Prince of Peace
Download MP3If you would open in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 9, or if you want to look in your bulletin, it's printed out for you there. Isaiah chapter 9. And before we get started, a lot of things have competed for your attention this week. You know, after Thanksgiving, everybody is wanting you to come to their stores, to read their advertisements. You're just being bombarded with things and your, your mind is fractured.
Joel Brooks:It's going here and there and you're reading so many things. And so I just want us to recognize that what we're about to read is different than anything else. Your eyes have, have looked at or things the world has tried to draw your attention to. What we are looking at is the word of God. And so take just a moment.
Joel Brooks:I want to give you a gift that probably you have not had this week and that's a gift of silence. And so just take a moment, quiet your heart before the Lord before we read. Hear these words from the prophet Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6. For to us a child is born, To us a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:God, we pray that you would honor the reading of your word, and even now it would begin seeping into our hearts working its change through the power of your spirit. God, I pray that my words right now would blow fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, lord. But your words would remain and they would transform us. And we pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:Besides the, the greeting or the phrase Merry Christmas, or perhaps Christmas Sale, the, the slogan or the phrase that people most think of when they think of Christmas is peace on earth. Peace on earth. We celebrate the day that the Prince of Peace came to this world. That's what Christmas is all about. Now when I hear the word peace, I have this image that that just pops in my head.
Joel Brooks:And it's something like my my family sitting around a cozy fire wearing pajamas, sipping on some warm cocoa, playing games by the fire and everything just kind of being peaceful. That's, that's the image I have of peace. And let me tell you, last night the Brooks family achieved that. Last night was, we were the postcard of peace, if you will. Early in the morning, we got up and we went to beaver tree farm, and we we got our tree.
Joel Brooks:We hunted down our tree, and we all took turns sawing it down, brought it back home. And that evening, we decorated the tree, and we had Christmas music going on. We had our hot cocoa. We were wearing our pajamas. It was just this great evening of of of putting up all the ornaments.
Joel Brooks:And if you had taken a postcard, a picture, you'd have said that that is the epitome of peace. The problem with that is we also had whining. We also had complaining. We also had, this hot chocolate is way too hot. I'm not drinking it.
Joel Brooks:We also had spankings. We also had Lauren and I, being short with one another about which ornaments to put where. We we had all this stuff, and so this was going on along with the postcard of peace. Perhaps you can relate to that or perhaps you think the Brooks are just exceptionally evil people. There's there's probably a mixture of both there.
Joel Brooks:What what does it mean, peace on earth? And how exactly is Jesus the Prince of Peace? When the angels came to declare to the shepherds what what we had heard read earlier, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace on peace to among whom he is pleased. What exactly were they declaring when they said that? Were they declaring at this moment there is an end to war.
Joel Brooks:Violence will be no more. There will no longer be conflict because the peace child is coming. Is that what they were declaring? That's usually what we think of when we think of peace. Except all you have to do is look at last 2000 years and you realize that it is there's been horrific violence, unending wars.
Joel Brooks:Now all I have to do is listen to the words of Jesus in Matthew 10 when he says, I tell you I did not come to bring peace. I tell you I did not come to bring peace. I came to bring a sword. You don't see that on many Christmas ornaments when you're putting them on the tree. Jesus came to bring a sword.
Joel Brooks:No. It's peace on earth. But but but what is that? What does that mean? Peace on earth.
Joel Brooks:Well, first off, you have to realize peace only needs to be declared. Peace only needs to be brought to a people who are at war. There's already peace. It doesn't need to be declared to you. It doesn't need to be brought.
Joel Brooks:So there is a war going on. Peace needed to be brought to humanity. Not primarily because there was fighting with one another, there was fighting with God. Humanity was against God. Paul makes us abundantly clear in Romans 5, when he says that while we were still weak, Christ died for the ungodly.
