A New Beginning

Guest (Male): The name of Jesus elicits strong reactions. Pastor Greg Laurie says Jesus is the name that changes everything.

Greg Laurie: Everything Jesus did was wonderful. Everywhere he went, he created wonder: walking on the water, healing the sick, even raising the dead. The more you know of Jesus, the more you will say, "He is wonderful." All of that wonder will lead to worship and a desire to know him better.

Guest (Male): You've probably met someone who left an indelible mark on your life: a friend, a loved one, a coach, a teacher. Maybe it was something they said or the way they stepped in right when you needed it. Long after the moment passed, that impact stayed with you.

Well, today on *A New Beginning*, Pastor Greg Laurie points us to the one who still changes lives like that today, but on a whole different level, a level that reaches to eternity. It's a message you don't want to miss.

Greg Laurie: So I heard about a guy who had the unfortunate last name of "Odd." Imagine going through life with the name of Odd. You can anticipate what people said to him. "Oh, that's odd." "What a weird last name." "That's odd." He got so tired of hearing that throughout his life, so he gave instructions that upon his death, he wanted his tombstone left blank. He didn't want anyone to comment on his name any longer. And so he did die. They buried him and just as he requested, his tombstone was left blank. But people would walk through the cemetery and they would read the inscriptions on other tombstones. When they came to the blank tombstone, they were overheard to say, "That's odd." That's it.

How many of you have heard this joke before? What do you want, a medal? That's odd. Names matter. People spend a lot of time thinking about what to name their children. Sometimes people even go to court to have their name changed. Then you might get stuck with a nickname. Oh, I had one and I did not like it. My nickname was Pogo. I was named after a cartoon character called Pogo the Possum because apparently one of my aunts saw me as a little baby and said, "Well, he looks just like Pogo the Possum." I didn't quite see the resemblance.

So I went through my entire childhood being known as Pogo. Well, of course my name was Gregory. I was named after an actor that was popular back then, Gregory Peck. But my name has fallen out of favor. It used to be a very popular name, not anymore. It's not even in the top 1,000. Nobody names their kid Greg or Gregory. But don't get me started on the name Karen, okay? That name has really dropped in popularity. You know, in the '60s, it was like in the top five. Lots of Karens.

But since whoever that woman was named Karen, who did whatever it is she did, and then it became the thing we use to describe bad behavior, unfortunately from women, now it has dropped down to 4,800. That's pretty low. Then there's all these trendy names that people use now: River—sorry, River, there's an actual River here—River, Sky, Wolf, Legend, Apple. Sounds like they're naming their kids after scented candles. I don't know.

So there's all these names that we go through life with. Then there's people who change their names because they're in show business. For instance, have you ever heard of Archibald Leach? Probably not, but he was better known as Cary Grant. Norma Jeane Mortenson became Marilyn Monroe. Frances Gumm became Judy Garland. This is interesting. Caryn Johnson became Whoopi Goldberg. I would think that would almost be the reverse, like your name was Whoopi Goldberg and you change it to Caryn Johnson, but it's the opposite.

Thomas Mapother the fourth became Tom Cruise. Reginald Kenneth Dwight became Elton John. Peter Gene Hernandez became Bruno Mars. Aubrey Graham became Drake. Calvin Broadus became Snoop Dogg. Gordon Sumner became Sting. David Howell Evans became The Edge. Paul Hewson became Bono. Brian Hugh Warner became Marilyn Manson. Vincent Furnier became Alice Cooper. And Arnold George Dorsey changed his name to Engelbert Humperdinck. It seems like Engelbert Humperdinck would change his name to Arnold Dorsey, but the opposite took place.

Well, I want to take those names to talk about the most important name ever given to any person. I bet you can guess who it is. Can you? It's Greg. No, it's Jesus, of course. Remember the angel Gabriel came to both Mary and Joseph, told them they would have a child. Gabriel said, "And you will name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins." Jesus Christ. It's a name above all names. If you don't believe me, just use it in a conversation. Try doing it in a crowded room or in a restaurant. Just be talking about anything and just say, "Well, you know, Jesus Christ says..." People will stop and look over at you for a moment.

