Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] All right. About a month ago, I promised you guys a part two, so we're gonna do part two tonight on Grace and Peace. But I'm gonna start with some prayer because we need some Jesus. Dear Father, I'm so incredibly grateful for what a wonderful God that you are. I am so amazed how forest you are day after day after day. I pray, Father, that your presence would just be with us tonight in our hearts, in our minds, in our souls. Father, I pray that in you we can find a wellness and quality of peace that we've been longing for our whole lives. Direct us tonight, I pray in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:00:41] So some years ago, before, we were really cool and had this incredible worship team that we had today, when I was a kid, when we grew up, we had something called hymnbooks.
[00:00:53] Anybody remember a hymnbook? It's fine. You don't have to admit that you're young like you are. It's fine. Okay, so what we would do was you go to church, and in the front of your chairs or underneath your chair, they'd say, pull out your hymnbooks and turn to page 376, because there was hundreds of pages in these hymnbooks. And we would open them up, and we'd all sing together, and there'd be rounds. Like, guys would go low and girls would go high, and then we'd, like, do it in rounds. I know you're kind of, like, wishing you could be a part of these really cool days. It's fair. But one of these hymns that we sang was a song called it as well. And the girls would go, it is well. And the guys would go, it is well. And they'd do it again, and then you'd all sing it together. It was very cool. Okay, but all these years later, now that you've had a little history background, you're welcome. There's these lines in a verse from this hymn that have stuck with me and just been a part of my heart and my mind.
[00:01:51] And here's what it says.
[00:01:53] When peace like a river attendeth my soul, when sorrow like sea billows roll, Whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say, it is well with my soul.
[00:02:10] And these words pop into my mind again and again. Sometimes I forget them, and then they pop up again here and there. But what amazes me now that I'm an adult is the author of this hymn was in the midst of unbearable loss and tragedy when he wrote these words.
[00:02:28] Peace and sorrow are literally not words that I put together in my vocabulary. Do you?
[00:02:34] I don't Usually think of wellness of the soul and the out of controlness of waves overwhelming me.
[00:02:43] These seem opposite to me.
[00:02:46] But in these words we have to ask, like, how does that happen? How do you say things like this that generation after generation just permeate and stick and make a difference. So tonight, before we jump into anything, I just want to ask you a question.
[00:03:03] How is your soul?
[00:03:05] I know we're so good at like, being busy and doing this and doing that and jumping from here to there and schedules and tasks and requirements and demands and family and work and all of the things I know. And usually we're so good at keeping busy that we never really just kind of stop for a second and say, how is my heart feeling right now?
[00:03:29] So tonight you don't have to say anything out loud. I promise. Nobody's going to call on you. There's no assignment you have to turn in. But I just want you in your inner self to really think about, is there any wellness in my soul right now?
[00:03:44] How's my heart doing in life?
[00:03:50] Because I think it matters. And I think we're so good at glossing over it and moving on that we miss opportunities to really lean in and grow our souls and grow our character and grow our heart. And grace and peace are nothing if not challenges for the wellness of our soul and the quality of our heart. So that's where we're going to start. Grace and peace is this incredible idea. We talked about this idea that when Paul wrote his letters, he had friends who were leaders in the church and he had churches that he started or friends that had churches that had started that he wanted to encourage. And so we would write letters in the New Testament. We read these letters that Paul wrote. And in every book that Paul writes, there's this formula of how you know, if you write a letter, you have a way of writing it, a style, a language that you use. And always in his greeting, he would share the same idea. I picked a random one because it's a good one. It's Ephesians 1:2. May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace every letter. Paul has this desire in his heart for his friends, for the churches, for leaders to have something of the grace and peace of God that's found in Jesus Christ in their lives. And what's so fascinating about the wisdom of Paul is he took two very common cultural greetings, like, we are who we are. So when we say, hey, hi, whatever, however we say it, we have words that we use. Well, Greek culture had this idea of grace that they would use for a greeting. And Jewish culture had this idea of peace. They'd say, shalom, maybe you know somebody, and it's still around today. But he used these ideas and brought them together in the kind of way that add deep significance to our life with Christ. See, because both of these are things I can't manufacture on my own. Like there's some things I can do, I can just tough it out, I can make it happen, I can pretend, right? But there's some things I can't like I just, no matter how hard I try, it doesn't happen, happen. And grace and peace, I can't manufacture on my own. I only find them in connection to Jesus Christ. So we talked about this incredible grace of God, this gift of being saved. It's given and not earned. And through Jesus Christ we see how valued and loved and significant our lives are. And when we live in this grace of Jesus Christ, we find gratitude and compassion and kindness. So tonight we're going to unpack peace. What is it? Where do we see it most clearly, most evidently? And then what happens in our lives when that peace becomes a permanent part of it. So let's start with what it is. Normally when we think of peace, or if you look up a dictionary definition, usually it's like the absence of something, right? Peace is the absence of war. Peace is the absence of conflict, the absence of tension, no problems. And so we tend to think of, there will be peace when this stops happening. Now we kind of set ourselves up for failure with thinking about this. Because I don't know how about your life works, but I'll use mine as an example.
