Creator, Father, King #356

Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.

THINK OF THE BIGGEST, brightest Fourth of July spectacle you’ve ever seen. Well, that was nothing compared to what the shepherds witnessed outside Bethlehem on the night of Jesus’ birth.

The sky was still black and quiet, just like every night. Being a shepherd had to be pretty boring, honestly, unless a thief or a predator was prowling nearby.

Suddenly, an angel appeared to the shepherds, piercing the dark tranquility with heaven’s brilliance and sending them cowering in fear. After the angel announced the Savior’s birth, the sky exploded into a dazzling display of God’s glory as a countless angelic army appeared, singing, “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased!”

The angels’ song was a beautiful chorus of praise to God. But it also poses a fascinating question: How do you please God?

What’s It Mean?

It doesn’t take much to please us. Look what happens every Christmas morning: we get stuff and we are pleased—very pleased!

That doesn’t work with God. What can we give God that he doesn’t already own? As the apostle Paul said in Acts 17:24-25, “He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs.”

Besides, God is holy—highly exalted above his creation, completely set apart from sin, and perfectly righteous in all his ways. Left to ourselves, sinners like us cannot please him.

Yet today’s verse says there are people who have peace with God because he is pleased with them. How is that possible?

Because of Jesus!

He didn’t stay “a baby . . . lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12). He lived a sinless life and died an atoning sacrifice on our behalf. His death made propitiation for us, turning God’s wrath toward us into favor. “Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us” (Romans 5:1).

We can’t please God on our own. But Jesus pleased God on our behalf through his finished work on the cross. When we submit to Christ in repentance and faith, we please God and experience the peace the angels sang about more than two thousand years ago!

Now What?

Memorize Romans 5:1.

Did You Know?

The angels’ song connects Jesus to Isaiah’s prophecy about the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).