Luke chapter 2, verse 14. Good to be with you tonight, by the way. Merry Christmas. I know it’s just a week off.

2 verse 14 is a very familiar Christmas verse. I’ll read it for us. Glory to God in the highest and on earth. Peace among those with whom He is pleased. Pleased. The message here is a message from angels.

And you remember we talked about Mary receiving a word from an angel a couple weeks ago. And what do you do when an angelic host comes to you? You freak out, right? That’s the only appropriate response. But that angel didn’t have a bad word for Mary. And these angels don’t have a bad word for the sheep. The shepherds are for us. The word is peace. The angel comes to speak peace. And kind of think about those Advent themes.

We talked about faith. And then last week, Chase talked about hope. If we have faith in the gospel, we have faith in this Christ who has come. Well, we have kind of a future faith. That’s our hope of what will be. But there’s this gift in the midst of that. Believing and hoping. And that’s peace. The fullness of Christ. The fullness of what will be. We have it in part now. And that’s peace that we have with us as we go. It’s Christmas peace. And that’s what I want you to see here this evening.

The angels say glory to God in the highest. Glory to God in the highest. When you think about the word glory, there’s a few different words. There’s a few different ways biblically that we can cut that up. The first way that the Bible talks about God’s glory is His innate glory. So that’s just who God is. God just is glorious. The Israelites saw this at Mount Sinai. You remember they gather around the mountain. It’s lightning and thunder and fire and smoke. And it’s just a revelation to the people. This God is great. And Moses, when he’s on the rock and the Lord passes by, and he only sees his backside. Remember Moses’ face and hair turn white. And it’s because God is glorious. He’s just splendid. And in the New Testament, when the disciples get to go up the mountain with Jesus and Jesus transfigures into a heavenly form, they fall down and Peter starts babbling things. It’s because they can’t bear the holiness, the glorious God of the universe.

Paul tells us that God is, He God who dwells in unapproachable light. He just is separate. But then on top of that, the Scriptures tell us that God is to be glorified because He’s created. The heavens declare the glory of God, the psalmist says. So who else has created stars in the heaven? Who else has created the seas with all variety of fish and land with all variety? Of animals. And then the psalm tells us that all people should glorify God. Who is created and lords over people besides God. And then the psalms say, angelic hosts, you should glorify God. Who else has created all angelic hosts besides God? So God has done all these wonderful, amazing things for which He deserves glory. And He is innately glorious. But our passage is special. And I want you to see this. Our passage is special because God has done one particular thing. One particular thing for which He receives the greatest amount of glory. And that’s God’s work in redemption. In Isaiah chapter 44,

the prophet says, Remember these things, O Jacob and Israel, for you are my servant. I formed you. You are my servant, O Israel. You will not be forgotten by me. I have blotted, blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you. Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it. Shout, O depths of the earth. Break forth into singing, O mountains, O forests and every tree in it. For the Lord has redeemed Jacob and will be glorified in it. So, you know, the whole story, right? In the Old Testament, God picks random, not special Abraham. And out of Abraham, He makes this special people Israel. And they’re supposed to be God’s, you know, chosen lot among all the nations. And how well do they do at being that chosen lot nation? Not good, right? Terrible. They sin against God so many times. So many times they abuse. They don’t care that God has called them out. They don’t obey God in anything. And so what’s God have to do? Eventually, He throws them into exile. But God says, I’m going to redeem you. And in a small way, that was talking about bringing them back out of exile, which happened. But it refers to a much bigger and greater truth. And that’s that New Testament truth of Jesus, God’s Redeemer coming and redeeming not just national Israel, but redeeming true Israel. And who does Paul tell us true Israel is? It’s those who place, faith in Jesus. So in other words, Jesus has come to redeem you and me, all of God’s people.

