This morning, we're

continuing our new message series entitled, "Family of

Prophets."  We're rediscovering our

identity as a church family this year and this group of individuals are an

awesome example to learn from.  

Family is a group of

people who genuinely love, trust, care for, and look out for each other.

Last week, we

learned about the birth of Samuel and how he became a part of Eli's

family.  This is essentially the

beginning of the family of prophets. 

We were also

reminded of who we are.  If you've put

your faith in Jesus, you've been adopted into His family.  You are a child of God.  You hear and recognize the voice of your

Father and won't listen to the voice of a stranger. 

We were challenged

to create an altar in our lives - a time and place set apart to seek after God

and to hear His voice.

This morning, we're

going to learn some practical tips from young Samuel's life of how to hear

God's voice.

God is a creative

God who created you.  The way that He

speaks to us will vary from person to person. 

There are, however, some common ways that He chooses to do so as we read

in the Bible.

In the scriptures,

we see that He speaks through an audible voice as He just did with young

Samuel, through dreams or visions, through a talking donkey, through a burning

bush, through impressions, through nature, through angelic visitations, through

written word (even writing on a wall), through other people, through

circumstances, through wet and dry fleeces, and several other ways. 

God is always

speaking and doing so in countless ways!

A good place to

start is in the Bible, His written word. 

When God speaks, He won't contradict Himself and the written word is an

authoritative, tried and tested, repository. 

Whatever God speaks to you will be in harmony with His word.  This is evidenced in the New Testament.  When the early church was listening to the

voice of God through the Holy Spirit, they would often confirm it with quotes

from the Old Testament.

The Bible teaches us

how to better discern and recognize the voice of God.  We learn about God's character and ways.  We learn about how He spoke to others in the

past.  You can get to know a whole lot

about God by reading about Him and the testimonies of those who had personal

encounters with them. 

God's word is alive

and active because the Holy Spirit, the author of it, is alive and active.  For sure, God will still speak to us through

it still today.  We simply can't say that

God is silent if our Bibles are closed!

There are also other

books and videos and messages and Bible Studies and commentaries and all sorts

of resources for learning to hear God's voice.

What God is

recommending to us is not to necessarily turn to any of those right away.  No, there's nothing wrong with them and they

are valuable resources.  However, we have

a tendency to overthink and overcomplicate things.

Hearing God's voice

is not an intellectual study, it's not a theological, philosophical, or

doctrinal issue.  Hearing God's voice is

a relational issue.  We recognize the

voice of God because we have a personal relationship with Him and care about

hearing His voice and want to listen to Him.

Hearing God's voice

is no different than hearing and recognizing my voice right now.

This morning, we're

continuing our new message series entitled, "Family of

Prophets."  We're rediscovering our

identity as a church family this year and this group of individuals are an

awesome example to learn from.   Family

is a group of people who genuinely love, trust, care for, and look out for each

other.

Today, we're going

back to the beginning of where this family seemed to begin, the birth of

Samuel.

For time's sake, we

won't go through the details, but Samuel was a miraculous answer to the hopes

and prayers of his mother, Hannah. 

Following the trend that we learned about last week, bad things once

again happened to good people.  Hannah

was barren, unable to have the children that her heart longed for.

She gave a Nazarite

vow (Numbers 6:2-21) that if God would give her a son, that she would give him

to the Lord for all of his days.  The

Lord answered her prayer and enabled her to fulfill her vow.

Reading through 1

Samuel 1, we quickly see a theme surrounding Samuel's life.  Samuel was dreamed of, hoped for,

prophetically foresaw, prayed for, and offered up to God all within the context

and atmosphere of worship.  In fact,

Hannah was given a double portion of meat to sacrifice in worship year after

year.  The name Samuel means, "God

has heard."

Eli was the priest

at that time and he was failing as a father. 

His two sons were also priests, but did very wicked things before the

Lord.  They took personal advantage of

the worship of God's people.  Samuel also

was raised by Eli, but chose a very different path from Eli's natural

sons. 

1 Samuel 2:21b;26

…the boy Samuel grew

up in the presence of the Lord.

And the boy Samuel

continued to grow in stature and in favor with the Lord and with people.

God send a prophet

to Eli who reminded him of God's promise to Eli's ancestors that the members of

your family would minister before God forever. 

