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I can I guess I can officially say this. Merry Christmas. Is that okay? I was joking, it's like I I'm not gonna say it back in August when they put everything in the store. Um but I can say it now. We're after Thanksgiving. It's it's December now, and so Merry Christmas to you. And uh hope that you're having a great start to your Christmas season. There's a chance that some of you in here are not big Christmas fans. I've actually met a couple of you this morning already. They're like, ah no, here goes the Christmas thing. I'm not I'm just not into all this. And I get that, I get that. I know there's probably some reasons behind the scenes for you, maybe some stories, maybe some uh situations, circumstances that have caused you to frown upon Christmas and to feel like, like Harley talked about, it can be silly season, it can be crazy season, and not feel really restful or not feel really encouraging. But you know, it's something about uh watching my children around Christmas time that just is very compelling to me. Uh recently, just watching my son who is about 19, soon to be 20 months old, uh see the Christmas tree for the first time. Like last year he wasn't old enough to really get it, but this year he like walks in the room and he sees it and his eyes just light up. You know what I'm talking about? And he just sees it and it's just like this this wonder and amazement, like, whoo! And I'm thinking, yeah, we're gonna have to do something about it because he's gonna start ripping everything off the tree, right? He's checking it out. But he's just in awe of all the lights and the fun of that. And and and I was thinking about that in light of just how we as people, uh, the longer we're around the things of God, the longer we're either in church or whether whether we're just uh hearing things taught from the Bible, sometimes it's easy uh to just kind of get numb. You know what I'm talking about? Just to get numb to that. And and maybe you're here this morning for the first time and you're a guest and you're just trying to figure out this whole thing, you're thinking Christmas should be meaningful, so I'm gonna go to church and try that out and see if there's something there. But maybe you come to church every week or come to a gathering like this, and you're trying to sort through uh, you know, like how is this supposed to be meaningful or how is this supposed to feel when I just feel like we're going through the motions again. I've heard this before, I've seen this before. And I just want I want us to get a fresh view of God. I had a friend that was um was a jeweler uh for a season of his life, and and he took me to a jewelry store in Atlanta, Georgia, and we walked in, and because he had been a jeweler for a number of years, uh, he had handled a lot of really expensive jewelry. And we don't have a lot of expensive jewelry in our house because it's not a good idea. Our kids will do something to it, right, at this age. But we but we walked in the store and he starts showing me different pieces of jewelry, and and he shows me this these uh these watches, and he's like, hey, look at these watches. And he's handing them handing me these watches and showing me how cool they are. And of course, because I've not really been around that, the first thing I'm doing is what? I'm looking at the price tags, right? I'm like, look, let me see how much that thing's worth. The first one he hands me is like a $10,000 watch. He hands it to me, he's like, hey, look at this, try this one. I'm like, no, man, I can't buy that, you know, I can't afford that. Uh and so what's interesting though is a jeweler in a jewelry store around all these magnificent pieces of jewelry, pretty soon they kind of get sort of numbed to the fact that they're dealing with really precious jewels and really expensive stuff, and it's just normal. Or you talk about a banker who is in a bank setting and they have they see hundred dollar bills all day long, you know, right? Yeah, the teller. Pretty soon it's just like, oh, it's just a hundred dollar bill. And I don't want my heart to get to the place where I'm just like, well, it's just Christmas, it's just God. You know, it's just it's just Jesus, just he came. I don't want to get indifferent, I want to get complacent, I want to get stagnant to that. You know what I'm talking about? I want us to be like the man uh who I just recently saw a video of who he lost his sight. Uh he had some degenerative disease in his eyes, he lost his sight, and and ten years later they did a procedure on him. Maybe you guys saw this. Uh it was posted he had 10 years later, they they they showed a procedure of him sitting in front of his wife, and for the first time in 10 years, he saw his wife's face. And his face just told the whole story. He didn't have to say a word. All of a sudden he has tears streaming down his cheeks, and he is just lighting up because he gets to see his wife's face again. My prayer is that this Christmas season, God would just help us to get a new sense of wonder and awe, be refreshed in our hearts, just like we sang about, just like Tyler talked about, just like Harley mentioned, that we would we would see Christ for who he is. And so, can I just ask us to before we get into the message today, can we just stop and can we just pray and ask God directly for that this morning? Can we just ask him, God, would you would you help me not just to go through the motions this