I. First, the peace of Christ is the peace of being divinely loved.  Nothing rests and satisfies the heart like the sense of being loved.  Let us take as an illustration the case of a little child, which has grown tired and fretful at its play, and is frightened suddenly by some childish terror.  Weeping, it runs to its mother.  She takes the child in her arms, folds it to her breast, bends over it, and soothes it with fond words which mean only this:  “I love you.”  Very soon the child sinks to rest, contented and happy, in the sense of being loved.  “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”  In Jesus Christ God is stretching out His arms to us, drawing us to His bosom, enfolding us in the secret of peace.  If we believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, He makes us sure of a Divine affection, deep, infinite, inexhaustible, imperishable.  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  God, who “spared not his dearly-beloved Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” “Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

II.  The Christian peace is the peace of being divinely controlled.  The man who accepts Jesus Christ truly, accepts Him as Master and Lord.  He believes that Christ has a purpose for him, which will surely be fulfilled? work for him, which will surely be blessed if he only tries to do it.  Most of the discords of life come from a conflict of authorities, of plans, of purposes.  Suppose that a building were going up, and the architect had one design for it, and the builder had another.  What perplexity and confusion there would be!  How ill things would fit!  What perpetual quarrels and blunders and disappointments!  But when the workman accepts the designer’s plan and simply does his best to carry that out, harmony, joyful labour, and triumph are the result.  If we accept God’s plan for us, yield to Him as the daily controller and director of our life, our work, however hard, becomes peaceful and secure.  No perils can frighten, no interruptions can dishearten us.

Not many years ago some workmen were digging a tunnel, when a sudden fall of earth blocked the mouth of the opening.  Their companions on the outside found out what had happened, and started to dig through the mass of earth to the rescue.  It was several hours before they made their way through.  When they went in they found the workmen going on with their labour on the tunnel.  “We knew,” said one of them, “that you’d come to help us, and we thought the best way to make time pass quick was to keep on with the work.”  That is what a Christian may say to Christ amid the dangers and disasters of life.  We know that He will never forsake us, and the best way to be at peace is to be about His business.  He says to us:  “As the Father sent me, even so send I you.”