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Ever felt the weight of the world on your shoulders, with anxiety and fear creeping in? Can you imagine releasing those worries, being enveloped in a peace that surpasses all understanding? Join us this week as we discuss the journey to finding true peace in the midst of life's chaos, using personal experiences and insights drawn from the book of Luke. We delve into the profound message of hope conveyed through the birth of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, and how this Gospel story offers a beacon of tranquility in our troubled world.
Hello and welcome back once again to the Real Friends Podcast Colin. The Advent series, colin, week number two is punctuation all over the place, pastor.
Speaker 2:
Hey everybody, thanks so much for listening. I hope, after seven episodes on the Advent theme of hope, I hope you indeed feel more hopeful.
Speaker 1:
Yes, and now we are going to try to encourage you to feel a little bit more peaceful this particular week and take a deep breath in and out. So we just went in search of a tiny little bit of peace with a little bit of breathing there. We invited everybody to do that along with us and I'm going to guess most everybody did, because everyone is on a search for peace. It's absolutely universal.
Speaker 2:
People today, perhaps more than ever, are overcome with anxiety, which is the antithesis of peace. Forbes magazine, as a matter of fact, recently published some statistics stating that over 40 million adults in the US suffer from anxiety disorders. That does not include just the undiagnosed daily anxieties that we face every single day You're running the mill.
Speaker 1:
Insanity, yeah.
Speaker 2:
And you know it's no wonder. You know, life brings us many situations that challenge our peace. I mean, goodness, we've got watch the news right. I mean there's wars, there's violence, there's natural disasters, what else?
Speaker 1:
Oh there's. You know, a good friend of mine is, you know, going through a lot of medical stuff that you know is causing him to be on a very specific search for peace, you know spiritual. And then you know, another work friend of mine going through, you know, divorce. He says he hasn't had any peace in his house in eight years.
Speaker 2:
So, in addition to all of those anxieties, you know, we have just the everyday frustrations in life that can cause us great anxiety and I'm going to mention something.
Speaker 2:
I feel bad even mentioning it because you know I've got friends right now who are dealing with horrible tragedies and so but but I do just want to mention just a couple of just minor things that happened Thursday and Friday that caused me some anxiety. So, thursday, we are working on making these posters for the children's Christmas play and we're trying to use this device, which is essentially a glorified hole punter that puts grommets in these folders, fancy, yeah. Well, we were having no luck. Several people tried, you know to, to get the device to work and I kept trying, to no avail. But I was determined I would not admit defeat, and so I ended up putting the device on a printer that was sitting above me and so I went to push down on it.
Speaker 2:
I did not have the force of my you know massive biceps to help me. You would have pumped up, so it was literally all. The force was on my wrist, in my hand, and I automatically heard a. I suddenly heard a pop and I just felt this shooting pain throughout my wrist and hand and I thought I'd broken it. So I ended up being able to move it. So I thought, ah it'll get better.
Speaker 2:
Did it get better right away? It didn't. Actually, it swelled up a little bit that night. I went the next morning to Chick-fil-A to our men's Bible study, which if you're a man and you're listening and you're not there, you need to come, and after that I ended up going to the ER at seven, 15 on a yeah, on Friday morning, and thankfully nothing's broken.
Speaker 2:
But they think I could have possibly torn a ligament, so I'm supposed to give it a few days. So I thought, well, it can only go up from here. Nope, I had a luncheon, a Christmas party for my dad's roofing company at noon in Lexington.
Speaker 2:
So I'm on the interstate and driving my truck and I start hearing this clinging sound. Well, at that particular moment I was by a big semi and I thought, well, it's coming from the semi truck. But then I passed the semi, get a little bit down the road, and still heard it.
Speaker 2:
I thought man that might not be the semi. So I'm about a mile away from the Richmond road exit, so I thought I'm going to make it there to. You know, pull off the ramp and you know I'll check it out. So as soon as I pull off the interstate, I hear a really loud clank sound and I look at my rear view mirror only to find this massive, like five foot tailpipe being tossed through the air. Oh goodness, and I thought, if that would have happened 20 seconds earlier, I would have caused a pile up on the interstate.
