WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.140 So this evening we're going to look back at Jeremiah chapter 8 as part of a wider thematic 00:00:09.140 --> 00:00:13.599 sermon this evening, which is the first of four. 00:00:13.599 --> 00:00:18.240 I'm going to be doing four next, well it's next two and then there's a break, so I'm 00:00:18.240 --> 00:00:24.280 away and then the following two Sunday evenings, a four-part series that's entitled, Miserable 00:00:24.280 --> 00:00:31.640 as Sin. So, you know, I know how to give the congregation a good time. 00:00:31.640 --> 00:00:43.799 But I think it's a really important subject and I feel in my own heart, I can't speak 00:00:43.799 --> 00:00:49.840 for anyone else, but certainly in my own heart I feel that the seriousness of sin isn't 00:00:49.840 --> 00:00:54.680 what it should be. And when that's the case then obviously the glory of the gospel isn't 00:00:54.680 --> 00:00:59.920 what it should be either. It has a knock-on effect. 00:00:59.920 --> 00:01:07.960 And so really what I'm looking at this evening is an introductory study and we're going to 00:01:07.960 --> 00:01:16.879 look at the theme of peace or dis-peace as a result of sin, which will lead in the next 00:01:16.879 --> 00:01:23.560 three sermons to division, disintegration and death, okay? Happy times. 00:01:23.560 --> 00:01:28.000 So that's what we're going to be looking at. And generally speaking, I'm not trying in 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:33.879 this series to give a theological definition of sin. I will give a definition of sin, which 00:01:33.879 --> 00:01:41.120 I hope is theological. But I'm more intent to look at what the Bible says about the effects 00:01:41.120 --> 00:01:48.040 of sin, the effects of turning away from God in the world in which we live and in our lives, 00:01:48.040 --> 00:01:55.560 because that's where the rubber really hits the road for us. We can have all the theological 00:01:55.560 --> 00:02:02.280 descriptions and explanations for sin that we want, but unless we see it in reality in 00:02:02.280 --> 00:02:05.400 our lives and in the world in which we live then it's probably not going to have that 00:02:05.400 --> 00:02:12.319 much effect. I want us to be able to see what God says about sin as He sees it, because 00:02:12.319 --> 00:02:16.120 the trouble is a lot of the time we think we see sin as we see it, and it's not that 00:02:16.120 --> 00:02:21.800 significant maybe in our lives, but the Bible wants us to see sin as He sees it, and therefore 00:02:21.800 --> 00:02:26.280 it makes everything about grace and the gospel all that more attractive, which I hope will 00:02:26.280 --> 00:02:30.400 come round to in each of the sermons of course, in particular this evening as we celebrate 00:02:30.400 --> 00:02:35.280 the Lord's Supper together. But I'm going to begin with a definition of sin, which I'm 00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:45.040 jumping forward from week 16 of Sunday 16 of the New City Catechism. I'm not going 00:02:45.040 --> 00:02:49.400 to look at it, I'm going to say what that definition is. If you're visiting with us, 00:02:49.400 --> 00:02:55.879 we're looking at the New City Catechism in the morning and reciting each one of them. 00:02:55.879 --> 00:03:00.400 Before 16, the question is what is sin? And the answer that gives is sin is rejecting or 00:03:00.400 --> 00:03:05.400 ignoring God in the world He created, rebelling against Him by living without reference to 00:03:05.400 --> 00:03:11.400 Him, not being or doing what He requires in His law, resulting in our death and the disintegration 00:03:11.400 --> 00:03:18.240 of all creation. It's a very fulsome and helpful definition. It's probably if someone 00:03:18.240 --> 00:03:25.840 asked you what sin is as a kind of theological person, if you are, you would say it's breaking 00:03:25.840 --> 00:03:30.439 God's law. That's what it is, breaking the Ten Commandments. And that's what we've been 00:03:30.439 --> 00:03:34.600 brought up to believe, and rightly so, because that's what it is. But I think there's been 00:03:34.600 --> 00:03:40.480 a danger for a misunderstanding of that for us where we've seen the law as like just a 00:03:40.480 --> 00:03:46.879 set of rules. And it's easy to break rules, isn't it? We've seen the law as a set of 00:03:46.879 --> 00:03:55.039 rules rather than a relational law, a breaking of faith, a breaking of relationship with 00:03:55.039 --> 00:04:05.919 the living God, so that we easily fall into being moralistic. It's what we do rather than 00:04:05.919 --> 00:04:12.319 what we are, what we are in our being. It's simply our behavior sometimes rather than 00:04:12.319 --> 00:04:17.800 our motive and our heart. And when we just think of breaking God's law like breaking 00:04:17.800 --> 00:04:23.519 the speed limit, then we often are thinking of sin in a very shallow and legalistic and 00:04:23.519 --> 00:04:28.120 moralistic way. But it is much deeper than that, because remember the Ten Commandments 00:04:28.120 --> 00:04:36.319 are laws of love. Love the Lord your God with all your heart. Love your neighbor as yourself. 