We're going to read our first passage on the little booklet. It's on page 3. We're going to read in Isaiah chapter 1.
We're going to read from verse 15 to verse 20.
So it's on page 3 of the little booklet, so if you're using the church Bible, you'll find it around page 684.
Isaiah chapter 1.
And we're reading from verse 15 down to verse 20.
So Isaiah here is speaking about God's people in his day, which was about 700 years before Jesus came.
So we're looking back a long way, and he's speaking to his people who were in trouble.
And we see a little bit of why they were in trouble in these verses.
They had forgotten God.
So we're going to read from verse 15 to verse 20.
When you spread your hands, I will hide my eyes from you.
Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves.
Make yourselves clean.
Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes.
Cease to do evil.
Learn to do good.
Seek justice.
Correct oppression.
Bring justice to the fatherless.
Plead the widow's cause.
Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord.
Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.
But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
May God bless that reading to us.
It's where our Bible verse for yesterday came from.
Verse 18 there, where it speaks about our sins are like scarlet, yet they shall be as white as snow.
Now what's your favorite thing about Christmas time?
Anybody want to give me an answer?
What's your favorite thing about Christmas time?
Just shout out an answer to me.
You don't have to put up your hand.
Anybody want?
Christmas dinner.
Food.
That came from both sides of the pews there.
Food's very important at Christmas time.
Anything else?
What was that?
Presents.
Yes, presents are also important as well.
So there's lots of different things.
They're important for Christmas.
Food and presents.
Nobody mentioned snow.
Anybody want a white Christmas?
Snow can be fun, but it can also be dangerous.
There's two sides of snow.
It can be good fun.
When I was younger, seems a long time ago now, but I remember when winters were a lot more snow than we seem to get now.
And I remember one winter in particular where there was so much snow, the street on which I lived was blocked with the snow.
And a digger had to come and dig out the snow off the road so we could start to get out in the cars again.
It's hard to believe that maybe.
And yet, when I say to my parents, when I speak to my parents about it, they say we used to have even more snow.
Remember my mother saying that once when she opened the front door, she couldn't get out because it was just a wall of snow.
There was that much snow.
And we don't seem to get as much snow in the winter now.
But when we do, it can be good fun.
We like to go out maybe sledging or building snowmen or having snowball fights and these kinds of things.
And today we're going to be thinking about snow in the service.
Thinking about snow, but think about in particular just how white, how bright snow can be.
When there's a lot of snow around and if the sun comes out, it can be so bright, you sometimes have to wear sunglasses because it can be so blinding.
And that's the kind of description that we see of the snow here in Isaiah.
Isaiah chapter 1 verse 18,
Though your sins are like scarred, they shall be as white as snow.
They're going to be bright.
They're going to be clean.
And this verse reminds us of two things.
One is, we've got a problem.
There's something wrong.
Because it's speaking about sin.
And sin is a problem for all of us.
It's like a dirty mark that it leaves in our lives.
But it also reminds us too that we need something or someone to take away our sin.
And that's what we've been thinking about at the Christmas club.
This idea of sin being dirty and we need someone to wash our sins away.
Now, very often in church I wear a nice white shirt.
Nice clean white shirt.
And I've got another one here.
Nice white shirt.
But there's a little problem with it.
You see, when you have a bacon roll in the morning and you put tomato sauce on your bacon roll,
it can sometimes make a little mess.
So I'm not sure what's going to happen to this.
How are we going to wash this away?
But I couldn't wear it today.
I don't think it's too dirty.
And that's what sin is like.
Sin is like that tomato sauce.
It's just on us.
It makes us dirty.
And we need something to wash our sin away.
And one of the songs we sang at the Christmas club yesterday,
it spoke about this.
And it said in the song,
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
And it sounds a little bit strange that.
How can our sins be washed away with blood when blood seems to be dirty?
Well, what it's saying is that Jesus came to pay the price for our sin.