Speaker 1:
That would have created a lot more anxiety for everybody, but even as it was, this was a lot of anxiety. Did everything work itself out it?
Speaker 2:
did, got it fixed that day, no big deal. But my point is it's just those. You know we all experience, in addition to the big problems and tragedies of life we just have everyday anxieties and thankfully there is a solution.
Speaker 1:
isn't there?
Speaker 2:
Oh, do tell.
Speaker 1:
Somehow, I think, you know where this is going. Let's go to the book of Luke, chapter 2, a-14, a very, very familiar set of verses. But really, as you listen to this, think about this in terms of bringing peace. And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field to keep you watch over their flock by night, and an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone round them and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people, for unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ, the Lord, and this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. 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 Amongst those with whom he is pleased.
Speaker 2:
Yes, the angels rejoiced because one God was glorified and number two, they rejoiced because the arrival of God's peace upon the earth, because the Prince of peace had come. So in Isaiah 9, there's another, there's a very familiar prophecy about the birth of Jesus. The prophet says that the child would be called Prince of Peace.
Speaker 1:
There's that word again.
Speaker 2:
Our Prince of Shalom.
Speaker 1:
Oh, speaking of Dutel, I have a feeling there's something key there. Shalom peace. What is the connection here?
Speaker 2:
The word is so important in you know, to the Jews that actually, even to this day they will many of them will greet one another and say goodbye by using this word, Shalom, and I think we should perhaps employ that as well.
Speaker 1:
Indeed. So what is it exactly that the word means? Because it sounds like it means simply more, or can mean more than more than wishing a lack of general anxiety on someone. I hope you it's not like just saying I hope your day is peaceful.
Speaker 2:
Yeah Well, our English word peace is just simply defined as tranquility or, negatively, the absence of war or disturbance.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's not the full definition of Shalom.
Speaker 2:
No, it doesn't. We don't have an English word that can communicate the full weight of this word, shalom. So I guess you could say the meaning of the word Shalom. It could be summarized with the word wholeness. So, in addition to peace from war and tranquility, it does include those things, but it means probably first and foremost peace with God's, or we could say spiritual, peace. It includes safety, welfare, prosperity, health, contentment and peace in relationships. So it also is very closely connected with the idea of justice.
Speaker 1:
I knew some of the rest of this, but not that it was closely connected to justice. It is.
Speaker 2:
Well, that's what Tim Keller says, and so it's gospel truth. So, in a world full of injustice and violence and anxiety, I think, matthew, we all long for Shalom. I know I do.
Speaker 1:
Yes, god's peace. I think a fun way to close out this idea is with a really Christmas time example, because we want this to be, you know, relatable to everybody. And if there's one thing that I know that we've all watched maybe a million times, it is the Charlie Brown Christmas story. Oh, nostalgic, yeah. Now, what you may not be, you may or may not have noticed my father, who I know is listening to this series, and he will be thrilled because he's the one who told me about this many, many years ago.
Speaker 1:
The next time you watch it, watch for something that Linus does when he gets to the part of the verse that says fear not. You know, from Luke 2, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy. He does something. What is he always carrying with him, forever and evermore, in peanuts? His security blanket. He drops it on the stage in front of him, right there, and doesn't pick it back up. He loses some of his anxiety just reading and hearing the word of God. And this was not an accident on the part of Charles Schultz, this was very much by design. And how powerful is that that, wherever else that we are on this universal quest for peace, that, in fact, if we just turn to God's word or turn to prayer, we can find it in spades.
Speaker 2:
I have never noticed that or made that connection in Charlie Brown. I hadn't until my father pointed it out, but he is so powerful, the verse that you read from verses that you read from the book of Luke. They're familiar verses, we've heard them many times and we risk with familiarity, we risk being numb to the words. But I hope, as our listeners and even you and I, matthew here today, those words about the arrival of peace, I hope we will now drop our security blanket.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and absolutely fear not yeah and soak in the peace of God. I did a Google search today how to find peace 2.85 billion results. People are on a quest, but there's one place to find peace it's in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, and we're going to talk more about that tomorrow.
