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Episode 47: Luke and Isaiah · North Bible Recap

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_03: Well a good day.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_03: I am so glad that you have tuned in to us on this episode of North Bible Recap.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I enjoy each and every time.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, I've been off for a few weeks here.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_03: It's back.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: And it's good to be sitting with the Kayla Anderson.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for having me, Pastor Rodney.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm happy to be here with you.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's it's it's an honor to be back.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_03: I'm glad they let me back in this chair.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: And so uh I'm thrilled.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: And so um I'm looking forward to the conversation with you today.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: And uh we are actually looking at the book of Luke, chapters one through four, also the book of Isaiah, chapters seven through twenty, and then Psalms, um, chapters 98, 99, and 100.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, it's gonna be good.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is so interesting too, because when I first was looking at the breakdown of where we're at today, initially you think, man, we're kind of jumping around, we're all over the place, but it is incredible.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: The more we read, the more we learn.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible is one unified story.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so even the passages that we have highlighted today, it's such a reminder.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: There's like this common thread that God is a God who keeps his promises.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: We have Isaiah, where we're seeing the promises of God.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: We have Luke, the fulfillment of the promises of God.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then we get to Psalms and we have worship because our God is a promise keeper.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm excited to jump in today.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, me, me too.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_03: And we we were talking about this just before we kicked off the episode, just how amazing, how mind-boggling the word of God is.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_03: And the more that we give ourselves to it over the years, um, it doesn't get old.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: It gets more and more awe-inspiring.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um, because we begin to realize what I've said before is that this word's not boring.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the Bible's not boring.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_03: You're boring, I'm boring.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_03: But man, what God put together when he breathed uh the word of God and then how man put together is just the most beautiful, amazing, incredible.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know what adjectives I can throw there, but it's just um it just humbles me to be able to now we get to actually kind of break it down, uh, or whatever you we do with it, just to be able to share some of the things that's speaking to us uh to our audience.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you said, it's not boring and we never have a corner on God's word.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we're breaking down our insight and what we've learned to this point, and I'm sure I'll come back to Luke and come back to Isaiah and come back to Psalms over and over again and think of all the things that I didn't know now.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, we're we're diving into this, but I also want to give just like a little bit of um a little bit of your opportunity to be able to have a little promo for an event that's coming up with um the women of the church, uh specifically focused on those 35 down, and then opportunity for those above that to be able to serve these ladies and also men can serve uh in this capacity.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: But tell us about our young women's event that's coming up.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you for the opportunity to talk about the North Young Women's Conference.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's happening on August 15th, and I just want to start off by saying thank you to you and Pastor Shannon for allowing this, for supporting it, for encouraging it.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, after sitting under Pastor Shannon Shannon's leadership for so many years, that really has made this possible.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: The reason I say that is because this started, we came across some research, Barna research, that highlighted that Gen Z, not just in Norchurch, across the church, has been a demographic where there's some concern about the clip at which they're leaving the church.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And we were looking at some of the reasons for that.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the top reasons was they were saying they feel like there's a disconnect.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: As in generations before them, they feel like they don't care about them.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: And when I read that, um, you know, there's a lot of times you read research and you feel sad and then you move on.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: But when I read that, I thought about Norchurch and I thought about what the Lord has done through Pastor Shannon and starting North Women's Discipleship.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, no, this isn't, this isn't true here at Norchurch.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: We do have women who are here, who care.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: We have the infrastructure.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: We have women who have said, I want to give my life to mentoring, to studying God's word, and to saying to women younger than me or in different seasons than me, come follow me as I follow Jesus.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: We have the infrastructure already.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so it became um something that we really felt burdened for and started praying about and felt like the Lord led us to uh doing this one day conference where we can um both theoretically and spiritually say, Hey, there are people who are here and who care about you and who want to point you to Jesus, but also physically and tangibly, we want them to see the women in our church that are there, ready to support them and point them to God's word and say, No, we love you and we want to see you continuing, not forsaking, coming to meet together.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it's rooted in Ephesians 2, and um, just the progression of that whole chapter really uh was something that I felt like the Lord called my mind to.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's just this reminder of really the gospel, not because of anything that we've done, but because of God's mercy and his grace, he sent his son Jesus to die for us.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And because of that, now we have been adopted into God's family.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: We are citizens of the kingdom of God.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: And when you really think about that, it's awe-inspiring.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: I can't get over it.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And and then you keep moving through that, and he ends with um, Together we are his house, built on the foundation, the cornerstone is Jesus Christ.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what the conference is about.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be a fun day, Pastor Ronnie.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: I could talk forever about it.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: We have a great website where you can get more information.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's north.church slash NYWC.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh tickets are available there for women who are under 35, for women who are 36 and older, or even men, like you said, we have places that we want them to serve.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: We want them to be a part, not just want, we need them to be a part.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: There's space for everyone that day, but specifically, we want to be willing, those of us who are um 36 and older, we want to give up our seat and we want to serve.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_03: So good.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_03: Looking forward to this.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: All right, here we go.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, now you've already kind of set up the little bit of the stage just to remember you you talked about how God is always keeping his promises, and that's kind of tying together um Luke, Isaiah, and Psalms.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, when as people wait on him?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_03: So we wait on God and we pursue him, he keeps his promises to us.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_03: So why don't we dive into the book of Luke?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you want to just start from the beginning, Luke 1, verse 1 through 4.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Would you want to read that, Pastor?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_03: I'd be happy to.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, many people, this is Luke uh chapter one, start one through verse number four.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_03: They use the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples, having carefully investigated everything from the beginning.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_03: I also have decided to write an accurate account for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: So good.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: So what I think is interesting about the way that Luke starts is there's so much context there.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of times when we start reading, we're starting at the beginning of Luke.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is a new book.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: We're researching context and trying to make sure we handle this responsibly with historical context, you know, all the things.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Luke is giving us a lot here.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's helpful to know Luke was a physician and a close companion to Paul.