Go a little deeper
Pastor Ryan Palmer introduces himself as the youth pastor and opens this second week of Advent by talking about his love of Christmas and movies, joking about Hallmark films and the church's "Christmas at the Movies" theme. He then summarizes It's a Wonderful Life: George Bailey repeatedly sets aside his own dreams to help his community until crushing circumstances leave him contemplating suicide on a bridge, where his guardian angel Clarence shows him what Bedford Falls would be like if he had never been born. Ryan says the film raises themes of unmet expectations and pain that remain relevant, and reads them toward the question of where peace can be found.
Ryan contrasts the common sense of peace as the absence of conflict with the biblical word shalom, which he describes as completeness, wholeness, and restored relationships. Turning to Isaiah 9:6, he describes how Israel's long experience of conquest by Assyria, Babylon, Greece and Rome shaped their hope for a coming Prince of Peace, and how Jesus' ministry looked different from what they expected: rather than freeing them from their circumstances, he offered freedom from sin and restored relationship with God, extended to all peoples. Ryan also points to Ephesians 2:14, Romans 14:17 and Galatians 5:22-23 as he connects peace to the work of the Holy Spirit in believers.
Ryan describes his own years without faith and trying to fill his life with things he thought would bring happiness, and briefly acknowledges a personal experience of fear from his own family life. From there he turns to Mark 4, where Jesus calms the storm on the Sea of Galilee, and to John 14:27, arguing that biblical peace is not the absence of suffering but God's presence within it. He closes with an invitation to receive Jesus and a prayer for those in hard seasons.
Take this with you
Shalom Is More Than Quiet
Ryan contrasts a common view of peace as the absence of conflict with the biblical word shalom: completeness, wholeness, and restored relationships, drawing on Isaiah 9:6. He later ties this to Jesus' own peace, which John 14:27 describes as different from what the world gives and able to sustain believers through suffering rather than merely remove conflict.
Delayed Promises and Unexpected Fulfillment
Israel, living under repeated conquest, expected Isaiah's promised Prince of Peace to free them from oppression. Ryan argues that when Jesus came his ministry looked different from those expectations: rather than release from circumstances, he offered freedom from sin and restored relationship with God, extended beyond one nation to all peoples.
Peace Is God's Presence in the Storm
From Mark 4, where the disciples panic while Jesus sleeps and then calms the sea, Ryan insists that peace is not the absence of suffering. Jesus never promises a life without storms; he promises his own peace, which John 14:27 describes as different from what the world gives.
An Open Invitation
The message closes with an invitation to receive Jesus as a free gift that cannot be earned, grounded in Colossians 1:19-20 on peace made through the cross. Ryan prays for those in hard seasons, asking that God would reveal his presence even if the storm does not end on their timeline.
The conversation,
in their words.
Transcript from the recording’s captions. Select any timestamp to hear the original audio.
