His Great Names: Everlasting Father - Audio
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If you're new or listening at home, I'm Tom. We've passed her here at coast. We're glad you're with us. We are continuing our series, His Great Names. We're focusing on the prophecy of the Messiah and Isaiah 9. And we're kind of exploring or kind of digging into what the names of Jesus mean and how they actually have impact for us today. So hopefully we can take away something from who Jesus is for this Advent season. And so just to refresh our memory, let's take a look again at Isaiah 9. For two us, a child is born. To us, a son is given. The government will be on his shoulders and he will be called Wonderful Counselor. A couple of weeks ago, we suggested maybe a miracle planner, a marvel planner, a wonder planner. Mighty God. Last week, we suggested a warrior God who takes it to sin and to evil forces. Today, everlasting Father prints a piece of the greatness of His government and peace. There will be no end. Well, as I've been doing this, we've kind of jumped into the Hebrew a little bit to kind of get a better sense maybe because sometimes this language in English can be a little bit misleading or if not misleading, a little bit curious. And so when we hear everlasting Father, that word everlasting is a big, it's a big deal, right? And so it sounds like to us that this is a Father who has no beginning, has no end. And that's true. That is totally true. That is who God is. God does not have a beginning or end. But the Hebrew here has a connotation, has a feel of something like always or enduring. And so the idea would be that not only does God not have a beginning or end, but he's always being Father. He's always being Dad. There's no time in which He's not being Father to His people. And to get a sense for how this kind of works in the Old Testament, check out some near the beginning. This is Genesis 17 after God has changed Abraham's name to Abraham, promises him he'll be the Father of many nations. He says, "I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you." This, I'm going to keep covenencing with you. I'm not going to quit on that. Covenant is a solemn oath, a vow of commitment. And that vow of commitment is never going to stop. It's never going to quit. And your descendants after you for the generations to come, I promise, I will not quit being your God, your Father, and the God of your descendants after you, the whole land of Canaan where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession. It's always going to be your possession. Even if you're not there, it's going to be yours to you and your descendants after you. I will be their God. Well, this, this sense of always, of enduring, of not stopping, it continues into the New Testament. And Jesus is going to confess that he is this type of Father. This is John 10. Jesus says, "My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hands.
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This is what a good father is like and how, by knowing this, it will change us.