DEC 3 2023 | Isaiah: Messiah S2E1 | The Immanuel Life

Sea Change Church · Isaiah: Messiah S2E1 · "The Immanuel Life" · December 3, 2023
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

The gospel of Matthew chapter one, verses 18 through 25. This is how the birth of Jesus, the Messiah, came about. His mother, Mary, was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph, her husband, was faithful to the law and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace.

He had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet, the virgin will conceive and give birth to his son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife, but he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son, and he gave him the name.

Jesus. This is the word of the Lord. Hope no one has said it yet. Lemme say, Merry Christmas to all of you today and, uh, excited as we move into this, uh, season of Advent. I want to challenge you to really spend time looking upon the manger of Christ. You can do that reading through the different narratives of Jesus' birth, but setting time aside as we move up to Christmas, it's gonna be really easy like it was at Thanksgiving to Miss Christmas, the meaning of Christmas, Jesus Christ.

Uh, get yourself a candle, light, a candle before your prayer time, whatever it takes to make it significant. Give your life away in powerful ways. This is a season where people are needing hope. And uh, with that said, we're moving into a new series. This is the second year we've been in Isaiah looking at Isaiah's Messiah. Isaiah the prophet, spoke of Jesus, and he had, uh, a lot of messages.

Isaiah was very prolific, and it's one of the, I saw the actual, uh, only text of Isaiah, the full text of Isaiah when I was in Israel back in August. And, uh, got to see this incredible manuscript that tells about a bunch of things. It tells about the destruction that is coming upon Israel because they have forgotten who God is.

And because of their idol worship, they have completely forgotten who Jesus is, or excuse me, who God was. And they begun to worship idols and there was a destruction coming. But in the midst of that destruction, there was one word that if you could write a word over the entire book of Isaiah, that word would be hope. It is hope. And I know in this season, being a pastor long enough to know that, uh, many people during this time struggle with hope.

It's their first year without a loved one. It's, uh, they've moved, they've lost friends. And it's easy to miss that, uh, when you, when all things are going well for us. And so we want to be a people of hope and speak of a message of hope. And I want, I'm gonna speak about this week as we move into the, this first passage, some of the key prophecies.

And we're gonna do that for five weeks. We're gonna culminate at Christmas Eve service. I'm gonna look at some of the key prophecies and some of the key statements by Isaiah, where he speaks, and then where you find that in the New Testament and where you actually see that the sermon is entitled, hope for the Holidays. And we're looking at focus.

I wonder if you would, you'd go to verse 23. There we're in Matthew. And Matthew is the place where you find one of the most powerful, uh, fore tellings from Isaiah. Isaiah speaks into the future, and he says this in verse 23, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, circle Emmanuel, which means God is with us.

That's a powerful passage, and it's after some really hard words that Isaiah has, uh, for the Israelites and for King Ahaz speaking to King Ahaz. And he says, go ahead and ask. Isaiah says, ask God for a sign. Ahaz says, I'm not gonna ask God for a sign. I'm not gonna test my God. He goes, okay, well, God's gonna give you a sign.

And he says, this is the sign. He said, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. Now, lemme tell you where we're gonna land here, a little spoiler alert, we're gonna end up with, this is calling you to live the Emmanuel life. The God is with you. Life, God is with us, but God is with you.

He's with you as you drive down the 52. He's with you when you're up in the morning, in your quiet time. He's with you at all times throughout the day. And to come to that realization that God is not only with us in a general sense, but God is with you. And that's where we'll end on that. But let's look at Isaiah just quickly.

If you've never known who Isaiah is, I love that picture that Jeff created of Isaiah out there in the wilderness. And Jesus in the manger foretelling. I, I mean, I, I was, I gave triple wow to him. I sent that back in text. I was like, triple wow, triple exclamation point. Because that sums it up. And if we can see that picture in our lives when we're out in the wilderness, when we're far away from our hope being realized to realize and to hold on, that it is coming.

You know, if there's anything that's a preservative for our lives, it's hope. Hope is a massive preservative. And hope requires us to have our focus on the thing that is to come and the thing that is promised. And that comes through faith. And that's what we see Isaiah doing. Isaiah was a prophet. He lived in the eighth century, BCE, uh, before Christ, 800 years before Christ.

