Mark Batterson - God With Us, The Peace That Passes Understanding
Well, how fun was that? Did you connect the dots? That’s like all the people from all of our trailers this year in a family reunion for Christmas. Pretty fun, pretty fun. Hey, what a joy to be together. 2,000 years ago in a town called Bethlehem, about five miles south of Jerusalem, a teenage girl named Mary gave birth to a baby boy named Jesus. This is when and where and how heaven invaded earth. The word became flesh. History is divided between BC and AD. By lineage, He was the son of David. By divinity, He is the son of God. I know. It’s about to get crazy up in here. 'Tis the season to shop until you drop. 'Tis the season to travel here, there, and everywhere.
So before it gets too busy, before it gets too crazy, can we remember the reason for the season? Welcome to National Community Church. Good to see your faces. A little double entendre there. And those online at our campuses, what a joy to be together. This weekend, we begin a season called advent, a series called «God with Us». Advent is a season of preparation. It’s a season of anticipation, and so over the next four weeks, we’re gonna talk about peace, love, hope, and joy, and I think we need more of all four. Am I in the right room? Okay. Isaiah, chapter 9, verse 6. We read it earlier. It’s hard not to sing it, isn’t it? «Unto us a child». Yeah, right?
«Unto us, a child is born. Unto us a son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders, and He will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, the prince of peace. Of the increase of His government and of His peace, there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over His kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness. From that time on and forever, the zeal of the Lord almighty will accomplish this». Did you catch it? «Of the increase of His peace».
Can I let you in on a little secret? Been praying that for you. We need is peace. We need His peace. 329 times in scripture, it’s one of those theological threads that weaves its way from Genesis to Revelation, and a few of my favorite verses, Isaiah 26:3. «You will keep in perfect peace, those whose minds are stayed on you». Philippians 4:6, and 7. «Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God and the peace of God that passes understanding will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus».
Those are powerful promises. And then you’ve got the priestly blessing, right? «May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn His countenance towards you and give you, » what? Peace. The Hebrew word for peace is Shalom. It was a customary greeting in Judaism that conveyed health, wealth and prosperity, but we have a tendency to reduce complex theological concepts, reduce them into cliches, so let me widen the aperture a little bit because Shalom is so much bigger and better and longer and stronger than just health, wealth, and prosperity. Shalom means complete wholeness.
Shalom is perfect harmony. Shalom is the garden of Eden before the fall. Shalom is original blessing before original sin. Shalom is the restoration of all things back into their original intent, and we get a picture of Shalom at the very end, alternate reality that the Bible calls heaven on the other side of that space time continuum, and guess what? The lion is gonna lay down next to the lamb, and there will be no more pain, no curse, no sickness, no sorrow, no shame. There will only be Shalom. Yeah, maybe a little bit more of an amen. Give me a little bit more of an amen. Even online, c’mon. Now in Judaism, Shalom is relational harmony, and there are four dimensions or four coordinates.
Now I wanna turn this into a little bit of a classroom, and so I’m gonna put some of my scribbling in my journal up on the screen. Sometimes it helps me think in a matrix. I think about four coordinates, and so what you’re gonna see is Shalom right there in the middle, and Shalom is synonymous with Jesus, and so that’s that that place of Shalom, and the first dimension of Shalom is, and it’s four relationships, is our relationship with God, and that would be true north. «The chief aim of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever». It’s the first tenet of the Westminster catechism.
Now our primary problem is when this vertical relationship is out of whack, it results in idolatry issues. We settle for lesser gods with a lower case G. We seek 15 minutes of fame. An idol is anything that you love more, trust more, or desire more than God, and so that’s the problem. As you get further out from Shalom, you just end up with false idols. And AW Tozer said it best. He said, «A low view of God is the cause of a hundred lesser evils, and a high view of God is the solution to 10,000 temporal problems». We’ve gotta get this relationship right. Now the second dimension of Shalom is right relationship with self, and we’ll call that due south right there at the bottom. If your relationship with God is off, in my experience, those idolatry issues will turn into identity issues. It skews the way that we see ourselves.
Now on one side of the spectrum is pride, and that’s a problem, yes? But on the other side of the spectrum is false humility, and it’s failing to understand who we are in Christ, and in Christ is key. And so what I want you to understand today is that false humility is a false identity. It’s living below the authority that God has given us. It’s living below this idea that we’re the apple of God’s eye. We’re the image of God. We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works prepared for us in advance. Instead of resting in His righteousness, I think sometimes we try to save ourselves through self righteousness, or is that just me? It’s the gospel of good works, and it’s a false gospel.
