Rediscover Peace

Good morning and merry Christmas! I’m Senior Pastor Bill Connors, and I’d like to welcome you to Family Worship today, whether you’re here in person or online. Thank you, Alvin, for sharing with us this morning. Also, thanks to all of those who serve on our Welcome team. I appreciate your faithfulness to be here and greet folks as they arrive.

If you’re visiting the family of EHBC for the first time, thanks for being here! It’s great to have you with us today. You’ll find a connection card in the back of the pew in front of you, it’s this black card with “WELCOME” on the front. If you wouldn’t mind filling that out during the service and either bringing it down to me at the end of the service, or dropping it in the boxes as you leave later on, I would appreciate it. We’d love to get to know you better. If you’d rather fill out a form online, you can do that by texting the word WELCOME to 505-339-2004, and you’ll get a link back that takes you to our digital communication card. Either way, if I’d love to have the opportunity to meet any guests this morning after our benediction at the close of service. I’ll be down here afterwards with a gift to give to you to say “thanks for being with us today.”

Announcements

This week was week of prayer, we had about 50 folks involved in the various activities for WOP. Each year, we take up the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions during the months of December and January. In 2022, this offering was used globally to help plant over 20,000 new churches. 100% of what is given to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering is directly used on the mission field to enable Gospel transformation among the unreached. Our church goal for this offering this year is $32,500, and so far, we’ve received $9,205. That’s a great start!

Let’s take a moment a learn more about one way that the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering is helping with international missions.

I want to let everyone know that next week, our music and children’s ministries will combine during Family Worship for a very special musical presentation celebrating the birth and majesty of the King of kings and Lord of lords. I hope that you will plan to be here, and that you will use our Christmas invite cards as a simple way to invite others to come and celebrate Jesus with us this week.

Opening

This morning, we are on our second week of this year’s Advent series, which we are calling “Rediscover Christmas.” Last week, we considered the hope of Advent through reflecting on the stalwart faith of Simeon and Anna, found near the end of Luke 2. Today, we find ourselves looking at what is certainly the most well-known and beloved of Christmas passages. Let’s stand as we are willing and able as we read our focal passage this morning, Luke 2:8-20:

Luke 2:8–20 CSB

8 In the same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: 11 Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be the sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth and lying in a manger.” 13 Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: 14 Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people he favors! 15 When the angels had left them and returned to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go straight to Bethlehem and see what has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 They hurried off and found both Mary and Joseph, and the baby who was lying in the manger. 17 After seeing them, they reported the message they were told about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had seen and heard, which were just as they had been told.

PRAYER (pray for Citizen Church)

I don’t know if you knew this, but Christmas is kind of a big deal in Finland. And there’s a great tradition there that happens every year. In fact, it has happened almost every year since the 1300s. That’s a serious tradition, going on for 7 centuries. It’s called the Declaration of Christmas Peace.

Each year at noon on Christmas Eve Day, the Christmas Peace is declared in the city of Turku. The proclamation is read from the official Christmas Peace parchment, usually by a city official, from the balcony of a historic mansion at the center of town in the Old Great Square. It’s broadcast on the radio and television and, of course, now you can stream it on the internet. The declaration is read out loud to remind people that Christmas peace has begun, to advise people to spend the festive period in harmony, to threaten offenders with harsh punishments, and to wish all a merry Christmas. While the exact wording used during the first few centuries has been lost, the main contents of the declaration remain the same. It reads:

Tomorrow, God willing, is the graceful celebration of the birth of our Lord and Saviour; and thus is declared a peaceful Christmas time to all, by advising devotion and to behave otherwise quietly and peacefully, because he who breaks this peace and violates the peace of Christmas by any illegal or improper behaviour shall under aggravating circumstances be guilty and punished according to what the law and statutes prescribe for each and every offence separately. Finally, a joyous Christmas feast is wished to all inhabitants of the city.