The prophet informed Eli of the consequences of his choice to honor his

wicked sons more than he honored God, that his sons would die on the same day

and that all his descendants would have a short life span.

However, God's

promise always rings true.  Eli's natural

sons may have chosen to walk away from the promises of God, but God brought

into Eli's family another son.  Through

Samuel, a member of Eli's family by choice and not by blood, God's promise

would be fulfilled.  As Samuel found

family from his childhood in the presence of God and in an atmosphere of

worship, he established a family of prophets who would continue in it.  Family not by blood, but by choice.  We now turn to the beginning of this family.

1 Samuel 3

1 The boy Samuel

ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was

rare; there were not many visions.

Going through the

motions.  Serving God and worshipping Him

because it is the right thing to do, but not really listening for His voice or

waiting on His Presence.  It's dry, religion

that doesn't result in life transformation and is void of the love and zeal

that we receive through relationship. 

This is far from God's will and heart! 

He longs to meet with us. 

However, He draws near to us as we sincerely choose to draw near to Him

(James 4:8).

2 One night Eli,

whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in

Last week, we began

a new message series entitled, "Family of Prophets."  We're rediscovering our identity as a church

family this year and this group of individuals are an awesome example to learn

from.   Family is a group of people who

genuinely love, trust, care for, and look out for each other.

We're continuing

this morning looking at a time in the lives of this family where they learned

the life lesson that mankind has struggled to learn from our very beginning.

Follow God and His

ways to live an abundantly blessed life.

Go our own way and

live an abundantly difficult life.

Moses spoke before

the entire nation of Israel in Deuteronomy 30 and set this life lesson before

his family.  He reminded us that what God

asks is not too difficult for us nor is to too difficult to understand.  Obey God out of love for Him and you live and

increase and be blessed.  Turn your heart

away from God and it will lead to your destruction.

Life and death,

blessing and curses are ours for the choosing. 

Why not choose life?  Moses said

that those who love God and obey Him choose life and that even their children

will be blessed and hear the voice of God.

Now, let's read

together through the chapter of:

2 Kings 5

1 Now Naaman was

commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of

his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory

to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.

Why do bad things

happen to good people?  Well, we don't

always necessarily know the answer to this question.  However, over and over again in the Bible, we

see that God is able to do the miraculous to transform bad things into amazing

things!

In John 9, we

encounter a man blind from birth.  When

Jesus was questioned about whether it was his parents sin or his that caused

his blindness, Jesus said neither.  He

simply said that he was born blind so that the work of God could be displayed

through him.  Jesus then healed the man

of his blindness.

When bad things

happen to you for no apparent reason nor from any fault of your own, trust and

believe that God has permitted this bad thing to happen so that God might

display the miraculous through your life, too. 

Let's continue on to see if this is what happens for Naaman.

2 Now bands of

raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel,

and she served Naaman’s wife.

Have you ever

noticed that bad things rarely seem to happen singularly?  Usually bad things seem to happen all at

once.  The power blinks through the

night, so your alarm doesn't go off in the morning.  On your way already late, you get stopped for

construction.  After finally getting

through that, you get a flat tire.  It

just seems like the world is against you!

If we could just see

from God's perspective, we might see the reality that our series of unfortunate

events are a blessing in disguise.  This

poor young girl being taken away as a slave could either be viewed as the worst

thing to happen in her life or it could be viewed as God's divine plan to use

her to work a miracle. 

Perspective is

everything and we would be wise to maintain a perspective of trust and faith,

especially when things get tough.  God is

up to something and He's always up to something good!

As we start in the

new year, we're rediscovering together our identity as a church family.  Family is a group of people who genuinely

love, trust, care for, and look out for each other.

Our initial series

of the year is beginning in an unexpected place.  When we think of families in the Bible, we

might think about Adam and Eve, Jacob and his twelve kiddos, Naomi and Ruth, or

even spiritually think of the church at it's beginning in the book of Acts or

even a close group like David and his mighty men. 

Instead, God is taking us to a family not often thought about.  We find these family groups in the books of Kings.  They are the family of prophets.

As we start in the

new year, we're rediscovering together our identity as a church family.  Family is a group of people who genuinely

love, trust, care for, and look out for each other.