Christmas, but would you help me find the meaning, rediscover the meaning, to realize the meaning of this significant day? And I'm just gonna get down on my knees here and just want to pray. And so, would you just join me in praying for this and asking God to do that? Heavenly Father, we just need you to help us. I've been in church all my life, I I've heard sermons, countless sermons, and I I've heard these songs and I've heard so many things, but God, would you stir my my affections? Would you stir my passion for you again? Would you help me to see with a fresh lens today the beauty of what you've done, the beauty of who you are. And I pray for every person in this room that this Christmas season might be the most meaningful Christmas season they've ever experienced as we celebrate the gift that you gave us in your in the person of Jesus Christ. And Him coming and putting on flesh and dwelling among us. I just pray us all in your strong name. Amen. We uh we just finished last week a series on generosity, and some of you were here for the most of that series, and and so you heard us teach through uh chapters eight and nine of a letter that Paul wrote to the church at Corinth. So it's chapters uh eight and nine. We got to the very end of chapter nine last week, and we talked about again how beautiful God's generosity is towards us and how that stimulates it, motivates us to be generous with others. And the last verse, it says in chapter 9, verse 15, it says this. It says, Thanks be to God for his what? Indescribable gift. Indescribable gift. Now, I think that's an interesting word, indescribable, because we know the whole Bible describes who God is, and we we even sing songs and we hear teaching that's trying to describe this, but that word actually captures the idea that there's not enough words in our vocabulary, there's not a capacity fully in our humanness to describe just how wonderful and awesome God is. Like we just can't even fully comprehend it, much less articulate out loud, like how awesome and amazing and incredible God is. And so when we think about this, thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. It wasn't uh really by intention that uh when we originally were planning our teaching calendar back in the summer that we were going to springboard and even use that title, but it was interesting how that we came to the end of that section talking about God's generosity. Paul writes these words, and I thought, how appropriate going into Christmas to remember this indescribable gift that we've been given. Now, here's the fun thing. It might be indescribable, but we're gonna do our best to describe it, okay? We're gonna go ahead and do our best over the next four weeks to describe some of the reasons why we should have a gratitude, a gratefulness, a wonder, a worship, an awe of God, okay? And so if you have your Bible, I want to encourage you to go ahead and pull it out. And we're gonna look at Isaiah chapter uh nine. So we're gonna go from New Testament passages in Corinthians to go over to Isaiah chapter nine, and we're gonna unpack just a small section in Isaiah. And while you're turning to Isaiah chapter 9, let me tell you a couple things that are just maybe tidbits of information for those of you maybe new to the Bible, or maybe you just haven't studied uh Isaiah much. Um Isaiah is a prophetic book. Uh Isaiah was one, it's actually the longest book of prophecy in the Old Testament, um, which is the first two-thirds of the Bible, right? First 39 books of the Old Testament, the last 27 are the New Testament. And so Isaiah's in there, and they some people call it the fifth gospel, uh, because it talks about Jesus so much, about the Messiah. He uses more descriptive language than any other prophet in the Old Testament. Uh, it's just this beautiful book. Isaiah's name means the Lord of salvation. Uh, names were very important to them. Uh, you know, like to us, we just don't we don't really worry about names a whole lot. Uh maybe, maybe you do. Uh we haven't in our family. I just like it. Does it sound cool? Okay, let's give it to them. Uh, you know, that's kind of how it works. Now, we made a mistake on that because we named our one of our last sons uh Cray. Uh we didn't name him that because we thought he was Cray Kray, and we didn't name him that. Uh really we thought it was cool for a long time, and then all of a sudden that kind of came on the scene. But here's the thing we didn't know is that cray actually means loud, and that is definitely held true for him, okay? So I guess we just should have paid more attention to what we named our son because we spoke over him, all right? But here's the here's the point. Uh the names were very significant, very important. In fact, Isaiah, whose name whose name means the Lord is salvation, is gonna give us four names for Jesus today. For Jesus the Messiah, he's gonna give us four names, and we're gonna unpack those. In fact, if you look on this wall behind me, uh, these names are already up here. Uh wonderful counselor, mighty God, eternal father, and prince of peace. And we're gonna look at what those mean for us today and why we should celebrate those, especially during Christmas season, okay? So if you have your Bible, Isaiah chapter 9, um, this was about 700 years before Jesus shows up on the scene that Isaiah is writing this. That's a cool thought, right? I mean, how in the world would Isaiah have known about this this truth of who Jesus was going to be unless