Well, good morning to you all.
If you would, open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 12. We're
going to continue our study of the book of Matthew this morning
in Matthew chapter 12. Before we begin our lesson, let's
bow together in prayer. Our Father, how thankful we are
for another opportunity to meet together in the means that you
have given us to meet and to worship you, to have your gospel
preached, your word open to us, and Christ our Savior declared. And Father, I pray that you bless
us this morning. Bless us as we look into your
word and enable us to see and believe and love and trust the
Lord Jesus Christ. Father, I pray that you not let
us just get caught up in the motions of religion and as the
Jews of old, trust in the the motions and the ceremonies. But
Father, show us Christ. Enable us to believe Him, to
rest in Him. Let the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ be exalted in all things in the preaching of the gospel
today. Father, I thank you for this congregation that you have
given to us. And Father, I pray that you'd
watch over, that you would protect Lead and guide each one. Keep
us safe from this horrible plague that's going through the land
and from all the dangers of this life, the dangers that lie without
and those that lie within. Father, protect us. Protect us
from the world around us and protect us from ourselves. Continue
to bless and lead and guide, we pray. We're so thankful for
a place that You've given to us to meet together and to hear
your word preached. And Father, I beg of thee that
you bless your word as it goes forth. Continue to get glory
to your name. Continue to call out your sheep
and feed and edify and comfort your sheep through the preaching
of your gospel from this place. And while we pray for ourselves,
we pray for all of your people everywhere, each congregation,
each one of your pastors. Father, bless. Bless your word.
One thing that this land needs above all other things is the
preaching of the gospel, to hear of Christ our Savior and be given
faith to believe Him. Father, we do pray for your blessing
at this time, this time of pandemic and sickness and difficulty in
this world. Father, we pray that you would
provide some way out for this world, heal people, that you'd
enable people to go back to work and earn a living and all the
things that people need. Father, we pray that you'd provide
some way out. We know that you can. We pray for the grace to
leave these things there. Father, we pray for our children.
Also going through a very difficult time, we pray that you'd watch
over them and protect them. Father, above all things, we
pray mercy for their souls, that you would Reveal to them who
and what they are and cause them to run to Christ our Savior.
And Father, all these things we ask and we give thanks in
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. For His glory and His sake, we
pray and give thanks. Amen. Alright, now I've titled
our lesson this morning, Behold God's Savior, from Matthew chapter
12. we'll look at this morning beginning
in verse 14, shows us a beautiful description of the character
of Christ our Savior and gives us good reason, gives sinners
good reason to cast our soul upon Him. There's several things
I want us to see and the first one is this. The Lord Jesus Christ
is God. Since He's God, He knows all
things. Verse 14, Matthew chapter 12. Then the Pharisees went out
and held a counsel against him how they might destroy him. But
when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence, and great
multitudes followed him, and he healed them all." The Pharisees
hated the Lord Jesus so much, they wanted to destroy him. And the reason for their hatred,
the reason they wanted to destroy him, is he dared, healed a man
with a paralyzed hand on the Sabbath day. that so enraged
them, and him pointing out their own self-righteousness and not
being able to rely on their own self-righteousness, going through
all the form and the ceremonies of the law. They hated, they
wanted to destroy him for healing a man on the Sabbath day. That's
so sad. You see how they cared a whole lot more about their
religious traditions than they cared about the welfare of poor
sinners. And so they began to hatch this secret plot to destroy
the Lord. They had thoughts forming in
their mind. They had secret meetings. They
certainly didn't want anybody to know they were plotting this. They
kept it such a secret. And it's sad that they would
do this, but you know, that's human nature. Your nature or
mine, it's human nature to hate the Lord of glory, to want to
destroy Him. They came up with this secret plot to destroy Him,
but this man, Jesus of Nazareth, knew exactly what they were thinking
and what they were plotting. Now, how is that possible? Well,
it's because He's God. And the fact that Jesus of Nazareth
is God, it's not like He's God, He is God. That's very important.
