Saturday, December 19, 2015

Christmas: Glory to God, Peace & Goodwill to Men

Christmas: Glory to God, Peace & Goodwill to Men   Kelly Durant   Dec 20,2015
Luke 2:14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
2.  Did you notice in the stores all the mess on the floors? Everything all mixed up, it’s crazy, right? Trees, lights, and gifts abound with bells ringing outside of the stores! And this is all because of a baby, baby Jesus!  It will be Christmas time this Friday! Enjoy it at home with friends and family! It is quite a miracle that Baby Jesus actually survived as one in 3 babies would die in that time period without medical attention in those days! Let’s hear a story (not Christmas) of a baby that died, and of a baby that lived.
Let’s go back to the O.T., I Kings 3:16-28. Do you recall that King Solomon was considered wise? God offered him riches but he chose wisdom. The Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes in the Bible are full of wisdom.
How many of you know the story of when they brought to King Solomon a situation of 2 mothers with 2 babies about the same months old? These 2 ladies lived in the same house and in the night one of the babies died. The problem is one lady claimed the other one stole her baby so you did not know who was the mother of the living baby and who was the mother of the dead one!? They went to the judge, King Solomon.
In his wisdom he said, “Split the baby in 2 parts with a sword and give each woman half!”. Shocked, one lady yelled, “No! Don’t do that just give it to the other woman!” The other lady in her bitterness said, go ahead kill it and give us half each. But then Solomon in his wisdom said, “Wait, the woman who is willing to give up her baby, this is the real mother! The baby is hers!”
3. I find that one can compare this same wisdom to baby Jesus of today. There are around us in the world, God’s children, people who are kind hearted doing many things for others, willing to give up anything for the sake of life and love. This time of year these people want to see Baby Jesus honored and special.
These are true people of honor, the ones that understand God’s gift to the world, that Jesus inspired us to love everyone, no exceptions. These people are the ones who will have life as the have Jesus, and they always choose to do good because they love God and His Son!
4. But like the mother who preferred to see a baby cut in two rather than share it, there are those amongst us of this nature that are greedy, evil, and cold hearted. They do not care for life or baby Jesus at all and only care for their own selfish consumption and material appetites giving no respect for what the Holiday of Christmas means!
These carnal people would prefer to see Baby Jesus and Christianity die and go away! These are people who are bitter against God and they hate the happy people who make Christmas special. They disrespect and profane all things pure and beautiful. These kinds of people with unrepentant hearts, full of hate are in essence comparable to being murderers and thieves, and as the Bible states are as condemned dry wood ready to be placed into the fire as this is what they deserve. 
1 John 3:15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. God is just and has hell reserved for the souls of these people who reject Jesus. People without Jesus are horrible! They cause all who live near them to go through hell due to their angry, bitter, confrontational, vulgar, lying spirit. But God has heaven reserved for those that accept baby Jesus and become innocent and pure like He is!
5. Going back to Luke 2:14, the very first message from God through the angels when Jesus was born was “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men”. This short sentence inspires me so much! There are 3 points.
What does this bold declaration mean in its totality? If the angels in heaven are worshipping a baby, then that should get our attention, right? They were glorifying God because baby Jesus would become the sacrificed one on the cross and be the savior of the world! The first lesson you and I must learn in life is that we must give glory to God for Jesus! Angels are higher beings than what we are!
Giving glory to God is not just something you say, like in church when people say, praise God, we glorify you God, it is more than that; giving glory to God implies living an entire lifestyle of love! You glorify God by your actions and words, by imitating Him, but serving Him and others, by being as He is, full of love, holiness, and goodwill towards all men (and women)!
6. And where it says, “Glory to God in the highest”, “the highest” refers to the all-encompassing power and authority of God! The universe, and heavens high above us, and the symphony of the cycle of life that is high above our understanding, all imply that God is far beyond us!  He is perfect and all-knowing governing and preserving the stars and all chemical matter, the realms of angels, and the forces of nature and the people of earth! Psalm 113:4 The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens. Science reveals how much God is infinitely vast and complex! Everything everywhere proclaims the glory of a creator!
7. Next in the phrase, “Peace on Earth”, what is peace? It is an overwhelming calm where there is safety. You have seen the bumper sticker, ‘Know Jesus, Know Peace.  No Jesus, No Peace’, what a true statement this is! For as long as I have been involved with Christians, close to 40 years now, the thousands of testimonies I have heard all confirm one thing, that the lives of the people before Jesus were a torture and chaotic mess as they lived in a hell of guilt and confusion. But after accepting to follow Jesus their circumstances totally changed, to have a life of peace and fulfillment! Peace with God and peace even with conflictive people.
8. That is true in my life too! I got away from following Jesus when I went to High School and my life went downhill as I drank and partied and smoked pot and played in a rock band, but I was shocked with myself that I was not happy! I was doing all the things that the people of the world were doing to over stimulate my body’s pleasure cells but yet I was dying inside with a restless feeling like I was really killing my soul inside and in danger, feeling far away from God.
I had all the pleasures of the world as a young man but one day I woke up to realize I was just an empty self-indulgent copy-cat want-to-be who should just die to get out of the way because I was just taking up space like all the other rats of the world. I just wanted to end my misery and frustration!
But one day after I prayed the prayer to accept Jesus, my whole world changed! This is why I am here today, to tell you about it, it is true, Jesus will give you peace, a peace that you have never experienced and it is worth the investment to leave behind everything, all your own misguided beliefs, all your way of being, and worthless life!
9. And finally, the last point of Luke 2:14 stated in the Holy Scripture, it is the “goodwill toward men” that many of us fail to capture. Imagine, God giving you and me goodness and wanting goodwill for us and everyone? How is it that God wants good for humanity? Isn’t humanity terrible as we the people seem to always make war and kill multi-millions and we destroy everything with our corrupt cities?
In the end we must let this undeserved goodwill impact us, God loves you and me beyond our comprehension! He sacrificed His son Jesus for all humanity for us to have eternal life! God only wants to give you and me good things in life, making us happy, giving us an eternity of goodness.  Most every Christian I know lives very blessed!
But many people make a train wreck of their lives and then want to blame God or others for their mess, but it never was God who failed them and didn’t give them their dreams! It was their own cruel self! God, all the time has good plans for each of us, but we must listen to Him and convert, and become sacrificial. Sacrificial as in giving up your own baby (figuratively) if you have to, embracing baby Jesus and life, peace, and goodness!
To have God’s good will working in your life, you must be in His will! This time of year at Christmas time serves as a reminder that the very first principle that God wants is for everyone to let the baby live in your heart, to accept Jesus as the savior of the world and as the savior of your soul.
Baby Jesus was born in humility and poor, He lived a modest life, and then He died in great pain to rise again in order to take away the pain and emptiness in the souls of all men and women, or better said, in you and me! Let Jesus do that for you today! Give Glory to God, accept His peace, & live in the goodwill He has for you in your life! Prayer…


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