Our Father in heaven, your word tells us, Father, that your strength is always going to be perfected in our weakness. And certainly, Lord, I am well aware of a host of weaknesses in me this morning. So, Lord, we would ask that you would not allow any distractions for your people. Lord, you love your people. You love your church. And we would ask that there would be nothing that would distract your people from feeding off of your holy word this morning. Please empower me my voice and even as Gary has already asked Lord that you would give strength so that this time would not be in vain. We pray father for an hour of clear vocal cords and we pray that you would bless the time that we have in your word in Jesus name. Amen. Peace on earth, goodwill toward men. How many times have you heard these words or read these words over the course of the past month? Peace on earth. These words, of course, originate from Luke's gospel chapter two and verse 14, where the heavenly host was praising God before the shepherds marking the birth of Jesus. They declared glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men. So why is it that the earth is anything but peaceful? Sorry, Eli, I forgot to turn my... Why is it that this earth is not peaceful? As Mike brought out in his prayer, we do not live on a peaceful planet, do we? You turn on the evening news, open up a newspaper, and what do you see? Wars. right, disease, shootings, terrorism, civil unrest, children murdering children, children being murdered, right, policemen being killed. Our nation's leaders are at each other's throats. Everything that makes for unrest, everything that makes for an unsettledness, not for peace. And yet, here's the irony of it all. Something that almost every human being has in common is a desire to know peace, a desire to know real peace. Back in my pre-conversion days, back when I used to play in bands, one of my favorite songs to perform was an old Loggins and Messina song that was called Peace of Mind. I don't know if any of you older folks are familiar with that. Peace of Mind was the name of the song. As the song crescendoed at the end, with almost kind of an old-time gospel flavor to it, the words were repeated over and over again. Everybody wants peace of mind. Everybody wants peace of mind. And isn't this true? I mean, don't all people in some way, to some degree, all want a personal peace to mark their lives? They do. And yet the word peace can be a very multi-dimensional word. It carries different meanings for different people, doesn't it? The Merriam-Webster Dictionary gives no less than six definitions for the word peace, among which we find a state of tranquility, freedom from oppressive thoughts or emotions, harmony in personal relations, a period of mutual concord between governments. You see, peace can mean many different things for different people and even at different times. The word peace, spoken in 1945, meant that our enemies had been defeated in World War II. The word peace, spoken of in the 1960s, meant anti-war. John Lennon was singing, all we are saying is give peace a chance. Right? Which basically meant, hey, stop the war in Vietnam, give man the opportunity to live at peace with one another, and that peace will just perpetuate itself. You gotta just give it a chance. This song, of course, denied the fundamental truth that men have corrupt, sinful hearts that produce all of the ingredients that make for anti-peace, that make for war, right? Anything but peaceful. Mark 7.21 tells us it's out of the heart of men that proceed all of the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adultery, deeds of coveting and wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. This is all the stuff that makes for war, not peace. And it's all right here, stored up in the human heart. People's ideas of achieving personal peace, they vary greatly. The word peace to some, is defined as that which can only be attained through the ownership of something, through owning something. Maybe a safe house in a safe neighborhood, right? Or perhaps a large bank account. Just give me enough money. Let me have enough money to live comfortably without worry. Let me have enough money to travel or retire or to buy the things that I want. You know, having a summer house would give me peace. Having a boat would give me peace. Having the toys that I want would give me peace. Some people, it seems, derive a sense of peace by having the newest electronic device, right? The latest state-of-the-art cutting-edge computer or iPhone. Solomon even said in Ecclesiastes 10 that in life under the sun, money's the answer to everything. Just give me enough money. And that'll give me peace. Now for others, a sense of peace is sought through taking care of the body. You know, good health. exercise, jogging, working out, physical activity, participating in a sport. And it's true. When the level of endorphins in the body are increased through exercise, it can have a very peaceful, calming effect on both the body and the brain. There is a sense where God really blesses physical exercise to the human body. Those who are regular