If you leave the cross out of the equation, all that’s left is the social gospel. If our relationship with God is off, are you tracking with me? Our relationship with self is off. And if our relationship with self is off, now our relationship with others is off, and so the third dimension of Shalom is right relationship with others. The image of God in me greets the image of God in you, and this is where our theology of dignity comes into play. There never has been, never will be anyone like you. Not a testament to you, a testament to the God who created you. And so we live in a culture where there is an awful lot of shaming and canceling happening right now, and we operate by a very different ethic. It’s called empathy. It’s called forgiveness. In fact, 70 times 7. And we really don’t have any ground to stand on if we think, «Well, but you don’t know, you don’t know». Well, Jesus is hanging on a cross, and He says, «Father, forgive them for they know what they do».
How do you forgive someone that just nailed your hands and nailed your feet to a crossbar? And when I understand God’s amazing grace, when I live in the freedom of that forgiveness, now I’m able to grace the people around me and forgive the people around me, and now there’s Shalom in those relationships with others. And then finally, you’ve got creation. To me, Shalom is beautifully pictured by the way that the planets are in orbit and the way that even electrons and protons. The quantum mechanics is all about Shalom. It’s this idea that things are held to gather in Him. We live and move and have our being, and it’s so hard to describe this 'cause it’s a little past my pay grade, but I think there are two mistakes that we make. One is worshiping created things, Romans 1. It’s a problem. And the other is using and abusing the things that we’re called to steward as custodians of creation.
And so we tend to drift in one direction or the other, and I think this is where false idols become false securities. We read the Old Testament and there are the people are like little idols and like that they handcrafted, and were like those silly, ancient people as we worship little green pieces of paper. Are we trusting in horses and chariots, or are we trusting in the name of the Lord our God? Long story short, Shalom is right relationship with God, with self, with others, and with creation, and that relational harmony is modeled by the Trinity. We believe in one God, three persons. The Trinity is three part harmony. The Trinity models mutual love, mutual respect, mutual joy. The Trinity is unity in diversity that we call beloved. Community and the early church fathers had a word for this, perichoresis. It’s this choreographed dance between father, son, and Holy Spirit.
In other words, the Trinity is love in motion. The Trinity is Shalom. So I wanna talk about three ways to restore Shalom, three ways to find peace, keep peace, pass the peace. But let me double back and double down on a very simple idea. We have a tendency, I think, maybe in the Western context, to think of peace as something that is internal and emotional. And I wanna be careful here because that’s a dimension of peace. You can have peace in the midst of the storm. You can experience a peace that passes understanding, but peace is so much more than an emotion. And so you can forget about everything else today, but this one thing I sure would love for you to hang on to. Peace is a person, and His name is Jesus, and Isaiah called Him the prince of peace, and so the way you experience Shalom is by being in relationship with Jesus Christ.
Eugene Peterson, pastor at a church in Bel Air, Maryland for almost three decades, author of 50 books. Some of you have «The Message» paraphrase. He’s the one who did that. And many years ago, I had the chance with some leaders to spend a day with Eugene Peterson, and it was crazy. He was dropping the mic like every other sentence. I think he was 83, 84 at the time, and he has a way with words that is almost unparalleled. And so it’s really hard for me 'cause I’ve read so many of his books. It’s really hard for me to say, like, «What did He say that I loved the most»? But this might be right at the top of the list. He said, «Jesus is the dictionary in which we look up the meaning of words».
Like you have to think about that for a second. He is the alpha and omega, the first and last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Jesus is the definition of peace. That’s what I’m getting at. Jesus is Shalom was skin on. And so if we wanna understand Shalom, we’ve gotta look at the life of Jesus. And so five snapshots. We’re gonna go fast. The first Shalom is this angelic announcement in Luke 2. About 700 years after Isaiah prophesies the prince of peace, shepherds are watching their flocks by night, and this choir of angels shows up and sing, «Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace and goodwill toward men». And so if you’re taking notes, maybe jot this down. Shalom is the goodwill of God. «No good thing will God withhold from those who walk uprightly before him», Psalm 84. «Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, » Psalm 23. Shalom is the favor of God. Shalom is original blessing.
