Faith Presbyterian Church - Birmingham

Isaiah 9:1-7; A Child Is Born: Everlasting Father

• Jason Sterling

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Jason Sterling December 14, 2025 Faith Presbyterian Church Birmingham, AL Bulletin

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SPEAKER_00:

If you have a copy of God's word, turn with me to Isaiah chapter 9. Isaiah 9. You'll see the entire text 1 through 7 printed in your bulletin. I will only be reading verse 6. That verse we've been looking at every week for the past couple of weeks. I hope this passage is starting to settle into your heart. Advent, we've been looking at these royal titles. Wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. This morning we'll be focusing on Everlasting Father. This is God's word, Isaiah 9, verse 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. This is the word of the Lord. Let me pray and ask for the Spirit's help this morning. Please bow with me. Father, would you come? I feel weak, and my voice certainly feels weak. And I pray that you would sustain me and sustain my voice. You've called me to preach this morning, this passage to these people. And I pray that when I open my mouth, uh your words would come out. Um that you would speak through me and sustain me this morning. Would you show us Jesus? May we all have an encounter with him this morning. We don't just come to do church. Uh we want to be changed. We want to encounter you through your spirit and through the preached word and through the table and through your people. And so leave us different this morning than when we came. It's in Christ's name I pray. Amen. Will you always be there? That's the question that hangs in the air in bedrooms, in hospital rooms, in moments of crisis all across the world. Every child asks it, sometimes literally with words, sometimes children ask it with just a look, searching eyes, and every parent wants to say yes, that they promise they will always be here. But we can't make that promise because we're human, we grow old, we get sick, and we die. And even the best of fathers, humanly speaking, are only temporary. And that's the ache, isn't it, that some of you feel this morning when you hear the word father. You had a good father, maybe even a great father, but he's gone. And so there's grief. Some of you, maybe it's not grief, maybe it's gratitude. Because you do have your father with you, and he's wonderful, and he loves you, and he's present, and he engages you, and it fills you with joy and gratitude. But some of you feel something different when you hear that word because you had a father that walked out on you, that left your family, a father who was maybe there physically, but completely checked out emotionally and absent. Maybe you had a father that never showed up, didn't protect you, and failed to provide for you. And so not only is there this grief inside of us, there is also a deep longing to have something that we've never had. If we were to chart the emotions just by saying the word father in this room, it would be astounding. Grief and longing and gratitude and disappointment and joy and sadness and warmth and pain, it would run the spectrum. And into all of that, God speaks these words. Everlasting Father. Three things this morning: the problem, the promise, and the practice. Problem, promise, practice. That's where we're headed. Let's look at our first heading, the problem. So before we can really understand what's happening here, we've got to understand what Isaiah is promising and what the original audience would be experiencing. In the ancient Near East, when you used the word father, it was a royal title for kings. It didn't mean biological fatherhood. It meant the king was your royal protector and provider, responsible for the welfare of his people. Think about this: a father protects and provides for their children. A shepherd protects and provides for the sheep. A king protects and provides for the people. Same job, different metaphor. And I tell you that because that's why the Bible uses all of those words, shepherd, king, and father, interchangeably. Think about the Lord's Prayer. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, what? Thy kingdom come. Father and King. You can't separate those. And so when Isaiah promises everlasting Father, he is promising a king who will always be there, who will always care for you. And friends, that was something that Israel desperately needed in huge ways because they have been failed by kings over and over. Read first and second Kings. And what do you see? You see a pattern of disappointment, of kings dying. Some started well and fell into sin. Some were corrupt from the beginning. But over and over and over, you see this pattern of failure until they eventually, God's people, end up in exile. Then you get to the prophet Ezekiel chapter 34. It really captures, I encourage you to read that sometime this week. It captures the devastation. And the prophet indices the shepherd kings of Israel, and he says, You are only looking out for yourselves. You don't care about the weak. You don't reach out to the sick. You don't search for the lost. And he says that they have ruled harshly and brutally. And the result, the sheep are scattered with no shepherd, and they are left to be food for the wild animals, scattered all over the earth, and there is no one to search for them. That was their experience. Father kings who did not search, who did not rescue, who did not protect, who did not provide, and that left them, think about how you would feel, that left them vulnerable and exposed to danger. And here's the hard truth: it isn't just ancient Israel, it is the human pattern. Even the best fathers disappoint. Even the best fathers die. Some fail through neglect and cruelty. Others promise to love. But they fade. Even the best fathers cannot be there forever. And so, either way, you are left vulnerable, you are left exposed and unprotected in a broken and dangerous world. And that reality drives us to one of two broken responses to despair because of our vulnerability. We