Sermon Tone Analysis

We are fully enveloped in the holiday season this morning.

Thanksgiving was a couple of weeks ago, Christmas is a couple of weeks away.

And the world is running at full speed.

I was in walmart the other night to pick up dinner, and saw no less than 4 tvs rolling through checkouts.

Carts and lines were all over full, the milk racks were mostly empty.

I heard one guy cussing into his phone as he exclaimed his need to get out of there, because it was too busy.

And in that moment, part of me was a little bit put off - because hey man, you’re cussing about lines at the grocery/tire/tv/laundry/pet food store?

But as I have thought about it more, I havet come to the conclusion that this guy was expressing, in his own personal conversation that I wasn’t invited into either to hear or to preach about later, his guy was expressing a deep - heart wrenching - broken desire for peace.

And that resonated.

That struck me.

Because the human condition - desires peace.

As we begin our Christmas celebrations, I wanted to take some time this morning and discover again what it means to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus, the Prince of peace.

Before we get into the word of God, lets pray.

The problem:

Prince of peace is one of the four names given to Messiah as prophesied by Isaiah.

Isaiah gave the condition of the world, the gloom of the distressed land.

Do we know some gloom of some distressed land?

If you were to read or listen to the news today - would you find some reasons to be disturbed?

I certainly have been.

And yet in this prophesy, Isaiah tells us that it will be different - in the future, “for a child will be born to us”

that Child is the one we celebrate in this season, because he has been born.

Since our time in the garden, mankind has lived at odds with its creator.

Our desire to rebel set us against our God.

And so He sent Jesus to be born, to live, to die on the cross for our sins, so that we might be reconciled to the Father.

So that we may have peace.

So that we understand it, Peace, Shalom in Hebrew, is not simply an absence of conflict.

Shalom is attributed to a total well being, prosperity, and security, it meant wholeness, health, and salvation.

It means to be right, in right relationship with God, or with others.

In any context, Shalom was not something that you could really accomplish by yourself.

Even in this season, when we are excited about Christmas, and we are busy about the celebration - peace is something that we cannot gain on our own.

Because we live in a fallen world.

We have experienced pain.

And loss, and suffering.

It seemed like several years in a row, Thanksgiving in my family was traumatic.

My sister lost a baby, my uncle passed away, it seemed like one year after another was just nonsense.

To a point, that we were hardened by it.

Thanksgiving lost its flavor.

It was a painful season.

We had no peace.

As a child, most holidays were chaotic for me.

I had a split family, and those families had split families.

And everyones stuff was at slightly different times and so I spent holidays going from one place to another place to another place.

There was no peace.

This last week, several families were displaced by an apartment fire here in town.

They lost everything.

The building is a loss from not only fire but water damage.

Those families will struggle to have peace.

We live in a fallen world.

And yet we long for it.

God knows that.

So His prophet Isaiah spoke.

And so the angels spoke to the shepherds in the fields.

Luke 2:14 (CSB)

Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people he favors!

The answer

Because of that moment, when Christ was born.. .those

two things that Luke records the Angels declared - happened.

God was Glorified.

And peace was possible on earth.

The shepherds went to bow down before the king.

Wise men came from a far to bestow him with gifts.

The angels in the heavenly host declared how wonderful God is.

Jesus came and lived a life among us.

He was Emanuel.

We can in scripture that Jesus experienced life.

He got hungry and tired.

He cried.

He was cared for by a loving mother.

He bled, and he died.

And because of that, peace is possible.

We can be restored, we can be at peace, we can be made whole again.

Because of Emanuel.

God with Us.

And yet, if we are not careful, we can still miss it.

It is not the busyness that steals our peace, it is us that allow it to be so easily forgotten.

And missing the peace that has been made available for us - is as equal to it having never been provided.

A man who doesn’t read is no better off than a man who cannot..

A person who doesn’t respond to that peace - is no better off than a person who has never received it.

So how do we respond?

What do we need to be doing this season, to acknowledge the gift that is Jesus?

Find Peace

Make Peace

Share Peace

Find Peace

Peace isn’t missing but we might have lost it.

As we approach this season of grace, we should make efforts to make sure that we have that peace, close at hand.

The Bible says that Jesus himself IS our peace.

To have peace this morning, we might need to draw close to him.

Counseling - I always get the same answers:

Are you reading your bible

“well, not as much as I should”

Well, whats your prayer life like

--- not as good as it should be....

Make Peace

There are situations in our life that come up that cause strife in our lives.

There are circumstances that cause division.

There are Circumstances that steal peace from us.

The Bible tells us that it is our responsibility to make those things right.

Jesus said in his sermon on the mount

So we need to find peace, we must make peace.