Peace - Presence of the Desirable

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For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Titles are the names of God.

They don't mean anything unless you know the person behind.

Somebody's title doesn't mean anything to you until you understand who their character is.

So when it says the Prince of Peace, it means you have to understand him as the Prince of Peace.

Here it is, I have access to the Prince of Peace.

He rules and reigns in my heart.

But there was a time in my life where I fell in a very dark hole.

Up to that point, I had had lots of battles coming against me, and my peace kind of wanted to wane, and it was like, no, come back.

But there was a time in my life, and it was when my husband passed away.

And he's in heaven and he loves the Lord dearly, and so it's beautiful.

But when we got his diagnosis for cancer, he was 51 years old, and we had five children at the time, seven through 16 years of age, and he was the full supporter of our family.

I personally had never worked.

I didn't have a professional job.

I was a professional housewife.

It was when we got the diagnosis, it was terminal cancer, and that was going to be maybe three months to live.

I remember when my husband called me and he told me that it was terminal cancer because he had he had lumps, tumors all over his body.

I literally fell on the ground and I went into a very dark hole.

And it reminded me of Joseph when his brothers, you know, sold him to slavery and they put him into a well.

And that's what it felt like.

I felt that I was in a very dark hole.

I think the most beautiful thing is with peace, the Prince of Peace and ruling in our hearts, is that we have access this way.

And even though I was in a very dark place, it didn't stop my access this way.

So when I have this access in prayer and have a relationship with the living God, then all that goes around me cannot disrupt my peace.

When I have this and I'm giving thanks for everything that's coming and I'm having direct access to his throne, the Prince of Peace, that kingdom is set here and nothing can shake that.

Nothing around me.

The next days and the days after that, and the weeks and the years.

Was it easy?

No, it was not easy.

It was very difficult.

And I remember sitting at our family devotion table, and I'd sit there and say, Guys, to my children, we're gonna make it.

We're gonna make it.

I had no idea how and no clue.

I didn't know what the next day helped.

I didn't know how we were gonna make it financially.

I didn't know whether we'd have to live off the streets.

I had no idea.

But I knew every day I woke up that we were gonna make it.

Because I started every day in the Word of God and in prayer.

So I think when you have that understanding of who God is, that He's the Prince of Peace and He really is reigning and in your heart.

No matter what's going on around you, you can have peace.

You may not understand, it may be in a very dark place, you may not understand what's going on around you, but you have that assurance.

So that's to me what the Prince of Peace uh means in my life.

The woman featured in that video is Stacy Rooker.

She is one of our local mission pastors, uh, excuse me, partners.

She uh has a real heart for Afghan people that have come to Houston and she wants them to know Jesus as her their personal savior, but also to know the peace of Christ.

Through some God orchestration, as he is uh so apt to do.

I happen to know Stacy just a little bit and know uh a bit about their family.

What I know is what you likely sensed, having watched that video, that Stacy is a great woman and a good mom and a Christian that's on fire for the gospel.

Let me pray and then we'll begin the sermon portion of our worship service.

God, thank you that you are the great orchestrator.

Thank you that you are writer of testimonies.

Thank you that despite difficulty and circumstance that's beyond our understanding, certainly beyond our control, God, you're still in charge.

And God, the great thing about you is that there is not a single episode that we could go through where we are alone.

You are with us.

But also, God, the way that you have um, the way that you're at work, you put your people next to your people.

And so when they're in dark holes, like Stacy talked about, others come alongside of us and say, Hey, I've been down here too, but I know the way out.

And so, God, I pray that that's the kind of people that Grand Parkway will continue to be.

Lord, I pray that your word falls fresh on us this morning.

Spirit, I pray that you're active in this place this morning so that we can hear and sense, know, absorb, and digest all that you have for us, so that we can live not as a people, but as the people of God.

It's in your name, Jesus, that I pray these things.

Amen.

Well, good morning.

My name is Wade Burgess, and it's uh I'm the um, what am I here?

