The Lord With Us All

Well, this morning, with God's help and Lord willing, with his blessing, we're going to finish our year -long series as we've been going through 1 and 2

Thessalonians. And this morning we finish that series with 2 Thessalonians 3, verses 16 through 18.

I remind you as you flip through your Bibles or your phones or however you'll find that scripture that these two letters are among the

Apostle Paul's earliest letters, written as early as perhaps the year 50 or 51, thereabouts, about 20 years after the

Lord's resurrection and then ascension. Only the book of Galatians might be older than these two.

And while the final words that we're going to read in a moment follow sort of a Greco -Roman letter -writing practice, much as the greetings follow the form of the practice of letter -writing in the day,

I want us to keep in mind that these are not just a form that I'm going to read. The Apostle Paul, and none of the

New Testament writers for that matter, were in the habit of wasting any words. So even though it followed kind of a form, a schema, if you will, that was common in the day in the formal writing of epistles or letters, the

Apostle Paul did not waste words. Every word he wrote was of meaning and some importance.

These three verses, as well as the closing words in all the

New Testament epistles, not just a formal way of saying farewell, what we have here is a doxology, a hymn of glory and praise to God the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. What I'm about to read sort of brings the grand sweep of all the theology that we've been going through this past year into the scope of our day -to -day living.

And as we stand now in honor of the reading of God's word, I want you to think in terms of the presence of God among us.

So please stand now as we read God's word to begin our service. Second Thessalonians 3, verses 16 to 18.

Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all.

I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. This is the sign of genuineness in every letter of mine.

It is the way I write. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Please be seated.

Well, let us pray and ask God's help even in the preaching and the hearing of the word to this day.

Heavenly Father, again seeking your help by your spirit as we now open your word and have it proclaimed.

I pray, Father, that you will bless the words of my mouth to this congregation and bless the hearing of these words insofar as they reflect the truth of your word.

We come to the God who we just sang about, who is just unapproachable in the light, in the pureness, in the holiness that you are,

Father, and yet in Jesus Christ we know we can come boldly to the throne of grace and there seek help in our time of need.

Our time of need, Father, is now. Help us now as we look to your word and find there more conformity into the image of your

Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen. You know, the

Greek Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, the Anglicans, and the Lutherans have a practice of opening their worship something like this, where the priest, if it's

Catholic or Anglican, or the pastor says something like, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the

Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all, to which the assembled people say, and with thy spirit.

And so with that, they begin their service, acknowledging the need for the presence of God among and in them all, and his spirit to bring anything good from the word as we hear it.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all, and with thy spirit, and then they go on into their worship.

There's something profoundly beautiful about the way it draws everyone together as those in whose presence

God, by his spirit, and because of his Son, actually, literally dwells with his people.

We once had Greek Orthodox men here for the Whitfield Fraternal that we used to host, and they came to describe to us or to tell us about their doctrines and their theology and the

Greek Orthodox faith. And I was very struck at how they greeted each other with a kiss.

When they saw another Greek Orthodox man, they would give each other this holy kiss, their way of obeying the four times that the

Apostle Paul says to greet one another with a holy kiss. Well, it wasn't lip to lip, it was cheek to cheek like we see in Europe so often, but it was very meaningful and it was very profound to them, as they would give this holy kiss and greeting.

And when they departed, they would say something like, the Lord be with you, to which the other one would say, and with your spirit.

Now I'm not suggesting that we add these words to our worship, we're not going to change that way. I'm not going to tell you the application today is to add that practice to your life and to give people holy kisses, we're not going there.

I just think it's a very beautiful and meaningful way, when it's done with integrity, to acknowledge the presence of God.

And this sort of greeting that reflects something like what I just read from 2 Thessalonians. Well, what does

Paul say in 2 Thessalonians 3, 16 -18, that I think is so well reflected in that practice that I've described?

