Victory through Meekness Matthew 12:15-21

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Hello, Abby, that's embarrassed you but it's great to see you So and Levi's doing great.
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Yeah, wonderful when we think about the most powerful people in the world
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Certain thoughts come to mind We think of the strongest men in the world every year.
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There's a competition known as the world's strongest man and The men in these competitions have the biggest muscles you've ever seen and what they are able to do is lift amounts that are hard to fathom many men who have strength like other like this know how strong they are and Some have a very massive ego
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That goes with their strength And when we think of powerful people, we also think of high up officials like Kings and Queens and presidents and CEOs These people have lots of money lots of power lots of influence and sadly
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Many of these people use their power for evil and not for good Their leadership too often hurts the common man and does not help not only that But people in high up positions are often very unapproachable like you can't go near those people.
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They're too important These who live in high positions are prone to have a condescending attitude toward those below them
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And when we think about powerful people we also think of military commanders down through history like Alexander the
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Great Hannibal Napoleon These military commanders had the goal to drive out their enemies to conquer to flex their muscles and not often to pursue noble ambitions as We see when we think of power
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It usually has a negative connotation people who are strong who use it for the wrong reasons
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Pride and selfishness is at the center of it and in this world power
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Accompanied with love is a rare sight to see However, there is one man in history who displayed power in the most virtuous of ways and this is of course
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Jesus Christ As you've heard taught so many times from this pulpit Jesus is fully
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God and he's fully man What this means is that he has more power than any man who has ever lived
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But he is unlike most others who have held power very unlike others One of the many wonderful attributes about Jesus is that he is meek
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What is meekness? That's a word you hear sometimes. What is that a good definition of meekness is power under control a
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Meek person does not use his power to harm others But to help a couple weeks ago in Matthew 11 29
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We saw Jesus described himself as gentle and lowly in heart
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Gentle and lowly in heart. He said this to proclaim that he does not use his power to hurt but to help us
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During Jesus ministry on earth. He interacted with people Far differently and then what is the norm for what we see with powerful people as The most powerful person he is approachable.
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He is caring. He has other interests in mind He promotes the good and judges the evil and he is willing to lay down his life for those who are weak
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Jesus Jesus displays what a powerful person should look like Now this morning as we continue our serving series through Matthew We are going to see this glorious meekness on display.
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So this time I encourage you to turn in the Bible with me to Matthew chapter 12 We'll be looking at verses 15 through 21.
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And if you're using the Red Bible in the pews, it's on page 971 The sermon is titled victory through meekness victory through meekness and Here's our big idea.
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This is what the sermon is calling you to do Understand the glorious uniqueness of Jesus the
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Messiah Understand the glorious uniqueness of Jesus the Messiah And we're gonna see six manifestations how he is unique Before we jump into our text.
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Let me give you a little recap of where we were one week ago Last week we looked at the first 14 verses of chapter 12
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What we saw in that sermon is These false religious systems that the
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Jewish leaders ran in Judea at that time in history in the first century and We saw two reasons why that we are not supposed to follow that example of plunging ourselves into these false religious
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Ideas the first is that God's laws are intended to bless people not to hinder and these religious
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Rules these laws that were added These burdens that were placed on people did not bless people
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But they hindered those people the second is that true religion triumphs over a man's faulty system the
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Jews of the first century were plagued by false teaching that Jesus took aim at and He wanted people to him to him embrace the truth by following him and to be set free
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From that burdensome life that of dead religion of false religion
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And the same things happening in the present Lots of people are embracing false religious systems and Jesus is calling people to follow him and find true rest
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That only comes through him Now this leads us to our text this morning and we're gonna begin by reading verse 15 of chapter 12
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Jesus aware of this withdrew from there and many followed him and he healed them all
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Okay, we'll stop right there Now in order to understand verse 15, we have to understand what came before this verse 14
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As I just explained Jesus called out the false teaching of the Jewish leaders Before Jesus came on the scene the
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Scribes and Pharisees had the Jewish community in the palm of their hands they ran the show and Jesus came to blow up their whole system
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For Jesus to do this. He placed a big target on his back He was going after powerful people.
