The Nation

I want to do a little bit of refreshing your memory on some of the things we've talked about in this series so far without overdoing it.

But we are in a series right now called Cover to Cover.

We're looking at the totality of the Bible, 66 books, two divisions of the Old Testament, New Testament.

There's a lot in there.

And yet we're really trying to look at the meta-narrative.

We're trying to look at the big picture of the Bible so that at any point when you're in one of the many narratives of the Bible, you can kind of attach it to understand the big picture.

And it helps us quite a bit.

We started talking about the idea that the Bible is, yes, God's word, but also it is literature, history, and theology.

And if we don't get that, if we don't keep that top of mind, then we might not fully grasp the literature of the Bible, and in so doing, we might miss the point that we're supposed to get.

And maybe it could have, you know, major collateral damage.

We don't want to do that.

And so we're we're taking time to kind of bring ourselves up to speed.

If you imagine going into Barnes and Noble, you walk around and you see all these different sections, and they're labeled, and it's fiction and nonfiction and poetry and kids' books and all these different things.

And you know that each one of those, you you don't read each of those books the same way.

Okay, they're a little bit different.

The Bible, in many ways, is like that.

And so the more that we can understand that it's not this archaic uh book, it's it's it's a lot of old writings, but those writings are written with a lot of literary artistry.

The more that we can understand that, the more that we can get the most out of it.

So we introduced two vocabulary words.

The first is exegesis, and the second is hermeneutics.

So you can go ahead and bring those back up.

Exegesis basically is looking at the literary historical elements to ask ourselves, what how did the original audience hear this?

Okay, we need to do the best we can to tune our ears and our minds to what they would have heard in that moment in time.

And so there's that.

The second is what we call hermeneutics, which is, again, it's the it's the nature of interpretation.

We're looking at, okay, now that we've done our exegetical work of knowing what they would have heard, what should we hear?

How does this now apply to us?

Is this something we dismiss?

Is it something we take action on?

Should this form a belief that we build our lives around or not?

And so that's kind of the process.

If we don't do this well, I'm gonna introduce another vocabulary word.

We are in danger of eegesis.

Okay?

What isegesis?

Isegesis is a bad word.

It is the process of interpreting uh interpreting text in such a way to introduce one's own presuppositions, agendas, or biases.

It is commonly referred to as reading into the text.

So I read the text and I make the text say what I want it to say because I already decided what I believe.

I've crystallized my belief, so I bring my culture, I bring myself, I bring what I want it to say, and I make it say what I want it to say.

It is often done to quote unquote prove a preheld point of concern and is and to provide confirmation bias corresponding with the preheld interpretation and many agendas or any agendas supported by it.

Okay?

We don't want to do this.

This is a bad word, all right?

You don't want the isegesis Jesus, all right?

You'll end up making Jesus into what you want him to be.

You'll end up with an eight-pound six-ounce baby Jesus, the Cal Noton Jr.

Jesus.

You end up with the Ricky Bobby Jesus, all right, that that uh, you know, wears a tuxedo t-shirt and stuff like that.

You start making God into your image, you start making it say what you want it to say, and that there's a lot of atrocities that have come from that.

We don't want that flowing from our lives.

So this is why we're taking this approach.

Um, what you want to do as you're reading any text is have the discipline to keep this question in front of yourself.

What is the point being made?

What is the point being made in this text?

So if we were to sit around and wrestle with what is the point of this text, we would want to put that question in front of ourselves.

And that's important in approaching the Bible because the Bible is an Eastern document, okay, written much of it in the ancient Near East, and that the whole Eastern mindset is different than the Western, which is they want questions.

The Bible's written with way more ambiguity than any of us are comfortable with.

Okay, that I hate to report that to you, but I'm here to tell you there is a lot of things in the Bible that are just not that clear.

Often I'll have hear people say, you know, the Bible's very clear that, and then about probably nine out of ten things that they say the Bible is super clear about, the Bible's not near as clear as they think it is about it.