runners, You're a regular runner, right? A regular runner will hit what they call the zone, right? Have you hit the zone where this peace just floods the brain? There's an actual chemical reaction that takes place. I've heard people say, look, as long as you got your health, you got everything. So there are people that derive their sense of peace through this. For others, A sense of peace comes only through the means of other people. Their peace is wholly dependent upon others, being found in meaningful relationships with others, or having a relationship or relationships to be exactly what they want it or feel they need it to be. Right? Oh, without her in my life, I could never have peace. Without him as my boyfriend or my husband, I could never be happy. I could never have peace. You see, their peace depends upon being loved or appreciated by others, or how they're treated by others, or simply finding acceptance with others. Contrary to these people, there are those who would derive a sense of peace by being completely independent of others, right? Being left alone by other people. How many of you remember the Calgon commercial, right? The stressed-out mother seeks solitude from her whining children and her demanding husband by locking the bathroom door and getting into that hot bath, right? And she says, Calgon, take me away, right? Others seek for peace by altogether escaping not just people, but the whole world. And they do this through various means, transcendental meditation, yoga, alcohol, drugs, forms of entertainment or amusement. You see, the point is all people seek for peace in a variety of ways because peace is a valuable commodity. It's the mysterious brass ring that I think every human being is either knowingly or unknowingly reaching for. Everybody wants peace of mind. And yet when that peace of mind must depend upon only of the things of this world, when peace is dependent upon one's circumstances in life, whether it's through money, ownership, health, exercise, relationship, solitude, or even escape, that peace can only come in snippets. It can only come in seasons, in moments, in just little bits and pieces. It is, at best, An unsteady, unreliable, ever-changing, and fleeting peace. There's no guarantee of how long it will last if you find it, or whether you can ever get it back again if you lose it. And you know, the Bible is a realistic reminder. The Bible tells us money makes itself wings, right? The Bible reminds us that these bodies, they're all eventually going to go the way of all flesh. For the most part, the Bible tells us people are going to fail us. Others are always going to disappoint us, and it also reminds us that any kind of retreat or escape from this life, in this life, is going to be temporal at best. But this is the only peace the world has to offer. That's it. It's certainly not a perfect peace, is it? But there's a different kind of peace. There is a better peace, there is a peace that exceeds and excels and goes far beyond the temporal peace that we find in things of this world, in time and space. And it's the peace that the Lord Jesus speaks of in John 14. Please turn with me to John's Gospel, chapter 14. John 14, verse 27. Jesus says, peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. But what our Lord is saying here is that in spite of all the definitions, there are really only two kinds of peace. The peace that the world affords you and the peace that He gives. I want us to look at this passage briefly this morning by examining first its context, and then its content, and then its conclusions. All right. First of all, its context. Turn back a chapter to John 13 and look at verse 1. Now, before the feast of Passover, Jesus, knowing that His hour had come, that He would depart out of this world. The context is, the Lord is about to leave. 33 years on the earth, the last three years of His earthly ministry, it's all now coming to a close. He's about to face the end of what He came to accomplish. He is soon going to declare those three words of victory from the cross, it is finished. And what is he doing? He's having his last earthly meal with his friends. Back in chapter 13, the room had been prepared for their last supper together. He washed their feet. He told them that one of them was going to betray him. And then he began to talk about his upcoming departure. All of this, no doubt, would have made the disciples' hearts very heavy. You know what it's like when out of the blue bad news comes, right? You're having a normal day and the mood quickly changes because of bad news. Everything's going fine, everything's normal and then you get that phone call or that email or that breaking news comes over the radio, right? We all know how a sudden heaviness of heart can pervade when sad news comes. If you're old enough, you probably remember exactly where you were on 9-11. Something I'll never forget, five years ago, six years ago, having a normal morning, getting up, getting ready to go to work and getting a phone call from my sister telling me that my niece's healthy four-year-old son had died in his sleep. This is probably something akin to what's