Good morning, good day, good afternoon everyone.
Today is day 30 and this is entitled Peace with God.
Restful one, listen with your spirit to the word of God for you.
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.
The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
Isaiah 53, 5 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one, and has destroyed
the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its
commandments and regulations.
His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and
this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to
death their hostility.
He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near.
Ephesians 2, 14-17.
These two passages sum up the story of mankind and his relationship to God.
Peace centers on relationships.
In the Old Testament, two-thirds of the uses of the word peace refer to mankind's having
fulfillment, protection, provision, or intimacy because of the presence of God.
God yearns to have intimacy with us, to have each one of us be at peace with him, so that
we can be complete, fulfilled, and ordered in our inner lives.
Adam and Eve were made without sin, but from the time they sinned, every person has fallen
into sin.
Sin poses a problem between us and God.
Sin is disobedience to God, violation of the standard that God has placed before us.
God chose Abraham to be the father of a great nation, which we call Israel.
They had a special relationship with God.
He entered into a covenant with them, and he left his presence in that nation for many
hundreds of years.
Sometimes they were holy and turned to God.
Sometimes they were sinful and turned away from God.
But he remained with them.
They remained his chosen people, in contrast to the rest of the nations who were permitted
to come to the God of Israel, but did not have God residing among them.
Eventually Jesus Christ came to earth, fully God and completely man.
He was the only person to live without sin, and he chose to go to death on the cross and
pay the price, not for his sins, because he had none, but for our sin.
Isaiah said, he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquity.
The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
He died on the cross for the people of Israel who did not know him fully, and for Gentiles
who were far away from him and knew less about him than the Jews.
God sent Jesus Christ to do this for those far away and for those who were near, so that
we may have peace with him.
Restful one, I bless you with the work of the Holy Spirit that gets you past the barrier
of sin and into intimacy with your Father and with his Son Jesus.
I bless you with peace through harmonizing your life, bringing all the different components
of your life together into one clear purpose, the purpose which Jesus Christ designed for
you from before the foundation of the world.
I bless you with coming into peace with yourself, peace with God, and peace with others through
the work of Jesus Christ in removing your sins and repairing your brokenness to bring
you to peace.
I bless you with knowing that sin erects a barrier that keeps you from knowing all of
God that you are supposed to know.
Your Father loves you, and he communicates his love to you.
I bless you with understanding the sinfulness of man and the holiness of God.
I bless you with a spirit that is profoundly sensitive to right and wrong.
I bless you with a high moral standard and a keen desire to experience the peace and
pleasure of God.
I bless you with a desire to be close to God and receive the full work that Christ has
already done in his death on the cross.
cross. I bless you with understanding in your spirit and your mind the salvation
that Jesus Christ offers you which removes all hostility between you and
God and enables you to come into his presence with full peace reconciled to
him. I bless you with the truth of his wonderful salvation coming to you in a
profoundly transforming way because the Lord Jesus Christ desires it. He
desperately wants you to be fully and completely reconciled to him. I bless you
in the name of Jesus of Nazareth whose crucifixion brought you peace.
Lord we've recently talked about being ambassadors of peace and there's been
other passages about you being the prince of peace and it's so
interesting the different definitions of peace that they they offer here and what
it was in the Old Testament and and what it is meant in the New Testament and
that there is certain aspects of peace that are available to us but we can't
necessarily receive until it's kind of like we we get it a person used not in
this context but used it once about that we on our cell phones that we receive
all the notices or a computer or whatever of all of the updates that are
available for the apps now those those download those apps are all all those
updates are available to us but unless we you know have automatic you know I
don't have it automatically set for most of us you know there's a there's a place
where we would have to go in and download each one that we have access to
it that those things are there waiting for us but we have to do something there
has to be something that we do that brings that into that brings that update
into our phone and that there's some aspect of who you are and what's been
done including the pace the piece that you've you've paid for that's available
to us to somehow is available to us but we're not accessing and some of that
comes from being at peace with you in that respect and some of it also comes
from a reconciling of our the sinful nature I'm thinking of Jeremiah that
called himself a man of unclean lips and touching the cold to his lips or he
comes from an unclean people I'm thinking of the the reality of of our
carnality in some respect when when people have a profound experience say
rare is the time that I've seen the manifest presence of God come into some
service where there's not a certain level of wailing that your holiness the
the extreme I will say of your holiness and your purity acts as a mirror and I
remembered a a diagram where there was a point of salvation and and we go forward
and and there's these two divergent lines that get further and further apart
and those two lines one is the holiness of God and the other is an awareness of
our own brokenness or our own sin nature so to speak and as time goes on that we
become as we become more aware of the holiness of God we also become more
aware of it's kind of like when when you first get saved I mean for those
that have been with the Lord forever it's maybe a little harder but when
people first get saved there's there's this place where you feel like you're
doing pretty good and we're all in this boat together and then we we've moved
the clock forward and all of a sudden we we see another layer I call it the
peeling the onion of it you know there's another layer of things like wow I didn't
notice that before and we become more and more as we've been cleaner even if
you did this in the natural the cleaner you eat the more you can tell when
you're not so as you become for lack of a better term cleaner even though the
blood of Jesus has already paved the way but as we as this sanctification process
it works out in our life we become more and more sensitive to the impurity
pure. And we are more sensitive than we used to be. But the point is that these two lines
start to become further and further apart. The more we learn of the holiness of God,
the more that we also become aware of our own kind of depravity, that there's a never-ending
kind of process, right, that something has to span that gap. Or we fall into, you know,
works or you can call it hyper-grace or what's the other term that I'm looking for. You fall
on either side of the ditch, I'll just put it that way. And only the cross, this person
was teaching, you know, drawing this on the board. But there's an aspect of a piece that
comes of understanding that you're the thing that makes it up. You, Lord, and who you are.
