The root of all of our problems is separation from God. I don't mean that whatever problem you're going through now is the punishment that God is giving you for some specific sin that you committed. I'm simply saying that if God were to take away all our problems without fixing the real problem, our separation from God, then ultimately we just create a bunch of new problems. Welcome to the Summit Life podcast with JD Greer. Wanted to remind you about a daily email devotional from Summit Life that you can sign up for today.
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These are all great ways to stay connected with Summit Life. Today, Pastor JD is showing us how we should approach the wonderful counselor who brings light to our darkness and gives us the gift of himself. We're headed to the Old Testament for this most important Christmas teaching, so grab your Bible and let's join Pastor J.E.
So, let me begin this Christmas message series with a little Christmas survey at all campuses. You can just respond to the survey by raising your hand. How many of you at all of our campuses, how many of you are 100% completely finished already with your Christmas shopping? Why don't you put your hand up real high?
Okay, how many of you hate the people with their hands up right now? You can put your hands up.
Okay, yes, I'm in that group. How many of you, here's another one. How many of you have ever re-gifted a gift at Christmas time? Let's all be honest here with each other.
Okay, how many of you, it was within the same season? You just came in one right out the other. Anybody?
Okay, how many of you, the person that you re-gifted it to, is sitting in this room, the room that you're in with there? I had a friend here on our staff who told me that he did this one year, and he did it with a book.
Somebody gave it to him, and he gave it to somebody else. And the person he gave it to called him back a couple of days later and said, Hey, this book was personalized to you. That was in the front cover. How many of you, how many of you are nervous about seeing family over the holidays? Raise your hand.
You can just put that up and testify. How many of you get reminded every time you get around your family that your family really could be a good candidate for the Jerry Springer show? And by the way, have you ever considered maybe they're nervous about seeing you? You ever thought about that? Like maybe you're the one that are like, oh no, I don't have to spend time with them.
How many of you will spend more? Online this year than you will in a physical store for Christmas. Put your hand up. All right, how about this variation? How many of you on Black Friday went on to buy something for somebody else and ended up buying a bunch of stuff for yourself?
Put your hands up. Yes, I am definitely in that group. Last one here: how many of you have a gift? How many of you have a gift that you are really, really excited about giving to somebody this Christmas? Put your hand up.
All right, well, Christmas is a time where we think about gifts, and the series that we're going to get into is called Hope Has a Name, and it is about God's Great Gift to Us. It comes from one of the most famous prophecies given about Jesus in the Bible. Isaiah chapter 9 is where it's found. If you have a Bible and you want to open it to Isaiah 9, that's where we're going to be for the next few weeks. Isaiah 9 is a prophecy written about Jesus more than seven centuries before Jesus was born.
Here is the prophecy. It actually begins back in chapter 7. You stay in chapter 9, but let me read you a verse or two from chapter 7. That'll Catch you up. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign, says Isaiah.
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you will call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. Chapter 9. The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light because of the birth of this child. You have multiplied our nation in giving us this child. You have increased its joy.
For the yoke of his burden, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken. Because here's how it was broken. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son was given. And the government shall be upon his shoulder.
And you will call his name wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, of the increase of his government, and of his peace there will be no end. And 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 first thing that I want you to realize about this prophecy is it was not first given at Christmastime. There was no Christmas to speak of. This was not a prophet.
Prophecy that came with the song Jingle Bells. This was a prophecy that was given into a very real, dire, and troublesome situation. The year was 730 BC, and King Ahaz, who was king over the southern kingdom of Israel, was very worried because Assyria was threatening to invade him, and he didn't know what to do. He didn't know what alliances to form or what political strategies to pursue.
So God sends the prophet Isaiah to him and says, Ahaz, do not worry. Don't worry about making alliances with other nations because God Himself will protect you.
Well, evidently, Isaiah could see that Ahaz is still worried. He's still got that look of worry on his face. And Isaiah says, To prove that God will protect you, I am going to give you a sign.
Now, you would think that Ahaz would be excited about getting a sign, right? I mean, if you came to me and you were worried about your future and I said, hey, God's going to take care of it all, let me give you a sign to prove it. I'm going to levitate. And I levitated six feet above your head. That would be very encouraging to you that, you know, God was giving you a sign that he was going to take care of you.
And cool for me. But so you'd think he'd be excited about a sign. But instead, Ahaz says, I don't want a sign. I don't want a sign, because evidently he understood that if God gave him a sign, then he would be obligated to obey whatever God said. And he wasn't a man who loved to walk with God.