—”The Declaration of Christmas Peace”, accessed on 12/1/23 https://www.joulukaupunkiturku.fi/en/christmas-city/declaration-christmas-peace

You’d better not mess with the Finns’ Christmas peace or you will be dealt with harshly! But what a great way to usher in Christmas, with a reminder of Christ’s coming and the peace He brings into the world!

If you’ve been journeying with us this past week toward Christmas, you know that we have been celebrating Advent. As a quick recap, the word Advent means “coming” or “arrival,” and the season is marked by expectation, waiting, anticipation, and longing. Advent is not just an extension of Christmas—it is a season that links the past, present, and future. Advent offers us the opportunity to share in the ancient longing for the coming of the Messiah, to celebrate His birth, and to be alert for His second coming. Advent looks back in celebration at the hope fulfilled in Jesus’s coming, while at the same time looking forward in hopeful and eager anticipation to the coming of Christ’s kingdom when He returns for His people. We wait for both things during Advent—actively, assuredly, confidently, expectantly.

Each week during Advent, we’re focusing on a different blessing from God bestowed in the coming of Jesus: hope, peace, joy, and love, and we are looking to rediscover the true meaning of Christmas. And this morning, we consider the rediscovery of peace.

We’re looking through the lens of different figures from the biblical record of the origin of Christmas itself, seeing how they encountered the arrival of Jesus into the world. And when we think of the peace embodied in the Christmas story, we can’t help but think of the shepherds as we read in our focal passage. They were the unlikely recipients of God’s message of peace in the coming Messiah. Luke’s account about that night is such a beautiful, almost poetic passage of Scripture. Maybe that’s especially true for those of us who grew up watching Linus recite it in A Charlie Brown Christmas when he tells Charlie Brown, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.” It’s a great moment in TV history, but it was a powerful, meaningful, life-changing message long before TV was imagined.

The announcement that the angel of the Lord brought to the shepherds was no less than God’s birth announcement to the world. Almighty, eternal God the Son had stepped not just into our world, but into our very experience as a tiny baby. And what a dramatic way to announce that the long-awaited event had finally happened! Suddenly in the middle of a dark and ordinary night in the Bethlehem countryside, the angel of the Lord, reflecting the glory of the living God, appears in the sky and is then joined by a literal plethora of angels, meaning that the sky was filled with them. There’s a footnote in our CSB translation that says that “heavenly host” in verse 13 could be rightly translated as “heavenly army,” and it’s hard to imagine just how magnificent and bright and terrifying and glorious a sight this must have been. I doubt that our depictions of it come anywhere close to doing it justice.

And then there’s the sound... All together these incredible angels are praising God, probably singing, and declaring glory to God in heaven and peace on earth to humanity. What language, or languages, were they speaking and singing? What kind of melody and harmony? How loud must it have been? Or could anyone else hear it?

Of course, the way we as humans do things, we would expect that for an announcement this grand, this amazing, this dramatic, all the most important and influential people, the rich and famous and powerful, the kings and queens and movers and shakers of the world, would be the ones invited. In our perspective, this is how things are done.

But not this announcement! It’s made only directly to shepherds. Those completely ordinary, average-Joe, night shift–working animal tenders are the unlikely, unexpected recipients of this message of peace, wholeness, and God’s favor. It’s yet another scene in how God is perfectly flipping the script on what we humans would expect and plan and do if it were up to us to save the world.

But the whole experience still leaves us wondering, “Why shepherds? Why these completely unexpecting and unassuming guys?”

Maybe it’s because the shepherds actually tie many biblical threads together.

First, the shepherds remind us that the patriarchs of Israel were shepherds and nomadic animal tenders, roaming ranchers of the ancient world. Abraham was the original recipient of God’s covenant that He would bless all nations of the world, and the Scriptures tell us that he had flocks and herds throughout his story. And this promise was carried on through Abraham’s ancestors Isaac, to Jacob (whose flocks were massive… Scripture says that he was “very rich” with them), and beyond. David, Israel’s greatest king, was first a shepherd as well.

