Wonderful Counselor

So, if you're following along, let's go with this. Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Emmanuel, which means God with us. And then skipping over to chapter 9, verse 2. And the people who walk in darkness have seen a great light.

You have multiplied our nations. You have increased its joy. For the yoke of His burden, the rod of His oppressor, you have broken as the day of Midian. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulders, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and of His 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 forever. The first thing I want you to realize is that this prophecy was not made at Christmas time. Okay? This was 730 years before Christ. Okay?

So this prophecy comes into play. And what's going on here is there is a king, King Ahaz, that is on the throne of Jerusalem. And the Assyrians are knocking at his door, getting ready to war against Jerusalem. And he is troubled. He doesn't know what to do.

He needs advice. What's the best way to defend ourselves? And so God sends the prophet Isaiah to Ahaz to share with him some words of wisdom that come from God. How do we battle these people? How do we align ourselves to protect ourselves?

This should be reassuring to Ahaz, but the problem is Ahaz doesn't like to listen to God. He doesn't want to listen to God. He gives this prophecy to Ahaz, and Ahaz is like, no, I don't want to listen to it. He says, okay, I'm going to give it to you anyway because God is speaking, and you need to listen to this prophecy because Ahaz, like many of us, we like the idea of God, but we don't know, you know, we don't really want to obey him fully. We'll give him pieces of our lives, but we don't want to give him all of our lives.

So he's holding back here, and he says, I'm going to give this to you anyway. So he gives them the prophecy, behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel. So I want to go back to what we talked about in our Daniel series about prophecy so that we understand how to... There was a partial fulfillment of this prophecy in that day. Some kind of notable child was born.

In fact, I had a friend of mine one time that was struggling with how to interpret and read the Bible and couldn't really understand it. He says, now this prophecy, it actually was fulfilled in that time. So, are we mistaking that it was actually a prophecy of Jesus? There was a child that was born, and it was born of Isaiah, and it represented a lot of things. He just couldn't get past that, right?

For some reason, he felt like, how do I know that that's a prophecy of Jesus? Well, number one, Matthew quoted it. If you read the book of Matthew, unto us a child is born, here he is, you know? And the second thing is, when we read prophecy, we always have to understand that there is an immediate fulfillment. Something's happening in that time, but there's also a future fulfillment.

I used the idea of two mountains. The last time we were talking about prophecy, when in a distance, it looks like one mountain, but there's actually two mountains when you get closer to it. That's how prophecy often works. A lot of biblical prophecy is that way. And now you're probably thinking, how would a prophecy about the birth of the Messiah that wouldn't come for like 700 years, ultimately, answer the problem of Ahaz?

I mean, Ahaz is going through this time where he doesn't have any answers to the problems that he's facing. And a lot of you may ask that yourselves, you know, as you read the Bible and you see these things. It sounds like pie in the sky. It sounds all nice. It sounds like a nice Hallmark card or Hallmark movie, all these cute, quaint stories.

But how do these things apply to me? That's the problem I have with the Bible. I can read these things, but how does it really apply to me today? I'm going through tremendous times. I've lost my job or my marriage is in trouble or I'm dealing with a chronic pain.

Why would this pertain to me? And that was the question that Ahaz had. You know, we got a real army sitting right outside our gates. How is a prophecy about a future Messiah going to answer my problems? Here's what I want to say.

There's two ways that the birth of Jesus addresses their problem. The first one is God was dealing with the root of the problem. God was dealing with the root of the problem. Our problems are much deeper than merely enemy armies, health issues, economic issues, and relational conflict. The root of our problems is a separation from God.

All of our earthly problems ultimately stem from that particular thing, this separation from God. Not that the problem you are experiencing now is God's punishment for a specific sin. It's just that if God were to take away all of our problems without fixing the real problem, we would just make up other problems. We would just bring about other problems. There's always J.

R.R. Tolkien. Consider it like this. Evil is like a shapeshifter.

It's like a shadow after you defeat it. It takes on another shape and grows again. We're doing things nowadays. It's amazing how technology has advanced. We're doing amazing things.

