The Promised Prophet

As colloquial as it is,Jesus truly is the reason for the season and because of that, we want to spend our time leading up to Christmas remembering just why Christmas is so amazing in the first place.

It is common for us to remember that Christmas time is when we celebrate the birth of Jesus, but what can tend to happen for many Christians is that we forget why the birth of Jesus was absolutely necessary for our salvation.

We don’t celebrate Christmas every year just because a baby was born 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem. The reason we celebrate Christmas each and every year is because 2,000 years ago God himself became a man.

The birth of Christ was the fulfillment of God’s promise to send his Christ, his Anointed One, his Messiah to save sinners.

Christmas is a time where we worship God for the glory of the Incarnation, the glory that the Father sent the Son to be born of a virgin under the Law to live a sinless life on our behalf and eventually die in our place for our sins.

Christmas is the celebration that God sent his promised Christ. That God fulfilled his promise to send his Anointed One, his promised Messiah who would save his people from their sin.

Ultimately, Christmas is all about the glory of the birth Christ.

Now the word Christ refers to God’s promised Messiah. The Christ, in the OT, was God’s promised Anointed One who would save his people from their sins.

Therefore, when we call Jesus the Christ, we are worshiping God for fulfilling his promise and delivering us from our sin in the Lord Jesus.

Now as the Christ, as the Messiah of God, Jesus saved his people by serving as a mediator between humanity and God the Father.

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

A mediator is a go-between. They are an intermediary. Someone who stands between two or more parties and works to unite them in a common agreement.

By saying that Christ is our mediator, we are saying that he is the one who reconciles us to God. That He is the one who absorbs God’s wrath against our sin and also pays our debt of sin to God on our behalf.

By saying that Christ is our mediator, we are saying that he is the one who reconciles us to God. That he is the one who absorbs God’s wrath against our sin and also pays our debt of sin to God on our behalf.

And the Bible is clear. There is no mediator between God and man other than Jesus Christ. Salvation is in Christ and in him alone.

And the Bible is clear. There is no other mediator between God and man. Salvation is in Christ and in him alone.

But what exactly does it mean that Christ is our mediator? How does he serve as an intermediary between us and God? To answer that, we need to understand the three offices of Christ.

It may be imperfect, but think of Christ as Jesus’ job title, and the three offices as his job description. They are how Christ serves us as our mediator.

The offices of Christ speak to his function, or the roles he plays to serve us as the Christ of God, as the Mediator between God and men.

And historically, these three offices refer to Christ’s work as our Prophet, Priest and King.

Now you will not find a passage in the Bible that explicitly talks about Christ being our Prophet, Priest, and King, so where did this theology come from?

I will say, that there is no explicit passage which speaks to Christ performing all three of these offices so where did this theology come from?

Before Christ, God interacted with his people through three types of mediators all throughout the OT. These mediators were the prophets, the priests and the kings of Israel, and each of these Old Testament mediators were established by God to point to how Christ himself would ultimately serve his people as our perfect Mediator.

A mediator is a go-between. They are an intermediary. Someone who stands between two or more parties and works to unite them in a common agreement.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

And the Bible is clear. There is no other mediator between God and man. Salvation is in Christ and in him alone.

However, before Christ, God interacted with his people through three types of mediators all throughout the OT. These mediators were the prophets, priests and kings of Israel, and each of these Old Testament offices were established by God to give his people a picture of how Christ himself would serve as their perfect Mediator.

A prophet was called to be God’s spokesperson. They spoke on behalf of God to God’s people and in doing so, revealed who God is so that his people could know and worship him.

The priests were established by God to lead his people in true worship and they would also offer sacrifices to God on behalf of the people’s sins.

And finally, God established the kings of Israel through the line of David to rule over his people and lead them to keep his Law as a holy nation.

And the glory of Christ is that he fulfills all of these OT offices in one person, Jesus Christ. He is our perfect Prophet, Priest, and King.

Jesus reveals God to humanity as our Prophet and shows us the way to eternal life.

He reconciles us to God through the sacrifice of his blood as our Priest.

And he rules over all creation and all people as the King of kings and Lord of lords.

And if we don’t believe in Jesus as our Prophet, Priest, and King, then we don’t believe that he truly is the Christ who saved us from our sins.