[00:07:09] There's always a problem, there's always tension.
[00:07:14] One day might be lovely and we figure out one problem. But then life has a way of being like, hey, you didn't even know you needed the skills to solve this problem yet. You're welcome, right?
[00:07:24] Tension exists. Conflict exists. Because we're humans and we have differences, we have opinions and we come at things from different ways and we love our opinions and we love being right. And tension follows in the wake. So if my peace is constructed only when something bad stops happening, I never know peace.
[00:07:47] If my well being and contentment is only tied to the circumstances of life that are happening around me. Guess what?
[00:07:55] Life is lovely. And sometimes it's just a big fat jerk. If we're being honest, there's really no other way to say it. It just happens. And it's messy and it's odd and it's Weird. And it just happens. And so if my peace idea is only constructed on what happens around me, I never know peace and friends. I think a lot of us are right here. We've attached our wellbeing to things that happen around us that we have zero control over.
[00:08:28] We find our peace. Thinking, when this happens, then I'll be peace.
[00:08:32] We're in different phases of life, right? Remember when you had babies? Life will finally get back together when they sleep through the night. Well, then they start sleeping through the night eventually, right? And then they're toddlers and they're running around, you're like, oh my gosh, peace will finally come when they stop falling on their head. And people think, I abuse my child because there's like a giant knot and bruise on their face all of the time. And then they get older and we think, okay, peace will come here. And then they're teenagers and you're like, dear Lord, did I ever know what peace meant? Right, okay. And then I hear that when they're adults, you still have the same conflicts.
[00:09:04] Or we think, okay, when I get a new boss, when my job changes, when I'm finally making enough money to pay the bills, then things will settle down, right? Or we look out at the world and like when the government changes or this happens, or politics and guys, you did it. You're here. The election's over. You made it. Well done.
[00:09:24] Well done.
[00:09:26] But what happens is, we think when this happens, well, then I'll finally be at peace. But then, even if it does happen or doesn't happen, something else happens. And we never live in the peace that we thought we would have.
[00:09:40] So we need a new definition of peace. We need a new understanding of what peace means. And I want to use this Jewish context that gives us a better idea of what shalom is. Shalom is this idea of wholeness, completeness.
[00:10:00] It's this idea that God is at work making broken things, right?
[00:10:08] It's God is in control. He's not done yet. And the gaps that exist in life, the missing pieces that we've been trying everything to fill in and cover up, and nothing fits. Well, God can.
[00:10:25] That's a different sense of peace. Because it's not attached to my circumstances, it's not attached to my control. It's not attached to the world, the culture, the history of what we're living in. It's attached to God. I love. One theologian said it really, really well. Shalom is more than the absence of hostility or an inner sense of personal well being. The nuances contained in this single Hebrew word require a cluster of English terms to adequately represent it. Wholeness, harmony, flourishing, delight, fulfillment.
[00:11:04] Shalom is the dream of God for a world set right.
