Counselor

Beginning this evening and continuing for the next five weeks or so, we're going to be looking in Isaiah chapter 9 at the names given to our Lord Jesus Christ. I have preached from Isaiah 9-6, covering all of the names, but this time we're going to take them one at a time.

Isaiah chapter 9 speaks about the coming kingdom when the Lord Jesus Christ shall reign and when the yokes are going to be broken, when the oppressors are going to be defeated, when wars are going to cease, when justice will be a permanent fixture on this earth. Of course, it's going to happen through the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 6, Isaiah chapter 9, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end. Upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom, to order it and to establish it with justice and with righteousness from henceforth even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. Now, men have been trying to perform this for centuries, and they failed.

It will only be accomplished when Jesus Christ returns to this earth, establishes his kingdom, and reigns in righteousness. That is the literal meaning of this passage. I think that we can apply this passage spiritually to our lives today, and the question I would ask you is simply this—is the government of your life on his shoulder? Somebody is running your life.

Is the government of your life on his shoulder? You'll remember the cross was on his shoulder. He did that for you. He bore upon his body your sin because he loved you.

When you were that lost sheep, the shepherd, the good shepherd, came out and looked for you and he found you, and he put you on his shoulders and brought you back to the fold. Now as your high priest up in heaven, he has your name on his heart, and like the high priest in the Old Testament, he bears you on his shoulders. You'll recall the Old Testament high priest had those beautiful stones, one on each shoulder.

Six tribes were listed on this stone, and six tribes were listed on this stone. He carried them on his shoulders. So the Lord Jesus Christ has carried the cross on his shoulder for me.

He's carried my sin on his body for me. He came out and found me in the wilderness and carried me on his shoulders, and right now as my high priest, he bears me as he intercedes for me. Is it asking too much that I should give him the government of my life? I think most of us have discovered that we have a rough time governing things ourselves.

We get our hands on our lives and we make a mess out of them. When you give the government of your life to him, things begin to happen. Now he describes for us here what he does for us when the government is on his shoulder.

It takes care of all the areas of our lives. The dullness of life, his name is Wonderful. The decisions of life, his name is Counselor.

The demands of life, he's the Mighty God. The dimensions of life, he's the Father of Eternity. The distresses of life, he's the Prince of Peace.

What does anybody have to lose when you put the government of your life on his shoulder? Nothing. Consider tonight that very first name, Wonderful, and his name shall be called Wonderful. I realize that there are translations, including the New American Standard, that couple these names together—Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Four double names instead of five names. I prefer to keep them separate, not for homiletical purposes, but I think hermeneutically they belong separately. His name shall be called Wonderful.

It's rather interesting, this is the very first name that's given. Not Counselor, as though wisdom is the most important thing we need. Not the Mighty God, as though power is the most important thing we need.

Not even the Prince of Peace. People come to me day in and day out saying, Pastor, I need peace. He doesn't put that first.

He puts Wonderful first. I think the best way for us to understand the meaning of this name, Wonderful, is to try to answer some questions. Question number one, what is Wonder? What is Wonder? We're living in an era when words are being prostituted.

I enjoyed reading Edwin Newman's book, You've Seen Mr. Newman on Television, Strictly Speaking, in which he's pleading for us to get back to plain, simple, definite English vocabulary. People take words and they just wear them out like coins. And words that used to have tremendous meaning are now cheapened because of Hollywood promotion and television advertising, marvelous words like love and wonder.

Around the word wonder there cluster a number of other words, words like amazement, astonishment, surprise, admiration, awe, maybe bewilderment, fascination, even worship. The Hebrew word wonderful simply means to separate, to distinguish. The word simply means something that needs to be set above and beyond.

Here is something so unique that the only word we can give to it is the word wonderful. People leave your house and say, oh, we had a wonderful time. Now, you know what they meant.

The food was good and they're getting to go home early and they appreciate that. Someone comes and says, oh, we had a wonderful football game. Now, that's possible, I suppose, by some stretch of the imagination to see these men beating each other up and having a wonderful time.

But we prostitute these words. The Hebrew word just simply means unique, separate, distinguish. It's translated a number of different ways in the Old Testament.