The great Reformer John Calvin

So when we celebrate Christmas, when we celebrate the birth of Christ, we should do so by celebrating all that Christ has done for us as our perfect Mediator.

That is why we are going to spend the next three weeks focusing on how Christ fulfills each of these offices so that we can truly worship him and celebrate all he has done for us this Christmas.

My hope is that as we study what Christ has done for us as our Prophet, Priest, and King, we will grow in our love for Christ by seeing all that he has done for us on our behalf.

So this morning we are going to spend all our time looking at Christ and how he serves us as our Prophet who reveals who God is and shows us how we might have eternal life in him.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— 16 just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ 17 And the Lord said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.

In this passage Moses is speaking to the people of Israel before they enter the Promised Land.

This is after God has led Israel out of Egypt.

This is after God gave them the 10 Commandments and the Law.

And this is after God led Israel in the wilderness for 40 years in order to kill off the generation that did not trust that God would give them the Promised Land even though they had seen for themselves the power of God in delivering them out of Egypt.

So now that that faithless generation is dead and gone, Moses is speaking to their children and the entire book of Deuteronomy is Moses leading them to renew the covenant God had made with their parents.

In that covenant Israel promised to keep God’s law and God promised that if they did, he would give them the Promised Land and bless them in it.

And here is what you need to remember about the Old Covenant or else you’ll start twisting God into something he is not.

Some people think the Old Testament is all about obeying rules and the New Testament is about God’s grace.

But here’s the thing. God didn’t command Israel to keep his law so that they could be his people. They already were his people.

According to , God had saved them and chosen them solely based on his gracious will.

So then, why did God give the Law? The reason is because God had chosen Israel to be his people and to be a light to the nations of his salvation. To be that light, God gave them the Law so that Israel could reflect God’s holiness to the world so that God might be worshiped by all people as the Holy and True God.

So then, why did God give the Law? The reason God gave them the Law was to show Israel what it looked like to be his holy people.

In choosing Israel, God set his covenantal love on them as his holy, set apart people.

Therefore, if Israel was truly going to be God’s people, they needed to be taught what that actually looked like hence, the Law.

You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.

God gave Israel the law to show them what it looked like to walk in his covenantal love. What it looked like to be his people and worship him alone and turn from the idols of the world.

Israel’s obedience to God’s Law was meant to be the natural outworking of their identity as God’s chosen people. Not the means by which they became God’s people.

For the people of Israel, their obedience to God’s Law was always meant to be a reflection their status as God’s chosen people. It was never given to make Israel earn God’s love by purchasing forgiveness through their good works.

So just like us today, their obedience to the Law did not earn God’s love and forgiveness. Instead, they were called to obey because God already had loved them and chosen them to be his holy people.

That’s why Israel’s worship was so tied up with obeying the Law. Their obedience was how they worshiped God because by obeying God’s commands Israel was effectively saying God is as holy as he says he is and therefore deserves all our worship.

To lay it out for you, God wanted his people to be holy so that they could worship God for his own holiness which they would be constantly reminded of by obeying all of God’s Law.

And their obedience to God’s commands would not only

If God’s

By choosing Israel as his people, God was showing the world who he was through the witness of Israel. Therefore, if Israel was truly going to be God’s people and be a light to the nations of God’s salvation, then they needed to live like it.

So by giving the Law God was trying to show not only Israel but all the nations that he was a holy God and completely different than the false gods of the world.

So God gave the law to Israel so that they could worship him as a holy God by obeying his commands while at the same time showing all the nations a picture of God’s glory so that they would repent and trust in him for salvation.

So God gave them the Law so that by obeying it, Israel could show the nations what God was really like. They were to be a light to the world of

So the reason God gave his people the Law was not so that they would have a list of rules they could check off in order to earn God’s love. God gave them the law to show not only Israel, but all the nations that he was a holy God and completely different than the false gods of the world.

But by the time Moses was renewing the covenant in Deuteronomy, Israel had already failed to worship God time and time again since coming out of Egypt and they needed a Prophet like Moses to continually remind them of who God is and what it means to worship him.

You must hear me clearly. Israel’s status as God’s chosen people was secure by God’s grace. However, to receive the blessings that came with living in covenantal relationship with God, Israel had to actually walk in his covenantal love by obeying his commands.