Wow.

I'm the executive pastor here at Grand Parkway, and it's my privilege to be in front of you this morning as we continue our four weeks of Advent, these four weeks that lead up to, with anticipation and celebration, this birth of the Christ child.

Now, last week Neil preached on hope, and this week our focus is on peace.

I want to give you two notices before I begin.

Notice number one, we're gonna take just a few minutes before we get into our text today.

And number two, we're going to use a couple of texts as well as I'm gonna reference a couple of other places in the Bible.

And the reason I'm doing that is not because I'm trying to search or figure out or where's this clown taking us?

Instead, what I'm doing is I'm trying to show you that throughout, God has been giving us a definition and an understanding of peace.

I think peace might be a difficult concept to explain.

I mean, it's not like trying to define irony or anything, but it is fairly difficult to say, yeah, this is what it feels like.

This is what it's it's sort of if I went to a Ruth Chris Steakhouse and had a great steak and then came back and tried to tell you about it.

I'd be able to describe some of the aspects of that experience, but really and truly, for you to know everything that's entailed, you're gonna have to experience that for yourself.

Peace is that gnawing need that everyone has, and yet many don't even know they need it.

And those that do are unsure, how do I get it and how do I hold on to it?

How does it have some permanent resonance in me?

With peace, I have comfort that I never knew was available.

It's that steak that I never knew could taste so good until I had it.

So during our time together, I want to strive to give you an understanding of peace.

I want to talk about how do we get it, and then how what is it like to experience it?

The way the Bible uses that word, it gives us two definitions, or really a definition that has two aspects.

It's the aspect of absence and presence.

The absence, it's the absence of the undesirable.

Maybe uh for students, it's no school tomorrow.

That'd give you some peace.

It'd be the absence of the undesirable.

Uh maybe uh it's uh a no-speeding ticket, maybe it's that, or not failing a class, not that that's happened in my house.

But um, or maybe it's the kids aren't fighting, perhaps it's that.

Or for some of you, it's whatever body part normally aches, doesn't hurt quite as bad.

The absence of the undesirable.

Now, I would argue that the absence of undesirable is for the most part temporary.

Why?

Because there always seems to be another undesirable coming behind it.

Hey, dad, I didn't get a speeding ticket, uh, but I did get uh a ticket for running that red light.

Oh, oh, good.

The kids aren't fighting, oh, that's because they're coloring on the walls, and feeding the commode a roll of toilet tissue.

Or, hey, that body part, you know what?

It's not hurting as bad as it used to because now I've got this other ache, and I don't know how how it is that I sleep wrong and it hurts.

Yeah, the absence of the undesirable is temporary.

However, there is a permanent peace, and that is the other one the Bible refers to, and it's that presence of the desirable.

That's where I want to focus this morning.

I want to look at Ephesians chapter two.

So if you have your Bibles, turn there with me.

If not, it'll come up on the screens behind me, but it's Ephesians chapter two, starting in verse 11, and Paul is writing these things.

Now, by the way, Paul would be writing probably a similar letter to us today.

He's writing to those that are non-Jewish, and he's saying, Hey, here's what you have in Christ.

Let's begin reading in chapter 2, verse 11.

Paul writes, So then remember that at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcised, by those called the circumcised, which is done in the flesh by human hands.

At that time you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus, you who are far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility.

In his flesh he made no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace.

He did this so he might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross, by which he put the hostility to death.

He came and proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near.

For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father.

So then you are no longer foreigners or strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone.

In him the whole building being put together grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

In him you are also being built together for God's dwelling in the Spirit.

So this presence of the undesirable, the text gives us three factors to be reminded of.

First, it's reconciliation, verse 16.

Paul writes, He did this so that he might reconcile, meaning Jesus, both Jews and Gentiles to God in one body through the cross, by which he put the hostility to death.

See, at the cross, everything that was a lack of unity was destroyed.

First, he reconciled two people.

