John 20:1-23

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.

So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him.

So Peter and the other disciples started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there, but did not go in.

Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head.

The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally, the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed.

They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying.

As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

They asked her, Woman, why are you crying? They have taken my Lord away, she said, and I don't know where they have put him. At this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realise that it was Jesus.

Woman, he said, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for? Thinking he was the gardener, she said, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him and I will get him.

Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned towards him and cried out in Aramaic, Rabbani, which means teacher. Jesus said, do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father.

Go instead to my brothers and tell them, I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news.

I have seen the Lord. And she told them that he had said these things to her. On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you.

After he said this, he showed them his hands and sighed. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again, Jesus said, peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. And with that, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven.

If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. Let's turn to God's word. We're going to look at John chapter 20, and particularly verses 19 to 31 of John chapter 20.

So if you do have a Bible, please open that up so that we can think about that, consider that together this morning. And as I open this up, let me pray.

Father, we come to you to celebrate and to rejoice in all that you have done in Jesus Christ. And as we think about your word now to us, we ask that your spirit would teach us what you have said in the Bible so that our lives would be transformed, that the gospel would totally shape and mold every aspect about us, and that Jesus Christ would become so deeply precious to us, whether we are exploring who he is for the first time, or whether this is the thousandth time we've been in a church.

May Jesus Christ be lifted up, and may he become deeply precious to us from this morning. Amen. So this passage, John chapter 20, verses 19 to 23, touches on something that every single person here wants.

Okay? Every single person in this room wants what is being talked about here in John chapter 20, verses 19 to 23. And yet the thing that is being touched on here is so elusive in life.

All of us have tried to find it. All of us have sought lots of different avenues. We thought that the promises would be fulfilled, and yet this thing is so elusive. It is peace.

Peace. Think about it personally. You know, I've just told you we've got four kids. I mean, there ain't no peace going around in our house in one sense, is there? Probably true for others who have raised young children or are in the midst of those years, the intense, emotional, physical years of raising young children.

It seems like there's not going to be a minute's peace in the day. What about family relationships? Maybe you are not necessarily raising children just now.

Maybe you are a child. You've grown up a little bit, and things are just not what you want them to be with your parents, or potentially parents with older children. It's not what you would envisage. Maybe you look and you think, well, my mum and dad are no longer together.

There's all sorts of problems that can exist in family relationships, and it means that that dynamic can become very challenging, and you do not think that there is peace. And then go down deep into ourselves, emotionally, psychologically.

You've been there. Tired. Weary. Broken. And it just seems like there is no peace around the corner for you.

Well, it's not just personal. It's also global. We can see that in the world around about us. Yes, with the people sitting next to us, but we can just take two seconds to scroll through our phones and check out our news feeds, and we can see that the world around about us is a place where peace is elusive, where fire will rain down on a nation, where poverty just becomes the absolute normality for particular aspects and places within our society and other parts of the world, where there is injustice, which takes place and increases.

Personally, globally, we can see that peace is something that we all want, and I'm going to tell you that it's something that we all need, because that's what the Bible is telling us, but it's something which is so elusive.

We all want it, but we all need it. That's what this passage is telling us, and that's what the wider story of the Bible is telling us. We all need peace. We are designed for this.

So therefore, Martin, here's my question. If I was sitting there and I'm asking me, the guy at the front, why is it so elusive? Why, if you tell me that I need this, is it something which is so elusive?

Well, we're going to ask four questions of this passage so that we can kind of get to the bottom of why it's so elusive and shine a light on a different angle as to how we receive this peace. So the first question we're going to ask is this.

What is peace? What actually is peace? Then secondly, why don't we have it? Thirdly, how do we get it? And fourthly, what do we do with it? You have to start, first of all, by asking, if it's something that we really want, we need to make sure we know what it is.

What is peace? Why is it so elusive? Why is it something that we can't quite put our finger on? Why is it something that seems to evade us throughout our lives? Biggest reason? We don't actually understand what true and real peace is.

Our culture pushes ideas to sell peace to us. They say something like this. You know, if you just kick back, have a great holiday, go to an idyllic island in Thailand, sit there, drink your mango smoothies, everything's going to be great.

