The Hero Brings Peace

All of the International Mission Board’s missionaries currently serving in the field, it’s 3,000 some odd units representing over 10,000 husbands, wives, singles, and their kids. They are funded through a couple different streams, but the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering is a giving stream that only and purely goes to taking care of our overseas missionaries.

Now, the missionaries don’t just receive financial funds from local churches here in the States, but even more importantly, they receive prayer support, they receive communication and contact and other means of support from churches here. And every missionary unit on the fields, they’re given a directive: Hey, if you don’t already have one, establish a relationship with the church that can help take care of you in some fashion.

So I’m on the phone with some folks from the IMB a couple weeks ago just saying, Hey, like I’m a new pastor of a church out in Charleston and looking to help our church start thinking a little bit about missions and stuff. Like, are there any missionaries that need a church to support them? And the lady I’m talking to says, Actually, there’s some missionaries that are looking for a church like yours, and they’ve got some family in the Charleston area. So I’m going to let them know about you.

I get an email over last weekend. It got to me after church. This is from Don and Mary. So I’m having to use fake names because they serve in a war-torn country in the Middle East. They represent 30 or 40 missionary teams ministering to tens of thousands of Muslim people. So I’m just getting to know them a little bit. We’re just talking a little bit, trying to use some code over email. And I said, Hey, if you could give us a little bit of an update, what do you do? How can our church pray for you? How can we partner with you? And this is what they wrote back.

Man, Jeremy, we praise God for what He’s doing in the Middle East and Arabia. Yes, there are wars and rumors of wars. People are suffering in Gaza and in Israel. But there’s another side of the story. Every one of the teams we lead is working with people who have come out of Islam and are now believing in Jesus. Just five years ago, we didn’t see that. Many of our teams are helping people discover what it means to be church and how to do that in countries where it’s illegal to change your religion. Most of these people meet in house churches, entering like they’re just going for a visit. But then they sing, they secretly study the Bible, and they secretly pray. Praise God for what He’s doing.

Here are some fellow believers in Jesus we ask your church to pray for this Christmas season. Pray for Nora, who lives with her husband in Iraq. She’s a Christian from Yemen, but he, as an Iraqi man, is not a Christian. For years, he has heard the good news, but continues to reject it. He doesn’t mind that she shares the gospel with Muslims, and he even protects her, but he still refuses to believe. Pray for him.

Pray for Noman and Fatma, who are displaced from their home countries and now live in a Middle Eastern country. Both Christians who left Islam. She is from Gaza, and many of her relatives have been killed in the last month in the warring that’s been going on there. And they are going through tremendous grief on top of the fact that he needs a work permit, a job, and permanency in the country where they’re staying. Their toddler is traumatized by all they’ve been through. Pray for them.

Praise God for Abdu, who is poor and needy, but has a strong love for Jesus and continues to be a witness in his small village in Arabia. He’s a spiritual leader amongst his people. And praise God for y’all, who meet our needs so that we can work amongst these amazing people. We are in our 35th year of serving with the IMB, and we’re grateful for the prayer and support from your church.

These aren’t names that I just made up. These are real people that live in the Middle East that now we’re connected with. So I dream of a day where we can send care packages, where we can Skype with these missionary leaders. I dream of a day where we have a few brave souls from our church join me, and we’re going to go and we’re going to hang out with them in the Middle East, and we’re just going to encourage them. Today is the first step in that direction.

So if you will, how about this? Let’s pray for Don and Mary, and let’s ask God’s favor on them as they work in the Middle East. So we’re going to do this. It’s just going to be quiet. 30 seconds. Just pray by yourself, and I’m going to bring us together, and I’m going to pray over us, okay? So pray for Don and Mary, please.

God, praise Your name for Don and Mary. 35 years of sharing the gospel. Middle East, God, sharing it with people that hate You and hate them. God, 35 years of being without their families here. 35 years of raising kids in very scary environments for us. God, 35 years of claiming the excellencies of our King Jesus. Lord, please sustain them. God, help them this Christmas season as it’s another Christmas they’re going to spend away from family. God, help them as they, Lord, want to share the hope and the joy that they have. God, the peace that they have. Lord, the love that they have.

Lord, I pray for Nora and her husband in Iraq. God, I beg that You would help him to believe. Lord, I trust Your word where it says the conduct of a believing wife will win a husband. Lord, I pray that her conduct and her witness would win him to the gospel.

