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Joy and Peace

Renewing Your Mind / R.C. Sproul
The Truth Network Radio
December 9, 2024 12:01 am

Joy and Peace

Renewing Your Mind / R.C. Sproul

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December 9, 2024 12:01 am

Christians do not honor the Lord by wearing a superficial smile. Our true joy is anchored in the victory of Christ. Today, R.C. Sproul offers needed clarification about the fruit of joy in the Christian life.

Get R.C. Sproul’s book Growing in Holiness, plus lifetime digital access to his teaching series Developing Christian Character and the digital study guide, for your donation of any amount:  

https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3764/developing-christian-character

Meet Today’s Teacher:  

R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was known for his ability to winsomely and clearly communicate deep, practical truths from God’s Word. He was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine.  

Meet the Host:  

Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children.

Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts

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Jesus Himself is called the Prince of Peace. And yet this same Jesus says, what? I come not to bring peace, but a sword to set brother against brother and father against son. We discover how to reconcile those two ideas today on Renewing Your Mind. Following Christ is by its very nature counter-cultural. Not only are we battling our own flesh, but the world's system is hostile to the things of God.

With all of this conflict, where is the peace? Today's message is from R.C. Sproul's 12-part series, Developing Christian Character. This week you can have lifetime digital access to this series and study guide, plus we'll send you Dr. Sproul's book, Growing in Holiness. Request this resource bundle with your donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org.

Well, here's R.C. Sproul to point us to the only source of true peace. I've mentioned that the list of the fruit of the Spirit that we find here in Galatians, I don't think, is simply catalogued for us in an arbitrary way or set forth willy-nilly, just a loose list or connection of various virtues. I think that there is a kind of order, a kind of interconnectedness that we can perceive in this understanding of the fruit of the Spirit. I don't want to be slavish about that, but I do think that we see that love stands at the beginning of that list for a reason, because out of love flows the other fruits of the Spirit.

And there seems to be almost a kind of order or a kind of sequence, a kind of mutual interdependence among these fruits. And if you would take the time to compare Galatians 5 with 1 Corinthians 13, even though the subject matter of 1 Corinthians 13 is focuses on love, you will see contained within that exposition of love in 1 Corinthians 13 virtually the same kind of content that we find in this list of the fruit of the Spirit. But let's look now at the following fruits of the Spirit beyond love. The next two that are mentioned will be the ones that we'll consider in this session, joy and peace. Now when you see virtues or fruits like these occurring in a list without qualification, there is some difficulty in understanding, because what kind of joy is the Apostle speaking of here?

What kind of peace does he have in view? If you've ever taken the time to read a careful word study of the meaning of joy as it's used biblically, you will see that the Bible speaks of joy in a multitude of ways as it does of peace. So what is the kind of joy that is specifically in view here? John Calvin, for example, says that the fruit of the Spirit that the Apostle is capturing here in terms of joy has to do with the disposition of one's personality toward cheerfulness. In simple terms, the Holy Spirit is not a sourpuss. The Holy Spirit is not morose. The Holy Spirit is not sardonic in His personality. And as the Spirit of God is indwelling the Christian and the personality begins to be shaped by the presence of agape in the soul, one of the results of that is a cheerful disposition.

In fact, Calvin prefers, and this is strange, and I'm quoting Calvin for a purpose because so often when we see Calvin portrayed in literature or even in caricatures, you always see him as this very stern and morose figure. Calvin prefers the Latin term hilaritas, hilarity to indicate what it means to have the fruit of the Spirit of joy. Now the basic root of this joy is grounded in the Christian celebration of victory. What does Jesus say? Be of good cheer.

Why? For I have overcome the world. That is, the fruit of the Spirit of joy is not a superficial type of frivolous attitude, nor is it a kind of plastic happiness that so often is characteristic in the Christian community. There's an over-saccharine, an over-sweet, you know, a sort of a very light and superficial kind of a joy that becomes a masquerade. Christians are expected to be happy. They're expected to be joyful, and so sometimes we manufacture a façade of joyfulness that is really repugnant to those outside of the faith because it carries and communicates an aura of insincerity and superficiality.

That's why we have this image in the culture of being plastic Christian. So what Calvin is saying and others, and I think accurately so, is that the cheerfulness that is to characterize the person who's bearing the fruit of the Spirit is one that is born of an understanding of something very significant. It is the joy and the celebration of the bridegroom and the bride who understands the happiness that comes from the wedding. It is the joy of celebration, and primarily what is being celebrated is the victory of Christ. And as that sinks in to our minds and the ramifications of the cosmic victory of Christ strike home into our hearts, it gives the Christian the capacity to be joyful, as Paul elaborates in his letter to the Philippians, in the midst of dire and dreadful circumstances in this world, not that we rejoice in the tragic, not that we are gleeful in the midst of suffering. I mean, the Christian has to know how to cry. The Christian has to know how to mourn.