going on here. There's a sudden heaviness of heart that just takes over when you hear news like this. And yet we find our Lord quick to add the words that we find in chapter 14 in verse 1. He says to him, do not let your heart be troubled. How amazing is this? He's about to be crucified. He knows exactly what is about to happen to him. And he is concerned about consoling his friends. And much of what Jesus says now here throughout chapter 14 is meant to encourage his friends with the same truth that still to this day encourages and lifts up the countenance of every true follower of Christ. He tells them here in chapter 14, he says, I will still be with you. Yes, I'm leaving, but I'm still gonna be with you. And he says, I'm gonna come back for you. Even though I'm leaving, you're not going to be without my true presence. It's just going to be in a different way. And a day will come where I am going to come back and I'm going to return for you to bring you back to where I am forever. He tells them in verses two and three, he says, in my father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you. For I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am, there you will be also. In verse 13, he says, whatever you ask in my name, that will I do. You see, he says, you're still gonna be able to ask me for things. And I'm gonna be able to answer those prayers, right? So that the father will be glorified in the son. And then in verse 16, he introduces the helper. The one who is to come when Jesus departs. The Holy Spirit. the paraclete, right, the spirit of Christ, the one who comes in and alongside us. In verse 17, Jesus calls him the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it doesn't see him or know him. But Jesus says to his disciples, you'll know him. He says you will know him, why? Well, because he abides with you, present tense, and will be in you, future tense. Tense. Jesus says, I'm going, but my spirit will remain. And in my spirit, you are going to have real, true, abiding, lasting peace. He says it's not gonna be an ethereal, mysterious, somewhere out there, catch me if you can kind of a peace. He says it's gonna be a real, genuine, lasting, tangible peace. A peace that's going to endure. A peace that's not going to fail you. A peace that's going to prevail in your life until the day that you see me again. Peace, I leave with you. This is the context. This is the occasion of these words. Jesus is encouraging his friends with the truth. Now let's look at the content of what Jesus tells us in this verse. Again, verse 27. Now there are at least three things in this verse that we're told here. Number one, this peace is his peace. It's his peace. He says, my peace I give to you. My peace I leave with you. What does that mean? Well, to say the least, it has to at least mean that it's my peace personally, Jesus would say, and it's my peace authoritatively. My peace personally in the sense that it's the peace that I have known during my earthly sojourn here upon earth. You see, there's a tranquility of heart that can abide even in the midst of chaos and sin. A peace that keeps you from sin. A peace that keeps you from becoming unglued. in the midst of stormy trials and threatening temptations, because it is first and foremost, peace with God. It's a peace with the true and living God, just as Jesus had perfect peace with his father. Just as Jesus, who had the spirit without measure, as he could sojourn through this earth, through this world as he did. I mean, he was trafficking among man's filth for 33 years. And for all those years he was trusting, trusting in his father at all times. He was trusting in his father in all situations. And just like him, so too our peace is going to be his peace. Our peace must come from trusting him, from trusting Jesus during our earthly sojourn. Trusting that who he is and what he's done has truly brought us peace with God. Romans 5.1, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus, right? To have peace with God, the God of this universe, the God who created everything, to have peace with this God, it means that we know something of the personal peace that was known by the Son of God. But also, it is my peace authoritatively, Jesus could say. because I'm going to purchase it for you with my own blood. I'm appointed by my Father to dispense this peace, but in order to do this, I must depart from you. I must lay down my life for you, but I want you to remember this, my disciples, my friends. It is by my authority that I do this, right? I lay it down on my own authority. I have the authority to lay it down, I have the authority to raise it back up again. He says in chapter 16 in verse 7, he says, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. So you see, it's Jesus' peace to give authoritatively. But at what cost? At what cost? A life of perfect, sinless perfection had to be lived in order for Him to be a perfect blood sacrifice for man's sin. Our God, our Creator, is a holy God. He's a blazingly holy God. God can only accept those for whom a perfect sacrifice was substituted. And there is but one. There's only one perfect