Introduction
Are you trying to manufacture peace, through fixing people, controlling circumstances, or numbing your stress, only to find that the “peace” evaporates the moment life gets hard? The central teaching of Advent is this: God guides our feet into the way of peace by giving us Jesus, the Prince of Peace, who brings God’s mercy, forgiveness, and an ever-expanding kingdom we could never build ourselves (Luke 1:79; Isaiah 9:6–7). Advent simply means “coming.” It’s a season where we honestly admit life is hard, longing, suffering, anticipation, waiting, and we’re tempted toward despair. Yet Christmas teaches us not to despair, because the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:5, implied). Today I want to disciple you in the way of peace from Zechariah’s prophecy in Luke 1:67–79, words spoken when his mouth was finally opened after months of silence, and he overflowed with Spirit-filled praise.
Main Points
Are you trying to manufacture peace, through fixing people, controlling circumstances, or numbing your stress, only to find that the “peace” evaporates the moment life gets hard? The central teaching of Advent is this: God guides our feet into the way of peace by giving us Jesus, the Prince of Peace, who brings God’s mercy, forgiveness, and an ever-expanding kingdom we could never build ourselves (Luke 1:79; Isaiah 9:6–7).
Advent simply means “coming.” It’s a season where we honestly admit life is hard, longing, suffering, anticipation, waiting, and we’re tempted toward despair. Yet Christmas teaches us not to despair, because the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:5, implied). Today I want to disciple you in the way of peace from Zechariah’s prophecy in Luke 1:67–79, words spoken when his mouth was finally opened after months of silence, and he overflowed with Spirit-filled praise.
Peace Begins With Our Real Need
Zechariah’s prophecy ends with a mission statement for the Messiah: to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace (Luke 1:79). That wording assumes something sobering: by nature, we aren’t walking in peace; we’re sitting in darkness.
I want you to see why this matters, because our culture sells Christmas as a “picture-perfect” peaceful season. But the biblical Christmas story itself is gritty: shepherds were low-status and unclean in society; the birth happened in a setting that wasn’t polished and sentimental. And our real lives often match that grit, stress, sickness, strained relationships, loneliness, disappointments, and exhaustion.
Scripture is even more direct. Romans 3:10–18 describes humanity’s problem in a way that removes all our illusions: none is righteous, no one seeks God, our words harm, our feet run toward conflict, and then it concludes: “the way of peace they have not known” (Romans 3:17). So the first step in discipleship here is humility: peace isn’t mainly something “out there” that we’re missing; it’s something in us that is broken.
Human Peace Fails Under Pressure
Let me show you how fragile human peace is with a historical picture: the Christmas Truce of 1914. On Christmas Eve during World War I, soldiers in opposing trenches sang carols, called ceasefire, stepped into no man’s land, shared cigarettes and gifts, and even played soccer. It sounds like the world finally found the magic of Christmas.
But the next day, commanders ordered them back to war, and the very men who had been laughing together began shooting each other again.
That story exposes something in the human heart: we often want peace as a moment, a mood, a holiday, or a sentimental break, but we don’t want peace on God’s terms. A temporary truce isn’t the same as true peace. This is why we need more than seasonal sweetness; we need redemption.
Shalom Is More Than Calm Feelings
The Bible’s vision of peace, shalom, is not merely “inner calm.” It’s wholeness, safety, rightness, and harmony under God. Think of it like a strong wall of bricks surrounding a city, creating safety and flourishing. But humanity’s sin has shattered that wall; the bricks are scattered everywhere. From the fall of Adam and Eve onward, Cain and Abel and all the way to us, our story is a story of broken peace.
That’s why Zechariah uses such redemption language: God has “visited and redeemed his people” and raised up “a horn of salvation” (Luke 1:68–69). This isn’t God offering relaxation techniques; this is God announcing rescue.
And notice the purpose Zechariah gives: God delivers us so that we might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness all our days (Luke 1:74–75). Peace with God produces a new way of life before God.
Our Strategies Cannot Make Peace
Now let me lovingly press this into your life. When you feel the absence of peace, what strategies do you reach for?
- Changing other people: “If they would just stop doing that, I’d be okay.” But coercing change never creates peace; it creates resentment and control.
- Changing your circumstances: “If I moved, got a different job, found different people, found a different church, then I’d finally be at peace.” But chaos follows us, because we bring ourselves with us.
- Changing yourself through self-help: You can improve for a season, but you can’t heal your deepest problem by willpower. The “perfect version of me” never arrives.
- Numbing yourself: alcohol, drugs, endless media, constant entertainment, especially when loneliness hits hard around the holidays.
- Even good rhythms as ultimate saviors: boundaries, schedules, “irreducible minimums,” family meals, these can be wise. But a curveball hits, and peace collapses if it was anchored in a system instead of a Savior.
Please hear me: I’m not shaming you. I’m inviting you to stop carrying what you were never meant to carry. We cannot fix our peace problem ourselves. Israel couldn’t. We can’t.
