Today we are in part 2 of our 3-part series “Without the manger there is no Cross”
But first:
• Did you read something new in God’s word this past week?
• Did you see a familiar passage with new eyes?
• Did you share it with someone?
• Just an FYI: when we share God’s word, that is discipleship among many other things
My prayer this week has been that as you go about the rest of your week, that something you heard or experienced today in church, will leave an indelible impression on you. As I like to say “a soul tattoo”.
RECAP PART 1
Our key verse was Isaiah 9:6 “For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
We dug into the first part of the verse:
• “For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given;
A couple of takeaways from that as we examined:
Isaiah 7:14 “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.”
Micah 5:2 ““But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.””
Those takeaways were:
• how this prophecy was over 700 before the birth of Christ.
• We looked at some history of the prophets and their purpose
• For me personally, the thought that spoke to me so vividly was a quote from Charles Spurgeon:
• Looking at “unto us”:
• If this Child is born “to you”, then you are born again.
• For this Child is not born to you, unless you are born to this Child.
This quote is not only the important to all of humanity, but also to me personally.
Lastly, we touched on meaning of Christmas, the birth of Christ, in our lives, and I asked that you examine that. Last week we confined it to a minimal number of verses, but this week we are back to scriptural gymnastics!
BIG SHOULDERS
Today we are going to break out the middle part of Isaiah 9:6 “For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
When we consider this passage, I believe it depicts Jesus in His entirety.
His shoulder
“and the government will be upon His shoulder”
This passage as a whole, foretells the birth of Christ, as well as the 2nd coming.
We see John write about the 1st Coming in :
• Revelation 12:5 “She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne.”
• Between Christ’s incarnation and His coronation came His exaltation, when He was caught up to God and to His throne at His ascension.
We’ll return to this is a just a bit.
Wonderful
Last week I expressed that I hoped what was here (motion my heart), will come out of here (motion my mouth), that way I have it here (motion my head).
I think I may have put my finger on why this has been a challenge to express to you what is on my heart about this verse.
And it is that word “wonderful”.
As I began a deep dive into the Hebrew meaning and usage of the word, it struck me that this word is a little bit like the word Yahweh. Also last week I mentioned controversy. Well, there is much controversy why the Jewish people don’t say Yahweh or God’s name. But part of the reasoning behind not speaking His name, is that it is beyond human comprehension as to what His name truly means.
It is so wide and deep and high that we can’t understand it.
So, back to “wonderful”.
You take the root noun and here are a few the translations:
• miracle
• a marvelous thing
• wonder
• unusual
• extraordinary
• supernatural
These are but a few nouns referring to God’s deeds or words.
One description of this word explained it like this:
• Jesus “wonderful” indicates the He exceeds the limits of human understanding and explanation.
• Sort of a humorous story in the telling of an angel appearing to the woman who would become Samson’s mother.
• Found in Judges 13:18 “And the Angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask My name, seeing it is wonderful? (in other words “seeing that it is beyond your comprehension””)
• “So the Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Of all that I said to the woman let her be careful.”
• I can’t help but wonder, if that name of an angel is beyond our understanding how much more the wonderful name of Jesus?!
• Mere words fall glaringly short, in trying to describe the “wonder” of Jesus.
If have to ask “when was the last time the name of Jesus caused you to marvel?”
Friday night, my aunt was recalling an incredible movement Jesus made in our family recently, and she said something like “It marvels me how God moves in our lives, and then she said, but he does this all the time, so we shouldn’t be surprised”.
And no we shouldn’t be surprised, but I pray we never lose being marveled at Jesus!
Jesus is wonderful:
in His birth
in His life
in His teaching
in His miracles
in His death
in His resurrection
and in His 2nd coming!
Counselor
Webster defines counselor as: a person who gives advice or counseling.
We have two means of hearing His Counsel:
• Through His Word
• Through the Holy Spirit
Early on in God’s word we see the importance of having discernment in seeking wise counsel. It was by a counselor, that this world was ruined!
Genesis 3:1 “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?””
in scripture God calls Solomon the wisest man who ever was and ever will be in 1 Kings 3:12
and the wisest man tells us in:
Proverbs 11:14 “Where there is no counsel, the people fall; But in the multitude of counselors there is safety.”
In preparing this message, it caused me to ask “From whom does God seek counsel?”
• No one, right?
• Therefore, shouldn’t we go straight to source when seeking counsel?
• Don’t misunderstand, I try my best to follow Proverbs 11:14’s advice, after all; it is God’s word, but ultimately, I better listen to the Wonderful Counselor. Think about it, that multitude of counsel mentioned there, can also be considered as The Trinity.
• If we seek divine counsel, we will always walk in the Light.
He has ALL wisdom and His position as Wonderful Counselor means:
• We can trust Him to listen to our problems and guide us in the right direction:
• Proverbs 3:6 “In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.”