sacrifice God can accept. The sinless Son of God who knew perfect unity and perfect peace with His Father at the cross was separated from Him. For the first time in all eternity, the unity was broken. The peace between them was disrupted, as He who knew no sin was made sin. Right? On our behalf, he willingly sacrificed himself, not only for the torture and death of crucifixion. That was nothing compared to what else was taking place at the cross. For the first time in eternity past, he was separated from his father. Separated from him in order to unite us to him so that we would know his peace. His peace. means peace with God, which means it's different from the peace that you get from this world. You see, the world can't give this. The world, through its wisdom, can't even know God. And that's why, secondly, Jesus says, not as the world gives do I give to you. The peace we get from this world, from our circumstances in this life, at best, will always ebb and flow, right? But the peace that Jesus gives, it's a steady, lasting peace. Why? Because it's not dependent upon our temporal outward circumstances. It doesn't depend on what we have or don't have. Turn with me to Philippians 4, Philippians chapter 4. In Philippians 4.12, Paul said, I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. You see, Paul said, I can be at peace. I can be content in any temporal circumstance. Wow. What's the secret, Paul? What's the big secret? Here's the secret, verse 13. He says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Paul says, I have something the world doesn't have, and I have something that the world can't give. Actually, it's not a something. Paul would say, I have a someone. I have a someone who is not restricted by the things of this world, someone who works without limitations. And it is through his spirit and it's according to the riches of his glory that I can be strengthened. Paul says, I am empowered in the inner man through faith to be at peace in any circumstance. I have a spiritual strength that is required in order to know this kind of peace, and only God can give this. Psalm 29 11, the Lord will give strength to his people. The Lord will bless his people with peace. How else could the writer to the Hebrews testify in chapter 10 of their ability to be joyfully accepting the seizure of their property? Knowing that they have a better and a more lasting possession, right? This kind of tranquility in the midst of losing everything, this is supernatural. This doesn't come from the soil of our hearts. So the peace that Jesus gives, it doesn't depend upon what we have or don't have. It doesn't depend on how much money we have. It doesn't depend upon our possessions. The peace that Jesus gives is different from the world's because it also doesn't depend upon our physical condition, does it? How else could Daniel's three friends, say to the king of Babylon, as they're about to be thrown into a furnace of fire, how else could they say, if it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king, but even if he does not, let it be known to you, we are not gonna worship your gods or bow down to your golden image. I mean, these three guys, their physical well-being, to say the least, was greatly threatened, wasn't it? And yet we don't find these three men becoming unhinged at the prospect of being roasted alive. We find them trusting. You can hear a ring of peaceful settledness in their words to the king of Babylon. I remember hearing a story of a Christian pastor who was martyred during the Boxer Rebellion in China. I'll never forget this, this man, they were going to burn him alive along with his whole congregation. And he said to his people, he said to his congregation, he said, if I raise my arms when they are killing me, I want that to be an indication to you that I am not in any pain. And as this man was literally being roasted by his executioners, he smiled. He praised Jesus Christ and he raised his arms. At seeing this, the congregation began to actually line up for their turn at execution. In 2 Corinthians chapter four, Paul says, we're afflicted in every way, but not crushed. He says we're persecuted, but not forsaken. He says we're struck down, but we're not destroyed. And you know, this isn't figurative language here. Paul goes on to say, we are carrying around in our bodies the dying of Jesus. That doesn't sound very healthy, does it? But he says, you know what this is, all of this? You know what he calls it? Momentary light affliction. He says this is just momentary light affliction. And what's it doing for us? He says, it is producing for us an eternal weight of glory And I got nothing to compare it to. There's nothing to compare this to. It's beyond comparison. He says, because we're looking not at the things which are seen, we're looking at the things that are not seen. Because everything that we see is temporal. It's not lasting. Everything we see is only temporary. He says the things that are not seen are forever. They're eternal. We remember Paul and Silas in Acts 16, what happened to them, right? These two guys were severely beaten, thrown into prison, their