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He was going after corrupt people They knew that Jesus was not going to back down but was only going to continue his ministry
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So they had two options option one is believe the truth that he spoke and follow him an option two is
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Eliminate him Their hard hearts would not let them
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Embrace the obvious truth set before them so they could only choose the second option
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Their hatred Blinded them of the truth and they wanted Jesus just to go away To leave the scene and the only way to do that was to plot to kill him so the end of verse 14 tells us that they planned to kill
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Jesus and Jesus knowing this left the area so that they could not arrest him
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And you might wonder why did Jesus do this didn't he come to the earth to die Didn't he know that this is how it was going to play out that he was going to die at the hands of the
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Jewish Leaders and the Romans that he needed to do this to die for our sins. So why is he avoiding arrest?
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Well, that's a good question The answer is it wasn't his time yet He still had work to do
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When it was his time he would willingly Be arrested and die and we see that in the
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Garden of Gethsemane, right? He he gave himself up But it wasn't his time yet But as he left a crowd came with him as so often happened everywhere
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Jesus went crowds would follow him In the second half of verse 15 tells us that many
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Followed him and as they came to him, he healed them all Think about what
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I said in the introduction Jesus is different from what we're used to seeing from those in power He is approachable.
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He is so willing to help people people who had all kinds of physical and spiritual ailments he took care of and As we've seen in Matthew, he healed people of their diseases.
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He raised the dead. He cast out demons He delivered so many people from their suffering
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Jesus always uses his power his great power for good
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Then in verse 16, we see something that we've already seen in Matthew And I'm gonna read the second out of 15 and many followed him and he healed them all
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And then in 16 and ordered them not to make him known we've already seen
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Jesus say this in Matthew and Matthew 8 for when he healed the leper and in 930 when he had two blind men who were healed
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This is what this is what theologians call the messianic secret as I've already explained earlier in Matthew Jesus did not want to distract from his message
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Jesus wanted people to turn from their sins and put their trust in him and later he would suffer and die for sinners
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But there was a false Jewish expectation that was pushed forth by the corrupt
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Jewish leaders The same ones who were engulfed in self -righteousness Also wanted a
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Messiah that their sinful hearts longed for We want people who are like us and sometimes that can be a good thing
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But sometimes it's a bad thing if you're evil and they wanted evil people just like they were they wanted
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They wanted a Messiah of their own image They wanted a king who would raise them up over their enemies
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They wanted a king who would drive out the Romans so that they would be victorious They wanted to be world champions as their
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Messiah reigned over the world and they wanted the whole world to look at them and say Look at us. We're the ones in power now
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What they did not understand is that strength would come through suffering as we talk about the
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Messiah What they did not understand is that the Messiah needed to be sacrificed before he was ever going to reign
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That he had to humble himself in submission to his father before he was going to reign in power
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The common Jewish expectation was born from the sinful human heart They thought we want to have power so that we no longer have to submit to the
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Roman Empire the Roman authorities We want our Empire and we want our Messiah to be allies with us in our own
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Religious system that they wanted life to go on as usual But the only difference is they wanted to be in authority.
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They wanted they didn't want to have another nation telling them what to do
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But Jesus would have none of this He was harder on these Jewish religious leaders than anyone else during his ministry.
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He did not hang out with these Jewish elitists You know lead us to someone who they don't want they don't want to hang out with the common folks, right?
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Just just the people who are well -to -do That's what that's what the Jewish leaders were like. That's what the
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Pharisees were like. That's what the scribes were like That's what the chief priests were like Jesus hung out with the people that nobody wanted to hang out with He hung out with common men and women and children
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And think about the disciples They were common folks fishermen tax collectors
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Yeah, he hung out with women like Mary Magdalene who suffered greatly during her life
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He hung out with those who wore their sins on their sleeves He hung out at the bar
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And he didn't join in the drinking like they did but but he would talk to those people and the Pharisees would never touch those
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People and the Jewish leaders only helped the needy to be seen by others.
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Look how great I am Look how righteous I am But Jesus did it because he truly had compassion on them.
