Christmas is all about peace – it’s God’s declaration of peace towards us, after our rebellion against Him. But what does that actually mean, here and now, two thousand years on from that very first Christmas.

Time with God

It is fantastic to be with you again this week. Over the last three weeks on the program, I guess leading up towards Christmas we’ve been looking at living a life of peace because Christmas is God’s declaration of peace. When you and I turned our backs on God and walked away and did our own thing and do stupid and silly things as we’ve done in our lives we declared war on God and what we deserved was God’s anger, what we deserve was God’s judgement. And we’ve been looking at the Book of Ezekiel for the last few weeks and seeing how exactly that befell the nation of Israel when they rejected their God, but God had a peace plan and God’s plan for peace is Christmas, Jesus Christ, His own Son.

This week on the program we’re going to finish this series off by looking at what it actually means to live that life of peace; and for me there are three key things. We have to make a decision for peace, a decision, a deliberate choice to have peace and that involves spending time with God, getting right with God and relying on God. So, are you ready? We’re going to dive into Gods word and just see what God has for us because I truly believe God’s plan for you is to live a life of peace.

There’s one thing that being marriage teaches you is that you can’t have any peace between husband and wife unless you spend time together, enjoying each other, that’s why God invented intimacy. We go along through life together, husband and wife and our ups and downs and bumps and bruises and stresses and strains but when we spend time together, when we have fun together, when we do special things together and talk and just work through issues, that builds the relationship and we get so close as husband and wife that when those pressures come, when those tensions come, they don’t affect us because the relationship is in place and the same, exactly the same, is true in our relationship with God.

We need to spend time with God. I have plenty of stresses and strains in my life, people sometimes look at me and go, “Well, must be a pretty easy life really, recording the radio programs.”

But that’s not the half of it, doing this ministry gig is a tough gig, it all just doesn’t happen. Hundreds of stations and the relationships with those and all our blessed supporters and friends and our relationships and communications with those, our finances, our staff and the rapid growth and managing that growth, there are tensions, there are strains, it’s hard work and in the middle of all of that, for me, the highest calling on my life, from God, is to do what I’m doing right now and I’ll let you in on a little secret, I’m no good in God’s hands if I’m some screaming nervous wreck.

I need peace to be used of God to bless you, I need joy, I need that quiet assurance amidst the pressures of life. There’s only one place where I’ve found that, in my quiet times with the Lord, early in the morning when the rest of the world’s asleep. On those days when I take that time, 30 minutes, 40 minutes maybe even an hour, just to spend time with Him, I have a quiet assurance and a peace.

Jesus knew that, He was the Son of God and He was doing this ministry tour and preaching tour through Galilee and He’d just been casting out demons and healing people, He must have been tired. This is what it says in Mark, chapter 1, verse 35:

And in the morning, very early whilst it was still dark, He got up and went out to a deserted place and there He prayed and all the people came looking for Him and said, “Where are you? We’re all looking for you.” It would have been very easy for Jesus to say, “Well, you know, I’m busy. I’ve got too much to do; I haven’t got time to pray.” And we kid ourselves if we think that we can live a life of peace without spending time with Jesus. Jesus, when He walked on this earth, was a man of prayer. He spent time with God for guidance and peace and power.

The Apostle Peter in 1 Peter, chapter 3, verse 11 says this,

Seek peace and pursue it.

In other words, get deliberate about having peace in our lives. What’s life like, day by day, every step of the way when we can walk in the quiet assurance of peace? Inside, how do you feel? It’s awesome isn’t it? And outside, how effective and capable are we when inside we have this wonderful peace?

But on the other hand, compare that to those days when we’re a screaming blubber of jelly, all over the place like a cork in the ocean driven by a storm. Inside you feel terrible, outside you just can’t do what you want to do. It’s a no brainer, we need peace. We all have trials, we all have temptations, we all feel like we’re the only ones, we feel lonely.

But it happens to all of us, I have mine, you have yours and sometimes we get so busy that we think we don’t have time to spend with God and that is nuts, I’m sorry but it is. If we want peace we have to pursue it, in other words, to run swiftly after it. That’s what that word means that Peter uses, to run swiftly after it in order to catch it, to press into it. A deliberate decision, “well, I don’t have any peace in my life.” What are you doing about it? “Mm, nothing. I just want peace.” Well let’s get a revelation today, the rest of the world isn’t going to give us peace, it’s just not going to flop into our laps, in fact, the opposite is true. The world wants to rob us of peace.

The true, deep, abiding, restful, joyful, delightful peace only happens in one place, with Jesus and we have to make a decision to pursue it and that means making time with Him every day. It’s not a guilt trip, it’s not some sort of rule, it’s just plain common sense. Time to talk with Him, time to rest with Him, maybe it’s on the train on the way to work, maybe it’s very early like me, maybe it’s a half an hour after dinner, whatever. Time to offload our burdens onto Jesus, time to get into God’s word, to listen to radio programs or teaching CD’s or to read a good book, just to spend time with God, a quiet time alone and little by little, day after day, week after week, month after month, God builds in us the most wondrous sense of peace. If we’re going to live our lives we have to choose peace, we have to seek it out, we have to pursue it and for me the biggest part of that is spending my time, quality time, the best time that I have in the day, with Him.

Right With God

The second part of that, for me, which we’re going to look at is just getting right with God. Have you ever had that situation where there’s someone you really care about and you’ve had an argument, you know you do something stupid to hurt them and there’s a fight and the more you fight the harder it gets to make up because the more entrenched you get and then there’s like a cold war happening that can go on for an hour or a day or weeks. You know what I’m talking about, we’ve all been there. Our stupid pride stops us from making peace and saying, “Sorry” and all the time there’s this coldness and silence even though we really care about this other person.

The worse thing about that is that there’s no peace, there can never be peace until we set things right and the same is true with our relationship with God, unless WE set things right in our relationship with Him there can never be any peace.

As I was saying just before and as we’ve been talking about over the last few weeks, our rebellion is a war against God and Jesus is God’s peace plan, the Christmas present at that first Christmas is God’s peace through His Son, Jesus Christ but in order to experience that peace, a peace that goes beyond anything we can ever understand, we have to accept the gift, we have to turn away from the things that we know are wrong.

1 Peter, chapter 3, verse 11, we talked about earlier, actually says this in its fullness:

Turn away from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it.

Isn’t it interesting that both of those things are in the one verse:

Turn away from evil and do good.

And:

Seek peace and pursue it.

So many people’s lives are in turmoil, they try and deny it, ‘”I’m feeling unsettled so I’ll just go and spend some more money on my credit card.” Wake up; there’s no peace in that, if we go back to that argument we were talking about before there’s only one way to get peace in that relationship, it’s to set things right, it’s to apologise, it’s to reconcile, it’s to hold each other close AND to stop doing the thing that caused the argument in the first place. You know why our sin robs us of our peace? Because it’s an argument with God, it’s me saying, “I know better than God and I’m going to turn my back on Him and I’m going to do it the way I want to do instead of the way God wants me to do.”

