On September 2nd, 1945,
how many of you were alive in 1945?
We wanna ask your age, but Jordan, yeah, you're there?
Okay, good.
September 2nd, 1945, official documents of surrender
were signed aboard the USS Missouri by Japanese officials,
which effectively ended World War II.
A world at war would slowly return to relative peace,
albeit short-lived.
For many, peace was desired, peace was achieved,
but this peace was not free, it came at a great cost.
It is estimated that during World War II,
between 50 and 85 million people lost their lives
in the conflict, in the prison camps,
due to starvation and disease as a result of the war.
50 to 85 million people in World War II,
about 2% of the world's population.
Five short years later,
a conflict known as the Korean War broke out,
and five years later after that,
another one known as the Vietnam War.
Now, some believe that humankind
is on a trajectory of betterment,
that we are more civilized and more intelligent
than our forebearers,
and that we are progressing toward a future
free of war, strife, or conflict.
A famous songwriter wrote,
imagine all the people sharing all the world.
But history will not allow us to believe this unchallenged.
The Center for International and Security Studies
in Maryland estimated that 231 million people
were killed or allowed to die
due to human conflict and war in the 20th century.
In fact, historians are united on this fact
that the 20th century, from 1900 to 2000,
100 years in there, was the most devastating century
for conflict-related deaths in recorded history.
We have experienced in our lifetime
the most devastating century
in all of human recorded history,
and it's just a stone's throwback.
Now, have you ever felt a longing for peace in your own life?
More than simply peace from war and conflict,
but I believe that we are all searching for an inner peace
that quiets the restless internal struggle,
that ever-present itch that needs scratching,
the never-ending loop of inner dialogue that says,
this is not enough, this can't be everything there is to life.
The problem is that there are really only two ways
for us to address this.
As one pastor put it, they are given to us
in the wonderful songwriting of Lennon and McCartney.
McCartney.
Paul McCartney.
Lennon and some other guy.
They are this.
We can work it out or help.
I need somebody, not just anybody.
We can try to fix or produce peace ourselves,
or we can admit that we're unable
to produce lasting peace, the kind of peace
that is deep within us that we seek,
and we need someone to make it happen for us.
And so this first way, we can work it out.
We can find the solution.
We can create the peace we so desperately seek.
We must get first in touch
with the deepest parts of ourselves,
and if we can discover the deepest parts of ourselves,
then we can do so.
In 1984, Robert Bellah, an American sociologist
and his colleagues, they published a work
called Habits of the Heart,
Individualism and Commitment in American Life.
This is 40 years ago, and in that book,
the author interviews a woman named Sheila Larson
who describes her spiritual and personal faith like this.
I believe in God.
I'm not a religious fanatic.
I can't remember the last time I went to church
that my faith has carried me a long way.
I like to call it Sheilaism, just my own little voice.
Just my own little voice.
Just Sheila, and Sheila's God, and Sheila's faith,
and Sheila's voice.
It has gotten her far, she says.
But maybe we all have a bit of Sheila inside of us.
Sometimes we say, I know better than God.
But what happens when Sheila fails Sheila?
What happens when she falls short?
Sheila's expressive individualism may allow her
to construct her own faith and practices,
but what about truth?
Because this individual do-it-yourself religion
emphasizes inner feelings and subjective experiences,
and they call it something like my truth or my truths.
But they are nothing more than subjective truths,
and can you truly have peace on that basis?
On what moral foundation can you say one thing is wrong
and another thing is not wrong?
Because you feel like it's wrong?
What if I don't feel that it's wrong
to kick you in the face?
I'm just living my truths.
What about the different cultures and centuries and times
where different things were culturally allowed
or socially acceptable?
Are we calling them morally true and right and good?
Or are we calling them subjective truths
based on an inner feeling that many go in search of
to find peace?
The peace doesn't come from some absence of justice,
but from perfectly executed justice,
and true justice can only be established
if there is a concrete objective moral truth.
We can work it out, leaves us no better off.
Maybe if we could separate from everyone else
and go up onto a hilltop somewhere all alone,
we might find a level of tranquility,
but the problem is even there,
we would be constantly faced
with the inconsistencies of our own self.
Can anyone relate to the inconsistencies of your own self?
How you feel today may not be how you feel tomorrow.
And so we can work it out or the other option is help.
I need somebody, not just anybody.
The other way is that I must come to the end of myself
and cry out for help to somebody who can actually help.
We need a prince of peace.
Our scripture this morning comes out of Isaiah chapter nine.
We've been studying verse six,
but I'm gonna read it in context with that which is around it.
Isaiah chapter nine, beginning in verse two,
it'll be up on the board if you wanna follow along.
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.
A light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness.
You have enlarged the nation and increased its joy.