The last 15 years, I mean, these phones, 20 years, these phones have advanced to a level that's unprecedented, right? And there's a lot of things that technology solves. I can keep up with my family. I can keep up with my bank account. I can protect my house.

I can do all these things just for my phone. It's amazing how a phone works. But at the same time, there's a lot of problems with it, right? There's cybersecurity issues. People can invade your life and know everything about you because we're constantly on our phones and constantly on social media.

And a phone that keeps up with my family and I'm able to connect with them also can take me away from my family if I'm on it too much. And I see lifestyles of people that are constantly on devices and constantly looking at our phones and not really focused on what we really should be doing, you know, spending time with our families, spending time with people, being relational with people. And a lot of us would say, I don't know if phones are a net positive or a net negative. It's just hard to. I think all of us would would agree with that.

Why, despite all the improvements that we have, why have they not helped us? Why do they continue not to help us? Because it's the source of darkness that lies within our hearts that we need to deal with. That's the root of the problem. All the technology in the world isn't going to heal the human heart.

It isn't going to change the human heart. All better technology does is create new shapes for the shadows of darkness that are around us. Martin Luther said it like this, the human heart is that it is curved on itself. It curves on itself. So all we do is just create other problems.

It creates darkness in us that gives birth to the whole spectrum of evil. That's why we have problems with everyday things. When we look at the news, horrific crimes, all the way to broken marriages, broken families, and all those more or less important things that we deal with from day to day. So sin had to deal with the root of the problem. And what God was doing in the midst of helping Ahaz is He promised a Messiah that would ultimately save us from the real root of the problem, and that is the darkness of our heart.

I mean, we cry out to be delivered from bad health, but what God wants to do is deliver us from the curse of death that causes bad health. We cry out to be delivered from injustice and broken relationship. God wants to deliver us from the sin and selfishness that causes these broken relationships. We cry out for victory in battle, but God promises a Messiah who takes away the hatred that drives us into battle. God goes deeper into the problem of evil, and you say, well, why didn't He just come the first time and eradicate evil altogether?

That would have made sense, just ride in on a white horse and get rid of it and take care of us all. No, you don't want that because you wouldn't be here today, right? All evil would be erased, but instead He brought a baby into the world and humbled Himself, became man, lived the life that we should have lived, died the life that we should have died, so that our sins could be forgiven. And He broke the power of sin, broke the power of darkness, the dark hearts of our lives. The second thing I want to mention is God was sending a greater gift to them, and He was sending a greater gift to us.

That's why He names four names of God. You could technically say it was four gifts, one God, four gifts, and He gives these names. Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. So for the rest of our time, I want to talk about this Wonderful Counselor. I want to deal with the first name, a Wonderful Counselor.

We have a Wonderful Counselor. The Hebrew word for Wonderful Counselor is Pele Yoetz. Pele Yoetz is how you pronounce that. Pele means beyond understanding. So when we say the word wonderful, what we're saying in the context of which it's written is that this is a wonderfulness, if wonderfulness is a word, wonderfulness that we can't even wonder.

We're incapable of even imagining how great this God is. Human language doesn't even speak of the goodness of God, the greatness of God. We don't have the ability to even communicate how good God is. It's this wonderful, glorious, magnificent, awesome. It just doesn't do justice.

And then Yoetz is translated Counselor, and it means one who advises and instructs and guides. Of course, most of you know that, but this isn't the type of counselor that you're thinking about. This isn't a counselor you just go to to get through your week or get through your month. This isn't just a friend you call up at night that says, yeah, I agree with you. That really sucks.

I'm sorry. You know, that's bad, and you're kind of okay for a little while. We're talking about a counselor that actually has the authority to give you solutions to your problems. A counselor that is able to speak into your problem and show you a way out. And one day, Isaiah says, a son will be born, a child will be given to you, and his name will be Pele Yoetz.

