Matthew 12 (Part 2) :15-21

We're in chapter 12, we're picking it up. Really we're starting in verse 15. I'm going to read verse 14, or at least remind you of it, because it plays very significantly into what we begin reading in verse 15. Remember, in verse 14, which we ended with last week, it says the Pharisees went out and plotted to kill Jesus, and of course this was after they felt that he had violated the Sabbath by allowing his disciples to pluck heads of grain off wheat in the wheat fields and eat them with their hands. And then, you'll remember, they actually planted a man with a shriveled hand in the synagogue to see if Jesus would heal the man. He did, and it says they immediately left and said, this is terrible. This is just terrible. This guy's got to die. So what does Jesus do? It says in verse 15, read along with me, it says, Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place. Many followed him, and he healed all their sick, warning them not to tell who he was. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah, and then in the following verses, Matthew quotes Isaiah chapter 42, verses 1 through 4. Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love and whom I delight. I will put my spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out. No one will hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he leads justice to victory. In his name, the nations will put their hope. Let's stop there if we could, and let's pray. Jesus, we look to you always to open our eyes, to open our hearts, to give us spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that we might look into your word and see what it says. So, use this time, Father God, to speak to us and help us to gain understanding. We ask it, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen. You may or may not be aware of the fact that Matthew actually quotes the Old Testament prophets more than any other gospel writer, and shows that Jesus is the fulfillment of those Old Testament prophecies. There were tons of messianic prophecies in Isaiah's writings, and Matthew often quotes them. One of them here, in this area. And what's really kind of cool about this is, right here in the midst of our New Testament study, we get the opportunity to look into the Old Testament, at least as it relates to the verses that we're seeing quoted here, and we get to see what these verses have to say. Now, remember something. Prophecies like this in Isaiah were given 700 years before Christ was born of the virgin. Okay? That's a long time, by the way. 700 years before the fact these things were written, John, or excuse me, I'm sorry, John. Matthew quotes them as if to say, here for us, this is a fulfillment. What Jesus is doing fulfilled these prophetic passages. Now, the reason I want to look into these verses that talk about Messiah is because we always gain really insightful stuff whenever we do, and it helps us to understand things that the Jews missed as it relates to what the Old Testament prophets said about coming of Messiah, and it helps us also to see his character, and the things that he exemplified for us, the spirit with which he came into the world, because we are, remember, his representatives, right? You and I have been called to be in this world after him, to follow after him, to represent him. So we need to take a page from his book in terms of the spirit with which he came. So that's what we're looking at here. There are several things that we're looking at in this passage. For those of you that take notes, here they are. We're going to be breaking these down like this. First of all, my servant whom I have chosen, followed by the one I love and whom I delight, we'll be taking a look at each one of them. I will put my spirit on him. He will proclaim justice to the nations, we'll kind of take those together. He will not quarrel or cry out, no one will hear his voice in the streets, followed by a bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. Perhaps some of you might have read that and went, what the heck is that all about? And then finally, we're going to look at the last one which says, in his name the nations will put their hope. So let's take a look at this first one. My servant whom I have chosen. Remember here guys, this is God the Father speaking about God the Son. You and I are having this wonderful opportunity to listen in as the Father talks about the Son. God the Father speaks of God the Son and he begins by saying, here's my servant whom I have chosen. Wow, what an, why didn't he say, here's my son? You know? Well, you might notice that these words are actually very similar to what God did say on two other occasions in the New Testament. At the baptism of Jesus, when Jesus came up out of the water, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. And then later on the Mount of Transfiguration when Jesus was on that mountaintop with Peter, James, and John, it says the cloud enveloped them and the voice of the Father was heard. Again, this is my son whom I love, with whom I am well pleased, listen to him and so forth. But he emphasizes servant here. Here's my servant, wow, my servant. You know, it blesses me to just even see those words because I'm reminded that Jesus Christ came to serve. The one individual who had the right to demand to be served, I mean, you and I demand to be served all the time. We don't really even have a right completely to do so. He did and does. And yet he came to serve. And you know, we know what service is, don't we? You go to a restaurant and, you know, if the server isn't very attentive and mixes up your order and is crabby and, you