[00:11:08] See, nobody really has to teach us this when we're living. Something doesn't feel right, does it?
[00:11:15] If you've lived any days, if you've lost anybody you loved, doesn't feel right.
[00:11:22] It doesn't feel like this is how it's supposed to be.
[00:11:25] And even if we haven't had these big circumstances, day to day living can wear you down and rob you of joy.
[00:11:34] See, what happens is there's always a new problem, a new conflict, a new worry, a new fear. I love McManus, an incredible pastor. He said fear is the enemy of peace. While worry will rob our joy, fear will steal our freedom. For what we fear establishes the boundaries of our freedom. What we fear has mastery over our souls. When we're anxious, we lose strength. When we're afraid, we lose courage. When we have found peace, we have both the strength and the courage to live the lives we were created to live.
[00:12:09] Worry changes the way we see the world around us. It changes the way we see the future.
[00:12:15] Fear robs us of joy because where there is fear, there is no peace.
[00:12:22] So I have to confront, okay, I need a new understanding of peace because there's always going to be something to be afraid of. There's always going to be something to worry about. There's always going to be. I love stress is my resources aren't enough to take care of the thing that's before me.
[00:12:41] And my resources are depleted on some days. How about you?
[00:12:46] And so when we look at it this way, I have to say, okay, if God is where I find shalom and peace, it's enduring, it lasts. It cannot be taken from me, it cannot be robbed of me in any life circumstance I face. Because God is in control and he's wise and he's good and he's faithful. And if he's at work making messy things, right, fixing broken things, then I have a whole new context for where my wholeness comes, for where my wellbeing comes from, where my sense of peace and how things are supposed to be in connection to Jesus Christ, isn't that a better way of looking at peace? All right, if that's what peace is, where do we see it most clearly?
[00:13:41] Well, the truth is we see it most clearly in Jesus Christ. I love reading the Gospels. I love the more I see Christ and learn about him. I'm an adult and I feel like I'VE never known Christ before. Or somebody preaches an amazing sermon and they talk about Jesus. And I'm like, well, I'm a sinner. I don't know Jesus at all. But I want to. Okay. When you read the Gospels, you get this incredible image of who Christ is.
[00:14:08] Don't believe what somebody else tells you. Go, look, read the words and see what Jesus says. And in the Gospels, you have people who knew him, people who were eyewitnesses to when he lived here on Earth. And they're saying, here's what I saw, here's what I heard, here's what Christ did. We hear his language. And in the Gospels, it's interesting. Three of the Gospels share this story. John, I love John. Shows a different bit of perspective. And it's about a storm. And there's the storm. And the disciples are out in the boat and they're caught in the middle of the storm. John tells a story. I don't know if it's the same one or disconnected, but there's a storm. Jesus has just taken a stroll. That's just Jesus. But in the. In the first three, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, there's this storm. And the disciples are on the boat, and it's overwhelming and it's loud and it's violent and waves are thrashing. And they're literally at the point where, like, we are going to die if nothing changes. Have you been at that point in your life, like, dear God, if nothing changes right now, it's just going to end. The world is over. I'm dying. There's nothing left I can do. So in their desperation, they find Jesus and they were like, we're dying here. Could you do something? And I love Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us the same thing. Jesus basically gets up and he shushes a storm.
[00:15:22] Like, have you ever been, like, around a toddler or a preschooler before? And they're just all over the place and you shh, Right. That's what Jesus does to nature.
[00:15:31] And the crazy part about it is it responds.
[00:15:35] Here's what I love, though. Here's what's powerful about this image. Stick with me for a second.
[00:15:40] Jesus isn't rattled by the storm. Everybody else, they're kind of freaking out. They're upset. There's all these things going on. He wasn't afraid of the sea. Have you been in a storm before? We had one not that long ago. My house rattled. It was so windy, and the thunder and lightning were so strong. I really was expecting a tree to come in or windows to Break at any moment. I was not feeling a lot of peace in that second. It was like 3:00 in the morning. Nothing I can do. Powerful storms can be overwhelming. And you feel a sense of, there's not a lot I can do in this. But Christ didn't feel out of control in the chaos and the violence and the overwhelming fear that the disciples felt. But he also, when he shushes the storm, he doesn't call in a higher power.
