Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now, come along.
Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.
All right, we're going to go ahead and get into our Bible study
here this evening, and we're actually going to be looking at a
handful of passages in scripture tonight.
And we'll go ahead and kind of give you a little bit of a background
on what we're going to be studying tonight.
As I had mentioned last week, we're going to take the.
The next few weeks up until the new year to talk about some words
that we can find in scripture and what they mean.
Last week, we looked at three big words.
We looked at justification, sanctum, our propitiation and sanctification.
And we're not going to do as many tonight.
We're.
Instead of doing three, we're going to do two words, and we're
going to do two words that are related to Christmas.
And actually, we sang one of the words that we're going to be
talking about here this evening in Angels from the Realms
of Glory.
And that word is messiah.
And most of us are familiar with that term, and most of us have
probably even at some point used that term.
But what does that term mean?
What does messiah mean?
We're going to look at scripture.
We're going to see what messiah means.
Messiah actually comes from the Hebrew word, which means the
anointed one or the chosen one, the Greek equivalent.
Right.
Because the New Testament's written in Greek.
The Old Testament was written in Hebrew originally.
So, see, so the Old Testament word would be messiah.
The Greek word would be the word that we use, Christ.
Jesus Christ.
So Christ is not Jesus's last name.
It's actually a title.
He is the.
The Messiah, the savior, the anointed one.
Now, what is the significance of that phrase, anointed one?
Well, the anointed one was a.
A sign or a symbol for someone who was chosen to do something specific,
someone who had a job, someone had a role.
So there would be individuals in the Old Testament that were anointed
for positions.
There were prophets.
They were anointed.
Prophets were the ones that would speak forth the truth of God.
There would be priests that would be anointed, and the priests
were kind of the.
The middlemen between God and man at that point.
In time in the Old Testament.
And then there was kings.
Kings were anointed like David.
You remember when David was anointed oil, he was anointed for
that special call in his life.
And so you had a prophet, priests and kings that were anointed
in the Old Testament.
And so they would have been selected for a specific use.
Well, we know that when we see in the New Testament it says Messiah
or Christ, it's talking about Jesus's specific job as the Savior.
And so in biblical terms, anointing someone with oil was a
sign that God had consecrated them for a particular role.
And so what we see when we see that word Messiah or Christ, they're
essentially interchangeable.
In the New Testament, when we see that word, we're seeing that
Jesus had a role.
Now what's his role?
We know it's his role of being Savior.
And it's interesting that the Bible actually says that Jesus is
a prophet, priest, and king.
And those are all the three roles in the Old Testament that would
have had anointing.
And so Jesus was the Messiah.
We can see a few passages of scripture here.
And we know that Jesus was Messiah, and we know that he is Messiah.
And so let's look at a couple of passages.
One I want you to see is in John, chapter four, John, chapter
four, we're going to kind of pick a few different passages of
scripture that deal with either that word Messiah or Christ.
And we're going to see the significance of that to the narrative
in the New Testament and also the significance of that in our own
lives.
Now, there are going to be some people in this world today that
will accept Jesus as a historical figure.
There are going to be some people in this world that will accept
Jesus as a good man or even a religious figure, but they will not
recognize Jesus as God or Messiah.
Right?
So we.
We have.
So.
So the.
The folks that live in Israel now, for the most part, the Jewish
people do not recognize Jesus as Messiah.
They recognize Jesus as a historical figure.
They recognize Jesus as a.
As a good man, a man that even possibly performed miracles.
But they don't believe that he is God.
They don't believe that he is the anointed one.
They're still looking for that Messiah.
Our folks in the Middle east and the folks around the world that
practice the faith of Islam, the Muslims, they believe Jesus existed.
They believe Jesus did miraculous works.
They even believe Jesus is coming back again, but they don't
believe that Jesus is Messiah.
And so there's a distinction there.
And there's importance for us to recognize that Jesus isn't just
a historical figure.
