Looking for Jesus (Part 3)

Thank you for being here on this very cold Sunday morning.

Thank you.

At this time, if there are any children who would like to be dismissed to our children's church downstairs, you can make your way out now.

Our teacher leader is waiting for you out in the foyer.

You can follow them and you'll enjoy some good Bible lessons this morning.

For the Advent season, we uh have been looking at a number of passages that point us to the coming of Jesus the Messiah.

There is an outline available if you'd like to follow along.

Our ushers are happy to hand you one if you let them know you need one.

Just go ahead.

We put up Christmas decorations, we go get Christmas presents, we send out Christmas cards, we go to Christmas concerts.

Amen.

I hope you came to the one of the concerts.

Absolutely fantastic, Dennis.

Thank you so much.

Um Christmas cards.

My wife and I stopped sending cards years ago.

Uh not because there was any problem, uh, but uh it reminds me of the story of a lady uh in the rush before Christmas, um, a woman bought a box of 50 identical Christmas cards, but she only wanted to send them, there were 49 people she was going to send them to.

Well, she got the cards and uh she didn't bother to read the inside caption.

So she addressed the envelopes, put the cards in, and sent them off.

And several days later, after she mailed them, she happened to move along the uh the one card she didn't send and looked inside it.

She was horrified.

Inside it said, this card is just to say a little gift is on its way.

Can you imagine?

Oh that's one reason we're not gonna send any more Christmas cards.

I I don't read the caption.

Come on.

Merry Christmas to you all ahead of time.

In our preparation for Christmas, we're looking at how God prepared Israel for Christmas in the Hebrew Old Testament.

After Jesus rose from the dead, and just before he ascended to heaven, he told his disciples that the whole Old Testament was written about him.

Luke 24, 44, Jesus now said to them, These are my words which I spoke to you while he was still with you, that all things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

So for this Advent season, I am using Jesus' outline of where to find him in the Old Testament, the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms, three separate genres of the Hebrew scripture.

Um, and so far we've looked at and found Jesus in the law of Moses and in two of the prophets so far, Samuel and Isaiah.

So I'm going to take this week uh to look at a few more prophets.

Uh, the prophets are hard to do because there are 27 books of the Old Testament.

Jesus is found in every single one of them, and I decided to give you an early Christmas present and not keep you for hours as we looked at Jesus and all of that, on all of those passages.

But uh Jesus told us uh in Matthew chapter 5 that he came to fulfill the law and the prophets.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Uh do not think he said, I came to abolish the law and the prophets.

I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.

So today we're gonna look for Jesus the Messiah and a few more prophets, beginning with the prophet Jeremiah.

Very significant prophecies in in Jeremiah, but we're gonna look at two uh important ones that stand out.

First, Jeremiah prophesies that the Messiah will be, we we heard it earlier, uh, will be a righteous branch of David, who will be king over all the earth.

Jeremiah 23, verses 5 and 6.

Jeremiah 23:5

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he will reign as king and act wisely, do justice and righteousness in the land.

And in his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely, and in his name by which he will be called the Lord our righteousness.

What's always been interesting to me is this Hebrew word branch, this righteous branch, several times repeated in the Old Testament.

Uh it's the word Nazarat, and it's close to the Aramaic word for the town of Nazareth in Galilee, which was settled by a small Jewish clan when they returned from their captivity in Babylon.

They named their town after Jeremiah's branch prophecy, referred to themselves as the branch people, the Nazarenes, who were waiting for the Messiah.

What's interesting is Matthew connects that to Jesus in Matthew 2.23.

Matthew says, then after being warned by God in a dream, he, Joseph, left for the regions of Galilee.

And he came and lived in a city called Nazareth.

This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets.

He shall be called a Nazarene.

It's from this word branch in Hebrew.

Um very fascinating, interesting.

Jeremiah, secondly, also prophesied that God would make a new covenant with Israel.

In Jeremiah 31, 31 to 33, behold the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I'll make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in that day.

I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord.

