All I Want For Christmas Is Peace

Sermon-All I Want For Christmas Is Peace

12/4/2016 Genesis 4:1-15 Luke 1:5-17

How many of you remember the song all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth? How many of you have given thought to something you might want for Christmas this year? We are starting a new sermon series today entitled All I Want For Christmas Is. We are going to look at the topics of peace, forgiveness and hope in the series. Today I want to look at Christmas from a slightly different perspective. Let’s look at it from God’s viewpoint.

If God was answering this question, “All I For Christmas from you this year is”, what do you think some of the things God might ask for. If God asked all I want from you this year New Life At Calvary is….I think one of the things at the top of the list that God wants from us is peace. God wants us to be in a right relationship with each other. One of our purposes is to love each other.

Is there anybody here who grew up in a home with brothers and sisters who did not get along with each other? Is there anybody here who grew up in a home in which people were jealous of each other? Is there anybody here who grew up in a family, in which one person wanted to get the same as everybody else when it came to getting a reward, but did not want to do their part when it came to doing the work. Has anyone ever been a part of our church that had some of these issues?

God desires the gift of peace for Christmas. Peace means “being in a right relationship.” So peace with one another means, being in right relationship with each another. Peace within means being in right relationship with yourself. Peace with God means being in a right relationship with God. How many of us are willing to offer ourselves as a gift of peace for God to use this Christmas season? Jesus told us, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons and daughters of God.

There was a news story in which a happily married couple had two boys. Each boy chose their own career path, but the older son got jealous of the younger son because the younger son had a better grade point average. The older son could have raised his grade point average if he worked harder but he did not want to do that. He found it easier to have the higher gpa by getting rid of his brother. He tricked his younger brother into meeting him in a secluded place, and when his brother was not looking, he smashed the back of his head with a large stone and killed him. He tried to cover it up and lied about knowing anything about his brother’s disappearance. The truth eventually came out and he was given a life sentence.

How do you think the parents felt when they found out their younger son was dead? How do you think they felt when they found out their youngest son had been killed by his brother, simply because he was jealous of his brother’s grade point average? How do you think they felt about his life sentence? How do you think God felt about this family’s situation?

You see this all happened in the very first family that God created. Adam and Eve’s first child Cain. Adam and Eve were thrilled when Cain was born. Remember, after they had eaten the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they were kicked out of Eden. But God gave them a hope before they were removed. God gave them the that one of Eve’s offspring would crush the devil’s head. They thought that maybe Cain was going to be the one to put everything back in place. Maybe Cain would restore the peace they had lost with God. Maybe they had Cain believing that he was going to be a special deliverer.

But then to their surprise they had another son. Here comes Abel. Humm. Maybe its not Cain that’s going to restore the peace, maybe its Abel. Have they unintentionally set up a small rivalry between the boy? Have the boys set up a rivalry among themselves? Has Cain set up a rivalry in his own mind that Abel is not even aware of

All of these things take place in the middle of our families that rob us of peace. Coming together at Christmas for family events is a time for the enemy to stir up all these negative emotions. Parents are accused of favoritism by the kids, kids work one parent against another to get what they want, kids try to compete against each other sometimes real and sometimes imagined.