This wonderful counselor. The writer of Hebrews explains why it is that Jesus can be such an extraordinary supernatural help to us in the midst of our problems. Hebrews 4, 15, and 16 says it like this. If you're following your notes, read along with me. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.

He says- 10. But one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin, let us then with confidence, underline confidence, we have confidence drawn near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in times of need. Now let me point out two things on this. First of all, he was poor for our sake. In fact, 2 Corinthians says, for you know that grace, the grace of our God, Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, for our sake he became poor so that you, through his poverty, might become rich.

You might become rich. He's not just a king who rules over us, he's a brother that walked among us. He's a brother that understands our needs and he understands poverty. He was born among the poor and oppressed people, yet he was one of the poorest of poor. His parents were very, very, very poor.

I'm not sure about this new Netflix movie about Mary, but it seems like it made her kind of rich. But I don't think that does it just, I haven't seen the movie yet. It might be accurate. I don't know. I need to watch it.

But I will say this, she was very poor, Joseph was very poor. The reason we know this is for many reasons. The first one is, he couldn't find any room to put his pregnant wife up at night. I mean, if you had some money, I'm sure you could find yourself a room somewhere. But there was no room for poor people, so where were they put?

They were put in a stable among animals. The Son of God was put in a feeding trough. Could you imagine, those of you who have newborns or remember your newborn, could you imagine being in a barn and putting your baby in a trough? They were very poor. And it didn't smell like cinnamon and nutmeg in there either, guys.

It wasn't like Christmas in that shed. I mean, take animal poop and smear it all over the place, and that's what you got, okay? This was not a great place to be. And when Jesus was dedicated in the temple, his parents presented pigeons, which was a provision for those who were poor who couldn't afford a lamb to be sacrificed. So what we see here is that Jesus' family was very poor.

Jesus' family was so poor, he couldn't fulfill the requirement he himself had put in place way, way, way before then. He became the poorest of poor. And at his birth, Jesus was laying down a pattern that he would repent throughout his, or repeat, rather, throughout his entire life. He was born in a manger, and then he would die on a cross. At his birth, the innkeepers rejected him.

The people rejected him by calling death to him, and that we will, we want Barabbas instead. At his death, he was wrapped in rags. I mean, at his birth, he was wrapped in rags. At his death, he was stripped naked of all of his clothing. At his birth, he's ignored by the world.

And in his death, he was rejected by the heavenly, almighty Father. He would repeat this passage. Why? He was bearing the rejection and poverty that I deserved. He was bearing the rejection and poverty that you deserved so that when I come to Him, I can, with confidence, know that I won't be judged.

With confidence, I know that He won't look upon my sin. Isaiah says, Surely He has borne our griefs and our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him smitten by God and afflicted, but He was wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. When I come to Him, I don't get the poverty and judgment that should be laid upon me. I deserve it, but He doesn't pour it out on me. James shows us this when we look at James 1, when we ask for wisdom.

He says, If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach. Now, underline that word, reproach. And it will be given Him. Now, my favorite part of that verse is without reproach, because a lot of times, I get myself into the situations I'm in. I get myself into places, and I have to ask God for wisdom.

And sometimes I think, Man, when I go to God, is He saying, Leon, are you doing this again? Leon, how dare you come to me, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the Holy of holies, and start putting your needs on me when you put yourself in that situation in the first place? Can you see this? Do you see this guy, angels? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, I know. Goodness gracious. He doesn't really get it, does he? And we do that on our own, but He doesn't do that. He promises He doesn't do that.

He does. It's without reproach. He doesn't judge me. He doesn't criticize me. He listens to me.

Because Jesus has bore all our sin and all of our condemnation and all the circumstances. And so when my marriage is messed up and I've caused pain to my kids and the things at work, I've messed up. If I sincerely say to God, give me wisdom on how to follow you in this. Give me wisdom on how to deal with these situations. He will give it to you.

He will give it to you. The wisdom I ask for is not the wisdom I deserve. It's the wisdom that Christ has made available for me. He opened up the door for me to be able to hear from God, the wisdom of God. The other thing is He experienced problems in every aspect.

