Hi, I'm Matt Henry, and I'm the pastor at Missio Dei Fellowship in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Very thankful that you found our sermons, and I hope that they are a way of encouragement to you in your Christian walk. However, it's important for you to understand that this sermon was given in my church's context and for the people that God has entrusted for me to shepherd. So if you're in the Kenosha area, I would encourage you to come on a Sunday and worship with the body of Christ here. And if you're not in this area, these sermons are a great tool for supplementing your walk, but they are by no means a substitute for the local church. So you need to submit yourself to a faithful Bible teaching church and shepherd in your area. Thank you. Acts chapter 10, as I said, we are picking back up with where we left off last week. I will say it very clearly to you. If you did not hear last week's sermon, you simply need to. I would say that to every sermon. It's hard if you're... spotty in your attendance through various reasons to maintain a consistency of the flow. We preach through a book of the Bible, and it's very important to keep yourself in that flow. And so take advantage of our app. Take advantage of our website, where you can access those sermons that are available to you. And then you can see or hear them. But we are in Acts chapter 10, verses 36 to 48, and I'm going to read it for you and then bring you up to speed. So here again, the word of the Lord in verses 36 to the end of the chapter, Peter writes, As for the word which he sent to the sons of Israel, proclaiming the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all. You yourselves know the thing which happened throughout all Judea, starting from Galilee, from after the baptism which John proclaimed. You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with Holy Spirit and with power, and how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all the things that he did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They also put him to death by hanging him on a tree. God raised him up on the third day and granted that he appear not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, that is, to us, who ate and drank with him after he arose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and solemnly to bear witness that this is the one who has been designated by God as judge of the living and the dead. Of him, all the prophets bear witness that through his name everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins. While Peter was still speaking these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the word, and all the circumcised believers, meaning the Jews, who came with Peter, were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. For they were hearing them speaking with tongues and magnifying God. And then Peter answered, Can anyone refuse water for these to be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did? And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And they asked him to remain for a few days. May the Lord bless his word. Now, in this passage, we see the message of Peter to these many Gentiles. Remember, he's just entered into the house of this prominent centurion named Cornelius. This would be an enemy of the state. He would be an enemy of the Jews. And yet, he is described as a devout man, a man who fears God. He has an understanding of God from the Old Testament. He does not yet know of Jesus in the fullness of who he is. So we would call him, I would call him simply an Old Testament believer who now needs to come to the fullness of what that looks like. And so he needs to hear about Jesus. And he has invited friends and family, so the house is full. And here is Peter being asked to speak all that the Lord commanded him to speak and to unfold for them this. Now, in these few verses, and they are very few verses, We are actually privileged to see a very simple message that is really not so simple. It's actually a very dense. It's full of deep and rich and, frankly, soul-satisfying theology that, frankly, it boggles my mind. And so as I'm going into this, I'm finding myself just doing a deep dive into the Scripture. And in it, it's been truly a delight for my own soul. And I hope I can convey that today as I work through my message with you. Now, at the core of all of it is very simple. It's simply a message, a sermon, if you will, a message of the person and the work of Jesus. Because as I said last week, until you get Jesus right, and I mean absolutely right, until you get that right, nothing else will ever fit. Nothing else will make sense in this world. So at the core of our preaching, at the core of our theology, it must be and always be centered upon the person and the work of Jesus Christ. And the more that you understand Jesus and you find yourself then saying, ah, I see, I believe, and I find my rest there, and it's a full stop. It's not I have him now and he's been added, but rather that when we receive Jesus, we push away all of the things. Everything else goes away. It's only Christ. Then we find the world begins to make sense. We understand our place in the world. And so I started last week, as you remember, if you were here, that we had 13 qualities of Jesus. And then just in the process of reading once again in public to you, I saw more. And so at this point, I've settled on 14, but there's no promise that next week there won't be 15. So it is an incredibly dense passage, and I hope that, as I said, that you will enjoy going through it. Now, if you look down at our passage, you can see, by way of remembrance from last week, in verse 36, there are three qualities of him laid out right away. He says, as for the word which he sent to the sons of Israel, proclaiming the good news of peace, that's the first one, through Jesus Christ, Christ is the second, and then last, he is Lord of all, that's the third. And so we have Christ being displayed as the peacemaker. that God shall make peace with sinners, those who are his enemies, those who are at war with him in rebellion. He says, that peace that I will have is through Jesus Christ. And so all sorts of passages could be brought to mind, but he says in Ephesians that you who were far off and then brought near through the blood of Jesus Christ. He is our peace. And so God has ordained that only through Christ can you have peace with him. the result of having peace with him, being reconciled to him, is not a work that we do, but God did on our behalf. That peace then transcends and transfers over to others. So as I said before, you