Peace, perfect peace will reign. That's more me just looking a couple of months down the track, okay? Cup of coffee, a book, sitting by myself, able to just sit there, concentrate on one thing, no interruptions, really good things.

Maybe you could also see in society the idea and notion that if I just take myself away and I meditate by myself and have some sort of spiritual practice alone with no interruptions, then that would be a peaceful environment.

Or maybe you would sit here and you would say, well, peace is actually me being able to set the agenda for my life. It is me being able to do what I want to enjoy the things that make me happy and nobody else gets to check me or to call me out on whether or not this is a good or a bad thing.

There's a few problems, though, with the way that our society pushes these things upon us to do with peace. Number one, peace becomes linked to wealth. Peace can become linked to wealth.

How on earth do you get to Thailand from Scotland because you've got the dollar? Because you can do it. What about people who don't? Does that mean that peace is something which can never be true for them?

Secondly, peace requires detachment from reality when we think about the way that our society pushes these things on us. If you just go away to a little place by yourself and you're just by yourself and everything's about you and you just are over there by yourself, it's detachment from reality.

And then thirdly, as a result of these things, it ends. The holiday finishes. The peaceful moment when you're sitting by yourself, you're going to have the waves of problems crash back down on top of your lives again.

Ah, but you say, well, I can just start the cycle again. Yeah, but the cycle is going to end because your peace that you are building is an elusive peace because it is built on sand.

All of these attempts to produce peace put the individual at the center and it means that we get to set the terms of what true peace actually is and so we manufacture paths which lead us to this peace that we are seeking and yet we are always left in the end with a deep sense of discontent.

Everything finishes. We get bored or the stages of our life change and so the peace that we had been seeking in the things that we had manufactured cannot fulfill or bear the weight that we've given to them.

See, the Bible doesn't actually operate in the realm of fantasy as much as some people try to say that it does. The Bible does not operate in the realm of fantasy or evaluate people based on their financial status. The Bible defines peace, true peace, as something far greater than a product to be purchased or an escape from reality.

In the Bible, peace is this all-encompassing term from the Old Testament all the way through the New Testament which speaks of the unqualified well-being which comes to the people of God as a result of the activity of God particularly through God's Messiah and his redemption.

Peace, therefore, is this holistic state of reconciliation between a person and God. It is the full integration of every single aspect of what makes us human in a living and real relationship, a tangibly real and living relationship with God.

Meaning, peace is something which cannot be earned because it is something God gives and it secondly is not something we get to set the terms on because God deals with the real you and the real me.

He doesn't detach us from reality and he doesn't say that it's based on what you can do to get to him. God says, a real living relationship with me is what you were made for. I set the terms on that.

I provide everything you need for that. So the peace that you are trying to build for yourself will always crumple down around about you because you can never manufacture this. It is my gift to give to you and my gift alone.

What is it? It is God's gift. It is this holistic reintegration of who we are in a real and living relationship with God. So why don't we have it? Well, if you look at chapter 20, verse 19, that's where we're going to be looking in this section when we think about this question.

In the lead up to his assassination, Jesus had been speaking to his disciples about peace. It's not something that just appears here in chapter 20. He's been speaking to the disciples about peace.

So if you think about it in chapter 14, he's already said to them, peace I leave with you. You notice that? Jesus is saying, I leave peace with you. You can't get peace any other way.

I have to give this to you. Okay? My peace I give to you. So it's not something which has been defined or set in our terms. And then he says, let not your hearts be troubled.

So Jesus has already been preparing them just a few days before this resurrection day and he's been saying, I'm going to give you peace. It's my peace to give to you. Don't let your hearts be troubled.

But that's not what we find in our passage, is it? In fact, it's basically the exact opposite. You read chapter 20, verse 19. On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, it's the exact opposite of what Jesus has said to them.

I'm going to give this to you. It's my gift to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled. But the disciples are somewhat fearful. The 10 disciples, that's minus Judas, who's gone, and Thomas, who's clearly not there as a result of what we see in verses 24 and onwards, they are afraid.

