[The Peace of the Holy Spirit]
Acts 10:36-38
Peace must follow the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. The Gospel of peace is good news, and I wish this peace of the Holy Spirit to be your good news too. Let us think about the peace of the Holy Spirit.
First, the peace of the Holy Spirit comes from Jesus Christ, the Lord of all, who can break down the wall between the Jews and the Gentiles. When the Gospel is spread to all mankind on the earth, peace is the biggest outcome. But the world understands peace as a status without any struggles, disputes, and wars. Peace does not come from the environment, and wars come from the sin of men. Because of the greed, jealousy, disputes, and criticisms of sinful men, the world cannot naturally have peace.
In the Bible, the word peace appears about four hundred times. Peace was used to describe the opposite concept of war, and biblically, it described a status where there was no hostility between men and God. A man cannot make peace. It is Gods gift. In the book of Leviticus, a fellowship offering appears after the burnt offering and sin offerings are given. In other words, there is no forgiveness without repentance, and there is no peace without forgiveness. The peace of this world that has not gone through these steps is momentary and false. The peace between God and men is Gods gift so He starts it first. This peace was given by Jesus Christ who died and with the help of the Trinity. This generation cannot have peace because it is wicked and adulterous. The Christians in North Korea are continuing the faith of catacomb and having peace now because the present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory to come, and they are having the peace while they taste the glory among sufferings. The bigger the suffering is, the bigger the size of the peace. As much our flesh falls down, the spirit will be grown. And the result of the spirits growth comes with peace. Without Gods peace, we cannot have peace with ourselves or with our neighbors.
It starts with Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus started spreading the Gospel of peace from Galilee. Jesus, the Master of Jerusalem Temple, started His ministry from Galilee where everyone disregarded and treated as a Gentile land. Galilee was given to King Hiram of Tyre by Solomon in 2 Kings 9 after the temple construction. It was a wasteland on the borderline. Hiram was upset with it and returned this land, naming it Kabul. This Kabul seemed to be worthless to men but it was still Gods property, and it became important and priceless because the promise for salvation resided in that land. Jesus came to this Kabul. Jesus did not show favoritism, starting the ministry at Galilee, not Jerusalem. The basis of peace is about humbling ourselves. Our sufferings may seem worthless like the land of Kabul, but it would be the Promised Land if we just keep it.
Both Hiram and Solomon did not have the insight to realize what the land of Kabul was, but God protected this unqualified Solomon because of Davids prayers. God had made Hiram return the land so it would not be taken. This happens to the chosen people. This is the reason why the prayers of the ancestors are important. Jesus came because we all are wicked and adulterous which makes us confess that 'The Lord has done it.' The Gospel started from Galilee which was Kabul and reached all the lands of Judea. This is Jesus way to make the peace of the Holy Spirit. True peace only lies in Jesus Christ.
Third, the peace of the Holy Spirit heals everyone who is under the power of the devil. All of Jesus power was given by the Holy Spirit, and He had done good things while He went around. After this verse, the Bible talks about how Jesus healed those who were under the power of the devil. This means that Jesus good deeds include healing physical and spiritual diseases. Jesus healing drove out the power of the devil and restored people as Gods children. The expression, under the power of the devil, was also used in James 2:6 when the Bible described how rich ones exploited the poor. The devil loves money and the rich exploit the poor, but Jesus freed people from it.
All those countless stories of parents, children, couples, marriages, and divorces are related to money and adultery. The devil is the father of lies, and the toughest of those who are under the power of the devil is people of lies. The lie is one of the important of the devils work. This wicked spirit controls it. The essence of evil is about rejecting to face or accept the sin or incompleteness of oneself, not about sensing it. The lie attacks others instead of facing ones own fault. People under the power of the devil have a life unrelated to the peace of the Holy Spirit no matter how much they disguise themselves in elegance, composedness, and reasons. This is a serious disease. You all have to know that there is no other way to have peace other than the Gospel and believing in Jesus who will heal all our lies.
One deaconess got a burnt scar when she was young because of her uncle which made her childhood depressing. This physical disability brought her a mental disability that she failed her marriage and was full of inferiority complex. She got her comforts in a cult. She had been in the cult for a long time, and she was having a homosexual relationship for eleven years. It was hard for her to be healed or to come back. But as her worship was restored, she realized that homosexuality was such a terrible sin that destroyed Gods creation order. She repented for her sin of homosexuality, and she is now proclaiming that homosexuality is a sin. And as she heard the sermon about Jacob and his uncle, she made an application to visit her uncle in forty years. She asked him for forgiveness for hating him because of that scar he had caused her to have. After that, she was given the heart to forgive anyone. She began to wear swimsuits and became free from being conscious of others. As she faced herself and shared her stories honestly in her small groups, God healed her sin of homosexuality and inferiority complex. I think this is the peace of the Holy Spirit.
