Advent Hope

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Okay. Hi, Stu. Okay. I think we're going to get started. Good morning. Hopefully everybody's recovered from Thanksgiving. It's good to see everybody that's here. We're going to get started this morning by reading together. We are starting our Advent time, our Advent season. As we're moving out of Thanksgiving, we're going to be reading together out of Psalm 65. John Calvin describes this Psalm as God waking us up from a stupor of thanklessness, which is interesting because we just came out of Thanksgiving, but it's interesting how quickly we can enter into thanklessness. One, I'm just trying to pull this up here where he said it much better than I could say it. He says, "Calvin observes, 'We are bound in whatever part of the world we live to acknowledge the riches of the divine goodness seen in the earth's fertility and increase, and yet it would seem as if the more clarity human beings have in observing causes in nature, they will rest in those more determinedly instead of ascending by them to God."

which just means we are more appreciative of the thing than the Creator, the created than the Creator. And so this psalm here is kind of, it wakes us up. It starts with, "Praise is due to you, O God," which means he's been lacking in praise. And so as we read this together, oh, no, not to the song. As we read this together, we're going to stand, and then when we sing our first Song, the kids are going to come and light the first candle of Advent, which represents hope. And the psalm that we're going to be reading, the verses of it, just kind of to the hope that we have in God and how even when we start to get this attitude of thanklessness or we're trusting in ourselves or things that have been created, always there and he's steadfast and he's who our hope should be in. And so let's go ahead and stand up. And we're going to be reading Psalm 65. And we're going to be doing verses of

5 through 8. And it says, "By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness, O God of our salvation, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas, the one who by his strength established the mountains, being girded with might, who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, the molt of their people. So that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs. You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy." This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. God, we thank you so much for all that you've given us. We thank you that we're able to pause and have a time of thankfulness and to just be reminded of all the good things that you do for us and all the good things you give us.

And not just that, but your power and your might and how we can see all of that from just where we stand to as far as we can see to all the ways to the ends of the earth. And we just thank you so much for your mercies that are new every morning and how we can still shout for joy in the evenings when we've had a hard day and when it seems like there's nothing to be thankful for you, God, and the hope that we have in you. Those that are gathered here today, and we thank you for the season of Advent that we're coming into and just reflecting on your arrival and what that means, not just for those in biblical times, but for us now. Be with our service today and allow it to glorify you in Jesus name. Amen. All right. So we're going to be singing Hosanna.

We turn to you. We turn to you. Hope is stirring. Hearts of love. We turn to you. Hope is stirring. Hearts of love. We turn to you. Hope is stirring. Hearts are yearning for you. We long for you. 'Cause when we see you, we find strength to face the day. And in your presence, all our fears are washed away. Washed away. Hosanna! Hosanna! You are the God who sings us, worthy of all our prayers. Hear the sound. Hearts returning to you. We turn to you. In your kingdom, broken lies are made new. You make all things new. 'Cause when we see you, we find strength to face the day. And in your presence we'll ask, I'll wash the way. I'll wash the way. Hosanna. Hosanna. You are the God who saves us. Worthy of all our praises. Hosanna. Hosanna. Come every way among us. We welcome you here, Lord Jesus.

All right. If you want to stand, you can, or if you want to sit, you can. We are going to be moving into our prayer and share time, and I think we're live, because it wasn't working, but if we are, if you are watching, there will be a phone number for you to text. If you have any prayer requests or anything you'd like to share with us, please send that to that number, and we'll share those here together, and then we're going to be muted here during that time for privacy reasons, and then we'll be back after that to just continue on into our service. All right. And so we're going to be singing, "O come, O come, Emmanuel."

Yes, I'll hear until the Son of God appear. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel. O come, thou rod of Jesse, free, thine own from Satan's tyranny. From deaths of hell thy people save, and give them victory, O all the grave. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel. Thou day-spring come, and share our spirits by thine adverting. Dispers of gloomy clouds of night, and depths of shadows put to flight. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel. All right, you may be seated. Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray. Amen. Amen.

All right. As we continue on, Brandon wanted me to share something out of this book, The Thoughts That Make Your Heart Sing, that is by Sally Lloyd-Jones, who's one of our favorite authors. She put together one of our favorite kids' Bibles, the Jesus Storybook Bible, and so this is technically a kids' book, but sometimes we can all learn things from kids' books. So, Dr. Seuss shows that. But this just talks about winter and the hope that we can see in wintertime as well and all of that, and so it says, "In the winter, it looks like the trees have all died. Their leaves wither and drop off. They stand like skeletons against the cold, desolate sky. But did you know that even before a single leaf falls to the ground, next spring's bud is ready? Next summer's bud is ready.