[00:16:27] He doesn't have like some magical words that he puts into existence. And he doesn't have this idea where he's like trying to stop the storm through something else. He is the higher power, and in him, the seas and the storms respond. Now this is an image we have to stick with us because sometimes we think nothing is greater than this and we forget just how powerful Jesus Christ is. In the midst of raging violence and overwhelming chaos, Christ spoke peace.
[00:17:03] And the violence and the chaos stopped and responded to the power of Jesus Christ because he is the prince of peace.
[00:17:16] He is the king of shalom.
[00:17:19] He's the champion who fought and shared peace.
[00:17:27] That wholeness that we're looking for, that fractured feeling that life leaves with us, we find the answer to both in Jesus Christ. Because look, you might be lost in a sea right now of storms. The world can feel chaotic and messy and hard and overwhelming. If you've lived any amount of time. Look, leaders come and leaders go and powers rise and powers fall. And day to day living can feel overwhelming, unstable, terrifying.
[00:17:59] We can be filled with worry and fear, discouraged, let down, without hope.
[00:18:06] But in all of this, Christ is still our peace. And he is as powerful today as he was 2,000 years ago.
[00:18:17] Yes, the world might be messy. Yes, it might not be how you want it to be, or your definition of good.
[00:18:24] But God is still at work.
[00:18:26] God still has a plan to make things right. Maybe your life isn't where you want your life to be, or you got to a place in your life and you're like, I don't know how I got here. This is one wasn't what I dreamed of as a kid.
[00:18:40] It's not the prayers I had for what I wanted to accomplish.
[00:18:43] You might be facing heartbreak, loneliness, frustration.
[00:18:49] You might be at the end of your rope and you've tried everything you know how to try.
[00:18:57] God isn't done yet.
[00:19:00] You might have heard all kinds of opinions, all kinds of things.
[00:19:05] They might be right, they might be wrong. But don't you dare consider them until you consider who Christ is.
[00:19:14] Because you don't know the whole truth until you know Jesus Christ.
[00:19:18] You might know pieces, you might know parts, but you don't know the wholeness of it until you're connected to Jesus Christ.
[00:19:28] I don't know how violent your storm is, but I do know this. It is not more powerful than Jesus Christ.
[00:19:34] Nothing is.
[00:19:35] I don't know how impossible your problem is. It probably feels pretty impossible.
[00:19:41] I've faced my own the dark night where your soul is weary and you've pled with God until you have no words left to plead and nothing is changing around you.
[00:19:57] But I do know this. There is no such thing as impossible to God.
[00:20:03] Where I have gaps, he has wholeness.
[00:20:06] Where I have worry, he is faithful still.
[00:20:11] Where I am most terrified and afraid, he is strong and he is powerful.
[00:20:18] Where I am discouraged, he has an overabunding amount of hope.
[00:20:27] Where I feel fractured, out of sorts.
[00:20:32] He has purpose and he has direction.
[00:20:36] I know how many things are outside of my control. I promise. God's been teaching me and I've been listening. Sometimes I still think I can wrestle some back. But I'm. I promise, friends, I'm working on it. I know how many things are outside of my control.
[00:20:49] But I also know there has never been a second in all of time, in all of history, in all of eternity that God has ever been out of control.
[00:21:00] He has never surrendered his authority, not over this world that he created, not over the beautiful plan that he has for the future and for eternity in a world set right. Not in your life, not in your relationships, not in your family, not in your future, not even the place you feel most broken.
[00:21:25] God isn't done yet. And I promise you promise the best is yet to come.
[00:21:36] That peace you need, you're going to find it in Jesus Christ. So let me just encourage you tonight, spend some time with him.
[00:21:46] All of the time we spend consuming information, there's so much available. I love it. I listen to podcasts, I read books, I listen to audiobooks. I want to read everything I can to learn and be smart and know more and be better. I'm in. That's that aisle in the bookstore. It's got my name on it. And I'm like, I'm there. But guess what? I still need Christ.