And that knowing that you have done this, you've spanned this, that it doesn't matter what we see
of ourselves going forward and our becoming more like you, that there's an aspect of you,
tower, you're the one that seems this stuff all together. And in all of that, we can have peace,
that we don't have to be afraid. I don't really know who I'm talking to right now,
but this is definitely for someone that there's no fear. The shame is broken. These
things have been done away with. We don't have to hide. There's no more fig leaves that are
needed in our lives. The tower, you know, and we have access and that we have peace with you.
And you give us peace in these situations. And that you bridge the gap. And the other thing
that's come to my mind, Lord, is, and I don't, I'm not going to try to borrow her language,
but it's a, it's a place where that Ashley speaks of also oftentimes. And, and she talks
about having accusations against God, talking about being peace with God. And, and oftentimes
when I've walked people through forgiveness, there's this aspect of, well, we have to forgive
those. And then, okay, well, let's go a little deeper and forgive. We're going to forgive the
things that they did to us. Most of us stop there. And then, and then if we really want to push it
really hard to do is to forgive ourselves. And then oftentimes at the very end, depending on
who the person is and what's going on, there's this one. And it's very shocking to say like,
well, what about God? And the reaction is always the same. Almost like, what are you talking about?
I don't have to, God doesn't need my forgiveness. He's God. But the thing is that God doesn't need
our forgiveness, but the forgiveness that's needed is, is ours. That, that there's this place where
we need to be at peace with Him. And that there are times when life just didn't turn out the way
that we expected. Maybe we felt like we did it all right. And, and, and our neighbors getting
everything that we wanted. You know, Psalm 37 talks all over and over again. It was like a song.
It was a, it was just all over me for months and months this last year. And it just talks about
not fretting when we see, you know, those that are doing evil to seem like they're prospering.
And that we're supposed to be patient and not do anything. And to trust God in it.
No self-initiated action, as it says in the passage that it leads to evil.
So I'm not sure where I'm going with all of this, Lord, other than there's this expansive idea of
what the peace that's made available to us and the, including the peace that we have available
to be at peace with you. That for us to be at peace with you in that,
that there's things have been done to allow us to be, as in the early translation of this,
to mankind having fulfillment, protection, provision, and or intimacy because of the
presence of God. That we have a certain peace that comes from, from you and that through the
Reconciling through the cross that we have and can live at peace with you.
And that as we go through our process and we become more aware of our own brokenness
and how holy you are, that we can also be at peace.
That the work of reconciling these things is done and there's a unity that comes on
us and the more that we can come into a unity and union with you, the more resident and
resonant that becomes within us.
And Lord, my prayer is also that I used to say that God's a big boy.
He can handle you being angry or forgive me, you know, pissed off with him.
And there are many of us that, I don't know why I'm saying this, forgive me for being
crass, but you know, there are some of us that it's just, we just have to realize that
we're pissed off and God can handle it.
He, as a pastor, changed my life, said, some of you need to have some R-rated prayers with
God.
I was shocked.
I didn't know if I should be offended or liberated.
R-rated prayers with God?
Well, I tell you what, I had a couple and it changed my life.
But I pray, Lord, that we can have in our own hearts to be at peace with you, that anything
that we hold against anyone, but especially, Lord, anything that has happened in our lives
that causes us to have something that we have erected that keeps us from that peace that
is already available to us, that Lord, that I pray for each of us that we will come to
a greater peace with you.
You don't need it, but Lord, we want to experience your peace.
We want to experience you.
We want to have all that is available to us.
So Lord, if we need to become aware of the things that we're harboring against you, then
Lord, bring them to the attention, release the spirit of truth to reveal all truth, search
our hearts, Lord, and anything that we're holding against us, anything that is keeping
us from being able to experience the fullness of who you are and the peace that is available
to us, that we can walk in, live in, that Lord, it be done today, and Lord, if I've
said anything wrong here, if I've been a little bit too direct or meandering, Lord, I pray
that you would touch each and every person here today, that Lord, that we would experience
the peace that we have in you and with you, that we can fully be at peace, that there's
nothing else that has to happen, but Lord, that we would also, in our own hearts, come
to a fullness of peace with you and who you are, so that we can truly live an immersive,
transformative, united life with you, and that there truly be a place where we know
in our minds that there is no separation, but we're not experiencing it.
Lord, that we would walk in close fellowship and union and unity in communion with you,
and that Lord, that there nothing be within us that is standing between us and the very
thing that we want, which is you and the fullness of the life that you have for us.
We bless you, Lord, and we love you, in Jesus' name.