His Name Shall Be Called…“The Everlasting Father”
Chuck Sligh
Series: His Name Shall Be Called
December 16, 2018
A PowerPoint slide presentation of this sermon is available upon request at chucksligh@hotmail.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, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
INTRODUCTION
Illus. – An old pioneer traveled westward across the Great Plains until he came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the Grand Canyon. He gawked at the sight before him: a vast chasm one mile deep; from four to eighteen miles wide; and more than 200 miles long! “Wow!” he gasped, “SOMETHIN’ musta’ happened HERE!”
I think a visitor to our world at Christmastime—seeing the lights, the decorations, the trees, the parades, the festivities, the Santas, the Nativity scenes, the Christmas carols, and the religious services—would also probably say, “Wow! SOMETHING must have happened here!” And indeed, something did happen—Something BIG! On the first Christmas, God took on Himself the fullness of human nature—something unparalleled in history, and in fact, an idea impossible for any human to have conceived. Only God could CONCEIVE IT, and only God could CARRY IT OUT.
As we’ve already seen, by the names listed in Isaiah 9:6, the prophet Isaiah makes it clear that the Messiah would be no ordinary man— Not a mere POLITICAL LEADER; not the KING of an earthly dominion; nor a GENERAL to lead his people in conquest over other nations. And He would be far more than a common teacher or prophet.
No, the Messiah would be absolutely unique—something never before seen in history.
1) He would be WONDERFUL—far more wonderful than we could ever imagine.
2) He would be a COUNSELOR like none who ever existed before.
3) But more amazing than anything—He would be “THE MIGHTY GOD”—GOD, with all His power, and might, and wisdom, and glory—yet somehow fully a MAN.
The Gospel of Matthew makes this same point in its version of the Christmas story – Matthew 1:23 – “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, GOD WITH US.”
That’s what Jesus was—“God with us.” Not God out there somewhere, beyond the boundaries of the universe, but God HERE, in our midst—God walking among us as a flesh-and-blood person.
And that’s also what the fourth title—“Everlasting Father”—signifies.
By referring to Messiah as “Everlasting Father,” Isaiah teaches us two important truths:
I. FIRST, IT REMINDS US AGAIN OF CHRIST’S DEITY.
Remember that the people who first received this prophecy—the Jews—had no conception of a Trinity. They didn’t conceive of God as both ONE and THREE at the same time: one divine essence of three co-equal persons—God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They only knew God as FATHER. So, when Isaiah identified the coming Messiah as “The everlasting FATHER,” he was communicating in the only way they could possibly have understood that the Messiah would be GOD IN THE FLESH.
And when Jesus came—when He grew to manhood and began to teach—He acknowledged that this was, in fact, who He was.
We saw last week that when He was speaking with the Pharisees, He said: “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)—a statement that almost got Him stoned to death for blasphemy!
In John 14:7, He said, “If you had known me, you should have known my Father also: and from now on you know him, and have seen him.”
Anyone who saw Jesus had seen the Father, because Jesus fully reveals God. And the only one who can fully reveal God is God Himself.
There are MANY witnesses in the Bible to the truth of the deity of Jesus Christ. The bottom line is this: Jesus Christ, the Messiah, is indisputably God the Son, the second person of the Trinity; He is very GOD HIMSELF.
Well—we saw that last week, and now again I’m Isaiah emphasizes it this week. You may be asking yourself, So what? What does it matter to us today in this room, and what difference does it make? We aren’t professors or academics who spend our free time arguing the fine points of theology. We want information we can use—wisdom and knowledge that will help us get through the week, help us live worthwhile, productive, God-honoring lives.
So how does the teaching of the deity of Christ help us do that?
1) First of all, it affirms that Jesus truly is the one and only way to God.
The gulf between the Creator and His creatures is so vast—the distance separating sinful man from holy God so immense—that only someone who in Himself unites deity and humanity can truly unite God with man. Only one who is both fully God and fully man can bring the two together—both now and forever—
• Neither Buddha nor Confucius can do that.…
• Nor can philosophy, or mysticism, or New Age spirituality, or all the gods and goddesses of the Hindus.
• Nor can MOHAMMED bring God and man together, because Mohammed was only a man, and never claimed to be anything else.
Only Jesus Christ, who in Himself combines God and man, can bridge the gap.
John 14:6 says, “Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by me.”
Peter proclaims in Acts 4:12 – “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, by which we must be saved.”
The reason is that only God could live a sinless life and be our substitute on the cross.
2) Second, Jesus’ deity matters because it means all His promises will be fulfilled.
Whatever Jesus said would happen, WILL happen because He is God—and GOD KEEPS HIS WORD! Because He’s God, He has the power to make sure He does what He promises.
One of the characteristics of God is that He is unchanging. So, because Jesus is God, He won’t change His mind or go back on His word; He won’t discover new information and then alter His plans.
Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.”
So, because Jesus is God—He can be trusted! We can rely on Him and entrust our lives to Him in a way that we can’t with any other person, because we know that NOTHING is going to happen that will make Him either unable or unwilling to care for us, now or in the future.
And that leads us to the other thing that this name teaches us.
II. THIS NAME ALSO TEACHES US THAT CHRIST IS ETERNAL—HE IS THE “EVERLASTING FATHER”
Christ is eternal, everlasting, without beginning or end of days. Listen to these passages which speak of the eternal existence of Christ:
• John 1:1-2 – “In the beginning was the Word [verse 14 tells us that “the Word” refers to Jesus Christ], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God.”