God revealed it? It's a miracle, it's supernatural, right? And that's part of what we see in here. And he writes this, and and uh then many New Testament writers quote Isaiah later on. So if you've got your Bible, let's read along. Verse one. Nevertheless, the gloom of the distressed land will not be like that of the former times, when he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Nephtali. But in the future, he will bring honor to the way of the sea, and to the land east of the Jordan, and to Galilee of the nations. Let me stop there real fast, because that's one verse, that's a lot in there. And he's he's basically saying, look, uh, you guys are under oppression, you're going through hardship, it's gonna get better. All right? There's gonna be a day where you're gonna there's gonna be freedom, and there's gonna be uh a way of coming out from under this oppression. And in fact, he's gonna go on to say more about that. But what's interesting is when he talks about even in the area of Galilee, uh, we we can we can glean from that that he's not just talking about the Jewish people that are gonna benefit from this Messiah, but actually Gentiles, which is us, okay? The people outside of the Jewish faith are gonna benefit from this Messiah that's coming. Tracking still? Okay, verse 2. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. A light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness. You have enlarged the nation and increased its joy. The people have rejoiced before you as they rejoice at harvest time, and as they rejoice when dividing spoils. For you have shattered their oppressive yoke, and the rod on their shoulders, the staff of their oppressor, just as you did on the day of Midian, referring to what God has done in the past and how he has set them the captives free. For the trampling boot of battle and the bloodied garments of war will be burned as fuel for the fire. Now catch this. This is the verse, this is the key verse we're going to lock in on. For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, that indescribable gift, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named wonderful counselor, mighty God, eternal father, prince of peace. The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end. And he will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. Now, rather than just reading you verse six, which is where we're going to lock in, I wanted to read that whole section so you can put this verse in its context. Again, this is prophetic writing from Isaiah. And so it helps us get a little bit more of a sense of what God is trying to speak through this passage. But I want us to reread verse six, and because that that is the key verse for our series. For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he goes on to say, He will be named wonderful counselor, mighty God, eternal father, prince of peace. Over the next four weeks, we're going to look at those four titles. And we want to ask God to show us how these titles of Jesus apply to our lives today, how we can take the truth of who God is and apply it into our lives here and now, which I believe will stir in us a fresh sense of awe and wonder, like we've talked about. But I want to start out by looking at this uh title, wonderful counselor. What does that mean? What does it mean that Jesus will be the wonderful counselor? Well, the first word that's there, uh first thought even is notice he doesn't say grumpy counselor, angry counselor, indifferent counselor, right? Impatient counselor. He calls him the wonderful counselor. Now, if I were God, you would probably use those other words to describe my counseling, all right? But for him, he's described as the wonderful counselor. Uh my counseling tends to be, hey, uh, that somebody comes, I've got a problem. This doesn't mean you shouldn't ever come for counseling, but I'm just gonna go ahead and tell you what I'm gonna say, right? You come for counseling, and I'm like, hey, let's go look what the Bible says. All right, this is what the Bible says about that. All right, go home and do that. And then they come back and they say, Hey, we're still having problems. I'm like, Did you do what the Bible said? That's all I got for you. You know, that's my counseling. I know that there's probably some other things that should happen, probably, you know, some help with that, but in for me, uh, that's kind of the best counseling I've got. And I think it's good counseling, I'm gonna talk about that in a minute. But there's some of you who are more gifted at listening and drawing out and helping some of the people along. I'm just kind of like, okay, this is what I got for you. Uh uh good luck. You know, let's pray. Uh so here's the thing. Here's the thing. When we think about being a wonderful counselor, what does that word wonderful mean? Well, the word in the the Hebrew actually comes from this idea of uh the word Pela, which is speaking to uh the idea of miracle, miraculous, miraculous counseling. Uh so it's this this concept of transcendent or supernatural in its application, okay? Now I say that because um we we need to get a better grasp of the word wonderful. Maybe you know we sing the song, it's the most wonderful time of year, right? Um or maybe you don't sing that song, maybe you don't like that song, I don't know. But uh it's it's the word wonderful doesn't always come with a lot of great connotations, or maybe not even like the full extent of that. But when it's talking