Advent of Peace

Introduction

Engage:

I used to be a custodian. It was my first job. I was a sophomore in high school and my church needed a new custodian for the kids building. My mom being the children’s director practiced a little nepotism and got me the job.

Now, I was never really trained, just sort of shown where everything was and told what to clean and sent on my way. Now high school boys don’t know how to clean, at least not without very careful instructions, so I may not have been very good at the job , but one thing was sure, the expectations were not set very well for me and I felt lost and unsure the whole time I worked there. My job felt unstable. I could tell my boss was unhappy with me but I didn’t know how to make him happy and I wasn’t intuitive enough to figure it out.

Eventually we hired a second custodian named Sandy and to this day she is my favorite co-worker. She went to bat for me constantly, whether it was defending me to the boss, showing me how things are done, or actually picking up to slack in my work. She brought some stability and some peace to my working environment and I am still grateful.

I did find out by the way that my boss wanted to fire me and Sandy didn’t let him so that was nice.

Focus:

Where there is lack of stability, lack of certainty there is of course no peace. And often, perhaps always, our attempts to create peace in and from ourselves fail. We are unstable creatures living in an unstable world. We need one, and advocate, to establish peace for us. God offers peace through Christ, it is the essence of the of the Gospel after all. Peace with God through Christ. But what does the peace of God look like? How is it established?

Set the Stage:

We are in week two of the season of Advent, the Advent of Peace. We were in the book of Isaiah last week were we saw God give hope to Israel before there exile and hope to us even as we await his return. A shift happens in Isaiah 40. No longer is Isaiah writing to present Israel, but prophesying to future Israel, exiled Israel.

Preview:

In three aspects of peace Isaiah will reveal what it is God is doing to give us peace even in the waiting.

Isaiah 54:10-17

A Peace of Certainty

The peace God offers is certain. It can not be shaken or destroyed, it is firm.

Isaiah illustrates God’s stability by examining the most stable of natures attributes and tells us that God’s peace and steadfast love is more certain.

Isaiah 54:10 ESV

For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

Have you ever been to the mountains? I’ve had the opportunity to go to Colorado four times each time is a blessing. The majesty of the Rockies continues to draw my heart to worship. How big must the God who created these mountains be.

A funny story and then the illustration. My first trip to Colorado was at the end of my 7th grade year of school, we were going on a mission trip to Denver. Somewhere along that long stretch of Highway in Kansas my youth pastor and mentor, a man I trust more than anyone else in my life, calls me to the front of the bus, points to the horizon, and says, “David, if you look hard enough at the horizon you can see the mountains from here.” I strain and I can’t see anything but finally I think I can and he starts to laugh. You can’t see the mountains from Kansas, they’re big, but not that big.

On that same trip though we had the opportunity to go horseback riding in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was a stormy day and I have pictures of the dark clouds melting into the fog that covered the tops of the mountains. I wasn’t frightened but it was awe inspiring.

The mountains will do that to you. And yet the message of this verse is this. Should those mountains move, God loyalty and love will not!

There is a lot happening in the Hebrew behind this verse that I want to briefly mention.

First, should the mountains and the hills move. This is a subjunctive. If the mountains could, which of course they can’t, or even if they should, God is still sure. He is solid.

The second is this, the phrase steadfast love, I believe the NIV translates it as unfailing love, is one Hebrew word. The word hesed. Its such a rich word that has been sort of misunderstood. Most scholars agree today that it is best understood as meaning loyalty or commitment.

Should the impossible happen and that which is stable be shaken, God is loyal.

Should the mountains, large as they are be thrown into the sea God is loyal.

The mountains are but anthills in comparison to him.

So maybe this is a rocky season. The funds for the holidays aren’t there, there is turmoil within a relationship, the plans you had made for your future fell through. The promise of peace is this. Turn your eyes up, upon Jesus. And those shaky things won’t be less scary or less real or less hurtful, but they will grow strangely dim. Because the God of the universe took a cross for you, you not only can have peace within turmoil, but its a mark of your Christian maturity when you do.

Of course peace is lost as a result of our sins and the darkness of the world. How is it that God establishes this covenant of peace?

The theme of the last half of Isaiah is that his servant, the suffering one, takes the covenant upon himself, sealing it in his blood so that the sins that once put us at war with God no longer do, because he took them on himself.

We said last week that Israel’s sin brought God’s wrath. God hates sin, he must or else he isn’t good and he isn’t kind. Sin kills his creation, it kills us. Yet our ability to keep the covenant isn’t what the covenant is dependent on, its dependent on him. The peace in the holiday season and every other season of life is that Christ has killed our sin, God himself took on his own wrath, ending the war, giving us peace.

And so the peace of God reverses our circumstance, indeed this is the second aspect of God peace.

A Peace of Reversal

The misfortune that has come upon Israel God will reverse. That which is in turmoil will be turned to peace.

The Israelites poverty will be revered at every level, their Children will love the Lord and God himself will give them them with righteousness.

Isaiah 54:11–14 ESV

“O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires. I will make your pinnacles of agate, your gates of carbuncles, and all your wall of precious stones. All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children. In righteousness you shall be established; you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near you.

Afflicted, and storm tossed, and not comforted. This is Israel’s condition, perhaps the condition of all who live in a sinful world. It is striking to me that God recognizes Israel's condition. He does not make light of pain or hardship. Biblical peace isn’t is not ignorance of life’s hardship.

