Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 3, 2019 | Can I Help? - Prepare The Way - Derek Rowe

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March 3, 2019 | Can I Help? - Prepare The Way - Derek Rowe · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, church.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Good to see you guys.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think I know know quite a few of you, but if I don't know you, my name is Derek Rowe, and I was on staff here at TBC working with the student ministry up until about a couple of months ago.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's good to be back, and it's good to be able to share in fellowship this morning.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Glad we beat all the fluff that was outside.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Did any of you guys try to shovel this morning?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, did any of you get the get the snow thrown back in your face like I did?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: There we go.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's like the first one, and then okay, we need to go the other way because this this isn't gonna work out so well.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we had that experience this morning too.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Glad that you all made it out for your four-wheel driving people.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Great job, too.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't have to put in much work, you just drove over everything, and that that's great.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Does anybody know what the name of the series that we're in right now is?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: There we oh, there's look at all right there.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: How can I help you?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: You look like you need it.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: The Isaiah Challenge.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so right now we're in the middle of this series where we're taking a dive, a swim through the book of Isaiah.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: All 66 books of them.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you are doing the Isaiah Challenge?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're actually doing looking at the studies?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: That is so great.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but just reading through Isaiah, it's it's a it's a beautiful book, and every time there's this like, wow, I didn't know that.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, I see that.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, I see how that connects with Jesus.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, this is cool.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, Isaiah Challenge, four to five chapters a week, all the way up until Easter.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: So this week, chapters 40 through 43.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Those are chapters, and then you can find Jim's Devotionals, discover TBC.com.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Go on there, look at those, and it'll help as you dive into the word.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: It'll not just help you know more information, though you will know more information, it will help you apply that information and see what God wants to show you, what he wants to teach you, how he actually wants you, how he wants his word to impact your life.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's go on there, do it.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you're if you haven't done it yet, start today.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we're we're in this series, and last week there was this kind of unfortunate ending to the first half of the book, right?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you were here last week?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand if you were here.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you remember the face plant at the finish line by a guy named Hezekiah.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: So Hezekiah was leading the Jewish people, and he was, you know, especially the first part of his life, he was loving God, he was looking towards God, looking to him for guidance, and then he found out that he was going to die and he cried out, and God generously, graciously gave him 15 more years.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: He said, All right, I'm gonna give you 15 more years.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And Pastor Jim talked about, man, if you had 15 more years, you knew exactly when you would die, you knew how much time you had left, how would you spend that time?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us we would like to say, Well, I would, you know, do all the godly things that I can do.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I try not to do anything wrong and not be focused on me, but focus on him and all of that.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Hezekiah may have had the same intention too, we don't know.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: But we know that he didn't do such a great job of following God through all of that.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't really on his radar, and so hence he faceplanted at the finish line.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: He was so close and then just tanked at the very end.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to bring up the last verse from last week.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, the word of the Lord that you have spoken is good, for he thought, there will be peace and security during my lifetime.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're here last week, then you know why this is shocking.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you weren't here last week, the reason that this is so shocking is because the word of the Lord that Isaiah had, that God had given to Isaiah to give to Hezekiah was this: that basically, all your people are gonna go into captivity, Babylon's going to rule them, they're gonna get kicked out of their homeland, out of their comfort, out of their security, and they're gonna go into bondage, into slavery by another nation, and they're gonna be plundered, and it's not gonna be fun, it's not gonna be enjoyable.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And Hezekiah says, basically, whew, well, at least it's not gonna happen during my lifetime.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, Hezekiah! So you're saying that you're okay and you have no problems with your kids and your grandkids and maybe your grandkids' kids going through this slavery, going through this bondage.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, hey, well, at least it's not happening to me.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Tough, you know, tough luck for them.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what finishes the first half of Isaiah.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're right there, stuck.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: We know that the Babylonian exile is coming.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: We know that the Jews are going to be persecuted through that.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then we jump into chapter 40.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And chapter 40 really begins the second half of this terrific book.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can kind of broadly think of it as 1 through 39 is kind of the old testament, so to speak, of Isaiah, and 40 through 66 is more or less the New Testament of Isaiah, of that entire book.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I'd like to do now, with that as the backdrop, since we've that's what we covered last week, I'm gonna pray for us, and then we're gonna dive in to the first 11 verses of chapter 40, which basically are an introduction to the second half of the book.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so much here, there's so rich.