They are locked away, terrified of what's coming next. It is not peace, which is the overarching theme of these men's lives. It is fear. Fear is driving their every decision.

They do not know what is going to happen next. And we can understand this, can't we? We can read this and understand something of this. They are in that room, locked away because of what?

They are scared that they are going to be caught. The Jewish authorities in verse 19 are who they are scared of. They think these men are going to come and catch them.

At the end of the day, they have seen that happen to their Lord and their master. These men have obviously got decent insider knowledge of where these people are and they are able to go and find where Jesus was only a few days before.

And once they had done that, they executed Jesus, which therefore meant, by logical extension, those guys who had been following him were probably next.

No wonder they're scared. They know death and public shame is most likely what is in their future. Now, we are not the disciples of that day, but for us, we understand what that feels like, don't we?

Being caught, found out, what we are really like, being displayed, the real me being opened up, the fear, the sense of humiliation and shame, our character put on public display so that we would have a public death and our reputation smashed and destroyed.

We understand something of the fear of being caught, don't we? But also, there's an uncertain future. These men had said, you are the Christ, Peter particularly, you are the Christ, the son of the living God, you are the long-hoped-for king of Israel, who only a few days before we had been singing the hosannas, praise be, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.

And then only a few short days later, that all seems to be thrown up into the air and the future that we once thought was going to take place has been obliterated in front of us.

Something I would want to note for us is, the disciples were together. We can skip past that pretty quickly, but I think that is a beautiful little note. They actually were still together and that is to their credit.

They met up together. They didn't know what was going to happen. The future was uncertain, but they did come together. They had expected deliverance, but they ended up with disappointment.

What about us? Like disciples, then, we have visions of what we think the future will be like. We potentially think that we're going to have a long and happy life, a family where everything is just joyful and where success will follow us wherever we go or possibly we'll have a long life with a blissful retirement in our future.

And so we fashion temporary fixes, little gods along the way and the paths of life which bring us a sense of peace in a very uncertain world. You see, the disciples weren't only locked in a room that night.

They were locked with their own sense of shame and guilt. these men, the closest people who had walked with Jesus, had abandoned their friend at the point of his greatest need.

And going one step further, Peter had even denied that he was even associated with Jesus, which is what you can see in chapter 18, verses 25 to 27.

And that's our problem. That is our problem. why we don't have true and lasting peace. Each of us behave the same way towards God.

We abandon him. We can even go so far as to deny that he even exists. Even though the very fact that you can say that he doesn't exist is a result of the fact that he's given you a breath and a brain to say it.

we take refuge in false saviors, but they cannot take away the reality of our self-knowledge. We know who we are and so we are scared of being caught.

Or our need for control. The fact that the future is so uncertain out there and we don't know what's going to happen with it. We want both of those. We know that those two things are true. Uncertain future and the fact that we know who we are.

Self-knowledge and our need for control. We don't know what to do with them so we manufacture something that's going to placate those deep down sense inside us. And then we need to drill at that a little bit further.

We actually know, not just ourselves, not just the world around about us, but we know that we have abandoned God. We know that we have denied him and what's the worst thing that could ever happen to us?

What is the worst thing that could ever happen to a person who knows that they have denied and abandoned God? That God turns up in the presence, in your presence, and says, here I am. That is the worst thing that could happen to you because he would demand an account for who you are.

this is the deep down under absolutely everything reason as to why we cannot know lasting peace.

We deny God, we abandon God, we pretend that he is not there, and yet we know, we absolutely know in the depth of our being he exists and he is going to demand an account from me.

That is why peace is not only a want, peace is every single person in this room's need. You need to have this peace.

So how do we get it? Remember what I said, what would be the worst thing that could happen to us? That God just stands in our midst and demands an accounting for our life. Let's look at what happens next in this passage.

Jesus came and stood among them. Well, well, well. Imagine the temperature in the room.

Imagine that split second where they see him there. The atmosphere of the holy God of Israel. The one who has not only died but who stands risen from the dead in front of them.

Imagine what is going on in that instant, in that moment, in their hearts and in their heads. A group of fearful men well aware of their recent failings. What comes next is the question.

The Son of God stands alive in their presence. The death-defeating King of God's people. Surely this is the end of the road for a group of men like this.