Instead, God makes Israel’s obedience to the law the condition for enjoying the blessings of the Promised Land.

Basically, if Israel obeyed God, then he would let them live in the Promised Land under his blessing. But if they disobeyed, then God promised to remove them from the Land. Not to remove them from his people, but to remove them from his blessing.

It wasn’t that their obedience made them God’s people. God had already called them his people in Egypt time and time again before he had even given them the Law.

Their obedience was proof that they were walking in God’s covenantal love. That they had turned from all other idols and worshiped Him alone.

This is why, years later, the Assyrians and the Babylonians would remove God’s people from the Land and take them into exile. They rejected God’s Law and chose to worship false gods instead.

But before all that happens, Moses is warning this generation of the importance of walking in God’s covenant if they are going to stay in the promised land.

Just before our passage Moses said When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations.

And then he describes those abominable practices as child sacrifices and witchcraft.

And so to God promised Israel that he would raise up another prophet in , and this prophet was ultimately a promise that pointed to Jesus Christ who was sent speak God’s Word and lead his people into eternal life.

And by doing so, God was pointing to the Christ who he would send to speak his Word and lead his people into eternal life.

I. Christ is the Promised Prophet

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen.

Throughout all the OT, a prophet was a spokesperson for God. They stood in front of the people of Israel and spoke directly for God on his behalf.

Many people assume that prophecy only deals with predictions of the future. While the prophets of the Old Testament definitely did predict the future on several occasions, to reduce prophecy nothing more than predictions is a mistake.

The Prophet’s primary function was to remind Israel who God is and to call them back to repentance.

So when a prophet would prophesy, it was less about predicting the future and more about speaking God’s Word on his behalf to lead God’s people in salvation.

And Moses promised that God would raise up a prophet that would be like him from among the people of Israel to lead God’s people in faithfulness.

And here is why this is significant. In , Peter says that Moses’ prophecy was fulfilled in Christ.

Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, 20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, 21 whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

22 Moses said, “The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. 23 And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.”

Jesus is the Prophet who was promised in . He was the one sent by God to proclaim God’s Word. To show his people who God truly is and teach them what it means to have eternal life through his gospel.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Even during his earthly ministry, people recognized Jesus as this prophet.

After Jesus fed 5,000 people, they said This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!

Jesus even recognized himself as this Prophet because he said in For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. 47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

This is such a mind blowing statement because Jesus is essentially saying, I am the one Moses talked about. I am the promised Messiah, the Christ who has been sent into the world to reveal God and to save sinners!

And the author of Hebrews even confirms that Christ is the greater Moses in .

prophet like Moses but according to , he is the greater Moses.

For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. 4 (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) 5 Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, 6 but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.

In this passage, the author likens the people of God to God’s house and says that Jesus is worthy of more glory than Moses because Moses was faithful as a servant in the house whereas Christ was faithful as a Son.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Now why is it so significant to say that Jesus is a prophet that is like Moses but who is also greater than Moses?

The answer is because Moses was always meant to be a type of Christ. He was meant to show God’s people a small picture of what God would ultimately accomplish in his Messiah. Let me show you what I mean.

Prophets of Deliverance

First, both Moses and Jesus were Prophets of Deliverance.

Moses

In the book of Exodus, Pharoah enslaved the Jewish people because they were so large that he was afraid they would rebel against his kingdom and side with Egypt’s enemies if they were ever invaded.

And During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. 24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.

During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. 24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.

The people of Israel were suffering in their slavery so they cried to God to deliver them. God saw them and God knew their pain so God raised up Moses.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Then Moses went to Pharoah as a prophet saying Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, “Let my people go.”

And of course Pharoah refuses and God pours out judgement on the land of Egypt until Pharoah relents and lets God’s people go.

But, Pharoah changed his mind and chased after Israel to kill them and enslave them again so God parts the Red Sea and the people walk through on dry ground until all were safe.

God then drowned Pharoah and his army as they pursued the Jews and redeemed Israel from the slavery and suffering.

But where Moses delivered the people of Israel from slavery to the Egyptians, Christ delivered us from the slavery to sin and death.

Christ

Where Moses delivered the people of Israel from slavery to the Egyptians, Christ is the greater Prophet who delivers his people from their slavery to sin and death.

