I was asked to move that, I think, for those of you online, so there you go. Welcome, everyone. Good morning. If you have a Bible, go ahead and turn with me to Isaiah chapter nine. We are continuing to look at these four names that were given to the promised king, the promised Messiah, by Isaiah, 700 years before the birth of Christ. And so we are going to continue that. This morning we have talked about how he is wonderful counselor, how he shall be called mighty God, and this morning we will talk about why he shall be called everlasting father. So, turn now with me to Isaiah chapter nine. I am just going to read verses six and seven this morning. Here now, God's holy, true, and life-giving word. 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, ever-lasting father, prince of peace. Of the increase of his government and of 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 forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God, let's pray together. Father, we do thank you and praise you that you speak to us in your word and through your spirit, and we pray that you would give us soft hearts even now to hear from you as we talk about what it means that the promised Messiah would be called everlasting father. Pray that you help us to have a clear understanding of what it means and then that you would move us to respond in faith. And we pray that you will use our time as we study you and your word, as I ask, that you would help us to grow in our love for you, our trust in you, and that you would equip us all the more, to continue our mission to make disciples. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Kids, if you're going to track a word of the day, the word of the day is compassion, compassion. And we're going to talk about that today because as long as this world is filled with sin and brokenness as it currently is, it will always be a tremendous need for compassion. I mean, even the toughest of men and women on the planet need compassion, whether or not we are wanting to admit it. We even think about this from time to time when we sing one of the worship songs that we do here, mighty to save the very first line. Everyone needs compassion, a love that's never failing. And deep down, we have this longing, we're wired to have this longing to know that someone cares, to know that someone is concerned about us, to know that someone has compassion for us, toward us. And the reason that 700 years before the birth of Christ, Isaiah said that one of the names of the Messiah will be everlasting father, is because of the compassion that he would show his people. It is a description of the kind of king Jesus is. It explains the way he treats his people with this fatherly compassion and tenderness. And so we're going to talk about that this morning as we continue to learn about Christ from these names. Name everlasting father points to the fatherly compassion and tenderness Christ has for his people. That's our main focus for this morning. The name everlasting father points to the fatherly compassion and tenderness Christ has for his people. And to understand this, I want to do two things. We'll talk about the name of the king, and then we'll talk about the compassion of the king. So first, how does that name point us to his compassion and then where do we actually see his compassion? Okay, so let's talk about the name of the king. If you're looking back at Isaiah 9, verse 6, again, you notice that one of the names that the Messiah will be called is everlasting father. And the first thing we have to do is understand rightly what Isaiah is saying here. And the name everlasting father is telling us what this king will be like and not necessarily who he is. Okay, that's the first thing we got to understand that the name itself is descriptive of what this king will be like. And the reason that's important is because if we don't handle what Isaiah says here rightly, we can get in real trouble theologically. I was thinking about this, my kids every year, the school that they attend does this feast, this Christ giving feast they call it. And what they do is they chop up all these vegetables and potatoes and all this good stuff. And they put it in a stew and then they eat it together as a big school. And so every year they do this and every year they have to take a knife to school in order to chop up the vegetables, which is awesome. And this past week it happens and one of my children grabs this massive butcher knife that we have. And I kind of paused for a second and I said, I don't think you need to bring that massive knife. I think we can probably go with something smaller and this particular child agreed to take a smaller, much smaller kind of a steak knife. So I was able to not think about that all day long. And in a very real way, this passage and the way Isaiah uses this name is kind of like a big old butcher knife. And in terms of like, if we use it rightly, if we understand it rightly, then it ministers to our souls in wonderful ways. But if we misunderstand it, then we can chop our fingers off as it were. So we want to understand this rightly. We want to understand that this is not saying something that sometimes people think it is. And in order to understand this, we got to stop and remember what God has revealed about himself in terms of the fact that he is triune. Okay, we believe the Bible teaches that there's one God in three persons, the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. This is the way our shorter catechism says it. How many persons are there in the Godhead? There are three persons in the Godhead, the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. And these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory. You guys should be quizzing John on that because he's getting ready for