Peace is from God and Loving Our Neigbor

Summary:

The sermon focuses on Advent as a period of spiritual reflection and growth, urging believers to prioritize God's kingdom values over consumer habits. It highlights the contrast between society's instant gratification and the slow, transformative process of aligning with God's spirit in preparation for Jesus' return. Through personal anecdotes and biblical narratives, especially from Isaiah, the speaker explores the tension between current brokenness and the promised harmonious future under God's reign. Central themes of hope, peace, joy, and love underscore the Advent season, promoting patience and active love for neighbors as pathways to peace and embodying God's kingdom. The sermon critiques the superficial celebration of Christmas and calls for a deeper understanding of its spiritual essence. Andrew Peterson's work is mentioned to link Jesus' story to the broader biblical narrative, emphasizing the creation of new songs that address global issues and reflect true salvation through humility and sacrifice. Reflections on Israel's history, their quest for a king, and prophetic visions of a future kingdom urge believers to seek peace through obedience and love. The sermon concludes with a prayer for guidance during Advent.

Transcript:

It is difficult to get out and about, and the fact that you made that happen and chose to fight through those desires to hit the snooze an extra time or stay snuggled up in your warm blankets, it means a lot that you are here today. And for those who are gathered with us online, we're grateful for your presence too. You know, the church is always the people. It's not the building. It's not an organization. It is the people. And so, you being here today means that the church is gathered, and each one of you are a part of that.

And we are very thankful for you being here today. I don't know exactly the year, but somewhere around 2011, 2012, I, at that point in my life, had a new experience. I was in the market for a new coat. We were living in Dayton, Ohio. Dayton is not the coldest place on earth, but it is much more cold than it is here in Texas. I had lived in the south for all of my life up until that point, and my version of a winter jacket was not suitable for an Ohio winter. So, I was in the market for a new coat.

I went to the store at the mall and didn't find a coat that I liked. And so, I went home and really didn't know what I was going to do in order to get the new coat that I needed. And so, I did what was, at the time, not as common as it is now. I googled winter coat, and what popped up at the top of my search was this new company that had a weird name and I had never heard of. It was a company called Zappos, Z-A-P-P-O-S. I don't know if you've ever heard of Zappos. I'm not even really sure if they are still around.

But at the time, they were, I think, larger than Amazon. And they made their way in the retail world by an online shopping experience, and you could order it and it would show up at your house a day or two later. And so, with a little bit of hesitancy, I found the jacket that I liked on Zappos. I ordered it. I went to work the next day. I came home and there on my doorstep was my new winter coat. And it was an extraordinary experience.

I told all of my friends about it. I called people on the phone and said, you will never believe what happened. I found this coat on the internet. I ordered it and it showed up at my house the next day. I couldn't even go to the store and find my jacket in the time that it took me to order it online and have it delivered. It was a remarkable experience. Fast forward now some, you know, 15, 12, 15 years later, we couldn't imagine living in a world where we ordered something and it didn't show up in the next day or two.

For some of us, it's even a few hours later that those packages are delivered to us. That creates a never-before-in-the-history-of-the-world problem when it comes to us celebrating Advent because we are people of the instant, people of now. How much of our lives revolves around wanting something now and having it within the next few moments. But the speed of Advent is not that. It is not instant. It is slowing down and allowing the Spirit of God to capture our attention and begin the slow and deep work in our lives. Now, we don't often think about this, but regardless of how spiritual we are, how in tune we are with scriptures, the world shapes and forms us.

Living in a Amazon society where we can order something and receive it in a matter of moments has an effect on us. It shapes us. Our consumer habits, the way in which we function in the world, it shapes us. And it shapes us at the core of who we are. And if we are not careful and not vigilant, as the Bible instructs us, we can be shaped and formed in ways that lead us away from the kingdom of God or out of the kingdom of God, sometimes without even really knowing it. And so, for us who are serious about following the way of Jesus, we have to submit ourselves to a slower pace in which we are responsive to the Spirit and invite the Spirit to daily capture our attention and form us at the depths of who we are and shape out of us the patterns of brokenness in our lives and replace them with the patterns of wholeness of the kingdom of God. And, of course, now our problems might be different with Amazon and technology, but the fact remains that humanity from the beginning of time has had this struggle, people seeking to live out of the kingdom of God but being captured by the patterns of brokenness.