He's not just a good person, a good teacher.
He is Messiah.
He is Christ.
And so in John chapter four, I'll give you a little bit of context
here.
Jesus is speaking to the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman
at the well.
And he's having this dialogue with her, and he's explaining to
her living water, and he's talking to her about the way that
she worships and all of that stuff.
And then what we see here in verse number 20.
Well, let's, let's look at verse number 24 right now.
Verse 24, Jesus is explaining to her what worship is.
He says, God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship
him in spirit and in truth.
So he says there's, there's a good way to worship God in the spirit,
but you have to also worship him with truth.
And, and so there, there's that dual aspect of worshiping him.
And then the woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah's cometh,
which is called Christ.
When he has come, he will tell us all things, right?
So she says, I know that Messiah is going to come.
And we see that there's that reference to that word Christ, which
is called Christ.
And when he has come, he will tell us all things.
And so she says, this Messiah is coming.
He's going to tell us these truths about God.
He's going to explain to us what it means to worship God.
And verse 26.
So if anyone says that Jesus doesn't claim to be God, doesn't
claim to be Messiah, is contradicting Scripture, because
what does the same verse 26, Jesus saith unto her, I, I that speak
unto thee.
Am he.
So he recognizes here that, hey, I am the Messiah.
You're looking for the Messiah, I'm right here.
And so there's that instance there.
We, we know that in Luke chapter four, there's another reference
to Jesus being the Messiah.
You could turn there with me if you'd like.
I'm going to try to hit a few of these somewhat quickly, and then
we're going to get to another term here In Luke chapter four, starting
in verse 17, we, we know that in this passage of Scripture, Jesus
is preaching in Nazareth.
And in verse 17, he says, and there was delivered unto him the
book of prophet Isaiah.
So Isaiah, the book of Isaiah is brought to Jesus.
And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it
was written.
The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me.
There's that.
There's that phrase anointed.
So there's the reference to the anointing of God upon the Messiah.
And so it says here, and he's quoting the book of Isaiah, the prophecy
of the Messiah, he says, because he hath anointed me to preach
the gospel to the poor, he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight
to the blind, and to set and set at liberty them that are bruised,
to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
And he closed the book and he gave it again to the minister and
sat down.
And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened
on him.
And he began to say unto them, this day, is this Scripture fulfilled
in your ears?
So Jesus reads the prophecy of this is the Messiah, and he says,
you're seeing it fulfilled right in front of you.
And so Jesus referred to himself as Messiah.
Jesus referred to himself as the Anointed One.
And so that's an important understanding to have in our minds
as well.
Now, there were individuals that struggled with this one.
Individual that struggled with this concept of Jesus being the Messiah
was a guy named John.
John the Baptist, you would say, I thought John was unwavering
in his faith.
Well, John was a great prophet.
And we even know that Jesus said there was none other like him.
But if you go To Matthew chapter 11, we know that in the midst
of John the Baptist struggle there, when he was imprisoned, he,
he's going to have a question.
He's going to have an opportunity to actually ask Jesus
a question.
And he actually sends people to him and it says, and when it came
to pass versus verse one, when Jesus had made an end of the Commanding
his 12 disciples, he departed fence to teach and to preach in the
cities.
Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent
two of his disciples.
So John sends two of his followers to Jesus and said unto
him, art thou he that should come, or do we look for another meaning?
Are you really the Messiah after all this, Are you really the
Messiah?
And Jesus answered and said unto them, go and show John again
those things which you do hear and see.
And then he goes on to explain the things that he does.
The blind receive their sight and the lame walk.
The lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hearing the dead are raised
up.
The poor have the gospel preached to them, and blessed is
he whosoever shall not be offended in me.
As they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning
John.
And then he goes on to talk more about John the Baptist there.
But.
But we do know that he sends them away with basically saying,
hey, look what's right in front of you.
