Sunday Morning Service 8:30AM-

Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to Calvary Chapel this morning, all of you. And we welcome all those who are joining us online. We just thank God for this new day and this Sunday morning to come together and worship and song together and to study God's Word together. Would you join me in prayer?

Father, we ask that you would bless now our time as we gather this morning to worship you in song and to study your Word. Father, I pray that you would just give us hearts of praise, of worship to you, our God and Savior. Worship you, Lord Jesus. Praise you, God. We thank you for this day. We thank you that you're worthy of our praise.

You began all born in this world and are functioning on us.

Your Word says faith in the Holy Spirit, drawing as we can. We accept you as our Savior, your holy presence. So as we trust you, we know that your love involves abiding.

That doesn't change the fact that you're there.

His divine power has given us everything we need for us, Jesus. Amen. Would you all stand?

Passing time.

Good morning.

If you could begin to locate your seat. Grab a bulletin. We'll get ready to go over some announcements.

Welcome to Calvary Chapel. I'm glad that you have joined us this morning. A few things to take note of. As always, what's going on on the left-hand side? In the middle, just a couple of things to take note of, a reminder about our Christmas Eve candlelight service coming up. So make plans, if you're able to, to join us for that. And fellas, no men's breakfast this month because there's just way too much holiday festivities going on.

So take next Saturday off. Those are pretty much the things that are going on because it's Christmas time and you all have a million things happening in your lives. So, for our responsive reading this morning, we are going to be in Psalm 4.

Psalm 4. Looking at the New American Standard for this part so that we all sound the same. If you need a copy of the New American Standard, it should be one around you. And as you are turning to Psalm 4, if you are able, please stand in the honor of the reading of God's Word.

I will read the odd verses if you will follow along with Pastor Allen and the even verses. Psalm 4. Our director, on stringed instruments, a psalm of David. Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness. You have relieved me in my distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer. O sons of men, how long will my honor become a reproach? How long will you love what is worthless and aim at deception?

Say love. But know that the Lord has set apart the godly man for himself. The Lord hears when I call to him. Tremble and do not sin. Meditate in your heart upon your bed. Be still. Say love. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness and trust in the Lord. Many are saying, who will show us any good? Lift up the light of your countenance upon us, O Lord. You have put gladness in my heart more than when their grain and new wine abound.

In peace I will both lie down and sleep. For you alone, O Lord, make me to dwell in safety. And Father, we come to you now and we praise you that you are the God who hears our prayers. You are the God who knows what's going on and you are the God who grants to us peace. And so, Father, as we take time to look at that subject this morning, I just ask that your Holy Spirit would begin to minister to our hearts even now.

Father, give us open eyes, open ears, and open hearts to what it is that you want to teach us this morning. And Lord, may we be. May we be drawn close to you in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. And to start off with this morning, if you would open up in your Bibles to the book of Isaiah chapter 9. Isaiah chapter 9.

Today we come to part 3 in our series of the gifts of Christmas. And today we're going to be looking at the subject of peace. Looking at the subject of peace. And as I've been doing, we're going to look at three things. We're going to look, first of all, at the subject of peace. We're going to look at conflict. And then we're going to look at Jesus. So, it seems like we just finished a political season.

Although, does it ever seem like we're never not in political season? But anyway, we just finished a political season. And always one of the subjects that comes up during political season is peace, right? Everybody has a plan. Everybody has a plan for how they're going to bring peace. Only, I don't know if you've paid attention to what's going on in the world lately or not,

but there's not a great deal of peace abounding in the world. There's actually a whole... There's a whole lot more of conflict in the world. But peace seems to be what everybody talks about. Peace is what everybody hopes for. Peace is what everybody's looking for. We want world peace. We would like peace in our jobs. We want some peace within our home. And sometimes we just want a little peace of mind, right?

And so, that's kind of what we're looking for. So, if we look at the word peace, it's defined this way. Peace is defined as a state of tranquility or quiet. It is the freedom from civil disturbance. Now, not only on a political scale are we looking for this tranquility and quiet, but truly in our own lives, that's what we're looking for. And that's what we're hoping for, what we're searching for,

and what so many people can't find. Because what most people tend to find in their lives instead of peace is conflict. And conflict seems to be what abounds in our world today. And so, conflict is defined this way. Conflict is defined as a struggle or a clash between opposing forces. A struggle or a clash between opposing forces. It can also be termed as strife or turmoil.

Perhaps you have mentioned at times that there is a great deal of strife or turmoil in your life. And it's always funny to me that when we come to the Christmas season, a time when we talk about joy to the world and peace towards men, there's very little joy and not a whole lot of peace. Have you ever noticed that? Have you gone Christmas shopping? We went Christmas shopping Friday.