about this in the scripture, it's saying this is miraculous, supernatural, okay? Uh my son, uh my oldest son, he is a uh we call him the woodpecker in our home. And what I mean by that is that when he gets his mind on something, he gets locked in on it, he just like sits there and he just says, Dad, dad, dad, dad. Or if it's mom's there, mom, mom, mom, mom. And so he can get our attention and he can get what he wants, right? Uh and so that's he just like that. And uh recently he got locked in on wanting some football gloves. And uh so he came in, he's like, Dad, dad, dad, I gotta get these football gloves. And I mean, he is like driving me crazy. And he got some birthday money, so I said, Okay, that's fine, let's get on order some football gloves. So he orders these football gloves and they come in. And I was just noticed the packaging when they came in. And uh one of them says uh combat protection. Okay, it's describing these great gloves that they are combat protection, advanced breathability, extra sticky grip. And the last thing that really stuck out to me is it says supernatural fit. I was thinking, what did that what does that mean? Supernatural fit, you know? Like when we think about supernatural sometimes, if that's if that's supernatural, like we're in trouble. We're in a world of hurt. We're not talking about, you know, Jesus is just a little better than what everybody else has. It's not just he's a new and improved version of counsel. No, he is at a whole nother level of counsel. He has a whole nother level of perspective and insight, okay? And in fact, Isaiah 55, 8 and 9 says it this way: it says, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways. This is the Lord's declaration. For as heaven is higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. So here's God up here. He sees everything at a completely different level than we do. We're we're down here, right? And we we don't always see. If you're an athlete, if you're if you're a sports guy, you know, if you know about football, um, hook them horns. And uh and you know about that, then the the offensive coordinator, he sits up in the press box so he can see the field a lot of times, so they can see the whole story. Now that's not a complete uh great illustration in a sense, but when when God can see the whole thing, he can see the whole picture, he can see what's really going on. And God, by the way, he's not distant and far off, so that's why this this this trans this uh uh illustration kind of breaks down a little bit. God is with us in the battle, in the heat of the moment, but he can also transcend the moment, he can see the whole picture because he sees the beginning from the end. Not only does he see the beginning from the end, but he is the beginning in the end. And so there is nowhere that you and I are going that he's not there. That gives me great faith in the face of fear, doesn't it? Great confidence that God, I'm going, but you're already there. And he sees the whole picture. He knows our past, our present, our future, he knows where we've screwed up, where we've blown it, he knows our issues, he knows our struggles, and he is there, he is with us, he is for us. And he gives us incredible counsel. In fact, he understands our pain, he understands our suffering, he understands that not only is he above it, but he he is with us in it. Like I said, and in uh uh Hebrews chapter 4, verse 15 says this, and I think this is really important because some of you need to hear this this morning. Some of you need to know this personally this morning. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 15 says, We do not have a high priest, even though Jesus was holy and perfect, sinless, got everything right, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Why am I bringing that up to you? Because I said a while ago, Jesus is not a counselor who's just transcendent in his view, he actually empathizes and sympathizes with us because he understands what it's like to be human. That's what's so profound about him coming as a baby and putting on flesh. He gets us. He understands. Have you ever tried to counsel somebody and you you hadn't gone what they're going through? I mean, have you ever been in a situation where somebody was going through something really difficult? Maybe through the loss of a loved one that was um, you know, maybe a spouse, and you never lost a spouse, or maybe going through something that's very difficult. What do you say in those moments? Well, let me just give you a word of caution, and this is coming from me. I said I'm not a great counselor, but I do know this. Sometimes we just need to be quiet and listen, right? Sometimes we don't need to say anything. We just need to listen and we need to pray, we need to love people. Because we don't, some of the things we say sometimes are really dumb and they're not helpful, right? But when Jesus speaks into our life, he understands everything we're going through. He has suffered, he understands the pain, he understands the hardship, he understands the struggles that we're dealing with, and he empathizes, he sympathizes with us, and yet he is transcendent, he is wonderful, he is supernatural in his understanding. So, what about uh some of the things that Jesus said? I mean, remember, when he came on the earth, this is this just reminds us how transcendent he is, how different his way of thinking is. When he comes on the scene in the Gospels, we see Jesus teaching with wisdom. He didn't