WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.919 Okay, I'd like to go back to that passage this morning for our sermon. 00:00:05.919 --> 00:00:10.480 And we're going to start today, well really, Alistair started it for us last week, last 00:00:10.480 --> 00:00:15.720 Sunday evening, when his theme was the Advents of the King. 00:00:15.720 --> 00:00:20.559 So our theme is really an advent theme over the next few Sunday mornings, and also our 00:00:20.559 --> 00:00:23.199 Carol service, which is next Sunday evening. 00:00:23.199 --> 00:00:29.039 And in many ways, well, the title of the series, which is very short, is Forgotten King, 00:00:29.039 --> 00:00:30.599 question mark. 00:00:30.599 --> 00:00:37.640 And today we're looking at King of Peace, so Jesus as a King of Peace. 00:00:37.640 --> 00:00:43.320 And I hope that that will tie in well with the baptism also later on in the service. 00:00:43.320 --> 00:00:48.879 So the Bible is all about big stories, really. 00:00:48.879 --> 00:00:54.039 It's huge stories that we have in the Bible. 00:00:54.039 --> 00:01:01.679 But sometimes people call today the meta-narrative of life, that there is something beyond just 00:01:01.679 --> 00:01:06.000 our own living and our own particular individual lives. 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:11.960 So there is a big story, and the Bible is really good and is really significant in the 00:01:11.960 --> 00:01:18.159 thread of one big story that it has. 00:01:18.159 --> 00:01:25.159 I think that's interesting for us because the society in which we live in today, which 00:01:25.159 --> 00:01:29.599 is pretty much secularist in its thinking and its philosophy, it struggles with that. 00:01:29.599 --> 00:01:37.239 It struggles with the idea of a big picture, of a big story, of something significant that 00:01:37.239 --> 00:01:45.479 oversees all of life, because ultimately there's nothing out there in a secularist's viewpoint 00:01:45.479 --> 00:01:46.819 of the world. 00:01:46.819 --> 00:01:54.119 We are isolated ultimately in an impersonal universe, so that the challenge moves from 00:01:54.119 --> 00:02:01.519 this big story and this greater reason for living to your individual story, and your 00:02:01.519 --> 00:02:04.679 individual story being the only one that really matters. 00:02:04.679 --> 00:02:06.639 That's the only one that has significance. 00:02:06.639 --> 00:02:11.639 I'm going to say a little bit more about that tonight, in a sense. 00:02:11.639 --> 00:02:21.519 But the whole concept therefore of community and of society is, in many ways, a best pragmatic. 00:02:21.519 --> 00:02:29.219 It is what we can use and what we can adopt in order to help me as an individual to make 00:02:29.219 --> 00:02:33.039 my survival better. 00:02:33.039 --> 00:02:37.839 But even then, I think there can be a struggle to ascribe ultimate meaning both to community 00:02:37.840 --> 00:02:44.560 and to society and to the individual story of our lives. 00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:54.000 It's living simply for the sake of living, and that is often our conclusion. 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:58.080 And for many, that has become, particularly those who think deeply about these matters, 00:02:58.080 --> 00:03:05.680 a council of despair, as Western society and culture chooses to reject, really for the 00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:14.840 first time in history, any concept of a big picture, any overriding purpose or meaning, 00:03:14.840 --> 00:03:22.920 or even a higher power or God, or however you would understand that, then things have 00:03:22.920 --> 00:03:25.400 changed radically. 00:03:25.400 --> 00:03:31.719 And there is a fear among many that we will descend into a pre-modern survival of the 00:03:31.719 --> 00:03:36.000 fittest, that that is all that's left for us. 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:40.719 There's no big picture, there's no absolute truth, there's no ultimate reality, there's 00:03:40.719 --> 00:03:46.960 no one outside ourselves to bring light, to bring wisdom or to bring hope, no real answer 00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:56.000 to our longing for purpose and meaning, no meta-narrative, no big picture, which makes 00:03:56.000 --> 00:04:00.560 for a council of despair, if we follow it through to its logical conclusion. 