Yesterday, Today, & Forever // Of Promise & Prophets // Read

Sin ruined everything. With one bite—one choice—it separated us from God, setting mankind on a path towards dysfunction and death. The days turned dark and evil...and the days turned into months, then years, then centuries. The glorious plan of a loving, faithful relationship between God and man seemed to be nothing more than a long, forgotten memory. Yet in the midst of the silence sin created, prophetic voices called out with a promise of hope. A hope that God hadn’t forgotten his people, and that He was crafting a bold, beautiful rescue operation to save the world from its sin. And the truly amazing thing? The same voices of hope beckon to us today—that no matter our sin, no matter our rebellion—we too can experience deliverance.

“God with us.” There may not be a more beautiful three-word sentence than that. The birth of Jesus proved once and for all that God isn’t distant and God isn’t far. He’s near. And no matter what we’ve done—the rebellion in our heart, the promises we’ve broken, the sin in our past—it doesn’t change His love for us. Jesus Christ is faithful to the end.
He is with us.

I am grateful, though to get to be able to speak today because I have the opportunity to share something with you that I just love to talk about the theme today and he gave me a lot of leeways. He gave me our theme scripture and the bottom line and said, Have at it, do whatever you want to do. And I got really excited about this because I love history. I especially love biblical history. And I especially love what we're talking about today. We're starting this admin series of prophets and promises. Okay, let me just tell you the start a prophet is a person who has foretells like, predicts the future or fourth tells gives a message from God. That may not be about the future. But both of those things. in Bible days, in particular, people were very careful, they needed to be very careful if they claim to be a prophet and speak for God. Because if what they told was going to happen didn't happen. They were to be stoned to death. So that would make you a little careful, don't you think? I would be very careful there. But as I was thinking of profits in promises, I thought, what I would do was I would do a Google search for quotes on promises. And I thought I would find some really great stuff. Let me read some of the stuff that I found for you. There were dozens and dozens and dozens of quotes from celebrities, and sages, and teachers and preachers of all different kinds of stuff about promises. Listen, this was the theme of pretty much everything I read, see if you've heard any of them. Promises are meant to be broken. Promises are the sweetest lies, promises, and hearts, both meant to be treasured and kept, but both usually end up being broken. promises a big word. If you break it, you'll end up breaking a lot of other things like trust records, meaning athletic records are meant to be broken, not promises. A promise is a big word. It either makes something great, or it breaks everything. It blew my mind. I could not imagine it. It blew my mind because that was the theme of almost everything about promises, not the beautiful things I thought it might say. It was the theme, these broken promises were the theme of almost all of the quotes, and there were songs and all kinds of other things on there. This was the theme of all of it. And I thought about that, why would it be so that most of the quotes on there would be about broken promises and broken hearts and all of that? Why would it be that way? And as I thought about it, I realized because whether you're a celebrity, a teacher, a sage, or an ordinary person, it's our experience, right? Broken Promises our experience. I'm going to ask you the toughest question first. How many of you have ever broken a promise? Yeah, I got to get my hand up here big because I've certainly done that. I've broken promises. Okay. Now the second question is easier. How many of you have had someone break a promise to you? Oh, yeah, I just heard that little emotion back there. Isn't it just a lot worse when they break the promises to us than when we break them to them? It seems very forgivable when we do it. But unforgivable when they do it, there are all kinds of ways we break promises. RSVPs like to an event or say, for instance, a wedding. Usually, when I'm doing premarital counseling, I will tell the couple. If you're doing a reception where you have to pay for the meals ahead of time-based on your RSVPs, I would advise you to cut that down a bit. Because you will have a notable number of people that come the day of your wedding, they will just oopsie on attending, they will maybe the weather is so beautiful, they'd rather go to Cedar Point than dress up. Or maybe the weather is so bad, they don't want to go out at all. And so they just don't come. Now when we break in RSVP we typically don't consider that a broken promise. But it is an RSVP that says that I'm coming. We will do it from very, very tiny things. If you're the one who gets the promise broken to you, it doesn't seem tiny. But from the smaller things like telling your child, I will play catch with you when I come home from work today. And then you're too tired and you don't mean a lot to that little kid. Not so much to you. But it could be that small to something as big as breaking your marriage vows you promise that you'll love and cherish till death do us part and then you know money or something comes up something else. And it's not death that part two, it's something else you break the promise and it's over. Nations break promises,