Now the second Shalom is a miracle 12 years in the making. Remember this? Mark 5. Jesus is in the middle of a mosh pit, and a woman crowd surfs all the way and somehow touches the hem of His garment. Jesus feels this power surge, and He says something to her that He doesn’t say anywhere else in the gospels. It’s the only place where He says, «Daughter». He calls her daughter. It’s this term of endearment. I think His compassion, He was moved with compassion all the time and His empathy. Just, «Daughter, thy faith has made you whole». And what does Jesus say? «Go in peace».
And so in this instance, it seems to me like Shalom is healing. Shalom is healing. But this is also multidimensional because in this context, she would have been considered unclean and would’ve been ostracized and marginalized, would not have been able to be in relationship with other peace, so Jesus doesn’t just heal her body. He restores her relationships, and I’ve gotta think over 12 years that He heals her mind. This is like body, soul, and spirit. Shalom is healing. I just feel like after each one of these, let’s just give it in amen, 'cause it means so be it. Amen to God’s goodwill. Amen to healing.
Now the third Shalom is the woman who breaks the alabaster jar. And isn’t it interesting that she gets canceled by the religious leaders? Why? Because that’s a waste of money. «We could’ve used that. That was a year’s wages. We could’ve used that for some other purpose». But Jesus comes to her defense as He always does, right? And He restores her dignity, and then He says something that’s so, this is not what she was asking for. When you read the gospels, how often does Jesus do for someone the thing that they aren’t asking for? 'Cause most of us usually come to God with symptoms, and God wants to do something so much deeper in our hearts. We want God to solve this.
«Oh, but I’m cultivating something in your life that you’re gonna need a few years from now». So it wasn’t what she was asking for. But Jesus says, «Your sins are forgiven, » and now those same religious leaders cancel Jesus, right? Because that’s crossing the line 'cause only God can forgive sins. So in this instance, Shalom is forgiveness. So Shalom is goodwill. Shalom is healing. Shalom is forgiveness, and I might add, I think Shalom is shame free. And I want you to notice the catalyst. The catalyst was worship. This woman begins to worship Jesus, and the net result, Jesus says, «Your faith has saved you. Go in peace».
Now the fourth Shalom is this perfect storm on the sea of Galilee and Jesus taking a nap. Disciples wake Him up, and do you remember what they say? «Teacher, don’t you care if we drown»? You gotta be kidding me. Are you serious? «You followed me for three years. You’ve seen the miracles that I’ve done». But in a crisis, people sometimes change. Sometimes crisis can bring out the worst, and people started to pay the blame game. Everybody wants to blame somebody for everything. And so what are they? «Don’t you even care if we drown»? And I love what Jesus does. He doesn’t start bailing the boat, doesn’t grab an oar and start rowing. He stands up in the boat and He rebukes the wind, and He says to the waves, «Peace, be still».
I know. I know that there are situations in your life. The wind is blowing, and the waves are crashing into the boat. It’s a marriage that’s on the rocks. It’s a relationship that’s not right with someone you love. It’s a workplace that, man, if we were to cuff ya and take your blood pressure, it just goes up. When you walk into that, I know, I know. And I don’t have all the answers, but we are people of peace, and somehow, some way, there’s gotta come a moment where you don’t just let things happen. You stand up in the boat in the middle of a storm and you pronounce peace because the peace of God that is in you now begins to affect the people around you. We stand in the gap as peacemakers, grace givers, and tone setters. And so I would say that Shalom is exercising our authority with humility. That’s what Jesus does here. You can’t take it sitting down. Sometimes you gotta stand up.
Now I don’t have time for this. Edwin Friedman, a Jewish rabbi but was a family systems therapist actually up in Bethesda, he talked about leadership as being a non-anxious presence. Over the last two years, I’ve had opportunity to speak at different leadership conferences, different gatherings of pastors, and I almost always talk about this because I think this is a moment where leadership’s hard on all levels. But this is a moment when leaders lead, and I think a big part of that is each one of us has a certain energy, and I wanna be careful here. That’s actually true in terms of physics. We have an energy, but have you ever noticed that your kids can pick up on your energy? Especially nervous energy? Even your dog.
