Peace

Peace

Luke 2:8-14

At the birth of Jesus

- Angels appeared to shepherds

- “Fear not”

- Great joy!

- Peace was the message

Christ’s coming into the world

- Was heralded as the coming of peace and joy

- We humans have attempted to manufacture peace and joy

- Our materialism is our culture’s attempt to find peace and joy

- Personal peace and joy

- The message is “Be content with things; they will give you peace and joy”

- They do not

- We have people, good meaning people

- Who seek peace at any cost

- No struggle, no conflict, no war, no matter what the provocation or cost

- We have Christians calling for peace

- But many have a theology that removes Christ and the divine

- To enthrone the human soul

- They too find no peace and no joy

- Only disappointment, emptiness and fear

Where is this peace and this joy heralded by the angels?

- We seek peace between nations

- We seek peace between people

- But the more we look, the more we find strife

- There is no peace in this world

- Jesus said in Matt 10:34, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

- What did He mean by this?

- How does this match up with the heralds

- Who proclaimed peace at His birth?

- Look at history

- Look at current events

- We as Christians have no peace in the world

- We are killed and harassed abroad

- Called intolerant here when we claim Christ as Truth

- We have no peace in this world

Isaiah and the other prophets of the Old Testament said the Messiah would bring peace

- Look at Isa 9:6

- Here He is called the Prince of Peace

- Zechariah 9:9-10

- Here we have Him coming as king

- Proclaiming peace to the nations

Yet, where do we find this peace?

- Our Messiah came with prophecies and proclamations by angels

- That He would bring us peace

- This Christmas we celebrate the birth of our Christ

- Our Savior, the Prince of Peace

Let us look and find more about this peace He sends us

There are several important things we need to realize about His peace

1. His peace is different than the world’s peace

- Read John 14:25-27

- His peace comes with the Holy Spirit

- What Jesus taught

- It is here we find our peace

- In Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit

- As we trust Jesus to lead us, teach us

- Give us life

- We find peace

- Peace that comes in the security of our relationship with Him

- Peace based in the relationship of faith we have with Him

- The world can’t give this kind of peace

- It does not know Him or follow Him

- Jesus told us in John 16:33

- We will have trouble in the world

- But He has overcome the world

- It has no power over us

- As it had no power over Him

- And He has brought us His peace

- Even as we have trouble in the world

- He is our peace, not the world

- The world is only trouble for us

As the prophet Jeremiah said (Jer 6:14)

- The world proclaims, “Peace, peace, but there is no peace.”

- The world winks at sin and rebels against God’s authority and rule

- It cries out that everything is ok

- God will not punish sinners

- He is God of love

- He will forgive us because we aren’t that bad, are we

- Be at peace. Don’t worry!

- Peace, peace but there is no peace

2) Jesus told us in Matt 10:34-36, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

- He did not come that we might live in peace with the world

- He is the reason for people to turn against us

- He calls us to choose sides

- The world will not tolerate Him

- Or those who side with Him

- They put Him to death

- They will also pressure us to deny Him

- That is shown in the violent and subtle persecution

- Christians around the world experience

- Right here, those who claim Christ is the only way, the only truth and the only life

- Find our society increasingly calling us intolerant and dangerous

- We are a menace, a threat to our society and culture

- That by the way is correct