It's translated wonderful. It's translated marvelous. It's translated hidden.

So unique that it's hidden. It's translated miracle. It's translated too high.

Things too high for me. It's so separated, so distinguished that I just can't reach them myself. It's translated too hard.

When God said to Jeremiah, I am the Lord, is there anything too hard for me? It's the word. Is there anything too wonderful for me? So the Hebrew word simply means unique, special, distinguished, separate. Don't confuse this with anything else.

Now, when you put all the words together that are translated in the Old Testament from this word, when you take your English dictionary and you kind of draw a profile of this word wonder, here's what you end up with. Wonder has depth to it. It's not just surprise or amazement that comes and goes.

Wonder is something, it's an emotion, but it's more than an emotion. Wonder is the overwhelming sense of awe that reaches into the very depths of your being. Now, all of us have seen things that have surprised us or even excited us.

That's not what he's talking about here. There's some churches that build their whole ministry on carnal excitement. That's not what he's talking about.

He's talking about wonder, which is that overwhelming sense of awe because of something so deep and so great and so unique that it cannot be counterfeited or duplicated. Wonder has to do not with size. If you look at a mountain and you say, oh, my, that's wonderful, but I wonder if you could pick up a little flower and look at that and say, my, that's wonderful.

You remember Whitaker Chambers? He was involved in some of the communist exposés some years ago. It's interesting when you read his book, Witness, he tells how he began to be converted from communism. Very interesting.

He was sitting in his apartment in Baltimore, Maryland, feeding his little daughter. And finally, he gave her the spoon and watched her just kind of feed herself the floor and the high chair and everything else. And Whitaker Chambers says, as I looked at my daughter, I noticed her ear and I said to myself, that's an amazing thing.

Look at the curves and look at the way that ear is put together. And then the thought struck him. Chance could not have made my daughter's ear.

The thing the communists, the Marxists are teaching me is wrong. That ear could never have been made by evolution. Somebody had to design it.

And Mr. Chambers said, I put the thought back in my mind because I knew if I pursued the thought, I would have to come to the belief that there was a God. But he said, eventually that thought possessed me and I had to turn my back on the Marxist position. What did he look at? An atomic bomb? No, a mountain? No, a little girl's ear.

And the wonder of the way that thing was put together just so overwhelmed him that he said there has to be a God. Remember when Elijah was at Mount Horeb and God brought before him the great will that God wasn't in the wind. And the earthquake that split the loft, God wasn't in the earthquake.

The fire that came dancing across those cliffs, God wasn't in the fire. And after all the two Malt died, a still small voice, and that's when the prophet met God. Not a big loud voice, a still small voice that brought to him the wonder of the presence of God.

You see, we are so accustomed to the gigantic, the exciting, and the Word of God says, no, it's not just in the big things, it's also in the little things. The difference between excitement and wonder, I think, is this. Wonder makes you see how small you are.

When you're lost in the wonder of God's creation, when you're lost in the wonder of God's salvation, you're just overwhelmed with humility, not pride. You don't say, hey, I've had an experience. No, you're just lost in humility.

And you're lost in the sense of awe. We don't have much of this today. Someone says that we're living in a very scientific age, and the more you know about things, the less wonderful they are.

I don't believe that. I don't believe that one bit. The fact of the matter is, the more you know about things, the more wonderful they become.

Here's a scientist who examines a body and says, my, that's just marvelous. Then he examines a hand and says, that's amazing. Then he takes one cell out of the hand and says, that is just unbelievable.

The better we understand who God is and what God has done and what God has made, the more wonderful it becomes. Let no one tell you that ignorance is the way to wonder. No.

The more you learn, the more wonderful everything becomes. I was interested in something that Albert Einstein wrote in his book, The World As I See It. Now, Einstein would not be called an evangelical Christian, but I think he could be called a religious man.

And he had plumbed the depths of the creation. He had been one who had helped us to split the atom and to understand how God has put all of this together. And here's what he wrote.

The fairest thing that we can experience is the mysterious. He who knows it not, he who can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead. A snuffed out candle.

