And we're gonna hop into our time in the Word this morning.
This morning we're launching into a new series
called The Name.
We're gonna be camping out in Isaiah chapter nine,
beginning in verse one through six,
and particularly looking at verse six
where we have four titles of the Messiah King
who is to come, wonderful counselor, almighty God,
eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
Father, thank you so much that we can gather today,
that we could receive your comforts,
draw near by your Spirit,
and Lord, that you would speak to us today.
What an honor and a privilege it is to be here,
to be before you, our God.
May you instruct our minds and our hearts
and teach us in the way that we should go,
and we might glory and wonder
at your amazing gift in Christ.
I ask this in Jesus' name, amen, amen.
Right, if you have your Bibles,
go ahead and turn now to Isaiah chapter nine.
You can read along in your Bibles
as well as it will be up here on the screen.
We're gonna begin in verse one of chapter nine.
Nevertheless, the gloom of the distressed land
will not be like that of the former times
when he humbled the land of Zebulun
and the land of Naphtali.
But in the future, he will bring honor to the way of the sea,
to the land east of the Jordan,
and to Galilee of the nations.
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.
A light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness.
You have enlarged the nation and increased its joy.
The people have rejoiced before you
as they rejoice at harvest time
and as they rejoice when dividing spoils.
For you have shattered their oppressive yoke
and the rod on their shoulders,
the staff of their oppressor,
just as you did on the day of Midian.
For every trampling boot of battle
and the bloodied garments of war
will be burned as fuel for the fire,
for a child will be born for us,
a son will be given to us,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
He will be named wonderful counselor,
mighty God, eternal Father, and Prince of Peace.
This is God's word.
So when a child is born to the British royal family,
there are certain rituals that usually accompany
the announcement of the child.
So the public is excited, leaning in.
I mean, this is a big deal over in Britain,
not so much here, right?
But over there, it's a huge deal,
and they lean in and tabloids write about it,
and the newscasters talk about it,
that a child is going to be born,
a royal child will be arriving,
and they wait for word from the royal family,
and they watch to see will mom kind of disappear
from the public eye for a little while,
and it's been about nine months
since they announced the pregnancy,
and so it's gotta be almost time for the child to arrive.
And the first thing that announces the arrival
of the child, the royal child,
is there's a billboard out front of Buckingham Palace,
and a declaration of the birth is nailed up
to this billboard right outside the palace,
announcing the birth, the royal birth,
signed by the medical doctors, the attending medical doctors,
and then at the same time throughout England,
there are multiple gun salutes marking the day,
be it at the palace or in Hyde Park
or in the artillery, a 62 gun salute,
the artillery near the Tower of London,
all kinds of circumstances, everyone will know,
everyone will hear that the royal baby has been born,
and in their customs and rituals,
they don't tell you the name, it's not announced right away,
they wait a few days before you find out
the name of the child, and when you finally do,
you see the child for the first time,
they wrap it in a particular blanket
from the Nottingham-based knitwear company,
G.H. Hurt and Sons.
So the same blanket is wrapping these kids up,
it's like, oh, there's the royal child.
Another thing that the child,
another particular element of their ritual
is that the child won't receive
any of his royal titles right away.
That's something that the sitting king or queen
can only bestow on them later on and at their will and desire.
A royal birth, though, it's not something
that we're really familiar with,
I think we can understand it, and we've seen it depicted
in movies and in stories,
it's something that gets folks excited,
it's something that people anticipate
and are filled with wonder over the announcement
of the royal birth, and what you have in Isaiah chapter nine
is a royal birth announcement,
that's what this chapter is.
It's a royal birth announcement,
but one of the crazy things about this particular announcement
is it's 800 years before the child is born.
800 years before the child that is talked about
in Isaiah chapter nine is born, the announcement is given.
The announcement is proclaimed,
and another thing that's extraordinary is in verse six,
it says about this child, this royal birth,
that a child will be born for us,
that a son will be given to us.