Our initial series

of the year is beginning in an unexpected place.  When we think of families in the Bible, we

might think about Adam and Eve, Jacob and his twelve kiddos, Naomi and Ruth, or

even spiritually think of the church at it's beginning in the book of Acts or

even a close group like David and his mighty men. 

Instead, God is

taking us to a family not often thought about. 

We find these family groups in the books of Kings.  They are the family of prophets.

Now, depending on

the translation that you read, you may find them called:

Company of prophets

Sons of prophets

School of prophets

Group of prophets

Guild of prophets

The Hebrew word used

here is the word Ben.  It is a word that

it used for literal children as well as generally speaking as in members of a

group.  Therefore, all of these English

translations are accurate.

A family of

prophets.  So far as we can tell, this

family of prophets began with Samuel and continued under the leadership of

Elijah and then Elisha.  We know that

there were at least three groups of these families, one in Naioth, Bethel, and

Jericho and that they travelled around. 

Although we don't

know a whole lot more about where they each came from or how these individuals

became part of these groups, the Bible reveals what we need to know about them.

They are a group of

individuals who sought after God together. 

They weren't perfect, they made mistakes, but their passion for seeking

after God brought them together to accomplish incredible things.  God met them where they were and powerfully

anointed them so much that whenever they got around other people, they also

began to prophesy!  It had to be a fun

group of people to hang out with!

Before we are

encouraged by some of their adventures, we're first going to learn a little bit

about prophecy.

Merriam-Webster

defines prophecy as the inspired declaration of divine will and purpose.  To prophesy is to declare the will and

purpose of God.  Prophecy speaks God's

potential about people, circumstances, and places.

Biblical prophecy

isn't the opinions, will, nor ideas of man, but of God.  Though this is true, God chooses to speak

through man maintaining their uniqueness. 

He speaks to the prophet or prophetess in a way that they understand and

communicates the prophecy through them and their personality.

2 Peter 1:19-21

[The below text has been machine translated and may contain errors. Please listen to audio for original and integral translation]

That is interesting because I'm going to go back a little bit to to earlier in the week some things I got to say speaking to me in my private time and in my. When I I'd drive. I drive to kid tanning every single day like Monday Friday and like once or twice a week I'll also drive to harm a bill but that time between Katanning and harm or bills full of other people so I don't spend a ton of time with the Lord in that time not that he's not there but in this time between Harmer our Katanning And here there and back it's always worship time it's always prayer time it's me and God time. So I actually really get excited when I if I have days that I actually drive all the way myself to use has that's a good impression too but anyway so I spend some time with them I do it every day but God like kind of put an idea in my spirit let's play before we do that let's talk about last week. The vision for this year Steve is talking about being a family and this isn't a new idea for us I feel like that's been kind of the heart of New Hope it's been the heart especially since we came and it's been seen in my heart as leadership that the church would be like a family. Now do we really know what a healthy family looks like earthly maybe not so much I mean we're getting there God's got a lot of plans now and His Word tells us a lot of things to learn from so anyway. My opinion is we've always been a family we're looking into you know that's been our heart as a church I just it's about but anyway we have a powerful bomb here as a as a family we have the Lord right we have that in common you know your earthly family as you have bloodlines in common you have heritage in common you have things you share with siblings or with your parents you know cousins things like that you have those bonds that are earthly But here we also have not only a lot of you are already family biologically and earthly but you're also a spiritually family and we have that bond of the Lord and that that in and of itself is enough to bind us right. It's something we have in common it's our foundation that we go back to to come because Ok so in the scriptures it tells us and fusions $15.00 and God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ and that this is what he wanted to do and he gave him great pleasure so he's pretty happy that our family right gave him great pleasure I like that so I'm happy about it too I mean when he's happy we should all be pretty happy but anyway so he had an idea of this obviously long before we did right the idea of family the idea of and see him talk a lot about that last week he talked a lot about specific things and scripture with family and different scenarios and that's where we're going as a church to focus on that more and so by today I want to talk more about what that means for us for our 25 mile radius that's was to be included in the family are. You know people we're influencing daily and this particular group of family. So what I want to begin with is this idea like I gave my ride. With him in the car so it's kind of an idea to me prior but it was a little more specific this time so have any of you ever heard of the song. Or the old eighty's sitcom Cheers Ok so the famous song for that it's the show is God gave me an idea to do a lip dub video does anyone know what a lip the video is Ok so it's like we would all be singing sinking sinking the song. And that was the song the cheers theme song and where everybody knows your name is how it goes and says you know times are hard and you want a place to go where everybody knows your name and that's what New Hope should be I think that's kind of like I was saying to me now I would really like to do that so if you all have an interest in that some some time we really should do it I ...

