His Life Foretold - Part A

You and I deserve death for the sins we have committed against a holy, righteous, perfect God.

Jesus came to take that punishment to make his life a ransom for many. So he didn't come to meet your expectation. He came to end your condemnation. The perfect servant of the Father. Today on Connect with Skip Hyten, Pastor Skip begins his message, His Life Foretold, and examines the redemptive purpose of Jesus' earthly life.

That's coming up in just a moment. God has revealed himself through his word so that we can know him intimately and personally. And we share these messages to help you know God better as you connect to him through his word and grow in your walk with Jesus.

And when you support this ministry, you keep these teachings you love available to you and so many others around the world so they too can grow and connect more deeply with God. Just call 800-922-1888 to give a gift today. That's 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate.

That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Thank you. Okay, let's turn to Matthew 12 as we join Skip for today's lesson. I have been told that throughout history, there have been 107 billion people who have lived on this planet.

But I think it's safe to say that of everyone and anyone who has ever lived, no one has impacted the world or influenced the world as much as that one man, Jesus Christ. James Heffley wrote a great piece called, One Solitary Life, in which he writes, here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpentry shop until he was 30.

Then for three years, he was an itinerant preacher. He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put his foot inside a big city. He never traveled 200 miles from the place he was born.

He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself. While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away.

One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth, his coat.

When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Twenty long centuries have come and gone, and today he is a centerpiece of the world. And today he is a centerpiece of the human race and a leader of the column of progress. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon the earth as powerfully as this one solitary life. That one solitary life, it was in his name that explorers like David Livingstone went to Africa or William Carey to India.

In his name, statesmen like William Wilberforce or Lord Shaftesbury fought to abolish slavery. In his name, hospitals were built, philanthropic institutions were founded, education was spread. Even that great nurse, Florence Nightingale, called the founder of modern nursing, said that she was inspired by the teachings of Jesus Christ to do what she did.

And other explorers and pioneer doctors and nurses have done the same. Jesus has been the dominating figure of history in Western civilization for over 20 centuries. But, when he came to this earth, he did not meet people's expectations.

Do you realize that? He did not meet the expectations of the leaders that saw him, of the religious elite who were observing him. He did not meet their expectations, nor did he meet the expectations of the crowds that followed him. Now, he didn't meet their expectations, but he did meet the expectations of his heavenly father who sent him. And he fulfilled all of the predictions that the prophets made about him. We're doing a little series called Hope Foretold. Last week, we looked at Jesus' birth foretold out of Isaiah chapter 7. Today, we look at his life foretold. Next week, we'll look at and consider his death as foretold by the prophets. In Matthew chapter 12, Matthew, in observing the life of Jesus, but going back to the prophecies of Isaiah, shows us that Isaiah tells his readers that the Messiah, when he comes, will fulfill four tasks in his life. He came to serve, he came to speak, he came to strengthen, and he came to save.

Let's look at the text. It's in Matthew chapter 12. Matthew quotes from Isaiah in verse 18, 19, 20, and 21. But, for the sake of context, to get the flow of the story, let's go back to verse 9, where we read, When he had departed from there, he went into their synagogue. And behold, there was a man who had a withered hand. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, that they might accuse him? And then he said to them, What man is there among you who has one sheep? And if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it, and lift it out?

Of how much more value, then, is a man than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. And then he said to the man, Stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other. Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against him how they might destroy him. But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew from there. And great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all. Yet he warned them not to make him known, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Behold my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my spirit upon him, and he will declare justice to the Gentiles.

He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and smoking flax he will not quench, until he sends forth justice to victory, and in his name Gentiles will trust. So Matthew is quoting the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, who looked into the future from his time and saw the coming one, the Messiah, the Deliverer, and notes four different tasks that he will perform.

First, when he would come, he would come to serve. Notice in verse 18, quoting Isaiah, Behold my servant, whom I have chosen. Now, probably most of you know that in the Bible, there are many different names by which Jesus is called. Isaiah himself said his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. He is called the Bread of Life, the Good Shepherd, the Chief Shepherd, the Messiah, the Cornerstone, the High Priest, he is given no less than 150 different titles in the scripture, but the very favorite title of Isaiah the prophet is this one mentioned here.

Isaiah mentions it four times. He is the servant of the Lord. Quoting here from Isaiah chapter 42, verses 1 through 4, the servant of the Lord, chosen by God to perform a task, the servant, he will come to serve.

Now, let me give you a little context. Jesus has been out in the grain fields on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees have been watching him. After that, the Lord goes into the synagogue for the synagogue service, the Sabbath service, and while he's there, there's a lot of people watching him. He goes to the synagogue, and while he's there, there's a man who is crippled in one of his arms. In Luke's gospel, we're given more information.

It says, and they watched him closely to see if he would heal, that they might find an accusation against him. So, it's the Sabbath. The leaders see this crippled guy, and they go, oh, this is perfect, because we know that Jesus has this soft spot in his heart like this. I bet Jesus will want to heal this guy, and if he does, we can bust him, because it's the Sabbath day, because you're not supposed to heal on the Sabbath.

