Finding Peace in Our Struggles - Advent Week 2

Countdown Video

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Scripture Reading by Lady Pepper

(Show Slide)

Thank you Lady Pepper for the announcements and the reading of God’s Word.

Welcome! to everyone especially those who are joining us for the first time. My name is Pastor Doc, and I will be sharing the Word of God with you today.

Have your Bibles Ready and take notes

Show Video

The Series: Rediscover Christmas

Title of the message this Morning

Finding Peace in Our Struggles Advent Week 2

Introduction

If you’ve been journeying with us this past week toward Christmas, you know that we have been celebrating Advent.

As a quick recap, the word Advent means “coming” or “arrival,” and the season is marked by expectation, waiting, anticipation, and longing. (ex. child can’t wait to open presents at Christmas)

Advent is not just an extension of Christmas—it is a season that links the past, present, and future. (Reminds me of the Book of Reverlation)

Advent offers us the opportunity to share in the ancient longing for the coming of the Messiah, to celebrate His birth, and to be alert for His second coming.

Advent looks back in celebration at the hope fulfilled in Jesus’s coming, while at the same time looking forward in hopeful and eager anticipation to the coming of Christ’s kingdom when He returns for His people. (more information on that when you sign up for my revelation class)

During Advent we wait for both—it’s an active, assured, and hopeful waiting.

Each week, we’re focusing on a different attribute of God represented in the coming of Jesus: hope, peace, joy, and love.

Each of these traits leads us into a rediscovery of Christmas, and we are glad you’re here today with us to rediscover peace.

Main Teaching

The Shepherds: Peace Restored

We are also looking at different characters in the biblical Christmas story and seeing how they encountered the arrival of Jesus in the world.

When we think of peace embodied in the Christmas story, we can’t help but think of the shepherds.

They were the unlikely recipients of God’s message of peace.

We are going to be reading Luke’s account about them together.

It’s such a beautiful, almost poetic passage of Scripture. it is a beautiful, inspired writing by Luke:

Open your bibles to Luke 2:8-20

19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. (Mother’s Keeps things in their hearts)

And then there’s the sound.

All together these incredible angels are praising God, probably singing, and declaring glory to God in heaven and peace on earth to humanity.

What language, or languages, were they speaking and singing?

What kind of melody and harmony? How loud must it have been?

Or could anyone else hear it?

Of course, the audience for this grand announcement and amazing angelic show must have been the most important VIPs, the rich and famous and powerful, the kings and queens and movers and shakers of the world, right?

No! It was for the shepherds.

Ordinary people who were the recipients of this message of peace, wholeness, and God’s favor.

It’s yet another example of God uses regular people to usher in his plan to save the world.

But you my still ask “Why shepherds?”

Because the shepherds actually connect the dots to biblical threads in the Old Testament.

For instance, the shepherds remind us that the patriarchs of Israel were shepherds of the ancient world.

Abraham was the original recipient of God’s covenant that He would bless all nations of the world.

And this promise was carried on through Abraham’s ancestors Isaac, Jacob, and beyond.

David, Israel’s greatest king, was first a shepherd as well.

Remember shepherds had no entitlement.

No pride or arrogance.

They fit right into this process of introducing God’s Messiah:

a humble carpenter and a peasant girl as parents for the Son of God, a birth in a lowly stable surrounded by animals, rough and rugged shepherds out in the fields on the edge of the more refined civilization.

These were the have-nots, which were given a place in the stable to kneel on holy ground and witness the arrival of the Messiah.

These shepherds also signify Jesus’s future ministry and teaching.

Sheep's might have been lowly animals, but they were very special animals in Jewish culture.

The Passover lamb was the sacrifice an ancient Jew would make during the most important holiday.

Its blood was the atonement for a person’s sins, the cost that had to be paid to restore a person with God.

And each time it was done, this sacrifice was a reminder of the original Passover and God’s rescue and exodus of His people from Egypt.

We know that Jesus was entering our world to fulfill His identity as the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world.

He was the ultimate sacrifice and payment for our sins.

His death did away with the need for these sacrificial lambs.

His resurrection made it possible for us to be fully restored in our relationship with God.

His life made it possible to experience true peace, shalom in the Hebrew language and culture, the word and concept that encapsulates the completeness and wholeness of God’s original creation.

It’s probably for all of these reasons that God sent His angelic messengers to announce the birth of His Son to shepherds.

It certainly reminds us that God’s favor is not based on human standards.

His favor is on all those who humbly acknowledge their brokenness and accept the gifts of hope, peace, joy, and love that Jesus brings.

Peace is not based on class or position or occupation but on God’s purpose and design to bring good news that will cause great joy for all the people.

I think the shepherds reminds all of us that in the midst of our storms God’s still can bring peace.

1. Peace comes in the midst of our storms.

Have you ever experienced a hurricane?

Have you ever lived through the eye of a hurricane?

It’s an eerie experience.

You’ve seen it on the weather radar at the center of a circling storm.

But there is truly a stillness right at the center of the melee.

There, the winds calm.

The rains cease.

It’s a pause in the maelstrom.

It’s temporary.

It doesn’t last, and then those winds start howling again, this time in the opposite direction.

It’s kind of like those freeze frame moments in a movie when everything slows down to one fraction of a moment, while life or chaos or catastrophe happens all around the character like a brief millisecond of clarity or pause.

