Have You Allowed the Prince to Give You Peace?
Sermon Notes
Isaiah 9:1-7
This morning we are starting a new teaching series called Prince of Peace that will take us through December and our Christmas Eve service. We still have Christmas invite cards available for you to take and invite your few. It’s a great opportunity to invite someone in to hear the Gospel and the peace that it offers. Peace is something we hear and talk a lot about at Christmastime. You probably have some decorations that have the word peace on them. But it’s kind of ironic because Christmas is a time that rarely feels peaceful. Maybe I’m the only one, but between the shopping, which leads to managing the budget, all the Christmas parties, travel to see family, navigating family interactions, and then you throw in work responsibilities…it doesn’t feel so peaceful. But then again, if we’re honest, life in general doesn’t usually feel too peaceful. We have a lot to manage on a personal level and on top of that there’s world chaos to deal with. So, what we want to do over the next few weeks is see if we can find a little more peace in life…to see if we can find a way to not feel so much unrest, not just during the Christmas season, we don’t just want seasonal peace, but in our day-to-day lives. We want perennial peace. A peace that becomes a part of who we are. In fact, we think this is so important we are calling 2024 a Year of Peace. We’re going carry that theme throughout everything we do next year. So, be sure to come back and bring someone with you who’s also searching for peace. We believe the Bible has some valuable things to say about this.
Today, we’re going to be in Isaiah 9:1-7. If you have your Bible, I want to invite you to go ahead and turn there. That’s in the Old Testament. Go to Psalms (which is in the middle of your Bible) and go to the right a few books. The Scripture will also be on the screen. The title of the message is a question, Have You Allowed the Prince to Give You Peace? It’s a question worth asking because as we’re going to see, there are a lot of things that work against our sense of peace, but only one person that can truly give us peace.
If you have your Bible, turn to Isaiah 8. Isaiah was a prophet in ancient Israel, and God spoke through him to reveal both his judgment and promised salvation. We need to understand the setting. This is a time in history, in the 8th century B.C. when Israel had already been divided into two kingdoms, the northern and southern kingdoms. Judah, which is in the southern kingdom and housed the temple, was being threatened by opposing countries. The northern kingdom of Israel, which teamed up with Syria, was pressing in from the North, and Assyria was bringing pressure from the East. King Ahaz was king of the southern kingdom at the time and sought help from the king of Assyria in the east for protection from Israel and Syria to the north. He began paying them for their protection. The problem is this only furthered Judah’s spiritual corruption because they were forming an alliance with a pagan nation. When King Hezekiah took over the Southern kingdom in 715 B.C., he really wanted to get things back on the right track, so he stopped sending payments to Assyria. The king (Sennacheribad) did not like that and so he began taking over parts of the Southern Kingdom.
So, this was a dark and scary time for the Jewish people. Their homes and country were being threatened on all sides. They felt helpless. It was especially bad for those living in and around Galilee because it was located at the top of the southern kingdom, which meant that it was one of the first places taken over by the Assyrians during their invasion. We’re going to pick up this story in Isaiah chapter 8, to begin with.
8:21 They will wander through the land, dejected and hungry. When they are famished, they will become enraged, and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. 22 They will look toward the earth and see only distress, darkness, and the gloom of affliction, and they will be driven into thick darkness.
This is describing the response of the people during this time. They are in great need, and they are angry at their king and at God because they think both have failed them. If you read earlier in Ch. 8 you see that most people have given up on God and have leaned into the pagan culture and corruption. They are getting into some weird spiritual and demonic things like trying to communicate with the dead. That’s how desperate they are for answers; everything seems to be falling apart.
I don’t know if you can relate to the Israelites at this time. Maybe you’ve been in a season when you feel desperate? A time when it feels like your life is being invaded by an enemy army; like everything that you know and cling to for safety, security, and comfort is being stripped away. Maybe you’re in that season now, and the strongholds of your life are crumbling or have already been stripped away. We all have these strongholds. They can be anything in life that gives you a sense of rest and refuge. In ancient times, like the ones we’re reading about here in Isaiah, cities were their most important strongholds. They were surrounded by walls and usually had some type of guard in place to help protect the city. There were rules and people to watch out for each other. Outside of the city, outside of the stronghold, you were vulnerable. There were no rules. No one was in charge. It was every man for himself.
