Our Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6)

Introduction

Attention

We are finishing our series today in Isaiah 9:6. We've been taking this fascinating journey through this verse. Today we're going to remember that at Christmas time, there is a God of peace that rules and reigns in your life. We celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ today, not because he is a great man or a great teacher or a great prophet, but because he is God in the flesh, the Prince of peace, the Principe de Paz.

The world will try to give you peace without God. They’ll say, “You don't need that religion stuff. All you need to do is follow these simple steps.

Practice mindfulness and meditation. If you simply calm your mind and you get engaged in the moment, you can reduce stress and increase your inner peace.

Get physical activity, which can produce endorphins, which are natural painkillers and mood elevators.

Get into healthy relationships with family and friends who can provide emotional support.

Pursue hobbies and interests. You know whether you like to read or garden or paint find something that gives you inner peace.

Get adequate sleep and nutrition. If you don't have peace in your life, you're just not getting enough sleep. And if you maintain a balanced diet, you'll feel better and have peace.

Get professional help. Maybe there's a therapist who can provide strategies to cope with stress.

Maybe you need some time in nature. All you need to do is go out and take a walk in the woods, and you'll you'll feel better. You'll have inner peace.

Maybe you need to journal and do some self reflection, you know, write down your thoughts and feelings.

Volunteer and help others. Maybe that's a way you get peace.

Develop a routine and have some structured daily routine can help you deal with stress.

What's interesting though is that with all those suggestions that I just gave you, none of those involved God. It’s suggesting that you can get to peace without God, but in Scripture, the only way to peace is through God.

Now, either God's Word is lying to you, or the world is lying to you. My money is on the world.

We want to be people who have peace in our life. Now, how can you be someone who has peace in your life? We'll be looking at that to day as we open up God's word and look one last time together in this series in Isaiah 9:6. Let's read this together.

Scripture Reading

Isaiah 9:6 CSB

6 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.

Pray

Summary of Isaiah 9:6 Context

Now in Isaiah 9:6, this text tells us about a child that is coming. There will be a baby born to us, a child given to us. This child is going to have an impact now just on Israel, but on the nations. He's going to bring people from darkness to light.

But as we look at this verse, Isaiah 9:6 is focused on the child. This is a perfect verse for us today as we focus our mind and focus our hearts on the child on the baby born, the Son given to us, Jesus, our Savior.

The Government on His Shoulders

There is a child born to us, a son given to us. And it says that the government is on his shoulders. We haven't spent much time on this yet, but today we'll take a look at this a little more in depth.

When Isaiah says that the government is on his shoulders, this phrase "on his shoulders” is a symbolic term of rulership or authority.

Isaiah uses the same term, “on his shoulder” in Isaiah 22:22 where he speaks of the house of David. He says:

Isaiah 22:22 CSB

22 I will place the key of the house of David on his shoulder; what he opens, no one can close; what he closes, no one can open.

This is the someone from the lineage of David and refers to his kingly rule. This rulership is on his shoulder, that this responsibility to rule and this authority to rule has been placed on the shoulder of the person mentioned in this verse. By the way, this verse is quoted in Revelation 3:7 in reference to Jesus Christ.

So when Isaiah 9:6 says that “the government is on his shoulders,” what it's saying is that inherent within the Messiah within this person is the authority to govern. Now, when we read the word government, you get this picture of the United States government in your mind, or some other picture. However, in Isaiah 9:6, this is a picture of the complete authority and power to govern. This is not a government that is limited in scope, but the Messiah has complete rule and reign, and it is something intrinsic within who he is.

Now remember in Isaiah 9:6, when we are talking about the authority to govern and who has this authority, we are not talking about some older person, some person well off in age who's kind of lived life in and has developed an authority to govern. No, we are talking about a child. And not just a child, but a baby - it says there will be a child born to us - and at the birth of this child already intrinsic within his nature is the power and authority to rule.

Now when a baby is born, what kind of authority does it have? It doesn't have any authority to do much of anything except to cry and be demanding. If you're a new parent, I know we have some new parents, you know, at two or three in the morning, that child can be pretty demanding. The only thing that child has rulership over is over you sleep at that moment.

But this baby in Isaiah 9:6, this child born to us already comes with the intrinsic power and authority that the government is on his shoulders. He has the authority to rule and to reign everywhere.

What does Isaiah mean by “Prince of Peace”?

Now as we get to this last name in Isaiah 9:6, we've heard that the Messiah will be named Wonderful Counselor. We've heard he will be named Mighty God and Eternal Father. And we get to this last name today: Prince of Peace. What does Isaiah mean when he says that the child born to us will be the Prince of Peace?