The Messiah is here.
And so obviously we know that John stayed faithful to the Lord.
And then we also know there's a passage of Scripture in the Book
of Matthew, Matthew, chapter 16.
This is a popular passage of scripture when dealing with Peter
and his profession of faith in Jesus.
If you remember, they're.
They're sitting there and Jesus is asking them, who do people
say that I am?
Their accessory of Philippi.
I've talked about this quite a bit.
He's standing there or sitting there before the.
This place called the gates of Hell, which is this big cavern there
in Caesarea that you can go to and you can see.
And so Jesus basically says in verse 13, whom do men say that I,
the Son of man am?
And they said, some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elias,
others Jeremias or one of the prophets.
And he said unto them, but whom say ye that I am?
And so he says, what are people saying about me?
Who do people say that I am?
And they say, well, you know, prophet, good teacher, you know,
someone maybe that's even reincarnated from the past.
And he says, okay, that's great.
What do you say about me?
And that's.
That's really a question that all of us have to answer, right?
We can sit here all day and say what the world says about Jesus.
We can sit here all day and know what a pastor feels about Jesus
or what he believes about Jesus.
But the true question that all of us have to come to grips with
is, what do I say about Jesus?
What do I believe about Jesus?
And.
And so Jesus says, okay, that's one thing.
What do they say?
But what do you say?
And Simon Peter, verse 16, answered and said, thou art the Christ.
That's that word Messiah or anointed one.
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And Jesus answered and said unto him, blessed art thou, Simon
bar Jonah, for flesh and blood have not received, revealed it unto
thee, but my Father, which is in heaven, which means this.
You didn't come up with this on your own.
You didn't.
You didn't have faith, and you didn't work your way to this knowledge
because the world rejects Jesus.
So he says, you know, God, working in your heart through the
conviction and the teaching of the Holy Spirit, brought you this.
And he says that that came from my Father.
And then he goes on to give him that wonderful statement about
upon this rock, okay, this truth, I will build my church.
Meaning not, not Peter.
The church wasn't built on Peter's back.
Peter wasn't the first pope.
He's talking about the statement or the profession that
Jesus is the Messiah.
That's what he's going to build his church on.
So it's an important statement for us to understand that Jesus is
Messiah because that's what we're building ourselves upon right
there.
That's, that's what that's talking about there in verse 18,
that thou art Peter Little rock.
Okay?
That, that's, that's a reference to a little stone.
And then he says, upon this rock, bigger rock, foundation stone,
that is what I will build my church on.
And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
And so the reference here is this reference to Jesus being the
Christ.
Jesus being the anointed one, Jesus being the only way.
He is the one that's going to save us.
Not some religion, not some work, not some sacrifice on our own
part, not enough money given to the temple.
He says the thing that is going to build the church, the thing
that's going to build the kingdom of God, is the truth that
Jesus Christ is the Messiah.
That's what he's talking about there.
So that's why it's so important for us to keep our eyes
fixed on the truth of Jesus being the Messiah, because that means
he is the only way.
There's not multiple messiahs, though.
There's a lot of false messiahs out there.
There's been countless people over the centuries that have claimed
to be Messiah.
There's, there's people, no doubt today that are claiming to
be Messiah.
There was people shortly after Jesus.
History books tell us that there were individuals within a few
years of Jesus's death, burial and resurrection that claimed to
be Messiah.
So that's always going to happen, these false claims.
But remember what Jesus said.
Look at the proof, look at the evidence, look at the action.
And, and so what we can see here is that Jesus is the only one
that can claim role of Messiah and profess that and it be true.
Many people rejected Jesus.
We, we know that the people of his day rejected him.
The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the whole Sanhedrin.
Many people had doubts, many people questioned him, many people
rejected him.
But we know that Jesus is a prophet.
And the fact that he preached the truth of God.
He's.
He's a priest.
The Bible says that we have a high priest, Jesus is the connection
between God and man.
