Advent: Peace

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

How's everybody? I try not to get alarmed as people rush out the back when you get up to talk. It's just the kids are leaving for grade school. Well, I'm excited to be here. My name is Daniel Oster, and we're in the middle of our second week of the Advent season, which we talk about. And you know, you don't have to manufacture the feelings of waiting, of anticipation this time of year, because as Christmas draws near, two weeks from tomorrow, You feel it, you feel it. And as Christians, this is a time that we celebrate this fulfillment of the Israelites and God's promise of delivering a Messiah, a Savior to them. And so we celebrate that with mangers and nativity scenes, a fulfillment of a promise that was made. And then now we live on the other side of that and we are waiting for Christ to come again. It's to fulfill another promise. And so as believers in Christ, that's what we look toward and that's what we talk about this time of year.

And so like the Israelites, we are now waiting for our Savior to come back and make things right. And so last week we talked about hope, Steve talked about hope, And we look to Simeon who promised to see the Messiah before his death. And that's the same promise that we have today is that we'll see the Messiah once again. And so that hope that we have today in seeing the Messiah should prompt activities, should prompt our hands to go to work, to be a blessing to others so that we can point them to this same promise. So today we talk about peace. We talked about hope last week, today we talk about peace. And when you word mind in your mind a word picture of peace, what are some of the things that you begin to think about? When you try to picture, visualize peace? I would guess that it doesn't involve conflict. It involves everybody getting along. No struggle or strife.

Peace, right? My word picture is a picnic in this real flush grass with fresh food, a lot like steak or something. And next to like a cold stream on a nice sunny day. And so when we talk about peace, and the Bible talks about it a lot, over 400 times in the Bible is the word peace used in some form or fashion. When we talk about that as believers, why is our life not a picnic on a sunny day beside a cold stream with delicious food? Talks about it, we have Jesus, we have peace. Why doesn't our lives look like that? And some may think that we'll, It's just people who follow Jesus, that's what their life looks like. Obviously that's a misnomer. And so if we were to bring the microscope out and look at peace, and you could talk about the world, we could talk about world peace. You could zero in, you could talk about peace in the US. You could zero in, you could say,

what's peace look like in Texas? What's peace look like in Burleson? But I'm gonna talk about what peace looks at south of Burleson Baptist Church. Specifically, I want to talk about things that would work against having peace. So I'm going to name some things that I know have happened this year that I think works against peace, having peace in your life that just happened in our church. I know of at least two job changes and one person who started a brand new job for the very first time. We have families experiencing their kids going to college and they're adjusting to what that looks like both family dynamics at home and what it looks like to parent a kid that's miles away. We've had a family move out of a difficult situation. It's prompted them how to work more, to make more money, to afford that. We have had at least two people with illnesses that doctors are having difficulties identifying

and it's led to a lot of tests, a lot of trips to the doctor. And I know one person who's having to have a surgery redone at the end of the year. We've had family, we've had loss, we've had families lose brothers, sons way too early. We've had a stepfather grandfather who passed away, whose family is now figuring out how to deal with a widowed mother hundreds of miles away. We have a family who's buried their father in dealing with the logistics of possessions left behind. We've had a family with a baby in ICU in the last few weeks. We've had a family go through cancer, one of which just had surgery this week. And we have a family who's decided to move to a foreign land and quit their jobs called Oklahoma. Okay. All right. So for the thousands of people listening online, we're a church of about 50 or 60 people. And that is a lot of things working against peace just happening in these four walls.

and I guarantee you that's probably half. Either I forgot or I don't know. And so, so what does that look like as Christians? What does it look like to have peace when life is just, feel like it's given us gut punch after gut punch? What does it look like to be a follower of Christ and to have this peace? And so, to answer that question we go to God's word and I think we're gonna be jumping around a little bit today but one place I wanna start that's a great launching spot is where Jesus talking to his disciples in John 14. And it's the context of this is there's 11 disciples, Judas has already gone off to betray Jesus, and you can just feel in this time in the Gospels Jesus knows what's coming and he's just telling the disciples all he can before he gets arrested. And one of the things that is not only arrested, taken, crucified, and is going to leave them. And