and I, very good chance that we would not be friends if we did not have Christ, not because of something about you or me, but we all have very separate lives and we go about in separate ways, doing separate things, and that's just life. So what brings us all, such a diverse group of people, together? It's Christ. And so he now becomes our peace with one another. And that's why in the Lord's Supper, we always talk about that. And we speak of the fact that if there's a sin against one another, that you are to not take the Lord's Supper. Why? Because you bring judgment upon yourself. And Christ takes this so seriously. He says that some of you die. as a result of it. So Christ becomes that peace. And we are to labor to bring and preserve that peace among each other. That then transcends into a more practical type of peace, day-to-day peace, that as you begin to see the fullness of what Christ has done and what he has accomplished on your behalf, and that God is not displeased with you. He now calls you his child. And now you have been brought into this fullness of life. you find a peace that the Bible says passes all understanding, that settles upon you. And now, the burdens and the cares may be upon you, but they pale as you consider them in light of who Jesus Christ is. Now, the second thing is that he is Jesus Christ. He is the Messiah. And we talked at length about that, that he was the one promised from old, that he would come. And all of the Old Testament spoke of that. And then finally, we spent a lot of time on the idea of Jesus as Lord. The idea that you are not accepting Jesus just as saviour and that some point or other, later on you say, okay, I'll make him the Lord of my heart. And we talked about having a heart and the heart, someone's on the throne of that heart. And for the non-Christian, the common idea is that, well, you are on the throne of your heart and Jesus is outside. But when you trust Jesus as your saviour, Jesus comes into your heart some way, but he's not on the throne, you're still. But you're saved. And then later, you decide you want to get serious, and you make Him Lord of your life. And now He sits on the throne of your life and rules you. And now everything changes. That's not how the Bible describes it at all. He is Lord of all, whether you believe Him or not, accept Him or not, like Him or not. It doesn't matter. He is Lord of all. And that when He saves you, He is your Lord. And you come, and you bow, and you confess Him as Lord. And the mark of a true follower of Christ is one who obeys and follows Him. So with those things in mind, we then looked at verse 37, where he says, you yourselves know that thing which happened throughout all Judea, starting from Galilee, after the baptism which John proclaimed." And one of my point was that the quality about Jesus is that he is historical. This is not just some fancy story, some mythology. One of the common complaints people do all the time is they try to say that Jesus was not real, that there is no historical fact for it. And I forgot my timer. And they just brush him off. Well, there's no proof that he existed. There's abundant proof. Anyone who wants to actually take a little bit of time, they can find it. But notice that Peter immediately looks at this group of Gentiles in another area, and he says, you yourselves already know what's happened. You know what took place. You know about Jesus, and you know about John the Baptist, the prophet. And we're going to talk more about John in just a moment. This is very important for you to understand, though, that the life and the activity of Christ was not hidden. It was not done in some tiny little corner and nobody knew about. It's not some mystery religion. Not only did the people of the area know, but people beyond that had heard. They all shared a knowledge. It was not vague, but it was very specific, to the point that he can make reference to a guy named John the Baptist, who I have to explain to people, but the people of that day, Cornelius and all these other Gentiles, they knew who he was talking about. Why? Well, because John the Baptist created a big crowd who began to follow him and come out, and they were responding in mass, with massive crowds, and it caught the attention of everybody. And so that now brings us to where we pick up in verse 37 on the last part, where it says, after the baptism which John proclaimed. Now, with that is the fifth quality. And the fifth quality, and I'm going to be using PowerPoint like I did last week. I don't like using PowerPoint. But because of the nature of this message and the ones that I'm doing right now, there are so many verses that I'm looking at. And some of you can keep up with me, and others of you just won't. There's no value in that. I don't want to leave you behind. I don't want you to give up looking. I want you to see the Word of God. So on many of the passages, I'll just put them up on the screen, and some I'll tell you to turn, OK? So right now, let me push the button a little too soon. Regardless, just listen to me and we'll get to Matthew 3.3, okay? Peter has pointed to those historical events in proclaiming Jesus. They know of the events, and they know about this guy named John. Now, you and I, we know him as John the Baptist. Now, you may not know much about him. John the Baptist is actually related to Jesus. He's his cousin. You can read all about the beginning of John the Baptist's life in Luke 1. It's actually a fascinating read, and it was actually a miraculous event. It actually has shadows or shades of Abraham and Sarah in the Old Testament. And the reason was that his parents, Elizabeth, she was barren, could not bear children. And her and Zacharias, her husband, were also very old. So they were past the age of childbearing. But then an angel appears to Zacharias and tells him that his wife, would have a son. Now he's shocked by that. In fact, he struggles to believe it. And so by way of discipline, the angel then basically takes his voice away and he can't talk. And so he's now gonna have to be unable to speak until the birth of his child. And it's like, fine, you wanna doubt the word of the Lord? You're still having a baby, but now you don't get to talk. And that's exactly what happens. Now, when he told him that, though, he also gave very strict orders to Zacharias to name his son John. And you're like, what's the big deal about that? The big deal is this, that in that day and still throughout the world today, names matter. And what Zacharias would have done if he was holding to the cultural norms is he would have named his