When we look at that first Christmas present, Jesus the Son of God who pays the price for our sin, God opens the door to God, through forgiveness through Jesus otherwise we’d have to take the punishment of the Law because God is a just God and the great news is Jesus takes that punishment for us. So, why don’t people just go and make peace with God? What holds us back? Fear? Pride? A sense that ‘if I go to God maybe He’ll make me give up something I don’t want to give up. Maybe He’ll make me a missionary out in whoop whoop?’

That’s a big one, having to give up things that we don’t want to give up but to turn away from evil and do good, I’ll have to give up the evil things and my experience is that God never asks us to give things up unless they’re no good for us, dishonesty, back biting, making money a god, making possessions a god in our lives. Sure, those old habits die hard but when we give them up, as we progressively walk with Jesus day by day and His Spirit works in us and we give those things up, we get peace because He sets us free from those things.

We try and serve those little gods in our lives and they’re like tyrants, they’re like chains around our hearts but God sets us free from those and as far as becoming a missionary, if you had told me 12 years ago when I became a Christian that I’d leave my lucrative consulting career and be doing what I’m doing now on a ministers salary and depending on donations of good willed people to the ministry, I would have said you’re nuts, I would have run a million miles but God takes us and He changes us and He gives us a heart to do the things He calls us to do.

If we want peace we have to take a deliberate decision to chase after it and to press into it and that means turning away from evil and doing good. Seeking after peace and pursuing it. Sometimes we live in so much turmoil we’ve forgotten what we’re missing out on. Have you ever been in that situation where you’ve been working long hard hours and you finally stop and go on a holiday, by a beach, and all of a sudden you realise how the lack of balance has been ruining our lives. It’s the same with a lack of peace, we can get so accustomed to the turmoil and the stress and the upset that they become a way of life.

So many people, even people who believe in Jesus have forgotten what peace is because we just get used to the dung heap. Today, just let me say this, God has a plan for your life and it’s a plan for peace and a plan for joy and amidst the circumstances of your life. Peace is fantastic, peace is awesome but if we keep rebelling against God we’re not going to have that peace. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. What is it in your life that is evil? What are the old habits dying hard?

God, I confess, I accept responsibility and I know they’re wrong and I turn away from them. I know Lord that this habit is going to die hard and so I ask your Holy Spirit to come into me, will you change me? And Lord, as you’re doing that I’m just going to put my eyes on You, I’m going to look at You, I’m going to trust in You, I want to have a relationship with You because Lord, I just believe that you want to change me and give me peace, in Jesus name.

Relying on God

This week on the program we’re looking at living out the life of peace, the peace that Jesus came to purchase for you and for me. Earlier in the program we looked at the fact that we need to spend time with God, precious wonderful time during which He just builds that sense of peace and well being in our hearts. We need to get right with God, when Jesus came, He was born at Christmas, He died at Easter, He rose again, He opened the door to peace but we have to walk through that peace and that involves turning away from evil and doing good, seeking after peace and pursuing it, a deliberate decision to repent from evil.

If you find those old fashioned words and you think, “oh come on Berni, get out of here.” I’m sorry. God is calling us to repent from evil and to do good and to walk in love. Spending time with God, turning away from evil and seeking peace and now, let’s talk about the last one we’re going to talk about today, learning to rely on God.

Life is full of uncertainties and risks, our health, our finances, our relationships, who knows what’s going to happen tomorrow and how things can turn out? I remember some years ago getting up one morning to go to work and it was just like every other morning until I burned myself, on my face and my chest, with boiling water. It can happen, it happened so quickly and all that uncertainty can mount up inside us into real pressures and fears.

Over the last few weeks on the program we’ve deliberately been talking about peace, you see I have this crazy idea that God has a plan for our lives and that plan is to give us peace and joy in the midst of the circumstances of our lives, exactly what’s going on in our lives now.

Who knows what’s going to happen tomorrow? God does and maybe, just maybe He’s created things the way He has with all the risks and all the uncertainties so that we’ll learn to rely on Him. There are some things in our lives that we can control directly, some of my actions I can control, some of the things I do, some of the ways I spend my money I can control but actually the things that I can control in my life are fairly small. I can’t control you, I can’t control how you react to me.

Just outside that little circle of control is a bigger circle, it’s like a circle of influence and that’s something we can grow. As you and I build a relationship of trust we increase the extent to which we can influence each other and that’s good, influence is based on trust and you can achieve a whole bunch of things through influence that you can’t achieve through control but we have a much bigger circle and it’s called our circle of interest, it’s huge.

Now, a whole bunch of things we can’t control or influence in those areas. The past is one. We can’t change the past. Our health is one, some things I can control and influence by my diet, my exercise but there’s a whole bunch of other areas that we can’t. I can’t stop myself from getting cancer tomorrow. The companies we work for, their strategy, their priority, their retrenchment policy. Our safety, we have some control over that but what about the drunken driver just around the corner on the road on the next bend, we can’t control them.

Today and tomorrow are full of risks, I remember when I stepped out of my secure consulting career into this ministry, it’s a faith ministry, it was a risk but God’s plan is to give us peace in the midst of that risk. Peace is trusting in the sovereignty and the love of God. One of my favourite Scripture verses, in fact I have this on my desk in my study in a small frame, is Proverbs, chapter 3, verses 5 and 6. It says this:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding but in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path.

Trust in God with all your heart, with everything you are. We want to rely on what we can see, we want to rely on what we can understand, we want to rely on the here and now but there are so many things we can’t control. Instead in everything we do, everything we say, everything we think, everything we hope and dream for, put God first. Acknowledge Him in all your ways and here’s the promise, “He WILL direct our paths.”

God is a good God; God is a God of grace. The way that the world looks at life is, “it’s all up to me; I have to make it happen, if I don’t make it happen, I won’t. My destiny is in my own hands.” Let’s not kid ourselves, it’s all up to God and I’m going to honour Him, me and my household, we’re going to honour God with everything we are, with everything we have, with every hope and dream, I’m still going to do my best but I’m going to trust in God. God knows all, He sees all, today, tomorrow, next week, next year, He knows it all and that’s where my peace is.

When we began these programs in February 2005, I just felt God’s call, it was a huge risk. I resigned from my job, we started recording programs, we spent the money, we invested and no station had decided to take our programs and today, 350 stations in 80 countries are airing these programs, hundreds of thousands of people are listening to these programs. Sure it was hard work, sure we had to do things but I can’t make that sort of thing happen. We step out, we follow His call, we honour Him with our decisions and we trust that He’s in it. We had opposition, we always have opposition when we step out for God but then we want to spend so much time worrying and being afraid and waking up in the middle of the night that there’s no peace in it, there’s no joy in it. Life is full of risks, either we think we have to do it all or we trust in God to do it for us. Jesus put it this way:Therefore I tell you, don’t worry about your life, what you’re going to eat or what you’re going to drink or about your body, what you’re going to wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, they don’t sow, they don’t reap, they don’t gather into barns and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you more valuable than them? And can any of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your lifespan?

So why do you worry about clothing? Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow, they don’t toil, they don’t spin, I’ll tell you though even Solomon in all his glory wasn’t clothed like one of these but if God clothes the grass or the field which is alive today and gone tomorrow like this, won’t He do much more for you? Therefore don’t worry saying, what am I going to eat? What am I going to drink? What am I going to wear? Because people who don’t believe in God are the ones who strive for all those things but your Heavenly Father sees all your needs. First, strive for the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you.