And I was thinking about this. You know, if you think about the story from the garden all the way to Jesus, all the way to the end, it looks a lot like my toddler with a crown and a piece of paper. It looks like this. Like you’ve got these two people in the garden. It’s like, God, how come you didn’t stop the serpent? You could have done that. You didn’t. Okay. And then you’ve got the two boys and then one boy kills the other in the field. It’s like, okay, where are we going to get an heir from? Okay, now the world’s so evil. God, you let that now. We’re going to flood the whole thing. Like, okay. Then we have like that judge’s era when there’s no king, nobody’s leading the people and they constantly sin against you, constantly throw them in the slavery for that and you pull them back out. It’s like, okay. And then we get Abraham and he wanders around and he never really gets the promised land that God says he’s going to get. And so he’s not, he’s not powerful. He’s not influential.

And then they get thrown in slavery in Egypt and then they finally get back out. It’s like, okay, now we’re getting somewhere. There are people and they get to be a great nation. Oh, they sin. They have to stay 40 years in the wilderness. That’s too bad. And they finally get in the promised land. Right? And all that time. And that’s when they don’t have the kings. They finally get a king. It’s like, oh, you gave them Saul. Oh, he was a terrible king. Lord, why did you give him a terrible king first? It doesn’t make sense. And then you get David and David finally, he’s the great king. Oh, he sinned and murdered a man and slept with his wife. Like, that’s not good. And then they get so bad, they get thrown into slavery. And by the time Jesus shows up, Israel is not a world power. They’re not anything. They’re just a, you know, in subject to the Romans. And you get a baby in a manger and that baby grows up to be a man who dies on a cross. And that’s how God does it.

And it’s like, that looked like God. God, you did not know what you were doing. And you had like this roll of duct tape and you kept trying to just patch the thing together. But that’s not what happened, is it? That’s the way it looks from the outside. It looks like, it looks like this messy story. That’s the amazing thing about the Bible, isn’t it? It’s this, it’s this collection of books about all of these erring, frail, failing people who can’t do nothing good or right. There’s just this one character who stands out as amazing and it’s God. And it’s his Christ. It’s Jesus. And we go, God, only you could have written that story the way that you wrote it so that you would get the maximum amount of glory. And this is why the angels are singing, particularly what they’re singing here. Glory to God in the highest. Why? Because God has worked redemption in only a way that God could have done it. And it’s through sending his son as a baby, in a manger. And it’s God’s plan. And it’s God’s story. And God’s doing what God’s doing to get the most amount of glory. Because if God ever did anything and the sole purpose wasn’t so that he would get the most amount of glory out of it, he wouldn’t be God. But that’s what God does. And whenever God gets the maximum amount of glory for whatever happens in life, it’s always for the good of his people at the exact same time. God is always like that. Matthew Henry says, other works of God are for his glory, but the redemption of the world is for his glory in the highest. That’s why you should love that little phrase when the angels sing glory to God in the highest. Because it exalts God’s Savior, Jesus.

So friends, Christmas is that wonderful news of the coming of God. God’s Redeemer, this glorious work of redemption, it forged peace for mankind with God. So I want to talk about peace. Because there is this relationship in this verse between God being glorified like in this very maximum heightened sense and peace for you and I. I want us to kind of wrap our minds around biblical peace. And I want us to see it in two ways. The first way that we have been, we have been saved. The first reason why Christmas is so wonderful for us is because a Christmas peace provides an outer external peace between us and God. There’s peace, there’s an outer peace between God and man.

Isaiah 57 says, because of the iniquity of his unjust gain, I was angry and I struck him. I hid my face and was angry, but he went on backsliding in the way of his own heart. I have seen his ways, but I will heal him. I will lead him and restore and comfort him and his mourners, creating the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace to the far and to the near, says the Lord, and I will heal him. That’s God talking about his wayward child, Israel.