00:04:00.560 --> 00:04:05.879 Isaiah in the Old Testament was a prophet, and Isaiah was a prophet who was writing 00:04:05.879 --> 00:04:13.000 into not the same kind of despair or the same kind of darkness, because there was this overriding 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:18.560 belief in a God, whether it was a God who was for you or against you, but he was writing 00:04:18.560 --> 00:04:25.399 in a period of despair and darkness, and in chapter A of Isaiah, there's a whole lot 00:04:25.399 --> 00:04:30.319 of reference to the darkness of the people to whom he was writing, the despair and the 00:04:30.319 --> 00:04:32.319 destruction that they were facing. 00:04:32.319 --> 00:04:37.120 He was a prophet of his own people, God's people in the Old Testament, the people, the 00:04:37.120 --> 00:04:42.120 Jewish people who were chosen by God, but who had rebelled and turned against God and 00:04:42.120 --> 00:04:51.560 rejected him and who worshiped idols of the countries around them. 00:04:51.560 --> 00:04:57.159 And because of that, they came under God's judgment, and he is bringing this message 00:04:57.160 --> 00:05:02.320 in a period of real darkness and despair, not only a message that explains what's happening 00:05:02.320 --> 00:05:07.480 to them, but also to give them a great sense of hope, that the oppressing, conquering nations 00:05:07.480 --> 00:05:10.160 around them aren't the final word. 00:05:10.160 --> 00:05:13.960 It's not really the end of the story, but there is hope for them. 00:05:13.960 --> 00:05:17.960 There is a remnant, if they will come back to the Lord, there is great hope and a great 00:05:17.960 --> 00:05:22.360 future for them, a message of repentance and hope. 00:05:22.360 --> 00:05:27.759 And he speaks in the passage that Mary read, he speaks of, for the people who are walking 00:05:27.759 --> 00:05:33.400 in darkness have seen a great light, and those who dwell in the land of deep darkness on 00:05:33.400 --> 00:05:36.000 them a light has shone. 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:42.360 And he speaks about this important peace and this important light that he will reveal to 00:05:42.360 --> 00:05:45.280 them and it will be the means of their rescue. 00:05:45.279 --> 00:05:53.439 And ultimately, it's the core of the big message of the meta-narrative of Scripture. 00:05:53.439 --> 00:06:00.079 Right through the Old Testament, hundreds of years before Jesus, we have God revealing 00:06:00.079 --> 00:06:07.679 the fact that He will send, He will give, He will gift a Savior to the world, and that 00:06:07.679 --> 00:06:13.119 is the message of the advent, the message that we speak about, the coming of Jesus Christ 00:06:13.120 --> 00:06:18.079 into the world which we remember at this time of year. 00:06:18.079 --> 00:06:25.199 And as they return to God, they would recognize that what they've experienced is to point 00:06:25.199 --> 00:06:33.439 them to this bigger story, to this powerful meta-narrative, this big picture of the Bible. 00:06:33.439 --> 00:06:38.959 This one central message for the Jewish people, for the Gentile people of which we're a part, 00:06:38.959 --> 00:06:45.560 those are not Jews, for ancient people, for pre-modern people, for post-modern people, 00:06:45.560 --> 00:06:55.079 for all humanity, there is this message of the coming Savior then who, as we know, has 00:06:55.079 --> 00:06:57.759 come in the person of Jesus Christ. 00:06:57.759 --> 00:07:03.839 So clearly Isaiah has given this message hundreds of years before it happened of the Messiah 00:07:03.839 --> 00:07:15.919 of Jesus, one that is often read at this time of year and referred to as this great prediction 00:07:15.919 --> 00:07:22.399 and prophecy of Jesus Christ for verse 6, to us a child is born, to us a son is given, 00:07:22.399 --> 00:07:26.399 and the government will be in his shoulders, his name shall be called wonderful counselor, 00:07:26.399 --> 00:07:31.359 mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, the increase of his government and 00:07:31.360 --> 00:07:34.960 of peace there will be no end. 00:07:34.960 --> 00:07:41.520 And that speaking into the coming of Jesus Christ, unto us a child is born, the coming 00:07:41.520 --> 00:07:46.160 of Jesus Christ into the world, the birth of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of this 00:07:46.160 --> 00:07:52.280 prophecy, is the light that shines in the gloom and the darkness of the spiritually lost 00:07:52.280 --> 00:07:59.560 and broken world into which Isaiah wrote and into which we are all living also. 00:07:59.560 --> 00:08:05.040 And it's there for a time of great celebration, you know when a child is born? 00:08:05.040 --> 00:08:06.040 Great celebration. 