The Light of the World // Peace

Amen.

Amen. And I love love Christmas music. And I love singing Christmas music. How many of you just be honest with everybody in here? There's no judgment in here. How many of you been singing Christmas music or playing Christmas music in your house before Thanksgiving this year?

Anybody in there? You're going to go ahead and admit it. All right, there you go. Don't be ashamed of that.

Okay. And you guys just said, come on, you can be honest with us here today. And so that is a song that you have been playing. I love all of those songs. And it never ceases to amaze me that those are so familiar because Bob referenced that we've been singing them our whole life. But if you're like me, when you get into verse two of some of those songs, do you ever kind of just mumble it? You're kind of like you thought you knew it and you really didn't. And that's kind of what it's like for me just a little bit on songs like that.

But listen, it is good to see if you have your Bible go to Ephesians chapter number two, Ephesians chapter number number two. I appreciate also Pam being up here playing her instrument today. Aren't you grateful for that? And I love I love a lot of different instruments. And so hopefully we will see some of that incorporated. And so I want you to know if you have a talent that maybe we don't know about, you can always see Bob, our music director, and and he can help you. And we would love to expand our orchestra a little bit.

And and so you can see him if you're interested in in that. But we are excited over the next couple of weeks. Got another instrument that we are going to introduce next week. I'm looking forward to that. So that's a little teaser for you to be back.

All right. So be faithful and you'll love that and looking forward to that. Well, if you have your Bible Ephesians chapter two and I mentioned this earlier that we began a brand new series last week called The Light of the World. And over this series, we are looking at how and why Jesus is the light of the world, because we say that we sing about it. But do we really know what that means and how Jesus came to light up, light up the world? And so last week we looked at the word hope and how the reason Jesus came as the light of the world is he was coming to provide hope, to provide hope, a confidence and assurance that what is to come, a confident assurance that that you are in Jesus and you have a lot to look forward to.

So that's how he can light up the world. And so this week we are going to look at the word peace. Can we all say that word together? Peace.

We're going to look. Jesus is the light of the world because he came to provide peace. In fact, that's in a lot of these songs that we are singing the word the word peace. Now, I don't know about you, but if you think about peace, like I want you to kind of think about what does that mean to you? Like, what is the most peaceful place that you can think of? Like, maybe it's the mountains. How many of you are mountains people? You love to be on the mountains, maybe on the front porch of a cabin and you're overlooking early in the morning, you know, the mountains and and the fog and the clouds as it's right there over the mountains.

That can be peaceful. How many of you would say, I'm not as much of a mountain person. I'm kind of get me on the beach and and I'm a beach person. I raise your hand.

Any of you in there? That is just honestly like, God bless you guys for raising your hand. But that's just not where I like to live. You know, as the beach, because I feel like I mean, it's not peaceful when I have sand all over my feet and it would never come out. Right.

And it's it's all over our house after the beach. It's just not my thing. And so I don't consider that peace.

How many of you say your your definition of peace or or what you think would be peaceful is maybe time. They're not. Most of them are not in here. So you can be honest with me. OK, I will not tell them. But how many of you would say peace to me is just a few moments without the kids? Just a moment.

Anybody going to admit that? All right. There you go. That's good.

And so we got one. He raised his hand high. He's like, I am not ashamed.

Not ashamed to admit it. And and so, no, I, I want you to understand peace. It means a lot of different things. It means a lot of different things to a lot of different, different people. And this time of year, sometimes it's somewhat we think it would be easier to find peace around Christmastime.

Right. Until you go out Black Friday shopping. And there's all these people that are that are shopping for Christmas gifts and and things like that during this most peaceful time. And they're fighting and things like that. Or or maybe your house, you struggle to find peace.