Friday is usually my day off, at least I attempt to make it my day off. And so, my wife gets Fridays off too, teaching out in Dexter. And so, Friday afternoon we went up and we went Christmas shopping. And it didn't feel like a lot of peace was happening within the mall. It didn't feel like a lot of peace was happening around us. There was a lot of stress. It seemed like there was a lot of turmoil.

There was a lot of strife. Occasionally, a little bit of stress. A little bit of conflict, you could tell, had gone on. I love watching husbands and wives shop together, sidebar, because it's just funny. Husbands and wives go about things in two completely different ways, right? Husbands are, see the hill, take the hill. Let's find a list. Let's attack the list.

Let's be done with the list. And wives are, why do we need a list, right? Like let's just, let's roam every aisle because we don't know what might be there if we don't look at everything. And it's just funny to... It's funny to watch. It's funny to watch husbands and wives do that. And usually, while my wife is doing the exact same thing I just mentioned, I've learned

to just kind of sit back and watch people, and that's kind of what I do as a human being anyway. And there was definitely a couple of times where husbands are going, I don't know. I thought we knew what we were coming here for. And it's like, no. No, you didn't. You had no idea. But that strife and that turmoil takes place in the world today. Now, as I've thought about this, and I looked this up several different times, I Googled

it. And if you Google, main types of conflict. There's several different answers that you get. There's four main types of conflict. There's five main types of conflict. And if you're a writer, there's seven types of conflict. And I thought, that's a lot of conflict. It's amazing how many results came up on the Google machine when you Google that. So what I did is I simplified it to, I think there's really ultimately three main types

of conflict that we experience as human beings and that I see in the world today. And you usually won't find this on Google unless you type in biblical or add that to your search results, but this is what I found. This is what I, myself, have found about conflict. There's three main types. The first type of conflict is man versus God. Man versus God. Because men are in conflict with God, and women.

I'm using that as a generic term. Humanity is in conflict with God. We don't like His rules. We don't like His standards. We don't like His morality. And quite frankly, we would like to be our own God. And since we cannot be, even though we seek to be. We are in constant conflict. Conflict with God. Man is in conflict with himself. We all have this conflict within ourselves.

We call it internal strife or internal conflict. We're all in conflict within ourselves because we are fighting over what's going to rule my soul? What's going to rule me? Am I going to be ultimately ruled by the flesh or am I ultimately going to be ruled by the spirit? And what you'll find is that whether a person is born again or whether a person is not born

again, they have that same struggle within themselves. They might call it a struggle with their conscience. But after you get saved, what you realize you were really fighting with is the Holy Spirit. You were fighting against the conviction of the Holy Spirit that you had to continue to suppress. And so man has this conflict with himself. And since man is in conflict with God, and since man is in conflict with himself, number

three, man is also in conflict with man. We're all in conflict with each other. Have you ever noticed that? Because I want to be the ruler of the world and you want to be the ruler of the world. And as the song says, everybody wants to rule the world. And because of that, we're all in conflict with each other. Because when your desires clash with my desires, I say, wait, I want to win.

And you say, wait, I want to win. And we're in constant conflict with each other. Well, where did this conflict come from? Well, this conflict, as we've taken so many things back to, all began in the Garden of Eden. That was when man first decided, I want to be my own God. And so that started his conflict with God. Because when the temptation was presented to Eve, when it was presented to her, it was

not only will it taste good, not only will it look good, but it is profitable to make you wise. God doesn't want you to have this because he knows that in the day you eat of it, you will become like God, knowing good and evil. And so this conflict began between man and God because we said, I want to be my own God. I don't want you to be my own God. I don't want you to be my own God.

I don't want you to be the one that's in charge of me. But you know what happened next? What happened next is that man started to be in conflict with himself. Because you remember the first thing that they did as soon as they sinned? They hid themselves. Why? Because now there was a battle inside of them. Now something happened. Something happened that they were now in conflict.

Will I hide myself from God or will I expose my sin to him and let him be the one that deals with it? And so this internal strife began to take place and that boiled over into strife with Eve. And so this internal strife began to take place and that boiled over into strife with each other. Because do you remember the first thing that happened when God confronted them with their sin?

She did it. Right? And now this conflict between man and woman and between man and man began to take place. And do you know that it did not take very long because in the very next chapter of the Bible, the first thing that we see is the very first murder. Because when man's conflict with man spills over into violence, it ends in murder. Because that's what takes place.

That's the conflict that we all deal with. And it devolves quickly in our lives. And so if everybody's searching for peace, but what we ultimately deal with is conflict, what is the hope that we have? What is the hope that we have of ever overcoming any of this conflict? What's the hope that we have of ever overcoming any of these things? Well, as with everything else, the hope that we have lies in Jesus.

