It’s Christmas and He’s your Father. Rejoice!

Steve Brown:
It’s Christmas. He’s your Father. Rejoice! Let’s talk, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Welcome to Key Life. I’m Matthew, executive producer for the program and our host is author and seminary professor, Steve Brown. The church has suffered under, do more, try harder religion for too long. And Key Life is here to proclaim that Jesus sets the captives free.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Well, we’ve been through two, this has been fun.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
You know, we’re always sitting down on Fridays and answering questions and we like that a lot, that’s a pleasant time. But to sit down and look at the word together, like this, it’s kind of like a small group Bible study.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, that’s right. Just two of us. Right?

Steve Brown:
Just two of us, where two or three are gathered, Jesus said. So, listen,

Pete Alwinson:
You know, we have our producer too.

Steve Brown:
We’ve got three. There you go. But let me tell you what we’re doing, if you’re just joining us, we’re going to Isaiah, the ninth chapter, which was written 700 years before the birth of Christ. Galilee is mentioned in that passage. Well, it’s like a lot of the prophecies, they’re so specific and the odds of hitting the basket with a basketball, you throw over your shoulder are Zippo to none. And, but they hit it every time, in terms of these prophecies. And this one is wonderful. There are four names and we’ve talked about the coming Messiah and that would be Jesus, is a Wonderful Counselor. And then yesterday we talked about him being a Mighty God and the implications of that. What’s the next one?

Pete Alwinson:
Eternal Father. Eternal Father.

Steve Brown:
Now, given the fact that you wrote a book called Like Father, Like Son, I expect you, I mean, if you don’t have anything to say on this subject, man, you ought to burn your book. I mean, you wrote the book.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, not the book on Father, but yeah, this is kind of a unique one when we think of Jesus. Right? Cause when we come to the New Testament where we don’t really think of Jesus as Father.

Steve Brown:
No, no, he’s the second person of the Trinity.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
But, but,

Pete Alwinson:
but, so this is interesting and I guess one point that’s important to say, is that, at this point, theologically, the Trinity is not confused. There is no,

Steve Brown:
No.

Pete Alwinson:
no confusion among the Trinity here. So that modalism is one of those ancient

Steve Brown:
heresies, yeah

Pete Alwinson:
heresies where, well sometimes God is seen as Father, sometimes as Son and sometimes as Spirit, that was condemned as heresy in the early church. So, this isn’t modalism, but it really speaks to Jesus’ role. And, he carries here a Fatherly role as a King. And so, there’s a lot of different ways we can go at this, but I’ll lay this out there and you clean up the heresy, but

Steve Brown:
You know, I’m the last person to clean up the heresy.

Pete Alwinson:
No, man you’re as Orthodox as I am. But you know, the whole idea that the kings back in ancient times were often called, fathers, the father of the nation or the father who gave the leadership, the rules, the regulations, how life was to be lived. And so, in one sense, this is speaking of a kingly role of Jesus as the Eternal Father who leads his people. And, so it does carry this idea of his divinity as well as his kingly role. Now there’s more, but it’s at least that.

Steve Brown:
You know, that’s a new thought to me. And when you’re as old as I am, you don’t get many new thoughts, but I haven’t thought of that. I’ve never thought, you know, the father of the nation, the kingly ideas, the rock upon. Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
George Washington was the father of our country.

Steve Brown:
And so when Isaiah says Father, it has that implication to it.

Pete Alwinson:
Now with the eternal dimension, it really is showing that nature of Jesus as not one who came into being at a particular point in time, but who always was.

Steve Brown:
Always was the father in that sense.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right.

Steve Brown:
But then there’s that warm and very moving, even emotional view, when we talk about Father. We live in a nation, I was just reading an article recently in a magazine, a Christian magazine, about how we’re a fatherless nation and you can track it in study after study after study. And the politically correct reporters of our time, don’t like this. And so, they always refer it to, as a one person, a one parent household cause they don’t want to show what the studies really say. And that is, these are households without fathers. And when you don’t have a father, then you’ve got a problem, in terms of grades, in terms of behavior, in terms of their particular ability to cope with life, And it goes on and on and on.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh, you’re so right. I was sitting at a table at one of our groups this past week and this man who’s joining us. I don’t even think he’s a believer yet, but he says I can tell a boy within 30 seconds who has not been developed by a father. I can tell it. And many of the reasons that you just gave. Did you see that, there’s a deal that happened in Louisiana recently where one of the schools, the kids weren’t going to school, the kids were fighting. It was just chaos. And the dads, aligned.

