Prince of Peace
Sermons Series
CCCAG Christmas Eve, 2019
Scripture- Isaiah 9
If you're visiting with us here tonight this is the last of a four part series where we went through the four names given to Jesus in Isaiah 9.
We started off with talking about Jesus being our wonderful counselor , our guide, and the one who lights our path in life.
We then spoke about Jesus being our mighty God and giving us the strength, power, and spiritual vitality that we all need to live in today's chaotic world.
This last Sunday we talked about Jesus being our everlasting father. We emphasized how Jesus is the perfect example of manhood, fatherhood, and someone we could aspire to be like and would never fail us.
This evening we're going to complete this series by talking about Jesus being the Prince of peace.
When we talk about peace, I'm reminded of a character from a movie called The Princess Bride. If you've never seen this movie, it’s a character driven fantasy comedy that is famous for its one liners and memorable characters. One of them is always correcting what other people say with the phrase “You keep using that word, but I don't think you really know what it means”
Sometimes the word peace can be just like that. If you were to go out and talk to 100 people, you'll probably get 400 definitions of what peace means.
I want to clear some of that up tonight and explain what this nebulous word peace means in the eyes of God. Since God is the source of all existence and reality, we should go to HIM first about what words like peace really mean.
Turn in your bibles to Isaiah Chapter 9 and we're going to read a few of the verses there.
Isa 9:2
2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.
Isa 9:6-7
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.
NIV
Prayer
A little background about the time in history when Isaiah spoke his prophecies.
Isaiah is speaking to a people that for the last 100 years have never known any sort of peace. The northern Kingdom of Israel has been in a constant state of war because of the rebellion and disobedience against God. Over and over again God sends people known as Prophets to warn them of coming disaster and over and over again they reject the prophet's words and sometimes even kill them
Then disaster strikes and their nation is overrun by another nation. Rinse, wash, repeat- this has been what life has been like in this area of the Middle East during Isaiah’s life.
That's just the brief background of the kind of people that Isaiah was speaking to- are people who longed for some sense of peace in their lives.
Peace for them would have simply meant an absence of conflict or even some sense or feeling of security.
Very often that is how peace is used in our world today.
How many times this last year have we turned on the news only to hear about a new shooting, or a terrorist attack, or what the current drama in Washington is today.
One of the things I hear most often when the subject of todays news comes up is a sentiment- “Can’t we all just get along?” It seems if you have an opinion about something, there is always someone, somewhere who is ready and willing to destroy you for voicing it. Our elected officials, people who are supposed to be leading us, aren’t any better.
This last year, if feels like we all regressed to the kind of drama we had in middle and high school.
The good news is- God desires us to live in peace.
But peace isn’t just the absence of conflict. Let me illustrate from the bible.
About 400 years before the events in Isaiah, Israel is facing a very similar problem with neighboring nations coming in and killing and plundering the people who are living in that area. The people began to cry out for God's mercy and deliverance from this constant state of conflict and war. God visits a man called Gideon and tells Gideon that he is going to use him to deliver his people.
In early Old Testament religious thought, it was believed that anyone who was visited by God in a physical presence would immediately be killed. So Gideon is terrified thinking he is going to drop dead any second.
God quickly reassures Gideon that he will not die, and in thankfulness and reverence to God, Gideon builds an altar and calls it in Hebrew Yahweh Shalom.
In English, that translates as God is Peace, and it’s on the list of the most precious names of God in the Old Testament.
God's included this interaction between Himself and Gideon in the bible to show us is that he not only brings peace he is the very essence of peace.
What that means for you and I today in the 21st Century is this-
We can never know true peace apart from the God whose name, nature, and character is peace.
I want you to take a moment and think about that.
Really think about it
When you really start to think about it and understand what that means and what its implications are for our life-That baby in a Manger becomes that much more special.
All this chaos that is our 21st century world is the result of humanity trying to realize peace apart from its source.
Humanity is in constant pursuit of some sense of peace.
Premise- Everything we pursue in life whether it be pleasure, power, money, or position is at its root yearning for peace and security.
Most of you know I work full time as a paramedic and have done so for most of my adult life. Let me illustrate this from doing that job for so long-
I've worked hundreds of overdoses, reviving them and bringing them back from the dead. Ultimately, they are looking for peace and trying to find it in a substance.
I've been in large corporate offices dealing with vice presidents in large companies having heart attacks from working 80 to 90 hours a week in a pressure cooker of a high stress job. They were looking for peace through position.
I've seen coworkers have an entire paycheck of cash in their wallet on Friday only to have it gone by Monday because they spent it all at a casino. They were looking at peace through money.
Most tragically I've seen people shipwreck marriages, children, reputations, and even churches because of their pursuit of pleasure.
What these people illustrate is common with all of humanity. We never learn or refuse to acknowledge that you can never find peace in a created thing-you have to go to the creator whose very name is peace.
Jesus knows this. He knows us better than we know ourselves.
Consider the world at this little baby in Bethlehem’s Manger was born into.
Jesus was born into a world where his country has only known subjugation for over 500 years. Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Medes, Greeks, and now Romans have all conquered them and placed them under their rule.
Even worse- the religious establishment is a far cry from that which God intended. There is very little true worship of God seen in the temple.
In fact, going to temple only ensures at the very people that are supposed to be pointing the worshippers to a holy God are fleecing and cheating people out of every penny they can.
On a personal level, the world considers Jesus an illegitimate child. Everyone knows that Joseph, Mary's husband, is not his father. That doesn't have as much of a stain now as it used to, but in ancient Israel you couldn't even be considered a full member of their society with that kind of background.
Let’s just top it off, God becomes man in Jesus who is now a helpless baby sleeping in a borrowed stable inside of a feeding trough for an animal. Jesus is a helpless baby in a Manger that is less than 10 miles from an evil ruler who has an army that wants him dead.
This is the world that the Prince of peace was born into.
We can look at all of that and consider the world that we live in today
It's not all that different is it.
Is it any wonder why this phrase Prince of peace means just as much to us today as it did to Isaiah’s time, or even to the time Jesus was born?
The prince of peace is needed now more than ever.
I want to stop and just take a moment this evening before we all go and watch the kids attack their presents.
I want to ask you to close your eyes in the presence of God. Take a deep breath and let it out and let the Holy Spirit into your hear and let him show you all the things that you're fighting against, all the struggles that you are facing, and expose everything that it seems you are fighting against.
and ask Jesus to be your Prince of peace
pause
This is the beauty of Christmas. It’s a time for all of us to stop, pause, and reflect on the wonder of a baby prince coming into the world during some of the most chaotic times in history.
For all of you who still may struggle with worry or can’t believe that God can help you, consider this-
A moment ago I mentioned that Jesus was born into a world 10 miles away from a insane King who wanted to kill him.
Yet God wasn't worried
When he grew up Jesus would face a religious establishment so far removed from what Father God had instituted that it conspired to murder him.
But God wasn't worried
Jesus faced unbelief and ridicule in his own hometown; the same hometown that knew that he was an illegitimate child
but it didn't touch him at all
Jesus ministered the people who have been conquered for 400 years and himself was under the rulership of a man name Caesar who commanded people to worship him
it didn't faze him 1 bit
because he knew who he was. He was the Prince of peace.
He was the source of all peace
He was and still is the answer to every problem you have
He wants to give you true peace that comes through experiencing the joy of the Lord
All rise
John 3:16- altar call
prayer
lighting of the candles
silent night