We have two kids in our house, an eight and an 11 year old. And sometimes even at this time of year, it's hard to find peace because, like, for example, just recently, we were down in Jacksonville, Florida, and and we were down there with our family for Thanksgiving. And and so because we were not going to Florida for Christmas this year, we had to celebrate Christmas with all the cousins. There's like 10 cousins there.

And and and they all draw names for the other cousins to to choose who who they get to buy a gift for. And so we did that and we were going to celebrate this at Thanksgiving. And I mean, the peaceful time of year. Right. And so everybody's happy.

Nobody's in bad moods. And it's just a good time of year. So we are all there. And so it gets the time to open up gifts. And and just to give you a little back story of how this works is most of the time, the parents of the cousins will text the other parents and say things like, hey, what does your kid want for Christmas so that my kid can get them their their Christmas gift? So we get around the living room there and we're watching all of the cousins open gifts.

And I mean, they're open and some really cool stuff. And and all the kids are so happy and they're filled with joy and and they're smiling from ear to ear. And then they get to my son, eight years old. And so he's so excited. I mean, he's been looking forward to this because a Christmas gift at Thanksgiving.

You can't go wrong with that. And so he's so excited. So he tears into it and he pulls out like six pairs of socks. Now, if you're like me, normally we we try to train my kids like birthdays and stuff like, hey, if you don't like it, still say thank you and fake it like you like it. All right. Well, my son was not having it.

He was so mad right there in the middle of everybody. We're like, man, that's a great gift, huh? You get you get aware of those as many days as you want. Right. And we're trying to build it up. He is upset. He is mad.

He went to bed crying that night because he got socks. And I was thinking I was like, man, what? That was not a very peaceful, peaceful experience. You would think that around this time of year, peace is just so easy to find. But sometimes wherever we are, it's it's difficult to find. And here's here's the reason why is because so often, especially at this time of year, we're looking for peace in something right. We're looking for peace and a gift. We're looking for peace and and maybe a new relationship or new hope for something that's going to happen in the upcoming year and or whatever.

And we're looking for peace, possibly in the wrong, wrong places. I want to submit to you in a few moments that we have today from Ephesians chapter two that peace, the peace that you're looking for, the peace that I'm looking for, it is not found in something. It's found in a someone. It's not found in a gift. It's not found in any of that.

It's found in a relationship with someone. In Ephesians chapter two in verse 14, we see this verse for he is our peace. Now, this is talking about Jesus. And it says for Jesus is our peace. Notice that Paul, as he's writing to this church, this real church, this church at Ephesus, he writes this to them and he says, for he, Jesus is your peace. Now, he didn't say that that comfort is your peace. He didn't say that, you know, reconciliation with all of their enemies is peace. He didn't say time around with your family is what brings peace. He didn't say that there's a gift out there that you can buy that will bring you peace. It's not found at the mountains.

It's not found in at the beach. It's not found in whatever. Listen, it's not found in any of those things because Jesus is our peace. For Jesus is our peace. He is our peace who have made both one and have broken down the middle wall of partition between us. So, Paul, in this letter to the church, he writes that Jesus is the only way that you can experience peace today. Jesus is the only way that you can experience the peace that you are looking for. It's not found in anything else.

It's only found in a relationship with him. And so, in the few moments that we have, I want to show you that from Ephesians chapter 2. First, we're going to look at this. We're going to look at the need for why you and I need peace. We're going to look at the need for peace.

Why is it important for us? If you look at verse 11, he says this, Wherefore, therefore, remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh. By the way, when the scripture says wherefore or therefore, it's always a reminder that we need to look at what it's there for.

He's referring to everything that he just said. If you read verses 1 through 10, you will find in Ephesians chapter 2, you will find that Paul is reminding them of who they were before Jesus came into their life. He's reminding them of who they were before Jesus came into their life.

And let me just tell you this, it's not a very good description. It says that we were dead and it says that we were enemies with God and all of these bad things. We could do nothing but live for the flesh and live after the wrath of God and all these different things.

