SPEAKER_00: We've been looking this Advent season, we've been looking at the four royal names that Isaiah gives to Jesus, the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: We've been looking specifically at one verse, Isaiah 9, verse 6, which talks and gives the names Wonderful Counselor.
SPEAKER_00: You've already heard it.
SPEAKER_00: Martin mentioned it.
SPEAKER_00: The scripture's been read already.
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we looked at Wonderful Counselor.
SPEAKER_00: God, Jesus is the source of all wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: Today we look at the second name, Mighty God.
SPEAKER_00: Not only is Jesus a full of wisdom and truth and a wise planner, he is also a powerful warrior, mighty God who fights for his people.
SPEAKER_00: Again, I've said this, but the passage has been read.
SPEAKER_00: We won't read it again.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to jump right into this name, mighty God, before we do, let me pray and ask the Spirit to be with us.
SPEAKER_00: Father, come through your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We carry lots of things.
SPEAKER_00: All of us are carrying something that worries us and that's overwhelming.
SPEAKER_00: Would you meet us in that through your spirit?
SPEAKER_00: Give us hope and peace and show us Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's in his name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: There's a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from facing something that you cannot fix.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe it's a diagnosis that you've gotten that cannot be reversed.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's an addiction in your life that you have tried many, many times to break, and you just can't.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it's grief.
SPEAKER_00: You've lost someone that you've loved or had something in your life that's been taken away from you.
SPEAKER_00: And there is a grief in your heart that will not lift.
SPEAKER_00: Or there's the depression and anxiety that you just can't, for whatever reason, seem to shake the pattern of sin that keeps coming back and feels like that you can't escape it.
SPEAKER_00: All of us have places in our life where we feel outmatched.
SPEAKER_00: Enemies that exceed our strength and our power.
SPEAKER_00: And when we feel that and come up against those things, our tendency is to turn inward and start relying on our own strength and say, I've got to buckle down.
SPEAKER_00: I've got to try harder.
SPEAKER_00: I can make this happen.
SPEAKER_00: I've got to pray more.
SPEAKER_00: I need more accountability, and I need to read more books that talk about this or a better strategy for my life, whatever it might be.
SPEAKER_00: And we still find ourselves overwhelmed and vulnerable and desperate for something that we do not have.
SPEAKER_00: Something in us that we don't have, the power to move forward in whatever it is that we're facing.
SPEAKER_00: God's people in Isaiah chapter 9 felt that same kind of desperation.
SPEAKER_00: The Assyrian army was coming.
SPEAKER_00: They were a superpower, and they had already annihilated the northern kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the truth Israel's enemy was not ultimately Assyria.
SPEAKER_00: And your enemy this morning is not ultimately the diagnosis, the addiction, and the grief.
SPEAKER_00: Are those things real?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Are those things crushing?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: But beneath all of those things lie three enemies that every human being cannot defeat.
SPEAKER_00: And they are the things that will truly, truly destroy you.
SPEAKER_00: And it's the enemy of sin, death, and the powers of darkness.
SPEAKER_00: To say it another way, the world, the flesh, and the devil.
SPEAKER_00: The sin that we can't conquer.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the Apostle Paul in Romans 7: I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate.
SPEAKER_00: The death that we cannot escape, and that we're moving to, closer to every single day.
SPEAKER_00: Every gray hair, every funeral whispers it, every ache that we feel as we get older whispers that death remains undefeated in human history.
SPEAKER_00: We face circumstances that are completely out of our control, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: We have the marriage, maybe, that we've been working so hard on, and it crumbles despite our best efforts.
SPEAKER_00: The child who we've faithfully parented and prayed for every single day walks away from the faith.
SPEAKER_00: That's the human condition.
SPEAKER_00: We're outmatched, and we are powerless against the enemies that matter the most.
SPEAKER_00: And into that, into that place, and into that darkness, God speaks the name Mighty God.
SPEAKER_00: Literally meaning the warrior God, the God and the hero who fights.
SPEAKER_00: Not a promise for better strategies.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a promise for human reinforcement to come down and to get our back.
SPEAKER_00: It's not even a promise for a godly king or a military leader.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah is announcing something far greater.
SPEAKER_00: God Himself, the God who created the world, the God who created all things, parted the Red Sea, toppled the walls of Jericho.
SPEAKER_00: That God He is promising will come into this world as a child.
SPEAKER_00: You see it again, Isaiah chapter nine, four to unto us, a child is born unto us, a son is given.
SPEAKER_00: Mighty God.
SPEAKER_00: That phrase, we talked about it last week.
SPEAKER_00: It is so critical.
SPEAKER_00: To us, a child is born, a son is given, born humanity, given emphasizes divine origin.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus coming into the world fully human and fully God.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus made absolutely clear in the Gospels, in the New Testament, that he was mighty God in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: And we could talk about that for a long time this morning.
SPEAKER_00: But John 10, 30, Jesus says, I and the Father are one.
SPEAKER_00: Doubting Thomas sees Jesus, the risen Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You remember he falls on his feet when he sees Jesus and he says, My Lord and my God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't just claim that, he proved it.
SPEAKER_00: He proved that he was God because he defeated all of our ultimate enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Again, lots more to say here, but on the cross, he paid the debt for our sin and defeated our sin.
SPEAKER_00: At the tomb, he conquered death.
SPEAKER_00: Through his death and resurrection, he destroys the power of Satan and will once and for all when he comes again.
SPEAKER_00: And he throws Satan into the lake of fire forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, mighty God, came, he fought, he won.
SPEAKER_00: And the stunning truth is that because Jesus won, if you are in Christ, that means that you have won.
