Embracing Jesus: The True Prince of Peace

"So as I mentioned, in the previous weeks, we've looked at this text and seen these different facets, these different names of the Lord Jesus. And this morning, we close out this brief series by concentrating on Jesus as the Prince of Peace. And I believe that this is not only important so that we can celebrate Christmas well, but I think this passage also helps equip us to engage in, survive in, but I think even more importantly, thrive in a world that has completely gone off the rails and off the tracks as far as God's perspective is concerned." [00:00:00]

"He is, as He is called in the Old Testament, Jehovah Sabaoth. He's the Lord of the armies of heaven. Jesus. Jesus is the greatest of all time. He is peace. And I'm going to say this now, I'm going to say it again at least two different times, because it is really the central part of my message this morning. And that is, Jesus doesn't just bring peace. He does bring peace. But Jesus doesn't bring peace. Jesus is peace. He is." [00:03:23] (37 seconds)


"Jesus brings peace because Jesus himself, and we're going to see the scripture that declares that, but Jesus himself is our peace, and I say that because any peace, any peace that does not have as its source and origin, Jesus is not real peace. Any peace that does not have Jesus as its true source and origin is not really peace, and it will be artificial." [00:04:00] (33 seconds)


"This is the foundation, and this is actually, a lot of times pastors get to the end of their first point, and they're amazed at the fact they've chewed up the majority of their time. That won't be amazing to me this morning because I'm actually gonna, I want us to spend a good portion of our time here because it is the foundation of everything that we want to talk about. Peace with God." [00:06:24] (25 seconds)


"If you think about building a house, right, it's got to have a solid foundation. That's the foundation. That's the foundation. That's the foundation. That's why Jesus uses the parable in Matthew chapter 7 of the wise man who built his house on the rock, and the unwise man who built his house on the sand. Both of them built a house. It doesn't really describe the house. Probably both very nice houses, and they were fine and good, but then along came the storm, and by the way, the storm, the same storm hit both houses." [00:07:23] (28 seconds)


"Romans chapter five says that while we were God's enemies, he reconciled us to himself. Now there's a lot of people in the world who think, hey, I'm a pretty good person. Like, I mean, I don't got religion. I don't go to church. I don't believe in God, but I'm a good person. Well, first of all, that's not true. Second of all, you're, they're an enemy of God." [00:21:15] (24 seconds)


"The peace of God is not something that you and I manufacture by thinking peace, peace, peace, peace, peace. Or by trying to drive out all the negative thoughts and, I don't know, peace is not something that you and I manufacture. It is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5 verse 22 says, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace." [00:24:52] (25 seconds)


"That's why we can have peace with men. That's why broken relationships can be healed. That is why that even in the midst of somebody treating you poorly, you can have the Prince of Peace ruling and reigning in your life. It goes back to Ephesians 2, what I talked about earlier, about the fact that there was this dividing wall. There was a time that God, that God specifically divided people." [00:29:12] (28 seconds)


"Lastly this morning, peace with life. We can have peace with God, which is the foundation. Because we have peace with God, we can have peace with man. And last of all, and oh boy, do we need this, we need peace with life. Or peace in life. Because life is going to throw you curveballs." [00:33:06] (22 seconds)


"Lastly, Isaiah chapter 26, verse three, Isaiah writes, prophesying from the Lord, he says, you will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, for he trusts in you. The picture that Isaiah is trying to paint is a picture of somebody who's leaning up against something." [00:36:58] (27 seconds)