Elevate - Christmas Playlist - Grownup Christmas List - Neal DiQuattro

we serve the prince of peace and we're in the season where we should be focused as pastor said more than ever on him and it's probably the time where we often experience the least amount of peace. We often dig our heels in and say I'm not going to experience rest until my circumstances change. Welcome to Elevate from Authentic Life Church in Mobile, Alabama with Pastor John DiQuatro. We hope it builds your faith and helps you to live a life of God that you've always wanted to live. We hope it inspires you to be a fully devoted authentic follower of Jesus Christ. Enjoy the message and welcome to Elevate. Today's message is from Authentic Life Church youth minister and worship leader Neil DiQuatro. We are in our Christmas playlist series and last week wasn't last week absolutely amazing especially the time we had at the end just reminding ourselves that we need to invite the Holy Spirit into what's happening in our lives and so just an amazing service. So we're going to continue with the Christmas playlist and let's see what we have this week. No more lies torn apart That wars would never start And time would heal all Every young man would have a friend That right would always win And love would never end This is my grown-up Christmas land All right I'm looking out and I'm noticing that everyone's like singing this song together. It's a beautiful song and I think it's popular and I think we want to sing it because I think it resonates with all of us. If I'm being honest if we could exchange every physical gift that we would could possibly get for Christmas and exchange it for a real life gift like no more war and no more hunger and reconciliation with a loved one or companionship or or justice in the world wouldn't we trade it in just a second right we would all trade it and that's why that song resonates with us because deep in the heart of every man woman and child whether you're a muslim or hindu or an atheist or or an agnostic or a christian something inside of you knows that something is not right we know that what we're experiencing on this earth is not what God intended something's wrong and it resonates with us all and in attempts to try to fix it this is where we get a lot of the hollow modern philosophies of our day the woke-ism of our day all the crazy things we see online and here's the thing it's all well intended I mean people really want peace on earth people really want to see this world improve they want to see their lives improve but despite all of our efforts it doesn't seem to accomplish anything right have you seen anything online that's actually worked have you seen someone you know show up in the news with some great idea and it sets the world right well intended but it never accomplishes anything and the question this morning is why is that and the answer is found in the key message that I'd like to share with you today which is simply this the world is struggling with trying to experience God without God right and to get more specific the world is trying to obtain peace without the prince of peace so that brings us to our key passage this morning isaiah chapter 9 verse 6 it's a it's the christmas prophecy from isaiah we all know it for unto us there's the king james sneaking up on me for to us a child is born you know there's some verses no matter what gonna what uh translation to come out with you're always going to say it in the king james right for god so so love the world anyways for to us it's i'm sticking it to the man 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 called wonderful counselor mighty god everlasting father prince of peace this passage reveals the first thing that i'd like to say this morning which is this peace is found exclusively in christ we get criticized as christians because of our for our claims of exclusivity we're right everyone else is wrong well that's not the attitude that we want to present ourselves with but we either believe that he's the only way to the father that jesus is the way the truth and the life or we don't and so peace is found exclusively in christ verse six here says his name shall be called wonderful counselor mighty god everlasting prince of peace prince of peace now you might be thinking to yourself so unbelievers they can't have peace i have friends neighbors co-workers where they seem to live their life pretty well and they they have peace sometimes in fact they're they have more peace than i do well that's not untrue and the reason for that we get a little bit of an insight into how other people without christ can experience peace sometimes in romans chapter 2 verse 14 and 15 here paul says for when gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law verse 15 here we go they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts while their conscious also bears witness so in like theological studies you'll hear terms like special grace um and general a specific grace excuse me and general grace and the difference is simply this general grace is is recognizing that even in the darkest coldest place on this earth that you could possibly ever experience the worst circumstance the sun still rises in the morning at the hand of god and his presence is still on this earth and no matter how bad it is it could be worse but then the special grace for the believer and it's the blade it's the grace that comes through knowing jesus christ so can people tap in to the peace of god and find some results here and there yes but here's what we need to know as christians they are borrowing from god without knowing it and despite all of the efforts that we make to experience peace the world isn't any better and more than that no one seems to be feeling any better have you looked at social media no one's feeling any better but they've got all the answers it's sort of counterintuitive in fact let's take a minute and look at some of these examples what do you think the biggest problem is facing the world today um today i think it's definitely an issue with the media i think the biggest problem in the world today is actually unity it's overpopulation i think people need to put their trust in in humanity uh instead of systems that divide them it's kind of sticking in a box there's mass genocide there's all sorts of issues that are going on i would say it's like there's a connection problem meaning that you know everywhere you go people are kind of tuned into their ipod or people are plugged into their phone 36 i think it symbolizes a really bad side of humanity i hate this and i hope it goes away so the fgi are gathering 50 000 young people next year across america to change the world by this philosophy of really looking at changing ourselves at the same time what do you think about