Joel Brooks:While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. So before Jesus came, apart from Jesus, I should say, apart from him, we were we were weak, ungodly, sinners, enemies of God. We were not like Switzerland, you know, some neutral country like, okay, we just we we refuse to have a position here. No.
Joel Brooks:We made our position clear and we were at war with our creator. Now this is opposed to everything else in creation, which is at perfect peace with God. We we are the only creatures that rebelled and went to war against our creator. You look at a tree, a tree is not rebelling against the Lord. A tree is doing exactly what God created a tree to do.
Joel Brooks:It is. It's growing. It's it's bearing fruit. It's providing shade, and it does it all to the glory of God. A deer is doing exactly what what the Lord created a deer to do.
Joel Brooks:It's it's running, it's grazing, it's doing all those things to the glory of God. Birds are doing what they were created to do. They're they're flying, they're chirping and singing. They're doing that all to the glory of God. But humanity, People decided to rebel against their creator.
Joel Brooks:We were created to enjoy God and glorify him forever. And instead, we wanted to enjoy ourselves and to glorify ourselves forever. And so we parted from what we are created to do. Thus declaring war on our creator. And this is what Christmas is about.
Joel Brooks:That even though we have declared war against God, God sent the peace child. He sent the ambassador. He sent his own son to come and to bring peace. And he lived the perfect life we should have lived, died the death we should have died, and then he rose victorious from the grave. And so all of that hostility, all of that anger, and that wrath that God was gonna pour out on his enemies in this war, poured out on his son, Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And it has brought us peace. Peace. And now God is no longer our enemy. He's our friend. This is what the Bible calls peace with God.
Joel Brooks:Peace with God. And you need to make a distinction with another phrase, which is peace of God. First, we get the peace with God, meaning we're we're no longer at war with God. And once we get the peace with God, then God gives the peace of God upon us. Because there's a problem.
Joel Brooks:Once once God becomes our friend, once, I guess, we switch allegiances and we become his ally, we gain all new enemies. You know, when when God was our enemy, he was a friendly enemy. He was a kind enemy. He reached out to us. He had compassion on us.
Joel Brooks:He was always trying to bring us in. But God's enemies are not like that. And now that God has brought us to his side, made us his friend, made us his allies, we now inherit his enemies and they're ruthless. But God says, now that you have peace with me, in this battle, I will give you my peace. The peace of God will rest upon you during this.
Joel Brooks:It's the peace of God that I I think I wrestle with most in my life. I bet this is where most of us struggle with, as well because our lives usually don't resemble peace. Perhaps we need to think of peace differently. We we tend to think of peace circumstantially. Peace comes when you have financial stability.
Joel Brooks:It comes when you're working less hours. It comes when your kids are well behaved. Shoot. You know, at our house, peace peace is a clean kitchen. You know, peace peace is a tidy home in in an hour of quiet.
Joel Brooks:And so circumstantial peace is what is typically what we think of, you know, it's a paid vacation. It's it's being able to to lie in a hammock on an afternoon or to watch a football game without being interrupted. That that's peace, But that's not what the Bible defines as peace. This is not the peace of God. Jesus told his disciples in John 1527, he said, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.
Joel Brooks:Not as the world gives do I give to you. I mean, those are profound words. I give you now peace, but it's unlike any peace you've ever experienced. It's not how you visualize peace. It's not how you think peace should come to you.
Joel Brooks:It's in no way a circumstantial peace. That's not what I give. We see this in the life of Jesus. I mean, we read from Isaiah 9 that calls Jesus the Prince of Peace. The Prince of Peace.
Joel Brooks:Yet, what exactly about Jesus' life was peaceful? I mean, when when you just kind of walk through his life, what exactly was peaceful? Was his let's look at the beginning of his life. Was his birth peaceful? Jesus was born to a unwed mother who had to travel a long distance.