Lord, I pray for Noman and Fatima, God, who are displaced from their home and they’re taking care of a toddler who’s been traumatized by what’s going on in the Middle East. Lord, I pray that You would line up a job and a work permit for him so that their transitions and their homelessness can stop.

Lord, I want to thank You for Abdu, Lord, who loves You deeply and he is a witness in his village in Arabia. God, I pray that You would deepen his influence and that his entire village would believe.

And Lord, I pray for us. God, I fully believe that our church here in Ravenel can have a global impact for the sake of the kingdom. Lord, I’m excited to see what a relationship with Don and Mary can look like. And I’m asking that You would make today be the first step of that. Lord, we love You. Amen.

Well, hey, thank you for joining in prayer for that. And thank you for your ongoing support for our missionaries overseas. I was reminded last night that Becca and I really haven’t shared a whole lot of the story of how we got overseas. While I hadn’t quite had the stories that Don and Mary had, we were missionaries that lived in Southeast Asia, working with the Muslim people group that were fully supported by Southern Baptist churches, just like Sauldam Baptist Church. So from the years of 2018 to 2020, when y’all gave to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, you were giving to us. You were making it such that we could be sharing the gospel with guys like Muhammad and Emmanuel. His name is Emmanuel, and he doesn’t know the reason for that. Guys whose name are the Indonesian word for heaven and paradise, but people that are far from Jesus. You helped us go there, and I want to thank you for that.

But that’s not the point of today. The point of today is not a mission sermon, but it obviously doesn’t take a whole lot for me to get started. And, you know, I kind of set the stage here, so I made it for myself. But anyways, the point of today is actually to continue our series in the Advent stories. So if you have your Bible, you go ahead and open it up to Luke chapter 2. It’s the same passage that was read a few minutes ago. Luke chapter 2.

And as we get started, I just, you know, I have a question for you. For the parents in the room, whenever your children were born, how’d you tell people? How’d you tell people whenever your children were born? For me, it’s a picture that I didn’t think about sharing until it was a little too late for the purpose of the slideshow. It’s a picture of me weeping as I’m holding Annie. And the nurses wisely said, you should sit down before you hold your daughter. Normally guys pass out in that moment. So I’m sure that would have been me too. You know, for me, it was sending a picture to people. For others, it’s having a big reveal on Facebook or Instagram.

I learned something interesting this week. If you are part of the royal family over in England, then what they do is they put a birth announcement on a golden easel outside of Buckingham Palace. So whenever there’s news that, hey, a new king, a new duchess, a new queen has been born, everybody is supposed to go to this easel and look at all the information about who the king is. Child was when they were born and all those details. If a king is born, how do you expect the king’s birth to be told? How would you expect the news of a king’s birth? You know, we as Christians, we have a king and He was born too, but I think that His announcement went a little differently.

Let’s read it again in Luke chapter 2, verses 8 through 14. The scripture be on the screens. In the same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, don’t be afraid for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the city of David, a savior was born for you who is the Messiah, the Lord, and this will be the sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth and lying in a manger. Suddenly there’s a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest heaven and peace on earth to people He favors.

Man, that is how the birth of our king was told. It wasn’t on an easel outside of a palace. It wasn’t via Instagram. It wasn’t even a picture of a weeping dad sent to his friends. It was angels telling some shepherds. And I think this is a crazy moment. But the main thing I want you to take away from this sermon today for us here in 2023 is the fact that a baby brought the peace we need. A baby brought the peace that we need.

You know, first you see peace being anticipated in verses eight through or eight and nine. You have these shepherds, they’re staying out in the fields, they’re keeping watch over their flock at night. What we didn’t read about is that first line in verse eight, it says, in the same region, in the same region refers back to something else that happens in chapter two. And that is the birth of Jesus. So Joseph and Mary and their group, they’ve traveled to Bethlehem for them not to give birth at the best hospital in the region. That’s not why they’re in Bethlehem. They are there because King Augustus, Caesar Augustus has ordered it to happen. You see, Caesar, he’s just a Roman king. He’s a Roman emperor. And he wants to take a census of all the people. And he says, hey, I need all of you to go back home. Go back to Ravenel, go back to Hollywood, go back up to Fort Mill so that you can take a census with the people you’re ran with, the people or the places you were born in.