It just wasn't a very pretty picture. He mentions all of that and then he comes to this verse in verse 11 and he says, Wherefore, because of all of that, in other words, ye were Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands. Verse 12, that at the time ye were without Christ being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. Here in these two verses, we find that the reason of why you need hope or the reason why you need peace, if you think about the word peace, peace, in order to have peace, there has to be some type of a conflict, right? Like we think about peace with, you know, our world. The reason why we scream for that is because there is a conflict. We are at war with certain people. We have enemies and things like that. When we talk about scriptural peace or biblical peace, there has to be a conflict in order for us to have peace. Well, that's exactly what Paul is bringing up here.

He's bringing up this conflict of what every single person has. He's reminding these Gentile people, he's reminding them that they needed peace. They needed peace.

And let me say this, you and I were born into this world. We were in need of peace. We were in need of peace. If you don't know Jesus today and you're not in Christ like that, let me say this, you are in need of peace right here today. You're in need of God's peace.

You say, why? He mentioned several different things. He first mentions that we were outsiders. This is found by when he calls us that we were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. Let me remind you that in scripture, to be separated from Israel was to be separated from God. That's what that means is that when he talks to people in the Gentile world, when he's talking to them, because they weren't Jewish, they were separated from God. So he was reminding the Gentiles, he said, listen, you were separated from God. You had no way to God.

You were outsiders. You couldn't get to him. You couldn't become a member of the family of God. You were in other parts of scripture, it calls us a foreigner.

We could not get to him. We could not be a part of the family of God. We were on the outside looking in. Paul says that the first need for peace is that we were outsiders. But then he says in verse 12, he says that we were not only outsiders, we were aliens, but we were also without hope.

We were without hope, and we looked at hope last week. But I want to remind you today, and I want you to understand this, that you, apart from Jesus, have absolutely no hope in your life today. If you do not know Jesus today, you do not have hope.

And I want to introduce you to the hope and the peace that he brings. And Paul, when he says this at the end of verse 12, he says having no hope, he's talking to these Gentiles, he says, listen, you had absolutely nothing to live for. You had no reason to live. You had no reason to live. You had nothing to look forward to. You were just living your life empty and worthless because you did not have hope. That word hope, the lpzo, that's the Greek word for the word hope, simply means a confidence or an assurance in Jesus, this confidence and assurance of what you have in Jesus. And Paul says this is all the need for why you and I need peace is because we were outsiders.

Don't you remember that? We were without hope. But not only that, and this is the worst one of all at the end of verse 12, but not only were you outsiders, you were without hope, and then you were without God. We were without God. The Gentiles, they had no knowledge of God. They were enemies of God. They were going through life without God. They had no way to get to God.

They couldn't get to him. They couldn't find peace on their own. And by the way, let me say this, that our need for peace, we are no different than the Gentile people, that when you were born into this world, I want you to be reminded, and maybe you're in this state today, you've never come to a saving knowledge of Jesus, but let me tell you this, I want you to remember exactly how you were born into this world. You were no different than the Gentiles. You were strangers. You were alienated from God. You were without hope. There was nothing to live for. Our lives were worthless. Our lives were pointless. We had nothing to look forward to. We had no hope in this life. But worse than all of that, we were without God. You see, that's why Jesus is the light of the world, because he came to change all of that for you.

Isn't that good news? He came to change all of that for you. You didn't have God in this world, so God sent himself to you so that you could experience peace. You see, we couldn't have peace. We couldn't find peace. We couldn't find peace on our own, so peace had to come and find us.

You see, that's the good news of Christmas right there. In a nutshell, it's the fact that you and I, we could never find peace. We couldn't find it in a relationship. We couldn't find it in a gift. We couldn't find it in a certain amount of money in our life. We couldn't find it in a career. We couldn't find it in any of those things.

You fill in the blank. Whatever you're trying to find peace in, it can't be found there. The only way you can find peace is through a relationship with Jesus.

