Jesus--A King Like None Other

If you could meet anyone from history, who would it be?

You read the pages of history and you meet a lot of extraordinary people

Men and women who were above average

Men and women of great courage and incredible wisdom

Men like

George Washington

Abraham Lincoln

Winston Churchill

Men made of some sterner stuff. All who guided their countries through some incredibly dark days, against extreme odds

And they stood firm and stayed the course often when even their closest friends and allies were saying, “you’re crazy”, and distancing themselves

Women like

the prophetess Deborah

Harriet Tubman—guided slaves to freedom

Rosa Parks—who put her foot down on a bus in Montgomery, AL, and basically said, “enough is enough”

Women who were made of sterner stuff and did what we remember as extraordinary things

All of these people, I would like to meet

But if you could meet just one person, who would it be?

I would like to meet Jesus

I know this sounds like the right thing to say, especially when you are in church

But the more that I read about Jesus, and I try to imagine beyond the words on the page, the more that I think what a most extraordinary man He must have been!

For this ADVENT season, we have been looking at the geneology of Jesus given to us in Matthew chapter 1

And talking about the ordinary people that God used who descended from Abraham and were in the line to bring forth God’s Anointed One, Jesus

But today, the person that we are going to talk about is anything but ordinary.

The person whom we are going to focus on this morning is absolutely extraordinary

I’d like you to turn with me to Isaiah chapter 11

We are going to read the first 10 verses

This is part of a message given by God to King Ahaz through the prophet Isaiah.

If you were here last week, we already talked a little bit about King Ahaz, so I won’t say much more about him

other than to remind us, that King Ahaz was incredibly

wicked

rebellious

And proud

his heart was hard toward God and he refused to submit to God or accept any hope that God offered him

Yet, the book of Isaiah is filled with messages of hope

And the promise of a coming Messiah

One who would be extraordinary. One who would have titles like

wonderful counselor

mighty God

Everlasting Father

Prince of Peace

One who would have absolute authority but One who would be perfectly righteousness

Who would have a Kingdom of Peace

Whose Kingdom would be eternal. Without end!

And in Isaiah chapter 11, we have this description of this extaordinary person that was coming.

This Person, we know as Jesus

English Standard Version Chapter 11

The Righteous Reign of the Branch

11 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,

and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

2  And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,

the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,

the Spirit of counsel and might,

the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.

3  And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see,

or decide disputes by what his ears hear,

4  but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,

and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;

and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,

and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

5  Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,

and faithfulness the belt of his loins.

6  The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,

and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,

and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;

and a little child shall lead them.

7  The cow and the bear shall graze;

their young shall lie down together;

and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8  The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,

and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.

9  They shall not hurt or destroy

in all my holy mountain;

for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD

as the waters cover the sea.

10 In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.

What a beautiful picture of wJesus.

A picture of who He was, Who He is, and Who He will be

He is described as a root from the stump of Jesse

Who was Jesse?

Jesse was the father of King David

And it was prophecied that Jesus would descend from the kingly line of King David

and indeed that is what happened. Jesus was a direct descendent of King David

We can read the geneologies in Matthew and in Luke and find out that this is true

Why is this important? Because God is faithful. That is why

When we read about all the promises that God made about the Messiah, and how they were fulfilled in Jesus

What it says to us is that God is a powerful and faithful God. He does not let His Word come back empty

I don’t know where you are in your relationship with God this morning, but just know that you can trust Him.

Secondly, what this means is that Jesus was a real person

He was born into this world just like you and I

Luke 2:7 “7 And she (Mary) gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

He had flesh and blood just like you and I

What does this mean? This means that Jesus was fully human

He was an actual man who walked on this earth

And because He was a man who walked on this earth, that means that He understand what you are going through

A lot of people think, oh, there is no way God can understand what I’m facing

God can do anything. he is all-powerful, He is all-knowing

But God does understand because Jesus took the form of a person and became a servant

And the Bible says that He faced the same kind of things that you are going through

He was tempted just like we are

Then it describes what kind of man Jesus would be

The Spirit of the Lord would rest upon Him

I don’t know if you have ever known someone on whom the Spirit of the Lord rests

But Jesus was such a man. The Spirit of the Lord rested on Him

Jesus, at the beginning of His ministry, went to John the Baptist in order to be baptized

And when John baptized Jesus, he testifies that he saw the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus like a dove and resting on him

And John testified that he heard a voice from heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased”

So the Spirit of God rested on Jesus.

This signified that God had chosen Him and anointed Him

Jesus Himself testified of this in Luke 4, w

where it says that He was in His hometown of Nazareth

And He went into the synagogue as He always did

And He asked for the scroll, and He unrolled it and found the place in Isaiah 61 where it says

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.

And then, it says, that He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, sat down,

And there is this dramatic pause.