00:04:36.319 --> 00:04:42.920 That's the basis of these commandments. They're not simply moral law rules, right and wrong. 00:04:42.920 --> 00:04:49.319 It's about relationship with God. And breaking the law is leaving God out of our hearts. 00:04:49.319 --> 00:04:54.600 It's taking His good things sometimes, things that are not wrong, and making them ultimate 00:04:54.600 --> 00:05:01.360 things, worshiping them, putting them first, ignoring and rejecting and relegating God to 00:05:01.360 --> 00:05:08.080 the sidelines. It's not coming to terms with His standard of love and the seriousness of 00:05:08.080 --> 00:05:16.400 rejecting His rightful claim to lordship over our lives, because of who He is in the reality 00:05:16.400 --> 00:05:21.720 of the world in which we live. Now sin, the word itself, has got lots of different definitions 00:05:21.720 --> 00:05:26.600 in the Bible as well, which help us if we are simply speaking about definitions. It 00:05:26.600 --> 00:05:34.800 talks about missing the mark or falling short or being on the wrong path or doing anything 00:05:34.800 --> 00:05:41.920 contrary to God's nature, something deserving of punishment. It's a twisting of the straight 00:05:41.920 --> 00:05:49.480 path. It's being rebellious. It's being guilty. These are all words that help define and explain 00:05:49.480 --> 00:05:54.600 what sin is in our lives. But what I want to do this evening for a little while is look 00:05:54.600 --> 00:06:02.960 at what sin looks like in one area, and do that by looking at the whole biblical concept 00:06:02.960 --> 00:06:12.360 of shalom, the biblical idea of peace. Verse 11 of Jeremiah 8, and Jeremiah is a book 00:06:12.360 --> 00:06:17.040 spoken to God's people. I'll come back to it in a minute, but he says, They have healed 00:06:17.040 --> 00:06:21.280 the wounds of my people lightly. This is the false prophet saying peace, peace, for there 00:06:21.279 --> 00:06:26.799 is no peace. And that's what I want to look at for a little bit this evening, because 00:06:26.799 --> 00:06:31.839 peace in the Bible or shalom, that word in the Bible, it means much more than we sometimes 00:06:31.839 --> 00:06:39.000 take peace to mean we think often of peace, kind of as the absence of war, and which it 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:44.159 is. But it's much, biblically, it's much more than that. Shalom in the Bible is a very, 00:06:44.159 --> 00:06:49.279 very pregnant word, a very powerful, strong word and a word full of meaning. It means 00:06:49.279 --> 00:06:56.359 wholeness and harmony between God and His people, and between God and His people and 00:06:56.359 --> 00:07:03.399 the created world in which we live. It's about being absolutely completely at peace within 00:07:03.399 --> 00:07:11.599 ourselves and with God. It's primarily relational. It's related to justice and love and fruitfulness 00:07:11.599 --> 00:07:19.119 and blessing and joy and all these great Bible terms for good life. Probably the best 00:07:19.120 --> 00:07:26.840 visual description of what shalom means is the idea of walking with God in the garden. 00:07:26.840 --> 00:07:30.879 At the very beginning Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden. That is that right 00:07:30.879 --> 00:07:38.840 relationship in a beautiful place where we were, humanity was in that great relationship 00:07:38.840 --> 00:07:46.639 with God the Father, and everything was right, and everything was in its proper place, and 00:07:46.639 --> 00:07:51.919 people loved one another, and God loved us, and we lived in a perfect environment as the 00:07:51.919 --> 00:08:02.959 fabric around which we existed, a righteous and a just place. Shalom, peace. Shalom. 