00:08:06.040 --> 00:08:14.759 It's a great time of joy, a new life in the world, amazing life, amazing uniqueness that 00:08:14.759 --> 00:08:22.879 each of you when you were born, amazing uniqueness, amazing character, nobody else like you, fruit 00:08:22.879 --> 00:08:30.040 of your parents, this great celebration and we celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ. 00:08:30.040 --> 00:08:36.639 In our worship today, in our lives as believers, the story of grace which we're going to shortly 00:08:36.639 --> 00:08:44.000 hear when she's going to be baptized and testifies to the joy of coming to know Jesus, this Jesus 00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:51.879 Christ transforming her own life, but this Creator, Savior and Lord and who gives our 00:08:51.879 --> 00:08:55.000 lives as we worship on the Lord's days, we worship on the first day of the eight, this 00:08:55.000 --> 00:09:00.840 realignment, this rebirth and discovery of the real purpose of our lives. 00:09:00.840 --> 00:09:02.600 Unto us a child is born. 00:09:02.600 --> 00:09:07.279 So we take great comfort this morning when we look at a passage that was written, 700 00:09:07.279 --> 00:09:11.919 or so years before Jesus, that Jesus was always part of God's plan. 00:09:11.919 --> 00:09:13.279 He was always part of the plan. 00:09:13.279 --> 00:09:20.440 The Messiah, the Savior was always the redeemer of fallen humanity, rescuing people from death 00:09:20.440 --> 00:09:26.520 and separation from God as a result of a rejection of Him. 00:09:26.520 --> 00:09:34.800 And sin in a broader context as it does here in this very particular context for the people 00:09:34.800 --> 00:09:43.160 of God in the Old Testament, sin for us, it leaves us in darkness, maybe not immediately, 00:09:43.160 --> 00:09:48.840 but there is a gloom, there's a darkness that comes over us when we have turned our back 00:09:48.840 --> 00:09:51.960 on the living God who created us and who loved it. 00:09:51.960 --> 00:10:00.160 A kind of gloom, a mistrust, a selfishness, a confusion about whose rights prevail in 00:10:00.160 --> 00:10:07.920 the life and the clamour about how we are going to give ourselves meaning and purpose 00:10:07.920 --> 00:10:15.080 and how we will find salvation in life itself. 00:10:15.080 --> 00:10:19.560 How is it that we find a meaning and a direction and a purpose in life? 00:10:19.560 --> 00:10:21.800 Is it through our personal identity and our choice? 00:10:21.800 --> 00:10:27.620 Is it through political activism, environmentalism, lifestyle change, the chaos of a million 00:10:27.620 --> 00:10:30.120 voices in our lives? 00:10:30.120 --> 00:10:36.280 When we see the hints of beauty and creativity and love, we are aching for something that 00:10:36.280 --> 00:10:41.440 it points to, something of which they're only an echo, something beyond ourselves, and we 00:10:41.440 --> 00:10:46.400 find that and we see it and we know it and we experience it, and we are renewed when 00:10:46.400 --> 00:10:51.760 we come to Jesus Christ because we find, it's like we click together. 00:10:51.760 --> 00:10:59.000 We realise for whom we've been born and who made us and who loves us and who redeems us. 00:10:59.000 --> 00:11:04.440 Jesus Christ was always part of the plan and God has always been the answer. 00:11:04.440 --> 00:11:09.040 God's always the answer to us as we've found out in our own lives as He deals and as He 00:11:09.039 --> 00:11:15.839 reveals Himself in community here through the Word and the giving of His Son. 00:11:15.839 --> 00:11:20.279 For unto us a child is born, to us a Son is given. 00:11:20.279 --> 00:11:22.599 God gives His Son. 00:11:22.599 --> 00:11:26.000 King Jesus needed to be born. 00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:32.679 See a little bit more about who He is, but the eternal God, the Son of God needed to 00:11:32.679 --> 00:11:35.559 be born as a human being. 00:11:35.559 --> 00:11:40.679 He needed to come into our life, into our existence, into our chaos. 00:11:40.679 --> 00:11:47.519 The child who needed to become a man like no other because He is God the Son. 00:11:47.519 --> 00:11:51.799 This Christ was born into this world. 