Okay, it's written in by uh in a form that is designed to keep questions open and keep conversation alive.

All right, there's an age-old joke, or it's a rabbi joke, all right.

Now you'll have a rabbi joke in your repertoire.

The rabbi joke is this if you have three rabbis and one scripture, how many interpretations do you have?

And the answer is no less than ten.

Right?

Because the idea is they want to continue to look at interpretation.

Let's keep this alive.

Whereas in our Western mindset, we want to get the right answer every time.

And what's the right interpretation?

And when you give an answer, answers are designed to shut conversations down.

And so, this idea of keeping it open and keeping it alive, you're gonna have to get comfortable with it because it is baked into the style of the writing, particularly the Old Testament.

So, that being said, uh let's kind of get into it.

We looked last week, I want to put this so that we don't forget about it.

Um, this is um we looked at the the meta-narrative of the Bible that really is outlined in the garden and then is laid over the whole Bible.

But it's the idea of creation that when God created people, when he created the world, he created it to be in right relationship, or what we might call shalom, peace with wholeness, fulfillment, security, safety with God, with self, and with each other.

To find security and peace in our relationship with God, to find security in your identity, in yourself, and who you are, peace with yourself, and to have security and peace and fulfillment and wholeness, contentment in our relationships.

And so we see that demonstrated in creation.

People are made in the image of God, they know who they are, they're they're affirmed divinely.

God says that they are very good, looks at healthy relationship, they complemented one another, they did meaningful work in the world, they had appropriate pleasure and they were naked and unashamed.

They were they were they they were secure in their vulnerabilities.

And so what happens?

Flesh, free will, decisions start being made that cause shame and insecurity and disobedience because our flesh has appetites and cravings and short-sighted.

It's prone to confusion.

There are things I thought I was right about, I was wrong about.

There are things I did for the right reason, but I did the wrong thing for the right reason.

That's part of the liability of flesh.

And so it's prone to fear.

Sometimes I've done things I thought were justified, I thought it was justice, but actually I was afraid, and so I acted boldly and I hurt people and collateral damage.

So you have pain and shame and fear, and now that starts to spill out into the world.

But we see grace all the way at in the garden, not even waiting until the cross.

There was grace in the garden.

God said, if you eat this, you'll die.

They ate it.

They didn't he didn't kill them right there.

He actually, he actually covered their shame.

And he gave them a new opportunity in Genesis 4 outside the garden.

And so, new life, new opportunity, and restoration.

Alright.

So, Genesis 4 now, we're gonna look at the next the first few chapters of Genesis 4, and we're going to look at it from a literary historical standpoint, and then we're going to look at the point being made.

So let's start, let's start with this, okay?

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We've given three away.

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So um in this study Bible, before you even get to Genesis 1 and start reading all that, you're gonna see timelines in the Bible, which is awesome because it helps you see, okay, here's the historical element, then here's where this profit fit in, or here's where this fit into the timeline.

Um the first beginning of Genesis, so creation, fall, flood, and the tower of Babel, right?

So that that will take us up to Genesis 11.

So Genesis 1 through 11.

Go ahead and bring this up.

This is a screenshot from the timeline.

It has those four events, and the timing of that is question mark, question mark, question mark, question mark.

In other words, when we get to Abraham, we're gonna start to have an idea historically of when this guy lived.

We have some history, there's some historical documentation.

But in terms of like Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, all this, okay, we don't know when those things took place.

And I'm gonna give you kind of some ways to maybe make some sense of that here in a moment.

When you think about interpretation, then that means we need to sort of think about how we would interpret or how we might handle quotation marks around dialogue or conversation that God has with these people.

So you have, you know, in 3,400 years ago, Moses is writing this stuff down, but these are things that have been passed down as oral history for thousands and thousands and thousands of years.

And so you Moses wasn't privy to, he wasn't an eyewitness to the conversation, so to speak, between God and Noah, or God and Cain and Abel.

