The Announcement

What happened on that night over 2,000 years ago, almost every literate person has some sort of knowledge. That evening contained the most important event ever, a small group heard the most important song ever, then they heard the most important announcement ever. We read about it in Luke 2:14: ““Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.””

It was a proclamation of celebration of that baby's birth, the promised Messiah. But these words also describe your need and mine. And in defining our need, they explain the mission of that baby in the manger.

And if that verse defines our need, and it defines His mission, it does even more. These words not only announce a birth, they predict a death! These words really do capture our need. ‘Glory’ and ‘peace’ are the two principal words of the little Christmas hymn. Without Jesus, we can never experience glory or peace. With Jesus, doing His Father’s will, He provided the opportunity for us to truly experience glory and peace.

Glory

I don't know if you've noticed this about yourself, but you are focused on glory. Everything you do in your life, everything you say, every choice you make, every reaction in relationships is done in pursuit of some kind of glory.

We need to understand that you and I were created to live with the glory of God in view. We were created so that the main motivation in our life would be that God would be praised; that God would be pleased. We were created to live in the most practical sense of living for God’s glory; God would be the reason that you do all that you do.

We know that creation was designed to remind us to point to the glory of God. Everything that was created was meant to be a finger that points us to the person and the character and the plan of God. We need to be constantly reminded that everywhere we look, God exists, and that God must be the center of our existence.

Whether it is frigid cold and snowy, or listening to the beautiful song of a bird, or seeing the amazing colors of the fall leaves, or experiencing a scary storm, or feeling the touch of another human being’s hand, or sense the tone of their voice, or feel the brightness of the morning, or experience the darkness of the night; all of those things, all of those glories are shadow glories that are meant to reflect the one glory that's truly glorious—the glory of God.

That's the way it was meant to happen. However, in a sad moment of disobedience and rebellion, Adam and Eve chose instead to live for the glory of the creation, rather than the glory of God. They wanted something in the creation more than they wanted God, and ever since that horrible moment, there has been confusion and war, regarding where glory belongs. We don't always live for the glory of God. There are other glories that can compete in our heart for this one glory.

You might have experienced something this week that caused you to mutter under your breath some pretty negative things. My guess is that we did not think first of the glory of God. We didn't consider that this situation is a reminder that the Lord is in control. Like all of us, we most likely were not praising the Name of Jesus. Very often we tend to forget God's glory, and we live for other glories; in fact, you could argue that every sin has, at its root, an exchange of God's glory for some glory in creation.

Consider this: What is lust about? Lust exchanges the glory of God for the glory of momentary sexual pleasure. Materialism replaces the glory of God with the possession of physical things. Pride chooses to live more for self-glory than the glory of God. We’re all glory confused; we’re all in some way glory thieves.

And if you reflect on your world this week, you probably wouldn’t be able to say that in every situation, “I lived with the glory of God in view this week.” There are times when other shadow glories become more precious to you, and you convince yourself that you can't live without them. As a result, your life is more dictated by the worship of what was created than the worship of the Creator.

And that never leads to a heart that’s at rest; it never leads to inner peace; it never leads to satisfaction, because the shadow glories can’t fulfill your heart. They weren’t designed to do that. You can't turn the created world into your own personal messiah; it will never work. We have a glory problem. We all have moments of confusion. We all have times where we want the creation more than we want the Creator.

What if we all had this mindset?: ’‘Glory to God in the highest!’ Imagine what the world would be like if every person lived that way. Imagine what it would be like to live in a world where every heart of every human being was ruled by the glory of God.

This is the way God designed all human beings to live; all human beings were created to live for the glory of God. That was the creation plan. And then, in a moment of self-glory and rebellion, that was shattered, and all of us live in the continuing battle of where glory should be.

Peace

The second word is ‘peace.’ Peace among those with whom He is pleased. You and I were created for peace with God. We were created so that the most important thing in our lives would be a relationship with God. We were created to have the high honor of being the worshipful, obedient, children of God. That friendship with God would be the most meaningful reality of our lives.

And that peace with God would allow us to have peace within; not peace because we’re strong, or wise, or because we know what's happening next, but peace because we have a relationship with the One who rules it all, and who guides each one of us by His hand. Because of our relationship with God, even though we don't know all that we would like to know, we have peace in our hearts——rest. When that shalom with God is shattered, then, the result is that our hearts are not at rest.

There was a horrible moment in the garden when God comes down in the cool of the day to spend time with Adam and Eve. These are the friends of God that He would walk with them and commune with them; what a beautiful thing. Yet, Adam and Eve aren’t running to meet Him, this time. They're not excited to see Him. No! They're hiding in guilt and fear because they have been disobedient, and that peace with God has been shattered.