That's why we can have access to God.
And we know that Jesus is king of kings and lord of lords.
So he's the prophet, priest, and king, anointed Messiah.
And so that's important for us to understand so that we don't allow
ourselves to get caught up with all the fringe things that people
think matter.
Now, now, I don't say throughout tradition, traditions
are good.
There's nothing.
And there's actually, believe it or not, there's actually a resurgence
for people going back to Orthodoxy.
The Greek Orthodox Church is growing these days.
Many of the churches that have a lot of church tradition, that lift
up church tradition are growing these days because people
are looking for some stability.
They're looking for someone to tell them what to believe.
Just tell me the list of what to believe.
Okay, and.
And they can go back and see the church fathers that say, well,
if you just do xyz, you're going to be okay.
And so there is a desire to go back to that.
And what we have to do as Christians is say, hey, look, all
those things in and of themselves aren't bad.
Like, like a church tradition is not bad.
But a church tradition lifted up higher than scripture is dangerous.
It is wrong, it is heresy.
So what we would.
We would say with this is, basically, anything that becomes
equal or greater than scripture, equal or greater than
Jesus Christ has become something that's evil, has become
something that's destructive.
And so Jesus Christ being the Messiah means that nothing else saves
us.
And we could talk more and more about that.
I could emphasize that more and more now.
It's not to throw the baby out of the bathwater and say, hey, we
should just live our lives the way we want to live it.
There.
There are elements within the church that we should follow.
But what I would say that is, is that we have to be very, very
cautious with putting man's ways equal to God's.
And so that's what Jesus was explaining there.
He says, upon this rock, upon this truth, I will build my church.
And so, again, I'm not here to say that any denomination is better
than the other.
I think that the truth.
Having a conversation with someone tonight, you know what saves
someone is, is the truth of Jesus Christ, the gospel of Jesus
Christ.
That's what saves them.
But we have to be very cautious on what is added to our
faith.
Very, very cautious about that.
And, and I would say that in this case, the Messiah is.
Is an important word to know when we do that.
So how can Jesus be the Messiah.
How can Jesus do that?
Well, we, we know that by offering himself for us.
But another term that I would like us to study here this evening
is the term Emmanuel.
And most of you know that term, Emmanuel.
It's a one that we sing about.
Oh come O come.
Emmanuel.
That's another Christmas song.
And I thought about that word and most of you know that word Emmanuel
means God with us.
And what does God with us mean?
Well, we know.
I'll show you in John chapter one.
John chapter one gives us the best description of what Emmanuel
means to us.
And so if you have your Bibles turned there to John chapter one,
classic passage of Scripture dealing with the incarnation of Jesus.
And I know I wasn't going to give you a big theological term here
this evening, but I had to at least give you one.
The incarnation of Jesus.
What is the incarnation of Jesus?
That is Jesus coming in the flesh.
Now a lot of people will say that's when Jesus started his life.
Jesus started his life in the manger 2000 years ago.
He was born in Bethlehem.
All, not all true.
Yes, he was born in Bethlehem.
Yes, he was placed in a manger.
Yes, he was a baby.
Yes, he grew up.
But Jesus pre existed the, the nativity scene.
Jesus is eternal.
But there is a biblical truth called the Incarnation.
In Spanish, carne is, is meat, right?
Steak.
Carne in, in the original incarnation means in the flesh, in
the meat.
Jesus came in the flesh and that's him manifesting himself.
Jesus is, is God with us.
And so the name Emmanuel appears in the Bible only three times.
We actually see it in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 7.
We see it in Isaiah chapter 8.
And we see it in the Gospel of Matthew in Matthew chapter one, verse
23.
And so we'll see it there only those three times.
But the description of Emmanuel is given to us in multiple
places.
And so if you look at John chapter one, look at verse 14 with
me says in the Word now we know the Word is Jesus, right?
The Word is Jesus.