just put a new spin on old teaching, he didn't just kind of brush it up and give it a little slick new cover. He actually radically changed what these people were teaching, what these religious leaders were teaching. He said things like this the greatest is the least. He said things like the weakness, our weaknesses can become strength. He talked about how victory is found in surrender. He talks about how we should love our enemies. Now that's a painful one right there, right? I mean, we're let's let's just be honest. We're talking about right now, even thinking about the whole ISIS thing and terrorism, and I am not telling you that we should just be okay with the state that our world's in, and that we have all this corruption, we have all these these uh uh heinous acts going on. But I am saying this Jesus said we should love our enemies, meaning we should we should pray for them. He even goes on to say that. Uh that's hard to pill to swallow, isn't it? It doesn't really make sense to me. Now we should also pray for justice and we should pray for Christ to return and to fix all the stuff that's bad, but we should pray for our enemies. We should love them. We talked about that in the Jonah series, how Jonah had to overcome his barrier to go to the Ninevites, who were his one of their greatest enemies. Jesus says this kind of stuff. He even goes on to say something that's hugely profound, saying, Life is found in death. That when we die to ourselves, we find true life. When we lay down our life, we find the life that we're longing for. Now, again, I could go into each one of those. We're not going to do that this morning. The point is this Jesus thinks differently about life than we do. He thinks beyond the way we think, and our human minds uh get locked in on things, and God has a different way of viewing it. So he is wonderful. The second thing, uh, this issue is wonderful counselor. Uh, this this idea is not simply one uh who listens, but rather rather one who listens and instructs. Um we have some counselors here in the church, and in fact, uh one of the ladies that's that's a counselor here, I was talking to her earlier just before this service, and they have a really important job to sit down with people in their hurt and their pain. Some of you may have gone to counseling before. But a lot of times when we think about counseling in a modern setting, we think about somebody who asks good questions and draws people out and listens well. But when the Bible talks about counsel, it's talking about not only listening well, but actually giving us good instruction, good it good advice, good wisdom. Good application points. And when God counsels us, when Jesus comes on the scene and he counsels, he gives us good teaching. Gives us helpful, wise, transcendent teaching. And so in our lives, I want us to begin to see and understand, if you haven't already, that God is the wonderful counselor, that Jesus is the wonderful counselor. And he doesn't come to us just saying, hey, let me hear about what's going on with you. Let me hear your struggles. Let me hear your prayer requests, let me hear your doubts. God wants to hear, and he lets us call out to him and to give us all those things that are weighing us down, those burdens, he says to cast them on him. And at the same time, he gives us instructions on how we can live new life, how we can live differently, how we can live changed, how we can live transformed. And what's great about our counselor, this wonderful counselor, he doesn't just give us instruction, he gives us the power to actually do it. Which is huge for us. Now, one other thing I should note here before we move on from this idea of wonderful counselor explaining. In the context, I said a while ago, we read all seven verses, the first part of Isaiah 9. And in the context, remember, he's talking about oppression and being in a battle, being in war and being set free and coming out from underneath that. Why is that significant? Because here's the thing. I think first and foremost, in that particular context, these people needed to be set free from military oppression. Like they need to be set free from being enslaved and under the fist of these other leaders from other countries, other nations. But for us, this has got great application. It's got great parallels. And we see this throughout the entire Bible. When you and I are struggling with issues, catch this. When you and I are struggling with issues, it's not just that we need to improve ourselves or get better. We are in a battle. Are you with me? We're in a battle. The way that this language is used in this text, it reminds us that Jesus is not just a wise counselor, he's a good military strategist. Meaning that he is going to give us a military strategy to fight the battle that we're in. When you're struggling in your marriage, when you're struggling in your parenting, when you're struggling with your finances, when you're struggling with stresses and worries, you know what? You're not just struggling with an issue. You're in a battle. You're in a fight. And you need to know, and I need to know this morning, that we've got an enemy. He doesn't want you to just be down or discouraged. He wants to kill you. I know that that may like go, whoa, wait, wait, wait. What are you talking about? I'm telling you, you have an enemy who wants to take you out. He wants to take your offspring out. He wants to take your generations of families. He wants to destroy what God might do