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: I wish we had time to go through every little detail, but we're gonna hit one of the main points that God wants to get across to us.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So if you would bow your heads with me in prayer.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: God, thank you for your love.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you that we can gather here this morning.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you that you give us your word, that your word is powerful, that your word is important.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Help us to see how your word, how this message will apply to our lives.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Help us to see you in a clear light, and help us to see ourselves in a clear light.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the first half of the book ends, the exile has not begun, chapter 40 begins, and it's basically a vision that God is giving to Isaiah.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's a vision right at the end of the exile.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, first half of the book up through chapter 39 finishes, the exile has not begun.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Chapter 40 begins with a vision of the future just at the end of the exile.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we're not covering everything that happened in the exile, but this is just at the tail end of the exile, after the Jews have been in bondage in slavery for 70 years.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so the the dates, the specific dates have been disputed by different scholars, but generally around 607 to 606 BC, up through 537, 536 BC is this period of the exile.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: So about 537 BC is when Cyrus, who's the emperor of Babylon, is in his very first year and says, All right, you can go free.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: You can go back to your home, you can go rebuild the temples.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be slaves here any longer.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the Jews are really excited or should be really excited about that.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Which brings us to our message today: prepare the way.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: The title is Prepare the Way.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna see why it's called Prepare the Way, as well as how we can prepare the way as we go through these 11 verses.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't know about you, but a lot of times we can focus our lives on in two places: on idols, represented up here by the golden calf that was created by the Israelites because they wanted to see their God.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: They wanted something physical that they could worship.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or troubles.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say it's a Kansas tornado.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Troubles.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants a tornado ripping through their house.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's not something anybody desires or asks for for Christmas, but that's going to represent troubles or difficulties that we have in our life.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And isn't it true that a lot of times these take up our mental space?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: These two things take up our mental capacity.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's usually after we've been thinking or dwelling on one of these two things for a while, either somebody comes in or God just breaks in through his spirit and says, Hey, remember me?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Remember God, remember what I've done for you, remember, remember, remember.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the main reasons that the Jews were even sent into captivity in Babylon, it was actually from God as a form of discipline because they were so attached.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: They were worshiping idols of other nations.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: They were worshiping all these other things that were not God.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so for us, we may not have a golden calf in our house, we may not have a statue of something that we bow down to and worship every day.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: But we each have certain idols in our lives.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Whether we want to admit it or not, we we all have them.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's too holy to have an idol in their life.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And these can either be outright evil things, outright bad things, or they can even be good things that we have taken too far.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Good things that we have focused on so much that we actually don't even think about God anymore because we're so focused on this good thing.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: So some examples of idols that we each have, and some of these might hit home with you, are our approval.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: We want the approval of others so badly that we'll do just about anything to get it.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: It could be significance.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: We want to be seen as powerful, we want to be seen as important in front of others.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so we'll do kind of whatever we can to try to get there.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: It might be pleasure, it might be knowledge, it might be lust.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: All of those things can be different idols in our life.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And those different idols are all things that actually block us from having a close intimacy with God.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: They block us from having a close relationship with God.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because God wants us to be focused on Him, not on these other things.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, we all have troubles, every last one of us.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: We have stuff that's like, God, I don't understand why this is happening.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: It may be a sickness, it may be a broken relationship, it may be, no, your car broke down on a way to an important meeting, and that that was your trouble for the day.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes we can spend so much time thinking and pouring and deliberating over that trouble that God hasn't entered our mental space yet.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: We haven't been thinking about God, we haven't been thinking about how God is in that situation.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And both of those things can be things that block us from God, block us from a close relationship with God.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so now what we're going to do, if you have your Bibles, open up to Isaiah chapter 40, and we're gonna go through verses verses 1 through 11.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: 1 through 11.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And as we go through these 11 verses, I want you to notice a couple of things.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to notice one, where is God in these verses?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: What is he saying?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: What is he doing?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then two, I want you to notice how is this applying to you?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: How is this, how are these 11 verses affecting your life?