• Hebrews 1:8 – “But to the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever…”
As we’ve been reminded in the last couple of decades, nothing in this world lasts forever.
• Men can make his monuments of concrete and steel, but they can fall into a pile of rubble in a few hours, as the Word Trade Center Buildings did just 12 years ago.
• Businesses do not last forever. – Airlines declare bankruptcy on a regular basis (238, in fact, since 1980); major businesses can go out of business in a heartbeat, like Circuit City in 2008 or Toys R Us this past June; and many other examples could be given.
• Even people don’t last. No matter how much your parents love you, or how much your husband or wife cares for you—if you live long enough, someday their lives will come to an end, and there’s nothing you or they can do about it.
Illus. – One day Susan and our youngest son, Allen were visiting Susan’s mom in the States. Her mother was talking and joking and eating and interacting just like Susan and Allen and billions of other living people were. But within hours, Susan’s mom stopped breathing and her heart ceased beating and she left Susan and Allen and this world forever. In fact, she died in Allen’s arms! Everybody leaves eventually and everything on earth is temporary.
But Jesus is different! As God promises in Hebrews 13:5 – “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”
That’s why Jesus’ eternality—the fact that He is eternal—matters. That’s why we care that Jesus will never change, and never cease to exist.
It means that all of the good things He is to us now, He will always be to us.
• He will always be our Provider, and Protector and Savior.
• He will always be our refuge, and our strength.
• His love for us will NEVER cease—either in this world or the next.
• In Him, we will have eternal joy, and hope, and glory and pleasure.
• In Christ, we will be eternally blessed and secure.
• Jesus will always keep his promises to us, even if other people don’t.
• He’ll always be our God, and we’ll always be His people.
What does the fact that our relationship with Christ is eternal mean to us practically?
1) First, it means our JOY in Him will be eternal.
Isaiah 51:11 says, “Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return and come with singing unto Zion; and EVERLASTING joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.” Our joy can be lost in this life because of circumstances, but in eternity God guarantees that the saved will have EVERLASTING joy—joy that will NEVER go away.
2) Second, God’s LOVE and GOODNESS toward us are eternal.
They will never fail. Jeremiah 31:3 says, “The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying, ‘I HAVE LOVED THEE WITH AN EVERLASTING LOVE: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn you.’”
And Paul says these remarkable words in Romans 8:38-39 – “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
3) And finally, OUR SALVATION will be eternal.
God’s punishment and wrath against sin were COMPLETELY executed in the death and suffering of Christ on the cross, so that for those who are in Christ, there will NEVER be any judgment or condemnation. God’s attitude toward us will never be anything but total love and goodness.
Listen to these promises in God’s Word:
• Jesus said, “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” (John 10:28)
• “Eternal” is, by definition, without end.
• If we have “eternal life,” that means it can never be lost.
• In John 5:24 He said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He who hears my word, and believes on him who sent me, has everlasting life, and shall NOT come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”
• Hebrews 7:25 – “Therefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost who come unto God by him, seeing he lives forever to make intercession for them.”
These are wonderful promises that assure us that salvation is eternal, never ending, cannot be lost—because our EVERLASTING Father guarantees it.
CONCLUSION
So…Jesus Christ is “the everlasting Father.” How should this fact affect our lives?
I think more than anything else, the eternality of Christ should help us get a proper perspective on this temporal life on earth we exist in now.
Turn with me to 2 Corinthians 4 and look at how Paul expresses it in verse 1 – “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporary; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
No matter what you may be going through—whether suffering or disappointment or pain or sorrow or confusion; no matter how other people may treat you—whether you’ve seen your highest dream realized, or your greatest hopes dashed into a thousand pieces; no matter what this life brings you—you can have peace and contentment because you can know that everything in this world is temporary—it will soon pass away, but everything about Jesus is ETERNAL.
I recall the former pastor of the church I pastored, Jim Rodehorst, coming to visit me in my office, which had been his old office. When he entered, he looked at my extensive library. I showed him how I had it all organized, and figured he’d be impressed. He looked it over for a minute and then said to me, “Too bad it’s all going to burn up someday.” You know, he was right, because everything in this life is temporary.
But our life in Christ is FOREVER! HE is eternal; He will NEVER die—and neither will we. And thus, His LOVE for us is eternal; it will never end. We are His people and He is our Savior—now and forever.
During this Christmas season, we tend to focus on the miracle of Christ’s BIRTH—the shepherds, the angels, the wise men, the virgin mother, giving birth in what was perhaps a stable, the beauty and innocence of that babe in the manger—and it’s entirely appropriate for us to do so. But we also need to remember why it was that Christ came, why he HAD to come. He came because we needed a SAVIOR—because our sins had separated us from God, our Creator.
And my question for you morning is this: “Have you received Christ as your Savior?” Have you trusted in Him for your salvation? If not, I invite you to do that today. What better time than CHRISTMAS to meet the One whom the season is all about!
If you have trusted in Christ as your Savior, are you trusting Him now, every day, for guidance, and strength and wisdom? And are you looking beyond the temporal, physical world and living and working for that eternal, spiritual world beyond this life? Let us choose to live every day with eternity’s values in view!
