Well, good morning for the third time. Merry Christmas. I don’t get to say it so many times, so I’ll say it as many times as I can.

Merry Christmas.

It’s good to be with you this morning. We are going to be in Luke’s Gospel.

If you have your Bibles, we’ll be in Luke chapter 1, verses 67 to 79.

Luke chapter 1, verse 67 to 79.

And it reads like this, And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people, and He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant,

the oath that He swore to our father, Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people and the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light, to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. If there’s one, I think, overriding word you see all the time in the news, you hear people talk about it, and it’s a real, I think, indicator of our times, it’s the word anxiety.

You see anxiety all the time in the news. You see suicide rates among young people, and I mean, young people, grade school is higher than it’s ever been.

People are anxious about, just statistically, money more than they’ve ever been, health more than they’ve ever been,

safety than they’ve ever been. So we live in a world that’s fast-paced, that’s moving, and everybody’s anxious, and nobody has what we really all want, peace.

Peace is what I think we want, and it’s the thing the world doesn’t have, but it is the thing, friends, that I believe you and I, and the church, we should especially have. And I believe as Christians, if we really know what Christmas is about, we can say with surety, Christmas is the dawn of real peace, real lasting peace. That’s what I want us to see this morning.

67, it says, His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied. So now, who’s Zechariah? Well, Zechariah was a priest, and Zechariah was serving in the temple one day. It was his turn among all the Levites to serve in the temple. And as he’s serving in the temple, he gets a vision from the Lord. And it’s this angel. And this angel comes to Zechariah, and he says, Zechariah, your barren wife Elizabeth, she’s going to have a child. She’s going to have a child, and you’re going to name this child John.

And this son’s going to be special. He’s going to be unique. He’s going to be the bearer, of a special message, and he’s going to have the power of God’s Spirit on him. So this is none other than John the Baptist. And John the Baptist, whom the angel’s talking about here, he’s going to have a ministry, and his ministry’s of imminent importance. Something’s getting ready to happen in Israel. Something wonderful. Something the prophets had long foretold that was going to happen. And it fell to John to tell the people of God, hey, this is getting ready to happen. But also it was John’s business to not just tell them about it, but to prepare their hearts for it. Something the whole world was getting ready to see happen. What was getting ready to happen in the world? It was going to be the dawn of peace. That’s what was going to happen. And so Jesus, who is John’s kin, He’s also getting ready to be born. But Jesus is not a message bearer like John. Jesus is the content of the message. Jesus’ life and ministry would be the grand fruition of John’s life and ministry. And Zechariah, his father, when the angel tells him about this, he doesn’t believe it. He doubts the angel. And so the angel strikes him with muteness. And so for the length of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, Zechariah can’t talk. But when John’s born, his voice is restored, and he’s a changed man when he can speak again. He’s a believing man about what God’s getting ready to do in Israel. And the Holy Spirit fills Zechariah, and he prophesies about peace. That’s what this is. It’s a wonderful prophecy about peace. So the first thing I want us to see is this, friends. Because the dawn of peace has shone, we have been saved from our enemies. We’ve been saved from our enemies. Look back at verse 68. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people. He’s raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show them mercy, promise to our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant, that the oath that He swore to His father Abraham, our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. So Zechariah begins by blessing God. And the reason why he blesses God is he said that God’s done something for the people, something that God’s worthy for a blessing. And here’s what he did. He did two things. He visited the people of God and he redeemed the people of God. Now when you see that word visit, it doesn’t mean like Christmas, you’re going to have to like drive somewhere and sit around with a bunch of distant cousins and like make up a bunch of lame conversations and like until you can leave and you don’t see them again until next year. Like that’s, you know, visit. I’ve got to visit. You know, this is not that kind of visit. This word means particularly to care. It means to be very concerned with the plight of someone else. It is to care. It is to take a very deep observation of what’s going on in someone else’s life. So he’s saying God visited his people. But not only did he visit his people, Zechariah is saying he redeemed his people. He carried out, he produced a redemption for his people. So he didn’t just visit them and say, wow, that is really bad the situation you guys are in. He did something about it. He set them free from their enemies. And it wasn’t a spur of the moment. Salvation or God being like randomly benevolent, like Israel, they’re in a bad spot. Zechariah roots God’s deliverance in a promise. And it’s a two-pronged promise. It’s a promise to David, the house of David, that a greater David would come to rule over the enemies of God. And it has to do with the promise made to Abraham and a covenant God made with Abraham to protect them from the enemies of God. So I want us to see David first this morning in Jeremiah chapter 20. 23 verse 5.