And so he's like, I don't want to be obligated. And so Isaiah says, Oh, that's how you want to play it. You don't want to sign because then you'll be obligated to obey.
Well, okay, here's your sign. All right, Isaiah 7:14. Behold, the virgin will conceive and she will bear a son, and you will call his name Emmanuel.
Now, here's where it gets a little tricky. All right, hang with me. I need you to put your big boy prophecy pants on because this is a little difficult to understand. When you read Isaiah 7, 8, and 9, what you'll see. Is that there was a temporary or a partial fulfillment of this prophecy in Isaiah's day?
There was a son that was born that was a sign, and he's referred to in chapter 8. But as you're reading, you very quickly begin to understand that the child that is being talked about is more than this child. It's a future child as well, because the names that are attached to this child are names that are totally inappropriate for just a merely human child. Names like mighty God or everlasting father that you would never just say about another human being. There was a temporary fulfillment in Isaiah's day, but ultimately, you see, this prophecy would be fulfilled seven centuries later by Jesus.
Jesus was the son born of a virgin who would be the wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, and prince of peace. By the way, a lot of biblical prophecy works that way. There's an immediate fulfillment in the prophet's day and ultimate fulfillment in the future. I've heard it described like this before. If you Are you looking at a mountain range from a distance?
Some of the mountains may look like they are right there together. They may even look like they're one mountain. But if you were to go to them or look down on them from above, you would see that there's actually a large gap of space between them. From a distance, they look like one, but when you get close to them, you see that there's actually a space between them.
Well, a lot of prophecy works that way as well. There is a temporary fulfillment. It looks like one, but when you get over to it, you realize there's a temporary fulfillment and an ultimate fulfillment. Does that make sense? Because that's what's going on here.
Temporary fulfillment in Isaiah's day, ultimate fulfillment that takes place seven centuries later in the birth of Jesus.
Now, what you're asking at that point is: same question I have: how does a prophecy about the birth of a Messiah that's not going to come for 700 years ultimately answer the problem that Ahaz and Israel has in Isaiah chapter 9? Namely, that there is an army outside of Jerusalem that wants to destroy it. I mean, into a very real, dire, felt need situation. You don't get more felt need than an army that wants to come in and pulverize your city. And to that situation, God gives a promise about a Messiah that's not going to be here for 700 years.
Now, some people read stuff like this and they say, see, this is the problem with the Bible. The Bible doesn't address real people in real situations, it's all sentimentality and pie in the sky. I found that people will feel like this, especially at Christmastime. They're like, you know. I like all the quaint stories about Jesus and the manger and the shepherds and the sheep and peace on earth and goodwill toward men and blah, blah, blah.
But I'm in a real situation and I'm in a real problem. I don't have a job. My marriage is falling apart. I cannot get rid of this chronic pain. And while these quaint little stories about Jesus and the manger are heartwarming, they don't do anything practically for me.
I like the Hallmark movie version of life, but it's just not realistic. Is that you, by the way? Is that you this morning? Do you feel that way? Would it help you to turn to your neighbor right now and just say, I hate Christmas?
No, no, don't do that. But some of you feel that way, right? You feel like, I just feel like it's just quaint and I don't know how it actually deals with the problems that I am dealing with right now. Right?
Well, that was the same question that they would have been asking in Ahaz's day. We got a real army sitting out there that really wants to destroy us. What's the promise of a future Messiah do for us?
Well, the birth of Jesus is going to address their problem in two ways. These are really important. First, in sending Jesus, God was dealing with our problem at its roots. You see, our problem and their problem was much deeper than merely an enemy army that was arrayed against them. Our problem is deeper than health issues or relational conflicts or economic needs.
The root of all of our problems is separation from God. And all of our earthly problems ultimately stem back to that one.
Now, when I say that, I don't mean that whatever problem you're going through now is the punishment that God is giving you for some specific sin that you committed. I'm simply saying that if God were to take away all our problems without fixing the real problem, our separation from God, then ultimately we just create a bunch of new problems. In one of his writings, J.R.R. Tolkien. who is the author of The Lord of the Rings, said that evil is a shape-shifter.
It's like a shadow. He said, after you repel it, it's just going to change shape and grow again and come at you in a different way. For example, think about all the technological advances that we've had in the last few years. Think about how much different your phone is now than it was 10 years ago. 10 years ago, when I was in high school, we just had flip phones and that's how you dealt with things, right?
Now you got phones that can just look at your face and turn on because it recognizes the shape of your face. I would never want to go back to what we had 10 years ago. And in many ways, technology, smartphones have transformed our lives and made them better. In some ways, we're more secure now than we were then because I can literally go onto my bank account at any point and monitor what's going on. You can monitor your house and your security system.
