Jesus is our Peace

Ephesians 2:14a

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Let’s read where we are studying in Ephesians 2:14. It’s really just five words. “For he is our
peace.” “For he is our peace.” And I’d remind you of the words that we read in the New Testament
lesson where Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth,
give I unto you.” And it’s useful to remember what the peace was that Jesus had, that he did really
see that before the world was ever created in him, his Father had gone through the life of not only
just every individual that has ever lived, but had gone through the life of every insect, and had
made them all inside Jesus, and had allowed them all to do their thing, and then had put his
miraculous loving and gracious heart into the middle of all of that, and had felt it all, and had
borne it all, and then had one-by-one, step-by-step (but in him in just a millisecond) had corrected
everything. And Jesus had that peace.

He looked out on the crowds that at times shouted insults at him, he looked out at the bodies that
were dying of leprosy, and he knew peace inside, that all of that had been fixed. And that was some
of his peace. And that is the peace that he has and we, in him, have that reality.

I think what’s really important, just at this point in our conversation — it’s really important
that you see that we’re not saying, “You’ve to make that peace real! You’ve somehow to make that
peace real inside you! You’ve somehow to repeat that!” “‘Yes, my peace I give unto you, not as the
world giveth.’ Yes, and I’m in Jesus and Jesus is in me. Yes, I must have a peace.” No, it’s not.
It’s not all that self-effort, or that juggling of thoughts. It is simply a fact that the reality
is that all the knots have been untangled. That’s the reality, that all the knots have been
untangled. The reality is that peace is what actually reigns, and that what we see out here is a
picture of what it was, before there was peace, but that it’s peace that reigns, and that as we go
into this afternoon and into tomorrow the peace has been wrought.

Now, I’d ask you, would you have a look at the strains in your own heart or in your own life? We
can think of them all, all of them: some of them for ourselves, some of them for others. Do I see
all Trisha’s sales, because I love her? Do I see those all as Christ sees them, all already
achieved? Or have I still some strain, “She has more to enter into.”? What does she think? What
do you think of it? But I’m just taking her as an example. Joe, Irene, Joanne, Greg: all the
little things inside our heads and our hearts that are not really at ease in spite of the fact that
in reality they have been eased. In reality that have been solved by our Father in Christ.

And that’s what I think we’ve to receive today. It’s what each one of us has that we can enter
into. Not by straining; not by striving; not by doing a job on ourselves; not by auto-suggestion;
not by trying to imagine what it could be like; but to deal with this issue that actually he is our
peace. He himself is filled with the peace of our lives that have been redeemed and resolved. And
he is our peace, and that peace is ours. That is reality. That is reality.

And I don’t know if you see it, but it really means what I tried to pray I think early on in the
service, that tomorrow you could, maybe – I hope you won’t — but you could drive into something
with your car. And if you did it the Father could have stopped you doing it. And if he allows you
to do it, he has the whole thing sorted out already. And if you say to me, “Well, I mean, I could

end up lying in bed with maybe my arm broken or with pain.” Yes, yes, if it was God’s – if it was
“the will of the Lord to bruise him,” it certainly well could be the will of the Lord to bruise us.
But in the midst of that, you would be at peace. In the midst of it you would rest. In the midst
of it the pain would be transformed. And you say, “What about the death?” The death would be
wonderful, going to sleep and rising in the beauty of the morning.

But it seems to me that is the reality that is in Jesus. It is in that way that he is our peace.
And therefore we are able to live in absolute peace and quiet. And that’s what it means, “He is our
peace.” He sees everything as it really is, resolved, completely solved, completely redeemed, in
himself, through his Father’s work. And that is where we live. That is the reality for our lives.

If you say to me, “You mean we dumb-dumbs are living in deception?” You’ve got it. That’s exactly
what we’re doing. We’re living in the midst of lies that we reinforce all the time by looking out
at all the things that seem to be, instead of just keeping our eyes simply and continually on him
and on reality. “He is our peace.”

Let’s pray.