It's not quite the same for us today, but we can still relate. Our houses are our strongholds. We retreat there at the end of each day. Our country can be our stronghold. It’s great to live in the land of the free. Our institutions, like churches or schools or government, can be strongholds where we find structure and purpose. On a more individual level, we have things like our health, our families and relationships, our jobs, and our bank accounts….All of these things whether tangible or intangible can be strongholds where we find some sense of security and comfort.
Mark Sayers is a pastor, author, and sociologist, and he says, “Strongholds form when humans seek out or build a protective structure to find security, safety, and prosperity in a threatening, chaotic, and unpredictable environment.” Our strongholds are not necessarily a bad thing. The world is a crazy and chaotic place, and we need safety and stability. But what happens when our strongholds get threatened or even destroyed? Think back to the Galileans as their city was taken over. Think back to September 11th, and the way you felt as the planes flew into the two towers. Think back to March of 2020 when the entire world shut down. Or, imagine you find out your spouse is having an affair, or your child is addicted to drugs. Imagine your boss calling you into his office because the company is downsizing. Imagine the doctor says it’s cancer.
All these things threaten our way of life and instantly threaten the strongholds that we are relying on. Now we’re out in the open, in the wilderness, exposed and vulnerable. Mark Sayers says, “Outside of the stronghold, anxiety becomes our constant companion.” Instead of peace, there’s fear. Instead of rest, there’s worry. When we are out in the wilderness, all our weaknesses and mortality get exposed. Can anyone relate to this idea?
I think we all can. To some degree, I think we are all walking through the wilderness right now. Our world is changing so fast that it’s hard to keep up. Most of the time, it’s hard to imagine finding much rest or security in anything. We’re hungry for strongholds, and the interesting thing is when we can’t find one already established, we try to build one ourselves. We can see that in the history of the Bible.
In Genesis 11 the people were building a tower so they could make a name for themselves, and not be “scattered over the face of the whole earth.” They thought they should become a great and powerful nation which led them to build a stronghold that nullified their dependence on God. In 1 Samuel 8, you can read about the Israelites who made it through the wilderness into the Promised Land, but they were still struggling to trust God. Rather than rely on his continued leadership and protection, they demanded that the priest, Samuel, appoint a king for them. They were attempting to build their own stronghold because they were anxious and afraid. Again, we can relate to this. In our modern world, it’s easier than ever for us to establish strongholds that give the illusion of security outside of dependency on God. We have access to the best healthcare, and if we don’t like our doctor, we can just find another one. Technology gives us access to all the information we could ever want, which makes us less dependent on the expert advice of others. Thanks to YouTube, we can be the expert on anything. With a few apps on our phones, we can manage our finances and retirement funds at the tip of our fingers. These aren’t all bad things, but they can give us the illusion of being in control. But what we find is that the more autonomy we have in building our strongholds, the more “in control” we are, the more pressure we feel in needing to manage and maintain our strongholds. This creates a lot of anxiety. Before long it feels like everything in life is dependent on us, which is ultimately the stronghold of self. This is what we find at the end of Isaiah 8. The people are no longer demonstrating dependence on God, and they feel scared even to the point of seeking out answers from the dead. But there are some still holding on. God tells Isaiah to gather up the few people who haven’t given up because he has a message of hope for them!
This brings us to Isaiah 9:
Nevertheless, the gloom of the distressed land will not be like that of the former times when he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. But in the future …
I appreciate how there’s a recognition of the situation here. God knows that the people are in a bad way. He doesn’t just tell them to suck it up and stop their crying. He could have, but He acknowledges that it’s a hard time. It’s not as bad as it has been in the past. Things could always be worse, and they might get worse. But then he says look to the future! There will be a time when things are different. Those are words of hope!
But in the future,he will bring honor to the way of the sea, to the land east of the Jordan, and to Galilee of the nations.
2 The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
a light has dawned
on those living in the land of darkness.
3 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.
4 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.
5 For every trampling boot of battle
and the bloodied garments of war
will be burned as fuel for the fire.
This is a beautiful contrast to the current situation. Isaiah is describing a time of relief when the yoke of their oppressor is broken, the darkness is met with light, and the dejected and hungry are now rejoicing and dividing the spoils of war. You can see how this would have been a huge relief to the Israelites living in the land of Judah. They were desperate and waiting for help. They needed someone to come in and drive out these other nations and restore order in their land! They needed a warrior, a great king, someone to restore their strongholds! They needed peace! And Isaiah says that it’s coming.