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so as you read through Luke, it's really interesting because the way that he writes is almost scientific, um, very fact-based.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: And he's telling us, I'm essentially, I'm not the first one who has written this.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think he's the third gospel that's being written.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: So there are accounts that have been told before him, but what he's saying is, hey, I've gathered the facts, I've talked to eyewitnesses.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't some fable or some myth.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is what actually happened, and I've gathered all of that information, and now here's the account of the story.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so he's writing primarily to a man named Theophilus, and based on uh different translations, use different words, but essentially he calls him most honorable, which is tells us that it would have been someone with some sort of significant social standing, maybe a Roman official that he's talking to.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: He's writing to Theophilus, but it really is to all of us.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: The interesting thing about Theophilus, if he's a Roman official or uh someone of high social standing, most likely he wasn't a Jew.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: And as we read through Luke, the way that he writes, we realize he is writing this for all people.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: He is not a Jew himself, he is a gentile.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so for those of us who are Gentiles, which is most likely a lot of us, Luke is specifically for us.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Not that the other books aren't, but he is, I believe, one of the only authors in the Bible, the only author in the Bible who is a Gentile author.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: So that's significant.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want to skip over that.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: When we talk about being the Gentile, just so we understand clearly, there are about on the face of the planet right now about 14 million or a little less Jews.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_03: About half of them are uh in uh Israel, and about probably six million of them or so are in the United States, and about a million people everywhere else.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_03: But the odds are is that most everybody listening to this podcast is probably not a Jew.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_03: You are a Gentile.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: Okay?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_03: And so this is great.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great context.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know those numbers, so that's really interesting.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: So Luke is essentially telling us what his purpose is.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: He wants to provide an orderly orderly account, a fact-based account.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so we move into Luke with that frame of reference, that context, and it's really helpful.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: He's telling us he carefully investigated everything, and he wants the Ophelist to know that his faith, this faith that he is interested in or maybe has newly professed, this is not a myth or a legend.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: This is rooted in fact, and we can take comfort in that as well.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: So before Luke begins, we've had about 400 years of silence since it's been a long time since Malachi last prophesied.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it's been quiet.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: There have been empires that have come and gone.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: And Luke even goes to great lengths to list like these are the leaders that are that are in power right now.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: These are the um empires that have come and gone.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he is giving us even a historical route to know like this is where we are.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so very fact-based, very specific on his details.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I want to jump down to uh verse 11 through 20.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: He he goes into the story which we most of us would call the Christmas story.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: So Gabriel appears, and something that I have overlooked for years that I thought was really interesting is that Gabriel is mentioned by name three, four times in scripture, three other times in addition to this one.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Two of those are in Daniel and two of those are in Luke.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: What's really interesting is that when he's mentioned in Daniel, it's explaining a vision about God's future kingdom.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: So fast forward here to Luke, so good.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: God's kingdom is coming to pass.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so Gabriel is mentioned by name.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so because he's mentioned such a small amount of times, it should pique our interest to go look and see, well, what's the common denominator?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Why is he specifically mentioned by name here?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: So after centuries of silence, Gabriel appears again, and Luke doesn't really explain why that's significant.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Many Jewish readers would have already known, but even for us, if we're responsibly handling the word of God, there's just certain things like that that should pique our curiosity where we're gonna go for it.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is just another reminder.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about God keeping his promises at the beginning.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: The God who made promises through Daniel is fulfilling those promises now.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: So good.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_03: Very good.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: So God has been silent, but he has not forgotten them.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: No, and that's encouraging.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_03: No, you're so right.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_03: And you know what?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_03: You just shine some light on something that I haven't really thought about in regards to.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_03: I knew that Gabriel was mentioned uh in Daniel and then here, but then to tie those together is beautiful, but that goes to God has just a way of you you opened up, talked about how that it's just one story.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, one into one person.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's a unified story that points to Jesus Christ all throughout the Bible.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: So good.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: So then we move into uh we're still in Luke 1, verses 46 through 45.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: We have Mary's song, and I think this is so good because Luke could have easily just said, and Mary praised God, yeah, but he doesn't.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: He goes into detail and he gives us her entire song.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this is important, and I think you'll probably see what I'm doing here.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm showing where Old Testament and New Testament is all one unified story because Mary's song reminds us of Hannah's song in 1 Samuel uh chapter 2.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Both of these women experience God's miraculous power in him fulfilling his promises.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it seems insignificant sometimes, but Luke is helping us recognize the continuity of scripture, which we don't want to miss.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: He is showing us that God has been faithful to Israel and he will continue to be, he will accomplish his promises, and that theme runs throughout Luke's entire gospel.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we have Mary's song, and I would encourage people to take some time to go back and look at Hannah's song.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many parallels, it's not word for word, but very similar in the cadence, the structure, and just the themes and the progression of the songs.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: So Mary's song also introduces us to one of Luke's biggest themes, and that is that God's kingdom consistently reverses human expectations.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll notice as we go throughout the book of Luke, Luke is making an intentional effort to highlight those who would have been on the outside culturally.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Even when we think about Mary, she's most likely a 12, 13-year-old girl who is a virgin and who, you know, it's just over and over.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: We could go through the full list of all the people that he highlights that are outside of what our expectation would have been of who God would use.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that just points to God's character.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Even in her song, she talks about the humble being lifted and the proud being brought low, and then the hungry being filled, just the goodness of God that he sees the marginalized and the people who would have historically be been considered outcasts.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Luke is is highlighting it's not just the Jews.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: This gospel is universal and for everyone, even those who thought maybe that they were disqualified or on the outside.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_03: And what was happening right now is the fulfilling of all the promises come together in Jesus Christ.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um, He is the Word made flesh, the scripture says.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: So all of God's word of the Old Testament was made flesh in Jesus.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_03: And then he is the salvation of the world, he becomes the redeeming hope of the world.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: Good, good.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: So the king arrives.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: And Luke makes sure to highlight that for us.