Good News, Great Peace

Amen.

Sacred mission, you may be seated.

Good morning.

Hey, for those of you who don't know, my name is Justin.

I'm one of the pastors here.

It's my joy and privilege to bring God's word to you on this first Sunday of Advent.

If you have a Bible or an app, open it to Isaiah chapter 9.

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

We're going to be looking at verses 6 and 7 together this morning.

If you don't know where Isaiah is, it's a major, it's a he's a major prophet within the Old Testament.

So he's just a little bit past halfway.

Should be easy to turn to.

And we're going to be looking there at this very important prophecy, not only for Israel and their people at this time, but even for us today as God's people in Christ.

So Isaiah 9, 6 and 7.

In December of 1986, after the violent death of a man named Michael Griffith, there were protests that filled the streets of Queens, New York, raising this rally cry: no justice, no peace.

No justice, no peace.

Since then, that that cry has become the anthem of people facing grave injustice, people whose lives feel marked by conflict and chaos.

But why would we link these two realities?

What does justice have to do with peace?

If you scrolled through your news feed lately, you know you've seen stories of racial injustice, sexual abuse, political corruption, religious persecution.

It just goes on and on.

These stories, they breed this acute sense of fear within us, and they often drive us into the darkness of doubt that things could ever truly get better.

Many of us, we can resonate with the notion that there's been an absence of justice in the world.

And without justice, there is no peace.

There's just weariness, exhaustion.

But here's what Advent declares to us our hearts are never ultimately going to be comforted by the tears that we shed in the face of injustice.

No, our hearts are going to be comforted solely through the cry of an infant that matures into the shout of a king.

A king who fulfills all justice within his creation and brings peace to his people without end.

So we're looking at Isaiah 9, 6 and 7, and this promise of peace.

Listen to what he declares in verse 6.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Here in verse 6, we we see God's promise.

Peace is going to come to his people, and it will be a peace without end.

But to understand this promise in its proper context, we actually have to back up a little bit in Isaiah, back to chapter 8, verse 22.

You see, Isaiah has been up to this point speaking a dark word of judgment over Israel.

They are in darkness, but but redemption is coming.

And that's the shift that we see in chapter 9.

And we see it clearly in verse 2, where it says that the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them a light has shone.

Now notice that Isaiah describes this darkness in two very distinct ways.

The first way he says that they've been walking in darkness.

This speaks to this active participation that we have in our own rebellion against God.

We have, by choice and will, walked in the darkness we find ourselves in.

But second, it says that they've been dwelling in darkness, in a land of deep darkness, Isaiah says.

And this creates this heavy, thick gloom all around them.

You see, it's both.

Yet in the midst of their darkness, light was going to shine forth.

Now, this light, this is God's active grace toward an undeserving people.

If God wanted to damn his people, he simply would leave them in the darkness that they find themselves in.

I was talking with someone this week about God's love and mercy and grace toward us.

But we're also talking about the opposite of God's justice against us, his condemnation of our own wickedness and sin.

And if God wants to damn you, he will do so by giving you fully over to yourself, no longer restraining sin in your life, no longer causing righteousness to be a part of your person.

He will give you fully to the darkness that you desire to hide in.

That's God's judgment.

God's grace is that he shines a light onto that darkness.

And he exposes that sin so that it can be brought forward and put to death.

You see, this grace of God is calling us out of the darkness of our chaos and conflict that our own sin has placed us in, and it's calling us into his marvelous light.

His light of peace.

Because you see, in darkness, peace is absent.

There is no peace in the midst of darkness.

But in the light, man, chaos is abolished.

Conflict is brought to resolution.

Now we look at verses four, five, and six of Isaiah chapter nine, and we actually see three outcomes of light that produces this joy in God's people.

Four, five, and six show us this.

First, it shows us that the burden of oppression has been broken.

Then it says that the enmity of war has ceased.

And the third thing that it tells us is that wicked rulers' reign ends.

So the burden of oppression has been broken, the enmity of war has ceased, the reign of wicked rulers has ended, and no longer would his people live under these corrupt governments and worldly powers, but instead they would be citizens of his kingdom.

And he would reign over them as wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Now, how is all this going to be accomplished?

Through the birth of a child, the giving of a son, Isaiah says.

That we might know reconciliation and peace with our Maker.

And how does he establish this promise of peace in his coming?

Isaiah says that the government shall be upon his shoulders.

This is kind of the thrust of Isaiah's prophecy that the government is going to be placed upon the shoulders of this coming son, this gift that would be given to God's people.