The, the Word Word is the word Logos.
In the Greek, Logos means word, literally means word, but it
means the, the.
The beginning of everything.
The, the not everything is wrapped up in this word.
So the Greeks and the people of this timeframe would have understood
Logos as the power that ran the world.
And so what John is saying here through the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit is that, hey, the thing that runs the world is Jesus.
Jesus is God, the Logos.
And so the Word Jesus was made flesh and dwelt among us.
And that Speaks of Jesus's personal relationship with these
folks, speaks of Jesus personal relationship with us.
And we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the
Father, full of grace and truth.
So this is describing Jesus.
It goes on to go all the way down to verse 18 to describe this
John, bear witness of him and cried, saying this was he who of
whom I spake.
He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before
me.
Now this can get a little bit confusing.
This is John the disciple, John the beloved, talking about John
the Baptist ministering before Jesus.
That's so I know there can be some confusion there.
So John the Apostle John is talking about John the Baptist who
came before and said, Jesus is better than me.
Pick Jesus, don't pick me.
And of his fullness have all we receive and grace.
For grace.
For the law was given by Moses, but the grace and truth came
by Jesus Christ.
No man has seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he
hath declared it, meaning Jesus was the way that people could
experience and see God.
And Bible says that very same thing.
In John 14, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father but by me.
And so the Gospel of John, I believe, beautifully describes the
incarnation Jesus in the flesh.
Emmanuel.
Another passage of scripture that really just summarizes in one
verse is First Timothy, chapter three, First Timothy, chapter
three, verse six.
If, if someone wants to argue the fact that really Jesus was believe
it or not, I know this is getting kind of in the weeds when
it comes to, to different philosophies out there.
But there were these people called the Gnostics.
And the Gnostics believed that Jesus really wasn't human, 100% man.
They believed that it was just a, a figment of creation, that God
created a figure in front of people and they saw him or he was
an apparition.
So, so there Paul and Timothy were fighting against this false
teaching.
So if anyone believes that Jesus is a created being of God or
that he was just a spirit, we're going to see that.
First Timothy, chapter 3, verse 16 says otherwise.
So first Timothy 3:16 and says this and without controversy, great
is the mystery of godliness.
So, so this is, this is a big mystery.
He says this is, this is hard for us to understand.
Anytime you see the word mystery in the Bible, it doesn't
mean like a murder mystery, like a movie that you're watching,
but it just means like something that we were not able to
apprehend in our own wisdom and was withheld from us for a long
time.
And so the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the
flesh.
That's the Incarnation, justified in the spirit, seen of
angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world,
received up into glory.
So this is describing Jesus's life.
This is describing everything.
And so what we can see here is that Jesus fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy
all the way back from Isaiah 7, because he was literally God with
us.
He was fully human, yet fully God.
And so Christ came to live with his people.
Christ preached the truth, and it says, preach even unto the Gentiles.
And people believed him in the world, and he was received up into
glory.
So that's a good summary of the Incarnation.
Now, if I haven't lost you yet, there's another term that, if
you're interested, this stuff might not interest you, but if someone's
like, how can Jesus be 100% God and 100% man?
We cannot explain that.
We cannot explain that dynamic.
But what we can say is there's a big term for.
It's called the hypostatic union, which means Jesus isn't 50%
man and 50% God.
That's what they believe about, like, Zeus and all those,
you know, Greek gods, that they're half and half, they're part
human, and they got intermingled.
That's not the proper teaching about Jesus.
The proper teaching about Jesus is he's 100% God and 100% man.
Explain that.
I can't.
It's beyond my understanding.
It's the same thing of explaining the Trinity, okay?
I can't explain it, but all I know is that it's three persons in
one God, right?
And so we have to take that by faith.
And so the element of Emmanuel is an element of faith.
And so Emmanuel is our Savior.
First Timothy, chapter one, verse 15.