son after some relative. And it's just a way that you can mark who you belong to, and the tribe you belong to, and your background. So again, in many parts of the world, if you ask a person to give you their full name, you now know all sorts of information about them. Like in Africa, if you ask a typical African, at least in Cameroon, their name, by the time you're finished, you know not only the tribe they belong to, but the village they belong to. And you know their father, and very likely their grandfather. And now all of this information comes upon you simply because of the name. But this one was gonna be called John. And that's exactly what happens. Now, much more could be said, but you are capable of reading that for yourself, as I said in Luke chapter one. Now, John has a very unique place in the biblical prophets. Very, very unique. He was not like Elijah, and he was not like Elisha. They were doers of great miracles. And you can read about them in the Old Testament. He did not raise a person from the dead. He did not bring fire down from heaven to devour stones and an offering or anything like that. Elijah and Elisha were men of great power and miracles. Nor does John write a single word of Scripture. Many of the prophets of old wrote Scripture. That's why we call it the book of Isaiah, the book of Jeremiah. These are the prophets who wrote this word. Moses was a prophet. He wrote the first five books of the Bible. We call them the Pentateuch, the first five books. John, no, no great miracles done by him. In fact, the scripture overtly says that he did neither sign nor miracle. Then he wrote no scripture. What was his task? Well, it's interesting, in Matthew 11, 11, Jesus himself says that among those born, there had not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist. That's pretty big. Jesus himself says, look, of all of the ones who have ever been born, no one is greater than John the Baptist. What's even more crazy is he says, and you will be greater than him if you are part of the kingdom of heaven. So John was a unique man, a great man with the words of Jesus Christ. So in many ways, he was like a comet. He was here, very bright in the sky, flashing across the sky, and then quickly fading away. And that was his purpose. He was raised up by God to live a very specific purpose, to come and to proclaim the coming of the Messiah. And that's what Matthew 3, 3 says. His job was to fulfill the prophecy of the prophet Isaiah 1,000 years earlier. who wrote the voice of one crying in the wilderness. And what was his message? Make ready the way of the Lord and make his path straight. And this is his task. His task was to proclaim that the coming Messiah, the one that everyone was waiting for and hoping in, was here. And that's exactly what John the Baptist did. He ended up in the wilderness, dressed in the clothing of a prophet. Everyone is shocked, because for 400 years, there have been no prophet. And now they're all coming out to hear this one, who is saying, the Messiah is coming. That was amazing. That was his one task, to announce the coming of the Messiah. And once the Messiah came onto the scene, his life was taken from him in short order. It took only a short time before his head was severed from his body, because he stood for truth, and he died. Because it was not about John the Baptist. In fact, he says, that he himself, as a great prophet, as a prophet of God, who Jesus says there was risen among men no one as great as John the Baptist, and he says, I, John the Baptist, am not even fit to untie the thong on the sandal of Jesus. The lowest of the servant would do that. And he's like, I'm not even fit to do that. That was his job. You, he says to Jesus, must increase. and I must decrease." This is the life of a disciple. It has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with the person of Jesus. It is not me. It is my Lord. He is Lord of all. But he was only the last of the prophets to speak. He comes from a long line of those who had spoken about the Messiah. And we're going to quickly go through that. Notice what it says in Luke 24, verse 44. He says, and that's up on the screen for you, remember. Now he said to them, you OK? Can I get you something? OK. Now he said to them, these are my words, which I spoke to you while I was still with you. that, now listen, all the things which are written about me in the law of the Moses and prophets and the Psalms must, not maybe, but must be fulfilled. Now that phrase, the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms, is a longhand way of saying the Old Testament. And what he is saying is, and I want you to notice this, because people miss the point here. Notice in Luke 24, he's not saying that everything in the Old Testament is about me. That's how people try to make it. They say, you can't understand the Old Testament unless you find Jesus on every page. That's not the point. He says that all the things which are written about me in the whole of the Old Testament must be fulfilled. That doesn't mean that everything written there was about him, but that everything in the whole of the Old Testament that is about him must be fulfilled. And so we can expect, when we go back to the Old Testament, that we are going to see things spoken of the coming of this Messiah. And the best way, and I'm going to ask you to turn to two places, Turn to Genesis 3.15. So at the very first of the Bible, at the very front. But then also, while keeping your mark here in Acts 10, I want you to turn to the book of Isaiah. And just keep your finger there. We'll get there. To begin this journey of the prophets speaking of this coming Messiah, the way we start is at the beginning. And so in Genesis 3, verse 15, what we have, as you should know by now, is that the temptation has come in the garden. And Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, but it was not her that sin enters into humanity and the world, but through her husband, the head of the home. Adam, he with full knowledge ate of the fruit. And in that, now sin and death enters into our reality. So all of us, because we're descendants of Adam, are in sin. We're under its power, its authority. All of creation now is broken and twisted. And that's why we will commit sin. We are sinners by nature, and therefore we commit sin. So now they're hiding from God in the garden. God says, where are you? And they're like, we're over here. And he's like, why are you hiding from me? And Adam and Eve immediately start what we all do, and that is they start to blame shift. And so what do they do? They say, well, Adam