Speaker addresses Matthew 1:21, asserting Jesus' birth solely to atone for sin through faith, rejecting Old Testament sacrifices as insufficient shadows. He critiques Jim Jordan's claim that God chose rebellious Israel, contrasting it with Tyre and Sidon's judgment and Israel's unbelief despite miracles like the Red Sea parting. Using Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, and Esau, he illustrates spiritual blindness versus faithful action. Concluding for Covenant Bible Church, he warns that relying on political deliverance from leaders like Fauci or Biden without personal faith invites destruction, urging believers to remove sin before judgment. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
Time
Text
God's Desire for Sacrifice00:11:22
Leave us a five star review on your favorite podcast platform.
I get it.
It's annoying.
Everybody asks, but I'm going to tell you why.
When you give us a positive review, what that does is it triggers the algorithm so that our podcast shows up on more people's news feeds.
You and I both know that this ministry is willing to talk about things that most ministries aren't.
We need this content for the glory of God to reach more people's ears.
You're doing a great job.
We've got several hundred reviews so far, but we'd like to reach a thousand reviews by the end of this year.
The year of our Lord 2024.
If you haven't left a review yet, take a moment and help us achieve our goal.
Can you bring back?
Yeah, it's okay.
I think.
You don't need it.
I do.
One more.
You're kidding.
Okay, yeah, you're right.
I'm sorry.
Thank you.
No, it's okay.
All right.
Let's stand for the reading of God's Word.
Today, we're going to, this Lord's Day right before Christmas, we're going to simply use one verse from the Gospel of Matthew.
It's a verse that we've already covered in our sermon series throughout the entirety of this Gospel.
But we're going to go back to it and reflect on it specifically this morning.
This is Matthew chapter 1.
Verses 21.
Again, the gospel according to Matthew chapter 1, verse 21.
Just one verse today.
I'll read the text in its entirety.
When I finish reading this verse, I'm going to say, This is the word of the Lord, at which point I would appreciate very much if you would say, Thanks be to God.
One final time, our text for today is Matthew chapter 1, verses 21.
The Bible says this She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
This is the word of the Lord.
All right, be seated.
We'll go ahead and dive right in.
Believe it or not, I'm going to do my best this week to keep it a little bit on the shorter side.
The first thing that I've written in your notes is as follows The birth of Jesus and the death of Jesus can never be truly separated.
The incarnation was God setting the stage for the crucifixion.
The manger exists as a prelude to the cross.
One of the scripture verses that illustrates this point is Hebrews chapter 10, verse 5.
This is actually the author to the Hebrews quoting one of the Psalms, but ultimately it's a messianic promise that's true in a descriptive fashion of Jesus, the Christ.
Hebrews chapter 10, verse 5 says this Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, and here's the quote from the Psalms sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.
Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.
That when Jesus came into the world, the purpose of the incarnation to take on flesh, the eternal Word of God taking on flesh, as we looked in our call to worship this morning from the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 14, that the Word took on flesh and dwelt among us.
That the chief purpose of that was not just that He could be like us, not merely that He could be with us, even, Emmanuel, God with us, but so that He could physically die as a sacrifice to atone for sin for us.
So, the incarnation and taking on flesh is not just that Jesus can be like us, that he could sympathize as a merciful high priest with those who have experienced sufferings.
It's not just that he could share in our sorrows, share in our grief, share in our suffering.
So, it's not just the incarnation existing so that Christ could be like us.
And it's not only the incarnation so for the purpose that Christ could be with us, Emmanuel, that he would tabernacle among us.
There is a sense in which that is what.
Is accomplished in the incarnation that Jesus takes on flesh in the way that the tabernacle was a tent.
It was the presence of God concentrated in a particular geographic locale that was housed, not just open, but housed in a tent that was made with very specific specifications by God, His Word alone through Moses, who dictated it to different individuals who were tasked with the building of the tabernacle so that God could dwell with His people in a literal physical sense.
And so, too, in the incarnation, that's what, at some degree, is accomplished as Christ, the eternal word, is made flesh so that he can be with us, that he tabernacles with us.
It's the presence of God wrapped in physical, tangible flesh so that he might be with his people.
So, the incarnation, the word of God being made flesh, in one sense, is so that Jesus could be like us, sharing in our sufferings, extending to us sympathy as a merciful high priest, that he might be like us.
