Good to see everybody who has made it here this morning to
worship, thankful for your presence and your visitor here.
We're so thankful that you're here and we welcome you back
each and every time that we assemble and you're able to
moving forward this morning, I wanted to continue kind of the
study we've had going on in Second Samuel with David and
Absalom, but I just ran out of time to put something together.
And so I'm going to give a lesson.
I gave, it's been maybe been five or six years or so already
since I've given it. But this lesson really kind of
ties into what we've been studying about how the Old
Testament points to Jesus, how the whole book of the Bible is
about Jesus and, and coming into the New Testament, how this is
the announcement of Jesus and what he is going to be doing.
And, and so I think it, it kind of hopefully flows into what
we've been kind of learning about in second Samuel.
We're going to be studying in Matthew chapter 1 and 2.
We're not going to be going through verse by verse.
We're just going to be kind of taking this of overall what it's
telling us moving forward. And I hope and my, my, I want us
to see that our, that the focus in our lives in this text is
solely on Jesus and what he has done and is doing.
I want us to see Jesus in this text this morning.
And it's a very simple aim for the next few minutes that I
have. And my aim is to show that Jesus
that in God's word we see him in a way by the time that maybe
we're finished, that we'll have a a more grasp of who he is and
what he does and have a greater love for who Jesus is by the
time we're done. And if we've been Christians for
most of our lives for 5670 years, whatever it may be, maybe
in a few minutes, we have a fresh way of understanding who
Jesus is. So that's my point.
That's what we're hopefully going to be studying this
morning. And I want to show you in eight
ways, Jesus changes everything. We're going to go through eight
points here, starting in Matthew chapter 1, verse one.
And this is how the New Testament opens up in the Bible.
It says the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the
son of David, the son of Abraham.
We're going to stop there and we're going to dissect that a
little bit. First of all, Jesus redefines
history. That's the number one way Jesus
changes everything is he redefines history.
The first book of the New Testament starts with Jesus's
genealogy, a list of names. And honestly, I've always kind
of just skipped these first few verses when I read, you know,
who wants to read a list of names?
You know, if we, if you know, if we're being honest with
ourselves, we kind of skip over, right.
But you know, we want to get to the good stuff, to the meat and
the potatoes. If you want to say we don't want
to read a bunch of list of names, but it Matthew calls this
it's really an important list of names when we slow down and look
at it. Matthew calls us the book of the
genealogy of Jesus Christ and if there's any confusion.
Christ is not Jesus's last name. It is a title that is the
anointed 1 the Messiah, the prime promised one ever since
the interests of sin into the world in the beginning of the
Bible, God promised the coming of the anointed one of the
Messiah who would defeat sin and deliver people from sin.
And if we remember it back in early Genesis in chapter 3 of
Genesis, right after sin into the world, God said to the
serpent the to the tempter in in verse 15 of Genesis 3 says I
will put enmity between you and the woman and between your
offspring and her offspring. And then it talks about the
offspring from woman. He says he shall bruise your
head and you shall bruise his heel.
That so the tempter, the serpent would bruise the heel of the one
who would come, but this one who would come from the offspring of
woman would bruise the tempters head.
Some translations actually say that he will crush your head.
So what Matthew out of the gate Matthew was shouting here like
Jesus the snake crusher is here. He is going to take care of what
the problem has been for many, many years.
Jesus is the offspring from the woman and he has come to conquer
sin and Satan. And the rest of the chapter will
tell us a really a miraculous story of how Jesus will be born
uniquely from the offspring of a woman and not from man, not from
Adam, not from the first man who sinned.
This man, Jesus would not be like us.
He would not succumb to sin in any way.
He would actually save us from sin.
And if we go back to the book of Matthew here in verse one, like
it says before the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, and
then it says the son of David. So Jesus is the offspring from
David who has come to reign as king forever.
And back in Samuel, second Samuel 7, we read that David
wanted to build the temple of God, but God told him, no,
you're not going to be building the temple of God.
My, your son Sam Solomon's going to be building that temple.
And in that passage God promised David that his offspring would
continue and then the one from his line would reign his king
forever. In second Samuel 2 verses
Chapter 7, verses 12 and 13, where God said to David, when
your days are fulfilled and and you rest with your father's, I
will set up your seat after you, who will come from your body,
and I will establish his Kingdom.
