Long ago a man sought the perfect picture of peace. Not finding one that satisfied, he announced a contest to produce this masterpiece. The challenge stirred the imagination of artists everywhere, and paintings arrived from far and wide. Finally the great day of revelation arrived. The judges uncovered one peaceful scene after another, while the viewers clapped and cheered.
The tension grew. Only two pictures remained veiled.
As a judge pulled the cover from one, a hush fell over the crowd.
A mirror-smooth lake reflected lacy, green birches under the soft blush of the evening sky. Along the grassy shore, a flock of sheep grazed undisturbed. Surely this was the winner. The man with the vision uncovered the second painting himself, and the crowd gasped in surprise. Could this be peace?
A tumultuous waterfall cascaded down a rocky precipice; the crowd could almost feel its cold, penetrating spray. Stormy-gray clouds threatened to explode with lightning, wind and rain. In the midst of the thundering noises and bitter chill, a spindly tree clung to the rocks at the edge of the falls. One of its branches reached out in front of the torrential waters as if foolishly seeking to experience its full power.
A little bird had built a nest in the elbow of that branch. Content and undisturbed in her stormy surroundings, she rested on her eggs. With her eyes closed and her wings ready to cover her little ones, she manifested peace that transcends all earthly turmoil.
World peace is something that most people want. The desire for it is so well known that it is now a cliché, if you could have one thing what would it be? “World peace.” Yet as much as it is desired has also been a seemingly impossible quest. An article in the Personel Journal revealed not too long ago that a study of the last 3,500+ years of recorded history contained only 286 years of peace, that’s less than 8%. What’s worse is that during that period over 8,000 peace treaties have been signed and broken.
This is despite the fact that Jesus has already come as our Messiah for the first time. Despite the fact that the world has seen the first coming of the Prince of Peace, yet there is no peace as we think of it. Why is that? I think perhaps the problem is that we have the wrong definition of peace. You see I think that peace is not the absence of the storm but confidence within the storm. When we look at the life of Christ, it was not characterized by peace and tranquility, but by conflict and difficulty. Yet the overriding characteristic that we can see is confidence. Jesus knew exactly what was going to happen and He was confident that He would win in the end, and we are here today as a living testimony that He did.
We have been going through the titles Christ was given in Isaiah 9:6. We have talked about Jesus as our Wonderful Counselor, our Mighty God, our Everlasting Father and today we find that He is the Prince of Peace.
The true test of your character comes when you are under stress. During His life Jesus had to endure extreme stress many times. We most often think about this during Easter but for today I want to look at another day in the life of Christ where He was placed under constant pressure and endured multiple challenges. We’re going to be looking at Matthew Chapter 12, I want us to read verses 15-21 together, because that also includes Matthews translation of Isaiah, “Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place. Many followed him, and he healed all their sick, warning them not to tell who he was. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he leads justice to victory. In his name the nations will put their hope.”
This passage in Matthew is not a passage where everything is going smoothly for Jesus. This is a rough and demanding period of time. The demands are not just from His enemies but His followers as well. The passage begins with Jesus being tested by His adversaries. It starts on the Sabbath. Jesus and the disciples go walking through a grain field, the disciples are hungry so they pluck some grain to eat. Sounds reasonable, but technically it was against the Jewish law of the Sabbath. So the Pharisee’s confront Jesus with it. Their nit picking even for religious people and they know it. How can we tell? Without going into too great of detail because that is a whole other sermon Jesus hits them with a little scripture and the back off. Trust me if they really had a case they wouldn’t have backed off.
But then they get another opportunity, there is a man with a withered hand. Most people would see this as a problem, and the fact that Jesus could heal him as a blessing, it’s all good. Except for the Pharisee’s they see it as a chance to hurt people. You know I almost feel sorry for them as a whole. I don’t think they got into the ministry to be mean petty little people, but over the years that’s what they became. They were so obsessed with the rules, they missed God when He was right in front of them. People ask why doesn’t God do miracles anymore, I would argue that He does but people miss them, because as people we have always had the ability to miss God. Look at this, they are in the presence of a man who claims to be God. Who claims to be the Messiah, He fills all of the job requirements, even better as a homeless Rabbi He’s obviously not in it for the money. They have with them a man who can only be healed by an act of God. You would think that if Jesus can do it they will turn and follow Him, that they will have all the proof they’ve ever needed, but they are not after proof, they are after blood. Look at why verse 10 tells us they asked Jesus about healing the man it says, “That they might accuse him.” Jesus first has to deal with his enemies.
Basically Jesus knows it’s a trap, but it’s not the guy with the withered hands, fault so He heals the man and takes the opportunity to point out the hypocrisy of the Pharisee’s along the way. Notice, even though He is the Prince of Peace, Jesus lived an authentic life. He didn’t back down the Pharisee when it was appropriate. The result of this deed is that the Pharisees are furious, if you read verse 14 they go from wanting to accuse Him to wanting to ruin Him. In fact the NIV translates it as kill Him. Jesus could have stayed but realize, one it wasn’t the time for Him to die, that wasn’t God’s plan and second there was no reason to stay other than to antagonize the Pharisees. Now fun as that may be, that is not appropriate, there is a difference between standing for a principle and just being a bully, Jesus isn’t a bully so He leaves.
