Christmas at Access – Heavenly Peace

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason and Liz Burns in Access Church in Lakeland and Bartow, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Hey, if you're new to our church, we are so honored you're with us today.

If we've never met, my name is Jason.

You may not know this, but our church is one church that meets in three locations and then hundreds of locations where people stream us at church online.

We always like to have this tradition on Sundays when we gather, where we all just say hi to each other.

So right now we're streaming from South Lakeland and we're joined by our church in North Lakeland and Bartow and everywhere at Church Online.

Come on, everywhere you are, put your hands together and welcome your church, Tim.

So glad you are with us.

It feels like you worked on it for three months, but you really found it at the last possible second, and you're here with us, so we're honored you're with us.

To get us started tonight, um, I don't know if anybody else has this problem, but every Christmas my wife and I have the same fight.

We say it every single year for Christmas, for every birthday.

My wife says these words to me.

She says, You're hard to buy for.

And that's frustrating to me because I'm not hard to buy for.

I buy for myself all the time, and that's the problem.

And she says you're hard to buy for.

And I was thinking about Christmas, and I was thinking about you, Access Church, and I had this realization.

If I were to try to come up with a gift for you, you would be hard to buy for.

Because here's the question What do you get a church that has everything?

Like, what do you get a church that is so unbelievably generous and thoughtful?

What do you get the kind of church where literally just this week we gave Christmas to hundreds of families?

We gave presents to hundreds of families because of your generosity?

What do you give to the kind of church that gives hundreds of thousands of dollars away around the world to meet needs and to help people find the love of Jesus?

What do you give to the kind of church that literally met the needs of hundreds of families when the SNAP financial benefits ran out just a few months ago?

What do you give to the kind of church that serves thousands of hours in one single day and serves tens of thousands of hours over the course of a year together?

What do you give to a church that is so generous that you make Santa Claus look greedy?

What do you give to that church?

Rest.

Come on, anybody could use some rest right now?

Anyone feel the busyness and the chaos of the season?

You you give you give rest.

And the truth is we live in a restless kind of world.

I read a report this week that said in 1914 a national survey was done, and the average American slept 10 hours per night.

Albert Einstein credits a lot of his brilliance and his success to sleeping 11 hours a night.

But statistically, according to the last survey I could find, 70 million US adults sleep less than six hours a night.

86% of American adults call themselves chronically tired and fatigued.

I read one report that said Americans consume 60,000 pounds of sleeping pills every single night to try to get rest.

Why is that?

Why is it that we are the most restless generation in the history of the world?

I'd like to submit an answer, and the answer is actually a part of the Christmas promise.

It's that we lack peace.

But peace is a part of the Christmas story, isn't it?

Now, all of us have had some days where peace seemed to evade us.

I don't know how you roll, but but something you need to know about me is um I am what I would self-describe as frugie.

It's not a real word, but this is my word.

It's two words.

I'm a little bit frugal and a little bit bougie.

Anybody kind of like this, you know?

Let me try to explain it to you.

Um if I were to travel with my family, I am extravagant, I'm generous.

We want to buy the best flights and the best hotels.

I'm very bougie when it comes to blessing my family.

But if I travel by myself, I am so cheap.

I am so frugal.

I will get the cheapest rental car, I will get the cheapest hotel, I will get the cheapest flight, unless it's Spirit Airlines, because your boy ain't trying to meet Jesus right now.

But like, like I go cheap, I go cheap, cheap.

A couple years ago, I had to go to California for literally 48 hours just for one night.

And so I booked everything, I bought the cheapest flight, about the cheapest rental car, and I found a hotel that checked all the boxes that I needed.

I just needed a bed and a shower.

It was a Ramada in the city of Antioch, California, and I looked it up and I read the reviews, and I'm like, this place is better than I could ever imagine.

It had one and a half stars.

It's perfect, it's good.

So I go to this hotel and I go to check in, and I um I tend to have a little bit of a short fuse when people don't treat me the way they should.

And and I go into the hotel lobby, and there is at the front desk, there is nobody working.

But this is no big deal.

I mean, no big deal at all.

And there's a bell that says ring for service, and because I am kind, I gently ding rang it one time, and nothing happened.

So I ding dinged it, and nothing happened.

Started to get a little frustrated, and I started playing it like an instrument.

Ding-da-da ding-da-ding-da-ding-ding.

And out of the back comes this ding-da-da-ding bat, this guy who is.

He, I just woke him up with the bell.

Like that's what happened.

Like he had sleep marks on his face, drool coming down his lips.

His hair was all up on one side, and he had sleep creases on his face.

And he goes, Can I help you?