Now, this comes from a scientist who affirmed the first step toward knowledge is wonder. What is wonder? Wonder is that feeling of awe, that overwhelming experience of awe that leads to humility and gratitude and worship, and it just envelops the whole person. Which leads us to the second question.

Why don't we have this kind of wonder today? They used to have it. When you read the Psalms, the psalmist watches the storms. When he sees God in the storm, he worships Jesus.

Jesus looked at a lily and he saw God. He picked up a little child and he saw God. Why don't we have this sense of wonder today? I think there's several reasons for it.

One of them is the world in a mess. The world is very, very disappointing. I found a poem in Mad Magazine that I think expresses it perfectly.

I don't approve of everything in Mad Magazine, but sometimes our humorists see things that our philosophers and preachers miss. Let me read the poem to you. The whole wide world is terrible.

The litter is unbearable. The bottles aren't returnable. The empty cans aren't burnable.

The sonic boom's incredible. The tuna isn't edible. The offshore rigs are leakable.

The billboards are unspeakable. The slumlords are incurable. The smog is unendurable.

The phosphates aren't dissolvable. The problems don't seem solvable. The mess is unforgivable.

Let's face it, life is unlivable. A lot of folks live like this. All they see is the poison and the smog and the litter and the dirt.

Do you think there wasn't some of this back in Jesus' day? You could walk outside the city of Jerusalem and see bodies hanging on crosses. At least today, when we do, if we do, execute somebody, it's done in privacy. In Jesus' day, there was all sorts of refuse.

In fact, outside the city of Jerusalem, in the valley of Gehenna, there was a constant burning of the garbage. They didn't have the kind of equipment we have. And if they did have it, they might have used it differently.

All I'm saying is life hasn't changed that much. There was rawness and ugliness in Rome and in Palestine. But today, there's a little sense of wonder because people are just fed up with the world.

I think there's some other reasons, though. Then we're going to move into the main part of our message, which is why is Jesus called wonderful? Why is there so little wonder today, even among Christians? Why are Christians cynical, critical? Why don't Christians appreciate that which is beautiful and overwhelming? Why is it so many evangelical Christians are anti-ascetic? As long as something is sloppy, it must be spiritual. As long as something is dirty and unkempt, it must be godly.

The king's business requireth waste. You know, we live in a very mechanical world. You push a button and you get coffee, and you push another button and you get a Coca-Cola, and you turn the ignition key and your car starts.

We live in a very mechanical world. And as a consequence, we get caught up in machinery, and we forget the real life that God has put into this world. We become robots.

Life becomes very impersonal, and life becomes very commercial. The big question most people ask is not is this wonderful, but is this usable? Is this saleable? Can I make money off of this? What is this worth? Now, you pick up a little flower. What's it worth? It's worth nothing.

Unless you say God. Here's a little baby. What's a little baby worth? Babies can't wash dishes.

They dirty them. They can't wash clothes. They dirty them.

They can't do anything. What good is a baby? We live in a world that's so commercial. There's a price tag on everything.

If you're not making money off of it, don't worry about it. We live in a very busy world. The world is too busy to wonder.

I meet people who say, well, I see the hand of God in nature, and I do too. I enjoy getting out where there's nature. But I see the hand of God in the city of Chicago.

Not everything in Chicago is ugly and brutal and godless. We live in a commercial world, a busy world, a very artificial world. We live in a world where excitement is the big thing.

Entertainment is the big thing. The big question is, are you enjoying yourself? You don't find that question asked in the Bible. Are you enjoying yourself? Do you think a surgeon enjoys cutting on somebody's body? The question is asked, are you worshiping God? Are you seeing God? I think this is one reason why we have so much sin today.

Now, maybe the news coverage is just better, but I'll just drop this into your heart for your contemplation. When you're lost in the wonder of who God is and what God does, sin becomes very ugly. You know why people sin? Because sin is beautiful to them.

Sin is enjoyable to them. There's a certain kind of charm about it to them. But I tell you, my friend, when you're lost in the wonder of what God is and what God does, you can't look at sin and say, hey, that's beautiful.

You can't look at sin and say, oh, that's pleasurable. That's enjoyable. Quite the contrary is true.