Absolutely useless people who were weak, who were cowardly, who were self-preserving, who did not care about their friend and their Lord when it mattered most. If we write the story, guess what we do?

Wrath and destruction came upon Peter, James, and John. They were consumed by fire and lightning appeared everywhere around them and they died and nobody knew their names evermore.

If it was us who was denied or betrayed or used, that's what we would do. That's who we are. We would storm the room, we would create a scene, we would call out every single horrible, negative, awful thing those people had done to us.

Anger, vengeance, hatred, getting recompense, getting back what I have lost. But you see, Jesus is not like Shylock. He doesn't come into the room and demand a pound of flesh from these people.

He speaks the words of healing and restoration that we all want to and also all need to hear. He says to them at the end of verse 19, Jesus came and he stood among them and what does he say?

The greatest news that you could ever hear, peace be with you. Jesus declares that he is setting them in a relationship with peace with him and by extension he is saying you are at peace with God and that also means for every single one of us here too.

That offer is on the table to you this morning. Peace can be yours with God. So how do we get it? The same way that these men did.

Jesus, excuse me, if we go into verse 20, we'll see it here. After he said this, he showed them his hands and sighed.

The disciples were overjoyed when they had seen the Lord. We get it the same way that they did. The true and lasting peace that we want and need are found only in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Did you notice it is Jesus who shows them the wounds in his body? The beginning of verse 20. Yes, he does this to prove that it actually is him.

This really is their Lord and Master. This is not some sort of ghost or energy force. He really has been raised from the dead as he had said to Mary. But as John writes this and this is what oh, there's so many things in this as I think of John writing this all those years decades later thinking about writing these things reflecting on being there in that moment as he writes this.

You can imagine if you let me get my point again as I've got myself off. John writes this down many years later and he remembers the wounds in the body of Jesus and he remembers that it is by the wounds of Jesus that he is healed.

This older man reflecting and speaking of his Lord is saying that it is by his wounds not just proof that he has been raised as important as that is he says it's by the wounds in his body that I am free.

It's by his wounds that I have peace with God. And this really is the crunch point for every single one of us. We want peace we need peace the Bible tells us but are we going to allow God to be the person to define what that true peace is and also how we get it.

What we are hearing from the Bible this morning and what we are seeing John leading us towards on that resurrection Sunday is that nothing other than the substitutionary sacrifice of the second person of the Trinity Jesus Christ the Son of God on a cross years ago can fully bring you to a relationship of peace reintegrate everything about your person with God it is only in his death for you and his rising for you that you can ever know true and lasting peace there is nothing else which is going to bring that for you anything else is a play thing which is trying to do this for us either by making us feel better about ourselves and our good works we try to feel better about ourselves we try to do good things we try to earn something of a peace and that would be sort of religious behavior or we try to suppress the deeper longings for lasting peace by hedonism or a need for control or setting our own life's agenda the non-religious person but I want you to consider this don't you want what you've heard from Jesus and you see him doing for those disciples don't you want that to be true don't you really want that to actually be true for you that there is a person who knows every single detail of your life everything about you and they still love you like this further still they know everything about you and would go to that length to go through a curse that they did not deserve to die a death that they should not have had to die so that we despite all of our denial will be set in a completely whole relationship with God don't you want that to be true

I do I want that to be true someone who knows me down to the absolute ground and who would raise me to the sky for some of us this morning this passage maybe hits another nerve you are so well aware that you are a mess maybe you're a person here who's exploring the Christian faith maybe you don't yet follow Jesus and you're going to say yeah but see if you knew me if you knew me if you if you knew me you would probably stop listening to me right now to be blunt don't let that be the marker and the thing which disqualifies you from this look at Jesus and how he loves these men as weak and as shameful as their activity has been look at him don't look at yourself look at him don't look at the preacher at the front look at him he knows you all the way down and he's saying to you come but others you're following