for those of you who haven't met me yet my name is ryan i'm the youth pastor here at journey now just by a show of hands how many of you are excited for christmas okay most of you if you're watching online and you're excited put your favorite christmas emoji in the chat let us know but personally i love christmas i love christmas so much that one year when i was interning for my church i went around and visited all my students dressed like this yeah yeah now that happened because my sister made a bet with me and she was like if i buy this for you you have to do this and i said done i'll do that nothing she would she did so i'll tell you there was a lot of awkward
door opens that christmas morning when parents were like who are you and what are you dressed up and i'm like it's buddy the elf merry christmas and you know no one slammed the door in my face but uh yes i do i enjoy christmas a lot and it's a fun time of year for me and now i get to celebrate i did give this away to one of my interns so don't ever think you're going to see that again but now we're in this season this week two of advent and advent like pastor keith said last week is just a rival we're anticipating and celebrating the arrival of jesus so we get to celebrate that jesus came to earth but now we're also in another place of waiting where we're waiting for him to return again now
here at journey we like to celebrate in fun ways and so as you know our theme is christmas at the movies and when you walked in this morning for those of you who are here you probably smelled that popcorn smell right and that there's something about that that just triggers like cozy movie fun even though you might not be a popcorn person at 9am right after this service you will be and you'll just be eating all that popcorn well i if you don't know this about me already i love movies i do i love movies so much that i can see the same movie again and again it honestly my wife doesn't know how i do it she's like you've already seen this i'm like i know but it's so good i could watch it again all except for hallmark movies now no nothing against hallmark movies they are
my wife's favorite but it's just it's hard for me because how do you watch a movie when you know exactly what's going to happen before you watch it like the typewriter's assistant from new york gets called out to montana where she meets a cowboy that she has no interest in and then by the end they're getting married on a snowy christmas morning it's funny how as much as i don't like them i still get sucked into them so like i'll find my wife will just be watching them and i'm like oh man you can watch that and then i'm like oh and the next thing you know i'm like come on she's proposing anyway hallmark well this year or this year today we're talking about uh the movie it's a wonderful life and maybe this is a movie that some of you
know but maybe not this movie came out in 1946 and so i'm going to just give you a little overview of it's a wonderful life and there's going to be some spoilers but to be fair you've had 75 years so don't be mad at me so it's a wonderful life follows the man named george bailey he grows up in a small town of bedford falls and he has dreams and aspirations of traveling the world he's got that adventurous heart where he just wants to go but time and time again george finds himself stuck in bedford falls he makes choices to help out his community his friends and his family always sacrificing his own dreams so that others uh can continue to to live
on uh in the in the contentment that they have and so george just continues to to live this life and it goes on until the point where he finds himself in a really challenging circumstance one that pushes him to the edge that he doesn't know how he's going to overcome it or how he's going to continue on and so george after living this life for everyone else is watching it all just slip away kind of creating this this sense of meaningless to his life so he heads to a bridge and contemplates contemplates taking his own life but it's there on that bridge that he meets a man named clarence who ends up being his guardian angel and saves his life that night but another thing that clarence does is he shows george what his life would have been like if he had never been born at
all so let's watch a clip from it's a wonderful life what's at the merry christmas through the window where's your coat and hat what's the matter [Music] [Music] isn't it wonderful about harry the ladies george but i had 50 calls today about the parade the banquet
your mother's so excited [Music] so [Music] but she keep playing that round oh shut up oh joseph joseph [Music] where'd he go where'd he go i i had him right here i need a drink
which way to go help me find them well molly what do you want mother that's this is george i thought sure you'd remember me you see george you really had a wonderful life don't you see what a mistake it would be to throw it away clarence yes george where's mary oh well i i i can't i don't know how you know these things but tell me where is she if you know where she is tell me
where my wife is i'm not supposed to tell please clarence tell me where she is you're not going to like it george where is she she's an old maid she's never married where's mary where is she where is she she's just about to close up the library there must be some easier way for me to get my wings now to be honest i hadn't seen its wonderful life before last week i i know and i didn't know what i was missing when i watched it i was like i'll just watch a few clips to get a feel for this week and i watch the whole thing because it really is that good and what i really enjoyed about it was that there are some powerful themes that