It's also in a sense that he might be with us, tabernacling among us, dwelling with his people, Emmanuel, God with us.
But the premier reason for the incarnation is so that Jesus might do something for us, not merely to be like us, not even merely to be with us, but that he might do something for us, namely that he might die for sin.
Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.
The irony in Hebrews 10:5.
Is that the whole purpose of preparing for Christ a body is so that a sacrifice indeed might actually be made?
So, the first half of that quote from the Psalms that says, Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, is not in the technical sense, it's not saying that God desires no sacrifices at all or that He desires no offerings at all, because the second half in Hebrews 10 5 is, But a body you have prepared for me.
Why?
So that the body might be torn apart and sacrificed.
So, this prophetic word speaking of the Christ that the author to the Hebrews is expounding upon and quoting is in the technical sense, in the truest sense, it's not actually saying that God doesn't want sacrifices or offerings altogether, because if that was the case, then he wouldn't have needed to provide for his son Jesus in the incarnation a body, because God prepared a body for Jesus so that it might actually be sacrificed.
So, what's really being said in the First half of this quote from the Psalms in Hebrews 10 5 sacrifices and offerings you have not desired.
What's really being said is that the sacrifices and offerings that were currently being made in Israel were not the types or the kinds of sacrifices and offerings that God desired.
God did desire a sacrifice, He didn't just desire it.
We could go even further and say He desired it and demanded it.
It was required.
Sin must be atoned for, and there is no remission of sins apart from blood.
Hebrews goes on elsewhere and says that.
But when Hebrews goes on and says that, that there is no remission, there is no forgiveness of sins apart from blood, that's right in the context where Hebrews also says that the blood of bulls and goats has never taken away sin.
It's the same principle.
So in Hebrews 10 5, you haven't desired sacrifices and offerings, but a body you prepared for Jesus.
Why?
So that that body might be sacrificed.
Right?
Elsewhere, the blood of bulls and goats doesn't atone for sin.
But there is no remission of sin apart from blood.
What's being said is not that Israel and this priestly animal sacrificial system is completely off base.
The types and shadows were there, and the types and shadows did indeed point in the right direction blood, sacrifice, offering, atonement.
These are sacrifices and offerings, lest we forget, that were instituted by God.
So they are pointing in the right direction.
They're symbols that are accurate.
They actually symbolize the true thing.
They're shadows that extend from the true substance.
But what God is saying is that these shadows, although they point to the true substance, these symbols, although they point towards the true thing, they're not sufficient in and of themselves.
They point in the right direction, but they aren't the ultimate thing that God is requiring.
Just like a sign, you can be driving down the highway, and if you see, let's say you're driving to.
I don't know, whatever.
So let's say some theme park with roller coasters and all this.
You're on a family vacation.
If you see the sign, you start to get excited.
And usually, you know, it says 55 miles left to go.
You know, it tells you about how far, your proximity, how far you still have to go in order to arrive at the destination.
But nobody would be driving down the highway with the intent of arriving at a particular place, see a sign and say, We're there, and then park underneath the sign, get out of the car, touch the pole, and say, This is awesome.
This is great.
We've arrived.
We've made it.
No, the sign is not the thing itself.
The sign is merely pointing to the final destination.
So, too, the shadow is not the substance itself.
It's merely the shadow signifies, it serves as an evidence, as a proof that the substance really does exist.
So, too, the blood of bulls and goats is only valuable insofar as it points towards the true efficacious blood.
Of Jesus Christ.
All these shadows only serve to point towards the real substance.
The blood of animals is only effective insofar as it points towards the blood of Jesus.
And those Old Testament saints, the ones who were truly born again with regenerate hearts, who had faith in Christ, pre Christ, but still faith in Christ, that God would send a Messiah, that God would send a perfect Lamb, that He would be slain in order to atone for the sins of His people.
Well, for those individuals in the Old Testament, every time they offered a bull or a goat or a lamb, their sins really were atoned for.
But not by the bull or the goat or the lamb.
Their sins were atoned by faith as they practiced this Old Testament animal sacrificial system, but their faith was looking past the animal sacrifice.
Their hands, their feet, their mouths, their body was in obedience.
Their body was fully engaged in obedience to the animal sacrificial system that God had instituted at that time.