Last year, God's vision for our church was simply to be the church. He wanted to rebuild us at our foundation. His call was one of repentance, to change the way we think for the better. We didn't plan to implement any new ministries or programs or ideas, but rather to return to who Jesus was calling us to be.

We were being called to change how we serve one another and the community, to repent of some poor attitudes and heart motives, and to revisit the question of "Why we are here?" as a church.

Sure, we still have some work to do in these areas, but we've definitely come a long way! God is transforming the culture and atmosphere here in preparation for great things that are coming our way.

Unconditional Love, Sacrificial Integrity, Spirit Lead

When these core values are lived out. When we embody them more fully. When we essentially just treat people the way that we would want to be treated:

Something manifests, there is a resulting product; we obtain the fulfillment of why Jesus gave us these core values to embrace. That result is our 2020 vision!

Chocolate. No, that's not God's vision for New Hope this year, but chocolate is pretty awesome, right? Sweet, creamy, melt-in-your mouth goodness. Chocolate is going to help us to better understand this year's vision.

Chocolate, as we enjoy it, is essentially three components combined - cocoa, oil, and sweetener.

This kind of reminds me of who God is, right? Three-in-one. Father, Son, Spirit. Distinct yet unified.

Unlike God, however, the three components of chocolate aren't the best on their own. I'll never forget the first time that I snuck into our kitchen at home as a kid, grabbed a spoon, and ate my first mouthful of Hershey's baking cocoa. It looked like chocolate, smelled like chocolate, was branded like chocolate, but it didn't taste like chocolate at all! I coughed and choked and spit that stuff out as fast as I could! It was a mess!

Once we combine those three components, however, the result is delicious! The aroma of chocolate being made is incredible, drawing in anyone nearby. Slightly adjusting the ratio of these three components makes different experiences of chocolate as well. There is the 95% cocoa for dark chocolate lovers the whole way down through to light, milk chocolate.

Not only this, but the possibilities of deliciousness beyond these three simple components are incredible!

Chocolate can be combined with peanut butter or caramel or hazelnut or marshmallow or all sorts of other flavors. Chocolate can have added to it nuts or fruit or Rice Krispies or candy. Chocolate syrup or fudge can be placed over ice cream or cheesecake or stirred into milk or used in just about any way that you can imagine!

Now, not everyone prefers certain combinations. For myself, I don't at all like it when chocolate is combined with certain fruits like orange or raspberry. It's not that there is anything wrong with that combination, it's just not my preference.

Also, some things taste great on their own with chocolate, but not when all combined together.

For example, chocolate and coffee are a great combination as are chocolate and strawberries. However, strawberry coffee chocolate won't likely be a best seller. For example, salty potato chips and chocolate make a great combinations as well as raspberry and chocolate. However, raspberry chocolate-covered potato chips won't likely hit the top sales charts of a sweets shop.

What could all of this possibly have to do with God's vision for us this year?

What is His vison for us this year?

Family.

God is calling us to rediscover and reconfirm our unique identity as a church family as well as investing in the families of our community.

As we close out 2019 and enter into 2020, we're reminded of a principle in God's Kingdom. You reap what you sow. One does not sow corn and expect watermelons to grow. One does not sit around thinking about all of the bad things that has happened to them in the past and expect joy. One does not work day and night and expect to live in poverty. One does not drive their car like they stole it and expect to never receive a ticket for speeding or reckless driving.

Quite often, you receive what you are expecting.

If you walk into the church expecting to see hypocrisy - you'll see it.

If you enter into a service expecting it to be the same old routine - that's exactly what it will be.

If you begin into worship wandering if it'll be over soon - it'll be the longest and most annoying experience ever.

You reap what you sow, you receive what you are expecting.

If you walk into the church looking forward to seeing your brothers and sisters in Christ, you'll be glad you came.

If you enter into a service expecting a fresh word and revelation from God, you'll be left in awe.

If you begin into worship in adoration of who Jesus is, you'll have a powerful encounter with Him.

You reap what you sow, you receive what you are expecting.