He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the
throne of his Kingdom forever. And it's obvious that that
promise was initially just a reference to Solomon, but we
notice it's it's more about more than just Solomon because the
throne of his Kingdom, it says will be established forever.
We read the same thing in second Samuels Chapter 7, verse 16,
where God said to David, your house and your Kingdom shall be
made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established
forever. And when we read the rest of the
Old Testament, it's really that that promise is repeated over
and over and over again in the Old Testament.
In Isaiah Chapter 9, it talks about the Prince of Peace who
would come and sit on the throne of David.
Jeremiah 23 verses 5 and 6 tells about a king from the line of
David who would bring perfect justice and righteousness onto
the earth. Ezekiel chapter 3724 and 25
tells about a Davidic king who would reign over a new covenant
for all nations. We can go on and on and on and
on. This is all in the Old Testament
repeating this promise. And the point here is that
throughout the Old Testament, God's people were continually
looking for an earthly king, for somebody that they could put
their eyes on and grasp a hold of, have a physical king to
reign over Israel. But what Matthew was saying here
that that king has come. Jesus is here.
And I want to show you here in Matthew one, verse 17, as we
read the list of these names, you know, it's not really a
comprehensive genealogy. If you want to say Matthew
leaves out a couple of generations for whatever reason,
you know, maybe we wish we could leave you out a few people in
our family members in our line of genealogy.
But but we, you know, we, we understand that not all of the
line or the, the, the family tree of Jesus is listed here in
this list here in Matthew in verse 17 says all the
generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations and
from David to the deportation to Babylon, Babylon 14 generations.
And from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ 14
generations. Matthew was putting a stamp
saying that Jesus is from the lion of King David.
And if we go back to verse one, Jesus is the son of David.
That's why that reference is there.
And he's also the son of Abraham.
We see there in verse one, so one more.
If we go back to the Old Testament again, we remember
what's said in Genesis 12 verses one through 13 when God said
said to Abraham. Now the Lord has said to
Abraham, go out of your country from your family and from your
father's house to a land that I will show you, and I will make
you a great nation. I will bless you and make your
name great, and you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who
curses you, and in all the time and in you all the families of
the earth shall be blessed. If you keep reading in Genesis
17 verses 1516 where God tells Abraham that he would bring a
blessing to all the nations and kings would come from his line.
It says in in chapter 49, verse 10 that from the line of Judah
will come a king whom shall be the obedience of the peoples.
And then when we get back here to Matthew verses one and two,
it says the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the
son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac was the father of
Jacob and Jacob the father of Judah.
So we see Jesus as the offspring of Abraham through that line,
through Judah, who will bless all nations.
And so sometimes, you know, I used to think, what isn't the
whole, the Old Testament about David?
You know, what about all that history?
What about David? What about the kingdoms that
were set up? And we don't want to miss this.
And we've said this multiple times here.
The Bible is making it clear in this passage that nothing in
history is accidental. Nothing throughout its history,
from the very beginning, everything in the Old Testament
has been pointing to the king who would come.
And then the first verse in the New Testament, the Bible is
announcing the king has come. Jesus Christ, the son of David,
the son of Abraham is here. Here is when he is entering into
our physical history. And this is really important for
us to hear because you and I are not the center of history.
Our generation is not the center of history.
The United States is not the center of history.
Kingdoms have come, leaders have come, billions and billions of
people have come and gone. Rulers, empires, countries,
nations, presidents, dictators have come and gone.
But at the center of it all is still Jesus ruling as king.
And praise God for that. That's the only the first point
I'm going to make here. So we got 7 more.
Secondly, Jesus reunites humanity.
Jesus redefines history and Jesus reunites humanity.
Here we have in this list of people different generations,
different backgrounds. We've seen there are men and
women, Jews and Gentiles, from upper class and also from kings
all the way down to lower class prostitute.
But they all have one thing in common and that is they all
point to Jesus. So if you hold your place there
in Matthew chapter 1, we're going to move over to Matthew
chapter 2. If you want to follow along,
we're going to read the first few verses of Matthew chapter
2-3, verses one through 12. It says there Now after Jesus
was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king,
behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, Where
is he who has been born king of the Jews?