But the shepherds were the everyman. They were nothing special. They had no entitlement. No pride or arrogance. No religious bloating. No power, no authority, and really… no respect from people. If you think about it, they fit right into this process of introducing God’s Messiah: a humble carpenter and a peasant girl as parents for the Son of God, a birth in a lowly stable surrounded by animals, first witnessed by a bunch of rough and rugged shepherds out in the fields on the edge of the more refined civilization. These were the have-nots, examples of God raising and using the humble and turning the world as we know it on its head. Those considered by society to be the “most holy” weren’t given a place in the stable to kneel on holy ground and witness the arrival of the Messiah.

In fact, the Bible tells us that this is exactly what God has done and is doing through the Gospel: He’s flipping the script that humanity uses.

1 Corinthians 1:27–29 CSB

27 Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong. 28 God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world—what is viewed as nothing—to bring to nothing what is viewed as something, 29 so that no one may boast in his presence.

These shepherds also signify Jesus’s future ministry and teaching. Sheep might have been lowly animals, but they were very special animals in Jewish culture. The Passover lamb was the sacrifice an ancient Jew would make during the most important holiday. Its blood was used to mark a person off as belonging to God, representing the atonement for their sins, the cost that had to be paid to rescue that person from God’s wrath against sin. And each time it was done, this sacrifice was a reminder of the original Passover and God’s rescue and exodus of His people from Egypt.

The Bible tells us that on the very first Christmas night, Jesus was entering our world to fulfill His identity as the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world. The baby in the manger became the man on the cross. He was the ultimate sacrifice and payment for our sins, our Passover Lamb. His death did away with the need for these lesser sacrifices, because according to Scripture, He died for our sins once for all:

Hebrews 7:27 CSB

27 He doesn’t need to offer sacrifices every day, as high priests do—first for their own sins, then for those of the people. He did this once for all time when he offered himself.

And by His resurrection, He has made it possible for us to be fully restored in our relationship with God. His life, death, and resurrection made it possible to experience true life and true peace, shalom in the Hebrew language and culture, the word and concept that encapsulate the completeness and wholeness of relationship with God, as He had originally intended.

It’s probably partly for all of these reasons I’ve mentioned that God sent His angelic messengers to announce the birth of His Son to shepherds. It certainly reminds us that God’s favor is not based on human standards. His favor is on all those who humbly acknowledge their brokenness and accept the gifts of hope, peace, joy, and love that Jesus brings. Peace is not based on class or position or occupation but on God’s purpose and design to bring good news that will cause great joy for all the people. That peace only comes through faith: believing in Jesus as Savior and surrendering to Him as Lord. And I call all of you who have never trusted in Christ to surrender right now, where you are, and receive His gift of salvation this Christmas.

But in addition to that, I think the shepherds also lead us into several insights about our own intersection with God’s peace. First:

1. God’s peace comes in the midst of our storms.

Have you ever experienced a hurricane? I’m sure that any of you Floridians here have. But even for you: have you ever gone through the eye of a hurricane? No? Me neither. But I hear it’s an eerie experience. You’ve seen it on the weather radar at the center of a circling storm. I have a short video of an example from the eye of a typhoon. See: there is truly a stillness right at the center of the chaos. There, the winds calm. The torrential rains cease. It’s a pause in the maelstrom. But this peace is only temporary. It doesn’t last, and then those winds start howling again, this time in the opposite direction.

Let me ask you, how is your Christmas season going? How does your Christmas season typically go?

If we’re honest, we might compare Christmastime with the hurricane: choosing words like busy, hectic, or frantic to describe our lives this time of year—or maybe even all year round. Maybe it’s an overloaded schedule that robs you of peace. Or maybe it’s something more: global issues, relational conflict, pressure at work, a lost job, illness. You name it. We have no shortage of stressful things to choose from!

For many of us, peace sounds like a long way off. A good idea. A nice thought for the holidays. Something we long for, but can’t quite grasp, and even if we can find little moments of respite from the chaos, often they’re short-lived and temporary, like going through the eye of a hurricane.