But their eyes of faith, their hearts, were looking past that animal sacrifice to the true blood of Jesus.
Faith in the Right Object00:04:12
It's the same as the Lord's Supper.
It's not the same, but it's similar to the Lord's Supper for us.
For the Old Testament saints, they would make an animal sacrifice, but if they were really saints and born again, their eyes of faith were looking past the animal sacrifice forward to the Christ who is yet to come.
For us, when we take the Lord's Supper, we take it as Protestants.
It's not Jesus and his flesh in the literal sense.
We don't recrucify the Son of God week after week after week.
We're not cannibals.
We don't literally eat his flesh and drink his blood.
It's a symbol, it's a sign.
And anybody who comes to the table of the Lord and puts their faith ultimately in the elements and the bread and the wine is someone who ultimately will spend eternity in hell.
That's faith, but it's faith that has been placed in the wrong object.
At the end of the day, it's not the size of your faith.
It's the object of your faith that makes faith saving, that makes faith efficacious.
Remember, Jesus, after all, he doesn't say that if you have faith that is the size of a mountain, you might be able to move a mustard seed.
It's actually exactly the opposite.
He says, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, and the implication here, implicitly, what's being said is faith, in terms of size, very small.
But implicitly, what we should assume is that Jesus is saying small size of faith, but rightly placed in the proper object of faith.
A small portion of faith rightly placed can move mountains, all kinds of mountains.
It can move, first and foremost, the mountain that exists of our sin that separates sinful men from a thrice holy God.
A mustard seed of faith placed in Jesus, his person, And his finished work is enough to remove the mountain, or to use a different analogy, remove the valley, right?
To bring up the valleys, to bring low the mountains, to level the path, to make way the path between us and God, to make reconciliation between man and God.
A little bit of faith can move a lot, a bit of mountain, or a lot, a bit of valley, or a chasm, or whatever you might want to use in the illustration.
But the chief thing being represented is our sin.
A little bit of faith rightly placed in Christ can remove sin.
And so in the Lord's Supper, faith in the bread is, I mean, you can have a mountain size of faith, but if it's placed in the bread and placed in the wine, then you have a lot of faith placed in the wrong object of faith.
And that's not saving faith.
You will spend eternity in hell.
But if you have just a little bit of faith, And with your hands and your feet and your mouth, that you're engaging in the tangible act of obedience that the Lord has prescribed to us Himself in instituting the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, you're physically, literally, practically engaging in the act of obedience.
But spiritually, your spiritual eyes of faith are looking beyond the sacrament to what it represents to Christ's body, knowing that this is not His body, but that it symbolizes His body, to Christ's blood.
And the cup of the new covenant, the blood of Christ that was shed for the remission of sins.
See, Old Testament saints sacrifice a bull while looking forward to the true Lamb of God.
New Testament saints take the Lord's Supper or participate in baptism while looking back to the Son of God, looking back to Jesus and his flesh, his body that was given to us, his blood that was shed for us.
Spiritual Sight Dimming00:15:13
Or baptism, the waters of baptism, that Christ and his person and his finished work, that it cleanses us.
That removes sin as far as the east is from the west, and likewise an immersion that Jesus was, he died and was buried under the ground and then rose again.
And so, too, we join him in his death that we might also join him in his resurrection.
That our old man is dead and gone away and buried with Christ, died with Christ, buried with Christ, and now risen to walk in newness of life.
The Old Testament saint.
If they truly were, and for the record, if we're talking statistics here, 90% plus of Israel, Old Testament Israel, Old Covenant Israel, they weren't saints.
The vast majority of Israel under the Old Covenant died in unbelief.
That's what the Bible teaches again and again and again.
I'm not just talking the majority, but in some cases, entire generations, with very few exceptions like Joshua and Caleb.
But everybody else, they die in the wilderness.
And it's not just a tangible, temporal consequence.
No, they die in the wilderness.
They don't get to go into the land of Canaan, the land of promise.
That's a temporal consequence.
But then once they die in the wilderness, they then go and die forever in hell.
Why?
Because they were stiff necked and unbelieving.
They did not trust in the promises of God.
And so, Old Testament Israel, under the Old Covenant, the vast majority of them were not saints.
But for those who were, And at various times in various generations, there were more or perhaps less.
On the whole, it was a minority.