• We can be sure He is listening because He told us to pray to Him about our worries:
• Philippians 4:6 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;”
• We can rest in knowing that He has our best interest @ heart and He love us:
• 1 John 4:19 “We love Him because He first loved us.”
Before Jesus left, He told us the Father will send an advocate:
• John 14:26–27 “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
• Comforter
• Advocate
• Counselor (Hebrew Names Version)
When you consider who a counselor is, and what a counselor does, most counselors must have some degree of empathy for those they counsel.
Here’s a definition of empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
We are told in Hebrews 2:17 “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”
He had to be made like us in order to be our Wonderful Counselor.
He is also our counselor as a mediator between God and us.
Can you imagine how he extended one hand out to us while He was on the cross, as He extended the other hand out to God?
Mighty God
Last week you got
• a word on prophecy and prophets
• A quick history lesson
• A testimony of my family Christmas
This week we’ve covered:
• a brief word study
• an examination by break-down of verse
and now… before we finish out this message:
• Science
This is but one small example of how mighty our God is!
• I single drop of water (.05ml) has:
• 1.5 sextillion molecules (I didn’t even know that was a word. In fact WORD didn’t even know that was a word. MS word, gave me that little squiggly line under “sextillion” when I spelled it out!)
• 5 sextillion atoms (for those of you like me, uneducated in numbers, a sextillion is a 1 followed by 21 zeros)
• To try to put that in perspective: if you lined up 1 sextillion dollar bills, they would stretch to the sun and back 5 1/2 times!
That’s how mighty our God is. That is a single drop of water!
Now try to wrap your head around this:
It is estimated that our galaxy, the Milky Way, has a 100 billion stars, and it is estimated that there are a 100 billion galaxies!
I know, I know, you lost me at a drop of water!
Alright, enough science, already!
The Hebrew word for Mighty God is “El Gibbor”
• Again these are nouns that describe El Gibbor:
• Strength
• might
• power
• proven warrior
• spiritual strength
• to prevail: Wadey “justice will prevail”. I’m like what? Stop that!
• Prevail means “prove more powerful than opposing forces, be victorious”
• I don’t know about you, but I love claiming victory in the mighty name of Jesus!
• The first mention of this Hebrew word is found in Genesis 6:4. Here’s your challenge for the week. Go back and read Genesis chapter 6, and you come back and tell me what that means!
Real quick like let’s go back and read:
Isaiah 7:14 “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.”
That word Immanuel is transliterated to mean “God with us”.
Until I began this study in preparation for the series I didn’t realize we see the Trinity in this verse:
Isaiah 9:6 (NKJV)
For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given; (The Son; Jesus)
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, (The Holy Spirit)
Mighty God, (The Father)
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
He is a Mighty God, who has no equal.
Back to “government”
“and the government will be upon His shoulder”
and the government will be upon His:
Mighty
Powerful
Marvelous
Miracle-working
Supernatural
Prevailing
...Shoulder
And we can take comfort in that!
Closing
Please indulge me as I quickly re-tell the Man on the Subway story.
Late one evening on a subway in NY, a man was sitting alone in a subway car.
The train stopped, a man with 3 young children popped in.
Immediately, the children began running around, making noises and just being an overall nuisance.
The man thought “why doesn’t he control his children”.
The father, sensing the other man’s irritation, apologized and said “please forgive them we just came from the hospital where their mother just died”.
At that instant, the man had a paradigm shift in his thoughts.
Here’s what paradigm shift means:
An important change that happens when the usual way of thinking about or doing something is replaced by a new and different way. Oftentimes a better way.
The man, when he had more information to download, had a psychological adjustment to his thinking.
Again, if I step on your toes, please know that I am aiming for your heart!
Maybe as a nation, we need a paradigm shift in how we see and observe the birth of Christ!
Here’s what I believe is God’s idea of Christmas:
• He sent a savior, that came to dies and set us free from our sin.
• That savior took on human form to experience for Himself firsthand, what we go through.
• So that we could have all these things and so much more:
• Favor (also can be translated as grace) Luke 1:26–30
• Blessing (He can to reverse the curse) Luke 1:39-45
• Guidance (by the Holy Spirit) Matthew 1:19-20
• Joy (Luke 2:8-10)
• Redemption (Luke 2:36-38)
• Peace (Luke 2:25-3
• Salvation (Luke 1:66-77)
(may include the story of Stanley Plaster)
During the next couple of weeks, I’d like you to consider taking inventory in your lives.
That inventory could be:
• mental health
• physical health
• financial health
• employment, career, job (whatever you call it) Might even be a time to have a paradigm shift in what you call your income.
• Material wealth
• Spiritual health
• relationship with your spouse
• relationship with your children
• and most importantly: take inventory with your relationship with:
• The child born unto us
• the Son given unto us;
The one we call:
• Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
• Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Let’s go to the Lord