So Caesar makes this decree, this proclamation. He says, go home, go home for the census. So all of Israel is being shuffled around. All of Israel being told what to do by this Roman emperor. And this Roman emperor is disrupting everything. And the shepherds are back in Bethlehem. They’re keeping watch over their flocks at night. It’s crazy that shepherds are mentioned in this story. I think for you and I, we have a pretty positive connotation of what a shepherd is, right? Especially in a community such as this. You know, we look back at Psalm 23 and we talk about how God is our shepherd. You look at the word for a pastor in the New Testament. It’s based off the idea of being a shepherd. But for a shepherd in Jesus’s day, things were different. Because they spent all of their time with livestock, that meant they were ceremonially unclean. To be a shepherd meant you could not go to the temple. You could not worship God through the normal way. And because they spent all of their time separated from society, shepherds were looked down upon. They were questioned. A shepherd’s word wasn’t even good in a court of law.

So for us to read that there are shepherds here, we’re not supposed to have the warm and fuzzies. We’re supposed to say, shepherds, what are they doing in the story about a king? What’s a fry cook doing in a story about an executive chef coming to take care of our kitchen? Like, shepherds shouldn’t be part of this story. They shouldn’t be part of God’s entourage when the King of the Universe was born. But here they are. Here they are. This is also happening at night. Put yourself there. You’re watching over your flocks. They’re asleep. It’s dark, quiet. Everything’s calm. And all of a sudden, the shepherd shows up. He’s interrupting everything. He shouts at them. He starts talking to them. The angel of the Lord stands before them. The glory of the Lord shines around them. What would they be? They’d be terrified. They absolutely would. If you go around this corner, you don’t know somebody else is coming. They jump out at you. You’d be scared. And it’s noon. Now put yourself at midnight outside in a field. There’s barely enough light to watch over all the livestock. And all of a sudden, the angel of the Lord comes and shines in your face. You’d be terrified. You absolutely would.

And the thing is, God would send these angels, these messengers, to communicate to His people throughout the Scripture. I’ve just got a couple examples for you. Luke chapter 1, God sends Gabriel to Zachariah and Elizabeth to prophesy the birth of John the Baptist. After Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, the disciples are standing there watching Him float up in the clouds. And angels show up and they say, hey, what? What you doing? Why are you still here? God sends a message through Him. Later in Acts, an angel appears to Peter to help him get out of prison. Then an angel appears to Paul to encourage him as he’s going to testify in Rome. God keeps sending these divine messengers to get a divine message across.

And along with the messengers, He gives this divine presence. It says, the glory of the Lord shone about them. This one angel standing there with the shepherds in the middle of the night, and God’s glory is there. Now for us, I don’t think that we have handles for what that word means. His glory. What’s His glory? It’s the physical manifestation of God’s presence. The physical, you can feel it, you can touch it, manifestation of God being with us. In Exodus 24, when God invites Moses onto the top of the mountain to give the Ten Commandments, do you remember what was there? It was a storm, fire, and lightning. It was God’s presence. It was His glory.

Later in Exodus chapter 40, the tabernacle is finished, and Moses is about to go in, and God’s glory comes down on it. And it’s so palpable and powerful and terrifying. Moses, the man that it says communicated with God as if they were friends face to face. This man that is used to God in a sense, this man that’s comfortable talking with God, and he couldn’t even go into the tabernacle. God’s presence would have been terrifying. So once again, put yourself in the shoes or in the sandals of the shepherds, and this angel shows up, and God’s glory is with Him. You’d be terrified. We all would be terrified.

But instead of bringing fear, the angel wanted to bring a message, a message of joy, the message that peace has been born. Which takes us to verses 10 through 12. Peace is born. He says, I proclaim to you good news of great joy. So He wants to give a real joy. Now for me, obviously, I get pretty amped up about missions. I get pretty amped up about evangelism. Something that’s fascinating to me. Verse 10, He says, I proclaim to you good news. That’s a long way for us to represent what’s written in one word in the Greek, and that one word is evangelize. I evangelize to you great joy. So when the angel is saying, I’ve got this proclamation for you, He’s evangelizing the shepherds. Not necessarily in the sense that we use that term, but when you read your New Testament, you later come across the word evangelism, it’s supposed to harp on something like this. I’m bringing you great news, good joy, good news. That’s what the angel had for the shepherd.

