Sermon

Name Above All Names "Prince Of Peace" | Advent Series Part 3

Forestview Community Church

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  1. We were continuing our series on the name above all names.

  2. We're looking at the names of Jesus, particularly as they

  3. relate to the Christmas narrative, and the text has

  4. already been read to us, but we're gonna put it on the

  5. screen. It's not in Luke, so just make

  6. sure you keep a finger in Luke. But it's from Isaiah Chapter 9

    Isaiah 9 chapter mention

  7. into and I'll just say just before we read this again, just

  8. to thank Adriana for putting those family adventure advent

  9. adventure packs together. Who's doing that as a family?

  10. It's been it's been awesome. If you haven't started it yet,

  11. you can pick one up and it girl, and I've been doing it just

  12. looking at the the different names of Jesus that are used

  13. throughout scripture. It's a it's been super

  14. encouraging. Anyway, commend that to you.

  15. But Isaiah Chapter 9, uh, verse 6 says this for to us a child is

    Isaiah 9 chapter mention

  16. born to us a son is given and the government will be on his

  17. shoulders and he will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God,

  18. everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

  19. There are four names of four titles that are given for that

  20. child who we know to be Jesus. And we're going to look at the

  21. last one this morning. The Prince of Peace, Jesus

  22. Christ came as the Prince of Peace to us.

  23. So my question is, who doesn't want more peace in their lives

  24. and who doesn't want more peace? You guys want some more peace?

  25. I think we could all use a little bit more peace.

  26. Twitter. Who had a hectic week this week?

  27. Anybody. Hectic week?

  28. How about a hectic morning? Just this morning was a very

  29. hectic. I had a very hectic morning this

  30. morning. It's like John preached this to

  31. yourself today. Preach it.

  32. You need to hear it. The world, it's full of chaos,

  33. strife, confusion, anxiety, all of these, all of these things.

  34. There, there's, there's an incredible amount of pressure,

  35. tension. Life is what I would call very

  36. messy. It's pretty messy and we need

  37. peace in the midst of all of that.

  38. Where do we go? Where do we go for peace?

  39. I read a bra A blog this week talking about a survey that was

  40. asked What's your favorite room in the house?

  41. Just think about that. What is your favorite room in

  42. your house? Many people said yeah, love the

  43. living room. Many said love the kitchen.

  44. Kitchen is a great spot and where, you know, everybody

  45. gathers with the bedrooms. A nice, nice place.

  46. Well, this young mother of children was sharing what her

  47. favorite room in the house was. Can you guess what that was?

  48. It's the bathroom, right? It's the only place in the house

  49. you can go and lock the door and just have peace and quiet for a

  50. minute. I'm sure that that's not just

  51. women. I think that many of us will go,

  52. go to that place. Where do we go?

  53. Where do we go? There can be peace in the midst

  54. of whatever mess that we're in the middle of.

  55. That's really the the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

  56. Just think about this picture, this imagery, Prince of Peace.

  57. A Prince is one who has the capacity and the when.

  58. A good Prince has the willingness to distribute gifts,

  59. distribute what is needed to those who are his subjects.

  60. And Jesus has spoken of as the one who distributes peace to his

  61. people. This is this is this is

  62. something that he does. Now that title, Prince of Peace,

  63. we don't find it anywhere in the New Testament as such, but it's

  64. all over the pages and it plays out so beautifully in the

  65. Christmas narrative. And I want to focus on one

  66. aspect of that today. So we have Luke's gospel open

  67. before us and just the opening chapter we have in this first

  68. chapter, we have the miraculous birth of John the Baptist, or or

  69. at least it's foretold. So Elizabeth in her old age, her

  70. and Zachariah, they're unable to have children and miraculously

  71. the Lord opens up her womb and she's able to have a child who

  72. is going to be the forerunner of Jesus Christ.

  73. He's going to proclaim that the Messiah has come.

  74. And then we move into the birth of Jesus being foretold where

  75. Mary, and of course, this is a miraculous birth where there is

  76. no father on earth. There is a a miraculous

  77. conception where the Son of God now is going to be given birth

  78. through a woman by the name of Mary.

