Isaiah 9:6 (NIV)
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

1. There is joy in knowing the Wonderful Counselor was foretold.

Wonderful: Hebrew pele – miraculous, beyond comprehension, incomprehensible

2. Our Wonderful Counselor leads us in truth.

John 16:13 (ESV)
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.

John 15:11 (NIV)
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

John 14:15–17 (ESV)
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper [Advocate, or Counselor], to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

3. Joy Comes from His presence.

Psalm 16:11 (NIV)
You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

4. Jesus, our Wonderful Counselor, speaks today.

Joy, biblically, is genuinely our response and yet it also comes to us as a gift. It is both something that happens to us and yet also something that we participate in. Joy, because of God, is both joy from the goodness of God with us, guiding us, counseling, and consoling us in the midst of suffering and joy because of the hope found in God's redemptive plan over all evil and suffering. The difference between joy and fun is as great a distinction as between joy and a gamble of chance or between a meaningful life and a lottery win. Joy is enduring and puts its mark on one's attitude to living. Fun is short-term and serves amusement. True joy is only possible with one's whole heart, whole soul, and all one's energies. The feeling about life that underlies the "fun society" is, I suspect, more boredom with life than true joy. True joy opens the soul, is a flow of spirits, giving our existence a certain easiness. We may have fun, but we are in joy. In true joy, the ecstatic nature of human existence comes to expression. We are created for joy; we are born for joy.  Jurgan Moltmann, Joy and Human Flourishing: Essays on Theology, Culture, and the Good Life