It's sure Mary and Joseph will be their parents,
his parents and his guardians, but he is born for us,
and he is given to us, God's people.
But what kind of king will this child be?
Well, what accompanied this child in chapter nine of Isaiah
was also four titles that he was given,
wonderful counselor, mighty God,
eternal father, prince of peace.
And so our journey this Advent season will be for us
to meditate on the meaning and fulfillment
of each of these titles as they anticipate
the kind of king the Messiah will be,
the kind of king that Jesus is.
So if you're a note taker, go ahead and write down
the first point, I'll have you write down
the wonder of his wisdom, the wonder of his wisdom.
First, the Bible tells us that this king
will be wonderful counselor, wonderful counselor.
A counselor is someone with wisdom, a sage, an advisor,
someone that we go to when we've reached the end
of ourselves and we need some input,
we need insight into what we can't know
because we haven't experienced it or we didn't learn it.
And so a counselor can give us advice
or a sage wisdom to know what to do.
Counseling is kind of a big thing in the last 50
to 100 years here in the US.
We seek out counseling for all kinds of things,
personal counseling, marriage counseling,
counseling for our kids, advisors to help us
when we reach the end of our ability to know what to do.
We need help and we reach out for a counselor.
But why do we as a people, why does this king
that's announced his royal birth,
why do we need him to be wonderful counselor?
We need him to be wonderful counselor
because our wisdom has failed us.
Our wisdom has fallen short.
Isaiah chapter nine begins with darkness and gloom,
a land filled with darkness.
And in fact, if you go just one page before that
in chapter eight, the end part of it,
it's actually worse than it even looks in chapter nine.
Chapter eight, verse 21 says,
they will wander through the land,
dejected and hungry.
When they are famished, they will become enraged
and look upward and will curse their king and their God.
They will look toward the earth and see only distress,
darkness and the gloom of affliction.
And they will be driven into thick darkness.
How many look out into our world and you see affliction,
you see darkness, you see gloom
and you see distress everywhere.
Our wisdom has failed us.
Basically, those in the scripture in chapter eight,
they tried to live their lives according to their own wisdom.
They rejected God's wisdom.
See, God had sent prophets to his people
to speak the word of God to them.
He had sent prophets to warn them and draw them back
to what he had originally sent them with Moses,
which was his law, his writings, his word, his wisdom.
And the prophets were calling them back constantly,
repent and turn back to God, repent and turn back to God.
And yet over and over again, God's people rejected God
and instead leaned into and relied on their own wisdom.
And time and time again, their wisdom failed them.
God had tried to communicate with them.
God had tried to impress upon them his word
through the prophets and through the writings.
They rejected it.
Pastor Tim Keller uses the illustration of him as a father
in the other room as he's at home with his kids.
How many of you guys have kids or had kids,
you know, who are younger and now they've grown up?
Anyone have kids, parents here?
Yeah, you've had kids and maybe you experienced
something like this where you've been in one room
and in the other room, your kids are over there.
I've got three boys, so three boys,
three hard-headed, independents, want their own way boys
in the other room.
And maybe it's the remote control for the TV
or the remote control for the game system
or whatever it is, but whatever it is,
they can't seem to navigate this simple human interaction
and instead, a whole war has broke out in the living room,
right, and there's yelling and you can hear things
being thrown or hits, right, and I'm in the other room,
right, and so I send forth my word, you know,
in a nice, steady, well-restrained manner, right?
What are you doing over there?
Just let him have it, it's his turn, come on.
And my word goes down through the halls
and like with all kids, they hear it and they obey,
perfectly every time, right?
No, right, and so my word maybe becomes a little more severe
with a little bit more oomph behind it.
Where is this heading to?
Well, this is all heading to eventually,
Dad rises from his seat and he has to come into the room
and with all of his wisdom loaded up,
he comes in to rectify the situation,
to dole out the punishment and judgment,
to find out who's innocent and who's guilty,
and then there's peace again in the house.