Just look at your life for a moment, what are the things you’re worrying about? The risks and the fears, other people, money, job, what to do with your life, future health? Do you want peace? Do you want real peace? Then hand those things over to God. We don’t need a whole bunch of faith, we never have enough faith to follow Gods call, there’s always a bit of an edge to these things.

Each time we hand something over to God and we trust Him and we do the things that He wants us to do and we see how He comes through, our faith grows and then we’re ready for the next challenge and the next thing and it’s always bigger and it’s always harder and it’s always scarier and it always requires more faith. I often have to do things afraid, I guess if I didn’t I wouldn’t need faith and as time goes by God uses us in the most amazing ways. God has a plan, it’s a plan for peace for your life and for my life. Will we walk in that plan? Are we going to spend some time with God everyday and drink in His peace? Are we going to get our lives right with God and honour Him? Are we going to learn to rely on God? Come on, how much do you want peace?

It’s amazing how on the one hand, we head into Christmas wanting it to be full of peace and rest – yet so often, there’s turmoil … what’s going on.

The Mother of All Wars

I don’t know what your December generally looks like, but for a lot of people it’s rush, rush, rush, getting things done at work, its presents, its parties, it’s getting ready to have a bit of a break, its anticipation and for some people its despair. And into that special time that we call Christmas – no matter where we live, it seems to be a special time.

December tends to be a month of preoccupation with other things, with something, and so often we get to Christmas and we’re exhausted and the whole Christmas experience can be empty and hallow. Sometimes it doesn’t live up to the expectation – to all the hype. “Why did I do that?” Have you ever felt that? You go into Christmas and you look back on that busy month that we’ve just been through and you think, “my goodness!”, there’s this turmoil where there should be peace; there’s an unrest.

Sometimes you can feel so far away from the “peace and the goodwill to all men” thing, that’s supposed to be happening at Christmas time. Because peace is what Christmas is all about. Christmas, as we are going to see over the next few weeks on the programme, is God’s declaration of peace with us. Peace from what? Peace from all the turmoil; peace from all the war; peace from the mother of all wars because until and unless we come to know Jesus Christ, there’s a war happening between us and God. Maybe your have never thought of it that way but at Christmas we celebrate the coming of the Prince of Peace. Everybody’s life has a sense of turmoil sometimes and our lives can feel like a war zone.

We need peace so over these coming four weeks – this week and the next three weeks on the programme “Christianityworks”, we are going to be working our way through a teaching series that I’ve called, “Peace beyond all understanding”. Today we are going to start and say, “Well, peace from what?” We need to look at this war between God and humanity. Not God’s initiative but our initiative – our rebellion.

If you have a Bible, I’d ask you to grab it and open it up to the Old Testament, to the Book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel is, in a sense, a strange book. It’s a book of God’s judgement against His people. The situation is that Israel, they did the whole, “get out of Egypt, go through the Red Sea, forty years in the desert with Moses then they made it into the Promised Land and they had some judges overseeing the Nation of Israel and then they had three Kings and then the Nation of Israel split in two. Israel, the ten tribes to the north, Judah and Benjamin the two tribes to the south in Jerusalem and it all went down hill from there.”

Centuries went on and God’s people rebelled against Him, even though He had a covenant with them; even though He promised them this land that He’d given them; the land of the Canaanites, and yet they still rebelled against Him. So God’s judgement fell on Judah and Benjamin and Israel and they were exiled – the temple was destroyed. It was about five eighty six, five eighty seven BC. The temple was destroyed, Jerusalem was raised to the ground, many, many were killed and those that were left were exiled as slaves in Babylon.

And the Book of Ezekiel was written just a few years into that exile. It is written to the exiles to explain God’s judgement. You can imagine! Israel was saying, “Hang on, aren’t we God’s people? Didn’t we have the temple? Wasn’t God present in the temple? And all of a sudden now we have been defeated by the Babylonians. The temple is destroyed, there’s no more sacrifice, how do we get our sin forgiven? Where’s our God? Is Babylon stronger and more mighty than our God?” And so the Book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel was one of God’s prophets who was called to explain God’s judgement to His people – to those that were left, to those who lived.

And so we are going to go to chapter 5, beginning at verse 5 and just have a bit of a read. The first twenty-four chapters of the Book of Ezekiel are God’s judgement against His chosen people. We’re going to read just a small part of that. This is what the Lord God says:

This is Jerusalem, I’ve set her in the centre of the nations with countries all around her. But she has rebelled against my ordinances and my statutes, becoming more wicked than the nations and the countries all around her, rejecting my ordinances and not following my statutes.

Therefore thus says the Lord God: “Because you are more turbulent than all the nations around you and you have not followed my statutes or kept my ordinances, but you have acted according to the ordinances of the nations that are all around you, therefore thus, says the Lord your God: “I myself am coming against you.

I will execute judgements among you in the sight of all the nations and because of all your abominations, I will do to you what I have never yet done and the like of which I will never do again. Surely parents will eat their children in your midst and surely children will eat their parents and I will execute judgments on you and any of you who survive I will scatter to every wind. Therefore, as I live, says the Lord God: “Surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will cut you down. My eye will not spare and I will have no pity.

One third of you shall die of pestilence or be consumed by famine among you. One third shall fall by the sword around you and one third I will scatter to every wind and will unsheathe the sword after them. My anger shall spend itself and I will vent my fury on them and satisfy myself and they shall know that I, the Lord God, have spoken in my jealousy when I spend my fury on them.”

Well, doesn’t sound like a message leading into Christmas does it? But we need to understand what’s going on here before we can really understand Christmas. We like to ignore some Scriptures but this is about a God who is angry with His people. If we want to understand our own turmoil – that sense that something is not quite right – we need to understand the war between us and God that was occasioned by our own rebellion. Dad, God, Father, is a Dad of love but like every other father, sometimes enough is enough and sometimes rebellion leads to punishment – that’s God – that’s as much God as the loving, gentle, Father God. And when we rebel we break His wonderful plan – the plan of God, “I will be your God and you will be my people.”

And as you read through these judgments in the first twenty-four chapters of Ezekiel, God doesn’t hold back His punishment. He punishes His people to get this rebellion sorted out and until we get our rebellion sorted out, we are at war with God and our lives are going to be in turmoil. You might say, “But, me, how? I’m not that bad a person.” We are going to answer that question next.

Gallery of Horrors

We are looking at how God’s anger is kindled against His people when they rebel against Him. Ezekiel, the whole book – or much of the book is about God’s judgment against the people of Israel because for centuries they worshipped other gods; for centuries they did things that God said don’t do and Ezekiel is a prophet that speaks God’s punishment and judgment to God’s chosen people. And the key accusation against them is: “you haven’t followed my statutes or kept my ordinances but you have actually acted on the ordinances of nations that are all around you so instead of looking like my people, you just look like the rest of the world.”

Ain’t that the truth? Isn’t that so easy to do? You start off believing in God – wonderful, passionate – and little by little we compromise. The light dims, the salt looses its flavour and it ends up, so we don’t look any different to any one else! Maybe we are keeping up appearances, but on the inside, in our hearts, our thoughts, are a gallery of horrors. We think no one sees and yet we wonder why there’s turmoil. God’s people rebel against God, there’s going to be war and there’s going to be turmoil and there’s not going to be peace.

