His Name Shall Be Called…“The Mighty God” Series

His Name Shall Be Called…“The Mighty God”

Chuck Sligh

Series: His Name Shall Be Called

December 2, 2018

A PowerPoint slide presentation of this sermon is available upon request at chucksligh@hotmail.com.

Adapted from a sermon by Alan Perkins on SermonCentral.com.

TEXT: Isaiah 9:6 – “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

INTRODUCTION

Illus. – Two women stopped in front of yet ANOTHER store window at Christmastime. In the midst of all the merchandise was a little Nativity scene. One woman remarked to the other: “Well, what do you know! Even the church is trying to horn in on Christmastime.”

Illus. – That’s similar to another woman’s attitude when she complained, “Most of the Christmas songs are too distressingly theological!”

Oh, how I wish people understood how very theological Christmas really is! In popular culture, Christmas is all about Christmas trees, decorations, carol-singing, gift-giving and family. But at its very CORE, it’s also about a very theological truth—that God became a man. That’s emphasized in the Christmas passages in Matthew, chapters 1 and 2 and Luke chapters 1 and 2, as well as many other places in the New Testament. But it’s also intimated in several places in the Old Testament as well—one of which is in today’s text.

We’ve seen the last couple of weeks that our text is a prophecy about the long-promised Messiah, whom the New Testament proclaims is the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah gives us five titles for the Messiah, which tell us a little what He would be like. We examined the first two over the last two Sunday mornings: First, He would be called WONDERFUL—and oh, how wonderful He is! Next, He would be called COUNSELOR—and what a wonderful counselor He is!

Today we come to the third name in Isaiah’s descriptive messianic prophecy—the Messiah would be called “The Mighty God.” This name tells us two important things about Christ, with some challenging implications:

I. FIRST, THE MESSIAH WOULD BE GOD—HE’S THE MIGHTY GOD.

The Messiah—Jesus Christ—always was, now is and always will be fully God—

…God in all His wisdom, and power and might.…

…God in all His infinite goodness, and grace, and mercy.…

…The God who has neither beginning nor end of days—who EXISTED from eternity PAST, and who WILL EXIST into eternity FUTURE.…

…The God who created the universe, with its billions of galaxies, each containing billions of stars, and who even now sustains all of creation by His power.

Jesus Christ is THAT God! This fact—that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh—is a familiar idea to most Christians, but the Jews didn’t understand it—not in the time of ISAIAH, nor in Jesus’s day. Though alluded to in some Old Testament scriptures, they had no concept yet of a Trinity—a Triune God of Father, Son and Holy Spirit—one God in three persons. So, when Jesus came and began to teach with such authority, and do miracles, and even spoke of Himself as being one with God—they reacted violently. They even tried to kill Him for committing the sin of blasphemy.

Look with me at John 10:30-33 – “[Jesus said:] I and my Father are one. 31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. 32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do you stone me? 33 The Jews answered him, saying, ‘We do not stone you for a good, but for blasphemy; and because you, being a man, make yourself God.”

You see, Christ had and has all the power of God—all of God’s STRENGTH, all of God’s ABILITY, all of God’s MIGHT—because He WAS and IS God. Whatever God can do, Jesus can do—because He is God.

It’s important to remind ourselves of this, because although intellectually we may understand that the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit all have the same attributes—that is, each one is equally omniscient, and omnipotent, and omnipresent and all the other “omni’s”—yet, in practice, because of their different roles in salvation, we tend to forget this. We think of God the FATHER as being the strong, forceful one; the Creator; the Warrior; the Judge. We think of CHRIST as being the kind, gentle, compassionate one; the Good Shepherd; the Healer; the Savior. And we think of THE HOLY SPIRIT as being the mysterious, mystical one; the inner voice; the counselor and guide.

But in fact, each of the members of the Godhead is ALL those things, because really there is only one God. God the FATHER is loving and caring, as is the Holy Spirit. God THE SON—JESUS—is powerful and mighty, as is the Holy Spirit. They’re ALL one in being and essence, and so they all possess equally each of the divine attributes.