2016-05-18 Wed Bible Study

I'm just gonna highlight certain issues here, okay? So again, as you're reading, you can just kind of follow through. And then I'm gonna, the ones I'm not gonna explain, I'll just leave it up there, you can fill in the blanks. And then the ones that I'm gonna highlight will take a few minutes to talk, okay?

So if you look at chapter 48, it begins by saying, "Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by my name, by the name of Israel, and who came from the waters of Judah." And the first question I ask is, what does the name Jacob mean, and how does it relate to the indictment, not incitement, indictment God brings against them in verse 1?

So what is the significance of him saying, "O house of Jacob, but you call yourself Israel," and then he says, "who came from the waters of Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord and confess God Israel, but not in truth or right." So anybody took some time to look into the meaning of Jacob and Israel, and what's the significance of what he's saying?

Anybody? It kind of sets the tone for the rest of the chapter. Anybody? Surplanter, slippery one, okay? And Israel? Israel was, God gave, God changed Jacob's name to Israel when he wrestled with God, right? So Israel means wrestles with God, right? So ah, okay, that's what that thing was.

No, no, it's not the battery. It's the battery? Can you check to see if this is connected? Oh, it's working now? Okay. Alright, so the name of it, he says, "the healer, the catcher of supplanted, the one who struggles with God," right? And then Israel prides itself of contending with God, in other words, they call themselves Israel, the ones who contend with God, but he says, "you're acting like Jacob," meaning before you met God and he was slippery, he's always cunning and trying to maneuver to get ahead, right?

He's saying, "you call yourself to confess the God of Israel, but not in truth or right," right? So what you call yourself and who you really are are different. So he's calling them out for their hypocrisy, like, "you view yourself one way, but the truth is that you're acting more like Jacob than Israel," right?

And so that's the tone that he sets, for they call themselves after the holy city, and they themselves on the God of Israel, the Lord of hosts of his name, and then basically saying, "that's what you think you are." Like, you're going back to your origin, saying, "oh, God is our God, you know, we have a covenant with this God, we're Israel, God favors us, but in reality you're acting more like your former self, Jacob." Okay?

So again, the point of all of this is God's constantly reminding them, okay, chapter 8, the tone of chapter 8 is reminding them that even though that's how you view yourself, in reality you keep going away. And so, but even in the context of that, he's saying, "even though that's who you are," like he said, he's remaining faithful to himself, and then the promised Messiah, and then again he goes into details about this Messiah that's coming.

So what is the motivation that he says he's doing what he's doing? He says, "for his own namesake." For his… Again, just let me take a minute to just emphasize here, when you first read or heard from a sermon or read in the Bible, it said, "God does this for his own glory, for my own glory I will not give to another," what was your first response to that?

What was your honest response when you read or heard for the first time, "God does this for his own glory?" Huh? Okay, confusion, what does that mean? True gangster? Okay. That's K-Town in there, right there. Is that what you thought, Mitchell? Anything else? Egotistical? That's the first thing that I thought was like, "oh, he's seeking his own glory." Imagine somebody else saying, "I did it for me, for my own glory, I will not give my glory to another." You know what I mean?

So what does that mean? So I think a lot of people when they first hear that, they're like, "huh." I'm sure you've talked to a non-Christian or maybe a young Christian, they may have thought that. So why is that important for us to recognize that God's seeking his own glory?

If it's not negative, obviously he doesn't use it in a negative way, right? How is that different than us saying, "I seek my own glory?" Deserving of it? He's the only one with the right to seek his own glory. He's the spirit of all creation, whereas God is the creator and everything he sees is made for him.

Okay. Right, we are not like him. We can't, again, even the word glorify, like glorify to us means to exaggerate. You know what I mean? We take something and we exaggerate something, "oh, you're glorifying whatever it is." But to glorify God simply means to present him as he is, right?

And no matter what we do, no matter what we say, we would never exaggerate who he is. He can't be exaggerated. He's the beginning and the end. Everything is made by him and for him, right? So when he says he seeks his own glory, you know when Jesus says that he has no one else to make a promise, you know, nothing greater to promise than himself, when he says God promises, right?