they break treaties, they break covenants, they do that. Companies break promises. Maybe you've had a job where they promised you something and they never came through for it. And then individuals break it too. And every time promises are broken, it breaks, something's far more significant. It breaks trust. And some of you can testify in your own experience because of your past because of maybe the way that you were raised, maybe broken promises from your parents or the basic promises simply be there for you. They were not. Maybe it's a relationship, you've had jobs, school, whatever, you've had promises broken to you. And now you face life and you carry, you carry your cynicism, and your skepticism through life with you. And the people that you're relating to now may not even deserve a piece of that. But because of what happened to you before, your trust got broken when the promise was broken, and you still carry that. So when I was thinking about all of this, I thought the most probably helpful thing we can do today is look at the history of promises, and see what God's promises to us actually mean, and why they matter. The very first promises made on this planet were made in a garden. Did you know that? Yeah, the first garden, the Garden of Eden, when God created Adam and Eve, and they gave them this beautiful paradise, this beautiful garden, to be their home, he came and get this, this is amazing. God Himself, I don't know if you'd call him God in person because we're the people. But God himself came to this garden every single day and spent time with him. He walked with them. He talked with them. That's where that song comes from. From the story of Adam and Eve, He walked with him, he talked with him, he spent time with them, they knew that they were his own children, his precious people, he was with him every single day. Now, when he showed them around the garden, and kind of gave them a tour of this incredible home that they had, he told them all the animals are yours, all the fruits are yours, all the trees are yours, everything was created for you and for your good, it is yours. But just one thing I need to talk to you about, I need to talk to you about this tree that's in the middle of the garden. Now I want you This is very important that you keep this in mind. He was not making a threat. And he was not making a promise. Why? Because he didn't have to. At this point in time, there was no evil on earth. And so Adam and Eve had no concept, their mind couldn't even conceive a lack of trust, because they'd never experienced anything that would make them think that way before. So he wasn't making a promise, he wasn't making a threat. But he said this tree in the middle of the garden, leave it alone. It's the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And if you eat from it, the day that you eat from it, you will die. Well, they trusted him. They believed in Him. They didn't actually even know they were trusting because they had no concept of mistrust. But they believed him. And we don't know how long. But you know, as long as they were in the garden, they hadn't eaten anything from that tree. hadn't even thought about it. And then one day, Satan showed up in that the way it is with you. You're doing really well. And then one day Satan shows up. And he showed up in the form of the serpent, and his main job was to break their trust. And that's what he did. He started talking to them. He said all kinds of things to them, that God didn't actually say he said, God told you not to touch this tree, not to even touch it. And it's, it's delicious. It looks good. It tastes good, everything is good. You should try it. It's really good for you. And for the first time ever in their existence. For the first time ever, they began to have doubt. And they began to mistrust God. They began to think that maybe this incredible creator, this father who talked to them every day, maybe he hadn't told him everything. Maybe just maybe he didn't have their best interests at heart. Maybe he didn't love them as completely as they thought he did. Maybe he was keeping something from them. Maybe they should try it. And so that's what they did. They believe Satan, they acted on a total lack of trust, and they ate the fruit. And exactly what God said would happen happened. He was the creator of the universe. He knew how things worked. He knew what would happen. You say, Well, why would it be bad for them? I remember when I was a kid, I

thought about this a lot. I thought about all kinds of things. And you know, it's great that I've lived a long time because I've gotten to figure them out as I go along. But I used to think about this, why would it be a bad thing? Why would it be bad for them to have the knowledge of good and evil? Why? Well just think about this. Before this time, they had no concept of broken promises. They had no concept of lack of trust. They had no concept of anything that was evil. And so they didn't desire anything evil. They didn't want anything that would take them away from their relationship with God. But the minute they knew the difference between good and evil, their heart started racing toward evil. Before this time, they had never even thought of Anything that would lead them into an addiction, they had never even thought of anything that would break each other's hearts. They had never thought of anything evil. But now they knew what evil wasn't just like your little kid if you tell if you want to be sure your little kid will not go someplace, tell them to go there. Right? If you want to make sure that they go someplace, tell them not to go there, or vice versa, they're going to do that you know what's true for us? You know, you may, you may not even have a great desire for chocolate chip cookies. But the minute the doctor tells you not to eat them, or your diet says you can't eat them, you suddenly want them right. So the way it is, that's what happens the knowledge of good and evil, don't you wish you didn't have the knowledge of good and evil that could drive you towards evil. Now they had this bloody big black hole in their heart. And all of us do, all of us do. Now we know the difference between good and evil. And our hearts are drawn towards evil, How disappointing. Now, you say well, but God said they were going to die, the day that you eat of it, you will die. Yeah, the day they ate of it, they started to die, the day you are born, you start to die. They brought it on all of us. That was a cheery thought when it's curious. They brought it on all of us. And then something else happened. Not only had they brought sin, disease, and death, addictions, all that kind of stuff on all of us. Now, God had to do something else hard. And he didn't want to do it. It's another thing I didn't use to understand. There was another tree in the garden, and it was the tree of life. And God had to banish them from this perfect home he had made for them. Because he loved them so much he didn't want them to eat from the tree of life. How can that possibly be true? The Tree of Life would make them live forever? Why wouldn't he want them to eat from that tree? Why would it be an act of love? Well think about it, how happy of a thing would it be to live in this world and never be able to die?