We got the Jews and the Gentiles, those that God said from way early on, you are going to be my people.

And for those that were on the outside looking in, he said, Yep, it's also available now for you too.

He reconciled the church, capital C, under one headship, that being Jesus.

And he certainly gave reconciliation for a sinful people to a holy God.

I believe there's a certain permanency to reconciliation.

I experienced that in our marriage early on, we had difficulties, and many do, but ours were of a particular depth.

And we were going through it with the usual means that a lot of people use, the means of avoidance.

Like, yeah, this will go away.

And we'd have these blow-ups and things would happen.

And then when they weren't happening, when we weren't at each other, it was like, no, we don't have any issues.

Everything's going great.

What seems to be the problem?

And then that cycle would repeat itself and repeat itself.

And it wasn't until we stripped it down to the foundation of God and our relationship with Him and each other that we had a full reconciliation.

That permanent fix.

Now it's not perfect by any means, but 20 years ago, that presence of the desirable has now been consistent and always present, brought about by reconciliation.

So can you imagine how much more?

Reconciling to a God that is eternal?

He also tells us that there's citizenship in verse 19.

So then you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God's household.

See, the non-Jewish folks, they were living in the area of Jerusalem and all over, and uh they were there, but they didn't have the same privileges, the same rights as the Jewish citizens did.

And what Paul tells us is when Jesus came, he put those two people on an equal footing and he said, You're the same citizens because you're a part of God's household.

There is no difference in that.

Finally, he tells us that there's a dwelling place.

In verse 22, in him, meaning Jesus, you are also being built together for God's dwelling in the spirit.

A dwelling place for the spirit.

So you might ask, well, now, okay, I get reconciliation has to do with peace because you have to come together.

And I get citizenship.

You know, we're all one, all right.

That makes us harmonious, if you will.

But what does dwelling of the spirit have to do with peace?

Well, the spirit is God's Holy Spirit.

The one that came after Jesus ascended.

He said, I'm going so that another can come, a helper.

That's God's Spirit living inside of us.

It's the Spirit that allows you to take a nap in a boat in the middle of a squall.

A squall that might be the unexpected death of a family member.

The squall of a daughter's addiction.

That Holy Spirit inside of us means that we still get physically and emotionally hurt, absolutely.

Bad things still happen.

All the things that go on on these upper layers, but way down deep, deep inside of us, we get to sit down on the inside because there is a stability, a steady, nourishing, stabilizing force in us.

In the home where I grew up, it was uh fairly rural.

We I grew up on about 120 acres and we had beef cows, and our nearest neighbor was over a quarter of a mile away, and we drove 30 minutes.

I mean, a solid 30, no traffic, okay?

A solid 30 minutes to the store.

Uh and obviously we had to have a well.

And so we're building the house, and my dad calls the well guy out, you know, and he's like, hey, I want you to dig a water well for us.

And so they dig and do what they do, and they go down about 500 feet and they come back and they said, Okay, Mr.

Burgess, we we got you, man.

We got water.

It's good water, it's flowing good.

We're all done.

And he said, No, I think I want to go a little deeper.

Well, no, Mr.

Burgess, you don't understand.

We we've already hit water.

See, I mean, we do all these testing and things.

He's like, Yeah, I really want you to go deeper.

They're like, All right, you're writing the check, so we'll do whatever.

So they start digging some more and dig some more.

They get down to about a thousand feet and they come back and they say, Man, Mr.

Burgess, we test that water, and whew, it was better than the one we found earlier.

And some testing that we do and different things we look at, the flow is likely you're never gonna run out of water going that deep and being in that kind of uh water table.

Going through all the sand and the clay and then the rock and stuff.

And there's geologists in here that could explain this better.

But when we got down to the base, they found good water.

And that's what we do when we have that spirit dwelling inside of us.

It's the presence of the desirable.

Now, whoo, you sold me, Wade.

I'm ready.

Uh man, I'm ready.

