Mental health is crucially important to our overall wellbeing. Good mental health helps us to have perspective in difficult circumstances and to be resilient people who may wobble like a Weeble but who ultimately don’t fall down (and who can get up again if they do fall!)

Peace is an essential ingredient in mental health, because turmoil, insecurity, doubt and anxiety rob us of peace and strength. Isaiah says that God ‘will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in You.’ (Isaiah 26:3)

How do we develop steadfast minds? How do we become unwavering people?

Isaiah links peace and steadfastness to trust. Those who trust in God will be kept in perfect peace. This is a promise God makes and therefore we can have hope, because God doesn’t make promises He can’t keep!

Trusting in God is the antidote to wavering and wobbling, to fear and anxiety. Trust in God steadies us. As we focus on God’s love, mercy, faithfulness and reliability, we are given external help (peace) to keep us steadfast and firm.

Paul tells us in Philippians 4:6-7 that there is a peace that transcends all understanding which guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

How do we find that spiritual, supernatural peace of which he speaks?

Philippians 4:6 urges us to leave anxiety behind and to learn the benefits of prayer. The first step to finding peace is to make the choice to trust God above anxiety. Many believe this is impossible. “I’m a worrier by nature; I can’t change that.” “You don’t know my circumstances; it’s only natural to be anxious.” “I can’t help myself.”

The truth is that we always have a choice how we think and react. Paul says, “Do not be anxious about anything.” When fear, anxiety and worry threaten to take over our lives and rob us of inner peace, we have to shift our focus back to God.

Paul shows us how to do this: “In every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (Phil 4:6) The only way out of anxiety is to let God in. Talk to Him. Lay out the reasons for anxiety, the troublesome situations, the objectionable people, the hurdles and hills before you. Make definite requests. Shape your worries into prayers.

It’s alarming how little God’s people pray. Worrying is much easier, we feel, than praying. But when we pray, we must then leave the requests with God and allow thanksgiving into our hearts. We must believe and not doubt. We must wait for God’s answers.

It’s then that God allows peace to replace anxiety. It’s then that our hearts and minds are protected from the insidiously destructive nature of anxiety. It’s then that we can know peace which cannot be explained rationally, but which can be experienced daily and which can quieten our restless hearts.

Dave spoke this morning from Isaiah 9:6-7. Christmas is highly commercialised nowadays, but we need to recapture the reason for the season. The birth of Jesus was not an unexpected event, but was the fulfilment of God’s promises throughout the ages. Isaiah spoke about the One to come as ‘Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’, and in Jesus we see the beginning of God’s reign on earth which will be fully seen on His second coming. We live in the times between His first and second Advent, but Christmas becomes a time of hope and reminds us also of the challenge to be ready for when Jesus comes again.

We long for hope, living as we do in times of suffering, trials, disappointments and wars. God still has a good plan for our lives (Jer 29:11) and this includes hope and a future. Sacred truth such as this is always lived out in a secular realm. At Christmas, we remember how Jesus was born in a place ordered by the Roman emperor, but also realise that this was foreordained by God, long before it happened. (Micah 5:2) The two realities of God’s rule and Roman rule were brought together as God orchestrated every aspect of life to serve His purposes. Jesus being born in a stable in Bethlehem may not have been Mary’s ideal birth plan, but this was all part of God’s plan. Jesus was born at ‘just the right time’ (Gal 4:4) and despite the tensions of the day (with Herod trying to kill all those baby boys whom he saw as potential rivals to his throne), God’s will prevailed.

The shepherds were the first visitors to the stable (see Luke 2). Shepherds were not held in high esteem at this time (they were not even allowed to testify in court), but these were the people chosen by God to visit Jesus and to tell others about the miracle they had witnessed. God broke into their mundane world in spectacular fashion, and they remind us that simple obedience to God brings blessing and joy. They were blessed as they went to visit Jesus as commanded; they were essential to the Christmas story, for they remind us that we must celebrate the King.

As we prepare for both Christmas celebrations and the return of our King, we too can be blessed if we obey Jesus’s commands (see John 13:17). We must not just hear the word; we must live it!

Today is the second Sunday in Advent, and the theme for this week is peace.

We live in a world where peace is a rare commodity. Families often are at enmity with each other; family feuds can last for years and lead to bickering, arguments and the cold result of estrangement. Countries are at enmity with each other, often resorting to war to try to achieve dominance and superiority. Living at peace, on a personal or more general level, is not always easy.

The difficulties we have with peaceful living result from sin, from our need to dominate, from our lack of humility and love. At Christmas we celebrate the arrival of the Prince of Peace, the One whose death and resurrection pave the way for those who have been far away from God because of transgression and sin to be brought near to God (see Ephesians 2.)

The path of peace is lined with humility, forgiveness, love, mercy and service. There is no way we can have inner peace, peace with God or peace with others unless we focus on how Jesus achieved peace. There is no way we can be peacemakers unless we study His life and how He did it.

Peace comes when there is unity. Instead of being fragmented people, torn apart by conflicting desires, warring elements within us, when we allow Jesus to bring purpose and wholeness to our lives, we can live at peace.

Christmas reminds us of the helplessness Jesus embraced in putting on human flesh. We see the indignity of the Incarnation, the voluntary self-limitation the Son of God embraced. He ‘made Himself nothing,’ as Philippians 2:7 tells us.

Perhaps our lack of peace comes from our unwillingness to humble ourselves. Instead of strutting and boasting, if we are willing to be servants of God, we can know peace within.