*Holding baby* Kids. See, the problem with kids like this is they never do anything for themselves. This one needs everything done for him. He can’t eat by himself, play by himself or even change his own diaper. And don’t get me started on doing things for other people. He never cleans his room or mows the lawn. When was the last time you bought groceries or washed the car? I mean, he’s a good kid but you have to admit, he’s kind of selfish.
I also have to admit that so am I. I’m selfish. And if it weren’t for the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of me, I wouldn’t do anything for anybody either. I need the power of God to get me through the day, to do everything worth doing. And it’s only by God’s grace that I am able to do anything even for myself.
I have proven that I make bad decisions. I have a bad attitude. I have bad thoughts. I do bad things. I am a sinner in need of a Savior because I can’t do it. I can’t save myself. I can’t get myself to Heaven. Shoot, I can’t get to church without a healthy heaping of God’s helping hand.
You know what would be funny? You know what would be just crazy? Can you imagine if a baby became our Savior? Can you imagine if a baby was able to help us do everything we needed to do plus be the One we needed to get to Heaven? Well, it happened.
Here’s something even crazier. It was prophesied to happen hundreds of years before it happened. In fact, several men prophesied about it. In fact, they prophesied all about His life. The called it before it ever happened that Jesus would be born, live, die and rise again
Like I said, there were a lot of prophets who prophesied about Jesus. Abraham, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Micah, and Zechariah all foretold his birth, life or death. And Isaiah made other predictions as well but I ask you to turn to the book of Isaiah chapter 9 and let’s read verses 6 & 7.
For the next few Sundays through Christmas, I want to look at a simple timeline of how the birth of Jesus came about. Let’s hit the high points and see, not just when it happened by why it happened and what it means for us all these years later. Let’s start several hundred years before Jesus was born in Isaiah 9:6-7. Isaiah is between Song of Solomon and Jeremiah in the Old Testament.
6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.7Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.
Isaiah is writing some 700-plus years before Jesus was born and these writings must have brought great peace and joy and celebration to the Israelite people who later read these words, all the way up to Jesus Himself. I have always wondered what it must have been like for the young boy Jesus to read these words in the scrolls at the temple, knowing that He was the one about whom was being prophesied. Just add that to the things to ask Jesus when we get to Heaven.
But for the Israelites, it had to be a great hope. It had to bring peace. It would make you want to celebrate that the beloved people would once again be remembered and blessed by the Messiah. You know, sort of like it makes us feel even today. We celebrate Christmas 2700 years after this was written for the same reason that the Israelites celebrated. The tragedy is that so many of the people of the nation to which this was written fail to recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
But for us it brings great joy and peace to think that what Isaiah is confessing came true and will continue to be true. In fact, the whole story of the birth of Jesus was intended to bring joy and peace. When Gabriel went to Mary and told her the good news that she would be the mother of the Christ, it brought joy and peace. When Elizabeth reacted to Mary’s visit by saying, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the child you will bear”, that brought joy and peace. And what about the joy and peace that Simeon had when he held the baby in the temple? He had so much peace he told God “you now dismiss your servant in peace.” He was ready to die after seeing the One about whom is prophesied here in Isaiah.
Most of you have heard my testimony before. I came to a relationship with Jesus when I was a child and lived that way for a long time but as I grew older I slipped out of that close relationship and started living just for myself. And I have to admit that it was pretty fun a lot of the time. I had a lot of friends and we had lots of fun but deep down I was miserable because I had no joy and no peace. I knew the life I was living was wrong because while I had fun sometimes, my life wasn’t worth living without the joy and the peace that I had known.
We have talked lately about how the Holy Spirit works and that is a huge part of it. The Holy Spirit guides us and directs us and people who don’t have the Holy Spirit often wonder how that happens. If He doesn’t speak to you audibly or show you a physical sign then how do you know it is the Spirit that is guiding you and not just your conscience or that pizza you ate last night? The bringing of or the absence of joy and peace as we start to make a decision is often how that happens.
I don’t want to run out of time so let’s look at the 4 names Isaiah uses here to describe the Messiah we now know as Jesus. I want to focus just on the 4 names this morning. No, this does not do this passage justice to only concentrate on such a small part but when have I ever done that? And besides, this is more than enough for today. The first name Isaiah uses to describe the Messiah is Wonderful Counselor.
Since there was no punctuation in Isaiah’s written language it is sometimes difficult to translate every nuance and particular meaning but we might do well to put a comma right after “Wonderful”. That may be a correct translation but we don’t know and for today I want to combine it like it is in most Bibles. “Wonderful Counselor” – what do you think of when you hear the word “counselor”?
The original Hebrew word simply means one who gives good advice. This would have been of utmost importance in the days of Isaiah. They were going through a rough time where the leaders of the country had turned away from the one true God and had started worshipping false gods or no god at all. And there was pressure from the community and from society to follow the lead of the kings who were going in the wrong direction. Sound familiar?
It would have been important then just as it is important now to be able to rely on someone who gave good advice. Have you ever gotten good advice? Somebody tell me in a sentence or two. Have you ever gotten some bad advice? I’ve heard it said that a wise man seeks much counsel…and a fool listens to all of it. Why is that? Is it because people are stupid? Is it because they are mean and want to see you fail? Maybe sometimes but that’s probably rare. More often it’s because they are human and see through human eyes.