For we have seen his star in the east, and have come to worship
him. When Herod the King heard this,
he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
And when he had gathered all the chief priests and the scribes of
the people together, he inquired of them where Jesus was to be
born. So they said to him in Bethlehem
of Judea. For thus it is written by the
prophet. But you, Bethlehem, in the land
of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah, where
out of you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people
Israel. Then Herod, when he had secretly
called the wise men, determined from them what time the star
appeared, and when he sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and
search carefully for the young child.
And when you have found him, bring him back, Bring back word
to me, that I may come and worship him.
When they heard the king, they departed, and behold, the star
which they had seen in the East went before them till it came
and stood over where the child was.
When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great
joy. And when they had come into the
house, they saw a young child with marry his mother, and fell
down and worshipped him. And when they had opened their
treasures, they presented gifts to him, gold, frankincense and
myrrh. Then being divinely warned in a
dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed
for their own country another way.
It's really a fascinating story when we understand what's really
going on here. You know, there's a, there's a
mystery around who these guys from the East were.
These three men from the East, it says.
And by the way, it never says there was 3.
OK, so we when we see those pictures of the nativity that
people put up winter time around December, they say 3 wise men.
Well, it never says 3 by the way, doesn't mean that there
wasn't 3, but it never says 3. They weren't also just some
stargazers. These were well respected men,
if you want to say with prominent religious and
political influence. Their name literally means great
or powerful ones. Their high position was also
evident in the wealth that they brought to give the gifts that
they likely have alongside them. And we learned of men like this
in the book of Daniel. It's likely that they had been
influenced by Jewish teachings from the Old Testament, where
people of Israel had been scattered across the East during
the exile and now through their study of the stars, if you want
to say they were drawn from the East to worship the king of the
Jews. So there's Old Testament
background here. And you know, we don't have the
time to dive into all those stories, but there's there's
nothing accidental that happened in the Old Testament to lead up
to this point. We see back in the Book of
Numbers, Balak, the king of Moab, had called for Balaam,
which was a magician or seer from the East to come and curse
Israel for him. And in that story, Balaam
refused to do that. Instead, he actually blessed
Israel in his last words. This is what Balaam said in
Numbers 24 verses 15 and 17. It says so he took up his
article Oracle and said the utterance of Balaam, the son of
Beor, and the utterance of the man whose eyes were opened.
The utterance of him who hears the word of God has been the
utterance of him who hears the word of God and has the
knowledge of the Most High who sees the vision of the Almighty,
who falls down with the with eyes wide open.
I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near.
A star shall come out of Jacob, A scepter shall rise out of
Israel. You see Balaam said, from the
people of Israel a star would come with a scepter, a king
would rise, a star would announce a king.
Then we continue. If you read on in Numbers 24,
you see that this king would save the people of God.
And if we think about it, numbers in numbers, that well
respected magician, a seer from the East, told about a star and
a king would rise among the Jews.
And then we see now here in Matthew, powerful and
influential musicians, magi from the East, follow a star to see
the one who was born king of the Jews.
Everything here is purposeful, everything that all the
prophecies in the Old Testament are now coming to fruition.
It's just these first few chapters of Matthew.
It's just prophecy fulfilled after prophecy fulfilled after
prophecy fulfilled. It's almost like we can't keep
up and notice everything that's being fulfilled at one time.
But it's really amazing when we do that study.
See, God is orchestrating history.
He's even if you want to say orchestrating the planets and
the stars to announce the coming of Jesus.
It's a breathtaking scene. Jesus has come as king for
everyone and for all nations. You see, we see that all through
the Bible. We see all of all of all of the
prophecies. Like we mentioned before, Jesus
is going to be king of all nations and all peoples.
You see, the Lord's church is made-up of people from countless
nations. And we've gathered here in
Bakersfield, there's gatherings all across California and our
country and around the entire world.
Not because of we're the same social economic people, not
because of the same race, not because of the same anything.
We're here for one reason. That's because we worship our
God in heaven, and Jesus is king, reigning over all.