Jesus comes to bear upon his own work and strength a righteous reign and rule.

He places the government upon the strength of his own back.

And here's the connection that we need to see in this there is no peace without justice.

You cannot have one without the other.

Think about it.

Where there's injustice, there's always conflict.

The streets are taken up with the shouts of protesters.

People feel at war with one another.

In the face of injustice, there's always conflict.

When people are oppressed or they're treated unrighteously, chaos breeds with inside of our culture.

It breeds with inside our very chest.

This is why the protesters in Queens in 1986 shouted, no justice, no peace.

That's why that shout continues today in the streets of our cities.

They understood that peace isn't merely the absence of conflict, but it is the presence of righteousness.

We can have fake peace where we're just not fighting.

But that's not peace.

Where there's the presence of righteousness, where there's the flourishing of human life, where there is this benevolence toward one another, peace is present.

You see, sin breeds chaos, righteousness breeds peace.

So when Isaiah declares that the government will be upon his shoulder, he's telling us that Jesus is going to establish a kingdom where justice flows like a river.

And in that justice, peace flourishes eternally for his people.

You see, Jesus rules with perfect justice.

And that perfect justice creates lasting peace.

This is who he is in his very nature.

The prophet Isaiah calls him wonderful counselor, the one who would guide his people through perfect knowledge and wisdom.

Mighty God.

A justice that's mighty enough to actually accomplish what needs to be done in creation.

Everlasting Father.

He says this of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end.

On the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

What we have to understand is that the coming of Jesus is the coming of his kingdom.

Jesus wasn't just a vagabond teacher who tried to encourage us to treat people nice and be kind and loving.

And if you do these things, then you'll be accepted and loved by God.

No, he wasn't a wandering prophet.

He was a king coming to inaugurate his kingdom.

And in that, provide the peace that he promises to his people.

You see, he's not just coming to save us, he's coming to rule and reign over us.

And this is good news for us.

Because his kingdom stretches over all creation and it has no end.

This is why his peace will have no end either.

Now, there's a twofold reality here within the text.

First is this that the righteous king and his righteous kingdom will reign forever.

This isn't a temporary thing.

Jesus' rule is eternal, and so is the justice that establishes peace in his kingdom.

But second is the finished work of reconciling God's people to himself.

It will have no end.

Jesus will, it says, establish it and uphold it.

To establish it, it speaks of Jesus' finished work, his total work, of his birth, life, death, and resurrection.

This once and for all work of redemption has secured our redemption forever.

And to uphold it, it speaks to what Isaiah says of the increase of his government, there will be no end.

Jesus' kingdom keeps growing, his reign keeps expanding, his peace keeps advancing.

Yes, Jesus came to save us, but in saving us, he ultimately has brought us into his eternal kingdom.

So we're brought out of the darkness that we were actively walking in, into his marvelous light.

We've been brought out of slavery and into his freedom, out of sin, into his righteousness, out of war with God and into peace with him.

But here's the question we have to ask.

If our own sin imprisoned us in darkness, what would ever motivate God to extend such infinite grace to us?

Mercy to us.

Well the answer is actually right in the text.

Isaiah 9 7 at the end says, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

It's his zeal.

Meaning it's his jealousy.

We often confuse envy with jealousy.

Envy is when we desire something that's not rightfully ours.

There's a commandment against that.

There's a thou shalt not in there, right?

Don't do that.

Jealousy is when we desire what is rightfully ours.

Glory is rightfully his.

There is no other way for us to be a people at peace.

Every other effort that we try to make, it will ultimately fail us.

If we try to find peace by any other means, it will crumble and erode beneath us.

But as we are transferred out of the darkness of our sin and into his marvelous light, we obtain Jesus' peace.

Listen to how Jesus Himself describes this gift he gives to us.

As he's speaking to his disciples in the Gospel of John 14, 27, he says this, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.

Not as the world gives, do I give to you.

Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

The scriptures tell us that it will not return to him void.

Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, God incarnate, spoke that his peace will have no end.

That he gifts his peace to his people.

And it's not like the world gives, but it's an everlasting peace, not fragile, temporary, the kind that depends on our personal circumstances or the politics and power.

No, this is his peace.

The peace that flows from his righteous rule.

And so when he speaks those words, they are guaranteed.

Because if one word comes back void that he has spoken, he is no longer God.

You see, we experience the peace that Jesus offers and gives to us because we're liberated from the oppression of our sin when he makes us alive and gives us a heart of flesh where one of stone once resided.