Think about it, we would be like The Walking Dead. Surely, we would be like the zombies. That's who we would be eventually. All of you I'm sure all of you have. Or you if you haven't yet, you will, you will have a loved one that you love so much, who is in so much pain from cancer, or from COVID or from something that your heart is so broken for them, that you're ready to let them go, you're ready to let them die because you know that living forever in this state that they're in is terrible. And you don't want them for that you don't want that for them anymore. That's the way God felt. God's said they can't live forever like this. I can't let them live forever like this, I'm going to have to do something different. And in the middle of this heartbreak in the middle of this darkness, God showed His great mercy. And right there in the garden, he told them his great rescue plan. And that is when the first promise on this planet was ever made. He promised them that he was sending a savior, there will be someone come into this world, the Messiah, who will rescue mankind from the terrible conditions Stan had brought on all of us. And he said right there in the garden, he said, that terrible serpent that Satan, this Savior, this Messiah will crush him under his heel. This great trickster will be put away. And this Messiah, this Savior, will enable my creation that I love so much to be restored to life. And you will eventually live in a brand new paradise that I am creating for everyone that can never be destroyed. That was the first promise made in the garden. Now let's fast forward a lot of years and a lot of centuries, the early history of the world. We talk about the Iron Age and the Bronze Age when you talk about it. And in typical history in school, well, the early part of the Bible, the Old Testament, most of that was written in what we would consider what we would call the iron and the Bronze Age. They Adam and Eve's descendants had multiplied over and over they were they're very prolific and, and they spread all over the earth at that time. They spread all over the place. And they made new nations and they went everywhere. And so all of these descendants have their children and their children and their children multiplied. And there were many, many generations. And the longer the generations came, the farther away from God they got. Now that's the way it happens in life today to just take a, for instance, I'm sure you know, a family like this, maybe it's your family. Grandma and Grandpa really loved Jesus and they really followed him with their life. And we're not talking about old-fashioned traditions. It's like they really followed him they loved entrusted him with their life. And then there are their kids and They're kids. They love Jesus. But they're much more casual about it not nearly as committed as, like grandma and grandpa. And then what happens? their grandkids, the grandkids, most of them don't follow Jesus at all their Christmas and Easter people if that. That's the way it happens, it progresses, if we don't really work at our faith, we get away from God, we just do it. We just do it. And the generations, our children, if we don't stay close to God, and make it a priority in our home, to live out our faith every single day, our kids will do worse than us. And their kids will do worse. And that old song will the circle be unbroken, you can just tell yourself, nope, it won't be unbroken, there's gonna be lots of our people not be there. Because of the way we live. That's what happened to Adam and Eve. Their generations got further and further away from God, they were scattered. The most famous stories in the Old Testament come from this period of time. And as they got away from their original roots, they started making up their own gods, they created their own gods for the territories that they lived in. They had lost the truth that was known from the beginning, that there is one God and one alone, only one God, and they believed in the national territorial gods they had made up they believe that and they believed, and the people, God's people even believed that there was more than one God and that these gods were at war. You can read it when you read, God, God allowed the people who wrote the scripture to express things in their own word, in their own words, and you will read even and David he will talk about the gods of this world. He will talk about that, well, there is no god but one God, and God made it clear all the way through. But these made-up gods they had that they pursued. People believe that they were really we're real. But they believed the ones who believed in the true God believe that their god was greater than everyone else's got the story about Elijah and the prophets of the bale. Probably many of you know that story. That's a fair example. So Elijah lived in this period of time, the latter end of it, he lived in this period of time, and the bale prophets were or they were preaching about their God talking about their god named bale. And they were saying that he was the greatest of all. And so Elijah knew that there was one true God, there was only one that everything else is made up and sham, there's God and Satan and Satan's demons, God and His angels. And that's the those are the playing those the players on the field. There are no other gods. And so he said, I challenge you, I challenge you. We're going to call down fire from the gods. And the God who answers with fire is the one true God. Well, the prophets of Baal cried and screamed and danced and did all kinds of stuff for hours and hours, and nothing happened. Why? Well, because there is one true God. That's why