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He was powerful. Yes, they could not deny that But he was not their kind of Messiah They wanted someone like them, but he was nothing like them
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This false idea that the Messiah flexing his muscle was the was the focus of his arrival
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Was passed down to the common Jews. It was the dominant view about who the Messiah was going to be and Jesus thought by proclaiming his strength through healing all these people that it would only feed their false
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Understanding about who this Messiah was going to be Jesus wanted everyone to understand who the
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Messiah really was Once Jesus completed his ministry died and rose again, then they could proclaim his power
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Publicly over the physical and spiritual realms, but this proclamation would be always accompanied by the most important message of all
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That is this Christ came into the world to save sinners through his death and resurrection
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Jesus wanted them to talk about his suffering This was the main message that Jesus wanted to communicate
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Yes, the Messiah would reign in power, but he first needed to suffer to bear the sins of his people
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He would reign in the future with the ones who believed this most important of all messages the gospel
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Christ died and rose again for sinners and if you believe in that you have eternal life.
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That's the message He don't want people you want a thrill -seeker so look at this guy does miracles let's follow him
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He wanted them to understand that he was the suffering Messiah So understand the uniqueness of Jesus the
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Messiah the first manifestation how is through coming in weakness not in worldly power
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Here's the second manifestation that we need to understand to understand the uniqueness of Jesus the Messiah and that is this
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Entering the world is the only Son of God and we'll see this in the first part of verse 18
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The correct understanding of the Messiah misunderstood by the false Jewish rabbis was predicted clearly in the
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Old Testament Matthew quotes one of those places in verses 18 through 21 During the call to worship.
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I read that passage Isaiah 42 verses 1 through 4 that Jesus fulfills
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And we are going to see clearly that he fits this description of this predicted
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Messiah this prophecy came 700 years before Christ came on the scene
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Let's first look at verse 17, and then we'll see the beginning of verse 18 This was to fulfill what was spoken by the
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Prophet Isaiah behold my servant whom I have chosen
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Chosen my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased
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This prophecy that Matthew quotes from Isaiah describes the Messiah as a servant
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The Lord's servant is described in chapters 42 through 53 in the book of Isaiah The servant described in these chapters describes what the
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Messiah would be like and also what his experience would be Isaiah 53, of course is the most famous Description of this servant
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Isaiah 53 details the suffering of the servant In verses 5 and 6 of Isaiah 53.
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This is what it says. He was pierced for our transgressions He was crushed for our iniquities upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his wounds
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We are healed all we like sheep have gone astray We have turned everyone to his own way and the
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Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all It is remarkable how accurate this prophecy is
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It predicted the brutal death of Jesus 700 years before he came on the scene
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We just have to say wow, that's incredible think about this book that we hold in our hands There's no book like this in all the world that predicts the future
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It's the Word of God Jesus paid the penalty for our sins that we may be brought into a relationship with God and those who believe in him
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Have eternal life But as I mentioned the servant is first described in Isaiah 42
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What we see is that the Lord who is God the Father in this passage in Isaiah 42 chooses the servant
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Okay, so the first person of the Trinity is choosing the second person of the
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Trinity Because the second person of the Trinity is the Messiah The Greek word for servant in verse 18 is different than the normal word for servant used in the
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New Testament in The Greek translation of the Old Testament Which is known as the sub two agent the same word was used to describe
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Abraham's chief servant in Genesis 24 2 So the word servant has a close connection with the word son
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Okay, my son whom I have chosen And what we know from the
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New Testament is that Jesus is God the Father's only begotten Son As John 3 16 says for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
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Son What that means is only unique son Now everyone here who's a genuine believer in Christ is a child of God So we are we are sons and daughters of God the
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Father But the big difference is is that he is the only son of God. He is the unique son of God He is the only son who was with God in eternity past.
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He is God We are sons and daughters in the sense that we are adopted into his family
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Big difference there Jesus is unique in this way
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God chose this divine servant his only son this son He had fellowship with for all eternity for this task to be his
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Messiah and his Savior of the world And what verse 18 says is that he is very pleased with him
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We've already seen in Matthew the baptism remember what Jesus or remember what
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God the Father said from heaven at his baptism This is my son with whom
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I am well pleased They're just standing there and also this voice comes that says from heaven.