The people have rejoiced before you
as they rejoice at harvest time
and as they rejoice when dividing spoils.
For you have shattered their oppressive yoke
and the rod on their shoulders,
the staff of their oppressor,
just as you did on the day of Midian.
For as you have broken the yoke,
our children will be born again.
For every trampling boot of battle
and the bloodied garments of war
will be burned as fuel for the fire,
for a child will be born for us,
a son will be given to us,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
The dominion will be vast,
will reign on the throne of David over his kingdom
to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness
from now on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord of armies will accomplish this.
We've been looking at the four titles that are given
to this Messiah King, this royal birth announcement
of the one who would come and establish his kingdom.
And through these titles, we've been exploring
what his kingdom will be like.
And how it is fulfilled in Christ Jesus,
wonderful counselor, mighty God, eternal father.
And today we look at Prince of Peace.
But what does Prince of Peace mean?
Prince comes from a Hebrew word that can mean commander
or representative or official.
And the word peace is probably a more familiar word
in Hebrew, it's the word shalom, shalom.
And this word is multi-dimensional.
It's not simply describing an absence of conflict.
Not just an absence of conflict,
but the presence of something else.
The presence of wholeness, the presence of prosperity,
the presence of well-being.
Shalom is not simply peace as in nothing is coming
against me, but it's the presence of prosperity and wholeness.
The Prince of Peace conveys the idea of one who commands,
executes and oversees true and lasting wholeness.
One who guides and secures for us as we sang before
in the final song unto him who can keep us.
Who is the one who can obtain, execute and secure for us?
Complete and total peace, wholeness in God.
But even Isaiah who wrote Isaiah chapter nine
as inspired by God and the prophecies he was receiving,
he also could look and see that this peace
that was going to come through this Messiah
would be hard fought one.
It would take a lot of energy and effort
on someone's part and that someone's part
is the one he identifies later in Isaiah 53
as the suffering servant.
Isaiah 53 lays out this idea of that promised child
would grow to become the suffering servant of God
who we know to be Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
And Isaiah 53 would describe him as one who was pierced
for our transgressions, who was bearing our sin and shame
so that we might have peace.
Our shalom comes at the cost of his suffering.
So how do we see this title fulfilled in Jesus Christ?
If you are taking notes, the first thing
I'll have you write down is we see it in that
we have peace with God.
Romans chapter five, 10 says that before we were reconciled
to God in Christ, that we were enemies of God.
We were rebels who had taken up arms against God.
We don't want a God to whom we are accountable to.
We don't want a God who has designs on human flourishing
that must be obeyed and must be respected.
What we want is a self-made religion.
We want a God made in our own image
who will never disagree with me and will always tell me
to do what feels right for me.
That's the God we want and that's the God that many
have gone around constructing in their own lives.
It's a God who says, you're always right,
I never disagree with you, in fact, everything you like
for some strange reason, I like as well.
And I never tell you no or stop that.
This is the God that many people construct.
But it doesn't work out.
See, we are as humans, the state of humanity outside of God,
we are religious and worshipers by nature.
God baked it into the cake.
We are worshipers by nature.
So we are going to construct something
in the absence of God to worship.
We're going to set up some idol to worship.
And that idol may go by the name of Jesus,
and that idol may go by any name.
That's all an idol means, at least in the present context.
In the original context, it would be maybe a carved image
of something that they would bow down to
and hope that it would do something for them.
But for us, the idols that we set up in our day
might be something else, some other foundation
that we want to build our lives on,
hoping that it will last, hoping that it will provide
security and hope.
And as some of us move from one job to the other job,
hoping that this next job will provide me the security
that I'm looking for, that my salvation, my hope
is in this job that I've got.
If I could just get X, Y, or Z, I would be okay.
And you're elevating it to a God-like status,
an immutable, unchangeable status,
and hoping and hoping and praying
that it doesn't fall out from underneath you,
and it always does.
It always lets you down.
Maybe then you pour yourself into a relationship
and you say this relationship will be that immutable thing
in my life, that thing that never changes,
the thing that I can bank my life and my security
and my emotions and my hope and my future
on this relationship, and the relationship doesn't pan out.
Or the person is crushed under the divine weight
that you've placed upon them.
They're not divine.
They can't handle that level of pressure,
and yet you've heaped it on them,
elevated them to idle status,
and you bow down at that altar
until that idol comes crashing down.
Be it a job, a relationship, or a circumstance,
we will be left crushed.
We will be led down by our God.
Little G.
But God, the God revealed to us in Christ,
he shows us his infinite love.
He shows his unchanging nature
in his love for his creation,
that while we were still sinners,
while we were rebels and enemies of God,
he launched a rescue mission to save his creation.