Hello, when did you guys ever heal anybody, Sabbath or not? But see, what I want you to see is how that Christ, even though he could heal people, he did not meet the leader's expectation. They thought, this Messiah, when he comes, he will be a servant of the law.

That is their rigid interpretation of the law. But no, Isaiah said, he'll be a servant of the Lord. He'll speak the truth the Lord wants him to speak, that his father sent him to speak.

He'll come to strengthen people, and to save people. And so, Jesus healed the man, he left the synagogue, several people follow him, crowds are gathered around him, and it says, Jesus healed them all. And then he gave the most unusual command, he goes, don't tell anybody. That'd be hard to do, wouldn't it, if you had been sick all your life, and suddenly you're healed, and you get told, don't tell anybody?

This is like the best news of my life, I'm going to tell everybody. But the reason he said, don't tell them about me being the one to do it, isn't because he is afraid of the consequences of what he has done, as much as he doesn't want the crowds to turn him into some revolutionary hero. Because you see, not only did the leaders have an expectation that he would be this rigid servant of the law, but the crowd had their expectation. This deliverer is going to be forceful, he's going to overtake our enemies, our oppressors, maybe even shed Roman blood.

That's what they expected. But Jesus didn't come to shed Roman blood. Jesus came to shed his own blood. Jesus came not meeting their expectations, but he came to serve the will of the father that sent him.

Jesus even said in John 4, my food is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work. So he came as the perfect servant of the Lord. Not only that, when he came, he served people. Jesus said, the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. And while he was on the earth, he served his disciples.

He broke bread with them, he taught them truth, he washed their feet at the Last Supper. And I think it could be said that Jesus came to serve you, not by giving you everything you ever wanted, not by always making you feel comfortable or healing every disease or making sure you get a parking space at the mall during Christmas time. He came to serve you by taking your place in execution. You and I deserve death for the sins we have committed against a holy, righteous, perfect God. Jesus came to take that punishment to make his life a ransom for many. So he didn't come to meet your expectation.

He came to end your condemnation. The perfect servant of the Father. Fulfilling the predictions of the prophets one by one. You remember last week in our study, I said that of all of the books in the world, the 26 some-odd books that people say are holy scripture for their different religions, that they're all missing an important element, and that is fulfilled prophecy. And that is fulfilled prophecy. Detailed, fulfilled, predictive prophecy. The Bible's full of it.

Those books are absent of it. As an example, the Bible says when the Messiah comes, God's chosen one, that he will be preceded by a messenger, Isaiah chapter 40. That speaks of John the Baptist. That he will perform miracles, Isaiah 35. That he will enter Jerusalem writing a donkey, Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9. That he will be rejected by the Jewish nation, Isaiah 53, 1 through 3.

That he'll come at the very precise timetable of God his Father to the very day, Daniel 9, 25 and 26. He will be rejected and killed, Daniel 9, 24 and 25. He'll be sent to the brokenhearted, Isaiah 61. He'll be praised by children, Psalm 8. He'll be betrayed by a close friend, Psalm 41, 9 and Zechariah 11.

The money of the betrayal will be returned and used to buy a potter's field, Zechariah 11. He will come as a sacrifice for sin, Isaiah 53, and he will be silent when accused during his trial, also Isaiah chapter 53, verse 7. Now I just gave you a sampling. I gave you 12 predictions. 12 predictions made in advance, hundreds of years before he was ever born, before he ever came, but in his life he fulfilled them. Some years ago a great book was put out called Science Speaks by Dr. Peter Stoner, a mathematician, who decided to give the statistical, mathematic probability of one man in history fulfilling the predictions that Jesus fulfilled.

Now I quoted to you 12. It is thought that Jesus fulfilled over 300 of them. According to Dr. Stoner, the odds of one man in history fulfilling just eight predictions that Jesus fulfilled is 1 in 10 to the 17th power. That's just a number to most people, but if you look at it visually, this is what it would mean. You could take that many silver dollars, 10 to the 17th power, you could fill the state of Texas two feet deep with silver dollars. According to Dr. Stoner, if you were to paint one, pre-select a silver dollar in advance, place it somewhere in that stack in Texas, blindfold someone, and send them in to find the one silver dollar you have pre-picked would be 1 in 10 to the 17th power.

That's fulfilling eight predictions. Then Stoner says, for one man in history to fulfill 16 of the predictions that Jesus fulfilled, well, you need more real estate than Texas. You need a planet made out of silver dollars, the planet being so big that the measurement of that planet from the center to the edge would be the distance of the earth to the sun times 30. So imagine this huge, gigantor silver ball so big that from the center to the edge, it is 93 million miles times 30. Paint a silver dollar, send someone in to find it, the odds that he could do it would be 1 in 10 to the 45th power, or the odds of one man in history fulfilling 16 of the predictions Jesus made. Now, I gave you 12, not 8, not 16, 12.