Jesus you know all too well the shame and the guilt of these disciples denial betrayal things that should have been done that you've not done things that you are doing or have done and the sense of shame still is there and that relationship with Jesus doesn't seem to be what it maybe once was fear shame and guilt do not need to be the masters of your life Jesus Christ the Lord of glory died and rose again for you read the end of verse 20 after he said this he showed them his hands inside and what happens to the disciples they instantaneously go from fear to joy they were over joyed when they saw the Lord the disciples are glad Jesus is standing there with them he is not demanding that they atone for themselves because they cannot do that and neither can we instead there is a deep joy which comes over them to know that the Lord

Jesus knows them at their absolute worst at their greatest moments of failure and he treasures them as brothers you love that that's what he says to Mary you see that in verse 17 Jesus said don't hold on to me for I've yet to ascend to the Father go instead to who my brothers go to my brothers tell them that I am alive I'm ascending to my Father and to your Father to my God and to your God if you know Jesus today and you love him and you are following him and you know as we all do the painful reality of the persistence of sin within our lives I want you to know and to hear that Jesus looks on you and says you are my brother you are my sister repent turn back do not live in shame and fear there is joyful future obedience which lies in front of you and I offer it because there are wounds in my side my hands and my feet and they speak a better word than all of your sin thrown together there's a man over in the states called

Dan Northland and he has written some books over the years and particularly what he's done is he's learnt from pastors theologians ministers from the last two three hundred years looking at the human heart looking at the deepest needs of our soul and the pains which exist there and he's tried to synthesize some of the things that they had said and here's one of the great things which really connects up with where these disciples are and where we are today he says this if you are in Christ your waywardness does not threaten your place in the love of God any more than history itself can be undone the hardest part has been accomplished he's saying the death and the resurrection of Jesus God has already executed everything needed to secure your eternal happiness and he did that whilst you were an orphan away from the promises of God away from being part of the people of God nothing can now unchild you if you are in

Christ not even you those in Christ are imprisoned within the tender heart of God we will be less sinful in that next life than we are now but we will not be any more secure in that next life than we are now do you believe that Jesus' death and resurrection has made you a new person the old has gone the new is here you are alive forever more because of everything Jesus has done for us believe it take hold of it grasp it grapple with it trust him when he says come to me after every single thing come to me because my blood is enough to wipe you clean this is what we celebrate this morning and every single other time that we gather throughout the year as God's people Sunday by

Sunday we celebrate the atoning death and the powerful resurrection of Jesus Christ which brings a relationship of peace with God for people like you and me who are wrecked left to ourselves a relationship which will not expire and it will not elude us it is safe and secure lasting forever you see Jesus falls down into death for us he falls down into death for us and he is raised for us lasting peace is not something which is elusive friends it simply requires us to give away everything to Jesus it simply requires one thing give it all away to him repent and believe confess the reality of who you are and he will welcome you in with nail pierced hands as a child of God what do we do with this peace because this passage doesn't end there does it it goes on to verses 21 to 23

Jesus not only buys peace for us gives us peace as a result of what he's done through his death and his resurrection for us he gives us a purposeful peace in our lives peace we talked earlier on about the consumerist peace where we try to manufacture things for us we live for now and we prioritize ourselves there's also those folk eastern philosophical positions that we thought about as well where we can detach ourselves from reality we find our inner voice but we've said that they don't actually really provide lasting peace but they also don't give us tools to be equipped for life in the real world Jesus doesn't give us that sort of answer he says you've got something to do with this peace with God that I have now given to you after rising from the dead and reuniting with his friends Jesus explains that this joyful peace that they now know is not for them to keep to themselves let's read those verses Jesus said to them again peace be with you as the father has sent me

I am sending you and with that he breathed on them and said receive the if you do not forgive them they are not forgiven he is sending them out into the world that he has made so that everyone and anyone everywhere throughout the world will know your sins can be forgiven because of all that Jesus has accomplished true and lasting peace is there on the table for you regardless your background your social status your culture or your language true and lasting peace is there for you because of all that I have done put it another way we are to forget about ourselves and to live for God's glory and the good of others by the proclamation of the gospel with the breath that God has given to us now this section verses 21 to 23 with only about five minutes left is highly technical and complex let me try and synthesize that down into to give the