are still relevant for us today we see themes of of unmet expectations loss pain suicide but what we see in the midst of all of those things is that when we recognize how god is working in our lives we can find peace and what a great truth that is for us that god gives us what we need to draw closer to him now we've already begun to talk about peace today this word but before we go further i want to talk about the difference between the word peace that we understand as of it today and the word peace that we find in the bible you see peace as we hear we think is just an absence of conflict or a state of tranquility for parents it's
a moment of quiet and that's kind of it for us but in the bible we see that peace is rich in meaning and wide in purpose the hebrew word for peace is shalom the greek word for peace is which is the equivalent of shalom now shalom is more than the cessation of conflict and the hebrew word there defined is actually completeness or wholeness so when we say shalom in the when we hear that in the bible we read peace and we just think oh there there's no conflict there they're kind of there in tranquility but the reality is when they say you have shalom that means you're in fullness completeness wholeness and actually throughout the old testament it
has meanings of safety health harmony both within and without soundness tranquility prosperity fullness and rest shalom also works on a relational level you see in the bible relationships are restored when they're restored or healed they experience shalom so let's keep this biblical view of peace in front of us as we look at the scripture today and how it relates to jesus and ourselves so hundreds of years before jesus was even born a prophet came to judea and proclaimed to its leaders that if they don't stop what they're doing that there would be consequences for their actions and for the people that prophet was isaiah
now as much as he prophesied against the destruction of israel if they refused to repent he also prophesied about a coming hope and that hope was about a future messiah an anointed one one who would come and bring a new kingdom into this world and he gives us a brief description of who that messiah would be and we find that in isaiah 9 6 it says for to us a child is born to us a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be wonderful counselor mighty god everlasting father and prince of peace now the people isaiah was talking to eventually they would be conquered they would be conquered by the assyrians they'd be conquered by the babylonians
later they would come back but only to be conquered again they'd be conquered by the greeks and later the romans so you can imagine for a people who were living under that kind of oppression that kind of suffering to find the words of isaiah and imagine what it would be like when they were fulfilled to hold on to those words with hope and anticipation see there's something powerful about believing that there will be a time when peace comes that cannot be taken away i mean think about even today right we live in a time where it feels like chaos is everywhere division is everywhere and how many of us are just like lord
jesus come and that is not new like growing up i remember when i go to church i would hear people say like lord jesus come these kids are skateboarding and playing video games and i remember thinking like what like what's wrong with that but now as a parent as a father living today i'm like lord jesus come because we're always going to be in this state where we lack that perfect peace until jesus returns because only jesus brings a peace that will restore all broken things and this kind of peace doesn't happen on its own and it's not a peace that the world can give this is a piece as the prophet micah says only comes from god micah 5 5 says and
he god and he meaning god shall be their peace you see god is shalom and the only way to truly experience shalom is through god now i don't know about you but maybe you've come to this place where you understand that your timing is not god's timing i've learned this lesson many times and probably will continue to learn it where i think god i need you to solve this problem in my life please do it now and god's like no and there have been moments in my life even painful moments where i cried out to god and said lord please take me away from this
and nothing but now years later i can look back and see how god worked through those moments even as painful and hurtful as they were but i had to realize that god's timing is not my timing you see something happens when hopes and promises are delayed and when they don't come as fast as we want them to this happened with the people of god they had received this promise from isaiah that there would be a prince of peace this mighty council this everlasting god who was going to come and free them so they created an expectation of who this messiah was going to be and what type of things he would do to bring that peace and the type of peace that he would bring and we do this too
where we in the delay of a fulfillment of a promise maybe create an expectation that's not realistic because what happens is hundreds of years later jesus shows up and his ministry looks nothing like what god's people thought it was going to look like he comes and starts living out a ministry that was different than what people expected you see they thought that he was going to come free them from their circumstances they thought when the messiah comes he's going to free us from our oppression and suffering under the the roman empire he's going to be the one who liberates us now jesus did offer freedom but it wasn't from their circumstances or from their suffering he actually offered them freedom from their sin see jesus provides a way to a restored