But then He is faced with the demands of those who would call Him friend. Verse 15 tells us “He withdrew from there. And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all.” Understand the point here, it is not that Jesus minds this. God desires to have a relationship with us, and to spend time with us. This is seen in the fact that here is Jesus, yes He is 100% God but He is 100% man. He has just been rejected by the people who are supposed to serve Him the religious people, not just rejected they wanted to kill Him. That is a bad day, you know when He withdrew being a human He probably just wanted to be alone, but His followers came with Him and it wasn’t just a few, it was great multitudes. Lots of people followed Him, and a lot of them needed healed, and notice He took the time to heal them all.
Now the way this is written we have this portion from Isaiah so it looks at a glance like time passed but it didn’t that passage is inserted and then the narrative picks up. Basically, Jesus deals with the Pharisee’s, then He heals great multitudes, after that verse 22 says, “Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute; and He healed him, so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw.” Isn’t that the way Satan loves to operate? Jesus has got to be pretty close to the end of His rope, it has been a long day and now finally Jesus must confront the supernatural. The enemy just loves to strike when we are weak. That’s why we are told he prowls around like a lion. Lions go after the weakest link in the herd. Satan waits for those times when we are weak to see if he can get us to fall. But notice the strength of Jesus. He doesn’t waste any time, just “Bam” He heals the dude so he can both speak and hear, in other words Jesus heals Him completely. Then the Pharisee’s show up and the whole cycle starts again.
The point is that this was a long day and as Matthew is thinking about it and writing it down he says you know what this reminds me of another description, this is that the prophet Isaiah wrote about. This is amazing, no one could realistically foresee a day like this but, Jesus attitude during this time had already been defined in Isaiah 42:1-4. This passage is almost word for word. As I said at the beginning of this series, Isaiah saw the coming Messiah as if He had already come.
So what is this attitude the marks our Prince of Peace? Well it begins with our Prince being a servant. I think that we need to understand the word that we translate as servant. The word indicates a “lesser” member of the family literally any member of the family other than the top member of the family could be referred to by this title. When this word was given to a “servant” it was a household servant who was loved as part of the family. When God the Father calls Christ His servant, it is a servant who is loved, who is part of the family.
Then I want us to notice how He began His day, by doing what God always longs to do, He healed people. God desires to bring healing to our lives, whether it be emotional, physical or spiritual healing, our God wants to heal us. He couldn’t look at multitudes of people who needed healing and heal a few, it says He healed them all. When God looks at our lives He wants to heal us. He may not always give us the physical healing we desire but that is not always what we need. He longs to take away the pain of the abuse this world puts into our lives. God longs to heal us out of love.
Notice His motivation was love, not fame or profit. Notice after Jesus heals everybody then He tells them not to tell anyone. Not the Matthew tells us that it is so that the words of the prophet Isaiah could be fulfilled but doesn’t it really tell us something about Jesus that we don’t need explained? It tells us that His motive for doing the things He did weren’t the same motives that most people have. He wasn’t looking for fame, or attention, or money, or power. He just did it because He cared about the people who needed healed, His motive is love. Understand when God acts as a “Servant” it isn’t because He has to, it is because He wants to. This is the type of service that is offered by a family member out of love for His family.
Notice that servanthood brings God pleasure. Look at verse 18, “Behold! My Servant whom I have chosen,
My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased!” When God sees someone acting as a servant, it makes Him happy no matter who it is. But again this is a specific type of servanthood. This isn’t the forced servanthood of, “Well since I don’t have a choice, I guess I’ll do it.” This isn’t the servanthood that comes with grumbling or seeks attention. This is the servanthood of a loved family member who’s desire is to serve His family and His motive is love.
Also notice that where Jesus is serving is where He was called to serve, He was doing something He enjoyed. I was talking with someone this week, just because you can do something does not mean you are called to do it. Within the church we have a right to say, “.” As we implement our strategic plan we are going to ask more and more people to be involved in the ministries of the church, outside the walls of the church. If we ask you have the right to say, “no.” If you don’t feel called to do that particular thing, and if it’s something you won’t enjoy, then don’t do it. But there is something that everyone who is a follower of Christ is called to do. Your mission and our mission as a church is to help you find a place of service and then go do it. That is why the three key words of our vision statement are “Know, Grow and God.” We want to be people who know God, who grow in the knowledge and in relationship with Him, and then we want to go serve God, it’s servanthood. We are to serve Him, as He first served us. That is the miracle of these titles, it’s not just that God was with us, but what He came to do for us.