It was a minority of Old Covenant Israel that was actually saints, Old Testament saints.
But for those that were, whether it be Adam and Eve, they were saints.
Adam and Eve, they were saved the same way you and I are.
They believed the gospel.
The gospel was preached to them by who?
By God Himself in Genesis chapter 3.
That the seed of the woman would crush the serpent's head.
And they put faith.
They weren't saved by obedience, they disobeyed.
They failed.
That means that path of salvation.
So they weren't saved by obedience.
They were saved despite their disobedience, saved by grace through faith in Christ alone, by trusting that God would give to them by the seed of the woman, a descendant would come from them eventually.
Who would be the serpent crusher?
Who would destroy the worker of iniquity?
And then what did God do furthermore?
Well, the first sacrifice took place.
That their fig leaves and covering of their nakedness and shame was not sufficient in the sight of God.
So he made for them a better covering.
And the better covering required blood, it required the death, the first death that's endured, the death of an animal that its skin, its hide might be used to cover their nakedness.
Their shame, their failure.
And in all this, the promise, the messianic promise of the serpent crusher that would come as a seed of the woman, and in the first animal sacrifice through blood and the covering that comes from that blood to cover their own nakedness and shame, the gospel right there in Genesis chapter 3 is preached to Adam and Eve.
And they believed.
Adam and Eve are in heaven, they are Old Testament saints.
David was an Old Testament saint, Abraham was an Old Testament saint.
Jacob was an Old Testament saint.
Notice I skipped Isaac.
There's an argument to be made on both sides.
I'm not convinced.
I could go either way.
Isaac's not great.
Let me tell you real quick why Isaac isn't great.
This is a freebie.
Isaac's not great because there's so much symbolism that's not arbitrary or random.
God is doing something supernatural in the story of Isaac leading into Jacob and Esau.
Here's the deal Isaac knew.
That Jacob was to inherit the promise.
Isaac had twin sons.
Esau technically was the older, not by much, a few minutes, but still the older.
And typically in the tradition, the older would receive the lion's share of the blessing.
Not all, but the greater portion of the blessing, a double portion for the oldest son.
But this case, the case of Esau and Jacob, was different.
And it was different because God gave a prophetic word explicitly to Isaac, we can say by assumption, by implication, but explicitly, God certainly gave a verbatim word from the Lord, a prophecy to Rebekah.
And we know that Rebekah shared this with Isaac.
So Isaac either heard from Rebekah only, but Rebekah heard from the voice of God, and that should be enough, or Isaac heard from the voice of Rebekah and God, probably, I think it's likely, it's not explicit, but implicitly, we could assume that God also spoke to Isaac himself.
In fact, I would go so far as to argue that the reason why the word, God's word, that Jacob received the blessing and not Esau, is given to Rebekah at all, at all, is because of the point I'm about to make, because of Isaac's.
Spiritual blindness.
That he was so dense and so hardened in heart to the things of God, to spiritual things, that God had to speak to his wife to ensure that his wife would be used in terms of human agency to ensure that the blessing of God actually was passed down to Jacob.
So Isaac knows that Jacob is the one that God has selected.
It's written in Malachi.
And then later quoted in Romans chapter 9, verse 13 For Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.
That God chose the younger rather than the older.
Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.
And this is a prophetic word that God Himself spoke to Rebekah.
Likely also, my implicit interpretation is that God likely also spoke it to Isaac.
And the reason He then had to speak it to Rebekah as well is because Isaac was ignoring it.
And then Isaac was dead set on rebelling against God and giving the blessing to Esau.
Instead of Jacob, despite having a clear word from God that it belonged to Jacob.
And Rebecca came in.
This isn't just people, is it Jacob's a supplanter?
He's a deceiver?
Yeah, there's a sense in which his name, Jacob, means that.
There's a sense in which that's true.
But number one, Jacob, the whole time, just for the record, Jacob is just obeying his mom.
It's all Rebecca's idea.
And Rebecca, you know, I would not allow myself to miss any opportunity.
To tell you how much I hate feminists.
But I don't think Rebecca's one of them.
And trust me, if I thought there was even a chance, then this whole sermon would be derailed and I'd just be talking about how much feminism is terrible and has ruined the world and ruined the church.
But Rebecca, I just don't think that's what's going on.