00:11:51.799 --> 00:11:57.919 The answer to our need for belonging, for love, for purpose was never going to be in 00:11:57.919 --> 00:11:59.919 self-help. 00:11:59.919 --> 00:12:05.959 It was never going to be in just working things out, doing our best. 00:12:05.959 --> 00:12:12.599 And separation from life and love and God has always been beyond our capability to put 00:12:12.599 --> 00:12:13.599 right. 00:12:13.599 --> 00:12:21.479 But Christianity stands absolutely alone in not demanding that we seek to reach up to 00:12:21.479 --> 00:12:28.159 God somehow by our own efforts, by our own trial and error. 00:12:28.159 --> 00:12:35.919 But rather that God reaches down into our experience and into our need to rescue us. 00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:40.279 He speaks in verse 4 about a yoke of His burning and the staff is showed as the rod of the 00:12:40.279 --> 00:12:41.279 oppressor. 00:12:41.279 --> 00:12:43.399 You have broken it as in the day of Midian. 00:12:43.399 --> 00:12:49.759 These are Old Testament references to the way God had miraculously saved his own people 00:12:49.759 --> 00:12:55.039 at different times, from Egypt, from the rod of oppression and from slavery, where they 00:12:55.039 --> 00:12:59.120 were miraculously redeemed not by their own strength but by His. 00:12:59.120 --> 00:13:03.679 And in the days of Midian which speaks about Gideon, and the way Gideon miraculously was 00:13:03.679 --> 00:13:09.759 used not in his own might and in his own strength but in the strength of God to see redemption 00:13:09.759 --> 00:13:11.839 and freedom and hope. 00:13:11.839 --> 00:13:17.959 And these Old Testament pictures are there to again point us to the miraculous redemption 00:13:17.959 --> 00:13:21.039 that God's own Son alone can give. 00:13:21.039 --> 00:13:27.839 Our hope is in God's gift of Jesus Christ, the authority of God is on His shoulders. 00:13:27.839 --> 00:13:35.439 And He's described here with very well known, I think for many of us anyway, different names. 00:13:35.439 --> 00:13:38.279 Wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 00:13:38.279 --> 00:13:41.159 Names are great, you know. 00:13:41.159 --> 00:13:45.959 Maybe today they're not so important for us, maybe we just name people because we like 00:13:45.960 --> 00:13:55.720 the name, but names were always really important in the ancient Near East and in many cultures 00:13:55.720 --> 00:13:59.000 still today, names are really important. 00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:05.600 My name, obviously, speaks a lot about the kind of guy that I am because your name does. 00:14:05.600 --> 00:14:08.720 Sometimes you kind of just fit into the role of your name. 00:14:08.720 --> 00:14:13.320 So my name is really the people's ruler. 00:14:13.320 --> 00:14:14.320 That's what it means. 00:14:14.320 --> 00:14:20.120 So, you know, I can see myself fitting into that particular designation of my name. 00:14:20.120 --> 00:14:25.160 There is actually a variant of that name that some people say, let's say I'm the hangman. 00:14:25.160 --> 00:14:31.560 So you take it with you know, Derek, you know the Derek D-E-R-R-I-C-K, the cranes, that's 00:14:31.560 --> 00:14:35.520 where that comes from, the crane, high up hangman, Derek. 00:14:35.520 --> 00:14:40.040 So I'm either a hangman or I'm the people's ruler. 00:14:40.040 --> 00:14:43.040 Take your pick, punk, whatever it is. 00:14:43.039 --> 00:14:47.719 Okay, so we have these different names, but in the Bible names were hugely significant 00:14:47.719 --> 00:14:52.360 and spoke into the character of the person being named. 00:14:52.360 --> 00:14:57.879 And so here we have Jesus Christ, the gift of God, the child that is born, a son is given, 00:14:57.879 --> 00:15:00.360 wonderful counselor he's spoken of. 00:15:00.360 --> 00:15:06.519 You know, someone, the counselor, someone absolutely worth listening to. 00:15:06.519 --> 00:15:13.199 You know, someone who, when you know someone when they speak, there's a weightiness about 00:15:13.199 --> 00:15:17.399 what they say and you like listening to them. 00:15:17.399 --> 00:15:20.000 That's the kind of picture of this wonderful counselor. 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:24.679 Christ in John, the beginning of John's gospel is called the word, Jesus called the word 00:15:24.679 --> 00:15:29.840 and the beginning was the word because he is this communication from God. 00:15:29.840 --> 00:15:33.319 Not just what he says, but just in his character, in his being. 