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This is my son with whom I am well pleased God the
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Father appointed Jesus for the greatest mission in the history of the world and It's an understatement to say that Jesus Christ was ready for this mission.
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He embraced it He was on the moment. He came to earth. He was on this mission to save sinners as the
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Messiah So understand the uniqueness of Jesus the Messiah the second manifestation how is through entering the world is the only son of God Here's our third manifestation that we need to understand about the uniqueness of Jesus the
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Messiah and that is this Ministering in the fullest power of the Spirit and we'll see this in the second half of verse 18
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This is what the prophecy says about the Messiah It says this
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I will put my spirit upon him and he will proclaim justice to the
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Gentiles He said so the Lord in the Old Testament He's saying this about this Messiah about his son about his servant
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And what he says is he will proclaim justice To the
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Gentiles John 334 says this concerning Jesus about his
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Anointing it says this for he whom God has sent utters the words of God for he gives the
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Spirit without measure as We think about our lives
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We need the power of the Spirit And in this text says that he put his spirit
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Upon him, but but we need The power of the Spirit in our lives.
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We cannot live the Christian life without God helping us To kill sin to love
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God more to strengthen us as we go through our days To help others to fulfill the unique ministry that God has given each of us
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We need the Spirit's help In first Corinthians 15 10 Paul wrote that by the grace of God I am what
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I am and his grace toward me was not in vain on the contrary I worked harder than any of them though.
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It was not I but the grace of God That is with me Paul saying there that Everything that he did of eternal value was through the power of the
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Holy Spirit working in his life And this is the story of your life as a Christian Jesus said in John 15 5 that apart from me you can do nothing
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What does that mean What Jesus means is this? Anything that you do of eternal value is done through the power of the
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Holy Spirit You're working with the third person of the Trinity to live the Christian life
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But the Spirit's work with Jesus while similar to us was also very different The Spirit worked in connection with his divine nature
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He was able to do far more than we do as God the Father gave him a stronger level of the
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Spirit's power John 3 34 says that he had the Spirit without measure. He had the
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Spirit in ways that we could not could never understand The Spirit was with him at conception
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God the Father displayed publicly the power of the Spirit in his life when the Spirit came to him like a dove at his baptism and The Spirit the third person of the
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Trinity would be his steady companion through his whole ministry And as we see his ministry we see this on display
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He took the world by storm and he did this through the fullest power of the Spirit the
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Spirit enabled him to heal people To cast out demons to raise the dead and to preach with more power than anyone has done in the history of the world
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So we had to understand the uniqueness of Jesus the Messiah, here's the third manifestation how through ministering in the fullest power of the
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Spirit Now here's our fourth manifestation and that is this His uniqueness is is also this way providing rescue to all nations
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I Already read the end of verse 18, but I'll read it again, and I'm also gonna read 21
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He will proclaim justice to the Gentiles and then 21 says and in his name the
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Gentiles will hope As I just explained the Spirit worked in many ways through Jesus One of the ways that I mentioned was through the proclamation of the gospel as Jesus preached in power
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People would believe in the Messiah What Isaiah predicted is that Jesus proclamation would not only be to the
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Jews, but also to the Gentiles Who are the Gentiles? answer us
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Right. I mean there might be a Jew here. I don't know about but we're a room full of Gentiles The nation's that's what the
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Gentiles are the nation's not Israel the nation's and The end of verse 18 predicted this about Jesus that he will proclaim justice to the
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Gentiles This would have been so controversial to the
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Jews The dominant view among Jews is that he would be the Redeemer of Israel not the
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Gentiles But there were numerous prophecies like this one from Isaiah 42 that predicted the salvation of the nation's
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He's not just the Messiah of Israel. He's the Messiah of the nation's
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It was God's plan all along that Israel would be God's vehicle to bring salvation to the world
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And you see that early on in the Bible in Genesis 12 3 the Lord promised Abraham that through his offspring
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All the nations of the earth would be blessed in the Old Testament the Gentiles Were to come into a relationship with God through watching the nation of Israel It was reverse evangelism as they lived out what
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God told them to do that the nation's with a gun and some of those people would believe But Once the
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Messiah came died and rose again. It was God's plan for salvation to be proclaimed to everyone everywhere as Jesus told us his disciples in the
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Great Commission go and make disciples of all nations And we are a room full of Gentiles and the hope of our church
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That started from Danish immigrants 140 years ago. Our hope is in him alone as We look at the end of verse 18 we would expect the text to say that that Jesus is proclaiming
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The gospel to the Gentiles, but the Greek word here is justice So if we're looking at this text very closely, why does he see justice?
