The name of this message is What Jesus
Left Behind.
He left behind his disciples.
He left behind a message, the gospel, correct?
But there's a very powerful little passage that
tells us about something else that he left
behind.
Let's look at it.
It's in John, one of the passages that
we've been reading.
All this I have spoken while still with
you, but the advocate or the helper, the
word for the Holy Spirit, that word that
is called the comforter in the King James,
advocate, that's a legal term, helper, it actually
means someone who comes alongside a person, i
.e. to help them.
But the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in my name, he will
teach you all things and will remind you
of everything I have said to you.
And now here comes our text.
Peace I leave with you, my peace I
give you, I do not give to you
as the world gives, do not let your
hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
Notice there, peace I leave with you, my
peace I give you, I do not give
to you as the world gives, do not
let your hearts be troubled and do not
be afraid.
So when you read the scripture, you got
to read it over and meditate.
So let's read it over and meditate.
So notice, maybe it's a double peace that
he's talking about.
Notice, peace I leave with you.
Then my peace, not just peace, my peace,
what does that mean?
My peace I give you.
Notice, I'm not wanting you to earn it.
I want to give it to you.
I do not give to you as the
world gives.
So the world has some kind of peace
it gives, but Jesus is saying, what I
give you is not like what the world
gives.
And then do not, and here's a command,
the same God that says, love one another,
the same God that says, don't kill and
don't lie.
Here's another command from Jesus.
Do not let your hearts be troubled and
do not be afraid ever under any circumstance.
So the thing that Jesus left behind that
we want to talk about is peace.
Now there's a double peace that I believe
is being referenced here because Jesus provided two
kinds of peace for us.
And unless you understand the first one and
experience it, you'll never experience the second one.
The second peace, my peace I give to
you, you cannot have until you first understand
peace I leave with you.
So the Bible throughout the New Testament talks
about this double peace provided by Jesus Christ.
One while he was here on earth, another
one he sent through the spirit after he
left, which he referenced here in that passage.
Let's talk about the first peace.
The first peace is peace with God.
Now peace, shalom was the greeting of the
Jewish people.
And it meant more than what we call,
let's pray for peace.
Let's hope there'll be peace on the earth.
This greeting that they had, the word shalom
meant not only peace and absence of acrimony
and turmoil inside of you, but it meant
blessing and prosperity and success, peace.
That's how they would greet.
And that's how the Jewish people would say
goodbye, shalom.
Jesus, before he was born, had an announcement
of his birth.
And the angel said, what on earth?
Peace on earth.
So now Jesus is fulfilling this double peace.
And the first part being peace with God.
You can't have peace.
You can't have serenity.
You can't have calm if you don't have
peace with your creator.
If you are at loggerheads with God, if
you are uncomfortable in God's presence, you can't
have peace.
You can have pleasure.
You can have drugs.
You can have a lot of things.
You can get a new car or a
new boat or whatever, but you can't have
the peace that's most important and must come
first.
You can't have the second peace until you
have the first peace.
And the first peace is peace with God.
Therefore, having peace with God, it says in
the book of Romans.
How do we get peace with God?
He's holy.
I'm sinful.
How in the world can I have fellowship
and have peace with God?
How can I be on the same page
with God when he's there and I'm who
I am?
And that's why Jesus came and died on
the cross.
The only way to have peace with God
is the putting away of our sins.
As long as you and I are conscious
of sin, we cannot have peace with God.
It's like when you offend somebody and you
really hurt them, and they know you did
it, and then it's very hard to just
sit down and say, let's have a meal
and have a great time together.
No, there's a wedge.
There's a wall.
The only way the wall can be removed
from all of us, and all of us
need it removed, because all have sinned and
come short of the glory of God.
There's not one righteous person, not only in
this building, there's not only that, there's not
even one righteous person in the world.
The Bible tells us that.
All have sinned.
You might look good compared to your neighbor.
You might look good compared to the guy
in the street or the girl in the
street, but that's not who you're going to
be compared with.
You're going to stand before God.
He's not going to judge you compared to
someone else.
He's going to judge you according to his
word.
And we've all violated his word in thought,
in word, in deed.