In every aspect. He was not only the poorest of the poor, He knew problems. He knew deep, dark problems. What Hebrews 15 promised me is that when I am in pain and I'm tempted, that we have a Savior and we have a God who sympathetically listens to us. Because it says, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, right?

He's not able, he can, he is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who is in every respect, every respect has been tempted wounded, yet didn't sin. We have this one. Wonderful Counselor that is available to us. He is a wonderful Counselor. And some of you right now, if you're honest with yourself, you're like, I need some real help.

I need, I need, I need to hear from God. Can I tell you, you have a wonderful Counselor that's available to you. The Pele Yo-8s. Wonderful, wonderful, beyond words that can be described and a Counselor that can answer your problems and give you a way out. It is available to us.

What I love about, about the name Wonderful Counselor is, it means that God came to people with problems. Think about the miracles of Jesus for a second. Jesus didn't just show up and make something levitate and say, hey, I'm, I'm the Son of God, see, here to go, or do some kind of trick or magic act. He always came to people with problems. He met people where issues were.

He engaged hunger, poverty, disease, brokenness, and even death. This is where Jesus really met people. He met people in their problems. And the good news is that if you have a problem, there's a miracle available for you. No problems, no miracles.

Some of you come here, I have no problems at all. Sorry, my miracle's available for you, okay? But if you have problems, I believe all of us, if not most of us, have something in our life like, I've got a real problem here. He is available for you. And He's got a miracle available for you this weekend.

It's for you. Jesus is the Wonderful Counselor. He came for people with problems. And He said, I didn't come for the healthy. I came for those who were hurting and those who were oppressed and those who needed an answer to life.

He came for those. And some of you have problems. So let me give you a few things here. How do we approach this Wonderful Counselor? How do we interact with the Wonderful Counselor and get this advice?

I'm going to give you three things today. We have to be completely honest with Him, number one. We have to be completely honest with Him. Any counselor will tell you that if you're not completely honest with me, you cannot be healed. You cannot fix the situation.

If you're not completely honest with me, all the things that you... There's got to be truth. You can't hide anything. You can't give part of your issue to Him and not the other part. Maybe that's because...

I don't know why people don't share with God everything. I mean, He knows it anyway, right? Maybe it's the shame or admitting that to the full extent of your issue or you don't like to even acknowledge it yourself, that this is a problem. But until you fully are open and honest with God, He cannot come in and help you. You've got to be open.

You've got to be an open slate. And here's why that is true. Being changed by Jesus is not just passing the keys to a kid at the car wash and saying, I'll come back in two hours. And it's ready. Just fix my issues.

Just make my life holy. No. You have to be...God changes people by you being very active in every detail of your life as well. Of revealing and showing Him.

He can't really fix it. You can't really fix it unless you're honest even with yourself. And until you admit that, you're never going to be changed. Because God's not going to change your life without changing you. And our fear is that when the full extent of our problems is revealed, man, will God and everyone else just walk out?

I'm sure a lot of people feel that way. Will God just see me? That's where you are just going to have to trust in the promises of God, the wonderful Counselor that you open up to Him. He gives you promises. Think about the woman at the well in John 4.

She wasn't sharing the whole truth. But Jesus already knew. He said, you've been married five times and you're with a man you're not even married with now. She's like, oh man, how did you know that? I perceived that you were a prophet.

Well, very wise woman at the well. You figured it out, right? I mean, that's it. He knows already. And if we're open with Him, that wonderful Counselor has promised with His power is so great.

There is no problem you have that He cannot deal with. No problem. You're not so deep in the hole that He can't save you and rescue you. There is nothing about you that could be revealed that will surprise Him at all. He already knows He's ready and the blood is there, ready to take care of that situation in your life, that deep hurt in your life, that nastiness or that sin or whatever it is, which leads me to point two.

We have to want to be healed. We have to want to be healed. In John 5, Jesus comes upon a lame man. And this is really interesting. I think everybody who reads the story of this miracle is like, why does Jesus ask this one statement, do you want to be healed?