One of our professor’s often says that it makes sense to be anxious or afraid. If you’re paying attention there is a lot to be afraid of, yet in Christ we have more reasons not to be. I want to recognize hardship, but also recognize the reversal brought about in Christ.

There is a three-fold description of Israel’s pain then God demonstrates how he will reverse it from bottom to top.

The base of peace that God will build are of antimony, or turquoise, a luxurious mortar used in art, foundations of precious sapphires, the tops of the gates are of ruby the gates themselves made of precious stones.

Its a splendid description that I really have nothing to compare it with. Our culture isn’t one that puts a high emphasis on such elaborate architecture, but heres the message. What was once poverty will be rich abundance, what was once on a shaken foundation will be firmly set in God’s firm foundation, what was once unprotected will experience the perfect peace of God. His resources and his foundation will stand where our attempts have failed.

And what does this look like applied? Isaiah gives the interpretation for us. This is not an abundance of political or economic prowess, but of spiritual values, of a righteousness from without.

Children

Those of you who are parents will grasp this better than I can. Israel is of course concerned with political and economic peace, but in a culture dependent on the family they want nothing more than for their children to love and serve the Lord. Indeed, the promises of the Bible is that God will teach them, he will give us new hearts of flesh with his law written on them.

God will end the war waged between him and humanity by at last filling all of his children with his Spirit, making them his disciples.

So Isaiah says that God will teach Israel’s children, making them live at peace. Hebrew shalom is right relationship with God that becomes right relationship with man, with the world, and with yourself. If you want peace, be taught by God, be a disciple of the prince of peace, follow his conduct. Keep his law.

Righteousness

Not only peace, but righteousness as a result. How is it that Christ has given you peace, by establishing you in righteousness (Psalm 23). By making us the people who can stand before God clean, forever. Not from a merit within us but from a righteousness revealing us from sins oppression.

So rich is the righteous peace of God he can command us to be far from oppression, and fear, and terror because he made it possible. In a terrifying and shaken world God’s people stand firm, at peace.

Maybe you’re the young woman who cares nothing for God’s moral law. What good is righteousness in an unrighteous world? You can say, drink, and do whatever you want. And as you do your anxiety sky rockets, your insecurity flourishes. Your friendships are shallow and peace is a figment of your imagination. And perhaps slowly you lay down the drinking, the promiscuity, the constant comparison game, the bad influences and find, in a righteousness not produced by effort but by submission to the prince of peace, peace is indeed a reality. It isn’t that God takes all of the anxiety and insecurity but with a righteousness not your own you find peace in the sufficient grace of God. Whatever might or might not be true of you one thing is certain, you are a daughter taught by the most high God.

Perhaps it the couple who raised their kids in church but the kids were fed up with the legalism and hypocrisy and the judgement they perceived, whether they were right or wrong and left. The peace you tried to make by bending them to your will the righteousness you tried to force on them and yourself shattered. And you find that righteousness isn’t produced by greater effort but that wickedness is in fact driven out by greater affection. Rather than condemning a lifestyle that God is the only righteous one to condemn, you decide to make much of the beauty of Jesus, to increase your love for him. And you find that the war, hostility, and enmity is reversed to peace, and it wasn’t you who made it.

God’s peace sets things right. And it is he, the coming servant, who will produce it.

A Peace that Transcends.

This peace is possible because of the sovereignty of God. Since God is over all, his peace transcends all things.

God promises his people, when his covenant is established, any turmoil will not be of him. For he commands all things and works all things that at last all things will be turned to good.

Isaiah 54:15–17 ESV

If anyone stirs up strife, it is not from me; whoever stirs up strife with you shall fall because of you. Behold, I have created the smith who blows the fire of coals and produces a weapon for its purpose. I have also created the ravager to destroy; no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication from me, declares the Lord.”

Assyria came as the judgment of God but when God’s servant himself takes the wrath no longer will suffering come to God’s people from his hands. The reverse will be true. The survival and prosperity and peace of the people will be a direct result of God’s hand over us.

When trouble comes, and it will, when you suffer, and you will, know it is not God’s judgment, it is not the sovereign sending its vengeance. It is what Paul describes as the birth pangs of a world in waiting. He is using it to fashion for you a faith that withstands and a glory that matches no pleasure you have experienced yet.

Conversely, those who cause the people of God pain and trouble can be sure they will receive the wrath of God. They will fall.

Why, because God not only transcends the creators and warriors who wage war against the Church, but the weapons they wield, and the manufacturers who designed those weapons. \So whether they come at you with words; bigot, out of touch, old school, guilty, every tongue will be refuted. If they come at us with the weapons of political ostracized, social out casting, economic insecurity, or crosses. These weapons will not prosper, Our god transcends them all.

Whatever ill may come, it has a purpose, we may seem defeated, dead on a cross even. But our God is not dead. and what we endure is not random chance, but a god who not only turns the bad for good by persevering us but by making it serve us in glory. Your inheritance, servant of Christ, is peace that last, peace that is not bound to your circumstances, and peace that transcends. And it wasn’t you. No, it was a baby boy, 2,000 and some years ago, who took the form of a servant, that you might have peace with God.

Conclusion

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full at his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace.

Do you want to know what God’s peace looks like in an unstable world? It looks like submitting to the perfect peace of one who is far above you yet came to you to establish peace at last.

When we fixate on our problems and circumstances and what is wrong in the here and now. When we refuse to deal with our sin. When we refuse to humble ourselves we will always live at war in every way. With God and man and self. But when you turn your eyes on the prince of peace, his peace ends the war.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, and receive a peace that lasts.