The more we're lost in the wonder of God, the more ugly sin becomes. Which leads me now to our main question. Why is Jesus called wonderful? It doesn't say that Moses is wonderful or the apostle Peter.

And his name shall be called wonderful. May I suggest to you that he is wonderful, first of all, in his person. There's nobody else like him.

Unto us, a child is born. That's his human nature. Unto us, a son is given.

That's his divine nature. Jesus said, I came down from heaven. Now he was born of the Virgin Mary, but he was not conceived by his foster father, Joseph.

We believe here at Moody's Church, the word of God teaches the virgin birth of Christ. This is a wonder. Mary herself was all struck that she knew God can do it.

She said, how shall this be? Not how can this be? How shall this be? What a marvelous thing. And Jesus Christ is wonderful in his person. He is God, yet he is man.

He was eternal, yet he came as a baby. He has all wisdom and all knowledge, and yet he grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man. There was no abrasiveness in his person.

Everything was perfectly balanced. Now, sometimes you and I get out of balance. We're overloving or over-legalistic or over-soft or over-hard.

Not so with Jesus. He's wonderful in his person. Sinless.

Sympathizing. Sacrificing. When you just contemplate the wonder of his person, it's enough to bring love and worship to your heart.

Certainly, he's wonderful in his life. Samuel Johnson said about Oliver Goldsmith that he graced everything that he touched. There are some people, they break everything they touch.

They besmirch everything they touch. There are some people who even take the things of God and so just about them and so deal with them that they leave a stain behind. The Lord Jesus Christ turned ordinary things into wonder.

You know what's wrong with most of the people we meet? They're looking for some great thing to happen. They want some big excitement, some explosion. And God doesn't work that way.

When Jesus Christ was here on earth, he just took the everyday ordinary things. But when he took them, he made them wonderful. Just an ordinary bird.

The thing fell down and Jesus said, you know, my father knows about that bird falling. Just an ordinary lily. They'd seen millions of them.

He said, you know, Solomon in all of his glory wasn't dressed like that. Just ordinary bread. He said, I'm breaking this bread.

It's a picture of my body being given for you. Just an ordinary cup. He says, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

He just took the two most ordinary things that people ate every day, bread and the fruit of the vine, and he made it wonderful. Our Lord Jesus Christ made everything wonderful that he touched. He went to a wedding and turned it into a miracle.

He went to a funeral, turned it into a miracle. He picked up the little children and made it a beautiful consecration service. Had you caught this, my friend, as you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? That everything Jesus touched, he made wonderful.

Everything that sin touches takes away the wonder. Everything Satan touches takes away the wonder. Oh, I want you to get that tonight.

Satan comes along and says, I can do for you what nobody else can do. You still be a God. Who do you want to share in the wonder? You say, yes, I do.

And before you find, before you know it, you find out he is a thief, a robber. A destroyer. A murderer.

I would warn you tonight, don't let Satan touch your life. He'll take away the wonder. Don't let sin touch your life.

It'll take away the wonder. Let Jesus touch your life. Everything he touches becomes wonderful.

He's wonderful in his person. He's wonderful in his life. He's wonderful in his words.

Never man spake like this man. They marveled at his words. As I go through O'Hare field from time to time to fly hither and yon, I am often stopped by these people who are passing out free literature.

And I won't even name the cult that's out there promoting. I don't even want to give them free time in this pulpit. And they're giving away a book and they're begging the businessman to take the book and read it.

And I said to a gentleman one day, I don't need any more. I've got the only book I need right here, the Bible. He's wonderful in his words.

He spoke words and storms became calm. But he can still do that. Somebody here tonight who's going through a storm, I want you to know you get into this book.

And his word will turn the storm into calm. His word can bring life out of death. He spoke the word and life came.

His word can multiply that which is to us nothing. If you give it to him and by the touch of his word, it becomes wonderful. He just took ordinary people, Peter, Andrew, James, John, four fishermen.

They'd never appear on Mike Douglas' show. Nobody would ever do, this is your life, Andrew. They don't want that.

Just four ordinary fishermen. But when Jesus touched their lives, their lives became wonderful. He's wonderful in his words.

The authority of his word. He spoke not as the scribes and Pharisees who spoke from authority. He spoke with authority.