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: What what are those things that the Holy Spirit is kind of bringing out in you, bringing to mind as we go through these verses that will help you on your way back to your promised land, which is our fellowship with our Savior, our fellowship with Jesus.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: So here's here's point number one: God's word comforts his people.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: God's word comforts his people.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, hmm, how is this going to work?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna look at the first two verses because I think the Israelites, I think the Jews were probably thinking the same thing.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, this is at the end of a 70-year slavery, exile, forced labor period, and God, through the prophet Isaiah and through some of his other mouthpieces, is going to say this.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Hey Isaiah, hey, other mouthpieces, comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Comfort, comfort my people.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, what how how am I going to comfort these people?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: They've been out of their homeland, they've been displaced for 70 years.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: What in the world can I comfort them with?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's interesting that he he uses the same word, comfort, twice.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a sign that signals repetition, and it it means basically keep on telling them, keep on comforting them.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Don't just tell them once and be done, but keep on comforting them because they're going to need it.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then verse 2.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and announce to her that her time of forced labor is over.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Her iniquity has been pardoned, and she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is the message that God wants to announce.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is the message that God wants to use to comfort his people.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: After all of them, being in slavery, that they're not out yet, but they're about to be out.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is the end of the exile.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, Look, I want you to go and tell all my people their time of suffering is over.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Their time of being in the wilderness is over.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Their time of being in this place of servitude is over.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's something better on the horizon.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's something coming up that's brand new.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna get to go back to their homeland.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna go back home.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: They get to walk through that front door where they know where all the dishes are when they're putting them away.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have to wonder where where do things go.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: They're going back home.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: That is such a great message.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: But now put yourself in the in the seat of the Israelites.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: They've been hard pressed for 70 years.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: 70 years.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's a long time.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: For a people to be out of their homeland, to be serving somebody else, to be a slave, there's probably a part of them that's excited, they're like, oh, we get to go back.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: But there's probably a part of them that's a little nervous, too.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, we we have to go back.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the reasons I think for this is because while they were in exile, it's not like they magically turned to God and had a revival and started worshiping him all the time.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: They were still worshiping other gods.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: They were still giving in marriage their their sons and daughters to these other pagan people and made them worship their gods, had an influence over their life in that.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: So as we go on, here's this next point.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go through verses three, four, and five.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: This this is this is the the bulk point.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is like the main thing, I think, of this passage that God wants to get out of it, out of this.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Get ready.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: God is coming to rescue.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's like that that last song that we sang.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like God, God has come to rescue.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, ultimately, Jesus came in the flesh to rescue us, to help us when we were helpless, when we were sinful, when we were doing things wrong, even when he knew what we were going to do in the future and it wasn't going to honor him, he still sent Jesus, God still sent his son to come and die on the cross for us.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we go through this, maybe you're here and you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior before.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: That would challenge you today to pray to God and just reach out to him and say, God, I know I'm not perfect.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: I know I can't make it to heaven, I know I'm not good enough to be in your presence, but Jesus paved the way for me, and I believe that, and I'm trusting in what he did on the cross.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: I would ask that you do that today.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you are a believer, you've trusted Christ, you know that you have a permanent, eternal relationship with him.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Look at this passage as a way where you can kind of take stock and say, God, what do you want me to learn?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: What's that thing?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: What's that mountain?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: What's that idol or that difficulty that I'm spending so much time focusing on that I haven't even thought about you?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a little while since you've been on my mind.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: So as we go into verse 3, a voice of one crying out, prepare the way, there's a title, prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: Make a straight highway for our God in the desert.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, part of what you have to understand is in this immediate prophecy, in this immediate context, the Jews were going to have to go from Babylon across a desert, across uneven ground, across a place where there's not really a path back to their homeland.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they're gonna have to rely on God to get them there.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna have to rely on God to move them physically from Babylon all the way back to Jerusalem.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so for us, we can look at a thing like the wilderness, we can look at a thing like the desert and realize sometimes in our relationship to God, we're in a wilderness where it's like we don't even know which way is up.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, God, are you are you really there?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Are you really good?