That's why we're gathered here and his name is Jesus.
And Jesus reunites humanity. But we're human race that's
marked by sin. So what does all this history
mean in our lives? That brings us back to Matthew
1. And the third way that Jesus
changes is everything. Because all who are caught in
sin, which is all of us, Jesus gives us a fresh start.
In these first, first, first 17 verses.
We have those lists of names, Sinner after Sinner after
Sinner, story after story. Judah and Tamar in verse three
who had twins by incest. Verse 6 is the story of David's
adultery with the wife of Uriah and then whom David had then had
murdered. Then we have the evil king after
evil king who led people into idolatry and immorality, even
resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem and deportation into
Babylon. We're actually reading some of
this early on in Second Kings. Right now in our readings, we
see all this kind of playing out story after story of people who
rebelled against God. It's pretty, pretty startling to
think that the great, great, great, great grandparents of
Jesus hated God and they were leading others to hate God.
But then we see in verse 18 right after this whole list,
Matthew writes now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows.
And if you take notes in your Bible or anything like that, if
you want to circle that word birth, it's really a pretty
awesome word. That word in the Greek, that
word in the Greek is translated Genesis.
Sorry for my handwriting. If you think about that, if you
ponder on it for just a couple minutes, it's really, really
pretty amazing. It's pretty awesome.
Think when you think about the whole very choice of language
here. God has taken us back to the
very beginning when sinful humanity started, and he's
saying, I'm bringing you a new start.
Jesus is a new Genesis. He's a new beginning.
So to all you know, if we're caught in in iniquity, Jesus
comes to give us a new identity when we choose to follow him and
become Christians and then live our life for him.
We have a new identity in Christ.
This is why we when we read Matthew the chapter 1 verses 18
and 21 where it says if you're looking at your Bible in 18
verse 21, it says now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows
after his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph before they
came together. She was found with child of holy
of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph her husband being a
just man and not wanting to make her a public example was minded
to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these
things, behold, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream,
saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take your to
take to your merry. Do not be afraid to take to you
Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the
Holy Spirit, and she will bring forth a son.
And you should call his name Jesus, for he will save people
from their sins. This is where we are told why
Jesus came. Jesus came to save us from our
sins. That is why he came.
You know, people think that he came to, to to do all these
miracles or to heal people or to get a following.
And Jesus, if we if you read some of the miracles he's done,
he tells people once he healed them.
Don't tell anybody about what we just happened here because they
don't want Jesus didn't want people believing that Jesus was
there to heal people physically or to do miracles.
The miracles were done so they could.
It could establish who Jesus was.
But Jesus main point was here to save us from our sins.
A lot of people hope that when they stand before God that day,
they'll have to go, that they'll get to go to heaven because of
their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds.
It's not taught in the Bible. They hope that they will have
done enough good to overcome their back.
But the problem with that whole way of thinking is that one sin
against an infinitely holy God is worthy of infinite separation
from God. One sin, no matter how good
we've been, no matter how hard we've tried, we cannot erase
that one sin. We've committed so many more
sins than that just in this building here.
Every one of us has. We've turned away from God's
ways and turned to our own ways. That's really the essence of
sin. But the beauty here is that we
don't have to try to overcome our bad with good.
We're not saved because we're not saved of our sins because
we're good enough. We're saved from our sins
because Jesus is gracious is not because Jesus has come to pay
the price, and he did pay the price for all of our sins.
It's not based on anything you and I could ever do to earn.
Jesus has died on a cross to cover over all sins and it's the
greatest news in the world. We can be forgiven of all of our
sins before a holy God, not because we do enough good
things, but because we become Christians and we're baptized
and we follow Jesus and we turn from our old way of life and all
of our old bad habits and sinful ways.
And now we are choosing to follow Christ in that manner.
So if we're guilty of sin, which is all of us, he will give us a
new identity and not just that. And we think about all the shame
associated with some of these stories in this of sin here just
listed in the the names here in the 1st part of Matthew chapter
one. We think about all we have
incest, we have adultery, we have Rahab the prostitute, even
Ruth, she was a Moabite from the people known for their sexual
immorality. But Jesus gives a fresh start to
all who are stained by the shame of sin.