  79. And this is fulfillment, direct fulfillment of Isaiah Chapter 9

    Isaiah 9 chapter mention

  80. that we spoke of. To us a child is born, to us a

  81. son is given. Government will be on his

  82. shoulders. You will be named, and one of

  83. those names is the Prince of Peace.

  84. I want to focus in on chapter 1 starting in verse 26.

  85. The that that that moment where the Angel comes to Mary because

  86. this is what I've considered one of the most messy situations in

  87. all of scripture. I want to talk about it now.

  88. Look at it now. So we're going to read from Luke

  89. chapter one, verse 26, 238. And Lord, as we do so, as we

  90. open up your word this morning, we wanna thank you for the gift

  91. that it is to us and the way that you speak to us very

  92. personally. And we ask, by your Holy Spirit

  93. and in the name of Jesus, you would speak personally to each

  94. one of us this morning. We need you.

  95. Amen. Luke chapter one, verse 26.

  96. In the six month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the Angel

  97. Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to

  98. be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David.

  99. We looked at the son of David last week.

  100. The virgin's name was Mary. The Angel went to her and said

  101. Greetings, you who are highly favored, the Lord is with you.

  102. Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of

  103. aggrieving this might be. But the Angel said to her, Do

  104. not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God.

  105. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call

  106. him Jesus. He will be great and will be

  107. called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the

  108. throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob's

  109. descendants forever. His Kingdom will never end.

  110. How will this be? Mary asked the Angel.

  111. Since I am a virgin, Well, just pause there for a second.

  112. How? Well, this is an interesting

  113. question. Obviously, she would be.

  114. She is not thinking, OK, I'm going to be getting married to

  115. Joseph soon, so I'm going to have this baby.

  116. That would be how it would normally be.

  117. That's not what she's asking, she said.

  118. How is this going to be? I'm only a virgin.

  119. In other words, she knew that this was an immediate taking

  120. immediate effect. So it's happening.

  121. And the Angel answered Mary the question.

  122. The Angel said the Holy Spirit will come on you and the power

  123. of the Most High will shadow you.

  124. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.

  125. Even Elizabeth, your relative is going to have a child in her old

  126. age and she who is said to be unable to conceive is in her 6th

  127. month. For no word from God will ever

  128. fail. I am the Lord's servant, Mary

  129. answered. May your word to me be

  130. fulfilled. Then the Angel left her.

  131. I call this little section Marye's Mary mess marries Mary

  132. mess. Why is it a mess?

  133. It would be enough that she is now going to be carrying the Son

  134. of God in her womb. Think about the responsibility

  135. and the pressure of that, that that would be enough.

  136. However, she's pledged to be married.

  137. She's not. She's not married yet.

  138. In other words, this would have been incredibly scandalous to be

  139. having a child out of wedlock. Let's add on to the mess.

  140. Joseph is not the father of this child, right?

  141. So she would be labeled an adulterous, she would be exposed

  142. to public shame. In fact, in the Old Testament,

  143. there were laws that any woman who commits adultery, any man or

  144. woman who commits adultery, they should be stoned.

  145. And and so by Jesus time, so in the 1st century, they were kind

  146. of laying off of that kind of harsh punishment.

  147. But at the same time, she would have been exposed to public

  148. ridicule. There would have been no husband

  149. after available for her. No one would take her on at that

  150. point. And once her parents died, she'd

  151. have no one to support her. This is what I call a major,

  152. major mess. Now, if she knew that Joseph

  153. loved her enough to marry her, she may have taken some great

  154. comfort in that, but she didn't know that at this time.

  155. Now we know Joseph's story from Matthew's Gospel, but we didn't

  156. know. In fact, she leaves immediately

  157. and goes down to visit her, her cousin Elizabeth, and she's

  158. there for three months. So by the time she had the,

  159. there's no indication that she had any conversation with

  160. Joseph. She comes back and it was that

  161. time that she, you know, it, it was, it was seen that she was

  162. pregnant. It wasn't that she told people

  163. she was pregnant. After three months, people could

  164. see that she was pregnant. So at this moment, this is the

  165. incredible thing. She didn't know whether she had

  166. Joseph's hand in marriage at that point.

  167. In fact, likely she was convinced that that wouldn't

  168. happen. And yet, and yet in the middle

  169. of what I would call this Mary mess, she had an incredible

  170. sense of peace. And we see it here.