Joel Brooks:And even though she was due any day, she had to, you know, get on the donkey and travel. There was no room for her, no hospital, no place for her to have Jesus, so she had to go into a barn. Jesus is born into a barn, and he is put in a trough. There's nothing peaceful about the way he was he was born. I mean, now, I mean, we have suites at hospitals.
Joel Brooks:I mean, it's like luxury. I mean, last time Lauren had a baby, when we had, when she had a baby, I was her support. When we had Georgia, we didn't wanna leave. It was vacation. I mean, you got all your cable TV, Law and Order reruns, you know, you just we could just sit there and be waited on hand and foot.
Joel Brooks:That's what having a baby is like. Not being born in a barn, being put in a trough. We get stressed out because we cannot pick our right nursery colors, because we can't afford the latest luxury stroller. The Prince of Peace was put in a trough. Things were anxious over.
Joel Brooks:Jesus was born to dirt poor parents. When he grew up, he had to work hard. And work very hard. Joseph, his father died at some point. We're not sure when, but Jesus being the eldest son would have taken the head of the family.
Joel Brooks:So now he's taking care of a grieving widow, grieving mother. He's having to provide for his younger brothers. That's not a peaceful situation. Yet, that was his lot. Perhaps when he got old enough to to go to ministry, may maybe when his brothers were old enough to take care of the family and and he could leave, he launched out into his ministry, but things did not get more peaceful.
Joel Brooks:He was homeless. He wandered around. He was completely dependent upon other people, giving him food, giving him shelter. He didn't have anybody who understood him. His own family wanted him put in an institution.
Joel Brooks:Stressful life. Crazy life. Yet he's the Prince of Peace. It's amazing. And when you look at Jesus, he had no creature comforts.
Joel Brooks:He had no possessions to call his own. His workload was greater than any of yours. Yet the peace of God reigned. You know, it's it's remarkable. You just read through the gospels and, everybody's pushing up against Jesus saying, Hey, we want you to do this, do that, do this, and you gotta be here.
Joel Brooks:You got, and Jesus has never rushed. You ever notice that you read through the Gospels? They're like, hey, you gotta come, you know, your your friends gonna die. He's like, yeah. He waits 3 days.
Joel Brooks:Waits waits till Lazarus is already dead, and then he goes. He's never rushed. The father's like, please you gotta come. You gotta you gotta heal my girl. She's gonna die any moment.
Joel Brooks:He says, yeah. And he walks in and he takes time to talk with a hemorrhaging woman. Has a has a little conversation with her and the the father's like, my girl's dying. Jesus was never rushed. He's never stressed, never anxious, never fearful.
Joel Brooks:He was the prince of peace. He was at peace with God, and so the peace of God rested on him despite any circumstance. The only time, the only time Jesus was ever anxious, and this tells us so much about what it means to have the peace of God. The only time Jesus was ever anxious, ever fearful, ever stressed was in the Garden of Gethsemane. It's the only time.
Joel Brooks:And Jesus was so just so stressed, so anxious. He had such a panic attack, if you will. His body kind of goes into shock. His capillaries begin busting. He actually starts sweating drops of blood in this moment.
Joel Brooks:And so anxiety overtook him in a way that we we cannot imagine. He's no longer the prince of peace here. He is he's the prince of worry. He's the prince of anxiety. Why?
Joel Brooks:It's because at that moment, he didn't feel any peace with God. That moment he felt at war. At that moment, him who knew no sin became sin. And now with his father waging war against him and the full wrath of God about to be poured on him at the cross, there is no peace. He is distressed beyond belief.
Joel Brooks:And so when we look at Jesus, we see so much about what does it mean to have peace. The key is peace with God gives us the peace of God in everything. Listen, if, if you're a Christian, the biggest questions in life are answered for you. If you're a Christian, the biggest answers in life. If you know what one of the biggest questions out there is, what what is my purpose in life?
Joel Brooks:Why am I here? Answered, it's it's to enjoy God, to glorify him forever. Boom. You got your answer. Next big big question, what happens when I die?
