Prince of Peace

We are in a season of our church called the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. I had kind of mentioned this last Sunday. If you are newer to Sauldam, then that name, Lottie Moon, that might not mean a whole lot to you. If you have been here for some time, if you’re from a Southern Baptist Church, then the name Lottie Moon means a lot to you. All you need to know for today is that this is a way for us to partner with other churches across the Southern Baptist Convention to raise funds to help support the work of missions around the world, so that we could do more together than Sauldam Baptist could ever do apart. So for this month in particular, my invitation to you is that above your normal financial giving, that you would use one of the special envelopes in the back or one of your own envelopes, whatever it is, and just do a memo for Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. Our goal this year is $3,225. What we’ve raised to date is $25. So that’s okay. I mentioned this last week after we already collected the offering. That’s totally fine. I’m not worried about it. The thing is, God doesn’t need our money. What He wants is He wants for us to trust Him with our finances and to sow and use our finances for something bigger than ourselves. So that’s my invitation to you this morning. As we are going to pray, you can either pray for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering or you could pray for one of the churches on the right-hand side. I really care that our church would be an advocate of other other churches before God. So what we’re going to do this morning, just pray for some of them, whether it’s Adams Run Baptist Church or Calvary or Charleston Baptist or FBC Ravenel or Harbor City or even Hopewell with Pastor Navine. So let’s do this next few moments, just grab a neighbor and pray, and either pray for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering or pray by name for one of the other churches of our communities, and I’ll wrap us all together and we’ll get running with the sermon. All right, all right, y’all take it away for a moment.

Father, I just want to say thank you, God. Thank you that we get to partner with other churches throughout our nation, Lord, to be able to help fuel the work of Your workers overseas. God, I I think about a time when me and Becca didn’t live in America and we were funded by the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, and I thank You, Lord, that years ago before we ever got to meet Sauldam, Sauldam was support supporting us that way. Lord, thank You for that. God, I pray that You would help us to treasure You and to treasure the advance of the Gospel overseas, and that as we treasure those things, our heart would follow as well. Lord, I want to pray for the local churches of our area. God, I pray that You would pack them out this Christmas season. God, I pray, Lord, that You would please help them to reach a lot of folks in their particular neighborhood, their particular community. Lord, we are all on one team, and I would love nothing more than to see hundreds and thousands of people in the Low Country come to trust You as Lord and Savior, whether You use Sauldam or not. God, please use those other churches. God, please bring them into seasons of joy and vitality and strength as well. Father, I pray for us right now. God, I pray that You would please guard my words and that You would help me, Father, to to say completely what You’ve trusted to me to say. Holy Spirit, I pray that You would help me be really sensitive to Your voice right now. Holy Spirit, I pray that You would help all of us to be sensitive to it as we talk about peace. Holy Spirit, would You please would You please make us good soil to receive Your word. God, we love You. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Well, you’ve heard it read already once this morning, but you can go ahead and turn in your copy of God’s Word to Psalm chapter 72. I’ll meet you there in a minute. Psalm 72. Psalm 72. As you’re turning there, I got a question. It’s a heavier question. Have you ever wondered why life can feel so anxious and so dark, or so frustrating, so unfair? Have you ever wondered these things? Have you ever wondered if the world is supposed to be filled with pain, if People are supposed to get sick and die. If work is supposed to be lifeless or even life-ending, have you ever wondered if parenthood is supposed to feel so downright difficult? Have you ever wondered if the depression and anger are supposed to be normal? You ever wondered? Well, I believe that the Bible deals with these types of questions, and I believe that you are here today because God wants you to have some of those answers. Okay, the world—I will promise—the world was made good, and it was made right, and it was made whole. But someone invaded this world, and the influence of his invasion has been felt ever since the very first lie was ever told. There is a deceiver who wants to oppress you, who wants to hurt you, and who he wants to kill you, and his name is Satan. And the Bible says that he is the current ruler of this world. All those have you wondered? It’s by his influence that we experience depression. It’s by his influence we experience poverty. It’s by his influence that we experience death. The Bible says all these things, but the Bible also says that one day Jesus will come back, and He will reclaim His world, and He will reclaim His throne here.

So we celebrate Christmas. We celebrate Christmas because Jesus came once to begin a rescue mission for the souls of people, and we celebrate Christmas because we need to remind ourselves that Jesus was not just a baby born in a manger who died on a cross, was buried in a tomb, resurrected, came back from life, and went up into the sky. That’s not the end of the story. The end of the story is that Jesus will come back, and He will finish what He started. In the meantime, you and me, we need a new king. We need a new ruler. We need someone who can give us the peace we need and crave. We need someone to bring our lives into order and wholeness. The Bible talks about such a one. His name is Jesus. If there’s one thing I want you to take away from today’s sermon, it is this: if you’re a notetaker, write this down on your phone or on the paper, whatever it is. Jesus is God’s King of Peace. Jesus is God’s King of Peace.