I don’t know about you. I know like the whole like whatever the guy’s book is, the five love languages, you know, everybody’s got their love languages. I don’t know what mine is to receive. It’s probably to get gifts. It’s definitely to give nice gifts. Some people don’t think like this, but I want, I want a wow factor when I give a gift, you know, like I’m thinking about that. I’ve been processing that already for, you know, like my kids this year. I want the wow factor. Like it’s the way that I want you to feel loved by me is the right gift. So what’s the worst thing when you put all that thought and time into giving someone a gift and they get it and they’re like, thanks. And what’s worse is when you realize they’re faking their excitement because they know you want them to be excited, right? It’s like, oh, that’s so awesome, right? And you can’t fake excitement when you get like a terrible, awkward Christmas gift. And what there should be for you and I with the gospel, with this reality of, of Jesus, God’s eternal son, becoming a man, becoming a babe in a manger, there should always be a wow factor to it for us. I think we lose the wow factor.

You and I were a threat to a holy God.

God is holy and being holy, he can’t stand for anything in his universe to be unholy to be unholy and his sinfulness is a threat. It is a challenge to God’s very person. So God should come as a judge to you and I, but he doesn’t. God comes. And as he said here in Isaiah, he came to heal the way you were. He came to restore us back to himself. You go through all the texts of scripture. You will find nothing about God being merciful to angels, will you? There’s no text about, about fallen angels finding mercy in God’s sight. What you find is this road that God has paved between us and him and it’s paved with justice and mercy. God didn’t turn a blind eye to your sin and my sin. What did he do with your sin and my sin? He put it on this baby who will grow up to be a man and in dealing with your sin by putting it on Jesus, it makes way for God to be merciful and kind and loving to us. That’s how God has restored peace between you and him.

And it’s not just amicable. You know, like when you, maybe, you know, you get in a tiff or a fight with someone and you’re not like back to being friends, friends. You’re just like amicable. Like I can put up with you kind of a thing. That’s not even what God did.

He calls us child through this son. And this son calls us friend. And this son says he’ll be our shepherd. And this son has, he’ll want us eternal life. And we’re told that we will reign with this son in the heavenly places. And we’re told we’re co-heirs with Christ. So God has gone from calling us enemies to making a way for us to be his dearly beloved.

And I wonder, why is there not more of a wow factor with that?

It’s amazing if you look in that, in that verse, God says when he redeems and restores his people, it will create fruit of the lips. Fruit of the lips. You know what that is, don’t you? It’s praise. It’s a sacrifice of praise. In other ways, God’s saying, if you really are redeemed and restored by a God whom should judge you, but he’s shown you mercy and he’s loved you, the proper response is the fruit of the lips to say, praise you, God. I thank you, God. And that’s exactly what the angels are doing really on our behalf. And they don’t even receive the mercy. They just see that God’s doing that in his universe. And they say, glory to God in the highest. He’s been good to men. He’s been good to women. He’s been good to people. It’s a wow factor. It’s to grab you this Christmas.

You ever, well, I guess as you get older, you like things that you didn’t like when you were a kid. But you know when you’re a kid and someone gives you presents and it’s like a pair of tube socks?

No wow factor, right? And I’m afraid our hearts can grow cold sometimes. And that’s how we think of what it means to be in God’s family, what it means to live for God and to have his presence and to have his power and to have peace with the one who should be our great enemy and dread.

Friends, there’s nothing like our gospel message.

How many decoys of peace, how many fraudulent versions of peace with God has Satan crafted over the centuries? What about the, you know, you are enough mantra that floats around in our society? You don’t need to change it and do anything. God loves you just the way you are and you don’t need to change anything about you.

What about all versions of false religions like Sue would have encountered in India? What about Hinduism? What about Zoroastrianism? What about Islam? What about Pickett? And these religions, religions tell you maybe if you can do just enough, just right, you can make God happy and have peace with him. Or some people think God’s happy. I’m just a good person. I think at the end of the day, how many times have you heard someone say that? I think my good will outweigh my bad. Or just don’t believe in God at all. Or as one popular theologian years ago did, he just wrote a book to erase hell. It’s not even there. That’s not in Christian theology.