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is just, everything seems confusing.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we can also be in the desert of just not having that close, intimate relationship, and even asking the question, God, where are you?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even feel like you're here.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even feel like you're close.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: I know you say you're always with us, but I don't, I'm not really experiencing that, I'm not really feeling that right now.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in the wilderness, I think this is so interesting.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the wilderness and in the desert where God says, prepare the way.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Don't wait until you get to where you're going, don't wait until things look rosier and things look better.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Don't wait until you find you've got the concrete path to me or to that point where you're going.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're in the wilderness, when you're in the junk, when you're in the desert, then make a path.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Prepare a way for me.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so a little bit later in the message, we'll look at how do we prepare that way.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: When we're in the wilderness, when we're in the desert of our relationship with God, how do we prepare the way for God to come in and so that God can rescue us?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And verse 4 every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be leveled.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: The uneven ground will become smooth, and the rough places a plain.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, valleys, a lot of times in scripture, valleys represent these difficulties.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: They represent challenges, they represent when things aren't going quite right in life.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then mountains and hills oftentimes represent idols, things that are in our way, things that we're worshiping more than God.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because oftentimes, especially in the Old Testament, the pagan nations would put up these statues or these ashera poles or different things up on mountains, and that's where they would worship these other gods.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so he says, Every valley will be lifted up, making kind of a level plain.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: And every mountain and hill will be leveled, will be knocked down, will be moved out of the way, so that God can have a clear path to you, so that God can have a clear path to us.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then verse five, and the glory of the Lord will appear, and all humanity together will see it.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, once this happens, God, God's coming either way.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's coming, he's gonna do what he's going to do.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to come, he's going to rescue either way.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And especially when you when we prepare that way and we see those idols that are knocked down, we see those difficulties not completely consume us and not keep us in those valleys, then God's glory is going to appear.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And God's people, those who have trusted in him, are gonna see it, as well as those who don't trust in him.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna see it too.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the greatest examples of this is Jesus coming down to this earth.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus came down, he broke into earth, he was fully God, fully man at the same time.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: But he came in and he lived that perfect life.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he showed his glory.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: There are people who believed in him, and there are people who didn't, and he showed his glory to everyone, especially when he went to the cross, and even more so when he was raised again after three days.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you're no matter if you're a believer, unbeliever, and you see God do that in real time at that point, you're you're in awe.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: You may not believe it, but you're in awe and just wondering how in the world did this happen?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's something different about this guy.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully that glory has appeared to you and you've trusted in him.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because he really is the savior.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: He really has come to rescue and satisfy that sin payment for us.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in the third verse, the beginning of it was prepare the way in the wilderness, make a way in the desert.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Who does that make you think of?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: What person?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: There we go.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: So fast forwarding to the beginning, right.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Before Jesus' earthly ministry began, we see John the Baptist.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we we see this actually in every single gospel account, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: So we're just going to look at one, Matthew 3, verse 1.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we see more of that prophecy being fulfilled by John the Baptist.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: And saying, Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Repent is that key word.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then verse 3, for he is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, who said, A voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord, make his paths straight.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: And this is so interesting because as we read through Isaiah and we read, prepare the way of the Lord when you're in the wilderness, when you're in the desert, saying, okay, how does that work out?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: God, do you give us some hints?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do you kind of give us a sticky note that comes down of where's one, two, three, four instructions?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is part of how he reveals it to us through John the Baptist.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you look, if you look at all those four, all four gospel accounts, somewhere between chapters one and three, you're gonna see this same message where John the Baptist came and he was preparing the way for Jesus.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the way that he was doing it was he was announcing basically, hey, God is coming, so you need to repent.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Primarily to God's people.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: God is coming, so you need to repent.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times this word repent or repentance has this kind of churchy or stuffy, kind of obscure meaning to it.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: But essentially, this word means to change your mind about something, to think about it differently.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so for the Jews, this was a tough message because John the Baptist was coming and saying, hey, you've got to repent.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And what basically what he meant was you can't rely on your Jewishness anymore to save you.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: You can't rely on your ethnicity, you can't rely on how much knowledge you've gained by learning from the scriptures.