Psalm 72, it reads this way: “God, give your justice to the king and your righteousness to the King’s son. He will judge your people with righteousness and your afflicted ones with justice. May the mountains bring well-being to the people and the hills righteousness. May He vindicate the afflicted among the people, help the poor, and crush the oppressor. May they fear you while the sun endures and as long as the moon, throughout all generations. May the king be like rain that falls on the cut grass, like spring showers that water the earth, and may the righteous flourish in his days and well-being abound until the moon is no more.” This week, take some time and read the rest of Psalm 72. I’ve written some questions for you. They’re in your bulletin on that handout sheet. I think it’s 20 or some odd times the psalmist says, “May he, may he, he, may he.” This Psalm, oh man, it proclaims a central message that Jesus is the King of Peace, but it starts off really interesting. I didn’t read the first words of the Hebrew. The first words, if you go back to the copy of God’s Word in your lap, it actually says, “of Solomon.”

Now here’s what we need to know. This is for free, okay, to help you understand and navigate the Bible. Very well-meaning folks have added some chapter numbers and some verse numbers and some chapter titles. Those aren’t original to the copy of God’s Word that’s in your hand, which is why on Wednesday nights, if you come and we read the passage in different translations, there’s different titles to a chapter. You ever noticed that whenever you’re sitting around the table, we’re reading like right now we’re in Acts, we’re doing that, you know, this week is going to be Acts chapter 5, and somebody’s Bible is going to have a different title than mine on Acts 5? Those titles we’ve put in there to help us navigate the Bible. Otherwise, I would have said, “Hey, open up your Bible to the Psalms and go about halfway into the Psalms and find that spot where it keeps saying, ‘May the mountains’ or ‘may He vindicate’ and ‘may they fear you.’” That’s all just extra for you. What’s original here is it says, “of”

Solomon. Now, that’s an inscription. Whoever wrote this, either it was by Solomon or it was for Solomon. What their intention was was to describe a king and a kingdom that would lift Israel. However, this describes a type of king and a type of kingdom that this world has never known. This Psalm, you study it later this week, this Psalm is so perfect, it’s so ideal. We know this never really happened under Solomon’s reign. So if the Bible predicts something that wasn’t accomplished by people, what does that tell you? It’s still got to be accomplished, or God made it happen, right? That’s what today is about. This Psalm is all about Jesus. Jesus is God’s King of Peace. If that wasn’t true, then why would Jesus say in John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I don’t give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful.” Or if Jesus wasn’t God’s King of Peace, then why would He say this in John chapter 16, “I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world, but be courageous. I have conquered the world.”

This Psalm was written hundreds of years before a man named Jesus Christ was ever on the scene, but the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, had long predated this bad boy. And God, in His plan of salvation, said, “I’m going to send someone. I’m going to send a king, and he is going to rule in righteousness and justice.” Verses one and two, they repeat these words: righteousness, justice. These words paired together means that when this King comes, He will rule in complete fairness, in complete goodness, in complete rightness. Someone in here needs to hear me say this: there is a God, and that God does not want to curse or hurt or oppress you. That God actually wants to free you and to infuse His life into yours so that you can become the person that God has made you to be. And that God has a name. His name is Jesus. Man, unfortunately, there are so many reasons why we resist Him, though, right? You think back to before you trusted in Jesus Christ yourself. For me, I was 15 years old, sitting in my buddy’s Nissan when he led me through a prayer to profess my faith in Him. The thing is, I had 15 years of being in church, 15 years of knowing about Jesus, but also 15 years of resisting Him. I had some reasons to resist Him, and maybe you’re sitting here this morning and you still don’t quite have this whole Jesus thing settled, and there’s some reasons why you might resist Him.

