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Here we go. Ancient truth for troubled times. We started out by talking about troubled times. Signs of troubled times. Conflict, Polarization. Spam. Fake. Foolish. And then we looked at a cast of characters. The simple. Then this foolish tribe here with six characters. The simplest, hopefully ignoring. And then we have the wise tribe also of six characters there that we want to become like. And we said, as you act your becoming. So that's how we started. Then we went into four habits of wisdom. You remember those, don't you? I'll serve you one more time. Vertical orientation. See the destination. Listen in here. Delayed gratification. There they are, those four habits of wisdom. Then we looked at wise families. Guard your heart. Fan the flame. Discipline. Instruct. Wisdom will protect your children. Their wisdom will bring you joy. Then we looked at wise efforts. Learn diligence. Work your land. Develop your skill. Wise planning and choices. Make plans. Commit your plans to the Lord. Get advice. Wise finances. Honor the Lord. Don't be hasty. Diversify. Then we looked at wise relationships this morning. Think before you speak. Words have the power to heal hurt and to heal. Tone is important as content. Wise emotions. Be slow to anger. Don't stir up anger in others because anger cancels all of the emotions. Wise conflict management. Don't make the problem bigger by telling everyone about it. A person's first response is not necessarily their final response. Gather more information before coming to conclusions. And now we want to go and apply it. But we're need some grace and peace, right? Because here's what's going to happen when we go home and try to remember all these things and put them into practice. We're not going to be fully successful at it. Right? You won't always be successful at cultivating wisdom in yourself, in your family and those who lead. And you're going to fail at this. And how are you going to respond to that? How does that, how does a failure to be wise affect you? And you may even this week you heard something. You went, oh, darn it, I did that. Or oh, I didn't do that. And oh, that's an issue in my life. And I really. Or maybe my kids lives or in my family. When you become aware of deficiencies and failures, you can easily become anxious, worn, wounded, discouraged, frustrated, angry. Even though you're supposed to be slow to anger. Right? Right. Or frantic. Oh, got to get this under control. Hopeless, helpless, burned out, emotionally depleted. Just a couple of the possibilities. All right? As you try to be wise and it doesn't work. And my question is, how does God keep you and your Spiritual family, healthy and safe as you pursue wisdom. And we're going to talk about one verse that is found in the New Testament in this book of Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 1:3. Because we've been in the Old Testament and that was, you know, then Jesus came, right, and brought us some resources that even Solomon didn't have. And there's this verse in Corinthians in 1 Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 3, and also in 2nd Corinthians that goes like this. Grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, Paul says it in 1st Corinthians and then he repeats it again in 2nd Corinthians. Do you find this phrase anywhere else in the New Testament? Grace and peace from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ. Well, if you've got your Bibles, because you know how we said it's nice to actually look at them quickly. Look at Romans, look at Romans, chapter 17. Grace unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Kind of sounds familiar, doesn't it? Go up to Galatians, the book of Galatians, and look at verse three. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, he says it again. Look at Ephesians, Ephesians 1:2. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Wow. That's. And then if you look at Philippians, go just a little bit further. Philippians, Chapter one, verse two. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, one of the things that when you read Scripture, take note of what repeats, because what repeats is important. And grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ marks the beginning of 17 of the 22 epistles. Wow, that's significant. It means that all those writers before they had things that they wanted people to learn and things that they wanted them to do, and they framed it. They got everything ready with this phrase. They said what you need before you begin to apply this is grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And the phrase is repeated by Paul, Peter and John here. There are the 17 passages. We just got to Philippians, but you could go on to Colossians, first Thessalonians, second Thessalonians, Titus, Philemon, Peter, first Peter, second Peter, second John. Skipped it in first John in Revelations 1:4. Wow. And if you looked at the other epistles, you would find that they grace and peace appear individually in the other five epistles. That didn't make the grade for these. And in acts, and they're used by Luke, James, Jude and the writer of Hebrews. Sounds like this is an important topic for us, right? That if before we go to apply these other things, we might need to know something about grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. If you noticed in movies, really good movies, they'll have a tune that repeats and is kind of an anchor tune for the whole movie. Think of Lord of the Rings. Fantastic movie, fantastic score. What's the first melody you think about when you think of the Lord of the Rings? Da da da da da da. That sound come to mind when you think of Lord of the Rings. This. This song is called the Shire, and it starts the beginning of the movie when you see the hobbit and all his friends in the Shire. And it kind of represents who they are and where they are at home. This is who they are and where they're at home. And then they go on this mission and encounter all kinds of dangerous creatures and difficult situations. But all through this, there'll be music that's, oh, you're fighting the orcs, and, oh, you can't find the ring. And then there'll be this spot where this tune will come back in. Da da da da da da da. Like, just this reminder of, this is who you are, this is where you belong. And there's