In fact, the Bible tells us that it is better to spend our time in the house of mourning than to spend our time with the mirth of fools. But there is still that deeply enrooted sense of joy and cheer that cannot be taken away that is rooted and grounded in the supreme victory of Christ and what it means for me personally. I think of a New Testament experience where Jesus sent out the disciples on a mission, and He gave them extraordinary powers, miraculous powers. He took of the power that He had and distributed it to His disciples and sent them out to heal, to exorcise demons.

And they had never had this power before. And can you imagine it if Christ would come to you and just for two weeks gave you His power of performing miracles and sent you on a mission? How exciting it would be. They came out, and they would find people that were possessed by demons, and they would say, be gone. And the demons would tremble, and they'd run in terror. Or they'd find somebody who was deaf, and they would say, hear, and the people would hear.

How would you feel if you experienced that? Those guys came back from that mission clicking their heels and dancing, and they were so excited. And Jesus sort of humored them for a minute, but then He said to them, rejoice not that you have power over the evil forces, but what? But that your names are written in heaven. You see, when a Christian grows in grace, when the fruit of the Spirit takes hold in his life, he begins to understand what he should be happy about and the source of his good cheer. Again, I say before I pass on to the next one, the mandate of Christ be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.

This is not the same as the superficial salesman who comes on and slaps you on the back, says, pack up your troubles in an old kit bag and smile, smile, smile. It is not an irrational escapism of frivolity, but it is a cheer and a cheerfulness that is rooted and grounded in cosmic reality. The victory has been won. And so no matter what else goes wrong in my life, real tragedy, real pain, real sorrow, there still is that rock-bottom dimension of cheerfulness that should be there because of what Christ has done. Well, along with this cheerfulness and love comes also the dimension of peace. And it seems almost a travesty on biblical truth to try to cover the fruit of the Spirit of peace in ten minutes because the concept of peace biblically is one of the most all-encompassing dimensions of biblical revelation. In fact, if I were to ask a student, what does the Bible mean by peace? And he tried to answer it in five minutes, I think I'd be irritated because the meaning of peace is so multifaceted, and we can look at it in its various nuances and then be a little bit puzzled as specifically what kind of peace is in view as a fruit of the Spirit. We may be tempted to think that the fruit of the Spirit of peace is kind of that inner peace, that peace of mind, that inner tranquility that the Stoics sought, that the Epicureans sought, and that the peace of mind cultists seek in our own day.

Now it certainly has a dimension of that, but that's not the central meaning of peace biblically, and I'm convinced it's not the central meaning of peace as a fruit of the Spirit. In the first instance, peace biblically in the Old Testament word was what? Shalom. So important to the Jew that it emerged as the standard form of greeting and words of departure. When a Jew meets another Jew, he says, shalom aleichem, peace be unto you. And the response, aleichem shalom, and to you also peace.

Not hello and goodbye, but peace, peace, peace, peace. And in the first instance what it means is an interlude of safety from the ravages of warfare. The Pax Romana refers to a lengthy period in Western civilization where peace descended upon the Roman Empire. If you would compare the duration of peace in Rome to the duration of peace to the Jewish nation to where we call the Pax Israelia, in all of Jewish history it lasts about ten years. The insecurity that comes from constant warfare made its mark upon a people who desperately sought the end of wars and who looked to the day that the prophetic vision where the swords would be beaten into plowshares, and war would be no more. What does the Old Testament exhort the people to pray for?

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. In addition to that, the concept of peace emerges in the Old Testament beyond the external situation of warfare and the cessation of hostilities, of violence. And it grows up into a concept that is much more redemptive in its orientation, so that peace becomes in the Old Testament almost a synonym for salvation. Because peace reflects a new state of affairs in the relationship between man and his God, and man and his fellow man. The Bible says that by nature we are estranged from God.

What does that mean? That means we are at enmity with God. We are at war with God by our fallen nature. And not only that, we are estranged from our fellow man. And not only that, but we're estranged from our own selves.

And so you are born and raised in an atmosphere of war. Even if the guns of the nation are silent, your heart is at war with God, your heart is at war with your fellow man, and your heart is at war with yourself. Those are the three levels of estrangement. And if we read in the Colossian epistle, we read that Christ comes to bring reconciliation. And the whole concept of reconciliation presupposes estrangement. There cannot be reconciliation unless there's a prior estrangement. And the estrangement, again, is spelled out for us in Colossians as man is estranged from God, from other men, and from himself. And so the ultimate peace for which we look is where reconciliation takes place between us and God.

I've said it already. When Paul talks about justification in Romans, he says, being justified, therefore we have what? Peace with God. The cross and our repentance and our justification brings us into a restored fellowship and harmony with God. But none of those things are the focal point, in my opinion, of the fruit of the Spirit called peace. I think that what Paul has in mind here by the fruit of the Spirit is that after we are brought into peace with God and the Holy Spirit is shed abroad in our hearts and that new capacity for love is in there and that new capacity for joy is there, now we have a new capacity to live at peace with people.