says, well, it's not my fault. It's the woman you gave me. And the woman says, well, no, it's not my fault. It's Satan who tempted me. And then God says, OK, I'm just going to deal with you all. And he begins to give the judgments. He judges the man in a unique way. He judges the woman in a unique way. And he judges Satan in a unique way. And he says in verse 15, he says to Satan, I will put enmity between you and the woman. So he will be at war against Eve. There will be a hatred between the two of them. And then he moves it up a bunch. He says, and between your seed, or offspring, and her seed, or offspring. Now, that's strange, because it's normally going to be said through the male. So it's normally going to be through the offspring of Abraham, or offspring of David. That's how the Bible will describe it. But here, it's given to the woman. And he says, the offspring that belongs to Satan and the offspring that belongs to the woman, there's going to be enmity between them too. So now it's involving a lot of people. And then he brings it back down to two people. He says, and he, so now notice he then moves it to a single. He, not the many seed, but one seed, shall bruise you on the head. You could also translate that as crush you on the head. and you shall bruise him on the heel." And here he's describing the beginning hint that something is going to fix this wrong. That though they brought sin and death into the world and now everything is broken, that somehow God, through someone, a specific person, he is gonna bring salvation. He is gonna crush the head of the one who did all of this, Satan. And this is very, very important. Now, when did that happen? A lot of people will say, when Christ came. Others will say, well, when Christ died and rose again and ascended into heaven, that's where this was fulfilled. But it actually has not yet happened. It's very interesting to realize that the beginning of His crushing The crushing of Satan began with the coming of Christ, but it did not end here. Notice what it says here in Romans 16.20. Maybe you've read this many times and didn't take note of it, or maybe you puzzled over it. He says, at the end of the letter to the people of Rome, he says, the God of peace will soon. So that means it hasn't happened yet, right? Will soon crush Satan under whose feet? Under their feet. Isn't that interesting? It's gonna be through the church, which is the body of Christ, that he says he will crush Satan. And then he ends it with the blessing, the grace of the Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. When's all this happen? Well, you can take it all the way to the end of the Bible, because that's where it happens, at the second coming of Jesus Christ. We read that Satan is then bound in the abyss for 1,000 years. Then he is let out for a short time And then his end will come. So we can read for it together in Revelation 20, verses 1 through 3. Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven. So notice here, it's still not us, and it's not Christ. But now we have an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the abyss, and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for 1,000 years. And he threw him into the abyss and shut it and sealed it over him. For what purpose? So that he would not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were finished. After these things, he must be released for a short time." A lot of things can be said. You can listen to my sermon on this very chapter and this section, if you wish to go into my archives. But suffice it to say that this is still not the crushing when he's cast into the abyss. It's at the end of that, then, Revelation 20 goes on to say, that at the end of it all, Christ takes hold of the serpent. And he casts him into the lake of fire, where he joins two other great enemies. They're called, in the book of Revelation, the beast and the false prophet. And there they remain forevermore. It's ultimately, and the lake of fire is, we also call it hell. Hell is actually not open for business right now. You go to Hades. But he will open the lake of fire in the end with the final judgment. And it's there that all who do not trust and believe in Jesus Christ, all who do not follow him, will be cast into hell. And it's there that we find the crushing, the final crushing of Satan. Kind of cool. Now go to Isaiah. You know, Isaiah is, we're going to skip a lot of the prophets because we simply don't have that kind of time. But in Isaiah, It is such an incredibly important book of the Bible because it's full of the promises about the Messiah. And I'm just going to try to quickly take you through several of them. In Isaiah 7, don't turn there, just here. In Isaiah 7, verse 14, it's the prophecy where he says that the Messiah will be born of a virgin. So there we have the promise of the virgin birth, that whoever is going to be the Messiah, and remember, Messiah means Christ, and that's who Jesus is. Christ is not his last name. He is Jesus, who is the Messiah, or the Christ. And it is that he must be born of a virgin, which is, of course, miraculous. But not only that, it says that his name shall be Emmanuel, which means God with us. But notice what, up on the screen, what it says here in Isaiah 9.6. where he then says that this son, now we, by the way, the book of Isaiah has various titles that they assign to the Messiah, and one of them is that he's the son, and that the son who will be born, and it says that the government will be on his shoulders, and he will be called what? Wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, and the prince of peace. Remember that God has ordained that through Christ he brings peace. And here he is called the Prince of Peace. Then in Isaiah 11.1, we find out that the Messiah would come from the lineage, and we sing it in our songs today, the lineage of Jesse. Now, who's Jesse? Well, Jesse was the father of King David. And God made a covenant with King David that there would come a day that the Messiah would come from his line, his lineage, and that he would sit on the throne forever. And here's one of those prophecies, that he would come from the line of Jesse. Now turn over though to chapter 49. Chapter 49, and 49 is, there's so much to say in so little time, but in chapter 49, we have a very important term that is applied to the Messiah. I said he's called the son in the book of Isaiah, but we also have other words. He's called the branch or the shoot. you know, a young shoot that grows up from the ground off of the trunk. And so these are various terms that he will talk about of the