If this is where you find yourself today, let me encourage you that Jesus shows up when the storms of life threaten our peace and hope and joy. He is there with us when love seems lost and the way forward is totally unclear, with an abiding peace that doesn’t just fade away.

The lyrics of the Christmas carol O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (originally written in the 18th century, and which Donna played for our prelude this morning), which appears in our hymnal as hymn #175, and happens to be one of my personal favorite hymns, reflect the desperate cry for the arrival of the Messiah in first century Judea:

O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lowly exile here until the Son of God appears.

O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer, our spirits by Thine advent here; Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadows put to flight.

O come, Desire of nations, bind all peoples in one heart and mind. Bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease; Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace.

—Hymn 175, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

It is into the strife of Israel’s despair that God appears. This is where the Christ child is born. This is where the angels show up. In the middle of Israel’s dark night of Roman oppression and centuries of suffering and wondering, “Where is God?” In the middle of a world turned upside down for a young Jewish couple who have found themselves at the center of cosmic events—while at the same time trying to navigate the normal life realities of having to travel by foot across the country to be counted by the government, and having to experience childbirth for the first time far from home without the support and care of the women and midwives who would have guided Mary through this painful process. And then being first-time parents, not only with the joys and wonder and fear and responsibility of having their first son, but God’s Son. You new parents out there know what I mean? We think it’s hard becoming new parents now? No pressure for Mary and Joseph, right?

In all of these circumstances, in all of these struggles—this is where God showed up. And this is where God continues to show up for us. In our pain. In our fears. In our confusion. In our grief. In our loss. In our uncertainty.

Jesus spoke of the peace that He, and only He, can give:

John 14:27 CSB

27 “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful.

I don’t know every hardship you are facing today, or every wince of pain you are feeling. But God does. He is there, bringing His peace to calm your heart, a lasting peace that defies your circumstances, which is our second point this morning:

2. God’s peace defies our circumstances.

“That’s great for you to say, Bill. It sounds nice,” you might be thinking. “But you don’t know how much I’m going through… how much it hurts.”

No, I’m sorry, I don’t know. Even if you were to tell me, I can only imagine how awful what you’re going through is, and I can only sympathize with how difficult or unfair it feels. But let me encourage you that there is a peace that is deeper, there is a peace that defies your circumstances. No, I can’t know exactly how you’ve felt, but I can tell you that I have faced my own times when the idea of God’s peace seemed almost ridiculous. Moments where in the face of all I was feeling and going through, God’s peace just didn’t make sense—but even in those times, as the Spirit has gently reminded me through Scripture of all that Jesus has done for me, that peace has been real. And it is healing. And it can guard your heart from continuing wounds. And it can protect your mind from the onslaught of anxiety.

The apostle Paul describes the process like this:

Philippians 4:4–7 CSB

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your graciousness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6 Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Let me encourage each of us today, no matter what we are facing, that this process begins with us turning to God, bringing our hurts and questions and doubts and whys and needs to Him. As Paul says it, “In everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (v. 6)

Paul says that there is power in prayer and a transformation that grows from gratitude. It’s not the power of getting what we want or convincing God to see things our way. We can ask, and He will listen. But much more than that, we can trust that His desires and plans for us are greater and better than anything we could ever ask for. The power of prayer happens in this experience of peace as our perspective changes and finds an understanding that God is with us, no matter what. And an acknowledgment and acceptance that He’s got this, He can be trusted, He is enough.

The peace of God found in Christ is found not in the circumstances which swirl around us, but the presence of God by His Spirit within us—a peace that is permanent, abiding, and firm. That peace comes through the message of the Gospel, as Paul wrote:

Ephesians 2:17–22 CSB

17 He came and proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.

If we are in Jesus, we have peace that defies our circumstances because our identity has changed. We are no longer foreigners, far away from God, estranged from Him, but are members of His very household, completely secure in His loving arms. That’s because peace isn’t just a feeling that we have, and it’s not just an experience that we go through. True peace is found only in Jesus because peace is a person.