Again, if I can point to Calvin, Calvin says that the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit is the quarrelsome Spirit, the Spirit of strife that characterizes the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit. A person who is growing in grace is a person who follows the apostolic mandate as much as is possible to live at peace with all men, so that a Christian in his maturity is to be a peace-loving person, a person who hears the benediction of Jesus when he says, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. If you want to be a child of God, a son of God, a daughter of God, you've got to practice a spirit of peace. Now, that can easily lead us into serious misunderstanding and serious error because there is such a thing as a false peace. There is such a thing as what Luther called a carnal peace, a peace of the flesh that is born not out of a disposition of love towards other people, love towards other people, but is born out of a disposition of cowardliness, a person who fears conflict and who out of intimidation makes peace. That kind of peace is not what we call an honorable peace or a just peace, but it is called appeasement. Israel was corrupted to the core in the Old Testament by the false ministers of peace, the false prophets whom Jeremiah lamented because the false prophets cried what?

Peace, peace, when there was no peace. And the lament of Jeremiah said, these men heal the wounds of the daughter of Israel slightly, crying peace, peace, when there is no peace. So, we see a kind of paradoxical understanding of the virtue of peace in the New Testament. Jesus Himself is called the Prince of Peace. His principal legacy, which we'll look at in a moment, to the Christian is peace. And yet this same Jesus says what? I come not to bring peace, but a sword to set brother against brother and father against son.

How in the world do we reconcile those ideas? Because for Jesus, peace must always be honorable. Now, I'm going back for a second to the passage I mentioned where the Apostle joins us as much as within us is, as much as it is possible to live at peace with all men.

Now, the very beginning of that statement suggests something doesn't, as much as is possible. It recognizes that it is not always possible for Christians to be at peace with everybody. Christ was not at peace with the Pharisees. Jesus was not at peace with those who put Him to death. His was a peaceful spirit.

His was not a belligerent attitude. But there was very little peace in the Circus Maximus when the early Christians were thrown to the lions. They were peace-loving.

They were peaceful. But just standing at the foot of the cross is to stand at the world's center of controversy. And we have to understand that. And that's where the false peace can creep in, where we seek peace by compromise, where we seek peace by fleeing, from responsibility, from persecution, from tribulation. We would much rather be peaceful than to have to fight for the kingdom of God. Do you see the imagery in the New Testament? On the one hand, we are called to warfare, and on the other to peace.

And the accent is as the Apostle said, as much as is possible. That is to say there's a certain inevitability that the Christian will be caught up in conflict, will be caught up in controversy, will be caught up in turmoil, because the cross of Christ has a built-in offense to it, to the world. But I think what the fruit of the Spirit is, is that when we have a peaceful disposition, a peaceful demeanor, a peaceful attitude to the world, then we don't add to the offense of the cross by a belligerent cantankerous, fighting, quarrelsome spirit. Now, there is also that dimension of the peace that passes understanding that makes it possible for us to be at peace with the world, because the Christian, along with possessing the love of Christ, possesses the peace of Christ.

This was his legacy. Do you remember what he said in the upper room? Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me.

And then he went on to say what? Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth. This is a transcendent, a qualitatively different kind of peace. My peace I give to you. And again, he says, let not your heart be troubled.

But do you see the link? When you have and possess in your heart the peace of Christ, that gives you the power for a peaceful disposition that puts to death the spirit of strife and the quarrelsome personality that does not bring honor to Christ. And then next time, we'll look at some more of the fruits of the Spirit, notably patience or longsuffering and kindness. And we'll do that next time.

That was R.C. Sproul with a message from his series, Developing Christian Character. We're featuring this 12-part series this week on Renewing Your Mind. As we heard Dr. Sproul imply today, the fruit of the Spirit is contradictory to our natural reactions.

In our own strength, conflict and strife will rule the day. We know that one of our greatest struggles as believers is in the area of spiritual growth. So I commend this series to you as a launching pad for your study and growth. We'll give you lifetime digital access to this series and its study guide, plus send you R.C. Sproul's book, Growing in Holiness, when you call us at 800-435-4343 with a donation of any amount or when you give your donation at renewingyourmind.org.

Whether you're a new believer who wants to understand what the Christian life is all about or you've been a Christian for some time but you're frustrated by a lack of progress, this series and book can be your guide to pursuing a holy life. Request this resource bundle today at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes. Thank you for supporting the global outreach of Renewing Your Mind and Ligonier Ministries. Well tomorrow R.C. Sproul will tackle the character traits of being patient and kind. How we treat one another will be our focus again. That's Tuesday here on Renewing Your Mind. you
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-12-09 02:46:14 / 2024-12-09 02:54:15 / 8

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