People use it to punctuate their sentences. People use it as a form of profanity. Isn't it interesting they don't use other names? They don't, when they're angry, say, "Oh, Buddha! What was that?" They use the name that is above all names, Jesus Christ. In a backhanded way, they're acknowledging there's power in that name. It's a name that divides time. It's a name that changes lives. It's a name that everyone will bow before one day. At the name of Jesus Christ, the Bible says, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Well, that brings us to Isaiah 9:6. He talks about what Jesus will do and he gives us different names, if you will, or titles or descriptions of Jesus. By the way, this was written 700 years before Jesus was born. My wife was making me breakfast this morning and she said, "What are you speaking on today?" I said, "Isaiah 9:6." She said, "It's a little early for Christmas, isn't it?" I said, "First of all, Christmas starts after Halloween, in case you don't know. And number two, this is not about Christmas. It's just a verse about Jesus."

You know this verse well. Let's read it out loud together, Isaiah 9:6: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder. And his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Don't you love that verse? It really tells us about Jesus from both an earthly and heavenly perspective. Unto us a child is born. That's how we saw him on Earth. The little baby was born in the manger of Bethlehem. But from heaven's perspective, a son was given.

For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son. So we saw his entrance into our world, but he departed heaven to come and walk among us. You see, the birth of Jesus was not his beginning. He's always existed. He's without beginning or end because he's God. Micah understood this when he wrote in Micah 5:2, "But you, Bethlehem... though you be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth one... whose origins have been from everlasting."

And that word everlasting can be translated "the vanishing point." You see, before there was a world, before there were planets, before there was light or darkness, before there was matter, before there was anything, there was the Godhead and there was Jesus. Jesus Christ: coequal, coeternal, coexistent with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He left heaven to come and walk among us as a man. He walked in our shoes. He breathed our air. He lived our life. He died our death. Then he rose again.

Guest (Male): Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a minute.

Greg Laurie: Hey everyone, I want you to know about our app called Harvest+. Think of it as a Harvest version of Netflix. We have all of our resources in one place. We have our movies like *Steve McQueen: The Salvation of an American Icon*, *Johnny Cash: Redemption of an American Icon*, *A Rush of Hope*, and much more. Then we have our television program, daily devotions, and much more. So go and download the Harvest+ app.

Guest (Male): Glad you're along today for Pastor Greg's message called "The Name That Changes Everything." Here's Pastor Greg now to continue.

Greg Laurie: This is the end of our series called *Jesus and You in the Old Testament*. In this series, we've looked at Jesus and his appearances in the Old Testament. Jesus said, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and he was glad." So Jesus was effectively saying, "Look people, I knew Abraham. I talked with Abraham." So we know that Jesus made an appearance in the Old Testament to Abraham.

We assume it was when Abraham was preparing to sacrifice his son in obedience to God, and the Angel of the Lord appeared and stopped him. We believe that was not an angel at all, but it was what we call a Christophany, an appearance of Christ. Then we know that Jacob wrestled with an angel who he later said he believed was God, and he called the place "the face of God" where he wrestled with this angel. We believe that too was another Christophany.

Jesus appeared to Joshua before he conquered Jericho. He also appeared to Gideon when he faced the Midianites. So he made all these Old Testament appearances because Jesus is in the Old Testament concealed and he's in the New Testament revealed. But now we come to this beautiful passage that tells us what his mission is and it tells us more about his character. It's sort of like a diamond with many facets. You hold it up to the light and you turn it around and you see something different from every angle.

Isaiah 9:6 shows us all of these facets of the diamond as we talk about Jesus. Let's start with the first part. And his name will be called Wonderful. That takes care of the dullness of life. I want to mention also that I want to thank Warren Wiersbe for his great outline on this particular verse in his book *His Name Is Wonderful*. So his name is Wonderful. That takes care of the dullness of life. The word wonderful obviously comes from the root word wonder. I wonder if we have not lost our sense of wonder in this modern world of tech.

