Advent 2008 #2 Peace
There was a small group of shepherds out in the hills guarding their sheep at night.
It’s not too hard to picture a group of guys camping out, a small fire burning,
surrounded by sleeping sheep.
The end of another hard day.
Suddenly the men are illuminated in a blinding light.
This light isn’t from some silent black ops
helicopter,
Its coming from what the shepherds will
describe as an angelic being.
The angel speaks—
I bring you good news of great joy.
So incredibly great is this news that it seems that all of heaven burst
out into song.
Luke 2:13-14 (NIV)
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."
Peace
It seems so elusive.
The last 100 years have been anything but peaceful.
Wars and rumors of wars, nations rising up against nations,
Civil wars, genocide, earthquakes, famine, disease,
Atrocities,
And even the conflict of our current culture
war here in the USA.
Losing your job to a horrible economy,
Or losing your home to fire or mudslide or flood,
Someone you love sick or in trouble, Family struggles,
That kind of stuff will steal your peace.
Wouldn’t you like some of that peace the angel choir sang about?
Would you like the peace of God which
transcends all understanding guarding your heart?
Today I would like to give you an opportunity to receive the
kind of peace that Jesus gives.
John 14:27 (NIV)
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
We usually define peace as the absence of conflict.
That’s worldly peace, an absence of conflict.
Now that would be a great gift.
No conflict—but what I have discovered we seem to move
from conflict to conflict, crisis to crisis.
If we are fortunate we have these little oasis’s of peace,
but they either dry up or we have to move on.
The peace the world gives is fickle and doesn’t last.
Besides if we adopt the worlds definition of peace and then
“If we apply this understanding to Jesus,
it is obvious His life was filled with conflict:
[Conflict] with His family, His friends, His followers, and His
enemies…He was surrounded by turmoil.”
(H.Ray Dunning, The Fruit of the Spirit, p.18)
We are forced to conclude that Jesus didn’t have
any peace to give.
So it’s not worldly peace that Jesus gives to His disciples.
I want us to examine what the peace of Jesus is,
And then let you know how you can leave here today with it.
If you didn’t know, Jesus was Jewish.
So when Jesus speaks of peace he would have a Jewish understanding of the
word.
“The Jewish idea of peace is shalom,
Shalom means wholeness, harmony, and completeness.
You experience shalom when “you have right relations with
God, with other persons, with oneself,” and the earth.
http://www.crivoice.org/luke2b.html
Peace, shalom, is one of the benefits of righteousness.
Righteousness simply means rightly related.
Peace is given to those who have a right relationship with God,
Self, Others and the Earth.
This peace is not an absence of conflict.
The craziness of this world will continue all around you
But inside—shalom, peace.
Mayhem and madness on the outside,
But inside assurance, confidence.
There is an old hymn of the church—All The Way My Savior Leads Me
All the way my Savior leads me.
What have I to ask beside?
Can I doubt His tender mercy,
Who thro’ life has been my Guide?
Heavenly peace, divinest comfort,
Hear by faith in Him to dwell!
For I know what-e’ver befall me,
Jesus doeth all things well.
To move through conflict, and discord, strife, and stress, and not be shaken
in the inner core of your being,
to be able to pass through the troubles of this world,
knowing, totally confident, that all things will work for
the good for you because you love God and are
fulfilling His purposes in your life,
is the kind of peace that can be yours.
Whatever befalls you, you have assurance and confidence that
Jesus does all things well.
Since everything rises and falls on relationship it should be no surprise that
A right relationship with God is the door to inner peace.
The Apostle Paul instructs us--
Romans 5:1-5 (NIV)
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
We need to unpack these thoughts.
Justified through faith—say that with me, ready. Justified through faith.
When we are justified we have peace with God.
We have shalom with our Creator.
Justified means to be set right.
We are set right with God through faith.
Faith is trust and confidence that moves us to action.
Faith in what?
Faith in what Jesus promised—
John 14:6 (NIV)
"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
It is by faith that we
Accept the fact the we are estranged from God because of sin.
It is by faith that we
Believe that only Jesus can reconcile us to the Father.
It is by faith that we
Commit ourselves to living as a disciple of Jesus.
It is by faith that we
Ask God to accept us as His own.
By faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, that what Jesus did,
Jesus did for you and me,
We are justified, set right, reconciled to God.
One of the benefits of being reconciled to God is that God the Holy Spirit
Gives us peace—
Our past sins are forgiven, therefore we are no longer guilty,
We are acquitted.
Our hostility, our fear, of God comes to an end.
We know that God is for us now,
For us so that we can live our lives to the full.
Our worry about the future ends with confidence in Christ.
[We are given] a deep sense of personal well being.”
(Beacon Dictionary of Theology, Richard S. Taylor, p 386)
Even in the midst of suffering,
You still have this inner peace,
Inexplicable and unexplainable peace.
A peace the produces perseverance,
Perseverance develops your character,
Character infused with hope.
And hope—if there is hope in the future
There is power in the present to keep
on keeping on.
If the peace of God is elusive to you,
Ask yourself, Am I justified by faith?
Have I been set right with God?
Is my relationship with God righteous?
Like the bumper sticker reads:
Know God, Know Peace; No God, No Peace.
Invitation?
Right now you might be saying to yourself,
I know that I am a Christian,
I am accepting, believing and committing in and to God,
but peace is still something I rarely experience,
what’s wrong with me?
If you are a believer,
and though you remember that when God first accepted you as His own
there was peace, but now its missing.
I think I can help you.