And so one thing that he talks to them about is peace. And so in verse 27, Jesus says, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give, let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. So when we look to describe peace, many times it starts with the absence of something, like no conflict, no struggle, no hunger, et cetera. And here the Greek word, eurene, eurene,

but also in the Hebrew, in the Old Testament, it's probably a word we're more familiar with, which is shalom, which Jews use to greet each other then and even today. And so from these verses though, we learn that the peace that Jesus gives is not a peace that the world can give. And so what we're gonna look at today is a theme of that Jesus, the peace that Jesus gives is a peace like no other. So, but how? So we see Shalom, we see peace used even today and in the Old Testament in various ways. And one thing we have to understand is when Shalom is used, that word means to complete, to make something whole. A lot of times in the Bible you'll see the word Shalom used to describe something that's secure, that's safe, that's complete, that's in order. And And so when it's used as a verb, it talks about repairing something. And so in this Advent season, we look at anticipation of peace,

which was clearly depicted in Isaiah, which is talking about the coming of Messiah. So let's look at a couple of those verses, starting in chapter nine, verses five and six. Familiar verses, it says, "'For to us a child is born." Now, remember, these are scriptures thousands of years before Jesus, okay? "'To us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be on his shoulders. And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end. And on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with the just and with righteousness and with the time set forth and forever. The zeal of the Lord and the hosts will do this." So we see Isaiah talking in his prophecy about Messiah who will be the Prince of Peace, the Prince of Shalom. And there's no end to this peace.

In chapter 55, verse 5, he says, but he was pierced for our transaggressions and he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and his wounds we are healed. And by his wounds we are healed. So this is the prophecy, this is the advent, this is what the Israelites for waiting for and anticipating is a savior to come and bring them peace, to bring the Israelites to a whole completeness. And so to help us illustrate this a little bit better, I want us to think about a wooden bridge like this, okay? Now how many people would want to try to cross this bridge to get to the other side? This bridge would not be considered Shalom. It is not complete. It is not together. And this bridge represents the absence of Shalom. And what Jesus is explaining to the disciples in John 14 is that the Shalom that the world offers can look a lot like this, right? It's got

huge gaps. It's at our own peril. There's weak boards and we're gonna fall eventually. And so the peace that Jesus offers is different and we're gonna look at how that is different. And so today we're gonna look at how the peace is different in both in ourselves, with others, and with God. Okay, so let's start with peace with ourselves. Now when you start talking about peace with ourselves, how big of a problem is peace? This internal peace maybe you've heard people talk about. I have some statistics. So the Household Pulse Survey says in 2023 there's 32.3 percent of anxiety and depression symptoms this year and nearly half of those adults are between the ages of 18 and 24. In the APA, which is the American Psychiatric Association, says at the end of 2022, 37% of Americans rated their mental health as fair or poor, which was up from 31% the year before. Suicide is at an all-time high, and I think, well, population's

going up, so that makes sense, but they do it per 100,000 people, and it's the highest rate at 14.3 deaths per 100,000 people commit suicide. About 11.6 kids had anxiety in 2012 And that's up 20% from 2007, but with the pandemic, those numbers have increased greatly, and it's just over 20% of youth worldwide now struggle with anxiety symptoms in 29 different studies. So a lot of this data is to say that peace with ourselves is difficult, and it's a global issue. It's surrounding us. statistics in this room, probably 15 people would statistically be struggling with some sort of that, form of that. So what do we do as believers? What do we do in our community where this is a problem? What do we do when we're around people that struggle with this? When we're in our families that struggle with this? Well, you do what any good American does, and I Googled how to find peace.