Elijah built his altar, and covered it with just buckets and gallons and lots of water, and soaked it completely soaked it. And then he prayed a very simple prayer. And he just told God, show us who you are. And fire came down from heaven and burned up the stones that the altar was made of the wood, burned up everything looked up the water, it was all done. Why is that? Well, because there's one true God, people just forgot it. They just forgot it because they had gotten away. They've gotten away from God, all through the Old Testament, into the new we hear it many times there. But all through the Old Testament, we hear starting way back in Deuteronomy, when, when Moses is is teaching the people he's telling them the same thing that Abraham had known that everyone you know, everyone through the gods dealing with people had known God and told them there is just me there is one true God, it is me. He said in Deuteronomy said it in First Kings, he says that all the way through, there is Satan and his demons. There's God and His angels, and they are the players on the field. There's no one else. But all over these people. The message that there was one true God, who had a rescue plan, and had promised to send the Savior, the one who would be the Forever King, was largely lost. But one of the very first prophets that God spoke to personally about this Savior that was coming, spoke to David. David was the second king of Israel saw was the first and he messed up and got taken out. David was the king that God anointed and he told him, Your throne from you is going to come to the Messiah. He was the second one and through his prophet Nathan. God spoke this to David listen to the promise that he says this is Second Samuel seven. I will raise up one of your descendants, your own offspring, and I will make his case I'm strong, he is the one who will build a house, a temple for my name, and I will secure his royal throne forever, I will be his father and he will be my son, your house and your kingdom will continue before me for all time, and the throne will be secure forever. All you have to do is follow the lineage of David through the Old Testament and into the new. And you know, we'll hear more prophecies that Pastor Jacob will share in the days to come. But he was this Messiah, this God's rescue plan was to come from the tribe of Judah. And he was to come from the line of David. And God promised it right there. What an incredible promise right in the middle of a really dark time. God says to David, don't lose hope. Don't lose hope. I've made a promise and I'm keeping it. I said I would send my rescuer I said I would carry out this rescue plan that God would we be with you? That's a wonderful promise all on its own. But you know, what makes it an even better promise. David was just not very long before that. He's a really messed up guy.

He had committed adultery. And then instead of admitting what he had done and, and getting it right with God, and people, he had the husband of the woman he committed adultery with killed. That's pretty big stuff, right? Really big stuff. Well, God says to him, after David repented and asked for forgiveness, and, and you know, restored his relationship with God. That's when God made this promise. And he said to him, you know, even though you sinned, I love you. You are my valued child. I made a promise. And you can trust me, I will always keep it. But you know, it sure didn't look like it. And it couldn't have looked like it to David, because when we send it I've already talked about this. But when we send our kids usually do worse than we did, they usually do. And it's certainly happened with David. David sinned. He messed up with this one woman. He had the son Solomon, who became king after David died. Solomon messed up with this doesn't sound it's true. It sounds like that basketball player. I won't name him, but who bragged on all the women he had been with Solomon messed up with more than 1000 women. Crazy, right? Totally crazy. And he lived his life. Even though God had given him great wisdom. He lived his life with such foolishness, that it really messed up his kids. And the children from all of these women fought with each other, he had sons that killed each other. It was really, really terrible. Their relationships were really bad. So you had King Saul was the first king. And then there was King David, who still goes down in history as the greatest king that Israel ever had. And