Well God's presence is what Paul is praying for the church. And if he's praying for the church, then 2 ,000 years ago in Thessalonica, to know

God's presence, he says twice, the Lord be with you all. The same thing is prayed for us.

That God's presence be truly known amongst his people. That God being here, as he is here, would be known by you.

You would come away this morning believing and knowing and reveling in the literal presence of God amongst his people, which is you, this day, by his spirit, because of Jesus Christ.

And what he has done to bring us to God. God's presence is what he prays for them. Awaiting Christ, which is what these two

Thessalonian letters are about, awaiting Christ is to live in the here and now, in his presence, here and now, in this world, as we live.

A real presence, a real presence that truly and literally brings the peace that only the

Lord of Peace can give, that lives in the grace that only

Jesus Christ brings to us, in whom and from whom and because of whom we have the grace and the truth of God among us.

It's all about Jesus. Well, Pastor Owens and I have preached through these two books to the

Thessalonians with a theme of awaiting Christ. We have preached through this.

It's been the theme of the year's preaching. We've gone through a book of eschatology, the study of end times in our home groups to teach us what the

Bible says about awaiting Christ. First and second Thessalonians are even sometimes called the eschatological epistles.

Eschatology, again, the study of how God will bring history to a close, the end times, the new heavens and the new earth, and how and when that's all going to be brought into fruition.

In the meantime, here we are, Jesus' people bought at the price of his blood shed on the cross.

So what do we do as we await Christ? What is that all about? Pastor Owens, in my heart's desire in having chosen this theme for preaching and for the home groups, is that we as a church should wait for the

Lord to return in a manner that honors him by following the words he's given us in the scripture.

And these final three verses, this doxology, this hymn of praise, really tells us how to wait and what waiting is really about.

Waiting for Christ, awaiting Christ, is to live in the presence of Christ by his spirit.

It's a very Trinitarian awaiting Christ that we are to engage. We live in the presence of God by his spirit because of Jesus Christ, whom

God the Father sent. So if Paul prays to the

Thessalonian church for them to know the presence of God, the Lord be with you all, he says twice, the

Lord be with you all. The same is true for us, and this is what we pray for this church here this day and every time we meet and for you individually.

To live in the peace and with the grace that only Jesus can bring, only

Jesus does bring, he gives it by his presence among us.

This is the point here. To live knowing the peace and the grace of God by his true, literal, right now presence among us.

This is what it means to wait for the Lord's return. Nothing is better proof that you understand the

Bible's teaching about Jesus' return and the end of history than this, that with peaceful hearts you strive towards holiness in the here and now as you await the there and then.

The here and now is this world as we live in it, the there and then is the next creation when

God makes all things new and brings us to himself through the resurrection that Pastor Owens just spoke about.

This is what it's about to wait for Christ, in the here and now, in his presence as we await the there and the then.

Well Jesus is God's peace. This is the first thing Paul says in verse 16, Now may the

Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all.

The Lord of peace. In my notes I put a capital on the P of peace because it reads to me like a title.

Not just the Lord of peace in a general sense but the Lord of peace himself. Very profound, very evocative.

I don't like making marks in my Bible. Some people make lots of marks.

I don't have anything really against it. I don't do it. But if I did, I'd put a capital P there on peace.

I would make it his title. It's very much like the doxology at the end of 1

Thessalonians. Except in 1 Thessalonians Paul writes of the God of peace.

He says, Now may the God of peace bring you sanctification. Here he names the

Lord of peace and by Lord he means Jesus. May the Lord of peace and praise him bring them peace at all times and in every way.

And I just love the way Paul can so easily go back and forth between God the

Father and Jesus the Son and name them both equally as God. Whereas we understand

God the Father to be God of course and God the Son to be as much God as is the Father and God the

Spirit to be as much God as is the Father or the Son. So it's very meaningful how he can so easily go back and forth in 1

Thessalonians the God of peace and here in 2 Thessalonians the Lord of peace. We'll focus our interest upon Jesus Christ the

Lord of peace. And this prayer that the Lord of peace himself, Jesus Christ and no other would bring peace at all times and in every way to God's people.