And the first thing that came up was com.com. It's really hard to say calm.com and I pulled a couple things out of there that says this is how you Can cultivate inner peace? One of them was you develop a love for yourself you learn appreciation for you you cherish your strengths and embrace your flaws To you visualize a peaceful place you close your eyes and you go to another place of peace peace You practice non-judgment with your own thoughts and emotions not label them as good or bad And this is really an illustration of the peace that the world has to offer. It just doesn't meet the need. So let me be clear, I'm not saying that everything the world has to offer is a lie in snake oil. That would be like saying when you're sick all you need is Jesus. There's churches in West Virginia that do that with snakes and we don't have to, we don't practice that here.

treatment, counseling, calming exercises, all these things are valuable, but one thing that is very true is these will all fall short without Christ, without the peace of Christ. So going back to the words of Jesus, it says, peace I leave you, my peace I give you, not as the world gives do I give to you. So again, this peace is like no other. So when it comes to peace in our lives, one way that Jesus' peace is different is that his peace is personal. Isn't that really what Christmas is all about? The celebration of his incarnation, which means he came in the flesh, that God came in the human form, and the form of a baby. And if God only wanted to give us answers to our questions, he could have written us a letter. But God wanted to restore a relationship with us, and he came in person, and that is a personal peace. Sometimes we think about this, and Jesus' life is just living a perfect life,

and dying for us in his place. And that is very beautiful and that is true. But the incarnation was more about than that. The incarnation was about us being fully known, us being able to approach God directly, us being able to pray to God and to experience the peace and the hope that we're talking about this advent. So circumstances are inevitable, regardless if you follow Jesus or not, But the difference is that God provides us a peace that's like no other and that's personal. So listen to a familiar verses in Philippians four, six through seven. Says, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with the thanksgiving present your request to God and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your heart and your minds in Christ Jesus. So do you see how peace is described here? That it transcends all and it guards our hearts

in our minds. So all the other ways that the world offers peace is like that bridge we looked at earlier. And it may get us a little way there, but eventually it's going to fail us. But the encouraging thing around Christmas and the encouraging thing about the manger is that Jesus, the prince of peace, provides us a sturdy path to walk on. One that doesn't, we don't have to worry about failing, and it's complete and whole, and gives us a relationship with God. And so the only source of real peace, the type of peace that transcends all understanding, is found through Jesus. So peace is not only a God bless reality, but it's a God given guard against future worry.

The peace that God gives us stands guard against things like fear and anxiety. And it's guarding our hearts. So worry simply has no place where God of peace has already granted peace. And so the peace we have now is that God, through the work of the Holy Spirit, is with us and working through us. And so this Advent season, it's something that we can, we can be hopeful for. We know that even though peace is a struggle here, that one day God's gonna make things right. And so like Steve spoke last week about our hope, in confidence, just like peace, we know how this story is going to end. We know that Christ is coming back and is restoring all things, and then so that should prompt motivation in how we live. So looking at peace with ourselves, let's throw a wrench. So peace with ourselves may be hard enough, but what about peace with others? Okay, so let's look at that. Let's

look at peace of others. And we see scripture is laced with this throughout. I'll read you a few Hebrews 12:14 says strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Psalm 34:14 says turn away from evil and do good seek peace and pursue it and Romans 12:18 says if possible so far as it depends on you live peacefully with all. So when you think about what that who that all includes we're gonna look at kind of four circles of what peace with others involves. It involves family, church family, co-workers, friends, we'll put those together, maybe they shouldn't be put together, but we'll put them together, and strangers. So let's just talk about the difficulty of each one of those beginning with family. So family, the holiday season, is really highlights family. It's usually a time where you're spending time with family, maybe you

haven't even seen all year and now y'all are put in the same room. And so let's let's talk about some of the difficult some things that could come out of that okay. You may be saying look it's it's I hear you talking about peace but if you only knew my family you would understand you understand well that's difficult. Things like my relationship with my parents is always adversarial. It takes about ten whole minutes before they begin criticizing something I've done and we're in an argument. After meeting my sister or brother, it would take you about one minute to understand there's nothing peaceful about my relationship with them. My son and daughter is wayward and surrounded by bad influences. If and when I get to talk to them, it's because they need something and always ends in an argument. Okay. Let's talk about the difficulties of church family.