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Verse 18 says justice because when Jesus proclaims the gospel Justice is being proclaimed to the
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Gentiles in the sense that by calling them to repent They will not experience
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God's judgment if they repent this is hanging over everyone on planet Earth Will you believe in the
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Lord Jesus Christ? Because he went to the cross and he paid the justice that we deserve
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Anybody who does not believe in Christ will go to hell But Jesus faced hell for you at the cross so that you don't have to he faced
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God's justice That's what hell is it's the place where God's justice is being it put forth
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And that's what the cross is. The cross is we look at the cross, right? It's a piss. It's a picture of justice
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Just as Jesus proclaimed justice To us as we have believed
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So you proclaim justice every time you share the gospel with someone I Look at forward to the 140th anniversary because I'm gonna we're gonna stand on that lawn.
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Hopefully hopefully doesn't rain if it's sunny out and We're gonna invite a lot of people out from our community people who don't really don't go to church and they're gonna hear the message
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Of justice that Christ went to the cross that he died for your sins that if you believe in him, you will have eternal life
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That's what that's what that's what we're in the business of doing as Christians That's one of the reasons God leaves us here doesn't take us to heaven.
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He wants us to proclaim that news to people To our neighbors our co -workers our friends and our families
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And I am I am reminded about how urgent this is because there's people who are just going through their lives
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Like there's no big deal. Like there's nothing that bad that's gonna happen to them Like there's not justice waiting for them at the end of their life.
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I Thought I saw a story this week about William Shatner He famously played
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Captain Kirk in Star Trek many decades ago He's 90 years old and he looks like he's 60, but he's 90 years old and a reporter asked him
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What do you wish you had known at 20 that you know now at 90 and his answer is tragic
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He said I'm glad I didn't know anything when I was 20 because what you know at 90 is
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Take it easy. Nothing matters in the end. What goes up must come down if I'd known that at 20
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I wouldn't have done anything I was like, whoa, that's not good 90 years old
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It's supposed to be wise when you're 90. I don't know if I've read a more foolish statement No in a long time than that At the end of Shatner's life, he doesn't know the meaning of life
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He doesn't know what awaits him if he doesn't repent and believe in Christ he thinks life is just having a good time and living life to the fullest, but he's gravely mistaken and So are many others like that who are just going through the motions
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Just going living life just to enjoy life and and not realizing that you are a sinner that you need
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Christ So this is the message that Jesus proclaimed and this is the message that we proclaim justice
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So we are to understand the uniqueness of Jesus the Messiah and the fourth manifestation how is through providing a rescue to all nations
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Okay, so now we're on number five we have six of these okay the fifth manifestation How we are to understand the uniqueness of Jesus the
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Messiah is this Refusing to win others the wrong way Okay, refusing to win others the wrong way
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This is what Jesus says in verse 19. This is very interesting. He says this Or this is the prophecy about Jesus He will not quarrel or cry aloud
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Nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets Okay, what does this mean
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Doesn't Jesus cry out when he preaches the gospel He most certainly does like I am right now.
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I am preaching right This isn't preaching is not teaching right preaching is you proclaim the word and that's what
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Jesus did he cried out and There's a crying out that he does as he pleads with people, but there's also a crying out that he doesn't do
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What Jesus means here is that he is not trying to persuade people to believe in him through false means
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Like the Jewish leaders did in his day They said you must do this or must do that without Showing how it was glorifying to God and how it benefited others.