You might have had a bad church experience or a bad experience with other Christians. Frankly, here’s the deal: I get it wrong all the time. We were at a restaurant a couple days ago. It’s a restaurant that we go to fairly frequently. It’s also a restaurant that I criticize pretty deeply. And I’m sitting here at this restaurant, and I’m watching the manager do his thing, and I’m just so frustrated. I’m just looking at Beck, and I’m like, “Man, I would fix this place in a week,” you know, and all these other arrogant, ridiculous things. And we’re leaving, and the manager comes up, and he says, “Hey, are you a pastor?” Man, I tell you, Diane got it, the conviction right there. And I realized in that moment, while I had not introduced myself to that guy as a pastor, because Paula, it’s weird if I just walk up and say, “Hey, I’m a pastor. What’s your name?” I don’t do that. He had sensed enough of my few good moments to understand that, I guess, I don’t know, or maybe he overheard a conversation, I don’t know. And I realized, man, he could have very quickly had a pretty bad experience with me, even as a pastor, and that could have unfortunately changed his eternal trajectory. Maybe you’ve had a bad experience with pastors or with other Christians or a church, and you’re resisting Jesus. Or maybe it’s just the fact that you want to rule your own life. Hey, I get that too. I like to be the king of my life. I like to decide things for myself. I like to get to call the own shots that I live by. The Bible says there is a way that seems right to a man. The other half of that, though, is that way ends in death. Ruling our own lives does not go well for us. Maybe you are resisting Jesus because you just—you love sin. You love the things of this world. You love doing what you know is wrong because it, in some way, feels a little right for you. And I’m here to tell you that there’s nothing this world or sin can ever offer that’ll actually satisfy your heart or make you feel whole or joyful on the inside.

Maybe you resist Jesus because you have some intellectual doubts, like how in the world can there be a Trinity? How in the world can one God be three persons at one time, and they’re not separate people? I don’t get it. Or how in the world can the God, the Creator of the universe, who exists as a spirit, embody the form of a baby and live? And how can that God then die on a cross? And how can that God who inhabited a baby die and then come back to life? I don’t get it. I’m here to say I don’t get it either. I wish I could do all the theological arithmetic to grasp that one, but I just can’t.

Maybe you resist Jesus because you’ve got some pressure from your family, your social network, and they’re just chastising you and say, “Man, what you do at the church stuff? Why you ever won all that? That’s just lame. Why would you do any of this?”

We’ve all got reasons why we might resist Jesus, but Psalm 72, as I come back to the passage this morning, Psalm 72 declares that Jesus is a worthy King. He is one that is worth your life, and it’s Christmas. He offers four gifts to you. He offers four gifts to anybody that would submit to His rule. Look at verse three with me again: “May the mountains bring wellbeing to the people, and the hills righteousness.”

The first gift that Jesus gives as King is that peace is everywhere. Everywhere Jesus reigns, peace is there. Peace is everywhere. Even the mountains and the hills, nature itself gives well-being, and it gives righteousness. When there is a King who rules in righteousness and justice, creation itself pours out blessing and goodness for God’s people. Creation gives wellbeing. That’s what it says in verse three. That term, wellbeing, you might have a little note in your Bible; it takes you to the bottom of the page. It says peace. That word, peace, in the Old Testament, in the Hebrew language, is a word you’ve heard before: Shalom.

Now, Shalom is deeper than just absence of conflict. Shalom—it’s total tranquility. It’s abundance, wholeness, harmony under the authority of Jesus. The world has Shalom. Now, if we could produce Shalom, then we wouldn’t need Jesus. We’ve been trying to ever since Satan tempted Adam and Eve. We’ve been trying to produce wholeness. We’ve been trying to produce harmony. We’ve been trying to produce abundance, and all that that does is destroy and consume and divide and dismantle. We can’t actually deal away with the junk of life. We can’t produce Shalom. We need someone to do it for us. Again, His name is Jesus. When Jesus is King, peace is everywhere.

And the second gift He wants to give you is that abuse is nowhere. Peace is everywhere, and abuse is nowhere. Look at verse four again: “The afflicted are vindicated, the poor are helped, the oppressed—or rather, the oppressor—they are crushed.”

That idea of afflicted—it’s this idea of a victim who has received pain multiple times. Makes me think of a boxing match that’s totally one-sided, where the guy that is losing is losing, and he’s just getting pounded on, and it makes you cringe a little bit, but you can’t stop watching it for some reason. That’s the idea of afflicted. Have you been afflicted? Maybe you’ve never stepped in the ring with a boxer, but have you been done wrong? Have you been abused? One day, if He has not already, God will vindicate. God will take vengeance, whether in this life or the one to come. God will bring wrongdoers to responsibility, and He will judge those who cause pain.