I don't think it's that Isaac likes Esau, you know, because he's a man of the field and he's a hunter and Isaac really likes stew, you know, and he's not a vegan.
And then You know, and then Jacob, he's a mama's boy and he's a little limp wristed, you know, but mom really likes him, you know, because he hangs around the house.
And, you know, Esau's out there doing manly things, masculine things.
And Jacob, he likes to wash the dishes and vacuum and things like that.
And so, you know, Rebecca likes him the most.
And she's like, well, you know what, we really need, I'm concerned about toxic masculinity and the story of Israel that's unfolding.
And, you know, Isaac's kind of got this masculine vibe and Esau's got it too.
But what we really need are some soft, sensitive men.
Jacob, I've groomed him from birth to be a soft, you know, limp wristed man.
And so, I want to make sure that he comes in and he's my favorite anyway, and I'm going to hijack what my husband wants, even though he's a patriarch.
That's not the story.
The story is actually God speaks to Isaac.
Isaac ignores God because he's a degenerate.
Isaac's not a great guy.
Rebecca actually listens to God.
God then speaks to her directly.
Typically, God would be speaking through the husband, but he has to speak to her directly.
Because the husband's not listening.
And then, when her husband is about to try to thwart the prophetic word of God and his plan for redemption through the line, the messianic line, the wife steps in and says, No, I love you, I honor you, husband, but I cannot submit to you when you are calling me to directly rebel against God.
Right?
In the same way with COVID, it's like, yeah, we want to honor the king.
The Bible tells us, Honor civil magistrates.
But not if they tell you to directly disobey God.
Then you have to appeal to higher authority and ultimately go all the way up to God and His authority Himself.
Well, likewise, that's what Rebecca's doing in this story.
She's having to say, I'm sorry, I have to submit to God.
God spoke to me, I heard His word.
It's through Jacob and not through Esau.
And so then she comes, and Jacob's not even really being deceitful.
She comes and uses her authority as a matriarch in the family.
He's still under the roof, Jacob.
A son in the home, and she says, Put goatskin on your arms because your brother Esau is a hairy man.
I'm gonna go kill one of the animals and make you help you make a stew, and you're gonna go bring it to Esau while to Isaac while Esau is still out there, you know, hunting.
You're gonna beat him to the punch and you're gonna get the blessing because this is God's word, this is what God said, and it works.
And the reason it works is because the same blindness that Isaac has spiritual blindness.
To be willing to not listen to the word of God, not see the messianic promise and the prophecy, and rebel ultimately against what God has commanded, that same blindness is now being demonstrated in the physical.
Again, this gets back to types and shadows, right?
Signs pointing towards the true substance.
Isaac's physical blindness is indicative ultimately of the fact that over the course of his life, his physical eyesight gets dimmer and dimmer.
It symbolizes that his heart is getting harder and harder.
His spiritual sight is getting dimmer and dimmer.
So that by the end of his life, he can't see, not just physically, but that ultimately is representing the fact that he can't see spiritually.
That he's dense, that he's blind, that he's deaf, that he's in total rebellion ultimately against God.
And so the divine irony is that it's his spiritual blindness that is causing him to refuse God's plan.
But that spiritual blindness is being demonstrated also through physical blindness, which allows him to be tricked by his own wife so that God's plan still prevails.
And things continue.
All right, back to Old Testament saints Adam, Eve, Abraham, maybe Isaac.
It could be that he's rebelling against God, but he still technically was saved once saved, always saved, that kind of deal.
I don't know.
But Jacob, definitely.
Definitely Jacob.
And Joseph, definitely.
And many of his brothers, definitely.
And it goes on and on and on.
You have David, Saul, not so much, similar to Isaac.
Solomon, probably a stronger case than Isaac, but still a little sketchy.
End of his life, doesn't finish very well.
The point is, we have story after story in the Old Testament of Old Testament saints, and the way in which they were saved, eternally saved from their sin, is no different than the way that you and I are saved today.
That's the overarching point.
They weren't saved because there's two paths to salvation a Jewish path and a Christian path, an Old Testament path and a New Testament path.
That's That's not a thing, not biblically, not within Christian faith.
Now, there's one path.
There is one God and one mediator between man and God, and that is the God man Christ Jesus.
I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father but by me.
I am the door.
Any man who climbs over the side, the wall, the pen, is an imposter and a wolf.