I said, You can help you, is what you should do.

And he goes, What do you need?

I said, I just I need to check in.

And he punched my name in the computer and he goes, Good news, you got the last room.

I was like, good, one and a half stars, let's go.

And he reaches under the desk and he pulls out a key.

Okay, not like a credit card key like you get at a hotel, like an actual key.

And look, I have watched enough like 2020 and Dateline to know that this is how a lot of murder mystery starts, right?

Staying in a room where the guest before you could have gone to Home Depot and duplicated the key.

Tonight on 2020, pastor checks in, it's a hotel, never goes home.

Like it was that kind of thing.

Anyways, I go and I'm like, I just need one night.

I gotta live through one night, it'll be fine.

Put the key in the door, open the door.

I took one step into the room, and the carpet underneath me went squish.

You feel me, hunt this, right?

I'm like, okay, it's the last room I can get through this.

So I walk over to the bed and I throw my suitcase on the bed, and I make the mistake of looking up at the wall, and there is some sort of substance smeared all over the wall.

And I was like, God, please let that be coffee.

Blood?

No, coffee, please let it be coffee.

And it was so bad.

I I do whatever I can do to just get myself in bed, and I'm just like, I just go to sleep.

If I could just sleep through the night, I'll be fine and I'll wake up and this will all be over.

And I get in bed.

And I don't, I don't know if this was like psychological or what, but I started just like itching everywhere.

And and it was so bad that I tossed and turned, I couldn't sleep.

And in the middle of the night, I just said, I just need to go to the restroom.

So I walked to the bathroom and I thought, this is the kind of hotel I should turn the lights on before I go to the restroom.

And I turned the lights on, and like a hundred roaches just scattered everywhere.

Now normally I would call the front desk and say, hey, there's a roach in my room, but I felt like I was in their room.

You know what I mean?

It was bad.

Get back in bed, and I'm like, if I can just make it till the sun comes up, I could I do it.

So I get back in bed, toss and turn, and eventually it's time to shower.

I'm like ready to get out of this place, and I go to the bathroom, and it the shower has the shower curtain.

And so I turn the water on, and the shower curtain is to one side.

So I turn the water on and I go to close the shower curtain, and I promise you this is true.

The moment I pulled the shower curtain shut, this large pair of black polka dotted women's underwear comes falling off of the top.

Does like a triple axle and sticks the landing on my shoulder.

Did you get a tetanus shot for that?

Like, I don't know what the rules are.

And in that moment, I thought the worst thing that could possibly happen right now is my wife is gonna FaceTime me and I have to explain whatever that situation was, you know?

Like, okay, all of us have had moments where it felt like peace was a million miles away.

All of us have had some moments, some nights, some situations.

All of us have had the moment where we've been waiting on a diagnosis, or we've been waiting for a good report, or we've been waiting on that check to come in the mail.

We've all had some times where it felt like peace was a million miles away.

And part of the Christmas story is we believe that one of the promises of God in Christmas is that we will receive peace on earth.

And we love this phrase.

We put this on Christmas cards, people wear this on sweaters.

We love this phrase, peace on earth.

And I've got some really terrible news for you.

This phrase is not like in the Bible.

Like, like we think that because Jesus came, war should stop and everyone should live in harmony with each other, and peace on earth is like not in the Bible.

It is one time.

Let me show it to you the one time, and this is funny because it's like the opposite of what we think.

Jesus was talking in Luke chapter 12, and he said, Do you think that I have come to bring peace on earth?

Luke 12 · chapter mention

Nope.

Like, no, I didn't.

I didn't.

In fact, another place Jesus is talking about peace, and here's what he says in the book of John 16.

He says, I've told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.

Like that's where peace comes from, is the presence of God.

Then he says, In this world you will have trouble.

And you're like, Jesus, like be more positive.

And Jesus is like, I'm positive, you're gonna have trouble, but take heart, I've overcome the world.

So so we think that the Christmas story is about peace on earth, and that's what the Christmas story is all about.

And I want to take you on a quick journey through the Christmas story to show you that peace on earth isn't really the story, but peace is available to you and me.

In the book of Isaiah, which was written some 700 or 750 years before Jesus came, that first Christmas day, the prophet Isaiah has this moment where he writes of Jesus, the Savior who's going to come.

And here's what he says, and I want you to see these highlighted phrases.

Isaiah chapter 9, he says, For to us a child is born.

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

To us, a son is given.

I want you to see this.

That the the direction of God's love and blessing at Christmas is to us.

And we personalize it.

It is to you that God is a good God who gives good gifts to his children, and these gifts are to us.

To us, as child is born.