Not just because He knew what people were thinking and He knows
what people are going to do before they do it. It's very important
that Jesus of Nazareth is God. Because in order for Him to save
His people from their sins, He has to be God. He has to have
the power of God to save sinners from their sin. He's got to have
the power of God to forgive sin. All sin is against God. So only
God can forgive sin. He must be God to be able to
forgive sin. He must have the power of God
to be able to put sin away. He's got to have the power of
God to give life to the dead. Jesus of Nazareth is God. He
gives us many displays of that. He is God. Well, that means Sinners
can trust the salvation of their souls to Him. He's got the power
to save them. The second thing I want us to
see is the Savior hid Himself from the self-righteous. But
sinners and people who were in need easily found Him. The Savior
hid Himself from those that would destroy Him. He could do that
because He's God. He did that many times too, didn't
He? An example I thought of is in Luke chapter 4. He preached
His first public message. on God's election of a people.
And oh, they wanted to kill him. They wanted to take him and throw
him off the cliff that the city was built upon. And he just walked
right through the midst of them. They couldn't touch him. He did
that because he's God. And he hid himself from them
so they could not find him. The Lord Jesus is gentle, kind,
forgiving Savior of sinners. I'm going to show you that in
some detail in just a few minutes. He is a gentle, kind, loving
Savior of sinners. But our Lord is very harsh in
dealing with the self-righteous, dealing with those who wanted
to trust in their observance of all the ceremonies of religion.
He was harsh with them for that because self-righteousness is
so offensive to God. And self-righteousness is in
the heart of all men. Man by nature does not love God. Man by nature is not just indifferent
about God. Man by nature hates God. We don't think we need him. That's
why we're self-righteous by nature. And that's the very reason that
we need a savior. But the self-righteous, they could not find him. They
could not find the Lord. They could not lay their hands
upon him because his hour was not yet come. All through the
Lord's earthly ministry, the Pharisees never were able to
do their will. They never were able to take him and kill him
until his hour came. And even when they finally did
get their hands on the Lord, what happened? They didn't accomplish
their will. They accomplished the eternal
will and purpose of God to accomplish the salvation of sinners, his
people, through the sacrifice of Christ. When they put their
hands on the Lord, they didn't destroy him at all. All they
did was accomplish God's eternal will and purpose of redemption.
That's what Peter told him in Acts chapter 2. The Lord Jesus
Christ has accomplished all of the eternal will of the Father
regarding the redemption of sinners, regarding the redemption of his
people. So sinners can trust him to save their sinful, sorry
souls. He's already accomplished the
salvation of his people. The third thing I want you to
see, the Savior healed them all. Everybody that came to them that
was diseased, He healed them all. There's no disease that
was a mystery to the Lord. He didn't know what this was.
He'd never seen this before. He didn't know how to treat it,
how to heal it. There's no disease that was a mystery to the Lord.
He has power over all sickness. That's why He can heal every
sickness. I mean, no matter what the sickness
was, no matter how sick the person was, the Lord Jesus healed all. that came to him for healing.
Now the same thing is true spiritually. There's no one such a lost case
that Christ cannot save. No one is so stained with sin. No one is so guilty of sin that
the blood of Christ cannot cleanse them and make them whole. And
when these people came to the Savior, He was glad to heal them. He was glad to show mercy to
needy sinners. Now, He dealt harshly with the
self-righteous, but He was glad to show mercy to needy sinners. That's who the Lord Jesus Christ
is. And that shows me sinners can trust the salvation of our
soul to Him. He delights in mercy. Do you
need mercy? Do you? Come to Christ. He'll never cast you out. That's
reason to come to Him, isn't it? Alright, here's the fourth
thing. The Savior was not trying to
gather as large of a following as He could to Himself. Verse
16. He healed them all and He charged
them that they should not make Him known. Now why did the Lord
do this? I mean, it seems like almost
every time He heals somebody, He says, see that you tell no
man. Don't tell anybody about this. Why was He doing that?