And so, just as we live in this tension of waiting in the season of Advent, we live in this tension of experiencing brokenness and that being in competition in our lives with the kingdom of God. But the stories that we read, particularly talking about the Messiah, the Savior, the One who will come, paint a much different and much more compelling story. I want to read one of these pictures of the day that will come from Isaiah chapter 11 as we begin this morning. Isaiah 11 verse 1, a shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse. From his roots, a branch will bear fruit. The spirit of the Lord will rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord. And he will delight in the fear of the Lord.

He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes or decide by what he hears with his ears. But with righteousness, he will judge the needy. With justice, he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and the breath of his lips will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt, and faithfulness the sash around his waist. Think about that from what we just stated. The patterns of brokenness shape us.

The One who will come will not be formed by what he sees with his eyes or hears with his ears, but rather the kingdom of God will be his foundation. And as a result of his righteousness, here is the picture of what will come. Just think about this for a moment in the world in which we live and how we know the world operates. Verse six, the wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together, and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the cobra's den, and the young child will put his hand in the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Let's pray together. Jesus, as we think about the world in which we live, we hear that description in Isaiah 11, and we think, wow, how far do we still have to go? But God, you are with us in each moment of the day, and the good and the bad, you are with us. And God, you also proclaim that your kingdom, which is described here in Isaiah 11, is at hand. And so we pray, God, that we would be able to see with our eyes the way in which your kingdom is encroaching on the patterns of brokenness in the world, and that you would give us the delight of living in your peace that passes understanding. And we ask this today, Jesus, in your name, and for your sake, amen. There is a spiritual writer from a long time ago named Bernard of Clairvaux, and he wrote about the arrival of Jesus in three understandings.

Number one, the arrival of Jesus in Bethlehem on Christmas day. Number two, the arrival of Jesus at the end of the age where Jesus will return, but also the arrival of our Jesus, of Jesus in our lives, each and every single day. But the problem that we encounter is that these arrivals are promised. Of course, we celebrate Christmas on December 25th, the arrival of Jesus when he was born in Bethlehem. So that is a promise fulfilled. But from when that promise was made to when it was fulfilled, required a long season of waiting. As we see Jesus returning in our lives each day, this is not an instant thing.

There's no button we can push. There's no prime membership in the kingdom of heaven where happiness will be delivered at your doorstep after you click a button or two. There's no buy now option. It is a slow and daily work where we learn to live in step with the spirit. And God works at the depths of our lives, highlighting the places where our lives are out of sync with the way of the kingdom, and then working to replace those places in our lives with the kingdom of God. But that takes time. And of course, we know that one day Jesus will ultimately return at the end of the age, but that is a long way off still.

And so we live in this tension of celebrating the work that God is doing in our lives, but celebrating also the work or the day that is to come. And there's this kind of tension of celebrating and waiting that we have to endure in all of life, but particularly we think about that during Advent. And as we highlighted last week, one of the traditions that developed over time from when people would receive a promise of God, and then the waiting on that promise to happen is that people would write these songs. And these songs are recorded in Scripture, 185 or so of them throughout the Old Testament and New Testament as people received promises from God, thought about how those promises affected the world in which they lived, and they created songs and prayers to write about the hope that they were looking towards. And there are themes to these songs that these songs have in common. If you can remember back to what we read in Isaiah 11, you will hear some of these same themes in that Scripture as well. And they are this, that God is with the broken.

Today, if you feel broken, there is good news for you, and that is that God is with you. God does justice on behalf of the poor, that God lifts up those who are down, and God holds accountable the high and mighty. This is the work that God has done since the beginning of time, and it is the work that God continues in our lives. And those who have received promises of God in Scripture testify to these principles, and they testify to the fulfillment of their promise as God working in these ways. So for us today, as we enter into this time of waiting during Advent, we join in with those ancient prayers, those ancient songs, and we cry out, Lord, may we be the recipients of your kingdom here and now. And God, would you lead us today in our neighborhoods to work on behalf of those to whom you call us. As we celebrate and observe Advent here at Journey, we're doing something a little bit unique.

We're highlighting the Advent story as told through the artist Andrew Peterson, who if you just Google his name and listen to anything that he has made, he's written books. He's written a lot of different songs. He's a great singer, but particularly his album, Behold the Lamb of God, really captures the beauty of the story of Jesus and connects it to the ancient story. Sometimes we think that the Old Testament is just this collection of sort of history that happened, and then there was a delay until Jesus came. But Jesus is the thread that is woven throughout the whole of the story of the Bible. From the very beginning, as we talked about last week, Jesus was there. All things were created through him.