then his son, Solomon, Solomon, left his kingdom in such bad shape for rulers that his son Rehoboam became king. And immediately his king, his son did even stupider things than Solomon did. Okay, so you have Rehoboam, his dad was very wealthy, he was so rich that his wealth was known all over the world, he was wise and people came to him for their opinion, all that kind of stuff. However, Ray ammonium decided to kind of strike his own path. And he did do one wise thing. He got all of the advisors that advised his dad together. And he asked them what he should do. What do you think should be my policy? My, my programs are king here. And they had all tried to advise Solomon in a different way. And he wouldn't accept the advice. And so they talked to his son, and they said, Listen, your dad was becoming hated by the people because he tax them so much. And because he was so harsh, he was good to himself and not good to other people. And, and he was taxing them so much that the people really were ready for rebellion, it was absolutely terrible. You need to be kind, you need to go in here as a kind king, and you need to let the taxes upon your people. You need to not tax them so harshly. You need to not punish them so hard, you need to not do that you this is what you need to do. Well, he didn't want to do that. And so he left these trusted advisors, these people who had been around for a long time he left them. And he went to his buddies, his friends, his people his own age. And they said to them, what do you think I should do? This is what these old fogies say I should do. What do you think I should do? And they said You need to show that you're tough and strong. You need to show that you're better than your dad was. You need to do that. You need to hike up those taxes, tax them even more. And you need to let them know if you defy me boy, are you in big trouble. And he went with the advice of the young people around him. And that's what he did. He hiked up the taxes. He said You think that my dad was hard on you? Just wait till you get a load of me. He said I You're my dad. whipped you with leather whips. I will whip you with scorpions. He said, My dad, my little finger, I'm stronger in my little finger than he is. What do you think happened to the people,

they were ready to rebel. And Jeroboam who had been one of his dad's close advisers that Solomon wouldn't listen to Jeremiah, Jeroboam led a revolt. And he took 10 of the tribes 12 tribes of Israel, he took 10 of the tribes, they sided with him, and split the kingdom, about 931 BC, Judah was the kingdom in the south, and Israel was the kingdom in the north. That's how they split. Now the two kingdoms that were kept that were in the South was Judah. And that was the place that this Promised Messiah, this rescue plan, name Jesus was to come from, in these dark days, it was terribly dark, that you know, only three kings in and their nation was divided. And they were being attacked by people from the outside and made fun of by people from the outside. But in these very, very dark days, God kept speaking and loving his people and relating to anyone who would relate to him. And that's good news for you and me today. It doesn't matter how dark the world seems, God wants to speak to and be with any person who wants to speak to and be with him. It's good news for you and me, you need to remember that if you want to be close to God, he even wants more to be close to you. Isaiah was one of the people who wanted to be close to God, he wanted to relate to God, he was a prophet from the tribe of Judah, the one who was prophesied to be the tribe that the Messiah would come from. In these dark days, it was so dark, that treachery was rewarded. If you can pull one over on somebody and betray them, you were considered pretty cool, pretty shrewd. That's pretty good. If one nation could trick another nation, you know, like you remember the story of Troy and the Trojan horse and all of that, if you could do that kind of thing, you were considered to be awesome. broken promises were just what people in power would do. For example, I think one of the best scriptures in all of the Old Testament comes from a time when one of these people in power named King Bailet, was trying to win a battle against the Israelites. And he came to an Israelite prophet named balm. And he tried to bribe him to pay him big money and promise him positions of power in order to prophesy something different, and kind of try to force God's hand into doing something different. And he said to balm, all of this, I will give you all of this, I will do if you will just change your prophecy. And don't prophesy that Israel when prophesied that I will win. Baby balm said to him, No can do, sir. No can do. And then you might want to write this down. It numbers 2319 because some of you are going to need to remind yourself of this very, very soon. He said God is not a man. So he does not lie. He is not human. So he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through? Do you know what a rhetorical question is?