The simplicity of his word. It's so simple. We teach it down in the beginner's department.

It's so profound. It's taught at the Moody Bible Institute and seminary. Philosophers have wrestled with his word.

And yet ordinary people like you and me have believed his word. We've experienced his wonder. He certainly was wonderful in his death.

You know, most of us try to forget how people died. I don't want to remember how my mother died or my father died. We try to forget those things.

You want to remember them in life. Jesus wants us to remember his death and his burial and his resurrection. This is why we have two ordinances.

The cup, his blood. The broken bread, his body. Baptism, buried and raised to walking units of life.

He wants us to remember his death. Watch, his death is wonderful. You see, we die for our sins.

He had no sins of his own to die for, so he died for our sins. His death was wonderful in the submission that he showed. His death was wonderful in the sacrifice that he gave.

His death was wonderful in the love that he showed. Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.

His death was wonderful in that he voluntarily released his own spirit. I can't do that. I can pray, oh God, if it's your will, take me.

But I can't voluntarily release my own spirit. He did. And then he took his life up again.

He said, my father has given me the authority to lay it down and given me the authority to take it up again. He's wonderful in his death. He's wonderful in his resurrection.

He's wonderful in his salvation. Now, who else can do what Jesus does? Many of you will remember a couple of weeks ago, two gentlemen were standing out in front of our church before the Sunday school hour. Remember that? They're passing out atheistic literature.

Some of you will remember this. I had written a letter to that man. He'd written to me and sent me copies of his atheistic literature.

I wrote him back and said, dear sir, this has been going on for centuries. You have nothing new here. All of these arguments have been answered, but I'll do this for you.

If you can find 25 people whose lives have been changed by believing what you believe, bring them to Moody church. And for each one that you bring, I'll match it with four. We'll get a hundred people up here whose lives have been changed by believing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I have yet to hear from him. When I saw him out in front, I went up to him and I said, I, I told you once, if you want to promote your cause, just bring 25 people from West Madison street and South state street, just bring me 25 drunks who have been made clean and wholesome by believing your agnostic atheistic literature. He hasn't done it yet.

You know why? They have nothing wonderful to offer. Jesus does. He's wonderful in the salvation that he offers because when you receive him, life becomes wonderful, which leads to our fourth question.

You're being so patient tonight. How can you and I share in his wonder? We don't want our lives to be ordinary. We want our lives to be extraordinary.

All you say, pastor, I'm not a very special person. I live in a little apartment. I do my work every day and come back to my apartment and make my little TV dinner.

And there's nothing wonderful about my life. Yes, there is. Yes, there is.

Every one of us here tonight who has trusted Jesus Christ as savior can share in the wonder of his life. You know why? He lives in us. That's Galatians 2.20. Christ lives in me.

Now listen to me. If Jesus Christ made people's lives wonderful when he was here in the flesh on this earth, can't he still do it through his Holy Spirit? Of course he can. Can't he put a new touch upon our lives? I'm not saying we're going to be famous.

I'm not saying we're going to be rich. I'm not saying we're going to be delivered from having to go through trials and difficulties. No.

What I'm saying is people will look at us and say, you know, he's got something. I don't know quite what it is. He runs down to some fanatical church every week.

I don't know what it is. But I've watched her, and there's something about her life that's wonderful. Now, how can we share in this wonder? Well, the first thing, of course, is to get saved.

There could be in this congregation tonight someone who's never been born again. You say, well, I want my life to be something wonderful. It can't be as long as you're living in sin.

It cannot be as long as you're enslaved to the world, the flesh, and the devil. It can't be as long as you're walking in the darkness. But when you give your heart to Jesus Christ, my friend, then the wonder moves right in.

And you know what happens? You start seeing through different eyes. Number 409. Don't turn to it.

Let me read it to you. Number 409 in our hymn book puts it so beautifully. Let me read it to you.

Heaven above is softer blue. Earth around is sweeter green. Something lives in every view Christless I have never seen.

Birds with flatter songs o'erflow. Flowers with deeper beauty shine. Since I know, as now I know, I am his, and he is mine.