And Jesus came because God loves us so
much.
He wants to have fellowship with us, but
you can't have fellowship with someone who's afraid
of you.
And sin makes us afraid of God.
Why do you think so many people are
afraid of dying?
Why can't you talk in social circles about
death?
It's considered impolite.
Why?
Because no one wants to think about dying.
Why?
Because even though they deny there is a
God, in the back of their mind there
might be a God.
And now I got to face him.
But when you and I put our faith
in Jesus Christ and what he did on
the cross, the fact that when he hung
on that cross, all of your sin and
my sin was put on him, and God
punished him for my sin.
I mean, that's insane.
When you think of it, that's incredible.
That is just that kind of love.
Who can imagine that kind of love?
That to have fellowship with me, God punishes
his own son for my sins and your
sins.
And when you and I put our faith
in Christ, we confess our sins and put
our faith in Christ, we now have peace
with God.
God welcomes us into his presence.
You don't have to come afraid and, oh,
I hope he doesn't see what I've done.
No.
In the past, we can walk right into
his presence through the blood of Jesus Christ.
Come on, let's put our hands together and
affirm it and say amen.
Are there battles with that?
Yes.
Satan will whisper to you, you're not worthy.
He knows what you did.
No one else knows, but he knows and
on and on.
And the only way you overcome the enemy
when he accuses you is by pleading the
blood of Jesus Christ.
Jesus is my righteousness.
I know God is holy and I'm not,
but I'm in Christ.
I belong to Christ.
And he makes a way into the presence
of God.
We have peace with God.
If you're here today and you don't have
peace with God, oh my goodness, please don't
walk out of the building without getting peace
with God.
You can have peace with God.
You know Martin Luther, the reformer, he was
a monk, but he started to hate God
because all he saw was his sins and
God as an angry judge.
The Bible says, love God.
How can you love someone you're afraid of?
How can you love someone who's so holy
and you feel so sinful?
And then it dawned on him as he
was reading through Galatians and Romans, the just
shall live by faith.
It's faith in Christ that brings us into
relationship with God.
Not by trying harder and trying to live
a good life and go into church more.
It's faith in Christ.
The blood has washed away all of our
sins.
And now God, instead of calling us enemies
or rebels, he calls us sons and daughters.
We are in the family of God through
Jesus Christ.
How many are so happy to be in
God's family, right?
And now he puts his spirit in us
and that spirit, listen, bears witness to that
fact.
And it makes us say, Abba father, which
is father, father.
I love you, father.
I'm not afraid of you anymore.
I know what I've done, but because of
Jesus, I can call you father.
Oh, praise God.
That's peace with God.
But the second piece is what a lot
of Christians should be having, but aren't experiencing.
You can't have this second piece until you
experience the first piece.
A lot of people go to church, Catholic,
Protestant, because they're in turmoil and they want,
pray for me, pray for me that I
can have peace.
But you can't have the peace I'm talking
about unless and until you experience peace with
God, until you're born again, you put your
faith in Christ, you become a Christian.
Now you are qualified and you are ready
to receive this other piece.
Peace I leave with you, my peace I
give you.
So what piece is this?
Just because you're a Christian and a pastor
doesn't mean you have that piece.
This piece is available to everyone just like
salvation is, but not everyone appropriates it.
Not everyone takes advantage of it.
No, no.
Listen, I'll tell you about this lonesome little
guy and his battles, not having peace.
This piece is ministered, not through the blood
of Jesus.
That's peace with God.
This piece comes through the Holy Spirit, living
and dwelling and controlling and imparting supernatural peace
to your heart, which conquers all the turmoil
and vicissitudes and ups and downs of life
and people letting you down and the temptation
to be afraid about tomorrow and the economy
and ISIS and this and that and this
outbreak of Legionnaire's disease in the Bronx and
this and who do I shake hands with
and what could happen.
So you could be a Christian and be
a bundle of nerves and have no peace
that brings serenity.
No, your heart and your mind, my heart,
my mind, it's churning like the waters.
Haven't you ever met Christians who are like
that?
They love the Lord.
They've gotten peace with God.