A rhetorical question is one I don't expect you to answer because the answer is so obvious. The obvious answer to all of that is no, no and no, he's never failed. He's always kept his word. God, the One True God would never lie. The mightiest power in the universe would never lie. God sent more and more messages through his prophets. Isaiah was sometime in the middle of this dark and terrible time. And when he prophesied the prophecy I'm going to read to you in just a minute. It was around 734 732 BC. And he shared another specific prophecy, a promise from God. And it's the promise that we're focused on this morning. It's so powerful. He was again in the middle of untrustworthy times with untrustworthy people. And he's talking to King Ahaz, who was king of Judah, and he was trying so hard to get him to actually follow God. He was trying to get him to respond to God's desire for him to work really, really hard. And King Ahaz what he was doing was he was going out and he was conquering enemy people. But instead of taking the perfect opportunity to be kind to them and to show God's love to them, and to present to them the one true God, he was accepting their fate gods and he was following their pagan gods instead of the true God. As I spoke to him, and warned him, and this is something that he maybe should write down too because it's so true and some of you have experienced it. He said this, The Sovereign Lord says, If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all. Isn't that powerful? Let me say it to you again, if the Sovereign Lord says, If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all. When you're in a dark time when you're in a hard time. Even if you're in a prosperous time, if you don't stand firm in your faith, everything else is going to fall to it just well, God said it. And so he's trying to give love to King Ahaz. And he even says to King Ahaz, listen, you know, ask God for a sign. He will give you a sign ask God for a sign because God loves you. He wants you in His Kingdom, ask him for a sign. And he has would not he didn't want to hear from God. So Isaiah answered with God's promise, again, with even more specifics. And I love this every time I read it. You guys know Jeff Foxworthy. Right? Okay, well, the guy named Bill that's on the tour with him a lot. Then here's your sign guy. It always reminds me of him when I read this, because it's kind of like, he's saying, Well, you want to ask for a sign. Here's your sign. Here it is. And this is what Isaiah said. Isaiah said, here now you house of David, is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also, therefore you won't ask for a sign, the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel. which means God with us, say Isaiah seven. Wow, what an incredible promise. God is saying in this dark time to a man who won't even follow him. He's saying, Here's my promise, I'm going to send my rescue plan, he's going to return you to a place in life where we are daily in the presence of God, where he walks with us, where he talks with us, where he tells us, we are his own God, through Jesus will be with us all forever, he shares that promise, but because of their constant rejection, because of making detours, and have you ever noticed that even though God has committed himself to keep his promise, you can really delay what he wants to do for you, through your disobedience and your detours. Sometimes we say things like, why is God making me wait so long? And he's probably up there saying, why won't you obey me once? Then maybe you'll see what could happen for you? Why can't you do that? They kept delaying the

fulfillment of the promise. But God is a promise-keeping God he is not man, he will not lie, he will keep his promise, and the prophets kept sharing it. 10 years ago, there was beautiful music that came out, starring lots of celebrities like Donna Summers, Steven Curtis Chapman, Nicole, Norm, and lots of lots of big people in it. I sure wish they would rerelease it. But if you want to see parts of it, you can go to YouTube videos and ask for a child of the promise videos, beautiful songs that tell the story of the child of the promise, who is the Messiah, Jesus, God's promised Fulfiller. And this beautiful thing starts at the very beginning of it, I saw it live and in person, I loved it so much. The beginning starts with the sounds of trumpets, like announcing the coming of a king, and the prophets that Pastor Jacob will be speaking about in the weeks to come. They're all lined up on the stage. And they have these beautiful voices, and they sing. And the first one is Isaiah, He says, I am Isaiah the prophet, and he begins to sing about that. And then all the Prophet, all these prophets sing together this chorus, after every one of them shares a prophecy they sing. That's the way it will be. This is how it will go. Even if you don't believe it, watch the hand and see. So the hand of God and you will see, seek Him and you will know, seek Him and you will know. That's the way it's always been. If you seek God, he'll make sure that you know, and do you know what happened, that promise that God had made back in the garden, and then he reaffirmed it over and over again. And he specifically said to Isaiah, it's going to be a virgin, a pure virgin, who is going to conceive and give birth by the Holy Spirit that happened. The Holy Spirit, overshadowed marry this pure young virgin, and she conceived a son by the Holy Spirit, an angel, we're told this in Matthew, we read the story. And the angel told Joseph the man who was engaged to marry her here and it scared him when he found out she was pregnant. He thought he was going to marry an unfaithful woman. And the angel told him, don't be afraid to marry her. She's been faithful to you. The child that she has is the