Next summer's leaf is furled inside that tiny bud waiting. And Jesus says that there is nothing broken that won't be bended, nothing sick that won't be healed, nothing dead that won't live again, because God is making everything sad come untrue. We can't see it now, but remember the fruit tree in the winter? It looks dead, but the buds are ready to go, and come spring they will blossom in fruit." And then it references Revelation 21:5, which says Jesus says, "I am making everything new." And so that ties in well with what we're going to be singing next as we continue on in our time of communion, which is "Christ our hope in life and death." Christ alone. What is our only confidence? That our souls to Him belong. Who holds our days within His hands? What comes upon from His command? And what will keep us to the end? The love of Christ in which we stand?

Oh, say hallelujah! Our hope springs eternal. Oh, say hallelujah! Now and ever we confess Christ our hope in life and death. What truth can cause the troubled soul? God is good. God is good. Where is His grace and goodness known? In our grave, Redeemer's blood. Who holds our faith when fears arise? Who stands above the stormy trials? Who sends the waves that bring us nigh unto the shore, the rock of Christ? Oh, sing hallelujah. Our hope springs eternal. Oh, sing hallelujah. Now whenever we confess, Christ our hope is eternal. We will be alive and dead.

If we rise to meet the Lord, then sin and death will be destroyed, and we will feast in endless joy, when Christ is ours forevermore. Oh, sing hallelujah. Our hope springs eternal. Oh, sing hallelujah. Now and ever we confess, Christ our hope in life and death. Oh, sing hallelujah. Our hope springs eternal. Oh, sing hallelujah. Now and ever we confess, Christ our hope in life and death. Now and ever we confess, Christ our hope in life and death. Throughout the history of the Church, there has been an effort to try to instill God's truth from the Bible into the hearts of His people. And so one of the forms that that takes is that of questions and answers, questions designed to have a biblical answer or to summarize maybe a large portion of Scripture. And that's not a new idea. It has happened through the centuries. In fact, it began not long after Jesus because most of the church, as it began, were not able to read. And so how do you commit truth of Scripture to heart? And so they did it in a couple of ways.

Sometimes they just simply memorized the Scripture they had. Or in other cases, they would take big ideas in Scripture from all through the Bible and summarize them down in statements that could be memorized to summarize biblical truth with the intention of seeking to put these biblical truths into the depths of our hearts in a way that we can understand and quickly recall. But I don't think that is just a new idea with the church. In fact, throughout Scripture you find God using sort of very simple things to direct us to a bigger truth, something that we can hold very easily in our heart that lets us see the big truth of what God has done. Probably one of the first examples in Scripture is that of Noah and the rainbow, this very simple physical phenomenon that points us to God and His goodness and also to His judgment, and we see it in Egypt.

As they are getting ready to leave and to not experience the judgment of God, the Israelites will place the blood of the Lamb on their doorstep so that those who are under the blood of the Lamb will not find themselves under the judgment of God. And as the people go into Canaan, if you remember, as they cross the Jordan River, the several men, 12 men, are instructed to pick up stones and they build a monument with the explicit purpose of when your children ask what those stones are, give them a ready answer about God's goodness and greatness. And we see this not just in Joshua, but throughout the Old Testament. God using pictures that are designed to bring us a response of what God has done from the truth of what he has said in Scripture. Jesus does a very similar thing. If you remember, now as he is talking about anxiety and fearfulness and uncertainty about the future and will we have enough and will we be able to get what we need, he points us simply to those pictures of the sparrow and of the lily

of the field and how God in his grace cares for them and as you struggle and as you're hurting and as you're uncertain you see the sparrow flitting through the trees and the flowers waving in the field and it brings to mind that response that God cares for them and he cares for you. But I think the greatest of these happens with Jesus the night before he is betrayed as he sits participating in the Passover meal. And the symbolism that is throughout that story is remarkable because you have the Passover lamb who will take away the sins of the entire world sitting around partaking of this Passover lamb. The one whose blood will allow the judgment of God to pass over us is remembering that time in Egypt where the blood of the lamb allowed the judgment of God to pass over his people.