And so there's two things again that I want to look at underneath this heading of Jesus. I want to look at the promise and I want to look at the work. The first thing that we'll look at is the promise. The promise. Because there's three very interesting promises that were given to us that I want to point out when it comes to Jesus and what he did. You don't need to turn there.

But again, I always like to reference Genesis chapter 3 verse 15. Because in Genesis chapter 3 verse 15 is the very first promise of the coming of one who will ultimately solve the conflict and bring peace. Because he was told that there will always be enmity. There will always be strife. There will always be conflict between the seed of the woman. And the serpent.

But there's coming a time when the seed of the woman, though his heel will be bruised by the serpent, he will ultimately crush the head of the serpent. There's this beautiful scene in the very beginning of the Passion of the Christ that Mel Gibson made. You remember this scene? Very beginning of the scene is Jesus praying there in the Garden of Gethsemane. And it's artistic in nature.

This doesn't actually take place in Scripture. It's just an artistic moment. But as Jesus is praying there in the garden and he's sweating those grapes. There's great drops of blood. There's this serpent that comes slithering through the garden. Now, if you know me and you've listened to me teach for any amount of time, you know my hatred for serpents. So that shocked me as much as anything in the entire movie.

Right? This serpent comes slithering through there. And right as the serpent is about to strike the heel of Jesus while he's in prayer in the garden, he stomps on the head of the serpent and he crushes the head of the serpent. Reminding us that the ultimate victory over sin, the ultimate victory over death, the ultimate victory over conflict and strife came when Jesus crushed the head of the serpent.

And so we see this promise in Genesis chapter three. But we follow the promise throughout scripture. We come to Isaiah chapter nine, which we've looked at several times. But I want to look at it in this context today because notice what it says in chapter nine, verses six and seven. Look down, if you will. It says, For a child will be born to us. A son will be given to us.

The government will rest on his shoulders. And his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father. Pay attention, Prince of Peace. And there will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace. It's an interesting term that we're given to there about Jesus, because the term that we're given is that he will be the prince of peace.

Well, what's a prince? A prince is a ruler. A prince is an authority. Therefore, he will be the authority that brings about peace into the world. Everybody's looking for a world. Everybody wants to figure out how do we solve peace in the Middle East? How do we get Russia and Ukraine to get along? How do we figure out how there's how we can avoid riots in the streets again?

How how do we have peace? And everybody's looking for it in every which way that they possibly can. And we've not looked for it in the one place that we need to. And that's in Jesus, because he is the prince of peace. And then Isaiah chapter nine, verses six and seven, we are promised that there is coming one who will be a savior, who will be born to us, a physical birth.

He will be given to us, adopted as a son. And he will be the one who will be called the wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace. And that's who he is. And this promise is given to us. And you can imagine Isaiah writing these words and thinking, man, I can't even imagine this happening. Because remember, what was Isaiah writing them, writing to tell them?

He was writing to tell them judgment is coming, but so is peace. And peace is coming through a savior. Well, the next time that we see this promise of peace is actually given to us in Luke. There's lots of other times, but what I want to point out is Luke. So go to Luke chapter two. And I want you to look, starting in verse eight of Luke chapter two. This is the angels speaking to the shepherds.

And he declares something to them. It says in the same region, there were some shepherds staying out in the fields, keeping watch over the flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them. And they were terribly frightened. The angel said to them, don't be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great

joy, which will be for all people for today in the city of David. There has been born for you a savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased.

There will now be peace on the earth. Why? Because the Prince of Peace has come. The Prince of Peace has arrived. Therefore, there can now be true peace as far as the world is concerned. And we have this announcement of the promise of the coming of the one that we were told about in Genesis, that we were reminded about in Isaiah, and now he has arrived. And so as we see this promise,

of the Prince of Peace coming, I would like to start looking at the work. And so there's three things dealing with those three conflicts that Jesus does for us. Number one, he gives us peace with God. Jesus gives us peace with God. I want you to look at Romans chapter five, Romans chapter five. By the way, thank you for being patient with me as I have taken us all over scripture these past few weeks.

I know I've I've challenged a little bit, but that's OK. It's been fun. Peace with God. Romans, of course, is the great treatise on the gospel. The theme is that it is the gospel of Jesus Christ that is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe, to the Jew first and then to the Greek. And so the first three chapters of the book of Romans, he tells us about sin.