[00:22:10] I still need his influence. I still need his perspective. I need time with him. Because no matter how much work I put into being smarter and healthier and, well, my soul, apart from Christ, is not whole.
[00:22:27] I was made to be in relationship with him.
[00:22:32] He's the vine. And we are the branches. And I can't grow a healthy, fruitful, productive life if the very source of my. My healthiness and wellness has no access to pour in to me.
[00:22:49] Take a minute, turn off the noise, turn off the chaos, turn off the loud and just spend some time in the presence of Jesus Christ. I know. There's so many things that need our attention. There's so many things that do you know, we are categorically terrible at picking the things we think will make us feel better.
[00:23:11] Without fail, we are terrible at it. We think, I don't feel good, I want to feel better. So what do we pick? You don't have to say. I'll give you some examples. I'm going to do nothing and binge watch a show that will make me feel better.
[00:23:24] I'm going to do nothing and I'm going to binge scroll on whatever thing I want to scroll on and see what everybody else is doing. And that'll make me feel better. Well, it might distract you. It might take your mind off of it, but have you ever walked away from those things feeling grouchy and not know why you're feeling grouchy? Or secretly fighting with somebody in your head because they're not like the person in the thing that you watched? You don't have to admit it, I know, but you're having a secret fight in your head and the person did nothing wrong. You haven't even talked to them in hours. But you saw somebody else do something that your person never did for you. And you're like, you are the worst person in the whole entire world. And I have all of the.
[00:23:58] It doesn't make me feel better. Or we think sometimes I'm tired, frustrated, angry, and eating will make me feel better.
[00:24:07] Somebody take the Halloween candy away from me, please. I keep trying to give it away and I just have eaten more this year than I have in five years put together.
[00:24:16] Sister doesn't need any more Halloween candy. Guess what feels good while I'm swallowing it? You know when it doesn't feel good?
[00:24:24] Later when my pants don't fit and I feel sick to my stomach. Okay, but we pick all of the things we think. Drinking will numb the pain and I won't have to think about it. Drugs will just finally make me feel normal and I don't have to wrestle with this anymore. We think if I could just have the right relationship or the right connection, then they'll make me feel better. And we are categorically terrible at picking the things we think will make us feel better. So let me give you something maybe you don't try normally. Pick Jesus Christ.
[00:24:57] Spend some time with him.
[00:25:01] Read his words, see what he says. See what comfort and peace he might give you if you will just spend some time with him.
[00:25:12] Peace is a kind of wholeness and completeness and harmony that our souls long for that can only be found in connection to Christ.
[00:25:21] We see it most clearly as Christ speaks peace into the chaos and the violence of our world, of our moments, of our life. I have one more McManus quote because he wrote this awesome book about peace. You got to quote McManus. He said, God stepped into human history to fight for us. He did not hope for peace. He fought for peace. Sometimes the true mission of Jesus is misunderstood because he never carried a physical weapon in his hands. Yet if you want to see the true marks of a warrior, you need to look at the scars on his hands. In his death and resurrection, Jesus took upon himself all the violence of the world so he could bring all the world his peace. That is why he is most profoundly and uniquely the warrior of peace.
[00:26:11] In connection to Christ, we find our peace.
[00:26:16] So what happens when we start living that we actually let Christ fill us with his peace. We actually start spending time with Him. We actually let him start having an influence on us for good. I love Paul because he's so clever how he weaves all of his big ideas about Christ and theology together. And he says, let me give you an idea.
[00:26:35] You're going to find a peace from God that you can't understand because you've never experienced it any other way. And when you have this peace that passes all understanding, Christ is going to guard your heart and your mind as you day to day live with Him. Listen to how powerful this is. Don't take this for granted. The image that Paul uses here is imagine a city is being invaded. But before they can breach the city, there is a guard standing watch. And to get to the city, you gotta conquer the guard, okay? But you're not a city. You're a person. And it's your heart and your mind. And when life is battering at you, trying to wear you down, trying to take you down, trying to overwhelm you, trying to discourage you. You say, you gotta get through Christ to get to me. You set Christ up as a guard of your heart and a guard of your mind. You know what? That might be true, but so is the truth of Jesus Christ. I don't have the whole story without him.