And so we are looking to these songs, the song that Jeremy sang so long, Moses, is one of those to help form and shape our understanding of this time of waiting in the season of Advent this year. And our hope is that these accompanying songs will help illustrate God's promises in our lives as we seek to live according to the ways of his kingdom here and now. So maybe you are familiar with the celebration of Advent. Maybe you are not. But Advent might seem like a bit of a strange or a complicated season, but really it is straightforward. Advent simply means arrival. We are waiting for the arrival to celebrate Jesus's arrival at Christmas.

We are awaiting the arrival of Jesus in our lives on a day-by-day basis, and we are awaiting the arrival of Jesus in the age to come as king of the world. Advent is not, however, a countdown to Christmas, which is what oftentimes it gets confused with. In that idea, the Advent counting down towards Christmas, as we do everything in our capitalist society, if we can make some money out of some sort of celebration or some sort of thing, we are going to do that. And one of the ways in which we... Sorry, there's a creepy crawler critter over here. I didn't want him to startle anybody. As we do, we try to get as much money out of things as we possibly can.

And so last week, I showed you some different Advent calendars that are out there for you to see. This is not an endorsement of these products. I just simply wanted to show them to you to help illustrate some of the things that Advent is not. So first of all here today, we have a gemstone Advent calendar. Those of you who like gemstones, you can go and buy this calendar, and each day you will find a new beautiful gemstone for your liking. This next one, I think, is like a version of Play-Doh called Needoh, but every day you can have a piece of sculpting clay that you can build into whatever shapes you want as you prepare for Christmas. I really don't understand this one here, but rubber ducky enthusiasts, you have an Advent calendar for you.

24 rubber duckies that you can have each day as you prepare to celebrate Christmas. And even the unmentionables get into our Advent calendar here. Now this says 12 days, but on the advertisement it said 12 days of Advent. So I'm going to give it to them. They are underwear salesmen. They probably don't know a lot about the church calendar and about the spiritual celebration of Advent. So I'm not quite sure if they're thinking the 12 days of Christmas or if they're only thinking the 12 days of Advent.

But however it works out, you can have a fresh pair of Christmas-themed undies each day of Advent if you so choose. Now there are all of these examples out there of Advent calendars that try and lead us in the season of Advent. But ultimately what it comes down to, what is the season of Advent about? It is about the Lord Jesus. And as we heard from our song last week from Andrew Peterson, it is about the power of death that is undone by an infant born in glory. This is an ancient story, one with roots from the beginning of the world, and it literally changes the future of everything. The arrival of Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary here on this earth, and the promise of the returning King that will make this earth His throne.

But we don't rush to the end of the story in Advent. This is one of my concerns of the church in general and has been a concern of the church since the beginning of time, that we want to just rush through to the end of the story. But we have to be present in each day and be present here and now as this story unfolds in our lives, as we carry the mantle of this story and the day in which we live. So Advent has four themes typically, hope, peace, joy, and love. Last week our theme was hope. We made this statement that our hope is in Jesus's descent, both Him coming to earth, being God, but finding His home in human likeness. That is a descent.

And then also as Jesus was here on earth, He didn't use His status as God for Himself, but He humbled Himself to become a servant. And so He went to the bottom of things, and that is where we find our hope. So during the Christmas season, we sing a lot about peace. Peace is in the Christmas songs that we sing and the carols that we sing. We sing a lot about unity and coming together. A lot of the world celebrates Christmas. There's all kinds of different Christmas traditions and histories around the world.

And so it's something that can unite us across cultural lines. And it's a time where we focus in on the spirit of Christmas, which gives us good feelings about the world and we live, or can give us good feelings about the world that we live. The problem though is that when we sing these songs of peace and joy and hope, that we live in a world that is deeply formed by brokenness, which leads us out of peace and joy and hope into animosity and frustration and bitterness towards one another. And the truth of the matter is that as long as there are governments that have land and power and authority, there will be other governments that have land and authority or want land and power and authority, and they will have animosity towards one another. I love a good artists coming together humanitarian song. There are several of them that are out there and every time We Are The World gets me, I will tear up at least inside, if not actually in my eyes, anytime that song strikes up. There's a couple of good humanitarian Christmas songs.