The way our sin is washed away is by Jesus giving himself,
giving his life for our sin.
And that's what this verse is speaking to us about.
Though our sins be like scarlet,
though our sins be so dirty in our lives,
Jesus came to wash our sin away.
And that's what we're going to look at as we go through the sermon this morning.
There's going to be three little things we're going to look at.
But before we come to the first one of these,
which is Jesus predicted,
we're going to sing together first.
We're going to sing in Psalm 51.
And again, you find this on the little booklets on page 4.
Or if you're in the Psalm books, page 281.
It's the Scottish Psalter version.
And this is a psalm that speaks about our sin.
But it also speaks about our sins being washed away.
So we're going to sing Psalm 51, verse 5 to 10.
And you see in verse 7 there,
it speaks about us being washed.
Do thou with hyssop sprinkle me,
I shall be cleansed so.
Yea, wash thou me,
and then I shall be whiter than the snow.
So we're going to stand to sing,
verse 5 to 10.
And at this point,
the younger ones can go out to the tweenies
during the singing.
So we'll stand to sing to God's praise.
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In guiltiness and sin
Behold our in the inward heart
With duty I live art
Our wisdom, our child, make me know
Within the hidden heart
To the wicked soul sing the lead
I shall be blessed soul
They watch the dream
And then I shall be whiter than the snow
O God, Son of Joyfulness
Make me to hear the voice
That's all this very full switch
That's broken may rejoice
All my iniquities, O God
By faith I hold myself
Behold our iniquities, O God
Arise, O God
Amen
We're going to look at the first part of our sermon today
And it's Jesus predicted that we're going to think about
And this is based on our reading in Isaiah
Chapter 1, verse 15 to 20
Jesus predicted
What does the word predict mean?
It's like trying to guess in some ways
What's going to happen
Some people like to try and predict the football scores
They look at who's playing who
And they try and predict what the score is going to be
And it's not always easy to get that right
Others try and predict what the weather is going to be like
They look at the charts
And they look at what's happening
And they say, well, it's going to be windy
Or it's going to be dry
It's going to be sunny
They try and predict the weather
But again, it's hard to get that right as well
There's so many things we can try and predict
But in many ways, what we're trying to do is guess what's going to happen
But when we look at Isaiah
And as we think of what Isaiah was saying in his day
He was predicting Jesus
But not in a way where he was guessing what was going to happen
You see, when he was looking at this
He was telling something that was certain
Something that was true
Something that was sure and guaranteed
Because God was giving him a message
Isaiah was what we call a prophet
That is someone who came with a message to tell the people from God
So everything that he was predicting came to pass
And it's amazing when you think of Isaiah
He lived 700 years before Jesus was born
And yet, throughout Isaiah's writing
All you see is him speaking about Jesus in many different ways
Isaiah 53 is a very famous chapter
Where it speaks about how Jesus would die for our sins
And you've got other passages like Isaiah 9 or Isaiah 6
That talk about Jesus' birth
And here in chapter 1 we're seeing in verse 18
How Jesus is being shown even here
When speaking about our sins
That will be dirty like scarlet
They will be whiter than the snow
This is because of what Jesus is going to do
But Isaiah was writing to the people
Because the people were in trouble
And what trouble were they in?
They had forgotten about God
And back in the days long before Isaiah
There was a man called Moses
And in a book in the Bible, Deuteronomy
Moses warned by God the people
Saying, be careful
In chapter 6 of Deuteronomy verse 12
Be careful, take care lest you forget the Lord
Because the people are going to have so many different things
It's like Christmas had come for them
They got everything that they wanted
They went into a land as is described
Flowing with milk and honey
They had everything that they wanted in life
And yet they forgot God
And that's something that happens again and again and again
And it happens with us
Do you forget God?