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: I just think of so many ways, you know.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about Mary's song, how Luke could have just said, and then Mary praised, or even with the shepherds.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: If you think about the context of the time, shepherds were not prominent, high-standing social celebrities.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like that's just not who, if we at the time were writing this, that's not who we would have picked to highlight that God revealed his son to.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: But yet but isn't that everything in the scripture?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: Like because that's the whole point of he when you talk about God uh's kingdom consistently reverses human expectations.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, it's the whole story about the first will be last, the last will be first.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's the whole um, and then you have everything about it.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_03: Who would have picked a virgin girl?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_03: Who would have picked uh to be born of a baby, the god of the universe, versus you know, the way we naturally think, show up in power and might and tell everybody who I am and introduce yourself with authority and power.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_03: And he came as the most humble, meek, yeah, um that there can be, which doesn't make sense in the natural mind.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but of course, that's the whole revelation of the goodness of God is that he does not do things the way we do things.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and he uses ordinary people for extraordinary things, absolutely, and that's comforting to this ordinary girl.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we move into uh we he he announces to the shepherds, which is just another reminder throughout the gospel that that, like you said, Jesus is using ordinary people.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then we get to Luke chapter two, Simeon and Anna, and I'm just gonna read verses 25 through 32.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is Simeon praising the Lord and praying after he recognizes who Jesus is.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Sovereign Lord, now let your servant die in peace as you have promised.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: I have seen your salvation, which you have prepared for all people.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: He is a light to reveal God to the nations, and he is the glory of your people, Israel.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we see Simeon has been waiting his entire life for God's promised Messiah, and he's and he holds Jesus and he doesn't simply celebrate that Israel has been rescued.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: He says Jesus will be a light for revelation to the Gentiles, too.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: He's saying, All people.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: So here we have Luke again pointing us back to the gospel is for everyone, not just for the Jews.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is for everyone.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so that language also echoes Isaiah.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: And this is Luke reminding us again that the God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we just some of those phrases that we pick up on, like we mentioned, all people in Simeon's praise, just that reminder over and over again.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um, we also see, I didn't put this in my notes, but even the way that Luke points out the genealogy of Jesus, the other gospels go back through to Abraham.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Luke goes all the way back to Adam, as if to say, our God is a God of all mankind, everyone, not just the Jewish people, not just back to Abraham, the father of the Jews, but back to Adam, the original man.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's for everyone.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: So important themes that Luke is pointing out that we want to make sure that we don't miss.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you you talk about just throwing out those ideas that throughout the scripture, the Old Testament, too, there's an emphasis on that there's gonna be salvation for the whole world, not just for the Jewish people.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: God chose, and people that get hung up on, you know, like the Jewish people, why are they so special?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_03: God chose a group of people, he chose uh one young girl uh in Mary, uh, but the Jewish people, even today, only make up.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_03: I think I just figured this up on my little calculator on my phone of eight billion people on the planet, 14 million of them are Jews thereabouts.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_03: That's point zero zero one percent of the pop the world population.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's a very small part of the world, the Jewish people, but but yeah, God still begin it's the reversing man's way of thinking.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: He takes the smallest group of people who have been literally the most persecuted group of people on the face of the planet.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_03: You talk about, I know there's lots of different groups of people that have been greatly persecuted over the years, but you take historically over thousands and thousands of years, this group of people have been more persecuted and tried to eliminate one of the group, but yet God says, I'm gonna choose it with this little bitty group of people to bring forth salvation for the whole world.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's so good.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: So um, just moving through Luke, we get to chapter three, and this is where I kind of referenced this earlier.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to make sure to highlight this again at the beginning of Luke chapter three.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: This is where Luke is rooting us in, this is where we are in history.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, it's almost scientific or historical because he's he's calling us back to this isn't myth, this isn't legend, these are the rulers that have been in power.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: He's listing rulers, he's listing governors, high priests before he then introduces John the Baptist.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: So he's calling us back to history again, rooting his account in the facts, and then he quotes Isaiah 40.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: So he's telling us that hey, this is I'm reminding you, this is the fulfillment of everything that has been prophesied.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: This is John isn't just another preacher, he's not just some guy that showed up on the scene.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: He has been promised.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: This is God fulfilling his promise in saying, This is the voice crying out in the wilderness, preparing.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: The way for the Lord.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: So John's ministry is marking this transition from promise to fulfillment.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: So later, uh down in uh later on in in Luke chapter three, Pastor Rodney, would you want to read verses 21 through 22?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:18
  unknown: Yeah.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_03: One day when the crowds were being baptized, Jesus himself was baptized.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_03: As he was praying, the heavens opened.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_03: And the Holy Spirit, in bodily form, descended on him like a dove.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_03: And a voice from heaven said, You are my dearly loved son.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_03: And you bring me great joy.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Pastor Rodney, this really threw me off for a long time, if I'm being honest.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: I could not understand.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus never sinned.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Why would he be baptized?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh spent a lot of time just trying to study and understand and asking the Lord help me.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so I want to highlight just a couple of things, and there's probably more, but I just want to highlight a few.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: John's baptism was connected to repentance, and Jesus didn't need repentance.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: We know that he was perfect.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: But what Jesus is doing here, he's identifying himself with the people that he came to save.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: He steps into the water, not because he needs cleansing, but because he came to take our place.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that is so good and such a picture of his love and his mercy for us.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: The second thing in Matthew uh 3 15, it says, Let it be so now.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is fulfilling all righteousness, which means he's fulfilling God's redemptive plan.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: He is submitted and obedient to the Father, fulfilling the plan, the reason that he came.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the second thing.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: This reference to uh Matthew's gospel, essentially, what I want us to not miss is that righteousness isn't just moral perfection, it also means faithfully carrying out God's covenant purposes.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: That is what Jesus is doing, and that is incredible to me.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: His baptism is essentially his public yes to the mission that God gave him.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_03: Correct.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's important to get there.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's very important too.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_03: You said he's saying yes.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_03: That's and so he's going public with I'm taking on man.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_03: I'm taking on the sins of man, I'm taking on literally that that symbolism that's so powerful to understand.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: I always think about um when I was growing up, you know, my parents as my leaders.