The Prince of Peace

If we look back upon the 20^th century and even this first quarter of the 21st century, one thing we would have a difficult time finding was a sustained period of peace.

The century started with the Boxer revolution and the Russo-Japanese War leading up to WWI. In the period between the WW’s there were multiple wars for national independence, Irish, Spanish as well as in Palestine. From there, do we ever really have peace? World War II, Korea, Viet Nam, the Cold War, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, Iraq and the ongoing war on terror. No peace…

But let me tell you about an unexpected moment in history, now over a 100 years ago, the details seem more like a wish, or a myth…but the facts appear to all line up…

The year was 1914, the British and The Germans were entrenched and fighting in Western Europe.

Marmaduke Walkinton said, “We were in the front line. We were about 300 yards from the Germans, and we had I think on Christmas Eve, we'd been singing carols and this that and the other, and the Germans had been doing the same,

Insert Picture – Christmas Truce 2

and we'd been shouting to each other, sometimes rude remarks, more often just joking remarks.

Eventually a German said, ‘Tomorrow you no shoot, we no shoot’.”

The next morning, soldiers on both side laid down their arms and came out of the trenches, venturing into “No Man’s land.”

Insert Picture – Christmas Truce 1

They brought out what little they had. They brought out champagne and cigarettes to give as gifts to their enemy. There were even rumors of an impromptu football match.

Insert Picture – Christmas Truce Football

A ball had been tossed out from the German trenches and men from both side simply began to play…together…not a competition…that day was for camaraderie and laughter, so really just more of a kick around.

The Christmas truce was not agreed to by either HQ, in fact, it apparently did not extend along the length of the battle lines. But in this small section of the war, on that Christmas day in 1914, there was peace.

Two armies who had been battling over the control of the land, for that moment chose peace over conflict.

How is your Christmas looking this year?

Is there conflict that remains unresolved and keeps you from celebrating with someone you love?

Is your Christmas a small example of the Christmas Truce of 1914? Do you gather together to make things look peaceful, but underneath is a conflict that will return again in a few days?

Today I want us to explore something far greater, I want us to explore a lasting peace, a complete peace, a peace that will have no end…

I am so glad that you are here this morning as we close out our Christmas Series

Slide Light of the World

These past weeks, we have been walking through this advent season by exploring the 4 names of the promised Messiah as promised in Isaiah chapter 9.

First, we came to see Him as the Wonderful Counselor, a treasured gift because He is unusual, extraordinary and unique. He is wonderfully complete and wonderful in His counsel for our lives.

Then after the Cantata, Pastor Viars opened the word that we might understand our Mighty God who came with the power to heal, power to do miracles, as well as the power to withstand temptation and the power to forgive sins. Just as the people of Israel needed Him, even today, we still need our Mighty God.

Last Week Pastor David helped us see the hope we have in knowing him also as Eternal Father, the One who provides an everlasting, secure house for His people.

This morning we will be exploring the fourth of the names from Isaiah 9…

Title: The Prince of Peace

If you will, please join me by opening your Bible…If you are using the Bibles in the chairs, you will open to page ___ in the front section.

Recall as we have discussed that the time of Isaiah’s prophesies were anything by a time of peace. The Assyrian army was bearing down on the Northend Kingdom of Israel and they had chosen to ally with the King of Aram while also trying to draw King Ahaz of Judah into the Alliance…

Isaiah has been sent by God to call King Ahaz to trust in Him alone, yet King Ahaz turns elsewhere…

Eventually, ruthless Assyria wipes out Aram and the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the writing is on the wall for Judah as well

In as day when peace seemed like a dream, an impossible dream, let’s look at the word of God through Isaiah.

READ ISAIAH 9:1-7

We may not be facing a ruthless army on our doorstep today, but the forces that want to destroy us and steal any chance of peace are certainly there. This prophesy of for you and me as well, so let’s unpack that last name for the Messiah and look for the

3 Truths that help us rejoice in the gift of Peace

I am confident that if I asked each of you to help me describe what peace looks like that I would get a relatively consistent answer, and it would be a desirable condition, but I don’t want to leave anything in our own wisdom here, so I want to compare that picture that you might have of peace with the truth that we will find as we begin by….

I. Understand Peace according to the Bible.

Peace in the OT is translated from the word Shalom, also used to describe peace offerings and blessings upon others. Similarly in the NT, the word Eirene is used almost 100 times to describe peace and as a blessing such as Grace and peace be with you.