It’s interesting! If you have your Bible open at Ezekiel chapter 5, flick on a couple of pages, just to chapter 8 verse 12. Ezekiel here is talking judgment on the elders, the leaders of Israel. Have a listen:

Then God said to me: “Man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of images, for they say: “The Lord doesn’t see us, the Lord has for forsaken us.” God said to me: “You will see still greater abominations that they are committing.

The room of images! Isn’t that a wonderful picture? The innermost part, the part of us that we think no one sees. Imagine being in a large are gallery, where the lights are dim, you have a sense of paintings hanging up on the wall, but we can’t quite see what those paintings are until someone turns on the light. Until God shines His light on our room of images and we look around and discover we’re in a gallery of horrors. A picture of us snarling at someone, of us scheming, of hatred, of dishonesty, of sexual immorality – a gallery we would never want anyone else to see, but in that dark place, God sees and He calls those things “sin”. They are our rebellion against God.

God has the most wonderful plan for us – “I will be your God and you will be my people,” God is a God of such great blessing, yet we like Israel, rebel against Him. We go our own ways; we think that no one notices and we wonder why there’s turmoil, why there’s no peace and on top of that, we kid ourselves. While all this is going on in Israel and more, there were actually false prophets wandering around saying: “No, that’s alright, everything’s ok!” Have a look in chapter 13 verse 10 of Ezekiel:

Because in truth these false prophets have misled God’s people, saying, “peace”, when there was no peace, and because when the people build the wall, these prophets smear whitewash on it.

We can think, “well, I can look ok on the outside, I can cover myself with whitewash and nobody will know.” Adultery? No problem! Divorce your wife or your husband because it’s no longer convenient? That’s just a lifestyle choice.

Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. There are no consequences. No one will notice but God does and He tolerates it to a point, but ultimately there is judgment because sin is sin, rebellion is rebellion. And not only does it ruin our life right here and right now, it robs us of eternal life, and you know there’s not a thing we can do about our sin.

Look at the history of Israel. Look at the prophets that God sent to Israel – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachariah, Malachi.

He sent so many prophets and what was the message that each of the prophets gave to God’s people? You have forsaken your God. Either come back or God will execute His judgment on you. And they did come back for a while but they kept drifting away again. The name “Israel” means “struggles with God”, just like us; they couldn’t do anything about it. What’s the answer, what’s the solution?

The Scene is Set

When we’re talking about the fact that when we rebel against God, we’ve declared war on God, and we all have – we all fall short of the glory of God – we’ve all sinned, we’ve all rebelled. And there’s a thing about wars, have you noticed, they seem to go on and on and on and on? Look at Northern Ireland, look at the Middle East – it’s been going on for thousands of years.

Terrorism and the war on terror, each side does something and escalates against the other side and let me ask you, where will that end – with a dirty bomb – with a nuclear attack in the middle of a city? And the response of the west, how many villages can it bomb?

God doesn’t want to have a war with us, but when we rebel against Him; when we turn our backs on His love, on His goodness, we have declared war against our God. And the cry of God down through the ages hasn’t been, “make war”, the cry of God to you and me, here and now, is, “I want to be your God, will you be my people?”

It’s in our nature to rebel. One of the first words a child ever learns is “no”. Remember the kids how they go through “terrible twos” and it’s all about them rebelling. God is a wonderful Dad, just open the window, stick your head out and look at creation – look at the magnificent planet and universe that He has created for you and for me.

Then He puts us right in the middle of that, He wants to bless us and we rebel. Adam and Eve did it, Israel did it, you and I have done it. That’s the key problem of humanity. And God comes along and puts a stake in the sand and puts a flag on it and says, “Enough is enough! I’m going to declare peace, I’m going to send my Son, Jesus Christ,” and that’s what we celebrate at Christmas.

That’s what we are going to look at over the next few weeks on the programme. But today, today as I was preparing for this programme and praying, I just felt God calling me to speak a warning into your life. Our rebellion, our sin is an act of war against God. We can try and whitewash ourselves on the outside, but God sees straight through that and to tell you the truth, as we look in the mirror we can see straight through that.

My prayer for you right now, is that you would ask God to shine His light into your gallery of horrors, just as I have with mine and say, “Lord, let me see myself clearly. I just lay my heart open before you, Lord God and ask you to shine your light into my gallery; into my room of images. Father, show me the ones that you would remove. Show me where I have a root of bitterness; show me where I have dishonesty; show me, Father God, where I have sinned. Shine the light of your Son into my life and make me whole.”

You know the old story that, before an alcoholic can have his or her alcoholism treated, first and foremost, they have to admit that they are an alcoholic, and for some people, sadly, that never happens and the drink destroys them. The same is true with other forms of sin – bitterness, un-forgiveness, hatred, dishonesty, sexual immorality … the list goes on.

Everybody struggles with something and sometimes we just want to hang onto that garbage and hang onto that rubbish and pretend like it doesn’t matter. It does, because God is a holy God and in His eyes, which see all things, from whom nothing is hidden, He knows our sin and He sees our sin and the cry of His heart is to be our God and for us to be His people and the only way that we can do that is by accepting Jesus Christ.

I don’t just mean with our heads, I mean with our lives, in our hearts, in our souls, in our spirits, at every level, saying: “Lord God, I lay my life down before you and I accept Jesus as my Lord. I believe that He came to this planet just for me, to make me whole. Not just to bring forgiveness but to make me whole.” It hurts sometimes to admit our sin. It hurts to confront our sin. It’s so easy to blame someone else; it’s so easy to blame the hurts from the past. You know, I didn’t have a good father, so I’m insecure so now I’ll be difficult to my wife and family or to my husband and family.

Are we going to live like that? Are we going to blame other people? Or are we going to go to God and say: “God, you know something, I’ve just looked at what you have written here in Ezekiel, I see what you have preserved for me down through the centuries to read and God, I know you are a holy God. I know God that you love me but you detest my sin.” Are we going to place our faith in Jesus by confronting and admitting our sin before God and are we going to let Him take it away? You know, it hurts to let go sometimes, but will you do that anyway? Will you hear His cry today? I will be your God and you will be my people.

God has a plan for our lives, for your life and for my life and it is a peace beyond all understanding, in Christ Jesus. That’s the peace that we are going to explore over the next few weeks. But today we have to admit our rebellion and confront our sin and open it up before God and say: “God, I’m not going to try and whitewash any more. Christmas is coming, I’m about to celebrate when you sent your Son Jesus onto this planet for me and leading up to that time.

Lord, I want to get my heart so right with you. I know that it may take some time, Lord, to sort things out but I’m going to lay them at your feet anyway. I want your peace, your peace Father God, which surpasses all understanding and I know that there is only one way to achieve that peace. There is only one path, there is only one door; there is only one gate and that is your Son, Jesus Christ.”

Are we are going to get real with God? I really pray that today you have been convicted by the Holy Spirit of anything that is holding you back from the most wonderful relationship with your God. Anything that’s holding you back from tasting for yourself, day after day, from now through all eternity, the peace of God that comes only from Jesus Christ – a peace that passes all understanding.