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things I look back on that I respect the most about them is as they walked out their faith and their relationship with Christ, when they asked of us certain things, when they told us, hey, today, during this time, on these days, we're gonna read the word, or I want you to get up and spend some time with the Lord.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: They were modeling those things for us as well.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: They weren't just asking us to do it.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is essentially on a larger scale what Jesus is doing.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm asking you to follow me and to do the things that I did, follow my example in water baptism, not just because I'm telling you to do it, I'm also stepping into your place and showing you what this looks like.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: We have this great high priest who understands, sympathizes, and also put himself in the positions that he would ask us to walk in.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's love.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: The third thing that I think is so interesting is if we go back to themes of the Old Testament and uh the Old Testament being connected, one unified story.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is really interesting.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: How Jesus is stepping into the place of Israel, he's kind of re-walking out what Israel has walked through.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: What I mean by that is Israel passed through the Red Sea, Jesus is passing through the Jordan in baptism.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Israel spends 40 years in the wilderness.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus, following this baptism, goes and spends 40 days in the wilderness.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Israel repeatedly fails, but Jesus remains faithful.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where he changes the story.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so we don't want to miss that because this is a redemption plan.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's what Jesus is modeling for us.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: But what I love is that before Jesus does anything, before he performs a miracle, before he teaches, before he heals, a recorded miracle.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: The Father says publicly, you are my beloved son.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: With you I am well pleased.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so for us, that is such a beautiful reminder that before we do anything for God, our identity is rooted in him.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: He gives us a place of belonging.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_03: I like it.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: So our identity is connected to the Father, and God establishes identity before we do anything for him.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that's so good.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then we conclude Luke 4 is where our reading for this week stops.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I just wanted to highlight uh verses 16 through 21.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus returns in Nazareth and he enters the synagogue and he reads from Isaiah 61, which is another opportunity for Luke to show us this connection back to the Old Testament.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Same God.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is the kingdom and God's promises being fulfilled.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is letting know letting us know that this isn't just a meaningful sermon.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is his public declaration that he is the promised Messiah, even though that's he doesn't use those specific words for him to quote Isaiah 61 here is very significant.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: So Jesus, one thing I do want to point out that I thought was interesting, he stops reading before Isaiah says the day of vengeance, uh the day of vengeance of our God.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: He stops right before that.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that caught my attention.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I kind of was looking into that, studying that a little bit.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of different opinions on that.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: But here's what I love.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is emphasizing the purpose of his coming, proclaiming good news.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's where he starts freedom, healing, and God's favor as he's quoting this.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Judgment is still a part of God's story.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: He's not leaving that out because that's not who God is anymore.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: But what I think is so interesting, and what I believe Luke is doing here is showing us that Jesus' ministry starts with grace.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so we we leave the book of Luke for today and transition to Isaiah, but I just over and over again, the way that Luke points us back to the Old Testament promises, promises being fulfilled, if that doesn't inspire awe in us for the word of God in this unified, connected story that no human brain would be capable of coming up with on their own.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's all connected and it's so good.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um you know, in chapter four, obviously you talked about him quoting Isaiah chapter 61, but also I just want to remind people that he is quoting God's word to overcome Satan's.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_03: Uh he's quoting God's word to tell people of his his authority ship, his anointing, his mission uh that at hand.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_03: But he's also before that quoting God's word.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I just want to, man, we gotta get God's word in us because it gives us a weapon to fight the enemy's attacks.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: And we learn this from Jesus, who himself used God's word to push back the enemy and to you know, establish his clear authority as a child of God upon this, as well as a son of God upon this earth.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_03: And so and and we have that right and that privilege too to use God's word as uh as uh to fight against the enemy's tactics when he comes our way.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: So I just want to get in God's word, memorize God's word, hide it in your heart.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_03: And the more I think sometimes people get overwhelmed because they're like, I don't know as much as you, or I can't.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_03: No, this is years since since I was a uh you know in high school, I began to give myself to God's word.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_03: And so I just you you build upon layer after layer of what you have learned uh over the years.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: And don't don't negate, don't um downplay what you're getting by listening to this weekly and re-listening to it, listen to the messages on the weekend, and then tie it also with all of your own personal um study time and reading the scripture.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um you're growing whether it's kind of like seeing a kid when you're right there with your children, you don't see them growing, but other people will notice their growth when they are absent from the present for six months, and all of a sudden, oh my goodness, like your kids.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, like I see your kids just growing so fast right now.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_03: Uh well, if you're sitting there watching them, you don't see the growth the same way in our lives, but we daily get up, get in God's word, invite the Holy Spirit, we engage with godly people, live a life that's surrendered, and we will grow.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's so good.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think something that uh comforts me too.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we feel this weight of like, I need to memorize everything.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: We have the Holy Spirit as our helper, and one of the things that He does that the Bible tells us is that He calls our, He calls us back to truth, He reminds us.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we get the word in us, we trust the Holy Spirit to call the Word to mind in the situations where we need prayer strategy, we need a certain verse to pray, we need to be able to arm ourselves with a certain verse to push back the enemy.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit calls those things to mind if we will partner with him to get it in us.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_03: That's good, good.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, how about Isaiah?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let's rewind 700 years, 700 years before.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_03: Here we go.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um we're remembering in Luke, we just left Jesus, and he we have all this uh, you know, today this has been fulfilled, and so we rewind to what is being fulfilled.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: We go back to Isaiah, and I'm gonna, we have already been in the in the book of Isaiah, so I'm not gonna give a lot of context, but uh, I just want to remind all of us Isaiah is written during one of the darkest periods uh in Judah's history, and um, Assyria has become one of the most dominant superpowers, and Israel is split into two kingdoms after Solomon.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: So those are kind of some helpful things.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we have King Ahaz here, and God has just dealt with Isaiah on his own sin before we get uh here.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then now he's inviting King Ahaz to trust him, basically.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: So in verses 10 through 14, God is telling Isaiah to have King Ahaz ask him for a sign.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: And this is really important because it kind of is a reflection of the overall issue that we're seeing here is that trusting Assyria made sense.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Trusting God required faith.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: So availing himself to God, asking him for a sign required a certain level of trust in a situation where trusting Assyria would have made the most sense.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: They were the most dominant, and that seemed to be where the help would come from.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that is still true for us today.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's not obvious rebellion, it's who are we going to place our trust and our confidence in?