So we're somewhere between Texas and that silver ball. The point being that when Jesus came and He lived on this earth and He did what He did, He fulfilled the will and the plan of His Father and the predictions of the prophets. So He came to serve. Second, Isaiah noted, He came to speak. Look at verse 18 once again.

Behold my serpent whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased. Jesus said that, or the Father said that, when Jesus was baptized at the Jordan. I will put my spirit upon him and he, notice this, will declare justice to the Gentiles. He came to speak. The word declare, apangello in Greek, means to proclaim, to announce, to tell, or to preach. He will come and preach a message of truth.

He will declare. Of the many activities that Jesus did while He was on the earth, whether it's healing or praying or ministering to disciples or crowds, of all the activities He did, one of the most important things He did and probably that took the bulk of His time is He spoke words, messages, parables. He spoke to people. In Luke chapter 20, summing it all up in verse 1, it says, He taught the people and He preached the gospel.

And we read this over and over again. He goes to the synagogue and the Bible says, He taught them. He went down to the Sea of Galilee, got in a boat, and the crowds gathered and He taught them, the Scripture says. He goes to the temple in Jerusalem and Solomon's porch and crowds gather around Him and He taught them. The multitudes go out to Him and He taught them. But one of the most striking places that shows us that this was such a priority to Jesus is in Mark's gospel chapter 2.

Christ is in Capernaum where His headquarters is. It says He goes into the house. I can only surmise that as Peter's house because he was staying with Peter.

And we're told this. When He went into the house, many gathered together so that there was no longer room to receive them. It's a packed house.

Not even near the door, so it's spilling out now into the courtyard. Listen. And He preached the Word to them. And He preached the Word to them. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

You got this big crowd of people streaming out the door, peeking in the windows, people with a variety of needs, most of them poor, some in deep poverty, many with incurable diseases, and the first thing you do is preach the Word to them? Uh-huh. Now you're getting His priority system. In the gospels, the four gospels, Jesus is said to teach 36 different times. He is called the teacher 47 times.

Why? Why is this so important to Him? Well, He said it Himself. Listen to what He said, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Jesus came to speak God's truth to free people who are in bondage to their own ideas. For a long time, I have told you my concern, and it's a growing concern for the church, that especially in the modern church, there seems to be this tendency, this emphasis toward pure emotion, pure passion. Be passionate about it, and so you have people who are high on zeal but short on facts, and Hosea the prophet said, my people perish for lack of knowledge.

Paul said to Timothy, until I come, give attention to doctrine, to teaching, to exhortation, because you see, truth, biblical truth, has a way of cutting through the haze and letting people see Jesus as He is, clearly. He came to serve, He came to speak, and notice to whom He came to speak, He will declare, preach, pronounce justice to the Gentiles. You know what a Gentile is? It's somebody who's not a Jew.

You know why this is exciting to me? Because I am a Gentile, and so are most y'all. There's a few of you who are probably converted Jewish people who serve Jesus as your Messiah, but most of us fit into this category of Gentiles. Now, here's why this is exciting, because the Jewish mind 2,000 years ago saw the Messiah as purely Jewish for the Jewish people.

They got it partly right. He was the Jewish Messiah for the Jewish people, but also for the Gentiles. That's where the church comes in. He would take Jew and Gentile, bring us together into His called out one, His group. He will speak to the Gentiles. For God so loved the Jews that He gave, oh, did I just misquote that? Yeah, sorry. For God so loved the Gentiles.

No, for God so loved the world, Jew, Gentile, everyone, every color that He gave His only begotten Son. That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from the series Jesus, Hope Foretold. Find the full message as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at ConnectWithSkip.com. Now we want to tell you about a resource package filled with inspiring teaching from influential leaders. Over the years, Skip Heitzig has invited a number of notable speakers to come to Albuquerque. For an end of year resource, we want you to hear some of these amazing messages by speakers such as Tim LaHaye.

I travel all over the country and speak on prophecy conferences, and it's very seldom that you find churches that really recognize the importance of history written in advance only by God coming true so we can believe what we believe. Also a part of this pulpit package, the familiar voice of Pastor Chuck Smith. I'm overwhelmed when I see what God is doing here.

What a thrill to see the work of God being wrought here in Albuquerque. This package contains 10 full-length messages available on CD or as a download. We will send it to you as a thank you when you make an end of year donation of $100 or more to support this program. Request your pulpit package at connectwithskip.com or by calling 1-800-922-1888. This resource is available through the month of December and this pulpit package includes a classic teaching by J. Vernon McGee.

I count it a privilege to be here to talk to many young people and especially those that are interested in Bible study. This is sure a high pulpit made for a tall fella. Request your pulpit package at connectwithskip.com or by calling 1-800-922-1888.

That is connectwithskip.com or call 1-800-922-1888. And be sure to come back tomorrow as Skip concludes his message, his life foretold and encourages you with the truth about what Jesus will and will not do when you trust in him. Jesus will not toss you away. He will take you in. He will take you near. Do you remember his words?

Do you remember his promise? Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden. I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on his wood. Make a connection, a connection. Connect with Skip Hyton is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.