He tells us about the conflict that we have with God because of sin. And then in the middle of chapter three, he starts to tell us about the new way to be made right with God, the new way to be made holy in his sight and has nothing to do with the works of the law and has everything to do with the work of Jesus Christ on the cross in us, putting our faith in Jesus Christ on the cross. And as he culminates that idea of being justified by faith, we come to Romans chapter five, verse one. He says, therefore, in light of the fact that you have been justified by faith, we have peace with God.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, God extends a peace treaty to us. And he says, here's the only terms for peace. The only terms for peace is that you come to me, admit that you're a guilty sinner and accept the payment that I've made for you. And if you will do that, if you will come to me, admit that you're a sinner and accept the payment that has been made and you sign the peace treaty, then we will be at peace.

And that's exactly what happens when you become justified. There's that beautiful word. Justification. Justification is a legal term that means declared innocent, declared righteous. And that's what God judicially does of us, because we were at war with God because of our sin. We were at war with God because we wanted to be our own God. And we were separated from God because of that sin.

And so because of the great love with which he loved us, he sent his own son to be born of a woman. To be born as a man. To die for us so that you and I could be justified, declared righteous. And if you take the word and stretch it out, it's just as if I'd never sinned, declared righteous in his eyes because of my faith in him. And because I have been justified by my faith in Jesus Christ, I now am at peace with God.

God's wrath. No longer abides upon me. I am no longer at war with him because the war has been settled with the peace treaty of Christ. Go with me another place in scripture. Go over the book of Colossians versus second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and I want you to look at chapter one. Verses 19 and 20. Colossians, chapter one, verses 19 and 20, again, Colossians one, like we talked

about last week, is all about Jesus, all about Jesus and who he is and his work for us. And notice what it says in verse 19 of Colossians chapter one. For it was the father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him and through him, meaning Jesus, to reconcile all things, having made peace through the blood of his cross. Through him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven were introduced to another very interesting theological term there in Romans five one, we were introduced to justification, the legal term of being declared righteous in God's eyes.

But now not only does he declare us righteous. I want you to notice what it says he does. Let me read it to you again. It says and through him to reconcile all things to himself. That word reconciles an interesting word. It means to restore to former harmony, to restore to former harmony. Now, I want you to think about this. When Adam and Eve were living in the garden prior to sin, they lived in perfect

harmony with God, such harmony that they were clothed completely in the righteousness of God. They had personal fellowship with him every day. He showed up and walked with him every day in the garden. I always want to know what that looked like. They were in perfect harmony with God. And then sin came into the world and that harmony was destroyed and it brought conflict into the world.

So how do you restore the conflict or how do you restore the harmony? That there was in the garden? Enter Jesus, because what Jesus did on the cross is he reconciled us to himself. He restored the former harmony. And so now that relationship that Adam and Eve had with God, where they could walk with him every single day, is now the relationship that you and I have with God, because we have been made right with

him, because God made peace with himself through the cross. God brought peace. And so now I'm at peace with God. And how did he do it? Through the blood of Jesus Christ. That was the payment that was made. The only way that Jesus could shed his blood for us is if he was first born as a man. So he came and he brought reconciliation to us because of the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Brothers and sisters, we can be at peace with God. And I don't know if you realize the gravity of that. Perhaps you've walked with Jesus long enough that you have forgotten what it was like to be at war with God. But I'm here to tell you right now, I work with people all the time who are at war with God and they have no peace in their life and they are just looking for some way to solve it and they can't. And I keep telling them,

the one thing you have to do is surrender to God. It's fascinating to me how many people are at war with God and they don't realize they're at war with God. They just know that they're angry all the time. They just know that they're upset all the time. And then that conviction starts to hit them and they're like, oh, that's exactly what it is. I just need to surrender to God.

That's what Jesus did for us when he came to the earth as a man to reconcile us to himself, to make peace through the blood of his cross. So, number one, we have peace with God. Number two, we have the peace of God. The peace of God. Now, I want you to go with me a place in scripture. I want you to go back to the book of Isaiah chapter 26. Isaiah chapter 26.

Now, I'm going to tell you a little bit something about peace. There's a difference between peace with God and the peace of God. Peace with God, no one can change. Once you come to Jesus, once you have been reconciled to him through the blood of Jesus Christ, you are at peace with God. Nothing can ever change that. That's your that's not your legal state is that you're at peace with God.

You've signed the treaty and that's who you are. The peace of God has a tendency to come and go because the peace of God is dependent upon. Am I really resting in what God says? Am I really trusting in who he is? And so that peace of God, that war that we have within ourselves, God wants to solve. But he solves that through the truth of Jesus Christ. I want you to know what it says in Isaiah chapter 26, verse three.

It says the steadfast of mind, you will keep in perfect peace. Why? Because he trusts in you. Now, I think that most believers today have a really good understanding of the fact that they are at peace with God. A good number of them. Anyways, if you're coming to a church where this is taught a lot, you know that you're at peace with God. It's that peace of God that we struggle with.