We're no longer enemies of God, but we're made children adopted into his household, and we're made citizens of an eternally peace-filled kingdom under the reign of the Prince of Peace Himself.

But here's what we need to understand: Jesus' peace is certain not simply because he spoke it, but it's because his righteous rule is definite.

You see, his kingdom is established and upheld by justice and by righteousness.

This justice means that God, as holy judge, perfectly gives to each what they deserve.

His judgments are perfect, and therefore his kingdom.

Is stable.

There is no injustice in the kingdom of God.

Every judgment he makes and executes is perfect.

Therefore, his kingdom is stable.

But also, he rules in righteousness, meaning that God is perfect in all his ways.

Everything he does flows from this perfect character.

And so, therefore, everything that he establishes will endure.

Where sin brings death, righteousness brings life.

This is why his peace will never end.

Because it's built on the unshakable foundation of who he is: a king whose justice is perfect and whose righteousness is eternal.

And so now, if that's true, if Jesus really does bring eternal peace through perfect justice and righteousness, then we need to ask ourselves an honest question this morning.

Why don't we experience this peace more fully?

Why does it seem out of our reach?

What's getting in the way of this promise?

You see, the answer is found in our own story.

Many of us here this morning, we we do not seek justice.

We do not seek justice.

Here's something we need to be honest about.

We don't seek justice, at least not real justice.

When it comes to ourselves, we really don't want God to give us what we deserve.

Nobody's standing in line for that handout.

We don't want God to give us what we deserve because one of two reasons.

Number one, we either think way too highly of ourselves, and you're telling yourself this lie even as I speak.

I'm a good person.

I don't deserve judgment.

Right?

I'm not X.

You're comparing yourself to whoever might be determined as more wicked and more evil than you are.

And so you're saying, I don't deserve judgment.

I'm really not that bad of a person.

Or some of you are thinking rightly of yourself as this wretch, full of all means of wickedness and evil.

But here's the problem.

Though you may see yourself as a sinner, you work to tip the scales of God's love in your own favor by trying to be kind and nice and generous to people around you.

You say, if I can just do enough, maybe then God will love me.

Maybe I can cause those scales to tip in my favor.

Because both of us, at the end of the day, we don't want justice.

We want mercy.

If grace is getting this benevolence that we do not deserve, mercy is a cry that asks for us to not get what we do deserve.

So when we say we serve a merciful God, what we're declaring out of our mouth is that the justice our sin demands and deserves in Christ was not released upon us.

That's the mercy of God.

But what about when it comes to others?

You see, when it comes to the injustices we experience personally or around us, we don't want justice either.

We want vengeance.

We love vengeance.

But the problem with vengeance is it only has its own self-interest in mind.

It does not hold any sense of impartiality.

It does not have any restraint.

There is no standard beyond who has been wronged and how they feel it should be dealt with.

But justice, on the other hand, true justice, it's impartial, it's balanced, it's fair.

This is actually why the Lord says, vengeance is mine.

Because, see, vengeance in our hands, it's not justice, it's just death for death.

It's crime for crime.

It's our own self-righteous determination of punishment that should be inflicted because of the way that we feel.

But vengeance in the hands of God, perfect justice perfectly avenges all wrongdoing.

This is why he's able to declare, without any sinfulness, vengeance is mine, because that vengeance will be executed through the means of perfect justice that is himself.

And this justice, this upholding of justice, this is actually what he calls us to walk out in our own life.

Something from the beauty and hope of the gospel that his people would live and walk in justice in their day-to-day life.

The relationships that they have with one another and within culture.

You see, we as his image bearers are supposed to reflect his character with inside of creation, and a part of that is to both love and pursue justice.

You see, a good king and a good kingdom, they rule justly.

And it's this justice that establishes and upholds peace in the lives of its people.

But others of us, we don't walk in righteousness.

You wonder why there's so much chaos and conflict in your life?

It's not from the darkness that surrounds you, it's from the darkness within you.

You see, it's not just that we don't seek justice, we don't walk in righteousness either.

We're very much like the Israel that Isaiah is prophesying about.

The people who walked in darkness, those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness.

We've chosen our own path, we've rebelled against God's good design, and in that we've invited chaos into our own life.

Because here's the reality: sin is what breeds chaos.

In our relationships, in our workplace, within our culture, wherever there's the presence of chaos and conflict, sin is there.

But righteousness, righteousness breeds peace.