through that. It's a battle. The scripture just paints this picture for us multiple times. And when we come to Jesus as the wonderful counselor, we realize he's not just trying to help us be better people, he's trying to help us win a battle, win a war, and experience the fact that he truly is the one who wins that war for us. And that he can win those battles in and through our lives as we come to him. So, based on all this understanding, uh I asked myself this question, and maybe this is a question for you as well. Why have we not been taking his wonderful counsel? Now, maybe some of you are. Maybe some of you walked in today and you're like, man, I listen to Jesus every day. It's where I start my day, it's where I end my day. Every time I have something hard happen, every time I face something, I ask Jesus for counsel. Maybe that's you. That's not what I typically hear from people. It's not what I typically see on the surface. I see a lot of people anxious and worried and fearful, and God's counsel doesn't produce those things. Okay? But what I would say to us is there's two reasons why we tend to not listen to godly counsel. There's two reasons why we don't tend to go to the wonderful counselor. Um, aside from the fact that we don't really always believe that he is the wonderful counselor. Uh, number one, we we think we're better at it than he is. We actually want to be our own counselor. Right? Uh we might use the language of, I got this. I got it figured out. I can do this, I can I can work hard enough, I can think, think hard enough, and I will figure out a plan and I will fix this problem. Anybody in here like that? I know every one of the men in this room could say yes. Now that may be painful, but we men, we're we're we're we're really bad at this. We want to fix the problem. And I just want to remind you and myself this morning that we are not very good counselors to ourselves. And that the enemy wants to isolate us, and he wants us to be the only voice we hear, and we need godly counsel. We need God to speak into us, and he does that multiple ways, we're gonna talk about in a second. But we tell ourselves we've got this or we can figure it out. And I want you to know the proverbs remind us of a couple things. One, that the heart is deceitful above all, that your heart can tell you a lot of things that sound true, that sound good, and you're like, oh, that sounds really good. Yeah, I should do this. But you know what? A lot of times, most of the times, that leads you down a path to destruction. Anybody who ever tells you follow your heart on it, you just need to say that's bad counsel. I'm just gonna tell you straight up, you don't need to follow your heart. You need to follow God's word. You need to follow godly counsel. Because if you follow your heart, your heart will teach you to, will lead you to do a lot of things emotionally that might make sense to you but will lead you to a path of destruction. In fact, even Scripture says in another place in Proverbs, he says, in a man's heart there's a way that seems right to him, but in the end it leads to destruction. We can reason away a lot of things, we can rationalize it, we can justify it, but we need God to set us free, which means we need really good godly counsel from the wonderful counselor. If your voice is the only voice you're listening to, you're in trouble. You gotta have godly counsel. I have to have godly counsel in my life. Secondly, the reason why I think we struggle to listen to the godly counsel or to seek the wonderful counselor when we're struggling in life is that we would prefer to find counsel in another source other than God. Now, how many of you guys are Amazon junkies? I mean, I think these guys are brilliant in their marketing and in their tools to get you to order stuff. I mean, it's so easy to order things. And if you looked in our closet right now, we've been getting ready for Christmas. It's like a it's like an Amazon fest right in there. Um, getting all the things ready. We had some gift cards, and so it worked out really good. But anyway, um what the point is this is that I went on Amazon this week and I typed in marriage book, parenting book, finance book. I thought you might find this interesting. There's over 205,000 books on Amazon on parenting, 266,000 books on marriage, and 660,000 books on finance over, okay? What I'm saying to you is that we do not lack information. Right? There's plenty of counsel about how you should live in your marriage, how you should live in your family, how you should deal with your finances. There's plenty of counsel out there for us. And I want to be fair here and say that some of the books that are on Amazon are actually books that point us to the book, this book, and so they do a good job of pointing us and they're reflecting over some of the truths that are found here and helping us understand them and helping us apply them. So I'm not saying that every single one of those books up there represents an evil idea or bad counsel, right? What I am saying is that you don't have to go to God directly to get counsel. But here's the thing: why settle for secondhand information when you can go straight to the counselor? Why settle for going to somebody else uh's book when you haven't even prayed about it? Stop and pray. What about seeking God's counsel first? What about turning to the wonderful counselor? There's a lot of counsel out there, and most of it will lead you back to where it's all about how you