Prophets of the Law

Second, Moses and Jesus were both Prophets of the Law.

Where Moses gave the Law to the people of God, Christ fulfilled the law on our behalf.

Christ didn’t just teach God’s Law, he actually fulfilled it on our behalf.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

When Jesus says he came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, that is the OT, he is saying that he came to obey them perfectly on our behalf so that he could be the perfect sacrifice for our sins.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

But that is not all. Moses gave the Law by writing it on two tablets of stone.

This led to a massive problem. Now Israel knew God’s Law, but they did not have the ability to obey it perfectly like God commanded because they still had dead sinful hearts that desired their sin more than God.

But Christ, as the mediator of the New Covenant actually writes God’s Law on our hearts. In doing so, he gives us new hearts with new desires that no longer want to live for sin but live for him.

Not only that, but he fills us with the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin and empower us to put our sin to death by God’s grace.

In , Paul says that gave God’s Law but the law that promised life actually gave death because we could not obey it in our own power.

We needed Jesus, the new Prophet of the Law to not only teach us the Law, but to obey it on our behalf and give us new hearts that long to worship God instead of disobey him.

Prophets of Worship

But those aren’t the only ways Christ is superior to Moses. Moses was only a man who spoke God’s Word on God’s behalf. Christ is the the Word made flesh. He not only speaks for the Lord, he is the Lord.

Christ is the greater Prophet promised by Moses because he is, point number two, the Incarnate Prophet. After promising that God would raise up another prophet like him Moses said...

Finally, both Jesus and Moses were Prophets of God’s Word.

In there are some people who are challenging Moses saying that he is not the only one who speaks for the Lord as his Prophet. In response God comes and defends Moses saying

And he said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. 7 Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. 8 With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord.

God’s point is that Moses speaks clearly on God’s behalf, because he speaks directly with God about God’s people.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

But again, Jesus is the greater Prophet because he not only speaks God’s Word, he is God’s Word.

says that Jesus is the Word made flesh.

And In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Where Moses spoke on behalf of the Lord, Jesus himself is the Lord.

In Israel, not even Moses was able to see God’s glory, but in Christ

II. The Incarnate Prophet

just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ 17 And the Lord said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken.

Now let me do a little background work for you to truly understand what this passage is saying.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

When Moses said just as you desired at Mount Horeb, he is referring to when God first gave the Law to his people.

After Moses gave the 10 Commandments Mount Horeb was covered in lighting, flames, thunder and smoke because God was displaying his glory so his people would fear him and worship him alone.

And God’s glory terrified the people of Israel because they knew that they were sinful and deserved his judgement. That they had no right to stand in his presence because he is a holy God, so they told Moses that he needed to be their mediator.

They knew that if God spoke directly to them, they would die for their sin because they were unclean.

Here’s why this is such a big deal. God is so holy, so other than us, so pure and perfect in righteousness that unless he took the initiative to reveal himself, we could not know him.

We need a Prophet who can stand between us and God as our mediator to reveal who God is so that we can worship him.

There is nothing we could ever do to reach up to God. The only reason we know him is because he is gracious enough to reveal himself through his Word.

That was what Moses was doing as a Prophet. He was giving Israel God’s Word to reveal who God is and what it means to worship him.

But Jesus, as the greater prophet, does not just preach God’s Word, he is God’s Word.

says that Jesus is the Word made flesh. He has perfectly revealed the Father and shown us that to worship God we must be forgiven of our sin and born again.

; And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth...For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

This is why we celebrate and worship Christ as our Prophet. In his incarnation he has brought us near to God and made God’s glory known to us so that we can worship him in spirit and truth through faith in the gospel.

In Moses, we received the Law of God which showed us a picture of God’s perfect holiness. But in Christ, we received grace and truth.

Grace because he has obeyed the law on our behalf and paid for our sins in his death and resurrection

And truth because through faith in the truth of his gospel, we are saved.

Christmas is not just about a baby born in a manger. It is about God becoming a man in Jesus Christ to show God’s glory and to save us from our sins.

The big idea is that we needed Jesus to be our prophet so that we could:

Know who God is

The reason we celebrate Christmas is because we want to worship God for revealing himself and his salvation to us in the incarnation of Christ.