relationship with god a relationship that has been fractured since the fall of humanity through jesus our relationship with the heavenly father is restored as well as relationships with each other jesus changes everything he exceeded the expectation they just wanted freedom and authority to live comfortably and jesus says i'm going to give you something better that relationship with the father that's been broken i'm going to restore it not just for one nation for all nations not just for one group of people but for all people
i can relate to that because when i grew up i wasn't a believer for 16 years of my life i lived for myself broken sinful making choices that hurt not only myself but the people around me and i tried to fill my life with things that i thought would make me happy things that would make me feel good but what i can honestly tell you is that there was no peace my life was filled mostly with anger until i encountered jesus and surrendered my life to him for the first time in my life i began to experience peace i experienced something new within me something that not only changed myself
but my relationships around me now paul talks about this life-changing process when he wrote to the church in ephesus and it says this in ephesians 2 14 for he himself talking about jesus is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility now in context paul here is telling the church about the freedom that we have in jesus and that through the grace of jesus sacrifice we can receive eternal life you see through the sacrifice death and resurrection of jesus we have been restored to god we see that when he had broken down himself see there's a division
among us and god from the moment that we're born we have sin and you might be thinking like there's no way little babies can have sin but they do you can see like my kid you know one of the first words after he said mom and eventually dad no it doesn't take long for that sin nature to to expose itself you see we're born with a division between ourselves and god but here is the beautiful thing jesus tears down the dividing wall of hostility between us and god god now sees us with the imputed righteousness of christ which means that god now doesn't look at us and see sees our sin rather he sees
his son wrapped around us this is good news but what was i to do with this news how do i live differently because of that well we are called to live for a different kingdom and that was one of the first things i had to learn as a new believer was that there was a new kingdom that i was called to live for the kingdom of god and paul has something to say about this kingdom romans 14 17 says for the kingdom of god is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness peace and joy from the holy spirit see living for god is not doing the same things we've always done with the only difference being that we show up on church on sundays and yet that's kind of what happens
we surrender our lives to jesus but then we fall into the routines of our old lives chasing after our old kingdoms and then we show up on church and then we do it all over again but you see when we accept jesus as our savior we receive something and that's something that we receive is the holy spirit and it's in this relationship with the holy spirit where we can find our shalom our peace we now have the third part of the trinity within us that's the gift that was given to us i know for many of us we would rather at least we think we would rather have jesus physically here walking with us we think that life would just be so much easier if you was there like you would be ready to yell at your kids like oh
jesus i love you son go play nicely but jesus knew that it actually wouldn't be better if he stayed he said i have a helper and that helper is going to be with you and it's actually better that i go you see when we live with this holy spirit there's fruit that comes from it and we find that list in galatians 5 22 and 23 it says but the fruit of the spirit is love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control right after joy we see peace the rene the completeness that wholeness it's a peace
that can reflect jesus no matter what season of life we're in it's a peace that no matter what our circumstances are jesus can shine through i want to recognize for a moment as we begin to talk about some of these trials that it's easier to to talk about peace in the middle of trials until the trial is your own when my son was almost three years old he was my only child at the time my wife was working it was a friday it was my day off and so it's just him and i and he comes up to me dad let's play a game and i was like okay we can play a game i
was like let's play the sleeping game it's my favorite game it's where dad sleeps he brings a pillow in a blanket i just rest and he takes care of me and he's like dad we always play that game let's play something new okay so what do you want to play he's like i want to play hide and seek now at the time we're living in a small two-bedroom duplex that like i could throw a ball from the furthest bedroom to the living room and so this place is tiny and so i'm like all right hide and seek easy let's do it so i do what parents do when they're playing hide and seek with the two-year-old you know like 1 2 nineteen twenty all right ready or not here i come and you know you see a big ball on the bed with legs sticking out and i'm just like oh is he under the bed nope not under the bed in the closet not in the cl oh what's under here oh how'd