God confirms himself, he confirms, right? In other words, there's nothing greater than him. There's nothing above him that he can say, "I, you know, my promise or my conviction or covenant is based on anything else but him." So what does it mean for him to seek his glory? If life comes from him, if Zoe comes from him, if Sabbath comes from him, what does it mean to glorify himself, right?

Life, rest, security, safety, love, all of that, when he is glorified, we are loved, right? Because everything flows from him. So when he is exalted, we live because we're connected to that, right? So he, who he is, is not based upon me or you, right? His grace and mercy is not based upon who you are, it's based upon who he is, first and foremost, right?

So that's why his promises are sure, because his promises and his nature does not fluctuate based upon who we are. Who he is, is he is, whatever we are, right? I don't know if, I hope that makes some sense, right? Because this is at the core of salvation, this is the core of human history, right?

To glorify himself. So anytime we take what belongs to him and we step in those shoes, we mess everything up, right? When we are glorified, what happens? We die. Like, our sins are exposed, right? When he's glorified, we live, we're saved. He's the Alpha and Omega, he's the beginning and the end, right?

Means he commands all things. He says, he's saying this is the nation of Israel because he's prophesying to Israel that trials are going to come, the Babylonians are going to come, they're going to suppress you, the women are going to become widows, but in the end he says, "But I am the beginning and the end," right?

He is the first and the last. So he's trying to encourage them in the context of turmoil that he is still sovereign, right? Not only when the remnants return, but even in the context of turmoil, that God is the beginning and the end. And clearly, verse 14 and 15 is in reference to the Messiah that's coming, and the call is to assemble and to listen.

So you see that over and over again in chapter 48, 49, right? Verse 14, "Come and listen." 16, "Draw near, listen." He says over and over again. I have something very important to tell you. So again, whenever Jesus says something that is very, very important, he says, "Verily, verily, I say to you," or he would repeat something, right?

Here he's about to say something really important, so he says, "Gather, come along, listen carefully." And he's saying all of this is because he's preparing to get into the Messianic prophecies. He's been talking about it, but he's going to go heavy into it, and he's going to go into it in much more detail.

And that's going to lead us to chapter 53, okay? So he says, "Why do you need to obey?" All right, he's going to say, "Come, obey. I'm going to teach you that obedience is profit. It's going to lead to peace, and ultimately God's blessing." Again, I want to take a few minutes to look at chapter 49, this first section, and the rest of it we're going to go by pretty quick, okay?

So if you look at chapter 49, he just called everybody, "Come and listen, come and listen. I'm going to teach you something new that's going to happen," right? So over and over again at the end of chapter 48, he's gathering, "Listen, listen, listen. Something new's going to happen, something new's going to happen." And then chapter 49, again, starts with, "Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar.

The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother. He named my name." Who's he in reference to? Messiah, right? He's talking about Jesus. So, right, he's talking about the coming Messiah. What does he say about the coming Messiah? Verse 1. So if this is about the Messiah, what is he saying about the Messiah?

Huh? He's going to come as a baby, right? He's from the mother's womb, the body of my mother. He named my name, right? Again, this is in reference to the Messiah being a human birth. Luke chapter 131 fulfills that. And he also says in verse 4, right, he said, "And he said to me, 'You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.'" Remember when Jesus is going to the cross, and he says, "It is time to glorify your son, and me to glorify you, Father," right?

So again, these are very specific prophecies about Christ. And if you look at verse 4, "But I said, 'I have labored in vain.'" Right? What is that? "I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing in vanity." What happens at the end of his ministry? It wasn't just the leaders who rejected him, right?

All of Israel rejected him. And then it culminated of the leaders rejecting him. So where does the—and if you go to his ministry, like, you know, we always talk about Jesus discipling his disciples. That's why he was there for three years, right? There's something more obvious than the discipling of the disciples what characterizes three years of ministry.