Didn't Mr. Moody say when he got saved, the sky was bluer and the flowers were more beautiful? I've had many people say this to me. When you give your heart to Jesus Christ and he moves in, you start seeing through different eyes. You start hearing through different ears.

You know, my friend, you hear the thing you love. Oh, you say, what do you mean by that? I mean exactly what I say. You hear the thing you love.

Remember the story about the lumberjack who'd lived up in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest and he went to New York City to visit his friend or his relative. And they were walking down the busy, noisy streets of New York City and the lumberjack stopped and said, I hear a cricket. His friend said, you hear those taxis? Beep, beep.

You hear a cricket. I hear a cricket. In all this, in all this, I hear a cricket.

And so he went and there was a cricket. He said, that's amazing. He said, no, it isn't.

He said, watch. And he reached in his pocket and found a quarter. He said, you see all these people going by.

Now watch. He dropped the quarter. Beep, beep.

And he stopped. He said, you see, you hear the thing you love. And you see the thing you love.

If you love to eat, you'll find every restaurant in town. It could be in the 14th floor or in the basement. You'll find it.

When Jesus Christ moves in, he goes to work on your heart. You know what he does? It's so marvelous. First of all, he makes us like children.

You know, children have a beautiful sense of wonder. It's just marvelous to watch a little child, an unfoiled child with its sense of wonder. You know, they'll stand and watch a fish for two hours.

You know, we get apoplexy if the fellow in front of us with a red light doesn't move in a hurry, you know. A child will stand there for an hour and just watch that fish. Or you'll see him out in the backyard.

He's just looking at a dandelion. A child has an amazing sense of wonder. I wonder if Jesus didn't mean this when he said, except you repent and become like little children.

Oh, you know all, you know what makes flowers grow. You know what makes, but do you? I think that God has given to children that beautiful sense of wonder. They ask questions, why, how? We don't ask those questions.

We know why the sky is blue. We wish it were bluer. Oh, we know why the grass is green.

Oh, do we? He gives us a childlike spirit. When you have a childlike spirit, then he begins to open your ears and you hear things you never heard before. And he opens your eyes, you start seeing things you never saw before.

When you read your Bible, you read it with a sense of wonder. This is God's word. And I'm God's child.

When you come to church, you don't come with a hard heart saying, well, what are they going to do tonight? How long is it going to be tonight? People will say up to one o'clock in the morning, watch the World Series. If you preach for five minutes too long and they contact Blue Cross. You see, when you come to God's house with a sense of wonder, here are God's children.

Here's God's family. I'm a part of it. We're worshiping God.

We're praising God. We're opening the words. Have you lost that sense of wonder? If you have, it's because you've lost that childlike spirit, that humility, that brokenness of heart.

So it begins with salvation and it continues with consecration as you read the word of God and you get new values. You'll forgive me for saying this. I never could understand why anybody wanted to watch a bullfight.

I was in Mexico City and they said, you want to go see a bullfight? I said, no, but after he's cooked, you can call me. I'll be glad to participate. What is beautiful about a bullfight? What is this? Sipping things in them, you know, and there's nothing beautiful about it.

Now, I guess there's a reason for doing it. I don't know if it makes the meat cheaper. I don't know.

Now, let me go one step further. What is so amazing? What is so marvelous about watching automobiles get wrecked in some of these races? I see nothing beautiful about that. What's the wonder of it that drags people down? They stay there all week to watch somebody get wrecked up in a car someplace.

Now, there may be good reasons. Maybe it's the kind of entertainment I don't enjoy. I don't know.

All I'm saying is when you grow in the Lord, you get new values. And some things that used to be very beautiful, just aren't pretty anymore. And some things used to be very wonderful, you could hardly wait to do it.

All of a sudden, they just didn't. What was so great about that? Paul said, when I became a man, I put away childish things. Some Christians still have to have the childish things of this world.

You get new values and new visions. And you know, the whole thing is going to climax in glorification. What begins with salvation and grows with consecration climaxes in glorification.

The wonder of seeing Christ that beautiful verse over in 1 John chapter 3, where he says, Behold, oh, the marvel of it. Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us. I like the way Dr. Kenneth Weeks has translated that little adjective there.

It really means from a foreign country. Behold, what foreign kind of love. What strange kind of love.