This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
And then, as Paul says, of whom I am chief.
And so the beauty of Emmanuel, the beauty of Jesus being with us,
is that we have a personal God.
I know that one of my favorite passages of scripture that I claim
is a Hebrews, chapter 4, verse 15.
It speaks of for we are not a high priest which cannot be touched
with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points
tempted, like as we are yet without, without sin.
Let us therefore come boldly into the throne of grace that we
may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
So I know I mentioned this quite often, but this is one of the
things that boggles my mind about God, and I am so excited about
this.
We have a God who is above us, beyond us, outside of time and space,
all knowing, all powerful, all present.
But yet we also have a God who wants to have that personal relationship
with us.
He's.
He's transcendent, which means we can't put him in a box.
But he's also imminent in the fact that he's a personal, loving
God who wants that personal walk with us.
That's the unique element of our faith.
That's the unique element of Scripture.
That's the unique element of Jesus.
Emmanuel is an exciting element of who Jesus is.
And that's why we see different names for Jesus, because
that explains different aspects of who he is to us.
So Messiah, he's the anointed one, Savior of the world, Emmanuel,
He's God with us.
And so when we hear these words, sometimes it's easy to throw
it around.
But I would want you to think about the theological, the Bible
truth behind it.
And, and these are important things for us to stand on.
Because you would say, why do I need to know all these things?
I just need to know Jesus died on the cross and he saved me from
my sins.
True, but what happens when people attack certain elements of
our faith?
And we might not know how to answer that.
One of the major elements of a false religion, I would say the major
element of a false religion is that they attack Jesus.
They attack the deity of Christ.
The Bible says that there will be other Christ preached.
And so what will happen is the very first thing that if you want
to check to see whether or not someone's a false teacher, the first
check you do as you see what they teach about Jesus, does it align
with the word of God?
Is it biblical Jesus?
If it is, then you take further steps to see what they say
about scripture, they say about his Word.
But the first step is, are.
Are they preaching Jesus?
Because most of the world religions, most of the cults around
the world are.
They preach some element of Jesus.
And so what I want you to do as a believer, what I want you to
do as a Middletown Baptist Church member or attender or viewer
online is, is to be able to discern false teaching from the truth
and say, okay, this is the truth.
This is false teaching.
So one part of that is understanding what it means for Jesus
to be Messiah.
Another element of that would be what does it mean for Jesus to
be Emmanuel?
What does it mean for Jesus to be our Savior, to be God with us?
And really what that means is that people are going to preach other
Jesuses.
And so our Emanuel is with us.
And you say, well, he's not with me right now.
I don't see him.
Well, yes, he was in the flesh with Peter and John and Andrew, but
he is with us today in, in a different way.
He.
He lives within us and the concept of the Spirit that, that
indwells us.
And so Jesus is with us after his resurrection from the dead and
before Jesus returned to the Father, he made, he made a promise.
I want you to see this.
I.
This is, this is really framing my viewpoint on everything
that we should be doing within the church.
Matthew chapter 28.
Look, look at Matthew chapter 20.
I will end with this unless I get on a sidetrack.
But, but this will.
Matthew, chapter 28.
If we could, if we could phrase, if we could phrase or, or
if we could put into one paragraph our goal as the church
and our marching orders as the church, I think that the Great Commission
would be the thing.
Okay.
There's really nowhere else in scripture that gives us a succinct
list of what we should do.
Matthew, chapter 28.
At the very end, Jesus is about to ascend into heaven.
And, and what does he say?
Well, he says in Matthew, chapter 12, 28, verse 20.
Or let's look at verse 18.
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, all power is given
unto me in heaven and earth.
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe
whatsoever I've commanded you.
And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.
So the Bible speaks of Jesus's presence with his church, Jesus.
Jesus's presence with the believers.
That's the indication that Jesus has not left us, even though
physically he has for a time.
And, and we know the beautiful picture, hopefully you understand
the beautiful picture of the bridegroom.