If you are unfamiliar with that term it is the word theologians use to talk about God becoming a man in Jesus. That Jesus is truly and fully God and truly and fully man.

And in his life, Jesus showed us perfectly who the Father truly is. That’s why John says in : we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father and again No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

The Author of Hebrews even says that He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Here is why this is so amazing. Earlier in Deuteronomy, the people of Israel knew that they could not stand in God’s presence without dying for their sin, and God said that they were right in what they said.

Incarnation

So God, being rich in grace and mercy, did not leave us in our sin, but took upon himself human flesh. He came to earth in Jesus Christ to show us who he is and not only that, but to also accomplish salvation on our behalf.

Jesus is the God man. That means he is truly and fully God and at the same time truly and fully man.

You see, God did not create us to live in the death and brokenness that we experience in this world. He created us to know him and worship his glory. To be in relationship with him. To be connected to the fountain of living waters. To have all the desires of our hearts satisfied in him and him alone. That is what it means to have the fullness of life.

Speaking of this, Paul wrote in [Jesus], though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

But because of our sin, we were completely blind to God’s glory. Our minds and hearts were darkened and we had no hope of knowing God much less to live in relationship with him.

Have you ever considered how amazing it is that God became a man, to suffer and die on the cross, just to save sinful people like you and me?

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Paul said They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

But Jesus came as our Prophet and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.

Without the work of Christ as our Prophet, we would have never known God, never had our eyes open to the sin and death we were living in, and never known that the only way we can be saved is through faith in his gospel.

This is why John wrote ; In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it...But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Jesus, the incarnate Christ, the Prophet promised by God is the light that opens blind eyes. He cuts through the darkness of sin and death and he overcomes our sin on our behalf.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

In Christ, we are able to know God and be born again. Through his gospel, we are given eternal life and freed from our sin to worship him alone.

In fact, this is how Jesus understood his own ministry as a prophet.

One Sabbath, Jesus went to the synagogue to worship with God’s people, and while there he took the scroll of Isaiah and read 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, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

and recovering of sight to the blind,

And then he said in Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

to set at liberty those who are oppressed,

19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Jesus is the incarnate Prophet. He is God made flesh sent to preach peace to those who were far off from salvation

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

He came into the world to show us who God is and that if we want to have eternal life we must know him.

That we can be freed from our sin and idolatry and escape the coming judgement if we just put our faith in Jesus and his sinless life, sacrificial death, and bodily resurrection.

Jesus is the incarnate prophet who was promised by Moses. .

In the first point of this sermon we looked at how Moses promised the Christ would be a prophet like him, but superior to him.

And if Jesus really is this Prophet, then it is imperative that we listen to what he had to say.

Then, we just looked at how Christ is the perfect Prophet because he is God incarnate. Even though we were blind in our sin, he made God known to us and prophesied that if we are going to be saved we must be born again through faith in him.

So I want to spend the last section of this sermon by looking at what Christ said on God’s behalf. What was he sent to prophesy as the Promised Prophet?

Finally, there is no point in knowing someone is a prophet if you aren’t willing to listen to what they have to say, so I want to spend the last section of this sermon looking at the Prophecies of Chri

III. The Prophecies of Christ

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.

So God is telling Israel that he is going to raise up a new prophet and this prophet will speak directly for God. And because this prophet will speak directly for God, God says that if anyone does not listen to this prophet, he will require it of them. What exactly does that mean?

Peter interpreted this for us earlier in . Moses said, “The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.

Basically, that if we do not listen to Jesus we will not be a part of God’s people and we will be destroyed in the coming judgement against sin.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .It simply means that God is going to hold people accountable to listen to what his Prophet says. That even if they refuse to listen to the Prophet, God is still going to hold them accountable as those that should have listened to him.

That is, whatever this prophet speaks on behalf of God, God is going to expect every person to live in accordance with his words.

So that being the case, what did Jesus say that we must be careful to listen to?

; And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. 45 And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. 46 I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.

This is Jesus talking about himself as the Prophet who reveals God and opens blind eyes so people might be saved.

And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. 45 And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. 46 I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.

For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. 50 And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.