always hope in those moments. And this particular phrase is kind of the anchor melody of scripture. Okay. It's the music that reminds us who we are and where we're at home that puts us back in the right context when we're fighting those orcs and when we're thinking about being wise in difficult situations. This is our anchor melody. Grace and peace should be the music behind the lyrics of wisdom, grace and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, it's interesting. It says grace and peace, which is important, but also from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you noticed how popular it is today to talk about faith? You got to have faith. Faith, faith and people. You know, your faith, my faith, Faith is a big deal. And you can talk about faith without offending anyone because faith is so important and you need to have faith. But what we realize is this faith by itself doesn't do much good, right? Because faith is only good as the object of its faith. I can have faith in a little tiny thread to hold me up, but my faith won't do anything if the thread's not strong. Faith by itself doesn't do anything. It's faith in Christ or the object of the faith. And the same is true with grace and peace. You know, sometimes somebody's struggling and you go, hey, you gotta give yourself grace. You've got to give yourself grace. So grace from yourself, huh? I wonder if that kind of grace is enough or, hey, you did some things wrong, but you got a lot of grace from us, okay? That grace from us. Grace from yourself. Well, this is grace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Or peace. Hey, peace, brother. Peace. Peace. Hey, you just need to practice peace. You need to settle down. You need to just be at peace. But peace from yourself is not going to be enough. Peace from other people, peace from the practice of peace won't be enough. It's peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It's peace from the fact that God is your father. Do you think about that? God, the ruler of the universe, the Creator of all things, says, he's your Father. And he's your father because he adopted you into his family. You have his name. Everything that belongs to him now belongs to you. You have this inheritance. He loves you because you belong. You're His. Behold what love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are. This grace and peace comes from a God who is our Father, and also from the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus. Jesus Christ, who is Lord. Which means if you're Lord, you have the last word. Your word trumps everyone else's word. So his word, you're forgiven and you're accepted and your sins are taken care of. That trumps anyone else's word. All other authorities are under him. So people and things and governments that don't agree with him, well, they're under Him. His authority's higher than theirs. His work is sufficient because he's the Lord. He had it all to give. His riches are enough. His payment was complete. So when we talk about grace and peace, the grace and peace that are sourced in God, who is your Father, and Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. So what happens to us if we start hearing, you know, kind of our anchor tune, and if that sits behind our efforts to be wise, and we know that we start everything, we start from a place of grace and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, one of the verses, if we talk about grace is Galatians 5, and it says something really interesting there. He's talking to these people in Galatians. He says, you are severed From Christ, you who would be justified by the law, you've fallen away from grace. So he says, there were some people there who read Scripture and they learned all these great things they were supposed to do, and then they thought those great things they were supposed to do would justify them. And he says, you've fallen from grace. See, all these wonderful things we've learned in proverbs about how you're supposed to act and what you're supposed to do and how you're supposed to respond, they won't get you any closer to God. You aren't justified by doing all those things right. In fact, the purpose of the law was to show us as a schoolmaster, to show us that we couldn't do it. We're justified by Christ, right? So we first receive our position as a gift from him, and then from that we go to live. We don't get any closer to him because we're figuring all of this out, figuring out how to do it right. He says, for through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly ourselves wait for the hope of righteousness in Christ. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. So it won't work to justify yourselves by being wise. Even though we've talked about a lot of incredible wisdom things, you're going to be justified by grace. And what is that grace? Well, in Ephesians 2 it says, But God being rich in mercy because of the great love through which he loved us even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised us up and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages in he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. By grace you've been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing. It's a gift of God, not as a result of works so that no one could boast. You know, this grace is God's riches at Christ's expense, right? It's all of his riches, everything that he has. And we so didn't deserve it that we were dead when he started calling us to Himself, like it's all because of Him. It's all because of his character. Do you realize that you are the recipient of that grace? Everything you do comes from a place of unmerited favor and riches that come from the character and goodness of Jesus Christ. I went to went to high school in the United States. Even though I spent most of my time overseas and you know what American high school systems are like, actually kind of all of American systems, there's lots of things that you can excel at and get rewards for. You know, I mean, you can be in this club and get this certificate and you can compete in this and try to be the best there. And I remember thinking when I was just starting high school, I looked at the yearbook and went, I wonder how many times I can get my picture in this book. That was what I thought. And so I joined every club. I competed in everything I could. I