It says that the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on Him

And then Jesus said, “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing”

And the exchange that He had with the people of His hometown after this nearly got Him killed

Because they knew that He was claiming to be God’s Anointed One. The Messiah

But, the ministry of Jesus was fueled and powered, not because He had a “type A” personality

Not because He had read John Maxwell’s 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

But His ministry was fueled and powered by the Spirit of the LORD resting upon Him

And then this prophecy in Isaiah 11 shows us what would be the evidence of the Spirit of the LORD resting on Jesus

It says (vs 3) that Jesus would have

The Spirit of wisdom and understanding

Another word for “wisdom” might be “shrewdness”

Jesus was shrewd. We may not like to think of Jesus being shrewd, but He was, and BTW, he counsels us to be shrewd as well

But Jesus was not one whom you could pull the wool over His eyes

He was always one step ahead of those who were trying to trap Him

We have a number of examples in the Gospels of the religious leaders trying to get Jesus to incriminate Himself,

But Jesus understood what they were up to

and with a simple question or a comment, Jesus easily slipped out of their trap and

Exposed them as being the hypocrites that they were

Spirit of counsel and might

The Spirit of knowledge

There is nothing that makes Jesus shrug His shoulders and say, “Boy, that’s a good question. Let me get back to you on that”

Let me Google it

I am so thankful for this

There is so much in this world that I don’t understand.

I don’t understand the way the laws of nature work

How does gravity work

There’s so much about God that I don’t understand

I don’t understand completely why there is so much evil and pain in this world

I don’t understand why God has blessed me in the way that He has while other people around the world are born into desperate poverty or suffer famines and wars

But I follow One who does understand these things

But Jesus had great wisdom and understanding and explained clearly to his followers the ways of God

He understood the Law in ways that put the religious leaders to shame

He answered questions in ways that silenced arguments

And He would delight in the fear of the Lord

This mean that Jesus delighted in the worship of God

Jesus spent hours alone in conversation with His Father

His heart and desire was for mankind to be reconciled to The Father

His heart and desire was for men to be worshipers of God

To FEAR God

He had a zeal for the Temple of God

Isaiah 11:3 says that this Messiah would not judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear

This is amazing because how often do we wish that we could do this. I sometimes I feel limited because I can only go by what I see or hear

And I wish that I could see into people’s hearts and understand what they are REALLY thinking!

and this was true of Jesus

The Bible says in a number of places that Jesus knew what people were thinking in their hearts and he addressed them according to what they were thinking in their hearts.

Jesus knows that is in our hearts before we say anything

Which is sometimes scarey, and sometimes so awesome

Scary in that sometimes what is in our hearts isn’t so good, and we wish Jesus didn’t know about that

But sometimes this is a cause for rejoicing because there are things in our hearts that we want Him to know but just aren’t sure how to express

You know what? You don’t always have to express those things because Jesus knows about them

The Bible says that there are times when we don’t know how to pray like we want to, but it’s in those times that the Spirit intercedes for us

The Spirit says to God, “What he is trying to say is...”

This prophecy says that Jesus would treat the poor with fairness and equity

And as we read the life of Jesus, we find that indeed, Jesus, in all his busyness always took time for the poor

And for the widows and for the children, the crippled, the blind, those with diseases; the kind of people that often felt overlooked, those are the people whom Jesus took special time for

And he treated them with fairness and equity

Maybe you often feel overlooked, but I just want you to know, Jesus knows. He understands

So, we see in the life of Jesus, a man of great wisdom and compassion. A man of knowledge and wisdom

One who fulfilled this prophecy to a T

A truly extraordinary person! The culmination of a line of very ordinary folks.

And indeed, when the angel appeared to Mary and told her that she was going to give birth

Listen to how he described this child that was coming

Luke 1:31–33 “31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.””

But this prophecy also foretells of a time which has not yet come

A Time of peace and safety, when the Kingdom of Jesus is fully established on this earth

In Isaiah 9, this coming Messiah is described this way:

English Standard Version Chapter 9

6  For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given;

and the government shall be upon his shoulder,

and his name shall be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

7  Of the increase of his government and of peace

there will be no end,

on the throne of David and over his kingdom,

to establish it and to uphold it

with justice and with righteousness

from this time forth and forevermore.

The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this

This extraordinary King will rule over a Kingdom unlike any that we have ever seen

I believe that this Kingdom has already come and has been established with the coming of Jesus, but there is yet more to come.

And I am truly looking forward to that time

Because sin has created a world in which there is constant conflict between people

You look around the world and see wars on every side, the lives of people being shattered

Even the animal kingdom feels the effects of sin

A few mornings ago, I was sitting in my office, and as I looked out of my window, a couple of young deer wandered into our yard

Totally at peace and oblivious to the fact that we have a German Shepherd

Well, they found out pretty quickly as my dog jumped up and let out a WOOF

And their tails went up and away they went, across the yard and across the field

I kind of chuckled at that

But you know, I had to think, what would it be like in a world where my dog would have just gone up to these deer with his tail wagging and they would have been friends

This prophecy tells of a time where even

The wolf will lie down with the lamb

The leopard will lie down with the young goat

The calf and the lion will hang out together

The cow and the bear will graze together

And in the midst of them, the children will run and play. They will even be able to pick up snakes and not get hurt

A kingdom unlike any other—a time when peace and justice and righteousness will be the norm, not the exception

But do you know what? This kingdom of peace starts right now

In the hearts and lives of men and women who receive Jesus

Ephesians 2:14 “14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility”

Have you received Him? Do you know this King of Peace? If not, today is your chance. He stands waiting to receive you.

So today, we celebrate this King

What hope he gives us now and for the future.

What an incredible picture this is! What an amazing time of peace!