Christmas: Jesus As Our Peace

For those of us that embrace the message of Christmas, if you could hear what I hear, if you could behold what I behold, if you would embrace the message of Christmas, if you could hear it through different ears, you know what would happen? The peace of God would supersede your worry, your anger, and your fear as you trust the message of Christmas that peace with God is now possible by faith in Jesus Christ. What's your favorite part of the Christmas story in let's say Luke?

My favorite part I think is the angels coming to the shepherds and singing glory to God in the highest. That's mine. What? Yes.

No way. There's something about it. How do we have the same moment?

Because we just are so one. I guess it is. But I'm imagining these shepherds who are nobodies in the culture and they have a host of angelic beings praising God.

I think they were probably singing. And they witness it and experience that. Yeah, I mean the whole story is a miracle. And I think it's important at Christmas to stop and read the story and ponder it and understand it.

That's sort of what we're going to get to do today. We're going to listen to part two of a message that was a Christmas sermon that our friend Trent Griffith gave at his church in Indiana on Christmas Eve. And many people know Trent and Andrea Griffith. They're on our staff now with Family Life. For years he was the pastor of Gospel City Church in Grainger, Indiana.

We've known him for decades because they've been on the Family Life Weekend to Remember Marriage Getaway speaker team. But you know, every Christmas, just like me as a pastor, he would give a Christmas message. And yesterday we listened to part one of that message where he talked about, do you hear what I hear?

Should I sing it? Do you hear what I hear? Which is, you know, yesterday was all about listening to the right messengers. You know, you you want to hear from angels, but you hear from shepherds.

In many ways, we're called to be shepherds. And today we get to go back to part two of that message. The second thing, if you want to hear the message of Christmas, you have to listen for the right message. Look at verse 14. Here's the message of the angel.

Two things. Glory to God in the highest. And number two, on earth, peace among those with whom he is pleased. And when the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made dough to us. And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.

They were faithful messengers. So the message is twofold. First of all, the message is glory to God. You know the message we want to hear from God? Glory to me. We want the angel to show up and say, you are so glorious. God is so impressed with you. I mean, look at you.

You go to church all the time and you give money and you're nice to your cat. And I mean, you're just so glorious. You're amazing.

And oh, don't feel any conviction over the gaps and flaws in your life. I mean, you're just wonderful. And that's not the message. The message is you're not glorious. God's glory.

Glorious. Glory to God. The message of Christmas is not to make much of you. It is to make much of God. But the reason for my existence is to bring glory to God. Here's the second message on earth. Peace among those with whom he is pleased. Now, how many of you grew up like me reading the King James version of the Bible and you're just really upset about the fact that it doesn't say peace on earth, goodwill to men. Where'd that go?

Because that was really good. And I like goodwill. It's half price on Saturday.

You get some really good deals there. And like, if you remove that from the Bible, you're like removing my whole shopping theology here because it's like, all right, so where did that go? So why do we have a different translation here?

Let me explain some of this. The phrase goodwill to men, not a bad phrase, not a bad phrase, but the better manuscripts and the better translation is peace among those with whom he is pleased. The reality is God is not pleased with everyone. As a matter of fact, without Christ, God is not pleased with anyone. Here's the story of the Bible, okay?

And here's why this good news brings great joy. Up until this point in human history, there was no peace with God. There was fighting between heaven and earth by our sin. There was war on God. And as a result, God was unable to get pleasure from my life. The reason he created me was for his glory and for his pleasure. Outside of Christ, I have no peace and God gets no pleasure from my life.

And that's what God announced. Glory to God, peace on earth. This word peace, we don't really grasp it in our English language. We think of peace as being watching a nice snowfall with a nice fireplace, just such a peaceful environment. Some of you would say, well, peace, that's the absence of conflict or the absence of war.

It's really much deeper than that. In the Old Testament, the word peace was the word shalom. And everybody was waiting for the shalom.

Shalom to happen. Everybody understood there's a gap between heaven and earth. The relationship between God and man has been broken. And the gap was the absence of shalom. Really the word peace in the Old Testament and even here in the New, peace means wholeness or completeness.

