Everlasting Father
Isaiah 9:1-7
December 17, 2023
I can vividly remember the days Joshua and Zachary were born. There was awe and frankly, there was shock! I don’t think it ever really occurred to me that I was going to be a father until the nurse realized Debbie was deep in labor.
Until that point, it was actually kind of boring. Just wait and wait and you better not leave the floor because what if it happens when I’m in the cafeteria?
As I was thinking about today’s message, it led me to reminisce about the boys. Because as we look at the third name Isaiah gives us for Jesus, the name changed my life. I was no longer just Michael. I was now a father, a dad.
And the name can strike a chord in our hearts. We all have different thoughts and impressions about who God is as we looked at different names we might have for God.
Today’s hits us in a different way, for a variety of reasons.
As the people were struggling in the face of persecution and exile, God gives Isaiah a word that 2700 years later, still touches our hearts and leads us to have a sense of expectancy. Isaiah wrote - - - -
2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.
6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD OF HOSTS will do this. - Isaiah 9
And in line with last week looking at mighty God, Isaiah ends this by using that prophetic phrase about God, calling Him the Lord of Hosts, or the God of the heavenly armies.
Today’s focus is on calling Jesus our Everlasting Father. And the phrase father can evoke various feelings and emotions depending on our stories.
Some of us have wonderful memories of our childhood and our fathers. They were always there for us and nurtured and cared for us.
But for others, fatherhood is a painful thought. Your dad wasn't very good to you, and you live with the scars from that: the hurt, the wounds, and the damage. You’ve had to overcome!
Still, for others, it wasn't that your dad was bad or good — he was just gone. He was absent, physically or, maybe it was emotionally.
For a few of you, your dad wasn't a part of your life because of sickness, death, divorce, or imprisonment.
Speaking to the theme of fatherhood can strike a deep chord in our hearts, for some it’s a great song, for others, it might be a lament. And for still others, it’s a mixed bag, depending on the day of the week.
And yet here’s the good news of the gospel: Jesus Christ helps us know God as our Father, not just our Father, not a tyrant, not an absent father, but our everlasting Father, One who will never leave us, nor fail us, nor forsake us.
One who is always there for us,
One who has us in the palm of his hand forever.
One who promises to forgive us, and to redeem us.
In fact, it is the distinctive privilege and distinctive mark of a Christian to know God as everlasting Father. This is at the heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. You know God as Father.
You don't grope in the dark looking for some higher spiritual power or chase after some false and fickle deity. Nope! Because of Jesus, this child to be born, this Son to be given, we confess as Paul wrote - - - -
6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist,
and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. - 1 Corinthians 8:6
But before we look at how Jesus reveals to us God as the everlasting Father, we need to address a question that may already be surfacing in some of your minds. It sounds something like this: Isn't God the Father of us all? Aren't we all God's children?
Well, it is true that God is the creator and sustainer of us all and so has a kind of fatherly relationship with his creation, including each and every human being. But the fact is that the Bible doesn't talk about God as Father by virtue of His being our creator — only our Father because He has become our redeemer.
God's fatherhood depends upon our relationship with Him.
But here's the deal. Because of the Fall, and because of our sin, none of us comes into the world with a relationship with God. Instead, the Bible says that apart from Christ, we’re alienated from God, not children of God. In fact, the Bible insists we are children of wrath.
Again, Paul gives some tough words for us in Ephesians 2 - - - -
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
2 IN WHICH YOU ONCE WALKED, following the course of this world,
following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience —
3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind,
and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. - Ephesians 2:1-3
Paul’s point is that before knowing Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we were enemies of God. We were children of wrath. But notice how Paul described the people before knowing Jesus - - - - they were children of wrath in which they once walked.
In other words, that’s in the past, that’s their history that’s been redeemed because of their relationship with Jesus. God only becomes our Father when we stand in a unique relationship to Him.
I think that’s why I like to view God not so much as my friend, but as my Mighty God, my God of the Heavenly Armies. I want to know that God is my protector, my Lord and Savior, who will go to war for me. He’s the Father who won’t back down when His kids are being pushed.
Especially if you didn’t have an earthly father who you knew would go to war for you, God being our Everlasting Father, our Mighty God, gives me comfort and peace.
And being called Everlasting Father, gives me the assurance and hope that God is never, never, never going to be defeated. He’s everlasting. He’s the alpha and omega, no beginning and no end. That’s great news!!
It’s the sense that the Everlasting Father would send His Son to die for us so that we would never have to die an eternal death, but we have the hope of eternal life, because of the Everlasting Father.
We only know God as Father Through Jesus Christ. Only through Jesus do we learn to call God "Father." You can't have the fatherhood of God without embracing the Son-ship of Jesus. You can’t call God, Father, if you don’t know the Son. Jesus told us in John 14 - - - -
6 “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.”
You see, we must proclaim Jesus as our Lord and Savior. And when we do, we also meet the Father. We see the love the Father has for us. Jesus wanted the disciples to understand the intimacy of the relationship. If you know Jesus, you know the Father.