Amen. It's knowing that I don't have to have this struggle within myself, the struggle of worry, the struggle of anxiety, even the struggle of dealing with the flesh that we deal with. I'm not going to talk about it all the time, but I'm here to tell you right now, the peace of God begins with a simple little word and it begins with the little word trust. Because let me read it to you again.

The steadfast of mind, you will keep in perfect peace because he trusts in you. Why do you have a hard time resting when it comes to this time of year and you have to buy all the Christmas gifts and the credit card bills going up? Why do you have a hard time resting? Because you have a hard time trusting God. Why do you have a hard time resting? When it comes to things like political upheaval and things like that,

when all the craziness of the world is taking place because you have a hard time trusting in God. Why do we lose sleep? Because we struggle to trust in God. Why do we lose our peace? Because we don't trust God. But he keeps those in perfect peace who constantly trust in him. Well, we go on from there. Go over to John. Back to the New Testament, John, chapter 14, John, chapter 14.

Again, Jesus is just about to leave his disciples as he goes to the cross. And he's giving them final instructions. And as he's giving them final instructions, especially about the coming of the Holy Spirit. This is what he tells them about himself. John, chapter 14, verse twenty seven says, peace. I leave with you my peace. I give to you not as the world gives.

Do I get do I give to you? Do not. Let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. Jesus says, I want to give you a gift. And the gift that I want to give to you is peace. The gift that I want to give to you is my peace. It's different than the world's peace. The world's peace is not an eternal peace. The world's peace is not an everlasting peace. He says, I want to give you something different.

I want to give you this tranquility, this quiet of mind that you can have. And it comes only through me. Well, perhaps you're asking yourself a question right now. If trust is the key and it comes through Jesus, then how do I find myself in a place where I can truly begin to have peace in my life? Because you're right. I stress about things. You're right. I worry about things.

You're right. I lose my peace so easily. Listen, me too. Go to Philippians. Philippians, chapter eight. No, I want to go one more place first. Once you go to Colossians, Colossians, chapter three, verse 15, Colossians 315. Again, as I always say, if you can't get there in time, don't worry. Just write those down. Look them up later. Colossians, chapter three, verse 15.

Jesus is promised to give peace. I want you to know what Paul says about this. So verse 15, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful that the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. That word rule means to be the governor or the umpire of your heart. In other words, the peace of God should be the thing that is in charge

of your heart. You have to choose every day what's going to be in control of me. Are my worries going to control me or is God's peace going to control me? Am I going to choose to walk in the anxiousness of the world and the anxiousness of my flesh? Or am I going to choose to walk in the peace of God? Well, we are supposed to choose to walk in the peace of God.

Now comes the last point I wanted to make on this. How do you do that? Now go to Philippians back to your left. Just a couple of pages. And I want you to look at Philippians, chapter four, verses six through seven. If Jesus brought us peace, if we can have the peace of God through Christ and the peace of God is what's supposed to rule our hearts. How do we let the peace of God rule in our hearts?

Verse six of chapter four, be anxious for nothing. But in everything, by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds. In Christ Jesus, it's the most basic set of scriptures we can imagine. And yet it's the most powerful set of scriptures in my life.

It's some of the most powerful truth I've had to learn in my life. Did you notice how it starts? It says, be anxious for nothing that would indicate that our tendency, because of the fall of man, is for us to be anxious about things. Can we agree with that? Can we agree that our tendency as human beings is to worry? Now, if you're one of those magical unicorn people that like you're just someone who doesn't worry, praise God.

Right. Like, I don't know what fleshly thing you deal with, but I guess it's not worry like I don't even understand that. But but I'm a I'm an overthinker and a worrier. And so so if you can overthink it, I'm probably going to do that. And so I've had to learn to do this. But it says, don't be anxious about anything. But that should cause you to think, so what am I being anxious about?

Sometimes the hardest thing about about worry, sometimes the hardest thing about losing your peace is getting down to the bottom of why don't I have any peace? What am I so anxious about? What am I so worried about? What is occupying my mind? And as you sit back and start to sort through your thoughts, you say, that's what's doing it. That's what's occupying my mind.

That's the anxiousness. That's sort of the root of what I'm dealing with. And when you get to the root of what you're dealing with, it says, don't be anxious about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Pray about everything. You have to start taking those things to the Lord and pray. You're like, Ryan, you've you've told us to do this a lot. I know, but I don't know if we always take it seriously.