They know that their sins are gone, but
peace in their lives.
Are you kidding?
They're just tripping.
They're just up and down turmoil.
They get irritable.
They're afraid of everything.
Can't sleep at night, anxiety attacks, every kind
of thing.
And obviously Jesus doesn't want that for us.
How would God want that for his children?
Do you think I would wish that on
any of my children or my grandchildren?
So Jesus is now talking about another kind
of peace also.
It's the peace that the Holy Spirit gives
us so that we don't go up and
down like a yo-yo and that we
don't break down under the strain of all
the pressures of life.
Yeah, you try raising children in New York
City.
Just try raising children, not even in New
York City.
Just try to make ends meet and pay
all the sometimes.
It can put great pressure on you.
If you're a pastor, try to step out
and go to a new building or a
new campus or a new project or a
new anything.
The pressures that are associated with that can
just break you down.
Just because you're a Christian rubber band doesn't
mean if you get stretched too much, you
don't feel it.
So this is another kind of peace.
Notice whose peace it is.
It's totally supernatural because Jesus said, my peace
I give you.
Please listen to me as I draw to
a close.
My peace I give you.
Now that could mean two things.
It happens to mean both.
Not only my peace that I have the
ability to give you through the Spirit, but
it's my peace.
It's the peace that kept me steady through
everything I went through on earth.
You ever notice when you read the gospel,
Jesus never loses his peace.
They're plotting to kill him.
He has peace.
They're shouting, Hosanna, Hosanna.
Blessed is he who comes in the name
of the Lord.
A good moment.
He has his peace.
They pick up stones to kill him, but
he just walks and nothing happens and he
has his peace.
He stands before Herod and they're spitting on
him and beating him and he has his
peace.
They haul him before Pilate and Pilate says,
don't you know I have the power to
kill you or let you go?
And Jesus has peace.
It's Pilate who doesn't have peace.
Jesus never loses his peace.
So think of this.
Think how far below you and I live,
below our privileges.
Jesus says, my peace, the very peace that
I had, that you saw.
You know, the Bible says, let's be conformed
to the image of Christ.
Being more like Jesus also means having his
peace.
Not just being pure and kind and loving,
but he wants us to have his peace.
How few people you meet, no matter how
they talk about how deep they were in
God and what meetings they were in or
how much of the Bible they know, how
few people have God's peace, the peace that
Jesus had.
Well, because it's the peace of Jesus, we
know a couple things about it as we
sum it up.
We know that this peace that he wants
us all to have through the spirit, through
his presence, dwelling, controlling our lives.
We know, first of all, that it has
nothing to do with what people are doing
around you to you.
The circumstances of life have nothing to do
with this peace.
You know, the peace that the world gives
is not only very fragile.
Your friends will tell you, have a great
day today, but they're not going to do
anything to help you have a great day.
They're just going to say, hey, have a
great day.
But Jesus not only says, have a peaceful
day, he's going to help you have that
peace.
He's going to be that peace.
So we know that, number one, this peace
has nothing to do with how people are
treating you.
Because when they were applauding Jesus, he had
peace.
When he was with his disciples, he had
peace.
And when they were crucifying him, he had
peace.
When they were rejecting him, he had peace.
So what most of us operate in, things
are good, we have peace.
People are patting us on the back, we
have peace.
Things go south, we lose our peace.
We're ready to pull our hair out.
Things didn't work out the way we wanted.
What's going on?
This didn't work out the way I wanted
it to work out, and we have no
peace.
Jesus is just looking and saying, why don't
you take advantage of my promise, my peace
I give you.
Do you see me fluctuating up and down
anywhere?
So this is not a logical peace.
This can be proven by Philippians chapter four,
verse six, which says, be anxious for nothing,
listen, but in everything with prayer and thanksgiving
and petitions, make your needs known to God
and the peace of God which passes.
In other words, you cannot figure it out.
You can be peaceful in the middle of
a storm.
And if you don't have God's peace, everything
can be perfect around you and you're a
miserable, nervous little critter.
Am I right or wrong?
Oh yes, for all of us.
You can just come into a lot of
money.
