The Prince of Peace

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family.

We’re in the middle of Advent, and we’re looking at the good news that Jesus came to bring peace. Isaiah 9:6 refers to the coming Messiah as the “Prince of Peace”.

And Jesus was actually born during a time known as the Pax Romana, or “Roman Peace”. It was the golden age of Rome. The Romans were experiencing prosperity, stability, and order throughout the empire.

But this peace didn’t benefit everyone equally. It existed because Rome’s enemies had been beaten down and had lost the ability to resist.

Tacitus, writing a speech supposedly given by a tribal leader in Brittania, said this: “Robbery, butchery, rapine, the liars call Empire; they create desolation and call it peace.”

It is into this world of fabricated peace that God sent His only Son to create true and lasting peace. Our story this morning begins outside Bethlehem in Luke 2:

8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

We’re in a field near Bethlehem on the night Jesus was born. Luke takes us here immediately after the birth of Jesus.

You’ll often hear in sermons that shepherds were despised outcasts at the time, but that is probably overstated. Abraham, Moses, and David were all shepherds. The Israelites were nomadic shepherds by origin.

But by the time Jesus was born, shepherding had mostly fallen to younger sons in farming families. So, this is a group of working-class young men on the night shift—not the people you’d expect to receive heaven’s most important announcement.

9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.

This is God’s Shekinah glory showing up in the most unlikely place. God chose these humble, ordinary men to announce the birth of Jesus. No priests. No prophets. No kings. Just a few shepherds and their sheep. And of course, they were afraid.

10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

Those last four words are the best four words. “For all the people.” In other words, the angel has good news for rich and poor, young and old, clean and unclean.

He appears to the shepherds first to prove it. God has good news even for you guys! The world would not consider you worthy of this visitation, but God does… those are the four best words. “For all the people.”

11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

Notice that this good news is personal, possessive, and direct. “Unto you” shepherds. “Unto you is born.” Unto you, Christian. Unto you, doubter. Unto you, sinner. Christ is born for you.

Notice also that Jesus is given three titles. Savior, implying that we need saving. Christ, implying that He is the promised Messiah. And Lord, implying that He claims authority over our lives.

And so far, this good news sounds majestic and glorious. Imagine the growing excitement of the shepherds hearing this report. But then we get to verse 12.

12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

We underestimate how confusing this would have been because we know the whole story. In our minds, this is a beautiful part of the Nativity story… baby Jesus in the manger.

But try to put yourself in the place of the shepherds hearing this for the first time. Christ, our Lord and Savior, is a baby? And He’s in a feeding trough? What?!

And the truth is, if you take a step back from the whole story and look at all the characters, they were all puzzled by it. Mary was confused. Joseph was confused. No one really understood what God was doing.

How is the Messiah coming to us as a helpless baby and in such a humble way?

But while the shepherds are trying to process exactly that question, something amazing happens:

13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

Just in case the shepherds start to question the whole experience, because it really makes no sense, the heavens open and they see undeniable confirmation that God is behind this encounter.

Armies of angels appear to them, singing a hymn. And it’s this last verse, verse 14, where I want us to focus our attention. This is the Gospel being preached by the angels to the shepherds.

It begins with God and His glory in a world obsessed with the glory of men. This is an important part of the Gospel, then and now.

The lack of peace in our world has always been fueled by men chasing glory for themselves. From ancient Roman emperors to modern politicians, celebrities, and CEOs. Our lack of peace is often the byproduct of humans seeking power, fame, and fortune.

But God sent His Son into this world, strategically placed at just the right time and place as Paul says in Galatians 4, to bring peace on earth.

And yet, notice, it’s not a universal peace being declared in verse 14. It’s peace “among those with whom God is pleased”. And that creates a tension, because who is God pleased with?

The fair answer to that question is… no one.

Except one. God is pleased with His Son. At Jesus’ baptism, the Father declares, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’ Christ is the only human being with whom the Father is infinitely, completely pleased.