I don't know if we always take seriously the importance of taking everything to God in prayer. Yesterday, I've come across several different people lately who have said, hey, I'm dealing with somebody that's living in. A lifestyle that is that is not pleasing to the Lord. They're living in the LGBTQ lifestyle. And so there's there's a lady, by the way, I her website is not popping up right now,

but you can find some great YouTube videos of her testimony. Her name is Patty Height. And she talks a lot about how God brought her through that. That's not my point of why I'm bringing this up. She brought up the fact that when she came out of that lifestyle, she was broken. When God saved her, she was so broken. And. Still sometimes craving the things of the world.

And she said, what I had to learn to do is to take everything to God in prayer. And quite frankly, sometimes the people around me didn't even know what to tell me other than I don't know how to minister to you, but I can pray for you. And she said, I had to learn to take everything to the Lord in prayer because all of the things that go on in our lives, all of the worries that we have, all of the things that are affecting us, we have to just keep taking. To the Lord in prayer.

And listen, she pointed this out and I'll tell you as well. Prayer is not something that you do one time and then you're done with it. Sometimes you have to keep taking the exact same thing to the Lord over and over and over again for years in prayer before he deals with it. But she said something interesting that is something I've experienced, too. She said, as I started taking these things

to the Lord in prayer, he started answering me and he started he started speaking to me about these different areas of my life. And that's what God does with us. That's why when you're anxious about things, you have to take them to the Lord in prayer. And it can't just be that one time. It has to be every single time it comes up. Because as an individual who struggles

with worry, although I have had a great deal of victory over it, as somebody who has had victory over this worry, I can tell you, I just had to keep going to the Lord with it, I just had to keep taking it to him. Because Jesus promised us peace. He said, I leave you this peace and that peace that Jesus left us, that peace of Christ. That's what should rule in our hearts.

But you see, every day we have to decide that's going to rule in our hearts. How do we every day decide that the peace of Christ can rule in our hearts? Because every day we take the worries and we say, Lord, that one's yours, not mine. Lord, that's for you to deal with, not me. Because your word tells me that you will keep him in perfect peace who trusts in you.

And so I'm going to keep taking these things to you. I'm going to keep bringing this to you, knowing that you're the one who's going to solve the problem, not me. Because what we tend to do is we give it to God and then we take it back. And it's this huge tug of war because it's man against himself, but it's kind of also man against God in some ways, because we're fighting for who's going to be in control.

Is it going to be God and his peace or is it going to be me and my anxiety? But he says, pray about everything. And as we pray about everything and give thanks, the peace of God begins to rule in our hearts. Matter of fact, in this context, it says in the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. In other words, it won't make sense to you or anybody else around you.

It will guard your heart. That word guard is a military term that means to garrison about. In other words, to set a protective detail around your heart. And that's what the peace of God does for us. And that's because Jesus came to give us peace. And so we have peace. With God, because of the blood of Jesus Christ, we have the peace of God because of his presence with us and the fact that he gave us his peace.

But now comes the real kicker, peace with other people. But once I'm right with God and once I begin to have some peace in myself, peace with others starts to make just a little bit more sense. So there's a few things I want us to take a look at. Go over to Ephesians, go to just your left. Ephesians, chapter two, I want you to look at verses 14. Verses 14 through 17.

Ephesians, chapter two, verses 14 and 17. The the the verses previous to this talk about the Gentiles. And the fact that though we were Gentiles separated because we were not a part of the family of God, we were separated because of our birth. God has brought us near through the blood of Jesus Christ. Notice what it says, starting in verse 14, for he himself is our peace,

who made both groups into one, and he broke down. The barrier of the dividing wall by abolishing in his flesh the enmity, which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances so that in himself he might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace. And he might reconcile both in one body to God through the cross. By it having put to death the enmity and he came and he preached peace to you who were far off. And.

Peace to those who were near. Let's throw verse 18 in there, too. For through him we both have our access in one spirit to the father. Now, in the ancient world that Paul was writing to, there were very few barriers as big as the one between Jew and Gentile. The Jews hated the Gentiles because they viewed them as not God's chosen people. They actually viewed them as the people

that God would use to stoke the fires of hell. They viewed them as unclean. As a matter of fact, if a Jew saw a Gentile walking on the road, they would walk across the road, the road, hold their coat just a little bit closer to them so that nothing of that unclean Gentile would get on them. There was a lot of hatred that took place on the part of the Jews towards the Gentiles.

There was a great conflict. The Gentiles hated the Jews because they thought they were weird. They thought their customs were weird. They thought that the way that they acted towards them were weird. And quite frankly, if somebody hates you long enough, you kind of start to feel the same way about them. Right. So there was this massive barrier between Jew and Gentile.

And if you did not fully understand the barrier between Jew and Gentile, then a quick picture of the temple would create for you the understanding of the barrier between Jew and Gentile, because in the outer court of the temple was what was known as the court of the Gentiles, anybody could go into the court of the Gentiles. That's where Jesus drove out the money changers from, because he knew that they were preventing even the Gentiles who he would eventually bring into the family from truly understanding what God looked like. But between the court of the Gentiles and the court of the women, where only the women were allowed, there was a sign and that sign above the door said, any Gentile that goes through this door is subject to death.