You see, we couldn't get to him. We couldn't find peace on our own, so peace had to come to us. That's the need for peace.

You're an outsider without hope and without God in this world. Let's look secondly at what Paul says. He looks at the source of peace. So we see the need for peace.

Let's look secondly at the source of peace. Look at what he says in verse 13. He just rehashes all of these things about who we were in Jesus. And he rehashes who we were before Jesus. And he mentions all of these things of the need of why we need peace. And then he changes everything in verse 13.

And really, this is such an awesome phrase. This conjunction that he mentions at the start of verse 13 is as powerful as the conjunction that he mentions in verse 4. He says this in verse 13. But now in Christ Jesus.

If you underline in your Bible, I'd encourage you to underline that because you don't need to forget that. Because it's so important that remembering that before Jesus, you could not find peace on your own. You couldn't get to him on your own. There was absolutely nothing that you can do but now in Christ Jesus. You see, he had to come to us. In Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh, or are made near by the blood of Christ. For he, Jesus, is our peace, who hath made both one and have broken down the middle wall of partition between us.

You see, let me get this to you. And I want you to understand this, that peace is not a what. It is a who. You see, peace is not found in a what. It's found in a person. It's found in a relationship with Jesus. You see, the source for you to find peace is through Jesus. You know, we sang about it earlier, Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6, when the prophet, he prophesied that one day, a wonderful counselor, a mighty God, an everlasting father, a prince of peace. Notice he didn't say that one day you're going to experience peace.

That's a part of it, and I'm grateful for that. But he says, no, no, no, no, peace is coming in the form of a person. Not only can we experience peace, but Jesus came to be our peace.

He came to be our peace. So let's look back at what Paul was saying. So we were all born into this world, and by the way, that's everybody in here. Every single one of us were born the exact same way. I don't want you to ever, if you're in church, I don't want you to ever look at somebody and be like, wow, they are way better than me, so they weren't probably born as depraved and bad as I was. No, let me tell you this. Every single person was born into this world in one category.

You want to know what that category is? Sinner. Look to your neighbor and say, you're a sinner, all right? Look to your other neighbor and say, you're a really bad sinner, all right?

Here's the thing. I want you to understand. I say that jokingly, but at the end of the day, I want you to know all of us were in the same category of people, and it's good to know that because if you're new to a church and you come in, you might think, well, that pastor, he doesn't know what I've done, or he doesn't know.

Listen, I don't have to know what you've done. I know what mankind has done, and that's all that matters. We all were born into this world enemies of God, alienated without hope and without God.

You know what that means is that God was on that side, and there was this wall that was put in between us because of your sin and because of my sin. There was nothing that I could do to get there, nothing. There was an amount of good works. I was a good person as a kid for the most part, but let me tell you this, my good works were not enough.

They weren't enough. Your good works, not enough to get across the divide that separated from you and him because of your sin. You see, that's how we were born into this world, and so God, he looked down on us, and he wasn't willing that we should perish and live without God and without hope, so you know what God the Father did? This is the message of Christmas. I know everybody in here knows this. God said, you know what?

I love them, fill in your name there. In my case, I love Josh so much, and I want to spend eternity with Josh. I want him to be in my presence. I want him to experience hope. I want him to experience peace.

All the things that I want for him that I know he can't find apart from me, I want Josh to experience, but Josh can't get to me, so I have to go to him. You see, that's the message of Christmas, so that's what God the Father did. The divide was there, so he sent Jesus to be the bridge through the cross of Calvary in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus to provide a way so that now through Jesus, you can get to him. You can get to him. You see, that's why Jesus, when he came to earth, he said this, I am the way, the truth, and the life. You see, there's no way to get to the Father but through a relationship with Jesus. You see, that's what, if you're in here today and you're still on this side of the world and you're looking at God, let me remind you, you can't get to him alone.