00:15:33.320 --> 00:15:40.160 He is the supernatural wisdom of God and he's like a mirror that speaks into our own 00:15:40.160 --> 00:15:46.760 soul and reflects often who we are and what we are. 00:15:46.760 --> 00:15:55.480 He brings divine words of comfort and challenge, love expressed and explained. 00:15:55.480 --> 00:16:00.760 We find in him this wonderful counsel that is the key to understanding who we are in 00:16:00.759 --> 00:16:06.120 our own being and in our brokenness, often in our search for belonging and purpose and 00:16:06.120 --> 00:16:07.120 wholeness. 00:16:07.120 --> 00:16:14.799 Jesus Christ is the counselor who cascades his truth in his word to us and reveals the 00:16:14.799 --> 00:16:21.759 hope that he gives us through his person, his work, his accomplished death on the cross 00:16:21.759 --> 00:16:23.960 and his resurrection to the right hand of God. 00:16:23.960 --> 00:16:29.319 So you've got this picture of the Christ who's worth listening to, wonderful counselor, but 00:16:29.320 --> 00:16:34.320 also the one who is mighty God. 00:16:34.320 --> 00:16:36.000 Wonderful counselor, mighty God. 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:42.400 It's a tremendous juxtaposition we're given here, a paradox that you have. 00:16:42.400 --> 00:16:50.960 This amazing 700 year BCE prophecy of Jesus that a child, I mean it was unbelievable, 00:16:50.960 --> 00:16:55.800 a child would come, a child who is mighty God. 00:16:55.800 --> 00:16:58.800 It's inconceivable that this would be the case. 00:16:58.799 --> 00:17:07.359 This is the great monotheistic nation of the world, the world, the only peoples that believed 00:17:07.359 --> 00:17:13.720 in a monotheistic God, a God who was just on his own, there wasn't a multiplicity of 00:17:13.720 --> 00:17:14.720 gods. 00:17:14.720 --> 00:17:21.279 And yet they're saying this child who is born will be mighty God. 00:17:21.279 --> 00:17:27.200 And we know, don't we, the newborn children are the most vulnerable and it's the most 00:17:27.200 --> 00:17:32.960 needy expression in many ways of humanity, most vulnerable and needy. 00:17:32.960 --> 00:17:35.880 And yet he is referred to here also as mighty God. 00:17:35.880 --> 00:17:41.160 So when we come to the nativity story, we don't just go, ah, isn't that sweet? 00:17:41.160 --> 00:17:43.080 Isn't he beautiful? 00:17:43.080 --> 00:17:50.920 This Christ of nativity is paradoxically and mind-blowingly in an unparalleled way also 00:17:50.920 --> 00:17:54.519 the God of the creation, the God of the universe. 00:17:54.519 --> 00:17:56.480 This is mighty God. 00:17:56.480 --> 00:18:01.440 Jesus was always God's plan, that God the Son, in all the mystery of God, the Father, 00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:06.000 God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, three persons, one God as it's revealed throughout 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:09.559 the New Testament is the God who is the Savior. 00:18:09.559 --> 00:18:10.559 This was His plan. 00:18:10.559 --> 00:18:12.880 Jesus is no bit player. 00:18:12.880 --> 00:18:17.880 He's no psychopath that comes in and makes these unique claims of who He is. 00:18:17.880 --> 00:18:21.839 He is the God who comes, God in the flesh. 00:18:21.839 --> 00:18:28.919 Jesus is what God looks like as a human being, as it were, in a way that we can grasp. 00:18:28.919 --> 00:18:34.359 Who of us can grasp that God is Spirit and what God as a person but Spirit would be 00:18:34.359 --> 00:18:36.240 like God, even the Father. 00:18:36.240 --> 00:18:42.839 But we can begin to grasp what God looks like in the person of Jesus Christ. 00:18:42.839 --> 00:18:51.359 He comes to reveal Himself but also to represent us, to be one of us in order to face the 00:18:51.359 --> 00:18:56.559 guilt and the separation that is our dessert. 00:18:56.559 --> 00:19:05.359 So the challenge for us and the reality for us is that if God isn't on the cross, then 00:19:05.359 --> 00:19:08.599 we are truly deluded. 00:19:08.599 --> 00:19:11.719 We are truly to be pitied more than all people. 00:19:11.719 --> 00:19:17.799 If it is not God the Son on the cross, it is a worthless reality. 00:19:17.799 --> 00:19:23.440 It is daydreaming, it is make-believe. 00:19:23.440 --> 00:19:31.359 Mighty God is this wonderful counselor who is given to us, born to die, to rise again 00:19:31.359 --> 00:19:32.960 as God in our place. 