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All right. Amen. Thank you so much, Mr. Woods. We work together in the school, so we call

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each other Mr. all the time. My kids are like, why are you calling him Mr.? We just, Mr.

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Woods, thank you. Some of y'all was probably like, oh, why are you being so proper? But

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to you all, how are y'all doing? Good? All right. Well, my name is Chris Britton. I get

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the opportunity to be on the teaching team here at the house, and it is always an extreme

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pleasure to just prepare a message and the process that we go through as we, Pastor Jan

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and Greg and I, kind of chop it up, talk amongst each other through text and whatnot as we

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prepare. But it's always a blessing for me to be able to come before you and share. Last

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night, Greg had sent me a picture of the first sermon that I did here at the house, and I

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was like, man, who is that guy? It was quite a long time ago, but I told Greg, this message

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is kind of special to me because we talk about peace, and even when he sent me this picture,

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I didn't tell him this, but I was like, I probably wasn't experiencing that much peace

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when I did that first message. And it was probably a, I mean, it was a process that

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I went through in a meeting with Greg and our friendship developing and deepening where

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I remember sitting at one of our favorite spots we used to meet at, the Quasity Pancake

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House, and he just said, man, what kind of teacher do you want to be, man? Just find

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peace and do that. And I'm like, all right, man, I'm going to be rapping and doing poetry

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and all that kind of stuff. And he was like, well, good. So it is my pleasure to be at

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peace amongst you this morning and to be able to be myself, to be with my family here at

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church to talk about Jesus. Amen? I'm going to kick things off with a poem. And if you've

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been here for a couple of Christmases, you might have heard this one, but tis the season.

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Behold, baby boy born in Bethlehem, a bundled blessing, wrapped in redemption, but without

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the most beautiful beginning. God foretold of a king for it was no fable, even despite

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the world raising cane, our one true God was able to make himself known through one young

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girl visited by angelic appearance, Gabriel announcing God's favor. Mary would be chosen

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as vessel, giving her faith something to wrestle with. Then there's Joseph, there's Joseph,

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her faithful companion with one pressing problem. He was put in a predicament that's hard to

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picture. He too given angelic news with clues that Mary's pregnancy was more than probable,

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but he wasn't involved in the one thing that would make it all possible. See, there were

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obstacles like what seemed to be a senseless census, but they didn't stop. They move forward,

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forward, forward, moving, marching, making footprints with their faith. There wasn't

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a place to check in, but one in, and then God would bring self through virgin womb,

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bursting into human history. This baby would live a life that would sing a song called

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peace. This baby would grow in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man, this

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baby would be beaten and blameless and hung. Our one sacrificial lamb, Jesus, who knew

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that Mary be the first to carry peace in her womb. Amen. Amen. See, it's the second week

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of our Advent series and Greg kicked it off last week. If you don't know, Advent is a

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time of expectation. It's a time of waiting. It's a time of preparation. It's a time of

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a celebration of the birth of Jesus. And I want to share a message this morning about

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peace. And I believe that we can all have a better understanding of how we can live

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a life experience the peace of God by looking at, you know, the Christmas story that we

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kind of know about. Let me start by asking, what does peace look like? What does peace

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look like to you? A few years ago, my family got an opportunity to do something that, you

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know, I ever had to tell my kids, like, I don't know if we ever going to do this again,

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so we've got to soak this up. But we went on the Disney dream cruise. And I promise

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y'all I'm not trying to sell y'all no timeshares or nothing like that. But let me tell you

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a little bit about it. It's not gonna be one of those meetings. Some of y'all know what

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I'm talking about. But I remember one of my wife's favorite things to do was to wake up

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way too early for me and to go out on like the deck. And I remember one time like, what

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are you doing getting up so early? We're supposed to be resting. You know what I mean? But she

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would go out and she would just soak in the sunrise on the ocean, which is calm. And it

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didn't have this like, the rosy colors would bounce off of the all the things that you

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would imagine that are beautiful. That's what it looked like. I did it one time. And then

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I was like, Oh, that was that was nice. But I'm not gonna do this every day. But for her,

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the peace and the tranquility was worth her getting up early. I can't tell you how many

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pictures she took of that. I'm like, they look the same when we get it. But for her,

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it was the perfect picture of peace. But I think we've been tricked. Because we can't

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have that all the time. Right? And we get this this picture of like, that's peace, man.