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: We have will we place our hope and confidence in God, or what seems culturally relevant or currently powerful?
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so that that question every generation has to answer.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: But here we have Ahaz, and he's refusing to ask God for a sign, but God gives him gives him a sign anyway.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: Isaiah 7 uh verse 14.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: You want to read that?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, that this is one of my great ones here, okay.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_03: All right then, the Lord Himself will give you the son.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_03: Look, the virgin will conceive a child, she will give birth to a son, and we'll call him Emmanuel, which means God is with us.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: This is reassurance that God hasn't left them during one of the darkest periods.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: God goes out of his way to say, Hey, ask me for a sign, and I'll tell you.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't just uh just a sign of, oh, it's gonna be fine, don't worry about it.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: It it's literally Emmanuel, God with us.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: I am with you.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: It is both a comfort for them then, but also a promise of a future with him, a future king Jesus.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: So there's there's so much good in that.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um we could talk all day about Ahaz and where his heart was because Isaiah kind of reprimands him a little bit for not asking for a sign.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the meat there is God reminding them, I haven't forgotten about you, I haven't left you, even in your rebellion.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still telling you that my promises, I'm gonna fulfill them.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: I have not forgotten about you, even in this darkness.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: No matter what your current present situation looks like, what you see may not match, but I am reminding you that I will keep my promise.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_03: Very good.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: You know, that's I can just set in on this and just like realize that this is so beautiful because you know, God's um God's redemption plan, his ark is not always on our timetable, but it's it's there.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's always in other words, he might not show up the way we want him to show up, but his promises are there.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: And what he's telling them, they might not have been removed from their situation, but he's saying, I am with you.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_03: God is with you.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's something we need to.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_03: So, yes, it's it's prophesying what is to come in Christ, but he's also reminding them that I am here now, yeah, with you.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know what's so interesting to me is sometimes when when people say that you're going through a hard time and someone says, God is with you.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we don't take comfort in that.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: We want him to like zap the situation and fix it.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I've been asking myself as I read about the presence of God, well, what what am I?
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm missing something, obviously, if that promise of his presence is better for me than him removing me from the circumstance.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes he does, you know, take us out of the circumstance.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: But but it it should make us curious.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: If that's not a comfort to me, then what am I missing?
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because a merciful, good God who loves us with this unfailing, everlasting love, if he thinks it's best to promise me his presence in this, then that should comfort me in a different way.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe the desire of my heart to escape the situation, maybe what I think I want is not what's best for me.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we most recently had a uh podcast on Up and To the Rot with uh a couple of men in the church that have gone through great loss, uh, much grieving.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um one had lost a a child, just a healthy born child, no issues, and would die a few days later, like nine days later.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_03: And then the other one was a um and then their grieving process, and then the other one was um a man in the church whose wife had stage four cancer and battled for years and then had a car accident, lost an arm, just a whole and it's like, where's God in all this?
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_03: But both of them leaned into the the understanding that if they hadn't have had these things in their life, they don't they don't wish for them, they don't want for them, they'd rather they had not been.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_03: But because of these events in their life and the incredible pain and struggle they went through, they have a completely different understanding of who God is and a perspective of God in their life and growth that would not have happened otherwise.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_03: And so in a way, they find both of them lean into both of them are thankful, not thankful for their lost, but they're thankful for what they've learned and gathered from this time of suffering.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's so good.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: That was an incredible episode.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you haven't listened to it, go back and listen.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Then we move into Isaiah eight through nine, and uh we're still in this in this time of Judah's future looking uncertain.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: Darkness isn't just a metaphor, they are literally walking through it.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: War is coming.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: People are wondering whether hope still exists.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I love we start in chapter nine, it starts with hope.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: Verse one nevertheless, that time of darkness and despair will not go on forever.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then as we go through chapter nine, verses two through seven, it's just these promises.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that we have time to read all the way through it, but it's this promise of rejoicing and what God is gonna do, enlarging the nation of Israel, breaking the yoke of their slavery.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a child will be born to us.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanna I wanna finish in that verse, chapter six.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: A child for a child is born to us, a son is given to us, the government will rest on his shoulders, and he will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we have all these promises and this comfort that the Lord is giving them, and then he goes down in verse six, and and he's promising them a savior.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that it's such a reminder.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because what he's promising throughout these verses, if you think about that, what they're seeing around them that wouldn't make sense.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: Some of the things that he's saying about rejoicing and enlarging uh their territory and lifting their heavy burden in the middle of all the darkness and the war and everything that they're experiencing, the divided kingdoms that wouldn't have made sense based on what they see.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: But isn't it like God to provide hope in the middle of darkness and remind us of who he is and what he will do and then promising Jesus?