Jeremiah says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch. And he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called. The Lord is our righteousness. So King David is always typified as the golden age of Israel. In the Old Testament, David had power and favor on him. He defeated all the pagan nations. No one could stand against David. He was wealthy. He was rich. He had power. He wiped everybody out. He ruled the land of Canaan. No one was like David in protecting God’s people. But like anybody else, as great as David was, David erred, David got old, and David died.

Israel’s history after David is one riddled with war and strife all the way to the exile. And then in Jesus and John’s time, the Roman Empire rules Israel. And even if you look today in the Middle East, what do you see but an Israel that’s constantly warring on every side all the time. So there’s this strife going on, but there’s this promise to the true people of God and to David this. There’s going to be a greater David and he’s going to be, Zechariah says, a horn of salvation. Now that word horn in the Old Testament, it always refers to an undefeatable power, its strength. So God’s saying, hey, when this greater David comes, he’s going to be like a bull or like an ox, you know, running full force, blunt force, and you can’t stop it. It’s coming and look out. It’s the horn of salvation. It’s going to be so much power that cannot be contended with. That’s the greater David. But also it has to do with Abraham.

Genesis chapter 22, 15, it says, And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham, a second time from heaven, and said, By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you. I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. So long before there was David, there was his ancestors, there was Abraham. And God said to Abraham, Abraham, I’m tethering myself to you. Nothing Abraham did. God just covenanted with Abraham. I’m going to be your God and you’re going to be my people and anybody that comes in your line, I’m going to bless. I’m going to keep. I’m going to multiply. You’re going to be a protected, beloved people of mine. So if you could somehow claim to be in the lineage and line of Abraham, you have this special blessing of protection on your life. That’s what God told Abraham.

Centuries have long passed since both of those promises have been made to David and to Abraham. Israel waited through many, many centuries of great patience and suffering. But friends, the fruition of the Abrahamic covenant, the fruition of the house of David, Zechariah says it’s finally shown itself.

Finally, peace has dawned. The two-pronged promise in David and Abraham finds itself in the house of David. It finds itself in the house of David. It finds itself in the house of David. The man, Jesus Christ.

And let me say something to you this morning. That’s good news, not so much for national Israel. It is if they want it to be. But it’s good news particularly for you and I in the church. And you know why? Because the Bible says that if you and I place faith in Jesus as our Savior, that we’re considered true Israel. We’re considered the true spiritual offspring of Abraham so that it can be said when I come to Christ and I surrender myself, I surrender my life to Him and I see Jesus as my King, that means Jesus is my unconquerable King that’s going to keep me from my enemies forever. And it means God is my Father that sees me as one of His special people and can protect me and keep me from my enemies forever. So Jesus is the one who keeps us from our enemies. Jesus is the one who gives us eternal, lasting harmony and peace in the city of God. It’s really good news for us, isn’t it?

But when you ask the question, well, who is my enemy? Who is my enemy, really? What does that mean? Who’s my enemy?

You know when you stay in the same situation for a long period of time, you stop knowing you’re in that situation. When you don’t wash your car for like six months and you finally wash, you’re like, I can’t believe I was driving around town in the car that was that dirty and you were just used to it, right? And it can be worse things. I mean, imagine a child that maybe is in an abusive relationship with a parent or a wife that has an abusive husband and that’s their new normal and they’ve accepted it and they’ve forgotten that it’s not supposed to be that way. You know?