Therefore, with those quotations, are we supposed to take that as God speaking verbatim?

Or are we taking our hermeneutic perspective, which is stepping back and going, what is the point that's being made?

And that's what I would encourage you, not to necessarily mince the words in Genesis, but to step back and to look at what is the big point that's being made here.

So that's how we're going to approach it today.

Um, if we look at uh Genesis 4, okay, we see the sons of Adam and Eve are Cain and Abel.

And let's start reading.

Verse uh two.

It says in Genesis 4, 2, Abel became a shepherd while Cain cultivated the ground.

Okay, Abel is introduced as a shepherd, and Cain cultivated the ground.

What you're gonna see in chapter 4 is what at least appears to be, at least one of the ways or a way that you could interpret what is the point of chapter 4, is it seems like Moses is giving us a beautiful literary picture of what is really thousands of years of human development.

So if you studied the history of mankind, you would see that at one point in human history uh people were hunter-gatherers.

In other words, they hadn't really organized the land, so to speak.

They were opportunistic.

They show up, there's a tree with fruit, they eat it.

There's seeds in the ground, they find out they're edible, that's how they survive.

Um they hunt animals, you get the idea.

From there, they become nomadic herders.

So they start to begin the process of organizing, but they're still nomads.

Eventually they become agriculturalists or farmers.

So now think about that.

That's a huge moment in human history.

About 12,000 years ago, okay, what most historians would say about 12,000 years ago, people started to go, you know, we don't just have to wander around looking for trees.

We could actually organize our land.

We could go and take seed and plow, you know, get straight lines and start being proactive about this.

And in doing it, we can store up food.

We can have a surplus of food.

And then what happened when they did that was the population boomed, right?

It took off.

And then from there, as the population boomed, people they began to, humans began to form cities.

Cities were formed, and eventually empires were formed from those cities.

So that's again the broad strokes, thousands of years of human history.

Well, let's look at this and let's think about that in relation to Genesis 4.2.

So Abel became a shepherd while Cain cultivated the ground.

We see both a shepherd and we see an agriculturalist.

And between Genesis 4-2 and 4-12, you're gonna see that this there's this tremendous conflict between the brothers where Cain ultimately murders his brother Abel.

Okay, now this is uh a story of two brothers, but it's really a story of humanity because around that same time you have a huge struggle, okay, thousand, twelve thousand years ago, a struggle between um you know these two particular social and economic patterns.

It wasn't just this smooth transition, it was like any transition socially or economically.

There was a lot of strife and a lot of pain.

And so, again, what what's the point being made?

Well, it seems like Moses is telling a story of human history, he's telling a story of Cain and Abel, but it's bigger than just about Cain and Abel, it's about human history.

And now he's told us about you know the disobedience in the garden, and he's introduced the psychological concept and the spiritual concept of shame.

But now through Cain and Abel, we have it's getting worse.

It's not just you took some fruit from a tree, but now is murder and violence is starting to be introduced.

And so now there's a consequence that God gives to Cain in Genesis 4:16.

Genesis 4:16

It said, so Cain left God's presence and settled in the land of Nod.

Actually, back that up, verse 12.

God says to him, From now on you will be homeless, a homeless wanderer on the earth.

Alright, so now think about that.

In verse 2, it says it talks about uh nomadic herders, uh, agriculturalists, shepherd, and then we have in verse 12, he says, You'll be a homeless wanderer on the earth.

Verse 16, it says, So Cain left the Lord's presence and settled in the land of Nod.

Alright, now if you had this study Bible, like I've been encouraging you to get, alright, you would see a footnote, and then you'd read that footnote and you'd go to the bottom, and you'd see that the name Nod is actually the word for wanderer or wandering, wandering.

So again, it's a little literary tip of the cap, right, that Moses puts in there that God said, You're going to be a wanderer because of your sin, and then what he ends up going to a uh a land called Wanderer, east of Eden.