You can lock doors, turn lights on and off so you're more secure. But on the other hand, we're now vulnerable to cyber attacks and identity theft. In many ways, I'm more connected now to my friends and my family than I'm ever been, right? But in other ways, I'm more disconnected from my family and friends than I've ever been because I'm sitting there with my family looking on Instagram, being envious of somebody else's family about the family time they're having while I ignore my own. In fact, if I were to ask You have phones been a net positive or net negative on those things?
You probably wouldn't know what to say.
Now, why is it that despite all of the technologically advanced movements that we've made, why is it despite all the improvements, have we still not ultimately achieved much better? It's because the source of darkness lies within our hearts, not in our lack of technology. Better technology cannot change the human heart. All better technology does is create new shapes for the shadow of darkness. Martin Luther said that the problem with the human heart is that it is curved in on itself.
Rather being open in love toward God and others, it is radically self-absorbed, sometimes so self-absorbed, it doesn't even know how self-absorbed it is. And from that self-absorption comes the entire spectrum of evil. Whether we're talking about the horrific crimes we see on the news or we're talking about our problems with our smartphones or the reasons for your broken marriage. Therefore, you see, sin, if it was going to be dealt with, problems had to be dealt with at the roots. And so God, in the midst of his offer to help Ahaz, promised a Messiah that would save us from our sins, not just deliver us from our enemies, and he would transform our hearts, not just get rid of those who were irritating us.
We cry out to be delivered from bad health. God wants to deliver us from the curse of death that causes bad health. We cry out to be delivered from injustice and broken relationships. God wants to deliver us from the sin and selfishness that breaks those relationships. We cry out.
For victory in battle, God promised a Messiah who would take away the hatred that drives us into battle.
Now you say, well, that's all well and good, but I wish he'd have gone ahead and just the first time he came, destroyed all evil as well. When people say that to me, I always want to say, really? You wish that the first time Jesus had come, he had destroyed all evil? Would any of you be sitting here at this point? Do you know your parents?
Do you know your parents' parents? If God had destroyed evil, do you really feel like you would be here? Or we say if God decided that he was going to wipe out all evil at 11 p.m. tonight, who is there listening to me that apart from Christ would be here at 11.01? Anybody?
And we talk about, you know, I want to go to heaven where there's no more tears and no more crying. Here's the problem: I think about how many people I have made cry in the last five years. If heaven is going to be a place of no more tears and crying, it's also going to be a place of no J.D. Greer. At least in JD we're in the shade that he's in now.
So, in order for God to take me to heaven, he had to take the capacity to make other people cry out of me.
So, I am glad that the first time Jesus came, he did not come to destroy all evil. He came to redeem me from evil and not just take me to heaven, but make me fit for heaven. Therefore, ultimate salvation could not come from a warrior who would ride in on a horse and defeat our problems. Ultimate salvation would come from a baby who would be born in a manger, who would live like us, live the life we were supposed to live, die the death we were condemned to die, and thereby release us from the curse of sin and break its power over our lives. That is the first way that this promise of the Messiah addresses their problem.
But there is a second way. The second way that this promise spoke to their situation, get this, is in the four relational names. That this Messiah would then make God to us. Four relational names that would change how we relate to God. There are four of them, and we're going to go through them over the next few weeks.
We're only going to focus on one today, and it's the very first one in the list. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor.
Now, in Hebrew, that's two words. In some of your English translations, there's a comma there, but scholars say it really shouldn't be there because it's one name, wonderful counselor. In Hebrew, it is the name Pele Yawetz. Pele Yawetz. Pele means wonderful.
It really means too wonderful for words. Isaiah is telling us that when this Messiah comes, he will be beyond our words to describe him. He is wonderful, he is glorious, magnificent, awesome, awesomer than all the words we use to say awesome. He is Pele. Yaoetz.
Yaoetz translates as counselor, and it means one who advises us or instructs us or guides us through problems. But, and here is the key, he does so from a position of authority. Think King Solomon. The word counselor is used of him in the Old Testament. People brought their problems to Solomon, and Solomon had the wisdom to understand the solution and the power to enact the solution.
Don't think of counselor as the kind of person you call up late at night and pour out your heart to, and they're like, Oh, yeah, I bet that hurt. Oh, that stinks. Oh, I hate her too. Not that kind of counselor. We're talking about somebody to whom you can bring your worst problems and they can show you a way out.