If you have a dog, your dog can pick up on your energy. Am I right? Right? So my question for you is when you walk into the room, and I don’t care how old you are or how young you are, when you walk into the room, does the anxiety level go up or does it go down? Dr. King said, «Let’s not be thermometers that just reflect room temperature. Let’s be third thermostats that shift the temperature». And to me I’m so old, like anybody under 30 is super young, but I’m looking at our kids. I’m looking at our kids. I’m just, «May God raise you up». I’m looking at Callie. May God raise you up. You can walk into the room, and you can be that non-anxious presence. You can be the one who stands up in the boat or on the playground or wherever else and say, «Peace, be still, » 'cause that’s who we are. Let’s stay calm and carry on. That’s Shalom.
All right, the fifth one. Oh man, we are so running out of time. John 20, after the resurrection, Jesus appears to the disciples. He says, «My peace be with you, » not once but twice. Do you remember that? Then He does something so curious. And what I’m gonna do is I’m not gonna talk about that right now. NCC Daily, Monday morning, I wanna unpack this fifth Shalom, but I will say this, that there’s a moment where, right after that, it says, «Jesus breathed on them». And sometimes you have to read the Bible a lot of times in a lot of different versions to pick up on why things are actually in there because that is so curious to me. As far as I know, I can’t remember another moment in the gospels where it specifically says that Jesus breathed on them. What does that even about, and how did He breathe? And there’s a lot about this that I don’t understand, but it says, «He breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'»
This is the changing of the guard. Jesus is about to ascend to the father, and so this is the moment, the precursor to Pentecost, where it’s not just God with us, God for us. It’s now God in us. And so I would simply say that Shalom is spirit filled. The internal pressure of the Holy Spirit within us has to be greater than the external pressure around us. Okay, we’re gonna go fast. Three ways to find peace, keep peace, pass the peace. Are we doing okay? Okay. One, confess your sin; two, love your enemy; three, prophesy your praise. I John 1:8 and 9. «If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us». Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt. We may deceive ourselves, but we’re not fooling anybody else around us, are we? Then John flips the coin. «If we confess our sin, He’s faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness».
As I see it, and please just dial in right here, two choices, repression or confession. When it comes to our sin, we can repress it. We can ignore it, deny it, conceal it, try to go about our business, but the problem is it fractures this vertical relationship with God. And so you wonder, «Why do I not feel internal peace? Why do I feel internal angst»? Sometimes, not always, but sometimes it’s because there’s some sin in our life that is unconfessed, and like that the pain reflex, the conviction of the Holy Spirit loves us too much to leave us in a condition that’s not right. And so in my experience, if you don’t listen to everything the Holy Spirit has to say, you won’t hear anything the Holy Spirit asked to say. You have to listen to the convicting voice of the Holy Spirit if you wanna hear the comforting voice of the Holy Spirit.
And so whatever you repress will eventually depress, but confession is the alternative to admitting what’s wrong, and that’s where healing happens. Now, what does sin have to do with peace? And this is where it gets interesting. The theologian Cornelius Platinga defines sin as the opposite of Shalom. He calls it «the culpable disturbance of Shalom». That’s what sin is. Sin is disturbing that peace that God wants us to have, and so when we confess our sin, now our sin is forgiven and forgotten, and there’s this internal peace. You can picture that chart in your mind, remember? God on top self, on the bottom. Here’s the problem and here’s the catch. I think sometimes it’s easier for us to let God forgive us. We can receive His forgiveness, and it’s much harder to forgive ourselves.
And so you gotta get it from true north down to due south. You’ve gotta get that forgiveness down here and realize and understand that it’s His righteousness. Religion is spelled do. It’s all about what you can do for God. Christianity’s spelled done. It’s done. It is finished. It’s all about the righteousness of Christ. It’s about what Christ has done for us. And when we are justified, just as if I’d never sinned, now, now, okay, my identity is in Christ. Okay, gotta jump. Hyperspace. Confess your sin. Two, love your enemy. Oh man. Yeah, just do that. That’s good. We’re done here evidently. No, I will ask a couple of questions. Is there a seed of bitterness? Is there a grudge you can’t let go of? Is there a root of jealousy? Is there any forgiveness? Is there any offense that you have not overlooked? That horizontal relationship isn’t gonna be right until you recognize you’ve experienced God’s forgiveness, you’ve forgiven yourself, but there’s another dimension to Shalom. You have to forgive the people around you.