Messiah, of the one who would become, and we find out, is Jesus. But one of the most important ones that he is called is he is called the servant of Yahweh, the servant of God. And you have to keep that in your head. So in the book of Isaiah, you'll read along. All of a sudden, you realize, oh, he's talking about the servant. And he's not just talking about any old person. He is talking about God. our Lord. And so he says here in chapter 49, verses 1, and I'll read along for a while, I just want you, if you know your Bible well, you're going to start picking up all kinds of things that in the New Testament you see fulfilled in Christ. He says, excuse me, listen to me, O coastlands, and pay attention, you peoples from afar. Yahweh called me from the womb. From the body of my mother, he made my name to be remembered. He has set my mouth like a sharp sword." That's Revelation, right? Where it says that proceeding from his mouth was a sharp sword, and that sword was his word. And in the shadow of his hand, he has concealed me. He has also set me as a select arrow. He has hidden me in his quiver. And he said to me, you are my servant Israel. Now you say, oh, so he's talking about Israel. No, he's not. He's talking about his servant, and he calls him Israel, in whom I will show forth my beautiful glory. In the book of John, he says that when you see the son, you see who? You see the Father. In fact, he even says of Isaiah that when Isaiah saw the vision of Yahweh seated in the heavenly places with the angels around him saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, and the whole place was full of his glory, Jesus says, that glory, you saw me. I was that. I am Yahweh. and that's why they wanted to kill him. Here, as the servant, he shows the glory of the Father. But I have said, I have toiled in vain, I have spent my might for nothing and vanity, yet surely the justice due to me is with Yahweh. My reward is with my God. So now, says Yahweh, who formed me from the womb, for what purpose? To be his servant. For what purpose? To return Jacob. That's another way of saying Israel. To return Jacob back to him so that Israel might be gathered to him. So now we're talking about a different Israel. So the Messiah is called his servant Israel. For what purpose? To bring Israel back. It's kind of crazy how that works. But he is the head of Israel, and therefore he represents Israel. But he will also gather the nation back. And we talked all about that, about the nature of Zechariah and the promise that God is going to save, ultimately, his nation. And then he says, for I am glorified in the sight of Yahweh, and God is my strength. He says, it is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to cause the preserved ones of Israel to return. I will also give you as a light of the nations. So he says, you know, it's not enough to have you bring my people, Israel, back to me. I will even give you all of the nations. And beloved, the only reason you're sitting here and the only reason those of you who believe are here is because of this. that God gave Jesus the nations. And he came and he died, and he's gathering even us. Why? So that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. And he goes on, thus says Yahweh, the Redeemer of Israel and His Holy One, to the despised one, now describing Him as the one who will be hated and rejected, to the abhorred one by the nation, to the servant of rulers, kings will see and arise, prince will also bow down because of Yahweh who is faithful and the Holy One of Israel who has chosen you. And he goes on. This is the idea of him as the servant and all of these different prophecies attached to that. And then you can think of Isaiah 53. You all know that one well, if you've read your Bible at least once. There in Isaiah 53, just see some examples. Surely our griefs he himself bore. Here, the whole chapter is talking about the death of Christ and what he did and what he did on our behalf. Notice that he bore. Our griefs. Then in verse 5, it says, but he was pierced through for whose transgressions? His. No, our transgressions. He was our sin bearer. He did nothing wrong. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our peace, there's that peacemaker again, fell upon him. And by his wounds, we are healed. It's all about Jesus. So his grave, verse 8, was assigned with the wicked men, and yet he was with a rich man in his death. And you read about that, that he was buried in the rich man's grave. Because he had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth. In verse 11, as a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied by his knowledge of the righteous one. And here's the phrase again, my servant will justify the many. as he will bear the iniquities. Why can we say that we are righteous before God? Why can we say that we're justified and declared righteous? Not because of us, not because of goodness in us, not by our efforts to fix things, but because Christ bore our iniquities. Is that not the gospel, the good news? That I can't do anything to save myself, he bore my iniquities. And because of that, my faith rests with him. I am declared righteous because he is righteous. And then in verse 12, therefore, I will divide for him a portion with the many, and he will divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death, and it was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he himself bore the sin of many, and he interceded. for the transgressors. These are all just passages just in the book of Isaiah, and this is just a few verses in Isaiah where the prophets of old spoke of this one who John the Baptist then said, he's here, he's come. We can add to it Zechariah 9, verse 9, where the prophecy was that the Messiah, when he came, would come, and he would be humble, and he would enter Jerusalem riding on a donkey. And that's exactly what we read in the Gospels. Or in Zechariah 11, verse 13, we read that he would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, which is exactly what happened. Or in Micah chapter 5, verse 2, we have the promise that the Messiah would not come from a great place, a place of renown, but he would be born in this little town known as Bethlehem. And that's where he was born. 1,000 years before all of this was written, All of these, and many more, all simply point to this fact, that God would redeem mankind for himself. So there is much more than just John the Baptist talking about this. John the Baptist was just the last. He was the one that came, like I said, like a comet, bright in the sky, saying, repent, turn from your sin, and