Friends, let me say something to you. Maybe it’d be like a breath of fresh air to you this morning and we need to pull our head up from just the daily grind of living in a society in the world we do. Let me say a few things. You know, it’s not normal for us to live in a world where human governments hate the God of Christianity. It’s not.

It’s not normal to live in a world where someone would be imprisoned or executed for surrendering to Jesus as their Lord instead of communism. It’s not normal to live in a world where obeying and loving God means social scrutiny and social pressure. It’s not normal to believe that gender is fluid. It’s not normal to believe that sex should be outside of marriage, that it shouldn’t be between just a man and a woman in the covenant of marriage. It’s not normal to believe that babies should be taken from the womb. It’s not normal to believe the universe just happened and God’s a fairy tale. It’s not normal to believe there’s a different God besides Jesus. It’s not normal to fear death, starvation, and alienation for faithfulness to the written Word of God as the exclusive rule for all of life. None of this is normal. And we live in this every day and you and I need to be reminded it’s this really small window right now. It’s just this really small window. This isn’t normal because it’s not God’s normal. God’s normal is coming when He comes back for us. And I don’t want to too quickly spiritualize it like, well, Satan’s our enemy and it’s all spiritual. It is all spiritual. Satan is our enemy because Satan is God’s enemy. And Paul does say our war is not with flesh and blood. It’s a spiritual warfare. But friends, that does not mean that Satan isn’t right now wielding spiritual influence over people causing them to, in their bodies, in their flesh, be hostile to the church. And unless all people either repent of their hostility or truly even just repent of their indifference to Jesus and His church, let me tell you something, Jesus is going to come back someday and He’s going to execute justice on all of those people for high crimes against Him and His kingdom. They will be enemies of God. Jesus was raised, was He not, both soul and body from the grave. Jesus didn’t just come up a spirit and He didn’t just come up a zombie body. Jesus came up to perfect us spiritually and physically. So when Jesus comes back someday, you know what? He’s going to make us new spiritually. Paul says when we see Him coming on the clouds, we will be as He is. But the very same thing, the Word promises that He’s going to make a new heaven and a new earth. He’s going to purify the earth. It’s going to be brand new. And everything that stands against Him that’s not clean and pure, the sword of His mouth is going to slaughter all the nations, all of the enemies of God. Friends, He’s promising you and I peace and harmony in the eternal city of God. So you see why Christmas is such good news. It’s promise of peace. It’s peace in a new heaven, a new earth. It’s eternal life in the city of God. Fear of pain, suffering, enmity, hate, repression for believing and obeying God. It’s a spiritual and physical peace that perhaps is difficult to imagine, but we should keep trying to imagine it. Can you try to imagine a city where everyone is at peace with one another because the rule of Christ is over them? Can you imagine a city where everyone loves God all the time? What that’s going to be like when the love of God is going to overwhelm you? When it’s going to overwhelm the earth? Maybe it’s hard to think about, but I really believe we should be about the business of thinking about it. Because in that place, we will serve God in holiness and righteousness without fear all of our days. That’s what Zechariah is telling us in Revelation chapter 21.

It says, And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. And its gates, look at this, the gates will never be shut. You know, sometimes people say, boy, I remember the good old days when you could leave your door unlocked at night. Well, in the new heavens and new earth, you don’t even need a door. You can just take it off the hinge. God’s not even going to shut the gate to the city of Jerusalem. He’s going to leave the gate of the city open because there’s not going to be any more enemies. Can you imagine that? Friends, Christmas is a time to recall our King, how He’s coming again to defeat all of our enemies, Satan and all those who oppose Him. And He’s going to bring us into eternal peace. And let me say, if Christ is your hope, if you’ve placed faith in Jesus, this is your new normal to look forward to. This is your new normal.