It means unbroken. In Job, it's used of a flock of sheep where none of the sheep was missing. But if a sheep went astray, there was no peace in the flock. It was a broken flock.

It was an incomplete flock. It's also used of a wall that is not missing pieces of brick. It has no gaps in its integrity. It's a peaceful wall. It's a complete wall. Peace, what he's saying is complete, whole, repaired, restored.

In other words, the coming of Jesus was going to bring shalom, fill in the gap, fill in the crack, cause peace between two warring parties, God and man. Do you ever fight? Do you ever fight in your marriage? Andrew and I had a good fight last week. I won't tell you one.

There is shalom now. Everybody, it's okay. Do you ever fight? Maybe a better way to say that is, do your kids ever fight? Ever fight with you? Do nations ever fight? You see all the fighting in the world?

Do you know what that is an evidence of? If you're an atheist, you have to agree. There's a lot of fighting that goes on. As Christians, we understand that. Fighting with each other is evidence that we are fighting with God. You ever worry?

You know what that is? That's an evidence you're fighting with God. You're fighting to control things that are outside of your control, so you worry about things that only God can fix. That's an evidence of fighting with God. You ever get angry? You ever get angry with God? You don't like the way things are going? You're going to your life? Low in the bank account?

Health report? You want to kind of ball up your business? If you are God, then you need to fix this right now.

It creates a gap. There's no peace. There's no shalom in your relationship. For those of us that embrace the message of Christmas, if you could hear what I hear, if you could behold what I behold, if you would embrace the message of Christmas, through here and through different ears, you know what would happen? The peace of God would supersede your worry, your anger, and your fear as you trust the message of Christmas that peace with God is now possible by faith in Jesus Christ.

You say, I want some of that. How do I get me some of that peace? Peace is not something that is achieved. Peace is something that has happened. Notice what it says in verse 15.

Did you see it? The angel says, let us go see this thing that has happened. What has happened? God has sent a savior into the world so that for the first time in human history, there can be peace with God and man. Do you have peace with God? Just because you've stopped throwing punches at God doesn't necessarily mean there's peace with you and God. If there's something that feels like it's missing in the relationship between you and God, that missing peace is Christ.

He's the mediator between God and man. That's the message of Christmas. We want glory. We want God to make much of us. God gives us shalom, peace with God.

We are listening to Trent Griffith give a Christmas sermon at his church and boy, oh boy, that is a word for the world right now, isn't it? Peace. Peace on earth. And that's what we are all longing for, really. Yeah. And I think it's like what Trent is getting into is you can't have peace on earth if you don't have peace inside.

It starts here. I mean, I have to have peace in my heart. To be able to extend peace to my neighbor and Jesus is our peace.

That's what I was going to say. Peace only comes because of and with Jesus. That's the message of Christmas.

And I was just part one. You know, we get to go back and listen to the rest of this sermon by Trent. And I'm telling you what, this is going to help Christmas be a little bit better. With the right heart. Look at verse 18. And all who heard it, they heard the message.

Do you hear what I hear? All who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. So verse 18 tells us about this group of people.

I don't know if it was the townspeople in Bethlehem, but the shepherds went and they published the good news. And everybody that heard it, there was an emotion. There was a response. And the word that's changed and chosen here is the word wonder. Some of your translations may say amazed. I mean, it thrilled them.

Some of them were awestruck. It reminds me of a lot of people that come to church around Christmas time. They love the wonderful message of Christmas. The music is wonderful.

The decorations are wonderful. Some of you will leave church today and you will shake my hand and you will say, Mr. Trent, that was a wonderful message. At least I hope a few people might say that occasionally. But listen, what I really want is not for you to wonder at the message.

At some point you have to move beyond sentimental wonder. To supremely treasure the message of Christmas. I'm so happy that the shepherds showed up.

And wow, that was a really good story. But they're not moved by the message. They're not changed by the message. A lot of people that show up around Christmas time at church, it's like they're Christmas schizophrenics. So what it is is like we love this message that there's a savior born at Christmas time and then you leave and you don't live like you need a savior.

There's a person in the story. It's verse 19. What's the first word of verse 19? But that is a word of contrast.