[00:27:38] Before you get to me, I've got a sentinel at the gate. And he has never been defeated.
[00:27:46] Not one time in all of history has he been defeated. Why would he be defeated today?
[00:27:53] In your life, in your heart, in your soul, he has never surrendered the gate. And he will not surrender the gates of your heart and your mind when you let the peace of Christ fill you and guard you and direct you.
[00:28:11] But you know what Paul says, this is connected to prayer.
[00:28:15] I have to pray to know that peace. I gotta spend time with Christ to know that peace. I gotta pray when I'm feeling great and I gotta pray when I'm feeling bad. I gotta pray for the people that I love and I gotta pray for the people I don't.
[00:28:30] I gotta pray on the days when everything feels rosy and sunshiny and rainbow and unicorns. And I gotta pray on the days where I feel like nothing good could ever come from something like this.
[00:28:43] I gotta cast all my fears, all my worries on him. You know why? Because he cares. He cares enough to be in your life, connected to you, standing guard of your heart and of your mind. Our Prince of peace wants you to know peace in him. He left it for you. He fought for it for you. He championed it. Not for some general idea of the world well being and, you know, world peace. He left it, fought for it, championed it, generously sacrificed so you could live with it, so you could experience it day after day after day. And if Christ so lovingly, graciously chooses me to share his peace with, then why wouldn't I live with it, guys?
[00:29:41] Why wouldn't I choose that? I love this idea. Fear is a feeling. But afraid is a choice. We all feel afraid. It happens. We feel the fear. But I choose to stay afraid.
[00:29:55] And I don't want to live there. Do you?
[00:29:57] I'm not well there. I'm not whole there. I'm not at peace there.
[00:30:03] Somebody's benefiting off of my fear, Somebody's winning off of my hatred. Somebody's profiting off of that.
[00:30:13] And that's not who Christ created us, made us, or called us to be. Let Christ fill your heart and mind and guard your wellness of soul by connecting to him.
[00:30:27] But then listen, out of your connection of Christ and peace and your well being, you become an agent of peace.
[00:30:37] Because guess what?
[00:30:39] Every day we got to ask ourselves this question.
[00:30:43] Am I adding to the storm or am I adding to peace?
[00:30:47] Because you don't know what storms people are facing and when you interact with them, you're adding to one or the other.
[00:30:54] You're either the chaos that they're buckling from or you're the sense of hope and peace that they're desperate for in Jesus Christ.
[00:31:02] And how you treat them, how you speak to them is immeasurably more great than just what you think.
[00:31:11] Because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. And if the abundance of my heart is the grace and peace of Jesus Christ, then out of my mouth should come love, gentleness, kindness and self control.
[00:31:28] You don't have to argue everybody into submission.
[00:31:31] You don't have to be right all of the time.
[00:31:34] Is somebody else's wellness of soul really worth you earning the point to be right?
[00:31:42] Is somebody else's peace really worth you digging in and proving they're wrong and you're right?
[00:31:52] I don't care if you are right.
[00:31:54] I don't care if you're the rightest right that ever existed in the world of right.
[00:32:01] If you hurt somebody like that, you aren't an agent of peace that Christ called you to be.
[00:32:06] It's not who he called us to be.
[00:32:09] How you love one another will tell people that you're a follower of Jesus Christ.
[00:32:16] How you love them when you disagree with them. How you love them when your politics is different. How you love them when they make life choices that are uncomfortable and awkward and weird and you don't agree with.
[00:32:29] How you love them when you're hurting, when you're broken.
[00:32:36] How you love them when.
[00:32:41] Always when.
[00:32:44] Be an agent of peace.
[00:32:46] Stop adding to the noise, stop adding to the chaos, stop contributing to the storm.