The poor are going to be helped, too. I would say most of us in this room know what it’s like to go without. Most of us in this room know what it’s like to be short on money and a little longer on month. God sees. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount that God sees even the flowers of the field, and He clothes them so beautifully that the kings of the earth can’t match them in their splendor. God sees the birds that are in the trees on your yard, and God feeds them so that they don’t have to go to the food line to get their food. They don’t have to go to the blessing box to get anything. God feeds the birds; He clothes the flowers, and how much more He loves you. The poor are going to be helped, and under Jesus, too, the oppressor, he will be crushed. God takes vengeance on behalf of His people. God will one day break those who break others. He will oppress the oppressor; he will crush the crusher. No one gets through life scot-free, and no one gets to the end of their days being their own ruler. God sits on the throne, and He sees all. Under the reign of Jesus, abuse is nowhere. A day is coming when all forms of abuse will be done away with, and as abuse is eradicated and deleted under the reign of Jesus, we experience the third gift. Write this down: worship is forever. Verse five, I read it again: “May the people fear You while the sun endures, rising every day, as long as the moon ruling all the night, throughout all generations.” Worship is forever. Under the reign of Jesus, in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ the King, worship becomes forever. Now, you don’t see the word worship in this verse, but you see the word fear again. Fear is not what we think of when it comes to the Old Testament. Fear is this biblical concept of devotion and awe and love. To fear God is to love and to worship God. Worship is an expression of your devotion to and your awe of and your love for God. Worship is an expression of your gratitude to Him, your awe for Him. Under the reign of Jesus, everything and everyone will be returned to your original design, which was to live with God at the center of your life, for you to worship Him.

Worship is more than singing at 11:00 on Sundays here at 5945. Worship, if it was just singing, would not be a cause big enough for us to live for. Worship is your whole-life response to God. Worship is how you ought to live Monday through Saturday, and what happens here ought to be the overflow of what you’ve been doing the last six days. We worship God by how we talk to others. We worship God by how we pray for people. We worship God by how we use our financial and our real resources to bless others. We worship God by being kind to those that hurt us. We worship God by standing up for vulnerable people who can’t stand up for themselves. We worship God with our whole lives. That’s what you are made for. And the reason that we raise money for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering is because there’s about four billion people on this planet that don’t even know the name they’re supposed to be worshiping. There’s another two billion that are actively rejecting Him right now. There’s only two billion people on the face of this planet that know Jesus and profess any sort of relationship with Him. And let’s be real: you think 100% of everybody on the earth that says Jesus is my Savior actually lives like Jesus is their Savior? I’m unconvinced. Worship is what you do with your life, and under the reign of Jesus, worship is forever. I’m telling you, if this is a little boring for you on Sunday mornings at 11:00 a.m., what do you think heaven’s going to be like when we are actually before the presence of the One that we’re singing about right now? I think we’ll do a lot of things in heaven. I think that we’re going to work in heaven. I think that we’re going to talk in heaven. I think we’re going to hang out in heaven, but we’re also going to do some singing because everything is going to be worship there. We prepare for heaven here, and we make heaven happen here. Worship is your life; it’s not just what we do with the songs on the screen. That is the third gift of Jesus. When Jesus is the King of this place, when He is the King of your life, you begin to worship, and what you begin here will continue into all eternity.

The final gift under Jesus’s reign that this Psalm says that I’m going to cover this morning is this: blessing is for real. Verses six and seven: “May the king be like rain that falls on the cut grass.” We know something about that.

Right, may the king be like rain that comes, spring showers that water the earth. May the righteous then flourish in his days and well-being abound until the moon is no more.

Man, the idea of rain and showers for those who trust in Jesus. The rain of Jesus is not like the scorching heat of the desert beating them down. No, for those who trust in Jesus, Jesus is like refreshing rain that comes from heaven to water you. Rain always has, always has to come down, right? Rain doesn’t come from the ground to go up; it’s got to come down to us. Rain’s got to come down. And Jesus Christ, what did He do? He came down. He is the rain from heaven who left His home to be with us, to give Himself to us, to nourish us with His own life.

Isaiah 55 says it this way: God’s word, when it goes out, it always accomplishes the purpose that God has for it. God’s word is like rain that falls from heaven. It doesn’t just hit the ground and bounce back up to the atmosphere. No, when rain happens, rain hits the soil and it goes in and it waters the seeds and it brings forth some fruit, it brings forth some vegetation, it makes some plants happen. That’s what God’s word does for us. John 1 says that Jesus is God’s word. He is the one who comes from God to give us life, to produce something in us we could not produce ourselves.