So, in a sense, he's saying, I had a marriage covenant with them, and they broke it.

This is a totally new covenant.

He says verse 33, but this is the covenant which I'll make with the house of Israel after these days, declares the Lord.

I'm going to put my law within them, and on their heart I will write it, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Of course, when we come to the New Testament, Jesus told us at the Last Supper that He was the one Jeremiah was referring to.

He would inaugurate a new covenant in his blood for the sacrifice for our sins.

When he said at the table with the disciples, Luke 22, 20, in the same way he took the cup after he'd eaten, saying, This cup which is poured out for you is it is the new covenant in my blood.

They would have all referred them in their heads back to Jeremiah's prophecy.

He said, This is it, this is the new covenant, and it's in my blood.

What Jesus didn't mention until after he rose from the dead is that his blood, the blood of the new covenant was not just poured out for Israel, where the where Jeremiah is talking about.

Luke 24, 46 to 47, he said to them, It's thus it is written that Christ would suffer, rise again from the dead on the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem.

Just amazing prophecies preparing Israel for the coming of Messiah.

Let's look at uh look for Jesus and the prophet Daniel.

I'm skipping ahead here.

Um, first, I love Daniel.

I mean, there's so much here.

First, Jesus pulls his very identity when he's when he's on the earth.

He pulls his very identity from the prophet Daniel.

He calls himself the Son of Man.

In Daniel chapter 7, Daniel relates a dream that God gave him about the future in which he sees someone he refers to as the Son of Man.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

Daniel says, I kept looking until thrones were set up.

In the ancient of days took a seat.

His vestiture was like white snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool.

His throne was ablaze with flames, its wheels were a burning fire.

A river of fire was flowing and coming out from before him.

Thousands upon thousands were attending him.

Myriads upon myriads were standing before him, and the court sat.

And the books were opened.

And I kept looking in the night vision, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming.

And he came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him, and to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away.

His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.

The person Daniel sees stands before God's throne and has given authority to rule all the kingdoms of the earth.

His kingdom will not pass away, not be destroyed, but last forever.

When Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man, remember this.

The next time you're reading through the Gospels, he's pulling from Daniel 7.

That's me.

It's like he's saying, That's me.

Of course, the New Testament writers picked up on this.

Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man in the Gospels.

He's identifying himself with this ruler mentioned in Daniel 7.

I'm going to mention one more reference in Daniel that is pointing us to the Messiah.

The angel Gabriel appears to Daniel to tell him some details of Messiah's coming in Daniel chapter 9.

Daniel 9 · chapter mention

This is what he says to him.

This is a very fascinating prophecy.

Daniel 9, 24 to 26.

The angel Gabriel says to him, Seventy weeks of years have been decreed for your people and your holy city to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, to anoint the most holy place.

So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, very important.

Until Messiah the Prince, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks.

Then after the sixty-two weeks, the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing.

And the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city in the sanctuary, and its end will come with a flood.

Even to the end there will be war.

Desolations are determined.

This is a this unusual, marvelous vision.

We're told about Messiah's first coming, details of his death, the time we can expect him to come.

Wow.

You see, at this point in Daniel, we're told that there are 490 years left on God's plan for Israel.

This Hebrewism, 70 weeks of years, what that means is they are 77-year periods still on the God's prophetic clock.

77-year periods or 490 years left, he's telling Daniel to wrap it all up.

To put an end to sin, to bring in everlasting righteousness.

So the time until Messiah's coming and death, just that, if we look at that figure, it begins, we start the clock from the date a decree is signed to restore and rebuild Jerusalem.

Well, we know that it happened historically.

We know when that was.

The Persian king Cyrus issued the first decree to return and rebuild the temple in 539 BC.

That was followed by more encouragement by Emperor Darius and Artaxerxes.

But it was the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem given to by Artaxes to Ezra in 457 BC and to Nehemiah in 444 B.C.

That's the start of the clock.

Rebuild Jerusalem.

Messiah's first coming and death will then be 62 weeks of years later, or 434 years, which interesting enough ends in 33 A.D.

on the Julian calendar.