It’s amazing to me how the Holy Spirit comes back into our conversation at this point. The Holy Spirit is our Counselor and as I said he whispers to us through our peace and joy about making the right decisions but the word “counselor” can also rightfully be used of an attorney or lawyer. Have you thought about that? Yes, the Holy Spirit is our attorney who not only gives us wise counsel but also stands for us before the Father. Revelation 12:10 says that Satan stands before God accusing us all day long and the sad thing about is, while Satan is the father of lies, some of what he says is probably true.
And so I need a good attorney. I need a really good lawyer. I need a Wonderful Counselor who will stand before God and say, “Your Honor, what has been said may be true but that crime has been atoned for. That price has been paid and while I may be the Counselor I am also the one who paid the price. This man is no longer guilty!” THAT’S a Wonderful Counselor! I don’t need a lawyer with a nickname like “The Hammer”. I need one who is known as the Wonderful Counselor. That brings me joy and peace.
He is not only the Wonderful Counselor; He is also the Mighty God. The name means strong warrior or even hero. Do you think about God as being a warrior or a hero? At this time of year it is appropriate to think of Jesus lying in a manger, helpless and sweet. But at the same time, He was and is the warrior in chief. He is the head general in this battle and as such He has everything under control.
Psalm 45:3 says, “Gird your sword upon your side, O mighty one; clothe yourself with splendor and majesty.” And Revelation 19:13-16 says, “He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. 14 The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. 15 Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron scepter. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”
And while He is a mighty warrior, I have one more passage to help us understand the nature of this Warrior. Zephaniah 3:17 says, “The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” The Mighty God, Hero God, Ancient Warrior who is all-powerful loves us so much that He rejoices over us with singing. That brings me joy and peace!
He is a Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God and Everlasting Father. Family-life specialists Delmer W. Holbrook and his wife have conducted surveys across America. In a survey of hundreds of children, the Holbrooks came up with 3 things fathers say most in responding to their kids. “I’m too tired.” “We don’t have enough money.” And “Keep quiet.” (Illustrations for Biblical Teaching)
I don’t know what your earthly father was or is like. For me, I have to say those exact things to my dad even today. “I’m too tired. I don’t have enough money. Keep quiet!” No, that’s not true but whatever your fatherly role model, it’s time to quit falling back on that because we have as our Heavenly Father an ancestor, teacher, advisor, priest and protector. That’s what the words “Everlasting Father” stand for.
Now any of you that are parents know that there comes a time in almost every kid’s life that they start to pull away from Mom and Dad. First, you can’t kiss them goodbye when you drop them off for school and then they don’t want you to even drop them off. They would rather walk than be seen with you. Then, as older teens, most kids finally leave the nest. They think dear old dad is just stupid and they can do it better on their own. Until what? Until they need something, right? Until they can’t figure out what to do or they have no other option and then they come back asking for help.
The school shootings and mall shootings and movie theater shootings that we see on the news are beyond comprehension. Nobody can understand how somebody could do such a thing and nobody can comprehend how to keep it from happening again. You have heard the argument that we need fewer guns or more guns or better mental health programs or less video games or blah, blah, blah. But you know what happened as soon as the news broke that the shooter had gone to that school and killed those children?
We prayed. We as a nation prayed. The president prayed. The school teachers prayed. The TV news anchor prayed! Because we don’t know what to do and we have no other option, just like kids who have left the house and now we are in trouble, we come back to the Everlasting Father and we cry for help. The same people who just the day before said there is no God or God is stupid or how could God do this or that are now saying, “God, help us.”
And do you know what God says? Do you know how the Creator of the universe responds to us when we do that? Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” That gives me such peace and such joy.
And it should bring us peace because He is the Prince of Peace. He is the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace. Oh, how those words must have comforted the Israelites back in the day. A prince is a representative of the king, a ruler or an honored person and to know that the Messiah would soon come to save them from their enemies had to be comforting.
I went to Israel probably 35 or so years ago and do you know what? It had not changed much in any way from those days when Isaiah made this prophesy. Everywhere you go there are soldiers in uniform carrying high-powered weapons and while the weapons of war may have changed not much else has. There is still no peace. They are still being attacked every day on all sides from people who want to take their land. Psalm 122 tells us even today that we should pray for the peace of Jerusalem but there will be no real peace there until the Messiah comes back.
The good news is though, that peace is not necessarily the absence of war. Those favored people, the Israelites, can have personal peace right now through a relationship with the Messiah and so can we. The last part of that passage says that the zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. That word “zeal” means his eager desire is to make all this happen. God has an eager desire to have a relationship with you; a relationship that means no more guilt and no more shame. Those things get replaced with peace and joy.
Admit that you need a Savior today. Come before the Everlasting Father and say, “God, I need help.” Accept His mighty power, his good advice and the peace that passes all understanding even in the midst of war; even in the midst of everything going on in your life. That is God’s Christmas gift to you this year if you will only accept it.
Ask God for forgiveness of your sins, repent of those sins – turn away from that lifestyle – and allow Him to change you. Do it right now as the music plays.
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