Friend, there are so many pitfalls. There’s so many snares of the enemy. Praise God. He has seen it fit to show you the truth. He has dropped the scales from your eyes to believe the saving gospel. Do you prize that? Do you treasure your peace with God this Christmas?

Give glory to God in the highest because he’s lifted the veil.

But secondly, what this shows us is if you truly have this outer peace with God, you should live in a state of worshiping God, but you should publish your peace. In other words, if we have this peace with God, we should want to share it. And that’s why I think everything that Sue said is so important because it’s not optional at all. It’s not optional. I was telling Jessica on the way here, I really lament in Harvest, you know, where we live here, like years ago, there’s like these beautiful cotton fields everywhere. You know, it was very beautiful. And now there’s storage units on top of like a lot of them. It’s really upsetting because the reality is most people don’t need storage units. They just hold all their junk in and they just pay for all their junk they’re never going to look at or use, right? And it’s just like a storage unit everywhere. It’s a growing business. And I think we do that with the gospel. We just think, you know what? I got all this good stuff and I’m just going to hold on to it forever. But the reality is God calls us to give it away. In 2 Corinthians, he says we’re ambassadors for Christ. And what are we doing? We’re going out to proclaim the gospel of peace that many would have it, that many would know it. So are you doing that thing that we were talking about early? Are you publishing peace? And I carry that, I think it’s a deep conviction lately. You know, I need to be, I need to be. And I know, we need to be publishing peace with our neighbors. Perhaps with people we live with, with extended family, with people we work with. Friend, is it so small to you that God saved your soul from eternal damnation and we can’t make a practice of sharing the gospel? Of sharing it with others?

We must spur one another on to this end. I think a proof of having that peace is the inability to hold it in. I want undeserving sinners to hear about what Christ has done just as he’s done it for me.

You live with a wow factor.

A wow factor. Life is out of alignment when the goodness of God and the peace that God has chosen to have with man is not at the very center of it.

It drives my mission. It drives my mission for the new year. It drives what it means to be a church. It drives what it means to be a Christian. Lord, you’ve given this to me not to just hang on to it, but to see you do great things locally. Yes, God, but even around the world.

So God’s given us this outer peace, but the second thing I want us to see is he’s given us inner peace. Inner peace. And this gets more to what that word is in the original text there in 14.

Peace. It’s a peace. It’s a word of blessing that someone speaks over you. It’s what they’re talking about. If we only had external peace, that’d be pretty great. Hey, that’s good news. If I trust in God’s Savior, like I am secure for eternity. But God’s gospel is so expansive that you and I don’t have to wait around until eternity. To receive the benefits of it. The peace of Christmas is a peace of mind and heart that we enjoy now. It’s an inner calm. So it’s got its own wow factor. You can have peace in the midst of whatever you’re experiencing in this life. And I want you to think about what a rare commodity inner peace is in our world today. I was reading an article this past week about these group of teenagers

up in Brooklyn, New York. And they call themselves the Luddite group. It’s after some man who a couple centuries ago broke his textile mill and basically revolted against the Industrial Revolution. But no cell phones allowed. Most of them, they don’t own cell phones or they do because their parents forced them to have one. They have a flip phone only. And they go to this certain meeting place and they talk. And they read books. And they act like normal people. And the girl that kind of leads it, she was saying she got to a point where she was just absolutely wore out and exhausted trying to post one more fake picture of her looking perfect and happy on Instagram. And it was just killing her. And that’s the world that you and I live in. We’re overextended. We’re overstimulated. We know too much of what’s going on in the affairs of other people’s life. And it causes anxiety. How come my life doesn’t look like that, right? And we’re probably overexposed and like even knowing what’s going on in other people’s lives, overexposed in what’s going on in the world. And then there is really bad stuff going on in the world. You know, they’ve been using that word nuclear warhead in the news lately. Will Russia use a nuclear warhead, you know, with Ukraine? And you constantly can see the news cycle. Oh, is the economy going to collapse? Is it? Oh, is it? Is it going to come? You know, I have a dear lady that I work with at the pregnancy center. And about a month ago, her and her husband and their family took off to Memphis to St. Jude’s because their son was sick. And it turns out he has something called aplastic anemia. It’s a hyper rare form of anemia. And it’s incredibly rare, incredibly dangerous and fatal if you don’t get just the right bone marrow treatment. So he’s starting leukemia. Right now, and his his young sister is going to have to be the praise God. She had her bone marrow is 100 percent match. So that is really, really good news that she’s going to have to do that. But hey, God, here I am in Memphis sitting at St. Jude’s for three, four months while my 15 year old deals deals with this.

