Peace on Earth

I’ve talked to you before about what I call ‘church words’. I’m going to talk about another one today. Before I do I want to be clear about something. I have nothing against those words. There’s nothing wrong with them. Actually, the problem is with us. These words have become so familiar to us that we no longer see them. As a result, we no longer think about them, and that’s a problem. This relates to a bias I have. I agree with the Psalmist. ‘Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!’ Or to translate those church words, ‘Everyone should be passionate about Jesus.’ Everyone. And that includes you. But if you are going to be passionate about Jesus, and see that passion grow, then you need to think. You need to think about the Gospel. You need to think about all those church words so you can understand what they are pointing to. You need to think about all of that. And that’s why I translate church words. I want to make it a little easier for you to think about them. So, today, we’re going to look at another church word. My goal is to help you think about this church word so that your passion for Jesus would grow.

Listen as I read Luke 2.8-14.

The church word that I want to take a look at is ‘peace’. The angels are excited about it, so it must be important. I know that I’ve talked to you about peace before, and I’ve talked about it in terms of the notion of wholeness, which is what the Hebrew word for ‘peace’ is about. Today, I want to look at this same idea of wholeness but use a different word to get at it. The word that I want to use to translate ‘peace’ is ‘integration’. Now, I’m sure that, at first blush, that doesn’t seem to be a very helpful word, but bear with me. I’m expecting that by the time we get to the end of the sermon it will be.

So, what’s integration and how does it explain the peace that Jesus has brought to us? This is what I mean by integration. It’s when all the different parts fit together just as they were designed so that it all works perfectly. I remember when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon: 20 July, 1969. My family and I watched the television as it all was taking place. We could hear the radio transmission between Armstrong and Houston control. It was all quite exciting. But think about it. For that to happen, lots of different parts had to fit together and work maybe not perfectly but pretty close to perfectly. That meant mechanical parts fitting together as well as people fitting together. They all fit together as they were designed so that it all worked perfectly enough to this end: Neil Armstrong got to walk on the moon. Integration. In contrast, on 28 January, 1986 the space shuttle Challenger was launched and a minute later exploded. The reason was that one of the parts didn’t fit with the others as intended. As a result, it all didn’t work perfectly. Far from it. Disintegration.

When God made Adam and Eve, and the rest of creation, He intended all the parts to fit together as designed so that it would all work perfectly. Here, we’re not talking about mechanical parts. We’re talking about people fitting together, with each other, with the world around them and with the God who created it all. Here, we’re talking about relationships. God made Adam and Eve to fit together into one harmonious whole, a perfect relationship. He also made them to have a relationship with their world, to have dominion over it, that is, have it fit them and them fit it so that everything would work perfectly. And behind all of this was to be their relationship with their God, another perfect fit. When God made Adam and Eve and the rest of creation, He made it all to be an integrated whole, working perfectly. Peace.

As you know, this perfectly integrated world did last long. Adam sinned and everything fell apart: disintegration. Now, nothing fits with anything else, at least not very well. People don’t fit with people, not like it once was. Creation frustrates people; think unwelcomed snow storms. And people misuse creation; think streams once crystal clear now so polluted that they smell. And behind all of that, God and man no longer fit together. No peace.

Part of what I want you to see is that peace is not simply the lack of conflict or discord. That’s not peace. At best, it’s only a truce. Peace is something positive not just the lack of some negatives. Peace is when all the different parts fit together just as they were designed so that it all works perfectly.

We all live on this side of Adam’s sin. Things have fallen apart. And people know it. They have a sense that something is wrong, that they lack this peace. They may not label this ‘lack of peace’, but they feel it. And they know that they have to respond to it in some way. They have to do something about it. And they do. So, there are those who tell themselves that it isn’t that bad. They say, ‘Sure, there are problems, but they’re manageable. There are ways that I can deal with them so that I don’t feel overwhelmed. It’s not that bad.’ To be sure, saying that sometimes works. And by ‘works’ I mean it can quiet the soul for a while. And when another flare-up occurs, they tell themselves, again, ‘I can manage this’. And then, they look to their favorite idol for help. The fact of the matter, however, is that we were made for better than ‘not that bad’. We were created to fit together with the rest of what God created, and with Him, in such a way that it all works as intended. To settle for, ‘It’s not that bad’, is just that: settling. We were made for more. But beyond even that, it’s just not true that it’s ‘not that bad’. The third leading cause of death in the U.S. is suicide. Certainly, for all those people, it was that bad, so bad that they thought that their only source of relief would be death. Most people will tell themselves, ‘It would never do that.’ Or to translate, ‘It will never get so bad that I would want to die.’ To these folk I would say, ‘Really? How do you know that?’