So, why would church family, why would peace be difficult in a church family that all believes in the Bible and the Prince of Peace? Why is it so difficult? It is, right? Church is split, this is a real problem. Peace in churches is difficult. And when Paul's writing to a bunch of churches in the New Testament because there's turmoil, and even today, churches split, we've got a bunch of them, things that come out of this would be things like, the pastor said something to me that lacked compassion and made me angry. He has no idea, and that makes me even more angry. I don't feel very appreciated by anybody at the church. If they only knew how much I did or how much I give financially, they would thank me. If I left the church, it probably would fold. When I was sick, no one from church checked on me. Everyone there is so self-absorbed. The church never does what I suggest.

If they incorporated more cowbell during worship, that would get the spirit moving. personal conviction there. All right so that's church family. What about co-workers and friends? These are people we spend a lot of time with, especially co-workers, okay? So you can only imagine how peace in those situations would be difficult. My co-worker is always putting me down, negative about everything, it takes every shot at me they have the opportunity. After what my friend did to me we no longer speak or interact. They deserve to be ignored and never spoken to again. My boss is clueless. I do all the work and he gets and they get all the glory. Without me they would look like complete idiots. My friend posts pictures and updates on social media like their life is perfect but I know that is a front and their life is nearing destruction. frauds, I cannot wait until they got, they get found out. Okay, the fourth one,

strangers. Okay, these are just random interactions. You never know we're gonna run into a stranger, and so some of those may sound like I was waiting in line for 15 minutes and his family just came and jumped right in front of me. My waiter must hate his job because he was short and irritated with us. I'll let him know by the lack of tip I leave. My kids friends are so annoying. I really don't want them around much. I can't even imagine what their parents must be like. I know I threw a lot of stuff at you. We ran through a lot of things there and I bet one or two of those was like you felt like I was talking directly to you and I promise I don't know any of these things. But it's just given us an idea of all the circles of life and community and family that that we're in where things are just continuously beating against the peace that we have in Christ.

And so the difference about the peace that Jesus gives us is that by that peace we're empowered to be peace ambassadors, okay? So when I was going through all those scenarios, we were really probably trying to think about how peace affected us personally, like what was right, what was just to us in those. But what if the peace that Christ gives us is meant for other people? What if we're meant to issue in peace into situations that may not even warrant it? As believers in Christ, we are called to follow in Jesus' footsteps. In Colossians 3:15 it says, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Since a member of one body, you are called to peace. And so we are charged as followers of Christ to be peaceful people in our relationships. And so since the bond of Christ, since the peace bonds us together, we understand that the peace we have in Jesus, we're encouraged that the body of Christ is unified,

that we're doing this together, that we're all trying to do this imperfectly together. Therefore, that peace that is given to us is like no other and it empowers us to be, the way we're able to be ambassadors of peace with a peace that we could not generate, the world could not generate, that we're beneficiaries of. And so I think Paul says it really well in Ephesians 4, 1 through 3, he says, as a prisoner for the Lord then I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. Be completely humble, gentle, be patient, bearing with one another, make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. So it requires us to allow the fruits of the Spirit to flow out into all of our relationships. And if we have a peace like no other, we bring peace into situations and interactions we have where there wouldn't be peace. Remember what Jesus said on the Sermon on the

Mount where he said, blessed are the peacemakers because they will be called sons of God. This means that we are seeking to bring peace and reconciliation in our relationship and the relationship of others. So when we live out the Great Commission and let God restore the broken world back to himself, we become ambassadors of peace. I think it would be foolish to say that peacemaking is easy and happens because we have Jesus and so it's kind of like this trump card. You walk into a relationship that doesn't have peace and you're like Jesus and like just peace happens. It doesn't. People resist this just like they resist the Lord. So it is messy, it's difficult, but it's worth pursuing. And it can kind of be seen like trying to cross a fast moving stream. There's slippery rocks. Even though the journey is necessary, the work is risky. Sometimes you may fall, you

