The Prince of Peace

The Prince of Peace By Rev. Res Spears One of the things I have noticed about myself as I grow older is that I have much more of an interest in history than I ever did as a young man. In high school, I absolutely hated history. It seemed like such a boring recounting of dates and names that were supposed to connect to one another but just seemed like so many more things we had to memorize to pass the tests. But as I have grown older, I have begun to see the connections, and now if you were to look through my Netflix watching history, you'd see it divided into pretty much equal parts history and science fiction. The best way I can come up with to explain that is that I live in the present, so when I'm looking for something to take my mind off the present I tend to look to the past and the science-fiction future. Recently I concluded a series on some of the greatest events of World War II. I am fascinated by the great acts of heroism that rolled back the tide of fascism in Europe and Asia and by the occasional miraculous turns of weather and circumstance that aided the Allies in overcoming the scourge of Hitler and Tojo. And then, when Germany and then Japan surrendered and the troops began coming back home, the nations of the globe said something they'd said before: "Never again." On the heels of World War II, the United Nations formed as a bulwark against aggression and war. So, tell me: How well has that worked out for us? We've talked about this before, but there has never been a time in recorded history when there weren't wars raging in some place around the world. Some would say that we're just not wired for peace, but I think they are wrong. Think about it: Way back in the Garden of Eden, God had made this place that He described as what? Good! In fact, as He prepared to rest after six days of creation, He looked and "saw all that He had made, and behold, it was VERY good." Adam and Eve had everything they needed in the Garden. They were in the presence of God there, and He spoke with them and walked with them. This was a place of perfect peace - in the Old Testament, the word is shalom, and it referred to much more than just the absence of conflict. Shalom describes "completeness," "soundness," or harmony of relationships. In fact, the concept is so complex that it is translated as many as 70 different ways in the NIV alone. At its base, though, shalom describes a harmonious relationship with God. Shalom, in the words of one author means "universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight - a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom He delights." [Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995), 10] When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, they broke shalom - they broke the peace that had existed between themselves and God. And once that peace was broken, they soon found that the peace was broken between themselves, as well. It is no coincidence that just one generation later, we see the first murder taking place, as Cain killed his brother, Abel. We were watching television at home this week, and a commercial came on for a presidential candidate who was giving his thoughts on how we can "save the world." He didn't put it this way, but the idea is that we can somehow restore shalom. Throughout history, when we haven't been killing one another, we've been trying to restore peace, and often even that effort has come at the expense of many lives. Even as we try to bring peace, we bring suffering and death. There's a reason for this: We were made in the image of the God of shalom, but peace without Him is impossible. That's what made the promise that you see on the front of today's bulletin so fantastic. Isaiah 9:6 NASB95 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. A prince, as you know, is the son of a king. And so this promised son would be the Son of the King of Peace. As the nation of Judah fell further into apostasy, and as it began to suffer under the incursions of enemies that would ultimately destroy it and take its people into captivity, God was giving them hope through the prophet Isaiah that one day, peace would reign on earth, that shalom would return. Now, you should understand that the first 39 chapters of Isaiah are about condemnation and judgment of Judah and Israel for their idolatry and lack of faith in God, while the last 27 chapters are about the redemption and restoration that God ultimately will bring for the Jewish people and for the world. But even within the chapters on condemnation, God calls His people to repentance, and He repeatedly reminds them that He is faithful and gracious. He continues to give them hope, even amid the judgment warnings. You see, God has always been about His work of restoration, even in the moments after Adam and Even sinned. Speaking to the serpent and to Adam and Eve in the aftermath of their disobedience, God was already suggesting that He would one day restore things to the way they were supposed to be. Genesis 3:15 NIV And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." This verse is called the protevangelium, and it is the first messianic prophecy in Scripture. It pictures the battle between Eve's seed - God's only Son, Jesus Christ - and Satan, and God assures everyone here that Christ will have the victory over Satan, even though Satan would score a blow. So this promise in Isaiah of a Child to be born and a Son to be given - this promise of a Prince of Peace - is simply a continuation of what God had been promising since the Garden of Eden. Shalom will be restored. But WE cannot completely restore it, no matter how we might try. It will be the Prince of Peace who brings complete peace to the world. That's why we did not include "peace" as one of our themes for the Advent season, even though many churches do so. There was a very real sense in which peace did not exist in the world until Jesus was born of the virgin Mary and laid in that manger in Bethlehem. But today, as we move out of our Advent season and into a new year, I want to bear down on this picture of shalom. Turn with me, please to Isaiah, chapter 11, and let's see what the Holy Spirit says about peace through the prophet Isaiah. Read Isa 11:1-10 Now, you know, of course, that the shoot from the stem of Jesse and the fruit from the branch of his roots is Jesus. Jesse was the father of David, whom God had promised would himself father a line of kings that would culminate in one whose kingdom would be eternal. 