God’s Peace Comes Through a Child
God’s strategy is not a Plan B. It is His Plan A: He launches peace through a child.
Isaiah 9:6–7 promises that a child will be born, a son given, and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And it says, “Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end.”
In Isaiah’s day, Israel faced the Assyrians, cruel, proud, terrifying. One Assyrian king bragged with grotesque self-exaltation: “I am royal… I am mighty… I am all powerful…” That’s humanity without God: grandiosity, dominance, self-salvation. And into that reality, God says: Here is a baby.
That seems foolish to the world. Armies look powerful; human strategies look strong. Yet God conquers differently. Philippians 2 (implied in the sermon) shows the heart of Jesus: He humbled Himself, took the form of a servant, and died a shameful death on the cross. This is the kind of King who brings peace, not by crushing enemies with force, but by laying down His life to make enemies into friends.
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed, where Jesus truly reigns in people, peace reigns. Peace is absent where stubbornness, defiance, hatred, and greed remain unbroken, because peace is not just an external arrangement; it’s the fruit of Christ’s rule in the human heart.
Jesus Is the Eternal Peace Child
Sometimes the gospel becomes clearer when we see it through a different culture. The story of the “peace child” among the Sawi people in Dutch New Guinea helps us feel the weight of what Jesus is for us.
Two tribes were locked in cycles of war, and the most “heroic” act was betrayal. When missionaries shared the gospel, the people celebrated Judas as the hero, because betrayal was their highest virtue. That’s how upside-down their moral imagination was.
Then, as violence threatened to spiral out of control, the tribes used an ancient practice: one tribe would give a baby to the other tribe. Every warrior from both sides would touch the child, and the baby would be raised by the former enemies. As long as that child lived, peace remained.
That is a powerful picture of Jesus. He is God’s “peace child”, given across enemy lines, so to speak. But unlike any human peace child who will eventually die, Jesus died and rose again. He is alive forever. Therefore, for all who trust Him, He becomes the eternal guarantee of peace.
This is exactly where Zechariah goes: John will prepare the Lord’s way and give knowledge of salvation in the forgiveness of sins (Luke 1:76–77). Peace is not sentimental; it is covenant mercy. God remembers His holy covenant and oath (Luke 1:72–73). Peace comes because sins are forgiven, darkness is pierced by the Sunrise from on high (Luke 1:78), and our feet are guided, not merely comforted, into a whole new way of life (Luke 1:79).
Conclusion
The way of peace is not something you create; it’s a path God guides you into. It begins when you admit you do not know the way of peace on your own (Romans 3:17). It deepens when you stop trusting your strategies to fix what only God can redeem. And it becomes real as you submit to the reign of Jesus, the humble child, crucified King, risen Savior, who waves the peace flag toward us while we were still shaking our fists.
So I’m asking you, gently but clearly: Will you stop negotiating for peace on your terms and receive peace on God’s terms, through His Son? Jesus does not force His kingdom of peace by violence. He wins hearts, forgives sins, and then teaches us to walk, step by step, into His peace.
Father, thank You for Advent and for the coming of Jesus Christ, our Prince of Peace. We confess that we often do not know the way of peace, and we try to create peace through controlling people, changing circumstances, perfecting ourselves, or numbing our pain. Forgive us.
Lord, thank You for Your tender mercy, Your Sunrise from on high, who gives light to those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death. Teach us to trust Jesus as our true Peace Child, the One who died and rose again and lives forever. Help us to submit willingly to His reign, to receive the forgiveness of our sins, and to serve You without fear in holiness and righteousness all our days.
Holy Spirit, enliven Your Word in us and guide our feet into the way of peace, for the glory of Jesus. Amen.
Conclusion
The way of peace is not something you create; it’s a path God guides you into. It begins when you admit you do not know the way of peace on your own (Romans 3:17). It deepens when you stop trusting your strategies to fix what only God can redeem. And it becomes real as you submit to the reign of Jesus, the humble child, crucified King, risen Savior, who waves the peace flag toward us while we were still shaking our fists.
So I’m asking you, gently but clearly: Will you stop negotiating for peace on your terms and receive peace on God’s terms, through His Son? Jesus does not force His kingdom of peace by violence. He wins hearts, forgives sins, and then teaches us to walk, step by step, into His peace.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for Advent and for the coming of Jesus Christ, our Prince of Peace. We confess that we often do not know the way of peace, and we try to create peace through controlling people, changing circumstances, perfecting ourselves, or numbing our pain. Forgive us.
Lord, thank You for Your tender mercy, Your Sunrise from on high, who gives light to those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death. Teach us to trust Jesus as our true Peace Child, the One who died and rose again and lives forever. Help us to submit willingly to His reign, to receive the forgiveness of our sins, and to serve You without fear in holiness and righteousness all our days.
Holy Spirit, enliven Your Word in us and guide our feet into the way of peace, for the glory of Jesus. Amen.