We’d all kind of want to think of God as a loving, gentle God … and of course He is. But God is also a God of anger and ultimately of judgement.  And if we don’t get that, then the whole Christmas thing becomes pretty meaningless.

We Need Peace

It is fabulous to be with you again this week, leading up to Christmas. Now Christmas is this time of, well supposedly, peace and goodwill to all men. Peace can be hard to come by. So many lives are in turmoil, day by day, step by step, there’s conflict. In a sense, it’s the way of the world, yet so many lives are in so much turmoil – in the home, between husband and wife, in families, in the workplace.

I mean, people get “feral” in the workplace – and of course, in ourselves. Some people have a lot, some people don’t have very much, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. Some people believe in Jesus, other people don’t, yet still, they don’t have peace. Conflict rages on! Life is always bringing along things to rob us of our peace. Have you noticed that? It happens to all of us.

That’s why in these weeks leading up to Christmas – this Christmas that is supposed to be about peace and goodwill to all men and women and kids and everyone else. We are doing a series called, “A Peace Beyond All Understanding”. I believe we need to unzip our souls and pour God’s Word into us and get some great teaching on the peace that Jesus came to give us. I believe that God’s plan for your life and God’s plan for my life is to give us a peace and a joy beyond all human understanding and that’s why we are doing teaching on “peace” in these weeks leading up to Christmas.

The whole problem of the human condition, the whole thing begins with our rebellion against God. You can read about it in the first couple of chapters of Genesis, when Adam and Eve – God blessed them, God put them in the garden, God provided for them and they rebelled – they did the one thing God said “don’t do”. And you might say, “Come on, Berni, what’s this got to do with Christmas?” It’s got everything to do with Christmas because the moment that they rebelled and the moment that we first rebelled in our lives against God, we initiated a war between us and God and that’s what we looked at last week on the program. If you missed it, visit our website at ‘Christianity works.com’ and you can listen to it again.

We need to understand the anatomy of that battle because it is that battle, that war that you and I initiated in our rejection of God that is the whole reason behind Christmas. We were looking at the Book of Ezekiel – now the Book of Ezekiel was written by a prophet called Ezekiel, not surprisingly, to Israel just a few years after they were exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon. These were God’s people. God had promised them the land of Israel, He’d given them Jerusalem, He’d given them Judea, He’d given them all of this land and He’d blessed them and they turned their back on Him. They worshipped other gods; they worshipped other idols; they did abominations in God’s sight, so ultimately God’s judgement fell on them. He used the King of Babylon to bring his armies into Israel, he destroyed the land, he killed most of the people and those that were left went into exile as slaves in Babylon and Ezekiel writes to them – I’m just going to read a very short passage from the fifth chapter. If you’ve got a Bible, grab it. We are going to be spending a bit of time in Ezekiel and a few other books today.

Just to explain where we’re at, so we’ll recap. This short passage about God’s judgement of His people because they rebelled against Him:

This is what the Lord God says: “This Jerusalem, I’ve but she has rebelled against me again; against my ordinances; against my statutes, becoming more wicked than all the nations and all the countries all around her, rejecting my ordinances; not following my statutes.

Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: “Because you are more turbulent than all the nations that are around you and you haven’t followed my statues or kept   my ordinances, but you have acted according to ordinances of the nations that are around you. Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: “I myself am coming against and I will execute judgements among you in the sight of the nations. And because of all your sin and your abominations, I will do to you what I have never yet done and the like of which I will never do again.”

And so He then goes on to talk about all of His anger being spent on them and letting countries come against them to destroy them and wild animals and famine and then pests and God brings His judgement on Israel – why? Because Israel rebelled against God – Israel rebelled, God expelled!

Remember these were God’s people; God’s chosen people! Now some people reject God altogether and they have this sense of emptiness and something missing. Other people who believe in God; who believe in Jesus, hold part of themselves back, maybe they carry around some un-forgiveness, maybe they have some secret sin, maybe they have their own idols. Whatever, but we all need peace in our lives. Amen? We all need that deep, satisfying fulfilling peace and the biggest thing that robs us of that peace – the number one issue – is our rebellion against God; going our own way, as Israel did.

You and I are hard-wired for a relationship with God. Let me read you this short passage from Psalm 139 verses 14 to 18. This is what it says:

God I praise you for it was you who formed my inner parts. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works that I know very well. My frame wasn’t hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth; your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me when as yet none of them existed. How weighty are your thoughts O God, how vast is the sum of them.

Isn’t that a beautiful passage, of God’s involvement right from our conception when we were in our mother’s womb? Our substance, our frame wasn’t hidden from Him. He is the one who has made you and me what we are, and when we reject Him. When we reject the one who created us, the one who loves us, we declare war on God and ultimately, we kindle His anger and judgement. We get all proud and we set up our own throne, our own rule, our own kingdom, our own life and God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

And that’s the beginning; that’s the essence of our turmoil and our discontent. Unless we understand that, Christmas doesn’t make sense and today we are going to particularly look at God’s anger. It’s not a picture of God we like to think about, but the anger and the judgement of God is kindled by our rebellion and strangely, it lies at the heart of Christmas.

Angry God

We are looking today at the anger of God. “My goodness, Berni, it’s almost Christmas time and you’re talking about an angry God, what’s the matter with you?” Well, we’ve got to understand God’s anger and why He gets angry with us, for us to understand Christmas. It’s a good question: “Why does God get angry with us?” If you have a Bible – we are working our way through the Book of Ezekiel – go to chapter 14 of Ezekiel.

This is a book that was written by the prophet Ezekiel to Israel, at a time when God’s judgement had fallen on the nation. When the Babylonians had come and destroyed Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, killed many of the inhabitants – these are God’s chosen people – and taken the remnant as slaves into Babylon. The people are going, “well, my goodness, what’s going on?”

Ezekiel the prophet is explaining God’s judgement to God’s people and this is what he says in chapter 14:

Certain elders of Israel came to me and sat down before me and the Word of the Lord came to me, “Mortal, these men have taken their idols into their hearts and they’ve placed their inequity as a stumbling block before them. Shall I let myself be consulted by them?

Therefore speak to them and say this: “Thus says the   Lord God: “Any of those in the house of Israel who take their idols into their hearts and place they’re inequity as   a stumbling block before them, and yet come to the prophet, I the Lord will answer those who come with their multitude of idols in order that I may take hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, all of whom are estranged from me through their idols.

Therefore, say to the house of Israel, “Thus says the Lord God, “Repent and turn away from your idols and turn away your faces from all your abominations, for    any of those of the house of Israel or of the aliens who reside in Israel, who separate themselves from me, taking their idols into their hearts and placing their   inequity as a stumbling block before them and yet come to a prophet to enquire of me, by him, I the Lord will answer them myself.

I will set my face against them; I will make them a sign and a byword and I will cut them off from the midst of my people and you will know that I am the Lord your God.”

They’re pretty strong words! God is saying, here are these elders of the house of Israel coming to the prophet to enquire of me, because of course, the prophet speaks on behalf of God, and these guys have got idols and not only are they worshipping idols, but it’s a beautiful phrase and it’s a telling phrase, “they have taken their idols into their hearts”. Idols are other gods that the other nations worshipped and so these leaders of Israel have put their idols before God.