And then verse 17, look at this.

Then Cain founded a city which he named Enoch after his son.

So what you have here is essentially thousands of years of human history summarized in this one family relationship.

You have hunter-gatherers of the garden, you have nomadic herders, you have agriculturalists and farmers, you have now city dwellers that are defined there.

And then through the genealogy, it starts to mention the descendants of Cain, and it says some of his descendants begin to raise livestock and live in tents, and so it's starting to talk about creating habitats, it's starting to talk about um you know the idea of organizing a farm.

Uh, he talks about, hey, some of his descendants were the first to play the harp and the flute.

Again, it's not about these specific instruments as much as he's talking in human history, the creation of music and art.

And then it says, uh, and some became an expert in forging tools of bronze and iron.

Again, this is technology, technology making so that now we can make plows.

And eventually what will happen when they make cities and empires is the same technology they use to make plows is they would make weapons that ultimately would lead to empires.

All right.

If you keep flipping through, you're gonna get to a big genealogy in Matthew, or I'm sorry, uh, Genesis 5.

And in Genesis 5, the genealogy, you'd what probably at some point want to take some time to study the genre of genealogies.

So we we tend to take genealogies at face value, but there's really a uh there's a point to them, and there's a bunch of them in the Bible.

So I'm not gonna go deep into the genealogy genre, or otherwise I would lose you.

But but the the idea is there are certain elements in those genealogies that uh, depending on which one it is, it's not necessarily designed to give you accuracy year to year.

So this is exactly how many years it was between.

A lot of times the numbers are symbolic, and it doesn't even necessarily mean that this person beget this person.

There may have actually been people in between, but it's naming significant characters.

The thing we need to know about Genesis 5 is one of the big elements of genealogies being put in the Bible, particularly in the ancient world, was to symbolize the passage of time.

The passage of time.

So the point here is Moses is giving a cosmology of the beginning of the world.

This is how the cosmos, the world was created, the ecosystem was created by God.

Here's the purpose, and then a broad stroke of human history, and the fact that now sin is beginning to enter the world, and really now this is a big part of the point here.

Genesis 6, 5 says the Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart were only evil all the time.

Alright, so what do we make of that?

Is that like a literal statement?

Is he saying that all these people on the earth, no one ever had a good thought?

No one ever loved anybody, no one ever did anything good.

No, he's using hyperbole here to give us a visual, a vivid picture of throughout all these eras, thousands of years, the population is growing, cities are developing, empires are happening, metal is being made to plow the ground, but it's also made to make swords and weapons, and now the fall is going buck wild, flesh is running free.

People have fear and cravings and appetites and impulses, and the and it's a cascading issue.

So actually, the more that cities and technology are improving, actually, pain, it's like inversely proportionate.

It's actually getting worse, that there's more sin, there's more hurt, there's more flesh in the world.

And so that leads up ultimately to the flood, and then eventually in chapter 11, the Tower of Babel, which again represents the rise of the empire.

Okay?

So now we have in 11 chapters of Genesis, we have a contrast between what God intended for the purpose of the world that He created in humanity was to bring shalom to the world.

Peace with God, peace with each other, and peace with ourselves, wholeness and fullness and security and safety.

And that was how he created the world.

But what did it become?

It had become a place of tremendous brokenness, a lot of chaos, and a lot of pain.

So back to the meta-narrative, right?

We see through those 11 chapters that the fall, how deep the fall had become.

And so God now, again, back to the meta-narrative, redemption.

I want to redeem the world.

And so in Genesis 12, this is the creation of the nation.

So today's message is really about the nation.

God sets the nation, creates the nation of Israel, sets them apart for a purpose.

And why is what is that purpose?

Why is he doing it?

He's doing it, his goal is to bring Shalom to the earth, and so I have to do something in the middle of this chaos.

And so you have Genesis 12.

This is God's covenant with Abraham.

He says in Genesis 12, 2, he says, I'll make you into a great nation.

