Robert Reed said, “I have everything I need for joy!”  And I thought, “Amazing.”  His hands are twisted and his feet are useless.  He can’t bathe, feed or dress himself.  His shirts are held together by strips of Velcro.  His speech drags like a worn-out cassette.  Robert has cerebral palsy.  The disease prevents him from driving a car or going for a walk, but it didn’t keep him from graduating from college or from venturing overseas on five mission trips.  And his disease didn’t prevent him from becoming a missionary in Portugal.  He moved by himself to Lisbon in 1972, rented a hotel room and began studying Portuguese.  He found a restaurant owner who would feed him after rush hour and help him with the language.  He stationed himself in a park and passed out brochures about Christ.  Over six years, he led seventy people to Christ, including one who became his wife.  He could have asked for sympathy or pity but he did the opposite.  He held his bent hand up in the air and boasted, “I have everything I need for joy.”  His shirts are held together by Velcro, but his life is held together by joy! 

Mary was just a young woman when she was called to bear a special child, who would be the Son of God who would save God’s people from their sins.  But with that task came some unwanted costs, such as, a fiancée who didn’t initially understand any of this and thought she had lied and cheated on him.  A community that ostracized and shunned her for an unplanned pregnancy before marriage.  She had a long difficult journey to another city on the verge of her due date.  She had a baby in a smelly stable and then dealt with an egotistical king that sent killers after the baby to destroy Him.  Why didn’t she become bitter and lash out at God and abandon the plan?  Because she had met the Prince of Peace. 

Is. 9:6-7 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; & the government shall be upon his shoulder, & his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Might God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Of the increase of his government & of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David & over his kingdom, to establish it & to uphold it.” 

We have spent Advent looking at the names for the Messiah in Isaiah 9:6.  We saw Jesus as the name of wonder and the name of wisdom, who exceeds all expectations.  We saw Him as the Mighty God who is unlimited and doesn’t play by our rules and nothing can tie His hands from working.  We saw Him as our Everlasting Father who has a permanent, paternal relationship with us. 

On the evening of Jesus’ birth two thousand years ago, the angels sang to the shepherds (Luke 2:14), “Glory to God in the highest, & on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”  Tonight, we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace. 

We know that the word Prince implies that Jesus is the supreme ruler and that He is royalty.  Verse 7 tells us that the “government is upon his shoulder.”  In other words, there is no higher government than He.  His word is above every word and His law is above every law.  Everything bows down to Him.  He is sovereign.  There is no match to His power.  He is in complete control.  He is never the second banana or the other option.  He is the King and the Lord.  And, yet, He suffered with His creation and was crucified by His creation.   

As Prince, He brings PEACE.  We often think of peace as just the absence of conflict.  Someone said, “Peace is the brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading.”  However, the “peace” of Isaiah 9 refers to completeness and wholeness.  We hear the Jews say “Shalom,” the Hebrew word for “peace.”  Interestingly the opposite of shalom is not war, but it is chaos.  As Prince of Peace, Jesus brings order and wholeness into the chaos of our world.  And He can bring that order to the chaos of our lives.   

When a husband died, his wife had “Rest in Peace” engraved upon his tombstone.  A few days later she was contacted by their attorney who told her that she had been left out of her husband’s will.  She had an amendment added to her husband’s headstone.  Under “Rest in Peace,” she had the engraver add, “Until I come.” 

John 14:27, Jesus says, “Peace I leave you; my peace I give you.  Not as the world gives do I give to you.”  The peace of the world depends upon everything BUT God.  It depends upon how my job is going, how my kids are doing…if all those things line up then I have peace.  

Jesus’ peace is that everyday I walk out my door, I know that whatever comes into my life that day, God already knows about and has equipped me for and He is on the job to handle it.  The Prince of Peace reconciles us completely with God, with ourselves, with others and with our circumstances. 

 Areas Where Peace Comes into Our Lives:

1. Jesus Brings Peace Between Myself & God.

Ever since Adam and Eve sinned and hid from God, we’ve been doing the same thing.  We fight against Him and doubt Him and think that He is secretly against us.  We don’t want to obey or submit to Him.  We try to ignore Him when it’s convenient and we willfully sin, but then we play religion and act like everything is ok.   

Jesus says that those who are not in relationship with Him are condemned.  John 3:18 “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”  But hear what Jesus has done for us in Romans 5:1-2 “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand & we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”  Jesus has given us a whole new standing before God that does not depend upon us, but upon what Jesus did.  Our broken relationship with Him has been completely restored.  He has come to undo the total work that sin has done in your life—all of its damage and all of its darkness.  If you are a Christian, God now calls you His son or daughter.  He has lavished His love upon you.  He staunchly defends you and claims you as His own and He will take you to heaven when this life is over.   