And so we have here in Isaiah nine,
not simply some cute little baby in a manger,
but we have a world filled with darkness and distress,
human on human crimes against one another,
murder and strife and anger and war and distress.
You have this going on and you have God saying,
I sent my word for it, you disobeyed it,
so you will walk around in darkness,
but that's not gonna be the end of the story.
I'm going to step down from heaven and come to you.
My wisdom through the prophets was good,
but you disobeyed it.
The wisdom in the word written in the Torah
was there laid out for you and if you just walk in it,
it would be like honey to your lips.
How can a young man keep his way pure
by living according to your word?
It would be like a lamp to your feet
and a light to your path, but you rejected it.
And so I come with the wisdom of divine heaven,
step down from heaven, God, in the flesh to make things right.
And to some, this is glorious news.
And to others, this is news of impending judgment
unless they turn.
And so you have this situation, this circumstance
where the world's wisdom has failed.
And one of the, like we as a society, we love Christmas,
right, we all come alive for it.
We went out to Auburn yesterday, I guess it was Black Friday.
I don't do any shopping on Black Friday,
but I went out to Auburn and you see people
frolicking around with their baskets full
and everyone's excited.
And it's always around Christmas time
that you hear themes like peace and love and joy,
even in the world, non-believers,
people who don't believe in God.
We want to see world peace.
We want to see universal love between humanity.
We want to experience the joy of the holidays.
And these are themes that we want and we grasp for.
But the world has utterly failed
to secure those things for itself.
It has tried time and time again.
It still thinks that if it just works harder,
if it gets the right person in, the right office
at the right time and the right laws and whatever passed,
then we'll have peace on earth
and love in the hearts of man.
And it has failed utterly time and time again,
living according to its own wisdom, amen?
Amen.
We see a world filled with hatred and despair,
suffering and rage and indifference.
And so God sent ahead his wisdom via prophet and word.
But what we needed and what we ended up getting
was perfect wisdom embodied in the Messiah, King Jesus.
Disney, other movie storytellers,
they have a knack for communicating all kinds of things,
wonder and enchantment to us.
And one of the things that has always struck me
is how they'll use a dark palette, like a black screen.
And into that black screen, they'll introduce a light, right?
Ding.
And maybe it's got a little sparkle on it.
And that light slowly moves about the scene
and begins to grow and grow and grow and grow.
And you start to see more and more of the scene
in the houses or the streets that it's moving through.
And that light is kind of indicative of enlightenment
or our eyes being open to reality that's beyond the darkness.
And this is what wisdom is.
Wisdom is light for the whole person
who has been walking in darkness,
especially the wisdom that the wonderful counselor brings.
For the wonderful counselor understands all things.
The wonderful counselor understands all things
because the wonderful counselor was there from the beginning.
The Bible tells us that it was by the word
that all things were created and made,
that the son sustains all things by the power of his word,
that Jesus is the light of the world,
that he is like that lamp to our feet and light to our path,
that we were a people in need of light
and to us a child was born.
To us a child was born.
We were a people in need of wisdom
for our wisdom had failed us.
To us a son is given.
The preacher Charles Spurgeon says,
Christ is the infinite wisdom of God,
wrapped in human flesh.
In him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found.
Who better to guide us than the one who knows
all things from beginning to end?
And so how do we see this promise 800 years before Christ
of the wonderful counselor, the child who will be born?
How do we see this fulfilled in Christ?
Well, the first way we see it fulfilled
is in Christ's wisdom and authority in his teaching.
Multiple times in the gospels,
be it Matthew or John or Luke,
the disciples or the crowds are stunned by what he brings,
stunned by what he says,
that Jesus teaches with such authority
that they are astonished by his teaching.
In John 7 46, one of the crowd members who is there says,
no one has ever spoke like this.
No one has ever said the things that he has said.
No one has access to the database of knowledge that he has.
We were having that debate actually,
me and my kids the other day.
Is it data or data?