know, doesn't bring you what you need or you ask for something and they say, oh, yeah, and they go away and they never bring it back, ever had that happened? You know, hey, can we get some more napkins? And they're like, oh, yeah, sure. And then they never come back with the napkins, you know, I have to use my shirt, you know. And you know, you walk away from a restaurant like that and you say, well, the service was terrible, you know. So we obviously know what good service is. How do we define good service? It's when we feel taken care of. It's when that person is thinking about us, thinking about our needs, right? Well, when God says, when God the Father says about God the Son, here's my servant. He's talking about one who's going to come and think about the needs of other people. That's what a servant does. It's not just somebody who's out doing things, but has this grumbling attitude, I hate working for this guy. He's a jerk and he's mean. That's not the true attitude of a servant. Not maybe as a worker, but a servant cares. A servant is concerned and really desires to even anticipate needs that might come up, right? Here's what Paul said about service from Philippians chapter two. He says, each of you, this is the definition of service, right? You ready? Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. If you bring that up in your Bible, you can underline that first verse, and you can even write the definition of a servant. It's somebody who's thinking about other people, and he goes on to say that your attitude should be the same as that of Christ, who did that perfectly, by the way. And you know, here he was, the one who deserved to be served in very nature God, but did not consider that equality something to be grasped, which means held onto and not letting go of my rights. But what did he do? He made himself nothing, taking the very nature of one who serves, that heart of a servant. And you know, at no time, I think, was the servant heart of Jesus more powerfully present than in the last 24 hours of his earthly ministry. What happened during the last 24 hours? You guys have read it. You guys know how it goes. Here's Jesus. He's about to go to the cross, right, for the sin of the world. Here's a man who has fed thousands, miraculously spoken to tens of thousands with the Word of God. Crowds have come around. He's healed them. He, you know, here's the here's the God of the universe who's sitting with these nitwits That he calls disciples who are themselves sitting around talking about which of them is the greatest So can you imagine how that conversation kind of gets started? So guys just kind of wondering which one of you thinks Which of us is the greatest any thoughts on that idea, you know sort of a thing it's like You know here Jesus is about to go to the cross They're just not getting it. So what does he do? The Bible says that he gets up from the dinner table and he takes off his outer garment and wraps it around his waist and he goes and gets a basin of water and he gets Down on his knees and he begins to wash The feet of the disciples and that was the job of the lowliest household servant and by the way He washed Judas Iscariot's feet, too And he knew that he was probably within the hour this guy was gonna go betray him and yet he washed his feet That's service He knows he knows that in in within within 24 hours he will be hanging on a cross bearing the sin of the world and He takes time in the midst of all that stress and all that Anxiety, you know And we know that when he later on when he went to the garden that that stress and pressure of what was about to happen Just came and weighed in on him, you know to the point where he said my soul is in agony to the point of death But Yet at this time now at the at the dinner table. He takes time to show them what it means to serve and And it just it just blows me away because it's nothing but convicting, you know to you and I That he's he's not just see we you know, we're willing to serve from time to time, but usually when it's convenient When I got nothing else going on if you know, somebody I'll ask us to serve and we'll say well, you know Let me check my calendar, you know, let me kind of just see what's going on and listen if things work out which Translated means if it's convenient, I'll get back to you. Okay, but thanks for the opportunity Appreciate it Jesus took circumstances that were absolutely well, how do I even put him into words? How do you put that into words the crushing weight of the sin of the world is on his shoulders And he takes time to serve well, I mean his death on the cross was the greatest service and And he did it for you and I You got to remember what Jesus said in Mark chapter 10. He said for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but what to serve and He defined what that service would be like it really meant giving his life as a ransom So this is the life that you and I are to live This is the this is the the attitude that you and I are to convey This is the heart that we're to have we're not to sit around thinking, you know, how can people serve me? You know We're supposed to be thinking. How can I serve? How can I give my life? But you know being served that's pretty cool I don't know how many of you have watched the PBS show Downton Abbey. I won't ask you to raise your hand lest you incriminate yourself, but For those of you that have seen it it's basically set in the early 1900s in England Manchester, England area And it's the it's this family that owns this huge Colossal mansion slash castle Called Downton Abbey and and the story is all about their lives But