fix your problem. How you can do it. And I want you to know that if you're getting counsel that says you can do it, you need to get a better counselor. Because you're gonna need God to save you, to rescue you, to redeem you. You're gonna need God to fix what's broken. You're gonna need God's help, you're gonna need God's strength, you're gonna need his capacity. Um, this week Harley and I were talking about this, and we he was reminding me of a story. We were down in Mexico a few years back, and we were in this village about three hours outside of the place where we served. It took felt like it took forever to get out there. And we drive to this village, and one of the things that they wanted us to do when we got to this place is they asked us to pray over their water source. They had a pond out there, kind of a lake, and and here's what was going on the the water got tainted and polluted, and so everybody was drinking from this water and they were getting sick. And so they said, Would you guys please pray over our water that God would purify it? Because we're we're all sick, like the whole village is sick because we're drinking this water. And we were just talking about how isn't it interesting that we wonder why we're struggling with issues, but we're all going to the same bad sources to get what we think we need. And it's just feeding us into the same issues, a perpetual cycle of being over and over and over, looking to self and looking to things that are not God to fix what only God can fix. It's just like that water, isn't it? So Jesus says, even in Scripture, which is a great parallel, that He is the living water. He can fix what's ultimately ailing us, which ultimately struggling, we're struggling with. So, more than information, we need divine counsel, we need divine revelation. And we, some of us this morning, we even just need rescue. We just need rescue. We're on a path, we're doing our thing, we've convinced ourselves this is the way to go. And we just need to say, God, would you just pull me back into your plan, into your way? So, how do we actually turn to the wonderful counselor? How do we actually get there? Well, uh, most of the time, and I'm saying most of the time, it doesn't come through a direct audible feed from heaven. Don't you wish sometimes God would just, you know, you're there at the house and just open up the ceiling of your house and just say, Here's what I need you to do, and gave it to us like that. That'd be awesome, wouldn't it? Typically, that's not how it works. Can't God speak to us? Yeah. Can He impress things on us? Yes. I believe that. But most of the time we have to put ourselves in a position to hear from God. And I think James chapter one is a great spot to go. As I said, we've been kind of jumping around today, coming out of this wonderful counselor I did. But in James chapter one, James, who's the half-brother of Jesus, is teaching the people who he uh is pastoring there in Jerusalem, and he says this to him. He says in verse 5, now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and without criticizing, and it will be given to him. God is not standing up there saying, Don't you ask me for wisdom now. That's like that's that's sometimes how we picture God. Like he's like, you figure it out, you've you mess your world up, you do whatever you want. No, God's like, hey, I'm right here, just waiting on you to humble yourself and ask me. And the cool thing is it says he will give it generously. There's that word generosity again, right? That he will give us wisdom if we will ask him. The second thing that you notice in this passage, it's actually farther down in James chapter 1. He says, therefore, verse 21, therefore, ridding yourselves of all moral filth and evil, humbly receive the implanted word which is able to save you. Now, two two things in that verse that I think are huge. Number one, we have to remove ourselves from being in charge. Let me say that differently. Some of us need to go home and we need to have a board meeting with our board of directors, and we need to fire us ourselves as the chairman of that board. Okay? Because for many of us in our life, we're the chairman of the board of directors in our life, we're calling the shots, and we wonder why nothing's getting any better. It's because we want to be in control. We want to be, we want to have the will. And we're like, God help me, but don't make me let go of the will. God help me, but don't make me stop doing what I want to do. See, the reason sometimes we avoid his counsel, right, is because we don't really want to hear what he has to say. It might be something we don't want to do. That hurts. But that's me and my life. And God's saying, no, you've got to rid yourselves of you, moral filth, and evil. I think about repenting, saying, God, I'm going this way, but I'm gonna stop, I'm gonna turn, and I'm gonna look to you as my source of life and hope. I'm gonna look to you as my source of wisdom. And he says, humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save you. Implanted word, how does the word get implanted into your life? Harley mentioned this earlier when he stood up here for the welcome. We have a reading plan. That is not the only way, we say this a lot, it's not the only way you can read the Bible, but if you're not regularly reading God's word, you are not implanting it into your life. You're not giving it an opportunity to actually grow and bear fruit in your life, to actually produce good