It’s kind of like saying, when you see my kids, they represent me. If they are good, you have a sense of my goodness. If they aren’t good, you have a sense that maybe I didn’t do so good a job. That’s the image Jesus wants us to get. The Father loves us so much and is identified in the Son, that you cannot know the Son and not know the Father.
I’m not even going to get into the theology of Jesus being God’s one and only Son. That’s an entirely different sermon and series. Understand that we experience the love of the Father, through the love of the Son.
This is why we often find Jesus calling God "my father." Jesus told us in Matthew 10 - - - -
32 So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven,
33 but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. - Matthew 10:32-33
That’s simply another example of the relationship between the Father and the Son, but also between us and Jesus. Deny Jesus, then you’re saying you don’t want a relationship with Him, and if you don’t want Jesus, you don’t want the Father. They come together and you can’t separate them.
And that doesn’t even include a discussion on the Holy Spirit who comes and dwells within us when we proclaim Jesus as Lord.
The final point I want to make about this child who will be called Everlasting Father is that we gain access to God, the Father through adoption.
As Jesus enjoys a unique relationship with the Father, here’s the really powerful thing - - - - - Because of what Jesus did for us — in His life, in His sacrifice and suffering for us - - - - in His death and resurrection - - - - He enables us to enter into this same relationship with God as our Everlasting Father.
He opens the way to us through adoption. We only know God as Father because of Jesus Christ His Son, and because He sends his Spirit into our hearts to bring us into the family of God as children of the heavenly Father.
Remember what Paul said, we were once children of wrath, we were not for God, we were enemies - - - - it’s what Paul said in Romans 6:23
23 For the wages of sin is death,
That’ what we are supposed to receive, eternal separation from God. But that’s not how Paul ends that statement, he tells us
but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That becomes our hope. We no longer have to fear, because we’ve been given the greatest gift ever, eternal life through Christ.
And when we become part of God the Father's family, by saying YES to Jesus, then nothing can take away that eternal security. It’s a done deal. Your adoption is not revokable. You can’t do something and think “well, God doesn’t love me anymore, He’s going to disown me.”
That doesn’t happen because you’re part of His family. He’s not moody and arbitrary like we are. Once you say YES to Jesus, you’re in! He’s got His arms wrapped around you, loving you.
God the Father never changes His mind; He never decides to stop being your heavenly Father. The One who has secured your adoption through His sacrifice, Jesus Christ, always lives to intercede for us and guarantees the bond will endure forever.
So too the Spirit who has been sent to formalize the adoption in our lives has been given: not temporarily, but permanently, forever and ever.
Our adoption is guaranteed for all eternity. By faith in Jesus, we are part of God's family, forever. God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, becomes our everlasting Father who says to His children — — — to you, me, and anyone who will look to Him with the faith of a child — these words that for me are so powerful, that you’ve heard me say them over and over and over again. - - - -
I will never leave you nor forsake you. You are mine, part of my family. I've got you, forever.
To know God as our everlasting Father is a privilege beyond description! I love the way 1 John puts it, with a sense of wonder and amazement - - - -
1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.
2 Beloved, we are God's children now, - 1 John 3:1-2
What a privilege, what a gift, what a grace!
And when I know God as my intimate, loving, kind, caring Father - - - - even One who at times will discipline me, I want to draw nearer and nearer to Him. I want to please Him, I want to experience His power and presence; His grace and love; His hope and mercy; His strength and courage.
It also leads me to pray differently - - to pray to my Father who desires good things for me. A Father who’s not looking to beat me down.
We learn to call God as "Abba, Father!" We hold onto what Paul tells us in Romans 8, one of the great chapters of the Bible - - - -
15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,
but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” - Romans 8:15
We strive for childlike boldness and vulnerable dependence, because God has become our everlasting Father. We no longer have fear, but joyful reverence and awe at the hope and person of God, our Everlasting Father.
As Paul said again in Colossians 3 - - -
12 Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience . . . - Colossians 3:12
Look at how God addresses us - - - - it’s so important to understand and believe this - - - -
We are called God’s -----
chosen ones
holy and
beloved
What this tells us about God is that God has called us. Chosen ones is another way to say we are elected by God! He specifically chose us to be His kids. He not only chose us, but He makes us holy through our belief in Jesus. And we are called beloved or dearly loved, and it’s the word agape for love - - - - which means His love is a sacrificial love.
That’s my Everlasting Father.
And because I have this relationship with God, because I know and believe and trust He loves me and won’t abandon me, I can now go to Him in prayer - - - - with confidence and expectancy that He will listen to me and act on my requests.
We learn to look to the Father in prayer with a childlike boldness. This is how Jesus taught us to pray: with childlike boldness to our everlasting Father.
I believe God is constantly reminding us that Jesus laid down His life for us, so we could have an everlasting relationship with the Father, through the Lord Jesus Christ, because of the gift of the Holy Spirit . . . .who will never leave you nor forsake you.
Trust God’s words when He tells us - - - -
I got you!
I got you!
I got you!
He’s my Everlasting Father!!