Holy Spirit to his disciples that's what he's been speaking to them about only a few nights before he rose from the dead God is now the one who is living with them and that is the way that they are going to fulfill the mission that he has given to them of announcing the gospel Jesus has already done something like this already a few nights before he washed their feet chapter 13 verses 1-20 show us something of Jesus speaking but also doing something to highlight and to make a point Jesus washing their feet didn't make them clean if that was the case Jesus wouldn't have gone to the cross and he wouldn't have risen from the dead would he he could have done that and that would have been enough no what he's saying is here is an act here is something which I'm doing to communicate about what is going to be accomplished through who I am and that is what is seemingly taking place here as he breathes on them saying receive the Holy Spirit if you forgive anyone's sins they're forgiven if you do not forgive them they are not forgiven he seems to be saying to them the spirit is the one who is coming he will empower you he will unite you to me and he is the one who is going to send you out into the world as the father has sent me so

I am sending you and your role your task your mission as the disciples and as any disciple is to go into every single place in the world and to see my name made known we might not be in that room well there's no might not about it we're not in that room are we but there are definitely people here who are fearful about what this sort of love from God means for their lives we are not the apostles but we too are commissioned by the Lord Jesus this Easter day to see the gospel known throughout the whole world every single one of us if you are in Jesus Christ all of the blessings and the benefits come also along with all of the privileges and the responsibilities it will look different for each of us but there is something of this being sent outness which rests upon us this

Easter day Jesus freshly lays out that challenge to each of us who know and love Jesus to be those who are going out into the world with his gospel the guilt freeing shame cleansing death defeating the city which we are a part of come to hear him the community that we live in come to believe in him and know his name the office that we find ourselves in the majority of our week begin to rejoice knowing that the wounds of this man can make somebody like me whole and clean again because my sin has been taken away from me the school that we attend or that we teach in the workplace rejoicing in the hope of lasting peace that lies on all of us but we drill it down again another little level further because for some of us here in this room in particular there is absolutely enough people that this is true it will mean other steps it will mean setting aside the dreams that you have the aspirations that you have built up for yourself to respond to

God's leading to serve in very specific ways either here or in another part of the world to pastor the people of God to set aside your life and say I am yours you can do with me as you please because there is no one who knows me all the way down and who loves me completely there will be some of us and the call might be from Jesus to fulfill his mission leave where you are right now go where I tell you and get on with the work of seeing Jesus known and proclaimed for all of those people are you ready to do business with Jesus for those of you who that is quite clearly where he is leading you the reason that is such an amazing section is once again because John writes this decades later and he knows the cost that fulfilling this mission is going to bring as he looks back and sees his friends who were in that room with him that night no longer there most of them dead already because they were not willing to treasure their own lives!

above seeing God glorified and the world come to rejoice and know his name because they laid down their lives in response to Christ laying down his life we stand here today able to rejoice in the goodness of God's glory refilled at the cross are you going to take up that invitation that comes from the word please do listen to John he rejoiced greatly when he saw the Lord Jesus died and rose again so that you and I can enter into true and lasting peace that's what we want that's what we need have you received the peace have you received!

peace is not just this intangible thing peace is Jesus Christ peace is our relationship with God will you receive him since Jesus gives this peace he gives himself to us for a very specific purpose what are you going to do with that peace that he has given to you listen to him follow his lead trust him where he sends you because you will never be let down by him let me pray father we thank you that Jesus has died so that our sins would be taken away but also that he has been raised from the dead that we would have peace with God we thank you that no matter who we are or where we find ourselves the offer is put in front of us trust and believe repent and follow and so father

I pray particularly for people who don't yet know you who are listening in or who are here this morning that father you would speak to them by your word in such a way that they would know see sense taste that the Lord is good that he has been true to his promises and that he loves me this much and that true peace is found in him and for those of us who know and love Jesus we ask once again lead us from being people who can be so easily and quickly dominated by fears to be people who once again rejoice looking at the wounded savior and recognize that he has done everything for us which means that we have life now and forever peace perfect peace with our savior Jesus Christ and for those who are wrestling just now with what you are asking them to do make it clear show them the way and teach them from your word that it is never a foolish thing to entrust our lives into the hands of the living

God for we ask this in the name of