Do They Know It's Christmas is one of the more famous ones, a song to raise awareness about hunger in Africa. But as long as that song has been around, guess what? There is still hunger in Africa, right? As long as the songs of peace have been around, there is still disunity and bitterness towards one another. These songs, as great as they are and as much as they might tug on our heartstrings, they do little more than offer those who have the ability to hear them and understand them warm fuzzies because the issues that create division between us are much deeper than just getting along. So to put it frankly, we as the church need to major in different songs. We need new songs to sing, songs of the one who actually has the power to save, songs of the one who actually possesses the ability to make wars cease, to crumble animosity, and to undo the brokenness in our world.

But we know that those days are a long way off. And so what do we do in the meantime?

Well, we wait. And in our waiting, we do whatever is right in front of us to love our neighbors as ourselves, as we look to the one who is above all. And if we are to be people who pursue peace, peace isn't just a warm and fuzzy feeling. Peace comes from God and is fulfilled as we actively love our neighbors. And you might say, Jonathan, how does it, me loving my neighbor, create peace? Well, when we live our lives as followers of Jesus, we have a decision to make. The decision that we have to make is in what ways are we going to trust?

Are we going to trust in the ways of brokenness? Are we going to trust in the ways of Jesus? Are we going to trust in the little part that we get to play? Or are we going to suggest that the part that we play is insignificant? So we should just get our own, do our own, keep to ourselves. But the reality is that when we trust Jesus as the people of God, God takes whatever offering we have and receives that offering in order to fulfill the plans and of his kingdom. So peace is a byproduct of us doing what God has called us to do.

Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. So we learn that loving God is ultimately the source of our peace, but loving the neighbor as ourselves will generate that peace that passes understanding in our lives as we do what Jesus has called us to do. So learning to love our neighbors activates the peace of God in our lives. In the song that Jeremy sang, So Long Moses, that story is, I agree with Jeremy, it's one of the best songs on the album because the story captures the very early stages of the nation of Israel all the way up until Jesus comes. And the story tells this compelling narrative of the world and people doing the best that they can, but constantly falling short. And what is the answer to these deep-seated problems? In the Old Testament, we don't have time to go into all the specifics of this, but the people of Israel were the people of God, and they were to live according to the ways of God.

And God would be their king, God would lead them, God would fight their battles for them. And we read in Psalms that the way that God fights battles is to turn all of the battle instruments into instruments of peace. And so that's the way that God fights battles. However, as we know, waiting on God, waiting on promises to be revealed can be difficult. And so the people of God, frankly, grow tired of waiting on God. And we see this exchange in 1 Samuel 8, where the people of Israel go to their leader, Samuel, and tell Samuel that they want something different. And here is what they come up with.

In 1 Samuel 8, verse five, this kind of sounds really rude. There is some context to what the people are saying here. They're not just being jerks. They have some validity in what they are saying here. But they say to Samuel, Samuel, you are old, right?

Which is true. He was getting up in age. It is your sons do not follow your ways, which is true. His sons were not following in his footsteps. So their solution, instead of waiting and trusting God, is this, appoint us a king to lead us such as what? All the other nations have, right? We no longer want God to be our king.

We want what all the other nations have. So Samuel, the prophet who has spent the best days of his life trying to lead Israel in the kingdom of God, in the ways of God, he takes offense to this. Obviously, he feels rejected by the Israelites. He knows that his sons are no good and not fit for leadership, but he feels rejected by the Israelites and what they were asking for. But he took it to God anyway. And here is what God's response to this is. In verse seven, it's really a response of God's faithfulness and think about these words here as I read them.

The Lord told Samuel, listen to all that the people are saying to you. It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. Now listen to this. As they have done from the day I brought them out of Egypt until this day. Now you say, well, Jonathan, I'm not really a Bible historian. What exactly is that saying? Well, the beginning of the Israelites coming out of Egypt is the beginning of the people of God known as Israel.

And so God is saying from the very beginning of the people who are to live according to my kingdom, they have been forsaking me and serving other gods. But what's remarkable of that is not the unfaithfulness of people, but the faithfulness of God to remain with them, to continue to be their God. So God says, we're going to give them this king. But before we do, Samuel, before I give them this king, you need to warn them. You need to tell them what's going to happen. This is remarkable. And we can see how true these words are still to today.