Joel Brooks:Because we're all gonna die. What what's gonna happen? Well, you're gonna go be with Jesus and be in his joyful presence forever. Question answered. Do you realize people would kill to have the answers to those questions?
Joel Brooks:Many people go through all of life wondering why am I here? What is my purpose? How can my life have any meaning? Death is approaching me. What's going to happen when I die?
Joel Brooks:And they go through all of life so anxious, but the biggest questions, the biggest anxieties in life have been taken care of. The huge issues are settled. And so when you when you see those huge issues settled, then when you start thinking of things like, where am I going to live? What color am I gonna paint the nursery? Yeah.
Joel Brooks:Kind of gives you a little perspective, doesn't it? You begin not feeling so anxious. Now it's not that choosing a place to live or choosing paint colors or stuff like that is not not important. Just compare with the huge issues of life, they're not a big deal. You know, we saw this in our study of acts, a number of weeks ago.
Joel Brooks:We're taking a break, going through acts for our Advent season. But if you want to flip, flip way forward to acts chapter 9, flip to acts chapter 9. We'll look at verse 29. And just to set the, the stage here, and speaking of stage, I'm going to move over here because this thing is squeaking like mad. Here we go.
Joel Brooks:This passage comes at a time of intense persecution for the Christians. They are having their homes taken away from them. They're, they're being arrested. Some are being tortured and killed. The loved ones are being stripped or taken out of their homes from their families.
Joel Brooks:This is, this is a bad time to be a Christian. Verse 29, and he spoke, that's Paul, and Paul spoke and disputed against the Hellenists, but they were seeking to kill him. When the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace. And was being built up and walking in the fear of the Lord and then the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.
Joel Brooks:Now this is the first time we have the word peace in the book of Acts. It didn't come at Pentecost. It didn't come in any of the the sermons. When it comes is their time of intense persecution, they're like, and they were all at peace. They had comfort.
Joel Brooks:Peace and comfort despite circumstances for God's church. Alright. Let's get practical. How how does that become a reality in our lives? How when we leave these doors here, how does the peace of God become a reality in our life?
Joel Brooks:And I want us to look at 2 scriptures. Turn to Philippians chapter 4. Philippians chapter 4. This is one of the famous chapters in the Bible. Paul is writing this letter from prison.
Joel Brooks:We'll begin reading in verse 4. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be made known to everyone. The Lord is at hand.
Joel Brooks:Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. All right, so Paul's in prison. First thing he writes is rejoice. Kind of an absurd command, like you can tell somebody to have an emotion.
Joel Brooks:You, be joyful. You know, but but he doesn't. We're gonna look at that next week when we look at joy for our 3rd week of Advent. But after this, his next command is don't be anxious about anything. I'll confess.
Joel Brooks:I'm I'm not a big worrier. Maybe I should, you know, maybe it's because I just don't have the intelligence to think that far ahead. And so so I can't really worry about those things. But but I'm not a big worrier, but even I have kind of a problem when I hit a verse like this because it says, do not be anxious about anything. And there's no wiggle room.
Joel Brooks:I mean, there there's no, like, exception clause there that you could kind of pull out. Yeah, but what about this god? No. It's like, you, you cannot be anxious about anything, not one area of your life where you allow to be anxious over. And so when it, when that hits me, I just kind of crumble.
Joel Brooks:And there's a number of reasons for that. For 1, if you worry, worrying is nothing more than atheism. That's all it is. Functionally, it's it's just atheism, because you're worrying because you you refuse to believe that there's a God in control of your life. And so you're actually functioning like an atheist.
Joel Brooks:So next time you worry, just just fess up to it. Hey, I'm an atheist at this moment. I'm having a hard time believing in a God out there taking care of me. The problem is, we all worry. You can try to avoid it, but, but worry is going to come to you.