And in those moments, Jesus will take the bread of the Passover meal. He'll take the cup that reminds the Israelites of how God redeemed them from Egypt, and he makes them into this picture of our salvation. This bread that we share and this cup that we drink point us to the hope that we have in Jesus. And so, as we just sang, and as the church has said, for several hundred years, and as we see through Scripture, what is our hope in life and death? That we are not our own, but we belong body and soul, both in life and death, to our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, let this instill the truth of Your grace, the power of Your mercy, the wonder of Your salvation deep into the depths of our hearts.

That as we partake of these very simple things, this bread and this cup, that You would encourage our souls, that You would nourish our spirits, that You would call us to righteousness in our lives, that we would see the truth of our brokenness, of Your love, of Your judgment, and of the salvation from that judgment through Jesus' death on the cross. Help us to see You, to see Your hope, and to place our hope in that place that does not shake or does not move. I ask that You bless this bread and this cup. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. If you would take the bread with me, as Jesus takes with His disciples after the meal, He will say, "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me."

In the same way, He took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.

This morning's reading is from Matthew 12, and to connect this directly to what Brandon preached on last Sunday, this is kind of the branch and the fruit of the roots that are a little bit mundane. I think Brandon described it as kind of property boundaries, or there were these endless lists of kings that were kind of in so-and-so, and then there were 20 kings. We're seeing this morning what that means throughout hundreds and hundreds and thousands of years later, God being faithful to his promises. And it says in Matthew 12:15, "Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from them. And many followed him, and he healed them all, and ordered them not to make him known. This was to fill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, "Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased."

I will put my spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory. And in his name the Gentiles will hope. This is the word of the Lord.

So we begin our Advent journey together. We want to sort of use this time to prepare our hearts and minds as we look both backwards to the first arrival of Jesus and as we look forward to the day that he will come again. And so one of the things we try to do to sort of help us sort of see that visual progression is for the kids, for example, we light the Advent candles as we light an additional one each week, to sort of see this visual progression for us that helps us see these wonderful things that God has done and promised to us. And so we sort of see that as a progression. The word Advent just simply means arrival, and that's what we're considering for the next four weeks leading to Christmas. So let's pray, and then we're going to dive into Matthew chapter 12. Father in heaven, thank you for your word. Thank you for your church.

Thank you for the encouragement of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We just thank you for all the good gifts that you have given us and bestowed upon us, and we thank you most of all for Jesus. And so as we prepare our hearts, we just ask that you would help us this morning to see that there is hope in this dark and troubled world. That hope is found not in a thing or in a plan or in some sort of objective, but it's found in the person and the work of your son, Jesus. So be with us this morning. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Now probably most of us have had that experience of not really being on the same page as someone else. Now remember, in the very early days of grocery delivery or grocery pickup, this happened quite regularly.

For example, there was a time that our neighbor had ordered, she wanted five bananas, and the way you ordered it from the Walmart app, it said, you know, per banana. So she ordered five bananas, went and picked them up, and then we get this call that's like, "Hey, you guys want any bananas?" Because instead of five bananas, they gave us five pounds of bananas. And then another time when we were ordering apples, we thought we were ordering a three-pound bag of apples. But instead of that, we got the groceries, and we looked through them, and there was just simply three apples. Which, if you know our kids and their love for apples, it takes about 30 seconds for those three apples. They don't go very far. And what we find is that we live in a world where,

oftentimes, we may be using the same words, or the same numbers, but in different situations, they might mean different things to different people. Right? One person might have one definition, another has another definition, and we might be saying the same things, and we end up talking past each other, or over each other, or around each other. And we often find ourselves not on the same page. And I think this is especially true when it comes to the idea of hope. We can use hope in our English language in a lot of different ways. So, for example, we might use the word hope to simply mean wish, right? I sort of desire something, I really want it, I don't know if it's going to happen, so we would sort of use it interchangeably with wish. You know, I hope, you know, that this happens when we really mean I wish it would happen.

Not big chance, but it would be nice if it did. And then sometimes we use hope as a way to sort of a synonym for hinting, right? So I might say to Rachel, "I really, really, really hope that there's a motorcycle under the Christmas tree this year," right? Now, I'm not hoping one magically appears, I'm hoping she takes my hint and goes and gets me a motorcycle, right? And so sometimes we use hope as a synonym for maybe you'll do this if I hint sort of subtly. And then there are other times we use hope to sort of talk about maybe an opportunity in the future, right? I know things aren't great right now, but if you look at the way events are sort of coming together, I hope that it will turn out the way we want.