Y’all, I, I, this is not church talk I’m giving you. I’m trying to actually communicate this to you. I’m going to ask you some questions. I want you to really answer in your mind. Man, are you thirsty? Are you hungry? Man, are you tired? Do you need peace? Man, if you do, I’ve got an invitation. Stop resisting Jesus. Let Jesus water your soul with His own life. Embrace the life of Jesus. Embrace His grace for you. Man, please just submit to Him. Watch Jesus bring growth and healing and fruit in your life, things you can’t produce yourself, but I think you might be trying to.

Psalm 72 is all about Jesus. His name isn’t mentioned here. The author doesn’t give us this really explicit connection, “Hey, I’m writing about this king of Israel, but what I’m really writing about is a guy named Jesus Christ who’s going to be born in Bethlehem.” That doesn’t happen here, but what we know is that no earthly king can produce what this Psalm promises. And if no person can produce what the Bible promises, then God Himself must be the one that keeps those promises. That’s how you read your Old Testament, your New Testament. When the Old Testament promises something that no person can fulfill, that must mean that God Himself is going to fulfill that. It’s all about Jesus.

Jesus is God’s king of peace, man. He is a king worth following. Under Jesus, peace is everywhere, abuse is nowhere, worship is forever, and blessing is for real. But I’m sitting here in 2024 where I see a world without peace, that has abuse, where not every person worships Jesus, and where the ground isn’t necessarily just producing shalom for us like it’s talked about here. So what gives? Here’s the deal: we are still waiting. Now, Jesus came once, and Jesus began a kingdom. That’s what we inhabit. That’s what it’s called, Christianity. You see, we’re not here just because we like to be members of a local church. We are here because we are citizens of a kingdom that Jesus began. We are here because Jesus began a rescue mission for the souls of people.

While abuse does still exist, and peace is not everywhere, and certainly this world is not just only filled with worshippers, Jesus has begun something that the world will never stop, Satan can never break down, and the gates of hell itself will not be able to defeat. No, on a day that God has chosen, Jesus will return and He will set everything right. He will finish what He started.

If you need peace, my invitation is to step into that peace now. What you get to experience as an appetizer in this life will be a feast laid before you when you get to the next one to come, one where God deeply wants you to be. We already know, we’ve seen the end of the story. We’ve seen the end. Jesus is the winner. He’s going to reclaim this place, and we have the opportunity to invite as many people to that table, into His kingdom, as possible. That’s why we’re here. This is…

Like a weekly calibration for the mission of your life. The world will tell you your life is meant for your comfort or your success or your control, and none of that’s true, because the One that rules this world doesn’t want you living for your mission. Your mission is to bring as many people into the Kingdom of God as possible, so that they can experience the peace of Jesus, their King, and stop living chaotic lives that this world wants to perpetuate. You can have a life of peace right now. You can have a taste of the peace that Jesus gives, but to have that peace, Jesus has got to be your King.

Guys, can y’all put that slide back up there? The one with the table and it has the reasons we reject Jesus. I’m kind of going off a little bit. I’m starting to wrap up, and I promise that you just go, yeah. I want you to look at that, and I want you to like really look at that, and man, just like trying to get my words right, is Jesus really your King? Or perhaps are you doing the church thing and probably pretty well, and are you actually living under one of those things, and you’re actually rejecting Him while trying to do church?

Now here’s the thing. I fully believe that you can make a profession of faith and you can be in a saving relationship with Jesus, and still, still deal with some of this. There are sins that I’m still drawn to. There are societal pressures I certainly still deal with. There are intellectual doubts that I can’t wrap my head around. So there’s two groups of people in this room ultimately. There are those who Jesus is your King, and you struggle with these, and there are those Jesus is not yet your King, and you struggle with these.

If you would like to step into a relationship of living like Jesus is your King, if you want some more peace, then my invitation is during this final song, just come forward and let’s pray. I’m not going to out you. You’re not got to talk to anybody about this, but if there is something on that list that you, you need to pray through, or man, if you want to give your life to this, please come forward.

Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna, I’m gonna pray for us while Donnie comes forward. We’re going to prepare ourselves for the final song.

Lord, well, I, I, I can’t shake this feeling, God, like there, there’s somebody in here who knows they’re supposed to come forward. Holy Spirit, I, I, I pray that you, you would bring them forward. God, would you help us to have You as our King, to submit to You, yeah, to, to receive the gifts of peace that You want to give us for sure, but, but to give ourselves to You, not just to get things from You, but to give ourselves to You. God, I pray everyone in this room would give a little more of themselves to You right now. God, if there is someone here who is struggling with one of these, whether they already know You as Lord or they don’t yet know You as Lord, would You please help them to be honest with themselves and with You, and come clean. Yeah, Lord God, we love You. Amen.