And we looked it up and it said data.
And I said, no.
It is data.
In this house it is data.
But I think it's data, in case you were wondering.
We see the wonderful counselor fulfilled
in Christ's teaching and his authority.
We also see it in Christ as the embodiment of divine wisdom.
Colossians chapter two, three says that in him are hidden
all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
And first Corinthians says that through Jesus Christ
has become the wisdom of God to us
for our salvation and for sanctification and redemption.
And the final way that we see it fulfilled
is that Christ is the word of God.
John one, one through five says,
in the beginning was the word and the word was with God
and the word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
All things were created through him and apart from him
not one thing was created that has been created.
In him was life and that life was the light of man.
That light shines in the darkness
and yet the darkness did not overcome it.
Long ago God spoke to our ancestors by prophets
at different times and in different ways
but in these last days he's spoken to us by his son.
God has appointed him heir of all things
and made the universe through him.
This is the wisdom of God.
The wonder of wisdom is in Christ Jesus.
The second thing I'll have you write down
if you're taking notes is the comfort of his counsel.
The wonder of his wisdom and the comfort of his counsel.
Not only does this king know and understand all things
but he also understands us.
Speaking of Christ, the writer of Hebrews chapter four,
verse 15 and 16 said, for we do not have a high priest
who is unable to sympathize with us in our weakness
but one who has been tempted in every way
as we are yet without sin.
And therefore let us approach the throne of grace
with boldness so that we may receive mercy
and find grace to help us in time of need.
It might be wonder-filled and awe-inspiring
to know that Jesus knows all the things in the universe,
that he could articulate every particle and its purpose.
It might be high and lofty to know all the facts
and the schematics of how things were made
and in what order but it would be of little comfort to us.
It would be of little comfort to us.
The questions that all preoccupy our heart and mind
is does he understand what I'm going through?
Does he know how I feel?
Does he get me?
And I don't know about you,
you guys are probably way smarter than I am.
You probably caught on way earlier than I did
but it's taken me a lifetime to figure out
that there are different kinds of conversations people have,
different types of conversations.
And here's the catch, if you get it wrong,
if one person in a conversation
thinks they're having one kind of conversation
and you think you're having a different kind
of conversation, things are gonna go off the rails
and it'll be all kinds of chaos.
And this is never more present than in your marriage, right?
I'll give an example.
Say my wife comes to me
and she wants to tell me how she feels.
And when she tells me how she feels,
I want to tell her how to fix how she feels.
See, she's having an emotional conversation with me
and I'm having a practical factual conversation.
Well, great, I'm glad you feel that way.
Let's go ahead and work this plan
to get you not feeling that way anymore.
And oftentimes that just falls apart.
Any of you guys ever had one of those conversations
where one person comes and was emotional?
I want to share with you and the other person
is there to fix the problem or to argue the problem
or whatever it is, right?
No one?
Okay.
Well, we have had many of those situations
where I have tried to fix it or vice versa.
Actually, my wife is the fixer in our relationship,
so I'm probably the more sensitive emotional one.
And for her, it's frustrating
because she doesn't understand why aren't we trying
to fix it?
All this wasted time talking about how we feel,
why aren't we fixing it?
But you know, we're complex creatures.
We're made unique.
We are integrated body, mind, soul,
physical, our bodies have an effect on how we think
and feel, our minds have an effect on how we feel,
and even our bodies.
All of it is interconnected and you can't easily
sort it out.
And so we may know all the facts of the universe,
Jesus may have the wisdom, but if he doesn't know me,
he doesn't know what I've experienced,
then it's of little comfort to me.
And what we find in scripture and what Hebrews tells us
is that he does know because he did wrap himself
in that flesh and he did come down here
and he did experience the same kind of things
that I've experienced.
He felt the same emotions that I've felt.
He experienced the same kind of pain and suffering
that I've experienced to greater degrees
than I've ever experienced.