00:19:32.960 --> 00:19:34.319 That's the Bible's big picture. 00:19:34.319 --> 00:19:37.599 We can take it from Genesis chapter 1 right through. 00:19:37.599 --> 00:19:40.960 That is the Bible's meta-narrative. 00:19:40.960 --> 00:19:45.720 It is that Jesus Christ was always God's rescue plan for us. 00:19:45.720 --> 00:19:48.559 That alone can explain why I am here. 00:19:48.559 --> 00:19:50.759 That alone explains why I am here. 00:19:50.759 --> 00:19:52.960 It's the only reason that I'm preaching here. 00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:56.960 Believe me, I'd rather be at the back in some ways from a human point of view. 00:19:56.960 --> 00:19:59.839 But this is a great message and a great truth. 00:19:59.839 --> 00:20:05.920 It's the only way, it's the only explanation why grace is choosing today to be come in front 00:20:05.920 --> 00:20:21.000 of everyone and be baptized in a most un-twenty-first century act of obedience and belonging to Jesus 00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:23.640 Christ and His salvation. 00:20:23.640 --> 00:20:27.600 Mighty God who has changed our hearts from the inside out. 00:20:27.600 --> 00:20:29.440 That is why we come and worship. 00:20:29.440 --> 00:20:32.120 That's why we prioritize that in our lives. 00:20:32.119 --> 00:20:38.599 There was a guy here a few weeks ago, a German philosopher, a tourist who was an atheist but 00:20:38.599 --> 00:20:40.079 who really knew the Bible well. 00:20:40.079 --> 00:20:49.159 I know the first thing that was really interesting to him and confusing and paradoxical for him 00:20:49.159 --> 00:20:52.199 as he came in at 10 past five or something in the evening. 00:20:52.199 --> 00:20:56.359 Why there was young women at the front practicing singing? 00:20:56.359 --> 00:20:57.359 Why weren't they out clubbing? 00:20:57.359 --> 00:20:59.359 Why weren't they out enjoying themselves? 00:20:59.359 --> 00:21:02.839 What an earthily doing on a Sunday night in church and why were all these people coming 00:21:02.839 --> 00:21:04.199 in to worship God? 00:21:04.199 --> 00:21:10.439 He couldn't understand that because it seemed ridiculous for him and it seems ridiculous 00:21:10.439 --> 00:21:12.199 for many people, isn't it? 00:21:12.199 --> 00:21:16.279 But it's because we've come to know this child, this wonderful counselor who's mighty 00:21:16.279 --> 00:21:21.919 God who's changed our hearts from the inside out and therefore we regard him as worth it 00:21:21.919 --> 00:21:24.359 and we share him with others. 00:21:24.359 --> 00:21:30.599 He's a mighty God and it goes on to speak about him as everlasting father, really interesting, 00:21:30.599 --> 00:21:34.519 unique designation of the Son, paralleling him with God. 00:21:34.519 --> 00:21:37.559 The father, our lives are very impermanent, even his best. 00:21:37.559 --> 00:21:41.079 I know you young guys don't think that, but the older we get, the more impermanent it 00:21:41.079 --> 00:21:44.199 seems and the more fragile our hold in it is. 00:21:44.199 --> 00:21:49.079 Everything seems maybe even at a cultural level, very increasingly perishable. 00:21:49.079 --> 00:21:55.519 But here we have a prophecy and a picture of Jesus which is the picture of stability. 00:21:55.519 --> 00:21:58.679 Jesus isn't going anywhere. 00:21:58.679 --> 00:21:59.679 He is everlasting. 00:21:59.679 --> 00:22:04.559 It's easy for us to ignore now, easy for us to marginalize. 00:22:04.559 --> 00:22:06.679 That's our dubious freedom. 00:22:06.679 --> 00:22:10.319 That's your dubious freedom in mind that we can ignore him. 00:22:10.319 --> 00:22:16.639 But this is one who reveals himself as everlasting, the one whose rule is paternal, everlasting, 00:22:16.640 --> 00:22:21.759 in the best sense, who knows us, who longs for us to be reconciled, whose rule is just 00:22:21.759 --> 00:22:28.960 and compassionate in our lives, who loves and protects us, everlasting father. 00:22:28.960 --> 00:22:34.160 And that for us, and the Lord's Day is a really good reminder of that for as we come. 00:22:34.160 --> 00:22:36.320 I know we regularly come. 00:22:36.320 --> 00:22:37.680 It's a routine. 00:22:37.680 --> 00:22:41.880 Sometimes you might think, oh, I'd rather do something else or be somewhere else. 00:22:41.880 --> 00:22:46.640 But there's this great routine and stability that the Lord's Day gives us to remind us 00:22:46.640 --> 00:22:51.120 of the everlasting father who is our God and Savior and who will always be there. 