Something About That Name, Part 1

Sometimes life gets so difficult and challenging that it becomes clear we're not going to make it on our own. But Dr. Tony Evans says when we follow God's plan, the solutions to our trials take on an amazing clarity. He will be to you an extraordinary advisor.

He will blow your mind. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans. Author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. If you're waiting on God for a breakthrough or a comeback, you're in for some encouragement today as Dr. Evans looks at some names used to describe Jesus, names that are packed with promises.

Let's join him. Some years ago in Iowa, there was a storm, a wicked storm. There was a boy carrying a much heavier young man on his shoulders, whisking him out of the wicked storm. A man saw this boy carrying this heavier young man and just mentioned as he tried to whisk him away to safety from the storm, son, that boy you're carrying sure looks heavy, to which the young man said, well, he's not heavy, he's my brother. He was carrying the weight of a relative on his shoulders to get him away from the storm because he was not able to do so on his own. Sometimes life gets so stormy on us. We need somebody who can carry us on their shoulders. Sometimes life gets so difficult and challenging that it becomes clear we're not going to make it on our own.

And we need somebody's shoulder that we can lean on. We're told in Isaiah chapter nine, verses six and seven, that there would be a son given and a child born. The son would not be born, the son would be given, only the child would be born. So the child came into existence because he was born, but the son pre-existed because the son wasn't born, the son was given. This is a Old Testament statement of what would come almost 700 years later in Bethlehem with the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, the son of God become a child, or to put it in simple language, deity in diapers.

The eternal son of God become a person, pouring all of deity into a vessel of humanity, making him the most unique person who ever lived, both God and man, son of God and son of man. We're told that this unique person, the son given and the child born, would carry the government on his shoulders. The government on his shoulders. Now what's a government? A government is a system that is designed to look after the well-being of its citizens.

A government is a system, a political system designed to care for, if it's a good government, the well-being of those persons who make up the society under the oversight of the government. According to the prophet Isaiah, the son given and the child born would carry the government and the weight of it on his shoulders. Let me say it another way. What these two verses are saying to you and me in four different ways is that if you will let him, Jesus will be delighted to give you a piggyback ride. There are times when my grandkids have come over the house and gotten on my back for a piggyback ride. When they've gotten on my back for a piggyback ride, what they are expecting is I won't drop them. What they are expecting is I will hold them up. And what they are expecting is that I'll take them from point A to point Z, whatever the concluding point is, and that I will take them there safely.

In other words, they're banking on the fact that if they put their weight on me, I got them, and I will carry them from here to there. What Jesus is saying to you and me today is if you will let him govern you, for the government shall be on his shoulders, if you will let him govern you, he will give you a piggyback ride or a shoulder ride because he will bear the government of your life if you are a believer, and he will carry the weight of it on his shoulders. Now, if he's carrying the weight of governing you on his shoulders, that means you don't have to be weighed down on your shoulders because he says, I will carry the weight of the government on my shoulders, physically for the whole world in the future, currently right now for the church of Jesus Christ and his people. So I'm going to now tell you through the prophet Isaiah what it will look like for you and me individually for you as a family, for us as a church, and to whatever degree we can influence society, what it will look like by Jesus' name if you and I will allow him to govern us, for the government shall be on his shoulders.

And the job of a government is to oversee the well-being of its citizens. He says, and his name shall be called. We're looking at the names of Jesus, the son given, the child born, deity in diapers, and his name shall be called. This is how you will be able to identify him if he governs you. He says, first of all, you will call him Wonderful Counselor. The first title, if he is governing you, is he will be your personal Wonderful Counselor. Now, a counselor is somebody you go to for advice. A counselor is somebody you go to for guidance. A counselor is somebody you go to for direction. A counselor is somebody you go to for clarity. A counselor is somebody you go to discern what your best next step ought to be in some area of your life. Jesus is here to tell you today, if you let him govern you, he will be to you an extraordinary advisor.

He will blow your mind. He says, if you let me govern you, and you put the weight of your life and your world on my shoulders, I will give you the guidance, the knowledge, the wisdom for directing your life better than you could ever direct it on your own. Most of us have been alive long enough, and most of us have messed up sufficient enough to know that self-counsel sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. But he says, if you will put your life on my shoulders, I will govern you in such a way that I will counsel you in the best possible way for managing your life. Psalm 73 24 says that God guides us with his counsel. Psalm 32 verse 8 says he guides us in the way we ought to go. First John chapter 5 verse 20 says he will give you understanding. You see, the reason why life gets so distorted for us is we lean to our own understanding. I mean, everybody in here have a multitude of advisors, some good, some bad, some up, some down. Folk we call, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? What do you think I should do?

