The Amazing Names of Jesus

On November 25, I will begin a Christmas sermon series on “The Amazing Names of Jesus.” Bill Crowder writes the following about this theme:

 

“During World War II, my father-in-law spent 18 months in a prisoner-of-war camp. In the camp, loudspeakers often played music, including a song entitled "Lili Marlene." Somehow it gave him hope, and he fell in love with the beauty of that name. Years later he gave that name, filled with personal significance, to his only daughter—my wife, Marlene.

 

“Names are like that. They have great importance in human relationships. Nowhere, however, is a name more important than in our relationship with our God. In a way that sets Him apart from all others, He ties His name to His reputation and introduces Himself to us as ‘God with us.’"

 

This series of sermons is about the amazing prophecy of Isaiah 9:6 about the birth of Jesus, where the prophet, 700 years before the coming of Jesus, described the One whose names reveal his importance to us. 

 

Jesus is given his name by the angel that spoke to Joseph in Matthew 1:21 and told him to give his son the name Jesus, “for He shall save His people from their sins.” The name means “the one who saves.” The New Testament tells us why it is important to honor the name of Jesus:

• It is the name by which we must be saved — Acts 4:12.
• It is the name that establishes the tone for everything a Christian does — Colossians. 3:17.
• It is the name at which, one day in the future, every knee shall bow — Philippians 2:10-11.

There are numerous names for Jesus throughout the Bible that describe his character and the scope of the ministry of the One who saves us. Among those descriptions are the amazing names in Isaiah 9:6. Those names clearly point to his human birth and his divine nature. As we examine those names through December, we will once again meet the One whose birth we celebrate at Christmas.

Loving the Story of Jesus

I consider preaching to be an adventure. For me, each adventure in preaching is better than the last one.

I hope my journey preaching through Luke this year has been an adventure for our congregtion. It has been for me. I have preached through Luke before, but this year I discovered new things in Luke about Jesus that I have not seen before. I hope our people have discovered some of those things too.

We will end our time in Luke after two more messages on November 11 and 18. One of those messages will be from Luke 23 on Luke’s telling of Jesus’ trials and crucifixion. The other will be from Luke 24 on Luke’s account of Jesus’ resurrection and his appearances after his resurrection.

As we near the end of this adventure in Luke’s Gospel, I have been thinking about how preaching through the book has impacted me, how I hope it has impacted our congregation. I have pondered these things as I have been preparing for a ministry opportunity that I will have this coming Sunday, November 4, at another church, Waupaca Christian Church.

I have preached at Waupaca Christian Church nine times and have assisted the congregation on mission and vision planning. The last time I preached there was in 2007 on the occasion of ordaining their first elders since the congregation was planted. Now they have asked me to return as they ordain the first person out of the congregation to enter fulltime ministry.

As I have been pondering and praying over what the Lord would have me say to the church and to the man being ordained, I could not help but reflect back on our congregation’s adventure in Luke’s Gospel this year. As I have preached through Luke this year and observed new things about Jesus, I have fallen in love with the story of Jesus all over again. I have been in love with the story of Jesus for as long as I can remember, but this year I relived it and was once again refreshed by it.

It occurred to me that for a church to send people into ministry and for a minister to go into ministry and continue to be effective, they must continue to fall in love with the story of Jesus. He must continue to be new and fresh and exciting to us. If we fall out of love with Jesus and his story, we really have no reason to follow him as our Savior and Lord.

So on Sunday, the Waupaca church will charge Jeff Brookins to “preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage — with great patience and careful instruction” (2 Timothy 4:2. As we do so, I will have the opportunity to challenge both he and the church with what that charge means for the preacher and the listener.

One of my challenges will be this: Learn the story of Jesus and keep it fresh in your life. When you become discouraged, when ministry is hard, when sin is about to take over, when you are ready to give up, go back to the story of Jesus. Fall in love with that story again. Let it wash over you and let it refresh you, because it is the story of God’s grace coming to offer us salvation.

And at Westwood Christian Church, as we finish the story of Jesus from Luke’s Gospel, we will take on another part of God’s story next year: the story of the Bible, how it all fits together from the Old Testament through the New Testament, and how it impacts our lives. I will share more with you about that next month.