Prince

The Hebrew word translated as “Prince” in this verse is actually a common word in the Old Testament. When we hear the word “prince” you might think of a son of a king. You could say that Jesus is the son of God and in that sense he's a son. But the word in Hebrew has actually a more general meaning. It refers to people in positions of leadership, like royalty, but not necessarily a son. It has more to do with leadership role than their relationship.

The word is translated here is Prince but it can also be translated as official or commander or leader or ruler. The word here has more to do with the fact that the government is on his shoulders than it is to his relationship to the king. He is a ruler.

Now the word in Hebrew is almost exclusively used of humans. It does have one spot in Daniel 10:13 where it seems to refer to an angelic being but the word shows up over 400 times in the Old Testament and almost all of the time it is referring to a human ruler or a human official.

That's what makes the connection in Isaiah 9:6 so special, because in some sense, Isaiah is telling us that this Messiah is a human, in the same way that he has told us a child is born to us. But it's this connection to the next word that makes this so special. Don't miss this.

Peace

The next word describes what he is a prince of: he is a Prince of Peace, which is the Hebrew word Shalom. Everyone say, “Shalom.”

The word Shalom Is mostly translated as peace you can think of a harmonious relationship or freedom from disputes. It also has the idea of friendliness or friendship. You can think of the idea of safety as well. It can refer to your well being, that you are in a content state, the state of feeling complete and whole. You can greet someone with the word Shalom as a piece greeting.

So you get the idea that Shalom Peace is a very good thing it's this whole state of being of being content being in a harmonious relationship with God and with others. In fact for the human to be fully content everyone needs Shalom everyone needs peace.

Well it makes this word so special is it's connection to God for someone to have peace that person must have a relationship and be connected with God

The Consequence of Sin is a Life Without Peace

Isaiah tells us that a lack of peace is a consequence of a life of sin. He says,

Isaiah 48:22 CSB

22 “There is no peace for the wicked,” says the Lord.

In other words If you devote your life to sin you will not find peace.

So when we look at the Messiah, he must be someone perfect, without sin. If he's going be a ruler of peace the Prince of peace there must be no sin within him. Let's see what else Isaiah says.

Peace Comes Through God’s Intervention

He does tell us how peace comes. He says it comes from God's intervention. Look at Isaiah 26:12:

Isaiah 26:12 CSB

12 Lord, you will establish peace for us, for you have also done all our work for us.

God is the foundation of peace. He is where peace comes from. He will establish peace for us. Peace comes from God .

Peace Comes Through Trusting in God

Peace comes through trusting in God. Isaiah says

Isaiah 26:3 CSB

3 You will keep the mind that is dependent on you in perfect peace, for it is trusting in you.

God will bring the mind that is dependent on him into perfect peace. In other words, the path to inner peace, the path to having a soul that is content, comes through a mind dependent on God.

Now we are starting to get a picture here from Isaiah of where peace comes from. We know that God will not compete with anybody else.

So how is it possible that the Messiah who is coming will be the ruler of peace, if peace comes from a mind dependent on God, peace comes from trusting in God? This only works if the Messiah is God.

Peace Comes Through Learning from God

What else does Isaiah say about peace? He says,

Isaiah 54:13 CSB

13 Then all your children will be taught by the Lord, their prosperity will be great,

The word prosperity there is the same word Shalom. So it says all their children will be taught by the Lord, their prosperity, or their shalom, will be great. Peace comes through being taught by the Lord, by learning from him.

So far the consequence of a life in sin is a life without peace. If you want peace, peace comes through God's intervention. God needs to intervene in your life. You need to trust in God to have peace, and you need to learn from him.

What else does Isaiah say about peace?

Peace Results from God’s Spirit on His People

it says that peace results from God's spirit on his people. Now this is a few verses here let's walk through this one

Isaiah 32:14–17 CSB

14 For the palace will be deserted, the busy city abandoned. The hill and the watchtower will become barren places forever, the joy of wild donkeys, and a pasture for flocks, 15 until the Spirit from on high is poured out on us. Then the desert will become an orchard, and the orchard will seem like a forest. 16 Then justice will inhabit the wilderness, and righteousness will dwell in the orchard. 17 The result of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quiet confidence forever.

Isaiah says here that the Spirit of God is poured out on people, and that the result of the Spirit of God moving on people, righteousness will indwell in the heart, and you need the righteousness of God to have peace.

So somehow if we are to have a Prince of peace, this Prince of peace must now have the perfection of God, and if he's going to rule over peace, he must be able to give righteousness to people. How is he going to do this?

Peace Comes Through the Suffering Servant

Isaiah actually tells us how the Messiah will give peace to his people, through the picture of the suffering servant. Let's take a look at that in Isaiah 53:5.