He gives us new dignity and new identity.
And if we really look at Jesus's family tree, it's one pretty
crooked family tree. There's a lot of sin going on
through the line of Jesus up to that point.
And we ever, you know, we've, I've wondered, you know, why are
the names of such shameful sinners included in this line
that leads to Jesus? And I think the answer is for
the same reason why our name is included after the line of
Jesus, because we're all sinners.
We're all guilty of sin. You see, God sent his Son to
save the undeserving, the unlikely.
And we just think about who was writing this Matthew, the tax
collector. No, he wasn't the most
upstanding guy when before he started decided to follow Jesus,
he was he was ripping off the Jewish people in Matthew 9.
All the people that Matthew had gathered to his house are really
moral reprobates. If you want to say he knows that
he's least the least likely person to be writing the Gospel.
And that's what makes the Gospel so such good news to us is that
God saves us not based on our vain efforts or, or all the
mistakes that we've made, but it's based upon his supernatural
gift of grace that we receive and his mercy.
And we need to hear that good news today, every single one of
us. We can have a totally new start
with our sins totally wiped away.
We can have that new identity and that new dignity in Christ.
Some of these stories are disheartening.
What if these, you know, if these stories of sin that we can
read about these characters and is all that there really is?
You know, we just read these sad stories and that's it.
You know, it'd be kind of depressing.
You really wouldn't give validity to the Bible and what
it is. But there's always hope given
for those who have made those mistakes.
Jesus gives us fresh hope. Sometimes we look at the
circumstances around us, whether we've created them or people
have created the circumstances around us.
We just don't see any hope maybe in some of the circumstances
that we're facing and that we're dealing with, you know, I just
don't see me coming back from this or such and such may not
come back from what they're dealing with in their life at
this time. Maybe we've seen in a way that
we wish we could just take it back, but we can't.
It's out there. We think you know that well,
I've seen that way. That's going to redefine my life
from here on out. We we, we categorize that and we
hold on to things that we think is going to define who we are
for the rest of our lives. And that's not the case when
we're Christians, because Jesus defines who we are in every
manner. Jesus defines our life, our
sins, our previous life. Our previous sins do not define
who we are. No sin will define who we are if
we're in Jesus. And if you read the stories of
the Gospels, we see the story after story after story of
people who sin really, really, like really bad sins.
We see that. But when they encounter Jesus,
everything changes in their life.
You think about the Apostle Paul, his previous life before
he converted, you know, he, Saul of Tarsus, he was murdering
Christians. He was seeking them out.
He was asking for permission from those above him to go and
kill Christians. He was doing it.
He was at authorizing the death in the stoning of Stephen.
But when he encountered Jesus, his entire life changed from
there on out all the way to the cross where we see a thief dying
next to Jesus asking him for for forgiveness.
Jesus says today you will be with me in paradise.
You see Jesus ensures that sin will not define our life and
that's good news. Then there are those who suffer
because of result of sin. Sin has consequences that we
have to deal with. Sin causes consequences not only
to ourselves but also to those that may be around us, impacting
others that may be around us. It could do some serious
destruction. We have some of us here who have
family members that are no longer part of the church
because of sin, and Satan has drawn them away.
The world is taking hold of them because the devil works so hard,
I believe harder than anything else to divide a family.
I believe that's where State and Satan really, really starts his
division. And if we're here, we have
family members that are not here because of the choices that
they've made. Has it not had an effect on you?
Don't other family members decisions have an effect on you,
whether good or bad? It hurts sometimes we suffer
because of other people's choices.
We suffer because of someone else's poor choices and pad
decisions, not just worship attendance, but but choices that
are made all throughout the world all the time.
And it really suffering And that that that that heavyweight we
feel sometimes is a reality. You know, we raise our children
raise in a way that God would have us to raise them.
We pray that we would have the wisdom to raise them in a way,
and we do everything that we think is doing right and
everything goes smooth, and then they decide to one day not
follow Jesus. That's hard for us to
understand. It's hard for us to wrap our
minds around, blindsided by a decision.