As Blaise Pascal said in the 17th century, "All of humanity's problems stem from the inability to sit quietly in a room alone." If that was true in the 17th century, how much more true is it today? We all carry these devices around with us. You can't stand in a line to get coffee or anywhere else without pulling that phone out of your pocket. No one talks to each other anymore. We stare at the phone. Even when we come to a light in our car, we pull out the phone and start scrolling.

We're so distracted by this, and these phones are supercomputers. NASA engineers say a modern cellphone has more computing power than all of NASA had during the Apollo mission. Can you imagine that? That little device you carry in your pocket has more computing power than all of NASA had when they landed people on the moon. So it's an incredible thing. So here we now have access to the greatest libraries in the world, but we watch cat videos all day long. It makes no sense at all.

And we have smart homes and smart cars and smart TVs, and we stream movies in 8K to our game consoles. We have VR headsets where we can travel the world and see things more real than reality at times. Then on top of that, you have AI that is changing everything before our very eyes. And yet with all of this tech literally exploding around us, you'll have someone say, usually young, "I'm bored."

Jean Twenge, a researcher on Gen Z, said, "We have a generation that is constantly stimulated yet more bored, anxious, and restless than ever." I think that's true. And you see that they have iPad holders in baby strollers now. Is this a good idea? Experts say we're actually remapping the brains of these children and exposing them to all this stimuli that we don't even know what the long-term effect of it all will be. I think there has to come a moment where we put the cellphone away, we put the iPad away, and we go out in God's creation and just get our sense of wonder back again.

Yesterday I saw a beautiful rainbow in the sky. I said, "Kathy, come look at the rainbow." I took a picture of it. Have you ever noticed that rainbows don't photograph well? It's almost like the Lord wants us to just enjoy them and not photograph them. By the way, the rainbow belongs to us. We want it back now. We're taking it back. God gave it to us as a symbol of a promise that he made to all of us, that whenever you see a rainbow, be reminded of the simple fact that God keeps his promises.

So his name is Wonderful. That word wonder can be translated as amazement, surprise, astonishment, admiration, bewilderment, worship. Maybe the best word to put in its place would be awesome. His name will be called Awesome. Now, I think people believe that people in California, specifically Southern California, use that word constantly. "Oh, that's awesome, dude." Maybe we say it occasionally.

And we do use the word a lot. You'll say, "Oh, that's an awesome car." "That was an awesome sunset." "That was an awesome taco." God is awesome. If you want to get technical, only God is really awesome: awe-inspiring. We sing, "Our God is an awesome God," and so we should. So his name is Wonderful. That takes care of the dullness of life.

When Jesus came, the angels came to the shepherds and announced his birth. We read, "When the shepherds shared what had happened, all that heard it wondered at these things told them by the shepherds." Everything Jesus did was wonderful. His birth was wonderful. His life was wonderful. His death and resurrection were wonderful. Everywhere he went, he created wonder: walking on the water, healing the sick, even raising the dead.

The more you know of Jesus, the more you will say he is wonderful. All of that wonder will lead to worship and a desire to know him better. Ordinary people experience extraordinary things because of the wonder of Jesus. His name shall be called Wonderful. Again, that takes care of the dullness of life. His name is Counselor. That takes care of the decisions of life. You know, people will go to Google, ChatGPT, or Grok for answers to life's questions.

I read about a young man who said that his chatbot had become his best friend. Dude, you need to get out more. I read a story about a young woman that literally married her AI avatar. Actually had a wedding ceremony. This is insane, people. Here is the creator of the universe, the Almighty God, who's saying, "I want to be your counselor. I want to reveal my will to you." And we turn to all these other places for direction.

You know what some people will say? "Well, I'll just follow my heart." What does that even mean? "Well, the heart wants what the heart wants." Shut up. I mean, stop. What are you really saying? Are you saying you're going to follow your emotions or you're going to follow your intuition? "Well, it's just my heart." Okay, problem. The Bible says the heart is deceitfully wicked above all things; who can know it? Your heart can mislead you. Your emotions and even your intuition can mislead you. But God's word will never mislead you. This is where you need to look for direction.