I love that Old Testament word ‘shalom’ because it pictures something deeper than just the absence of conflict. It describes all things as being in their proper order, they are working the way they were designed to work; peace with God means I have peace inside. But we don't always have that. All of us have experienced anxiety, sometimes anxiety that we can’t escape; or anger or frustration or discouragement or depression or hopelessness; our hearts long to find rest.

Have you had any sleepless nights recently where your mind went over that endless catalog of ‘what ifs’? Where halfway in and out of sleep, you wished you were in charge.

Another thing that we were created for is peace with others. You see, when I don't have peace with God, and I don't have peace inside of myself, it makes it very hard for me to live at peace with others. Sadly, our lives are marked by conflict. I don’t think anyone in this room or online has lived a conflict free year, probably not last month, probably not last week. I wish I could say I have been free of any moments of irritation or impatience or anger, but I can’t.

It's amazing that all around us is unrest and conflict; we have a peace problem. Brokenness with God leads to brokenness within, which leads to brokenness in the community that’s around us. Shalom has been destroyed, and in defining our need, this little verse really points us to the mission of the Messiah.

Jesus didn't come on a political mission to establish an earthly kingdom. He didn’t come on an educational mission just to correct our worldview. Jesus didn't come on a psychological mission just to make sure that we felt fulfilled and complete. Jesus didn’t even come on a religious mission to make sure that you did the outward, religiously appropriate things. No! Jesus’s mission was much more radical than that and much more fundamental than that.

If I have a glory problem, and if I have a peace problem, then, what I must realize is that I have a heart problem. My problem isn't so much my relationships, nor my situation. My problem is something is broken in my heart. David gets it right when he prays, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” That's what we need: a radical, personal, long-term, heart-change, because that's our problem.

The prophecies of the coming Christ are very clear that He is coming to address that problem. We read in the Old Testament that prophetic promise, “I will give them a new heart. I will take that heart of stone out of them, and I will replace it with a heart of flesh.” That's His work-that this stony heart, resistant to change, would become a heart alive by God's work and now able to change. And that people, who once lived for their own glory, would now, by His grace, live for His glory. Not just in religious matters, but in every day in their lives that these people, in their words and their thoughts and their actions and their relationships and their desires, would live for the glory of God!

Where the rubber meets the road in everyday life, that there would be something that would motivate me, that would be bigger than what I want, and bigger than what I think I need, and bigger than my pleasure of the moment, that I would really have a heart that had been captivated by the glory of God--that is the mission of Jesus! And that I would be brought by grace into peace with God.

It is not okay that masses of human beings do not live in peace with God. It's not okay that the people who walk those streets live apart from peace with God.

It’s not okay that masses of people in the United States don’t care about peace with God. It's not okay that, in the nations around the world, masses of people live with no knowledge of what it means to live in peace with God. It's not okay because the focus of the human existence should be a relationship with God.

What a tragedy that I would wake up and my whole life would be lived for teeny little glories that never satisfy me. What a tragedy that I wouldn't care about peace with God. Jesus came because my only hope would be His grace. I can't escape my heart. I can move to another location. I can get out of a relationship, but the one thing I can’t escape is the condition of my heart.

My problem is me! And so a Lord and Savior must come. And when you hear the word ‘Savior,’ know what you're hearing. You don't need a Savior unless you are unable to help yourself—‘Savior’ tells you, you need to be rescued. These words really do define our need. They really do define Christ’s mission.

But there’s another thing this verse does; it defines for us the price of this mission. It’s really captured in that final phrase, “...peace among those with whom He is pleased;” maybe better translated, peace on whom His favor is placed; maybe even better, peace to those to whom His grace is given.

You see, the only hope of peace is grace, and the way of grace is a death. You see, that stolen glory and that shattered peace left all humanity guilty, because rather than living for God, we have sought to be God; rather than honoring the Creator, we have worshiped the creation, and the sentence of that guilt is death. You do not understand that baby in the manger unless you know that that baby came to be a sacrificial Lamb.

Here is the plan; He would come, and from day one, all of His thoughts and all of His desires, all His actions, reactions and responses would be fully and completely and perfectly lived to the glory of God. He, on our behalf, would live for our glory; He would live the life that we could not live. And on the cross, He would bear our penalty, and He would face the rejection of the Father so that we could know His acceptance and peace with Him. Upward peace that would create inward peace that would give us the ability to have outward peace; that was the plan.

He came willingly; He came with knowledge about His purpose. He knew what the price would be. He must die so that we would live. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace with whom He is pleased!”

Response

If you would reflect on your last couple weeks, you will recognize, brothers and sisters, that you and I still have a glory problem. We don't always get glory right. Recognize that we have a peace problem; we don't always care about peace with God. We don't always have peace within. We surely don't always experience peace with one another.

And so the work of that grace is as needed by us this morning as it's ever been. The angels announce your hope. The angels announce your redemption. The angels announce to you grace; grace of a life lived, grace of a death offered so that you may live for His glory, and you may experience in all the ways possible, His peace. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those on whom His favor rests!”