Or maybe it's the sudden death of a loved one that's not with
us anymore, or someone who's close to you actually hurt you
the most. We lose heart, we lose, we lose,
I don't know another word for it, but we lose our heart, of
course. But if we lost of heart, if we
have lost heart, Jesus gives us fresh hope because he ensures
that suffering will not be the end of our story.
We want to make sure we understand it and mark it down.
Suffering is not the end of anybody's story because we
believe in Jesus and Jesus always gives us hope in
everything. The one who had saved us from
our sins and came to conquer death itself.
With Jesus, all suffering will never be the end of our story.
He turns tragedy into triumph. Jesus changes everything.
Jesus's presence will never leave us alone.
In Matthew one verse 22, it says all this took place to fulfill
what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.
Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and
they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God be
with us. That prophecy was given 700
years before Matthew chapter 1. And it's astounding that truth
of Christianity to it seems so incomprehensible to so many
people. But to those who us who believe,
it's irresistible. We understand it, we we grasp
it, we can hold on to it. We we know it.
There's a story of a group of men in the Middle East that I
heard about who say, you know, God is too great, God is too
great of an entity too glorious to debase himself and become a
physical man, a human. That's what they believe.
And then a Christian man replied to them and said, let me ask you
a question. In my life, I met, I once met a
woman and my heart fell in love with her.
And when it came time for me to tell her that I loved her, do
you think I sent somebody else to go and tell her to do that,
that I loved her for me? Or do you think I went and told
her myself? And they laughed and said, of
course you went and told her yourself that you loved her.
And that Christian man said, in matters of love one must go
himself, not send somebody else. And that's the point.
Our God is so great and so glorious that he is not just
sent this prophet or that person a messenger, whatever he came
himself, Jesus, Emmanuel, God in the flesh with us.
And if we think of it, the God who spoke the world into the big
to being, who rules and reigns over all creation, who knows
every star in the sky, knows everything about everybody more
than we know about ourselves. Who tells the ocean waves where
to stop. The God who has multitudes of
angels worshipping him and singing praise continually day
and night. The God whose glory is beyond
our imagination that we can't even fathom how glorious he is.
This is the God that is with us. Jesus is the constant companion
our soul craves, no matter what happens to us, no matter what
happens around us, no matter what we go through, no matter
what we're dealing with. But all of us who are
Christians, all who follow Jesus, will never be alone in
this world. And I think it's also reality
too. Some, you know, do we ever feel
alone? I think loneliness is a reality.
Maybe you feel like people don't understand what we're going
through, what we're experiencing.
You know, you could be in a crowd, in a place with a crowd
of people all all around you, but you feel alone.
And we need to know this, that Jesus has come so that we mean
never be alone. He will never ever leave us
alone. Jesus will never lead us astray.
Number six, in the middle of Matthew chapter 2, we read a
quote from Micah 5 verse 2 about a promise of a coming Messiah.
And if we had time, we'd do some comparisons between the two.
But at the end of Matthew chapter or Matthew verse 6 or
chapter 2 verse 6, it says from you shall come a ruler who will
shepherd my people, Israel. And that picture of a shepherd
is actually not in Micah 2, but it goes all the way back to
second Samuel 5 verse 2 where God anointed David as king over
Israel. God said to him, You shall not
just lead my people, but you are to shepherd my people.
You don't just rule over them, but like a shepherd with his
sheep, you tend to them, you care for them, you protect and
provide to them. And that's really a picture of
Jesus. Jesus has come not to reign over
us, not to demand of us, not to rule with an iron fist if you
want to say, but he's a shepherd us to lead us.
So we desire to do what Jesus wants us to do.
Jesus doesn't make any choices for us.
We make our own choices. Jesus hasn't said something in
written in stone that we have to follow.
Now we do follow the scriptures. That's not what I'm saying.
My point is, is that we're not forced, but as robots to follow
what Jesus has directed us to do.
Do we ever wonder which direction to take in life?
Do we ever wonder which direction to make in life?
Jesus is our shepherd. He's the one who shows us which
way to go and teaches us which way, which way to go, the one
who rules over you. He.
We will never be guided in the wrong direction if we always do
what Jesus has shown us to do. How to treat people, how to make
decisions, how to follow through with things, how to pray, how on
and on and on and on everything He has shown us.
