Week 2 – Peace
Read Matthew 1:18-21, John 14:18-27 and your notes from Sunday morning’s sermon.
Intro:
We talked last week about how Jesus’ birth gives us hope. This week let’s look at one of the results of placing our hope with Jesus: peace. We learned last week that when God sent Jesus to be born, he invited us into apprenticeship with Him. He gives us hope in a purposeful life as we follow Jesus. God invites us to a life of peace because that is what a life lived following Him brings.
Sometimes is easy to overlook the peace that Jesus can bring us right now in our lives through His spirit. We look to the hope that his death brings as we expect an eternity AFTER this life with God, but we forget about the guidance and peace that He can give right now as He invites us to life with Him now. Read John 14:18-27 again and reflect on this.
Dallas Willard in his book The Divine Conspiracy says this: “I think we finally have to say that Jesus’ enduring relevance is based on his historically proven ability to speak to, to heal and empower the individual human condition. He matters because of what he brought and what he still brings to ordinary human beings, living their ordinary lives and coping daily with their surroundings. He promises wholeness for their lives. In sharing our weakness he gives us strength and imparts through his companionship a life that has the quality of eternity. He comes where we are, and he brings us the life we hunger for.”
Through the hope we have in Jesus, we can have the Peace that comes with living in His kingdom here on earth.
Questions:
- Looking back at Matthew 1:18-21, do you think Joseph was afraid? How did Joseph respond to the command not to be fearful of taking Mary as his wife? (He obeyed!)
- Do you believe that Jesus can make a difference in your life now, not just after you die?
- What are some areas of your life where you experience chaos and would like to instead experience peace? What can you do to accept God’s peace in those areas of your life?
Feel free to discuss or ask additional questions as they arise
Spiritual Practice:
As we continue to study and learn about the spiritual discipline of solitude, let’s look at one example from the bible where someone went into solitude. Take the story of Moses for example. Review Exodus chapters 2 and 3 for a refresher if needed. Let’s jump to the part of the story where Moses kills an Egyptian who was mistreating a Hebrew slave. Moses has an emotional outburst and sees something dark in himself that he may not have previously known was there. After this, he flees into solitude to the land of Miridan. He leaves the life he lived in the public eye as the adopted son of a princess, and goes into a life of solitude. It is there in the solitude that God does a work in Moses. It is there that in the wilderness that an angel of the Lord appears to him in a burning bush and God speaks to him! There is a direct correlation between Moses’ willingness to slow down and pay attention and God’s willingness to speak.
Moses’ life up to this point was like a snow globe that was in a constant state of being shaken up. Only when you set the snow globe down and let it settle can you see clearly what is inside. That is what all of us can experience in solitude! If we can stop and let our souls settle, we can allow God to reveal to us what is inside so that He can do His work in us. When Moses finally returns to Egypt he is a changed man. He learns to trust God and he is able to live fully in the plans that God has for him.
Closing Verse: Exodus 3:4 – When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.”
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