ran for student government. I did this. I was president of the honor society. I was this. I was just checking it off, checking it off, checking it off. In fact, I can remember when the yearbook came out my senior year, going through and counting how many times my picture was in the book and then counting other people and comparing. I didn't tell them, but I was quite competitive and you know, people generally liked me and they should. Right, right. Because I'm a likable guy. I mean, I, you know, I excel and you know, and I do good and, you know, sometimes can be impressive. And so that was just my thought was people like me and have kind of earned their acceptance and maybe God's impressed too. That would be really great. And. And then my family moved to Germany and I decided to move with them and went to German language school and started learning another language. When you learn another language, you become a child again. Like you can hardly say your name. You can't find your way to the bathroom. You know, you mispronounce everything and all of a sudden you're just. And no one knows, and no one knew that I was more times in the yearbook than anyone else in that language group. They didn't, you know, and they didn't. Yeah, I could show them my yearbook. I mean, I was nothing. I finished. I barely spoke German and then went to get a job and got a job at a photo developing plant. In German they called it Dummerbeit, which you can guess what that means. It means stupid work. It's the work that you didn't have to be skilled at all to do. So I spliced negatives and my work started at 4am and ended at 2. And then I had to go to bed at 8 so I could get a little bit of sleep before I Woke up at 3 to get on my bike to ride. I mean, it was just not great work for someone who had his picture in the yearbook more than anyone else. Somehow this is not working. And then I wanted to learn a little bit more German. So I went to this German Bible college just as a guest student. And I sat in class and just listened all the time, took notes. I couldn't say very much. I lived in the dorm and couldn't speak very much. And I worked all afternoon to clean the grounds so that they'd let me stay there for free. And, I mean, I was low life in this place and was there for two months. And at the very end, we did a little evangelistic outreach for the school. And the final day of it, the head of the school, director of school got up and he says, this is Dave's last day here. And he said, I just want to thank him for his work here and for being part of this community. And he had me stand up. Kind of felt kind of weird because my picture hadn't been in the yearbook there. And then all of a sudden, I heard this sound. Now, if you've been in Germany, some of, you know, particularly at that time, if you were next to a table, you wouldn't clap like this. You clap like this, maybe it's easier, makes more noise or something like this. But all of a sudden I heard this rumble and just this roar of tables being pounded. And I realized that they were applauding for me, and I hadn't done anything to deserve it. Have you ever been in a situation like that where you just go. For some reason, these people love me right now, and I can't figure out why. Like, I didn't do anything for them. I'm the worst student here. I can't talk. And somehow it's because of them, not because of me, that I'm loved. Like, it's who they are, not who I am, that I'm loved. And that kind of undeserved favor, you know, it's actually hard to accept, and it's overwhelming to realize that you have something that you didn't deserve. And actually, when I went home that night, God reminded me of something that happened when I was in my first year of high school. I really looked up to the head boy. He was student body president. He was so cool. His name was Rolf. He was amazing. He was amazing. Wow. I want to be like this guy. Wow. And he also was a Christian. He just trusted Christ six months earlier and would gather together Christians every morning or three mornings a week at our school to pray. So we all these Christians would gather, and we had a really strong campus life club meeting. And I just looked up to this guy Well, I want to be like him. And one day when I was talking to him, he says, hey, hey. He started talking about Kevin. Oh, right. Well, who's Kevin? He said, oh, you don't know Kevin? Oh, man, you gotta get Kevin. He's amazing. Oh, really? And then sitting around with a group of the seniors, and they start talking. Someone said something about Kevin. I said, who's Kevin? You know, you haven't met Kevin yet. Oh, you gotta meet him. He's just amazing. Yeah, he's great. And so a couple weeks later, I'm at the campus life meeting in somebody's living room, and our campus life director's talking, and he asks a question. And while he's talking, I noticed this guy's just being really rude over on the side. Like, he's making faces at the guy who's speaking, and he's going like this, like this. And I'm going, why is he being so rude to our campus life director? And then he asks that question. And this guy talks, and he goes, well, I think, why is he making fun of our campus life leader? And then the campus leader said, kevin, that was such a great comment. Thank you for what you said. And I realized Kevin was. Had some. Was handicapped, had epilepsy, could hardly talk. They had to carry him around. And that was the Kevin that Rolf was so impressed with. And I felt like the Lord was saying, hey, Dave, you want to be like Ralph, but you're really Kevin, like, and I'm the president of the universe, and it's because I'm so great that you're loved, not because you are so great and you deserve it. And there's something that's amazing about actually receiving undeserved love, recognizing that we were dead in our transgressions and God made us alive in Christ. And you know, when we actually embrace that and go, I'm loved because of how great he is, not because of how great I am. I'm loved because he deserves it, not because I deserve it. That's what grace is. Then all of a sudden, it frees us to try and fail and work and grow, because we know we're undergirded by the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And then these verses go on. Philippians says, he's going to finish this good work that he started. And then Second Thessalonians says, he loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good work through grace. And then Second Timothy says, you then, my child, be strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. So Grace is not fair. Grace is free. Grace is generous and abundant. Grace is undeserved. Grace is not dependent on my performance. Grace comes from God and not from myself. Well, then, peace. What about peace? Well, John 14:27 says, Peace, I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let your heart not be troubled, neither let it be afraid. He says, the peace I give you is different than the peace the world gives. It's not dependent on a change in circumstances. It's not dependent on people around you agreeing to peace. It's not dependent on government powers negotiating peace. It's not dependent on your boss exuding peace or your children demonstrating peace. It doesn't come from inside you, it comes from God. He says, I'm going to give it to you. And Romans says, the mindset on the flesh is death, but the mindset on the Spirit is life and peace. Romans 16:20 says, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Galatians 5:22. The fruit of the Spirit, Philippians 4:7, and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard you. And see, I have peace with God. I have peace from God. And that peace changes everything. Told you about my mom and my dad. My dad passed away when he was 94. I was in the Czech Republic and I got a call, dave, you gotta come right away. I got on a plane, flew to Denver, got in an Uber, got to the house, and my dad already was unconscious. He was on his way, and we just kind of stood vigil by his bed and just prayed for him and watched him. And my mom was there too. She was in good health at that time. And about 11 o', clock, my mom got tired, so she went back into the back room to go to sleep. And we stayed there watching. And all of a sudden, right around 12, my dad and some of you have been with people who've gone know this. He just opened his eyes, went like this, and then he was gone. He went back in the back room to get my mom and she was putting on her hearing aids coming out. She couldn't really hear, so she didn't know what was going on. And so she got out there and she saw him and she went, he's gone. And this was her next phrase. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Now where do you get peace like that when your partner of so many years is gone? And that's your first response, praise the Lord. Well, she knew where he was going right. She knew who was caring for her. And the next morning I got up and I. She was sitting in the La Z boy, that same lazy boy that I was a lazy boy in. And she was sitting there and she was reading her Bible. And I went up, put my hand on her shoulder, and I said, mom, how are you doing? Be honest. How are you doing? And she said, I'm fine. She said, I'm trusting the Lord. I'm so grateful for all the ways he's taking care of us. That's a peace that doesn't come from your surrounding. That's a peace that comes from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a peace that is certain about the future. And this is the thing we have to understand. If God is for us, who can be against us? And God's peace will eventually win. God's peace will eventually win. We know. Here's the thing. Whatever your story that you're in, we already know how it ends. Because God's peace will crush Satan under his feet. God's peace will extend to the entire universe. And you know that problem you're facing, it's going to be solved. It will be solved. That crisis you're managing will one day be a distant memory. You're going to be forever with Jesus. That sickness you're battling, you will get healed. The aches and pains you're facing, they will be gone. The body that doesn't work quite right, you'll get a new one. You will. Those tears you're crying now, they're going to get wiped away. That time that's never enough will one day be without end. That sin you're struggling with will totally be removed from you and everyone around you. And so we know we have a peace that comes from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. We know how things end. And you know, when we have grace and peace, it changes everything. Many of you have read the last battle. C.S. lewis. You remember how it ends. They find out that the train wreck was a real train wreck, that they really died. And Aslan tells them, hey, you're in another land now. And this is what it says. And as he spoke, he no longer looked to them like a lion, but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us, this is the end of all stories. And we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them, it was only the beginning of the real story, right? The beginning of the Real story. All of their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the COVID and the title page. Now, at last, they were beginning chapter one of the great story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever and ever, in which every chapter is better than the one before. And when we believe that when we grace and peace are appropriated through faith, you can go through your life and all that be true and you never experience it, because we experience it by believing it. Right? We experience it by actually accepting grace and believing that it's there. We experience it by putting our faith in Jesus in a way that gives us peace, and by believing and trusting in grace and peace. And so this is actually the best thing I can leave with you today right here. May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God your Father, and Jesus our Lord. Let me just close this in prayer. Father, I thank youk for the shire song. The song that reminds us of who we are and where we belong. That we're the recipient of your grace we don't deserve comes from you and your character. We receive it right now by faith. And we are the object of peace that comes from you. Peace that you give us that's not from this world. It's beyond understanding. But it's a peace that comes from the Prince of peace, who has this long story that we're a part of that's going to end really well, and that can give us confidence whatever we're facing down here. And I pray God that as we leave here and try to apply these lessons of wisdom, that we'll be marked by grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. In Jesus name, amen.