Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Get Peace


This past Sunday I spoke on peace. You can get the notes and hear the message by clicking here.

Yesterday, I had lunch with a friend and we discussed peace and he shared an interesting insight. He said, “Peace only comes when there is power.” I had to have him explain what he meant by that and discovered the amazing truth of this statement.

In order for a life, a marriage, a family, or an organization of any sort to have peace there must be a source of power that is responsible for and providing leadership.

A life that this left to itself can have no peace. A person can only have peace, when their life is under someone of power who can take responsibility for them and lead them with authority. The greatest leader and most responsible Being is Jesus Christ. He is willing to take responsibility for our lives: the good and the bad. He will be responsible to lead us to do good. He can take responsibility for our sin and the punishment that comes with sin by what He’s accomplished in His death, burial and resurrection.

A person can give their life to any number of authorities. They can surrender to a relational authority, a substance or drug, a company, an image or way of life, or even a government system. But nothing can do what Jesus has done and will do.

The best thing a person can do is align their life under the power and authority of Jesus by placing their faith in Him and be saved by His grace.

The same is true for a marriage, a family, or an organization. They need a leader, and in the case of a marriage or a family - a man, who will take responsibility and lead. Until there is a person of authority in power, there can be no peace.

The remainder of our lunch was spent discussing how men must step up at home and in their marriage to provide peace in the fundamental institutions of a healthy society. Then and only then can there be in real peace or health in our society.

1 comment:

Chad said...

This affirms Proverbs 3:5-6 and 1 Cor. 11:3. As a husband I can say with assurance that we (all husbands) need to step up. Leaders are needed in the household and like it or not we are called to be just that. Bottom line, any leadership has its difficulties. This is no different for a marriage. Good leadership often requires the leader to put aside his needs for the needs of his wife. This can be scary when one puts aside their own needs. However, our model is Christ and we are called to love our wives as Christ loved the church (Eph 5:25). Godly results, peace for instance, start happening when we do what we are called to do (Luke 12:31).