This was not new information. These Israelites would have known the promise that God gave long ago through Abraham. That God would make Israel into a great nation and multiply them. And there were prophecies of a coming Messiah, an anointed one, a redeemer, all the way back in Genesis. There are at least 6 direct Messianic prophecies in the first five books of the Bible, that all Jewish people would have been very familiar with. So, this is not a new message, but more of a message of reorientation. Sometimes we need reorienting. It’d only take me about 4 or 5 spins up here before I got dizzy and started stumbling around. I’d have to do the hands between the eyes thing to reorient and let the room stop spinning. But I could train myself to not get dizzy as easily, and one way to do that is by learning to fix my eyes on something that’s not moving. It’s called spotting, and it basically helps your brain stay focused even as your body spins. Life is a lot like this. It spins us around, and before we know it, we hardly know which way is up or down. We’re like the people here in Isaiah 9, we need to be reoriented because having peace requires proper orientation. We need our eyes fixed on something that’s not moving. We need something or better yet someone to be our steady focal point, so we don’t get thrown off course. And as we get to verse 6, Isaiah tells us exactly where to fix our eyes.
6
For a child will be born for us,
a son will be given to us,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
This might have been frustrating to the Israelites. They needed a king, a warrior, not a baby. And even if the baby was going to grow up to be a great king, that would take time. So, this had to raise some questions for them. A verse that immediately makes most of us think of Christmas, would make the people in Isaiah’s day ask how in the world a baby was going to help. But there’s so much here that we have the privilege of looking back on. We can see just how incredible this prophecy really was.
Verse 6 shows us both the human and divine nature of the Messiah. The ancient prophecies told of someone who was born of a woman (a child born for us) but sent from God (a son given to us). Jesus fulfilled this promise. Jesus is both fully God and fully man. This is why the doctrine of the Virgin Mary is so important to our faith. Mary being a virgin ensures that while Jesus was born of a woman, he was sent by God. He was God incarnate. And this dual nature of Christ is essential to his ability to fulfill his purpose as Savior. This was not going to be an ordinary child. He was going to accomplish extraordinary things.
Isaiah said that “the government will be on his shoulders.” That was a political phrase that alluded to not only his power but also his ability. The promised Messiah would be able to carry the burden of the entire empire on his shoulders. That’s a big claim. Often, I find myself carrying a lot of weight on my shoulders, but I don’t always handle it very well. I don’t have the ability to carry all the responsibilities and burdens that I try to carry, and I’m reminded of that when I start to feel the physical, emotional, and spiritual effects it has on me. It doesn’t feel peaceful; it feels incredibly stressful. These past couple of months leading up to Christmas Fest, I felt the weight of that event on my shoulders. I wanted it to be a win for our church; I wanted it to all go smoothly and for lots of people to come. I wanted us to raise money for Samaritan Village. In those moments I had to remember that I’m not the Savior. I can’t carry the burden of the empire. I have six kids, 4 teenagers, a dog, a cat, and 14 chickens. I work 2 jobs and live on a budget.
I feel the weight of that on my shoulders. But I have to remember that I’m not the Savior. Only Jesus can handle the burden of that empire. This means that to have peace we have to stay oriented, but it also means having peace requires surrender to a greater power. Remember when we try to build and maintain all the strongholds, we then carry the burden of holding it all together. One of my favorite verses about this comes from 1 Peter 5:6-7. It says, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you.”
I love this because it’s a reminder to be humble, but it also shows us that we aren’t just surrendering to someone more powerful than us. We are surrendering to someone who cares about us. I think a lot of times we resist surrender because we don’t trust the outcome. But we find peace in the surrender when we believe that God is not only capable of doing what we need, but he wants to give us what we need. He loves His children, and he wants what is best for us…even if what is best for us is not what we want.
Having this faith in God frees us from only having peace that’s based on things going well. There’s a myth that exists in our world that things must be going wrong if they don’t feel good. When things get hard, we immediately start looking for a solution to fix our comfort deficit. Now, there are a lot of reasons for life to be hard. I get that. And sometimes, we do need to change course or take action. But sometimes, God allows or even wants us to go through the hard to grow us and increase our faith in Him. Job is a great example of this. Job lost everything he had, his family, his possessions, and his friends, and it wasn’t because he had done anything wrong. God allowed him to be tested because he knew it would increase his faith, his peace, and ultimately his joy. I’ve certainly not experienced the things Job did, but it feels like just about every day is a test. I wish I would just pass already. I know the answer, it’s just a matter of implementation!