And this, naturally, if you remember Caesar, would indeed be good news. The Roman emperor bossing the people of Israel around, writing his decrees, oppressing them, keeping them down. Always bad news. Always despair. The truly terrifying one, the angel, brings something totally different. I’ve got good news for you. He’s got real joy because He wants to speak to a real group. It’s good news for all the people. Again, I’m just nerding out on you a little bit. The Greek there, all the people, it actually refers to one type of group, one type of crowd. I’ve got good news for the people at Sauldam Baptist Church. That’s what this is. So when we see that, we’re again reminded the people of Israel have been longing for good news for so long. As a nation, they need good news. Are we a nation that needs good news? Are we a people that needs a little encouragement and a little great joy in our lives? Are we like that at all? Some of us maybe could consider us that way. No, that’s who we are. We need good news of great joy. And that’s who the Israelites, who the Jews were.

I think it’s so cool that while this news was given to a specific group, the angel did say, but hey, it’s for everybody. They weren’t supposed to keep this message to themselves. Again, the fruit of evangelism is that hearers of good news would become tellers of good news. It’s that Don and Mary would hear good news and they would go and move to the Middle East and start telling people good news. That’s the fruit of, I proclaim to you good news of great joy, which begs a very natural question for me in my life. Am I proclaiming what I’ve received? Am I giving away the good news that I’m hearing? Not am I able to teach the Bible on Sundays to this church family that I love? But am I taking opportunities in my day-to-day course of actions to say, hey man, that thing you’re doing is not going to satisfy you? That way you are treating her is not actually helping you? Hey man, going to church is good, but it doesn’t actually save you. Do you know that? Let’s talk about how you get saved. Does that come across my conversations? Am I proclaiming the news I’ve received? Are you? Are you like the shepherds being given good news of great joy for all the people? Because later we see they start telling people. In fact, if you read your New Testament after this, whenever people hear good news, they always have to make a choice. Am I going to share it or not? Who are we? But again, that’s a sermon for another day.

This good news for all the people became good news today. It’s a real day. Friend, you need to know we have a historically validated faith. Jesus is a real person who really was born under the reign of Caesar Augustus while Quirinius was governing Syria. Verse 2 says, “We serve a divine king who became man, who left His throne in heaven and entered our world as a baby.” The most historically validated events in history are all centered on the core of the Bible. God becoming man and living in our place and dying in our place and resurrecting in our place. You have a historical faith that you can believe in and step into. This is good news for real people at a, on a real day, at a real moment.

This good news also comes from the city of David. That’s a real place. Bethlehem is where Jesus was born. And I don’t have to articulate that to you, but it’s good to be reminded of these things. In 1 Samuel chapter 17, God is speaking to David and says, “A king from your line will be born in Bethlehem.” In Micah 5 chapter 2, Jesus, the savior of the world is prophesied as being born in Bethlehem. In Luke chapter 2, Jesus is born in Bethlehem. We have good news about a real place. And Bethlehem, you should know, it’s not a large, important, influential, wealthy city. Bethlehem is not Washington DC. It’s not New York City. It’s not even downtown Charleston. Bethlehem friends is a little more like home. Bethlehem is a little more like Ravenel, like Hollywood. This would have been the place where our king would have come. Not Buckingham Palace, not London, England. Jesus would have been laid in a stable, maybe on your property. Jesus would have rested under your heat lamp. The baby would have been swaddled in your old t-shirts. That was our king.

This good news is about a savior. Jesus is given three titles in verse 11. A savior, the Messiah, Savior, the Messiah, and the Lord. Clearly, a savior means that we are in need of saving. We need to be rescued. In Matthew chapter 1, verse 21, I’ll read it to you. Jesus is prophesied like this. “Mary will give birth to a son, and you are to name Him Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.” Friend, you and I, we need saving. Your life may run okay, or it may be off the tracks. You may be in the Ditch, or you may be on cloud nine. But here’s the deal. We need saving. We all need a savior, because we are all sinners. And that is why God sent His son into this world to rescue us. Not from not going to church. Not from our credit score. He did not rescue us from our families of heritage. Though, when you meet Jesus, some of those things do change. God came to the world to rescue us from our sin. The ways that you and I disobey God’s good standard for us. But He came and He did it. And this savior was the anointed one from long ago. The Messiah, that’s the special word that simply means the anointed one.