00:08:02.959 --> 00:08:10.079 Sin is, we've gone into darkness on the side, sin, very good timing, thanks. I was just 00:08:10.079 --> 00:08:13.839 when I started talking about sin, and I cranked up the heat in the place as well just while 00:08:13.839 --> 00:08:21.959 we're talking about sin and hell and everything else. So sin breaks God's shalom. That's 00:08:21.959 --> 00:08:28.199 the concept I want to get out of the truth, sin breaks God's shalom. Dispeace. That's 00:08:28.199 --> 00:08:35.120 what sin does. Sin means that we have broken faith with God, so that right relationship 00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:41.480 is gone, and instead of God making the rules of love, we make them, we make them up. We 00:08:41.480 --> 00:08:46.800 change them, we redefine them, we usurp God in His rightful place, and we even choose 00:08:46.800 --> 00:08:52.000 our own path back to Him, thinking that we know better how to get back to God than God 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:57.480 Himself knows, and it's a path that we never reach Him with, because we don't know better 00:08:57.480 --> 00:09:02.200 than God. We've broken faith with Him, and it brings dispeace at the very core of our 00:09:02.200 --> 00:09:08.800 being. It means not only breaking faith, it means just simply being wrong with God, and 00:09:08.799 --> 00:09:15.639 that's so big. It's so big because He is loving and just, and yet His justice demands that 00:09:15.639 --> 00:09:21.959 a breach of His peace, we talk about a breach of the peace. This is the ultimate breach of 00:09:21.959 --> 00:09:30.079 the peace, but it's punishable by separation from Him as the author of life until it can 00:09:30.079 --> 00:09:37.599 be put right. So it's knowing, it's knowing how sin is significant to, we can't just 00:09:37.600 --> 00:09:42.440 throw up our hands and say, well, that's just an old fasting concept of sin. This is what 00:09:42.440 --> 00:09:48.279 God says, and what we recognize through His Word and through His truth, being wrong with 00:09:48.279 --> 00:09:54.560 God, breaking faith with God, and it means dispeace. It means being wrong everywhere, 00:09:54.560 --> 00:10:00.200 that everything is wrong, because we have broken faith with God and we have rejected 00:10:00.200 --> 00:10:08.200 His shalom. The consequence is acrimony in the world, in relationships, in the workplace, 00:10:08.200 --> 00:10:14.879 in the family, in the neighborhood, in our hearts. It means bad blood, it means bitterness, 00:10:14.879 --> 00:10:20.640 it means dislike, it means hostility. And we see that, don't we? We see that right from 00:10:20.640 --> 00:10:27.800 the beginning. The glorious, the glorious teaching of Genesis 3 in all its horror. 00:10:27.799 --> 00:10:34.159 But immediately, we see dispeace between God and humanity, and we immediately see dispeace 00:10:34.159 --> 00:10:37.839 between Adam and Eve. She did it, he did it, it's her fault, she'd never have given me 00:10:37.839 --> 00:10:48.799 her. Dispeace and bitterness and dislike and hostility, which immediately tumbles into 00:10:48.799 --> 00:10:58.039 the fracticide, the murder Cain killing Abel, and then nations with all their wars and cultures 00:10:58.039 --> 00:11:04.279 and relationships between races, between people and animals, and between people and animals 00:11:04.279 --> 00:11:11.879 and the environment and God and one another. That's the story of the Bible. We need to 00:11:11.879 --> 00:11:18.519 remember and recognize that that's what the Bible speaks about. It's a record of dispeace, 00:11:18.519 --> 00:11:26.960 so it's bloody. It's a bloody record. It's a sore record. It's brutal in many of its 00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:33.840 parts. It speaks of judgment and pain, and it's honest and true to the life that we 00:11:33.840 --> 00:11:40.799 live. It speaks of depression and discord and separation and questions and doubts and 00:11:40.799 --> 00:11:49.159 fears. And it's a mirror into the reality of the world in which we live and into our 00:11:49.159 --> 00:11:56.199 hearts. And what do you do? What do I do? With God's word, we have many options. We 00:11:56.199 --> 00:12:06.240 can recoil from it. We can avoid it. We can choose to reinterpret it so it's more cuddly, 00:12:06.240 --> 00:12:13.799 and we can ignore it, which is often what we do, because we find it hard. But we can 00:12:13.799 --> 00:12:21.000 hear it. We can, in all its honesty, we can hear it because it is also the only way to 00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:27.879 the restoration of Shalom, to the restoration of God's world and of our relationship with 00:12:27.879 --> 00:12:34.000 Him and with one another. But in order to do that, and I guess this is the motivation 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:42.279 behind the series, it always means taking sin seriously. It means taking sin seriously 00:12:42.279 --> 00:12:47.840 and seeing it as God sees it, and not just shrugging our shoulders saying, and the worst 00:12:47.840 --> 00:12:53.360 thing of all is saying, Jesus died for me. He's paid the price of my sins. I can do what 