One day, Isaiah says, A son will be born, a child will be given to you, and his name will be Pele Yao Etz. He will be the wonderful counselor. The writer of Hebrews picks up on this idea and explains to us why it is that Jesus can be the wonderful counselor. Here's how he explains it. He's thinking about this concept, by the way.
Here's what he says: We don't have a high priest. who was unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. A high priest was a counselor.
Somebody that represented you to God, somebody that would help guide you. We don't have one who's able to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted like we are, yet without sin. Let us then come with confidence to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. In other words, the writer of Hebrews is saying: Jesus was not just a sovereign king who would rule over us, he is a brother who would live among us. And walk through everything that we have walked through, and there is nothing that we can ever experience that he has not also experienced, which means that he can be a reliable guide to us in even the worst kinds of pain and the worst kinds of situations.
You know, when you walk through the Christmas story over the next few weeks, one of the things that I hope that you will notice and not sentimentalize, it's really difficult to break free of this in our culture, but you should not sentimentalize how poor Jesus was when he was born. He was born into the worst kind of poverty. The Jews, as a people, were very poor and oppressed. But Mary and Joseph, Jesus' parents, seemed to be poor, even for Jews. Here's a few indicators of that: Jesus was born in a stable.
Which means that his stepdaddy, Joseph, was so poor that he couldn't even afford a hotel room on the night that his wife was gonna give birth. And I know we've got our cute little manger scenes, and it looks so quaint and precious with the animals, but I can assure you, there was nothing sentimental about that first night. No woman wants to give birth to her first baby in the cold. Amidst the wonderful smell of cows and animals, it did not smell like cinnamon and nutmeg at that manger. If you want it to be authentic, take some of your dog's poo-poo and rub it in the manger scene, and that'll make it a little bit more authentic.
Here's a second clue. Eight days after Jesus was born, they offered a sacrifice, which was required at the birth of a firstborn son. The requirement was a lamb. Mary and Joseph offered a pigeon and a dove, which was a provision in the law for the poorest of the poor. Get this.
Jesus was so poor that his family could not fulfill the law requirements that he himself had given to Israel before. I mean, he was the poorest of the poor, and he was laying down at his birth a pattern he would repeat for the rest of his life. He was born in a manger, he would die on a cross. At his birth, the innkeeper said, no room. At his death, the crowd said, crucify him.
At his birth, he'd be wrapped in rags. At his death, he'll be stripped naked in shame. At his birth, he was ignored by the world. At his death, he'd be rejected by his father. Why?
Why all this poverty and condemnation and rejection? It's because he was bearing the rejection and the poverty that you and I deserved.
So that when I come to him with my problems, I can do so with confidence, knowing that God will not judge me or condemn me because Jesus was judged and condemned in my place. Isaiah said, Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him smitten by God and afflicted, but in actuality, he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for my iniquities. The price for my peace was put upon him.
So by his stripes, I can be healed. And when I come to him, I don't get the poverty and judgment that my sin deserves. I get the riches of blessing and the blessings of fellowship and sonship that his grace has given to me because my condemnation was given to him. James, the writer of the book of James, shows us what that looks like practically when you're asking for something like wisdom. You need wisdom to know how to get out of a problem.
This is so awesome. Look at this. If any of you lack wisdom, Let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him. My favorite words in this verse is the words without reproach. Without reproach means without rebuking.
Without judgment. Let me tell you why I love those words. Because usually, when I ask God for wisdom, I think I know it's because I'm usually in a place where I've gotten myself to a place where I need wisdom out of my own stupidity and sinfulness. Right?
And so I just know that when I'm asking God for wisdom, I can just feel it's like God in heaven kind of shaking his head, going, really?
Now you want my wisdom?
Now you want my help? Really? It's like I could feel him getting the angels together, going, y'all, look. It's greer again. And look at the royal mess he's made of his life this time.
Look at what's going on in his marriage that he caused. Look at what's going on. Look how he's hurt these people. And now he has the audacity to come and ask us for help. Without reproach means God never does that.
You want to know why? because the reproach for my sin that I deserve got put on Jesus. And so when I come to Jesus, I don't get the reproach I deserve. I get the wisdom that Jesus earned for me. That wisdom that I'm asking for is not wisdom that I deserve.
It's a wisdom that Jesus Christ purchased and He gave to me so I can come and get His wisdom because He took upon Himself my foolishness. Yeah. Wanted to take a quick break here to sing the praises of a very special group of people, our gospel partners. This team gives so generously and faithfully to Summit Life each and every month. It's no exaggeration to say that they are the financial fuel behind everything we do, including this podcast.