his ordination exams. Okay, but the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit, one God, three persons. The distinct persons, and one of the ways that people have chopped their fingers off as it were with this verse over the years, is to mistakenly understand this verse to be saying that the father becomes the son. Okay, and that is certainly not what Isaiah is saying here. It's not saying that the son is the father or that the father becomes the son. When we talk about the Trinity, sometimes we'll talk about the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit, as the father being the first person of the Trinity, the son being the second person of the Trinity, and the spirit being the third person of the Trinity. And so what we have to understand is Isaiah is not saying that the first person of the Trinity becomes the second person of the Trinity. Because that would be heresy, and that's a big deal. Okay, we want to have right understanding of who God is, and so then we have to take him at his word when he reveals that he's trying to father, son, and Holy Spirit, and these are distinct persons. You know who thought this was a big deal? St. Nicholas. It's true. The St. Nicholas was a very staunch defender of orthodoxy, particularly Trinitarian orthodoxy. And not only was he very generous, and he did give gifts to poor children in his city, and he had wealth from inheritance. He gave all that away, so a really amazing person. But he also is known for this moment at the Council of Nicea when the church was making sure they had to write theology, write Trinitarian theology, and there was a man named Areas there who was spewing heretical things about God, particularly having to do with the Trinity. So the legend has it that when St. Nicholas arrived at Nicea, he walked in, and walked across the room, and slapped Areas in the face. And you thought a lump of coal was the biggest threat from Old St. Nick. Okay, oh, side note, don't slap Heretics. That's not the way. But it does show how incredibly important it is, and should be to us, that we have a right understanding of who God is, and we want to remember that the father did not become man. We didn't die for our sins. The father didn't walk on the earth. That was the son of God. Okay, and so what Isaiah is not saying is that the father became the son. Rather, here's what he's saying. One scholar says it like this. The reference to father should not be taken to mean that the Messianic King will be the first person of the Trinity in human form or human appearance. Rather, the emphasis is on the character he bears, and the manner in which he cares with father-like compassion and tenderness. That's what is being communicated about this Messianic King, that he would be a king who would treat his people as royal subjects with this father-like compassion and tenderness. I was thinking about this when I was at soccer practice for the kids, and I saw this very, very big guy. He definitely works out twice a day, very large individual, tall, towering. If he had looked at me in anger, I would have helped and run in the other directions, a very, very big person. But what I was so taken with is this gentle tenderness with which he was caring for his maybe one and a half year old daughter. Little cute little girl, toddler, totalling. And as she did, he was right there behind her, kind of bent over his huge frame, just right there with her hands kind of on the sides in case she fell down. She did fall down, he just kind of gently picked her up and just this tenderness, this compassion. And it just made me think that's what he's talking about there, that's who our Messiah is. He's this king who is mighty God also, he's all powerful but he's so tender, so compassionate with his people. And if that's who Christ is, if he really is a king with such tremendous compassion, well then he should be the one that we look to whenever we are hurting. Which we'll talk about that in a moment. But first let's talk about the king in action. Let's see him in action. Let's see this compassion. So second, let's talk about the compassion of the king this morning. Where do we see this most of all? And we see it most of all in the person of Christ. The great 19th century Princeton seminary professor and theologian B.B. Warfield once wrote an essay entitled The Emotional Life of Our Lord. And he goes through and he looks at all the different emotions displayed in the person of Christ in the Messiah. And he argues that the emotion that's most frequently seen in the person of Christ is, quote, no doubt, compassion. And what I would submit to you is that the compassion and the tenderness signified in the name, everlasting Father, is what is on full display in the earthly life and ministry of Christ. And last week we talked about how Christ miracles show his power to bring about this kingdom. But we also want to see that these miracles also show his compassion or even his pity, which is an old school word for compassion. What is compassion? The dictionary will tell you that it's sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. But the biblical definition of compassion goes beyond that. It's a feeling that actually moves you. Biblical compassion is when you are moved by sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. You actually haven't had compassion on someone until you've actually moved until you've taken action to help them or at least to show them comfort. And what Warfield says is what we see more than any other of these emotions is Jesus being moved with compassion to act on people's behalf. Give me some examples. Mark 141 says that moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, meaning healed a man who had leprosy moved with compassion. We see Jesus saying that he has compassion, Matthew 1532, then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. And he says, I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way. There's this compassion moving him to do something on these people's behalf. Mark 634, very similar. