Sunday Sermon
Peace
Isaiah 54:10
The mountains may disappear, and the hills may come to an end, but my love will never disappear; my promise of peace will not come to an end,” says the Lord who shows mercy to you.
Over the years I have talked about the nature of God but I had not really explored what that meant to the full extent that it should be until recently. This is an emerging process and it is not completely detailed because there is a lot of reading and thinking to be done. The over all outline is very simple. At the foundation we have God who is truth. Exploring what it all means that God is truth is an interesting work that challenges my basic brain. Next is we have God is life and from that we have the fact that God is Righteous and loving. Understanding each of these concepts and what flows from them will help us build a faith in the God who is willing to die to save us from our sin. Grasping that God is life itself and without God there is no life is the starting point for a lot of the things our faith is all about and so I want us to think about what is means that God is life and how important it is to our faith and trust in God. To really appreciate how essential the idea that God is life we have to start with what God says about life. In Leviticus seventeen God talks about how life is in the blood and there are other places where God marks where blood has been shed. Next we have that God takes murder of humans very seriously. This is a reflection of the fact that God is the maker of life and if someone takes a life it is not just some bad act but an offence against God because God made that life. One of the things that has stood out to me lately is that God commands people to make life. Over and over God says be fruitful and multiply. Children are considered a blessing and those who cannot have children weep and think of it as a loss to their lives. This could go on for a while but I hope that the idea of God being life is starting to make sense and how central it is to who God is and to our faith in God because we then come to the cross. At the cross we find God trading His life for ours and God does that because life is such a critical part of who God is that it is the only thing that God can do. Our sin has caused us to be separated from God and if God is life then being away from God means that we do not have life. Here is why the cross is so important and why the resurrection has such value. God is offering life to us instead of the death we deserve and this is what makes God so different from any other religion. All that God does is to teach us how to live the lives God longs for us to have. We are so blessed because God hands us all the wisdom we need to build real lives of meaning and purpose. Finally we come to the idea that because God is the maker of life we then recognize that life flows from the fact that God is truth and that is what our faith is fundamentally based on. Look to the God who is the giver of life and we will find the God who it true and worthy of worship.
One weekend in the early fall of two thousand eleven our family changed and would never go back to what it was. On that weekend we moved our daughter to Columbus on Saturday and our son left with Ashley to go to Marine school in North Carolina on Sunday. Because of those two days, Debbie and I went from child raising to parenting. When we end child raising we never stop being parents but there is a very real change that happens. Child rearing is one of the hardest things any human will ever do but at the same time when it is over you look back and realize it was the most significant thing you will ever do. I bring this up because when we talk about God giving life children are the best example of the miracle of life. As hard as the child rearing part of our lives were they were also the best part. Here is the question though, if God is the giver of life why does life have to be so hard. For example shouldn’t raising children be easy and not so stressful. Why do we have to work so hard on so many things? The answer to those questions is that is not how God made us. We are never told that life will be easy but we are told that God will be with us in all that we do. Adam is put in the garden to care for it and work it so work is part of who we are made to be. Sin just made the work hard and draining. Dealing with struggles and hardships actually help us grow and develop and God knows this. What is a powerful part of our faith is that God does not leave us unprepared. We are given a large book filled with wisdom about how to live our lives. God is not confused by how hard life is and gives us the strength and hope to get through hard times.
Our faith in God works not because life is easy but because life is hard. God is the answer to how we not only survive life but we prosper as humans. Being sinful people means we are broken inside and we have no understanding of how to make life work. We are told that God knows this and so He calls to us and wants us to come to Him and learn how to live our lives. A power thing that God offers to us does not seem that essential to our lives but it is a wonderful tool that makes life better. This tool that God gives us is the concept of peace. In our verse God makes a promise that is just what we need. Peace is promised to us and it gives us a real sense of hope. No one needs peace when things are going well, it is when the world is hard and we are struggling that we need peace and God promise’s peace to us in that place. Knowing what this peace means will change how we live. The peace God gives is hope in the middle of a storm and strength as we face death or when we are in over our heads with children and we have no idea what to do. This peace does not make things easier but it keeps us going. It is so exciting that Jesus speaks about this peace often. When there is a storm on the sea and everyone thinks they are going to die Jesus is asleep. Reading this always amazes me. To prove that there is nothing to be afraid of Jesus then stills the storm. Another time Jesus is walking on the water and Peter asks to join Jesus. Peter also walks on the water until he remembers the storm all around him. Peace comes when we trust that God is in control no matter what. It is hard to trust God like that and finding peace when things are not going well takes real faith that God is at work. To get the peace we want and need we will have to learn who God is and how He works. That is why I have been studying the nature of God. The more I know God the more if find peace when the world is crazy. Spending time reading scripture will teach us about the God who hands out this peace we so long for. Again I want us to know the peace comes when things are hard and it does not mean things will go well it means we will trust in God no matter what happens because God is with us. The more I learn about the nature of God to more I find how wonderful He is and the peace God gives is one of those great things. We trust in Jesus because He gives us life instead of death and with that we find a peace in our souls that is hard to explain but tells us about this God who loves us and wants us to know a hope only He can give.
The importance of the peace God offers is measured by the words used to describe the level of magnitude that God is talking about. Look at the words that are used here. Mountains and hills are used because they are not something that is small or easily moved. That the verse we are considering speaks about mountains disappearing and hills coming to an end, God wants to relate to us how massive the concept that we are working with is. God’s peace is no small thing that we can live without or we can ignore but it is huge and long lasting. I want us to fall in love with the idea that we have a God who thinks and speaks in these terms because it will build is in us a deep faith in the God who cares about us and who makes this offer. The peace God offers is central to our faith and I want us to know what hope we have in that. The world maybe crazy but we have a God who knows what is going on and is with us in the middle of it all. Please also notice the sequence of what God says. We are told about God’s love so we can then understand what motivates God to fill us with His peace. God really cares about us and knows we struggle with fear and anxiety so He has put in place something to deal with those problems. It also needs to be made clear God may not take away what is making us fearful or anxious but He will be with us and give us peace as we deal with it. We have a God who does not just talk about love but acts on His love and does what is best for us. I have talked about God being righteous and that a righteous God always does what is right and this is such a great example. Building a faith in God cannot happen unless we let God fill us with peace because it is how we know who God is and what God is doing. Seek God and know a peace that cannot be told about except that we experience it ourselves.
To have such a God that would love us enough to pour out peace to us is just the most marvelous of things. If we want the world to know God we need to live in that peace because people are looking for answers and we as believers have them. What I really like is the phrase that is at the end of the verse. God has mercy on us and it is not just about mercy because we are sinners but God knows we need mercy to get through every day and so God gives us what we are not worthy of. We as humans do not merit peace but God gives it to us because we need it. God knows how central peace is to our well being and so He hands out peace to us. Let the living God build a deep sense of peace in us because it will help us be the people God calls us to be. It will take faith and trust in the living God but it is worth the effort. Bless God and sing of His glory because we have peace in our souls.
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