It was Job’s faith in God’s sovereignty that allowed him to maintain peace when his earthly strongholds were taken away and he was out in the wilderness. It was hard. I’m sure it felt like everything was going wrong, but he didn’t take his eyes off his focal point. If you read the book of Job, you’ll see that Job knew God. He knew the characteristics and the person of God. If you’re going to trust your life to someone then it’s important to know who they are. That’s why God gave the people some specific characteristics of the coming Messiah in Isaiah 9, to help strengthen their faith.
The second half of verse 6 lists four names of the Messiah. He will be called,
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
There is significance in each one of those names. Wonderful Counselor describes Jesus’ infinite depth of knowledge and wisdom, his ability to comfort and guide, and even intercede on our behalf. Mighty God shows that Jesus was and is a great warrior, unbeatable. In ancient times they would refer to great soldiers as gods because of the way they conquered their enemies. The Messiah would come and win the ultimate battle and prove to be the mightiest God of all.
The name Eternal Father has deep meaning as the Jewish people would have anticipated the Messiah to be a great Father in the way of Abraham, who was the father of the Israelite nation. Jesus came and fulfilled that role and more as the Father of Christianity. He was the manifestation of the new covenant, and all who believe in Him follow his teachings. He also became the Father of Life as he conquered death for all eternity.
And of course, the Prince of Peace is the name we are focusing on today. Jesus is the Prince as the son of the most High God. He is the firstborn over all creation and sits at the right hand of the Father. In Matthew 28, Jesus said that he had been given all authority over heaven and earth. There is no one that ever has or ever will outrank him. And listen to the assurance that Isaiah 9:7 gives us in this:
7 The dominion will be vast,
and its prosperity will never end.
He will reign on the throne of David
and 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.
There are no ifs or maybes, only definitive facts. These are promises of God that will come true! God is revealing His plans for eternity because He wants us to be a part of them. He wants us to be a part of that everlasting Kingdom with Him. That’s why these names and details of what he’ll accomplish are so essential. He wants us to know Him so that we can trust Him, which shows us that having peace requires relationship. Think about it. You don’t meet a family at the park and then let your kid go sleepover at their house the next day. You want to know who you’re entrusting your kid to. When you start a new job, there’s always anxiety with it until get to know your new boss, how they communicate, how they lead, and what their expectations are. This is why I don’t really like taking an Uber or taxi. I’m getting in the car with someone I know nothing about so they can drive 70mph down the highway. It’s hard to have peace in any situation until you know who’s in charge.
The amazing thing about Jesus is that he makes himself available. He wants to be known. And as we walk with Jesus, we will know him more, and our peace will grow. We will find in Jesus the everlasting stronghold that cannot be found in anyone or anything else…not even ourselves.
This is never truer than when it comes to our sins. We can’t manage or overcome our sins on our own. We can only trust the work that Christ accomplished for us. He proved his ability to carry that burden fully with his death and resurrection. Romans 5:1 says, Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Peace with God is the greatest peace of all. It’s not just peace in the season. It’s not just peace to get through our tough days. It’s peace between our sinful, unworthy flesh and a holy and just God. The Bible says that as sinners we were enemies of God, but through Christ, we become friends of God. That’s a promise of peace for our souls that extends way beyond life on this earth. So, we come back to that question, “Have you allowed the Prince to give you peace?” If not, you can start today. You can let the promises we see in Isaiah of a powerful Prince, the Messiah, give you peace that is much bigger than the Christmas season.
Here's the Big Idea: Let the promise of the Prince supply you with perennial peace. If you’re out in the wilderness and feel desperate for help, let Jesus be your stronghold. If life has you feeling dizzy, let Jesus be your steady focal point. If you need the comfort of a friend, rest in the arms of the Everlasting Father. Accept Jesus’ invitation to come to him and find rest for your soul.
I’ve been a Christian for 33 years and I still struggle with this concept of peace. I need to be reoriented on a regular basis. I need to preach this message to myself daily. I need to remember that Jesus didn’t come in and erase the hard to make life comfortable for his followers, but he did prove that his power and authority extends over all rulers, of both earthly and spiritual realms. Through his death and resurrection, he proved his ability to handle any and everything that I will face today or tomorrow. He proved that He is the King of all creation. He is the only stronghold I will ever need.
We’re going to take communion this morning. And what better way for us to reorient our lives to Christ and express our surrender to him than to take this sacrament together? It unites us in our need for Jesus, and it unites us in our trust in his finished work on the cross. As the elements are passed, allow the prince to give you peace this morning.