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But it's like something that we have to attain. Or when I tell my kids, we ain't doing this

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all the time, y'all. This might be a once in a lifetime. But sometimes that's how we

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picture peace. It's the weekend or it's this break or it's when we get time off for us

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vacation time. And y'all know vacation time. Sometimes that's not peaceful. The pictures

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that you look back at that kind of gives you some calm but going through it sometimes is

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not peaceful. So I think that my hope this morning is to talk about peace in a way that

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is a little bit more realistic for us. Because, you know, as I prepared for the message and

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comb through the passage that we'll read together, I believe that we hold that dreamy picture

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of peace. But we run the risk of something that we can hardly attain. And we're always

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waiting for that or something beautiful to happen so we can take an exhale and be like,

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okay. But the true picture of peace, I believe is much different than we aim for today because

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we work, work, work. Again, we wait for weekends so we can experience peace. And we outwardly

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want to appear like we got it, especially on Sunday morning. Simple question today was

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how are you? Did anybody say I'm peaceful and rested? If somebody did, you'd probably

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be mad like, are you serious? It's Sunday morning. You know what it took for me to get

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here and I got to put on this face and you're trying to tell me that you got peace and you're

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rested? Because when we associate the words resting and peace together, it's usually when

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we're gone. But I feel like we got it twisted a little bit. Why can't we say that on a Sunday

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morning? I'm rested and I'm in peace and I'm alive. You hear me? I'm giving you permission

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this morning to be at peace. You don't have to put on a face here or the posture at the

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end and be like, everything's good. Oh, that was great. Oh, yeah. If peace, if you feel

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God's presence and you want rest and you fall asleep, amen. Experience peace this morning.

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Be free. Amen. Amen. Because I think that a lot of times, again, we get it, we get it

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twisted. A little over a year ago, I was writing a series of poems that maybe never will see

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the light of day. But when I'm kind of going through it or whatever, I like to write it.

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It's probably no surprise. Some poems that maybe never will see the stage or never will

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see a mic until today. There's one of them that I'll share. But last year, it was one

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of those times where there wasn't a lot of peace. My family and I was going through some

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things and I'm so excited again because this time last year, it wasn't as peaceful, but

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I'm proud of my family for working through and getting a peaceful resolve through God.

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This is a poem that I wrote around this time last year called Pit Stop. I'm so sad right

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now. My emotions are at high speed zooming laps within my soul, heart racing, body breaking,

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trying to keep up with the speeds of need, the speed of me without a lane for help. But

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I do have friends. A crew that cheers is near and their prayers are fuel. They refill my

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emptiness as I steer towards another day. I hope and hope I can make it again to the

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pit stop called peace because I feel like there's so many more laps to come. I was not

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in a great place of peace. It was hard to even think about it while doing the poem.

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But I believe that too often we search for peace in me and the wrong places and I think

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there's a more accurate picture of what peace is like. We're going to be in Luke 1, 26-38.

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If you are able, you can stand as we honor God's word and we will read from Luke 1, 26-38.

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Very common story that we hear. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God

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to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin, betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of

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the house of David and the virgin's name was Mary. He came to her and said, greetings,

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O favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried

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to discern what sort of reading this might be. The angel said to her, do not be afraid,

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Mary, for you have found favor with God and behold, you will conceive in your womb and

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bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son

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of the most high and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he

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will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end. And

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Mary said to the angel, how would this be since I am a virgin? And the angel answered

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her, the Holy Spirit, say that one more time, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the

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power of the most high will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called

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the Holy Son of God and behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived

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a son and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren for nothing will be

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impossible with God. And Mary said, behold, I am the servant, the Lord, let it be me according

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to your word and the angel departed from her. Let us pray. God, please meet us exactly where

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we are this morning. Use me to direct our hearts and minds this morning to your grace,

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your peace, your mercy. Help us to dig deep and find ourselves in your word. I pray we

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can understand more and more what your peace means for our future. Amen. There's an artist

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named Jack Dawson that painted a picture of peace and we're going to put that picture

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up. If we can put the first picture up, please. Jack Dawson, this is more of an accurate picture

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of peace, I believe. But Jack Dawson, according to him, this is what most of our life feels