He's gone off to prepare a place for us.
John 14.
He's coming again.
This is just a short amount of time for him, but when he returns,
it will be the consummation of all this.
But our relationship with him is as real as it ever has been.
His Lord, I'm with you always, even to the end of the world.
It makes me think about Hebrew, chapter 13, verse 5.
I will never leave you nor forsake you.
He's with us.
And so.
So nothing.
And again, Romans, chapter 8.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God.
So what.
What theological truths can we take from just that word, Emmanuel?
God's ultimate presence with us.
His.
His love for us, his incarnation.
You could even look into the Trinity with that.
You could talk about how Jesus fits into of that.
That picture of the Trinity.
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
So you can see how just in one word that appears three times in
Scripture, you can dig deep and you can find all these theological
truths just in the profession that Jesus is God with us.
You can understand all those things with those references to Messiah.
And so the Bible is full of wonderful words that we can take
with us and that we can grow in, that we can understand him more
and more.
And I think that we should do all the more in our own study to
see these biblical names for Jesus.
Right?
That's a whole other study for another day.
I won't go into that.
But, you know, there are awesome names from the Old Testament
and the New that we can look at, and we can say, wow, look at
the character of God.
Look at his attributes through these names.
Jehovah, Jireh, the one who provides.
And the list goes on and on.
And so God gives us these names of.
Of in scripture so that we can study them, so that we can know him
and so that we can.
We can grow in these areas.
And so if you hear those two words this Christmas, Messiah, Emmanuel,
now.
Now you have a better grip on what they mean and what the implication
is to those things.
So, you know, I will say that there.
There is an opportunity within the Christmas season to hear a lot
of different people's opinions on things, whether it be world politics.
Maybe you're around your house and your family's coming in town.
You.
I mean, what do they say?
The two things you're not supposed to talk about at a dinner
table is religion and politics.
Unfortunately, usually my table is full of that.
That's what we talk about.
So I don't think we have to be afraid of those things.
But what I will say is, is when.
When you talk about the word of.
Talk about the word of God differently than you talk about politics.
Okay, I'm just going to.
I'm going to step out on the ledge and try to challenge you just
a little bit here this evening.
Politics is something that we can certainly have an opinion on.
And I'm not here to tell you not to have an opinion on something.
Okay?
But when we stand on religion, we're Talking about the word of God.
That's our faith.
We stand on the word of God.
We're not shaken on that.
That's not something that we compromise on.
The truth of God speaks for itself.
We are just the mouthpieces for that.
And what we can say is that there isn't something that we can,
you know, bend on when it comes to Scripture.
And, you know, who knows what's going to happen in 2025.
There are people today that are claiming to be Messiah.
And the more and more we look at that, the more and more we see
that people, people gravitate to people, people gravitate to strong
figures.
It's happened throughout all of history.
You often wonder how these, what we call cults pop up and thousands
of people start following people and they talk them into doing
whatever.
It's because we are, as human beings, attracted to worship.
We are attracted to something that we like.
We are attracted to things that we think we need.
And so therefore, when someone tells us what we think we need or
what we want, it's very easy for us to attach ourselves to that
and then be swayed by false teaching.
And so the Bible says, don't you know.
And again, I'm going on a tangent here.
But what I will say is that in these times when we.
There is confusion in this world and now we don't know what's
true and what's not true.
You know, you could watch a video online and you could see somebody
saying something out of their face, but it's not them saying it.
It's very weird.
Live in very deceptive times.
And what I would say is match it up to Scripture.
Match it up to Scripture.
Don't allow yourself to be swayed, because what's being fed
to you, whether it be through a teaching or through an action,
is something that we want to see.
And that's why I had a fellow I was discipling not too long ago,
and he says, how could Jesus's own people reject him?
He was standing right in front of them, working out miracles in
front of them.
He never sinned.
How could they have rejected him?