We might interpret it this way, we might say may he give you peace through all times and in every way.

The peace he refers to is the peace of Philippians 4 .7, this peace that surpasses understanding.

The peace that he refers to here is the peace that comes only from God's Son Jesus Christ because only

Jesus Christ has won this peace for us. It's a peace that he gives, it's a peace that he does not rescind, it is a peace that Jesus administers to his people, it is a peace that addresses the need of every moment at all times and in every way.

Paul prays that the Lord of peace give you peace, Lord refers to Jesus Christ. Lord harkens back to the

Old Testament word Adonai. Most of you have heard this word Adonai which is usually translated as Lord.

Adonai means master, the one who bears this title has authority.

It's often used of human beings in the Old Testament. And when it does use it of a human,

Adonai, a human lord, of course it's one who bears this title and has authority, but that authority is limited.

A lord's authority has a limitation to it. A father is lord in his household, one household not another household.

A judge is lord in his court, a king is lord within his own borders. That title

Adonai is often used of God, of course. And when used of God, well, that authority is limited by the constraints of his realm.

What are God's realm? What would constrain God in this context of him being

Adonai? Well, nothing. God created everything,

God spoke everything into being. God as Adonai is lord over everything without limit, whether it be the physical realm, the spiritual realm, or even the progress of history.

This is the title that Paul so easily attributes to Jesus Christ, the

Lord, the Adonai, the master, the ruler, the prince of this peace that Paul prays that the church would know.

The God of peace, 1 Thessalonians, the Lord of peace in 2

Thessalonians, Jesus is that Lord. Jesus is that Lord with all that authority.

Jesus at the end of Matthew's Gospel told the disciples, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

So if a Lord, an Adonai, has a limitation, a boundary about his authority, when it's used of God, there is no limitation.

There are no bounds to his authority. All authority in heaven and on earth, everywhere, all existence, all that authority is

Jesus'. Paul is not the first to give

Jesus this title, this Lord of peace title.

Isaiah 9 -6 speaks prophetically of Jesus Christ. And of course during this time as we anticipate the

Christmas holiday that's coming up next Saturday, we hear this a lot from Isaiah 9.

Isaiah 9 -6 reads this way,

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and he shall be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

In the book of Micah, we have something kind of similar. In chapter 5 verse 2, again, commonly cited during this holiday season, this

Christmas season, But you, O Bethlehem Ephratah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is a ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days, and then a few verses later he says, and he shall be their peace.

Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace. Jesus Christ is the Lord of Peace. And we need to think of this

Prince of Peace, this Lord of Peace, as one who has authority in bringing peace and in giving peace.

He's the peace that the prophets hoped for. Paul, he's writing on our side of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, he wrote of a peace, not hoped for, but a peace accomplished.

Now why do we need peace? Do you know this kind of peace? Do you know this kind of lack of hostility between yourself and God by faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ? Why would we even need this sort of peace? Well, Paul reminds us in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 3, he says,

We were by nature children of wrath. Children of wrath. Children upon whom

God's wrath is justly meant. By nature.

The way we're born. With hearts that want to do our own thing.

That go our own direction. That go against God in every step that we can take. By nature, when we're born, like it or not, children of wrath.

Children who God's wrath justifiably rests upon. That's why we need peace.

That's why we must have peace. Because we're born at enmity with God. What's the answer to that?

Well, then we have to go forward from our birth to what the

Lord does by his spirit in bringing us to Jesus Christ. In chapter 5, verse 1 of the book of Romans, he says,

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

I want to camp here for just a moment. I want us to notice the order of things.

Is justification, then there's peace. Justification is a declaration of God that you or I have been declared innocent before God according to the bar of God's law.

