Sunday message · The Season of Grace series
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Message Summary
In the third message of The Season of Grace, preached during the Christmas season, Pastor Phillip Santillan explores Jesus as the Prince of Peace. Christmas has a joy in the air, but for many the season is also stressful because of people: family members who are hard to love, or childhoods that were painful. Christmas can pressure us to make peace with what we have not made peace with, and that often means pretending. Grace, receiving what we do not deserve, can show us how to stop pretending and find real peace.
Phil pauses on Luke 2:1, where Caesar Augustus orders a census. Augustus, Rome’s first emperor, rose to power through violence and recorded his own greatness in the Deeds of the Divine Augustus. Into that world of military might, Jesus was born in humble circumstances. God’s people expected a Messiah to end Rome’s oppression, based on Isaiah’s promise of a child who would be called Prince of Peace, whose government and peace would never end (Isaiah 9:6–7). Yet the news shows how far the world is from that peace, and Phil admits he struggles for peace in his own family and heart.
Jesus came, Phil says, to introduce his kingdom of peace and show us how to live as its citizens. Alexander the Great and Rome’s Pax Romana sought peace through one ruler, so a new kingdom sounded revolutionary. But Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). It turns everything upside down: the last are first, the great are servants, and evil is overcome with good. Earthly kingdoms, whether governments, families or our own hearts where we sit on the throne, operate by authority and control. God’s kingdom governs through humility, for even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve (Matthew 20).
Serving others may sound like ordinary niceness until we see that Jesus includes our enemies: love them and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5). Earthly citizens ask what is in it for them; kingdom citizens ask how they can serve. The Greek word for witness is martyr, and it took on its meaning from early believers who loved their enemies and prayed for their executioners as Jesus did. Many came to faith in those first centuries because of how well these believers died, knowing sacrificial love overcomes evil.
So how do we find peace without pretending? By embracing our new identity in Jesus, who made himself a servant. Paul urges us to throw off our old nature, which tears others down to feel better, and put on the new one. Jesus promised the Holy Spirit, and Phil observes, “Having God with us is a good thing, but even better is God in us.” Jesus gives a peace the world cannot give, and as we lift others up and serve them, we find peace tied not to circumstances or other people’s choices but to our own hearts. Phil prays that this Christmas we would recognize the Prince of Peace and live as part of his kingdom.