Advent Peace
Notes
Transcript
I want to welcome you all today, as celebrate the second week of advent. We are studying a series entitled “The promise”. Each week we will be looking at a different promise made by God as a result of Jesus coming into the world.
Today we light the candle of peace that reminds us of the promise of peace. (call Lori)
Today we have asked The Hummer family to light the candle and read for us a selected passage of scripture. Lori’s husband Eric is an airline pilot and had to fly out early this morning for work.
Intro: Peace. It’s a strange word in a way. Not because of its phonetic sound or pronunciation, but rather because we have a definition for it. We intellectually understand it’s meaning and yet so few people actually find peace or live in a state of peace.
In our current society and maybe in all societies of the past peace is illusive.
Many of you know Noah and I enjoy hunting. This is my second year hunting in SC and it has proven to be a challenge. The landscape and ecosystem in a subtropical climate is much different than the other areas I have hunted. In the mountains there are natural land barriers that acts as funnels for all ground dwelling animals. The paths they take through the valleys will inevitable take you to a mountain stream and then back to their food source.
Here however, There is water everywhere and without the presence of natural barriers the deer tend to have a greater range. This means it may be days before the herd comes back through the same area again.
As Noah and I have been scouting and hunting we see deer sign everywhere. We see tracks, droppings, buck scrapes and rubs. We see the signs that the deer are out there. Yet we have not seen a even one deer.
I think peace is a lot like this. We search for it. We see the signs of it, and yet few of us tend to live in it. We believe its their we just haven’t had much success finding it.
So when we come to a passage like our text today we are bewildered and maybe even somewhat disappointed with the promise of peace. We Know its available, but yet maybe fail to believe it’s obtainable. Do any of you feel this way?
8 In the same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock.
9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
10 But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people:
11 Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord.
12 This will be the sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth and lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying:
14 Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people he favors!
I. The Promised Peace
I. The Promised Peace
What is the type of peace promised?
To find this answer we will turn to Romans 5:9-10
9 How much more then, since we have now been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath.
10 For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.
Before Christ the scriptures tell us that we were the enemies of God. So the announcement of Christ’s birth, the giving of God’s Son was the promise that the workings of a treaty had begun.
In 1962 Don and Carol Richardson, Canadian missionaries with Regions Beyond Missionary Union, began serving among the cannibalistic Sawi tribes of western New Guinea (modern Irian Jaya). The Sawi honored treachery as an ideal. They befriended people of other villages with the intent of later betraying, killing and even eating them. The first time Don Richardson shared the story of Judas Iscariot betraying Jesus, the Sawi admiringly proclaimed Judas the hero of the story!
The Richardsons ministered to a pair of neighboring villages, Haenam and Kamur, that were constantly warring against each other. When, after several months, the Richardsons were not able to convince the two settlements to stop fighting, they announced that they would have to move elsewhere to minister. The Sawi, not wanting to lose the benefits to be gained by having westerners living among them, suddenly declared that they were going to make peace with each other. The Richardsons wondered how such peace could possibly be established, given the long history of hatred, treachery and distrust that existed between the villages.
The morning after announcing their intention to make peace, first a leader from Haenam then a leader from Kamur started to carry one of their own infant sons toward the neighboring enemy village. But in the first case the father from Haenam was prevented from doing so by family members who snatched the child back from him. And in the second instance the Kamur father, obviously distraught, changed his mind and turned back to his own village.
Suddenly a young Kamur father named Kaiyo picked up his six-month-old son, his only child, and began running swiftly toward Haenam. Kaiyo’s wife chased after him, pleading with him to stop. But when she slipped and fell into a muddy bog alongside the trail, she was unable to stop him.
When Kaiyo arrived at Haenam he came face to face with a line of his mortal enemies. “Mahor!” he called out to one of them. When Mahor stepped forward, Kaiyo asked, “Mahor! Will you plead the words of Kamur among your people?” When Mahor stated he would, Kaiyo continued, “Then I give you my son and with him my name!”