The only way you can get there is by trusting in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. You see, he came not so that you could experience peace, he came to actually be our peace. And now through the cross of Jesus Christ, we now can have peace with God. We can now have peace with God.

You were one time an enemy of God, now you can be in a relationship with God. You see, that's the source of our peace. That's the source of our peace. It's only through Jesus.

It begins with him. Then we see thirdly the result of peace. The result of peace. Verses 13, I want you to see this, this is so interesting. And he says some things real quick, I want to give these to you and then I'll read some scripture here of what Paul's saying. You say, what does this peace look like and what does it result in my life?

If you're in here and you're on the fence about trusting in Jesus or whatever and you came in today, I don't know what you're carrying and you're kind of unsure about this, I want you to see what the result of a relationship with Jesus brings in your life. And Paul mentions all of that here through verse 22. The first thing we see is this, we find that we move from a foreigner to family.

We move from foreigner to family. Remember he said we were outsiders of the family of God and now he says we can be family. Look at what he says here in verse 13. But now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are now made nigh by the blood of Christ.

You see, we now can be, be near him. You see, we were one time distant from God and we were doing life without God and we had no hope and we had no reason for living and we were strangers. Now through Jesus' death for you, you now can move from a foreigner, an outsider, to now you get a seat at the family table of God the Father. That's what we get in Jesus. You say why should I trust in Jesus for my salvation so that I can find peace so that you can become a part of the family of God?

That's what God did. He adopted us into the family of God. How many of you have a family member or you know somebody who was adopted?

Okay. So like we have a nephew and so my brother-in-law, sister-in-law, they couldn't have kids and they were trying and trying and if you know them, they loved kids. They served in the church with kids.

That's their passion. And so many years ago, they just couldn't have children and they tried everything. And you probably know somebody like that who has just tried and tried and they want kids so bad. And so what they did first was they felt that the best way for them forward was if they can't have kids and they believe God wants them to have children, why not go through the path of adoption? And so they did and so they adopted my nephew Carter. And so Carter is a part of our family. And so Carter is now a part of our family. Here's what I want you to understand that they went, when Carter was born, they went to the hospital and they saw the mom and they knew the mom and they brought Carter home from the hospital. And here's what I want you to understand.

Here's what I want you to understand. Carter as my nephew, we don't see him as what he once was. We don't see him as outside of the family. He's as much a part of the family as anybody. He's a part of us. Everything we do, he does. Everything we do as a family, he's there. He's as much a part of the family as any single person in our family.

Why? Because he is now adopted into the family of God. That everything that he had before that, it doesn't matter. He is now a part of us just like everybody else. You see, when you are adopted into the family of God, that is true of you.

That all the inheritance that you should get as a child of God is now yours. He doesn't look at you and say, man, why did we let that foreigner in? Or why did we let that stranger in? Or why did we let that, scripture calls it an alien, some of you might be that or whatever, but why did we let that person in? He doesn't look at you that way. No, he looks at you and he sees you as his son or daughter. You see, that is what we get in Jesus. That's the reason, if you're in here today and you've never trusted in Jesus for your salvation, with all due respect, what in the world are you waiting for?

Why? Let me say this just because we get an opportunity to praise God. Carter was adopted. And then after that, they tried to have more kids, couldn't. God blessed them with twin boys. And then we went on vacation a year and a half ago and they had told us that they got pregnant naturally, that there's two more babies. And so they have two sets of twins in this family now. They have five total kids.

They asked me to babysit and I'm like, not a chance. But I want you to understand something. The power of what adoption is, it brings. Everything that a child or a daughter gets, that's them.

That's them. That's what it means to have peace. You are now a child of God. But not only that, he mentions in verse 15, he mentions that we move from an enemy to a friend.

We move from an enemy to a friend. He mentions this at the end of verse 15, he mentions this middle wall of partition. And I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on this, but I want you to understand why that is so significant to the Gentiles.