To us, the son of given, and the government will be on his shoulders.

And I want you to notice this, it says, and he will be called.

And then Isaiah gives us these four titles for Jesus.

Wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, Prince of Peace.

He says, of the greatness of his government and peace, there will be no end.

And I love this picture because before he gives us the titles of Jesus, he uses this phrase, he says, and he will be called.

You ever um you ever meet someone who's like a little too addicted to the titles that they have?

It's like they use the titles to separate themselves from you.

You're like, what's up, Kevin?

He's like, no, no, it's Dr.

Kevin, or professor this, you know, Mr.

That.

And we like to use titles to elevate ourselves above other people or to distance ourselves from people.

But what Isaiah is saying about Jesus is all of these titles are actually gifts to us that don't separate us, they bring us close to Him.

And I want you to see this.

With each of the four titles, there comes a gift from God wrapped directly to you this Christmas.

He will be called wonderful counselor.

And I love this.

You don't have to live your life in the limited intellect you have.

The gift of God through Jesus is wisdom.

You when you experience the love of Jesus, you can walk with God's wisdom.

The second promise or name is that he's our mighty God.

And I love this because so many people try to eke out an existence in their own strength.

They work as hard as they can, they exhaust themselves, and they never feel strong enough to stand up under the gravity or the weight of this world.

But the gift of God through Jesus is the strength of God.

What can you do with the strength of God at your beckon and call?

The third promise, and this is one of the hardest ones for people, is the name Everlasting Father.

I think one of the reasons people struggle with this title is because so many of us have such a broken picture of what a father is or who a father is.

A father, someone who hurt us or abused us or spoke negatively over us.

A father, someone who abandoned us or never wanted anything to do with us.

But here's the picture you have of Jesus.

He's our everlasting father, and the gift he gives is his identity.

What is his identity?

You are in his family.

The book of Ephesians, one of the phrases Paul uses when he writes about us, is we get adopted into God's very own family.

And I love the adjective, it's everlasting.

Many of us have had fathers.

We had a dad, but the dad was there temporarily, not there forever, not always a part of our story.

But the everlasting adjective means he's not going anywhere.

And then we come to the last one, which is the point of tonight's message.

It's he is our prince of peace.

And here's the thing I love.

It's that in the chaos of this world, when it feels like the world underneath you is caving in, when it feels like the chaos of life is overwhelming, when it feels like you don't know what to do, when you're waiting on that diagnosis, when you have to bury a loved one, when this year feels like it can't get any worse, you can have a different kind of peace.

And the gift that he offers us is rest for your soul.

Yet you ever you ever slept in late and you woke up and you felt worse than you did when you went to bed?

It's it's because there's a different kind of rest available to us, and I want to talk to you about what that rest looks like when he becomes our Prince of Peace.

How does this happen?

I want you to see this.

In the book of Luke, there is Luke, who is one of four different gospel authors, which are four different people who give an account of Jesus' life.

Luke was a doctor, and and I believe that his version of the Christmas story, his take on it, is the most famous one.

There's this moment where there's these shepherds out in the fields and they're doing their thing, shepherding it up.

And all of a sudden in Luke chapter 2, verse 10, it says, The angel said to them, To not be afraid.

Luke 2:10

Let me pause here for just a moment.

And I love that that God leads with this phrase.

I love this because so many of us we live lives characterized by fear.

I love this because so many of us allow fear to be the director of our lives.

Fear only sets the boundaries of your freedom.

This is the reason if you're afraid of heights, you'll always stay low.

If you're afraid of commitment, you'll never love.

Fear is a liar and it sets the boundaries of your freedom.

And one of the little secrets in the Bible that I love so much is this phrase or a variation of this phrase, like fear not, is found 365 times.

It's like God knew that every single day you were gonna wake up and have to deal with the constant companion of every dreamer, which is fear.

And so he starts so many moments with just don't be afraid.

Here's why I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people, for every single person.

Here's the news.

Today in the town of David, Savior has been born to you.

He is the Messiah, the Lord.

And this will be a sign to you.

You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger, and then all of a sudden, the Bible says that the heavens explode, and there's angels, and it says that suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel praising God and saying, and here's the line He says, Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth, peace to peace to those on whom his favor rests.

I want you to notice this.

A lot of us think what the Bible says is peace on earth.

It's not what the Bible says, and it's not an accident.

What the Bible actually says in the Christmas story is on earth, peace.

What does it mean?

It means that no matter what you experience in this life, no matter what tragedy, what darkness, depression, anxiety, fear, worry, no matter how difficult your life is, no matter how crushing your circumstances feel, that no matter what you walk through on this earth, and you're gonna walk through some stuff, peace can be available to you.