may get bruised. Sometimes you may not even make it all the way across. And that's fine. So we have to understand that just because we are trying to be ambassadors of peace and situations, it's always going to be a resounding, oh, I'm so thankful for you. A lot of people are going to reject it. However, the peace we have through Jesus was provided to us when we didn't deserve it. So if you're evaluating situations in your life, whether you should be able to bring peace into this, I would say just remember that Jesus issued in salvation in your life that brought you peace when you didn't deserve it. So we shouldn't be kind of gatekeepers for that. So if we've been saved by the Prince of Peace, we should want others to experience the same peace that we are, regardless if they deserve it or not. And so as ambassadors of peace, the peace of Christ should flow out of us automatically,

and we walk in a manner worthy of our calling. So we looked at peace with ourselves, we looked at peace with others, And the last one is peace with God. And this one, I put last, even though it is foundational for the other two, peace with ourselves and peace with others can't happen without peace with God. So the focus of Advent is this anticipation of a Savior, the Prince of Shalom. So if you remember that broken bridge with the wooden pieces missing, that's what our life looked like. That was what, between us and God, was this broken relationship that we could not fix. And so when Jesus came in our place and died on the cross for our sins, the peace that he issued in like we talked about is like no other. And it's also eternally life altering. Listen to some of the verses, explain this better than I can. It says, therefore, this is Romans 5:1, it says, therefore, since we have been justified

through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2 14 says, for He Himself is our peace who has made the 2 1 and has destroyed the barrier the dividing wall of hostility. So what barrier is he talking about there? What wall of his hostility? It's our sin that separated us from God. So before this peace was ushered in by God sending his son, we were adversaries to God. When Jesus came in human form in the in the manger, his purpose was dripping with love for us. Had to do with us as our peace. And as a family we have a tradition every Christmas morning is to before we open a presents we read Luke 2 the Christmas story. And it really sets perspective. And in it you know you're reminded the angels singing. It says glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those whom he is blessed. And so it's a reminder that before Christ

comes in that peace is is not existent. That we, that we because of our sins are dead on arrival. That we, we had no, we had no chance. But by Jesus coming to earth as a baby and growing a perfect life and in being the sacrifice for us on a cross we get to experience this peace. So as we're in the Christmas, as As we're nearing Christmas and these things, and this anticipation of all these things,

to be able to remind ourselves of that, remind ourselves of what Christ has done for us, and not only what he has done, but what he's doing now, and what he has promised, what we're in waiting for now, is something that should just motivate us into incredible action, and should be able, and should, when fear and anxiety are pressing down on us, that we are able to remind ourselves that the Prince of Peace loves us and is there with us.

And so when we talk about these things, you may say, okay, I hear what you're saying, but it really doesn't move the needle. I still struggle with anxiety, I still struggle with fear and anger. And Jesus knew this because the second part of that verse in John 14, 27, the second part says, after he says, peace, I'll leave you, my peace, I give to you, not as the world gives, I give it says let your hearts not be troubled neither let them be afraid he knows he knows that we're going to go through these things and so I wanted to evaluate I want us to evaluate ourselves and how we how we approach these things how we how we really look at peace and our lives and how those two things interact so doing some self-evaluation I want us to evaluate our expectations so So when you become a follower of Christ, nowhere in the Bible does it say your life is going to be the picnic we talked about, right?

Listen to 1 Peter 4, 12. It says, Beloved, do not be surprised by the fiery trials when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange is happening to you. Sometimes I tell y'all too much, but when I hear this verse, I think of a movie character that you don't need to look up, and his name is Ricky Bobby. And after it's a movie about a race car driver, he gets in a crash, he gets out of the car, and he believes he's on fire, but he's not. And he's running around, and he's waving his arms, he's rolling around, he's like, you're not on fire, you're not on fire. Close comes off, he's in his whitey-tide, he's running around, and he believes that he's on fire, and he's not. And everybody's like, we can help you, come over here, and he's not. He's just running circles on the track. It's a comedy that most people, don't look it up. I feel like when I hear that verse, I feel like that's what we look like to God when we face trials.