He is the Prince of Peace.  There is no half-way salvation.  He offers full salvation where we are completely forgiven and completely accepted. 

A little boy went to the grocery store and asked for a box of Tide.  The grocer asked, “Are you going to help your mom with the wash?”  “No,” the boy said, “it’s for my puppy.  I want to wash him and make him clean.”  The grocer said, “That is a pretty strong detergent to use on a little puppy.”  The little boy said, “Well, I saw on TV that Tide will make them fluffy and clean,” so he bought the detergent and went home.  He returned to the store three days later and the grocer asked, “How’s the puppy?”  The little boy said, “Well, we buried him yesterday.”  “You buried him?  I told you that detergent was too strong.”  “It wasn’t the detergent that got him.  It was that rinse cycle.”  Many of you may be sitting here tonight, feeling as if you are caught in that rinse cycle. 

2. Jesus Brings Peace to Me.

Our culture teaches us to hate ourselves.  We look in the mirror and don’t like what we see.  We look at our age and wish we were another age.  We look at our stuff and think that other stuff will make us happy.  We have a bad habit of measuring ourselves against something that we can never achieve.  And, on top of that, we have a personal enemy in Satan who likes to accuse us 24/7.  It all adds up to a pretty unhappy existence. 

The Prince of Peace tells us that we have it all wrong.  “There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ.”  (Rom. 8:1)  He has determined the number of days we will live and He has planned a special purpose for us and He did this all before we were even born.  My acceptance of Christ should also be my acceptance of myself.  We need to be at peace with who we are. 

3. Jesus Brings Peace to My Circumstances.

Jesus’ peace does not depend on your circumstances being ok.  It depends upon Jesus being in control.  In Philippians 4, Paul tells us what peace feels like:

• Peace feels like security that passes understanding.  Vs. 6-7 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer & supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts & your minds in Christ Jesus.”  God’s peace is the peace which “surpasses all understanding” because it comes from the one who understands it all.   

• Peace feels like contentedness in life.  Vs. 11 “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have in whatever situation I am to be content.” 

• Peace feels like confidence for the future.  Vs. 13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” 

• Peace rests on God’s supply and power.  Vs. 19 “My God shall supply every need of yours according to his riche in glory in Christ Jesus.” 

4. Jesus Has a Church of Peace.

This peace of Christ extends to His church.  When you come into the doors of the church, that should be where prejudice ends; where judging ends; where name calling ends; where social class or status ends; where skin color ends and where popularity ends.   

The church should be the one place on the planet where we are loved and valued based on Jesus’ love for us and not on anything else.   

Science fiction author, H.G. Wells said, “The time has come for me to reorganize my life, my peace—I cry out.  I cannot adjust my life to secure any fruitful peace.  Here I am at sixty-four, still seeking peace.  It is a hopeless dream.”  Folks, it is NOT a hopeless dream, because we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace! 

Do you know Jesus Christ as your Prince of Peace?  He is the one who takes the chaos and brokenness of our lives and makes it whole and brings order to it.  And not just into our lives, but to our community and to our nation, and ultimately, to the world. 

A dad got up early one Sunday morning and was glad to have some time to himself.  He fixed himself a cup of coffee and began to read the Sunday paper.  Three sentences into an article, he saw his five year old daughter descending the stairs.  He said, “Honey, go back to bed.”  “But I’m not sleepy,” she insisted.  Determined t read his paper, he again urged her to go back to bed.  Again, she told him she was not tired.  Looking at the newspaper, he conceived a plan.  There was an ad with a picture of the globe on it.  He cut it into several pieces, handed his daughter some Scotch tape and said, “Go sit in the dining room and see if you can put the world back together.”  He went back into the kitchen to resume his reading and coffee drinking.  After only a few sips of coffee, his daughter came back into the kitchen and said, “Here, Daddy, I’m finished,” showing him the picture of the world put back together.  Dad was amazed.  He asked, “Sweetie, how did you do that so fast?”  “It was easy, Daddy.  On the back side of the page was a picture of a man.  When you make the man right, you make the world right.”   

That, dear folks, is what Jesus, the promised Messiah, came to do.  “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given…And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  That is quite a list and quite a name to live up to, but Jesus Christ can do it.   He provides wonderful counsel for us.  He is the Mighty God who provides everything we need for salvation in this life and the next.  As our Everlasting Father, He watches over us and shapes us into His image.  And as Prince of Peace, He takes our broken lives and makes us complete.   

Two guys talking.  They were going to put up an artificial Christmas tree.  One asked the other, “Does it bother you to have an artificial tree?”  “No, not as long as the presents are real.”  God’s Christmas Gift is REAL!  He is the “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  I trust that you know Him and trust Him.  Merry Christmas!  Let’s pray.