Messiah will be cut off, crucified.

But let me move on.

We can also see Jesus in the prophet Jonah.

Jesus himself directs us to look for him in the book of Jonah when he said this in Matthew 12, 40.

For as just as Jonah was three days, three nights in the belly of the great fish, so so will the Son of Man be three days, three nights in the heart of the earth.

All the prophets point to him.

We can also find Jesus, we've looked at it this morning earlier.

We can find Jesus in the prophet Micah.

Famously, Micah gives us the specific place of Messiah's birth and some six specific characteristics we'll see in the Messiah.

Matthew 5, I'm going to read it again, two to five.

But as for you, Bethlehem, the Father, too little among the clans of Judah from you will go forth for me, a ruler in Israel.

His going forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.

Therefore, he will give them up until the time when she who is in labor is born a child.

Then the remainder of his brethren will return to the sons of Israel, and he will arise and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of Yahweh, his God, and they will remain, because at that time he will be great to the ends of the earth.

This one will be our peace.

Prophet Micah tells us that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem.

He will be a ruler.

From eternity.

The Messiah will shepherd his people, the Messiah will be great in the earth, and he will be our peace.

As we look for Jesus in the prophets, by far the largest part of the Hebrew Bible, there's absolutely a massive, massive amount of material.

I can't look at them all.

I can't even mention all the prophecies of the Messiah within some of the prophets.

To bless you this morning, I cut out the whole prophet Ezekiel just to save time.

I know the bears are playing sometime.

I don't know.

Just kidding.

But we're going to look at one more prophet in the Old Testament.

Almost to the end of the Old Testament.

So if we tracked with this, um almost to the end of the Old Testament, we we see the prophet Zechariah.

First, one of the uh most familiar prophecies of Messiah is found in Zechariah chapter 9.

Zechariah 9 · chapter mention

Um, and you will you'll be familiar with it.

I know.

Zechariah 9:9.

Zechariah 9:9

Uh Zechariah the prophet says, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion.

Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem.

Behold, your king is coming to you.

He is just and endowed with salvation.

He's humble, mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Well, here the Messiah is identified as a king who ironically rides triumphantly into Jerusalem on a small coat, colt, a foal of a donkey or a horse.

He doesn't come in as this uh great on a great war horse, um, but he's humble.

And um that's how the figure is presented to us.

Here's a king who's coming triumphantly into Jerusalem humbly on a small cult.

Jesus fulfilled that prophecy.

You know that, right?

We continue to celebrate it every Palm Sunday.

We find a second prophecy in Zechariah chapter 11.

Zechariah 11 · chapter mention

Zechariah mentions, interestingly enough, coincidentally, that 30 pieces of silver were thrown into a potter's field.

Mysteriously.

Now, why would the prophet mention that?

That odd note.

Zechariah 11.

I said to them, if it is good in your sight, give me my wages.

If not, never mind.

So they weighed out 30 shekels of silver as my wages.

Then the Lord said to me, Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.

So I took the thirty shekels.

Pieces of silver and threw it to the potter in the house of the Lord.

And you know, Jesus betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, which later they used to purchase a potter's field.

The apostles connected Zechariah's prophecy to Jesus and Judas in Matthew chapter 26 and 27.

Matthew 26 · chapter mention

Basically saying this prophecy was fulfilled.

Third, in Zechariah chapter 12, Zechariah mentions very unusual detail that Israel, the people of Israel, will one day look on the Messiah they pierced.

Zechariah 12 · chapter mention

Crucifixion wasn't even a thing in Zechariah's day.

Wasn't until the Romans came.

You realize that, right?

It's like they'll look on the Messiah they pierced and mourn for him as an only son.

Reference to Jesus' crucifixion.

Zechariah 12, 10.

I'll pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they'll look on me, whom they pierced.

They're going to mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, only son, and they will weep bitterly over him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.

Fourth, in Zechariah chapter 13, Zechariah mentions that the Messiah will be a shepherd who struck down, causing his sheep to be scattered.