And there was a wall that divided where the Gentiles could be and where the Jews could be. That's why when Paul says he has made peace by tearing down the middle wall of separation, any Jewish person who had ever been to the temple and understood anything about the temple would have already pictured in their mind the wall between the court of the Gentiles and the court of the women with the sign on the door that says any Gentile that passes this is subject to a penalty of death. A middle wall of separation, keeping the two completely apart. That's why Paul says he is our peace who has broken down the middle wall of separation.

And from the two has made one brand new man. You see, that's what the gospel of Jesus Christ does, is it breaks down the walls of separation because it breaks all barriers. It gets rid of all of them. And now we are one in Christ. You see, we're told in Galatians chapter three, verse twenty eight. I had to put it up there, but you don't necessarily need to turn there.

You might just write it down. Maybe I didn't. Yeah, I did. Galatians chapter three, verse twenty eight says that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female. We are just simply all one in Christ. All of the barriers break down. See, that's what the gospel does for us, because it puts everybody on one level playing field.

There's now two groups of people in the world, those who have been saved by the grace of Jesus Christ and those who have not been saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. That's why it's really hard in the culture that we live in today to see there be any sort of color barriers in the church, to be any sort of ethnic barriers in the church, because that's not the way that it's supposed to be. The way that it's supposed to be is all of us together worshiping God together. Because we are now one in him, how do we start dealing with the conflict with each other, we start looking, we stop looking at each other as if we're different and start looking at each other as if we've all been saved by grace.

That's how we start to change things. We start looking at each other in a completely different way. But we have to start tearing down the middle wall of separation. I remember going on a real short little one day mission trip down into Mexico when I was in Bible college. We helped a church down in Tijuana do some things. And and at the end there was a guy there who was who was only Spanish speaking.

And the guy that was with him said he would he would like to pray for you guys. And we said, OK. Of course, he didn't didn't speak English. So he prayed for us in Spanish. And it was kind of amazing because as he's praying for us in Spanish, we couldn't hardly well, I couldn't anyway. I don't know if anybody else is bilingual. I'm not. But I only understood two things when he said Padre and when he said Jesucristo.

I knew that he was talking to the Father and he was praying in the name of Jesus Christ. And I thought, isn't that amazing that the one thing that you can recognize out of the entire prayer. Is Jesus. Jesus is what I recognize. I'm like, I don't understand anything this dude's saying, but I know it's in the name of Jesus. So I know that we are brothers in Christ because that's what the gospel does for us

is it tears down all the middle wall of separation. And we have to stop looking at each other as if we're different. We have to stop looking at socioeconomic barriers. We have to stop looking at color barriers. We have to stop looking at ethnic barriers. We have to stop doing all of that because when he brought peace, he brought peace to everyone. And now you and I can have peace with each other because of the work of Jesus Christ.

And that's where peace begins to take place. People say, well, how are we ever going to deal with the race issue? I know we should have more racial sensitivity training. No, you should have more gospel training because that's how you deal with barriers is you put everybody under two situations. You're either in Christ or you're not in Christ. That's who we are.

And if you're in Christ. I want to build you up and I want to love you as a brother or sister in Christ because we're family and if you're not in Christ, let me tell you about Jesus. Right. Because that's what it does for us. You say, Ryan, what do we do when people hurt us? Because the conflict is not just racial. It's not just ethnic. It's not just, you know, socioeconomic.

Those aren't the only barriers. Sometimes people hurt us. So how at that point in time do I begin to live in peace with other people? Because that's what I want to know. How do I solve those? Conflicts go to Ephesians, chapter four, verse thirty two. We're in for sorry, go down to verse thirty two. It says this. Be kind to one another. Tender hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has forgiven you.

That's how we begin to deal with the conflicts of man against man. As we learn to be kind, we learn to be tender hearted and we learn to be forgiving. Those are three beautiful things for us to be right. Kindness, I think, is sometimes the thing that we're missing in the church today, because sometimes the church will stand on the truth and sometimes the church will stand on the Bible, but they forget that kindness is truth and kindness is in the Bible.

And sometimes that's one of the best things that we can be to someone because people don't care how much, you know, until they know how much you care. And sometimes that extension of kindness is all that. The world needs and that kindness comes from having a tender heart towards people. Again, in the world that we live in today, we have begun to lack a tender heart towards those around us.