Well, he told them that because he was not trying to earn the
praises of men. He was not trying to get people
to be impressed with him and to get a big following for himself.
He never tried to get fame and popularity for himself. And here's
a warning for you. Beware of men that do that. You
see false prophets, you see these people are trying to get a big
following for themselves. You can tell the difference when
somebody, a preacher, is trying to get people to follow Christ
and look to Christ and trust Christ as opposed to getting
a following for himself. You beware of a man who's trying
to get a following for himself. He's not following Christ. He's
not following the example of Christ. For men, popularity can
be a hindrance. For men, the popularity of the
world can become a snare so that we would compromise our message
to try to keep that big crowd, to try to not lose that big crowd. The popularity of men can be
a real problem to a man trying to serve the Lord humbly as a
servant. So just beware of men like that.
Our Lord didn't do that. Instead of seeking praise and
honor from men, the Lord Jesus Christ made Himself of no reputation
and He kept Himself a man of no reputation so that He could
redeem His people from their sin. Now this is so important. The Savior did not seek the praise
of men. He sought praise from God. He
sought to glorify His Father, not Himself. He sought to please
His Father. Why? So that in pleasing His
Father, He could save His people from their sin. And that's exactly
what He did. Now Christ, that makes Him the
Savior sinners can depend upon, doesn't it? Alright, here's the
fifth thing. The Savior came to fulfill the
Scriptures because He's God's Savior. He's the Savior that
God promised from all of eternity. Verse 17, here's why he did this,
that, it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet. Now one of the indisputable evidences
that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, is the Christ, is the
Savior, is he fulfilled every Old Testament prophecy of the
Messiah. No mere man could have fulfilled
all those prophecies. No mere man could have done them. Some of those prophecies were
fulfilled by things that Christ himself did. He was born of the
seed of woman without the aid of a seed of a man. He was born
of a virgin. No mere man can do that. Nobody
else ever has done that but Christ. Christ came, Jesus of Nazareth
came as an heir of David's throne. He was born in Bethlehem, the
city of David, even though his parents did not live there. The
Lord arranged the events of human history to bring Mary to Bethlehem
so her firstborn would be born there in that city. As a baby,
he made a trip to Egypt and then came back to Israel later to
fulfill the scriptures. He performed many miracles that
only God could do, only the Messiah could do. He gave sight to the
blind. He made the deaf to hear. He
cleansed lepers. He gave life to the dead. Things
that were prophesied of him in the Old Testament scriptures,
only Christ could do that. He did them, he fulfilled them
because he is the Savior. He is God's promised Savior. When the time came, He willingly
gave Himself to suffer and die for His people. He willingly
took upon Him the sin of His people and suffered and died
for it. And then three days later, He arose to fulfill the prophecy
of the Scripture. Those were things He did Himself.
But you know, some of the Scriptures were fulfilled by other people
doing things to the Lord. You know, when it came time to
crucify the Lord, it's like those Pharisees Roman soldiers looked
like they took the Old Testament and tried to find out like a
script in a play. What are we supposed to do next?
What are we supposed to do this? What are we supposed to do next?
We're supposed to do this. They didn't mean to, but they fulfilled
those scriptures exactly by what they did to the Savior. Jesus
of Nazareth was hated without a cause. All he ever did was
do good for people and he was hated without a cause. A friend
betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver. When he was falsely accused,
he was silent. As a lamb led to the slaughter,
his tongue is silent, so he opened not his mouth. He died bearing
the sin of his people. He was beaten and spit upon.
He was pierced in his hands and in his feet. He was given vinegar
to drink. Lots were cast for his throat,
for his coat. Not a bone of his was broken.