He took on flesh.
He made his dwelling among us.
He took our sins to the cross,
where he died for sinners, rebels, and enemies of God,
as I was and as you were outside of Christ.
And he made peace between us and God.
Romans chapter five, verse one says,
therefore, since we have been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
No longer in rebellion,
we have been brought into a right relationship with God,
a condition of peace that runs deeper than our circumstances
to the very inner life we experience.
Not an external peace or a situational tranquility,
but a supernatural peace that cannot be shaken,
the fruit of our adoption into God's family,
the fruit of the spirit, peace.
We also see this fulfilled in Christ,
in that we have peace with God,
but also we have peace with one another, we're told.
Christ can take people who would never otherwise
be able to live together and make them one in Christ.
And that is his church.
That is the glory and beauty of his church,
that God has taken people who would never otherwise
be able to live together, never otherwise be able
to live together, never otherwise to choose one another
to hang out with or spend time with.
And he can bring them together
and make them one in Christ.
In Ephesians chapter two, Paul says that there was a time
for all of us when we were outside of God's chosen people.
We were far away and unable to be accepted
on the basis of our rebellion,
but that in Christ, all of that is changed.
Listen to the way Ephesians chapter two,
beginning in verse 13, how Paul puts it.
But now in Jesus Christ, you who were far away
have been brought near by the blood of Christ,
for he is our peace, who made both groups one
and tore down the dividing wall of hostility.
In his flesh, he made of no effect the law
consisting of commands and expressed in regulations,
so that he might create in himself one new man
from the two resulting in peace.
He did this so that he might reconcile both to God
in one body through the cross,
by which he put the hostility to death.
He came and proclaimed the good news of peace to you,
who were far away, and peace to those who were near,
for through him, we both have access
in one spirit to the Father.
And so then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers,
but fellow citizens with the saints
and members of God's household,
built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
with Christ Jesus himself as this cornerstone.
In him, the whole building being put together
grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
In him, you are also being built together
for God's dwelling in the spirit.
Paul is here describing how Christ has,
how we've been brought together to make the church,
that Christ is recreating society,
that he is building a new humanity in the church,
that he has taken those who were far away
and brought them near and given them entrance
into his very presence, and that through us,
he is building something amazing and beautiful
so that the world can see what he is doing,
that those who are far away and hostile to God,
that dividing line can now be brought,
they can be brought near in Christ
and through faith in Christ.
The power of the gospel of Jesus
is not just personal forgiveness,
but it is also the power to reconcile relationships.
It is actually, it includes a charge for us as his people
to do just that, to be about the reconciling
of relationships, that which sin has broken,
God wants to restore.
And notice too that he is the one who is doing it all.
He makes peace with God for us.
He makes one new family out of the two.
Where else in the world can you find people
who would never otherwise unite,
yet who have become family in Christ?
The church is that place if we truly live
in light of the cross.
As Pastor Tim Keller said,
Pastor Tim Keller said, if you understand the cross,
if you truly understand the cross,
any two people should be able to get along.
If you truly understand the cross and what it means
that I was separated from God in rebellion
and Christ made a way that I could be one,
I have no right, no business whatsoever
to be made right and yet he made it.
If that's true, then there's not a person on this planet
that I can look at and go, hey, we can't reconcile.
We can't be made right.
We can't get along.
If you truly understand the cross,
ethnically, socially, and culturally,
the cross demolishes divisions and hostility.
History proves that we cannot achieve
a lasting peace on our own.
Our hearts confirm our need and longing
for a deeper, lasting peace.
Jesus accomplished this peace for us at the cross
and at great cost.
Our peace would be at the expense of his peace.
Our reconciliation is found only in his alienation.
Hostilities have ceased between God and man
only because he himself bore the cause of them,
our sins in his own body on the cross
and there became to the fullest
what Isaiah chapter 53 described
as the despised and rejected man,
a man of sorrows acquainted with a grief.
This Christmas and as we celebrate this Prince of Peace,
I wanna invite you to see him for who he is
and understand that in Christ we have been reconciled
to God and we are reconciled to one another,
but it's one thing to have the status change.
It's one thing for God to do that on our behalf,
but it's another thing for us to keep it.
We have to keep it.
That which Christ has bought with his blood
that came at such great cost, you and I must keep it.
We must keep the unity in the faith
with our brothers and sisters.
We must reconcile with those
that we have fallen out of.
We must go to them and on the basis of the cross
and the truth of what Christ has done for us,
go and find a way to make it right
because it reflects the glory of the cross in our lives.
We have to continually bow the knee to Christ
and come to him in faith and allow him to lead us.
And in doing so, we'll experience
what the Prince of Peace has brought.
Peace with God, peace with one another.