Peace was not just about the nations, but it was personal and peace was something that all men desired in one way or another…yet I think we can agree, even today, that peace is elusive, peace can be short-lived and sometimes peace simply feels impossible.

Yet from our passage today - peace is actually promised…

Isaiah 9:7 - there will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace, on the throne of David and over his Kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forever more.

I want to know that peace, and I know that you do as well, so let’s see if we can understand it better based on what the Bible reveals

First, we can look at the idea of

Peace between men = The end of a conflict between people and groups

To understand peace, it might be easier to start with where we see a lack of peace…

Open the newspaper, or today, your news app, and the headlines that cry out at you are all about a lack of peace between men. Ongoing wars between Russia and Ukraine and between Israel and Hamas.

I am not going to allow myself down an endless rabbit trail of trying to explain why these wars are happening or to place these wars within a biblical context, but rather simply acknowledge that Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, told his disciples that “You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end.”

Whether we are talking about the lack of peace between nations, or simply a lack of peace between two people, we can find that the source of the conflicts come from the same hearts…

James 4 helps us to answer the question, what is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is it not the pleasures, the desires, that wage war in your members? We will unpack that further in a bit, but can see how when I want something, desire it so much that I am willing to sin to get it, as a nation or as a person, that these desires will result in a lack of peace.

As such where we see the greetings and blessings such as grace and peace to you, or go in peace, the heart behind these words desires that there would be no conflict remaining, that we would walk with common desires for Christ that would not bring continued conflict.

So in this sense, what we are seeing as peace between men is that it is the alternative to the war and conflict that so quickly breaks out between men because of the hearts that want what they want…

Now we could stop right here and we would find this peace to be desirable as our lives would seem easier, more peaceful simply with a lack of conflict with those around us…

Think about the mother at home who at the end of the day that simply cries out “if I could only have 5 minutes of peace and quiet.”

But I believe the Bible also points to and promises more in regard to peace…

Ultimately, peace in the Bible will also include

Peace between man and nature = The end of conflict with nature

When peace fills the earth, there will no longer be the danger and destruction caused through a broken and sin cursed world. The storms that are so destructive today will be no more. The conflict between man and nature will be no more

Take a look at how Isaiah had described the peace that we will find when God places His chosen King on the throne to reign over His creation.

Isaiah 11:6–9 (NASB 95)

6 And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard will lie down with the young goat, And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little boy will lead them. 7 Also the cow and the bear will graze, Their young will lie down together, And the lion will eat straw like the ox. 8 The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. 9 They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea.

But even the beauty of this picture of peace does not fulfill the wonder and wholeness that God’s Word describes as true peace.

Peace comes with the end of conflict between men and the end of conflict with nature, but even more important, we must also find that God offers

Peace within ourselves = The end of the conflict inside of us

I mentioned earlier from James the description of where our conflicts originate, the source of our quarrels and fights. The source is within us, coming from our hearts, so to understand peace, we need to know that there is a way to change what is coming from our hearts…

Isaiah shows us the way to this peace through God when he says

Isaiah 26:3 (NASB 95)

3 “The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace, Because he trusts in You.

That is a beautiful promise. But who is it for?

The one who trusts in God. The end of conflict within us begins in our relationship with our heavenly Father and our choice to place our trust in Him, as compared to trusting in my own understanding.

I work hard to avoid telling you in sermons, you just need to trust God, or to trust God more, because rightfully so, you should simply respond asking How? How do I trust God more…

I am thankful Isaiah is a better preacher than me as He helps us there…

The steadfast of mind, you will keep in perfect peace. Who is that? The steadfast of mind is the person who is seeking to know the truth, and to hold onto the truth as revealed through God’s Word. The steadfast will stand upon that foundation and they will not be rocked by the storms and conflicts of this world, even the ones within us, and God promises to then keep us in perfect peace because of that trust in him…

Consider the logic that flows through this…peace does not come from within us. Conflict begins within us, conflict begins in our sinful hearts and we find peace not just by fixing ourselves, but by seeking the prince of peace as our source…

Jesus told his disciples

John 14:27 (NASB 95)

27 Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.

So as we see this first truth about Peace, the Bible says that it is more than just a lack of conflict. We see that in the world as well.

Consider the Korean War that started in 1950. The fighting lasted for 3 years before the armistice was signed, prisoners were exchanged and the weapons went silent, but there was no peace. The armistice is better than continued fighting, but we should not mistake that for true peace.