Son of God. She's conceived this child through the Holy Spirit, you can trust Him. And He said to Matthew, He said His name is going to be Emmanuel, it's going to mean that he is God with us. Jesus came to earth that night in Bethlehem so long ago, he came to earth and he fulfilled every part of the rescue plan God had promised. He was truly God with us God with a Say it with me, God with us. Isn't that the sweetest, most powerful thing you could ever say? God with us, it's so good. He walked this earth, he knew every pain, every heartache, every emotion we will ever feel on the good sides and the bad sides. He experienced them in one way or another. And he kept every promise that God had made, you can read all the way through the Old Testament, it is full, the whole reason for the Old Testament is to point to Jesus. And you can read all the way through here, prophecy after prophecy of his birth, of his life, of his death, and His resurrection. And every one of those, every one of those promises made about those four things has been fulfilled, to the letter. The promise that hasn't been fulfilled yet is coming again. But he's baton four out of five, right? He's gonna do it, we can trust him on that because God is not man, he will not lie, he will not lie. He said that Jesus would be God with us. And He will come again, to be with us in physical form forever and ever. In fact, after Jesus returned to heaven, after his death and resurrection, Paul was so transformed by his faith in Jesus Christ, that even his name change. He had started out as Saul. And then when he met Jesus, he was so different, his character, his reputation, everything about him change that his name changed as well. And he explained to his friends in Corinth, who were going through hard times at that time himself, he explained to them why he gave up everything that they thought was valuable to follow Jesus, and this is what he said, this is Second Corinthians, chapter one, verses 18 through 20. Listen, it's so important, as surely as God is faithful. Our word to you does not waver between yes and no. For Jesus Christ,

the Son of God does not waver between yes and no, he is the one who Silas Timothy and I preach to you, and as God's ultimate, yes, he always does what he says, for all of God's promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding yes. And through Christ are Amen, which means yes, receive a sense to God for His glory. Wow. That is Paul's testimony. After all the trials and heartaches and persecution he's been through. If you listen to pastor Jacob last week, you know, when he was talking to us about failure, he listed the ship shipwrecks, that the prison times the beatings, discouraging all of the things that Paul went through over and over again. And he says, He's saying here, after all of that, that he's been through and the joys he experienced, he had suffered more than we will ever any of us will ever experience. He says every one of God's promises has been fulfilled to him. The thing that you'll be no contentment in all situations, that Jesus will never leave you that you'll have the courage for everything you need to face. He said all of those promises, every one of them has been fulfilled. They're all fulfilled with a resounding yes. Not just a little light thing. So but a resounding yes, Jesus is always yes. Now here's the best definition of Jesus you'll ever get. Jesus is God's big, yes. Jesus is God's big, yes, the birth of Jesus, the life of Jesus, the death and resurrection of Jesus, to be with us forever, promising to never leave us in forsake us, signifies once in forever, that the one true God is not distant. He is not far away. He is not a trust breaker. He is a promise keeper. And he is not far. He is near. He is with us. No matter what we've done, the rebellion in our hearts, the promises we've broken, the sin is in our past. It does not change His love for us. And when other people don't represent him well, and they break our hearts and they hurt us and they undervalue us and they do all of that. He doesn't leave us. It doesn't change his opinion of us. He is even closer when we're hurting than we can begin to imagine. Jesus is faithful. He does not lie. He will keep his promises. And to quote one of my favorite screen stars forever. He will keep His promises to you To infinity and beyond. He will do it. He will do it. It's not a toy story. It's the real story. It's the story of God's big yes, Jesus is God's big yes and amen. You can trust Him with everything. When I was a child, we used to sing in Sunday school a little crazy. the verse that said, every promise in the book is mine. Every chapter, every verse, every line. Why is that true? Not because this is a magic book. The only reason that this book is any good and I'm not blasphemy. The only reason this book is any good is that it takes us to Jesus. It takes us to Jesus, God's big, yes, his big, Amen. Now, I'm going to ask the worship team to come forward. And they're going to lead us in this wonderful song. And if you are trusting Jesus as your big Yes, and your big Amen, the one who will always be with you. I want to invite you even if you don't know this song, there's a part of this song that says yes and amen. And I want to invite you to do what Paul said. He said that we want to make our yes and men ascend to God for His glory want to do that. So I want to encourage you to just shout it out. Yes, and amen. Agree with God on that. I want you to celebrate. And if you are not there yet, if you have not yet found Jesus to be God's big, yes. I invite you to do that today. Put your faith and your trust in him. I'm a witness. I'm a witness. He is God's big yes. He will never let you down. He will never never leave you alone. He is God with us today. And to infinity and beyond.