00:12:53.360 --> 00:13:00.120 I like. Now that is all, and I don't think any of us think that consciously, but sometimes 00:13:00.120 --> 00:13:10.240 we live like that. There's a kind of visual shrugging of our shoulders by the way we live, 00:13:10.240 --> 00:13:18.440 which says that sin doesn't really matter. So Jeremiah here speaks into that, and we 00:13:18.440 --> 00:13:29.440 remember verse 11 as part of that hard reading that was read for us by Ross. It was written 00:13:29.440 --> 00:13:35.600 to the people of God, and specifically exposing the false teachers who were taking God's 00:13:35.600 --> 00:13:45.320 word and were transforming it, were changing it, were treating it like plasticine, which 00:13:45.320 --> 00:13:49.960 they could mold into any way they wanted. The prophet and the priests, everyone deals 00:13:49.960 --> 00:13:54.880 falsely, not just the prophets, everyone as well. They have healed the wound of my people 00:13:54.879 --> 00:14:01.439 lightly, saying peace, peace, where there is no peace. They were dealing, they thought 00:14:01.439 --> 00:14:05.240 exactly what I've been saying, it's often the case in my own heart, they were dealing 00:14:05.240 --> 00:14:12.120 with sin as it was a light thing, an insignificant thing. They'd lost sight of the horror of sin, 00:14:12.120 --> 00:14:20.639 the way God sees it. They knew God's story. They knew about the fact that they'd been 00:14:20.639 --> 00:14:26.679 enslaved in Egypt and all the slavery that that symbolized in their lives. They'd received 00:14:26.679 --> 00:14:30.720 God's salvation, they'd heard God's word, they'd seen God's judgment, they'd seen his 00:14:30.720 --> 00:14:36.279 salvation. But here they were, by this time, they were laughing it off, as if it was something 00:14:36.279 --> 00:14:44.759 insignificant. And they had taken God, and they had turned away from Him, and they therefore 00:14:44.759 --> 00:14:52.879 had experienced in a very physical way that they'd been removed from the promised land. 00:14:52.879 --> 00:14:59.960 And they'd been re-entered into slavery, as it were, in Babylon, and they knew again 00:14:59.960 --> 00:15:10.200 this peace. And verses really, I guess, verses 4 to 9 or 10, just example the fact that they'd 00:15:10.200 --> 00:15:14.960 turned away. And it explains what it was like that they had turned away from the living 00:15:14.960 --> 00:15:20.640 God. They were deceived, they were unrepentant, they were thoughtless about their behavior, 00:15:20.640 --> 00:15:25.400 they were self-absorbed, they'd stopped listening to God, they'd stopped thinking about who 00:15:25.400 --> 00:15:31.200 He was and who they were in relation to Him. They were greedy for being accepted on their 00:15:31.200 --> 00:15:39.200 own terms. They wanted popularity and gain. They twisted God's word to suit themselves. 00:15:39.200 --> 00:15:46.560 They didn't think sin was serious anymore. And I just love that, which I think we can 00:15:46.560 --> 00:15:52.879 all really associate with what it means just at the end of verse 12, where it says they 00:15:52.879 --> 00:15:58.759 just didn't know how to blush. Isn't that a powerful image? They didn't know how to 00:15:58.759 --> 00:16:06.200 blush anymore. Nothing, there was nothing that shamed them. All else in creation knew 00:16:06.200 --> 00:16:12.560 the rightful place. But they simply didn't. Even the stork in the heavens knows her times 00:16:12.560 --> 00:16:17.400 and the turtle dove, the swallow and the crane, keep the time of their coming. But my people 00:16:17.400 --> 00:16:23.360 know not the rules of the Lord. And they'd forgotten how to blush. It's not amazing that 00:16:23.360 --> 00:16:32.720 physiological expression of inner shame. They'd forgotten how to blush because they'd turned 00:16:32.720 --> 00:16:40.200 away. And verse 10, second half of verse 10 reminds us that they had started, they'd 00:16:40.200 --> 00:16:45.920 been listening to themselves, listening to their own people, from prophet to priest. 00:16:45.920 --> 00:16:51.519 Everyone deals falsely and they were saying that there was peace. But it wasn't God's 00:16:51.519 --> 00:17:01.240 peace that they were enjoying. God often spends time highlighting false prophets in the Bible. 00:17:01.240 --> 00:17:06.359 Use them more than anything or anyone else. And we know they often come as angel of light. 