All peace inwardly and peace outwardly is based on this vertical experience of, do I have peace with God?

Is it open and clear with God? Are we friends?

Sometimes the reason everything feels off, your mood, your relationships, your sense of direction in life,

it's not because of what's happening out there, it's because of what's unresolved vertically. I'm Dan Krover. In this

episode of Light and Truth, John Piper turns to Luke 2 to show how peace with God becomes the

foundation for peace everywhere else. This message was originally delivered at Bethlehem Baptist Church on December 24th,

2011. Peace with God. This piece, this piece right here, is foundational to all other peace. If you try to make peace with

your mind and your heart and all the guilt and anxiety that comes again and again without that

peace, and if you try to hold a family together and to make peace at work, you will maybe achieve

some brief superficial measures, but it won't last, especially into eternity. All peace inwardly and

peace outwardly is based on this vertical experience of,

do I have peace with God?

Is it open and clear with God?

Are we friends?

So the key text, as you might guess where I would go, is Romans 5-1.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, by believing, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Having been justified by faith, by believing,

trusting him and all of his promises to me, I have peace.

So just a word on justification again.

Justification, being justified, means God declares you just.

God declares you right, righteous, pure, perfect, acceptable.

Acceptable.

He does.

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