feet locked in stocks. And what do we find these two guys doing at midnight? They're praying and singing hymns of praise to God. The peace that Jesus gives, it's not like the peace the world gives, because it enables us to set our minds and hearts far beyond these present bodies, these present earthly bodies. These earthly tents, Paul called them, though we should be good stewards of them. We have to be good stewards of our bodies, right? Because while we have them, we can glorify God in our bodies, right? But they're not going to last forever. It doesn't matter how much you take care of your body. It's not going to last forever. Eventually, time is going to do it in. But you see, for the Christian, that's just the beginning. It's just the beginning of it. Because we're unable to see by faith what no one is able to see with the eye. And that gives a peace. That gives a true peace that the world simply can never deliver. The peace that Jesus gives does not depend upon our physical condition or our physical well-being. And bless God for that because some of us are in pretty rough shape. I know that as I get older, I'm feeling it. But bless God, it doesn't depend upon this. Nor does it depend upon other people, does it? Does our peace depend upon other people? You think of Stephen. Right? As he's being stoned to death. Talk about the very height of unacceptance with people. As he's being stoned to death, he's able to cry out, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And again, Paul, what we read in Acts this morning, right? If not being accepted by the people he loved, if that took Paul's peace away, Right? He would have been an emotional wreck. He would have been an emotional basket case, a manic depressive. In Romans 9, remember what he said? He said, I could wish that I were accursed for the sake of my kinsmen according to the flesh. Paul had such a heart for his fellow Jews. He loved them. And all they wanted to do was execute him. They just wanted to see him dead. And yet, that's not what seemed to bring unrest to Paul. You know, being rejected by men, that didn't unsettle Paul. What unsettled Paul was their rejection of Christ. He only wanted them to know the same peace that he knew. And yet he found himself unloved and rejected over and over and over again. You know, this can be a very hard lesson to learn, young people. This could be a very hard lesson to learn. But get used to people disappointing you. Get used to people not being everything that you think they are. Don't try to find your peace of mind in the presence or the love or the fidelity or the praise or the acceptance of others because people are always going to disappoint you. Jesus will never disappoint you. He who believes in him will not be disappointed. but also Jesus' peace is different from the world's peace in that it will one day finally come to full bloom. One day it's gonna blossom. It's going to be eventually an everlasting escape from everything that now troubles your heart here. When you think about it, Escape from this world in order to find peace in this world is kind of a fool's errand, isn't it? I mean, people still attempt to escape the world so that they can find peace in the world. But it really doesn't make sense. David, when he found his heart in anguish in Psalm 55, said, oh, that I had wings like a dove. I would fly away and I would be at rest. How many times have you felt that way? How many times have you wished that you could just sprout wings and just fly away from your troubles, right? Just go somewhere else in the world where your troubles can't follow you. I suppose sometimes we can do this maybe, but fleeing troubles often has a way of compounding troubles, right? This is very evident, especially among those who try to use alcohol or drugs to escape their troubles, to find peace, right? How often does that end up backfiring through addiction or overdose or accidental death, right? The things that people are often trying to escape send them into a worse abyss than that which they were trying to escape from. But it's not limited even to substance abuse. I remember years ago when a movie called Avatar came out. I remember reading in the newspapers that there were people after watching this fantasy movie, they became so depressed to walk away from the movie and go back to their normal lives that they were committing suicide. Their two-hour escape from the world ended up putting them into an eternal prison. But you see, the peace that Christ gives, it's an eternal peace. It is a forever peace. It's an everlasting peace, and it begins now. It's not something that we wait for. It begins right now in this life, and then it only gets better. It goes on to full bloom. It goes on to full blossom, where this mortal puts on immortality. And this mortal who puts on immortality finds ultimate rest from our three greatest troubles. The world, the flesh, and the devil. And this peace, the peace which Jesus gives, which is different from the world's peace, thirdly and finally has a conclusion. It has an intended result. Jesus says, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. And then