Do you remember the Ten Commandments; the first one? Let’s just quickly go to it – Exodus chapter 20, if you have a Bible. This is what it says:

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water or under the   earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the inequity of their parents to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Jesus said it Himself, when someone asked Him, He said:

The first and the most important commandment is to love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. This is the first and the greatest commandment.

God reached out to His people through Moses, through a promise and a relationship that you can read about in Leviticus chapter 26 – it’s called the “covenant”. it’s like a marriage promise. God said:

If you love me and you obey me, you honour me, I will bless you abundantly, but if you rebel against me, I will punish you, so that you know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt.

Because God is God!

God has made us – has hard-wired us to have a relationship with Him and this anger; this judgement; this punishment – is not some petulant, tyrannical god. This anger is born out of His great love for us. He wants our hearts. Look at chapter 14 of Ezekiel again, verses 4 and 5:

Therefore speak to them and say to them, “Thus says   the Lord your God, “Any of those of the house of Israel who take their idols into their hearts and place their inequities as a stumbling block before them, and yet come to the prophet, I the Lord, will answer those who come with their multitude of idols in order that.

Listen to this:

In order that I may take hold of the hearts of the house of Israel. All of those whom are estranged from me, through their idols.

And further down in verse 11, he says:

“So that the house of Israel may no longer go astray from me, nor defile themselves any more with all their transgressions, then they shall be my people and I will be their God,” says the Lord.

God’s anger isn’t like our anger. Our rejection of God is kind of like an adultery – God wants us. He’s made us to have a relationship with Him but we reject Him and push Him away. In adultery, in human terms, marriages often tear themselves apart, but God’s not like that. People tear each other apart but God’s anger is different. God’s anger has a purpose in mind – “I will be their God and they will be my people”. God’s anger is redemptive anger, it’s meant to bring us back. God’s anger isn’t like ours – we reject and don’t forgive – but God’s anger has a purpose to bring us back. God is true to God. He’s a God of justice and a God of love and He looks on our hearts. He’s interested to know, have we put other things before Him in our hearts? Because God wants to be first in our hearts, He wants to be our God; He wants us to be His people and when reject Him, we kindle the anger of God.

We can have all sorts of idols. I say, “I don’t worship idols!” – wealth, position, status, sex, self, career – in and of themselves all of those things are not inherently bad. In fact, most of them are a blessing from God, but when we take one or more of those things into our hearts, above God; displacing God. That becomes an idol and that kindles the anger of God because we have declared war on God and there will be no peace. That brings the wrath of God and the wrath of God – let me tell you – is a fearsome thing. If you doubt me read the first twenty four chapters of the Book of Ezekiel and see what God did to His people when they rejected Him. It is the central problem of humanity and there will be no peace on earth when we reject God and we kindle His anger and His wrath but God does have a road map for peace and we are going to see that now.

God’s Roadmap for Peace

Well, we have been looking today on the program, at the fact that when we reject God, we effectively declare war on Him and we kindle His anger and His wrath. When people rebel against a good and a perfect and a loving and a holy God, there are consequences. In a sense that’s the bad news but the good news is God’s love – His heart for a relationship with us.

The whole of the Old Testament is Israel’s struggle with God. In fact, “Israel” literally means “to struggle with God”. God made a covenant; a promise with them that you can read about for yourself, in Leviticus chapter 26. He starts off by saying:

I love you and if you follow me and honour me, I’ll bless your socks off. My heart is for me to be your God and for you to be my people, but if you don’t honour me I will punish you.

And He lists the punishments and those punishments are the exact same ones that have come to pass here, that we read about in the Book of Ezekiel that we have been going through. The whole of the Old Testament serves to tell us something about ourselves. We can never meet God’s standard; we can never be the perfection that we need to be, to be accepted by a holy God. But if God’s heart-beat is that “I will be your God and you will be my people”, how’s it going to be realised if we can’t hold up our end of the bargain. How is God ever going to realise His dream?

Well, He sets out in the Book of Ezekiel – if you have a Bible, flick over to chapter 34 of Ezekiel. He sets out in the Book, a road map for peace; a real road map for peace; a new approach; a new covenant; one that doesn’t depend on what you and I do. This is what it says, Ezekiel chapter 34 beginning at verse 25:

I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish   the wild animals from the land so that they may live in the wild and sleep in the woods securely. I will make them and the region around my hill, a blessing and I will   send down the showers in their season and they will be showers of blessing. The trees of the field shall yield fruit and the earth shall yield its increase. They shall be   secure on their soil and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yolk and save them from the hands of those who have enslaved them (that’s the Babylonians).

They shall no more be plunder for the nations nor shall the animals of the land devour them. They shall live in safety and no one shall make them afraid. I will provide for them a splendid vegetation so that they shall no more be consumed with hunger in the land and no longer suffer the insults of the nations. They shall know   that, I the Lord their God, am with them and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, says the Lord God. You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture and I am   your God, says the Lord God.

Isn’t that beautiful? What a beautiful picture of God’s peace. Three things: firstly, safety. Safety from wild animals and safety from other people attacking them. Secondly, the blessing. The rain showers, the land will yield its fruit and there will be abundance. And the third thing, knowing that God is with them. .Isn’t that peace, knowing that we’re safe; being blessed by God and knowing that God is with us? This is a beautiful picture of the heart of God, of His peace and of His blessing and He talks about it again – just flick over the page, if you have a Bible – in chapter 37 beginning at verse 26.

I will make a covenant of peace with them.

See, it’s a promise of peace.

It shall be an everlasting covenant with them and I will bless them and multiply them and I will set my sanctuary among them for ever more. My dwelling place shall be with them and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Then the nations shall know that I, the Lord God, sanctify Israel when my sanctuary is among them for ever more.

See, God is promising an everlasting promise and unlike all the other gods that the other nations worshipped, that are on the top of hills, God is saying, “Now I will put my presence right in the middle of my people.” The heart of God is to be in close, tender relationship with you and me, even though we rebel. He knows the problem of our rebellion. He dealt with Israel for over a thousand years, between when He took them out of Egypt and when Jesus came, but the problem is, on the one hand you have the old covenant, “if you do good I’ll bless you, if you do bad, I’ll curse you,” and that reflects who God is – it reflects His justice. And you have the new covenant, “heart of love and forgiveness,” but how do you deal with the fact that you and I can’t uphold our end of the bargain? How does God deal with that fundamental problem of the human condition – our sin and our rebellion and our declaration of war against God? The answer is Christmas; the answer is Jesus and we’ll look at that next week on the program. The apostle John in chapter 1 verse 14 says:

And the Word became flesh (the Word is Jesus) the Word became flesh and tabernacle among us.

Just as God promised. The tabernacle of God; the sanctuary of God; the very presence of God revealed to us right in our midst and He came to pay the price of our sin. You and me, we have rebelled just like Israel – we are in enmity to God, we’ve declared war and kindled God’s anger but God’s heart is that He will be your God and mine and we will be His people and that’s what Christmas is about; that’s why Jesus came. Jesus is God’s declaration of peace and we will look at that on next week’s program.