He made his grave with the wicked. He is buried in a rich man's
tomb. All that happened to fulfill the scriptures. This man who
fulfilled all the scriptures, who fulfilled every scripture
of the Messiah, is God's promised Savior. He's not God's plan B.
He is God's promised Savior. The Savior God purposed from
all of eternity to come and save his people from all of their
sin and to bring them back to God. Now sinners can trust the
salvation of their soul to that Savior, can't he? He's God's
Savior. He's the Savior God appointed
to save His people from their sin. The Lord Jesus Christ is
the Savior. He is exactly who sin sick, weary,
helpless sinners need. We see that in this quotation
that Matthew uses from Isaiah chapter 42. The sixth thing I
want us to see is this. The Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ
is God's servant. He says in verse 18, behold my
servant. Remember I told you the Lord
Jesus Christ is God. He is the Son of God. He is God. He is equal with, since he's
God, he's equal with God in every way. He's got the power of God.
He's got the eternality of God, the omniscience of God, the omnipresence
of God, the holiness of God. He has all that because he is
God. He is Lord over all. Yet he humbled
himself to become a servant. Now, we just saw he was a servant.
He was only interested in pleasing his father. The Lord of glory
humbled himself to become the dedicated servant. And as God's
servant, He did everything that the Father gave Him to do. So
there's no doubt He saved all of His people from all of their
sin. He left nothing undone. He did everything that the Father
gave Him to do. The Savior humbled Himself to
become a servant, to take on Him flesh and bones and blood,
just like we have, yet without sin, and live among us. He humbled
Himself to come down here and do for us what we cannot do for
ourselves. He truly humbled himself. He truly is meek and lowly in
heart. And you know what? That makes
him approachable. Sinners are always comfortable
in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. They were in his earthly
ministry, and it's still true today. Sinners are comfortable
in his presence. He is not haughty, even though
he is so much higher than the rest of us sinners. He's not
haughty. He's not judgmental. Even though He's holy and we're
not, He's not judgmental. He is approachable and He is
forgiving. Can there be any other Savior
that sinners should trust other than this Christ? No, there's
not, is there? He is God's servant. And seventh,
He is the Savior that God elected. He is God's elect Savior. Verse
18 says, Behold, my servant whom I have chosen And Isaiah says,
mine elect, behold my servant, mine elect. The first time election,
elect, is used in scripture is relating to the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is God's first elect. Now you cannot preach the gospel
without preaching election. You cannot preach Christ without
preaching election. Election has to do with the person. Just like everything in salvation,
everything spiritual, everything about our soul, the salvation
of our soul, all has to do with the person, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is God's first elect. The
Father chose Christ to be the Savior of elect people. He chose
the people that He would save and He chose the Savior to save
them. The Father chose a Savior. who would get the job done. And
the people that He chose to save were chosen in Christ. See, election
all has to do with Christ. Now think about this. The Father
who knows everything, the Father who knows there can be no better
Savior than the Lord Jesus Christ, chose Christ to be the Savior. That's why He chose Him, because
He knows there can't be a better Savior. Well, then sinners who
don't know anything, can trust Christ because the Father who
knows everything appointed Him to be the Savior. The Father
who never makes a mistake chose Christ to be the Savior of sinners. Then sinners who can't do anything
right, the only thing we do is make mistakes, the only thing
we do is sin, we can trust Christ to save us because the Father
who never makes a mistake chose Christ to be the Savior of sinners. Christ is God's elect Savior. That tells me we can trust Him.
Eighth, the father is well pleased with Christ. He says here, in
whom my soul is well pleased. He's my beloved, in whom my soul
is well pleased. Christ the servant was dedicated
to his father. He was dedicated to doing the
job the father gave him perfectly. And he did. He pleased the father.
The father spoke from heaven and said, this is my son. I am
well pleased with him. And the Father said, you should
listen to Him. Hear ye Him. Hear Him, because
I'm well pleased with Him. Now, if the Father is well pleased
with Christ, I'm just sure the sinners could trust the salvation
of our souls to Him. The Father is pleased with Him.