I like it.

I like what you're telling me.

I like the peace you're talking about.

I want all of that.

How do I get it?

Romans 5 says that since we have been justified, which really just means made righteous in the sight of God, since we have been made righteous in the sight of God, through faith in Jesus, we have peace.

Isaiah 32 agrees with that.

It says the righteousness produces peace.

So here's what it looks like it's a faith in Jesus makes you righteous with God, which produces peace.

Now, the faith that we're talking about is not just a belief in, but instead it is a believing so powerful, so extensive that you've put all your eggs in one basket.

My response to things are different now because of that kind of peace.

I can be enjoyable and I can have joy, I can enjoy life just a little bit better because of that peace.

And you might be asking, wait, are you saying that all I have to have is a life-changing, heart-altering faith in Jesus in order to have peace?

Yep.

That's it.

See, the minute God invites you in to his story, the minute God issues you an invitation to know him personally, then just simply by saying yes is that first step to that internal, eternal peace.

Now, there's some of you raising your hand right now, at least in your mind, and you're saying, but wait, I'm a firm believer in Jesus.

I've got that kind of faith.

Man, I read my Bible all the time.

I even pray and do all that stuff, but I still, ooh, I can't quite get settled.

I'm still not at peace the way you're talking about.

I mean, I do sometimes and I don't, and it wanes and waxes.

What's what gives?

What's going on?

Well, I'm gonna give you just some very simple suggestions.

Now, these are, at least I have found them helpful to remind us at times who we are in God and who he is.

The first thing I would suggest to you is you can sing hymns or worship songs.

I have a good friend, he shared with me, he said, Yeah, wait, I had a vehicle that didn't have a radio, so I would just carry a hymn book with me.

And I would just read while I was driving.

Now, I am not recommending that that you read hymns while you're driving, okay?

And I know you're like, oh my gosh, I'm freaking out.

Somebody give me a hymnal.

That's not necessarily what I'm talking about, although it can't hurt, okay?

But my point is, when you put into your mind and into your heart some of those things that are expressed in those old hymns, in that worship music, I think it reminds you, oh, yeah, that's who God is, and that's who I am in Him.

The second thing I would suggest is to pray.

No duh.

And you're thinking, man, the genius switch is never off with this guy.

But I I would probably tell you, yeah, praying is kind of a no-duh thing, except how often have you heard or maybe even said yourself, well, all we can do now is pray.

It's such an obvious thing for us to do, yet it seems like it's our last resort at times.

Maybe another suggestion is to praise, just count your blessings.

I was talking with someone recently and they were celebrating their 26th year and a wedding anniversary, and they said, Yeah, what we did was we sat down and we recounted the 26 things that God had brought us through.

And he said, not only do we do that for praise purposes, we also were doing it to fortify ourselves for what might be to come, to remind ourselves, oh, look at all the things God has done for us.

And whatever's coming, God's gonna do the same.

You can read your Bible as well.

Another no duh thing to do, but if you're wondering where do I start, I would suggest.

Psalms.

Psalms is a great place to begin when you're looking for this peace that we're talking about.

David writes in there at one point, he says, God, oh, I run to you and you are steady and I hold on to you like a post.

In another place, he says, God, I taste and you're so good.

It's like prime ribbon gravy dripping from my lips.

It does in the message, trust me.

And if you say, hey, I'm reading my Bible, then I would just challenge you a little bit further and say, Do you believe what you're reading?

Because if you're reading the Bible I'm reading and you're believing what that Bible says, that peace is a permanent thing.

So what does it look like?

If you say, okay, I think I follow you on what peace is.

It's an absence and a presence, I get that.

And I follow you about how to get it and what that might look like.

But man, what is it to experience it?

Especially this time of year, it seems, you know, it eludes us for sure.

I mean, it's like, hey, it's the holidays.

Oh good, I've got to buy presents and I have to pay for them.

But it's the holidays.

Awesome.

I get to see family I don't like, but I love.