turn and believe. for the Messiah that you've been longing for and waiting for has come." Realize, for 400 years after Malachi, the prophets were silent. No one. After Malachi, the nation of Israel was completely taken away into captivity. They were sold as slaves. They were abused and hated and despised simply because of their rejection of God. And for 400 years, moms and dads would tell their children, he promised that one would come from a little town of Bethlehem. He would bear our transgressions. He would be numbered with us. And yet, he will bear us away. We will be justified. And all of these promises, they said, the Bible says, the Bible says. And the kids learn these things, just like you do with your children. And those children had children. And grandma and grandpa would gather them and speak of these promises. And they would die and never see the promise fulfilled. And then those children of their children would rise up and marry and have children who had children. And they would gather their grandchildren onto their laps and speak of the coming Messiah, the one promise, who would make all things right. And they too went to their grave, never seeing it, but believing and hoping. And so on and so forth for 400 years, it was that way. And then John the Baptist came. And he says, it's time. But there's a lot more to it than just that. Let's look at the next quality in verse 38 of chapter 10. He says, you know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit. We'll just stop right there. Another quality, the sixth quality of Jesus is that he was anointed by this Holy Spirit. Now, what does that mean? Well, to understand that requires you go back to Isaiah. So Isaiah chapter 11, Isaiah 11. If you haven't figured out, Isaiah is a very, very important book. Isaiah 11. The Old Testament said that not only would He come, not only would He be a sin-bearer, but He would be anointed with the Holy Spirit, a very key marker. No one else had this. This was a unique marking and empowering by God upon his chosen one, the Christ, the Messiah. And so in chapter 11, verse 2, but we'll start in verse 1, because a couple more of those names I've mentioned. He says, then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse. Remember who Jesse was, the father of David. And he says, he's a shoot. And then he says, a branch from his roots will bear fruit. Well, what about this shoot or branch? It says, and the spirit of Yahweh, the spirit of God, will rest on him. What kind of spirit? The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of Yahweh. This was one of the key markers that whoever this promised Messiah would be, he would have the Spirit of God upon him. Now go to chapter 42, and we'll see it again. Isaiah 42, verses 1 through 9. Here, we have another one of those servant prophecies. So here, again, he's describing him as my servant. So now God says, behold, my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one, in whom my soul is well pleased. Now, where have you heard that before? You heard that at the baptism of Jesus, when he was baptized and he came up and it says that he saw the spirit descending like a dove and resting upon him. And he heard the voice in heaven saying, behold my son, in whom I am well pleased, my beloved son. And so right away, again, you see this coming all, 1,000 years ago before then, now 3,000 years. I have put my spirit upon him, though. He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry out or raise his voice, nor make his voice heard in the street. A crushed reed he will not break. A faintly burning wick he will not extinguish. Meaning those who are struggling and weak, nonetheless he will blow them and fan them into life. He will bring forth justice and truth. He will not be faint or crushed until he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands will wait expectantly for his law. And he goes on to describe this servant upon whom the spirit of God rests. Then go to chapter 61, Isaiah 61, verse one. Here, the Messiah is speaking. Through Isaiah, he speaks. And he says, the spirit of Lord Yahweh is upon me. Why? Because Yahweh has anointed me. To what purpose? To bring good news. What's the word good news in the New Testament? It's a word. What is it? It's gospel. It's just the good news. He has been anointed with the spirit to bring the gospel, the good news. To the afflicted he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim release to the captives, freedom to the prisoners, and to proclaim the favorable year of Yahweh, and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn. And it's this that the people knew. You have to really understand that the people of Israel, they knew their Old Testament. They were just taught it from birth. They knew all of these passages. They memorized many of them. They could recite them literally off the top of their head. And all of these kinds of passages are there. And then you see Christ coming, and you see him begin to declare things, such as this, where he reads as he was the rabbi, comes to the synagogue, and he is now going to teach. And so he stands and he reads from Isaiah and he reads words like this, and then it says that he sat. And in that day, when it was time to preach and teach, you would sit, not stand. We stand. And when he sat, he says, today, these words have been fulfilled. You can imagine, everyone's like, whoa, those are the words of the Messiah. And he says, and they're fulfilled. This is exactly what all of the Gospels show, this coming of the Spirit upon Jesus. In fact, one of the unique things is that this is one of the few things that all four Gospels make certain they speak of. And so you can read about it in Matthew chapter 3, in Mark chapter 1, Luke chapter 3, and John chapter 1. So just remember 3, 1, 3, 1, and you got it. And you can see that in every one of them, they make sure you know that at his baptism, which is the beginning of his public ministry, the spirit rests upon Jesus. And every one of them, they expressly make it clear that it was Jesus, I mean, the spirit who rested upon him. It's worth noting in John 1, talking about John the Baptist, he says, I did not know him, but so that he might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing with water." So John the Baptist talking about Jesus says, I did not know him, but my job was to come to Israel and baptize with water, which is what he was doing. And John bore witness, saying, I have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and he abided on him. And I did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water. Who