I know it’s early, but Let me ask you, how is your Christmas season going?

How does your Christmas season typically go?

If we’re honest, we might choose words like busy, hectic, or frantic to describe our lives this time of year—or maybe all year round.

Maybe it’s an overloaded schedule that robs you of peace.

Or maybe it’s something more: relational conflict, pressure at work, a lost job, illness.

For many of us, peace sounds like a long way off.

If this is where you find yourself today, let me encourage you that Jesus shows up when the storms of life threaten our peace and hope and joy.

He is there with us when love seems lost and the way forward is totally unclear.

But this is where God appears.

This is where the Christ child is born.

This is where the angels show up.

In the middle of Israel’s dark night of Roman oppression and centuries of suffering and wondering, “Where is God?”

In the middle of a world turned upside down for a young Jewish couple who have found themselves at the center of cosmic events—while at the same time trying to navigate the normal life realities of paying their dues by traveling by foot across the country to be counted by the government.

And having to experience childbirth for the first time far from home without the support and care of the women and midwives who would have guided Mary through this painful process.

In all of these circumstances, in all of these struggles—this is where God showed up.

And this is where God continues to show up for us.

In our pain.

In our fears.

In our confusion.

In our grief.

In our loss.

In our uncertainty.

I don’t know every hardship you are facing today, or the pain you are feeling.

But God does.

He is there, bringing peace to calm your heart, peace that defies your circumstances.

2. Peace defies our circumstances.

“That’s great for you to say.

It sounds nice,” you might be thinking.

“But you don’t know how much it hurts.”

No, I’m sorry, I don’t.

I can only imagine how awful it is, and I can only agree with how unfair it is.

But let me encourage you that there is a peace that is deeper, there is a peace that defies your circumstances.

No, in the face of all you are feeling and all you have gone through, God’s peace just doesn’t make sense—but it is real.

And it is healing.

And it can guard your heart from continuing wounds.

And it can protect your mind from the onslaught of anxiety.

The apostle Paul describes the process like this:

The New King James Version Chapter 4

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!

5 Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.

6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Let me encourage each of us today, no matter what we are facing, that this process begins with us turning to God, bringing our hurts and questions and doubts and whys and needs to Him.

As Paul says it, “In every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

I don’t pretend to fully understand it, but there is a power in prayer and a transformation that grows from gratitude.

It’s not the power of getting what we want or convincing God to see things our way.

We can try, and He will listen.

But the power of prayer happens as we experience peace as our perspective changes and finds an understanding that God is with us, no matter what.

When we acknowledge and accept the fact, that He’s got this, He can be trusted, and He is enough.

3. Peace is a person.

It all comes back to a person.

Peace is a person.

Peace is Jesus.

“For he himself is our peace,” Paul says in Ephesians 2:14 (NIV).

And long before His arrival on earth, the prophet Isaiah called Jesus the Prince of Peace.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. (Isaiah 9:6-7, NIV)

Conclusion

There are political-sounding tones to this message, and you can see why the Jews who wanted their political freedom and independence were eager to see a political Messiah.

And more importantly, there are tones of the completion of Christ’s work and His eventual establishment of God’s kingdom.

But most of all, this child that is born, this Son that is given to us, brings the power and rule of His peace into our personal lives.

He is the bringer of peace between us and God, the sacrificial lamb, the giver of life.

He is the embodiment of shalom, wholeness, that we find in relationship with Him.

Jesus is the God who is come to be with us, and He offers us this invitation in this Advent season and always:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30, NIV)

Is that not an offer of peace?

Let’s let those words wash over us.

And in this second week of Advent, let me encourage you to look for the Prince of Peace, even when the winds blow and the storms swirl.

Let me encourage us all to come to Him and worship like the shepherds, even when we find ourselves in the darkness or the storms.

Let me remind us to come to Him.

Because He is here. The Prince of Peace is with us.

May Jesus be your peace this week, guarding your soul with peace, filling your spirit with the wholeness of shalom, and ruling as the Prince of Peace in your heart.

Let’s pray together.

Salvation:

The Word of God says in:

John 3:16

16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Romans 10:13

13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

If you’d would like to receive Jesus today, please pray this prayer with all of us:

Lord I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that He died On the cross for my sins and His resurrection from the dead gives me eternal life. I ask forgiveness of my sins, and I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Amen.

Pastor [e-mail]

Church Office: 909-922-8090

And I will send you a Bible & a Free Book on how to begin your first 21 steps with Jesus (show the book)

***Leave slide up until Pepper gets in position***

Lady Pepper Please Join Me

Communion

I want to take a few moments to give you the opportunity to ask forgiveness of any sin in your life.

Let us pray over the elements (Cross Exposed) in the name of the father, the son, and the Holy Ghost

Read first Corinthians 11:23- 26 - (Taking the elements together)

23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread;

24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” (take bread)

25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” (Take Cup)

26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.

Pepper Praise Reports

Please send in your Praise Reports!

Lady Pepper do we have any prayer request

Let us Pray (P/P)

Delia - 3 operations

Melissa Tomes Baker - Mental crisis

Gregg Ellis - Healing

Vadria - Healing

This is Pastor Doc & Lady Pepper with:

Faith Vision Christian Ministries

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Benediction

May the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. (2 Thessalonians 3:16, NIV)

Have a Great Week! Goodbye!