It was his rejection. It was a systematic rejection of the Messiah. Remember, at the beginning of his ministry, he goes to the temple, cleanses. What's the first place he goes to? Anybody remember? When he comes to Jerusalem, he basically inaugurates his ministry after the baptism and after the wilderness.

He goes to Jerusalem, he cleanses the temple, and then he goes back, on the way back, right, he goes through Samaria, and then where does he go? When he goes back home, what's the first place he goes to? Anybody remember? His hometown, Nazareth. He goes back to hometown. What happens at his hometown?

They try to throw him off a cliff, right, because he basically rebukes them, right? He said, "They're all praising him. Oh, you know, hometown hero coming home." And then he says, "You know, you're just like your fathers," right? And then they get angry. "Oh, there you speak to us," and then they reject him.

And then after his rejection, he begins to that, what do you call it? The, not Trinity, the triangle, yes, evangelical triangle. What are the three cities? Chorazin, Poseidon, Capernaum, right? That those three cities are where he basically does majority of his ministry. At the end of a year and a half to two years of ministry there, how does that end?

The culmination happens at John chapter 6. What happens at John chapter 6? Huh? Right, feeding of the 5,000. It begins with feeding of the 5,000. At the end of the chapter, they said they turn away from him. They reject him, right? So there's a systematic rejection. And then he gets into Jerusalem, and then he gets to Jerusalem second time.

What happens? Now the leaders are going to reject him. So if you look at the three years of ministry, it was rejection from home, rejection from the three cities that he spent most of the ministry, and then ultimately rejection from the leaders. So why, if you were to look at it humanly speaking, his ministry was utter failure, because at the end of it, they crucified him, okay, humanly speaking, right?

So remember we talked about Jesus came and basically he's turning off the light in Israel. The sin may be utterly sinful. What could be more sinful? What could Israel be more guilty of than anything else? It's like rejecting their own Messiah. Not only do they not, you know, not only do they not obey the commandments, but remember Jesus gives a parable about the vineyard, and he sends his son, and says, "Hey, let's kill this son." And he gives that as an illustration.

So basically Israel's sin has reached its pinnacle. So when Jesus goes to the cross, he's not going to the cross with people saying, "Don't die, don't die." He's going to the cross with a nation that he's trying to save when he says, "He demonstrates his own love toward us while we were yet sinners." And when he says, "While we were yet sinners," we're talking about his own people that he loved and cared for, that all this description that he's giving, that those are the people who are going to say, "Crucify him.

Get rid of this guy." Right? So, in verse 4, "But I said, 'I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing in vanity. Yet,'" right? "Despite all of that, despite their rejection, 'yet surely my right is with the Lord, and my recompense is with God.'" That even in the midst of utter human failure, in the midst of all this darkness, God is going to make this right.

Right? What is that, what is he in reference to? Clearly he's talking about the cross. Right? So again, he's giving glimpses, like, "This is what's going to happen, this is what's going to happen." And this is all embedded in Scripture, before it ever happens. I don't know how they would have understood that.

You know, like this, I'm sure, like, us looking in retrospect, like, we see clearly, if, clearly he's talking about the Messiah, and then now that we identify this is the Messiah, even the aspect where he says, "In the shadow of," is he, I don't know. There's a part here, um, where's the part he says, "I have," where he talks about his hand?

Huh? Is it verse 2? I don't know, I'm not going to sharpen the shadow, is he? No, no, no. >> Verse 13. >> Verse 13? >> Verse 13 to 48. >> Huh? 48? >> Verse 8. >> No, it's not, he says, huh? >> Verse 16. >> Verse 16. >> Huh?

>> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 16. >> Verse 16. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 16. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 16. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17.

>> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17.

>> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. >> Huh? >> Verse 17. second part of the last stretch when we finishing up idea that part is really kind of like a crescendo you know where he's like this is the Messiah he's coming okay so again we'll start with the review for the first session and then we'll finish up the Book of Isaiah the next session okay alright you guys can take some time to discuss

2016-05-18 Wed Bible Study

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