I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.

Verse 3.

I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt.

Now don't miss this.

This is huge.

This is really big.

He says, All the families on earth will be blessed through you.

I'm going to set you apart.

And you're going to see a lot of things in the next couple weeks as we talk about God setting them apart.

I'm pulling you out of the chaos.

I'm pulling you out of the empire.

I'm pulling you out of the fall.

I want to do a redemptive work.

He said, I'll bless you, but I'll bless through you.

I want to bring Shalom to earth.

I want to go as we reach back into the garden to understand the purpose of the nation.

I haven't given up hope.

I love people.

Because I love people, I want to be in right relationship with them and them with me.

I want them to be in right relationship to themselves and know who they are and feel a sense of security.

I want them to be in right relationship with each other.

Doesn't mean we don't have conflict, doesn't mean that free wills won't collide, but I want them to find peace with each other and to live in that place.

Of Shalom.

So that's God's purpose for the nation.

And He says, by the way, I'm going to set you apart, but understand that it's I'm setting you apart because I'm pulling you out of this chaos.

And I want to re-establish something in you.

And I'm going to give you a nation, I'm going to give you land, and I'm going to give you law.

And all of this stuff is not to make you a bigger empire and a better empire than everybody else.

I'm actually making you fundamentally operate differently and demonstrating this in the world so that the brokenness of the world will look and go, that's how it's supposed to be.

That's how God intended it to be.

And so the idea of separating them, pulling them out, okay, and I'm going to bless the world through you.

So this is something that's going to be very hard for the nation to keep top of mind.

Why?

Because of flesh.

Because of flesh, we tend to want to be above.

Flesh is prone to selfishness, is prone to being short-sighted, is prone to being confused by things like idols that they think is, oh no, that is the image of God.

No, it's a false image of God.

We're going to touch on all this stuff.

But today we focus on the nation and the idea of being set apart and why.

The purpose was to bless the world through them.

What does it mean to bless the world through them?

To bring shalom, peace with God, peace with yourself, and peace with other people, full fulfillment, contentment, security in those three areas.

Well, spoiler alert, it doesn't go that smoothly.

And so what you have over the time of the nation is this constant there's so much humanity in this, there's so much fall in flesh, and yet God continues to be patient and faithful to redeem and restore.

But I want to show you one important juncture.

It's in 1 Samuel 8, and this is when the nation uh has come through the 450-year period of the judges, and they want a king.

Okay?

And so the the elders of Israel go to Samuel and they ask him for a king.

And I want you to pay close attention to this language based on everything we've talked about.

Look at this.

1 Samuel 8 5, they demand, now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.

Think about that.

Think about that based on what we just looked at in the covenant, God's covenant with Abraham.

I'm going to make a deal with you.

I'm going to set you apart and do something in you that's going to be different from the world.

But what the nation did was they their leaders looked around, and instead of looking to God for what does he want to do to set us apart that's going to be different from the world, that's going to cause us to stand out from the world, that at first will be weird to the world, but when the world sees shalom in action, they're going to want it for themselves.

So instead of following that plan, they look at the world and they see the prosperity, they see the wealth, they see the military power, they see the economic advancement, they see all of that, and they say, We want what they have, we want a king.

And in 1 Samuel 8.11, he warns them and he said, This is what a king who will reign over you will claim as his rights.

Now look at this, look at this uh garden language, look at this Garden of Eden language, look at this Genesis 3 language.

It says, He will take.

This is what humans do in a fallen state.

They take.

What did Adam and Eve do at the tree that they weren't supposed to eat of?

They have all these trees.

You have plenty to be content.

You've got good relationships, you've got good work, but it's not good enough.

So they go take and take the fruit and take matters into their own hands and do what's right in their own eyes.

And he says, if you do this, you're gonna give a king this power, and that power is going to inflame his flesh.

And when he does, he will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they'll run in front of his chariots.