2 Samuel 7:13 NASB95 "He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. This shoot from Jesse's stem would be special, indeed, according to Isaiah's prophecy. SLIDE Look at verse 2 of this chapter, and note the times the word "spirit" appears here. We see the "Spirit of the Lord," the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, the spirit of counsel, the spirit of strength, the spirit of knowledge and the spirit of the fear of the Lord. Those seven spirits suggest that this Son would be filled with the fullness of the Holy Spirit, which we can certainly see in the life of Jesus. The next three verses tell us a bit about what sort of character would come about by this complete filling of the Spirit. Isaiah 11:3 NASB95 And He will delight in the fear of the LORD, And He will not judge by what His eyes see, Nor make a decision by what His ears hear; He will delight in reverence of God. He will judge not on outward appearances but on the heart. By walking so closely with God and being completely filled with the fullness of the Holy Spirit, Jesus was able to see beyond the superficial religiosity of the Pharisees of His time into the filthy tombs of their hearts. He still does that today. Jesus is not impressed with religious-sounding talk, and He's not impressed by the masks we wear as we come into this place. Jesus sees your very heart. Are you here because you have to be, or because you think it looks good for you to be here or because you think you're expected to be here? If so, then the truth is that you might as well not be here. Jesus wants you in His church because you want to be changed, because you want to serve Him, because you want to become more LIKE Him. And what is He like? Isaiah 11:4 NASB95 But with righteousness He will judge the poor, And decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth; And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked. Jesus is righteous. For Him, that means He is perfectly morally good. When applied to us, we must know that there is no way we can meet that standard of righteousness. It is because we cannot ever through our own work be righteous before a perfectly righteous God that Jesus gave His life for us. His crucifixion, His death, His resurrection and His ascension into heaven give those who would put their faith in Him and follow Him the opportunity to take HIS righteousness on themselves. Our righteousness is imputed to us by God in light of His Son's sacrifice on that cross. Nonetheless, we who follow Jesus are still called to BE righteous. We are called, like Him, to care for the poor and afflicted. We are called to tell them about Him. We are called to go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and we are called to teach them His commandments. This should be Job One for Christians, because we are the ones who are supposed to understand what's at stake. What's at stake is eternal judgment, and there is no greater selfishness than the selfishness that says "I'm saved from it, and that's good enough for me." Jesus Christ will judge the earth, and those who are lost will face an eternity in hell. This will be a righteous judgment - everything Jesus does is done in righteousness - but it is a judgment that we should be doing everything we can do to help others avoid, because we should recognize how much we deserve it ourselves. Now, compare that eternal judgment with the eternal peace that Isaiah describes in the second half of this passage. Isaiah 11:6 NASB95 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. Isaiah 11:7 NASB95 Also the cow and the bear will graze, Their young will lie down together, And the lion will eat straw like the ox. Isaiah 11:8 NASB95 The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper's den. The picture we have here is that of the new heavens and the new earth that are brought down after Christ's final victory over Satan. And what we see is that Jesus will restore shalom completely. In the Garden of Eden, there was no fear, because there was perfect peace. Natural needs were satisfied, and natural gifts were fruitfully employed, and there was a state of joyful wonder among all of God's creatures. This is the way things were supposed to be, and this is the way things will be once again on that glorious day. There will be no more wars nor rumors of wars. There will be no more strife or anger or bitterness or backbiting. We will all have one agenda. And what will that agenda be? Well, it will be what it SHOULD be today. Isaiah 11:9 NASB95 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. The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord. That's the agenda we're given as followers of Christ. We are to grow in the knowledge of Him, and as we grow in the knowledge of Him who is the exact representation of His Father, then we grow in the knowledge of the Father. And as we grow in the knowledge of the Son and the Father through the working of the Holy Spirit, we grow closer to our brothers and sisters in Christ. We grow in love, in unity and in sacrifice toward one