Louie Giglio, who I love, Louie wrote a book not long ago, and I love the title. «Don’t Give the Enemy a Seat at Your Table». Well, what does that mean? Well, here’s my take on it. If you’re harboring unforgiveness in your heart, you’re giving the enemy a seat at your table. If you’re holding a garage or gossiping behind someone’s back, you’re giving the enemy a seat at your table. If you hang onto an offense, you’re giving the enemy a seat at your table. If you let fear dictate your decisions, you’re giving the enemy a seat at your table. If you fail to forgive others, fail to forgive yourself, you’re giving the enemy a seat at your table. Come on, you gotta drop, kick that, right? Get rid of that seat at your table.
If you give the enemy an inch, he’s gonna take a mile. Forgiveness is so key to Shalom, and then finally, prophecy your praise. I’m gonna invite worship teams, all of our campuses to just prepare to lead us here in just a couple of moments. Prophesy your praise. Revelation 5:11–14, and I’ll close with this. «Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands and 10,000 times 10,000. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and elders, and they sang a mighty chorus. 'Worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise.' Then I heard every creature». And I want you to notice this. «In heaven, » okay? «And on earth and under the earth and in the sea», and they sang, «To Him who sits on the throne and to the lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and power forever and ever».
Come on, the day is coming when every nation, tribe, people, language will surround the throne of God and worship Him. But Shalom is not just a prophetic picture of a future tense reality. This is happening present tense. So when we worship, now we begin to mirror what is happening in heaven. Give me two minutes, okay? It’s gonna be worth it as we get ready to sing this closing song. According to Leonard Bernstein, the former director of the New York Philharmonic, winner of 11 Emmys and 17 Grammys, but who’s counting? The best translation of Genesis 1:3 is not, «and God said». «And God sang». According to physicists, every atom in the universe sings a unique song. To put that in more scientific terms, every atom emits and absorbs energy at a unique frequency. I’ll pick on hydrogen.
Hydrogen is the first element in the periodic table, right? It’s the lightest element, and it’s the most abundant element in the universe. It’s colorless, odorless, tasteless, but with every breath, you inhale approximately seven quadrillion molecules of hydrogen. Hydrogen has a resonant frequency of 1,420,405,752 Hertz. Let me get where this is going. According to Arnold Sommerfeld, German physicist and pianist, a hydrogen atom emits more frequencies than a grand piano. Grand piano has 88 frequencies. Hydrogen atom, 100 frequencies. According to Leonard Sweet, the carbon atom produces the same chords as a Gregorian chant. Things that make you go hmm. There are whale songs right now that travel 10,000 miles under the water. Think about that. Meadowlarks have a range of 300 notes, and super sensitive sound machines have found that even earthworms make faint staccato notes. You know I geek out on this stuff.
Lewis Thomas, the Harvard etymologist, read one of His books years ago, and he said it this way. «If we had better hearing and could discern the singing of seabirds and the rhythmic drumming of schools of mollusks or even the distant harmonics of flies hovering over the meadows in the sun, the combined sound might lift us off of our feet».
When we cross the space time continuum, we will get a glorified body, and that glorified body will include glorified senses. Right now, you can only hear between 20 and 20,000 Hertz. That’s such a thin slice. That’s all that’s audible. Everything above and below that is infrasonic or ultrasonic. What I’m getting at, all of creation is singing God’s praise. All of His creation, and so in Genesis 1:3, it says, «And God sang, » and God begins to harmonize things into existence, this expression of Shalom, and we experience Shalom when now we give our song back to Him.
And you know what? Can I remind us? As you stand, wherever you are, online, here, in the house stand 'cause then you’re gonna believe that I’m really almost done. Can I remind you that you have a unique fingerprint, voiceprint, eye print, all of this, and I would include soul print. In other words, no one can worship God like you or for you. Do not make it the mistake of thinking, «Well, there’s a lot of people singing. What difference does my voice make? And I don’t even sing on pitch». No, no, no. God loves your voice. He loves your voice.
And so here’s the deal. Really, somehow, Lord, give us a revelation of what is happening in the spiritual realm right now because Psalm 32:7 says that God is surrounding us with songs of deliverance. God is singing all around you all the time. He’s singing songs of deliverance. In Zephaniah 3:17, «He rejoices over you with singing». Are you picking up what I’m throwing down? God is singing all around you! God is singing over you! So it’s not like we get up here and start playing a note. That’s not what’s happening. No, no, no. We respond to the song that God is singing around us and over us. So would you raise your voice and give God the worship that he deserves? Let’s worship Him together.