What we are about to read is different than the first group in verse 18. Verse 19 says, but Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. Underline the word treasure. Underline the word ponder.

Wonder. Mary treasured. There's a point which you must move from wonder to treasure. The word treasure means to value, to cherish. It actually means to memorize, to rehearse. Mary apparently rehearsed these things over and over in her hearts and we don't know exactly what was going through her heart but she must have been thinking, Savior, Lord, Bethlehem, shepherds, glory, peace.

What does all this mean? They're like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and in her mind she's treasuring these things and pondering. Does it fit here? Does it fit there?

Does it fit over here? This is what has to happen for a person to grasp, to hear the message of Christmas. She said to your heart, she pondered these things where? In her heart. It became something that was so cherished and so loved by her. She couldn't get away from. These things gripped her heart.

So what was she thinking? Again, we don't really know but we do know that as a young Jewish girl, she would have been taught from birth the Old Testament prophecies about the coming Messiah. Maybe she thought of Ezekiel chapter 34 and I'm sure you've all got that memorized. What's in Ezekiel 34? It's a rebuke from God to the shepherds of Israel. So the leaders, the kings and the priests, those that were supposed to lead and feed God, do you know what God says? You're not doing your job. You're not creating peace. You're creating chaos and at that time Israel was in chaos and yet there was this promised peace. And so do you know what God says in Ezekiel chapter 34? Let me read it to you. He gives them a promise and he says this.

I will set up over them one shepherd. Who's that going to be? Names him. My servant David.

Hang on. This was written hundreds of years after David was king in Israel. So anybody that read this would have understand that's figurative language for someone who is like King David. Maybe he's even a descendant of King David. Maybe he's even born in the same place David was born. Where was David born? Bethlehem.

The city of David. And he shall feed them. This one true and great shepherd will feed them. He shall feed them and be their shepherd and I the Lord will be their God and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the Lord.

I have spoken. I will make with them a covenant of peace. Shalom. What was the message that the angels announce? Glory to God. Peace on earth. God is fulfilling his promise. Mary must have understood. She must have treasured. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Shepherds showing up.

Here's my son. Could it be that this would be the one true shepherd who is a descendant of David born in the city of David who would grow up not just to be the great shepherd but one day be treated like a sheep. Why were there so many sheep in Israel? Why the need for so many shepherds?

I've looked around Granger's. Not a lot of sheep. Not a lot of shepherds.

Why is this occupation not in need anymore? Why did they need so many sheep in Israel? Because there was a lot of sin in Israel. There was a lot of sheep who shed their blood that made the picture of the atonement for sin. You see one day not only was Jesus the great shepherd, he made himself into a sheep and he sacrificed his life.

He spilled out his blood as the lamb of God to atone for the sin of the world so that there could be shalom. Peace. Do you hear what I'm saying? Do you see what I hear? Do you see what I see? Do you know what I know? This is the message of Christmas. Have you ever really heard it? Has it ever moved from wonder to treasure? If not, why not today?

I like how he ended it. Why not today? Why wouldn't we receive the Prince of Peace, that shalom that only comes through Christ and his birth, his death, his resurrection? There's nothing like it on this planet or beyond that can bring us peace. The child, the child sleeping in the night, he will bring us goodness and light. He will bring us goodness and light.

And that's how Trent ended. It's the gospel. Jesus does bring goodness and light and that will be better than any present under the tree. It's the most important gift we could ever receive and extend to someone else.

It's the gospel. It just helps you and your family find peace in Jesus and make this Christmas really a peaceful, extraordinary Christmas. Merry Christmas. Have a joyful celebration of the birth of Christ. And of course, the birth of Christ is something we celebrate because of the death of Christ.

Had Jesus not lived the life he lived and then died the death he died only to be raised again the third day, we would not remember his birth, but we remember it because of what he accomplished for us through his death and resurrection. So again, we hope it's a joyful celebration for you and your family. And as we wrap up this edition of Family Life Today, we hope you have a wonderful Christmas holiday. Hope you're able to celebrate with your family and friends. And we hope you can join us back again next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.