Instead of bringing Shalom to earth, he'll become a war daddy, and he'll want to do it at your son's expense, and he'll put them on the front lines.

Verse 12.

And some he will assign to commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.

And look at this, verse 13.

He will take, look how many times it says he will take, he will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.

Verse 14, he will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants.

Verse 15, he will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants, your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys, he will take for his own use.

Verse 17, he will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves.

And when that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king that you have chosen.

Verse 19, but the people refused to listen to Samuel.

No, they said, We want to king over us, and then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and to fight our battles.

So what did they do?

They took on the culture of the world around them, and so they became hungry for conquest and to be an empire, instead of ultimately bringing shalom to the earth, which is why God made them a nation to begin with.

They're constantly at war, they're constantly insecure, they're they're being passed from nation to nation.

And so they get to this place where eventually the prophets begin to prophesy a future day, and they say, someday, someday, God's gonna bring Shalom to the earth somewhere.

Someday, some way, he's gonna bring Shalom to the earth.

And so you start to get symbols in the Old Testament prophets like this someday the lion and the lamb will lay down together.

Someday the weapons for war will be melted down, and they'll be crafted into pruning hooks, and they'll be they'll they'll be made into plows because we won't need to fight.

He's he's describing not some utopia, he's this describing shalom, that there will be peace with God, peace with self, and peace with each other.

Um look how Isaiah the prophet, when he ultimately is prophesying Jesus, it says, For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and a government will be on his shoulders, and he will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father.

Look at this Prince of Shalom.

So here's what we make of this, right?

We look at the covenant with the nation, the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 12.

We reach back into the garden to understand why God wanted to do this, because he was trying to bring the good world he created into the good order and restore it, redeem it, and to bring shalom to the earth.

God loves people.

He's always loved people.

And he loves people because he loves people, he wants to be in right relationship with them, for them to be in right relationship with each other.

Jesus, by the way, in the in the in the high priestly prayer, before he goes to the cross, he prays, Father, I pray that they may be one as you and I are one.

So God's always loved people, and he wants to be in right relationship, wants them to be in right relationship with themselves and each other and the world around them.

And so it prophesies ultimately Jesus.

So when Jesus comes to earth, again, he begins talking about this in Matthew 5 9.

He says, Blessed are the peacemakers.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

John 14, 27, he said, Peace I leave with you.

My peace I give you.

I do not give, I do not give to you as the world gives.

Do not let your hearts be troubled, do not be afraid.

John 16, 33, I've told you these things so that in me you may find and have peace.

In this world, you will have trouble.

This is a fallen world.

There's a lot of flesh out here, there's a lot of chaos out here, there's a lot of selfishness out here, there's a lot of confusion out here, there's a lot of short-sighted out here, there's a lot of attacking out here, there's a lot of pain and suffering out here.

He said, In the world you will have trouble.

He said, But take heart, I've overcome the world.

In me, in me, you find shalom, you find peace.

So we reach back to the garden, we look through the nation, not just the promise, what promise God made, but why he made it.

I want to bring shalom to the earth.

And that didn't go so well.

And Jesus shows up and he comes as the prince of shalom.

And he comes and he shows sacrifice, and he doesn't operate according to the flesh, but according to his divine assignment in the spirit to bring reconciliation, restoration, and redemption.

And then he commissions, this is why it's a big deal for us, he commissions the church.

Don't think steeple, don't think logo, don't think religious entity, think you and me, human beings, made in the image of God, bearing the spirit of God that raised Christ from the dead, living in us, animating our community, creating a place, sometimes a nation within a nation, where we have peace with God, peace with ourselves, and peace with each other.

And now we're we are invited to, in a sense, bring to the earth what God tried to bring through a nation, what God fulfilled through Jesus, and what now God gives us to do.

And this is where when you read the epistles and you start to read the letters that Paul writes to the churches in the New Testament and the New Covenant, which we'll get to later, but you're gonna see this peace language, this shalom language, this fullness language, like our job.