In fact, we heard this in the last couple weeks as we were leading up to the election, right? Each side, "I hope this happens. I hope this happens. Here's my data, and I hope events turn out the way that I want." And we use hope in all these different ways, and those are not bad, but when we read hope in the Bible, it's different than these. And so if we bring our ideas of hope to biblical hope, one of the things that will happen for us is we won't understand the wonder of biblical hope. If hope is simply a wish or maybe a plan going forward that we hope things will sort of follow that plan and turn out, or a hint to a loved one to buy us a certain Christmas present, we aren't going to get the depth and the wonder of biblical hope.

And hope at its heart has, at its heart, sort of in all the ways we use it, this picture of anticipation, expectation, and a desire for something to happen in the future. Now, when it comes to the Bible, there's a couple different words used for hope. And in the Old Testament, the two that are most prevalent, one simply means waiting, right? That hope is just simply waiting for God to do what He has promised to do, right? It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but we trust that God has done it, and we simply wait for Him. In fact, you'll read that through the Psalms. We'll read an example in a minute where it says, "Wait for the Lord," right? That's a picture of hope. The other picture of hope that's used frequently, and not necessarily translated waiting,

but translated hope very frequently in the Old Testament, has this picture of tension that's being stretched out in anticipation and excitement. And just like when we're kids, we stretch out a rubber band, and you stretch it, and you stretch it, and all of a sudden it breaks, and then you snap your friend with it, or you get snapped with it. But that picture of that tension is sort of exploding. That biblical hope is this picture of tension, and then it explodes, but not in something painful, but in something wonderful and joyful. And so these two pictures of the Old Testament, one of waiting, and the other of sort of this stretching, and this tension, and this tension, until hope sort of breaks through in an explosion of joy. In fact, let me read to you from the 130th Psalm. It says this:

"I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchman in the morning, more than the watchman for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with Him there is plentiful redemption, and He will redeem Israel from all iniquities." And you have both of those pictures of hope, the picture of waiting, and this picture of growing expectation that ultimately explodes into God's redemption of His people from all of their sins. And I would also like to differentiate, just for a minute this morning, the difference between hope and optimism, right? Some of us are optimists, right? We look at things, we say, "I see how this can turn out for good," right? It can be dark, everything can be going wrong, everything can be broken,

and an optimist says, "Well, I can see the good that's happening here, and maybe the good that might come from this." Hope is different from optimism. Not that optimism is bad, but hope is different. Let me read to you from the book of Hosea. And if you're not familiar with the book of Hosea, it's a difficult story, not just in Israel's history, but for Hosea personally, because Hosea is called to live as a parable of how God is dealing with His people. He's called to marry a wife of unfaithfulness. He has several children, one of whom he names "not my child." His wife eventually abandons him, runs away, and then he goes and redeems her and brings her back into his house, a picture of what God is doing for Israel. But Israel in this time isn't just in the darkness of rebellion and unfaithfulness to God.

They are in the midst of struggle with foreigners who are invading and persecuting and giving them problems. And here's what Hosea says in chapter 2:15. "And there I will give her vineyards, and make the valley of Achor," that's literally the valley of trouble, "a door of hope." And there she shall answer, as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. And so the picture there is not optimism. Israel doesn't see a way forward, right? They're in the valley of trouble, and that's where they are. But what Hosea says is, it's not about optimism and sort of looking for the best in the bad situation, but that God will literally step into the valley of trouble. He's going to rip open a door of hope, just as He did when He brought you out of Egypt.

You weren't expecting it. You didn't expect the power and the miracles. And here God brings you out, redeems you with an outstretched arm, surprising everyone. And so you have this picture of the valley of trouble being turned into a door of hope. And then you come to the New Testament. And the picture of the New Testament is that Jesus ultimately is the door of hope for all people. That all of us, in the valley of trouble, or in the valley of darkness, Jesus is the light and the door of hope. In fact, Peter says it this way: Blessed be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading,

kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for His salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. That this picture of a world that is filled with darkness, and if you read through the accounts of the birth of Jesus, you'll see that picture over and over again. That in the darkness, a light has dawned. Those who are under darkness are brought out into the light. That those who are suffering and struggling are brought to redemption and hope through Jesus. You see, biblically, hope doesn't come to a plan or a strategy. It comes to a person, and that person ultimately is Jesus. And we find ourselves, if we're honest and if we pay attention to what is going around us, living in a world that is so often bleak and broken.