it's also about the lives of those who serve in the home But you know you watch a few episodes of that and it's kind of like Yeah, I could get used to that. I mean having people wait on your hand and foot Just just all you have to do to get ready for dinner is to go put on some clothes Nice clothes and then you go and sit down and it's all prepared and now and they bring it to you on these you know with servants with white gloves and And they and you it's and then after you're done you just get up and walk out of the room Leave the plates. That's okay. We've got servants to take care of that and I could get used to that Sound fun, huh? Ladies. It's like every woman's fantasy, you know to kind of have this sort of a situation It's funny, you know the characters the the the daughters in this drama there They don't know how to clean or cook or anything because I've never had to do it, you know I always got servants doing it. I imagine that was kind of a fun way to live But it's not what you and I are called to We're called to serve and that doesn't mean servitude that that is demeaning and and and horrible it means giving our lives for Christ and being available as his Holy Spirit Calls the next thing that we see God the Father saying about God the Son in this 700 year previous to his birth Prophetic statement is that this is the one that I I love in whom I delight and This is where the language is kind of similar, you know to the baptism of Jesus and on the Mount of Transfiguration and so forth the word delight your Bible might have a different phrase there Because the word delight means or speaks of the delight or the pleasure of the soul In other words what God the Father is saying about God the Son hear this now He's saying he delights my soul. He's the delight of my soul Think about the delight of your soul what delights you May be above anything else God the Father says of God the Son he delights my soul It gives great pleasure to my soul, you know, it's interesting about that Again we're listening in here between the Father and the Son or as the Father talks about the Son What's interesting about this is we don't often think about the love That is shared between the members of the Trinity. We don't often think about that We think about God's love for people for God's I love the world that he gave us, you know And we think about that kind of love all the time. God loves you. God loves you. Hey, you know And he don't worry God loves you and we're always talking about this this love from God for people But what about this love of God? Within the Godhead God the Father says of God the Son. He's the one I love my soul delights in him Wow, it's kind of strange to think about but what we were reminded of is the fact that you know before Before anything or anyone existed when there was just God There was communion and fellowship and love within the persons of the Godhead Because you know God has revealed himself in the scriptures as being one God there's only one God there aren't two three four ten There's only one God but he has revealed himself as three persons father the Word made flesh become the Son and the Holy Spirit and They have always communed Always loved Always fellowshiped To the point where there was not a need within them to create Others to fellowship with in other words before God created the angelic host and and then and then also created human beings That wasn't born out of a need there wasn't this gnawing Loneliness or whatever or just we need somebody to love, you know Like a man and a woman come together in marriage and there's a desire. There's a need, you know We want to do this, but that's not the case with God completely self-sufficient, you know all the love and all the fellowship and all the intimacy that That that you know was there was perfect You know What that means you guys is that our ideas of community? family love Intimacy, they all originate with God. You see they all come from him We didn't we didn't come up with any of this stuff It originates in the person of God and within the Godhead within the Trinity There is this perfect expression of love and it is the strength of God's love That exists within the Trinity that the his love for us that this is what that's based upon You see that eternal love of God and Paul the Apostle says that to to ponder this love is life-changing When you don't just see when we think about pondering the love of God, you know, we being Fairly self-centered human beings we think of Oh God's love Well, I'm gonna sit and think about God's love for me, which is fine, you can think about that, and that's a cool thing. But Paul wants you just to think about God's love, period, which existed before there was any people to love. It existed within himself. You see, when the Bible tells us God is love, he literally is telling us, the scripture is telling us that love originates in the person of God and emanates out. And so here's what Paul writes to the Romans as it relates to love, and he says, for I am convinced that neither, excuse me, death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus our Lord. Why? What convinced Paul? Because he realized the love of God originates in the person of God. It's not by virtue of the fact that you're here, you're good, you're bad, you've done good, you've done bad, circumstances happen, bad things happen, good things happen. You know what I'm saying? Life happens, death happens. Those things have no bearing on the love of God because the love of God was here first and it existed and was perfect before anything else came around. So how could those things that came after God's love