Friends, life is full of anxiety, isn’t it? It’s full of anxiety.

And people try to find, find answers in all kinds of places. I think modern psychotherapy is ever popular as is new age mysticism as far eastern religions. And what do these things do but really help us manage or numb problems? But as an address, that cold reality

that life is just a minefield of sadness and sickness and hurt. And you just can’t get away from the fact that life is difficult and life is sad and life is disappointing and you can’t control tomorrow.

But Jesus shows up in the midst of all that, doesn’t he? In the midst of our impoverished, often war torn, often diseased, messy, anxious, frail, confused, despairing world. And he doesn’t give a message of peace. But what do the scriptures tell us? But that Jesus is himself our peace.

Jesus showed he heals sickness. He takes care of the hungry. He forgives failures and sins. He’s over every government. He’s over every weapon. He’s over death itself. So that when Christ ascended back to the Father, he said, I’m not leaving you. I’m sending my spirit. And in sending my spirit, I’m with you in a way that’s even greater than if I was physically with you.

That’s how we can have true inner peace

in 2023 and beyond. Is the presence of Christ himself internalized within us, saturating all of life so that I can say without question, God, you’re working in me and God, you’re working around me. Because remember what we said, if God is only working for the highest degree of glory in the pages of scripture, even when it seems like he doesn’t do it at all. And it even seems like the whole story’s falling apart. Do you think God is not also working in all things in your life in the good and bad to bring about the maximum amount of glory for himself and good for you?

Oh, someone told me that you were going to lose your job next week. But I forgot, you know, I forgot. I was busy and sorry, you don’t have a job and your family’s going to go hungry and you’re all going to die. Sorry, I missed that one. Oh, I didn’t know you were going to be sick. I’m sorry. I forgot that that happened. I got busy with this angel thing. And, you know, I was up here and being God and I just don’t have time for you little people all the time. You think that’s what’s happening because we act like that sometimes, don’t we, when trials come. But but Christmas comes along.

And God says, I pronounce a blessing of peace over you. And Christ sends his spirit so that we can have peace within us.

Jesus, he is himself our peace and he is with us. That’s what the birth, that’s what the life, death and resurrection of Jesus proves, friends.

And it’s not something explainable at all, is it? It’s not something that you could explain to someone who doesn’t have it. Jesus said in John chapter 14, peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be broken, let not your hearts be troubled. Neither let them be afraid. It’s something that faith holds on to. Christmas means Jesus is here now.

And Christmas means that whatever is happening in my life, I can always say, God, you’re letting all this happen because you’re working for your glory and my good. And I can always be at peace, with that knowledge. And that’s something only the Christian can have.

You know that very popular verse on peace in Philippians, you know, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord’s at hand. Don’t be anxious. By prayer, supplication, thanksgiving, let your quest be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds. And Jesus, and I think the word that’s overlooked in that little passage, is the word reasonableness, which really translates to gentleness. Right? What are you not

when you’ve got all kinds of chaos in your home or at work or you’ve got certain trials and problems going on? Not reasonable. Right? Your kid comes up to ask you a question. Not now, son. I’m thinking about something. I don’t have time for you.

And we prove when we’re not, when we’re not, when we’re not gentle, we’re really not experiencing the peace that Christ gives.

That’s crazy supernatural peace. And Lord, forgive me, I don’t exercise the peace that your son gives me 24-7.

