Sermon Tone Analysis

Peace

In our conversion we experience peace with God and so we being to desire that others would also experience that same peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We become proclaimers of this peace, not some pagan world peace as idealized by the world but a real, and lasting peace, first with God and second by extension peace with our neighbor.

You can’t have peace with one another without first peace with God.

Such a notion is a fantasy and even downright evil.

Do you remember when we read from Luke chapter 2 when a multitude of angels appear to shepherds at night and say, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”? Jesus is the great peacemaker, he’s the one who’s being announced, and with him comes a way for mankind to have peace with God.

And as believers we become ambassadors for Christ, delivering his message of peace.

Reviled and persecuted on my account

And paradoxically we’re persecuted for our message of peace.

We’re reviled for our allegiance to Christ, and just as Jesus would say, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.

I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.”

While this message of peace being peace to those who embrace Christ by faith it divides whole households as many in the world revile the message.

Rejoice and be glad

Do not revile them in return, but instead rejoice and be glad, because remember you will inherit the kingdom of heaven