Bible Study December 23, 2024

Philippians 4:7 

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

What are you anxious about? Take a moment and give the question some thought. Maybe you are not anxious about anything you are certain God is in control of all things. I would ask you to pray a short prayer for those you know are troubled this Christmas season.

Perhaps you woke up to anxieties this morning, or you laid down with them last night. Perhaps they have to do with you personally. Maybe you feel anxious about the well-being of a loved one or about a fraught relationship. You might even feel anxious about the state of something larger than yourself: your job, your church, your country. Whatever it is, Paul tells us in Philippians 4:6, “Do not be anxious about anything.”

To end here, however, it would be to leave us all in judgment, for we have just established the ongoing reality of anxiety that pervades our lives.

The good news is that Paul doesn’t end on this command. Instead, he gives us one more command, and then finally, a word of proclamation: Do not be anxious, submit everything in prayer; in other words, “Cast your cares on the Lord” (Ps. 55:22). Do these things not for the peace of God, but because of the peace of God.

 This is a peace, which is Christ himself. And as Christ, our Savior who came to live, die, and rise for our sake, this peace transcends all understanding. If such peace were limited to our understanding, it would be limited to our experience and feelings. But while we are grateful when our lives and feelings reflect this reality, Christ’s peace will always be more trustworthy than the changing winds of our circumstances. He is a peace that meets us in our need, sustains us in our suffering, and answers our problems. He is a peace that has the last word on who we are. He is the Prince of Peace, born for you. This is the good news by which he guards our hearts and minds.

Bible Study December 20, 2024

Romans 8:15 

“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

If I call God, “God,” I speak truthfully. If I call him, “Lord,” I speak submissively. But what if I dare to call him “Father”? Then, I speak with a seeming audacity, a boldness that is shockingly familiar and intimate. Do we mere mortals dare to call the Master of the Universe, the Omnipotent Creator, our Father?

Not only do we dare to do so, but we are invited, even commanded to do so by the very one who places us into God’s family. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he did not say, “When you pray, say, ‘O Nameless Power’ or even ‘Lord God Almighty.’” No, he said to them, “Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven…’” (Matt. 6:9).

 To call God “Father” is to live in the space which Jesus created for us. He set us free from sin and death. We are no longer slaves, pandering to the flesh, handcuffed to evil. His cross and resurrection are the keys that unlock those chains. In Christ, liberated from all condemnation, we are led by the Spirit of God as sons of God (Rom. 8:14).

 We are far more than servants of God, more than even friends of our Father, for “the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8:16-17).

  Because in Christ, God has become our Abba, our Father. We do not shudder as slaves shackled to fear, but with boldness and confidence we stand before the Lord as children, his sons and daughters, co-heirs with Jesus. Our Father loves us as he loves Jesus. Our Father sees us as he sees Jesus. Our Father cares for us just as he cared for the Christ child. It’s shocking. It’s exhilarating. And it’s beautiful beyond words, to know that we are not guests or strangers in our Father’s home, but his dearly beloved children.

Bible Study December 19, 2024

Romans 5:1 

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in  hope of the glory of God.”

What do faith, peace, grace, and hope have to do with the glory of God? Everything. Paul says that we have been justified by faith, and because of that, we have peace with God. The object of that faith is Jesus Christ. He is not only the object of it but also the creator of it. All faith comes through hearing the good news of what Jesus has done to reconcile sinners to God (Rom. 10:17).

So often, we are tempted into anxiety over the quality or quantity of our faith. Our peace is robbed when we start to believe that faith is something we provide or contribute to our salvation. But God takes peace seriously and has not attached it to something in you or something that you created. He has delivered it through faith that he created. And however weak that faith may seem, it flows from and clings to the unchangeable, unshakable, once-for-all work of Jesus Christ for you.

There is more good news. God has gifted you faith, and you have accessed his inexhaustible grace. Any questions about deserving God’s love and acceptance are swept away in the flood of God’s grace. Any fear that you haven’t done enough or that you have doubted too much is laid to rest because of the grace of God on account of Jesus. You are forgiven, justified, and declared righteous, all by grace through faith. This is your hope. This is where you find peace.

 God is glorified when sinners have peace with him. This peace declares to the world that the love of God in Christ has the final say. This is why Jesus came. This is why he was born.

Christmas is about peace, and peace is about the glory of God.

Have a Blessed Day

Bible Study December 17, 2024

John 16:33 

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

John is all about dramatic contrasts: Light versus darkness, flesh versus spirit, the world below versus the world above, conqueror versus the conquered. This kind of language permeates his Gospel, serving to heighten the tension of the historical narrative. With John, one thing is abundantly clear: the stakes are high. If the Gospel of John had been made into a movie, it would have been directed by Michael Bay or Guy Ritchie. Lots of explosions.

The opening Christmas story sets the tone. John has no time for Hallmark cards or little babies meek and mild or even genealogies. Instead, he comes right out of the gate swinging by making the claim that Jesus is the logos. He is the divine answer to everything. He is the ordering principle of the universe. He breaks into our world like a comet, shattering our illusions about who we are and who God is, and freeing us from the darkness which held us captive by overcoming it. “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Jesus has overcome. As New Testament scholar R. C. H. Lenski comments, “How foolish to be afraid of a crushed and conquered foe.”

Interestingly enough, Jesus speaks these encouraging words to his disciples immediately on the heels of his prediction that each would abandon him. He was right. As his crucifixion approached, they were overcome with fear and they scattered. They gave in to their deepest anxieties and abandoned their Lord. They valued their own skin more than their Savior. Ultimately, our deepest fears reveal our lack of trust in God. They reveal that our fear of the Lord has been eclipsed by some other, lesser fear. We, too, abandon our Savior by not trusting in him above all things.