So I want to invite you this Christmas to get off the merry-go-round of anxiety and worry. I think worry produces worry. Anxiety produces anxiety, right? My kids love merry-go-rounds. I think it’s something you can only love when you’re a kid, right? Because there’s no climax. You just keep doing it and it just doesn’t stop. You go around and around and around. It’s sickening. And guess what happens when you start worrying a little bit? Oh, well, what if, you know, what if, what if there’s a, what if there’s a leak in a pipe in my roof I don’t know about right now? Or what, I don’t know. What if this happens to my health or someone I love? Or what about this? Or what about, what about that? And what if God doesn’t come through on this? Or what if God doesn’t come through on that? And you learn to live on the merry-go-round. But Christmas breaks right in and says, get off that merry-go-round. Get on the other merry-go-round. The good one. You just, you know, Jesus, you got it. Here we go. Here we go. I’m just going to trust you. Nope. I’m tempted, but I’m not going to do it. I’m just going to live in peace. I’m going to live in the peace that you have produced by the blood of your cross and your glorious resurrection. If I want to invite you to break that bad habit of anxiety and worry for 2023.

Isn’t the presence and reality of God and his gospel bigger than all your fears and all your worries and all your trials? And you say, well, I know plenty of non-believers and those non-believers have had bad things happen to them and they’ve gotten through it. God doesn’t want us to get through things. He wants us to live on the constant high of just that serenity, which is peace that the presence of God affords. He wants you and I not just to struggle through life, but to live victorious in Jesus, showing that God is glorious in the way that he works in the good and in the bad. That’s what we’re called to in Christ Jesus.

So friends, do you have, do you have Christmas peace this year?

Do you have Christmas peace?

Christmas peace, it’s an outer peace whereby you recognize that though you’re an enemy against God, he has made you his dearly beloved child and friend and it should cause you to worship

and publish that peace to the world. And I want us, I want you to know that I want us so bad in 2023 to be a church that publishes peace. I’m convicted of that lately, that God, I believe here at Providence, he’s given us a great just group of believers and I really believe together God can change the world through our witness. And so I’m excited about what God can do to preach peace to the nations right here in Huntsville. So it’s not something I want to like live in one sermon and we move on like that. I want us to live in one sermon. I want us to challenge one another to constantly publish our peace.

But then secondly, if you have that Christmas peace,

it’s unexplainable and it’s going to be really hard and it’s going to bring your faith into question. You can kind of let your faith die and say, no, that’s not for me. Or you can go deep in your faith and say, no, God, even though I’m living through this right now, through this adversity, I believe that Jesus is my peace and I’m going to exercise peace. Exercise trust when the world would say, you’re crazy, figure out your own thing, freak out. No, Jesus has conquered it all. Christmas peace is cause for God to be glorified in the highest. So I want to invite you to join me and let’s join the angels in giving God the glory for all the great things he has done for his name and to his glory in the highest. Let’s pray.

Father, we worship you and we say you are great

and we readily admit we are not your son, Jesus. We see our weaknesses. We see our frailties. We see, God, how quick we err and how quick we doubt and how quick we want to go back on things we thought we were so sure of just yesterday, Lord. So, God, we worship you. We need you. We need your spirit to fortify us. We need your spirit to remind us of just how wonderful and powerful Jesus is. We need just the truth of your word to come and to cut deep and to expose the lies that the enemy tells us. Expose the lies that we tell ourselves.

Lord, for every temptation the world would give us to compromise and go our own way. Lord, we just pray for faithfulness to Jesus.

Lord, I just pray we rest in peace.

I pray we would just, each of us have in our hearts and our mind an inner calm.

Lord, you alone know what’s going on in every life here. Lord, we’re all dealing with very different things, but Father, I know your son Jesus is greater than all these things.

And I know that, God, you desire to use each life

to tell the story of how wonderful and good you are to sinners like us.

We just bless your name, Father. We bless the name of your son, Jesus. And we say thank you for eternal peace in him.