I feel like we, life like slaps us in the face with something and we're like, oh my gosh, and we're just running around and our whitey-tidy is going, what are we going to do? And God's like, no, over here, you're okay, you're going to make this, but we're running around crazy and frantic. And so why do we let things like that surprise us? What are your expectations as a believer? Do you just assume that I've signed up, I've got my Jesus card and good things are going to happen? And if they're not, I just need to do more Jesus things and that'll keep this stuff away. Now, the Bible's full of how much, even as believers, we'll probably face more struggle and persecution than others. And so we must be focused on that. After 1 Peter 4:12 and then 4.13 it says, but rejoice in so far that you share in Christ's suffering that you may also rejoice and be glad

when his glory is revealed. So when we face fear and anxiety and pain and our peace is snuffed out, we feel like it is, it's because we're trying to generate that peace. and when we lean into Christ and what he's done for us, it's not like these circumstances just go away. You just have an eternal perspective of it, and it just helps you fight these things so that you don't look like Ricky Bobby running around flaring on your arms, fiery trials. So evaluate your expectations. Expect trials and be quick to go to Christ, be quick to run in the arms of our Savior when those things happen. Alright, the second thing I want us to evaluate our thinking. What do you spend most of your time thinking? And that's an odd question and it hurts your brain a little bit. But where does your mind go most often? What do you day dream about? When your head hits the pillow, what are you thinking about?

Is it finances? Is it injustice of happening to you or others? Is it the news reports that are angering you? Is it wishful things you're hoping? Hoping for? Listen to what Paul says in Philippians 4:7. It says, "...and the peace of God, which we read, peace of God surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and minds." Then he says, starting in verse 8, he says, "...finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. what you learned and received and heard and seen in me practice these things and the God of peace will be with you." So our thinking plays a part in this and we have to be intentional in guiding our mind when the waves of life is trying to knock us down. And you may not know this but Emma was destined to be a

soccer star at age five, I was pretty sure of it. But one thing stood in her way and that was distraction. As age five, Emma on the field would see a bird and want us to see the bird in the middle of the game. So she's trying to get her attention. She's not playing soccer or she's about to kick a goal but she sees a really cool flower on the grass. She bends over to pick it up or if people fall, she picks them up and she starts trying to chat them up. If it wasn't for distraction, I'm pretty sure she would have been a soccer star. I feel like we're a lot like that in life. I feel like we may do our quiet time and we may pray or we may go to church and then we're like focused on what we need to do and then we walk out and life is like distraction. We're like totally off on something else and that's when life can really catch us off guard and so we have to root we

have to continue to reorient our thinking to the things above. And so it's not like we should just always walk around mumbling scripture all the time. I mean, I'm sure that would be great, but we just need to pull our mind back to these things at peace. And so like, so an example would be, it's easy to sit here and think that Christmas is two weeks away and you got a lot to do, and maybe some family are coming over your house and there's a lot going on and you've got family who don't like each other and so you kind of have to guard against how that is or maybe you have to divide up time all this stuff that that is a distraction to peace what if your thinking was I'm gonna be with people who don't know the Lord I'm gonna be with people who don't have the same piece I have in my life what would it look like if I just had some good conversations with those people what if I started praying about that

now. See how your mind, I mean that's just a shift in thinking about what Christmas is, Christmas coming, and that's that's what we have to continually do as we as we train our thinking on the things above. The last thing is evaluate your training. If I came to you and I said, look I am trying, I'm discouraged, I'm frustrated that I didn't make the Olympic ice-dancing team. You probably would say, that's odd, what have you been doing to try to make the Olympic ice-dancing team? And I'd say nothing really, but I'm just upset that I'm not being considered. When we go through trials in our life as followers of Christ and we say, hey you know I feel overwhelmed, there's tons of fear and anxiety in my life, there's I don't know what I'm going to I feel there's no peace. And if you were to ask, okay, so what are you doing? Or what are you doing, what's your relationship