Someone could meet you and tell you what
a great person you are, but if there's
that churning inside, you have no peace.
So Jesus doesn't want us to live like
that.
He said, my peace I give you.
It will have nothing to do with circumstances
around you.
And the world knows nothing of what we're
talking about.
The world justifies people going off.
If things go bad, oh, she went off.
She went Brooklyn on that guy because it's
just, I couldn't take it anymore.
But Jesus is just, no, you hate me.
You love me.
It will hurt me, but I have my
peace.
Nobody can touch my peace because it's the
peace of God.
It's supernatural peace.
Lastly, it has nothing to do with a
life of leisure.
Most people think, you know, if I could
just get out of the rat race, if
I could just either retire or just move,
I got to get out of the Big
Apple.
I got to move to Zimbabwe.
I got to move to Germany or someplace
where it's calm.
No, I got to go to Pennsylvania.
We had a bunch of people many years
ago who left our church and they moved
to Pennsylvania.
When Carol and I would ask them, why'd
you move to Pennsylvania?
They said, there's grass.
Of course, there's a lot of grass in
New York, just coming to think of it,
but it's another kind of grass.
And they're selling it, unfortunately.
As if grass could give you peace.
Well, why do you think so many people
are drawn to smoking weed?
You think if you have peace inside, you
need weed to take you down?
Of course not.
Drugs are a great testimony that without God,
there is no peace.
And wealthy people take it, use it, abuse
it.
Alcohol, why?
It's, I want to escape the lack of
peace I have in my life.
Why else would people do it?
If you have peace, you don't need any
stimulants.
You don't need any uppers, downers, sideways or
anything.
Can we all say amen to that?
A life of leisure.
This is what was the cause of the
monastic movement.
Monasticism, getting away from the world and living
in convents and cloisters, and sometimes even having
a vow of silence where you didn't talk
to anyone.
There's still people who do that.
Just, I can't make it in this world.
You can't ride the A train and have
peace.
I got to get out.
So monasteries, convents were built where people would
escape.
And one of the reasons was I want
to have peace.
The only way I can have peace is
to not be busy running around doing so
much.
It's that rat race and working and riding
and paying bills.
I can't have peace.
I got to get away from it all,
right?
This is disproved by Jesus.
Jesus was so busy ministering at times.
He had no time to eat.
Am I right or wrong?
His own family came and said he's lost
his mind.
So many people are around him, but all
through that busyness, he had perfect peace.
In fact, you can go on a vacation
and churn even more.
I've had that happen to me.
You want to get away to rest and
relax.
You know, I hear people say, smell the
roses.
You only go around once and all of
that.
When you have the peace of God, it
doesn't matter if you're working or resting, reading
a book or ministering or riding a subway
or digging a ditch, you have peace because
his peace is not logical peace.
It's supernatural peace.
It gives serenity, quietness.
You know what it cures?
Irritability.
You know why most people who are Christians,
we're talking now Christians, Christians are irritable because
they have peace with God.
They know their sins are gone, but they're
so lacking in peace through the Holy Spirit
that the world has gotten the best of
them.
And now they had disappointment.
That one let him down.
That guy walked out on him.
That one broke their promise.
That boss didn't do what's right.
That job opening was filled by someone else.
So now they're irritable because life isn't working
out like what's up with this.
And the only cure for that is the
peace of God.
The peace of God also cures all kinds
of worry, worry, biting your nails and worrying.
You know what worry changes?
Not quite right.
It changes nothing objectively, but it changes you
negatively.
I just saw the results of yet another
new study where doctors are linking anxiety and
worry to all kinds of actual specific diseases
where the body is weakened because God never
made us to worry.
And when you worry your body's defenses go
down.
Is that not a trip?
Think of that.
Worry brings it on.
And fear, outright fear, fear of the future,
fear of what people could do to you.
Remember year 2K and all that frenzy?
People were stocking up cans of beans for,
you know, everything's going to break down.
The whole society is going to go down.
I had a relative visit me.
They were warning me, you and Carol need
at least a hundred gallons of water close
to you and all of that and all
of that.
And it all came to nothing and all
that worry and fretting.