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can't gain on your good works and trying to do enough good things to be right with God.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: But there's somebody coming who you need to focus on.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's somebody coming who's important.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: And his name is Jesus, and he's gonna come and he's gonna sacrifice himself so that you don't have to try anymore.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because ultimately, all of you're trying to earn God's favor and earn God's goodness is falling flat.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: It always has and it always will.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: So he's saying, look at Jesus, turn from all these 101 things that you're trying to do to make yourself appropriate or appealing or acceptable to God.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to literally turn and look at this person, Jesus.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: And what he's going to do for you is going to pave that way to eternal life.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to pave that way to an eternal place, eternal relationship with God.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we think about that, that's what John the Baptist was preaching.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the same is true for our lives.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what God wants us to do.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: When we see prepare the way, when we see repent in Matthew by John the Baptist, he's saying, Look, I want you to turn to something better.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a non-believer, he's saying, I want you to turn from all these other things that you're trying to do to satisfy your life and make your life so full and give you all this significance and save you, and turn to Jesus alone for salvation.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And for those of us who have trusted in Jesus, he's saying, look, there's still some junk in our lives.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's still some things where maybe we're looking for approval from others, and we'll do everything, we'll lie, we'll cheat, we'll steal so that we can have that approval.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, God doesn't want that.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: But God's the only one that can fix it.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got to turn to him.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can try, you can do all the self-help books, you can do all the one, two, three steps you want, but unless you have God in the picture, unless you're partnering with God in this, it's not going to happen.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: And he wants to lead you home.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, well, we've got that.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I see the repent part, but but why?
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't I just focus on the here and the now?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've got I've got bills to pay, I've got this business that I'm running, I'm involved in all these different Bible studies, I'm doing all this stuff.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: And his next few verses, basically, his point is life is fleeting.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Life is fleeting.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: We don't get that long on this earth.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 40, verse 6, a voice was saying, Cry out.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Another said, What should I cry out?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want me to tell these people?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what to tell them.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: God's saying, Tell them this: all humanity is grass, and its goodness is like the flower of the field.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: The grass withers and the flowers fade when the breath of the Lord blows on them.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Indeed, the people are grass.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Then verse 8, the grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God remains forever.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: The word of our God remains forever.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times we can get so focused on the here and the now and what's happening in front of us.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: And when we have our, you know, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 years on this earth, pretty soon they're gonna be gone.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: All our good works, our buildings that we've constructed, our businesses that we've built, all of these things are are eventually going to be excavated and caved over.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to be gone.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I've got a little exercise for you.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: We got pretty far back in the service previous to this.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you personally know somebody?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: You sat down, you had a conversation with them, you know this person who was alive in the year 1900.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand if you if you know somebody.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a few.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand if you know somebody who was alive in the year 1850.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: 1850.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: What about 1800?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody for nobody.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: You guys seriously you don't know anybody who was alive in 1800, really?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Am I the No, I'm just kidding, I don't.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the point.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: 1800 was only about 200 years ago.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: And nobody here knows a single soul who lived then.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Not one of us.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody who lived during that time, nobody knows them.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that most most everything that they built during that time, most everything that they created is not even in existence.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: We don't even know what happened to them.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the same is going to be true of us one day.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's going to be someday on this earth when nobody's going to even know our name.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's how short it is.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the good news on the other end of that depressing point.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: God's always going to know us.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: God's always going to remember us.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: And once we die on this earth, God is still going to know us.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's still going to know our name.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we get to live forever there.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: And eternity is so, so long.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: We can't even picture, can't even fathom how long eternity is.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: And this life on earth is so short.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's saying, look, it's too short to be focused on all these other things.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's too short to be focused on our idols more than God.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's too short to do all of that.