sent him? The Father. He was sent by God as a prophet to proclaim and to baptize the people with water. He said to me, the one upon whom you see the Spirit descending and abiding on him, this is the one who baptizes now with the Holy Spirit. And I myself have seen, have borne witness that this is the Son of God. You don't get better than that. Here is a final prophet saying, I didn't know him. All I knew was he was here and I was called to proclaim him. But I was told this, whoever it is, you'll know it because the spirit of God will descend on him and rest upon him. And he says, this is the son of God. So that very unique prophet, John the Baptist, was to proclaim the coming of the Messiah and to prepare the people to receive their Lord. And he formally testifies that Jesus is that one. Now, who is the Spirit? You guys will say various things. Some of it will be very good, and maybe some of it will be somewhat heretical, depending on how well you understand this. So let me take just a few minutes to speak about this. He is not simply a force or a power or energy. The Holy Spirit is not that. He is a person, so much so that the Bible says that you can grieve him, you can lie to him, and you can resist him. Now, I'm going to use a couple of big words. Ontologically, he is fully God, not part of God. When I say ontologically, that's a fancy way of saying the essence of his being. When you deal with the very essence of who the Holy Spirit is, He is God. Not part of God, some of God. He is fully and totally God. But so is the Father. He is fully God. And so is the Son. He is fully God. Now, that's where the mystery of the Trinity comes in, and that's where a lot of heresy inadvertently comes in. But when we have to talk about the persons of the Trinity, the persons of God, we have to know that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all three wholly, fully God. That doesn't make 300%. We don't even fully understand at all how all that works, but the scripture is clear about it. But then you have another term that theologians will use, and that's the economically. When we look at ontologically, we say the Spirit is God. When we're talking economically, how does those people in the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit work? How do they function? Does that make sense? So now we're not talking about their being, their essence. We're talking about what they do. Does the Spirit die for you? No. The Son does. Does the Spirit send Christ into the world? No, the Father does. And so now we're talking economically, what they do. And we see the role of the Spirit in many powerful ways. His role is seen in the giving of life and creation. We see it in Genesis 1, where the Spirit broods or hovers over the waters of deep. And it's through the power of the Spirit that the Word brings forth creation by the Father. The Father speaks. The Word is the second person of the Trinity, commands, let there be light. And there's light. All of the Trinity were involved in this. But he's also the giver of the Scripture as the source of inspiration of the writings we collectively call the Bible. Nothing in the Bible is written apart from the power and the work of the Spirit. Along with this, we see his work in bringing what's called illumination, or understanding, as you and I read the Bible. When you read the Bible and you see something, you weren't inspired, but you were illumined. God opens your eyes to see it. And this is something you've all witnessed if you've been reading the Bible any length of time. I've read my Bible X number of times, and I've never seen that before." And then you're like, I see it. And things start to come together. What is that? That's just the work of the Spirit in your life, opening your eyes. But He's also the one who convicts us of our sin. He's the one who takes our heart and transforms it. We who are dead in sin, enemies of Christ, unable and unwilling to please God, children of wrath, how then do we live? The Spirit transforms a heart that's dead, and we live. Now, when that happens, immediately, at the same time we believe. And we find a rest in Jesus Christ alone. And so all you know is, some of you, it's been a slow turning on of the light. But at one point, you're like, I do. This, oh my gosh, things have changed. What's happened? The Spirit has been at work. Some of you, it's like this, where one moment you're blind, and now you're not blind. And you're like, I don't know what happened, but things have changed. This is the Spirit of God at work in you. The result of all that is Jesus Christ's work, his life, his death, his resurrection is applied to you by the Spirit. And now all that is Christ is yours. So all of his perfections, all of his righteousness becomes yours. You didn't do any of it. You didn't earn any of it. But the Spirit applies it to you. And now you can be declared righteous, though you did nothing but sin. This is the work of the Spirit. Now with Jesus, here's where it gets really important for you to understand, why this anointed with the Spirit is so important. With the Jesus, not with the Jesus, with Jesus Christ, everything, hear me, everything that Jesus did was through the power of the Spirit. There is not one thing that Christ did on earth that was not done by the power of the Spirit. Although Jesus is fully God himself, Bible makes it clear that when he took on flesh, he also became fully man. Here's another really fancy word, just so you can wow your friends around the barbecues one day. That's called the hypostatic union. The hypostatic union, it is the relationship of the divine nature of Christ and the human nature. They did not co-mingle. It wasn't this mixing, where you take red Kool-Aid and blue Kool-Aid and mix it together, and you now got, I guess I'd make green Kool-Aid, right? And that's not what's happened. They're totally distinct. And not only that, but they're not 50-50 or 75-25 or 90-10. 