you find me you know like easy so finally after a few rounds of this i'm like all right it's the last round we're we're done after this so i count when one two three all the way to 20. all right ready or not here i come and i'm playing it up you know exaggerating i go to his room look under the bed look in the closet go to my room look in the bed under the bed and closet walk in the living room not there and i'm like all right feeling kind of impressed at this moment like he's stepping up his game so i go back to all these spaces and i begin to look a little more intently moving things around shuffling he's not in his room anywhere so i go to my room begin to look more intently he's not in there so we can check the bathrooms and bathtubs and it's not there and now i'm
starting to look in places he shouldn't be like the washer dryer in the garage and all of a sudden as i'm looking and not finding my son this sense of panic begins to well up inside me and thoughts start flooding my head did he get outside did he go where he wasn't supposed to did he get hit by a car did he get kidnapped did he go into the woods and get hurt all of a sudden i'm running around and i'm starting to yell his name a little bit louder elias where are you elias where are you and it gets to the point where i'm like elias come out the game is over it's not funny come out and i'm terrified now that something might have happened to my son and even though the front door was locked i'm like who knows this kid could have gotten out found a key locked it up he's getting good at this game
and and i am in a sense of panic when all of a sudden this two-year-old boy comes out from behind this basket of blankets that we had next to the couch and i ran over and hugged him tears coming down my face he didn't know what was happening all the chaos went away and there was calm but i will say in that moment i abandoned peace and went straight for fear and it's not that i'm unfamiliar with scripture i know verses like psalm 48 that say in peace i will both lie down and sleep for you alone o lord make me dwell in safety i've heard these these verses but in the moments where the thought of losing my son was
so unbearable verses like that seemed meaningless the word of god seems to fall behind me and i choose fear and chaos over peace see what i didn't realize in the moment is that biblical peace is not the absence of suffering it is something more see the the shalom peace the rainy peace that we get means that we are whole complete even when life is unbearable even when we feel empty and alone even when we feel like everything is crashing around us we can have peace even if something as unimaginable as losing a child or a loved one we can have peace
and we see this in the gospel of mark when jesus and his disciples are crossing the sea of galilee it says this in mark 4 35 to 41 it says on that day when evening had come he said to them let's go across to the other side and leaving the crowd they took him with them in the boat just as he was and the other boats were with him and a great windstorm arose and the waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling but he was in the stern asleep on the cushion and they woke him and said to him teacher do you not care that we are perishing and he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea peace be still
and the wind ceased and there was a great calm he said to them why are you so afraid have you still no faith and they were filled with great fear and said to one another who then is this that even the wind and sea obey him you see these were not men who were unfamiliar with being on rough seas these were fishermen by trade they had been on rough seas before so to be at a place where they felt like their lives were in danger they panicked and they ran to jesus who was asleep teacher don't you care that we're perishing and jesus gets up and demonstrates an authority that only
god would have which is to silence and calm the sea we all experience storms like this in our lives moments when everything is out of our control and there's probably moments in our lives where we even cry out to god and maybe like the disciples we don't hear from him so what do we do we decide to take control instead of continuing to find jesus to pursue him in those moments we're like i'm going to handle this i'm going to do this i'm going to take care of this you see the problem we have with peace is that in times of trouble we want peace but we want it our way and we want it on our terms
but the one who is truly in control the one who has this all figured out he's promised us that he is there with us so even when we don't hear him responding he's with us we are not alone in the storms we have peace even when it seems like our lives are at the darkest moments now other times as believers we forget that this is what we signed up for that when we committed to follow jesus we've committed to entering times of storms and like wait whoa not me i committed to jesus so things will get better and yeah life can be great and it will be in certain ways but it doesn't
guarantee us that there won't be any suffering or times of storms one of my favorite authors c.s lewis he writes this and he wrote this after he lost his wife to cancer it says we were promised sufferings they were part of the program we were even told blessed are they that mourn and i accept it i've got nothing i hadn't bargained for i know it's not the cheery christmas message that maybe you were hoping for this morning but it gets better see because jesus didn't just return to the father and abandon us now he left us with hope and with assurances and with promises john 14 27 jesus 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 neither let them be afraid jesus is saying i'm going to give you the shalom peace not the peace that promises temporary pauses of conflict but peace that sustains you through conflict peace that sustains you through suffering through pain peace that the world will never be able to give and here's the reality we live in a time where we will do anything to avoid pain we will pursue any type of avenue to numb the feelings of hurt in our lives and this world will try to sell it to you but there is only one who can truly