Zechariah 13 · chapter mention

Zechariah 13, 7.

Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man my associate, declares the Lord of hosts, strike the shepherd, that the sheep may be scattered, and I will turn my hand against the little ones.

Jesus himself told us that that prophecy refers to him and his disciples.

In Matthew 26, 31, Jesus said to them, You will all fall away because of me this night.

You know why?

For it is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.

That's Zechariah.

Did you notice how Jesus keeps seeing himself in these prophecies?

That's why he encouraged his disciples before he ascended, look for me.

It's I'm there.

Finally, I'll give you one more.

Zechariah chapter 14, Zechariah mentions one prophecy that has yet to be fulfilled.

Zechariah 14 · chapter mention

But just as surely as the other ones have been fulfilled, so will this one.

We're just waiting for it.

Zechariah 14, 3 and 4.

Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle.

In that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south.

Says going on, the Messiah will return to reign as king in Jerusalem and do away with the curse.

Listen, and the Lord will be king over all the earth.

In that day the Lord will be the only one, and his name the only one.

All the land will be changed into a plain, from Giba to Ramon, south of Jerusalem.

But Jerusalem will remain, rise and remain on its site, from Benjamin's gate as far as the place of the first gate to the corner gate, from the tower of Hanalah to the king's wine presses.

People will live in it.

And when he splits that mountain, begins to rain, there will no longer be a curse.

For Jerusalem will dwell in security.

Wow.

I could go on and on.

Anyway, we've been looking at Jesus and the prophets, and he's found in all of them.

Even though I've only mentioned a few significant ones.

It seems to me, as we've done this, as we've as we get closer and closer to Jesus' actual birth in the New Testament, the Old Testament prophecies, just like the one we looked at in Zechariah, get more specific and detailed in regard to Jesus' life, his death, and his return.

Like increasing progressively.

We're getting closer, we're getting closer.

And then boom.

What many in Israel missed at the time when Jesus was born and started to minister and do mighty works, they what they missed were the prophecies that referred to Messiah's humility and death.

They couldn't envision a weak Messiah.

They just couldn't get it.

They wanted a warrior Messiah, deliver them from the uh tyrannical power of Rome and so on.

But the theme of his humility and death is the key to understanding the Messiah's ultimate purpose that the prophets were trying to tell us.

The law of Moses was trying to tell us.

And next we will look at the Psalms were trying to tell us.

And Jesus gave us a hint in Mark 10, 45, for even the Son of Man, again, there's a Son of Man.

Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, to give his life as a ransom for many.

Jesus came as a servant in order to bear our sins so that we might receive eternal life.

The apostle John in his gospel breaks that down for us, uh, describing what happened when Jesus came on the scene.

People began to meet him and listen to him.

John tells us in his gospel, chapter 1, 10 to 13, that Jesus was in the world.

The world was even made through him, and the world didn't know him.

He came to his own, people of Israel.

And those who were his own, his own people, did not receive him.

But those who did, those who did receive him, to them he gave the right to become children of God.

Even those who, here's the catch, believe in his name, who were born again, not of blood or of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

When we believe in the true Jesus, who is the promised Messiah, the Son of God who became flesh, we're receiving him who is the resurrection and the life into our life.

What I just want to urge you not to make the same mistake that Jewish people made when Jesus came on the scene.

They didn't recognize it.

Don't make that mistake.

Acknowledge, behold him, the promised Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, and then believe in him.

Believe in the one whom God sent to be your savior.

The source of eternal life for you forever.

I hope you will believe in him.

Let's pray together today.

Father, thank you for the prophets that you sent to us to tell us about the Messiah.

Thank you that as you promised through the prophets, you sent Jesus the Messiah because you loved us and wanted us to be with you forever.

And we you tell us through the prophets that can only happen if our sin was dealt with and the curse removed, which Jesus did on our behalf.

And Lord, help those of us who do know him to honor him.

Send us out to honor him with our lives and witness to others around us.

I pray today in Jesus' name.

Amen.