Joel Brooks:Sometimes it's going to come in big waves to you. And what Paul is commanding us to do here is what do you do when worry first comes? When, when you, when you hear the door knock and you open and there's anxiousness, there's worry at your doorstep. What do you do in that first moment when it arises? This is what Paul is telling us to do.
Joel Brooks:When anxiety first hits, what do you do? Paul says pray and humbly ask for help. That's supplication. Supplication means to humbly ask for help. So we go to God with our prayer request.
Joel Brooks:And then the next part is the key to the passage. It says that we are to make our request with Thanksgiving or with Thanksgiving, make your request to God. So with Thanksgiving, this doesn't really make sense at first because this is how we operate. We ask somebody for something, they give it to us, and then we say, thank you. Natalie, will you pass the salt?
Joel Brooks:Here you go, dad. Thank you. That that's that's a normal transaction. But here it says, we make our request with thanksgiving. So as we ask God, God, I need help.
Joel Brooks:God, I need this. Thank you. Before we ever get a thing. So so we are thanking the giver before we ever get a gift. And that's the key to getting rid of anxiety because the key to getting rid of anxiety is not the answer that God gives, it's the person he is.
Joel Brooks:And we recognize like, God whatever you give, it's gonna be good for me, whatever you give. And so I'm thanking you before you ever give anything, because I know you were good. How can you be stressed when you know you have such a good God? There's so much of our anxiety comes from not knowing. We we we don't know what tomorrow holds.
Joel Brooks:We we don't know what the test results are going to reveal. We don't know if our spouse is still going to care for us, you know, after these things. We don't know. But here we do know, every time we come before God, that he is good and he will give us exactly what we need. It might not be what we want, but it'll be what we need.
Joel Brooks:And so we can say, thank you God for whatever you give. And when we do this, Paul says, when you do this, it says, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Next passage, turn to Ephesians chapter 6. So go back one book. I don't know how you memorize Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians.
Joel Brooks:I did General Electric Power Company. Ephesians chapter 6, another famous chapter. This is when Paul talks about putting on the full armor of God and he talks about the gospel of peace. It's it's a strange place. We're gonna talk about peace in the chapter that's all about armor and fighting.
Joel Brooks:But remember, when we were reconciled to God, when we have peace with God, and he is now our friend, we inherited all new enemies. And so we're in a battle and now we need the peace of God as we're in this battle. And Paul is saying, you need to stand firm against your adversary, and this is how he got to put on the armor. And he starts talking through this. Let's begin in verse 12.
Joel Brooks:For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. Just stop right there. That's that's hilarious. I mean, Paul is writing this. I mean, you almost wanna say, Paul, who gave you the black eye?
Joel Brooks:You know? Where where did all the scars on your back come from? So who exactly arrested you? Who threw you in prison? Who argues with you every day?
Joel Brooks:It's flesh and blood, Paul. He says, no. That's the symptom of what's happening. That's not the actual war. Don't get stressed over this, over that, over these little circumstantial things because that's not really what's going on.
Joel Brooks:Look behind it. There is a spiritual war. That's what I want you to fight against. You're not wrestling against the people, all those circumstances. Man, it's gonna take forever to get through this fight.
Joel Brooks:If I can't even read the first line. All right, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. Alright.
Joel Brooks:So Paul is saying, you got to put on armor. And when he gets to the gospel of peace though, he tells you to put on something, he tells you to put this on in a way different than everything else. You would expect him to say the shoes of the gospel of peace, but he doesn't. He doesn't say that. Other places he says this.
Joel Brooks:He goes, put on the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit. You would think the shoes of the gospel of peace, but he doesn't say that. This is what he does say. He says, put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. You don't actually put on the gospel of peace, you're to put on readiness of the gospel of peace, given by the gospel of peace.
Joel Brooks:So so so why the distinction there? What what's really going on? What Paul is saying here is in order to stand firm, your adversary is attacking you. In order to stand firm, you've got to be ready because he's going to hit you when he least expect it. He's going to hit you from all angles.