  171. I mean, look at just the way that she receives the, the, the

  172. word from the Angel, verse 38. I am the Lord's servant, Mary

  173. answered. May your word to me be

  174. fulfilled, super confident just receives God's will at that at

  175. that moment. Now she is not receiving God's

  176. will in that moment and when OK, I guess I gotta do this and so

  177. she's kind of dragging her feet. Look at down at verse 46 and and

  178. this is in her visit with with Elizabeth and Mary said my soul

  179. glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior for he

  180. has been mindful of the humble state of a servant.

  181. From now on all generations will call me blessed for the mighty

  182. one has done great things for me.

  183. Holy is his name. This is not someone who is

  184. grudgingly doing the will of God.

  185. She is breaking out into song and worshipping God for what's

  186. going on now. There is a mess around her life,

  187. to be sure, but this woman, this, this is a sign of a woman

  188. who is at peace with herself, peace with her God and peace

  189. with the world. And so my question is, how did

  190. she get that kind of piece? Like where does that come from

  191. exactly? And I, I wanna just take a look

  192. at and just how how God is showing us how that happens in a

  193. narrative like this. And of course, we'll be looking

  194. at other places of Scripture and just looking at it.

  195. So three things we can look at the nature of peace, the enemy

  196. of peace, and the experience of peace.

  197. And we see this here. And so first of all #1 let's

  198. look at the nature of peace. What Mary had possession of in,

  199. in, in this moment and in the coming months.

  200. And the middle of her mess was glorious, was beautiful, was so

  201. special. And the, the he, the Hebrews

  202. spoke of it in terms of Shalom. We talk about the Prince of

  203. Peace, Prince of Shalom. And that word is not just, it's,

  204. it's such a full and a rich term.

  205. It essentially means fully satisfied, completely content,

  206. complete. It's touch speaks about our

  207. well-being. Like just I'm in a good place.

  208. No matter what else is going on here.

  209. I'm I'm in a I'm in a good place.

  210. Augustine the great theologian, 4th, 5th century, 4th and 5th

  211. century. He spoke about peace in terms of

  212. the tranquility of order, the tranquility of order, this kind

  213. of sense that that the things are as they should be, things

  214. are as they should be. I want you to think, think about

  215. this. What is the messiest room of

  216. your house? I know there's some real good

  217. clean freaks in our congregation, and perhaps every

  218. room is is looking just dandy, but usually there's one room in

  219. the house. There's a mess.

  220. I want you to close your eyes for a second and pitch yourself

  221. in the middle of that room, wherever that is.

  222. And, and I want you to just visualize everything being put

  223. back in order, OK? And just snap the fingers and

  224. everything's put back into order.

  225. Just just stay with, stay with that for a second.

  226. Visualize it. Everything where it should be,

  227. everything put back in order. How's that feel?

  228. Feels pretty good, doesn't it? Yeah, I'd love to do that with

  229. my garage right now. It looks awesome, every time I

  230. clean it, it ends up being a little bit little messier.

  231. Anyway, that's my room of the house, FYI.

  232. That sense of everything and it's in, it's in, it's is in its

  233. right place. Everything is in the right

  234. place. And that is something that is a

  235. that is that is a gift from God. This is exactly what he wants to

  236. be doing in our lives and in the world.

  237. He's putting things back into order.

  238. Things that are broken He is fixing.

  239. Things that are chaotic He's bringing order to.

  240. This is what he does. And I think this is the longing

  241. of the human heart as we look at the world.

  242. And if you know the song Grown Up Christmas List, you know that

  243. song. We gotta hear that once a year,

  244. couple times, maybe during the Christmas season.

  245. They'll just read a little bit of it.

  246. So I won't sing a part of it. But no more lives torn apart,

  247. that wars would never start and time would heal all hearts and

  248. everyone would have a friend and right would always win, and love

  249. would never end. This is my grown up Christmas

  250. list. That's what we want, right?

  251. We long for and it and it and it really does speak of you know it

  252. may you know it. It describes what peace looks

  253. like. That's what it looks like.