There's hurt, and there's struggle, and there's difficulty. And so do we depend on optimism, just hoping everything will be good? No, we have hope. Do we just sort of wish for things to get better? No, we have hope. We might say, "Well, how is it possible that we have this hope in the midst of darkness?" So I want to go to Matthew chapter 12 and spend a little time in this text this morning. And I want to start by sort of showing you the context of this text, and what is going around what Jesus does, and then what Matthew reveals to us from the book of Isaiah. So Jesus is in the middle of a section of Scripture where it's filled with conflict. It begins in the very first part. It's the Sabbath day. Jesus and His disciples are walking through a field.

The disciples are kind of snacky, right? Sometimes as we walk along, we would like a snack. They're walking through a grain field, and they're sort of running their hands through the grain field as they walk along, and they'll pick up a few grains, kind of roll them in their hands, and pop them in their mouth and eat them. And the Pharisees and religious leaders of the day will see this and say, "Jesus, your disciples are violating the Sabbath. They are not honoring the Sabbath. One of the Ten Commandments that God has given His people, they honor the Sabbath and keep it holy, designed to be a day of rest. These religious leaders look at Jesus and His disciples, and they say, "They're out here harvesting fields." Now, that accusation is incredibly ridiculous, right? There is a huge difference from harvesting a field and walking through the field,

picking up a little bit of grain and putting it in their mouth to eat as they walk along. And Jesus, knowing this ridiculousness, is going to respond in a very remarkable way. First of all, He's going to bring two examples to bear in these first few verses. The first example that He brings to bear is that of David when he takes the bread that is consecrated for the priest because he is hungry. He uses of the priests who serve and work on the Sabbath because they're doing God's work. And He's saying, "My disciples are doing God's work. They're just like priests, and they have this same kind of exception." The third thing Jesus does, He gets a little confrontational and looks at them and goes, "Have you read the Bible?" And that would be a massive insult to people who had devoted

themselves to the intricacies of those first five books of the Bible, and in some cases, memorizing the entire law of God. All 632 different laws, memorizing them, trying to keep them, writing a whole bunch of laws based on those laws. This would have been an insult to say, "You even read the Bible?" And then Jesus sort of caps it all off by saying, "The Lord of the Sabbath, the one who institutes the Sabbath, the one who creates the Sabbath, gets to decide what men and women do on the Sabbath, and I'm..." What He's saying to them is, "I'm the Lord of the Sabbath, and I get to be the ultimate arbiter of the day that I created and how it's used." And so that begins a conflict. The Pharisees do not respond well to that.

And so the second conflict we see is, Jesus is in the synagogue, and there is a man who has a withered hand, a hand that is crippled in some way, and he's placed there in the synagogue that Jesus is in as bait, because they said, "We can get Jesus for violating the Sabbath if He heals this guy on the Sabbath day." And Jesus, of course, being full of compassion, heals the man, and they immediately began to protest about how Jesus has healed this man on the Sabbath, violated the Sabbath. He is not listening to the law of God. And so Jesus will point out their own hypocrisy, because if they have a sheep who falls into a ditch, they go rescue the sheep, and isn't a man in the rescue of this man more important than the sheep? And so being fully defeated, so what often happens today

happens in Jesus's day, where instead of dealing with facts and reality, we just immediately sort of jump to anger, and this anger ultimately leads to violence. And so they're seeking and plotting a way to attack and to kill Jesus as we come to our text this morning. And we find that Jesus immediately leaves town. And this is not because Jesus is afraid, or Jesus is weak, or he's uncertain about the future. It's because Jesus has a plan that's bigger than this little synagogue and this little debate with a bunch of grumpy religious leaders. His plan stretches back all the way to the beginning, to the redemption of mankind. And what Matthew is going to do for us as Jesus leaves town to avoid this conflict, he's going to pull back the curtain. He's going to reveal the wonder of that plan. We've all seen those sort of big revelations. Maybe

it's one of those shows where they're remodeling the house, and they finally get it remodeled, and they they have the people who are going to live there, and they stand there, and they say, "Remember what your house used to look like?" And then you open up the big panels, and there's the new house all painted, the yards, the landscape. You walk through the front door. Everything's different and beautiful. So on one hand, we have this conflict in Jesus leaving town ahead of this sort of angry mob of religious leaders. And what Matthew is going to do is he's going to pull back the curtain of those events and let us see what is behind them. And so we see this plan that Matthew has. And so in Isaiah, just for some context, the verses that Matthew will quote, there are four servant songs in the book of Isaiah. This is the very first one. We're