Joel Brooks:It might be your job, it might be your spouse, it might be just just general depression. He's gonna hit you. You've got to always be ready, And so what you need to put on is readiness that comes from reminding yourself of the gospel of peace. And so we remind ourselves constantly of the gospel, that our big issues in life are settled. That we are no longer at war with God, and as we're reminding ourselves, and reminding of ourselves, that whatever comes our way, whatever sickness comes to our children, whatever family tragedy hits, whatever financial crisis hits, we're ready.
Joel Brooks:We're prepared. The gospel has made us ready. That's that's what Paul's talking about here. When he says, we're to put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. You know, I was, about a year ago, I went to Indonesia and I was with a group of other pastors.
Joel Brooks:I I was the the little teeny fish among all the real big big fish. It was it was I think the neck the pastor of the next smallest church, his congregation was like 35100 or something like that. And I got to listen to one of the pastor there. We're we're preaching or teaching Indonesian pastors. So you've got all these Indonesian pastors and Indonesian missionaries.
Joel Brooks:They're gathered around. And so this pastor gets up and he preaches for 8 hours. He he was one of the guys on our our trip for 8 hours, preached. And he was he was going through the life of Jericho or the life of, sorry, he's going through Joshua and he's talking about Jericho and, he never mentioned Jesus. 8 hours never mentioned Jesus.
Joel Brooks:I was about to pull my hair out. Looking back, if I've been obedient, I should have got up the chair and just knocked him out. But I'm confessing. I sinned. I sinned.
Joel Brooks:And I just sat there and I just, I just listened. As he was saying this and telling these pastors, you know, what is, what's the walls of Jericho in your life? Is it drugs? You know? And, you know, is it, is it materialism?
Joel Brooks:And I'm like, they've given up everything. They're in Indonesia serving as missionaries. You No. It's not materialism. But but but the the the point, the final driving home point, this is so therapeutic for me to just say all this, is this pastor he got up and he said he's talking about setting up an altar, setting up a stone of remembrance, And he said, how can we be assured that God is for us?
Joel Brooks:How? How can we be assured? How can we remind ourselves that God loves us? And I'm thinking, finally we get to Jesus. And he's cued the slideshow and he said, this is a picture of my church 5 years ago, and it was half empty.
Joel Brooks:He He said, cute it again. Showed it. Picture of his church full. And he said, when I need to remind myself how much God loves me, all I have to do is look at these two pictures, And I know that God is with me. And I wanted to die when he was saying that.
Joel Brooks:To these people who have served and maybe gone years without a single conversion, you're gonna go home feeling such condemnation and guilt. Like, no, you want to know why why Jesus loves you? How God loves you? Look at the cross. And we gotta remind ourselves over and over again that we were at war with God, but at the cross he has given us peace, and I can know that he loves me.
Joel Brooks:And so whenever some some stressful situation, whenever some sickness, some job insecurity, whenever I open the door and there is worry, and I pray and I could say, thank you God, because I know you love me. You love me. And I never have to be in doubt of that because all I have to do is look at the cross. That is that's our rock. That's why we don't have to worry about anything, because the prince of peace has come.
Joel Brooks:And we have peace with God, and now the peace of God should define our lives. Pray with me. God, there's so much there. Forgive me of any areas I made muddy that should have been clear. I feel like we just scratched the surface of your truth.
Joel Brooks:The Lord, the truth that is there right now, dig it deep into our hearts in this moment. Lord, some of us here just don't believe the gospel. I'm not saying we're not Christians. We we we believe it, but on a practical level, on a day to day, when when we're faced with all these little anxieties and stresses and situations, it somehow leaves us because we're not ready. So I pray we would ready ourselves with the shoes of the gospel of peace.
Joel Brooks:God never let us for a moment, moment, doubt your love and your goodness towards us. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