00:22:51.120 --> 00:22:56.720 It's a mystery, especially in this world that is increasingly seemingly full of random life 00:22:56.720 --> 00:23:03.000 and choices, inexplicable evil and an unknown future. 00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:06.040 He is the one who's everlasting. 00:23:06.040 --> 00:23:07.040 He's always there. 00:23:07.040 --> 00:23:10.480 He will never leave you or forsake you as a believer. 00:23:10.480 --> 00:23:15.200 Over-difficult and problematic circumstances seem to be for us. 00:23:15.200 --> 00:23:22.559 He knows, he governs, he rules over past, present and increasingly we will see in the 00:23:22.559 --> 00:23:23.559 future. 00:23:23.559 --> 00:23:34.200 There is this great stability and there is none, no stability and no belonging outside 00:23:34.200 --> 00:23:35.640 of Him. 00:23:35.640 --> 00:23:44.640 We make and we mold and we create really bad everlasting fathers. 00:23:44.640 --> 00:23:50.440 We're not a good everlasting father, and the idols we make are not good everlasting fathers. 00:23:50.440 --> 00:23:55.320 The things that we focus on and maybe trust in or hope to find our happiness and life 00:23:55.320 --> 00:24:00.280 and contentment and outside of Jesus Christ are not good. 00:24:00.280 --> 00:24:03.040 They're not great. 00:24:03.040 --> 00:24:05.160 They will let us down ultimately. 00:24:05.160 --> 00:24:09.960 Even though for maybe quite a while we may cling to them. 00:24:09.960 --> 00:24:14.080 Everlasting father, and the last thing he says, and with this we close, is prince of 00:24:14.080 --> 00:24:17.200 peace. 00:24:17.200 --> 00:24:21.200 This is a really great title for Jesus. 00:24:21.200 --> 00:24:24.080 Is there a verse for here? 00:24:24.080 --> 00:24:32.800 Luke chapter 2, 14, and this is from the Nativity account, the account of Jesus coming. 00:24:32.799 --> 00:24:35.960 One, you know, it's often repeated, isn't it, at this time of year. 00:24:35.960 --> 00:24:38.440 Carol serves and probably do it ourselves next week. 00:24:38.440 --> 00:24:43.159 Glory to God in the highest on earth, peace among those with whom He is pleased. 00:24:43.159 --> 00:24:47.960 And there's this, the angels sing of the advent, the coming of Jesus Christ and often 00:24:47.960 --> 00:24:52.319 in terms of bringing peace and goodwill to all men. 00:24:52.319 --> 00:25:00.919 To all men, to all men, young men, young women, everyone, to all people. 00:25:00.920 --> 00:25:06.160 The biblical concept of peace is often again much different from ours. 00:25:06.160 --> 00:25:08.960 Shalom, that's what it is, it's shalom. 00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:18.560 And it's more than just the absence of dispeace or the absence of war in human or in cultural 00:25:18.560 --> 00:25:19.560 terms. 00:25:19.560 --> 00:25:25.279 It's a wholeness, that sense of peace. 00:25:25.279 --> 00:25:27.120 It's a well-being. 00:25:27.120 --> 00:25:30.680 It's coming to understand, it's coming home. 00:25:30.680 --> 00:25:33.799 That's what it is, it's coming home. 00:25:33.799 --> 00:25:34.799 Coming home. 00:25:34.799 --> 00:25:41.880 It's understanding that this is where we are, in Christ, we've come home. 00:25:41.880 --> 00:25:46.480 You know, because the consequence of sin is dispeace. 00:25:46.480 --> 00:25:47.680 It is brokenness. 00:25:47.680 --> 00:25:54.000 It's that we've separated ourselves from the author of life and the author of love. 00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:57.360 That's what we do, that's what sin is, that's what the chaos is. 00:25:57.359 --> 00:26:01.799 But it's that sense of peace that comes from being in this presence. 00:26:01.799 --> 00:26:07.439 You know, sometimes how it would, in shadowy form I guess, sitting on the edge of a Highland 00:26:07.439 --> 00:26:18.359 Lough on a summer night with just that quietness and that tranquility, all as well, well, until 00:26:18.359 --> 00:26:20.959 the midges come. 00:26:20.959 --> 00:26:26.199 And that reminds us that hell will one day be. 00:26:26.200 --> 00:26:29.759 Okay, we remember that. 00:26:29.759 --> 00:26:35.039 Because the peace that we experience here is always temporary and is always shadowy. 