Knowing the Prince of Peace

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. Prince of Peace, teach us who you are, and may we see you in a new way today.

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Amen. So, just a little history. 49 years ago,

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I was 20 years old, and I had a very troubled heart.

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I did not know the Prince of Peace, addictions in my life, drugs, alcohol.

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In a period of five years, my life had become a wreck to the point where I would often think that maybe

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I would be better off if I wasn't alive. And my life was full of fear.

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I was in trouble in many ways, in trouble with the law. And I had no hope.

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And then I met the Prince of Peace. And he came into my troubled, troubled, troubled life.

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And I experienced a peace that I had never known in my entire life. And people, you know, the kids that I work with will often say, how do you know that Jesus is real?

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I know he's real. He's the Prince of Peace. He brought a peace into my heart that nothing else could ever give.

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And he healed me up, and he set me free, and he changed my life forever. And he is so amazing how he enters into our mess, into our troubled hearts.

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And he speaks those words, peace be still. And there's a great calm.

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Open your Bibles with me to Isaiah, back to Isaiah, chapter 9.

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And I want to examine this name, Prince of Peace. And then I want to look at a story that demonstrates the

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Prince of Peace in action, and what he can do. So in Isaiah 9, 6, we find this beautiful name for Jesus, and he is called the

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Prince of Peace. This word, Prince, probably, maybe here is not the best translation, actually, as I studied this out.

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But I'll explain maybe why they chose that name. But the Hebrew word is sar.

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And again, I, you know, I tell you guys this every time I teach. I don't know Hebrew, and I don't know

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Greek, but I have some really, really good tools that help me learn what these words are, and even how to pronounce them properly.

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And so we would spell this word S -A -R, but it's the word that's translated

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Prince here. And it has the idea, as far as, it comes from a word sarar, which means the head person or the chief.

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And then it carries the meaning to have dominion. It's translated in the

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Old Testament as captain, chief, general, governor, keeper, lord, master, prince, ruler, steward.

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And really, the idea of this word is not that of a prince, the child, the son of a king, but it's the sar as far as you are the best in your field.

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You are the best of the best. You are the highest. If you were the best computer technician on this earth, you would be the sar of the computer industry.

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If you were the best football player in the entire world, you would be the sar of the

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NFL or whatever. But it means the chief, the best of the best, that Jesus is the sar.

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He is the sar of peace. He is the best source of peace. He's the best at bringing peace.

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He's the best in his field when it comes to peace. He is the authority on peace.

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He is the commander of peace. He is the sar of shalom.

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He is the best. There is no better source of peace than this prince of peace.

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And people are looking for peace in so many of the wrong places today. And that was part of my escape into drugs and alcohol, was

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I was looking for peace. And it only caused more turmoil in my life.

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This word for peace is shalom. Oh, what a beautiful word in Hebrew.

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And you've probably heard that word before, I'm guessing, shalom. If you were, you know, in, if you were

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Jewish, you might even use it as a greeting. And it was used as a prayer.

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It was used to greet people and to say goodbye. But it was really, you know, hoping to the blessing of shalom.

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And this word means so much more than just no conflict. We think of peace as not being at war or not fighting, right?

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Just quietness. But this word is so much deeper than that. It comes from a word that implies safety, being safe, being protected.

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And it carries the idea of being well and happy. And then it speaks of one's welfare and health, prosperity and peace.

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I just want to share with you a few ways that this word shalom is translated in the

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Bible and that it helps us to see and understand that it means so much more than just peace.

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It's actually translated health in Genesis 44. Your servant, our father, is in good health.

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He is in good shalom. It's the same word here for peace, only it's translated health.

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It's translated 14 times by the word well. In Genesis 29 .6,

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it says Joseph was asking about how his father was doing.

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Is it well with him? They said, it is well. He said, is it shalom with him?

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Is it shalom with him? And they said, it is shalom. He is well. It's translated five times in our

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English Bible by the word welfare. Genesis 43 .27, and he inquired about their welfare, their well -being, their shalom.

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Again, it's the same word speaking of our well -being. How are we doing?

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And now I want to look at a verse and show you this word shalom, how it's used.

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Turn to Jeremiah 33. And if you don't have a Bible this morning, we would love for you to be able to look at God's word with us.

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So if you need a Bible to follow along, just raise your hands and Jason will bring one to you if you need that.

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Anybody need a Bible to follow along? Well, it looks like we're good.

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All right, look at Jeremiah 33. And this is

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God speaking. It's a promise to his people. We'll pick it up in verse 8 of Jeremiah 33.

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And God says, I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me.

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And this city shall be a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them.

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They shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it.

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This word shalom is in this verse, verse 9. Look at it and see which word you think it might be.

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There's some good words in there. It's the word prosperity. That's the word for shalom here.

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So you can see that it has much more meaning than just absence of conflict.

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It means health and completeness and wellness. It speaks of prospering.

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It speaks of being healthy in spirit, soul and body. It's a beautiful word.

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In Job 21 .9, it's translated safe. Their houses are safe from fear.

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Their houses are shalom from fear. Shalom.

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It means may you be well and healthy and happy and prospering.

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It carries the idea of being healed up. Jesus is the prince of shalom. He is the prince of healing.

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We work with these troubled kids at Youth for Christ at young ages. Their lives are a wreck and we see

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Jesus come into their hearts and begin to bring peace and healing and transformation because he is the tsar of shalom.

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He is the ultimate prince of peace. I want to show you the power of this prince of peace and this is a story that I love to share.

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I share it all the time with the young people I work with. Turn with me to Mark chapter 4.

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A short little beautiful story. You know the beautiful thing about Jesus is that he always backed up his word.

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When he said I'm the resurrection and the life, he raised somebody from the dead. When he said I'm the light of the world, he healed somebody.

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A blindness. I mean he backs up what he says and we find

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Jesus at the end of a very busy day. If you pick up the story in verse 35 of Mark chapter 4 and we'll get the context here of this story by reading verses 35 and verse 36.

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Said on that day when evening had come he said to them let us go across to the other side and leaving the crowd they took him with him in the boat just as he was and other boats were with him.

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So this had been a very long day in the life of Jesus. I think many days were long days for him as far as physical exhaustion and you know we know that when they cut

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Jesus he bled. Even though he was the divine son of God he was human and he slept and he had been teaching all day and helping people and healing people and now he's ready because he's got if we read in if we kept reading into Mark chapter 5 he's got to go set free a crazy demon man whose life is a tempest and so they're they're getting in the boat and they're heading over into that direction.

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It is night time. I think it's evening. I think it's dusk when they set sail and you know

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I'll guarantee at this point the weather's pretty decent right because you're not going to get in a in a small wooden fishing boat on the

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Sea of Galilee if it's storming there's just they're not going to do that and so they get in the boat and it's it's smooth sailing at first and you know when