We call them gospel partners because that's exactly what they do. They are partnering alongside us to help make the gospel known around the globe. And this month, your donation actually becomes another gift. Instead of receiving a book or other resource from us, your support will send a Bible to someone behind bars. Through partnerships with 11 correctional facilities, we are delivering God's word to those who need it most.
Give the gift of hope this Christmas by supporting this ministry today. We couldn't exist without our gospel partners. To join with us, visit us online at jdgreer.com.
So that verse in Hebrews says, We come knowing that he has taken away our sin. Here's the other thing about it: it says that we come because he can sympathize. You see, I know that there is literally nothing that I ever go through: no poverty, no rejection, no pain, no condemnation, that he himself has not felt the sting of that. And now he can guide me through it because he's walked that same path. A couple of months ago, I was over in Eastern Europe visiting some of our church planners.
I had across the border into one of the former Soviet republics. And you know that customer service and the Soviet republics are not really that high of a premium, and they don't make it easy for you to cross the border. And if you're an American, it makes you kind of nervous because here I am with just my passport and a winning smile. That's all that I have. And I'm very nervous because there's guys with AK-47s all around there.
And, you know, I'm just standing there. But my friend, our church planner over there, has done this literally hundreds of times. And I would just look at him and I would just get the sense of confidence because he's like, don't worry about it. I got it. He would tell me where to go, who to talk to, who to slip money to.
He would tell me, you know, don't make eye contact with this guy just a whole bit because he has walked that path before. Jesus is saying that there is no path of pain. There is no pain that goes with loneliness. No pain that goes with temptation that I have not endured. And so I can reliably show you the way through that.
Aren't you glad that when you pray, you're not praying to a God who simply rules over pain? You're praying to a God who has walked through pain and who sympathizes and understands. Understands and says, I can guide you through this. He is the wonderful counselor.
Some of you right now, if you were honest, you would say, I'm in a real time of need. The good news is that there is somebody here to help. He is the Pele Yaoetz, he is the most wonderful counselor. You see, what I love about that name, wonderful counselor, is this. It means that Jesus came for people with problems.
Problems. Many of you have a lot of problems. In fact, can I give you a brilliant insight I've had into the Gospels? You ready? This is going to blow you away.
I'm being facetious. Every one of the miracles that Jesus did, you know what they all had in common? You ready? This is deep. Every one of the miracles that Jesus did all started with A problem.
Not one of the miracles that I can find did Jesus like just do a magic trick. You know, like, hey, let me prove that I'm the Messiah and turn Peter into a gopher and send him flying around the Sea of Galilee. That would have been awesome. But that's not what Jesus did. He started with a problem, a problem like hunger, a problem like disease, or a problem like death.
And Jesus entered into that problem and he used his miraculous power to transform it. You know what the good news in that is? It means if you walked in here this morning with a problem, you. are a candidate for a miracle.
Now, the flip side of that is also true. You ain't got no problems this morning. You ain't getting no miracles. No problem, no miracle. No miracles, no problem.
It's just, this is the way it works. In fact, some of you came in, you're just carefree this morning. You got a smile on your face. You drove in your nice car and you smile and a gleam popped out of your teeth and you're just like awesome and it's just awesome. And you just bless you, brother.
And you ain't got no problems. At the end of this service, you need to come up here and one of our trained professional prayer counselors will lay their hands on you and pray in faith that God will give you a bunch of problems before you get home. Because if you have problems, and you could experience the miraculous power of Jesus, Jesus came for people with problems. He came for people whose lives were dysfunctional and messed up, who had gotten their lives in a bad way. He said, I didn't come for the righteous, I came for the unhealthy and the sinner and the sick.
I'm the great physician, not the great rewarder. I came for people as the wonderful counselor. And so, if you got problems, that name is given specifically for you. And because I know that I'm dealing with a lot of people who got a lot of problems. Let me give you the three kinds of ground rules that Jesus gives us for how we are supposed to approach the wonderful counselor.
We're going to get these just by watching him interact with people in the gospels. Here they are. Number one. Number one, you got problems, you've got to be completely honest with him. If you want help with your problems from the wonderful counselor, you got to be completely honest with him.
Every counselor I know will tell you that until you are completely honest about your problems, you can't really get help with them. You see, there's a tendency to want to keep the real truth about our problems concealed, even from the counselor. And maybe that's because you feel shame admitting the full extent of the issue. Maybe you don't even like to acknowledge it to yourself. But until you're fully open and honest about the problem, you cannot get help.
