Tracing Messiah Series

SPECIAL NOTE FOR THIS SERMON:

The week prior to this service we had planned the Lord's Supper, but due to unforeseen circumstances we were not able to partake in the Communion ordinance. Rather than preaching another Communion sermon and disrupting the preaching schedule, God laid on my heart to combine the beginning of this series with the Communion theme, I believe it worked very well as a transition sermon into the Christmas season, while including the Communion element.

SERMON BRIEF

Date Written: November 24, 2012

Date Preached: November 25, 2012

Church: OPBC (AM) Sunday

FOUNDATIONAL ELEMENTS

Series: Approaching the Manger

Sermon: Tracing Messiah!

Text: Isaiah 53:2-6 [HCSB]

Introduction:

We have come to the point in our year where we begin to focus on the Christmas season. We have several weeks before Christmas day arrives, but during this time we focus on the birth of Christ and how His birth, life and sacrifice changed the world!

Today we are here because this story happened some 2000yrs ago… But the story did not begin then, in fact, like I have said on MANY occasions from this very pulpit…

God’s plan for Jesus was not a last minute substitute… or back up plan… God’s plan for Jesus, born of a virgin, becoming the sacrificial lamb for all of humanity… it was formed before the world even began!

God’s plan all along was Jesus… and the story of Jesus does not begin with the writing of the Gospels OR the life of Jesus here in this world. The story of Jesus begins and comes to us from the very earliest of books in the Bible…

In the book of Genesis… the book of the beginning… Jesus is alluded to by God in his curse to the serpent. In Genesis 3:15 (HCSB) – SHOW NOW

15I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.

Jesus comes thru the seed of Adam and is the ultimate STRIKE against Satan… God in the Garden of Eden predicts Jesus’ victory over Satan… But the wording in this verse also guarantees the struggle and battle that Satan will throw out before being conquered…

In Gen 12 when God calls out Abraham to be His servant, God made a covenant with Abraham to bless the world through His seed… this was a direct and intentional pointer toward the coming Messiah!

Jesus, the One who is to come was to whom God is referring in this passage! Through the seed of Abraham, Jesus will come to this world and God will bless the world because of Jesus!

Gen 18:18 (HCSB) show now…

18Abraham is to become a great and powerful nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him.

But the Bible does not stop there in its announcement of the coming Messiah…

Gen 49:10 (HCSB) show now…

10The scepter will not depart from Judah or the staff from between his feet until He whose right it is comes and the obedience of the peoples belongs to Him.

Here God is telling the people that their Messiah will come thru the tribe of Judah, and that HE will never lose power! Jesus WAS born into the tribe of Judah!

As we continue to journey thru the OT looking for the coming Messiah we find our next stop is, the book of Numbers where Messiah is prophesied to come through the tribe of Judah and the family of Jacob…

Numbers 24:17, 19 [HSCB] show now…

17I see him, but not now; I perceive him, but not near. A star will come from Jacob, and a scepter will arise from Israel…” 19One who comes from Jacob will rule…

A star will come from Jacob… the One who comes from Jacob will rule… point to Jesus! Point to Jesus being Messiah!

In Jeremiah 33:15 (HCSB) we can read where God is telling Jeremiah that the Messiah is coming… the description here points directly to Jesus! Through the seed of Judah, specifically the seed of David!

Jeremiah 33:15 (HCSB) show now…

15In those days and at that time I will cause a Righteous Branch to sprout up for David, and He will administer justice and righteousness in the land.

But the Bible does not only tells us about the family Jesus is to come through… which is very important because God had promised Messiah thru this very family… the family of David!

But the other thing we can see Scripture doing here is telling us what the Messiah would be like… 1st Messiah would be a prophet, like Moses!

We find this in…

Deut 18:15 (HCSB) show now…

15“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me [this was MOSES speaking here] from among your own brothers. You must listen to him...