Taking the baby gently in his arms, Mahor then announced for all to hear: “It is enough! I will surely plead for peace between us! Those who accept this child as a basis for peace, come and lay hands on him!” The men, women and children of Haenam eagerly filed by, each placing his or her hands on the Kamur infant. From then on Mahor went by Kaiyo’s name.
Presently an infant from Haenam was presented to Kaiyo, who made the same sort of pledge that Mahor had pronounced moments earlier. When Kaiyo returned to his village, the people of Kamur similarly placed their hands on the Haenam child as the basis for maintaining peace with that settlement. Kaiyo immediately assumed the name of Mahaen, the Haenam father who had given him his son.
Don Richardson feared that harm might come to the infants who had been given to the enemy villagers. But he was assured that those children would be carefully protected so peace could continue between the two settlements. When Richardson asked why all this was necessary, the Sawi answered, “You’ve been urging us to make peace. Don’t you know it’s impossible to have peace without a peace child?”
When the angels announced the birth of the Savior to the shepherds in Luke 2, they declared, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.” God was providing a Savior to make a way for human beings to come to be at peace with Him, to be reconciled to Him. By trusting in the Savior people could have their sins, which estranged them from God, forgiven. Christ Jesus was the ultimate Peace Child.
Application: Jesus did not come to immediately end all the suffering from the affects of sin. Instead he came to make a way for peace between Yahweh God and man. His life, death, and resurrection reconciled us to God. Just like in this account these two tribes a peace treaty has been declared for God became one of us.
Trans: While most of the time we who are in Christ are thankful for the future promise of heaven through this treaty of peace we often miss out on the everyday implications of peace.
II. The everyday implications of peace.
II. The everyday implications of peace.
In the Old Testament Hebrew the cultural concept for“peace” had the idea of rest built into it. This Hebrew idea of rest is well illustrated in Psalm 23:5
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
The picture is feast setup in the middle of hostile territory. In the ancient near eastern culture there was a tradition that whomever was being pursued by an enemy could run to the tent of another and come under their protection.
In this we see David running into the tent of God the father, coming under his protective care. Then God binding up his worn out and en-battered soul and he feasting on the goodness ,the peace, and rest of God. His circumstances did not change but God met him in the midst of them.
Peace is not found in the circumstances of our life but resting in in the fathers promise of peace without end. The hope that we have peace with God and that He has won. The hope that in the end all will be made right.
33 I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”
The promise of Christ means that we do not have to live in fear of what is now or what the future holds.
Jesus removes all the mystery of what we can expect in this life. but then also removes the mystery of what we can expect in the next life.
Inner Peace in this life is not some transcendent experience that only monks and enlighten sages obtain but rather it is found whenever God’s people believe the reality of his promise.
Peace has already been purchased and is available in the midst of your circumstances because we the hope that all of our troubles will one day come to an end.
He tells us...
Trouble has an expiration date.
Trouble has an expiration date.
13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom; your rule is for all generations. The Lord is faithful in all his words and gracious in all his actions.
27 The kingdom, dominion, and greatness of the kingdoms under all of heaven will be given to the people, the holy ones of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will serve and obey him.’
To those who have put their trust in Christ: You have the eternal hope. Peace is found both in the present reality through believing this promise but it shall be ultimately realized in a kingdom without end.
To those who are searching for something better: Maybe you are here today and you desperately want peace in your life. I promise you will find it continuously illusive. You may find moments of happiness and joy but nothing that will last.
It is only found in the promise of Christ for how could one have inner peace until he has first made peace with God and has been adopted as a son.
The scriptures tell us
4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”
7 So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then God has made you an heir.
Which by the way why does the bible use the Son language in scripture when it pertains to both men and woman. Simply for this reason, A son stood to inherit everything. So that when a woman is adopted into the family of God she is adopted in the same spirit as a son and has no less of an inheritance in Christ.
So that both men and woman who call on the Lord Jesus Christ will be adopted.
So Jesus was born as baby, grew up as a sinless man, died on the cross to satisfy the perfect standard of God, his holiness, to grant us forgiveness of sins. Then rose again with the promise that death is not the end. This present life is not all their is. In this, He has secured for us peace. It is a promise that we can securely hope in.
Peace is found in the present reality as result of resting in the promise that our eternity is secure in Christ.