Here's why that's true. Getting help from Jesus is not like taking your dirty car to the car wash and throwing the keys to a kid and saying, hey, clean her up, and you go run some errands and come back in 30 minutes. Getting help from Jesus with your problems is where he walks you through how you were supposed to change them. You've got to be very active in the details of the change. And so if you're not honest about the details of the problem, you can't really fix them.
until you acknowledge that your marriage has a cancer in it. You're not really going to be able to get help from him because you're never going to deal with the right issue. The problem is not your spouse's annoying attitude. The problem is not their selfishness. There's a problem in you that you've got to deal with.
And until you're honest about these things, you're never going to get his help. For example, I knew a guy one time. He was seeing a counselor because he was really stressed out at work and his relationships at home were strained. He was having trouble sleeping. His health was suffering.
He was a very driven man. And so he would just work all the time. And he would tell his counselor asking these probing questions. And he would say things like, well, yeah, but you know, it's just what my job requires. And if I don't put this time in, I'll never be able to get ahead.
And I'm doing it for my family. And this is my work is really important and it affects other people's lives. And the counselor finally interrupted him and said, you got to stop saying all that and stop making excuses and just admit to yourself that you are an addict. Other people are addicted to drugs and to pornography, but you're addicted to the pride that comes from success. You're addicted to adrenaline.
You're addicted to the praise of other people. And until you acknowledge that you are a genuine addict, you're never really going to change because you're willing to sacrifice whatever you need to to get those things. You'll sacrifice your family, your health, your integrity, you'll sacrifice whatever to get to this level of success. And until you admit that about yourself, you're never gonna change. You've gotta be honest.
God is not going to change your circumstances without changing you. Of course, our fear in being honest with Him is that when the full extent of our problems is revealed. The question we ask is what if God and everybody else just walks away from us? What if they really see how messed up we are? What if they see it?
What if we put it on display and then they see the ugly truth? Are they just going to walk away?
Well see, that's where you're just going to have to trust the promises of the wonderful counselor. Jesus was once talking with a woman, John chapter 4, who was really messed up. She'd had a string of broken marriages, five to be exact. And she was in the midst when Jesus was talking to her. She was in the midst of an adulterous relationship, and she was deeply unhappy.
Well, she kept trying to hide all that from Jesus because surely she thought if he found all that out about her, he'd walk away.
So she, you know, she let him know that she was unhappy, but she wouldn't reveal the full extent of the problem. And finally, John chapter 4, Jesus interrupts her and says, Look, I know, I know you've had five husbands. And I know the guy you're living with now is not your husband. And I know you're still really unhappy. I knew that when I started this conversation, and I chose to pursue you anyway.
You need to understand that Jesus knows everything about you, and the fact that you're here this morning is not accidental. He knew how messed up you were when he started to pursue you, and he said, I came for you because you were messed up. It kind of reminds me of what my um One of my daughters, Allie, said, We were having a discussion around the dinner table about grace. And I was trying to show them what grace meant in the Christian life. And Allie says, Hey, because we were also at the time as a family watching that show, The Boyce.
You know, the voice where you got the judges and you got the people that sing, and if they like you, they hit the button, and the chair flips around and says, I want you. You know what I'm talking about? It says, I want you on it. And now he said, Dad, it's like this. She goes, grace is like God hits his button and swings his chair around and says, I want you before we even start singing.
I said, absolutely. God knew how awful my voice was and didn't even want to hear me sing.
So God just hit that thing and he spun around and said, I want you to sing because I'm going to put a new beautiful voice in you, and it's going to be beautiful. And I'm going to do it as a testimony to my glory and not your ability. God wants to transform your life. He knows about the problems. He knew about it before he started the conversation.
There is nothing about you that is going to be revealed that will surprise him. There is nothing about you that will be revealed that his blood has not already covered. Nothing painful about you that he cannot transform with the power of resurrection.
So it is time for you to start getting the miraculous change help from him. and to quit line. Number two. Number two, you gotta want to change. You got to want to be healed.
In John chapter 5, Jesus comes upon a lame man. Right after the story that we just looked at in John 4, Jesus comes on a lame man who's been paralyzed for 38 years. And he asked him what is many people think is the most bizarre question in all the Gospels. He asked a guy who's been lame for 38 years, do you really want to be healed? And that question puzzles Bible students because they're like, well, of course he wants to be healed.
Who doesn't want to be healed after 38 years? But here's what Jesus was getting at. While many people want to experience the benefits of healing, they don't want to go through the painful choices that must accompany healing. In other words, we want God to clean up the mess of our lives without dealing with the choices and the patterns that got us into that mess in the first place. In fact, we often have mixed feelings about the changes that we're asking God to make in our lives.