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like. See if we got that. It's okay. But there's a picture that you'll see with a lot of stuff

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going on. A lot of stuff going on. That's a picture of peace right there. That's more

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of what we were saying. Yeah, okay. I feel you. Where are we going with this? So Jack

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Dawson has this awesome painting. But if we look in, we'll go to the next picture. One

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more. There's a bird with a nest tucked in there with the little birdies chilling. A

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picture of peace. There's a bird that happened to find this right place amongst everything

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else that's going on and live. And I think that this is a little bit more accurate. Right

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in the middle of the picture, you see this bird. And the bird flew there knowing all

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that's going around and found safety during this storm. So my question is, again, I understand

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the sentiment, but why can't it be true for us with all that's going on to be rested and

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to have peace? What we learned from the scripture today is that real peace is when God allows

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us to be in situations with raging storms crashing all around us, but we are chilling

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because we know the one who created the water. We know the one who created the elements and

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we trust God holding us in the palm of his hands because many of us will never find that

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peace because peace is there being nothing around you that's wrong. But God is the one

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that walks into situations that are all jacked up and he provides a level of calm, a level

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of assurance and a level of knowing. No matter what is going on around you, I want everybody

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in here to know that there is a God that is standing with you. And the passage this morning

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are about the posture of Mary and Joseph under an interesting amount of pressure, peace and

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pressure. You know how the preachers like to put all the words to the alliteration.

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Posture, pressure, peace. Your posture promotes peace when you're under pressure. You know

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in all honesty, I think we would prefer the dream cruise, ocean side view of Christianity,

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but there's a way that we can make sense, make this make sense and this morning I pray

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that we can see peace in a different way. Matthew 1 20 through 21 in another part of

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the gospel says, but as he considered these things, behold an angel of the Lord appeared

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to him in a dream saying, Joseph, and this is Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take

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Mary as your wife for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will be

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your son and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.

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And the first thing is peace is in the presence of God. Peace is in the presence of God. I

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believe that if we had angels that appeared to tell us some crazy stuff like that, we

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would also be terrified. I love this scripture because they were scared. And one of the first

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words that you hear is like, hey, it's okay. I know this is crazy. If I'm an angel, I'll

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be talking like that. Yo, yo, yo, yo, no, no, no, put down the rocks and stuff. I'm real.

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The rocks can go through me anyway. I'm an angel. You're good. All right. This is no

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CGI stuff. This is real. You're going to be okay. Be at peace. Don't be terrified. Peace

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is in the presence of God. I feel like those angels, they promoted this presence that calmed

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them into belief and that belief into an action that they could trust and an assurance and

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a protection as they went. Matter of fact, there's a modern day picture of Jesus, I'm

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sorry of Mary and Joseph. If you look at that today, there was kind of a modern depiction.

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Some of you may have seen that, but if you look at it, you can see a guy on a pay phone

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and there's a whole bunch of different things around. If you were able to look at the picture,

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you would zoom in and see a lot of different connections to the scriptures. Dave's City

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Motel, no vacancy and all this other stuff. But out there trying to find a place, right?

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This young couple trying to find a place to lay their heads with a pregnant wife.

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And I don't have to say a lot about how that, you know, the humanity in the story,

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that it would be kind of this frightening experience as they're trying to find a

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peaceful place to rest. But I imagine that they felt a certain peace that would be unattainable

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just with themselves.

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The second thing I'd like to tell you is that peace is in the process with God.

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Because we want the microwave peace, like we just want it to be gifted to us, like let me just wake

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up with peace. But sometimes there's a process because we want this instant. We don't like

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the process and we forget that Mary had to carry this child with her. And the scripture

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is sometimes easy because on one sentence she's pregnant, the next sentence baby's born.

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What happened to the morning sicknesses and all this other stuff? Like,

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what was her cravings? Joseph, go out there and, you know what I mean? We forget the humanness of

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the process that the day to day, what was the conversations like? What was the expectations

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like? Was there some doubt sometimes? It's like, this is crazy, like this is really gonna happen.

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We're gonna really, like think about if you have kids, like your conversations about what's to come.

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You're marveling at every step along the way. But peace comes with the process.

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I bet there's times where she thought that there were, had to be a simpler way or she wanted to

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be like, this is too difficult. She went through it. And sometimes we too have to go through it.