things. But when you spend time in God's word, I can guarantee you you will start to see life through a different lens, a transcendent lens. You will actually have truth to discern the bad counsel that you're getting from the world around you. Are you still following? So when you see all the things in the world that the world's trying to say, do this, do this, do this, do this, and you're able to say, no, that's not what the word says, and you're able to filter that stuff out. That's a good thing, isn't it? Don't waste your time running down trails that are empty, that are going to lead you to destruction. So you you see that God gives us his word. And in fact, if you haven't read lately, I maybe jot this down your notes. Go just go home today, this afternoon, if you've got some time, and read Psalm 19 and Psalm 119. Just go read those two chapters in Psalm and really think about God, what is it about your word that's so helpful? He talks about how that when we meditate on it, that it will set us free. It talks about how that it will be light to our path. It will talk, it talks about how it will keep us pure and walking in purity, not in sin, in rebellion to God. But the third thing James says is he says in James 1.22, but be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. The third thing we have to do there is apply what we hear. You can't say that you believe in the wonderful counselor, that Jesus is the wonderful counselor. I can't say that I actually believe in this stuff if I don't want to do it. If I don't do it, let's put it that way. Uh so the point that James is making is don't just hear good counsel, act on it, apply it, put it into practice. And in fact, James says this, I'm not, we're not reading the rest of this section, but he says that when you don't apply what you know, it's like a man who goes to the mirror, sees his reflection, right? And then he walks away and he forgets. Um we need to look into God's instruction, then we ask God for help to actually put it into practice. I've already said this morning that Jesus' counsel was on a whole nother level, a whole nother plane, that it's supernatural, that it's transcendent. And I want us to take us to one last passage as we close out today. 1 Corinthians 18. You don't have to turn there, it's actually on the screen for you, but at least write it down. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 18. And here's what it says. It says, For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is God's power to us who are being saved. So he starts there. And he says that the message of the cross, that Christ died on a cross to save us from our sin, that seems foolish, doesn't it? Why would Jesus do that? As I said earlier, if I were God, I think I would come up with a different rescue plan than having to kill my own son. But he knew in his infinite wisdom, he knew in his majestic, wonderful counsel that the best way to save us, rescue us, was to substitute his son in our place. While we try to substitute ourselves for God all the time and be God in our lives. That's what sin is all about. He says, No, I'm going to substitute myself for you, and I'm going to rescue you, and I'm going to reconcile you, I'm going to bring you back into a right relationship with me. And so he says, for the message of the cross is foolishness. That message that Jesus Christ died for our sins, that he came to rescue us in that way, is foolishness to the world. But to those who are being saved, it's life. It is life, it's wisdom. And it goes on to say in verse 28 later on, God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world's eyes. What is viewed as nothing, to bring to nothing what is viewed as something. So that no one can boast in his presence. And catch this. But it is from him that you are in Christ Jesus. You who became God given, uh Jesus who became God given wisdom for us. Catch these three words: righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, in order that as it is written, the one who boasts must boast in the Lord. Again, I know it's a lot, but let me just talk about those three things. God became wisdom, meaning Jesus came and embodied it. In fact, John chapter 1 says that the word became flesh. Jesus came as flesh and blood, divinity becoming human. And he was the living word. He became wisdom so that what? So that we might have righteousness, we might have sanctification, meaning that we'd be more and more like Christ and less and less like our sinful nature, and that we would have redemption. He offers all those things in his wisdom to us. He truly is the wonderful counselor. There are no words to completely describe how amazing this thought is that he is that. And when we face fear, anxiety, stress, worry, all those things, God can save us. He can rescue us because he is the wonderful counselor. You guys need to overcome an addiction? Turn to the wonderful counselor. You need to overcome a marriage struggle, turn to the wonderful counselor. You need to know that you can spend eternity with God forever and be saved, turn to the wonderful counselor. The world will say that that's foolishness. That you can just do it on your own, that you can save yourselves. But the Bible and God's own Son says there is no way you can save yourself. The only salvation comes through the person and work of Jesus Christ. That's it. And we receive it as an indescribable gift. That we can never fully wrap our minds and hearts around, but we receive by faith. Let's pray.