And he lived in the kingdom of Judah, lived in Jerusalem, and during kind of the final, uh, part of the kingdom period of the Israelites, before they'd be taken into Babylon, before they'd be taken again, first into Assyria and then into Babylon. And then eventually they would finally get their nation back, uh, in 1948. And they had some rebuilding and some things like that.

But eventually, it was until 1948 in most, in many of our lifetimes, not mine, but some of us that are here where Israel became a nation again. And Isaiah spoke about that. Um, next thing he's known, he's also known for his prophecies, uh, of the coming Messiah, the restoration of Israel. Uh, and then Israel's writing. And then Isaiah's writings are found in the Old Testament book of Isaiah, obviously, which is the longest prophetic book.

But Isaiah's quoted 60 plus times in the New Testament. I mean, he is a, my daughter would call it an mc main character. So if you are follow any of that world, he's a definitely a main character in the New Testament. And we see him, we're gonna look at some of his main scriptures, he warned of God's judgment in Israel and the other nations due to their sins.

And I'll Isaiah also emphasize the importance of justice, righteousness, and our social responsibility. So he's really well known for that. I'm gonna read just a couple of the biggies that you might know, but he's got a bunch. And to study Isaiah's, um, passages and actually to make a memorization chart will be one way that you can live the Emmanuel life to make scripture known to you.

And that's gonna take some skin in the game. That's gonna take some effort to actually look up, go to Google, say powerful prophecies by Isaiah, or important quotes by Isaiah in the Bible. It'll come up and begin to memorize those for your life. Lemme give you just a couple of those. This one's awesome from Isaiah 40 31. You probably heard this one. But those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

They shall mount up on wings as eagles, they shall run, they shall not be weary. They shall walk and not become faint. We've heard that one that's, I have personally been lifted up by someone who wrote that, you know, 1800 years ago. Another one is this, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach the good tidings unto the meek.

He has sent me to hold, to bind up the broken hearted, to prom liberty, to the captives and the opening of prison to them that are bound. And who said that? Jesus himself said that. So Jesus himself is quoting Isaiah. He's a powerful, powerful prophet that spoke. Now this passage is thrown in, in the midst of a crisis in the life of Joseph.

When we find this passage, this prophecy in the New Testament, we find it in the life of Joseph in the first chapter of Matthew. And Joseph has hit a, a crisis. His Mary, his wife, to be trove, betrothed, looks like she has another baby daddy somewhere. Uh, and it ain't him. And this is an issue in Jewish culture when you could be stoned for that.

So Mary was gonna be under subjected to being stoned. Things are not going well. And in the midst of that, here is this prophecy. So we're gonna, I wanted to encourage you with the prophecies, but then also show not only why it's a prophecy of something that is meant to come, but it's for the moment of crisis as well. Because in that moment of crisis, he shows up.

Here's two things we're gonna look at today. One, Joseph's rules for crisis. Joseph has a really small part in the scripture, but I have a feeling he was a fantastic father. Um, we believe he died early in Jesus' life and Jesus experienced that. And if you've lost a parent, then Jesus, then Joseph would, would or Jesus would understand that we believe that he did die early on.

You don't see him later in Jesus' life. But it seemed like he was engaged in his son's life. He was doing carpentry with his son. It seems really powerful. And Joseph was a man of absolute character. And when crisis came, it was that character that pushed him through the crisis. Lemme say that your character, which is built before the crisis, is what can push you through the crisis.

Look at the timing on this. Your character, which is built before your crisis, is what will push you through the crisis. And that is so profound in this life. So Joseph's rule for crisis and then cultivating the Emmanuel life, I want you all to live in a, in a, a realization that God is with you. That if you have accepted Christ, he is not only near you, he is within you.

And we can access that. We can go boldly before the throne of God at any time. Let's look at Joseph's rules for crisis verse 18 and 19. This is how the birth of Jesus, the Messiah came about. His mother, Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

Likely story, right? Because Joseph, imagine you're Joseph and she comes and tells you that you're not gonna believe that, right? But in verse 19, because Joseph, her husband, was faithful to the law circle, faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace. Circle disgrace. Disgrace is the opposite of grace.