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, so good.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: The the order of that is his promises give his people something to hold on to because they will have to wait.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: He's not gonna zap the situation and just pull them out of it.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: But he's not just promising them a better king, he's promising and describing a king unlike any of the world has ever known, even to use those words wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's more than just any ordinary worldly king, which is what they thought they needed at the time.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: He's saying, What you think you need, I think bigger than that.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: What I want to give you is so much more.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_03: Almost almost every president from the time that I can remember, when they give their you know, inauguration speeches and do their thing, uh all of them lean into this idea of like two words specifically that always comes to mind in some form or fashion, all their speeches is peace and prosperity.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_03: None of them have come through on that completely.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they in their best efforts, um, they've done their job, and um, you know, but but there's only one that's going to be able to the government's on his shoulders, the government, the government of the world, the the foundations of the world open his shoulders, and his name is Jesus.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_03: And it says up there that he will give in verse number seven is that um he will give peace that will never end, and justice and fairness, and so it's beautiful.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: I love how that ends too, because Isaiah says, uh, the zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then if you look down, it says the passionate commitment of the Lord of heaven's armies will make this happen.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's the end of verse seven.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I love this because you even mentioned presidents promising that, and they all do it, this peace and prosperity.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: But the way verse seven ends ultimately just reminds us God's promises don't depend on human strength, they depend on God's faithfulness.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: It says, not that human willpower or anything else will make this happen.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's the passionate commitment of the Lord of heaven's armies.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_03: That's good.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're facing war or facing what feels like probably or possibly defeat, to have that description of him as the Lord of heaven's armies.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: How comforting.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: So Isaiah 11, uh if Isaiah 9 tells us who the king is, Isaiah 11 is telling us what the kingdom will be like.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: And he uses uh the word stump.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh if you look at verses one through nine, and when you think about a stump, that's not impressive.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: It represents something that's been cut down, and so just this reference to the kingdom at the time is weak.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: They are divided, they are not at their best, kind of probably feeling cut down, the future seems uncertain, and yet Isaiah is saying a shoot is gonna come out of that stump, which is the Lord over and over again comforting them and reminding them I am not bound to the circumstances that you see.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: What I have for you is so much greater.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you can't see it right now, let me tell you what I'm gonna do that's gonna surpass what you could even imagine.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_03: Amen.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: God specializes in bringing life where everyone else sees an ending, and that's what we see consistently throughout the entire Bible.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: Just a few references, Sarah's barren wound, Joseph in prison, uh, David overlooked by his own family, Mary, a young woman from Nazareth, an empty tomb, again and again.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: God is bringing life out of what seems hopeless and dead.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so that hope stretches all the way from Genesis to the book of Revelation, where heaven and earth are all made new.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: That is who God is, the same God, Old Testament to new.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I want to make a little transition point before you dive into chapters 13 through 20.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_03: I think you're gonna unpack some things.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_03: But chapter number 12.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: Is literally a song of praise.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_03: And it's it's about salvation.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_03: And it's again beautiful how that he goes from uh you know the the chapter nine uh and chapter 10 um chap then chapter 11 are talking about this new kingdom, but then chapter 12 is really a song of God's salvation, and it's it's about worship.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, it's literally stopping and saying in Isaiah and saying, Okay, I've talked to you about um you know this child that's gonna be born, the government's gonna be up on his shoulders, and he is going to be called, you know, um wonderful counselor, mighty God, uh everlasting father, prince of peace, and then you know, this new kingdom, this new creation that's gonna come out of this, but then in chapter number 12 gives us imagery almost of what is happening in the book of Revelation of just worship, giving praise to God.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and then really kind of I'm just now thinking about this now in regards to Revelation because you got this, you know, the battle against the dragon, um, God's worship around the throne.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_03: But then all of a sudden he comes in, he comes with judgment.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I hadn't made that connection either of a similar battle.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_03: And then that's what Isaiah is doing too.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_03: But those themes and that you know, God's word again is brilliant on how it does that.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_03: So I'll let you dive into chapter 13 through 20.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: So Isaiah's chapter 13 through 20.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's just so many judgments, and it's easy to get to this point of Isaiah and really get discouraged because it starts feeling repetitive and sad.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: It feels real sad.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it feels like just a long list of repetitive judgments against all these different nations that are listed.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: We have Babylon, Assyria, Valysia, Moab, Damascus, Egypt, uh, Cush.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: It really does start feeling repetitive.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: And what uh what's interesting and important to note is Isaiah isn't just announcing doom for foreign nations, he's talking to Judah, showing them that every nation, every power that they've been tempted to root their hope in or look to for help will fall.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, nothing else will stand except the kingdom of God.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, so that's important for us to see.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I also think it's important to notice Isaiah is not celebrating these judgments.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: There's grief in these chapters, and so God's justice is never cruel.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I think sometimes we can just find random parts of specifically, I think we do this with the old testament a lot.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: We'll find specific parts of the old testament where we see God's justice being played out, and we forget about the mercy and we also forget about the grief that's attached to that.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: But God's God's justice is never cruel, it's not just punishment for punishment's sake.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: His heart is always to call people back to himself.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's purpose in all of these judgments, and we can't miss that because if we miss it, then we miss out on the character of God.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when we start wondering well, how could God be so mean?
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: How could he be so cruel?