James 4:1-6 (MSG)
Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves. You lust for what you don't have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn't yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it. You wouldn't think of just asking God for it, would you? And why not? Because you know you'd be asking for what you have no right to. You're spoiled children, each wanting your own way. You're cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. And do you suppose God doesn't care? The proverb has it that "he's a fiercely jealous lover." And what he gives in love is far better than anything else you'll find. It's common knowledge that "God goes against the willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble."
James the Just is writing this to believers, to Christians.
He lays it right out for us.
Disciple of Christ you have no peace because:
You want your own way.
There’s the problem—you want your own way.
Recall I told you that the first step in getting set right with God is to
Accept the fact the we are estranged from God because of sin.
Sin is anything that deters, or damages or destroys righteousness.
Sin has three categories.
There is Original Sin.
When Adam and Eve rebelled against God we call that original
sin.
The result of original sin is estrangement.
Every one of us are born separated from
God.
We are born tainted with Original sin.
The second Category is the Sin Nature, or what I refer to as egoism.
Egoism is what the old timers called self-centered carnality.
Egoism is the desire to be your own authority,
To be judge of good and evil.
With the main purpose of promoting
And pleasing yourself.
You want your own way.
The third category of sin is the actual sins you have committed.
Any time you did something or failed to do something that
Deterred, damaged, or even destroyed a relationship,
With God, Self, others or the earth,
By biblical definition that makes you a
sinner by your very deeds.
When you are first set right with God
All those past actual sins you committed are forgiven.
Jesus made atonement on the cross so that your sins can be separated
from you as far as the east is from the west.
Your slate is wiped clean,
All charges against you are dropped.
And when you are first set right with God,
The scriptures call it reconciled to God through Christ.
That takes care of your original sin problem,
Your estrangement to God has been reconciled.
God accepts you now as one of His own.
So when you first believe,
Two of the three categories of sin are dealt with
But that second category, the sin nature, egoism, remains.
Because you have been set right with God,
Egoism’s tyranny as ruler of your motivations is over.
The Holy Spirit within you has taken back His rightful place in
your life.
Yet Egoism still hangs on like a rebel.
Read what happens:
Galatians 5:16-17 (NIV)
So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.
This type of internal conflict steals away your peace.
You see when you are stuck on wanting your own way there is a control issue
that pops up.
If you have to be in control of everything,
You’re not going to have any peace,
Because there is plenty of stuff that you will never be
able to control.
The Holy Spirit within you is directing you to live for God,
To walk the path of love.
Your Egoism is directing you to put yourself first every time you see a
payday for yourself.
The Spirit urges you to please God, to
Mature in your love for God by obedience His commands
Mature in your love for Self by discipleship
Mature in your love for others by meeting their needs
Mature in your love for the Earth by wise stewardship.
Egoism, the sin nature, urges you to do what you want to do,
When you want to do it, the way you want to do it.
Peace is not going to happen with that war going on inside you.
That first work of grace when God forgave your sins and reconciled your
estrangement and accepted you as His own took care of your Original
Sin problem and the charges of actual sins you had accumulated
over your life.
There is a second work of grace that will put to death your sin nature.
Galatians 5:24 (MSG)
Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.
Your egoism can be crucified.
You seek this crucifixion of egoism by
First Recognize that you have this inner conflict raging within you.
That even though you are a child of God there is this sin nature that
remains, sabotaging your efforts to live a devout and holy life.
Second Understand that God can remove this sin nature
Ezekiel 36:25-27 (NIV)
I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
Third Ask God to crucify your egoism as you prepare for Him to do so.
You prepare your self for the crucifixion of your sin nature through
deeds of consecration.
Consecration is going through your life with a fine tooth comb,
To discover the areas in your life that egoism has control
and repenting of them and inviting God to take
control of them.
Consecration involves bringing every area of your life under the
rule of God.
People’s testimony to this experience vary.
Some report of big emotional event—they talk about the fire falling.
Some report of a gradual work of purification.
Some report it tool a long time till God answered their prayer,
Others say it was but an instant as quick deciding they
wanted to live a devout and holy life.
But regardless of how God crucified their egoism the result is the same:
Now they have the power to will one thing,
to love God, self others and the earth,
with a whole heart, no longer divided between wanting their
own way and wanting the way of God.
There is now no inner rebellion putting you at odds with the divine will.
(H.Ray Dunning, The Fruit of the Spirit, p.18)
The angels sang about peace now being available to all through the savior born in
Bethlehem
This peace is not a worldly peace which simply would be an absence of
conflict.
Rather this peace is an inner attitude of the heart that empowers you
To move through conflict, and discord, strife, and stress, and not be
shaken
To be able to pass through the troubles of this world,
totally confident, that all things will work out for ultimate good.
To be able to let go of having to control and with assurance and
confidence let God take charge.
Jesus wants to give you His peace.
You can leave here today with this peace that surpasses understanding
Settled into your heart and life.
You learned of two ways or receive the peace of Christ.
First if you have never had a right relationship with God. Accept the fact that you have no peace.
Believe that only Jesus can give you peace.
Commit your self to being Jesus disciple
Ask God to accept you as His own.
Second if you already are a believer, buy have no peace
Recognize your egoism, the sin that remains.
Earnestly desire to crucify your egoism
Ask God to do it as you consecrate every area of your life to
God.
Now if the Holy Spirit has spoken to you and told you that there is something you
need to do to receive the peace of Jesus,
I suggest you do what the Holy Spirit tells you right now.
And if right now you want to firm up your decision by a public declaration of your
faith I invite you to these altars for prayer.