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I can't tell you what process you need to go through, but there may be some things that you

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need to go through to find peace in your life. And the third thing is peace is in the promises of God.

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You know, when I think of their story, I think of in times of doubt or anger or frustration in the

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whole situation, they remembered the angel. They were able to look back at a time where they

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experienced peace. Are there times that you can look back when you experienced peace?

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As you can look back on a promise that God kept in your life, and maybe you're going through one of

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those storms right now, but you can recall that. You can look back on the promise that God kept in

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your life, and maybe you're going through one of those storms right now, but you can recall that

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and it can bring you peace and be like, yeah, God did that before. I believe that he could do it again.

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And you can look at yourself in the mirror and say that we're gonna make it. We're gonna find peace.

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I mean, Mary and Joseph felt a supernatural peace when God's promise came to pass. And let us

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remember there's a continuation of rhythms of this peace because we can fast forward to the

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Mother Mary being an eyewitness to her son's death. Promises of God, the assurances of God,

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how could she find peace in these situations?

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And the big thing, my big message is, it's kind of simple, but one of the most difficult things

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sometimes in the faith is that peace is a supernatural gift from God. Something that we can,

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it's not a door buster gift that we can, you know, that's not an Amazon Prime deal. We can,

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like, let's go grab some peace real quick. I'm gonna run down to the store and grab some peace.

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I need it. It's this supernatural gift from God, I believe, where we can have a resolve that we know

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is not of us. So how will you pursue peace this season? You know, we won't find peace through

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turning up and hustling and bustling and wearing ourselves out in the street. We won't find peace

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turning up and hustling and bustling and wearing ourselves out during the holidays.

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There's a book by a guy named Kevin DeYoung, and the book is called Crazy Busy, and he has a chapter

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about how sometimes we are our worst enemies when it comes to peace, because we work and work and

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work the peace out of our lives by overdoing stuff. Let me read a quick couple sentences from

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this book. Opening our home to others is a wonderful gift and a neglected discipline in the church,

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but we easily forget the whole point of hospitality. Think of it this way. Good hospitality is making

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your home a hospital. The idea is that friends and family and the wounded and weary people come to

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your home and leave helped and refreshed, and yet too often, hospitality is a nerve-wrecking experience

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for hosts and guests alike. Instead of setting our guests at ease, we set them on edge by telling

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them how bad the food will be and what a mess the house is and how sorry we are for the kids' behavior.

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We get worked up and crazy busy in all the wrong ways because we are more concerned about looking

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good than with doing good. So instead of encouraging those we host, they feel compelled to encourage us

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with constant reassurances that everything is just fine. I don't know about you, but

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during this time of season, it's quite common for a lot of activity to be going on.

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It's common for us sometimes to miss the point of what's going on. So I would encourage you

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to not just be crazy busy for the fact of being crazy busy,

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but focus on the question, how will you find peace? If we want practical peace,

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we can call upon God's Spirit. We can pursue peace. We can practice peace.

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When we give our life to Christ, our salvation gives us the peace with God. Our past

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sins are settled and we abide in Him and that gives us a peace of God. Reading our words,

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sometimes staying connected with God and God's people, having connection with one another gives

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us peace. Even accountability in certain areas of your life can give you peace. These are all

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constructs of peace when we pursue peace from God. I'll never forget years ago visiting Canada and

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sitting with my wife's grandmother who has passed now, but at that time, her grandfather had passed

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he had dementia and things of that nature. I got a chance to sit with Tricia's grandmother

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and she just was telling stories. She was telling stories about him and I felt like I should just

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glean as much as I can about her story and write a poem about this. She wrote a poem. I wrote a

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poem from the notes that I took, but I'll never forget her sharing with me about how dementia had

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ruined him like so much, but when she would show up and sit with him, he was at peace.