Maybe that is what your Christmas Family gathering might looks like. There used to be huge arguments between family members. Then brothers who have fought for years, or maybe Mom and Dad who are separated by divorce come to an agreement to suspend the fighting simply to allow the gathering and exchange of gifts that will be later criticized in the privacy of your home. There may not be fighting, but everyone is walking on eggshells. Don’t bring up what happened last year, don’t discuss why we haven’t gathered for any other occasions…

Sound peaceful? No, I don’t think so either because it only addresses the active fighting between family members. The conflict is not really gone, and it never really will be until we understand the second truth to help us rejoice in the gift of peace…

We must…

II. Acknowledge that all of our conflict comes from our war with God.

I know that we are all here on Christmas Eve morning and we may even have guests and family who are new and that what we are talking about does not feel light and Christmasy. It would be easy to just talk about the peaceful side of peace, but I think that as we walk through it all today, when we come to a close, you will agree with me that the picture of peace is that much more beautiful when we explore it from end to end…

And so we acknowledge that all of our conflict comes from our war with God, even the conflict within us.

We have to acknowledge that we are not the only one present, there are two parties involved, but we also have to acknowledge that the conflict really does start with us because our…

Sin brought conflict with God

Staying with the book of Isaiah, He agrees with the whole of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation helping us to see that our sin is the cause for our conflict with God…

Take a look at how Isaiah started…

Isaiah 1:4 - Alas, sinful nation, people weighed down with iniquity, offspring of evil doers, sons who act corruptly! They have abandoned the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away from him.

To the people of Israel, Isaiah called out their sin as a nation and called them out individually because they had turned away from God, turned away from His teaching, turned away from trusting God.

and our God, our Holy God cannot simply look past our sin, He cannot be in the presence of our sin

Isaiah 59:2 (NASB 95)

2 But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.

God in his patience and love does not respond in this conflict with righteous destruction, as he could have and has at times in history, but rather He has removed his presence and removed his peace from our lives…

Our sin brought conflict with God and our…

Sin brought conflict into their own souls

The consequences of our sin and the impact on our souls is best described by going all the way back to the beginning…

In the garden, there was peace. In the garden, Adam and Eve experience the purest of peace right within their own souls as it says that man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed.

With nothing to hide, they could find peace within their soul…until.

With a heart that doubted God’s goodness and believed that they knew better than God, they chose to disobey. They chose to sin, to bring conflict with God through disobedience and as a result, they lost the peace that was within their own soul

Genesis 3:7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.

The shame in their hearts drove out the peace, the guilt that they felt brought them into conflict with themselves.

This is the same conflict that resides in our souls when we continue to carry the guilt and shame of our own sin.

But the conflict extended further…

Sin brought conflict with creation

We see the consequences of sin in Genesis 3 as God responds telling the woman that “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children.” And to the man he said, “cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.”

We live in a sin cursed world, with sin cursed people and any peace that we might find is limited by the truth of sin’s conflict with creation.

Again, in Isaiah, he described the condition of creation

Isaiah 1:7 (NASB 95)

7 Your land is desolate, Your cities are burned with fire, Your fields—strangers are devouring them in your presence; It is desolation, as overthrown by strangers.

The land on which we live, in Israel, and right here in Lafayette is not at peace because sin brought conflict with creation, but not just with creation…

Sin brought conflict with each other

Again, I could let James speak truth here about the conflicts with each other, but what about Isaiah

After he had said that our iniquities have made a separation with God and that our sins cause God’s face to be hidden from us

He goes on to describe our sins and the impacts on others…Hands defiled with blood, lips speaking falsehood, we seek mischief towards one another

Towards one another, he says that…

Isaiah 59:6b–8 (NASB 95)

6... Their works are works of iniquity, And an act of violence is in their hands. 7 Their feet run to evil, And they hasten to shed innocent blood; Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, Devastation and destruction are in their highways. 8 They do not know the way of peace, And there is no justice in their tracks; They have made their paths crooked, Whoever treads on them does not know peace.

Our sin brings conflict…conflict with God…conflict with ourselves…conflict with creation…and conflict with others…

If we stop here – there is no peace. If that is my Christmas picture, it is a pretty ugly one.