that i i think that's amazing honestly in order to change the world you need to change your actions yourself to change yourself and then you can inspire then you can teach then you could empower other people to kind of join that same um whatever the change that you're seeking whatever the change that you're seeking i mean you could see just sort of like throwing darts trying to figure out what the answer is and not to mention the fact that he's not wrong saying we need to change ourselves the problem is the bible tells us we're incapable of doing it so we can get on to a good idea for maybe a week or two or a month but that's about the end of it without the help of the holy spirit and so you can see in social media the answer to the world's problems are really sorely misunderstood sorely misunderstood but guess what our generation is not the only generation who misunderstood and who completely missed jesus how many of you know that when jesus walked on this earth people completely missed him the jews his chosen people completely missed him well why is that well if we go back to our passage this morning isaiah 9 we learned something it says for to us a child is born to us a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder we'll stop there so the ancient jew knew this was the messianic prophecy and they read these same words and when it says the government shall be upon his shoulder they misunderstood how the messiah was going to show up on the earth it's like the princess bride this word it does not mean what you think it means so they were waiting for a change in government they were taking this really literally so they rejected the messiah because they expected him to deliver them from roman occupation and because he didn't they didn't give him the time of day they expected their messiah to be a military political leader that protected them and all of israel from their enemies and that's not what he did so they missed him that's why the psalmist says in chapter 118 verses 22 another popular scripture the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone they missed the prophecies about the messiah and what it meant for their life and as a result they rejected them we see that today as much as we see it uh 2 000 years ago when jesus walked the earth think about this the god who came who deroged himself of his majesty came to earth in the form of a baby as dawn so beautifully walked us through this morning so that we can have forgiveness of sins and then better than that eventually he can live in our hearts they completely missed it and it sounds outrageous but don't we often miss god miss what he's saying miss what he's doing here's an example and be honest with yourself if you think about the last couple of weeks how many of you can say that you've honestly been at a peace how many of you actually have been at peace i know i'm struggling with it i saw someone raise their hand and i believe you i believe you right it's difficult sometimes we serve the prince of peace and we're in the season where we should be focused as pastor said more than ever on him and it's probably the time where we often experience the least amount of peace we often dig our heels in and say i'm not going to experience rest until my circumstances change until something gets better think about what bondage that is for the peace of our souls to be contingent on what happens in the fallen world around us now though all of us can probably own the fact that we haven't really loved the peace of god in our hearts the way he would want us to especially during christmas let me also say that it's not always easy it's true what i'm saying but it's not always easy we have people in our congregation that recently lost a loved one we have some folks that really really recently lost a loved one we have one or two people that are home that are literally fighting for their life as the disease tries to overtake them it's a time where it's hard to find peace but i still got to say the truth and that is this it's christmas and this is the time where we remember what jesus accomplished when he came into this earth why in part to give us his peace to bring peace on earth but not outwardly he doesn't always change the circumstances so if you're hurting this morning i want you to know whether the circumstances change and some of the circumstances just can't change that god almighty wants you to experience the prince of peace he wants that to get into your soul even if it's hard we're here to believe god with you that you can experience god's peace isaiah chapter 7 verse 14 says therefore the lord himself will give you a sign behold the virgin shall conceive and bear son and he shall call and shall call his name emmanuel and we probably know this emmanuel means what god with us in other words he came close as john was saying it was a time where he wasn't close we almost worshiped him from afar off but with the gift of the incarnation of christ he came close the prince of peace is close to our hearts and if you're a christian you don't have to strive to experience the peace that came through christ why and it's the second thought i want to leave you with tonight or this morning peace is god's gift and peace is god's promise and if it's from god it's not contingent on anything else around you if we go back to our key text verse six says for to us a child is born to us a son is given the son has been given to who to you who is he he's the prince of peace and he lives inside of you no one can take god's gift from you don't blame other people don't blame circumstances don't blame the holidays all of those things are fighting to take the peace of god from you but they don't have to because god gives gifts that no one can take from you don't give it away don't give away the peace of god no one can take it from you we sometimes think of christ as the peacemaker but the bible says he's the peace giver tells us to be peacemakers but he doesn't always bring the peace to the situation but how many of you know that you can walk in peace through any situation do you believe that's true you can walk in peace in every situation so what do we know about this piece thankfully we have paul who gives us a great snapshot of what it means to have the peace of god if we look at philippians chapter 4 paul says in verse 6 do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to god and the peace of god which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in christ jesus amen the peace of god according to this scripture guards your heart see it matters that you have peace it matters that you live and you walk in peace why because it guards your heart how many people walk away from god and deconstruct their faith because they're in nuts about what's happening in the world