  254. Good, good, good picture of it. And you know, when we ask

  255. people, you know, what is the greatest desire that you would

  256. have? Often World Peace would come up

  257. as a great desire because we see, I mean, the stuff we see in

  258. the news we read about, there's so much strife in this world, so

  259. much tension. It would be awesome if that were

  260. a reality, that peace would come.

  261. And it's pretty much an outward kind of piece, the King James

  262. Version of chapter. So we also read out Luke chapter

    Luke 2:14

  263. 2, verse 14, when the Angel appeared to the shepherds.

  264. But the King James Version puts the words of the of the angels

  265. like this. Glory to God in the highest and

  266. on earth, peace, goodwill toward men.

  267. No, that wording, actually, it's, it's quite accurate, but

  268. the way that we read it in English can be a little bit off.

  269. And it's been put into, I know it's quoted in It Came Upon a

  270. Midnight Clear, a very popular Christmas hymn.

  271. Beautiful hymn. Peace on earth, Goodwill to men.

  272. Hmm. Yep.

  273. Right. OK.

  274. And it's this picture that, OK, Christ has come to bring peace

  275. on earth and that there would be goodwill toward men, meaning

  276. like we'll all get along with one another.

  277. And that that's kind of what Christmas has become.

  278. It's kind of what the world has taken from the Christian

  279. Christmas and brought in that, hey, there's hope of peace.

  280. And, and as long as there's good cheer between, you know, at

  281. least for the week of Christmas, between Christmas and New Year,

  282. we can all be happy with one another and get along, etcetera.

  283. And it's very much an outward kind of a piece.

  284. That is not what Jesus came to bring.

  285. OK, ultimately listen to his words here in Luke chapter 12,

    Luke 12 chapter mention

  286. he says, do you think that I came to bring peace on earth?

  287. No, I tell you, this is Jesus. No, I tell you, but division

  288. from now on there will be 5 in one family divided against each

  289. other, three against 22 against three.

  290. And he continues on. That's a bit of a shocker.

  291. It's a wake up because we're talking about what is the nature

  292. of peace. Jesus is kind of defining.

  293. He's showing us, hey, it's not just a general World Peace that

  294. I'm after. In fact, when I come, families

  295. are going to be divided. Why would he say that?

  296. Because the reason he has come was to make a division between

  297. the Kingdom of light and the Kingdom of darkness, between

  298. belief and unbelief, between the sons of God and the sound of the

  299. sons of the evil one. That there there is a, there is

  300. a sense that when light comes into the world, we all have a

  301. responsibility to respond to that light and we're going to

  302. respond to it differently, each one of us, depending on how

  303. we're going to receive Jesus Christ or reject Jesus Christ.

  304. That's going to determine a lot. And so the peace that he came to

  305. bring is something that's very, very specific.

  306. And if we look at Luke chapter 2, verse 14 in the noon in the

    Luke 2:14

  307. New International Version, which I think is a little bit more

  308. accurate in terms of of clarity, says this is the Angel says

  309. glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth, peace to

  310. those on whom his favor rests. It's not a general peace for the

  311. world. It's peace on those, peace to

  312. those on whom his favor rests. It's all about his favor, his

  313. favor. It's an experience of his favour

  314. and Mary had this. We give us 28 of of of Luke 1.

  315. The Angel went to her and said Greetings, you who are highly

  316. favoured, the Lord is with you. And then again in verse 30, uh,

  317. verse 30, the Angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, you have

  318. found favor with God. This is what was giving it.

  319. Like, we don't know exactly what was going on in Maria's mind and

  320. heart. It doesn't say this, but from

  321. the indications of the text, there was a sense, and it's

  322. being repeated, that she knew that she was being favored by

  323. God, that she was like being treated as one of God's

  324. favorites, full of grace, full of grace in that moment.

  325. And that is why all hell can be breaking loose in her life, and

  326. she can still be a peace. And that's why all hell can be

  327. breaking loose in our lives. And we can have peace.

  328. As well is knowing that we're one of God's favorites, that we

  329. were receiving this undeserved care and love from God.

  330. So my question is, do you see yourself as one of God's

  331. favorites? Are you highly favored?

  332. You think, OK, no, well, Mary maybe because she was a very

  333. holy person. But me, I'm not.