Christmas is an amazing time – because it’s God’s declaration of peace.  Peace and goodwill available to us all for the taking.  But what does that mean?

The Human Dilemma

Here we are, Christmas is almost upon us – can’t believe it but there you go – another year, just a few weeks to go and on the program, we are talking about peace. We have been talking about peace the last couple of weeks because there’s so much turmoil in people’s lives. We get a lot of feedback – people write and ring and send us emails who have listened to this program and for so many people, what they consistently say is that as they’ve let God’s Word, through this program Christianityworks, come into their lives and into their hearts, it’s given them peace in the midst of their turmoil and that’s what God does. That’s what God’s Word does, God’s heart is for us to have peace.

But what is peace? What does it look like? Over the last few weeks we have been looking in the Book of Ezekiel, which talks about Israel’s rebellion against God. God blessed them greatly and God started a covenant with them – a promise; a relationship – that we can read about. We won’t go there now, but you can read about it in Leviticus chapter 26. Oh, we will go there now, let’s go. Grab a Bible – can’t help myself – let’s go and have a look at Leviticus chapter 26 and this covenant talks about God’s blessing. It begins by saying:

If you follow my statutes and keep my commandments and observe them faithfully, I will give you the rains in their due season and your land shall yield it’s produce and the trees of the field will yield their fruit and your threshing floor will overtake the vintage and you’ll be blessed – I’ll bless your socks off, if you keep my commandments.

And in the middle of it He says:

And I will make my dwelling place in your midst and I won’t abhor you and I will walk among you and I will be your God and you will be my people.

That is the heart of God; it’s the heart of God then and it’s the heart of God now. God’s heart is to be our God and for us to be His people but right after that He says:

But if you will not obey me and do not observe all these commandments – if you spurn my statutes and abhor my ordinances, so that you do not observe all my commandments and you break the covenant (this promise), I in turn will do this to you. I will bring terror on you, consumption and fever that wastes the eyes and cause your life to pine away.

And then He goes and lists all the curses that will befall Israel if they don’t keep the commandment. And that’s the dilemma of humanity. You read through the whole Old Testament and Israel could never uphold their end of this covenant and nor can you and nor can I. We can’t keep our end of that covenant and like a marriage, when we fail, we reject God. It’s like adultery in a marriage and God out of His great love, lets His anger roll forth. That’s what this punishment is about.

We saw last week on the program, and if you weren’t with us you can listen to the program again at our website, “Christianityworks.com“. Go and have a listen – that God’s anger is kindled out of His love because He wants His people to come back again and you can read about that in Ezekiel chapter 14.

So that’s the dilemma of the Old Testament covenant that we just read in Leviticus chapter 26. On the one hand God wants to bless us, on the other hand, if we don’t obey Him, He will curse us and He will bring His punishment and judgement and anger upon us but sandwiched right in the middle of those two, in Leviticus chapter 26, from verse 11 through to 13, is this heartbeat of God:

I will place my dwelling place in your midst and I shall not abhor you and I will walk among you and I will be your God and you shall be my people.

And because we can’t hold up our end of that bargain, God had a choice. Either to keep punishing us or to come up with a new plan; a new covenant and He did that. We looked at that last week on the program. He came up with a road map for peace and it was never a plan “B”– it was always His plan “A” because as I said the Old Testament is a story about how we struggle with God and clearly, over a thousand years, it tells us that Israel could never uphold its end of the bargain through its own works.

So God can either punish us or God can come up with a new plan and God came up with a new plan that we read about in Ezekiel chapter 37, where He said:

I will make a covenant; a new covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them and I will bless them and multiply them and I will set my sanctuary amongst them for ever. My dwelling place shall be with them and I will be their God and they shall be my people and then the nations around them shall know that I am the Lord God who sanctifies Israel, where my sanctuary is among them for ever more.

And that new covenant; that new sanctuary; that new presence of God in our midst, is Jesus Christ and that is what Christmas was about. If you flick forward to John chapter 1, the fourth book in the New Testament and it says:

And the Word became flesh.

God became flesh and tabernacle amongst us. In other words the very presence of God came into our midst. That is awesome! That’s what Christmas is about because God steps into our dilemma. God puts on flesh; God wraps Himself in our flesh and puts Himself in your life and my life, here and now and that’s the Christmas present. God Himself, wrapped in our flesh, one of us, stepping into our dung heap; into our circumstances, into our sickness, into our pain, into our lost-ness and saying, “I’m here, now let me bring you peace.”

Christmas is God’s declaration of peace with humanity and that’s what we are going to look at during the course of this program.

Prince of Peace

Well, we are talking about this central human dilemma which is our rejection of God and you know, when we rejected God – we all have, none of us have lived up to the glory of God. We have all fallen short and sinned, when we rejected God; we declared war on God and the reason so many people in this world don’t have peace in their lives, peace in their hearts, peace in their spirits, is because they haven’t accepted God’s peace plan.

When Jesus was born He was taken to the temple – if you’ve got a Bible grab it and open it at Luke chapter 2, beginning at verse 25:

When Jesus was born He was taken to the temple and they presented Him at the temple and there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon and this man was a righteous and devout man looking forward to the consolation of Israel and the Holy Spirit rested on him.

It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came up into the temple and when the parents brought the child, Jesus in, to do for Him what was customary under the law.

Simeon took Him in his arms and praised God saying: “Master, now you are dismissing your servant, (wait for it!), in peace, according to your Word, for my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all the peoples; a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.

See, this old man, Simeon, in his spirit, knew that God was sending His Saviour, Jesus Christ and he said, “I can now go, in what? “In peace” – “in Shalom” – because Jesus brings peace. Now some people won’t accept Jesus and it goes on to talk about that in this chapter and Jesus Himself later said: “You know, I’m going to bring division, because some people will reject Jesus and some people will accept Jesus.”

And it’s funny, you know, when I talk on different radio stations, some radio stations don’t want me to talk about Jesus. They’re happy for me to talk about God but not about Jesus because Jesus is a stumbling block to a lot of people. But those who accept Jesus, to them He brings shalom; peace, wholeness, blessing, prosperity, that assurance that God is with us.

There’s a beautiful picture of that, just a few chapters on in Luke. Let’s go and have a look. It’s just this wonderful picture of this woman in Luke chapter 7 verses 36 to 50. Let’s have a read because here this woman is so low; she’s so desperate and Jesus brings her peace. This is what it says:

One of the Pharisees who were religious leaders, ask Jesus to come and have dinner with him, so Jesus went to the Pharisee’s house and took His place at the table. And a woman in the city who was known to be a sinner, having learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, bought an alabaster jar of ointment. (Now that was worth a fortune!)

She stood behind Jesus at His feet, weeping, and began to bathe His feet with her tears and dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing His feet and anointing them with this ointment. Now when the Pharisee, this religious leader, who had invited Jesus, saw her, he said to himself, “Well, if this Jesus were a prophet, He would have known who and what kind of woman this is and who’s touching Him and she’s a sinner.

Well Jesus knew what he was thinking and spoke up and said: “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” said Simon, “speak.” “A certain creditor,” said Jesus, “had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii and the other fifty. When they couldn’t pay he cancelled the debts for both of them, now which one of them would love him more?” and Simon answered, “Well I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt?” And Jesus said to him: “You have judged rightly.”