It is a gift of God for you.

Another way to say it is earth may never experience peace.

But somebody needs to hear this.

You can.

No matter how difficult life gets, you can still walk in the peace of God.

Or why do we live peaceeless lives?

Let me give you four quick things.

Write these down.

It's what I call the four uns.

It's because many of us deal with unavoidable circumstances.

Life around us just feels like it's out of our control, and we love someone and they walked out on us.

We gave our heart to someone and they stomped on it.

We've had financial challenges and challenges with our children, we've had difficult diagnoses, and come on, we have I for everybody.

Like we have difficult, unavoidable circumstances.

We just do.

Another un is unbearable people.

Come on, anyone want to admit there's some people that just get under your skin?

Come on, this is a safe place.

Don't elbow them, okay?

Like anybody, like it just happens, like there's some challenging people in our lives.

Here's another one unexplainable problems.

Years ago, I sat with this lady and she was so angry at God, and therefore she was angry at me.

And she was like, Why?

Why did my mom die?

Why did my dad die?

Why did my children get sick?

Why?

Why?

And she said, why a million times?

I don't have all the answers.

But many people allow that un, the unexplainable problem, to drive them away from God.

And the last one is what I call uncontrollable worry.

And this is the one where so many people constantly find themselves.

They wake up at three o'clock in their morning, their heart is racing.

They're worried about will they have a job next year and will their kids be okay and will their health be okay.

They're just worried about things.

And the Christmas story is a reminder that no matter what you're worried about or what you're walking through, peace is available to you, but you have to understand where peace actually comes from.

In the book of John, Jesus was talking, and I want you to see this.

There's different kinds of peace, and Jesus says this in John chapter 14.

John 14 · chapter mention

He says, I'm I'm gonna leave you, but I'm not leaving you alone.

I'm leaving you with a gift, peace of mind and heart.

This is a different kind of peace.

He says, the peace I give isn't fragile like the peace the world gives.

So don't be troubled or afraid.

You can live a different kind of life because the peace that Jesus offers to humanity is a different kind of peace.

I think a lot of us we we wish for peace, and what we really are saying is, I just want to be happy and I want to be in control.

Like I want to be happy, I want my life to make sense, and I just want to be in control of my life, but sometimes life happens and it's out of your control.

So, what is the greatest peace that you can get?

It's not peace here.

It's a different kind of peace, which is a peace with God.

So, how do we do it?

We just read it, and let me show it to you quickly, and then we're gonna sing in just a moment.

And the story we read in Luke, this is the very end.

The angels say, Glory to God in the highest heaven.

And there's this phrase, and on earth, peace to those on whom favor rests.

There's two phrases.

The first one is they say, Glory to God.

Glory means to honor with your life.

It's it's making this decision to say, God, there's so many things in my life that are important, but I'm choosing to make you the most important part of my life.

And when we do that, we give glory to God, and then the peace comes to us.

Let me end with this.

Remember in the book of Isaiah, we read the four names that Isaiah prophesied Jesus would be?

The last one is this phrase, prince of peace.

And I love this so much, but it's hard for us as Americans because we don't have princes.

We have like presidents and governors, governors, and mayors.

We don't have princes, but but a prince is a person of power and authority and nobility.

We want to live lives where we have control and we want the gift and the peace of God without submitting to the lordship or the leadership of Jesus.

But it's when you do that the peace comes.

I'll end with a story.

A couple years ago, my family took a family vacation.

We left from Orlando, we went wherever it went, and we came back.

And when we got back to the Orlando airport, it was late.

I think it was about 1:30 in the morning when we got there.

So we get to our car, it was my wife's minivan at the time.

My kids got in the car, we threw the luggage in, and I started driving home, and all my kids fell asleep in the car.

I mean, they were out, just out, sound asleep.

And we're driving on this road that was interesting because it was a feeder road between the airport and getting on the interstate, and we had two lanes going my direction.

There was a concrete divider in the middle, and then there were two lanes going the other direction.

So I'm driving maybe 65 or 70 miles an hour, and I'll never forget this moment because I'm driving in the left lane.

To my left is a concrete divider, and to the right of me is another car going the same speed as me.

And I'm driving kids asleep in the back, and all way off in the distance, I see these headlights.

I said,

Liz.

You see that?

She goes, Yeah.

She goes, it's on the other side of the road.

Don't worry.

And it kept getting closer and closer and closer until there was a moment when my wife screamed, God, it's coming right at us.

It was a car going the wrong direction, full speed, probably 65 or 70 miles an hour.