A month ago, whenever we were doing our God’s big story series, week two, I had a couple folks up here reading scripture with me. I’m looking at the Matheses and they helped us out. And we were told in Genesis 3 verse 15, God speaking to the serpent said, “Eve is going to have a son and he is going to crush your head.” And ever since then, the Jewish people have been waiting for that anointed one, the Messiah. In Greek, it’s written Christ. So we call Him Jesus Christ. God saves the anointed one. Jesus’ name had so much meaning and it’s wrapped up right here.

But He’s also a king. That third title, He is king, Lord. He runs and rules everything. Caesar Augustus, he’s just shuffling people around. He’s just taking a census. He’s just hoping somebody doesn’t knock him off his throne. And somebody does. Jesus came to run this place. Jesus is Lord. He is the true sovereign. Which once again begs a natural question. Am I living under the reign of Jeremy Simmons or of Jesus Christ? Is Sauldam Baptist Church ran by people or are we ruled Jesus? What this community needs is the second one. What your life needs is the second one. I get myself in and out of trouble every day. Before I wake up, before I get out of bed, our church will get itself in and out of trouble every day. We don’t need people to rule us. And I say this humbly as your pastor. Like, we need God to rule us. And that’s Jesus’ rightful spot here. Which is why our services always center on this book. We want this to guide and direct and rule and govern every single thing we do. Are we a people that respects this book? Are we a people that wants to let this rule us? That’s what Jesus came to do.

This good news is proven by a sign. It’s a real moment. So where would we expect the king of the universe to be born? Where would we expect the announcement to take place? Outside of a palace? Influential city? This will be the sign for you. Verse 12. You’ll find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth. Nothing weird about that. Lying in a manger. Something very weird about that. Y’all remember what a manger is? Who knows what a manger is? Okay, say it for me. What’s a manger? It’s a food trough. This is a feeding area. The cows were just eating out of this. Later today, I’m going to go home, and I’m going to see Michael’s cows knocking over that food trough again because they’re going to finish it out. They’re going to say, where’s more food? Let’s knock it over, see if there’s any more food in there. By the way, the food trough’s been knocked over. So that’s just kind of what it is. It’s a feeding trough. The king of the universe laid on a feeding trough? I think it is incredible. The king’s arrival isn’t proven by a palace, but it’s proven by His humility. That’s the king that brings peace. That’s the king that we base our lives on.

This awaited savior, the one that’s been promised and longed for for thousands of years, had every right to come with all the pomp and circumstance and all the fanfare that could have been mustered. But instead, the announcement is made to a couple shepherds outside of Bethlehem tending some sheep. But something incredible happens as that angel shares this good news. Peace is treasured. Because in verse 13 it says, Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel praising God. That single angel that interrupted their quiet night becomes an entire army of angels. This host, that’s what that word means. It was a military term. It’s a unit. I don’t know. Clearly I’m not from the military. So I don’t know. What’s bigger than a unit, Al? Company.

What’s bigger than a company? Battalion. What’s bigger than a brigade or a battalion? Division. Army. Department. I don’t care what word you use. That’s what this was. It was the entire night sky filled up with angels. If one angel was enough to terrify these men whose livelihood depended on defending sheep from lions and bears and tigers, oh my, then what would an entire army have been like for them? Imagine the night sky, not filled with stars way out there, but filled with angels way up in your grill, looking at you, ready to sing something. You would be, yes, lest I get carried away, you would be whatever your word is right there. That’s what you would be. And that’s what these men are.

And they start singing. I can’t think of any less militaristic thing for an army to do than singing. But that’s what they do. And in their song, they present peace. Glory to God in the highest. Peace on earth to people He favors. How many times do they say that? Glory to God in the highest. Peace on earth to whom God favors. Glory to God in the highest. Peace on earth to whom He favors. Glory, peace, glory, peace. Echoing through the night, going and rolling down the hills. Imagine that’s not a quiet army. Imagine the noise that came. Imagine the sheer terror and bliss of pure, unadulterated worship on the tongues of this army of angels coming at them. Full throttle. Glory, peace.