SPEAKER_00: You haven't earned that.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't fight for that.
SPEAKER_00: But if you belong to Jesus, it's yours.
SPEAKER_00: All the things that are true of him are true of you.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what that means.
SPEAKER_00: The ultimate enemies in our lives, they are the ones that are outmatched.
SPEAKER_00: The sin that won't let go of you and keeps defeating you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has defeated on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Your fear of dying because of Jesus' death has already lost its sting.
SPEAKER_00: It also means this that we can stop trying to be God.
SPEAKER_00: That we can stop pretending to be mighty.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we live in a culture that worships strength.
SPEAKER_00: We are supposed to have it all together.
SPEAKER_00: We are supposed to project in every situation and in every uh possible way.
SPEAKER_00: We are supposed to, the culture tells us, to project strength and to never show an ounce of weakness.
SPEAKER_00: But the gospel says you do not have to be mighty God because God, the mighty God, has already come.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is not for people who think they're strong.
SPEAKER_00: It is for the weak.
SPEAKER_00: It is for people who are completely overwhelmed in life.
SPEAKER_00: And so that means that you can be honest about your weakness.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where it all begins.
SPEAKER_00: And you can bring that weakness to Jesus, and his strength is made perfect in your weakness.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that sounds great.
SPEAKER_00: But what does that actually look like?
SPEAKER_00: Because that can be up here, but what does it look like on a Tuesday afternoon at 2 p.m.
SPEAKER_00: when you are completely overwhelmed and anxiety comes flooding in, and the temptation hits you, and you're facing something in that moment that you cannot control.
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's a thought in a picture.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever that is for you, whenever that hits, stop and say, God, help me.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, you are mighty God.
SPEAKER_00: I am not.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, would you help me to walk by faith in this moment?
SPEAKER_00: You see what you're doing?
SPEAKER_00: You're acknowledging the reality.
SPEAKER_00: You're not turning and saying, I got this.
SPEAKER_00: You are acknowledging, Jesus, I cannot fix this.
SPEAKER_00: I am not strong enough for this in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: And then you open your hands up and you release control and you say, Jesus, this is yours.
SPEAKER_00: You are the mighty one.
SPEAKER_00: I am not.
SPEAKER_00: And then you receive his strength.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, Holy Spirit, give me what I need right now, in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: Give me peace, give me endurance, give me the power to obey in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: Give me freedom from fear.
SPEAKER_00: And then here's the key.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever this is, and whatever this looks like for you, take the next faithful step.
SPEAKER_00: Not because you're strong, but because he is.
SPEAKER_00: What does that actually look like?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it might mean picking up the phone and calling somebody, calling a friend and say, can you talk?
SPEAKER_00: I'm completely overwhelmed.
SPEAKER_00: Or it might mean saying no to temptation, or it might be mean facing a particular fear.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it is, but it's not your strength, it's his.
SPEAKER_00: Because when we I say this because when we hear uh mighty God who's won all the battles, that can feel very uh distant and even weird.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: Well, and it can also mean uh passivity.
SPEAKER_00: We can well I just let go and let God, He's gonna fight for me.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's an act of faith.
SPEAKER_00: It is dependence, it's walking by faith.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't remove the battles, He fights with you and through you by His Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I know some of you this morning are carrying an enormous weight of things that you cannot fix.
SPEAKER_00: Life has beaten you down, you've tried everything, you're completely exhausted, your strategies, your resources, they're no longer working, and you are tired of pretending that you've got this and that everything is under control.
SPEAKER_00: What if I handed you right now a legal notepad and I just said start writing?
SPEAKER_00: Start writing down right now everything that's going on in your life.
SPEAKER_00: You might write the thing that wakes you up or keeps you up at night.
SPEAKER_00: You might write about the shame that you feel over something that you've done that you regret.
SPEAKER_00: You might, it might be fear that grips you and seems like it won't let go of you, or a relationship that's broken that seems like you can't fix it, or a pattern, or whatever it is, your future that you can't control.
SPEAKER_00: Write it down.
SPEAKER_00: And now imagine that you were to show that notepad to Jesus, and Jesus were to look at all of it, everything on that notepad.
SPEAKER_00: And what if he were to say to you, what if I just took the whole thing over?
SPEAKER_00: What if you just gave all of that to me?
SPEAKER_00: That's what Advent is.
SPEAKER_00: That's Christmas, that's what it means.
SPEAKER_00: It's an invitation.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is giving us an invitation to lay it all down and to bring our powerlessness to his power, and to stop trying to carry things that we're never meant to carry.
SPEAKER_00: Christmas means that mighty God came, he fought, and he won.
SPEAKER_00: And by his spirit, his might is available to you.
SPEAKER_00: And the day is coming when this mighty God who was born in a manger as a child will come again at the second advent.
SPEAKER_00: And in that day, there will be no more sin, no more death and sorrow, no more enemies, because the battles will have been won, the war will be over, and we will be with him forever.
SPEAKER_00: When mighty God comes again, he will not come as a child, he'll come as a conquering king.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you that you didn't leave us to fight alone.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that you have come to rescue your people.
SPEAKER_00: Would you forgive us for trying to be mighty and strong?
SPEAKER_00: Forgive us for trying to carry all the things that we were never meant to carry.
SPEAKER_00: And Holy Spirit, I pray that you would help us to bring our weakness and to admit our weakness and to bring it to you.
SPEAKER_00: And help us, as we are in the middle of those things, to walk by faith, whatever it is that we're facing.
SPEAKER_00: We ask these things in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.