truly give you a peace that can sustain you through and that is jesus so if you're here today and you feel unworthy because maybe in those seasons of the storm you abandon peace you chose your own way and those choices led to consequences maybe consequences that you're still wrestling with and dealing with today i want you to know you're not alone king david was a man who is known as a man after god's own heart and yet he struggled with sin psalm 38 3 says there is no soundness in
my flesh because of your indignation there is no health in my bones because of my sin here is a man who loved god and yet struggled with sin struggled with feeling unworthy because of the choices that he made in his life and yet he was committed to following after god so here's some news for us we have all messed up we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of god now maybe you're here today and you've questioned god because of the pain you've experienced in this life and that's fair that is fair but our god is not a stranger to pain and suffering colossians 1 19-20
says for god was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him and through him reconcile to himself all things whether things on earth or things in heaven by making peace through his blood shed on the cross god chose to allow jesus to suffer and die to experience pain so that all of us can be reconciled to him our god is not a stranger to pain in just a moment i'm going to ask everyone in the room to close our eyes and i'm going to give those here
who don't have a relationship with jesus an opportunity to accept him and maybe you found yourself here because someone invited you and maybe you came here today because you've heard that journey was a church that you can come as you are but i want you here today to know this that there is a gift for you that gift is jesus that he already paid a price so that the dividing wall of hostility between you and god can be eliminated so that you can receive a relationship with him forever and it costs nothing you can't buy this gift you can't earn this gift you can't be good enough for this gift all you can do is receive it so if you're here today and you don't know jesus in just a moment i'm going to give you an opportunity to accept him and there's nothing magical about this
moment it's just an opportunity for you to acknowledge that jesus is god that he died and was resurrected and that you have a chance to surrender your life and receive that free gift so right now go ahead and close your eyes [Music] so if you're here today and you've been wrestling with this idea or this relationship with god because maybe you feel unworthy or maybe you've experienced things that have caused doubt in your life well this today i want you to know that you can have him you can accept him and receive him and that all you have to do is believe
the bible says believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that jesus is lord and you will be saved so right now if you want to accept jesus please raise your hand just raise it high in the air i see that hand i see that hand wonderful this is the best decision you can make excellent i see those hands [Music] this commitment that you're making this surrender changes everything [Music] now for those of you in here who maybe you've experienced the storms or maybe you're in the storm now man i pray that jesus you would be near that god even if we don't get out of the
storm in the time that we think we should be out or we shouldn't be god we want to be somewhere we're not but lord i pray that you would lead us god and be with us that you would reveal your presence so that way we can still know that you are there that god there is a purpose for the things that we go through that jesus despite all the hardships and all the suffering we can still have a wonderful life and we pray this in your name amen
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What Shalom Actually Means
Ryan contrasts the everyday idea of peace as the absence of conflict with the biblical word shalom, which he describes as completeness, wholeness, and restored relationships. He anchors this in Isaiah 9:6's promise of a coming Prince of Peace and considers what that promise meant to a people living under repeated conquest.
Isaiah 9:6
- Where do you tend to define peace mainly as the absence of conflict, and how might the biblical idea of wholeness reframe that?
- Which of the shalom descriptions Ryan names (safety, health, harmony, rest) do you most long for right now?
- How might holding a promise of future peace help someone enduring a long hard season, as Ryan says it did for Israel?
When Promises Take Longer Than Expected
Ryan observes that Israel's centuries of waiting shaped an expectation of a Messiah who would end their political oppression. He argues from Isaiah 9:6 that Jesus fulfilled the promise in an unexpected way, offering freedom from sin and restoration with God rather than release from circumstances. He suggests delayed promises can lead us to build expectations God never promised.
Isaiah 9:6
- Where are you waiting on something from God that has taken far longer than you expected?
- Have you ever built an expectation of what God would do that proved different from what he actually did?
- Ryan says Jesus offered something better than what the people asked for. How do you hold hope for a specific need while trusting a different answer?