His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor. God wants to counsel you, and when we read that, it just reminds us that God has a plan for our life. Did you know that? God has a specific plan for your life that is actually unfolding right now. He's going to reveal that plan as you study the word of God. Another interesting thing about our counselor is he loves us. Now, people who counsel folks for a living are advised to never get emotionally involved with them. Don't get emotionally involved with your patient or your client.

Well, our counselor, the Mighty God, loves us and is very involved in our lives. He doesn't just love us; he prays for us. Jesus said in John 17, "Father, I pray not just for these alone, but for those that believe on me through their word." So he was praying for us in the future. The Bible says he lives to make intercession.

His name shall be called Wonderful. That takes care of the dullness of life. His name shall be called Counselor. That takes care of the decisions of life. His name is Mighty God. That takes care of the demands of life. When Jesus walked this earth, it's important for us to realize that he was the God-man. Not man becoming a god; that's impossible. But God becoming a man and walking among us.

Here's a perfect illustration of it. One day the disciples and Jesus climbed into a boat and went out to the Sea of Galilee, and a huge storm came. He was asleep in the lower part of the boat. What could be more human than being asleep from an exhausting day of hard work in ministry? So they woke him up and said, "Jesus, we're going to die! Do something!"

So he came up on the deck and he said, "Peace, be still," and the storm stopped. What could be more divine than stopping a storm? So there was Jesus walking among us, the man who wanted to tell us how to know God and the man who was God. It's an amazing thing, and he's the Mighty God and he has this power for you. All power is given to me and he said, "Now go therefore into all the world and make disciples." He said, "You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you."

Guest (Male): Pastor Greg Laurie is offering so many rich insights today on the person of Christ. Today's message title here on *A New Beginning*, "The Name That Changes Everything." And there's more to come. Here's an important question: you're hearing about Jesus, but do you know him personally? Have you ever come to him to ask him to forgive your sins and become your Savior? Pastor Greg, what would you say to the person listening who would like to do just that?

Greg Laurie: What I would say is he's only a prayer away, which means if you will call upon the name of the Lord right now through prayer, he will hear your prayer and answer your prayer. Listen, if you want Jesus Christ to come into your life, if you want him to forgive you of your sin, if you want to know that you'll go to heaven when you die, just pray this prayer right now after me. Just pray:

Lord Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner, but I know that you're the Savior who died on the cross for my sin and rose again from the dead. I turn from my sin now and I choose to follow you from this moment forward as my Savior and Lord, as my God and my friend. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.

Guest (Male): Amen. If you have just prayed that prayer and meant those words sincerely, we want to welcome you into the family of God. Let us help you get started walking each day with the Lord. Pastor Greg wants to send you his New Believer's Bible, absolutely free. It answers common questions new believers have and helps you build a solid foundation for your faith.

Just let us know you've prayed with Pastor Greg and that you want the New Believer's Bible when you call 1-800-821-3300. We can take your call anytime at 1-800-821-3300. Or write *A New Beginning*, Box 4000, Riverside, California 92514. Or just go online to harvest.org and click the words "Know God."

Take a moment to thank you for praying for this ministry and for supporting it through your generous donation. It's an investment in kingdom business, isn't that right, Pastor Greg?

Greg Laurie: It's really true, Dave. I believe it's so important because the gospel saves lives. It saves eternal lives because when a person believes in Jesus according to scripture, they pass from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to the power of God. Then, of course, that changes the course of their future. That impacts their children and their children's children.

The gospel changes everything and thousands and thousands of people respond every single year. Thanks to the Lord and also thanks to you for your investment in this ministry, enabling us to reach people wherever they are. So if this is something you care about, I encourage you to make a financial investment in *A New Beginning* and Harvest Ministries.

Guest (Male): We really do appreciate your support. Thanks for partnering with us today. It can make a real difference, not just for today or this week, but for eternity. So get in touch with your support today by calling 1-800-821-3300. That's a 24/7 phone number: 1-800-821-3300. Or write *A New Beginning*, Box 4000, Riverside, California 92514. Or go online to harvest.org.

Well, next time Pastor Greg brings us more on the wonderful name of Jesus, the name that changes everything. Join us here on *A New Beginning* with pastor and Bible teacher Greg Laurie.