What wondrous love. The Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God. And the Greek text puts in there.

And we are. We aren't just called, we are. The wonder of it.

And we're going to see Jesus Christ. We're going to see heaven. We're going to see God's universe.

We're going to see the angels. We're going to see Charles Spurgeon and Philip Brooks. And we're going to see Billy Sunday.

We're going to see the apostle Paul. We're going to fellowship with the saints of all ages. Oh, the wonder of it.

The wonder, John goes on to say, and every man that has this hope in him purifies himself. The purifying effect of wonder. Just as when a person grows in his understanding of music, he puts away the cheap things.

When a person grows in his understanding of art and architecture, he puts away the cheap things. So as we grow in our wonder of the things of God, we don't want the cheap things. You say, has this ever happened to anybody here? The only other place I know of in the Bible where Jesus calls himself wonderful is back in the book of Judges.

Back in Judges chapter 13, a fellow named Gideon. He's threshing wheat, hiding, hiding from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord shows up and says, the Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor.

He looked like a man of valor. Remember the story how that Gideon brought a sacrifice and the angel of God touched it with his staff. He said, what is your name? He said, why do you ask after my name? Seeing it is wonderful.

You know what Jesus did for Gideon? He took an ordinary dirt farmer who was a coward and did something wonderful with him. Took ordinary pitchers and ordinary torches and ordinary trumpets and did something wonderful with them. And as long as Gideon was walking with God, everything was wonderful.

Trials, yes. Difficulties, yes. Burglaries, yes.

But everything was wonderful. There was the touch of God's wonder upon him. He can do that for us.

His name is wonderful. Oh, we need this wonder in our lives. I want to suggest to you that our responsibility every single day is to get alone with Jesus Christ and open his word and see how wonderful he is.

Some people read the Bible and have a spiritual autopsy and go into the day bleeding. Don't do it. Nothing wrong with examining your heart and searching your life.

Nothing wrong with that, provided you end up in the wonder of Christ. Now, friend, there's nothing wonderful about us. We're just worth a few dollars in chemicals.

Nothing wonderful about us. But everything is wonderful about him. And he wants to share that wonder with us so that life is not boring and drab and dull and ordinary.

Life takes on a touch of the wonder. And at the end of the day, you say, you know, isn't it wonderful what God did here? Isn't it wonderful how God answered prayer there? And your life begins to use this little wonderful word wonderful. The tragedy of hell is that nothing there will be wonderful.

Nothing wonderful in hell. Darkness. There's no beauty in darkness.

Pain. Separation. Loneliness.

There's nothing wonderful about hell. And there's nothing wonderful about the sin that changed people to hell. Shame.

Girth. Character eroded. Reputation ruined.

Money wasted. Nothing wonderful about sin. There's nothing wonderful about hell.

But there's everything wonderful about Jesus. And his name is wonderful. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, forgive us that we have been so busy. We haven't taken time to be overwhelmed with the wonder, the wonder of Christ. Forgive us, oh God, that we have measured our spiritual lives by each other instead of by the great wonder that could be ours through the Holy Spirit.

Forgive us, Lord, that we have lived on the artificial substitutes instead of on the reality. Lord, I pray for my own heart and I pray for this congregation. Take away from us the scales that blind our eyes.

The things that would deafen our ears. May our spiritual senses be heightened as we pray and meditate and wait. That we might truly taste and see how wonderful he is.

That we might look upon him and see him in all of his wonder. That we might hear his voice and and sense his presence. Oh God, our prayer is that in the holy of holies of our own lives we shall be captivated, overwhelmed with the wonder of Christ.

And then take that wonder out into a needy world, a world that's one great big garbage dump, and share the wonder of Christ. I pray for the one here tonight who's never been saved, lost in the emptiness and loneliness and tragedy of sin. Oh, that that one might trust you.

Father, I pray for that Christian who hasn't been taking time to worship, to meditate. Oh Lord, draw that one back to the secret chamber with the door closed and the heart open. And may each of us rejoice as we grow in the wonder of Christ.

And then as we gather together from time to time, help us to share the wonder. This is our prayer through Jesus Christ our Lord.