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, his character is consistent all the way through the Bible.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: He's not cruel, yeah.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: He's calling people back to himself.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: So even judgment serves a larger purpose of establishing righteousness and revealing his glory.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that's important because even when we get to the New Testament, you'll hear people say, you know, well, God of the New Testament is easier for me than God of the Old Testament.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: No, he's the same God.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: Or sometimes people will say, I'm okay with Jesus because he's full of grace, but but God feels harder because of the God of judgment in the Old Testament.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: He's the same God.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is his mercy, this is grace, this is consistent throughout the Bible.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: He's the same.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's always tenderness and affection.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: There always is.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh Isaiah is warning of judgment, but he's also weeping over Jerusalem.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: And this is just showing us justice and mercy are never competitors in the character of God, they both exist.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: So if I had to summarize everything that we've read in one sentence, it would be this that God, God's people are constantly tempted to trust what they can see instead of trusting the God they can't see.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: So just as you're reading through the judgment of all these nations, just reminding yourself, Isaiah is driving home the point that all of these nations, all of these earthly things you want to root your hope in, they will all fall.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: But God's kingdom will remain the same.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: Don't put your hope in things that look powerful or culturally relevant or current.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: God is the only safe place to place your hope.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_03: And you said when you brought that down to one sentence of that temptation that we are constantly being tempted to trust in what we can see instead of trusting the God we cannot see.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_03: Which you you go back to Hebrews chapter 11 with the faith chapter.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_03: What does it open up?
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_03: The very first verse.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_03: Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_03: And then it tells you about the great people of faith who actually chose against going against the norm of leaning into political alliances and figuring out on my own, and they trusted a God who they could not see, and therefore that they were celebrated in this book of faith, the hall of fame of faith.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not meant to be comprehensive, it's just giving you an idea of many of them throughout the scripture, and many people listen to me right now, and we have a choice.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_03: We can either lean into uh and trust in what we are seeing and try to figure it out ourselves, or we can lean in and trust on God and say, God, some way, somehow, you'll do this.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and he's not leaving us to find our way in the dark and feel around for something, he's giving us his word to hold on to.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: Over and over, we see just like the example with Ahaz, he's coming to them and saying, Ask me for a sign.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: Ask me, I'll give you something to hold on to.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_01: He's given us his word to hold on to.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we're not, we don't just have to figure it out.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_03: So that's Luke, Isaiah.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_03: Now let's go into Psalms chapters 98, 99, and 100.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: These are part of uh the there's different names of them, but there's a group of psalms from 90, Psalms 93 to 100 that are called the enthronement psalms.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so 98, 99, and 100, they fall into that.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's important to note, though, that there is no authorship given to any of these uh three.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_03: And actually, I'm you know, I just kind of looked this up before we jumped into this.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_03: Is that when it comes to assigning authorship uh to you know, the Psalms, there's 150 Psalms, 73 of them are specifically assigned to David.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, uh, and then Asaph has 12 of them.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_03: The sons of Korah have 11 assigned to them.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_03: Solomon has two assigned to him at 72 and 127, Moses one, Psalms 90.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Heman the Israelite has one, and also Ethan the Ezraite has one.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_03: And then there is uh 50 anonymous.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I I do want to remind, we've said this multiple times about Psalms throughout the year, is that um we often accredit all 150 of them to David, which is probably not true, but let me do say this is that I think that we can say that David confidently is the influencer behind most all of them, except for uh the one that Moses wrote.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: I when I was growing up, I thought David wrote all the psalms.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I would just tell everyone my favorite is everything that David wrote.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_02: No, absolutely.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: So uh these are the enthronement psalms declaring that the Lord is king over all the earth.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: And these are so good because they're likely written for Israel's worship after experiencing God's deliverance, could have been after a military victory, return from exile, or another act of God's covenant faithfulness, which is so interesting if you think about the progression of what we read today.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: We think about this God who has made these promises and been faithful over hundreds and all this hundreds of years, all this time, that should lead us to worship.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so we find ourselves here at these three psalms where it's about worship.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: Israel.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, let's start in uh in Psalms 98, verse 1.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_01: It says, Sing a new song to the Lord, for he has done wonderful deeds.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: His right hand has won a mighty victory, his holy arm has shown his saving power.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: Throughout the scripture, a new song is almost always connected to a fresh experience of God's saving work.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: So God delivered Israel through the Red Sea and then they sing.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: We have God rescuing his people and then they sing and they worship.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: God keeps his promises, worship.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: The worship isn't new because God became new.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: No, he hasn't changed.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's new because his people have experienced his faithfulness in a fresh way.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that inspires a new song.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_03: That's a very important understanding.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_03: I heard um years ago Rick Warren, pastor, used to be of Saddleback Church, and he made the statement that um every generation needs to have its own song.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and then he basically said that every revival movement has new songs coming out of them, which is very true.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not just a new song for new song's sake, but when we have an encounter with God and we have an experience with Him, a song comes out of us.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_03: And it's usually a new song.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's new because God's doing something new and fresh inside of me in my life.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_03: And of course, you find that with we talked about earlier with Mary, yeah, um, giving birth, you know, uh becoming pregnant with Jesus, and then what comes a song.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_03: You got um Hannah with you know, having the child, a song comes out of that.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_03: And so when we have an encounter with God, songs of praise come out of us.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and so beautiful.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's so good.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: Pastor Ronnie, something that you've said consistently that I always appreciate is also that worship is not something that we just decide whether we enjoy it or not.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: Worship is something that we are called to do, and it is the right response when we consider who God is.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_01: That is how we should respond.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: Worship is not for our benefit, it's for God's benefit.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_01: So then in Psalms 98, verses 8 through 9, we have the psalmist celebrating because God is coming to judge the earth.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: And this is so interesting to me because when when we think about God's judgment, and like we talked about, it's almost hard to swallow.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you wouldn't think about someone celebrating the judgment that's coming.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds like bad news, but in scripture, God's judgment is actually good news for those longing for justice because it means that evil won't last forever.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oppression has to end, sin will be defeated when we think about God's judgment that should actually bring us hope.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_03: You know what?
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_03: There's so much in life.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_03: And of course, I know that there's a lot of really weighty issues out there people need to bring justice to.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_03: And there's a lot of people that maybe you're listening to me right now that you feel like that you haven't got justice in the situation.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_03: Somebody has wronged you, took from you, stolen from you.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_03: You know what?