Of course the man wants to be healed. He's been lame his entire life. But Jesus was trying to prove another point. While many want to experience the benefits of healing, they don't want to go through the painful choices that accompany healing. We want God to clean up our mess like the car wash, you know, we give it to the person and let them run off, but without dealing with the choices and patterns that have put us in that mess to start with.

In fact, we have mixed feelings about the changes we are asking God to make. It's like, God, give me some changes, but not those. I want to give you this, but I'm not ready to let go of this little thing in my life. I'm willing to hide that from God, but I don't really want to be healed in that area. But God's like, do you really want to be healed?

I love how St. Augustine said in his confessions, God, make me pure, just not yet. God, make me pure, but just not yet. I'm just not ready to go that far with God. Then you're not ready to be healed.

You're not ready for that problem to go away. Do you really want me to schedule this week? Do you really want God to change your life? Are you willing to deal with the things that Jesus asked you to do to get you to where you need to go? Jesus says, I can heal you, but do you really want to be healed?

Do you really want to be healed? And number three, we have to do whatever he says. We have to do whatever he says. Jesus asked people to do crazy things. Sometimes the things that God asks us to do don't make any sense.

The man had a man in the Bible who was blind had to put mud in his eye, right? Jesus spit in mud and did this and put it in his eye and will you let me do that, right? That's weird. Don't do that. That's disgusting.

That's degrading. Why would I want him to do that? He told Peter to reach down for a fish and pull a coin out and that's ridiculous. You know what? Oh, well, there it is.

Yeah, there's the miracle. I mean, they're very crazy, interesting things that God asks us to do sometimes that may not make a lot of sense. But Jesus is demonstrating that sometimes obedience doesn't make sense. It doesn't always make sense, practical people. Sometimes it's impractical.

If God is really speaking to us about something, he tells you to extend the forgiveness to others when I'm the one that needs to be forgiven. I mean, who's got my back? Who's going to avenge me? Doesn't make sense. He's telling you to end the relationship, but you're scared of being alone.

I don't want to be alone, God. You know my needs. He says, give sacrificially, but I don't have the money to do that. He says, he tells you to move maybe to another location or do something different. I'm comfortable where I am.

Why are you pulling me out of my comfort zone? And in that moment, you have to decide, do you really trust him enough to believe that he has something for you, enough to do what he says? Do you really trust him enough? Here's a question I often am confronted with myself. Do I really trust God?

Do I really trust him? The verse I referred to earlier from James, it says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask God. But the second part of that verse is really important. OK, it starts with verse six. It says, but let him ask in faith with no doubting.

For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from you. You've got to be ready to do what he says when you ask him for wisdom. Otherwise, you'll never get that wisdom. In order to get help from the wonderful council, you have to put your yes on the table before you even know the details of the contract.

You've got to be willing to trust him. I mean, and this goes against anything, any advice that I would ever give. I wouldn't tell you to go put a contract forward with somebody without first reading the details of the contract. Just don't sign something just without looking at it. But God's saying the opposite.

You need to trust me before you even know the details of what's going to happen or how you're going to have to process this or what you're going to have to go through. Are you willing to trust me that I have your best interest in mind? He's telling you to write a blank check. In the days of old, blank checks were a common thing. When you gave somebody a blank check, you gave it to them and told them, Hey, go get that gift or go whatever, you know, just fill in the numbers, you know.

But the problem is if you give that person the blank check, they could fill in any number they want, clean out your entire bank account if they wanted to. So what we do with God is we say, I prefer to give him a gift card. I'll give him a nice Christmas gift card of $300. You got that part, but you ain't getting my whole account. Sorry.

You're not getting my whole life, but God's asking for a blank check. God's asking for you to write the blank check and give it to him and trust him. And the Gospel of Matthew, even as many know the story of the rich man. See, it said Jesus loved him, loved him, and he asked him to follow him, but the rich man could not give up that part of his life. Sell all you have, give it to the poor, and come and follow me is what Jesus said.