It's the holidays.

But I've got my year-end taxes due, and somehow my property value continues to climb even though my house is getting older and I've done nothing to it.

Is it just me or do I write bigger checks every year and yet the schools continue to fundraise?

It's the holidays, which means 11 more months and we'll do it all over again.

Peace.

What does it look like?

It's not being swayed.

Now, I don't mean a stubbornness, but what I mean is it's an assurance of the belief you have in the Almighty.

It's explanation versus argument.

You ever notice that Jesus didn't really argue very much?

He instead explained and demonstrated and revealed.

Great example for us.

How do we do that?

How do I demonstrate this peace?

And how do I make sure others recognize it too?

Well, I'm going to flip over just a little bit into the New Testament.

Again, another letter that Paul writes, it's in Philippians, and they'll kick you out of the pastor preacher club if you don't use this verses for peace, but this is chapter four of Philippians, and it's verses four through seven.

Let me read Paul's words to you.

He says, Rejoice in the Lord always.

I say it again, rejoice.

Let your graciousness be known to everyone.

The Lord is near.

Don't worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

So Paul tells us we've got to be rejoicing, we've got to be gracious, and we're not supposed to worry.

But how do I do all of that?

I mean, that sounds good, right?

Even on a Sunday morning right now, yeah, I could do that.

Sunday in about three minutes, maybe not.

I think it's one word.

It's that little word in verse 7 surpasses.

Maybe in some translations it says transcends.

And the peace of God which transcends goes beyond, surpasses all understanding.

Theology commentary explains it like this: that God is outside of humanity's full experience, perception, or grasp.

Now, it's not that the whole total sum of God is outside our understanding, but there are parts of Him in this life, on this side of heaven, we will never fully comprehend.

Beyond our understanding, like the inability to get pregnant, even though we'd make terrific parents.

Beyond our understanding, like those cheaters in school that are getting better grades than I am, and I'm doing it all right.

That beyond our understanding, like, hey, how come my parents are divorcing?

That beyond our understanding that says, you know, I man, I'm old.

I think maybe I've lived out my productive years.

God, why am I still here?

What is it that I'm supposed to still be doing?

Now, what does understanding God is at times beyond my understanding have to do with peace?

Why would I even bring that up?

And more importantly, how does it help us demonstrate peace?

Because you can be at ease.

You can sit down on the inside, knowing that you don't have to know it all, you don't have to control it all, you don't even have to understand it all.

You believe.

And therefore you conform to the belief that God is in charge and he's beyond our understanding.

The Bible warns us that we will experience difficulties, absolutely.

I mean, you can't go through about the first four pages of the Bible and see that, and you see it all throughout, this idea that we are going to experience difficulties.

Why?

Because our belief is different than the majority.

Is the world out to get us?

Absolutely.

It's because Satan is always at work.

He is seeking to destroy and he seems to never take a day off.

Why would Jesus tell us then, hey, I give you peace in a broken world?

Why wouldn't he just come back and go, you know what?

I'm going to fix the world and then we'll have peace.

How about that?

Oh, that formula makes total sense, Jesus.

Go ahead.

But instead he says, no, no, no.

In the midst of a broken world, I give you peace.

Why does he do that?

Here's what I think.

I think it's because a broken world and peace in Christ can exist simultaneously.

A crazy concept until you fully believe in him.

It means that our environment, nor the conditions, nor anything else can sway us from what gives us that ultimate peace.

If my hope is in elected officials, then of course my peace wanes based on who's in office and what they're up to.

If my hope is in the stock market, for example, then my peace will go with the flow of the market.

See, these four Sundays of Advent are not individual, but instead they are interwoven.

They build on each other.

Where is my hope?

Therefore, peace, then joy, and love.

If my hope is in anything, including my abilities, anything that has a finite life or is temporary, then my peace is going to feel that way.

One minute I'm peace, the next minute I'm not.

Oh, what I oh.

What is your peace relying on?