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This is what I had wrote in the final poem. There's a certain chunk. Fred was 93 years young

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staring into the mirror of eternity and a bully named dementia had dominated his days. He was

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often beside himself, but if you dug deep inside his heart, you would find inside a wealth of

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memories. Memories his brain had forgotten, but because of his decline in health, but when she

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came to visit, he would recline and hide himself inside her heart because that's where their love

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lived. When he knew nothing else, he knew her. Fred may have scratched his head about a lot of things

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for answers he'd find himself searching, but when he looked into her eyes, it was certain. Love had

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conquered all diagnosis. There wasn't a pill he could have swallowed that would have given him

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peace like her presence. And just to bring it to my neighborhood, to bring it to our neighbors, to

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make this more practical, I remember again about a year ago, Greg pulled up to my house and gave me

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a hug. That's all he said he wanted to do, and after he left, I stayed on my porch and I felt a

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piece that I can't explain, and I felt it's going to be fine. It's going to be okay. I didn't believe

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it, but I felt you're okay. I remember sitting in the parking lot in spring 2020, and I was anxious.

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All the question marks about a big career change, and it was a defining moment. I was sitting right

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outside of the school district with final paperwork after 15 years serving in a great place, and I sat

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there, and I was going to drive off. There was something in me that was like, man, you're making

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the wrong decision. You shouldn't go through with this. And we had a trial of XM radio. This isn't

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an advertisement at all, but it wasn't, this isn't a Caleb story, no shame, but a song came on in

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there, and it said, what do you do when you're at a crossroad? What do you do when the world is on

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your shoulders? Keep the faith, keep the hope, find peace in God. I remember crying and feeling

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this peace come over me and walking out confidently turning in this paperwork and going home saying,

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like, it's fine. This is a good decision. What do you do when your back's against the wall? What

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do you do? You hold on. You keep your faith. I remember in college when I felt this supernatural

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peace that was not my own strength about ending a relationship that I wasn't good at that. I'm not a

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confrontational person. I would have just been like, all things will work out. I was just like,

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I'm not going to let you go. And I felt this peace about saying, you've got to just end this.

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The picture of this beautiful ocean view isn't real, but it can kind of be more real if you

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imagine a plank. All right? Imagine a plank. Imagine us stepping out into God's peace,

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God's peace. Imagine God to fill us with the presence of presence powerful enough to fill us

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to the brim and give us a buoyancy to give us hope that will keep us afloat and point us towards the

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proper place of peace fast enough and slow enough for us to take in all that's going on, but still

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just be comfortable enough to rest in his peace. What if that's a better picture? We're on a dream

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of God. Because sometimes we got to jump in the waters of the unknown and we got to trust that

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we know this picture is there, but we got to jump into this peace of God's presence and let it consume

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us so we can float to the top of this. We still got the view, but we still got some things that

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we got to go through. We still have a destination and I think that's the dream. I think that's the

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hope of God. How can we navigate this now, stay afloat and be at peace? And that's his presence.

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To close this sermon today, I want to honor somebody in our church, in our community that

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has done a tremendous work by bringing youth hope, no pun intended, for nearly 20 years.

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And I would love to celebrate that, how God orchestrated Dave Hodges life and

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he poured himself out for so many years in the community and he's found peace in God's presence

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about making a big decision in switching where he'll be serving. And I'd like to just bring you up,

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look, I'm not going to tell a crazy story. But if you know Dave, you know that his heart is gold and

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he's been a servant of the community for so many years. We got so many different stories and

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I think that it's been an honor that I had to work and serve alongside with him, but for the most part,

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even as Greg and I was talking about peace and this message, we think that it's very proper

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just to honor Dave and the commitment that he's had to serving and him just feeling the peace of God

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through a lot of different situations and circumstances in his life and this peace that

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he feels now with even moving on and to stepping into a new role in the community.

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Appreciate it man, yeah. It's been a long time. His story is every time we go somewhere,

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we would always get introduced and if I were to get introduced before Chris, I would share his testimony

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before he got up there. So I'd be like, yeah, I kind of grew up, my brothers were kind of messing

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around with stuff and I got involved and I would take his testimony because I'd heard it so many times.

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Yeah, we would swap stories. Testimony swap.

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Yeah, it's been great. You know, Youth Hope has been a huge part of my life and this recently for me,

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my life has changed dramatically in the last couple years. Getting married and then jumping

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in with two teenage girls and everything else and life has just shifted and I've never felt a peace

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of leaving Youth Hope because I just loved so much of being a part of that community and just loving

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the students and just being a part of that ministry and I had a lot of opportunities

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throughout that time to possibly leave over the years and even recently I had a couple of

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opportunities of people saying, hey, what about coming to do this, what about coming to do that

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and it's never seemed right. But in the midst of that, just realizing that there was a conflict,

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like me trying to put my family first and trying to put the ministry first and I just knew deep down

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in my soul that I just had to step away so I could put my family first and make that my priority

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right now and as soon as I did that, I was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this.