We should be wise and do practical things
in the face of potential danger.
But worry and fear is not on the
menu that God gives us.
He wants us to eat good food.
For the fruit of the spirit is love,
joy, peace, peace.
Now his presence is his peace.
If you need peace today, remember he doesn't
dole it out like here.
You need some peace.
Let me give it to you.
And he gives it separate from himself.
No, no, no.
If you want peace, you got to have
him.
He is our peace.
His presence controlling us.
More of Jesus in your life.
He brings peace with him through the spirit.
Do you get it?
Say amen.
Those of you in the top of the
balcony, you want to keep living this way?
Just rattled, just all nervy.
And you know what else his peace takes
away is that hectic, rushed feeling, just I
got to do it.
You can go about your business, but you
don't get hyper.
God's going to take care of me.
I'm going to do what I have to
do today, but God's going to watch out
for me.
Oh, it's such a wonderful thing to have
his peace.
So one day, some years ago, about five,
six years ago, it's happened many times, but
five or six years ago, I had no
peace.
Some pressures here, financial pressures, disappointments, emotional hurt,
whatever it is.
I had no peace.
And when you don't have peace and you
still keep trying to do for God and
carry out your duties for the Lord, as
for me, it really was stretching the rubber
band.
And emotionally and nerve wise, I was not
in a good place.
It's happened a few times in my life,
but this one comes to my mind.
I actually got in a room, sat in
a chair with a large print Bible on
my lap and just told God, you got
to come and help me.
Pastor Simba, you're the pastor of the Brooklyn
Tabernacle and you got that low.
You got that stretched.
You had so little peace.
Yep.
Oh, I'm surprised at you.
Don't be because you've been there too.
We're all just human.
So I didn't know what I needed.
I just knew I needed God.
I was in that room for six, seven
hours.
This made up my mind.
I'm not coming out.
I told God, I'm not leaving this little
room.
Carol was in another place working on, I
think on a project.
I'm not leaving this room because how can
I go on without you helping me?
So after a while, I began to worship
and just pray and wait on him.
And the Lord came in that tiny little
room where I was in the attic floor
of where I was living then.
Oh my good.
It was so real.
But then something started to happen inside of
me.
To use New Testament terminology, I was filled
in a new way with the Holy Spirit.
On this occasion, I didn't speak in tongues.
I didn't prophesy.
I didn't do any of those verbal things,
but oh my goodness, I didn't know what
was happening.
And it's God, Holy God is my witness.
It was so real and tangible in the
spirit that I said out loud in the
room to God, what is that?
Like what is happening to me?
Because God does surgery.
How many believe God still does operations?
He can still come.
And the best I could feel was that's
my peace.
Oh, but my brothers and sisters, I preached
about the peace of God, peace with God,
the peace of God, which is what I'm
referring to now.
I had preached that.
I know something about peace, but then I
realized I've been just scratching the surface of
his peace.
Did you know you and I don't even
understand how deep this is?
Oh, that's why the Bible says it passes
all.
Oh, did it steady me?
Did I come out of that room a
different person?
Now responsibilities were like a toy that I
could just play with.
Demands to preach, to travel, people needing counseling,
it was just yes, peace.
But we need $150,000 within a day
or half a million or whatever the numbers
were.
Praise God.
He'll bring it.
Peace of God changes everything.
So here's what Jesus said, peace I leave
with you, my peace, my peace.
Close your eyes with me.
If you're here today, we have a little
time now where you can just wait before
God.
Just tell God, God, what Pastor Cimbala mentioned
from your word and the way he preached
it and his own sharing of his own
battles, I need your peace.
You know what I'm going through?
It could be a family problem that's robbed
you of your peace, financial pressure, but you
can't have it unless you have peace first
with God.
So you have to be a Christian.
What I'm talking about now is not given
out to unbelievers.
If you're here today and you're not a
Christian, you need peace with God to start
with.
You've just got to say, I'm a sinner.
God, forgive me.
I believe that Jesus died for my sins.
He shed his blood as an offering, as
an atonement to cover the stuff I've done
so wrong, so rebellious.
My conscience told me it was wrong, still
did it.