  334. I'm not so sure about that. You know, the Catholic tradition

  335. has kind of moved even further and say and saying that there

  336. was an Immaculate Conception, that Mary was sinless when she

  337. had Jesus had to have been. But that's really not what the

  338. Scripture is teaching. There's only one sinless one the

  339. Scripture speaks of, right? Mary, lovely person and very

  340. holy person. She's still, I mean she even

  341. proclaims it in her song in Where Are We Here?

  342. Verse 46 says my soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices

  343. in God my Savior. She needed to save her as well.

  344. She needed a rescue. In fact, the only other place in

  345. the New Testament where it's where where the language is,

  346. where that same word is being used about being highly favored

  347. is in Ephesians chapter one, verse 6, when it speaks of His

  348. glorious grace which He has freely given us in the one He

  349. loves. In other words, this is a free

  350. gift that high. So in other words, highly

  351. favored means that God's grace is on us.

  352. And it's not grace if it's something that we have earned

  353. for being good. It's something that God bestows

  354. on us freely and it's given to all those who put their trust in

  355. Jesus Christ. This is what Mary was

  356. experiencing and because she knew this, she knew peace.

  357. I was there was a woman, remember she, she was she was

  358. explaining her discomfort with her job, her current job and

  359. just she was explaining that she kind of felt like people were

  360. talking behind her back. And but she was really put into

  361. practice to preaching the gospel to herself.

  362. And in that moment when that insecurity was kind of rising

  363. up, she she said to said to herself, So what if people are

  364. talking about me? I'm accepted by God and I'm

  365. going with that. That's a direct application.

  366. I know that I'm favored by God and so that outward stuff, the

  367. outward mess, that doesn't have to interrupt my life at all.

  368. Um, so the nature of peace, how does it come?

  369. It's acknowledge, it's no, it's being aware of the fact that

  370. we're favored by God. That's what, that's what brings

  371. peace to our hearts. Give me a piece.

  372. When we think about the enemy of peace, our natural inclination

  373. to say the enemy of peace in my life is the stuff that's out

  374. there. It's the mess around, stressful

  375. circumstances that difficult people in my lives, my life.

  376. And I mean ultimately maybe some power hungry, whatever

  377. oppressive regimes or whatever, that's the enemy of peace in my

  378. life. But Mary had that peace, even

  379. though the mess was around her. All that stuff was around her at

  380. that time. In other words, it's an inward

  381. condition. The enemy of our peace is an

  382. inward condition. It's not something that's

  383. external to us. It's all inside.

  384. And this is kind of reflected in in James chapter 4 where it says

    James 4 chapter mention

  385. what causes fights and quarrels among you?

  386. What's what's the cause of all of the conflict in your life?

  387. Don't so that this fights and quarrels.

  388. Don't they come from your desires, That battle within you?

  389. It's it's a, it's a war that's going on in the inside of us

  390. that's the enemy of peace. It's when our desires, what we

  391. want conflict with what we're actually getting or what is

  392. actually happening around us. It's actually attention.

  393. It's actually a hostility that we have, not with ourselves, but

  394. it's actually with our Maker. When His will is being done and

  395. we're having trouble with that, our desires are not getting met.

  396. There's a conflict that happens and we need to recognize that

  397. the enemy of peace in our lives is us wanting stuff that God

  398. does not want for us. Everyone, our desires are out of

  399. whack interest in the context of of Isaiah chapter Chapter 9.

  400. When Isaiah spoke that prophecy, you know, to us, a child was

  401. born. It was Ahaz, king Ahaz and a has

  402. was the king of Judah. So at that time Israel was or

  403. the people of God was split up between the Judah, which was in

  404. the southern Kingdom, and in Israel, which is in the northern

  405. Kingdom. And Israel had made a pact with

  406. Syria and they were going to invade Judah.

  407. And King, King Ahaz, he was considering trying to make a

  408. treaty with a Syria, which was the bigger country, the meaner

  409. country, the more, even more ungodly country.

  410. And Isaiah was saying don't do that.

  411. Put your trust in God. Don't put your trust in a, in a,

  412. in a, in a, in a in a superpower like a Syria.

  413. Of course A has wouldn't listen to Isaiah and he was going to.

  414. He was going ahead to do that and disaster came about to be

  415. sure, but he has wanted to do it his way.