affect God's love? They can't, you see. Do you understand? God's love is first, it's perfect. So nothing can affect it that's been made because everything came after. Paul prays this beautiful prayer to the church in Ephesus that I'll put on the screen for you from chapter three. And he says, I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit and your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And then he says this, that I pray that you, he says, first of all, being rooted and established in love may then have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep it is, this love of Christ. And look at this, look at this. And to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Do you understand that he basically kind of made a contradiction? It's a happy contradiction, but a contradiction nonetheless because he says to you and I, I'm praying that you might know that which is unknowable, that which surpasses knowledge. Now, it doesn't mean that you can't know it in experience. It means you can't know it in perfection. You can't know it perfectly or fully because it goes beyond us. Any more than you can know God and all that he is fully. You will never, ever know God in the completion of his being because he's infinite. Well, it's the same with his love. His love is infinite, so it surpasses knowledge. You can know it in personal experience. And that's what Paul was praying for. He's saying, I'm praying that you would know this love of God because it's amazing and it'll set you free. It was the kind of love that maintained Paul when he was in a prison cell and kept him going because he knew that that prison cell didn't change anything about the love of God because that love originates with God. And did you notice what he says at the very end of this passage? That you may be filled to the full measure or the measure of the fullness of God. If it were possible to know the fullness of God's love, we would be filled to the full measure of God because therein is the character and grace of God. Next, on our list of things, the Spirit says 700 years before Christ is born, is he says, I'll put my Spirit on him, and then we're going to take the next one as well, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. Your Bible may say Gentiles. He's going to proclaim justice. So the Spirit is on Jesus, the Bible says, without measure. And his ministry, one of the parts of his ministry is to proclaim justice. Now, the Jews who read this from Isaiah at the time probably thought, yeah, the Messiah's going to come and he's going to judge the nations. But you know, that's not what Jesus did in his first coming. And that's why they got so disappointed. You know, the Jews were just always disappointed with Jesus because he just was not filling the bill in terms of what they were expecting the Messiah to be. They wanted him to come out and judge the nations. And that means rule over them, and well, that's what he's going to do in his second coming. But in his first coming, he still has a ministry of proclaiming justice. What justice? Well, it's the justice of God that has been satisfied in the person of Jesus Christ. Here's the point. This is really important, okay, guys, so stay with me here. Do you know that God cannot overlook sin? I hope you know that. You and I can. If you offend me, if I offend you, we can overlook it. We can just say, whatever, just forget about it, right? We do it all the time. Do you know that God can't do that? Do you know that God cannot wink at sin? He cannot cover sin. He cannot ignore sin. Here's the thing. And the reason is because he's just. He's just. And that means sin, listen, sin must be punished. How? The wages of sin is what? Death. So we know the sin must be punished, and we know what the wages are. We know what the punishment is. It has to happen. Guys, do you understand that? Do you understand that every single sin of every single person who has ever or will ever live upon this earth will be judged? Do you hear me? Every sin, every word, every transgression will be judged. Now, here's the good news. In Christ, our sin has already been judged. God judged his son on the cross with the penalty that we deserved, okay? So what happened when God the Father judged sin in God the Son? What happened? Justice was satisfied. Justice was satisfied. The justice of God was satisfied. Because remember, God can't overlook sin, can't do it. Sin must be punished. Sin must be punished. He just punished it in his son, our sin. And so now justice has been satisfied. And the Bible says here 700 years before he would even do it, that he would come and he would proclaim justice to the nations. And he proclaims, he declares it to you and I, justice has been fulfilled. The justice of God has been met and satisfied in the person of Jesus Christ. You know, some people actually, they hear this, and I don't know, maybe for you, this is even an aha moment. I remember there was a time in my life, in my Christian walk, when this was, this revelation that somebody had to die for sin was just, it like blew me off my feet. I mean, I knew Jesus came and he died, but I didn't know why. I mean, I didn't really understand why. It was like, well, why did he have to die? I mean, why all the dying thing? Why is that even necessary? Well, somebody had to. Somebody had to die. The wages of sin is death. Somebody had to do it. And it was either gonna be you or him. Graciously, he stepped in to do it for you. He did the dying so you can do the living. Isn't that crazy? But in so doing, the justice of God has been perfectly satisfied. Nobody can ever look at God and say that he let