00:26:35.039 --> 00:26:41.960 But in Christ, even in the midst of the greatest turmoil, circumstantially in our lives, we 00:26:41.960 --> 00:26:47.440 are in Christ and we know peace because we've changed direction and there's a movement towards 00:26:47.440 --> 00:26:52.680 wholeness as He redeems and restores us towards peace. 00:26:52.680 --> 00:27:00.440 To the future, which He also speaks about, which is the wiping away of every tear. 00:27:00.440 --> 00:27:04.799 There will be a day when He wipes away every tear and universal peace is realized. 00:27:04.799 --> 00:27:07.200 That is God's big picture. 00:27:07.200 --> 00:27:13.400 It's the big picture that we are in the midst of right now, that we are part of. 00:27:13.400 --> 00:27:15.080 We are not in a random universe. 00:27:15.080 --> 00:27:19.200 We are not in a world that is out of control. 00:27:19.200 --> 00:27:23.400 See all the confusion and the difficulty, we see it from our side. 00:27:23.400 --> 00:27:25.880 It is not like that. 00:27:25.880 --> 00:27:29.640 For God, as He works out His purposes, it's often been said, I don't know if I've used 00:27:29.640 --> 00:27:38.240 this illustration, but it's an old, old illustration of a weaving or of a carpet that's been woven. 00:27:38.240 --> 00:27:40.240 That's not the right word. 00:27:40.240 --> 00:27:42.000 It's not a weaving as such. 00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:45.120 A tapestry. 00:27:45.120 --> 00:27:47.240 On the good side of the tapestry is a beautiful. 00:27:47.240 --> 00:27:48.440 It's beautiful, isn't it? 00:27:48.440 --> 00:27:49.920 You can see what is there. 00:27:49.920 --> 00:27:56.360 But if you look at the back side of the tapestry or the weaving, it's all just a mishmash of 00:27:56.360 --> 00:27:59.799 knotted and colors and everything's chaotic. 00:27:59.799 --> 00:28:02.440 That's often how we see things. 00:28:02.440 --> 00:28:07.960 But God is the one who sees and is working at His great purpose. 00:28:07.960 --> 00:28:11.880 In Him, there is for us victory and joy. 00:28:11.880 --> 00:28:18.160 There are joys before you as we join the harvest as they are glad when they divide the spoil. 00:28:18.160 --> 00:28:21.640 It's a great picture of happiness. 00:28:21.640 --> 00:28:25.920 So the Prince of Peace brings us that wholeness into our lives, and I do encourage you, if 00:28:25.920 --> 00:28:31.360 you're not a believer, to think about the claims, these Old Testament prophetic claims 00:28:31.360 --> 00:28:36.600 of Jesus that we have seen worked out in the New Testament, in the Nativity, in the Cross, 00:28:36.600 --> 00:28:43.360 in the Death, in the Resurrection, and in our own lives as believers who have been transformed. 00:28:43.360 --> 00:28:45.360 It's sad, isn't it? 00:28:45.359 --> 00:28:53.279 Often we are joyless and kind of bored, and we choose to lurch back into that place of 00:28:53.279 --> 00:29:00.439 this peace because it's flashy or something, and we all do it. 00:29:00.439 --> 00:29:05.240 And yet He wants to open our eyes to see more and more the joy and the peace that He gives 00:29:05.240 --> 00:29:07.240 us as we come to Him. 00:29:07.240 --> 00:29:12.559 And no more so when we celebrate the sacrament of baptism. 00:29:12.559 --> 00:29:20.799 And baptism is that physical symbol, visual sign for us that Christ asks all new believers 00:29:20.799 --> 00:29:29.440 to participate in, and those who are believers to share with their children, that represents 00:29:29.440 --> 00:29:36.399 those who have come to faith to make that public profession in the mighty God. 00:29:36.399 --> 00:29:42.079 The child that was born, the Prince of Peace, the everlasting Father, the wonderful Councillor, 00:29:42.079 --> 00:29:49.279 died, who rose again to defeats in and death in our lives to offer us washing and cleansing 00:29:49.279 --> 00:29:56.039 a new life in the Spirit as He indwells us in our lives. 00:29:56.039 --> 00:30:01.039 So we look forward just in a moment to Grace's baptism. 00:30:01.039 --> 00:30:07.480 If you're here today and you're not a believer, can I encourage you to think more about these 00:30:07.480 --> 00:30:13.200 claims, don't dismiss them as religious claptrap. 00:30:13.200 --> 00:30:18.160 Do think about them, do come and speak to me afterwards if you want to speak a little 00:30:18.160 --> 00:30:22.319 bit more, we have tea and coffee and plenty of time. 00:30:22.319 --> 00:30:29.000 And consider why you are here today and maybe why God. 00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:39.160 And as Sovereign Grace has brought you here this morning.