live in constant fear, in worry, and anxiety. Or it leads you to become your own father, being alter controlling and striving and exhausting ourselves in order to protect and order to provide for ourselves, because we refuse to be that exposed and vulnerable again. And so we build our lives around money. We build our lives around reputation and our work and success and our health and our fitness. Because we're convinced if we can just manage everything perfectly, then we will finally be safe. Please hear me. Those things, in and of themselves, are not bad things. They become bad things when we might make them idols and functional fathers. And we start to trust in them for our source of security. And when we do that, we've made ourselves our own king, trying to manage and protect our life through those things. And here's what I want you to understand those things, those functional fathers that we try to look to for security are just as temporary as every other earthly father. They will eventually fail you and leave you in the end. You see, both responses, despair and self-sufficiency, reveal the orphan heart inside of us and our condition. We are trying to survive in a world where nothing and no one can promise to stay forever. That's the problem. You see, we don't just need a father, we need an everlasting father. And that's what God promises us. Let's look at our second point: the promise. So into that darkness, we have the promise. God speaks everlasting Father. Let me be clear here by using that name. Isaiah is not saying that Jesus is God the Father. That would be heresy. The Father and the Son are distinct persons in the Godhead, distinct persons in the Trinity. Rather, Isaiah is describing how Jesus, the Messiah, will relate to us. Remember John 14? Philip says, Show us the Father, Jesus. You remember what Jesus says? If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. God's fatherly heart is present and visible in the Lord Jesus Christ. But notice the very crucial word, everlasting. Literally, it means Father forever. So unlike David and Solomon and all the other kings in Israel's history who disappointed, Jesus is the king and the father whose care never ends. His protection doesn't expire. His provision does not run out. His compassion never fades. He provides for us, his children, what we cannot provide for ourselves. John chapter six. Jesus says, I'm the bread of life. Come to me and never hunger again. The soul, the deep soul nourishment that we need, Jesus gives us. The forgiveness that we can't earn, the righteousness that we can't muster up, the hope that we cannot bring about in our lives, Jesus provides it. That's what fathers do. They provide what their children cannot do for themselves. Jesus also protects what we cannot protect. John chapter 10. I give thee, give them eternal life. They will never perish. And they, you, will never be snatched out of his hand. You are held by his grip on you. And his grip does not slip. It is never weak, and it will never let you go. He shows compassion as our provider. As he shows compassion in our weakness. I love Psalm 103. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him, for he knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. You know how if you have children, you ever have an unrealistic expectation for your children? Yes. Jesus never has unrealistic expectations. He does not shame you for being frail and afraid and having limits. He knows your frame. Think about the disciples had been with Jesus for years, three years, teacher and leader. He had was protecting them, providing for them. And then he says that he's going away. And in that scene, you can just feel the panic. You can feel the exposure. You can feel the vulnerability. Lord, where are you going? How are we going to make it? And in the middle of that fear, Jesus says, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Jesus knows exactly what they are feeling, that they're feeling vulnerable and exposed. The one that they had depended on is now leaving, and Jesus says, No, I will not leave you. And he promises in that moment the Holy Spirit who will come and live inside of them and be the ongoing presence, his ongoing presence to be with them forever. So we've seen the problem, the promise, lastly, the practice. So what? What is the fact that Jesus is everlasting Father have to do with you this morning? And how should it shape your life? Well, there's lots of things that we could say. Let me mention a couple. You can rest instead of striving. Because Jesus is everlasting father. You don't have to be your own father anymore. You can release the exhausting burden of self-provision and self-protection. I was at a book event, Alan Levi, you've heard me talk about Theo of Golden. It was a book event, a little professor this past week. And one of the things I learned was that he goes to the elementary school every week to read to second graders. He's done that for years, and he's done all grades. And he said that with the second graders, and you know this early on, all the hands go up, whatever the question is, whatever the comment is, whether they know it or not, their hands are going up. It's unfiltered. And then he said, something happens by fifth grade. Because then he said there's deafening silence. They've learned to be afraid. They've learned to be insecure. They've learned the fear of being wrong and of looking foolish and of being too much for other people. And that fear doesn't go away. We carry that into adulthood and we just get better at hiding it. We carry it, we're managing everyone's perceptions of us, and we never let someone see us all to all the way to the bottom because we have learned that everyone has a limit. That eventually someone's going to have a bad day. And everyone can get tired of you. And you can't just decide not to feel that way. Because the fifth grader has learned to be afraid for a good reason. Because that's true. People do have limits. People's patience do run out. And fear starts driving everything in our life. And you start making decisions from what