Now, God is God and He may take you by surprise, but this general principle is true more often than not.

What are you expecting?

For many, 2019 was a turbulent year of challenges and difficulties.

What are you expecting?

The Lord says:

Isaiah 66:9 (NCV)

…"I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born,”

(repeat)

I remember Becky reading through the book often while pregnant with Nathaniel, "What to expect when you are expecting." It helped prepare her for some of the new experiences that she would likely encounter while expecting her firstborn son. It assisted her in navigating her way through all of the changes, excitements, fears, surprises, joys, and scares of pregnancy.

The Bible is such a book for us who are born again. It teaches us what to expect while we're expecting. It teaches us some of the ups and downs, joys and oppositions, successes and failures that we might experience while expecting to receive the fullness of our salvation. It reminds us of the promises of God which we can put our hope, faith, and trust in and what we can expect on the journey to their fulfillment.

God's promises come to us in a seed form much like a newborn baby. We go through seasons much like the trimesters of pregnancy. We experience pain and fear much like childbirth. We receive what has been promised just like the joy experienced while cuddling that new baby for the first time. We learn to steward and explore those fulfilled promises in new ways just like every first moment in that child's life as they grow and mature into adults.

2019 may have been a turbulent year of challenges and difficulties, but God will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born.

What are you expecting?

If you're not sure, just ask those around you to be honest with you. What you speak of and how you speak of it reveal the meditations of your heart and mind - they reveal what you are expecting.

It's time to trade in our disappointments, our failures, our grumbling, our everything and trade them all for the Lord's promises. It's time to lay down on the altar those things that we think are right, those things that we do out of obligation or tradition and truly humble ourselves before the Lord.

Isaiah 66:2-3 (NCV)

2 …“These are the people I am pleased with:

those who are not proud or stubborn

and who fear my word.

3 But those people who kill bulls as a sacrifice to me

are like those who kill people.

Here we are, just a few days before Christmas. On that day, we celebrate the greatest gift ever given to mankind, God's only Son!

Luke 2:1-20

1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register.

4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,

and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Like Mary, I pray that all of us treasure the birth of Jesus and ponder these things which occurred in our hearts. The birth of Jesus was not exactly brought about in the best of circumstances and certainly not in a way which we would expect!

Joseph and Mary were very young, likely only teenagers. Joseph, knowing that this child was not his, planned to quietly divorce Mary. Of course, an angel intervened to convince him of Mary's explanation that this truly was a virgin birth.

They were forced by the government to travel at the end of her pregnancy simply to register in Joseph's hometown for the census.

No one cared enough for this young couple to give them a place to stay, so Jesus was born in a manger; an animal's feeding trough. Not exactly the most sanitary of conditions for giving birth!

Mary and Joseph were very poor as indicated by their sacrifice of a pair of pigeons or doves to consecrate the birth of Jesus at the temple.

So far as the Bible indicates, Mary's cousin, Elizabeth was the only supportive family member of this pregnancy.

King Herod had all boys two years old and under murdered in an attempt to stop Jesus from fulfilling His destiny of King of the Jews.

The Christmas story where the birth of Jesus takes place is in reality a dark and gloomy one. Yet, in the midst of such opposition and darkness, an inexpressible joy is experienced as the light of Christ and the hope of His promise shines forth. It is the dark backdrop of these circumstances that causes the birth of Jesus to shine so bright.

[The below text has been machine translated and may contain errors. Please listen to audio for original and integral translation]