Then once that's settled, now you can plug
into the peace of God.
So that those believers, or the first group
too, but to the believers that are here
like I was that day in that little
room, and you just need, Pastor, I need
like 20 cc's of the peace of God.
I need, you could be in the choir.
You think singing in the choir gives you
peace?
No, it's a blessing.
It's a privilege, but you can be agitated.
You can be lacking serenity and calmness inside.
You could be a visiting pastor or missionary
or youth pastor and just in desperate need
of a fresh baptism of God's peace.
You have to humble yourself because God resists
the proud that justify themselves.
He gives grace to the humble, those that
say, have mercy, help me, Lord.
And the helper will come.
I promise you on the authority of God's
word, the invisible helper, the Holy Spirit will
begin to dispense, disperse peace in your mind,
in your heart.
Your thoughts will change.
There'll be peaceful thoughts.
You can't do it.
Haven't you tried to change your thoughts before?
And they still just keep agitating inside of
you?
No, God says, my peace, my peace, the
very peace Jesus had.
If you're here today in the balcony or
downstairs, come quickly.
Just get up out of your seat.
I'm not going to have you stand and
then call you.
I want you to just get up out
of your seat and come.
And if two of you come, I'll pray
with two.
If 200 of you come, I'll pray with
200.
There's choir members or visitors.
Pastor, I need God's peace.
Pressure's getting to me.
Come on, we're waiting.
Isn't this why God said, my house shall
be called a house of prayer?
Never a house of preaching.
It's not supposed to end with preaching.
It's supposed to end with prayer.
Preaching just is an arrow.
It shows you the way to go, but
then you got to go to the throne
of grace to receive what God has promised.
Free of charge.
Don't have to join a church.
Don't have to pay an offering.
Pastor, if I get up and go up
there, some people might know me and might
say, what's wrong with him?
What's wrong with her?
Some of the choir members are up here.
They don't care.
They need peace.
Father God, for the people that might have
come forward because they don't have peace with
you.
Oh, no.
We got to have peace with God.
Can't go out in the street without peace
with God.
Can't be separated from our maker.
So we believe that you so love the
world that you gave your only begotten son,
Jesus.
That whoever would believe in Jesus would have
their sins forgiven and not perish, but they
would have everlasting life.
They would never have punishment for their sin
because by faith in Jesus, he becomes their
atoning sacrifice.
So I pray with them, Lord, forgive us
our sins.
Have mercy upon us.
We have no excuse, no story, no promise.
Just have mercy on us, Lord.
Give us peace.
And now for we that are believers, Lord,
we ask you for the peace that passes
all understanding.
We pray that you'll come with billows of
love and grace.
Steady our hearts, Lord.
Steady our minds.
Help this man, Lord, whatever's going on.
Help him in Jesus' name.
Help him in Jesus' name, Lord.
Let him come through to peace, Lord.
Peace through Jesus.
So we pray, God, now that we're not
going to be going up and down based
on what's happening around us because we're going
to have your peace.
And we can be busy and active, raising
children, spreading the gospel, working on jobs, surrounded
by lots of responsibility, and we'll still have
your peace.
We don't have to run away on a
vacation every two weeks because you are my
peace.
What you did for me and have done
so many times, please, Jesus, do it for
my brothers and sisters.
I pray in the name of the living
Christ that you will open the windows of
heaven and you will pour out your peace,
diffuse it through our hearts and our minds
so that when we leave this building, we're
going to be different men and different women,
Lord, because we're going to have something the
world cannot give us and we cannot manufacture.
It's a gift.
My peace, I give you, and we claim
it.
I want to talk to you down here
now.
If you're a Christian just praying and asking
God for peace, then we've prayed.
He's giving you peace, even as I'm talking
now.
Can I get an amen?
He's giving you peace.
If you have never had asked Christ to
come into your life, if you've never prayed
like I just prayed, and you want to
start your Christian life in a new way,
not church going, but your Christian life, now
that you've put your faith in Christ, we
want to get your name and give you
a New Testament that will help you.
Let the peace of God now that passes
all understanding be with us all day.
Thank you for everything you've done today.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
And everyone said.