anything by. He didn't. It was perfectly judged. Next, he will not quarrel or cry out, Isaiah prophesied. No one will hear his voice in the streets. And we've just seen this here in the passage in Matthew 11, or excuse me, 12, that we're reading where it says that the Pharisees decided to kill him, plot his death. And so what did Jesus do? Did he get up, did he get his disciples together and get them all angered? And do you guys know what those Pharisees are trying to do to me? Come on, let's take up swords. We're gonna march in the streets. We're gonna yell at the top of our voice. We're gonna get some petitions and we're gonna do this and we're gonna carry some banners through the street. You guys are corrupt. Jesus didn't do any of that stuff, did he? He just got up and moved to another place. And he didn't go into hiding, by the way. It tells us right here in Matthew 12 that still huge crowds followed him and he healed them of all of their diseases. I mean, he wasn't in hiding. He was out in public. He was just in a little different public than where this stuff was going on. at that particular time. But Jesus wasn't going to get into a yelling match with anyone, and neither should we. When there's opposition, I don't think we should be the kind of people to get into a yelling match either. I had a brother in the Lord a number of years ago who struggled in that area. He knew the Word of God really well, and yet when someone kind of opposed him, or if somebody said to him something like, I don't believe that, he just would kind of lose it. And he'd kind of go off on him and get all red in the face, and I had to sit him down and just say, dude, you can't do that. We need to have a spirit of gentleness and instruction, and getting angry isn't going to get the job done. But we see that this is the Spirit of Christ. This is the work of Christ. He's not going to bully people with a loud voice and a bullhorn. There's going to be that gentleness and quietness that just says, okay, I'm going to move on. Go where they will listen. There's a wonderful passage in Ecclesiastes that I want to show you on the screen. It goes like this, the quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools. We've got a lot of that kind of shouting going on in our culture and politics and stuff like that today, but the words of the wise are the ones that are to be heeded. The next part of this prophecy says, and this is where we get into some word pictures, a bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not snuff out until he leads justice to victory. Some of you might not know what he's talking about when he talks about a reed. He's talking about the kind of reeds that would be by the water's edge that a boat or someone walking by or whatever might run into, and they kind of look something like this. People run into them all the time, and they bend over, and they're just kind of hanging by a limb. But this prophecy of the father speaking of the ministry of the son, he said a bruised reed he will not break. In other words, he's not going to come in and finish the job. And then he says a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. You guys know what a smoldering wick is. When a candle is put out, you've got that little glow on the end of the wick for just a little bit. Have you ever walked up to a candle that just got blown out and just kind of licked your fingers and just done a little thing like that to put the thing out completely? Well, it says Jesus wouldn't do that. Now, it's not speaking literally. He's not going to go around. He's just going to leave candles alone. This is a word picture, you guys, about how he's going to treat people. And who are the bruised reeds and the smoldering wicks? They're the hurting, the dying, the brokenhearted, those who have been abused, those who have gone through the worst of the worst kinds of situations. Jesus isn't going to walk into their lives like a bull in a china shop, like some people you know tend to do. They kind of like walk into there and it's like, all right, listen up. This is the way it's going to be, you know. And they're just rough. They handle people roughly. And Jesus didn't come to do that. He came to walk in a spirit of gentleness and tenderheartedness, particularly toward people whose hearts are hurting, who are wounded. And this is hard because the people who are hurting and wounded, sometimes because of their hurt, they want to hurt back. You know? Have you ever heard that? That a lot of the people who do the most hurting are those who are just, they're hurting their own heart. And it's difficult for us not to retaliate when somebody kind of slings some kind of a thing your way that hurts. It's like, ouch! It's hard not to kind of, hey, what are you doing sort of a thing, you know? But Jesus didn't retaliate that way because he understood what was going on in the heart of people and why sometimes people reach out to hurt others is because they themselves are hurting inside and there needs to be a healing that takes place. And so if it's a bruised reed or a smoldering wick, he's not going to overwhelm that thing. I love that about Christ because it shows us here again just how gentle and tenderhearted he is. And you know, what we saw prophetically here in Isaiah, we've seen borne out in how Matthew told the story of Jesus too. Matthew chapter nine, just a few chapters ago, it said when he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them. You know, sometimes we see crowds and we're like, Oh Lord, get me out of here. You know, especially if they want something from us. These people were pressing in to the point