The Father is not pleased with me and myself. If I would be
accepted of God, if I would be saying, God somehow got to be
pleased with me, well, I know He's pleased with Christ. then
if I'm in Christ, He'll be pleased with me. If the Father's pleased
with Christ, I'm just sure that I can trust Him to save me. Now,
here is the glorious truth. It's a mystery to the natural
man, but this is the truth. Even though all men are born
hating Christ. I told you that earlier. People
are not indifferent to Christ. It's just like, well, I can take
it or leave it. People by nature don't, oh, I love God, oh, I
love Jesus. No, you don't. Not by nature, you don't. Men
by nature are born hating Christ. But both the Father and every
person God saves are both well pleased with Christ. The Lord
Jesus Christ is such a glorious person. He pleases the Father
and he pleases sinners too. Oh, what a Savior. If Christ
has saved you, you don't want any other hope and you don't
want any other salvation than Christ the Savior. The Father
is well pleased with him. And this is not exactly repeating
myself, but the Savior is God. I showed you that before, but
we see it again here in verse 18. He says, I will put my spirit
upon him. The Lord Jesus Christ is God. He's one with the Father, and
he's also one with the Holy Spirit. Now, since he's God, the Lord
Jesus Christ cannot fail. He just, he can't fail. He cannot
fail to save the people that the Father gave him to save.
And that is a mighty good reason to trust the salvation of our
souls to Christ. He cannot fail. He can't fail
because He's God. Now, here's the tenth thing. Christ, the Savior of sinners,
saves the worst of sinners. He says here in verse 18, He
shall show judgment to the Gentiles. In verse 21, He says, And in
His name shall the Gentiles trust. Now, why does He talk about the
Gentiles here? Well, it's because the Jews consider the Gentiles
to be the worst of sinners. And that's exactly who Christ
saves, the worst of sinners. Christ himself told us, he does
not come, he does not save the self-righteous. They think they
don't need him. They think their righteousness
is enough, so he hides himself from them. He is not the great
physician to those who are not sick, who are not dead in trespasses
and sins. Christ saves sinners. not little
sinners, not sinners who sin sometimes. He saves true, bonafide,
helpless, lost, vile, guilty sinners. He saves them and He
makes them white as snow. Christ came to seek and to save
that which was lost and to bring them back to God. He came to
have mercy. He said, I'll have mercy and
not sacrifice. I'll have mercy and not all this
religious tradition of men. The only way God's gonna save
a sinner is in mercy. I came to have mercy on sinners. There
isn't a better Savior, better suited to save sinners like you
and me than this Savior. Oh, may God help us to trust
Him. Then 11th, the Lord Jesus Christ did not come to debate
and argue. He came to declare who He is. He came to declare salvation
in Him. Verse 19. He shall not strive nor cry,
neither shall any man hear His voice in the streets." Christ
did not come to debate with the religious experts of the day.
The Pharisees would have loved that, wouldn't they? But He didn't
come to debate with them. He came to declare the truth.
No ifs, ands, ors, or buts. He came to declare the truth.
Righteousness is in Him. Righteousness is not what we
do or what we don't do. Righteousness is in Christ. is
in Christ. It's not in all of our religious
activities. Salvation is in Christ. Eternal life is knowing and trusting
and loving Christ. That's the truth He came to declare.
The truth is always very simple, isn't it? Just very simple. It's
the simplicity, the singleness of Christ. He didn't come to
debate. He didn't come to argue. Now
you remember that next time you see these groups of people on
the internet, whose sole purpose is to argue and debate. They
can't think of something, so they throw out some new thing.