00:17:06.359 --> 00:17:09.920 And these false prophets were coming as angels of light. They were coming as teachers of 00:17:09.920 --> 00:17:16.000 the law, teachers, representatives of God. And they were offering peace. But they weren't 00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:21.000 offering God's peace. It was peace on their own terms. It was peace that didn't deal 00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:28.519 with the reality and the problem of sin and the dis-peace that it caused. Ezekiel 13, 00:17:28.519 --> 00:17:33.759 verse 10, I think that maybe is coming up on the screen. It's the same kind of issue where 00:17:33.759 --> 00:17:38.559 Ezekiel's is precisely because they have misled my people speaking about false prophets, 00:17:38.559 --> 00:17:43.420 saying peace where there is no peace and because when the people build a wall, these prophets 00:17:43.420 --> 00:17:50.879 smear it with whitewash. So it was really saying they're just covering up their behavior 00:17:50.879 --> 00:17:55.200 with whitewash. They're whitewash. Tombs really, you know, Jesus speaks about that as well, 00:17:55.200 --> 00:17:59.480 doesn't he? There's nothing really behind the peace that they're talking about. It's 00:17:59.480 --> 00:18:04.120 purely surface. It wasn't dealing with their heart. It wasn't dealing with the sin and 00:18:04.120 --> 00:18:09.960 the rebellion and the dis-peace that was there. No wrestling with God's justice and God's, 00:18:09.960 --> 00:18:16.840 the demands of God's laws of love and His offer of salvation. Therefore, no fruit. Matthew 00:18:16.840 --> 00:18:24.120 7, verse 15, again, Jesus taking up the theme of the Old Testament, beware of the false 00:18:24.119 --> 00:18:28.679 prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, inwardly ravenous wolves, you will recognize 00:18:28.679 --> 00:18:34.000 them by their fruit. So there was no fruit from these false prophets and there was no 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:41.719 peace and there was no reconciliation. And the problem was that the heart of the matter 00:18:41.719 --> 00:18:49.199 was the matter of the heart and they were avoiding that. And we sometimes avoid, we 00:18:49.200 --> 00:18:54.920 can do lots of things to avoid the condition of our hearts. And that's where the dis-peace 00:18:54.920 --> 00:19:00.440 begins. So I'm going to stop at this point and ask a question. Are you pursuing God's 00:19:00.440 --> 00:19:12.559 peace or your own? This is written to God's people. Are you content with a broken peace? 00:19:12.559 --> 00:19:18.720 That is where we're not allowing God to be God. And we make up God's mind for Him about 00:19:18.720 --> 00:19:24.799 what's truth. We tell ourselves that God is just like us. He's undemanding and He's 00:19:24.799 --> 00:19:33.759 just simply jolly. And we look for peace in good circumstances or in acceptance or in 00:19:33.759 --> 00:19:40.039 popularity or in avoidance of any kind of conflict or any suffering. We look for it 00:19:40.039 --> 00:19:45.240 in parties and in wealth and in relaxation and activities and in hobbies and solitude 00:19:45.240 --> 00:19:51.019 and running after good causes and trying our best for other people. But it never brings 00:19:51.019 --> 00:19:58.440 the internal conflict to an end. You can't run from God. He demands that we look at Him 00:19:58.440 --> 00:20:05.599 eyeball to eyeball and that we deal with the inner dis-peace and that we speak to the living 00:20:05.599 --> 00:20:12.839 God and recognize who He is. Now I recognize there's a great struggle in being a Christian. 00:20:12.839 --> 00:20:17.759 There's a daily battle in the spiritual life that doesn't seem very peaceful at all. I'm 00:20:17.759 --> 00:20:23.240 going to come back to that in the end, which will be not too long. But what does God say 00:20:23.240 --> 00:20:32.439 then? Well, God says here, and He says it in Jeremiah chapter 6 in verse 14 as well, 00:20:32.439 --> 00:20:39.720 they have healed the wound of my people lightly saying peace, peace where there is no peace. 00:20:39.720 --> 00:20:47.039 So what He's saying is saying peace on our own terms is not peace at all. Whatever it 00:20:47.039 --> 00:20:56.799 seems like, it's not peace God's way, not Shalom. We have He's saying, what is He saying? 00:20:56.799 --> 00:21:02.680 You have to deal with God. You have to listen to God. You have to wrestle with God. You 00:21:02.680 --> 00:21:08.640 have to turn to God. You have to plead with God. You have to face God with all the dis-peace 00:21:08.640 --> 00:21:15.040 that you sense and feel and know and all the doubt and struggles and take it into His presence. 