
Peace on Earth
Part of Sunday Sermon Notes—Message Notes
December 24, 2023
INTRODUCTION
- It’s the most wonderful time of the year.
- Jesus is the reason for the season!
- We celebrate Christmas because of what Jesus’ coming into our world means for us…
Isaiah 9:2–6; Luke 2:1–14
1)
for Peace! (Isa. 9:2-4)
- We live in darkness…in deep darkness.
- All of the brokenness we see is not the darkness, but merely a symptom of the darkness.
- The darkness of the world is but an outward manifestation of an inward condition.
- The world is broken because we are broken.
- Sin is the darkness in which we live. It’s not an “out there” problem… it’s an “in here” problem.
- John 3:19 “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.”
- We are desperate for peace yet the more we seek to find peace in all the wrong places the more our desperation grows.
- “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.” —Blaise Pascal
- “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” —Augustine of Hippo, 398AD
- Cease-fire vs. peace
- I am my own worst enemy.
- Paul would cry out: Romans 7:24–25 “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
2)
Given Peace! (Isa. 9:6, Luke 2:1-7)
- Peace can only come from one place - God!
- Peace is only found in one person - Jesus!
- Sin breaks peace with God and therefore God in order to bring peace to our lives has to break sin’s hold on us.
- God did through Jesus what we could not do for ourselves… shine the light of hope and peace into our darkness.
3)
of Peace! (Luke 2:8-14)
- This peace is not available only to a select few. Peace is available to all who are willing to lay down their darkness and walk in light.
- The angels said to the shepherds, “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”
- God declared to the lowest of the low the message of the greatest joy!
- Why would the Lord of all Creation come as a vulnerable baby, to a lower class family in obscure Nazareth, born in Bethlehem at a time of Roman occupation, and allow Himself to be laid in a feeding trough in a stable?
- Because He wanted it to be known for all time that Jesus is for everyone!
- Peace is declared for all people and is found in this Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
CALL TO RESPOND
- Despite the chaos and brokenness of this world there is peace on earth. This peace is only found in Jesus.
- Nothing else and no one else can bring rest to the turmoil in your own soul…only Jesus.
- The only way you can know peace is to place your faith and your trust in Jesus and be born again in Him.
- DO YOU KNOW PEACE? DO YOU KNOW JESUS?
- KNOW JESUS; KNOW PEACE | NO JESUS; NO PEACE