Here's why that was so significant. Many of them were receiving this letter from the Apostle Paul and there was a literal wall that surrounded Jerusalem. There was a literal 10-foot wall that surrounded them.

And the idea was to keep the Gentiles out of it. So there was a literal wall around there. And what Paul is saying is he's writing and he's basically signifying that the wall that kept you from the presence of the Father, that wall through Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, that wall has now been crashed down. It doesn't exist anymore. There's not a wall. Now we have access to the Father. I thought about asking Ryan just for an illustration today if he would mind if I would knock this set down just so that you could see that the wall's gone.

But I didn't want to have to clean it up this afternoon, so we decided not to. But I want you to understand, do you know what significance that is for you? It's that we were once enemies. The walls are there between you and somebody to keep you out of them, to keep you out of them, because you're enemies. If you have children, maybe your kids at some point have, for their sibling, locked the door and maybe put a sign on the door and said, Cameron, keep out, or Linley, keep out. Has that ever happened to any of you guys ever?

Okay. We have problems, babe. But sometimes they'll say that because they don't want someone to come in. That's why walls exist.

That's why walls exist, because we don't want somebody to come in. You see, the point is, is Paul is saying this, that Jesus came to be our peace so that now the wall that was between you and the Father, the wall that was there to keep you out of a relationship with Him, because you were an enemy of Him. Now you can be a friend of God.

Now you can be a friend of God. You see, you were born into this world with a hostile relationship, and now you can have a peaceful relationship. It's only through Jesus and His blood for you, not only an enemy to a friend, He mentions this, you move from a hostile relationship to a reconciled relationship. If you look at verse 15, Having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in Himself of twain one new man so making peace, that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. Let me say this, that because of Jesus' death, all the hostility because of your sin between you and God has been washed away by the blood of Jesus. You can now be reconciled to Him.

What once was a hostile enemy type of relationship, you can now be fully reconciled with Him, and it's only found through trusting in the death, burial, and resurrection. You see, God sent Jesus to earth to create a brand new family of people, and that's the church. That's why God came to create this new family of people, the church. And what I'm grateful for about this is that the church, the universal church and God coming to die for all of us, it does not have a wall that keeps people out of that, right? I think a lot of churches sometimes put walls up like, hey, we only want this group of people in, right? Come on, I've been in church my whole life, you can't deny that. That's how a lot of churches operate.

We call it a country club church, right? And here's what Paul was saying, is he's saying, listen, God came and sent His son Jesus to die for the sins of mankind so that He could create a church of all people, of everybody, of Jew and Gentile. You see, that's why this was such good news. It's because here, they couldn't get to God. They weren't Jewish, so they weren't a part of that. So Paul coming to write this, this was incredible news.

This was revolutionary for them. And so for them to hear that now they can have a relationship with God, just like the Jews, what great news. And so God came to create this church, and let me say this, it's for all people. By the way, that's what this church is for. That's what this church needs to be for. Our church is for this community.

It's for the world. We don't look at people and say, oh man, we only want this group of people in. We only want this type of people in. I love our church, and I know I'm partial to our church. And so I could brag on our church all the day. Somebody told me, you sound like a prideful pastor.

Well, I kind of am about you, okay, so I love you. But I want you to know I'm a little bit partial to our church because I love that our church has all different types of generations in it. We're not a church just for young people, and we're not a church just for older people. We're a church for everybody, but it has to go beyond that. It has to go beyond that. It has to go beyond the walls that we have set up between us and other people. Let me tell you this, our church needs to go beyond race.

It needs to go beyond middle and upper and all these different classes of people that we put on. That is not why Jesus came. Jesus did not come to this earth to be born and die for only a certain group of people. So I don't have a clue why we create churches that are designed and that are out for just a certain group of people. We need to want everybody in this place. We need to be a church that has our arms open for everybody. Because I want to remind you, aren't you thankful that God did not exclude you from the good news of Jesus Christ? So why on earth would we ever lead a church into where we exclude anybody from the good news that a relationship with Jesus Christ brings? You see, He moves us from enemy to friend, from a hostile relationship to a reconciled one, from a no way of getting to the Father to a relationship with full access. A relationship with full access.