probably most familiar with that of the suffering servant from Isaiah 53. But this is the first of four servant songs in Isaiah. I'll just read it again to you. Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. So there's this violence and this conflict. Many followed him. He healed all of them, and ordered them not to make him known, not because Jesus is afraid, but because there's a bigger plan. Matthew is now going to pull this curtain back. Matthew will say, "This is to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah. Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my spirit upon him. He will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will

not break. A smoldering wick he will not quench until he brings justice to victory, and in his name Gentiles will hope." And so first of all, I want you to see what Isaiah has to say about the identity, about who Jesus is, and through that identity we see that you and I are loved by God. This is intentionally directing us to Jesus. The word that it begins with, "Behold my servant." We might say, "Look at this." That's one of the things we do. It's a funny thing that happened to me as a parent. I never really pointed out cows until I had a bunch of kids who love cows and horses, so you're driving down the road and go, "There's a cow! There's a cow! There's a calf! There's a horse!" What Isaiah, through God, and God is saying through Isaiah

here is God is going, "Look at my son! Look at my son!" That's the picture of this word "Behold." Look at who he is. And we see the preciousness of God the Father giving us the gift of God the Son. Listen to what he says. "My beloved, with whom my soul is well pleased." God the Father says, "God the Son," that he both loves him and is pleased with him. That's important, right? Because we can love things and not be pleased with them. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that our dogs, you know, late at night encountered a skunk. We washed him with the skunk shampoo, got it to where they don't smell that bad anymore until this morning. We let him out first thing in the morning into the rain. And you know what rain does? So that it just reconstitutes everything. And then they

come back in the door, and I'm sitting there on the couch looking through my sermon, and here comes my big wet doofus of a dog who now smells exactly like a skunk and thinks he can come sit on my lap, right? I love him, not pleased with him in that moment, right? We've all experienced that. There's a love and a deep love for someone, but we're not pleased with them. What you find here is that God says two things. First of all, I love the Son. He's my beloved, but also what he is doing is what I have planned, that I am pleased with him. God looks at the Son and he proclaims this, not for Jesus' benefit, but for ours, that this is his beloved Son with whom he is well pleased. But we also see that these events are planned. Isaiah writes 700 years before Jesus, and now these four

suffering servant songs will go on to describe the life of Jesus, right? His purpose, his call, his obedience, his suffering, and you have this sort of wonderful prophecy. And we see that the gift of God to us is a big one. It's his beloved Son. And it's a planned one for our redemption and our salvation. And as we come to this, and as we see who Jesus is, as Isaiah from God describes, we're reminded that we are loved, right? One of the most familiar and well-known verses in all the Bible, right? For God so loved the world that he did what? He sent his only begotten Son. Or in Romans chapter 5, that God shows his love for us, yet that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And as we look to the identity of Jesus and who he

is, and the very fact that he is among us, that he is with us, we're reminded that we are loved. That our relationship with God is not accidental or an afterthought. The second thing we see in this prophecy of Isaiah is that in the attitude of Jesus, we see that we are welcomed. Look at what it says in verses 15 and 16. "Jesus, aware of this, withdrew, and many followed him, and he healed them all, and ordered them not to make him known." And then in the second half of verse 18 and 19, "And he will proclaim justice to Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets." What you find is that in the healing of all of these people, they heard Jesus has healed this man on the Sabbath, and as Jesus

leaves town, every single person who needs to be healed follows Jesus. Now, Jesus could have said, "Look guys, I'm busy, right? I've got a place to be, things to do, a plan from God to accomplish." He could also have said, "This is too dangerous, right? They want to kill me because I healed one guy in the synagogue, and now there's a whole crowd of you following along. Are you trying to get me killed?" But that's not what Jesus does. What does it say? It says that he healed them all. Right? Jesus doesn't say, "I'm too important, too lazy, or that I'm afraid." In this crowd in verses 15 and 16, we see that Jesus deeply cares for the hurting. But then the second part of this prophecy talks about how Jesus comes with justice, but He's not going to come in a way where He is quarreling or crying aloud, nor

hear His voice in the streets. In the healing, and in this picture of quietness, we see a humility in Jesus. Not a weakness, but a gentleness. And the reason that Jesus comes in gentleness is because if He comes fully revealing His glory and power, we're going to run away in fear. If you think about when God descends on Sinai, and the people gathered there for the covenant at the bottom of the mountain, they say to Moses, "We can't hear God. You go talk to God and bring it to us." And so Moses goes to the mountain, and he comes down, and his face is reflecting the glory of God. They can't even stand to be in a reflection of the glory of God because it is so terrifying. Or Peter, when he gets that glimpse of Jesus when they're fishing, and all the fish come into the boat,