Jesus says that he has been commanded to preach eternal life to God’s people. That is his message. That is what he has been commanded to prophesy as the Promised Prophet.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

And Jesus even goes a step further. He says that the word God has told him to speak is eternal life.

That God does not want people to die in their sins, but to trust in him for salvation through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This begs the question. What exactly is eternal life?

Thankfully, Jesus told us what eternal life is in And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Eternal life is not an etherial concept. It is knowing the God of the Universe through faith in Jesus Christ. And why this is eternal life is because by knowing God, we see his glory and worship him for who he is.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

And by worshiping him, we find the fullness of life in him so that we no longer desire to try to find life through our sin which the Bible calls works of death. That is what it means to be saved.

And this salvation is what Jesus spent his whole ministry preaching to all that would listen, and he continues to preach salvation today through his Word and if any person refuses to listen, God will require it of them and instead enjoying eternal life, they will suffer eternal death.

So if it is so important that we listen to Jesus as God’s Promised Prophet, what exactly did he say during his earthly ministry about eternal life.

To answer that, we could look all over any of the gospels, but this morning, I want to us to walk through Jesus’ seven “I am” statements found in the Gospel of John.

These are significant for us for two reasons. First, they were one of the ways Jesus claimed to be God Incarnate.

When God called Moses to go to Egypt and redeem his people, Moses asked “Who should I say sent me?”

And God said to tell them, “I AM has sent me to you.” I Am is translated from the Hebrew word Yaweh which is the Old Testament name God used with His people.

When Jesus said I am and then followed it up with one of the metaphors we are going to look at, he was pointing to the fact that he was God.

Second, Jesus used each of these seven sayings to give a fuller picture of his salvation. He used these metaphors to help people see how he is the one who actually gives the eternal life that the Father sent him to preach.

I Am the Bread of Life

I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

Jesus said this, the day after he fed 5,000 people. And these people came to Jesus the next day just as hungry as the day before and instead of feeding them again Jesus says I am the bread of life.

This naturally confused the people because they did not hear what Jesus was trying to say. Jesus’ point was that he is the only bread that will never leave us hungry.

You see, God created us to enjoy eternal life which we saw earlier in is to know God and worship him. But after we sinned, death became our reality.

And ever since, every person that has ever lived has been searching for eternal life, has been looking for a way to satisfy all the desires of our heart. The only problem is that instead of turning to God who is the only source of life, we try to find the fullness of life in our sin.

That’s because we believe sin’s lie that if we just have that sin, even for a moment, then our life will finally be fulfilled, be satisfied. That we will once again know the fullness of life that we’ve been searching for even though we are looking for it in works of death.

Dear Christian, sin does not give life. It will always leave us hungry and thirsty, desperate for more. If sin really could give the life that it promised, its exhilaration would not wear off so fast. And yet we foolishly keep going back to it thinking this time, this time it will satisfy.

But here’s the thing. Sin always lies. It never delivers the fullness of life that it promises because it only leads to death.

This is why Jesus says he is the bread of life. He is the only one that can satisfy our hunger, our longing for eternal life.

And Jesus promises that if we want to never hunger or thirst again, that if we want to have eternal life, all we need to do is eat the bread of life by putting our faith in him.

Jesus himself said in And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .There is a longing in the heart of every person that demands to be satisfied and we have been looking for it ever since the Fall. Whe

There is a longing in the heart of every person that demands to be satisfied and we have been looking for it ever since the Fall. Whe

I Am the Light of the World

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

By saying that he is the light of the world, Jesus is saying that he is the one who illuminates the darkness. Who peels back the lies and deception that keeps us enslaved to sin.

We saw earlier how you and I are blind in our sin, alienated from the life that is found only in God, and it is not insignificant that Jesus says this just one chapter before he heals a man born blind.

When we live in sin, we are like a man born blind unable to find eternal life and instead are destined to take each step groping in the darkness.

But Jesus promises that if we follow him, if we trust what he says and live our lives according to it, then we will no longer be blind in our sin but we will have the light of life.

Jesus, as the light of the World opens the eyes of every person born blind in their sin so that they can have faith in his gospel and walk in the newness of eternal life.

I Am the Door of the Sheep

Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

In the Bible, God commonly uses sheep as a metaphor for his people. Therefore, the sheep in this verse are the people of God.