Matthew Henry says, this never had a full accomplishment in Israel in the Old Testament after the return out of captivity. They were always attacked by some bad neighbor. Nor has the gospel church ever been quite free from pricking briars and grieving thorns. But the full accomplishment of this promise is reserved for the heavenly Canaan when all the saints shall be gathered together and everything that offends shall be removed and all the griefs and fears forever banished.

Friends, if you’re in Christ this Christmas season, oh, what peace you have from your enemies. What harmony is coming. What safety in your unconquerable King. What love from your Father who will guard you forever. Do you think about that? Do you rest in that? Do you bless the Lord like Zechariah blesses the Lord because of this wonderful truth?

Let me say to you this morning that this truth, this prophecy of Zechariah, you know what it ought to do? It ought to keep us faithful in the suffering. Like how bad do you think it is to suffer now for the Lord in your life? Whatever that means. It may look like for us in the West or what it looks like for brothers and sisters in the East. It doesn’t matter what it is because Christ’s cross is proof of the victory. It’s proof that He’s coming back someday to conquer all our enemies so I can endure the window of wartime because I know a much bigger eternal window of peacetime is coming and He’s promised to keep me in the now and He’s telling me just keep looking at that. And I think too, Paul says, encourage one another because the day draws near. Paul says, encourage one another because you have not been destined for wrath. So I think Paul’s encouragement to the churches is very much so y’all should be talking about this like, hey, life’s so short. Yeah, it’s bad. Yeah, the enemy’s hostile. But remember, we’re going to have eternal peace in a new heaven, in a new earth, in the city of God someday. So we’ve got to be about just speaking that word over one another in our struggles and in our trials. It’s very much so it’s a gift to us to hang on to that very special, blessed word.

Back at verse 76 with me.

Zechariah says,

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High. For you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people in the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high. So God had long foretold about His people. about John’s ministry.

Israel, Isaiah, I should say, has a very famous passage in 40 where he says, One, a voice crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. So John was the prophet and Jesus was the Most High about whom He prophesied. But you know, it was never a contest of ministries. In fact, when John’s disciples come up to him and say, Hey, Jesus is ministering. His disciples, they’re stealing all the public notoriety. John says what? He says, Great. He says, I must decrease and He must increase.

John understood, I got the message. I’m preparing, but Jesus is going to deliver. That’s what John knew. And Zacharias says, My son John, the preparation He’ll provide is the giving of the knowledge of salvation. The knowledge that John gave was the very same knowledge that Jesus started to talk about at the beginning of His ministry. And remember last year, we looked at this in Matthew’s Gospel. What was the singular message of John’s ministry? It was, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It’s the only thing John really had to say to the people. And I want you to think, why is it so important then, if this isn’t a spur-of-the-moment ministry, but God long foretold through the prophets, Hey, this John guy’s going to show up and he’s going to have this ministry of preaching repentance to the people for my son. Why was it so important that God would send John to do that?

Well, because you and I need to repent really bad. You and I need to be forgiven of our sins really bad. You and I, the evil intentions of our hearts, the wicked deeds that we do in the flesh, in our past. Friends, we need to be saved from ourselves.

That’s the other thing that the dawn of peace does. It saves us from ourselves. John could not provide the forgiveness, but he knew, oh, the one coming after me, how he can handily provide the forgiveness that these people need. But if the one who could provide the forgiveness wasn’t asked for the forgiveness, then the one who would be Savior would be judge, jury, and executioner. And that’s what John is trying to keep the people from knowing Christ as judge and rather know them as Savior. And God foretelling John’s coming is proof that God Himself doesn’t want that. He wants Jesus to be our Savior. Look what he says in John 3, verse 35. It says, The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. Whoever believes in the Son, has eternal life. Whoever does not, though, who doesn’t obey the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. So God does not want you under the gavel of Christ. He wants you in the embrace of Christ. He wants you to feel loved and saved by Christ. And you know, the reason Zechariah gives is he says, you know, it’s because God’s not indifferent.

God’s not, God’s not cold. God’s not harsh. He says God is merciful. But he says more than that. He says God’s mercy is tender.