00:21:15.040 --> 00:21:21.480 That's the place we must go. There's no peace anywhere else. And God is saying here, there's 00:21:21.480 --> 00:21:27.040 no peace away from me. Our temptation is often, is it not, in our struggles to turn away from 00:21:27.040 --> 00:21:35.280 God. And He says there's no peace there. Making rules for ourselves, disobeying rules 00:21:35.279 --> 00:21:42.399 for ourselves, running from Him, we will never find peace, though we often look for it there, 00:21:42.399 --> 00:21:49.839 because we struggle with grace. There's no peace away from God. Why is that? He says 00:21:49.839 --> 00:21:56.879 because there's a wound we need to deal with. That's why they have healed the wound of my 00:21:56.879 --> 00:22:02.599 people lightly, or they've treated the wound of my people lightly. Sin is that wound. That's 00:22:02.599 --> 00:22:08.359 what I'm getting at this evening with dis-peace. You see, there's a wound we need to deal with 00:22:08.359 --> 00:22:16.199 sin is what brings dis-peace, division, disintegration and death. And it can't be fixed with a sticking 00:22:16.199 --> 00:22:20.439 plaster. And that's what He's saying that the people, the false prophets are trying 00:22:20.439 --> 00:22:24.439 to do. Now, when I was about eight or nine years old, I was playing in the back garden 00:22:24.439 --> 00:22:32.559 with my friend, and Annie will know this story because she's involved in it. And I, he was 00:22:32.559 --> 00:22:37.559 playing with a hockey stick, as you do, the back garden, jolly old hockey sticks. And he 00:22:37.559 --> 00:22:41.799 took a massive swing with this hockey stick, and I happened to be standing right behind 00:22:41.799 --> 00:22:48.759 him. And I got a hockey stick right on my forehead here, full blast, burst my head open, 00:22:48.759 --> 00:22:53.159 blood everywhere. I'm not exaggerating at all in the slightest, blood everywhere. But 00:22:53.159 --> 00:23:00.879 mum and dad weren't at home, Anne was at home, and Barbara, my bigger sister also. And they 00:23:00.880 --> 00:23:11.360 took me inside, whaling and greeting as I was, and put a sticking plaster on it. Because 00:23:11.360 --> 00:23:17.040 that's what they thought would work. And I was quite happy with that. And I was quite 00:23:17.040 --> 00:23:21.400 proud when mum and dad came home, and I had this great big, bloody sticking plaster on 00:23:21.400 --> 00:23:27.200 my head. And they took one, look at it, and went pale, and said, I think we'll need to 00:23:27.200 --> 00:23:36.559 take you to hospital. That needs stitches. Okay, it's a simple story. But it's really 00:23:36.559 --> 00:23:44.000 what God's saying here. You know, you can't deal with serious wounds with a sticking plaster, 00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:49.720 broken leg or wound to the head where the skull is showing or whatever it might be. 00:23:49.720 --> 00:23:56.880 And it's so easy for us to do that. There's a wound, a spiritual wound that we must deal 00:23:56.880 --> 00:24:04.480 with, and the sticking plaster of our own solutions simply don't work. They might seem 00:24:04.480 --> 00:24:12.640 to work for a while, and they might be quite enjoyable, but they are not the answer. Where 00:24:12.640 --> 00:24:19.440 do we look? And it's interesting, Jeremiah asked that question at the end of the chapter. 00:24:19.440 --> 00:24:28.960 Is there no physician? He's looking for an answer. And of course, the prophecies of the 00:24:28.960 --> 00:24:33.720 Old Testament, going into the New Testament, provide the answer. The answer is Christ. 00:24:33.720 --> 00:24:40.480 Christ is the answer. Christ is the answer. Again and again and again, I repeat, ad nauseum. 00:24:40.480 --> 00:24:46.400 Christ, and living in a relationship and trusting in Him as Lord and save it as the answer. 00:24:46.400 --> 00:24:53.120 John 14 verse 27, you'll know this one, won't you? Peace. I leave with you, Jesus said, 00:24:53.120 --> 00:24:58.480 My peace I give you, not as the world gives, do I give you. Let not your hearts be troubled, 00:24:58.480 --> 00:25:06.400 neither let them be afraid. That's why Jesus Christ came. He knew all about the Old Testament, 00:25:06.400 --> 00:25:12.000 breaking of Shalom. He knew all about the need for peace in the hearts of humanity with 00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:17.880 their God and with each other and with the environment. And that is what He came to do. 00:25:17.880 --> 00:25:23.960 He came to bring this peace. And it's not peace necessarily as we sometimes think or 00:25:23.960 --> 00:25:30.079 we sometimes can experience at one level, humanly without Him. It's different. It's 00:25:30.079 --> 00:25:37.240 unique. And that's what we, that's the answer to sin and it's the answer to the brokenness 00:25:37.240 --> 00:25:43.160 and the disharmony and the dispeace that we experience day to day in our lives. We see 00:25:43.160 --> 00:25:51.039 it, of course, in the great prophecy of Isaiah 53 verse 5, He was wounded, you know, they 00:25:51.039 --> 00:25:58.240 weren't taking the wound seriously, but Jesus was wounded to the point of death and hell. 00:25:58.240 --> 00:26:05.480 It's a, seems that a soft word for what He experienced. He was wounded for our transgressions. 