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They said just do it because we told you so just do it And they waved their finger at people without demonstrating from Scripture why
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God Called them to do this or that And when
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I when I'm teaching you something from the Bible I Have to show you where it is, right and you have to see it for yourself because if I say something wrong don't don't go with me right where I'm showing you the evidence every
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Sunday and And what what what Jesus is saying or not what this prophecy is saying about Jesus Is that these false
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Jewish leaders didn't do that. They just said listen obey But Jesus was different He did not use threats intimidation and rough speech to engage
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People to bring them to their side He did not try to manipulate others into following him and an intimidation is used
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When one trying to persuade another does not have the truth on their side But they desperately want to bring others to their side
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And for anyone who hasn't been in a cave over the last year this may sound familiar American society has changed
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Many people in power in our country have told us To believe certain things and do certain things without presenting facts and evidence to show us why?
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We should we should all be willing to be persuaded. Yes, but you must show us But there are many people in this world and hopefully
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Christians who are careful thinkers and they will only believe and do what is found in reality
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But what we have seen on so often is that when someone raises doubts or asks questions to find answers people are told to be quiet And do what we tell you or even worse.
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They call you a name science denier conspiracy theorist a racist
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And so on and so forth and if you call someone names you have to demonstrate how they are these things
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But if you can't then the name -calling carries no weight and it should not be believed
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And I think it's Christians. We need to be prepared to get names thrown at us And it's okay to be named.
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Jesus was was given the name -calling all the time His disciples were to The martyrs down through history were called names, but they couldn't show why this person was that It's just it's just a tactic to try to deceive others to gain power
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What we have seen is that many have been deceived or intimidated into going along with false narratives through false means
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But Jesus the most powerful man who ever lived does not do this
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He does not win people to his side through this false way And you know why
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He does not need to resort to these dirty tactics and he never would of course if he is sinless
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But he doesn't need to because he has the truth on his side And if you have the truth on your side, you don't need to hide anything
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You could just put it right out there like if someone if you if you're doing something and you're falsely accused
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What you know what you're gonna say? Yeah, let's look at it. It'll show that I'm innocent. Let's look at this
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And what Jesus does when he's Persuading people to follow him. He doesn't do it through crying aloud as verse 19.
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It says or quarreling He doesn't do it through intimidation. He doesn't do it through threats.
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He does it through true persuasion He presents the truth and if the truth doesn't persuade you then he moves on and says, okay
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I put the truth right in front of you. You don't want it Okay, I'll move on to someone else and share that truth, but he does not intimidate people
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He does not manipulate people. He presents the truth. He says this is what you need to believe
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He go he points to the Old Testament. He says this is how I fulfilled this he Speaks reality into people's lives and people some people believed and many didn't but he always did it the right way
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So we are to understand the uniqueness of Jesus the Messiah and the fifth manifestation how is Through refusing to win others the wrong way
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And here's our sixth and final manifestation about the uniqueness of Jesus and that is this
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He pursued the weak of the world, okay, so We must understand the uniqueness of Jesus the
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Messiah through his pursuing of the weak of the world verse 20
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This prophecy says a bruised reed he will not break and a smoldering wick he will not quench
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Until he brings justice to victory now in verse 20 of Isaiah's prophecy
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We see the words here that he will not break a bruised reed and he will not quench a smoldering wick
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Okay, so we would you read this the first time like a one in the world is he talking about? Okay, what's the bruised reed?
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What's the smoldering wick? We've already seen the word reed mentioned once in Matthew in chapter 11 verse 7 but you were to mind you a reed was a common plant in Palestine the plant was a flute made a flute like sound and Was used by shepherds to calm their sheep, but once the reed was bruised it could no longer play it became useless
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What about a smoldering wick a smoldering wick was a small flame that was about to go out a
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Smoldering wick could not light up the room anymore It became useless Okay, so what is the illustration that Jesus is making the bruised reed and smoldering wick are people?