Isaiah 53:5 CSB

5 But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds.

How will the Messiah be the ruler of peace and give peace to his people? He gives peace to his people by taking on their punishment. It says the punishment for our peace was on him. He is the source of peace. He is the authority over peace. He gives peace. Peace comes through him .

God’s Covenant of Peace is Immovable

Here's the beautiful thing about peace through God. Isaiah says that when God's peace enters your life, his peace is immovable. He says in Isaiah 54:10:

Isaiah 54:10 CSB

10 Though the mountains move and the hills shake, my love will not be removed from you and my covenant of peace will not be shaken,” says your compassionate Lord.

Now there's a covenant of peace—a covenant is a promise from God, sealed in him—God has made this covenant with his people. God’s peace, when it enters your life, it comes in and it is immovable. God’s peace won't be shaken because God is the establishment. He is the foundation of where peace comes from.

Now if the Messiah is going to be the ruler of peace, the Prince of peace, he must be God.

Isaiah 9:6 Shows How the Messiah Brings Peace

Now as we get back to Isaiah 9:6, as we've been walking through this verse, this verse has been exposing to us how the Messiah will bring peace to his people. The culmination of where this verse comes to is Shalom, is peace for God's people.

Peace through God’s Wisdom (Wonderful Counselor)

First, he's going to show us that peace comes through God's wisdom. If the Messiah is coming, with a supernatural, miraculous power, coming with the wisdom of God, the wisdom of God will establish peace in your life, for the Messiah, the Prince of Peace, is a Wonderful Counselor.

Peace through God’s Power (Mighty God)

Not only do you need the wisdom of God in your life, you need the power of God in your life, because when the Messiah comes, he is the mighty God, the mighty God of Israel.

He is the powerful God, the God that separated the seas, the God that spoke creation with his voice. The Prince of Peace can only be the ruler of peace in your life if he has the power of the Mighty God.

Peace through God’s Compassion (Eternal Father)

Not only does he have the wisdom of God, and the power of God, but to bring true peace into your life, he must also have the compassion of God. He must be able to reveal the Eternal Father to his people.

So we ask the question,

How does Jesus fulfill the Messiah’s name: Prince of Peace?

Let's start this by taking a look in the book of John, chapter 14, starting in verse 26. Jesus says,

John 14:26–27 CSB

26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you. 27 “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful.

He starts off with this mention of the Trinity in verse 26: the Holy Spirit, the Father, and himself.

He says that the father is sending the Holy Spirit to his disciples, and the Holy Spirit will teach and remind the disciples of Jesus of the things that Jesus has said.

Remember Isaiah said that we receive peace as we are taught by the Lord. Peace comes through God’s intervention, through trusting in God, and learning from him. So these are big words, when Jesus is connecting his teachings with the peace of God.

He says in verse 27, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.” Then, he sets up a contrast for us. He says my peace is different from what the world is trying to sell you.

How is his piece different from the world? His piece is directly connected to God's peace. This is a fulfillment of what we read before in Isaiah 32:14-17, where the Spirit of God is poured out on his people.

And when the Spirit of God comes, there is righteousness in the heart, and the result of righteousness is peace from God. Jesus says that this peace from God, the result of the spirit of God moving in your life, is a peace that comes from me.

It's a peace like nothing else. Therefore, we can have this tremendous courage, we don't have to be afraid, we don't have to be troubled, no matter what the world throws against us, because God's peace is immovable. It won't be shaken.

Jesus is giving us a covenant of peace in him. This sounds to me like a Prince of Peace.

I want to share three ways Jesus fulfills peace for us. First,

Jesus Fulfills Peace By Breaking Barriers

We read this in Ephesians 2:14:

Ephesians 2:14 CSB

14 For he is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In his flesh,

Jesus is our peace. When he talks about both groups here, he is describing Jews and Gentiles. He is describing a work of the heart, where there are these two groups of people who are who clash with one another, two groups that seem impossible to bring together.

You could take any two groups in history that have ever had an immense hostility between each other. You go through history: Do you want to know how to bring a black person and a white person together? Do you want to know how to bring a Jew and a German together? Or today, to bring a Jew and an Arab together?

The hostility between these two groups is a hostility that doesn't start from the outside. It's a hostility that starts on the inside. It starts in the heart. People will not have peace with each other until they have peace in the heart, and they will not have peace in the heart until they know the Prince of peace, until they know a baby born to us, Jesus Christ our Savior.

Jesus is the answer in the Middle East. He is the answer in San Diego. He is the answer everywhere because he is the Prince of Peace.

Second,

Jesus Fulfills Peace by Being Our Righteousness

It says in Romans 4:25-5:1:

Romans 4:25–5:1 CSB

25 He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. 1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now this word in Rom. 5:1, where we are justified by faith, that word “justified” literally means to be declared righteous before God, that we have fulfilled God's requirements of perfection before him.