If you really love me, if you really want to be a follower of me, be willing to give it all. He went away sad, and it broke Jesus' heart. Maybe God's asking you, you know, will you trust the wonderful counselor today? Will you trust, you'll never experience the help of the wonderful counselor until you deal with the issue of, you got it all, Lord. I'm willing to let it all go.

I'm going to put it all on the table. So those are the three questions. Are you willing to completely be honest with him? Do you really want to be healed? And are you ready to do whatever he says you need to do?

So let me close this message with one final thought. Maybe the most important thing to notice about this name is that Isaiah used the word wonderful to describe Jesus. He didn't use the word solution. He used the word wonderful. He didn't, solution to all of our problems, he didn't say that.

But what I'm saying here is that the most wonderful way that God fixes our problems is not fixing the problem, but being in the problem. walking through the problem with you, his presence in the problem, that he is working and weaving all of our problems because the truth is he may not fix all of your problems. He could not even fix any of your problems, but the beauty of it is he walks with you through your problems. He's weaving and working all things together for his glory and your good. And he goes, He's got something great because he is the wonderful, he is so wonderful, words can't describe him.

He is the Counselor. He has all the right advice. And that wonderful Counselor is more valuable than any solution to your problems. You can take that home with you today, that God is with you and he promises he will be with you. And maybe, you know, you got people that come to church and they're thinking, you know, I've got a lot of problems.

And maybe if I come here today, God can take care of my problems. I've got family problems, I've got marriage problems, I've got relationship problems. I heard it said like this, it's like a little kid saying, if a nuclear bomb goes off next to me, will it be hot? That's irrelevant if a nuclear bomb is going off by you. God, so we ask, can God help my problems?

That's irrelevant, man, when you've got God in your life. God can do more than help your problems. God can be with you in your problems and you have no issues. He gives you himself and that's the greatest gift that he could ever give you. That he says if you, that I'm willing to give you all of me.

I'm willing to give you heaven. I'm willing to give you eternity. I'm willing to give you all of God. And I may not experience immediate victory over my temptations, but in Christ I have the righteousness of Christ on me. And the promise, the one that one day he is going to make me pure like him.

And that's a promise I have in Christ. I may not, I may be hard pressed as Paul says on every side, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down and not destroyed.

And I can live every day with assurance that the wonderful counselor is my shepherd and I shall not want. He leads me beside still waters. He makes me rest and he restores my soul. And I lie down in green pastures. And yes, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

His rod and staff, they comfort me. My cup runneth over. Surely his goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in his house forever. I can be assured of that.

There's no other savior that I want. So do you want the wonderful counselor today? Do you want him? A wonderful counselor, bigger than words can describe. A counselor that can give you solutions.

Not just a way out. And he will walk with you and he will be with you. Father, thank you, God, for your word. Thank you, Lord, your wonderful counselor. None of us would be here today if it wasn't for your love and your mercy and your grace.

And we can come even here in this room confidently before your throne because we have been forgiven. And we have been covered by you, Jesus, that you came into this room. This world, a babe, lived a life we could not live and died a death that we could not die and be forgiven. Forgive us today if we have not given you fully to, given ourselves fully to you, and we haven't given you fully everything. Because, God, I know there's some people here today that want to be healed.

They want to be cleansed, and they want to see you working in their lives. They want to see wholeness, and they want to see heaven, and they want to see all of God. So, God, let us be a people who admit and say the things that need to be said, the truths about our lives. I admit, Lord, that I'm a sinner. I admit that I've gone through and I've done this, and I'm laying it all to you, and I want to be healed, Lord.

So will you, Lord? Will you come in and take it all? I'll do whatever you want me to, Lord. I remember that day when I gave my life to Jesus. I said, no more parts of my life, Lord.

It's all yours. I'll do whatever you want me to. We want to do all we want. You want us to, Lord. Imagine a church where everybody's fully, fully surrendered.

There's nothing we can't do. So, God, we love you. We thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. Hallelujah.