But the true shepherd goes through the door.
And my sheep will come through the door.
There's only one way to salvation.
The only distinction is based off of time.
And the only thing that that makes as a difference is you're either looking forward to Christ or you're looking back to Christ.
Old Testament saints, they had the signs, the shadows, the symbols, the animal sacrifices, the temple, the tabernacle.
And all these things, if they put their faith in those, then they died in unbelief and went to hell.
And the vast majority of Israel fell into that category.
Jim Jordan, I appreciate his teaching on Old Testament Israel.
One of the things he said is that one of the specific reasons that God chose Israel to be his people was because he looked over all the earth.
And he was looking for who's the most rebellious, hard hearted, disobedient, ingrate people on the planet.
Because my purpose is to reveal my grace.
Oh, here they are Israel.
The Babylonians, if they had received the degree of revelation and grace from God that Israel did, probably would have been a lot more obedient than Israel was.
The Persians, the Medes, the Amorites, the Amalekites, the Philistines, all of them.
Woes to Tyre and Sidon00:03:36
No, Joel, that's just your anti Semitism showing.
Well, first, it's a made up word.
Secondly, where are you getting this from?
Well, Jim Jordan's a good example, but I'll do you one better Jesus.
When Jesus, in his earthly ministry, begins to pronounce woes on Jewish cities in Israel.
He says this Woe to you, Tyre and Sidon.
For if the miracles that have been performed in you, all the supernatural works that Jesus himself was doing in his earthly ministry in these cities in Israel, Tyre and Sidon, woe to you, Tyre and Sidon.
For if the miracles that have been performed in you had been performed in Sodom or Gomorrah, they would have repented long ago.
There's only one people on the planet that we know at least explicitly from what Scripture actually does say.
We can infer implicitly, as I'm fond of doing from time to time.
But in terms of things explicitly said by Christ Himself and elsewhere in the Word of God, we know that from explicit teachings of the Bible, there is only one people who has ever lived that was capable of receiving such high degrees of revelation and grace while being, for the most part, entirely unmoved by it.
Parting of the Red Sea.
Supernaturally fed from bread, angels' food, coming out of the sky daily for 40 years.
Yeah.
I mean, just supernaturally, their own clothes not wearing out and their sandals not giving up for 40 years.
40 years of walking.
And your shoes hold up.
Yeah.
Led by a pillar of fire.
At night and cloud by day.
Yeah.
Ten plagues.
Ten of them.
Not just one or two.
Ten of them.
And you're an eyewitness.
Yeah.
Imagine witnessing all these things.
And in the final analysis, your response is not impressed.
You've done all this.
I won't trust you.
This much provision?
I'll complain.
This much grace?
I know the right response.
Grumbling!
That's Israel.
Saints in Israel, Old Testament, yes.
But few and far between.
Few and far between.
And how were they saved?
Every single one of them that put their faith in. In the shadow, perished in unbelief.
But every single one of them who engaged with their body, their deeds, their speech and words in the shadow because it was instituted by God, but their eyes of faith were placed beyond the shadow in the substance, in the final Lamb of God, they were saved.
The Vital Work of Jesus00:07:02
And so, too, as New Testament saints, it's the same principle just in reverse.
They looked through symbols to substance looking forward.
We look through symbols.
It's just bread.
It's just wine.
It's just water.
We look through symbols and shadows to substance and looking backward.
This is how God saves.
God saves through faith.
He saves through faith.
In his son, in his person, that is, who is Jesus?
The person, we always say, the person and work of Jesus.
The person and work of Jesus.
Let's split that up for a moment.
Person, who is Jesus?
Fully man, fully God.
Work of Jesus, what did Jesus do?
Who is Jesus?
The God man.
What did Jesus do?
He died.
He did more than merely that.
He preached.
He performed miracles.
He was born of the Virgin Mary, conceived by the Holy Spirit.
He lived.
That's vital.
And he lived sinlessly, not just avoiding wickedness, but fully engaging a full presence of righteousness.
That's what John the Baptist says, even at Jesus' baptism.
He's like, I can't baptize you.
You should be baptizing me.
Jesus says, No, we need to do this because my life is not just a sinless life, it's nothing less than that, but it's more than that.
It's not just in my life that I avoid sin, but I actually fulfill all righteousness.