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They are the weak of Society the forgotten of society the ones the powerful in society overlook and step on But what
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Isaiah's prophecy tells us is that Jesus is not like other powerful people He does not break the weak he restores them
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We once again see that Jesus is meek He has infinite power, but he doesn't abuse his power
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He always uses it appropriately and one of the ways he uses his power is to help people
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He loves the ones the world laughs at He loves the ones the world doesn't prize a couple weeks back
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Brianne and I and the kids went up to Duluth for a day trip, and we thought we were up there for a day to get away, but the
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Lord had other plans as We were collecting rocks on the shore. We struck up a conversation with a lady
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This lady was strange She said she was a doctor, but didn't trust any professional doctor she said she didn't do religion, but she liked
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Jesus and She is troubled by what she sees in our country, and she'll lecture anyone about it anywhere and She told us that several stores have thrown her out that she's not no longer allowed to even shop there anymore
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And she said some things that were true, but other things that were off the wall she confessed to Brianne and I that she feels alone and Brianne and I were able to listen to her to share the gospel and pray with her
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Her name is Karen pray for this lady. She lost her son a year and a half ago tragically as well
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And as I read this passage and as I thought about that conversation We had I'm thinking Karen is a bruised reed and a smoldering wick
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She is the kind of person the world loves to step on and make fun of she probably has very few friends but this is what is so remarkable about Jesus Jesus did not hang out with the
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Prized of society the elites of society the celebrities of society this
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Woman that we met and we see throughout Jesus ministry were the kind of people that he would approach
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He has compassion on the despised the weak the downtrodden of the world And in God's wisdom many of the weakest of society become
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Christians They are far more likely than the elite of the world to ever bow their knee to Jesus and what is interesting is that Most of the people who become
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Christians are not the celebrated of society, but the weak 1st Corinthians chapter 1 verses 26 to 29.
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It's not the Apostle Paul wrote. This is very interesting. Does this describe you? For consider your calling Brothers not many of you are wise according to worldly standards not many of you were powerful
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Not many of you were of noble birth, but God shows what is foolish in the world to shame the wise
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God shows what is weak in the world to shame the strong God shows what is low and despised in the world even things that are not
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To bring to nothing things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God Amazing this describes most of the people who will be in heaven one day on Rare occasions someone prominent becomes a
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Christian, but most of the people who come to faith in Christ Are nobody's their afterthoughts.
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They're the weak of society They're the ones in society if the world wishes would just go away, and we will go away right at the rapture but We're still here.
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They just want us to go away, but we're still here and In the higher places of the secular world treasures there are very few
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Christians who work there, and if you are you're a misfit But what is interesting is that in the age to come it's going to be flipped everything is going to be flipped
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What the end of verse 20 says is that Christ will bring justice to victory? In other words even though he faced all this opposition in his life and his people
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Faced all this opposition He and his people with him will be victorious
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The weak in this world those who were not prominent not celebrated and many of the very weak
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Will be glorified in the age to come While those who were celebrated here those who use their power for evil will suffer forever in the lake of fire
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How much better To be marginalized here in this short life than to be lost forever in the next
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So to summarize our sermon Understand the uniqueness of Jesus the
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Messiah, and he is unique He's not like the people of our world We have seen six manifestations how in this text through coming to weakness not a worldly power entering the world is the only
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Son of God ministering in the fullest power of the Spirit Providing rescue to all nations and refusing to win others the wrong way
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The last way that Jesus the Messiah is very unique from what we see in our world is by as we have just seen by pursuing the weak of the world so King Jesus this powerful man the most powerful man who's ever lived is
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So unlike the powerful people of our world. He doesn't function like sinful humans, especially the strong and what a blessing it is to look at Jesus and see how wonderful he is and May we give him the highest praise for this?
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What a great God King Savior and friend he is and as you go through your day just realize the one you pray to is all -powerful
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And yet he is as gentle as could be and he always uses his strength to help you
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So pursue him in your life now next Sunday Our text focuses on something very interesting
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The unforgivable sin Okay, what is the unforgivable sin and can it still be committed?
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We will look at that next Sunday. Let's bow our heads in prayer Father in heaven
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Thank you for Jesus. He is unlike any other powerful figure this world has ever seen
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Sometimes we see a fairly good model of someone in power But everyone
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Pales in comparison to Jesus Christ the all -powerful one Who was meek who came to suffer and die and will come again to reign in power in this day
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Lord We worship him and and as we understand who he is Even better this morning
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May our intimacy with Christ only increase And I pray that you would accomplish that Lord that that understanding in the hearts of the people here today