He was tempted like I'm tempted,
and yet he didn't give into that temptation
and walk in his own wisdom, but he walked in the wisdom
of the divine of God, and so he can actually
better represent me before God because he understands me,
he gets me, and also he can be the example that I follow
because he doesn't fall to the temptation that I fall to.
He is the wonderful counselor.
He brings light to my path as I follow him
and as I walk in his wisdom.
His wisdom and counsel is not disconnected from my reality.
He's perfectly suited to comfort me.
Pastor Tim Keller says,
Jesus is the wonderful counselor
because he brings clarity in confusion,
light in darkness, and direction in the chaos of our lives.
So how do we see the comfort of his counsel
fulfilled in Christ?
Well, we see it in Christ's invitation
to the weary and the burden.
Matthew 11 was quoted in our introduction video there,
but come to me, all you who are weary and burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn to be a good man.
I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me
because I am lowly and humble in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls,
for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Christ's invitation to those of us
who are hurting right now is to come to him
and find rest in the one who understands us.
Also, second, Christ's role as a shepherd and guide
is a fulfillment of our comfort in his counsel,
that he is the good shepherd who knows his own
and his own know him.
We had the perfect shepherd model laid out in Psalm 23,
which Christ fulfills, that he is our shepherd
and we lack nothing.
He makes us lie down in green pastures.
He restores our soul.
He is the good shepherd, and as a shepherd and guide,
he can lead us to the places we need to go
to find the peace and the comfort and the joy
and the hope that we need to find.
It's not found in the world.
If you've gone out looking, you've tried the world's wisdom,
it's not there.
I love this about the holiday season we're in,
and maybe this will encourage you or challenge you.
A friend of mine, he's a counselor down,
a biblical counselor down in Lodi.
He posted a quote or a statement on Facebook
that said, if you're not content today,
then nothing you buy today will change that.
And this was on Good Friday, yeah, Black Friday.
If you're not on Good Friday, Black Friday, yeah.
If you're not content already,
nothing you buy today will change that.
And yet the world would have you believe,
if you read all the marketing and watch all those programs,
that these are the things you need
to feel better about your life,
to have peace and comfort and joy,
that joy is found in the purchases that we make
or the things that we accumulate.
That is the wisdom of the world, not the wisdom of heaven.
Joy is found following the shepherd
wherever he will take me.
Joy is found in the green pastures that he leads me to,
not the ones that I see and I wanna lay down in.
Joy is found, peace is found, hope is found,
by the creek side that he leads me to drink,
not all of the things that I think make a good life.
He is the wonderful counselor
because he is shepherd and guide.
And then finally, he is the wonderful counselor
and there's comfort in his counsel
because Christ's counsel comes through the Holy Spirit.
Yes, Christ came in flesh and dwelt among us,
but then he ascended on high.
He's not here anymore.
You can't go out those doors and find him.
But you know what he promised?
He promised that if I go, I will ask the Father
and he will send the counselor, the comforter,
to come and will dwell, take up residence in us,
believers, dwell within us,
so that his wonderful counsel is ever present,
always with us wherever we go.
So he is the wonderful counselor
who has asked the Father to send the counselor,
the Holy Spirit, to remind us, to glorify Jesus,
to teach us of all things and remind us
of everything that he's told us
so that we might walk in his way
and an invitation for us to walk in his wisdom.
I'm gonna invite the worship team to come on up
as we close out.
As we have finished our worship,
we're gonna take a moment to reflect
on the wonderful counselor that we have today.
As we reflect today on Jesus, our wonderful counselor,
and we kind of began our Advent season of celebration,
we want to look at the wonder of his wisdom
and the comfort of his counsel.
We want to experience that today,
that he is the light that shines in our darkness,
that he is the wisdom that dispels all of our confusion
and our distance, but he intimately knows our struggles
and meets us in our present brokenness.
In Christ, we find the infinite wisdom of God
wrapped up in human flesh and through his word and spirit,
we're invited to walk in light and in truth.