It is disgrace he had in mind to divorce her quietly. In this moment, Joseph's life is turned upside down, honor and standing and, um, familial, um, recognition and pride and honor, like I said a moment ago, are the key fabric of Middle Eastern cultures. And to have a woman who you're betrothed to. And what does that mean? It says that before they were, uh, before they came together, they, the, the, the ceremony hadn't happened yet, but the camels had been traded.

Okay, well what do, what do you mean by that? I'll tell you what I mean by that. There would be a dowry for your wife and uh, she would give so many camels what's what they thought her worth and value was, and they would trade her. I'm sorry, this isn't our culture long time ago. So, but I will tell you something that happened recently.

I was in Israel in August and I was with Rebecca, and if you don't know Rebecca, she's awesome. She's like 26-year-old in our, in our congregation. It's about six foot tall. She's went out to lunch and this guy's talking to her, who's the waiter, and all of a sudden I see her like, look like this. My other, my daughter's sitting next to her and Rebecca's like, that's my dad.

And she points to me and I'm like, I'm not your dad, but okay, cool enough. Um, and he comes over to me and he goes, 10 camels for that one. And I for real, this for real heaven, this for real heaven. In August, I think he was playing. And then he pulled out this giant wad of money. He goes, I got money. And I'm like, great, awesome.

She's not for sale. If she would've side eyed me on that trip, it would've gone different. But no, she didn't. No, that actually happened. So this had happened in Joseph's life. It's a true story. You can ask her. Uh, this had happened in Joseph's life and all of a sudden, I mean the disgrace was gonna be upon him, uh, but not just upon him.

It was gonna be upon her. And it meant in the Levitical law that she needed to be stoned to death as well as the man that committed adultery with her. So we see this. And so he's thrust into this crisis. Maybe you've been thrust into a crisis. How well do you do with crisis? I find that I'm personally my best with crisis, and I'm my worst with no crisis.

Now, I used to create crisis on purpose. And you know, in order to probably, I don't know, subconsciously make that happen, but I finally in crisis time comes, it's kind of game day. You know, get your battle arm wrong, let's go. But when things are just chill, like David, remember David, remember he took a break one time. Everybody went to war, he just stayed home.

Next thing, he's like looking over his balcony. There's Bathsheba, he struggles in that no purpose time. And I hear people that retire sometimes saying that's a struggle for them. All of a sudden they go from having this career and all of a sudden they retire. Um, and then there's like, what do you do in that space? So crisis is, for some of us, is something that we lean into others, we struggle with crisis.

How are, how are you, how would you say you do with crisis? Do you immediately go back to old triggers, old habits? Do you immediately go back to something that can fix that crisis for you? Or do you lean into that Emmanuel life knowing that God is with you? What we see Joseph do is in the midst of crisis, Joseph engages God and engages character and walks in faith.

Look at this. There's some things in here that were, I thought were amazing. First of all, go to verse 19. Verse 19 says, um, but Joseph, because her husband was faithful to the law. Now I had to circle that for a moment because Joseph was faithful to the law. I love this word because if you're gonna circle another one, circle the word because I love the conjunctions and the transitional words in scripture because they, they're powerful and they show cause and effect.

We want to get to the effect, we wanna get to the cause. But oftentimes we miss a word. Like because, because means a cause and effect. That what happens after this was happening because of something that came before it. And what is that thing? Because he was faithful. And what was he faithful to? He was faithful to the word of God, which back then would've been called the law.

He was faithful to the law. David says, I love your law. Oh Lord, you know, it protects me. It comforts me the word of God. He was faithful to the word of God. And in order to become faithful to the word of God, you have to know the word of God. Back at synagogue school in the first century, in, in his time, he would've had to have written out the entire Torah perfectly.

And if he would've made one mistake, he would've had to start again. He, every student had to write out the entire Torah. They had to know the word of God. And not only that, they were faithful to the word. The Bible says that even the doubt, the the demons know the word of God, but they're not faithful to it. I wanna say the crisis was met because he had a well that was deep with faithfulness to the word of God.