How did this happen? We are justified not of ourselves, but our justice comes as a result of what Jesus has done for us.

Remember the Suffering Servant, where it said in Isaiah 53:5 that the punishment for our peace was on him? Jesus delivered up for our trespasses, delivered up for our sins, and raised declaring us righteous before God has done the impossible.

He has declared to the world that he is the Prince of Peace, he is the source, the foundation, the establishment of peace, he is God in the flesh, the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Eternal Father, the Prince of Peace.

Third,

Jesus Fulfills Peace by His Blood

Take a look at Colossians 1:19-20:

Colossians 1:19–20 CSB

19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Now this word reconciled in verse 20 means to make everything right. Jesus was making everything right within himself. But in order to do this, he could not be an ordinary human being. The fullness of God, the entirety of who God is, needed to dwell in a person. Because the fullness of God dwelt in Jesus Christ, he was able to make peace for us with God by his blood on the cross.

I heard a story this week on K-Love.

Once there was a skeptical, non-religious man who just couldn’t swallow the “Jesus story” about God coming to earth as a man. One snowy evening as he sat by the fire reading, he was startled by a loud thud against his house. Then another, and another.

He went outside to discover a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. Caught in the storm, they had been desperately seeking shelter, and tried to fly into his living room window.

His heart went out to the stunned little creatures. He didn’t want to let them lie there and freeze. He thought about his barn. It would provide a warm shelter—if he could direct the birds into it.

He opened the barn doors wide and turned on the light. He waited. The birds did not go in. He thought food might entice them, so he sprinkled a trail of bread crumbs on the snow to the doorway of the barn. But the birds continued to flap helplessly in the snow.

He tried catching them. No success. He tried shooing them into the barn, but to his dismay they scattered in every direction except toward the warm, lighted barn.

Then he realized they were afraid of him!

To these helpless small birds he was a huge terrifying creature. “If only I could think of some way to let them know they can trust me, that I’m not trying to hurt them, but help them,” he thought.

But how?

Any move he made seemed to frighten them. They would not follow him.

“If only I could be a bird,” he thought, “and mingle among them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. I could show them the way to the safe, warm barn. But I would have to be one of them, so they could see, hear, and understand.”

With that thought—an epiphany!

In stunned silence he dropped to his knees in the snow . . .

It hit him that he is like those birds. He needs Jesus to come down in his place, to walk among him, to talk to him, and to lead him to Shalom, to lead him to safety, to peace.

So we ask this final question,

What does Jesus as the Prince of Peace mean for our lives?

Now I wish I could give you three simple steps to inner peace. Something that you can go home and just, if you do these things, you'll have peace.

But as the world knows, peace is more valuable than all of the riches in the world. What good is it to have all these things, have all the things that the world wants to give you, and have chaos in your life?

Sometimes you’ll hear people say to make Jesus the Lord of your life—Jesus is the Lord already, he is the God of the universe—but don't you know that Jesus can rule the universe, but he may not rule your heart? The Prince of Peace, the God of peace, can only bring you a peace when your faith is in him, when he is the ruler of your heart.

His peace is a powerful thing, it's a supernatural thing, it's a radical thing that comes by faith but listen when the Prince of Peace is the ruler of your heart, the Bible says that what I'm going to read for you in this verse can be true in your life.

Philippians 4:6–7 CSB

6 Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

We can stop at, "Don't worry about anything.” How many of you know that you need a power bigger in your life than you “not to worry about anything.” Everything in this life gives us a reason to worry, but God gives us a power not to worry about anything.

We can not worry about anything because there is a power in our life that surpasses all understanding. There is a power in your life guarding your heart and your mind.

When your heart is under the rulership of the Prince of Peace, there is a supernatural peace in your life that just doesn't make sense to anybody else, but it makes complete sense in Jesus Christ, Because only he has the power to give what the world can't give. Only he has the power to give peace.

Conclusion

What do I want you to remember today? I want you to know that Jesus is the Prince of Peace. In your life, when you are going through times of stress and anxiety, that there is an immovable, unshakable foundation, the established power of God in your life, a peace that is powerful.

This Christmas might be the first time you ever realized this, that the world can't give you peace. The world will always have trouble. But there can be peace in your life despite all the trouble around you, because God is bigger than the world, and only he can give you peace. That peace, that shalom, only comes through Jesus

Conclude

Prayer

Last Song

Doxology

Numbers 6:24–26 CSB

24 “May the Lord bless you and protect you; 25 may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; 26 may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.” ’

Jude 24–25 CSB

24 Now to him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, without blemish and with great joy, 25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now and forever. Amen.

You are dismissed. Have a great week in the Lord!