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: So please turn to him because he wants to comfort you.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then we go into this last point of this passage.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Here is God.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: Saying with all of that as the backdrop, here is God.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: I want to show you, I want to give you a snapshot of God, these next three verses, starting in verse 9.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Zion, herald of good news, go up on a high mountain, Jerusalem, herald of good news, raise your voice loudly.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Raise it.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Do not be afraid.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Say to the cities of Judah, here is your God.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, they haven't gone out of captivity yet.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: They haven't gone back to the promised land yet.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: But while they're there in the wilderness, in the desert, he's saying, look, find a place, find a people, and tell them, here is God.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: I know life doesn't look like it's working out too well for us right now.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're not the richest, we're not the greatest, we're not the strongest.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to look at God.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: And he's going to give us in these next two verses such a great dichotomy of God.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 10, see, the Lord God comes with strength, and his power establishes his rule.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then verse 11, he protects his flock like a shepherd.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them in the fold of his garment.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: He gently leads those that are nursing.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you, but I know for me and for quite a few of us, when we think about the Old Testament, we think of vengeful rules.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: God's gonna rule, He's kicking people out of their lands, there's killing, there's all this stuff.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then we think, oh, New Testament God, Jesus came, and now there's love and grace and peace and all this stuff.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is great.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: When the truth is that God has all of those characteristics all the time.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't suddenly change once the New Testament hit.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: But just like in verse 10, go back a page, just like in verse 10 where he says he's coming with strength and he's coming with power, at the same time we go to verse 11 and we see, wow, he is a shepherd.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: He is one who's going to bring in the sheep.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: He he gathers the lambs and he gently leads those who are nursing.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Gently.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: The interesting thing about this is with those who are nursing.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: So there's some responsibility on our part.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: He wants us to be like a little lamb with the mom's sheep or like a little baby.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: He wants us to be nursing, to look to that mom as the source of fulfillment, as a source of nourishment, as a source of life.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Not all these other things, but just one.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's God.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: And when we do that, when when we are looking to Him, when we are nursing, in a sense, He loves to gently lead us.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: He loves to gently just say, let's just come back on track and let's keep going.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we need leading because we're bound to wander off.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: We need leading because we're people, because we're human, because we veer off the path that we should be at times.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want to read this next passage to you.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is Ezra the scribe and the priest.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason that this, I think that this is so important, is because Ezra is a scribe and a priest, and he's actually going to be one of the key figures of bringing the Jews out of Babylon back to their homeland, out of Babylon, back to Jerusalem.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: And don't take any notes on this.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: I just want you just to sit in it.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine yourself in this situation.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine that you are one of the Israelites.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine that you're one of God's people at this point.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered around me because of the unfaithfulness of the exiles, while I sat devastated until the evening offering.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: At the evening offering, I got up from my humiliation with my tunic and roar robe torn.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: Then I fell on my knees and spread out my hands to Yahweh, my God, and I said, My God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift my face towards you, my God, because our iniquities are higher than our heads, and our guilt is as high as the heavens.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Our guilt has been terrible from the days of our fathers up until the present.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because of our iniquities, we have been handed over along with our kings and priests to the surrounding kings and to the sword, captivity, plundering, and open shame, as it is today.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: But now, for a brief moment, grace this shows up even in the Old Testament.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: But now, for a brief moment, grace has come from Yahweh our God to preserve a remnant for us and give us a stake in his holy place.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: Even in our slavery, God has given us new life and light to our eyes.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Though we are slaves, our God has not abandoned us in our slavery.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: He has extended grace to us in the presence of the Persian kings, giving us new life so that we can rebuild the house of our God and repay its ruins, to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, our God, what can we say in light of this?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: For we have abandoned the commands you gave through your servants the prophets, saying, The land you are entering to possess is an impure land.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: The surrounding peoples have filled it from end to end with their uncleanness by their impurity and detestable practices.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: So do not give your daughters to their sons in marriage, or take their daughters for your sons.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: Never seek their peace or prosperity, so that you will be strong.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: Eat the good things of the land, and leave it as an inheritance to your sons forever.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: After all that has happened to us, because of our evil deeds and terrible guilt, though you, our God, have punished us less than our sins deserve, and have allowed us to survive, should we break your commands again and intermarry with the peoples who commit these detestable practices?