None of us has lived the kind of life that God is pleased with. We are all, by nature, children of wrath according to Ephesians 2. In Romans 3, it says that no one is righteous. No one seeks after God. God is actually displeased with all of us.

So, what is God doing? Why is He sending an angel to tell us about a kind of peace we don’t really deserve? Why is God sending His Son into a world full of people who are obsessed with themselves, a world that God knows is going to reject and murder His Son?

In fact, even though God was perfectly pleased with Jesus, the life of Jesus was anything but peaceful. Shortly after his birth, Joseph and Mary had to flee the country to keep Jesus safe. As a rabbi, Jesus was constantly threatened by the religious leaders. He lived his entire life knowing that His purpose was to suffer and die a sacrificial death.

But Jesus explains it in John 10:

11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.

18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.

When you consider what Jesus is saying, it makes perfect sense why God announced the birth of Jesus to a bunch of shepherds. Jesus was one of them! And that is great truth of the Incarnation. Jesus became like us, for us.

Shepherds take care of their sheep. But the irony is that most of those animals were being taken care of only to die later. Some of them would be used for meat. Some of them would be used for sacrifices.

But Jesus said He came to die for His sheep. And He did it willingly. He wasn’t forced or oppressed into doing it. And at the heart of this sacrifice is the Father’s love and the Son’s desire to please His Father.

Put it all together and what do we have? We have a sharp contrast between the kind of “peace” being peddled by the world and the true peace found in Christ.

Roman peace was imposed on people through military conquest. They dominated and suppressed people into peace. They beat people into submission. And we know from history, that kind of “peace” never lasts. It is temporary and fragile.

But God created a new kind of peace through Christ. It’s a peace given through a humble birth and a sacrificial death. It’s a peace built on reconciliation and love. It’s a peace that restores enemies, even bringing them into God’s family permanently. And it’s eternal and unshakeable.

How do you get this peace? You receive it as a free gift through faith in Christ.

When we are united to Christ by faith, God’s pleasure in His Son extends to us. We become ‘those with whom He is pleased’—not because we’ve earned it, but because we’re hidden in Christ. We are, as Paul says, “accepted in the Beloved.”

By extension, we receive three kinds of peace. Vertical peace, which is reconciliation with God. Horizontal peace, in our relationships with each other. And internal peace, which is our anxious hearts finding rest in Jesus.

I know many of you and as a pastor I’ve gotten to know many of your struggles. And I want you to know, the shepherds didn’t stay out in the field contemplating the meaning of this event or debating theology. They wouldn’t have known how to do that anyway.

Verse 15 tells us what they did:

15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”

They went. And they found exactly what the angel had promised—a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.

Then in verse 20:

20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

These ordinary shepherds became the first evangelists. They went back to their work, but they went back changed by the experience. They had met the Prince of Peace.

I want to end this morning by asking you three questions:

First, do you know this peace? I’m not talking about emotional calm or the absence of problems, but a settled confidence that God is reconciled to you in Christ? Have you received the gift of peace that only Jesus can give?

If you’ve never trusted in Christ, you can start today by believing that Jesus lived the life you should have lived and died the death you should have died. He offers you peace with God as a free gift. Will you receive it?

Second, are you resting in this peace, or are you still anxiously striving for it yourself?

One of the great temptations of the Christian life is to drift back into performance mode—trying to earn God’s favor, anxious about whether you’re doing enough.

But remember, you are already among “those with whom He is pleased” because you are in Christ. Your peace with God doesn’t depend on your performance. It depends on His.

Third, is this peace on display in your life?

We live in anxious times. People around us are desperate for peace—they’re looking for it in all the wrong places.

But we have something the world desperately needs: we have the Prince of Peace Himself.

Do people see His peace in you? Not perfection, but the deep-rooted confidence that comes from knowing God is with you, that He is pleased with you in Christ?

You don’t have to be an expert evangelist or theologian to have an impact on the people in your life.

You can just be like these shepherds. Live your ordinary life, but live it glorifying and praising God for His peace – ready to tell everyone what He has done for you!