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As soon as I did that, I literally was in the office this morning and that morning and just

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talking to my boss and saying, hey, I don't know if I can keep doing this and he's like,

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what else did you do? I'm like, I don't really know and to go to lunch with my wife after that

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and told her, hey, I think I'm quitting my job and we called a friend of ours who, she'd asked me,

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what would I want to do and I was like, man, I've always wanted to do life coaching or counseling.

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I've been mentoring, doing all this stuff for all these years but how do I find something more in

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that way that could be more in line with our family time and so we called a friend of ours

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who's Dr. Nett Clevenger and we had met with her previously about her organization called Narratives

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that does just that as they provide life coaching and mentoring to young adults,

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primarily at-risk young adults but she's open. She works with anyone who needs help and as we

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were talking, I was like, Annette, how do I get into this line of work? It's always been a dream

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of mine and she goes, why? I was like, I think it might be time for me to leave Hope and she's like,

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I'll hire you. She's like, I need you and so I just started the conversation and this moved

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really quickly and in that instant moment after that lunch of just literally quitting your job

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and going, okay, God's providing something here in the midst of this. It's all okay. God's got it.

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God is in control and so I'll be moving on to Narratives. We're located right on 11th Street

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in Rock Island right next to the McDonald's in the parking lot of the Plasma Center.

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So we'll be in the area still and just reaching out to young adults, anybody that needs it.

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We have a huge opportunity just to serve anybody right now and I'll be talking more about it,

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I'm sure, and you'll hear more about it and stuff but for Youth Hope to close that door this Friday

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coming up, the 9th, December 9th, we're having an open house at Youth Hope in Moline and it'll be

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kind of my final farewell, be my last day and so anybody would love to come and be a part of that

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and just come to the open house, the Christmas open house. It's just kind of a way for us to say

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thank you for being a part of our ministry. If you have volunteers to support it or you have some

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interest in doing those things, just come hear about it. There'll be some treats and all that

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kind of stuff in a short program so I'd love you to come join me on my last day of work and I

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appreciate you guys so much and just love this family. As Greg said, you guys sang that song

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when church started and I remember sitting in the planning meetings for the house to be launched

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years and years ago and being great friends with Greg and Jen and Chris forever and just really

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appreciate you guys and the values community so much. All right man. Well we would love to

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lay hands on you and pray for you if that's all right with you. Of course.

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If you've never been in ministry and if you've, the idea of putting 20 years into a place and

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then stepping out to do something else, he's going to be raising funds and so I would love

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for some of you to reach out to him about supporting him financially as well and so be

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praying about that okay and Chris, will you pray for him? Absolutely, yeah. God, I just thank you

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Lord. Thank you for Dave, his heart, his service. I thank you for his family. Thank you God for

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Leah, Kimwe, Sweetie. What a blessing they are God, themselves to our community and the outer

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community as well. We thank you God for Dave and his heart of serving your community for such a

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long time and we pray God that he will continue to give him peace as he moves forward. We understand

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that with transitions everything is not easy peasy. We pray God that this spirit of peace will be

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upon him and his family as he continues to say goodbye and say hello to this new opportunity.

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We do pray and thank you God. You know anyone else in this, in our community that might be

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experiencing something similar with today as far as wanting a career change or transition, we pray

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and lift them up as well. We know all stories don't work out like Dave's did but we do praise you Lord

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for the provision that you provided for Dave and we pray for those guys that are in transitions in

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their lives and families as well. So we are just thankful God for you. We thank you God again for

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the work that you've done in and through Dave Hodge. Bless the families and the students that

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he's worked with Lord and the seeds that he has planted throughout his time and years and

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many of which that would blossom without him even understanding the tremendous amount of impact for

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years to come. We're thankful and we trust these next steps for him and his family. In your name we

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pray amen. Amen. Appreciate you guys. I don't know but these two they went to college together. Yeah.

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We went to high school together. They've known each other for decades.

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A lot of years of relationship. A lot of years.