where Jesus and his disciples sometimes didn't have time to eat or sleep. And yet Jesus's response to the masses was compassion because he saw them as hurting and needing healing and restoration. And you and I need to see people that same way. And then remember, Jesus is the one who just in the last chapter said, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened. That's the reed, that's the candle wick that's just about to go out, the reed that's just about to fall off. Come to me and I'll give you rest. I'll help you because I'm gentle and humble in heart. My yoke is easy and my burden is light and I'll take care of you. I'll take care of you. I know you're hurting. That's the heart of Jesus. It's supposed to be our heart too as we reach out to people. I know you're hurting. I'm sorry you're hurting. I want to help. Finally, it says the last part of what this prophecy says about Jesus is that in his name, the nations will put their hope in your Bible instead of nations may use the word Gentiles because sometimes the New Testament writers would just refer to just non-Jewish people's groups as just Gentiles. So it just means any other land other than Israel that includes Gentile people. But it says here again, 700 years before Christ was even born, and the Jews didn't seem to really kind of pay attention to this part of the verse, that the nations all over the world are going to put their hope in the Messiah. And that's you and I. And hope is a powerful thing, isn't it? Because if you're hopeful, you can handle anything. You can face anything if you have hope in your life. And we know what hopelessness, what it breeds in people, it breeds discouragement and ultimately a lack of desire to go on. I mean, people who end their lives are those who have come to a place of hopelessness. They don't think there's anything really to live for. Their hope is gone. Well, here's the point of this whole thing. Jesus is the hope of the nations. And this hope will never, ever let you down because as the Bible calls it, it's a living hope. It's not a false hope. It's not a pipe dream. It's a living hope. Peter's the one who said it from first Peter, chapter one, verse three, he wrote, praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy, he has given us look at this new birth into a living hope. Proven how through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, you and I have a living hope. Our hope is alive, right? That can't be taken away from you. It's not possible. It doesn't matter what comes into your life. Doesn't matter what circumstances, what people, what situations you have a living hope. And you know what? The world that you and I live in, they need to hear about that hope that you have in Christ. That's what Peter goes on to say in the third chapter when he says, but in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. And then he says, always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect. You know, sometimes when we go around witnessing, we're just like books of doctrine. We go, we're kind of like these walking statement of faith. And people come around and then they just say, so I heard you're a Christian and we start quoting them these doctrinal positions. That's right. I believe the Bible is the inspired and only authoritative word of God, our only rule for life and practice. I believe in God, the father, his son, Jesus Christ. I believe in the Holy spirit. I believe in salvation by grace alone. And we just start rattling off and we're just, you know, and you know what? It ends up being to them. It ends up being opinion. And then you get done with all that talking and then you know what they say to you? And I know it bugs you just as much as it bugs me. They say, well, I'm glad that works for you. Right? Because you know why, you know why they say that? Because it's just, if they chalk it up to just one more opinion, because you know, a lot of people believe a lot of different things. I got a neighbor that believes something else. Then I got a guy over there, it goes to another church and he believes, Oh, you wouldn't believe what he believes. And then you got this guy over here. And then all my sister, Back in California, you wouldn't believe, man, she believes in aliens and this and that and the other thing, and someday she's gonna get on a comet and ride to heaven, and then you got this and that and the other thing, and then you come along and you go, I believe in Jesus Christ, the Father, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and they go, oh, that's cool, yeah, good, I'm glad that works for you, bye. And you know, that's not to say that telling people, helping them understand what we believe is necessarily bad, but you know what, Peter says in his passages, tell them why you're hopeful, give them a reason for the hope that you have in Jesus, talk to them about what he's done for you, how he has shown himself faithful, how he has delivered you, and how through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, you now have a living hope, it's alive, tell them that, not in a doctrinal statement, but in a statement of life, you know? Anyway, so you can see here that in just these few verses where Matthew takes time to quote this passage from Isaiah, we see a lot about the character of Jesus, we see a lot about what the Bible foretold about how he would come and what spirit he would come, and I believe there's a lot here that you and I can understand about how we are to live and how we are to love and how we are to convey Christ to the dark world that we live in as well, amen? Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.