Let's argue and debate about this. When you see that, you
stay away from it. Get away from it. That is not
the way we're to preach the gospel to sinners. That's not the way
the Savior came preaching the gospel to sinners. We're simply
to declare the truth. The truth is not to be argued
and debated. It's to be believed. It's to be believed. Christ came
as the truth of God. to declare the truth of God,
that salvation is in Him. Salvation is received through
faith in Him. There's no argument, there's
no debate, there's no gray area. Salvation is in the Lord Jesus
Christ. If you would be saved, believe
on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It really is that simple. It's that simple. It's that single
look to Christ. Believe on Him and you shall
be saved. That is so simple. A sinner can
trust Christ to save us. God's people believe Christ.
They don't debate with Him. They believe Him. They don't
argue with Him. They bow to Him. He didn't come to debate. He
came to declare who He is and His people believe Him. Bow to
Him. Alright, here's the twelfth thing. The Savior is tender and
He is caring for weak sinners. Verse 20. A bruised reed shall
he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench. till he
send forth judgment unto victory. Now, this will be precious to
you if you are a poor, weak sinner. It says a bruised reed shall
he not break. Well, what is a reed? A reed
is a hollow piece of grass that doesn't have any strength in
the first place. A bruised reed is a reed that is damaged. It's
bent. It's useless. Janet likes to
make flower arrangements. Can't use a bruised reed, a broken
reed, In a flower arrangement, it's just not pretty. It's ugly.
Well, God's elect are bruised reeds. They're damaged. They're damaged by their sin,
and they're good for nothing. But the Lord Jesus Christ is
tender. He is tender with sinners. He's
not going to take that bruised reed and wad it up and throw
it away. Instead, He takes that bruised reed. You know what He
does with it? He tenderly heals it. He binds up their wounds
and their bruises and their putrefying sores. He doesn't destroy them,
He gives them life and He makes them whole. What the flesh despises,
that's what God saves and makes whole. Then it says, a smoking
flax, so He not quench. A smoking flax is a candle wick
and it's just gone out, it's burned out, there's not enough
wax to keep it burning anymore and it's just smoking, it's just
sending up a smoke All that is is annoying. It's not giving
any light anymore. It won't give any warmth anymore.
It just puts out this offensive smoke. All it does is make your
eyes and your nose burn. Doesn't that describe God's elect
by nature perfectly? We're just annoying. By nature,
we're offensive to God. Yet, the Lord Jesus Christ is
tender with sinners. He won't snuff them out. It would
just be easy. Pinch his fingers together and
snuff him out. But he doesn't do it. He doesn't snuff him out.
Instead, you know what he does? He gives the oil of the Holy
Spirit and makes them burn bright, makes them useful in his kingdom. He's not going to quench them.
He's going to make them useful. Then here's the last thing. The
Lord Jesus Christ is the successful Savior. At the end of verse 20,
he says, he won't quit until he sends forth judgment unto
victory. Now, if you look back in Isaiah
42, Isaiah says this just a little bit different. It's something
that we need to see. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
successful Savior. In Isaiah chapter 42, verse 4,
He shall not fail, nor be discouraged, till He has set judgment in the
earth, and the isles shall wait for His law. He shall not fail. He's the successful Savior. He
shall bring forth righteousness to all His people. Wherever they're
at, He's not going to be discouraged. He's going to find them. He shall
bring forth righteousness to all His people. He shall satisfy
justice for all of His people. He's going to put their sin away.
He's going to suffer everything that justice deserves for them
so justice will never come looking for them. He will satisfy justice
for all of His people. He will not fail to save every
sinner the Father gave Him to save. He cannot fail. He cannot fail to put their sin
away. He cannot fail to bring in everlasting righteousness.
He can't fail. He can't be defeated. He can't
be discouraged. Then sinners like you and me
can trust Him to save our sinful souls, can't we? Oh, I'm thankful,
thankful for such a Savior. May God give us the faith and
the grace to trust Him wholly. I hope the Lord will bless that
to your hearts. Until next time, may the Lord
keep you safe and well.