People know, at some level, that something is wrong. They respond to it, but they respond to it poorly. What is a good response? The one good response is tied up with the Gospel. The Gospel says that it doesn’t have to be this way. People don’t have to settle for a life where the parts aren’t fitting together the way they were designed. They don’t have to settle for a life that isn’t working the way that it was meant to. Jesus, the Savior, has come. He has come so that we might have peace. He has come so that lives that are in the process of disintegrating would be re-integrated; that all the different parts would fit together just as they were designed so that it all works perfectly; that people would enjoy true peace. That’s the Gospel.

So, when the angels were shouting their praises, proclaiming that the Giver of peace on earth had arrived, they were talking about something more than warm fuzzies or temporary truces. They were talking about how Jesus has come to change people’s lives so that they would work in the way they were originally intended: perfectly.

I’ve explained the word. Now, let me ask a question to bring this home to you. How does this peace become yours? It doesn’t happen is one big event. It is a process. And there is one key factor at the heart of this process. Faith. Jesus gives His gift of peace only to those who trust Him. And that’s not because trust is some sort of fee or qualification. The reason that faith is necessary is all tied up with these two words: Follow Me. It’s only as someone follows Jesus that his experience of peace will grow. Jesus directs you first to one thing and then to something else. He might call you to establish a new habit in one of the spiritual disciplines like Scripture meditation. On the other hand, He might call you to change your schedule so that you can get more sleep. It could be anything. As Jesus leads, you follow and your peace grows.

As He leads you, He brings you to different points where you will need to make a decision. You will find yourself saying something like, ‘Jesus is telling me to turn right. But going straight seems so good. What will I do?’ At this point, it all boils down to asking yourself this question: ‘Will I trust Him? Will I follow Jesus now?’ Peace comes to those who follow Jesus. Peace comes to those who trust Him at those points of decision. It’s when we live by His directions, when we say, ‘Yes, Lord, I will follow You here’, that He gives us more of His peace. Jesus blesses our trust in Him. And the pieces fit together a little better. And life works a little better. Re-integration. Peace. You will grow in your experience of peace as you follow Jesus.

And that leads to this. It’s just a fact that those who work harder at following Jesus experience more of a growing sense of peace. I know that as soon as I say that the temptation will be to think in terms of spending more and more hours doing religious sorts of things. But that’s not what I’m talking about. That’s just salvation by your doing – and your doing will never save you. The key to a life that works hard at following Jesus is a changed heart. And that’s not something you can do. All of your doing will never change your heart. Only the Spirit can change a heart. That doesn’t mean, however, that we just sit and do nothing. No, we call upon Jesus to save us from a heart that, at some point or other, doesn’t want to follow Him. We pray, ‘Lord, save me.’ This is just another application of the promise, ‘Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ This isn’t a once in a lifetime kind of thing. It isn’t even a once in a blue moon kind of thing. It’s an everyday kind of thing. And from this comes change as the Spirit does His work. Then, when Jesus tells you, ‘Turn right’, you find that you actually want to turn right. You may not know exactly what to do, you may be afraid what could be around that corner, but that’s all right. All you need to do is tell Him. ‘Lord Jesus, I want to turn right like You say, but I’m afraid.’ Jesus will always respond well to honest prayer like that.

As you follow Jesus in this way, your experience of peace will grow. The pieces of your life will fit together better. It will be hard, but it will be worth it. Complete re-integration, the time when all the different parts fit together just as they were designed so that it all works perfectly, won’t be in this life. We can make lots of progress toward this goal, but perfected peace is something we will enjoy only when Jesus comes back.

Now, one more question. Why is all of this important? Consider. What good is it for a Christian to talk about some aspect of the Gospel, like peace, if it is not something that people can see in his life? What good is it for a Christian to talk about how Jesus makes his life work when the only reason his life hasn’t completely fallen apart yet is that he is using the same idols as his neighbors? How many unbelievers have looked past the words they hear from Christians to see that the lives of those Christians don’t look any different than their own? The reason that this is important is that our lives will either bring honor to Jesus’ name or blasphemy as the world watches us. The point here is not that you need to be a perfect Christian. The point is that you need to be a growing Christian. People need to see the change that Jesus is bringing about in your life. When that happens, they will be ready to listen to you tell them about this Jesus who is the source of all these changes.

At the beginning of the sermon I told you about my bias. I think that everyone should be passionate about Jesus and that the route to that goal is by thinking hard about the Gospel. I think that I’ve given you something to think about. It is my hope that as you do your passion will grow.