Because he had been living faithfully to the word of God in the little things of life. That's so important. Don't wait for the crisis. When the crisis comes, you will be ill prepared. He was faithful. That's the first thing we see is he was faithful. I love that I say because that because word speaks to your true identity. Put your name here, did this because of whatever the crisis is or whatever that they had as their core identity because his core identity was a man of faithfulness to God's word.

Or if it would be a woman who could be faithful to God's word because of that speaks to your core identity. There is a because between all of our actions and that because will speak and point to your core identity. If you're not happy with your core identity, then self-agency is the way in prayer to ask God to change it and to change some of those things.

But that takes courage and that's difficult. So that's the first little thing I saw the next I saw in verse 19. B is the word and yet circle and yet easy to miss, right? We just read verse 19, really powerful transition word because Joseph was her husband. Her husband was faithful to the law and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace.

And yet is a word of grace. He's faithful to the law. If he was faithful to the law, then he should have brought up, uh, Deuteronomy 22, 22, which says, if a man is found sleeping with another man's wife, both the man and the woman who slept with her must die. If he's faithful to the law, if he's gonna be hard noses about the law and faithful to the law like it says he was, then she needs to die and be stoned.

And we need to find out the dude that got her pregnant as well. And he needs to be stoned as well, that is being hard nosed to the law. And yet, and yet he didn't. Now you could say, well, that's anti-biblical. He's going against the law unless you remember what his son does one day, see his son. One day in John chapter eight is there, and there's this woman who actually was caught in the act of adultery.

And she comes and she's thrown before him. And Jesus stops for a second and he writes, starts writing on the ground, and then he stands up and he says, who of you who has not sinned, you can cast the first stone? You see, that story makes a lot more sense when you realize maybe that dad is around his son's arm and he says, I wanna tell you a story about meeting your mom.

One day I wanna tell you what could have happened and what I wanted to maybe do with my anger. And yet, son, and yet before Jesus knew to choose right or wrong, 'cause the scripture says he didn't know how to choose right or wrong, right? Scripture says that he learned how to do that and God protected him while he did that, while he was doing that, maybe sitting down by the Sea of Galilee, where we just were his son saying, lemme just tell you this story.

And yet I didn't. And yet is a word of grace. I mean, we have to have one hand of knowing the word of God and being faithful to the word of God and one hand of grace, and knowing when to play that hand. And he knew when to play that hand. And yet because he did not want to expose her to what? Public disgrace, it's powerful. Grace is so powerful, God's law.

And, and his word is so powerful, but grace is so powerful. And he says he desires mercy over what judgment. You see, mercy always triumphs. And so in this case, he did that. Say one particular, this is just an example of this. As I was reading this week, I don't know if we were able to get the picture up of Ann Frank, if you guys got it in the back.

I tried to send Chris up there. There it is. I was looking for stories of grace and people who ex exhibited grace. Um, and I was reading about Anne Frank in July 15th, 1944. She wrote this in her journal as she was up in the attic, hiding from the Germans, seeing what had happened. I still believe in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.

I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. Lemme just read that again. A powerful little girl. I still believe in spite of everything, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion of misery and death.

Wow. And yet, do you need an N yet there a situation? You need an in yet right now? And yet because of this, I can, I can point the finger because of that, because of that, because of that. And yet there is grace. This is a season of hope. And that's what Isaiah is talking about. 'cause he's speaking to Ahaz and he's speaking to Israel and saying, you've done this, you've done this, and you've, you've had false gods.

You've prostituted yourself over and over again and you've, you've killed your children and burned your children to molac. And, and yet a virgin will conceive and it goes on later on to say the nations and will ride upon his shoulders. Next thing we see in verse 19 is he was a man of peace he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

Just a quick point here. Drama is the enemy of unity. And he just, I just love his, I just love his nature in a crisis, calm, steady, even handed, peaceful. Some of you're gonna need that this Christmas dinner, right? Calm, steady, peaceful, not being a person of chaos. Final thing, final point is cultivating the Emmanuel life, the Emmanuel definition.