We like the concept of change. but we're not really sure we want to do the hard work of change. I think of St. Augustine who prayed, God, give me purity. Just don't give it to me now.
Give it to me later. Give it to me one day. I like the idea of change, but I'm not sure I really want to go through what's necessary in order to actually be changed. Here is my question. Do you really want God to change your life?
Do you really want God to form you into the person He wants you to be? Do you want Him to transform your family? Really? Because if so, it's going to require some things that you're going to have to deal with. Let me tell you, listen, Jesus can heal you.
He can. He can heal you where you are this morning. Do you really want him to? Because that leads me to number three. You got to do whatever he says.
You got to do whatever he says. As I read the gospels, one of the things that stands out is how often Jesus asked people to do truly crazy things when they wanted healing. Right?
I mean, John, again, John chapter 9, John seems to be fixated on this question of how you get healing from Jesus. You got a blind man who wants to be healed by Jesus. And so Jesus comes up to the blind man, and what does Jesus do?
Well, I would expect him to touch the eyes, you know, be healed, you know, say something. No, what he does is he spits on the ground. Makes mud pies like a seventh grader, takes mud paste and wipes it on the blind guy's eyes. Y'all, in any other context, this would be deeply insulting. And then he tells this guy to walk not down the street.
Across town. To a pool named Siloam, and there to wash his spit off of his eyes, and then he'll be healed. Why? Why not just snap the fingers? Or Peter has a financial need.
And so he comes to Jesus and says, hey, I got a financial need. And Jesus said, go down to the lake. Catch a fish. Open its mouth, there'll be a gold coin in the mouth. The gold coin will be exactly the amount that you need for the financial need.
That's pretty awesome. Why not just pull it out of his pocket? Why not just create it out of thin air? There's only one explanation that I can come up with for why Jesus had people do all these crazy things. Jesus is demonstrating to us that sometimes obedience is not going to make sense to us.
He is trying to demonstrate to you That quite often obedience is not going to make sense to you.
So he tells you to extend the forgiveness. And you're like, but if I don't, if I extend the forgiveness, who's going to take care of me? Who's going to avenge me? He tells you to end the relationship, but you think if I end the relationship, I'm going to be all alone. He tells you to give sacrificially, but you say, well, if I give sacrificially, how am I going to afford it?
He tells you to make the move, but you're very comfortable where you are. And in that moment, you have to decide: do you really trust Jesus enough to do whatever he says? You see, here's a question I often feel confronted by when I come to God to ask for help: Do I really trust that God can handle this? James 1, where it talks about asking for wisdom, there's a stipulation that's given. This is so free and easy, but there's a stipulation.
But let him ask in faith with no doubting. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that's driven and tossed by the wind. That person should not suppose that he will receive anything at all from God. The Lord. Why that stipulation?
That stipulation is there because let me just tell you what it means. What it means is that you have got to be pre-surrendered to do whatever Jesus tells you to do before you even ask the question, or he's never going to give you the answer.
Some of you want the answer, and then you'll consider whether or not you'll do it. And God says, I won't give wisdom that way. You've got to lay your yes on the table and be ready to do whatever I say before you ask the question, or you're never getting an answer. In fact, if you're writing stuff down, write it down that way. In order to get help from the wonderful counselor, you got to put your yes on the table before you even ask the question.
Otherwise, let not that person think he will receive anything from the Lord. Y'all, this is very difficult. Because there is no other area of your life where I would ever encourage you to operate this way. I would never say, oh, yeah, sign the contract, read the terms later. Oh yeah, pass the bill, then we'll read what's in it.
That's just a terrible idea. You would never tell somebody to do that, but in this one area, God says that is the only rule. You have to pre-surrender, and if you don't pre-surrender, I'll never give you the answer. Around here, we often compare it to giving God a blank check. In the days when we used checks back in the dark ages, you would fill out this check and you would sometimes leave it blank if you were giving it to a friend and they were going to buy something for you because you didn't know how much money you needed to give them.
The danger in it was they could literally clean out your entire bank account by writing in whatever amount they wanted to. When we come to God, we've got to give him a blank check that says, I don't know what you're going to ask, but the answer is yes. I've told you what we prefer to give to God is a gift card. When I give a friend a gift card, if the gift card's for $100, when they spend it that $100, I got no more obligation to them. We want to give God a really generous gift card, and God says, I don't take gift cards, I take blank checks, or I don't take anything at all.
Are you ready to lay down all your prerogative to choose and say, Jesus, I'm ready to follow you anywhere because that moment is your moment of truth? I'll give you one more story really quickly on this. The Gospel of Matthew describes a rich young ruler who came to Jesus seeking the way of salvation. And Jesus said something to him that was basically a blank check, and it sounded crazy to him. Jesus said, go and sell everything you have.