and Peter just immediately says, "Lord, depart from me, for I'm a sinful man." Just that tiny glimpse of the glory of God sends us into fear because it puts into stark contrast that he is holy and that we are not. And so Jesus comes humbly so that we would know that we are welcome to come to him. A couple months ago, I was sitting in our living room, and I got a notification from our doorbell camera that said, "Animal scene on the front porch." And I'm like, "Are both dogs here?" And I check, and they whir, and so I pop it open, and there's this little tan dog kind of running around the front yard. And so I go outside. It's like 10 o'clock on a Saturday night. I go outside, and he's kind of running around.

Now, you have a couple options, right? "Hey, come here right now!" Or, which that never works, I just simply sat down on the front steps and said, "Hey, buddy." He comes trotting over, and I grab his collar, get a leash on him, right? Because the gentleness shows that you're welcome. And Jesus doesn't come going, "Hey!" Right? He comes quietly and gently, not yelling, not crying out in the streets, but he comes with this picture of gentleness, and he welcomes us with tenderness. Jonathan Edwards will say in his wonderful sermon called "The Diverse Excellencies of Christ," and he says this, "If you come, you may not fear that you shall be accepted, for he is a lamb to all who come to him, and he receives them with infinite grace and tenderness." The third thing we see is that in this, the actions of Jesus, and what he does, is that we are not disposable.

We have this wonderful prophecy: "A bruised reed he will not quench, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to glory." Now, this is probably a hard picture for us to understand, because with the exception of special occasions or nicely smelling candles to make our house smell better, make our house smell better, we don't do a lot of things with wicks or with reeds. And the picture here is of broken things that normally would be discarded. So if this reed is picturing a stalk of weed, if that stalk is broken and bent over and has a weak spot, it doesn't go on to produce grain. It's worthless. If you're seeking to harvest that for the fiber, that bruise in that reed, it kind of makes that worthless as you're pulling it apart and getting the fibers out.

And so what you would do with a bruised reed or a broken stalk of grain, you would say, "This has no value," and you throw it away. Or with a wick that is sitting and it's smoldering. And it kind of has a little bit of fire but not a lot, and it's mostly smoke, most of the time you would quench it, put it out, either replace the wick in your oil lamp or cut it off, because that part of the wick is no longer serving its purpose. That's what Jesus does. He doesn't break the bruised reed. He doesn't put out the struggling candle. It's this picture of God not throwing people away, not treating them as disposable. God doesn't look at your brokenness. God does not look at your struggle and say, "I'm going to find somebody who's in better shape."

God comes to the bruised reed, and He comes to that struggling wick, and instead of disposing of them, He brings them into His family. It's a beautiful picture, a picture that has encouraged the church for centuries. Jesus' gentleness and patience, He doesn't see those who struggle as being disposable. And so we see these pictures, this love and this humility and this gentleness, that we see God's love through the identity of Jesus, we see His welcome through the attitude and the humility of Jesus, and we see His care for us in the actions of Jesus. And those are all good and wonderful things. But at the heart of it, we need to be rescued. It's good to have somebody that loves us. It's good to have somebody that humbly welcomes us. It's good to have somebody who doesn't treat us as disposable.

But what about my enemies? And notice how this is written. "Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my spirit in him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets, a bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench until he brings justice to victory, and in his name the Gentiles will hope." And throughout all of these things, the love and the humility and the welcome and the not treating broken people as disposable runs this thread of the power and the victory and the greatness of God. I don't want you to mistake the humility of God or the love of God or the care of God for weakness.

We see God's strength in Him being the one who rescues, who is the hope not just of the Jewish nation, but all nations, all of the Gentiles, the one in whom there is hope, the one who brings this to victory. Isaiah, in Isaiah 40, pictures it like this. Sort of two pictures. The first picture is this, "Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and His arm rules for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him." And this picture of God in His power coming in both judgment and deliverance for His people. And then the second half of this says, "He will tend His flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in His arms. He will carry them in His bosom and gently lead those who are young." You see, in this prophecy of Isaiah,

we see both the strength and the power of Jesus. That He has the strength and power, that He is the King who can deliver us. He is the one who can save us from our fears, can rescue us from death, who can save us from our sins, who rises from the tomb in victory, giving us hope. But He doesn't do it proudly and arrogantly. Standing there saying, "Look at me." He does it with love and with humility and with this care for those who are broken and hurting. And in these verses, you have this beautiful picture of the power to bring justice and salvation and to be the hope of the world. But He does it in a way that welcomes us and loves us and calls us to Himself. You see, it would be easy for the religious leaders in Jesus' day