And Jesus says that he is the door. That he is the gate. If someone wants to enter the sheep pen of God’s people, they must enter through the door God has fixed, through faith in Jesus Christ.

And if we enter through faith in Christ, Jesus says we will be saved, that we will go in and out to find pasture, and we will be God’s people who have life and have it abundantly.

But that is not where Jesus stops. In the very next verse he has another I Am statement.

We are protected from Satan who tempts us with false teaching and our own sin and instead we

I Am the Good Shepherd

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Not only is Jesus the door to the sheep, he is also the shepherd of the sheep.

For Jesus to be the door of the sheep and give eternal life like he promised, he had to lay down his life for his people.

This is because our sin deserves God’s wrath and so Christ paid our debt of sin on our behalf by dying on the cross in our place.

Jesus, as the good shepherd, laid down his life for us so that we could be forgiven.

Both of these metaphors together tell us that if we want to be a part of God’s people, to have eternal life, we must enter through faith in Christ, and Christ made this possible because he died in our place for our sins.

Jesus truly is the door of salvation because he is the good shepherd who accomplishes salvation by laying down his life on behalf of his people.

I Am the Resurrection and the Life

I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

Jesus said this on the way to the funeral of his good friend Lazarus. On his way, Lazarus’ sister, Martha, ran out to meet him and when she got to Jesus she said Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.

Jesus then tells her that her brother will rise again, and Martha takes that to mean the resurrection on the last day when God gathers his people and lives with them on the earth.

That’s when Jesus says no Martha you don’t understand, I am the resurrection and the life.

He is the one with the power to give life and raise the dead on the last day because he is the one who conquered sin and death through his resurrection.

And if we believe in him, he will give us victory over death and he will raise us up on the last day to worship God forever in heaven.

I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Here again, Jesus emphasizes that eternal life is found in him and no one else.

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus is the way to God the Father because there is salvation in no other name.

He is the truth because he is the Promised Prophet who preached eternal life and made God known to his people.

He is the life because his life, death, and resurrection saves us from suffering eternal death for our sin.

Only Christ and his gospel are able to deal with the problem of our sin that alienates us from God because it is only through faith in him that we can be forgiven of our sin and accepted into God’s holy presence.

Not only does this mean that no other religion leads to salvation, it also means that even worldly attempts to earn God’s love and forgiveness don’t work.

Likewise, no one else speaks on God’s behalf and therefore cannot teach people the way to eternal life.

Being a good person or obeying God does not earn someone eternal life. Life only comes through

Finally, only Christ and his gospel are able to deal with the problem of our sin that alienates us from God because it is only through faith in him that we can be forgiven of our sin and accepted into God’s holy presence.

Nothing else has the power to save other than Christ because he alone is the way the truth and the life.

I Am the True Vine

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches.

This is probably the most technical and unfamiliar statement of the bunch.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

When Jesus says I am the true vine, he is contrasting himself with the nation of Israel.

Multiple times in the Old Testament, God calls Israel his vineyard. One example is in where Isaiah tells the story of a vineyard that was planted in love and tended with care, but instead of growing good grapes, this vineyard grew wild, inedible grapes. Israel is that vineyard and God is the one who planted it with tender care.

Now what does this have to do with ? When Jesus says that he is the true vine, he is saving that salvation is in him alone and not in the nation of Israel.

Just being born a Jew or obeying God’s Law didn’t save anyone. The only thing that saves people is being connected to the true vine of God’s salvation. In other words, it is only through faith in Jesus that we are saved and made a part of God’s people.

The Father as the vine dresser is constantly pruning the branches of the vine. And he is pruning two kinds of branches.

First, there are those branches that don’t produce any fruit which the Father removes.

These are people who are deceived about their salvation. In Jesus’ day they might have been Jews who thought they were right with God simply because they were Jewish and today it would include professing Christians who say they love Jesus but have not fruit in their life to prove that is true.

Then there are branches he prunes. These are followers of Jesus who God prunes so that they can bear more fruit.

What is this fruit? It is the fruit of a godly life. It is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control ().

And Jesus says we will produce this fruit if we abide in him.

There are two other places in John where Jesus talks about his disciples abiding in him or abiding in his love in and 10. In both of those, Jesus defines abiding in him as keeping his word or obeying his commands.