100% God and 100% man. And when he took on the humanity and he took on flesh, all that he did was by the Spirit. Now, we end up confusing those two natures, the human and the divine nature. Anytime you see weakness in Christ, anytime you see him saying, I do not know, or anytime you see them saying he's sleeping or he, is praying or he is eating, you're just seeing the manifestation of that human nature. He's just like you and I. And so what happens is the Spirit then comes into play. And so this blows your mind if you let it. I hope you will. Through the presence and the work of the Spirit, the man Jesus was able to have communion with God. Isn't that crazy? You think, well, he's just naturally. I mean, he's God, so he's got communion. No. The human nature had no communion with God except by the Spirit. It's the Spirit that brings him into that communion. That's mind-blowing. So in fact, when Jesus prays, what's happening is that the Son of God was praying to his Father but he's doing it in the power of the Holy Spirit, just like you and I do. You're like, well, I don't even know if he hears me. Are you in Jesus Christ? I am. Then the Spirit bears your prayers. You're like, well, I got really bad prayers. Yeah, he fixes them on the way up. And he just does that. And we're like, I don't know how that works. Who cares? All you need to know is he's fixing it. And he's making it what you need to pray for. And he knows your burdens. He knows them better than you do. And so here, I hope you're having fun. This is so fascinating. The Spirit then was the agent of the conception of the baby in the womb of Mary. Without the Spirit, the birth never would have happened. But because the Spirit was at work, she became pregnant. The spirit is the one who anointed the son at his baptism from which now Jesus enters into his public work. And what does the Holy Spirit do right after he's baptized? The Bible says that he drags Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan for 40 days, right? And guess who keeps Jesus from sinning? The spirit. so that he is able to withstand all of the temptations that Satan hurls at him, and yet with no sin. Every time, then, you see a miracle done by Jesus, you're like, isn't Jesus great? You know who's doing the miracle? He's doing it by the power of the Holy Spirit. All of it is that, so much so that when you try to deny the Spirit's work, the Bible says that you're blaspheming the Spirit. So this is what he says, look up on the screen at Matthew 12. He says, therefore, this is Jesus saying, I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven, people. But the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven. You wanna blaspheme Jesus? He's like, do it. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him. either in this age or in the age to come. And what is he talking about? Jesus is doing miracles, and they're saying, oh, he's doing it by the power of Satan. He's like, yeah, you're dead. You can't do that. All of his power, all of his miracles was done by the Spirit. Even the death of Jesus, the offering of Jesus's blood on our behalf, according to Hebrews, was done by the Spirit. Hebrews 9.14, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? His birth? His works, His death, and then guess what? Romans, I don't have it up there, forgive me. Romans 8.11, but if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you. His birth, His life, His death, and His resurrection, all by the Spirit. All of that, beloved, in verse 38 of Acts chapter 10 is, he was anointed with the Spirit. All of that is built into that little phrase. In fact, if you look at the verse, you see it. He got at how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit. And therefore, everything else happens, right? And with power, and how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. Why? For God was with him. So all of verse 38 is packed around this idea that God anointed Jesus with the Spirit. And as a result, the power and the healing and all of his work was done. But it was done because he was anointed with the Spirit. Now let me say one other thing before we bring this all to a close. This anointing is not the same as what many of us think is the indwelling of the Spirit. The fact is the Bible, and we'll talk about this later, but not today, that all who believe have the Spirit dwell within them. But that is not what we have here. This is a unique anointing. It's not being indwelt by the Holy Spirit. It's not the same as being what's called baptized with the Spirit. It's not what's called the filling of the Holy Spirit. This is a unique. anointing. It's not being made alive by the Spirit. And one of the things we do when we study theology or we talk is we tend to take a bunch of different biblical categories, and we mix them all up, and we shouldn't. The Bible keeps these categories very neat. And so this was a unique anointing for the purpose of being the Messiah. But it was the key marker. How did we know that he is the Messiah? John the Baptist himself bore witness. I saw the Spirit dwell upon him. So it's a unique one. So let me lay it out this way. In John 5, we don't have the time to look at, but John 5, Jesus says, look, I can do nothing except what the Father does. And all that the Father does, I do. And what he is simply saying in John 5 is everything you see me doing is simply because this is what the Father does. And what we've seen in all of what we just looked at in the Bible is that all of that is done by the power of the Spirit. And so what you have in the Bible is that every time you see one person of the Trinity working, in fact, all of the Trinity is at work. In some way or another, the Trinity is present. And so people will say, well, prove to me the Trinity. You have to just read the Bible. Yes, there's verses that I can point to and say, see, here we see the Trinity. Here we can see the Trinity. But in fact, you see it in Genesis 1 all the way to Revelation 22. The whole of it, every time you see God working, he works as a triune God. And so we now take all of this and understand that everything that Jesus is doing is by the will of the Father, but in the power of the Spirit. Beloved, this is who Jesus is proclaiming. I mean, Peter proclaiming. This Jesus. This is one whom he is looking at these dear Gentiles who want to know the truth. He says, this is him. He is Lord of all, the peacemaker, and the one anointed by the Spirit. Believe in him. And that's my charge to you, believe in Him. Let's pray. And so Father, I do ask that you would show us much grace, that we would see Christ as He is, that our hearts would be humbled, that you would calm our souls from all the turmoil that we find ourselves in, all the things that roil us up, and instead we would finally find our rest in Jesus. The psalmist describes it as finding a refuge in our Lord, that He is our rock and our salvation, a sure help in time of trouble. May we truly be able to declare that though all of the troubles may wash upon us, it is still well with our soul for Christ has saved us. So bless us to that task, Lord, as we prepare to go home and spend time with loved ones, or just simply rest, that we would find that joy. Open our eyes to see Christ, Lord, in your Son's name. Amen.