That's what it means to be justified. It means the judge has looked and said you are not guilty.

Well, which of us is not guilty? We're all guilty of violating

God's law. We're all guilty of going against God's will. We're all guilty of many violations and iniquities in so many ways.

Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you repented of this and gone in faith to him for forgiveness?

And yet you find that you still need to go to him for forgiveness during this life as a Christian? Why is that?

Well, that would be because we sin, but wouldn't God say, well, you're declared not guilty.

You are justified. Why has God done such a thing?

Because of his son Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Christ obeyed on our behalf.

And by faith in his accomplishment of God's holiness and God's law, we can be justified because of him.

Justification is a declaration of God that he will declare you innocent. That your lack of innocence has been poured out on Jesus Christ.

Our sins are not counted against us, and it's by faith. We've been justified by faith.

And while those sins stood between us and God, as Paul writes a few verses down in Romans 5, while we were still sinners, while we were still enemies of God, while we were still under God's wrath,

Christ died for the ungodly. So what is this peace that Paul prays that we should know by Christ's presence with us, by his spirit?

We need to know first that this is how peace was established. Jesus Christ took in his own body the punishment due for our sins.

We're justified, and we have peace with God by him, by him alone, by his cross, and by his cross alone.

So Jesus, Lord and ruler, the Lord of peace, the Adonai of peace, the master of peace, he is the one who gives this peace.

He is the one who won this peace. He is the one who accomplished this peace. It is his own princely treasure.

As it says in Isaiah 9 .6, he's the prince of peace. Peace in Micah and Isaiah in the

Old Testament is a very familiar word to most of us. It's shalom in the

Hebrew. We've all heard that. Well, shalom is more than a cessation of hostility.

It's more than a peace treaty between two former enemies. It's wholeness.

It's wholeness of person. Shalom is wholeness and contentedness of mind and spirit.

And it comes from confidence, not in self, but in the Lord. It's to live this life in the confidence that we have peace with God.

A cessation of hostilities between yourself and the master of the universe. And therefore are able to walk confidently in this life.

Wholeness of person. Holistic, I think, is the way we'd say it in our times. It's a peace that permeates your entire being, your whole life.

And this is just what the apostle Paul prays for. It has to be what was on his mind when he wrote this.

May the Lord of peace give you peace at all times and in every way. The peace that Jesus gives, the peace that Paul prays upon you in 2

Thessalonians 3 .16, is again, it's the peace of Philippians 4 .7,

the peace that surpasses all understanding. Now why is that? Have you ever wondered why is it that this peace surpasses all understanding?

Well, why is it indescribable? Why is it beyond our intellect to gather around it and to put it into a framework that we can really say, well, here is how it works, and here's how we can understand this thing and make a logical case for it.

Well, we can't. That a holy God, a God who called everything into existence from nothing that existed before his word said it should exist, this

God whose holiness is so pure that it's indescribable light, that this

God, against whom the smallest sin, and he doesn't call them small sins or big sins, it's all just sin, is an eternal, infinite affront, that this

God would grant you peace, that this God would look at a broken sinner like you or me, see no good in us, no good that would ever come from us, nothing that would be worth bringing into his kingdom, and for his own glory and for his own eternal purposes, place us in his

Son, Jesus Christ, and say, you will benefit from the peace that he wins on the cross.

Why would he do such a thing as that? Because of unbounded mercy, unbounded love, because of his concern for his own glory, yes, all those things.

But now take a good look at yourself, as I could take a good look at myself, and say, why would

God declare peace with me? Why wouldn't he just snuff me in a moment? A peace that surpasses understanding.

It's indescribable. Because if God has so little cause to make peace between me and himself, then what would be the price of that peace?

Then we go to the cross. When we say that God's wrath was poured out on Jesus Christ, that's the price.

That's what God paid in order to have this peace. Is that not a peace that passes all understanding?