  416. He was trying to make peace for himself and for his country by

  417. manufacturing himself. And he refused the gift that God

  418. was going to give to him and, and settling in and putting,

  419. putting, putting, putting the trust.

  420. And so Isaiah speaks this word to him.

  421. Now, it's no solution to them right in that moment, but the

  422. day will come like God is going to respond to that, that, um,

  423. willful disobedience in your heart to try to fix everything

  424. on your own apart from Him. And the solution is going to be

  425. the Prince of Peace is going to come to fix everything, to put

  426. everything together as it should be.

  427. What a contrast with Mary. Hey, that surrender of verse 28

  428. or first 38, I am the Lord's servant, Mary answered.

  429. May your word to me be fulfilled.

  430. May your word to me be fulfilled.

  431. So if we look at that in our own lives, think about what, what

  432. the enemy to our peace is, we're it's when we're trying to fix

  433. things, when we're trying to adjust things.

  434. I'm gonna adjust my schedule, I'm gonna change my habits.

  435. I'm going to, you know, improve my communication.

  436. I'm gonna do all of these kinds of things in order to sort of

  437. improve my life and bring a sense of peace to me.

  438. When God is on the sidelines, when the Prince of Peace has

  439. sort of been left out in the middle of that, We're not.

  440. We're not getting closer to peace in that way.

  441. We're actually moving further away from it because we're

  442. distancing ourselves from the Prince a piece.

  443. So there's there's kind of two ways that we can look at it.

  444. I remember listening to Alistair Begg and he, he's got this real

  445. great knack of using lines from secular songs and kind of

  446. bringing them into bringing them into his teaching.

  447. But he was talking about some Beatles lyrics and he said

  448. there's a contrast between two ways to approach things.

  449. And he said, on the one hand, we could say we can work it out.

  450. On the other hand, we so we can work it out means, hey, we can

  451. do this. We can do this essentially

  452. without God. But then the on the other hand

  453. should be saying help. I need somebody, not just

  454. anybody, right? And that somebody is the Prince

  455. of Peace, right? And when we recognize I can't

  456. get this piece without him, like I need help from the outside,

  457. that's when things begin to change.

  458. That's when peace begins to come.

  459. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 14, Speaking of Jesus, Paul says for

    Ephesians 2:14

  460. he himself is our peace who has destroyed the barrier, the

  461. dividing wall of hostility. And in the context of that, he's

  462. talking about the hostility between Jews and Greeks coming

  463. together as the body of Christ. But it all is beginning with the

  464. hostility that He's fixing between US and God.

  465. Once the hostility between US and God has dealt with now, then

  466. we can deal with the hostility between us and one and one

  467. another also. Colossians chapter 1 says For

    Colossians 1 chapter mention

  468. God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, that is

  469. in Jesus, and through him to reconcile to himself all things

  470. by making peace through his blood.

  471. Shit on the cross. That's how peace comes to us.

  472. Jesus has provided through the death of his own blood on the

  473. cross and just kind of kind of looks back on Isaiah 53.

  474. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his

  475. wounds we are healed. The Lord has has has provided

  476. has provided for us, making his enemies his friends.

  477. And so the enemy of our peace is those wayward desires, the

  478. sinful desires that we have to do life without God.

  479. And God is calling us back, calling us back and actually

  480. doing everything on on our behalf, taking up the weight of

  481. our sins upon himself on that cross.

  482. And by his wounds were made whole were given that Shalom of

  483. God. Third thing and that is how do

  484. we experience that peace? How do we experience the peace

  485. that Christ brings? Technically we can't.

  486. We can't find it if we're looking for peace, we can't find

  487. it. It it can only come to us.

  488. It's a gift that God gives. God has made peace with us.

  489. We actually can't make peace with Him.

  490. God is the one who makes peace with us and our job is simply to

  491. receive it, to receive what He has done, something that He has

  492. achieved as the Prince of Peace. Romans chapter 5 verse one says.

    Romans 5 chapter mention

  493. Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have

  494. peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

  495. It's simply through our faith in what He has done for us, in

  496. making peace Through His blood, the peace begins to take root in

  497. our heart simply to receive it. And you know what?