Hands up if you forget God
There's times I have to say
I forget God
We all do
We all forget God at some times
Because we think we can do without Him
We can manage fine on our own
And we can forget how important God is
Because it's always a danger to us
And especially as we think of Christmas time
A time when we're supposed to be thinking about
The wonder of Jesus coming into the world
How amazing it is that Jesus was born
And yet we can get distracted
We can forget about Jesus
Jesus who was promised to us
Somebody put it like this
To see Christmas through its wrappings
Becomes more and more difficult every year
So Christmas becomes so busy
Whether it's food or presents
Snowmen or sledging
These things can be fun and good and right
But the danger is that we forget about God
And so that's why we were doing it at the Christmas club yesterday
We were doing all kinds of different crafts and different stories
Reminding ourselves of just how precious Jesus is
Remember you did your snow globe
Did you all make these?
You all got them switched on at home?
Yeah?
Or did anybody give away to somebody else?
Or did you have it yourself?
Now the important thing on this is
The verse that's on it
Because the verse is this verse from Isaiah
Though your sins are like scarlet
They shall be as white as snow
So there's a reminder to us
So we are helped not to forget
Jesus was predicted by Isaiah
He was saying that Jesus is going to come
700 years after he said it
That promise, that prediction came through
Jesus came into the world
And why did Jesus come?
Because we had forgotten about God
It was like we couldn't find a way back to God by ourselves
But Jesus came to show us that way
You think of the little lights in here
It shines bright
Switch off the lights in here
And you'll be able to see these lights very clearly
But Jesus is described as the light of the world
And he came to shine into the darkness of our sin
And show us the way back to God
Though our sins be dirty like scarlet
They shall be white as snow if we put our trust in Jesus
But the question with that is
Do we want Jesus in our lives?
Do we want to be right with God?
A man called Augustine
He put it like this
He said there's three different ways
That we can look at sin in our life
And he said the first way is this
Lord make me good
But not yet
Is that you today?
When you may be thinking about God
You're saying Lord I want to be good
But not yet
Because I want to go and enjoy life
Well that's a dangerous thing to do
Another way of putting it is like this
Lord make me good
But not completely
In other words I want a little bit of room in my life
Where I can be good for God
But I can also have a little bit of what I want for myself
That's not the way either
He said the third way is the way to go
He said Lord make me good
And the only way for that is
By being washed of our sin
By being as white as snow
By putting our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ
Jesus was predicted by Isaiah
That he would come into the world
To save us from our sin
What we couldn't fix
He came to fix for us
To take our sin away
So long before he came
Jesus was predicted
It wasn't a guess
It was something sure
Something true
And that's what we're going to look at
Secondly as we're going to read
Our second reading in Matthew's Gospel
And here we're going to see
How what Isaiah predicted
Became true
In Matthew chapter 1
Verse 18 to 23
So you'll find this
On your little booklet
On page 5 and 6
And also if you're using the church Bible
It's the first book in the New Testament
Around page 973
So Matthew chapter 1
And verse 18
Now the birth of Jesus Christ
Took place in this way
When his mother Mary
Had been betrothed to Joseph
Before they came together
She was found to be with child
From the Holy Spirit
And her husband Joseph
Being a just man
And unwilling to put her to shame
Resolved to divorce her quietly
But as he considered these things
An angel of the Lord
Appeared to him in a dream
Saying
Joseph son of David
Do not fear
To take Mary as your wife
For that which is conceived in her
Is from the Holy Spirit
She shall bear a son
And you shall call his name Jesus
For he will save his people
From their sins
All this took place to fulfill
What the Lord had spoken
By the prophet
Behold
The virgin shall conceive
And bear a son
And they shall call his name Emmanuel
Which means
God with us
So Jesus was
Predicted by Isaiah
But now we see Jesus
And pronounced means telling
That something has come to be
To be
Mary and Joseph
And Mary was going to have
And look at the way
This child is
Pronounced there
As the angel spoke to Joseph
In verse 21
And you shall call his name Jesus
For he will save his people
From their sins
And you see how that connects
With what Isaiah was saying
Isaiah was saying
And as Isaiah
It's quoted there at the end
In verse 23
So what we're saying is
Everything Isaiah said
Has come true
So he's predicted
And here we see pronounced
So Isaiah said that our sin
Is like scarlet
Our sin is dirty
But that our sin
Can become white
As snow
And here we see how
Because Jesus was coming
And it says in verse 21
For he will save his people
From their sins
He will save his people
From their sins
People have often made
They've tried to tell people
This is what is going to happen
And in many different ways
They thought they would get it right
For example in 1926
The man who invented
To make televisions
He said that
They're not going to become
They're not going to take off
Are going to have them
Well look at the world today
How long have you got television
In your house?