Steve Brown:
I saw that.

Pete Alwinson:
You see this, it’s just phenomenal. Dad’s on duty, I think is what it was called. And they came on and they just started hanging out and be in there. Kids started coming back to school, fights diminished and almost evaporated, just because of the presence of a man in the way a dad might look a student in the eye.

Steve Brown:
And you know, they’re talking about maybe even starting a national movement in public schools for dad’s on the move. What a great idea.

Pete Alwinson:
Isn’t it?

Steve Brown:
And you know, that story passed quickly because it cuts at the very root of a lot of lies that we have believed in this time.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
You know, there are people listening right now to us who are from fatherless homes, are from homes that had fathers that were really bad. How does this deal with that?

Pete Alwinson:
You know, the gospel is amazing, you know, early in the birth narratives it says that God has sent the Messiah to turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children. So, this is a powerful role in the gospel. The gospel changes us as men toward our kids and helps us become better fathers. But even, what I say to guys is, even if you had a fantastic earthly father experience, you still need God, the Father.

Steve Brown:
Oh, you really do.

Pete Alwinson:
We all need God, the Father, and what Jesus does is he perfectly reveals to us, God, the Father. Remember, to Philip. He was seeing me, as seeing the Father. And Philip said, just show us the Father. And, so Jesus really fleshes this out in a powerful way, the Father’s role for us. And as you said earlier, we need the strength and the tenderness of a father. We need that strong, hard bicep, but we also need those loving arms put around us. And Jesus does that for us and shows us the tender heart of the Father.

Steve Brown:
So, he became an Eternal Father. You know, Jack Miller, who was my friend, the late founder of World Harvest and the Sonship teaching. He was one of the fathers, speaking of fathers of the modern grace movement. But Jack Miller would have people around him. And he was wonderful by the way, he was not charismatic. He was not, he didn’t have my wonderful voice or my looks, he was just such a, but so anointed by God, but he would see somebody who was depressed and down and really hurting. And he would say, you know what you’re acting like? And they would say, no. And he would say, you’re acting like an orphan. And you’re not an orphan, don’t you have a Father? And you do have your Father. And he was talking about Jesus, of course. And how we’ve been fathered. You know, a number of years ago, I asked a counselor friend of mine. She used to teach here, her name was Lottie, used to counsel here at Key Life. And I said, how do you become a good father? She said, you look at how you’ve been fathered by your Father in heaven, and then you father the same way with your kids.

Pete Alwinson:
Is so true. And I think that’s fantastic. Well, if you did not have a good earthly father experience, we have to allow the gospel of grace to sink down into our hearts and love us, a hundred percent so that we can love others. We love our kids. How do you, how do you encourage your kids? Well, only when you’ve been encouraged, you know, and your point that you have so often made, as you can only love once you’ve been loved. And then you can only love to the extent to which you’ve been loved. That is so determinative for fatherhood because so many men were never told. I love you. So many men were never encouraged by their earthly fathers and they don’t know how to do it with their kids. Well, if you will allow God to do that with you, then you can give those words out and hug and love like Jesus did.

Steve Brown:
So true and so good. So, a good thing to do this Christmas is to read the gospels again, as you read the gospels, keep in mind, this is my Father. This is the Eternal Father, the King, the Father of everything of which I’m apart. And as you read through the gospels, you’ll begin to see how much you’ve been loved, how much you’ve been taught, how much you’ve been held. And that he’ll never let you go because dummy, he’s your Father. Okay?

Pete Alwinson:
You’re king. Who is your Father.

Steve Brown:
Okay. We’ve got to go. But first, you think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
God as our Father, we know that to be true. And yet it is always a good time to be reminded of that fact. Thank you, Steve and Pete, and we’ll continue our journey through the Old Testament prophecies about Jesus tomorrow. Don’t miss it. By the way, if you missed any of this week’s broadcast. This is a great time to catch those episodes at www.Keylife.org And I guess we can’t call it the new website any more, but listen, there are still a lot of cool new things to check out. We have a station finder tool that lets you know which nearby stations will be playing Key Life and Steve Brown Etc. We also have transcripts for Key Life, each one edited by a human being to enhance your study. Also at www.keylife.org you’ll find our digital magazine, sermons, video versions of Steve Brown Etc, Key Life Connection, and even a link to our new Key Life app. And all of it is still free, thanks to the generous support of listeners, just like you. If you’d like to donate, just call us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That’s 1-800-539-5433. Or you can mail your donation to

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