But we cannot ignore the truth that if there was no conflict, there would be no need for Christmas. For Christmas is not a celebration of our righteous lives, but rather a day to rejoice that God sent His only Son to be born of a virgin and to live a sin-free life

A child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us, and He will be called the Prince of Peace

The portrait of the Prince of Peace is all the more beautiful when we see that our conflict with God can be reconciled through Him

And as such, we have a choice…Will you choose to

III. Trust in the Prince of Peace who Makes Peace for you.

If you are here with us today for Christmas and you are living a life that remains in conflict, that you struggle to see any amount of peace in your life, I want you to know that we are thankful that you are here and I want you to know that the Prince of Peace wants to bring peace into your life and he asks for nothing in return…

Or maybe you are here tonight, having placed your trust in Jesus, but you too are struggling to find the peace he is offering…

In both cases, our response needs to be the same, for some it may be the first time, or for others we may need to walk this path over and over, but praise the Lord that we can know that the destination of this journey is peace…

If you want to find this peace, we first begin as we…

Admit that you cannot fix the brokenness yourself.

You cannot find your way back to a place of peace, any peace that depends on you. Without the Prince of Peace, we remain lost in our sin, dead in our transgressions. We can try to figure things out on our own, but we will even deceive ourselves. The prophet Jeremiah proclaims that the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. In other words, on our own our hearts are wicked…none is righteous, no not one.

Can we have peace on our own? Isaiah says No…

Isaiah 48:22 (NASB 95)

22 “There is no peace for the wicked,” says the LORD.

And our wickedness comes from our disobedience

Isaiah 48:18 (NASB 95)

18 “If only you had paid attention to My commandments! Then your well-being would have been like a river, And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.

And our disobedience has consequences –

If we want to find peace, we must admit that we must be reconciled back to God.

If we want peace, it takes more than just stopping the thoughts, words and actions that are placing us in conflict with God.

If we want peace, our conflict must be made right with God. We must reconcile with God to include paying the penalty that we deserve because of our brokenness

But that payment is to much for me, and it is too much for you…we cannot be reconciled to God on our own…

This is why the Christmas story is so important, because only He can bring peace to a sinful heart.

Will you choose to…

Believe that Jesus is the Prince of Peace AND suffering servant who came to make peace for sinners.

The promise of peace begins at Christmas with His arrival and was celebrated amongst the angels…

Luke 2:13–14 (NASB 95)

13 And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”

Why the celebration – because of who He would be

Isaiah 9:6 (NASB 95)

6 For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

Each of those names would be beautiful and true of the Christ child as he was born humbly in the manger and each of those names would describe the man who Jesus would grow to be and the ways in which He would fulfill these names.

Our Christmas celebration today, should not end in simply adoring the Christ child, but singing Glory to God in the Highest for what was still yet to come…

The Word reveals that Jesus would grow up, increasing in knowledge and stature in the favor of God and men. Through His life, he would experience all that we experience, he would be tempted in every way that we are tempted, and He would choose obedience to His heavenly Father. So that He could be the Lamb of God, perfect and unblemished.

So that He could fulfill the will of the Father, making a way for His children to be reconciled and to find peace in Him.

Our Wonderful Counselor – through His word he revealed the Kingdom of God and our need for repentance, He would reveal the path leading back to the Father and a place of peace, the path to reconcile our conflict…He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

The people of Israel were watching for a mighty king to kick out the Romans. But our Mighty God came to do far more. He came to heal the sick and lame and to make the blind see…

Matthew 8:17 (NASB 95)

17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: “HE HIMSELF TOOK OUR INFIRMITIES AND CARRIED AWAY OUR DISEASES.”

And He also came humbly, peacefully to do what we could not do for ourselves…

1 Peter 2:23–24 (NASB 95)

Isaiah 53:4–5 (NASB 95)

4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being [peace] fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.

Folks it is hard to imagine on Christmas Eve that we could hear these truths and not rejoice over the coming of the Prince of Peace. But we cannot ignore that on that day some 200 years ago, the people knew all that we know from the Old testament and yet they looked upon the Prince God’s Wrath…but He was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our sins. The rebuke we deserve, He took for us. He stepped into our conflict, reconciling us to himself so that we might

Enjoy peace with God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ

Is there still conflict in your life today, conflict within your heart…conflict with this world, conflict with those you might call family and friends…

When you are ready…ready to acknowledge that the conflict comes from within you, that it comes from the unrighteousness of your heart

You can have peace.

Romans 10:9-11 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.”

It is by Faith alone in Jesus Christ that we are saved

And it is by faith alone in Jesus Christ that we might find peace

Romans 5:1 (NASB 95)

1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

And this is the peace that I pray we might all find this Christmas, a peace that is lasting, an eternal peace.

May the Lord bless you and keep you, may the Prince of Peace shine upon you.