another. At least, that's the way it is supposed to be. We all know, of course, that it really hasn't worked out that way, has it? Why not? I think we see the answer to that question in verse 10. Isaiah 11:10 NASB95 Then in that day The nations will resort to the root of Jesse, Who will stand as a signal for the peoples; And His resting place will be glorious. When he writes here that "the nations will resort to the root of Jesse," what Isaiah is telling us is that they will seek Jesus. In fact, the Hebrew word here can mean "demand" or "require." So the idea is that they will see that Jesus Christ is absolutely essential to the restoration and keeping of shalom. They will require themselves to abide in Him. Jesus said quite a lot about abiding in Him, and He, too, made the connection between abiding and peace. In John's account of the teaching at the Last Supper, you will recall that Jesus spoke about being the true vine and that His followers are the branches. Just previous to saying that, however, He talked about keeping His commandments - to love God and to love one another - and he promised the disciples that He would send the Holy Spirit as a helper. John 14:20 NASB95 "In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. This is a taste of the kind of peace - the shalom - that we will experience in heaven. But I want you to notice what He says just a few sentences later, because it's shocking in light of what the apostles would experience. John 14:27 NASB95 "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. Remember that the very next day Jesus would be crucified, and these 11 men would have reason to expect that they were next on the hit list of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. Remember that, according to church tradition, all of them but John would die violent deaths as a result of preaching the gospel. Remember that not so long before this, they had been on a boat in the midst of a storm that threatened to send them to the bottom of the Sea of Galilee. What made the difference then? What finally calmed the storm? What made the difference - what finally calmed the storm - was Jesus' presence on the boat. They had struggled against the wind and the waves for hours, but when He got on the boat, everything was calm. You see, it is Jesus Christ who brings peace. And here in His great time of teaching at the Last Supper, He reminds His disciples that they can have peace because of His presence in their lives. And even after His return to the Father, He would be present with them through the Holy Spirit. And, since His disciples - much like us - were often so slow on the uptake, He tells them once again before praying for them. John 16:32 NASB95 "Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. John 16:33 NASB95 "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world." They would be scattered - indeed, most of them would suffer and die for their faith - but they could have peace, but only insofar as they would abide in Him. Friends, let me ask you this today: Do you have peace? If you have never made a decision to follow Jesus Christ - to put your faith in His sacrifice on the cross as the only way for your sins to be forgiven and to believe that as the Son of God He rose from death and ascended to heaven to prepare a place for those who believe in Him - if you have never made that decision, then true peace, the peace that passeth all understanding, probably sounds like a fairy tale. Frankly, I don't think even that presidential candidate I told you about earlier believes we can bring about perfect peace on earth. Even the most idealistic non-believers figure there will always be conflict of some sort. If you have never made the decision to follow Christ, then your definition of peace is likely to be a very narrow one that builds itself upon the shaky foundation of man's faithfulness. But you can choose today to open yourself to a different kind of peace - peace that is not as the world gives but as the Prince of Peace gives. You can choose to turn your faith from yourself and put your faith in Jesus, this Wonderful Counselor, this Mighty God, this Eternal Father, this Prince of Peace. If you do this and you are sincere about it, I promise you that you will be changed. Your outlook will be changed. You will find yourself with hope and joy and love that you never could have imagined, even in the midst of a broken world, even in the midst of your own suffering. If you have already followed Jesus Christ in faith, then I want you to remember His promise - one day "Your grief will be turned to joy" (John 16:20). In the world, we will have tribulation, but He has overcome the world. Our faithful God has promised that He will make all things new - that He will restore the shalom that was broken in the Garden and that we break every day through our own sins. Because of His faithfulness, we who follow Jesus have hope - a confident knowledge - that one day everything will be the way it was always supposed to be. That hope gives us a joy that does not depend on our circumstances. And that joy should spur us to demonstrate a version of the sacrificial love that God has shown for us through His Son. And that love creates a partial peace - a picture of the shalom that will one day be completely restored by the Prince of Peace Himself. One day, He's coming, O glorious day! If you are a believer, then I want to encourage you this week to live every minute as if you believe this with all your heart. Live as if what you believe should affect what you do. Live as those with a hope that fills them with a joy that spills out into a love that creates shalom. This is what you were made for. This is how it was always supposed to be. Page . Exported from Logos Bible Software, 12:05 AM December 29, 2019.