So when Jesus said that he is the true vine, he was saying that it is only through him that God saves sinners. And those that God saves will always produce the fruit of a godly life by obeying his word.

But if anyone is not connected to the vine through faith, the

This is probably the most important I Am statement for our immediate context. We live in a culture that says following Jesus can mean whatever you want it to mean. That there’s no need to obey God because we are all saved by God’s grace and God’s grace alone.

Amen. I completely believe that. But here’s the scary thing, Jesus, the Promised Prophet, who God himself said we must listen to whole-heartedly, said that the way you know that you have been saved by God’s grace is if your life bears fruit.

With no fruit of a godly life, Jesus says you are deceived about your salvation and in danger of being removed by the Father.

Now this doesn’t mean a Christian won’t suffer periods of drought or struggle with obedience. Of course we will. But it does mean that when someone looks at the entirety of our life, they should see evidence of God’s grace at work in our life.

But anytime you start talking about the need for Christians to obey in our culture, people immediately start labeling you as legalistic or religious.

Dear Christian, let me explain to you what legalism truly is.

Legalism is when you believe that God saves you or loves you on the basis of what you do. On whether or not you are good enough or obey enough.

Legalism happen

Its what happens when we turn following Jesus into a checklist of dos and don’ts.

But calling Christians to obedience is not legalism. Its discipleship.

Obedience on the other hand is the natural outwork of God’s grace in us. We don’t obey to earn God’s love. We obey because God has already loved us in Christ.

Jesus himself said in If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Our obedience is not how we earn God’s love. It is how we love God for saving us.

At some point, if someone is truly saved, truly changed from the heart by God’s grace, then they will no longer live for their sin but will put that sin to death.

They will not only trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins, but they will also obey him as the Lord of their life.

Jesus’ point in this I am statement that he is the vine of God’s salvation and the branches that are truly connected to him, branches that truly have eternal life through faith in the gospel, will bear fruit.

Eternal life only comes through the grace of Christ and that grace will always show itself in the life of the believer through godly living.

Jesus is God and he is the only one that gives eternal life.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Application

What does it look like to worship Christ as our heavenly prophet?

By way of application let me give you two suggestions.

First, praise God that he sent Jesus to make known God’s glory and to show us the path to eternal life.

Without Christ’s ministry as our prophet, we would still be blind in our sin, living in darkness with no hope of salvation.

Let this Christmas be a season where we celebrate that God became a man so that we could know him and be saved from our sins.

Second, listen to Christ’s words.

In , God said that we must listen to the prophet that he would raise up.

And how we listen to Christ today is through his Word, the Bible. We should read it, meditate on it, and obey it.

The Word of God should be central to all our life as Christians because it is how God continues to speak today to show us what it means to walk in the newness of life and live for his glory.

To show us what it means to walk in the newness of life

And by listen, I don’t mean just passively hear, but actively obey.

Conclusion

Throughout the Old Testament, God promised to send the Christ, the Messiah who would save his people from their sins.

And fulfilled this promise in Jesus, who was born of a virgin to serve as our Mediator. And as our Mediator, Christ fulfilled three offices to draw us near to God.

This morning we looked how Jesus is our Prophet who reveals God and proclaims the good news of his salvation that leads to eternal life.

In the coming weeks we will look at how Jesus is our priest who reconciles us to God through his blood on the cross and how he is our King who rules over all things as the King of kings and Lord of lords.

This Christmas, let us not just celebrate a baby born in a manger, but let us celebrate the Christ born in human flesh to bring salvation to all God’s people.

Let’s Pray

Scripture Reading

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

the way the truth the life

English Standard Version Chapter 7

37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Division Among the People

40 When they heard these words, some of the people said, “This really is the Prophet.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Related Media

Related Sermons

The Promised Prophet

Intro

I. Christ is the Promised Prophet

Prophets of Deliverance

Moses

Christ

Prophets of the Law

Prophets of Worship

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II. The Incarnate Prophet

Incarnation

III. The Prophecies of Christ

I Am the Bread of Life

I Am the Light of the World

I Am the Door of the Sheep

I Am the Good Shepherd

I Am the Resurrection and the Life

I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life

I Am the True Vine

Application

Conclusion

Let’s Pray

Scripture Reading