What do you think I shouldn't do? We go to advisors, some of us have been messed up by counselors because they've counseled us in the wrong direction. Or they counseled us based on their messed up background. Other people go to bars for counsel. Other people go to fortune tellers for counsel, read lines on your hand to determine what you ought to do.

And other people go to alcohol or drugs, helping them to deal with things in their life. But Jesus here wants you to know if you will let him. His name is Wonderful Counselor.

Why? Because Colossians chapter 2 verses 2 and 3 says, in Christ Jesus is all the hidden knowledge and wisdom of God. In other words, the reason why he is a Wonderful Counselor is he knows every subject completely. In other words, what makes him a magnificent advisor is you can't bring up a subject of which he doesn't have full knowledge because he's son of God. Not only does he have full knowledge because the son was given, he has full experience because the son became a child. That's why the book of Hebrews says in chapter 2 verses 17 and 18, it says that he became like us so he could aid us. So he not only can counsel you with his knowledge, he can counsel you with his experience.

And there's nothing like having a counselor who has both the information and the experience to be your advisor. When Dr. Evans comes back in a moment, he'll talk about some of the differences between a human and a heavenly counselor. First though, I wanted to tell you how you can bring the experience of one of Tony's Holy Land tours into your home. I'm talking about his beautiful photo book called Experiencing Israel. It's packed with full-color photos that will take you on a virtual guided tour of the Holy Land with insights from Dr. Evans about the geography, history, and people of the land. This beautiful hardcover book is something you'll want to keep on display, but it's also a tool that will bring a whole new dimension to your study of God's Word. If you contact us and request it right away, we'll send Experiencing Israel to you as a way of saying thanks for your contribution toward Tony's ministry. Along with it, we'll also include all 11 full-length messages in his current teaching series, Encountering Jesus' Names.

In this comprehensive dive into the many names of Jesus found in the Bible, Tony translates in-depth Scripture research into clear, relevant insights into what it means to be the Savior, the Lamb of God, the Alpha and Omega, and more. This special double offer ends tomorrow, so visit us right away at tonyevans.org for details. Or call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222, where friendly team members are ready to assist you with your resource request.

That's 1-800-800-3222. I'll have that information for you again after Part 2 of today's message and this. Hey, was your morning commute all green lights? Did your midday coffee taste just a little less stale? Small victories can feel like a big win. Giving Tuesday is coming up. At The Urban Alternative, we celebrate this day by reminding you just how much you matter in our mission to share God's Word to a world in need. Those small, everyday moments make a huge impact. And when you give to The Urban Alternative, you're changing the world, and that's worth celebrating.

We celebrate you too. Learn how you can help influence the world for good at tonyevans.org. See, the problem with human counselors is that it's in their advantage to keep you coming back. See, if you're paying $200, $300 a week, then I'm not going to give you all the information at the first setting. I ain't going to tell you everything I know the first time you come, because then you might not need to come back.

So I'm going to tell you just enough, and then I'll say, we'll continue this next week, because that way you will keep the money coming my way. But the beautiful thing about your wonderful counselor, he's not in it for what you can give to him. He's not in it because he wants to take something from you.

He's in it because he wants to give something to you to keep you from messing up in the next decision that you have to make. Most of us have messed up long enough and bad enough that we need better advisors. Jesus says, I am the wonderful counselor. I am extraordinary in the advice I give because I can only give perfect guidance. So if you want to, from this point in your life, move forward with the right kind of decisions through the twists and turns of life, then I would suggest you make Jesus Christ your chief counselor, because it will save you time and money.

If you will start with him, get his advice, act on that, so that you will not have to dig yourself out of another hole. Most of us need a counselor for a couple reasons. One, we need one to not get in trouble. But most of the time is to get us out of trouble. We need a counselor to help us to know what to do, because what we are doing is not working, and we need somebody to lead us in the way we ought to go.

And so as a result of that, we go to a counselor and seek their help. What Jesus is saying is, I'm so good at my advice that if you will follow me, you won't get in a hole. But I'm so good at my advice, if you're in a hole, I can get you out faster than anybody else can, because I know all the idiosyncratic elements of the hole you're in. I know where you came from, how you got in it, and what you need to do to get out of it, because I built the highway system of your life. And I know where all the roads intersect, and I know where the detours are, where the exits are. I am in full knowledge. In fact, God says how much knowledge he has, because the Scripture says in Isaiah 40 verse 13 and 14, who can counsel me?