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_03: God will make things right.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_03: And it might not be in your timing, but He will.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_03: He will show up, and if you trust in Him, He will He will take you through your times of seemingly that you've been treated badly, it's been unfair, uh something's been taken from you, and then God will He will supply according to His riches and glory.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, so good.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna read those two verses to wrap up uh chapter 98.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's Psalms 98, verses 8 through 9.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_01: It says, Let the rivers clap their hands in glee, let the hills sing out their songs of joy before the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth, he will judge the world with justice and the nations with fairness.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_01: We hijack the word justice sometimes and make it fit our narrative, but there is no one more just and no more righteous judge than the Lord our God.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_01: So when we read this and we say, Let the rivers clap their hands, let there be celebration that his judgment is coming.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is why.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, because of who he is, he's a righteous judge.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yea, Lord.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: Psalms 99.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, the Lord reigns, his name is holy.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_01: I put that in my notes because that really summarizes Psalms 99.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_01: Especially the first five verses.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: This is essentially what he's saying.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is a psalm about God's holiness.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes we we use the word holiness in church, we throw that word around and it's um we don't think about it, but at its core, holiness means that God is completely unlike anyone else.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: He is set apart, he is perfectly righteous, perfectly just, and perfectly pure.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, he is.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so Psalms 99, the structure of it, it's emphasizing God's holiness three different times.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_01: And anytime we see repetition, like we talked about earlier, we have to pay attention.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: The psalmist is calling us to stand in awe with to look at this with reverence of who God is, because especially in light of Isaiah and Luke, it's amazing to notice the holiness of God that Psalms 99 is calling us to.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_01: But then you think about this promise of Emmanuel, God with us, and then the fulfillment of that, this holy, righteous God who is completely unlike anyone else, would step down from heaven into humanity to be with us.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_01: Who are we that he would be mindful of us?
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: When we stop to think about that, it really should cause us to worship and to be in awe of who he is.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_03: I was thinking when you're talking about the holiness of God right there, is obviously we picked up in Isaiah chapter number seven, but chapter number six was a turning point for Isaiah when he is having this vision uh because Uzziah has uh died, who was the king of Judah, the tenth king.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and then most of the uh most of the fall off was happening through in in Isaiah, that dark time, because it was a dark time for the nation of Israel.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but in the middle of that he has a vision, and it's King Jesus on the throne.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_03: And in the year that King Isadot, I saw the Lord high lifted up, his lofty throne, his train filled the temple.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_03: And then what did they cry out?
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_03: Holy, holy, holy.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_03: The seraphim flying back and forth, and then him being convicted of his own personal sin, and then a coal being taken off the altar with the tongs from one of the seraphs and placing on his lips, and he'd be cleansed, and he feel that call to proclaim the the goodness of God to a world.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's what you have here, too, is this imagery that's going on.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_03: Again, how it's all one unified story only to one person, and his name is Jesus.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: So good.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_01: Psalms 99 ends.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, just there's this reminder that Moses, Aaron, and Samuel all called on the Lord and he answered them.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of different ways you could take that.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a lot of different things that that that means.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_01: But ultimately, what I want to highlight is that these are all human beings, ordinary people that God answered.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's in relationship with them.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's God delighting in relationship with his people.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I know I'm saying this over and over again, but the God of the Old Testament, who all of these people called on, is the same God of the New Testament, and that same invitation to relationship continues and is fulfilled through Jesus Christ.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yay, Lord.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_03: 100.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_01: Psalm 100.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of scholars believe that this was song sung as worshippers entered the temple, possibly during a Thanksgiving offering.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, if you look back in Leviticus chapter seven, there's a little more context for that.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, the way that I would imagine it is families approaching Jerusalem for one of Israel's annual festivals.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: And as they enter the temple courts, they would sing this psalm together, reminding themselves not only of where they're going, but who they're going to meet.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's not written from uh a crisis or a response to something bad that's happened.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: It really is just worship, and it should it just points to the regular rhythm of what our worship should look like.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: So uh Psalm 100 verses one through five.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: Would you want to read that, Pastorani?
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um verse number five or one through five.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_01: Verses one through five.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_03: Verses one through five.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_03: Can you pull it up here real quick?
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I lost it for just you up for that not well.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_03: That's fine.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_03: That's fine.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_03: We'll get it in just a moment.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_03: Psalms 100.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_03: I lost it here and then I've got it back.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, here we go.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_03: Verses one through five.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_03: Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_03: Worship the Lord with gladness, come before him singing with joy, acknowledge that the Lord is God, he made us, and we are his.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_03: We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_03: Enter his gates with thanksgiving, go into his courts with praise, give thanks to him, and praise his name, for the Lord is good, his unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_01: This is so good.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_01: And what I want to highlight from these verses shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's this call to praise.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_01: And as you go through the progression of these verses, it's not because of one specific thing that he's done.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_01: We're shouting with joy and we're worshiping with gladness because of who he is.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_01: And this is where I want to leave us.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's because of who he is and because we belong to him that should inspire worship.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: We should be so full of joy and gratitude, thanksgiving, just because of who he is.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_01: If he never does another thing for me, could I shout with joy and praise him because he's so good and because he has made me his.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's so good.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_01: What I love about this is there isn't an ask that's made.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so often I think we come into the presence of God and we just, I'm guilty of it.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_01: I have my list of things that I want him to do.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_01: But so often, if I will start with worship, if I will come with gratitude, so much of my list of things that I thought I needed, he either gives me a different perspective on, or he aligns what I thought I needed with more of what he wants for me.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many things that happen even in my perspective, if I will start with worship.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_03: Good.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_01: We did it.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_03: We did it.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, Kayla, thank you so very much.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_03: What a great time we had covering Isaiah chapters 7 through 20, also Luke chapters 1 through 4, and also Psalms 98, 99, and 100.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_03: So glad that you joined us today for another episode of North Bible Recap.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_03: We'll look forward to seeing you next time.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_03: God bless you.