And you know what that tender means in the original language? It means your guts. It means your entrails. You could translate it bowels even. Bowels of compassion. And you say, well, that’s kind of gross to think about God’s intestines. No, it’s not gross. It’s thorough. It’s God saying to us, so loud through Zechariah, I desire to have mercy on sinners down into my guts. That’s how much God wants to have mercy on you and I this morning. And here’s how God has had mercy. He’s given you and I knowledge of salvation.

He’s told us what we must do to be saved. What we need to know to be spared the wrath of God. And what we need to know is this, though we are under the holy law, God desires we repent. Now, there’s a difference between knowledge of right and wrong and knowledge of salvation. You know, knowledge of right and wrong will no more save you than knowing that a bird has wings would help you fly. It doesn’t help at all. God’s holy law only exposes this is right, this is wrong. What’s right, you don’t look like. What’s wrong, you look like. So God’s law, knowledge of right and wrong, it doesn’t help us. It only, condemns us. It shows us how unright we are. But salvation, knowledge of it, that’s something entirely different. Knowledge of salvation, that gives you the wings to fly. Because it says, though you have knowledge of the law that condemns, have knowledge of a gospel message that saves. And the message is this, if you repent and you place faith in Jesus, Jesus will save you from the demands of the law, the penalty of the law. And when God looks at you, He won’t see your sin. He’ll see the righteousness of Christ. He’ll see you as one put in Jesus. So God doesn’t want to judge you according to the law. God wants to have eternal fellowship and peace with you through His Son, Jesus. That’s why Paul said, Jesus made peace by the blood of His cross. Paul says in Ephesians, but He Himself is our peace. Jesus didn’t give you peace. It’s in believing in Jesus, being considered united to Him, that when God looks on us, He sees us as in His Son who is righteous, and good Jesus. So it’s in Christ, friends. We have peace. We have fellowship with God. That’s the gospel of God’s mercy. That’s the gospel of God’s peace.

We’ve been spared eternal damnation from hell. And in its place, we’ve been given eternal love. We’ve been given eternal fellowship and peace with God. So the question becomes, do you know salvation? Do you have knowledge of it? You can have intellectual knowledge and you can know salvation, but you can’t know something, right? Like, I know that. But to know something to the point it changes you. You know, proof that someone truly loves, you know, a girl or a woman is you get married. You give your life up. You make real changes for somebody else, right? It’s not just, oh, yes, I love someone. Like, no, I’m going to marry her. I’m going to give up my rights. I’m going to give up everything. I’m going to commit myself to this person. And it’s the very same way, friends. It’s so dangerous. Let me say this to you. You, to know about Christ, that about will kill you, you’ve got to know Christ.

Knowing about Christ will get you nowhere fast. But knowing Jesus, experiencing His love, believing He is your Lord, believing He took away your sin, believing that He alone is good and asking Him to fill you up with Himself, that’s salvation. That’s peace. That’s holiness. That’s righteousness. That’s wonderful. So let me just say some, wonderful things to you this morning. God wants to be at peace with you. God wants to have deep, eternal fellowship with you. God wants you to know how much He loves you. And knowledge of the cross

is something that words can’t say. It’s only just something that can be humbly received. It speaks in a volume louder than words. All the knowledge you can pursue in life, the maximum, the highest attainment of knowledge, is this. It’s the knowledge that God has loved us in His Son, Jesus. Knowledge is a fool’s errand if it doesn’t climax in knowledge of God’s love visibly seen in the cross of Jesus Christ. That’s real life. That’s real peace. That’s real hope. That’s real joy.

You know, when Peter preaches at Pentecost, he tells the people, you killed Jesus. Jesus, you’re wrong. You’re bad. You’re under the law. He tells them what’s wrong with Him. And it says that the people are cut to the heart. They’re cut to the heart. And they say back to Peter, what are we supposed to do? We don’t know what to do. They needed to know. What do we do? You just told us that we’re wrong. And Peter does what? He gives them knowledge. He says, repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. You shall be forgiven. He gives the knowledge of peace.