Then turning towards this woman, He said to Simon: “You see this woman? I entered your house and you gave me no water for my feet but she bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came she hasn’t stopped kissing my feet and you didn’t anoint my head with oil but she anointed my feet with ointment.

Therefore, I tell you, her sins which were so many, have been forgiven. Hence she has shown great love but the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” Then He said to her: “Your sins are forgiven,” but those who were at the table with Him began to say amongst themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” And He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you, go in peace.”

We don’t know what sort of sin this woman had but you can bet your life, that she was either a prostitute or an adulteress. She must have had quite a bit of money because this jar of alabaster was very expensive indeed. In contrast you have the Pharisees; the religious leaders; these fanatics who went to endless lengths to obey God’s law.

And this Pharisee; Simon, invites Jesus over for dinner and they do all the right things but, you know, they never gave Jesus any water to wash His feet, which was customary. They never greeted Him with a kiss, which was customary. They never anointed Him with oil, which was customary. So they were going through the motions; their heart wasn’t in it, and this prostitute or adulteress – I don’t know how she got into the house but she did – and she does all these things.

This lowliest of the low, takes this jar of alabaster, worth a fortune, and she cries tears onto His feet and washes it off with her hair and kisses His feet. I mean, you know, it pretty inappropriate, lurid behaviour, isn’t it? But that’s who she is and Jesus touched her heart and what she was doing was expressing her love and her acceptance and her faith in Jesus, the only way she knew how. She gave her heart to Jesus and Jesus said:

Your faith has saved you, go in peace; go in shalom.

We often compare ourselves to other people. You know, we look around and we think, “Oh, how they dress, what they do.” We look on the outside, but God looks on the heart, at our rejection of God – is a massive thing. I look back on my life and still today, I make mistakes and when we do that it is an offence to God and God calls it sin and He sees our heart. We judge ourselves on the outside, the way the Pharisee judged the woman and we think, “well, I’m not good enough.” The Jesus that I know, the Jesus of Christmas, the one that I don’t deserve, brought His mercy and brings His peace when you and I give our hearts to Him.

No, we don’t deserve it – that’s the whole point! Under the old covenant that we talked about before, you know, if we honour God with everything we are all the time, we get blessing, if we don’t we get cursing. I deserve cursing; I deserve punishment, you probably do too, and we look at other people and think, “they are so much better than me and I don’t deserve this.” You know what Jesus does? He turns around the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5 and He says:

Blessed are the poor in spirit (the people who know that don’t deserve it) for theirs is the Kingdom of God.

Jesus came for that woman – Jesus came for you – Jesus came for me. That’s THE Christmas present and when we acknowledge our poverty; when we acknowledge our weakness; when we acknowledge our inability to do all the things that we need to do to be perfect and we acknowledge that there’s only way, and we believe in Jesus, then by faith we are saved. Not of our own doing, it’s a gift from God.

It’s not the result of our own works so we can’t boast. It’s a free gift – I’m not good enough for God – that’s why He sent Jesus. That’s why, on that clear, cool, starry night in Bethlehem, that child was born so He could come to this earth and pay for my sin – ugly word ‘sin’ – and yours.

I just pray that the Holy Spirit would breathe this Christmas gift into your heart.

Drinking in that Peace

Well, we are talking about the wonderful peace that comes at Christmas time. Christmas is God’s declaration of peace. Just flicking back to Isaiah chapter 37. We were talking about that earlier in the program where God acknowledges the problem of Israel.

The problem of Israel was they could never keep up their end of the promise between them and God – the covenant, it was called, where God said:

If you honour me first, if you do all these things, I’ll bless your socks off and if you don’t, I’ll punish you with my anger because I want you to know that I am the Lord your God.

God’s heart is always to be our God and for us to be His people, but we can’t hold up our end of that bargain, and so, when we rejected God, there was a war between us and Him and at Christmas time God declares peace. His peace-plan is set out in Ezekiel chapter 37, beginning at verse 26:

I will make a covenant of ‘peace’ with my people. It will be an everlasting covenant with them and I’ll bless them and I’ll multiply them, I’ll set my presence among them for ever and my dwelling place shall be with them and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

That’s us! And many years later, the Apostle Paul after the birth and death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ – the Apostle Paul writes this in Romans chapter 5. He say:

We are justified.

That means, we are set right – by faith and we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus, when He was born at Christmas time, is God’s declaration of peace. You need peace in your life – we all need peace in our life and the main reason we don’t have peace is we reject God. Well, Jesus is God’s peace offering for us. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we now stand and we boast in our hope of sharing in the glory of God.

Ok, we’re going to go through suffering, knowing suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and that hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. God is now present with us. So what Paul is saying, first and foremost is, we’re justified; we’re set right through Jesus.

Peace has broken out through Jesus with God. And we have access to that because we are standing in His grace. If you and I place our faith in Jesus Christ, we are set free and we have access to God’s peace. And Paul’s realistic, he says, “ok, life can still be tough”, but the Holy Spirit has been poured into our heart and He’s been poured into us and that’s a hope that never disappoints.

You see what’s happening here – God started off in a tent, in the exodus, in the desert, then He moved into a building, called the temple. And then He moved into a man, called Jesus and when we place our faith in this Jesus God puts His Spirit in us. See there’s God’s dream; there’s God’s heart, “I will be your God and you will be my people and I will tabernacle amongst you. I will live with you.”

All of that is possible through Jesus. Now, this peace is not some theoretical thing – it’s real; it’s being able to live a life in the knowledge that God is in control – that God has forgiven us – that we have peace with God. You see, God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Now, what Paul writes is this:

Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by His blood, that is, set right with God by Jesus, we will be saved through Him; through Jesus, from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by His life. But more than that, we even boast in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received reconciliation.

See, it’s not just a past thing – it’s not just. Ok, we were set right with God, we’ve got a life to live; you have a life to live and God’s plan for your life is peace – not theoretical, not theological – in life, here and now.

I was talking with a man recently who has been through a lot in his life – a couple of marriages, into this third relationship, he knows about God but he hasn’t ever given his heart over, every single bit of him, the way that woman did in that story. That’s a tragedy, because until we do, there can be no peace, no completeness, no safety and soundness and prosperity and peace and quiet and tranquility and contentment and knowledge of God. What about you?

Heading into Christmas, have you given every part of your life over to Jesus? Are you living in the peace that He came to give you? Like that woman, your faith has saved you, go in peace.

I’m going to pray for you right now. If you want God’s peace, we are going to pray for God’s peace.

Father, I pray for everybody who is listening right now. You know where each one of us is at and Lord, you have this passion to be our God and for us to be your people and Lord we believe that you sent your Son, Jesus at Christmas time to be your peace offering. Father, we just want to accept Him, maybe for the first time or afresh or anew, wherever we are, Lord we lay our lives – every part, every compartment, every thing that we would hold on to – we lay down at your feet and we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Father I pray in the mighty name of Jesus, that you would pour your Spirit out into each one of us and you would fill us with a joy and a peace that surpasses all understanding.

Lord I just pray that you will bless our socks off with your presence and your grace and your love and your Spirit and your Son and your peace. Father we ask that in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.