And yet that peace won at so awful a price. It's the peace that Paul prays upon the church.

Beyond human capacity to understand how such a God would even consider to have peace with us, and that at the price of his own

Son. It's beyond us to attain a peace that is so encompassing as what Paul prays.

At all times, when you lay down at night and think about tomorrow, when you arise and wonder what the day will bring, in all ways, in every circumstance, do you ever feel like the hard things you deal with are because God is angry with you?

Have you ever felt this way? That you deserve his wrath? I deal with this all the time in my office with people who come and say, yes, this is why things are hard.

God's mad at me. God's angry with me. I sinned and forgot to repent.

Or something along that line. If you're in Christ, then your faith is in the

Lord, Master of Peace. Not a piece of doled out piecemeal. It's the peace that Jesus wanted.

It's the peace that Jesus gives. Do you ever feel like God's mad at you and that's why things went awry?

We need to dissuade ourselves of any such thought. You really do. Because God does not punish the same sin twice.

If your faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ, then your sin was punished on Him. I'm pointing to the cross here on this pulpit.

Where He suffered and died for your sins. Where He paid the price for your sins. And God will not punish them twice.

Now this doesn't mean that God doesn't give hard providences to teach us the error of our ways, so that when we repent and know

His forgiveness and are restored to all righteousness once again, we're closer to the image of Jesus Christ.

He doesn't say it's going to be easy. But He's not angry.

He's not mad. There's no wrath for you. Because His wrath was poured out on Jesus Christ who won us this peace that the

Apostle Paul prays for us. He's not angry. He's not mad at you.

He's shaping you into a better model of Jesus Christ. His peace at all times and in every way.

A peace that surpasses understanding because it's a peace that overcomes all circumstances. Or at least permeates them.

Like a good fragrance coming into a room and you can smell it wherever it goes and it's pleasant. It's everything.

As we go through this life, as we wait for that phone call, for the doctor to say, here's how the blood tests came out, as we wonder when that resume is going to get answered and I'm going to be working again.

All manners of difficulty. It doesn't say they're going to be easy. But if we have this peace that the

Lord of Peace gives, at all times and every way, this shalom that the prophets anticipated from the

Messiah, then you proceed from a foundation of confidence in God. That God is for you.

And if God is for you, who can be against you? And if the Lord of Peace Himself, the Master, the Adonai of Peace, the

Grand Authority of all creation, He, the Lord Jesus Christ, gives you this peace, you have a peace that not only passes your understanding, but you have a peace that is the foundational principle from which you approach all of life, at all times and every way.

Do you know this peace? Do you know this peace of God, by the presence of God within you, amongst us as we worship

Him today? It's by faith. By grace you've been saved through faith, and it's not of yourselves, it's a gift of God.

Do you know this grace of God that gives you faith to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?

There's a peace that comes with that. Knowing that your sins are forgiven. Knowing that God, having poured out

His wrath and His anger at your sins upon Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, therefore all of His suffering could be attributed to you, because He owed no suffering for His own sin.

All of His holiness and perfection could be attributed to the people for whom

He suffered. Therefore you have peace with God, because your sin was answered by Jesus Christ.

And here answers all of our life, does it not? Again, not to make things easy.

It may not be easy. He gives hard providences sometimes, but for your good.

Get rid of this thought, if you've ever had it, that God's wrath is being poured out on me, and that's why this thing went wrong.

Nothing could be further than the truth. This thing went wrong, so that you would give glory to God, and come closer to the image of Christ.

This peace, this gospel, is greater than our issues. And that's why it's at all times, and in every way, that the

Apostle Paul prays for this peace to be known, and the Lord be with you. The Lord who gives this peace,

He be with you. Not just have a happy thought about Jesus. No, His real, literal presence among you.

Always bringing and reminding you of this peace. Lifting you above our circumstances and our times.

It was a sure and certain word that the Apostle Paul gives. In verse 17, he says,

I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. This is the sign of genuineness in every letter of mine.