he says, do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. And first of all, who is Jesus speaking to here? He's consoling his disciples, right? They're in the upper room and he's consoling his disciples. Are we to assume that he leaves his peace only for these 11 men that are in the room with him? No, of course not. Because this peace, it's imparted through his spirit. And all who have his spirit are to know this peace and experience its intended result, which is a heart that is not troubled or fearful. You know, all true Christians, every true Christian lives with a real continual backdrop of peace. It's a backdrop. You might face various circumstances. You might face very hard things, but there is a continual backdrop of peace. It's the peace of conscience that comes from a sense of pardon, sin, and reconciliation with the God who made you. Peace can be had if you know that your sins have been removed as far as east is from west. But as Christians, as followers of Christ, can everybody here honestly say, my heart has never been troubled or fearful? My heart's never been troubled. My heart's never been fearful. No, of course not. Why? Why is that? Let's connect some dots here. Jesus says, do not let your heart be troubled, nor let your heart be fearful. Look with me at Colossians 3.15. Colossians chapter 3 and verse 15. Colossians 3.15, Paul says, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. You see, we have that which enables us to know the peace of Christ. Right. Galatians 5, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace. Right. The word of God is saying that we have to let this peace rule in our hearts. It's got to have rule. The heart is like a constant battleground for turf, isn't it? There's a constant battle for turf between two entities going on in the heart. The flesh sets its desire against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. You see, we're called here to let the peace of Christ be the arbiter, to be the judge, the king, the ultimate ruler of the heart. But, as all of us know, there are appointed times when trouble comes. And it's not even trouble that's necessarily connected to sin on our part. It's just trouble, and it just shows up at the door, unannounced. Right? You think of Job, the trouble that showed up at his doorstep, unannounced. And our peace, it's threatened by circumstances that will try us. And they'll seem to want to push us right to the edge at times. James tells us, consider it all joy when you encounter various trials. You see, this is when we have to use what is readily at our disposal. It's there to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts. I remember hearing about a man, I think it was in the New York area many years ago, a man who was living in squalor. He was living in what would have been probably a condemned house. And, you know, I'm talking bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling, junk all over the place, no heat, no hot water. And this man lived in this house, and everyone knew who he was. He would always, they'd always see him going around town with a shopping cart, and he would be not only collecting junk, but collecting newspaper, old newspaper. And he'd bring all this newspaper back to his house. Nobody ever knew what he was doing with this newspaper or why. Eventually, the man died. He tragically froze to death in his own house. And as people were gathered to clean out his house and get everything out and into dumpsters, they started hauling all this newspaper that they found up in his attic out of the house. And they discovered that in between the folds of all these old newspapers were stashed thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in cash. Hundreds of thousands. The man was wealthy. He was a rich man. And he was living like a pauper for decades. See, my point is, sometimes we, believers, have a tendency to live like this man. We have the source of peace right here within us. We have the Spirit of Christ. We have this treasure of resource in the Holy Spirit, and yet sometimes we still manage to lose our sense of peace. We still lose it. We allow our hearts to become troubled and fearful. We don't live like the rich, wealthy men and women that we really are. What is the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian? Go back to Jesus' words in John 14 again. Look at verse 26. Verse 26. The role of the spirit, Jesus says, he says, the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. See, Jesus was, he was not going to be physically with them anymore, but his words would be. They would remember Christ's words. They would remember His promises. They would, by faith, hold fast to those words. And in this, they were going to know peace. And guess what? Because they remembered those words and wrote them down for us, we can know that peace. We already read Colossians 3.15, right? Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. The very next verse, verse 16 says, Do you see the connection? The spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit is willing to be our helper. But rarely does he ever force himself upon us, right? The Spirit of God is still, he's more often that still small voice that guides us into all truth rather than the hammer that delivers sharp blows to us, right? Now, sometimes we need the sharp blows, don't we? When a Christian begins to entertain sin in his or her life, right? Unconfessed sin will disrupt peace in the heart of the Christian. And in those times, we need the sharp blows of the hammer. We need that fatherly discipline. But more often than not, the Spirit of God is quietly prompting us. Urging us in holiness. He leads us. He guides us. But he doesn't often push us from behind, does he? You see, he's willing and able to remind us of all of the precious promises that we've been given by our Lord, so that that truth in turn, so that we would look to those promises, so that we would embrace those promises, so that we would seek them, trust them, hold fast to them, and believe in his word. And when we do, when we do this, we're gonna know his peace. Peace comes through his spirit and his word. The peace that Philippians 4 says is a peace that surpasses all comprehension. It's a peace that defies human understanding. And that's a peace that you can't get from this world. You just can't get it in this world. But I am here to tell you also that it's not a peace that's known universally to all men. If you're here today, if anyone is here today, and you don't know what this peace of Christ is, if this peace that can raise you above your earthly temporal circumstances is somewhat foreign to you, if you don't quite understand the things I've been saying, if your peace can be easily disrupted and taken away from you by having things taken away from you, If your peace can be disrupted by having your possessions taken from you, or your money taken from you, or your health being taken from you, or people taken from you, if that's the case, Jesus is inviting you to come. He invites you to come and partake of His peace. You see, you've got a choice. You have a choice today. Remember that the next time you see one of those bumper stickers. No Jesus, no peace. No Jesus, no peace. Have you seen that? N-O versus K-N-O-W. No Jesus, no peace. No Jesus, no peace. See, contrary to popular myth and contrary to the way that that verse in Luke 2 is so often misquoted this time of year, That little baby in the manger did not come to bring universal peace on earth to all men. He didn't. If that were the case, the mission failed miserably because we don't live in a peaceful world, do we? Now, in fact, Jesus said in Matthew 10, he said, do not think I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace. Doesn't get any clearer than that, does it? He says, I came to bring a sword. a gospel sword that divides all of humanity into only two groups, those who know his peace and those who do not. But again, you have a choice today. You have a choice this day. If you want to know a better peace, Jesus says, turn from your sin and turn to God. Turn away from your sin, do an about-face, and turn to God. Repentance and faith. Run to the cross where sacrifice and substitution were made for sin. Lay claim to the cross of Christ, because that's what purchases salvation and peace to all those who would believe, to all those who would look to Christ by faith. You're never really going to know true peace, ever, without Jesus Christ. It's not going to happen. Some of us here have really faced some challenges this year, have we not? When we have to face the trouble that shows up at our door, we can feel like those disciples in the boat during that Galilean storm. Sometimes we say, Lord, I'm sinking. Don't you care? Right? And we often fail to remember that Jesus was right there in the boat with them. Had that boat gone down, he would have gone down with them. By the help of the Spirit, we have to remember that our God is in ever-present help in time of trouble. Is he not? Jesus has promised that his continual presence is going to be with us. We don't know what the new year is going to bring. Some of us can say I'm so thankful to wave goodbye to 2019, but I don't know what's going to happen in 2020, in 2020. May the new year find us trusting him because he knows everything that's going to take place in the coming year. He's got it all right here. And if you're trusting him, this is where your peace is going to come from. It's not going to come from the things that the world brings you in 2020. It's going to come from knowing that I am in the palm of his hand in the coming year. May this new year, may 2020 find us at peace. And may it find us immersed in his word. And may it find us tapping into what is ours, the resources that are ours, knowing the help of the spirit in teaching us and in reminding us of the rich treasure that we have in our counselor, in our Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ. In the coming year, may we know peace and not of fear. Let me close with Paul's words of benediction in 2 Thessalonians 3.16. Now may the Lord of peace himself continually grant you peace in every circumstance. The Lord be with you all. Gary, would you close in prayer, please? Our Father in heaven, we're grateful.