You see, we're called to live righteously, not because God wants to burden us with all these rules and regulations.

This is what we get stuck in our head.

We get stuck in our head that God somehow just wants to strip fun from our life, and he wants to oppress us with all these rules and regulations and standards of which we're called to live, and we're just not able to flourish and be all that we feel or think or desire to be in our life.

But but the opposite is true.

God calls us to his righteous standard and rule because it's submitted under them that human flourishing is possible.

Because when we try to do it our own way, we're going to do it through the means of sin, and we're just going to invite chaos and conflict into our life, into our relationship, into our workplaces.

But when we actually are submitted under God's righteous standard, when we're obedient to his righteous rule, not only do we flourish as human beings, but the people and the culture around us flourish also.

God loves us.

That's why he establishes his righteousness over us.

In any act of disobedience, it fractures the good that he desires for us.

And instead, it just invites chaos to enter in.

You see, a good king and a good kingdom, they rule in righteousness.

And here's the effect of that.

Isaiah 32, 17 says, and the effect of righteousness will be peace.

And the result of righteousness?

Quietness and trust forever.

I love that quietness.

In the presence of righteousness, the streets aren't filled with the shouts of protesters.

Culture is quiet because it's able to rest.

You see, that's the kind of kingdom Jesus is establishing.

One where his perfect righteousness creates unshakable, everlasting peace for his people.

And so here we are this morning.

Many of us we don't seek justice.

Instead, we seek vengeance or some type of cosmic favoritism with this deity in the sky.

We don't walk in righteousness.

Instead, we walk in rebellion or our own self-determined way.

And because of this, we find ourselves exactly where Isaiah described, walking in darkness, dwelling in the land of deep darkness, which brings us back to the question that confronts every human heart in this room.

How does God accomplish this peace?

How does a holy God who demands perfect justice extend peace to a sinful people who deserve judgment?

The answer is most beautifully and simply the cross.

Because the righteous son was crushed under the justice that we deserved.

The righteous son was crushed under the justice we deserve.

Here's how perfect justice deals with sin.

Forgiveness is not sweeping your sin under the rug of creation.

Forgiveness is crushing his own son in your place so that his mercy could be extended to you.

Because God's just.

And in his resurrection, he declared, The kingdom of peace has come, and nothing can stop it.

But here's what we got to remember.

While we're here this morning, reflecting and remembering on the first advent of Jesus when he simply came as a crying infant in the stillness of night.

The second coming of Jesus will not be through the form of an infant, but it will be the final and eternal justice of a king who rules and reigns in righteousness when he brings his kingdom in its fullness.

You see, he came once to establish peace.

He's coming again to consummate it.

And when he does, his peace will have no end.

Darkness will be banished forever, war will cease, oppression will be broken, wicked rulers will be dethroned, and the people who dwell with God will dwell in perfect peace under the perfect justice and righteousness of an eternal king.

Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

So this morning, what are you going to do with this news?

No Jesus, no peace.

No Jesus, no peace.

You see, we began this morning with the cry that echoed through the streets of Queens.

No justice, no peace.

And while it's a cry that still rings true today, where there is no justice, there can be no peace.

Right?

We've seen this throughout history.

We see it in our headlines today.

We feel it in our chest.

The world keeps promising us justice and peace through political reform, social movements, new leaders with new and empty promises, but the peace that it offers is fragile, temporary, dependent on circumstances that continue to shift like sand beneath our feet.

And the justice, it's always incomplete because it's always in corrupted human hands that are tainted for their own self-interest.

But Advent declares to us that there's another way.

And it's not in filling the streets with the rally cry of no justice, no peace, but it's to humbly and faithfully submit to know Jesus, no peace.

Because to know him is to know the only perfect and just king.

To know Jesus is to enter the only kingdom where peace will never end.

To know him is to be transferred out of the darkness of our sin and into the marvelous light of his righteousness.

Church, the world's justice will fail you.

Its peace will crumble.

But the justice and peace of Christ that was established by his death, secured by his resurrection, upheld by his eternal reign, it's never gonna fail.

So where's your hope this morning?

Where's your hope this Advent season?

Are you still trying as hard as you can to negotiate your own peace with God?

Are you still trying to establish your own righteousness before Him?

Still placing your trust in the kingdoms of this world?

Or will you put your hope in the Prince of Peace?

The one who bore God's justice so that you could receive his peace, the one who conquered death so that you could live forever in his kingdom.

Church, no Jesus, no peace forever.

Let's pray.