In verse 10, Samuel warns the people. Here's what the warning is. This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights. He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of the thousands and commanders of the fifties and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendance.

He will take a 10th of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendance. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys. He will take them for his use. He will take a 10th of your flocks and you yourselves will become slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day. So hearing that the people of Israel said, God, you are right. That is a horrific picture.

We don't want that. We want to continue to be led by you. No, that's not what they say. They say, God, in verse 19, they refused to listen to Samuel. No, they said, we want a king over us. This is what we want. We will be like all the other nations with a king to lead us and to go out before us and to fight our battles.

As it said in the song, So Long Moses, we want a king on a throne full of power with a sword in his fist. Now, if we want to be like all the other nations, then we are going to have the problems of all the other nations.

Would you agree? So how can you have peace if you have in your fist a sword? A sword is not an instrument of peace. There is no way that a sword can produce peace. A sword is an instrument of war. Maybe not so much today. It's kind of a collector's item that we put on a shelf, but a sword is an instrument of war and it will never bring peace.

And as long as we look to kings to build their kingdoms, there will always be other kings and other kingdoms who threaten to overtake the nation that we live in. Later on, after Israel receives this king, they have this battle of good kings and bad kings, kings that honor God, kings that lead them away from God. They go through times of exile and times of living as the people of God with jurisdiction over their selves. And eventually there comes a prophet whose name is Isaiah. We read from the beginning of the book of Isaiah. But Isaiah, one of the purposes that he serves is to tell of the kingdom that will come. In Isaiah chapter 53, he paints a picture of the Messiah who will come and the type of king that he will be.

And I wanna read the paraphrase version of this from the song, So Long Moses, that Jeremy sang. Here's what it says. Now keep in contrast Samuel chapter eight and what a king will do to the type of king that Jesus will be. He will bear no beauty or glory.

We'll be rejected and despised. A man of such sorrow, we will cover our eyes. He will take up our sickness and carry our tears. For his people, he will be pierced. He'll be crushed for our evils and our punishment feel. And by his wounds, we will be healed. Now I don't know about you, but that is a much more compelling narrative.

There is quite a contrasting difference between the foretelling of this king and the kings of the nations that we read about earlier. And the ways of this king, the authority of this king will actually bring peace if we will seek to follow him. This king will leverage whatever abilities and influence and resources he has to bless his subjects. This king gives himself for the healing of his people. This king decrees a salvation that can't be bought. Amazon can't offer it to you through some sort of subscription. You can never achieve enough to receive this salvation.

It can only be received. And the even better news is that this salvation cannot be taken from you. It is yours to live in and experience in this world. That no matter what circumstances unfold around you, there is a peace and this salvation that passes understanding and it can never be taken from you. And this salvation leads us to the peace that is from God and is fulfilled in us loving our neighbor. Ronald Rolheiser is one of my favorite contemporary writers. And he poses these three questions as building blocks for us in our spiritual journey.

So if you find yourself during this Advent season, wanting to be a person of peace, wanting to experience the peace that is from God, consider these three questions. Number one, do I pray every day?

Do I pray every day? Am I involved with the struggle of the poor? And do I have the kind of friendships in my life that move me beyond bitterness and anger? And as we seek to be the people of God, the way in which we answer these questions will directly influence the amount of peace that we experience in the kingdom of God. So today, no matter if your life is filled with peace and peace is the song of your heart, or if you find yourself in a frustrated and difficult state, the promise of the kingdom of God is that when we look to him, when we spend time seeking his kingdom, and we do as we are led in the kingdom of this world, that the result of our obedience will be the peace that we are looking for.

Let's pray together. God, we know that we live in a world of chaos and we know that there is no shortage of problems or of promises that promise to give us whatever version of the good life that we want to experience. But God, we also know that oftentimes in chasing down those things, we just simply find ourselves no better than we were before. And so God, in the midst of this season, when life speeds up, when there are extracurriculars that we all participate in, when we're hunting down that gift, that we can give that will just make everything right, or that party that we can get an invite to that will just offer pure fulfillment, or whatever is the thing that we are chasing down, God, would you help us to make time to pause, to pause, to be present to you, and to trust that ultimately peace comes from you and is activated through our obedience to you by loving our neighbor. So may we be people who work for peace this Advent season. We ask these things today, Jesus, in your name and for your sake, amen.