And this Advent, I'd like to invite us
to trust in him fully.
I would like to invite us to rest in him fully
in his perfect wisdom and grace
as the guiding shepherd of our life.
Let his counsel lead you to deeper peace and joy in him.
Let us rejoice for unto us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and he is a wonderful counselor, a king like no other.
If I was to give three responses today,
which I am, so if I was, I would, and now I'm going to.
I would say this.
Number one, saturate your heart and your mind
in the wisdom and counsel of God
that he has given us in his word.
I don't think we sit and think,
I don't think we sit in awe and wonder and joy
over the reality that right here,
right here is the wisdom of God.
Right here is the peace of God, the hope of God,
the love of God in his wisdom and in his word to us.
Imagine if December, if Advent season,
you saturated your heart and minds in the word of God.
Maybe this hasn't been your habit.
It's not for condemnation sake.
Again, it's not, I'm not trying to lay on another duty
for you during a busy season.
I'm trying to say the world, the way the world didn't work.
It left you broken, it left you starving and hungry
and desperate in despair.
It didn't work.
There's another way.
There's another kind of wisdom and it works.
Time and time again, I've seen those
who are in sorrow and suffering,
comforted by the words of Christ.
I've seen those whose bodies are broken
and falling to pieces, lifting their eyes up to the heavens
and proclaiming Christ as Lord
and the joy of Christ is in their heart,
even as their body wastes away.
I've seen those who have faithfully held onto the word
and have not let go,
faithfully year after year through many dangers,
toils and snares.
Our dear sister Christa is 95 years today,
95 years.
Many dangers, many toils, many snares,
and yet has held to the very words of God.
And that wisdom has carried her
through ups and downs and all arounds.
And that wisdom will carry her through the years.
Carry her home.
Carry her home into the arms of her Father.
Saturate your heart and mind in this word.
Don't let this just pick up dust on the shelf.
Let this in.
It's right here.
Read the word, soak in it, talk about it with your friends.
If you're a husband and wife
and you've never talked about the word of God before,
today's the day, just do it.
Get through all the awkwardness and weirdness
and just start talking about it.
Hey, I read this thing and I don't know what it means.
Whatever it is, just start talking about it.
Let it go into your heart and your mind
and come out of your mouth
and back into your ears over and over again.
This season.
And see if you don't find the greatest joy and hope
that you've ever found in Advent season
as you dive in and let the word wash over you.
The second thing I would say is pray
that the Holy Spirit will glorify Christ in and through you.
This is amazing that the Holy Spirit, God with us,
is in us and he provides us wisdom and guidance
and then we act out of that wisdom and guidance.
So not only do we get the wisdom within us
to speak his word and remind us of all those true things,
he then gives us things to do.
So we do them and we get to see,
we become a living example of the wisdom of God
at work in this world.
And we get to see that over and over again
as Christ is glorified, God is glorified
and then we see it at work in us.
What a glorious thing.
What a wondrous thing.
What a wonderful counselor he is
that he would not only come to counsel us inside,
but then he would use us and work through us
to reach this world, to love and ultimately
to glorify Christ in this time.
And the final thing I would say to you as a response
is trust, trust this wonderful counselor absolutely.
If you have trusted him 99.8%,
it's time to go all the way.
Trust him absolutely.
He is that good.
One of the things about his wisdom
that is just astounding is before you and I
were ever created, before mankind even sinned,
God in his infinite wisdom, God in his triune nature,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit determined
before the creation of the world
that he was going to save us.
We hadn't even yet sinned.
We hadn't even yet fallen and he said,
I will make a way.
I love the way one pastor said it.
He said, the Father, the Father saying,
I will redeem my creation and the Son saying,
here am I Lord, send me and the Spirit empowering,
he came to reach you and I.
And he did that through the means of Christ
in his life and his death and his resurrection
so that you and I might be reconciled back to God.
We might, he might meet the deepest need
that any of us have, any of us have,
which is to be one, to reconnected with our God and creator.