The Holy Spirit and the Fruit of Peace
Ryan links peace to the gift of the Holy Spirit. He turns to Romans 14:17, which describes the kingdom as righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, and to Galatians 5:22-23, where peace appears among the fruit of the Spirit. He argues that because the Spirit lives in believers, peace can reflect Jesus in any season.
Romans 14:17 · Galatians 5:22-23
- What does Ryan say the kingdom consists of in Romans 14:17, and how does that differ from outward religious routine?
- How does Ryan connect peace as fruit of the Spirit with reflecting Jesus in different seasons?
- Jesus told his disciples it was better that he go so the Helper would come. How does Ryan describe the Spirit's role in giving peace?
Storms, Fear and Jesus in the Boat
Ryan turns to Mark 4, where experienced fishermen panic in a storm while Jesus sleeps, then calms the sea. He argues from that passage that biblical peace is not the absence of suffering but wholeness that holds even when life feels unbearable, and that in times of trouble people often want peace on their own terms rather than pursuing Jesus.
Mark 4:35-41
- The disciples cried out that Jesus did not care. What does Ryan say about crying out to God when he seems silent?
- Ryan says that in trouble we want peace on our own terms. Where do you notice that pull in yourself?
- What does it look like to pursue Jesus rather than take control when a storm hits?
Peace the World Cannot Give
The closing section turns to Jesus' promise in John 14:27 of a peace different from what the world gives, and to Colossians 1:19-20 on peace made through the cross. Ryan also notes David's confession of sin in Psalm 38:3 as evidence that even a man after God's own heart struggled, then ends with an invitation to receive Christ.
John 14:27 · Psalm 38:3 · Colossians 1:19-20
- Ryan says the world sells ways to avoid pain. Which of those shortcuts are you most tempted to reach for?
- Ryan says God is not a stranger to pain because of the cross. What comfort does that offer, and what questions does it leave?
- How do you understand the invitation to receive a free gift you cannot earn?
Answers from this recording
Start a conversation.
What does the Bible mean by peace, according to this message?+
Ryan distinguishes the everyday idea of peace, which he describes as the absence of conflict or a moment of quiet, from the biblical word shalom. He defines shalom as completeness or wholeness, and lists meanings including safety, health, harmony, soundness, tranquility, prosperity, fullness, and rest. He also notes that shalom works relationally, so restored relationships experience it. He applies this understanding to Isaiah 9:6 and its promise of the Prince of Peace.
Why did Jesus' ministry differ from what many first-century expectations anticipated?+
Ryan explains that Israel had lived through conquest by Assyria, Babylon, Greece, and Rome, and that Isaiah's promise of a Prince of Peace fed an expectation of a Messiah who would free them from oppression. When Jesus came, his ministry looked different: instead of freeing them from their circumstances or suffering, he offered freedom from sin and restoration of relationship with God. Ryan says Jesus gave something better than what they asked and extended it beyond one nation to all people, a point he connects to Ephesians 2:14.
What expectation of God's work in your life might be narrower than what he is actually offering?
How does the story of Jesus calming the storm relate to finding peace?+
Ryan works through Mark 4, where Jesus sleeps in the boat during a windstorm, the disciples wake him, and he rebukes the wind with a command for peace and stillness. He notes the disciples were experienced fishermen who panicked anyway. From this he argues that peace is not the absence of suffering but wholeness that holds even when life is unbearable, and that Jesus never promises life without storms, only his presence and his own peace, which John 14:27 calls different from what the world gives.
How do you tell the difference between trusting Jesus in a storm and trying to take control?
How is the Holy Spirit connected to peace in this message?+
Ryan teaches that when people accept Jesus as Savior they receive the Holy Spirit, and that through this relationship we find shalom. He cites Galatians 5:22-23, noting that peace follows joy in the list of the fruit of the Spirit, and connects it to the idea of completeness and wholeness that can reflect Jesus in any season. He also references Jesus telling his disciples that his departure and the coming Helper were actually better for them, and cites Romans 14:17 describing the kingdom as righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