Oh, friends, in the same way, we must grow in our knowledge of Christ. If Christ is our hope of true peace with God, what do I want to do? I want to more and more die to myself, which is not to say repentance. Repentance is a one-time thing. We’ve talked about this. Repentance is a lifestyle. I want to constantly be dying to that old man who is not at peace with God. I constantly want to turn from my sins. I constantly want more of the Spirit. I want more of the Word. I want more. More Jesus. So I’m growing up into the new peaceful life I have with God in Christ. And I’m dying more and more to the old man that’s dead, who is under the weight of the law. By faith, I’ve been saved from that old man and I’ve been made a new man. I’ve been made a new creation in Christ Jesus. And that new creation has peace with God. So grow in your knowledge of Christ. Dwell on Christ. Read about Christ. Pray to the Father for more Christ. More Christ, more life. It’s that simple. We want more Christ. We want Christ to have more peace. I want a fellowship with God. And I think at the same time, let it not be said that John the Baptist, though he may be the greatest of evangelists, it can’t be said he’s the last. Friends, we must be evangelists alongside John. We must preach the gospel of peace. What a wealth of knowledge it is to save sinners that they wouldn’t be counted as enemies of God, but the friends of God, the children of God. As we have been given the knowledge, we must share, the knowledge that many more can come to peace with God. It’s a gift. It’s a gift that keeps on giving to you and to the people you share it with. Are we giving the gift of peace this Christmas to many who need it?

In verse 79, the prophecy ends like this.

To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

And to guide our feet to the way of peace.

So Advent, we said the first week, it’s proof of living hope. Jesus is our living hope. He’s alive right now. I know I’ve got life in Him. Jesus just calls for shouts of joy like we said last week. I’ve got an intense pleasure in God because God has loved me. He’s called me back to Him. And I’ve been created to know Jesus. But friends, this morning, in all the struggle and trial of life, oh how it’s true, Advent is the dawn of peace. It’s the dawn of true harmony with God apart from our enemies forever. And the dawn of peace of Christmas has shown the light and life of heaven. And that’s Jesus. Jesus has shined His light. Light’s different from darkness because when you look at light, it’s bright. It looks different. But it doesn’t just look different. You know, light’s interesting because it shows us the way to go. You know? And the more I follow Christ, the more I’m led out of the darkness and I’m led into eternity to know Him. And the more I know Christ, the more I’m filled up with the life of light. Jesus Himself. Friends, Jesus is our peace. He’s our eternal peace from the enemies of God. He’s our eternal peace with God. We may be in a dark age now, but Christmas is proof that God has shone His light in this darkness. And when Jesus comes back, He’ll shine it bright. He’ll shine it endlessly. And that light will never go out.

I just want to end with reading to you Isaiah chapter 9,

verse 6.

It says, For to us the child is born, to us the Son is given,

and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and of peace there will be no end. And on the throne of David and over His kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. You’ve got peace.

Christ is shining that light on you this morning.

Let’s pray.

Oh Heavenly Father,

we say that to You only because by Your grace and Your tender mercy

Christ has made a way for us.

He’s made a way for us to be with You.

Christ has brought the presence of heaven close that we could be truly in eternal heaven with You forever.

Lord, I just pray this Christmas season, whatever we’ve made it about so far, that it’s about events, it’s about gifts, it’s about maybe just trying to get through it. I pray that in these moments, we could just sit here in this passage and just be reminded that You’ve given us a true peace, a true rest, a true help. You’ve visited us in Jesus. You love us. You’ve saved us. That’s what Christmas is.

So Lord, I pray that Your just light would shine on us bright. Your Spirit would fill us with immeasurable, immeasurable peace.

Just to know that we’re kept in You. And Lord, we’ve got a good message to share with the world. A message about a peace time that’s coming.

And I pray that peace time would be our only hope, Lord.

So we just love You.

And we worship You this morning.