[00:32:52] Contribute to the peace and well being of somebody else.
[00:32:57] How do you do that? You focus on what you say. You focus on what you don't say. Look guys, I'm a talker. I'm sure you're surprised by this. Nobody is surprised by this. And I have opinions.
[00:33:11] Shocking a preacher who talks with opinions, right? I have loud opinions all of the time. I have things that I think are right and things that I think are wrong and things that I want to be and things that I don't.
[00:33:22] But it doesn't mean everybody needs to hear them.
[00:33:25] It doesn't mean that I've got to be the loudest voice in the room. It means sometimes I can just be quiet. That nothing I'm going to say or do in this moment is going to contribute to another human's wellbeing. And if I can't, I should say nothing.
[00:33:40] That's okay. That doesn't make me passive. That doesn't mean I'm letting the devil win.
[00:33:46] It just means I want to Be sensitive to what Christ has done for me. Christ has loved me graciously. He has not shamed me. Christ has never beat my brow until I buckled under the weight of it just to prove he was right and I was wrong.
[00:34:03] But he has championed peace and grace for me in my life and it's made all of the difference.
[00:34:10] You show it in how you serve, how generous you are. I didn't want to be around last night with all of the news, guessing and saying this and that and who. I just knew it was going to be annoying to me.
[00:34:22] So I went and volunteered. I volunteered at the high school for band, concert, choir fittings, of which I have zero skill, which after three hours I did it all really wrong.
[00:34:36] Real sorry, I apologize. But you know what? I went and I did something that was not connected to anything else. I didn't do it. Well, to be clear. Poor kids. I probably made them so uncomfortable. I don't know how to measure.
[00:34:48] Let me see what next size you are. This totally works. Okay, but you know what? I just got to be there and I got to be fun and silly. Do it incorrectly. Try to make not a mess, but help. It took my mind away from something that would have made me grouchy and annoyed and instead I got to be around other people. Just go serve somebody if you're grouchy and annoyed. Go spend some time outside of your head. Spend some time with somebody else. It might be somebody in. It might just be a community thing that needs to happen for good. It might be here. Go serve. It just really shows up and makes your life a little bit better because you get to focus on something else.
[00:35:29] Listen, Help. Give. Instead of focusing on what you have to be angry about, focus on what you have to be thankful for. Instead of focusing on what you disagree with, focus on what's good and right. Just every day say, how can I share the peace of Christ today? How can I contribute to another human being's well being and quality of heart by just being a light for Jesus Christ right now.
[00:35:59] Fill your hearts with Christ so that what flows out of you is good and helpful and beneficial to others.
[00:36:10] And you see why Paul so desperately wanted grace and peace for his friends.
[00:36:15] Can you see why the desire of his heart for the church was to be so overwhelmed with the grace and peace of Jesus Christ that what flowed out of them made all the difference in the world? Grace and peace change everything.
[00:36:32] They'll change you if you let them.
[00:36:35] They'll change your family.
[00:36:37] Could you just imagine if just us people who love Jesus and want to do better. We just started living with this, practicing it, praying for it, trying it. Could you just imagine what God might do in your home, in your kids, in your relationships, in our community, in our church? If you want the world to be a better place, make one person's life better by being the grace and peace of Jesus Christ right here and right now.
[00:37:11] Pray for it, live it, give it. Because here's the truth.
[00:37:18] Joy or sorrow, with me or without me, tomorrow is going to come.
[00:37:25] And as long as tomorrow is going to come, there's still an opportunity for God to do something I've never seen yet.
[00:37:34] And we're not going to quit until he's done.
[00:37:37] Dear Father, I pray that you would help us. I pray that we would find a sense of encouragement and hope in your grace and peace. I pray that the gift of what you've given us that makes life better and worth the living. I pray that the wholeness and completeness and harmony we so desperately desire we would find in connection to you. I pray, Father, that louder than the storms your voice of truth and peace and grace would speak in our lives, speak in our families, speak in the church. I love you. I trust you. I'm so thankful for what an incredible God that you are. Help us. I pray in Jesus name, amen.