Most people will have televisions
Don't they?
And yet somebody once pronounced
They're not going to take off
They're not going to be popular
Nobody's going to want them
And now everybody has them
Same with computers
In 1943
A man who was chairman of IBM
A big computing company
Said the world market for computers
Will be how many do you think?
How many did he predict
That would be computers made?
How many?
Anyone want to have a wee guess?
Shout out
Give me a number
Have you been reading my notes?
It was
Five
I'm sure you're not reading my notes
Five computers he predicted
Imagine how many computers are in the world today
Thousands
Millions of computers
What about phones?
In 1980 somebody said
Phones aren't going to take off
I reckon there will be about
Maybe a million people in the world
Who will have phones one day
Well
In this year
It's reckoned that
70% of the world's population
Has a mobile phone
How many people is that?
It's nearly 6 billion people
Have a mobile phone
And somebody had said
Maybe only a million people
All of these pronouncements are made
And they're thinking
This is going to be what happens
But yet here we have a pronouncement
I see I made a prediction
And Matthew here is making this pronouncement
Through this angel who spoke to Joseph
That Jesus is come
And he will save his people
From their sins
How many people will he save?
Will it be just a few?
A small number?
No
It will be a great number
A number beyond anything we can imagine
Because he will save anyone
Who puts their trust in him
That is the pronouncement
It's pronouncements that the angels
Made to the shepherds
In Luke chapter 2
A verse we so often look at
At Christmas time
Luke 2 verse 10 and 11
The angel said to them
This is to the shepherds
Fear not
For behold I bring you
Good news of great joy
That will be for all the people
For unto you is born this day
In the city of David
A saviour who is Christ the Lord
A saviour is born
A pronouncement is made
Jesus has come
And he has come to save us
Think of snow
When you see it lying
And the place is white with snow
It looks like there is just
A large great big pile
But snow is made up
Of little snowflakes
Thousands and thousands
And make this great big pile of snow
Have you ever caught
A snowflake in your hand?
Or seen it land on your jacket?
Every snowflake is different
Not any one snowflake is like another
Each one has its own design
Each one is different
It's amazing to think
When you think all the snow
That falls in the world
And every snowflake is different
Yet that's just like us
There are billions of people in the world
And yet every one of us is unique
Every one of us is different
And yet Jesus sees us all
And he knows us all
And he came to invite us to himself
That we might know the forgiveness of our sin
Isaiah 1.18
Though your sins are like scarlet
They shall be as white as snow
How?
Because Jesus came to save his people
From their sins
His people
We are his people when we put our trust in him
He knows us each one by name
And he calls us to himself
When you get a present
Or a Christmas card
It often says two
And your name will be on it
So you know it's for you
Well, when Jesus gives us this great gift
He puts our name on it as well
He has come to save his people
From their sins
And we are his people
If we put our trust in him
Do any of you have an advent calendar?
Yeah, you're all working your way through it
What day are we on now?
Fourteen
There's not many left now
I've opened fourteen already this morning
After I made the mess with my bacon roll
And as you work your way through your advent calendar
What are we doing?
We're counting down, aren't we?