We instead tend to have a judgmental heart towards those around us. And it's a little bit the separation that took place through social media. But we can tend to have a very judgmental heart towards the people around us. We stop putting ourselves in their shoes. We stop thinking, I wonder, I wonder why they act the way they do. I wonder why they're doing the thing that they do.

Have you ever thought about the fact that sometimes when someone hurts you, it's maybe because they're in conflict with God or they're in conflict with themselves and it caused their conflict with you? You ever thought about that? Because why does sometimes you lash out at people? Well, probably because you're in conflict with God or you're in conflict with yourself or you're in the middle of a conflict with somebody else.

And it just spilled over onto them. You ever been in that situation? You ever been in that situation where all it took was one person to say the one thing that pushed you over the line and then your head spun off of your body and it landed all over someone next to you and they're going, I just said good morning. It was your tone, right? And you're going, where did that even come from?

What came from conflict? And maybe if we could be a little bit tender hearted and step back and go, whoa, I care about you enough to say, why did you just lose your business like that? Because something's wrong. And I'm going to be willing to be forgiving. Well, where does that kindness and that tender heartedness and that forgiveness come from? Well, let me read it to you again.

Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other. Oh, there it is. Just as God in Christ has forgiven you. See, here's the thing that we tend to lack. When we get in the middle of a situation where someone hurts us, all of our understanding of God's grace. This goes out the window because all of our pride just walked in. Right. How dare they disrespect me like that?

How dare they treat me like that? How dare they talk to me like that? How dare they ignore me like that? And we completely forget that we talk to God like that, that we treated God like that, that we ignored God like that, and he still decided that he would come as a baby and live a life on this fallen earth so that he could die a death at the hands of one man so that he could save fallen humanity.

And we forget that that's what he did for me. We forget that that's what he did for us. And in that process, we then start to hold other people's sins against them. And that conflict just continues to spread. My friends, if you want to stop having conflict with the people around you, start remembering how much you've been forgiven of and start forgiving other people.

I don't want people to walk all over me. Have you read about Jesus? Have you read the Gospels? They sort of walked all over that dude. He still stood for truth. He still stood for what was right. But as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. Friends, Jesus wants to bring peace into our lives. He wants to bring that peace into our hearts, but it will always begin with me

beginning to understand that he's made peace with me, and as I understand that he's made peace with me, that I have peace with God because of the blood of Jesus Christ, then it's easier for me to trust him and to have the peace of God rule in my heart, and it's a lot easier for me to forgive those that are around me and have peace with man because of what Jesus has done in me. Now, as I say all of these things, you're probably thinking to yourself, yeah, but Ryan, there's still conflict in the world. What's our what's our hope with all of the conflict in the world? Well, we're told.

In Romans, I don't have a mark in this Bible. We're told in Romans Chapter 16 that the God of peace will soon crush Satan underneath of your feet. That's our hope. You say, Ryan, I understand that theoretically I have all this peace, but I still see so much conflict in the world. There's still a hope to come. And the hope to come is that one day what Jesus did will be final and finished for all of eternity because the God of peace

will soon crush Satan underneath of your feet. Amen. Let's all stand. And if you'd bow with me, Father, we come before you. And Lord, I thank you for the time that we've had in your word this morning. Lord, I thank you for the truth of who you are and Lord, that you continue to show us your kindness and your goodness and that you brought peace into our lives

through the gift of Jesus Christ. And so, Lord, continue to work in us. And Lord, I just want to lift up each person that's here because I just I just know that each of us that's here, Lord, we carry things in every Sunday and some of those things that we carry in are conflict. Or there may be someone here that's still fighting a battle with you or. Lord, you want to be the king of their heart and they need to surrender to you

today and they refuse to do it and they just keep fighting that battle. I mean, nobody else knows about it, but Lord, they're fighting you. That's the Lord today. It needs to be the day that they come to you and they say, Lord, I give up. Lord, I know that I've said that I just want you to be my savior. Or may today be that day or there's some people that have brought into into this

room this morning just absolute conflict inside of the Lord, they are just living in turmoil right now because either they're fighting a battle of the flesh or they're fighting a battle of worry or or whatever it is. Today's the day they need to start really, truly giving those things to you in prayer. Really? truly giving over all that turmoil and strife to you in prayer. Lord, all those anxious thoughts

so that they can truly live in peace. And Lord, there's some conflicts with people that have been brought into this room. There's some unforgiveness that's been brought in here. Lord, there's some fighting that's been brought in here. And you want to bring peace, but it's going to start with forgiveness. It's going to start with kindness and being tenderhearted. So Lord,

work in their hearts and lives to bring about that peace. Tear down the barriers. And Lord, restore relationships. I know those are hard conversations, but Lord, I know that you want us to have them. And so Lord, do that work, we pray. Be with us as we go out from here. Give us a wonderful week. In Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.