And, and the truth is, is that he wasn't presenting to them what
they wanted to hear.
He wasn't doing the things that they, that they thought that
he should do.
At first they liked it.
They liked when he gave them bread.
They liked when he multiplied their food and healed them.
But when Jesus fed the 5,000, very shortly after, he said, all
right, now you gotta eat of my flesh and drink of my blood.
And they're like, what?
And they knew what that meant.
That meant to identify with him in his suffering.
And they were like, ah, you're.
You're a victor.
You're supposed to be our.
Think of that word, Messiah.
The Anointed One for their minds in.
In Israel, the anointed One was the one that was going to overthrow
Rome.
All right?
When Jesus didn't overthrow Rome the way that they wanted him
to, they turned on him.
And so that's why they rejected him, because, number one,
he wasn't what they expected.
And number two, he wasn't giving them what they wanted.
And number three, essentially, he was calling them out for the things
that they did love.
Right?
The week before he went to the cross, he went into the temple.
We studied this in the book of Luke.
And he was like, hey, you guys shouldn't be making money off of
people for.
For your religion.
So he flipped the tables and.
And Jesus did that for the right reason, and they didn't like
that.
And there were people against him.
So what I would say today is don't miss.
And I want you to understand what I'm saying by this.
And I don't want to go too far off, but don't miss Jesus when he's
standing right in front of you, don't get distracted by other
things that our eyes want to see what we desire in our hearts
when it comes to the flesh.
And that's the importance of.
Of this world and is my job is.
That is my job is to try to direct you to the truth.
I can't tell you what this year is going to bring.
I don't know why all these drones are flying around, if anyone's.
But.
But all I can tell you is that Jesus is the answer.
Jesus is King of Kings, Lord of Lords.
Jesus is Emmanuel.
Jesus is Messiah.
And if we keep looking at him, we won't fail.
We cannot fail.
He is with us in this time, in this world.
All right?
So I hope that that was in some ways encouraging for you.
If you're interested in studying these words, you're like,
oh, man, that's.
That's kind of cool.
Um, we do a Word of the Week podcast every single week.
I promise you, they're way shorter than my sermons.
They're 15 minutes.
Exactly 15 minutes.
And so if you have 15 minutes in your week and you want to do me
a favor by watching or listening right now, it's not on
video.
It's just listening.
You want to listen to that 15 minutes, we.
We've got at least like 24, 25, almost a half a year for you
to go through and listen to these words of the week.
And it's very similar to what we talked about here this evening,
but like on a more condensed level.
So we're actually going through a study on gifts.
Since this was the month of gifts, we are going to be each week
breaking down starting starting today.
I recorded it earlier, but starting today, we're breaking down
all of the spiritual gifts that are listed in Romans chapter
12.
Now, it's essentially you guys are going to get a little piece of
what Sunday morning is about.
Sunday morning is going to be about all the gifts kind of condensed
into to one sermon.
But if you want to get a more detailed look at each one of those
gifts, we're breaking down each one each week.
So this past week we talked about the gift of prophecy.
Next week we're going to talk about the gift of service or ministry,
as the King James says.
And so if you're interested in spiritual gifts or you're interested
in identifying your spiritual gift or growing in your spiritual
gift, I would encourage you to be here for the next two Sundays
or follow along on the podcast.
Because for the next two Sundays we're going to be talking
about those Romans 12 spiritual gifts and how you have
received the gift of salvation.
You received the gift of, of the spiritual gift, and now it's
your job to give that gift.
Because, like, it would be unfair for us to keep those things
and hoard them to ourselves.
So just a little shameless plug there for that.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
If you would like to find out.
More information about our church or this sermon, you can find
us at Middletown Baptist Church church.org or find us on Facebook
or YouTube.
You can also email me directly at Josh Massaro, Middletown BaptistChurch.com
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Thank you so much.
God bless.
Have a wonderful day.