to look at Jesus and say, "Oh, He's scared. He's running away." It's not what Jesus is doing. He's going to come in justice and in victory over death and over the grave. But He's going to do so while calling, broken, hurting people to Himself and showing them love. And so the question that we have to ask ourselves this morning is what am I putting my hope in, right? It's easy for me to put my hope in things. Or it's easy for me to put my hope in plans. It's easy for me to put my hope, and probably true of most of us, in my own strength and my own ability to figure it out. The call of this prophecy in Isaiah and the point of this picture in Matthew 12, is that our hope isn't in any of those things.

That's the hope of the religious leaders. We hope in the strength and the power of God who comes with justice and salvation, that He also comes to us humbly, filled with love, and will not break the bruised or the smoldering. He will not dispose of the struggling. Let's pray. Father, as we consider the arrival of Your Son, in humility, in gentleness, and in love, help us to see clearly that we are loved, that we are welcomed, that we are worth saving because of Jesus, not because of ourselves. He takes our brokenness and our struggles. He is the one who heals and restores. But help us also in that to see His power and His strength. The ability to heal. The ability to bring justice. The ability to set things right. Help us as we move toward Christmas,

and we consider hope that You would focus our eyes on Jesus. It's in His name we pray. Amen. We're going to stand and sing What I think kind of sums this up, this picture of salvation. So we're going to stand and sing "Mighty to Save."

Let mercy fall on me. Everyone needs forgiveness. The kindness of the Savior. The hope of nations. Savior, He can move the mountains. My God is mighty to save. He is mighty to save. Forever, author of salvation. He rose and conquered the grave. Jesus conquered the grave. So take me as you find all my fears and failures. Fill my life again. Give my life to follow. Everything I believe in, now I surrender. Savior, He can move the mountains. My God is mighty to save. He is mighty to save forever. Author of salvation. He rose and conquered the grave. Jesus conquered the grave. Shine a light and let the whole world see. Singing for the glory of the risen King. Jesus, shine a light and let the whole world see. The glory of the risen King. Savior, He can move the mountains. My God is mighty to save. He is mighty to save. Forever, author of salvation. He rose and conquered the grave. Jesus conquered the grave.

Savior, He can move the mountains. My God is mighty to save. He is mighty to save. Forever, author of salvation. He rose and conquered the grave. Jesus conquered the grave. For the glory of the risen King. Jesus, shine a light and let the whole world see. We're singing for the glory of the risen King. Thankful for all of you joining us here this morning. I'm encouraged by you and thankful for you. As we proceed into this coming week, one of the things we'll be doing is this Wednesday, 7pm, we'll be back for our Wednesday evening Bible study. We're going to spend some time. It's very easy when it comes to the accounts of Jesus arriving into our world, stepping into our history with the prophecy and all of these events. It's very easy sometimes for us to condense those down very quickly, and so what we want to do is kind of maybe spread them out and look at some of the history and see how God's providential hand is at work in all of these events and all of these prophecies and all of these wonderful things and the testimony of God's faithfulness, not just in one area, but throughout all generations throughout history.

So we're excited to do that. We'll be back next Sunday talking a little bit more as we move into these Advent themes of hope, joy, peace, and love. And just sort of as a side note, if you were reading through that prophecy in Isaiah and that bruised reed and the smoldering wick, one of the Puritans, Richard Baxter, in 1610 wrote a book that is entirely focused on those two sections, Christians, for the last, you know, 500 years, 400 years have found that incredibly encouraging and helpful. I think you might even be able to find it for free on Amazon Kindle, but it's just called The Bruised Reeder. It's actually Richard Sibbes, not Richard Baxter. So if you're interested in pursuing that, just a little more. We're going to pray, and then I'll read a little bit of Scripture. We'll sing the doxology and be dismissed.

Father in heaven, thank you for the goodness of your grace. Thank you for the hope that you've instilled within us. We thank you for your church. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Zechariah, speaking about John the baptizer, will say, "And for you, child, will be called prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways." And then he's going to talk about what Jesus would do, and what John will do, to give knowledge of salvation for his people, and the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise will visit us from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him, above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Praise God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Son, Holy Ghost. Son, Holy Ghost. Jesus said, "Follow me." Let's pray. Jesus said, "Follow me." Let's pray.