if I fail, or what if this fails instead of from security. And we start to choose the safe job over what God's really calling us to do and taking a risk and stepping out. Or we keep all the relationships in our life at arm's distance at surface level. We hide our struggles because we do not want to risk being seen and known all the way to the bottom. And into that church, into that fear, into my fear, into my shame, God speaks the words, everlasting Father. He meets us in our fear. He doesn't scold us for being afraid. Instead, he shows up and he keeps showing up. Day after day after day, year after year. He's the same. Never weary, never frustrated with you, never done, he said, never says enough is enough. His fatherly love never wears out, never grows cold, and never gives up. And he doesn't demand that you change by telling you to stop being afraid. Instead, he changes you by proving that he's different. That he really is kind. That he really is patient. That he really is committed and presence and present. And slowly over time, as we experience God's consistency, something starts to happen inside of your heart. It starts to thaw. And the fear that's been running your life starts to lose its grip and its power, not because you've worked harder, but you have finally met someone who never has a bad day towards you. Everlasting father. The other thing is that phrase means that you can face your loss without despair. I've mentioned it, but earthly fathers are temporary. And so when your father disappoints you or leaves you, you're not ultimately orphaned. You have an everlasting father. In your marriage struggles, when your job ends, when your health fails you, when your savings take a hit, when you have the hardest day of your life, when you are on your deathbed and you're dying and breathing your last, and when you're standing before the judgment seat of God, Jesus is there. Interceding, advocating, and protecting. Friends, please don't hear me saying minimize your grief. No. Weep. Grieve. But we weep and grieve with hope because our ultimate security isn't in what we've lost, it is in him, the everlasting Father that will never leave us or forsake us. And here's the last thing I think it means. You can come home if you've wandered. Some of you right now, maybe you're far from home. You walked away from the faith, maybe from God, and you know you're not living the life that you should be living, and you're afraid that if you come back, that the door will be closed and locked. It will not. You're afraid you've used up all your chances and that God will be done with you. No, that's not who God is. You know what God is doing? He's scanning the horizon. He's looking for you. He's waiting for you to come home. And when he sees you, think about Luke 15, the prodigal son sees you a long way off. He doesn't run the other way. He runs in a full sprint towards you. You see, the good news of the gospel is the everlasting father doesn't just stay when you're good. That's not good news. He stays and is there when you wandered, when you have failed, and when you're limping home. So come back. The door is open. There's a children's book. I'll close with this. Perhaps you're familiar with it. It was a favorite in our household about the stuffed bear corduroy. Familiar with that book? He lived in a toy store. And day after day, someone he'd longed for them to bring him home. And one morning, a girl named Lisa stops and looks at him and says, Oh, mommy, look, the bear I've always wanted. And Lisa's mom says, Oh, we've spent too much money already. Besides, look at him. He doesn't look new. He's got a button missing from his shoulder strap. And Corduroy watches them sadly walk away. And he says, I didn't realize I'd lost a button. So that night, Corduroy tries to fix himself. He looks all over the store for the lost button because he wanted someone to want him. He couldn't find it, so he goes back to his spot in the store. And here comes Lisa. Lisa's smiling. And she says, You are my very own bear. I went home and I counted all the money in my piggy bank. And I have enough to get you. And my mom said that I could bring you home. So she takes Corduroy, brings him home, and when he gets there, Corduroy says, This must be home. I've always wanted a home. She puts Corduroy in her lap and she sews his button back on. She says, I like you just the way you are, but you'll be more comfortable with your shoulder strap. And then she says, he says, you must be a friend. I've always wanted a friend. Me too, said Lisa. And she gives him a hug. Think about that story. There's Corduroy. Passed over, broken down, trying to fix himself. Lisa sees him, loves him, missing button at all. And she spends everything to bring him home. And then she heals him, sews the button back on, and replaces the things that were broken. That sound familiar. Sounds a whole lot like the gospel to me. The everlasting Father, through Jesus Christ, when you were dead in your sins and everyone had passed you by, Jesus saw you and he loved you as flawed as you were. And he spent a whole lot more than his savings in a piggy bank. He gave his life so that he could bring you home and give you a permanent home where you belong and where you will be safe forever. I don't know where you are with Jesus this morning. But this, whatever it is that you're looking to for life in security, this is what you're really looking for. This is what we've always wanted. A father who will never leave or forsake us, a home that will never be taken away, and a love that will not let us go. That is what everlasting father means. That's the gift of Christmas. Jesus is better than you think. Will you come to him this morning? Let's pray. Father, thank you for seeing us and for giving everything in order to rescue us and bring us home. Forgive us for living like orphans and striving to protect and provide for ourselves in this world and for looking for things that are temporary. And Holy Spirit, I pray that you would help us to live like children who have been brought home. We need your help in Jesus' name. Amen.