I immediately started slamming on the brakes and slamming on the horn and I'm going back and forth.

I can't go to the right because there's a car directly to my right.

And beside me, there's a small shoulder, a little bit of the road that I can peel off on, but there's a concrete wall, and I don't know what to do.

And he comes squealing in, screeching on his brakes.

And if we would have hit, it would have been devastating and probably taken out at least one or two of us in my car.

The last possible second, jogged to the left and jogged to the right, and sped around him, and we we narrowly missed each other.

I'm so grateful.

But there was this funny moment.

After this happened, my hands, my grip strength is so depleted.

My knuckles are white.

I am I am afraid emotionally.

And my little daughter Ella, who was probably like six years old, she sits up in the backseat, she goes, Hey, we good?

Said, Yeah, baby, we're good.

She goes, Cool.

And she laid back down and I heard her snoring three seconds later.

Never for a moment was she worried.

Why?

Because the one who was taking care of her is taking care of her.

Okay.

Where does the peace come from?

When you let Jesus be the prince of peace.

Say, Jesus, I trust you.

I trust that your way is better than my way.

I trust that you know better than me, so I lean into your wisdom.

I lean into your strength.

I lean into your leadership.

You be the one in charge of me.

In fact, if if you're new to this place, if I could give you a challenge and there's nothing in this for me and everything for you, I would challenge you to give God one year.

Just go all in with God for a year.

Just say, God, look, I've tried things my way.

It doesn't always work out the way I want it to when I do things my way.

So, God, for a whole year, I just chips to the middle of the table.

I trust you, your ways, I'll go all in with you.

See what happens.

There's this verse.

I don't have it on your notes or on the screen.

It's in the end of the book of Philippians.

Where Paul teaches people, Paul, who's in prison knowing he's going to die soon, says, I want you to do these things and I want you to pray this way.

But when you pray and you reveal your heart to God, He's the one calling the shots.

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

Hey, what would it look like if you could get real rest?

What would it look like if your life stood out from the world around you who is exhausted and emotionally depleted?

What would it look like if your life was characterized by a deep, profound peace, a rest of your soul?

I think it would change everything.

So here's what I want you to hear tonight.

This Christmas can be so different for you.

So different.

For many of you, you've celebrated Christmas for as long as you can remember.

But what if this Christmas you experience what Christmas is all about by letting Jesus be the Lord and Savior of your life and your prince of peace?

Hey, would you bow your head and close your eyes all across this room for just a moment?

Let me pray for you.

God, thank you so much for the gift of Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus, that you are our Prince of Peace.

Thank you that when you were born, the announcement was on earth peace.

It means that with you being our Prince of Peace, that there's nothing we can walk through on this earth that we can't get through with your peace.

So, God, my prayer is that this Christmas is going to be different for a lot of us.

Different because we've met you, Jesus, and we've decided to follow you.

We've allowed you to step into that role of leader, the final word, the authority in our lives.

We we declare you as the Prince of Peace.

Thank you for that, God.

With your head still bowed and I still closed them.

All of our locations, no one's looking around right now because this moment's between you and God.

Maybe you came today and you don't know.

Like you don't know if Jesus is the Lord of your life, you don't know if he saved you, or maybe you've never made a decision to follow Jesus, or maybe you did the church thing when you were little, but you just feel like you've walked away from God.

And today, this Christmas, you want it to be different because Jesus saves you, changes you, makes you completely new from the inside out.

If you're here at one of our locations today and you've never started following Jesus, or you feel like you've just walked away, but right now, in this moment, you want to follow Jesus and let Him save you.

I want to invite you to have three seconds of courage and just raise your hand for just a moment.

No one's looking around, no one's talking.

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you.

So cool, thank you.

Hey, if this is you, I want to invite you to do something.

In a moment, I'm gonna pray, and I want you to just pray this out loud with me.

Just say the words, but don't just say the words, but I want you to mean it with your heart.

And I want you to pray it out loud, but it acts us, we'll never let you pray alone because we'll never let you stand alone.

Our whole church is gonna pray out loud with you as you make this decision to follow Jesus.

Come on, if this is you and all across this room, would you would you say this with me today?

Say, Jesus, I give you my life.

Save me, forgive me, change me, make my life new.

Jesus, I believe that you're the Son of God.

I believe you came into this world as a gift to me.

Because of your sacrifice, my life can be made new.

So, Jesus, I give you my life.

From this day forward, I choose to follow you.

Thank you for your love.

Thank you for saving me.

Now I give you my life.

In your name we pray, Jesus.

Amen.

Church fam, we just had people all over the place praying to make that decision.

I love it, I love it, I love it.