God’s good news for these men have two results. I’ve said it like ten times. Glory and peace. Glory to God in the highest. These angels recognize God’s distinct status and seat. They recognize that God giving a son of peace to the world is for His glory. And celebrating the news of Jesus’ birth always glorifies God. Not just God’s glory. Also, peace on earth. What’s peace? What’s a peaceful moment for you? Whatever’s in your mind pales in comparison to what Jesus has for you. Jesus, this baby, came to bring peace. Fullness of life. Not just an absence of chaos, but a wholeness to your life. You know what I mean? There’s a difference for me between a quiet morning and my kids don’t wake up versus a peaceful morning where everything goes the right way. I wouldn’t always choose the quiet morning that’s devoid of noise and chaos. Sometimes I’d rather actually have the peaceful morning where Annie’s in my lap and she wants books because that’s better.

What’s peace to you? Again, I’d say whatever it is, it pales in comparison to what Jesus has for you. And Jesus came to bring peace. True, lasting fullness of life and joy. Now this is for all people. A message about the Jewish Messiah was to Israel. But the peace of the world is for the inhabitants of the world. Even a bunch of us in 2023 out in Ravenel. That’s what God wanted. Greater than Caesar Augustus could have said anything greater than any president of America. God, the universal king, has peace. So even though beauty pageant contestants may say what they want is world peace, we know they can never actually deliver that. We know governments can’t actually ever deliver lasting peace. Food can’t give it to you. A relationship can’t give it to you. A bank account can’t give it to you. But God can. So then the natural question is, how do you get peace? How does God’s favor rest on you? Gospel of Luke has a couple of answers there for us.

The first one comes in Luke chapter 10 verse 21. And it’ll be on the screen for us. Luke chapter 10 verse 21 said, God took pleasure on revealing His news and His kindness and who He is to children. So then you look a little later in the Gospel of Luke at Luke 18 verses 15 through 17. Because last I checked, I am no longer a child, which kind of makes it seem like I can no longer have peace. But Luke 18 verses 15 through 17 say this. People were bringing infants to Jesus so He might touch them. But when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. Jesus, however, invited them. Let the little children come to Me. Don’t stop them because the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.

So how do you get God’s favor? How do you get peace? It’s not by working for it. It’s certainly not by thinking that you can think of it yourself. Getting God’s peace means receiving it like a child. Trusting God at His word. Believing Him. Saying, “I don’t get it all, but Jesus loves me. This I know. For the Bible tells me so.” How many of us can sing that song full throttle, resting in those words? Theologians can never master it. Preachers can never fully articulate it. But children can grasp it. God’s love for them. And that’s what God has for us.

So today, peace is being presented to the fine folks at Sauldam Baptist Church. Because I have good news for you. God sent His Son to give you peace. I think there’s three types of peace for you to embrace. The first is peace with God Himself. If you will, if you’re a note taker, just write these verses down. We’re running out of time. I can’t read it all. But Romans 5:1. Peace with God. God sent His angels to these shepherds because He wanted to give them peace with Himself. Because ultimately, like I said, we are all sinners in need of rescuing.

And when you accept peace with God, you naturally have peace with yourself. Peace with yourself. That’s the second type of peace. That’s Philippians 4:6 and 7 if you write that down. Because here’s the deal. You and I, we all have internal struggles. We all have things that we can’t forgive ourselves for. We all have things that we want to be true about us. That until we accept the gospel of Jesus Christ, we will never be able to let go of. But God can give you peace. Peace.

If you have peace with God and peace with yourself, you ought to have peace with people, peace with others. Ephesians chapter 2 verses 13 and 14 talk about how God sent His Son to create peace between people. Which means that though every relationship you enter in and out of in this world, while it is susceptible and vulnerable to strife, God can create peace.

So the final question, have you embraced the child of peace or are we just given gifts? Do you want peace? Do you want what God has for you this year? Or do you want to go into 2024, still struggling with the same stuff, still fighting with the same people, still wondering the same questions?

God, I love You. Another Sunday, if me just putting before others what I trust You’ve given to me, God, another Sunday that I have to trust that You’re doing something with Your word, which goes forth and always accomplishes its purpose. Lord, I’m begging that You would help me trust that. Jesus, thank You for coming to this world to give us peace. Jesus, I’m asking that You would help us to embrace the fullness of peace that You have for us and that we would share that message. Please, Lord. God, we love You. We’re a people that loves You. We want to love You more.

God, I pray for Don and Mary again. Asking, Father, as they are going to bed right now in the Middle East, that You would help them to rest in peace and help them to proclaim that peace to some more folks tomorrow. Lord, we love You.