This is the doctrine of the active obedience of Christ.
It was not sufficient merely that Jesus avoided sin, but that he fully engaged and gave himself to every good work.
He didn't just avoid evil deeds, but he performed and fulfilled all righteous deeds.
So the death or the life of Jesus is vital.
The resurrection of Jesus, vital.
The ascension of Jesus, vital.
But the quintessential thing that we find in the gospel story is the death of Jesus.
And we find that in the Christmas story as well.
She that is Mary will bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.
Why?
Because he will save his people from their sins.
You'll name him Jesus, Yeshua, Joshua, deliverer, redeemer, savior.
That Joshua was another type or shadow in the Old Testament, pointing toward the better Joshua, Jesus himself.
Who would pass through the Jordan River, but in this case the river of death, and lead his people into a land flowing with milk and honey, but not just in a physical, literal sense, but a heavenly and eternal sense?
You shall name him Joshua, Yeshua, Deliverer, Savior, Redeemer.
Why?
Because he will save his people from their sin.
How?
By his blood.
How will he save them?
By his death.
Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.
Jesus was born, but he was born not merely to live, not just to be God made like us or God Emmanuel who is with us, but God for us.
For us.
And that's your greatest need, brothers and sisters.
Your greatest need is not merely that God might understand your plight.
He does.
He's omniscient.
He sees every need that you have, and He is humble and compassionate and kind.
Jesus is, in fact, a high priest in the order of Melchizedek who is merciful because He Himself knows what it is like to be tempted.
But that's not your biggest need.
Your biggest need is not to be understood.
And yet, God does understand.
And your biggest need is not merely for friendship and relationship that you might not be alone to have God with you.
Your biggest need is not to be understood that God is like you or for friendship that God is with you.
Your biggest need is to not go to hell.
That's your biggest need.
You need God to be for you.
And the only way that God can be for a vile and wretched sinner such as you.
Without compromising his own perfect holiness and standards of justice, is to take your sin and not merely sweep it under the rug, but to pay for it in full at the cost of himself, at the cost of his son.
The wages of sin is death.
There's no getting around that.
That is the wages of sin.
Sin demands blood.
There is no forgiveness of sin, no remission of sin apart from blood, and yet the blood of bulls and goats is insufficient.
There is no atonement for sin.
There is no forgiveness of sin apart from sacrifice, and yet sacrifices and offerings you have not desired.
But there is one.
There is one sacrifice.
There is one blood that God does desire that is sufficient to atone for the sins of the world.
And because of that, A body you have prepared for me.
Jesus came and took on flesh and was born in the likeness of men, so that his body, that on that first day was wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed in the manger and worshiped by magi and kings from afar and shepherds who were near, so that that body wrapped in swaddling clothes on day one, later on, might be brutally ripped apart with nails and whips and thorns.
Because it's the only hope that you and I ever had at being reconciled to God.
It's the only hope we have.
It's the only hope we have.
And that's the meaning of Christmas.
That Jesus came and he came to die.
Pray for Enemies Scattered00:09:20
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
I'm not going to finish my notes, per usual.
But here's the point.
I'm going to end on a pastoral note.
That was the preacher, Joel, just a base hit gospel sermon.
Many of you know, but we need to hear again and again and again.
Here's the pastoral contextual piece.
And not contextual today, I do this plenty, and I'll continue to.
But for today, this is not a contextual piece for the world or the culture or the church at large or evangelicals.
This is for Covenant Bible Church, for you.
Jesus came into the world and took on a body so that that body might die as a sacrifice, the only sacrifice that would be acceptable and pleasing to God in order to atone for sin.
And he did this chiefly, first and foremost, to atone for your sin.
Israel at the time when Jesus came in his earthly ministry, they were crying out to God and wanting, longing for.
A Messiah.
They knew that the scripture spoke that one would eventually come.
They were aware of these things.
They wanted a Messiah, wanted a Savior, wanted a deliverer, but the chief thing that they wanted to be saved and delivered from was political oppression from the Romans.
That they might be a nation that was autonomous and independent once more.
That they might be restored to their former glory when Israel was a reigning empire.
When the Queen of Sheba would come to the King of Israel and pay homage to him.
When all their economic activity and trade routes spanned the entire known world, when they were in their heyday, that's what they wanted.