From whom to whom does the Lord go for instruction? In other words, there's no information that's new you can give me. You don't come up with a new situation that I've never seen before that I have to go out and I have to open up a book and read about. I got to go to the library to study, or I've got to go to a college. David put it this way. He says, since I started getting advice from God, I know more than my teachers. Some of you high schoolers are going to go to some of these universities who are going to tell you how the world began. They're going to give you some non-consensical, atheistic advice that scientifically knowledge with degrees about a Big Bang, or about an amoeba, or about a matter, or some other evolutionary ism. And if you walk in there with Genesis 1-1, you know more than your teachers. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

You know more than your professors. Why? Because when you start with God, you save time, you save energy, and you sure enough save pain, because He is a wonderful counselor.

Peter put it this way. Lord, where should we go? You have the words of life. Why am I going to start with a human who's got as much limitations as I am? Nothing wrong with getting advice from humans as long as it's consistent with the advice from God, because He is the wonderful counselor.

If God is allowed to rule you, He will blow your mind with what He knows. The worst thing you can do is get a doctor who prescribes wrong medicine. I was a boy, and I had a bad problem with asthma every week. I went to the hospital to get shots for my asthma.

They hadn't advanced back then like they are now with asthma, and so I'd have these asthmatic attacks, was heaving for air, and my father every week had to take me to the doctor. And one time, this doctor had put the wrong medicine in the syringe and gave it to me. And as my father reminds me of it now because it's very clear in his memory, he said, we thought we were going to lose you because a doctor with a degree, with an education, with knowledge, with background and experience, gave me the wrong medicine.

You need a doctor, a great physician, and a wonderful counselor. See, some folk go to counselors to get an endorsement. Some folk go to counsel to get somebody to agree with them.

They don't go to counsel to get counseling. They go to counseling to get an okay for the decision they've already made. And that's why if the counselor doesn't give them the decision that they've already made, they look for another counselor. And they will go from counsel to counsel to counsel until they find the agreeing one. I have had the experience of people walking out of my office when they're the ones who ask for counseling because they didn't like the prescription even though it could be based on the Word of God, but because it wasn't something they wanted to do and it wasn't something they thought they would like doing, they left what people have stormed out because they didn't agree. Well, Jesus wants you to know in advance, John 7.17, if you come to the wonderful counselor and you've already got your decision made, you will get no new information from him because his knowledge is hidden from the proud.

So if you want the wonder of his counseling, if you want this name to work for you, then you are going to have to recognize that he knows more than you do about everything. But you ever been in a place where you needed a tour guide because it was easy to get lost? Let me tell you one place you need a tour guide because it's easy to get lost.

It's called life. You think things are going one way and something happens and it turns you left or turns you right or knocks you down. You need a tour guide for life. Jesus says, I am the tour guide for life and I'm wonderful at my job.

I am the wonderful counselor because I never make mistakes in my counseling. If you've never experienced what it's like to enter into a right relationship with God through Christ and experienced the kind of closeness Dr. Evans was describing, he's back now with a thought about how that can happen for you today. If you want to know for certain that you're on your way to heaven when you die, then I invite you right now to go to Jesus Christ and let Him know that you believe He died for you, that you believe He arose for you, and that you want to put your trust in Him alone for the forgiveness of your sins and the gift of eternal life. If you really want to go to heaven, He'll give you a free ticket there, but you must go to Him for it and believe Him to give it to you. If you do that, you'll be saved right now. Find out more about what it means to be a real Christian. Visit tonyevans.org and click on the link that says Jesus.

There, Tony will explain everything you need to know, and you can also find some free resources to get your new life started right. Now, if you'd like to get a full-length copy of today's lesson for a deeper review or to pass along to a friend, just contact us about the message called Something About That Name. Better yet, get it as a part of Tony's current teaching series, Encountering Jesus' Names. As I mentioned earlier, we'll send you the full-length version of all 11 messages in this powerful series on either CD or instantly available digital downloads, along with Tony's impressive photo book, Experiencing Israel. They're our thank you gift when you make a contribution in support of Tony's ministry here on this station as well as all around the world. This special double offer ends tomorrow, so visit tonyevans.org for details before time runs out. Or call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222. Team members are standing by 24-7 to help you.

That's 1-800-800-3222. Usually the story of a person's life isn't told until they've lived it, but tomorrow Dr. Evans will tell us about a sort of biography of Jesus long before he was born. Right now, though, Tony's back with his final word of encouragement for us. Oh, by the way, you might need to know this about the wonderful counselor. He's open 24-7. He's open 24-7. He never gets backed up. He never cancels appointments. He never goes on vacation. He never sleeps because the Bible says he ever lives to make intercession for his children. The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.