  498. Jesus gives it so freely. He gives it so freely.

  499. I love it. John chapter 20, last scripture

    John 20 chapter mention

  500. we'll look at this is after the resurrection and all the

  501. disciples were gathered in one place and they're freaking out

  502. because Jesus has just been crucified.

  503. They didn't know Jesus had arisen and they thought were

  504. next. The the the feds are coming

  505. after us now, right? So it says on the evening of

  506. that first day of the week. So that was the Sunday

  507. resurrection. Sunday when the disciples were

  508. together with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders,

  509. Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you.

  510. Like I'm giving you my peace right now.

  511. Now you would think, wouldn't he berate them for being so

  512. fearful? Wouldn't he berate them for, you

  513. know, get on them for why did you abandon me when I was

  514. arrested? You know, why did you deny me

  515. all of this stuff? He doesn't do that very first

  516. words He speaks. Peace be with you.

  517. That's grace. That's what it means to be

  518. highly favored. I haven't done a thing to

  519. deserve this, and yet you treat me like this.

  520. Thank you, God. Thank you God, that is the gift.

  521. So peace does not come by seeking it, peace comes by

  522. receiving it, receiving the gift that Jesus has provided for us

  523. for. So my question to us is as we

  524. kind of bring this message to its logical conclusion and that

  525. is, are you experiencing the peace right now like that inward

  526. piece your life like don't don't look at the outside of your life

  527. right now could be an absolute mess and this world is chaos and

  528. they're different season. We go through their harder than

  529. others. But on the inside, are you

  530. experiencing peace? That sense that all is as it

  531. should be like between me and him.

  532. That's the primary thing all as it should be between me and him.

  533. He has done everything to provide for that sense of peace

  534. for you. Every hostility, every, every

  535. desire that you have that would contradict His will.

  536. He's actually born on the cross for your sake.

  537. He is made you, who once was an enemy into a friend, all because

  538. of what he's done. He's just saying just receive

  539. it. Receive it John, you are highly

  540. favored. I'm treating you like my

  541. favorite right now. Now, for any of you who've never

  542. felt like there are a favorite of anybody, now's a day to

  543. celebrate because you are a favorite of the living God

  544. simply by opening up your life to Jesus Christ.

  545. And so my question is, have you done that?

  546. Like are you experiencing that? For those of us who have been

  547. walking with Jesus for some time and we can kind of get into

  548. religious mode, we can forget the fact I am highly favored by

  549. God and it's all gift. Everything is good between me

  550. and him because of what he has done.

  551. That's why we can be so free to confess our sins knowing that He

  552. is so willing to forgive, right? That's why we do that.

  553. And I can be at rest because if I'm good, if we're good Lord and

  554. you've got this, I can walk into the mess and be all right.

  555. And it's not just for my sake, but it's so that I could be an

  556. instrument of that piece to a world that is so lacking of that

  557. piece that can be an instrument of that piece.

  558. God wants us, wants to use us in that way.

  559. And so I'm going to just invite you just to, to close your eyes

  560. for a minute. Let's just take, take a moment

  561. with the Lord, just give us an opportunity to receive that

  562. piece and maybe receive it once again.

  563. Just be reminded of again, Father in Heaven, thank you for

  564. sending your one and only Son into this world.

  565. We ask in the name of Jesus, that you would give to us that

  566. peace that you promise. We thank you, Lord, for your

  567. favor that is meant to rest on us not just in the Christmas

  568. season, but all time, and it would enable us to love others

  569. and bring peace into this world. But Lord, it all begins with

  570. you, and so I receive what You have done.

  571. Forgive me for my sins, Forgive me for my wayward desires, for

  572. those things that I want that really aren't according to your

  573. will, your desire for my life. Thank you for you for your the

  574. payment that you have that you have made on my behalf.

  575. Thank you that by your wounds, by those scars, I've been made

  576. whole. I receive that that's you.

  577. Just say I receive that Jesus may even be for the very first

  578. time. I receive what you have done for

  579. me. Jesus, give me your peace, and

  580. Lord, I ask that your peace that transcends all understanding

  581. will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ.

  582. Thank you for use us as instruments for your glory to

  583. bring that peace to the world. In Jesus name we pray.

  584. Amen.