It's what they wanted.
But it's not chiefly what they needed.
What they needed was not first and foremost to be saved from the oppression of the Romans.
What they needed first and foremost was to be saved from their own sin.
That Israel was the bad guy, they were the bad guy.
It's like that meme, are we the baddies?
Just picture a bunch of rabbis in the temple.
Are we the baddies?
Yes.
Yes.
Spoiler.
Surprise.
That's the salvation that they needed.
Caesar was not their biggest concern.
They thought he was, but in reality, Israel's number one enemy was God.
And God was their enemy because of sin.
And when I think of America at large, and I think of evangelicals and the church and Christians and these things, we cry out to God and ask for deliverance from corrupt rulers and leaders and political oppression and all these different things.
But if God were to actually answer our prayers, if He was to come and to sift us like wheat, to begin to separate the wheat from the chaff, Most of the church would be burned up.
You realize that, right?
If God were to come and give us the answer to the very prayers that the American church has been praying for years at this point, what it would look like is he would come and, yeah, he'd destroy Fauci and he'd destroy the Bidens and he'd destroy the Pelosi's and he'd destroy 90% of the evangelical church along with them.
Israel was asking for a Messiah, a fierce lion, to come and deliver them.
Well, instead, they got the lamb as a precursor to the lion, and the lamb gave them about 40 years to prepare themselves, ultimately through repentance, in order to distinguish themselves from the enemies of God, so that when the lion came, 40 years after the lamb, the lion would come for Rome and not for them.
But when the lion did come, the lion of the tribe of Judah, when Jesus came, not merely as babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, not merely as the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, but when Jesus came again, a parousia, a second spiritual coming upon the clouds, the clouds of judgment in AD 70, he came and he destroyed Israel.
He destroyed Jerusalem.
He destroyed their temple.
And it was only those in Israel who had listened to him, believed in him, trusted in him.
Who are preserved from this great purging.
And so, too, it's the same for the church here in America.
You want God's presence to come, you want Him to come and scatter.
Let God arise and His enemies be scattered.
Yes, and amen.
Pray that prayer.
But you better make sure, if you're praying prayers like that, let God arise and His enemies be scattered, you better make sure that you're not one of His enemies.
The church needs to engage.
We need to be involved.
We can't be spiritual pietists.
We need to be involved in culture.
We need to be involved in economics.
We need to be involved in politics.
Yes and amen.
I preach it all the time.
But today, one of the best things that we can do, one of the clearest strategies that the church can employ, is continue to fast and pray that God would send revival, that God would come, and that He would send judgment, and that we, because of His mercy, might be prepared that when and if His judgment comes, that it wouldn't first and foremost fall upon our own heads.
That we would pray prayers like David, the imprecatory Psalms against our enemies, but also the other prayers where David says, Search me, O Lord, and try me.
See if there is any evil or guile within me.
So that when God comes, and when he does, in fact, scatter his enemies in the brilliance of his coming, that we would not be among his enemies, but that we would be washed and cleansed and purified by the blood of Jesus through faith.
In his finished work, that we wouldn't be Christless conservatives, but that we would be first and foremost Christians.
Christians who long for the coming of our Messiah because we trust in him and we've been cleansed by him.
His coming is a terror to his enemies, it's only grace and only good news to those who have been called his friends.
And the only way that we might have friendship with him.
Reconciliation with him is for the mountain, the chasm of our sin to be removed.
And that is removed not by deeds or works as done unto the flesh, not by political involvement, as important as that is, but that chasm, that mountain of our sin can only be removed by a mustard seed of faith placed in Jesus.
Behold, you shall call him Jesus, for he shall save you.
Covenant Bible Church, from your sin.
You are sinners in need of the grace and forgiveness of Christ.
And as involved and engaged as we are with very real, sinister, wicked enemies of God in the world, remember that such were some of you.
But God, who is rich in mercy, he forgives if we trust in him.
Stay humble, stay low.
Stay rooted in the cross.
Jesus was born that he might die.
And he died for you.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you for your word.
Thank you for Jesus.
Thank you for your people.
Help us to continue to trust in him.
The way in is the way on.
We came into this great redemptive story by faith.
We continue on in this great redemptive story by faith.
Let us never graduate past faith like a child placed.
Properly in the person and work of your Son Jesus Christ.