That's what we were doing at the Christmas club last year
The adventure club that we had
It was all about counting down to Christmas
And that's what we do every year
We count down to Christmas
But the danger is
That as we're counting down
We forget what Christmas is really about
Because remember what we're counting down to
Is a reminder to us
That Jesus came into the world
To save us from our sin
To wash away our sin
Jesus is so, so precious
He has been predicted
And by Isaiah
It's been pronounced
In Matthew and Luke
And these other gospels
And the third thing we want to see
The final thing we want to see just now
Is Jesus proclaimed
And we're going to read our last part of scripture
Which is in 1 Timothy
!
Chapter 1
Verse 12
To 17
So further on
In the New Testament
1 Timothy
Chapter 1
You'll find it around page 1193
Of the church Bibles
We're going to read verse
Chapter 1
Verse 12
To 17
Here we see a man called Paul
Thanking God for all that he has
1 Timothy
Verse 12
Of the little booklets
I thank him who has given me strength
Christ Jesus our Lord
Because he judged me faithful
Appointing me to his service
Though formerly I was a blasphemer
Persecuted and insolent opponent
But I received mercy
Because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief
And the grace of our Lord
Overflowed for me with the faith
And love that are in Christ Jesus
The saying is trustworthy
And deserving of full acceptance
That Christ Jesus came into the world
To save sinners
Of whom I am foremost
But I received mercy for this reason
That in me as the foremost
Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience
As an example to those who are to believe in him
For eternal life
To the king of ages
Immortal, invisible
Only God
Be honour and glory
Well Jesus came to live in this world
He was born into this world
But ultimately he died in this world
He died on the cross
And that is what he had to do
To wash our sin away
But although he died
It wasn't the end
You see for Jesus to show his power over sin
Something else was to happen
After he died
On the third day after
He rose from the grave
He is alive
And to this day
A risen saviour
And who will come
And this is the saviour that Paul
This man who wrote 1 Timothy
This is the saviour he came to know
And Paul as you see in some of the ways
He describes himself here
In his past he did many bad things
But in verse 14 it says
The grace of our Lord
Overflowed for me
With the faith and love
That are in Christ Jesus
This amazing gift that Jesus gave to Paul
And gives to all his people
Faith and love
That are in Christ Jesus
So this is how Paul
Was able to describe him
This great gift
That Paul received
Faith
What faith in Jesus gave to him
Was this new life
This new way
Of living
And in verse 15
He then says
The saying is trustworthy
And deserving of full acceptance
That Christ Jesus
Came into the world
To save sinners
Of whom I am foremost
Of whom he sees himself
As the worst of sinners
Is proclaiming
Jesus to others
Proclaiming Jesus
When we get a great gift
We want to share it
What did you get for Christmas
Hands up if you remember
Well a few people remember
Not everybody does
It's amazing how quickly
What you got for Christmas
What about two years ago
Or three years ago
Ten years ago
You forget
Don't we
We often forget
What we got for Christmas
And it's the same
With Jesus
We often forget
What Jesus has done for us
He had forgotten Jesus
In his past
He thought he was a good person
Because he was forgetting Jesus
But now that he's known Jesus
And what Jesus has done for him
He's proclaiming
He's telling others
That this Jesus is amazing
This Jesus is wonderful
This Jesus is a saviour
He can save us
And so he's making it known
He's sharing
If you were at the club yesterday
You were decorating cakes
How many cakes did you decorate?
Okay
Do you remember what you were meant to do with them?
One was for who?
Me
And one was for who else?
To give away to somebody
Hands up if you gave me
Hmm?
Who ate their cake?