3. Peace is a Person.

It all comes back to a Person. Peace is a Person. Peace is Jesus.

Long before His arrival on earth, the prophet Isaiah called Jesus the Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6–7 CSB

6 For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. 7 The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this.

There are political-sounding tones to this message, and you can see why the Jews who wanted their political freedom and independence were eager to see a political Messiah. And more importantly, there are tones of the completion of Christ’s work and His eventual establishment of God’s kingdom. But most of all, this child that is born, this Son that is given to us, brings the power and rule of His peace into our personal lives. He is the bringer of peace between us and God, the sacrificial lamb, the giver of life. He is the embodiment of shalom, wholeness, that we find in relationship with Him.

In the passage just before what we read a moment ago from Ephesians 2, Paul was writing to the Gentiles in Ephesus who had believed the Gospel about the change that had been wrought in their lives by Jesus. He wrote to them:

Ephesians 2:12–16 CSB

12 At that time you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In his flesh, 15 he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace. 16 He did this so that he might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross by which he put the hostility to death.

HE IS OUR PEACE. Not the state of the world. Not our bank accounts. Not our families or our friends. Not our education or our entertainment. Jesus Himself is our peace, the only place to truly find peace for broken and lost humanity.

Jesus is the God who is come to be with us, and He offers us this invitation in this Advent season and always:

Matthew 11:28–30 CSB

28 “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Is that not an offer of peace? Let’s let those words wash over us this Christmas.

Closing

And in this second week of Advent, let me encourage you to look for the Prince of Peace, even when the winds blow and the storms swirl. Let me encourage us all to come to Him and worship like the shepherds, even when we find ourselves in the darkness or the storms. Let me remind us to come to Him. Because He is here. The Prince of Peace is with us.

But beyond that, let us also as His children, as members of God’s household, take up the yoke of Jesus as we both walk in His peace and proclaim His peace to those who need it this season, declaring that He is the peace that so many are seeking.

If this morning you have been one who has heard, understood, and believed the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the first time, this church body would LOVE to celebrate that with you. In a moment, the band is going to come and lead us in our song of invitation, and that is your invitation to come and share with us that God has saved you through faith today. If you have questions about salvation, come and let us know that as well. We want to be able to share with you and help you to understand what Jesus has done for us. If you’re online, send me an email.

We looked at Philippians 4 earlier, and maybe you need to take some time this morning to come before the Lord with your prayers and petitions with thanksgiving, as you long for that experience of God’s peace this Christmas season. You can pray where you are or come to the steps, or come and pray with one of us.

If you’re already a follower of Jesus, and you believe that Eastern Hills is a church family that you can be a part of as you continue your journey of faith, and you’d like to talk about formal church membership and what that means, come and let me know. We’ll set an appointment to sit down and share our testimonies with each other, talk about our church Statement of Belief, and answer any questions you might have about the church or what membership means.

PRAYER

Closing Remarks

If you would like to give a tithe or offering this morning, you can do so by placing them in the boxes by the doors as we leave, or you can give through our app, our website, or by text.

Bible reading: New calendar for advent on the website, and on the Get Connected Table in the Foyer. Today, we’re reading Isaiah 11:1-9, and Romans 13:11-14.

Pastor’s Study tonight at 5:30 in Miller Hall.

Prayer Meeting this Wednesday at 5:45 in Miller Hall.

On December 14, Cornerstone (our ministry for senior adults) will hold their annual Christmas party beginning at 11am. If you’re 60 or older and are planning on being at the party, please sign up on the sheet in the foyer so that we can have a reasonably accurate headcount for food purposes.

Male sure you get your ornament from Kids on Mission.

Instructions for guests

Benediction

2 Thessalonians 3:16 CSB

16 May the Lord of peace himself give you peace always in every way. The Lord be with all of you.

May Jesus be your peace this week, guarding your soul with peace, filling your spirit with the wholeness of shalom, and ruling as the Prince of Peace in your heart.

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