So what I wanted to talk about is a gift and Our Heavenly Father has given us the greatest gift of all and you know Christmas is a very exciting time of year with presents family gatherings food deserts. And but it's so much more than that and all you guys here know that. But there was this one Christmas Eve a little girl went to church and she was so excited because. After the Christmas Eve service they all gathered around the tree every year and last year she had gotten a baby doll and. So she was so excited and anticipating. What she was going to get this year and she. Went out after the service and they gather around the tree and everyone she was the last one and there was one gift she was all excited went to open it in just tears started going down her face because it was empty there was nothing in the box. And so someone had played an awful trick on her and she just cried and cried and who would really do that and play a mean trick on her so each and every day we are actually from the world given gifts and they tell us that. Even though are the names and situations may be different the results are the same Usually it's just an empty box you know they promise wealth and fame happiness relationships. Pleasure success wealth and usually they have it wrapped up in a nice. Wrapped box with a beautiful bow on it and then usually what happens is we open it and we become very disappointed and it's usually false like we can't get at those things from the world and we have high expectations and we look inside and what do we find an empty box just like that little girl didn't. There's no hope no joy no life fame wealth relationship success or happiness in that box just huge tears of heartbreak running down our face over and over again from the world and the world does this to each and every one of us and have you guys ever opened a box like that and found that it was just empty and people tell you that they have this gift for you and it's really just not full of hope at all now over 10000 year 2000 years ago an angel from God appeared and said to several shepherds do not be afraid I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people today in the town of David a savior has been born to you he is Christ the Lord the birth of Jesus the Such good news and it was the good news that the that there is a much greater gift giver than anyone in the whole world and that is the ultimate present the greatest gift of all is Jesus. The gift is so precious because he lives and we don't have to be afraid the gift wasn't just for the shepherds about 2000 years ago it really is for us now. And you know how a diamond has many facets when you look at it there's so many different facets. And the gift of God is also full of just different facets so today we're to talk about 3 of them the clothes when the baby when he was born. Mary and Joseph just took shreds of cloth so you know in the movies in the. In the in shows they show that this nice. Cloth with this baby was wrapped up in this in a nice cloth and actually that's not how it was they actually took rags and to shreds just to protect him and keep him warm and protect him from the elements of the manger and it's actually interesting as Jesus was wrapped with all types of wrappings during his life at birth the use of swaddling clothes. And then at his death he was wrapped in thorns and then when he he was wrapped with a linen shrouded in a borrowed tomb and wrapped by a rock before it was rolled away his resurrection these rags of love represent the protection that he provides for us each and every day and Jesus as a cover for our very souls however before man can put on the Lord Jesus Christ he can be clothed in holiness he needs to take off his filthy cloaks and covers of wickedness and he must be stripped of his filthy rags that he may be cl...

This morning, as we

enter into the Christmas season, we're continuing our message series entitled,

"He Shall Be Called". 

Together, we'll recall and dive deeper into that awesome prophetic word

from Isaiah regarding the birth of Jesus.

Within this

prophecy, Isaiah assigns four names to Jesus. 

We started last week with the first name: Wonderful Counselor and what a

wonderful Counselor Jesus truly is!

Isaiah 9:2-3;6-7

2 The people walking

in darkness

    have seen a great light;

on those living in

the land of deep darkness

    a light has dawned.

3 You have enlarged

the nation

    and increased their joy;

they rejoice before

you

    as people rejoice at the harvest,

as warriors rejoice

    when dividing the plunder.

6 For unto us a

child is born,

    unto us a son is given,

    and the government will be on his

shoulders.

And he will be

called

    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

7 Of the greatness

of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s

throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and

righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will

accomplish this.

This morning, we are

encouraged as we recall that Jesus is: Mighty God!

This is probably the

understatement of a lifetime!  Mighty

barely scratches the surface of describing the raw power and might of

Jesus.  With a simple word, He created

all that is seen, calmed raging storms, raised the dead, cast out demons; all

of creation is under His power and authority!

Don't be mistaken,

there is no power struggle happening between Jesus and the devil.  When he and a third of the angels rose up

against Him, they were cast to the earth like lightning.  Now, God permits them to continue to act to

test, prove, and strengthen our faith. 

There is soon coming a day when he and the demons will be cast into the

pit of fire never to torment God's people again!  Consider the account of Job, satan couldn't

lay a finger on Job without the permission of God.

God's word uses this

same Hebrew word for mighty to describe hunters, heroes, soldiers, warriors,

kings, military leaders, abilities, and wealth. 

Indeed, Jesus is all of these things, possesses all of these things, and

more - He is the Mighty God!

King Herod couldn't

kill Him as an infant, all of those offended by Him couldn't trip Him up by

their smug questioning and snide gossip 

Not even death could stop Mighty Jesus!

Just like the old

song proclaims: Our God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing our

God cannot do; for you!

Nothing could stop

Jesus even while He was wrapped in the weakness of our flesh.  Undoubtedly, there is nothing can stop Him

now that He has been glorified once again!

This gives us

hope.  Jesus is the Mighty God.  Our current circumstances are not our

destiny.  Our current struggles are

defeatable.  Our current weakness can

become our greatest strengths.  Our