
This Shalom of God then flows into every other aspect of life.
I Thessalonians 5:23-24 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (24) He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.
The Shalom of God flows into our spirit, soul and body. Internally, we had lost Shalom. All that we try to do, does not help us set right the brokenness, inside.
We are the proverbial Humpty-Dumpty, who had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, could not put Humpty-Dumpty together again.
Jesus set us right, within us. He brings Shalom within us, which we had lost. Ours is only to yield to Jesus.
Our alienation from God took place when we rejected the will of God and chose to execute our own will. This decision spelt doom for us, for the law of sin and death, settled into us. We are now under bondage to the law of sin and death.
Romans 7:23-24 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. (24) O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
This is the painful situation that we have been brought into because of our rebellion against God.
Jesus set this right. He overcame the law of sin and death, in His flesh, and He has provided us with that victory. He is our Shalom, and He enables us to fulfil God’s will, which we were unable to fulfil.
Hebrews 13:20-21 Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, (21) make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
The other big dimension of Shalom that we experience is the matter of enmity, that we now have against each other, as humans. We are not able to be at peace with one another.
Ephesians 2:14-16 For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, (15) having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, (16) and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.
It was the Law of Moses that separated the Jew from the Gentile. Not only was the Law, a wall, that separated people from one another, but we have also erected and we continue to erect several walls that continue to separate us from being rightly related to one another.
We are at war. We try, through various ways, to bring about reconciliation amongst ourselves, but our oneness is ever so fragile and temporary. We soon see relationships breaking down. This is our awful dilemma.
These walls have been removed by the Shalom of God.
Colossians 3:10-11 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, (11) where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.
Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
There are other dimensions to the Shalom of God. We will consider these other dimensions.
When the Lord spoke, “Peace to you”, to the disciples, the Lord was providing man with the ultimate solution, in Christ.
Thought to ponder
Are you consciously exercising the Shalom of God, which is your inheritance in Christ?