It is the way I write. In Galatians and Ephesians, he says something very similar.

What he's saying here, is that this letter truly came from me. It appears that there were some false letters, some false teaching had gotten into the church, had infected the

Thessalonians, and gotten them all mixed up about eschatology, about the Lord's return, about what they are to do.

And Paul is reminding them, this is from Him, this is the signature, this is the authenticating sign of his letter.

And he's confident here, that they know that this is the word of God. He's just Paul.

They had him right. He's just a man like the rest, but it says in 1 Thessalonians, that they heard the word that he preached, not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the word of God.

He's reminding them that this is the inspired word of God for all scripture is breathed out by God.

And Peter says it's the spirit of Christ that brings this word. And Paul's reminding them, this is it.

I, Paul, and we could even put parenthetically, as you know, speaking to you or writing to you under inspiration of God, write this with my own hand.

This is the sign of genuineness. He says this greeting. I write this greeting with my own hand.

In Galatians, he speaks of the large letters with which he wrote. Many scholars think that one of his beatings or stonings did some damage to his eye, so he couldn't see well, so his letters were clumsy and large because of his vision.

We don't know if that's true. It makes good sense of what he says when he tells the Galatians, you would have pulled out your own eyes and given to me if that were even possible.

We don't know for sure. But we do know that Paul took time here, took the pen, as it were, from either

Timothy or Silas, who were acting as secretary and taking dictation. He says, no, I have to write this part. To confirm the whole letter, yes.

But I think also because there's a special importance to this doxology, to these last few verses.

Is the way I write? Yes. Is the inspired word of God? Yes. What is so important about these is that the

Lord be with you all. It's the idea of all these commands that we have in Thessalonians which must be obeyed by the church.

Yes, there's many imperatives, but what's the most important thing about awaiting Christ? It's the

Lord be with you all. Not up on the mountainside trying to be the first one to see that cloud on which

Jesus' feet are resting as he comes to us. No.

The Lord be with you all as you wait in the here and now, waiting for the there and then, but waiting in the presence of Lord with his peace upon you and his grace.

I think Paul picked up this pen here and he finished this letter because of the importance of waiting for Christ in his real presence and believing in that real presence.

Jesus is God's grace. If Jesus is the Lord and Master, the purveyor, the winner of the peace that Paul prays upon us, and Jesus is the only one who can bring it to us, the grace of our

Lord Jesus Christ be with you. In John 1 .17, the law came through Moses.

What came through Jesus Christ? Grace and truth. God's grace and God's truth through the

Lord Jesus Christ. God is revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ in his person, in his works, as we have it in Scripture.

All that Jesus Christ did says something about God the Father. The Word actually says he exegeted, he explained, he drew out of Scripture God the

Father so we could understand him. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

The grace of God be amongst you. The grace of God be here with you. The Lord be with you all in peace.

The Lord be with you all by his grace. As we together await his return.

What does it mean to await his return? It means living in the presence of God, knowing the presence of God, growing ever more into the image of Christ Jesus.

And how can we do that? Because we have this foundation of peace with God. We don't have to worry about God smiting us.

Too often we get worried that Jesus Christ or God is mad at us. I go back to what

I was saying a few minutes ago. And we go through this life with our hand over our head in case a bolt of lightning is going to come out and smite us into smithereens.

Because God's mad. Now the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

It's been about God's presence. God's presence known as we await for God to send his son to return, to bring us to him.

By the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have the Lord's peace at all times in every way. We have this shalom.

We have this holistic peace with God. This confidence that we can go through life without worrying about being condemned.

As it says in the book of Romans, if God is for us, who can be against us? If God through his son gives you this peace, who can take it away from you?

If God by his grace dwells in the church, always permeating the church with his grace so that we can speak graciously to one another, who can take that from us?

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. By the gospel we have this peace. By the gospel we have his grace.