Go on, be honest
Hands up
A few have eaten it, yeah
Right, second
Hands up if you gave a cake to somebody
Oh, more hands are going up for that
That's excellent
Most people have given away their cake to someone else
Because that's what it was about
It was about sharing with others
Give one to me
That's fine
But give one to somebody else
Because then you can be able to share with somebody
Might be a parent or a grandparent
Somebody like that
And so it's good to share
It's good to tell others
This is what I made for you
And it's good as we see what Paul is doing here
What he's doing is he's telling others about Jesus
He's not keeping it to himself
He's sharing it with others
And as you read through the Bible
What you see is Jesus being proclaimed
Jesus being shared with the whole world
So that people might know how precious he is
Another of the songs that we sang yesterday
Comes to mind for this
One night into the darkness
One star shining the brightest
Heaven couldn't contain the greatest news
Shepherds couldn't believe it
Wise men wanted to see it
God was sending his only son to earth
Joy sing and shout it
Tell the world about it
God is with us
That song is reminding us
That we are to proclaim Jesus
We cannot contain it
Because Jesus is the most precious thing
That we have in this world
There are so many people
When we think about what people make predictions about
People try and predict their football scores
Well sometimes then if their team wins
They like to proclaim it
They like to tell others
That my team beat yours
Doesn't happen for some often
But when it does
They let you know
They tell you that their team has won
And there are so many things in life
We love to proclaim
We love to tell others about
But what about when we hear Jesus proclaimed
Do we listen?
Do we listen to Jesus as he is proclaimed here?
And as we hear about Jesus
Do we proclaim him to others?
Do we share him with others?
So a woman in the Bible
She is often described as the woman of Samaria
And she met Jesus at a well
And when she heard about Jesus
When she knew who Jesus was
Even though she was afraid of many people in the village
That she came from
She went back
She went back and she said this to them
Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did
Can this be the Christ?
She wanted to proclaim Jesus to others
And what a reason that we have to proclaim Jesus
And what he has done for us
One of the songs we heard yesterday being played says
Jesus paid it all
All to him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow
That's from this verse in Isaiah that we were looking at
Though our sins are like scarlet
They shall be whiter than the snow
That is what we have
If we put our trust in Jesus
Are we forgetting Jesus just now?
Are we forgetting Jesus every day?
Are we saying maybe not yet
Or not completely
Or are we saying Lord save me
Lord take away my sin
Jesus was predicted by Isaiah
We were told that he would come
Jesus was pronounced
He was born into this world
And he was called Jesus
That he might save us from our sins
And now Jesus is proclaimed
Because he is able to save us all
From our sin if we put our trust in him
Jesus came that though our sins are like scarlet
They might be whiter than the snow
So may we all remember Jesus
Today and in all the days ahead
And may we know his blessing with us
Let's just bow our heads in a word of prayer
Lord our gracious God
We do thank you that you are one who has promised
One who has come
We thank you that in Jesus we have the one who was called that name
That he might save his people from their sins
And we do rejoice in that good news
And we seek to proclaim it to each other and to all around us
That Jesus is the one we owe everything to
For he came to save and help us to remember
And not to forget how precious he is in the midst of everything else
That we might be busy with
That we might remember him
And give thanks for him
So hear us, go before us
Pardon our sin
As we ask all in Jesus name
Amen
We are going to sing in conclusion now
Psalm 103
It is the Sing Psalms version
If you are using the psalm book
It is page 135
Psalm 103
We are going to sing from verse 8 to 14
It is on the back of the little booklets
And this again a great psalm that reminds us of
How Jesus, how the Lord is able to forget our sins
As far as east is from the west
So far his love has borne our way
Our many sins and trespasses
And all the guilt that on us lay
We will sing verse 8 to 14
We stand to sing to God's praise
The Lord is mercy, full and kind
To anger slow and full of grace
He will not constantly be true
For in his anger I disise
He does not punish our mischief
Or give our sins their just reward
By the greatest love as high as den
Towards all those who fear the Lord
As God has eased his home the west, so far his love has borne away,
our many sins and trespasses, and all the guilt that all has stayed.
Just as the Father was in child, so come us those who feel his pain,
for healing then works we are done, and well he knows and he will play.
And well he knows and he will play.
After the benediction I'll go to the door to my left. We'll close with the benediction.
Now may grace, mercy and peace from God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
rest upon and abide with you all now and forevermore. Amen.
Thank you.