That's that wall of partition that has been destroyed. Verse 18, for through Him, through Jesus, we both, Gentile, Jew, rich, poor, black, white, it does not matter. Through Him, every single person can have access to the Father. Every single one of us, we have access to the Father. You remember in the Old Testament when a prophet had to go in, you had to go to a prophet or a priest and they had to go in to the presence of the Father and receive the message. Aren't you thankful that doesn't apply to us today?

That Jesus came to this earth to be born to die so that you could have access to the Father whenever you want? If it's at 2 in the morning, guess what? God hears you.

If you're in the middle of a doctor's office and you get news that you can't stand and that you can't even take on your own, guess what? God hears you. You have access to the Creator of all things. You see, that's the peace that He came to bring.

He came to bring this peace so that you could have access to Him. Real quick in closing, my kids, they have access. I thought this was funny this week. My son got dropped off at the church office and Abby had plans and so she picked him up from school and I think she drove him across the street.

I guess I could have gone and got him, but she drove him across the street. I'm working in my office and this 8-year-old kid just kind of comes down and he plops down in my office and sometimes, whether it be my daughter or my son, they just kind of walk in and they just kind of think they own the place a little bit. They just kind of walk in and they'll go through my desk sometimes and get whatever they want. My son is notorious for looking in the office fridge to see if somebody left a Pepsi in there or something, but he just walks down the hall like he's somebody and he did that this week. He walked in and just sat down just like whatever and like he was somebody. It made me think.

It said, you know what? You know how comfortable he is walking to dad's office and how just like, man, he can walk in anytime and that's how it is. I want it to stay that way that my son, whenever he needs me, he can come. If I'm in a meeting with you, if it's important, I can stop my meeting. I can go to my son. We can be together. He has full access. My daughter, she has access. They can come and they can see me when they need to see me.

You say, why? Because I'm their dad and their father and that's the relationship between a father and a son and a daughter. You want to know why Jesus came to be the light of the world? So that you could have that type of a relationship with the creator of all things.

The God who spoke this world into existence, those mountains that you enjoy, the ocean that you enjoy watching, the God who's behind all of that. You have access and can walk as comfortably as you want directed to him. That's the relationship we have.

You see, we have access to him. That is the result of peace. So I ask you, do you have peace?

Peace with God paves the way to you having peace with others. You say, man, I can't find peace in my home. I can't find peace with my spouse. I can't find peace at my job. I can't find peace with this family member that I got to see here in a couple of weeks because we have to do Christmas together. Peace with God paves the way so that we can have peace with all those other relationships. Everything else. And so we can have peace with God, but you say how?

You say how? I want you to remember this. The source of all that peace is through Jesus Christ. We sang about it earlier, but it's found in this passage. If you look at verse 20 and 21 and we're done, he says, and are built. Here's the foundation, the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. See, the chief cornerstone, the cornerstone was the part that everything else was built upon.

It was the foundation of everything. You want peace in your life. You want to have peace with the God, the creator of all things.

You want that wall that's between you and God to be torn down. It's only through trusting in Jesus as your savior because he is the foundation. So every time you come into the access to the father and you go to pray to the father, I want you to be reminded that the only reason that you can have that access is because Jesus gave his life for you. He's the foundation by which we can have access. He's the foundation by which we can move from an enemy to family. He's the foundation by which we can move from a foreigner to a part of the family of God.

That is the church. Do you have peace? If you don't, you can know peace and you can't just experience it. You can actually know who peace actually is. And it's found in Jesus Christ and in him alone. Would you bow your heads with me? Everybody stand as well if you don't mind.