Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Welcome to Lent Meditation and Worship with Westside Church during this lentin season. Meet us here each day as we read scripture, worship, and rest in the presence of God together. Know that as you listen today, you are doing so with others, whether in the same places as you are not. And we pray that the Holy Spirit permeates the places we each find ourselves in right now. For more resources and to find each week's prayer and song, visit westside church.org/lent. Let us start today by clearing our minds and opening our hearts to what the Lord wants to speak to us through His word. Take a deep breath in and out, and another in and out.
Speaker 0 00:01:04 Peace is something I am continually striving for in my life. Peace and relationships and circumstances and peace within my own self. I want peace so much in the world that I will forfeit my own inner peace to ensure someone else's. And therein lies the problem with my cyclical search for peace. I alone try to conjure the peace in my world. In Romans five, Paul speaks of the security we have in our relationship with the risen Jesus and the peace that comes along with it. Romans chapter five, verses one through 11. Since we have been acquitted and made right through faith, we are able to experience true and lasting peace with God through Jesus, the anointed one, the liberating king Jesus leads us into a place of radical grace where we are able to celebrate the hope of experiencing God's glory. And that's not all. We also celebrate in seasons of suffering because we know that when we suffer, we develop endurance which shapes our characters.
Speaker 0 00:02:28 When our characters are refined, we learn what it means to hope and anticipate God's goodness and hope will never fail to satisfy our deepest need because the Holy Spirit that was given to us has flooded our hearts with God's love. When the time was right, the Anointed one died for all of us who were far from God powerless and weak. Now, it is rare to find someone willing to die for an upright person, although it's possible that someone may give up his life for one who is truly good. But think about this. While we were wasting our lives in sin, God revealed his powerful love to us in a tangible display. The anointed one died for us.
Speaker 0 00:03:34 As a result, the blood of Jesus has made us right with God now, and certainly we will be rescued by him from God's wrath in the future. If we were in the heat of combat with God, when his son reconciled us by laying down his life, then how much more will we be saved by Jesus resurrection life. In fact, we stand now reconciled and at peace with God. That's why we celebrate in cod through Lord Jesus the anointed. Paul spells out clearly the gifts and blessings through our justification. Now, justification is a legal term that means acquitted, clear of charges found not guilty. In the first few chapters of Romans, Paul clearly talks about our sin and guilt, and there's no getting around that we sin, sin and disobedience. It's our reality. But here in chapter five, we are told of that in spite of our guilt, God, the judge of this courtroom, our world, he declares us righteous.
Speaker 0 00:04:58 He not only does this because of his great love for us, but also because of the sacrifice of his son and the gift of grace through Jesus' death with this righteousness and this not guilty verdict comes as Paul Wrights experiencing true and lasting peace with God through the Lord Jesus, the anointed one, the liberating king. Jesus leads us into a place of radical grace, where we are able to celebrate the hope of experiencing God's glory, true and lasting peace. We are promised we will go through trials and suffering, but inside of all of that, we have hope. We have peace. It is one of the many gifts we have in Jesus. And because we are peace with God, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, we have peace in our lives as well. We can follow the leading of Jesus to the places we don't understand. We question, we wonder, we doubt. But inside of all of that, as our character is being shaped through these experiences, we know peace and hope as constant companions. Hope will never fail to satisfy our deepest need because the Holy Spirit that was given to us has flooded our hearts with God's love. Go into your day or your evening carrying that hope of Jesus Christ, allowing it to satisfy the depths of your soul. Let's pray.
Speaker 0 00:06:56 And during press presence, goal and guide you go before and await are coming. Only our thirst compels us beyond complaint to conversation, beyond rejection to relationship. Pour your love into our hearts that refreshed and renewed. We may invite others to the living water given to us in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Speaker 2 00:07:29 When you look at me, you don't what the image of Christ. Oh, he doesn't look on the outside to see how you see brother. So how many times I've been blind to your children? Me, the image of Christ? Oh, he doesn't look on the outside to see how you see our brothers so, so queen. In your soul, there is the reflection of God and we find him inside of the way that we love. In your soul, there is the reflection of God and we find him inside of love. We love we bear the image of Christ. Oh, he doesn't look on the outside to see how you see brothers. So.