look like with the Lord right now? And you go, well, I'm not really, I'm not really consulting him on this. It's kind of the same thing. I mean, yes. I mean, the Lord uses these things, the Lord draws us back into these things as a reminder of peace that we have with him. And so the verse we begin with today, right before it, the one that says, peace, I'll leave with you. Right before it, Jesus, remember, he's talking to disciples in verse 26, he says, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring you to remember all that I have said to you. So through the Holy Spirit, we should be training, not to win some Christian competition, but in order to be prepared for these times, to be prepared for our relationships with others so that we could resemble the peace that Christ has given us. And so when we talk about this,

we have to be really careful not to sound legalistic about things we should do. Like there's a fear when we talk about in church, like you should do these things. And then it sounds like, oh, you're just trying to, trying to create a to-do list to be a Christian. But the flip side of that is, we shouldn't ignore things that actually help us. I mean, prayer in reading our Bible is a given. Some other things to consider is just in your car. It's really hard to get road rage when worship music or a sermon's on. It's harder. I'm not saying it's impossible. It's harder. So what about your drive to work, and then what if you're listening to a podcast? What if you're just worshiping in music? Read books of Christian authors. Even read books about missionaries who have gone before and done great things. That's really encouraging. And it puts your life and your troubles

in a whole different light. I flip on worship music at the house when you're doing chores, where one of the hardest things for me is to sit in silence. Maybe that ride to work is just nothing. Or maybe that ride just quiet. And you're just in your thoughts with the Lord. That's kind of makes people uneasy a little bit, right? We don't like that. But try it. Journaling your prayers. Even considering serving at church, we had a work day yesterday. I mean, it's something that's just incredibly encouraging. I was thinking about what I would do on a Saturday. Like to be with some brothers and sisters doing things around the church. We have a lot of times of areas to serve. So think about what those things might replace. If there's tension there, they might replace time on your phone, they might replace TV time, and that's okay. Just start it. It doesn't have to be cold turkey. Just start just carving out a little bit of time for that in addition to your Bible reading.

So as we close, and we've talked a lot about peace and the fact that the peace that Christ gives us is like no other, We've laid out ways that peace looks like in ourselves, in the relationships with others and with God. We've evaluated our expectations, our thinking, our training. We must be reminded too that this peace is also divisive. In Luke 12:51, Jesus says, do you think that I come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you rather division. That's a weird, that's a startling saying and a sermon about peace.

But this means as a believer, life is no picnic that we talked about and that the truth that we know is divisive. It cuts to the parts of people and they either accept it or question it or search it or they can all out just reject it. And so I think we have to, it can be a real struggle across the world. People still choose Christ in the face of death. So we have the perspective here in the US, but when people choose to follow Jesus in other parts of the world, it can mean possible death, jail, loss of family and those things. And why would people do that? Why would people give that up? It's because that they come to an understanding to know that their sin separated them from God in a way that they could not mend. And when they realize what Christ did in their place, there's just no other reaction to have than to give your life fully to Christ. And to know that God sent his son in the form of a baby

to take our place in the punishment of sin, why do we lose sight of that so often and allow anger and anxiety and things like that to overcome us and just to really chase away our peace. When God looks on those who commit to Christ, he sees Shalom, a restored relationship, secured, made whole, and now that we're a family, now we're made family with God for eternity. And that's the peace that we celebrate at Christmas. It's a peace like no other. Let's go ahead and pray. Father, we thank you for this peace. I don't know if we said it a lot, and we've talked a lot about it a lot, God, but just being reminded that without you, our relationship with God is severed. As we celebrate and sing about what you've done at Christmas and what that represents, I just pray that you just make it real. I know this can be words. I just pray that you just help guide our hearts and our thoughts to what that really means for us,

what that means around people that we're in relationship with. Lord, just guide us to be ambassadors of peace, guide us to remember the peace that you've given us in all different aspects of our life. And we just thank you that we can celebrate that. We thank you that this life is not it. Help us to have that eternal perspective. Help us to run into your arms when we face these trials. Put your name up right.