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd. He had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And not only on crowds with individuals, Jesus would show this remarkable compassion, particularly for people who were hurting at Luke 713. There was a woman whose son had died and while they were carrying his casket, she was weeping and Jesus came up to her and he says, and when the Lord saw her, that right there is compassion that he saw her. When he saw her, he had compassion on her and he said to her, do not weep and then he raises her son back to life. So you see, many times Jesus' name and the word compassion in the same few sentences, but you also see his compassion and his tenderness when the word isn't there. One example would be his interaction with children, which is just remarkable. Just mind blowing. Think about what he said in Mark 1013 through 16, the disciples were telling people who were bringing children to Jesus to get them away. They were saying, keep the kids away from Jesus. And Jesus rebukes them. It says, but when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, let the children come to me. Do not hinder them for such, too such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a child shall not enter it, and then get this. And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them. And just to imagine the king of kings scooping up these little children and snuggling them in his arms. That tenderness, what compassion. And that's who he is. Not only that, but even the fact that he so emotionally connects with us is something we probably don't think about nearly enough. Last week we talked about how one of the demonstrations of the power that Christ had is when he raised Lazarus from the dead in John 11. And it is a demonstration of his power without a doubt. But it's also a demonstration of his pity or his compassion. Because in that moment, if you read John 11 later today, you'll see that Lazarus had been dead for four days and his sisters were weeping and when Jesus arrives, even though he knows he's about to raise Lazarus from the dead, it says Jesus wept. If you know you're about to raise this guy from the dead, it's because of his connection, his empathy, his compassion, because he saw people he loves weeping and he couldn't help but to weep himself, that's your king. He's this passionate tender king. And he wants us to know him that way because if we know him that way, then we will go to him when we are hurting, which is exactly where he wants us to go. He wants us to come to him. Imagine that. Imagine if we begin to believe more and more and more that he really has this compassion towards us, that he really cares for us, that he really wants to meet us in our hurtings and in our longings. Imagine how that might stop us from self-medicating and do much more Christ-medicating. Because a lot of the things that we do, some sinful, some aren't, but a lot of the things that we do, we're really trying to medicate, we're really trying to get comfort or we're trying to feel like our problems aren't as bad as they are and that causes us in our fallenness to go chasing that comfort and things that can't bring those things. Just think about how just the concept of binge watching is the thing now, okay? And we've all seen that embarrassing question on Netflix, are you still watching? Why are we doing that? Why do we watch and watch and watch and watch? It's because we just are finding some comfort in the distraction or maybe video games, a lot of adults even play hours and hours of video games. There's nothing wrong with video games, partially why we do that is because it's fun, but a big part of it also is we're trying to find some comfort, we're trying to escape the hardness of life, social media. I mean, how much time are we spending scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, looking for something that will hopefully bring us some comfort. You know, we see a little funny cat video and we chuckle, but then we're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling again, because there's never enough, I'll talk to a number of people who, since the pandemic has begun, have really started asking, are they maybe drinking too much and justifying it because, you know, 2020, it's hard. Life is hard, the king is not returned yet, and we do these things and we get ourselves in trouble because we're chasing after comfort and things that can't give it, but he can't. He can, so we have to ask that question, why aren't we looking to Christ for the comfort that our hearts are absolutely in need of, for the comfort that we long for. Well, one, I think it's because myself included, we tend to forget, or not believe that Christ is as compassionate as the Bible says he is, we tend to forget that or we don't believe it. Maybe we choose to believe it, then the next thing we have to do is understand how, how do we run to him for comfort? How do we experience that compassion today? We'll talk about that in a minute. But another big barrier is we tend to think that our sin cancels out his compassion, because we sin, because we fail, because we know that we've got pride in our hearts, and we know that we have all these thoughts we shouldn't have, and we say these things we shouldn't do, or we say the things we shouldn't say, we do things that we shouldn't do, we think, okay, that cancels out the compassion of this compassionate king. You might be compassionate to others, he's not going to be compassionate to me, I've messed up too many times. Well, I got