It's a name of a child. So Emmanuel is actually a name in Israel, uh, Israeli society back in the day. But it, and it symbolized presence. It symbolized presence. And God is around us all the time. Uh, he's in heaven, but his kingdom is on earth and he dwells within us, but we need to cultivate and his presence. And you can see that he consumes sacrifices.

So Devin and Eden gave this pass. I mean this story. God consumes a sacrifice. It says that he will consume the sacrifice. And when you don't have a sacrifice, it's hard for him often to consume something. And we are a sacrifice. We bring a sacrifice of praise, and we see that in order to experience God with us, it takes some effort.

I found during the Daniel fast, there were seasons where God felt closer than he had felt that it was during this time that we cultivated that. And so we can cultivate that. Verse 20, here's one, a couple ways to cultivate. But after he had considered circle, considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what she is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

I I think one of the ways that we are going to live in Emmanuel life of God with us is to spend more time in consideration, to spend less time being told things and then just having these, IM immediate reactions, visceral reactions based on the tweet or whatever it is. But taking time when you have a situation in your life and considering it getting counsel, the Emmanuel life is the considered life.

It's a life that pulls away, looks at the scripture and ha and finds an answer in that scripture. I told a couple weeks, I, a couple months ago in a pa, in a message I had called my mom when I was in Europe and I had this, um, issue at the church. We were on our way to Israel. This issue came up and I called her and I said, mom, uh, here, what's your advice?

You know, you're 92, you got some great wisdom. What do you say? And so she said two things. She said, first of all, she said, I want you to make this decision out of your spirit, man, out of your, out of your inner child. I was like, okay, let's go. Let's go. All right. I was like, that's good. She goes, next, I want you to read the Bible.

Go into the proverbs or find a book of the Bible and read until you find three answers for this problem. And don't make any decisions until you find three answers outta the Bible, directly from the Bible. God said he wants to speak to you and he will speak to you. That's maturity, and that's the considered life, right? That's the life that slows down and says, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I'm gonna take some time. I'm gonna think, I'm gonna pray. I'm gonna fast. What it did, imagine, you know, if, um, if Joseph would've just flown off the handle there, what, what are you telling me? You're an angel. Can be wa you know, and just run out into the streets and then scream and yell. You know, like an episode of Jerry Springer or whatever it was back in the nineties.

No, he considered, the final thing is the Emmanuel life is the obedient life, because after you consider something, you actually want to follow it. Verse 24, when Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife, but he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to his son.

And then she gave him the name of Jesus. Angel comes to him and speaks to him a very hard truth. Now, it was an angel, but I am under the impression and the belief that if an angel spoke to me last night, it wouldn't take too many days until I asked myself, was that really an angel? I mean, faith is a, is a shaky thing, right?

I'd be asking myself that, you know, was the Turkey bad? Like what just happened? There was that. Was I being deceived? Whatever he just knew and he went, he followed and did a very difficult thing, this incredibly difficult thing, and took her as his wife. Maybe you need to do a difficult thing. Maybe there's a difficult thing that God's calling you to that you've considered, but now you've gotta take the step.

The considered life follows that up with obedience because we believe that God speaks to us. And when you consider something, then God will give you an answer. And when you get as close to an answer as you can get, some people are paralyzed by not having everything they need to know. Faith doesn't always pencil out that when you have that moment, the next thing you do is you step into it saying, God, this is the best I can do.

I've heard in obedience, I'm stepping out into this. He was a man that lived in the e Emmanuel life. I considered life in a life of obedience. All right, here's the takeaway for the week. This is one thing for you can do this week. There's a four word statement I want you to memorize. I didn't put it in your notes. You can write it down.

God is with me. I want that to just resonate with every heartbeat this week. As you drive, as you have an issue, if you have a phone call you have to make, if you have to talk to somebody, maybe there's a teacher you need to confront about something. Maybe there's something that's going on, a hard conversation. Maybe you're just having a great day and you're at the beach and your feet are in the warm sand.

God is with me, Emmanuel, God is with me over and over and over until it becomes the DNA of your soul. Amen.