Yet the good news is that God’s love is greater than our fear. He came to bring peace through the shed blood of his son, who forgives us and graces us with faith. The dramatic tension we feel within our own hearts, against the world around us, and against the devil can only be stilled by his sure and steady nail-scarred hand. Thanks be to God; he has done just that.

God Bless.

Bible Study December 16, 2024

John 14:25-27 

“These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

The Spirit stokes our memory, bringing to remembrance what Christ has said and done. In this way, the Spirit works like your grandparents looking through a photo album as they explain the past through the pictures, unpacking your story for you and reminding you who you are. Rather than photos, however, the Spirit uses promises, the promises of Jesus. And by the Spirit’s work, we know God better because we hear God speak to us and recall what he has spoken to us.

The Spirit brings peace. This isn’t peace like the world gives. This isn’t some moment of quiet or escape from the normal conflict of life below. This peace is solid and lasting. This peace transcends all the conflict of life here, surpassing understanding. This peace is a gift: it’s the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation; it’s peace that casts out fear. It’s what people seek this time of year.

It’s been said if you want to find someone’s idol, you should follow their fears. What do you fear? Follow the fears, and you’ll find the idols. And so the Spirit casts out fear of men, our instinctual, frightened, presentist fear, and replaces it with the fear of God, which is faith, which knows its beginning, middle, and end already. The Spirit won’t let us be afraid because the Spirit won’t let us let go of Christ, who will never let go of us. This is peace.

This doesn’t mean we never tremble or have late nights. We’re saints and sinners. The old Adam will trust anyone but God and seek peace anywhere but where it’s found. The Spirit gives the old Adam hell, though. The Spirit stokes our memory. The Spirit helps us with our needs. And we always know where to find the Spirit because God has bound himself to the means of grace and thus to us. The Spirit comes through Word and sacrament, on the lips of preachers and Christian friends, with bread, wine, and water.

Have you been living in fear or peace? Find God where he’s promised to be; where he reveals himself in the advent of Christ. Remember what Christ has said and done. Take heart. Cling to Christ. Be taught. Be absolved. Be at peace as your idols are toppled and the true God, by the Spirit, declares you his own, again and again, until glory. This is why Christ was born in the first place.

Be Blessed Today

Bible Study December 14, 2024

Luke 2:14 

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,     and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests. (NIV).

The Evangelist Luke records two occasions when God’s “good pleasure” (in Greek, eudokia) is mentioned. One of them is during the ministry of Jesus, when “he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will [eudokia]’” (10:21). The first and earliest mention was on the night Jesus was born, when “a multitude of the heavenly host” praised God and sang, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor [eudokia] rests” (2:14, NIV).

 How fitting that in both of these contexts, those who heard the song and those of whom Jesus spoke were not the high and mighty but the humble and lowly: little children and shepherds. This is not because the “little people” of this world are especially deserving of God’s good pleasure. Rather, they are singled out because God’s way of working in this world is to bring all of us low, to diminish us, to empty us of ourselves, that we might receive in humble faith his good pleasure toward us in his Son, who fills us and enriches us with himself. As the mother of Jesus sang, “He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate” (Luke 1:52).

 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,” the angels sang, for he alone is worthy of glory. And how does God show his glory? By sending his favor, his good pleasure, down to earth as a flesh-and-blood baby born in lowly circumstances. The Father’s glory in the highest heaven descends to us on earth in Jesus to give us peace. Peace in Jesus is not simply the absence of conflict or fear, but the fullness of love. A fullness that fills us when we are brought low and emptied of self. A fullness that incorporates us into the life of God so that we might be the children of our heavenly Father. The good pleasure of heaven, the favor of our Father, rests upon us as we rest in Jesus, born for us that we might be reborn in him; this is true peace.

God Bless.

Bible Study December 13, 2024

Luke 1:67-79 

“And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he has visited and redeemed his people and 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 in 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.”

Zechariah had been divinely tongue-tied the entire time his wife, Elizabeth, was pregnant. The angel Gabriel had zipped his lips shut for disbelieving the good news that his elderly wife would conceive (Luke 1:20). After more than forty weeks of muteness, Zechariah’s mouth finally opened, his tongue was loosed, and he blessed God with a Spirit-inspired song traditionally called the Benedictus. The message of the song is this: All that God promised in the Old Testament is now being fulfilled.

 The Lord promised David that he would raise up a son after him who would reign over an everlasting kingdom (2 Sam. 7:12-16). Zechariah sings that God “has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David” (Luke 1:69). Promise fulfilled. Through prophet after prophet, the Lord promised to come to his people and save them. Zechariah blesses “the Lord God of Israel for he has visited and redeemed his people…that we should be saved from our enemies” (Luke 1:68, 71). Promise fulfilled. Already in Genesis, the Lord swore an oath to Abraham that in his seed, “all the nations of the earth [would] be blessed” (Gen. 22:18). Zechariah sings that God is now showing the mercy he promised to our fathers, remembering his covenant and the oath he swore to our father Abraham (Luke 1:72-73). Once more, promise fulfilled.

The fulfillment of all these promises comes in Jesus, whom John, the son of Zechariah, would announce as he goes “before the Lord to prepare his ways” (vs. 76). In Christ, we are “delivered from the hand of our enemies” that we “might serve him without fear” (vs. 74). Those two words, “without fear,” signal a foundational shift, for menacing fears encircle human life: fear of enemies and evils, fear of disease and death, fear of condemnation and hell. All fears, however, cower and retreat before the Fearless One, Christ our Lord.

 In him, we are safe. Whatever this world throws at us can do us no everlasting harm since we are in him who is life, forgiveness, heaven, and love embodied. All of God’s promises are not only yes in him (2 Cor. 1:20), but yes for you.