and what happened in their life and they can't fix it and and their heart becomes unguarded and the enemy steals the seed of the kingdom of god in them it guards our mind the peace of god keeps us in our right mind it keeps us acting like christ it keeps us from making poor decisions and it allows us quite literally to experience god's peace it guards us paul also says that it's incomprehensible in other words and this is so important and it's so like god because this is how god gives gifts god's peace is incomprehensible because you can have it when you shouldn't has anyone ever walked through a situation where you felt the peace of god though there was hell all around you that is god's desire for us as believers because the prince of peace lives inside of us and then there's this beautiful uh words that are spoken by jesus in the in the book of john chapter 6 verse 25 where jesus says uh we're not going to read it but it says he tells us to not be anxious we all know the scripture he says don't be anxious for anything and then he gives us examples that the lilies of the field they're clothed in more splendor than solomon they don't and they don't have to try to do it they don't they don't toil right but they're clothed in more splendor than solomon what about the birds of the air they never have to worry about food and then jesus says and how much more valuable are you than all of those things what i love about this verse is this is not the baby the prince of peace this is jesus on the earth telling us that we matter that he wants to give us peace but the end of that whole passage down in verse 33 says something that's really important it says but seek first the kingdom of god and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you but what is the kingdom of god here's the tie-in folks it's the christmas story the kingdom of god is god almighty coming to earth to set up his government to to to take his rightful place on the throne of man's heart to set things right the christmas story is the advent of the kingdom of god coming to this earth and when we seek that first all these other things are added and we can experience god's peace and church it's it's so much more than that we experience the peace of god because the prince of peace lives in us but that peace extends to something greater than what we experience uh internally internally let's look at colossians chapter 1 verse 19 paul says for in him all the fullness of god was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven ready making peace by the blood of his cross making peace with who with god you see jesus gives us peace but he also makes peace because we're far off from god we're we're caught in our sin incapable of doing right the bible says that without christ we're at enmity with god we're objects of wrath and we're sons of darkness and we're hostile towards the things of god but jesus made peace with god for us by being the sacrifice for our sins church that's the gospel that's the gospel and so the god who humbled himself himself and clothed himself with humanity left us with these words this is in john right before jesus is getting ready to take off he's trying to he knows what's coming and he's comforting his disciples and he says this and let let these words be spoken right to your heart peace i leave with you my peace i give to you not as the world gives do i give to you let your hearts not be troubled neither let them be afraid let your heart not be troubled listen the peace of god the peace of the that comes by accepting the prince of peace into your life it's a gift and jesus said it right here my peace i leave with you my peace i give you and if you know that we would be completely missing what the christmas holiday is all about if two things aren't in place one if we're not at peace with god that's the most important thing and if you're here this morning and you're not a follower of jesus christ this morning you can make a decision to be at peace with god you know how you do that the book of romans tells us if you confess with your mouth that jesus is the lord of your life that means he's in charge now and you believe in your heart that christ raised him from the dead you'll be saved you know that's all you have to do right now as i'm preaching you can say god i surrender to you i want to be at peace with you so i'm going to put my faith in jesus christ that the penalty he paid on the cross for my sins counts for me that accounts for me and i'm going to confess out loud you are lord i'm not joining a church not joining the denomination i'm simply saying that you're the boss and i'm going to live according to your word as i wrap up you know people are often unsure they get all confused about what really this holiday is all about and we hear every year from pulpits is it about presents is it about santa is it about family is it about nostalgia is it about wise men but the miracle of christmas is summed up in one word peace peace peace with god and the peace of god and all of these things are experienced because god came close he came close he's emmanuel he's god with us so how do we receive the gift of peace church it's no different than than what we did last week sometimes we just need to stop and by faith receive god's peace sometimes we just need to stop and acknowledge what's right in front of us god i'm not walking in peace god i'm walking in angst but you are the prince of peace and you dwell in me jesus help me to have your peace no matter what the circumstance no matter what's going on around me let your peace rest in my soul how many people want that this holiday want the peace of god so as we think about acknowledging god's peace i'd like us to take a minute to meditate on the peace of god that was manifested in emmanuel as we listen to the words of this song stay close by my side keep your eyes on me though this life is hard i will give you perfect peace in this time of trial pain that no one sees trust me when i say me perfect and you'll never be in need me calm the storms around you you can hide in me me oh we'll give keep your eyes on me and you'll never be in need know that i will always give you perfect peace me i will give you perfect peace thank you for listening to elevate we hope this message encouraged inspired and challenged you authentic life church is located at 3750 michael boulevard in mobile alabama visit our website authenticlife.tv for more information about authentic life church to find out what we have going on or to make a donation you can also find us on facebook we'd love for you to join us on sundays at 10 a.m for our weekend service we have excellent children's nursery and youth programs so bring the family for pastor john di quattro i'm scott chestnut thanks again for listening and god bless you