Best Christmas Ever

WONDERFUL COUNSELOR

Pastor Hope Flask

December 7, 2025

Main Scriptures: Isaiah 9:2-7

Additional Scriptures: Acts 4:12, Hebrews 3:7-8, 13, 4:15-16, 12:12, John 11:25-26, 35, 6:37

POINTS:

• Parakelō: Counseling

• We need daily counseling so that sin’s deceitfulness does not harden us, because life in this world is a spiritual wilderness.

• The basic rule of wilderness living: when you get anything that you really want, it almost immediately begins to slide out of your hands.

• The wilderness represents life and our relationship to God as Christians in this world.

• The counseling we need is one of both Truth and Tears.

• The Ministry of Truth without Tears is too brutal; we won’t listen.

• The Ministry of Tears without Truth is too sentimental; we won’t benefit.

• Jesus knows pain, torture, betrayal, misunderstanding, loss, poverty, and even death. And He knows it better than we do.

• He is the Wonderful Counselor without sin, which means He entered into suffering without sin’s limitations.

• We Receive His Wonderful Counseling:

  1. Through salvation

  2. Through a Christian community

  3. Looking past the wilderness to the promised land

• “Religion is go and sin no more, and maybe I won’t condemn you, but the gospel is I don’t condemn you, now go and sin no more.” -Timothy Keller

• Parakelō: come alongside (Para), to yell (kleō)

• Three discipleship funnels within a Christian community:

  1. Bus: a communal journey open to everyone, no matter their spiritual stage

  2. Van: create a closer environment for deeper connections and friendships

  3. Car: an even closer, more personal connection with a small group of people

• D1:1 - Helps you commit to receiving God’s healing in your own life and become a vessel to support others in their healing

• D2 - Helps you learn how to receive the counsel of God found in His holy scriptures.