And we will never be out without guidance with Him.
Jesus's word will never let us down #7 The Old Testament
quotations keep coming as we see here in verse 15 of Matthew
chapter 2, after Joseph and Mary flee to Egypt and then return,
Matthew says that that was not by accident.
He says this was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the
prophet out of Egypt. I called my son and just like
God had brought deliverance from Egypt in the Old Testament,
Jesus is coming out of Egypt to bring deliverance in the New
Testament. And then we get down to chapter
verses 17 and 18 in Matthew chapter 2, where he quotes from
Jeremiah 31 verses 15 and 17 as families are weeping because
babies were dying in Bethlehem during this time, because Herod
had decreed to have all the male babies killed in order to kill
the line of Jesus Christ. Matthew takes us back to
Jeremiah 31, who's where families were weeping and they
were being ripped apart in the deportation to Babylon.
And in Jeremiah 31, God promises, it says, just as I
brought hope in Jeremiah 31 when I said you have a you'll have a
future. This was not be the end of your
story. So I'm promising you now that
this weeping you are experiencing will not be the end
of the story. And the whole point here is that
God is always faithful to His Word.
God always is faithful to His Word.
He'll deliver our soul in every way.
God's Word will prove true every single time.
We do not have to doubt that. And Jesus is a picture of that.
All the promises that God made hundreds and hundreds of years
before His coming are fulfilled in the New Testament and the
Bible tells about. All God's promises are in are,
are yes in Jesus in 2nd Corinthians 1 and 20.
He is the picture of God's faithfulness.
Jesus's love is worthy of our life.
This is really where everything kind of comes to a head.
Jesus is all these things we've just talked about in which we
could summarize as Jesus is the one whose love is worthy of our
life. And the rest of the book of
Matthew. We see this is the question over
and over and over again in the book of Matthew.
Who is going to believe that Jesus is worthy of their life?
And what we see is that the religious leaders reject him and
the Roman rulers reject him. But then you have a small band
of guys who love him and follow him and quite frankly, change
the entire world just because of their belief in Jesus.
And that leads to one question I want to ask each and every one
of us today. Do you believe that Jesus is the
one whose love is worthy of our entire life?
We need to realize that he is the one that we need.
The followers are Christians of Jesus are not are are not
people. You know, we just don't have
Jesus as part of our lives. He's not just a small part,
maybe on Sunday mornings or Sunday afternoons.
No, Jesus is our life entirely our life.
We look to him for everything in every situation, in every facet
of our lives. We.
Need him and we want to understand what he needs from
us. So he doesn't need anything from
us, but we want to follow him because of what he has done for
us. We don't just tack them on a
little bit here and there. That's not following Jesus.
That's actually patronizing Jesus, if you ask me, the curse
of nominal Christianity. Whereas people who claim to be
Jesus but have real no real love for him to or desire to follow
him. Jesus is not just a part of our
life. Jesus is our life.
And when we put our trust in Jesus, when we believe who he
is, when we confess his name, when we change of our old ways,
we're baptized into believing Christians.
That's just the beginning. Our life is fresh, Our life is
new. We have a fresh start because
Jesus changed it at that point. No matter what is unexpected
before us this week or throughout the future, we can
have security and knowing that Jesus is going to fulfill the
promises that he made us. All the Old Testament, all these
prophecies, all the stories that we read about in all the Old
Testament writings point to one man, 1 Savior, our Redeemer,
Jesus the Christ. So what has Jesus changed in
your life? Or better question, does Jesus
change your life? Has He changed your life?
Have we surrendered to him? Is Jesus Lord of our lives?
Have we submitted to him? And if we haven't, we're going
to provide an opportunity, an invitation that we do here to
follow Jesus, to be baptized, to have remission of our sins.
Hear the Word, believe Jesus is who he is, change the way our
lives have been going, confess the name of Jesus before others.
Then we're baptized in contact, the blood of Jesus Christ at
that moment, and we are forgiven of our sins.
If we are here and we've done that, but we have committed a
sin in a public manner that needs a public confession, or if
we just need the prayers of the congregation, we ask you to
please come while we stand and while we see.