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Peace Introduced
This morning we are going to talk about the second advent theme: peace.
You will find that each theme stands alone.
But each theme is something God gives us.
We don’t have to make any of them, we just have to stand in the current of God’s presence to live into them.
So let’s talk about peace this morning.
Where are the places we get peace?
How do we find it?
There are six of us living in a one bathroom, 1000 square foot house.
I’m not complaining, I actually quite love it but quiet real estate as a premium.
Peace, as you might say, is at a premium.
When we first moved in I tried to find a place where I could go to get a little quiet.
There isn’t a garage and the only extra room is usually full of kids.
There is a treehouse that the previous owners built that I thought maybe, just maybe I could use for a little quiet.
So one afternoon I squeezed through the entrance, and it has two levels so I squeezed through the opening using the ladder.
Then I stooped onto the second level and found a decent place to sit, took out my ipad and five minutes later realized that it in fact was horrendously uncomfortable.
- What I had searched for to find the perfect peaceful place wasn’t in fact peaceful.
My search hadn’t produced much of anything.
and we all do that, don’t we?
We search and search and search in strange places for peace and end up finding it for maybe a moment.
But it doesn’t last.
Well what if peace wasn’t dependent on where we were or what we were doing?
What if peace was something not to find but rather to recieve?
And what if peace showed up in yours and my own imperfect circumstances?
Even in our own lives, in our own search for a little bit of peace, we recognize the imperfection of our circumstances.
But what if that is exactly where God wanted you to recieve His peace?
That is what we are going to find today.
God wants to bring peace and He offers it to us in imperfect circumstances.
Peace in the Scriptures
- As we look at how God brings His peace let’s first look at how peace is communicated in the Scriptures.
We can find it all over the place but let’s look at Paul in Ephesians.
Look at how Paul greets the church in Ephesus:
English Standard Version (Ephesians 1:2) 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
- peace is not simply a state of mind, a posture.
It is something given by the Lord Himself.
Peace is a product of being in relationship with God.
- It is something enchanted and transcendent but not conjured.
We need to know that peace, like hope, comes in knowing Christ.
But often we search elsewhere or look elsewhere than Christ for it.
Peace, of course, means peace between God and people, the healing of the estrangement caused by human evil.
Peace is about reconciliation between parties or situations.
That is the definition of peace in the bible.
It means a wholeness or a completion.
There is nothing lacking.
Peace is not that we have everything it’s that we aren’t lacking anything.
Where have you looked to find peace in your life other than in Christ?
In looking at the story of the Shepherds we will see God offer peace in what looks like imperfect circumstances.
and they were filled with great fear.
Look at what is happening here.
The shepherds were here and just doing their jobs when all of the sudden one angel appeared to them.
The Bible says they were filled with “great fear.”
This phrase has the same meaning as an athlete who is right about to compete.
It is not a jumpscare, like out of nowhere.
“Great fear” is a sustained anxiety of looking directly into the unknown.
You are unsure of how things are going to turn out for you.
Have you ever felt that way before?
Not like you are looking into the face of an angel but that you are staring into the unknown, unsure of what’s going to happen next?
That is the great fear that the shepherds knew.
They aren’t so distant from us at all.
We can feel that great fear sometimes as well.
The fear swells because we just don’t know what will happen next.
We might think that great fear is a disqualifier for peace.
But that’s not what we find in the story.
Let’s look further
Talk in Faith Communities or write about a time where you were staring into the unknown, unsure of what would happen next?
Fear Not and Behold
Luke 2:10
This is arguably one of the greatest passages in the Bible.
I want to show you why.
Primarily for the two phrases: “Fear Not” and “for behold.”
Keep in your pocked the idea of fear being a sustained anxiety of looking into the unknown.
Fear Not
It is actually encouraging to hear these words.
It pre-supposes that people are really scared.
No one would say fear not if fear wasn’t an option.
It is not what comes before we hear “fear not” but after that matters most.
we hear this phrase a lot in the Bible but look at what always comes next when we hear, “fear not.”
Matthew 10:31
Isaiah 41:10
Isaiah 54:4
Genesis 15:1
Luke 12:32
Rev 1:17
When we hear “Fear Not” we are about to get the assurance from Heaven that God is on the move and things are going to change.
for Behold
What always follows this phrase is that God is going to do something.
Pay attention, it is telling us because God is moving.
Joel 3:1
Zech 2:10
Zech 11:16
And guess how many times we see these two phrases together in the Bible?
Only once.
Right here.
Right at the proclamation of the ADvent of the Christ.
Even the Angels tell us things are imperfect.
Don’t fear!
But that does not stop what God is doing.
God is inviting you to receive peace within your imperfect circumstances.
What is one way you could begin to see the peace of God within your circumstances, no matter how imperfect they may be?
We see How God is doing that in verse 14
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