news for you and for me. Our sin does not cancel out his compassion. In fact, it is when he's dealing with our sin that we see the height of his compassion. Think about the cross, and think about what compassion is, again, compassion is when someone is moved to do something by the sympathetic pity and concern they have for the sufferings of others. And the cross is the ultimate picture of this compassionate king moved to action because of the suffering that you and I deserve to have, but he did not want us to face. And so he moves to action, he comes to earth, he becomes man, he lives the life, the perfect life that none of us have lived but should have, and then he dies the sinner's death in our place. All out of his compassion, and that compassion is dealing with our sin, and so that through faith we can know that we're forgiven, we're declared righteous, now and forever. And so if his compassion is what led him to go to the cross to die for our sin, then obviously our sin does not cancel out his compassion. And so we should run to him, we should look to him, look to that remarkable divine compassion and tenderness when we are hurting. Don't self medicate, let's Christ medicate, how do we do that? Two ways, two ways we do that, one, by communing with Christ more, and two, by being more vulnerable in community with other Christians, two ways, one by communing with Christ more, one by being more vulnerable in community with each other, communing with Christ more meaning, spending more time in the word, just reading scripture, that's how we spend time, that's how he speaks to us today, reading the word, praying. There's probably never been a better time with this pandemic and all that we're going through, for us to be praying and communing with Christ and experiencing his compassion that way, through lamenting. We've talked about that a few times during the year, we should open the Psalms, we should read the Psalms of lament where the Psalmist is crying out to God about how hard life is and how his enemies are getting the best of him and how he's not feeling the presence of God. And we finally admit, I don't feel your presence, tell him you miss him, call out to him, pray and lament and feel him come to you, feel him bring his presence to you, commune with Christ in worship and in your private devotional life, good time to be strengthening that, to experience more of his compassion. And then the second thing I said is that we need to be more vulnerable in community with one another. Man, part of our modern Western individualistic mindset just really hamstrings us because it makes us think that we got to be tough, we got to do everything on our own, we can't admit weakness, we don't even use the word weakness, we use the word growth areas now. God's power is not made perfect in growth areas. Weakness, if in community, particularly in community groups, but in community with one another, if we can be more vulnerable about our hurts and our hang-ups, and then if we as the body of Christ can be surrounding one another with compassion, that's where we feel it as well. That's where we experience it. Think about Colossians 3 verse 12. Paul says, put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts. He commands us, he calls us to put on compassionate hearts. Why? Because we need it from one another, we need to experience the listening, the empathy, the compassion, the action, which if we can solve so much problem, let's do it, but at the very least we can give comfort. Because so much of why we struggle to have joy is we know that life is going to be hard, but we want to have that comfort and we want to know that we're cared for. If you look at verse 3, it does say you have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy, they rejoice before you. Part of this kingdom that's coming is the fullness of joy, and I would submit you that a big part of that is because we will be absolutely certain of how much God cares about us, how much Christ cares for us. But we want to believe that even now we can believe it more when we surround one another with compassion. I'll give you a quick example, something literally just happened. One of my daughters in just moments ago in this service came to me because somebody accidentally stepped on her foot, and there's a mark and a little bit of blood, and she was in a lot of pain. And so she came over to me, and she didn't just stick out her foot and say, fix it. She climbed up into my lap, and we sat there for a minute, and I got to just rub her back and show a little fatherly compassion. And then she got up, and she went and sat in another seat because, yeah, the pain's one thing, but the real question of our hearts is, am I loved, am I cared for, will I see compassion? And the good news is friends, we can have that joy even now, even this year, even today, because the name everlasting father points to the fatherly compassion and tenderness Christ has for his people. Communion with him all the more, and be more vulnerable in community that others can come around you and show that compassion, and we will praise his name forever. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you that you have shown to us that Christ is the compassionate one, the compassionate and tender king that we need. Could you help us truly believe that our sin doesn't cancel his compassion, but actually draws it to us? Would you help us commune with him all the more? Would you help us be vulnerable with each other so that we can experience compassion from one another as well? And would you help us as we experience the compassion and tenderness of Christ, would you help us look even more and anticipate even more greatly the day when he returns and makes all things new? We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.