Sermon Tone Analysis

Pray

Have you ever heard about what happened in December of 1914?

World War 1 had been going on for about 5 months, when during December of 1914, the war had reached sort of a stalemate.

French British and German soldiers sat across from each other in opposing trenches.

I have a dramatic video that captures real life historic events pieced together from newspapers, and letters from the soldiers that were on the Western front that day and sat in the trenches.

Let’s watch the video.

Video 3:40

We Long for Peace

That is called the Christmas truce of 1914.It happened in many places along the western front, but unfortunately not all.

Some soldiers were even killed attempting the truce, as they ventured out into no-mans land.

It was really unprecedented.

As one report had said never had so many men from opposing sides been out visible in broad daylight.

The peace of the Christmas truce was short-lived.

It really only lasted one day, Christmas.

The war continued, and when leaders on both sides had heard what occured, before the Christmas of 1915 they issued strict orders against any unauthorized truce meetings.

The Christmas truce shows us, that everyone is really longing for peace in our hearts.

Even the most hardened soldiers involved in bloody conflict still long for peace.

We long for world peace.

We long for peace in our own country, in 2018.

We long for peace in our households, and we long for peace in our churches.

But something is broken.

Even our current definition of peace is a bit off.

Peace in the ancient greek and Peace today is defined as an absence of conflict.

The definition is true, but it is odd because it defines the word not in relation to what it is, but what it is not.

In other words, how do you know you have peace-well, you know you have peace when conflict or strife is missing.

That works in some ways, but in other ways it falls short.

For instance in the Christmas truce, for that day there was not conflict or strife, yet there was not peace, the countries were still apart.

There was no full coming together, they ended up back in their own trenches.

In the Old Testament, the Jews had a fuller definition of peace.

You will recognize the word, it is shalom.

Jews even use it as a greeting.

Shalom has a fuller meaning than just the absence of conflict.

It also carries with it an idea of wholeness or soundness -completeness, intact.

An over-all sense of well being

If we look at the Christmas truce of 1914, there was some peace for a time, while the conflict was absent for a while, but ultimately the nations the soldiers were representing were not complete, but were apart.

It wasn’t whole or sound, there were still two sides.

There may have been peace but not Shalom.

People I think are longing for Shalom.

A sense of completeness, an overall sense of wholeness-well being.

We are longing for it, yet it remains just outside of our grasp Why is that?

Why do we long for peace.

I think it is because deep down, it is written into our DNA is that something is not complete or whole, we know something missing from our well-being.

We search for it we strive for it, but we do not have it.

We may have it for a moment like in the Christmas truce, but ultimately everyone in the whole human race is still at war.

At War

We are at war with God, and we started it.

When Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan to eat the forbidden fruit, and they decided to give into temptation-even before they took that bite, when they made up their mind to do it-they were blatantly defying the rule of the King.

When you defy the king you commit treason-you declare that you are not part of the kingdom.

Essentially they declared war with God.

The Shalom, the wholeness, the well-being the togetherness the soundness the completeness that man enjoyed with God, was over.

They had to leave.

The Shalom was destroyed.

This war is still occuring today, and I have a picture of it.

Slide: Here is a picture of it.

People even build monuments to the war.

Yet some people don’t see it.

This week, maybe you saw this in the news, in the Illinois State Capital rotundathere is a Christmas tree, it has been displayed for a long time.

Then some years ago, a Jewish group wanted to place a Menora alongside of the Christmas Tree.

The Menora has been there several years as well.

Then, this year a group of Satanists wanted to have a display as well, so alongside of the Christmas tree they put up a statute.

Their display It is a hand holding an apple, presumably the forbidden fruit, with a serpent wrapping around them.

Normally, I wouldn’t dignify a group like this by pointing out there ridiculous antics, however,

As I see it it is perfect illustration of How bad the human race needs God.

The statue, meant to be offensive to Christians actually shows us How we need a way to overcome that which was done so long.

Ago.

We need a way to put a stop to the hostility between us and God.

Paul talks about this war going on in the Book of Romans chapter 8, verse 7.

The mind that is hostile to God does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.

Oh we can try, and we do.

We can try everything we can think of, and the human race has tried.

There are Tibetan prayer bowls that ring a pleasant song to help people pray.T In the Himalayas they hang flags in the wind to carry prayers to God.

Muslim’s hurl stones at an Obilisk.

We build confessionals, we give alms we do good deeds, anything we can to make peace with God.

However, all those things do is offer a false peace.

It may give us “peace of mind” for a time, or an end to the conflict or strife, however, eventually, we go back to the trenches the truce ends, and we have throw more stones, give more alms, go right back to confession That false peace reminds me of peace and quiet.

A False Peace (True Peace is coming)

Even peace and quiet has been distorted.

I remember having fights or fun with my sisters I am not sure which, but I remember being noisy.

And I can still hear my Father say Can I just get a little peace and quiet around here?

He was talking about an absence of noise yet somehow that was tied to peace, and I don’t know that two necessarily need to go together.

So what happens people walk around trying not to disturb the temporary absence of strife by being quiet.

That is a false peace.

A peace that is held by absence of conflict is a false peace.

False peace needs a lack of sound.

We think that the key to peace is to be quiet, but that is not it either.

We try and walk around and avoid conflict so as to not disrupt the peace.

We even do it in churches.

Don’t say anything that might cause conflict in an effort to keep the peace.

The problem is that is not the right type of peace.

It may be the absence of conflict, but it is so easily disrupted because it is not whole or complete it is lacking it is not Shalom.

During the truce were joyous celebrations.

You can have a household full of kids, playing loudly yet peacefully.

Peacefully because there is a wholeness in the family and loudly because there is wholeness in their relationships.

In that type of peace, they can even disagree and still remain brother and sister, and not start a war.

Even the very announcement of Jesus can with noise, noise of joy.

Listen to how Luke records the announcement of Jesus’s birth-

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared praising God.

That is not a quiet event.

You can Have true peace in the middle of noise.

Was it quiet before yes probably it was out in a field at night, it was probably quiet before and after, but here is my point.