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't you become so angry with us that you would destroy us, leaving us no survivors?
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: Lord God of Israel, you are righteous, for we survive as a remnant today.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Here we are before you with our guilt, though no one can stand in your presence because of this.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about humility.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about getting on your face before God.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: Ezra with the Israelites is basically saying, God, we know that we've messed up.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: We've screwed up everything.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: We haven't followed your laws, we've done wrong.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: But here we are.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we're open and we want to turn to you.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: We want to look to you.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: We want to change our ways, but first we're changing our mind to look at you.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: In a word, they're they're repenting.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we can do that same thing.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: We can come to him and say, God, look, I got a laundry list of stuff that I messed up.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: This day, this past week, this past year.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: I've done all this stuff that's not according to you.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I know it.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I agree with you.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's not right.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: But but here I am.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it's only by your grace that I'm even here.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so I thank you for that.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Help me to move forward.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Help me to clear away all those distractions.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because I can only do it with your help and lead me back to the promised land.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that promised land for us is it's not a place.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a physical location here, but it's into the arms of God.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's into a close fellowship with him.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's into a close relationship with him daily.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: So how will we prepare the way?
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: How will you prepare the way?
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: How will I prepare the way?
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: Here's four things.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go over these four and then we're gonna do just a couple minute exercise.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: Pray, number one, pray that God would help you remove your resistance to him.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever that thing is that's resisting you from getting to him and having that close fellowship.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe an idol, maybe focus too much on a difficulty, maybe something else.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: Pray that God would help you.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, ask God to show you the mountains or valleys that are in your way.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: Just say, God, what are those idols, the mountains?
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: What are those valleys, those difficulties?
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: What's in the way of me having a straight, a clear, a smooth path to you?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then number three, confess your sin to God and ask for forgiveness.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: And confess, this can also kind of have a negative connotation, but generally, broadly, this word confess means that you agree with God.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: It means to agree with him.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: The things that are good, the things that you're doing, agree with him.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: The things that are not good, the things that you've done that are wrong, just agree with him.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Say, yeah, these are wrong.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then ask for forgiveness, because he's always willing to.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then number four, turn to God alone as your comfort, hope, and deliverer.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of looking to those others' things, instead of looking to your job to give you fulfillment, instead of looking to money to give you success or make you feel like you're somebody in the world, instead of looking to this relationship to be your all in all and your everything, God's saying, look to me, because I want to give you those things.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I can, I have the ability to.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: None of those other things do.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna leave this up on the screen, and then Mark's going to come out and he's gonna play a little bit of music, and for about one to two minutes, one to two minutes, I'd like to just lead us, lead us in a little exercise.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: And what we're going to do is we're actually going to pray individually.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're just going to have a conversation with God right now and just go through these four things.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is this is just a brief time, kind of a primer.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then my hope for you, my desire for you would be that at some point this week, maybe this afternoon, maybe tomorrow, when you've got more of an extended time, to go through this process and just be open to God.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: And like Ezra, where he says, Look, my hands are open to you, my wrong's out in front of you.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not covering anything up.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: Help lead me back home.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: Help lead me back to you.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: So let me pray, and then we'll do that individually for about one or two minutes.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: God, thank you for your love.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you that you give us your word.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you that you're always there to comfort us.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're always there to bring us back into your fold.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: Help us to look to you as our eternal hope, our significance, and our security.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.