And come and follow me. And the guy just couldn't do it. It was just too crazy. It was too risky. And so he walks away.
And as far as we know, He never came back. He never got eternal life. The text tells us that Jesus loved him. Jesus wanted this guy to have eternal life, but he wouldn't lay it all down to follow Jesus. We have people here.
who are very interested in Jesus. who you really want Jesus to help you out with something. You've got a situation in your marriage, your family, your life. You want eternal life? But there is some conviction, some opinion, you won't let Jesus change?
Like, I don't care what Jesus or the Bible says about that. I ain't changing that because that's just what I believe. Or you got some area of your life that you will not let him touch, some area that is off limits that you will not let him control. Let me tell you as humbly but as directly as I can, you will never experience the help of the wonderful counselor. The only deal that Jesus makes is he will give you all of himself.
He will give you all of heaven, all of God. But he'll do it in response to full surrender of you. Those are the three questions that are being asked of you as you approach the wonderful counselor. Are you willing and ready to be completely honest with him? Do you really want to be healed?
And are you ready to do whatever he says? Let me close this weekend with one kind of final thought. It might be the most important thing I think about this name. is understanding what wonderful really applies to. Wonderful is not the name that Isaiah gave to the solutions that the counselor gives us.
Wonderful is the name that Isaiah gives to the counselor himself. And let me tell you why that is really important. Because sometimes the way that God helps us in our problems. is simply by allowing us to see how wonderful he is. He doesn't take away our problem sometimes, but he reveals to us.
His wonderful promise that He is weaving all things together for good in our lives in His wonderful way, and that His wonderful presence will never leave us, even in the worst days of our suffering. And that wonderful presence is more valuable than any solution to our problems. You see, a lot of times people come into church wondering if God can make their lives better. And maybe that is you this morning.
Something's happened in your life that's driven you to come back to church. And you're here this weekend wondering, you're like, well, can God help my family? Can God fix my struggling marriage? Can a relationship with God help focus my career? Can it help me restore balance?
Can it make me happy? Yes, he can do all those things. But see, asking that is a little bit like the little kid who says to the scientist, hey, if that nuclear bomb goes off next to me, will I get hot? You're like, yeah, you'll get hot, but if a nuclear bomb goes off next to you, your personal temperature becomes rather irrelevant. You see, when you come to know God, Yes, he can help you with your problems, but he gives you something far greater than the answers to those problems.
He gives you himself. Life's greatest discovery is knowing him, knowing he loves you, knowing his promise to be ever-present in your life, knowing that he promises to work all things out according to a plan that is bathed in love and executed in power. That is what is too wonderful for words. That doesn't take away all your problems. But see, it does completely change how you go through them.
Y'all, I may not be wealthy, but in Christ, I have a promise that I will always be taken care of because I'm a beloved son of God and I have an eternal heritage that can never be taken away. That Paul says, I has not seen or ear heard or even entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for me. I may not get immediate victory over every temptation in my life, but in Christ, I have the righteousness of God to my account, and I have the promise that one day I'm going to be as pure as Jesus himself is. Paul says, in Christ, I may be hard pressed on every side, but I'm never crushed. I may be perplexed, but I'm never in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed.
In Christ, I can live every day with the assurance that the wonderful counselor is my shepherd. Therefore, I shall not want. He will lead me beside still waters. The wonderful counselor makes me lie down in green pastures. The wonderful counselor restores my soul.
Yes, even when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I don't have to be afraid of evil because the wonderful counselor stands with me. His rod and his wonderful staff, they overshadow me. My cup runs over. Surely, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life because the wonderful counselor will never leave or forsake me. And I will dwell in his house, the house of the wonderful counselor forever.
And he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And that is what is wonderful. Here's a question: Do you know the wonderful counselor? You came in for looking for a solution and God's got something better for you. It's a relationship with Him, the wonderful counselor.
Thank you for joining us today. You know, year-end giving is critical for ministries like Summit Life. But this December, your gift serves two purposes. First, it of course helps Summit Life finish the year strong and plan ahead for 2026. But second, and maybe more importantly, your gift will put a Bible into the hands of someone in prison, someone longing for redemption.
We've partnered with 11 correctional facilities to share God's word with people who desperately need it this Christmas season.
So instead of receiving a new resource this month, your donation becomes the resource. Help us start a gospel ripple effect behind bars while launching a strong start to this ministry in 2026, visit jdgreer.com. We'll see you next time.