Always with us as we meet and as we work together in his name. I think it behooves me also to mention one of the early hymns of praise of Jesus Christ, again very common to hear these days, is in Luke chapter 2.

And what brought this heavenly praise in Luke chapter 2 and verse 14 was the presence of the babe, the babe

Jesus Christ, who would bring this peace I've been speaking of here. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising

God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.

It's the presence of this helpless babe that brought the angelic chorus. On earth peace among those with whom he is well pleased.

His birth, his birth was fully human in every way except for his conception, was then and is now proof positive of God's good will and peace among those with whom he is well pleased.

With whom is he pleased? Now too often we would think, especially in our conservative biblical terms, we would say,

Well, God is pleased with Jesus Christ and no other, and God is certainly pleased in his son. Behold, this is my beloved son in whom

I am well pleased. He said when Jesus was baptized and the Spirit of God in the form of a dove rested upon him.

Yes, I am well pleased in my son. We agree with that. What are the angels singing of here?

In whom he is well pleased. Peace on earth. Let me suggest to you that that's not

Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ doesn't need peace with God. Jesus Christ is

God. Jesus Christ dwells in eternal love as God the Son with God the

Father with God the Spirit. No, he sent those angels to declare peace with those, note the plural, those with whom he is pleased.

And whom is he pleased with? He's pleased with those whose faith is in the

Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know the peace and the grace we've been speaking of here this morning?

This peace and grace that only Jesus Christ can give? This peace that the angels sang about?

Not peace with Jesus, clearly. Jesus never sinned. Jesus needed no peace with God.

Jesus is the peace of God. No, it's men, by which

I mean men and women, humanity, that Jesus came to make peace for between them and God.

The peace of God was not won. The peace of God was not made final until the cross.

And that's why the prophets, Micah, Isaiah, who I read from, could only anticipate it. And therefore, again, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know this peace?

Have you repented and in faith gone to Jesus Christ for forgiveness? Do you know this peace of God that the angels sang about, that the prophets anticipated, and that Paul prays after the cross, after knowing that this peace was accomplished?

I praise upon you. I praise upon the church. Of whom does

Isaiah 9 -6 speak? But him, but the Prince of Peace. The same babe for whom the angels sang,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is well pleased. Not by your works, not by anything in you, but by faith in Christ, by full trust in him.

Because by faith you are in Christ, and so God sees you as having his own righteousness, and therefore you have his peace.

All because of Jesus. All because of him, and by faith, all a gift.

But remember this, as we go through this life in the here and now. Remember this, that God is at peace with you if you are in Christ Jesus.

He's at peace with you, you poor sinner. He's at peace with you, you once proud scholar.

He's at peace with you, little child, who can't even vote, if your faith is in the

Lord Jesus Christ. Peace among those whose hope and whose trust is all in him, peace to you from the

Lord of peace, is what the Apostle Paul prays. Isaiah 57, 20, and 21 says,

But the wicked are like the tossing of the sea, for it cannot be quiet, for its waters toss up mire and dirt.

And then he finishes with something well known, There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked.

There is no peace for the wicked. If you know this peace with God, if you've repented and gone to him, oh, we do wicked things.

We sin often, even as Christians, and need to go to God in repentance and forgiveness.

But if you know this peace, if you have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, God does not see you as wicked.

He says there is no peace for the wicked. If the Apostle Paul prays that the

Lord of peace give you peace at all times, in every way, then this cannot be our description.

By his grace, by the transforming power of his Holy Spirit, he's made peace with sinners through his

Son, Jesus Christ. And as we revel in his presence, as we know his peace and his grace by the

Lord with you all, may we be those who wait rightly for the return of Christ.

May we be those found in the presence of God by his Spirit, always striving to become more like Jesus Christ, looking to his

Word, knowing what he would have of us, and doing it, and living rightly before him, all from the foundation of peace and confidence in God because of what