It's in every single letter to the New Testament church.

Romans 12, 18.

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

Sometimes it's not possible.

He said, there are sometimes there are people that will not be made peace with.

There are some people that they just wake up looking for a fight.

There are some people that are coming at you and they've got a reason for it and has something to do with the fall and the flesh and fear and all this.

And so, you know, it's it's not totally possible all the time, but as far as you, wherever you show up, bring shalom there if you possibly can.

Romans 14, 19.

Let us therefore make every effort, every effort, not one little weak effort or no effort at all.

No, every single thing you can possibly think of to do what leads to peace and mutual edification are built up.

1 Corinthians 14, 33, for God is not a God of disorder, but of peace.

God is not a God of chaos, but of peace, as in the congregations of the Lord's people.

2 Corinthians 13, 11.

Strive for full restoration.

How does that sit with the meta narrative?

Strive for full restoration, redemption, encourage each other, be of one mind, live in peace.

Kind of feels like the garden.

And the and the God of love and peace will be with you.

Galatians 5 22, but the fruit of the Spirit is, but this really looks like shalom.

Love, joy, peace, forbearance, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.

Colossians 3.15.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.

Let the peace of Christ be king of your heart, since as members of one body you were called to peace.

People all the time.

Pastor, what am I called to do?

Peace.

Bring shalom to the earth.

Bring shalom to your family.

Bring shalom to your community.

Bring peace with God, peace with self, peace with each other, fulfillment.

You get the range of meaning.

Second Thessalonians 3:16.

2 Thessalonians 3:16

Now may the God of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way, and the Lord be with all of you.

I end with this.

When we think about everything we just talked about, and we covered a lot of ground.

Thank you for locking in with me.

We covered a lot of ground.

We think about these prophecies from the Old Testament, and some of them ultimately were pointing to well, all of them were pointing to Jesus, but we we we question a little bit and we go, okay, so when it comes to shalom on the earth in this range of meaning, is shalom something that we are called to proactively bring to the earth, or is it something we are prophetically waiting on for God to do in the future?

And the answer is both.

We are absolutely 100% invited, engaged, and commissioned to not sit back, hunker down, and wait for God to make it all good.

We are invited, that's what the a lot of the writings of the New Testament and the epistles are outlining how to ultimately bring Shalom to the earth.

So this is something we are proactively working to bring to the world around us, to our families, to our communities, anywhere there are people and relationships.

But it is something we also are longing for, prophetically longing for, a day that God will make it better than it is now.

Because the reality is when you start looking at a lot of what you see, even in the Old Testament, a lot of it feels very familiar.

And so we go, what do we do as the church?

Okay, we reach into the garden, we look through the nation, we look at Jesus into the purpose of the church, which is to be the body of Christ and to demonstrate this in our world now.

At the same time, we maintain hope for something God's going to do in the future.

All right.

Let's pray together.

Lord, we come to you in Jesus' name.

We thank you for the fact that you do love people.

And we see that demonstrated from the beginning of time.

We see it demonstrated poetically, we see it demonstrated in narrative form, we see it demonstrated through a longing for Jesus.

We see it through the person and the work of Jesus.

And Lord, we've accepted that today for ourselves.

In fact, if that's you today, I just want to encourage you to take a moment to receive the love of God.

Ultimately to allow this awareness, this truth about Him, to allow Him to give you grace right now, to receive His grace and His peace, His forgiveness, regardless of how much you've fallen.

And Lord, it's that restoration and redemption of our relationship with you that then impacts and informs how we think about ourselves and how we think about the people around us.

And Lord, it's not hard for us to see how that would then turn into a really healthy community.

A healthy church built on shalom.

So help us to do that, Lord, to demonstrate that in the world.

Help us, Lord, to be proactive in the work that we do here and at the same time, Lord, anticipating what you're going to do in the future.

We love you and praise you in Jesus' name.

Everybody said amen.