It's the peace of Christ that surpasses all understanding, will never be mine if it relies on anything that is temporary, anything other than Christ Himself.

And we have to guard our hearts and our minds, our desires even, against the worries of the world, against the worries of all the things that are coming up against us.

See, peace is the absence of the undesirable.

It's the absence of worry and war and illness and those things.

But it also very much is the presence of the desirable, the Almighty God Spirit itself dwelling inside of us.

Jesus was not a new concept that arrived at the manger, and certainly it wasn't a new concept that started with just the New Testament.

The God of peace is the same one because Jesus has been right there.

That Prince of peace has been right with God since the very beginning, since Genesis 1 and well before that.

And you know why peace is attainable?

Because he's also the God and the Prince of Peace long after it's all said and done.

Let me pray for us.

Jesus, you tell us that you're the Prince of Peace.

And I will be honest and confessing sometimes.

I don't know, are you asleep at a switch?

What in the world's going on here?

Have you looked down here lately?

Have you seen it?

God, I'm kind of like David.

Have you forgotten about me?

What about all that stuff that's happening?

Well, and we got kids in school thinking they're cats, and we got administrators letting them do it.

We've got other people that have decided they're going to take matters into their own hands.

And we're saying, Jesus, where are you, the Prince of Peace?

Oh, you're no further than right here among us.

And you're saying to us, you don't have to understand to be at peace.

Trust me, I'm still doing work.

I'm still writing testimonies in lives.

If it was all peaceful and all fixed, then I wouldn't have a need to do that.

I'm still telling a story through broken people.

Well, it's my specialty.

That's what you're saying to us.

Oh, thank you, God.

Thank you for never stopping the story of you and of reconciliation.

Thank you, Jesus, that it was because of you and what you did on the cross for us.

And it wasn't just a moment in time or history.

You continue to do that today.

You continue to seek us out.

You continue to save us.

Oh, and you continue to be the Prince of Peace.

Therefore, I ask this prayer for these people in your name.

Amen.

At the conclusion of our sermons, we like to give you just some time and space to think about maybe what you've heard, perhaps what stirred something in you.

We call it mental worship.

There's just four or five questions for you to consider.

We're going to give you a moment or two to consider those.

And then Clyde and Lindsay are going to sing something over us.

Take a moment.

Amen.

Some of you may know the story, or at least the way I heard it, the author of that hymn, he had lost his family in a shipping accident.

The ship they were on went down on their way to England.

And so he gets on another ship and he's coming from America.

And he tells the captain, hey, when we get to that spot where their ship went down, would you let me know?

And I heard it was in the middle of the night.

And the captain wakes him and he goes out and he pins those words.

Peace that surpasses that kind of understanding.

Let me pray for us.

God, thank you.

Thank you for the reminder of how good you are.

Thank you that it is well with our souls when we firmly anchor to you.

Oh, when you're that foundation, we can sit down on the inside and know that you're in charge.

Thank you.

Amen.

Well, thank you for attending this morning and for your attention.

If you're a member or a longtime attender here, thank you for continuing to support Grand Parkway.

If today's the day that you do that through giving, then you can certainly find one of the boxes near any of our exits.

If you're a first-time guest with us, thank you for taking the courage to try a new church or for just saying yes to the invitation to come and check us out.

Myself and some other pastors will be down front.

If you have any questions or if we can help you process anything you heard today, we're glad to do that.

We're also available during the week because we know life doesn't just happen on Sundays.

If you want to know more about our church, about what we believe, about upcoming events and things like that, you can go to our website at grandparkway.org and do that as well.

Well, our tradition here is that we conclude with a spoken blessing.

So if you'd stand to your feet and hold your hands out, if it's as if receiving a gift by the power given to me because I am a son of the Almighty, may the God of heaven and earth and of all eternity give you the comprehension that understanding and peace do not have to be directly proportionate.

May you have the peace of Christ dwelling inside of you so that you can fully live.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.