00:26:05.480 --> 00:26:11.640 He was crushed for our iniquities. But upon Him was the chastisement, the punishment of 00:26:11.640 --> 00:26:19.160 God that brought us peace and by His stripes we are healed. So we see that He takes the 00:26:19.160 --> 00:26:25.759 punishment for our rebellion, for the dispeace that our sin has brought into our relationship 00:26:25.759 --> 00:26:31.960 or our separation from God and from one another and from this world. Because He had to be 00:26:31.960 --> 00:26:38.720 just. He had to, in His justice, see that a price was paid for this rebellion and this 00:26:38.720 --> 00:26:48.079 sin and this wrongdoing. And in this unique and mysterious divine experience, we have 00:26:48.079 --> 00:26:54.880 the ultimate expression of dispeace on the cross. That's what the cross is. It's dispeace, 00:26:54.880 --> 00:27:00.279 it's foolish. Where there's alienation from God the Father, my God, my God, why have you 00:27:00.279 --> 00:27:07.000 forsaken me? There is also that great hostility and rejection from the people that He came 00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:17.359 to save. Crucify Him. Crucify Him. And there's the physical darkness at noonday, the highest 00:27:17.359 --> 00:27:23.279 point of the day where there's even dispeace in the creation that will not look on this 00:27:23.279 --> 00:27:31.319 moment of ultimate dispeace in order that we can know peace. So Colossians 1 follows 00:27:31.319 --> 00:27:36.599 that through in the theology of the New Testament, for in Him all the fullness of God was pleased 00:27:36.599 --> 00:27:42.200 to dwell and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, whether on earth or in 00:27:42.200 --> 00:27:52.359 heaven, making peace very clearly by the blood of His cross. So what He has done is a peace 00:27:52.359 --> 00:27:55.759 offering. Now it's interesting in the Old Testament, you know, the sacrifices that you 00:27:55.759 --> 00:27:59.199 have in the Old Testament. The peace offering that was offered in the Old Testament was 00:27:59.199 --> 00:28:05.879 the only offering where meat was given to God and returned back also to the people and 00:28:05.879 --> 00:28:13.399 the priests. So it became a meal. It became a fellowship meal. It was a peace offering. 00:28:13.399 --> 00:28:18.639 You know, what's the great mark of being at peace with someone? Come on round for something 00:28:18.640 --> 00:28:24.440 to eat. You know, we've struggled to get on with one another. Let's eat together and 00:28:24.440 --> 00:28:31.480 make peace. It's a sign of unity. It's why this Lord Supper is such a brilliant picture 00:28:31.480 --> 00:28:38.880 of Shalom because it's peace with God and it's peace with one another. That's why unity 00:28:38.880 --> 00:28:44.720 matters so much to the Lord Supper and it's peace looking forward to that great reconciliation 00:28:44.720 --> 00:28:53.480 environmentally also. It's a healing relationship. That's what Shalom is. That's what sin takes 00:28:53.480 --> 00:29:00.720 from us. And when we adulterate with sin and when we caress sin and when we think it doesn't 00:29:00.720 --> 00:29:05.759 matter and when we laugh with sin and when we're partners with it and hold hands with 00:29:05.759 --> 00:29:12.839 it and skip down the road with sin, it's just, it's a denial of His Shalom. And we're looking 00:29:12.839 --> 00:29:20.919 for that reconciliation and healing in life in places that simply can't be found. 00:29:20.919 --> 00:29:27.919 So I finish with one further question. And I think you'll probably have been asking this 00:29:27.919 --> 00:29:37.039 question through the sermon anyway. If God's peace is so great, why is it so hard? Is that 00:29:37.039 --> 00:29:43.519 a great question? Why is it so hard? Why is the Christian life so hard? Why is there so much turmoil 00:29:43.519 --> 00:29:50.359 and difficulty if we know in Christ Shalom? Why are we tempted to give up? Why do we not 00:29:50.359 --> 00:29:56.000 pray? Why do we not follow? Why do we find it so easy to revert back to sinful lifestyles 00:29:56.000 --> 00:30:04.039 and thinking? Why is that? Is it really God's peace? Is it really what you're saying it 00:30:04.039 --> 00:30:10.119 is? Well, we need to recognize, I think it's really important to recognize when Jesus says, 00:30:10.119 --> 00:30:13.960 I come to bring peace not as the world gives. In other words, He's saying it's not the kind 