One of those titles/promises is that He would be our Mighty God, our hero. With that in mind then look at the next point. Notice what flows from the servanthood of Christ, justice. “I’ve placed my Spirit upon Him and He’ll decree justice to the nations.” This is a very cool verse. Here you have the entire Trinity either mentioned or implied. God the Father is talking, He is talking about, Jesus the Son, and God the Father is going to send the Spirit to serve the Son. Why? Because of servanthood. Then we come to this word “justice.” This is another of those tricky words. Yes it implies justice in the sense of the word that we are used to, that things will be set right, but it goes deeper, this word also refers to a, or in this case the final judgment. In other words, because Christ was willing act as a servant, for God but to us, God then gave Him the right to serve as our final Judge and deliver justice to the entire world. That is a prophecy and when we understand the love that Christ has for us, when we accept Him into our lives it becomes a promise that we can look forward to.
Of course we understand that to serve as our final Judge requires strength which is why it is important to note the change in God’s tone as He talks about His servant. He begins to describe a determined warrior. I think it is important not to miss the determination that is described here. It’s simplistic to think of this as referring to our Mighty God and our hero but this imagery runs even deeper than that. Look at the next verse “He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets.” This is the picture of a peaceful warrior. When we hear the term warrior we think of someone who fights battles and wins big victories, sometimes while snapping of one-liner. I always picture Mel Gibson in Braveheart, “Where you going? I’m going to pick a fight.” Kevin Costner in “Untouchables, “Where’s Neddy? “He’s in the car.” And Arnold Schwarzenegger in every movie he made, “I’ll be back.” I mean the picture that we have is of someone who sees a foe and then goes out and conquers that foe. But understand this about Jesus, He realized who His foe truly was and He set about to conquer that foe and ignore all the other difficulties of war.
Think about it, if it were you or I, we would have seen the Pharisees as enemies. I mean look at their actions, they led His followers astray for their own gain, they looked to accuse Him when He did great things, wonderful things, and then when they couldn’t accuse Him it made them so mad they wanted to kill Him. We would think of these people as enemies, and while they made Him mad, He never did. He saw them as lost sheep that He wanted to save. That is why we have this description, “He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets.” It is the picture of a warrior who is focused on His goal.
But it is the next line that really blows me away. “A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out” Do you see it? He came in knowing that His victory would come at a cost. Jesus knew this prophecy, He knew what His life would be like. Can you imagine being Him and reading this for the first time? “Let’s see, servant that God loves as part of His family. That’s cool, check. Not crying out or quarreling, well I do have sin and death to conquer so I can stay focused, check. A bruised reed, He will not break and smoldering wick He will not snuff out. Wait a second that doesn’t sound so good.” This verse speaks of cost, it speaks of suffering, it speaks of near defeat. A fire almost put completely out, that refuses to be put out, a reed that is almost broken but refuses to break. That is a rough battle plan, but our determined warrior said I’ll do it, for my family I’ll do it. No wonder we are supposed to love God so much, how can we do anything else when we realize what he did for us?
What I think helped Him through it was the promise of the next line, “Till He leads justice to victory.” He is the one who will lead us to victory. This is not a question or a hypothetical, this is a promise, it will be a reality, just as His coming was a reality, He will lead us to victory. How could Jesus keep His focus, how could He overcome the suffering, torment and humiliation of the cross? Because He knew that in the end He would win. The great thing is that our determined warrior didn’t just want to win for Himself, He wanted to win for us, His adopted family.
Our determined warrior can do anything He already has overcome the seemingly impossible by conquering death itself, but this passage also shows us something else about God, besides showing us what God can and will do, it shows us what God will not do. First God will not leave us without hope. Hebrews 6:19 refers to the relationship we now have with Christ as the anchor of our soul. Yes Christ left, but that was so the Spirit of God could come. But He left us with hope, not the hope in things that have never been seen but hope based in what He did when He was alive. Hope based the promises that had already been fulfilled. The word that is used here is Elpizo which is to wait, to expect, to rely upon, to place confidence in. God said, my servant will be your hope and you can have confidence in Him. Where does our peace come from, is it from the absence of the storm? No because the storm marked the life of Christ, it is in the confidence we can have in the middle of the storm.
Picture Matthew’s attitude as he writes these words. This is what Jesus did, even in the midst of a stressful day He exactly fit the picture of our promised Messiah, and if He can fulfill that promise in the middle of a day like that when He had the limitations of our human form imagine what He can and will do now when He sits in Heaven at God’s right hand. We have hope in Christ, not simply because of the promise of Scripture but because of the promises that He already has fulfilled. God doesn’t make empty promises. He came to give us hope and He will not leave us without hope.
The second thing that God will not do is, He will not give up on people. Understand this again, the reason that Jesus was willing to walk away from the Pharisees rather than escalate the conflict was because He didn’t see them as enemies but as lost sheep. His desire was for them to come into His family. If God wouldn’t give up on them, He won’t give up on anybody.
Which leads to this conclusion, if He is our leader then we must follow Him. That means that we can not give up on people. Now that doesn’t mean we can’t distance ourselves from them, notice Jesus withdrew when His task was finished and things were getting too ugly. But He didn’t just write them off. He avoided the conflict so that if they wanted to come to Him they could. We know that at least some of them did. If Jesus didn’t give up on the Pharisee’s then we can not give up on people either.
