(PREVIOUS MESSAGE) Advent Sunday #2 "For to Us a Child is Born": Peace for a Broken World

2025 Advent Series #2, "PEACE"

“FOR TO US A CHILD IS BORN”

Peace For A Broken World

Isaiah 9:1–7 (Go to ESV Bible Verses)

Key Verse: 9:6, "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."

1. How has Isaiah described his culture and society that rejects God’s counsel (8:19–22), and how might this apply to our world today?
2. Despite this, what does Isaiah prophesy, and how was this fulfilled in Jesus (9:1–2; Matt.4:12–16)?
3. What else does the coming of “the great light” bring to the world (3–5), and what does this mean to us?
4. Read verse 6. Of all these titles, why do you think the last one is “Prince of Peace”? What does this title mean? How can we have his peace within us (Rom.5:1–2; John 14:27) and among us (Eph.2:14–18)?
5. How else does Isaiah describe the peace that Jesus brings to the world, and how will this happen (7)?

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References:

Q1: Isaiah 8:19–22: “And when they say to you, ‘Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,’ should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn. They will pass through the land, greatly distressed and hungry. And when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against their king and their God, and turn their faces upward. And they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness.”

Q2: Matthew 4:12–16: “Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: ‘The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles––the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, a light has dawned.”

Q4: Romans 5:1–2: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

John 14:27: “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.”

Ephesians 2:14–18: “For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.”