00:30:13.960 --> 00:30:20.519 of peace you sometimes will expect. It's not the peace of the graveyard for a start. But 00:30:20.519 --> 00:30:27.200 it is a paradoxical peace, okay? And with that we need to close by looking at Matthew 00:30:27.200 --> 00:30:32.359 10, 34, because you'll have thought of this. Do you not think that I have come, Jesus, 00:30:32.359 --> 00:30:41.119 to bring peace to the earth? I have not come to bring peace by a sword. Does that unravel 00:30:41.119 --> 00:30:47.759 everything that I've said? What does that mean? Is Jesus is telling us that His peace 00:30:47.759 --> 00:30:56.039 is different from what you think His peace is? It's not what we think, because sin is 00:30:56.039 --> 00:31:02.119 defeated on the cross, but it's not yet destroyed. And so when He brings us to life, and when 00:31:02.119 --> 00:31:12.240 He brings us His shalom into our life, then He awakens a conflict, a war, a sword, a spiritual 00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:18.599 sword. And Jesus, when we come to faith, we enter into a battle, don't we? That's what 00:31:18.599 --> 00:31:25.639 we know the Christian life to be. Yes, it's shalom, but because there remains sin in our 00:31:25.640 --> 00:31:31.320 heart, this great internal battle of what we want and what we don't want, and what God's 00:31:31.320 --> 00:31:36.120 will is and what our will is, and because we swim against the tide in the world in which 00:31:36.120 --> 00:31:41.720 we live, and because we have the thrashing opposition of the evil one who is defeated 00:31:41.720 --> 00:31:51.120 and tries to cause as much damage before He is ultimately destroyed, there's a battle, 00:31:51.119 --> 00:31:58.199 and there's a sword, and it's a different kind of peace. Living in His grace, living 00:31:58.199 --> 00:32:07.959 in His shalom is in this life a life of warfare, and that's what it's tough. That's why the 00:32:07.959 --> 00:32:14.199 people backslide. That's why they close their Bible. That's why they stop going to church. 00:32:14.199 --> 00:32:18.239 That's why they give up the faith. That's why they rather get drunk. That's why they 00:32:18.240 --> 00:32:27.799 rather sleep around because that's much easier. There's no battle there, but there's no peace. 00:32:27.799 --> 00:32:33.160 There's no answer. There's no shalom with God, and there's no ultimate victory because 00:32:33.160 --> 00:32:38.039 the battle that we are in here is a promised victory, and we have the power of the Holy 00:32:38.039 --> 00:32:44.920 Spirit to take us through it, but it's not easy. So guaranteed victory is in Him, but 00:32:44.920 --> 00:32:51.560 it's not easy. Preachers have got to stop getting up the front of this church and preaching 00:32:51.560 --> 00:32:56.759 sermons that say the gospel is easy, and it's easy being a Christian, and it's just 00:32:56.759 --> 00:33:03.080 good news because it's more than that. It's a battle and it's a struggle because of the 00:33:03.080 --> 00:33:13.480 world in which we live. But God's peace is the only shalom there is, and it's greater 00:33:13.480 --> 00:33:17.799 than our circumstances, and it's greater than the opposition we face, and it's greater 00:33:17.799 --> 00:33:22.680 than our own hearts with all the darkness that sometimes we feel is in our hearts, that 00:33:22.680 --> 00:33:31.160 remains in our hearts. Promises to forgive and to strengthen and to be with us, and 00:33:31.160 --> 00:33:39.839 the great thing is that in the battle as we look to Him, that's where there's shalom. 00:33:39.839 --> 00:33:44.199 You're tempted, I know you're tempted maybe this evening to run away from God. You're 00:33:44.199 --> 00:33:52.679 tempted to close that book that speaks His words. You're tempted away from His people. 00:33:52.679 --> 00:34:00.759 All I plead is that you keep turning back to Him. It's the only place of shalom, of 00:34:00.759 --> 00:34:10.719 genuine healing, of hope, and of life. All else is deception, all else is lies, and all 00:34:10.719 --> 00:34:20.119 else is covering up a wound that needs the healing of Christ, and the presence of Christ 00:34:20.119 --> 00:34:25.280 and the company of Christ, and we rejoice and give thanks in that. And we're going to 00:34:25.280 --> 00:34:32.640 celebrate together now, very shortly, the Lord's Supper, as we, I hope, will take time 00:34:32.640 --> 00:34:38.519 to think about that great peace. And if you're not a Christian, then you'll really think 00:34:38.519 --> 00:34:45.519 about where you're looking for peace, shalom in your life. There's only one place we believe, 00:34:45.519 --> 00:34:55.519 and you must find your peace in relationship with Jesus Christ. Amen.