Sunday, February 4, 2024

February 25, 2024 – Isaiah in the New Testament – What Our Eyes Can’t See

What Our Eyes Can’t See

Isaiah 64:4-9 - New International Version (NIV)

4 Since ancient times no one has heard,
    no ear has perceived,

no eye has seen any God besides you,
    who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.
You come to the help of those who gladly do right,
    who remember your ways.
But when we continued to sin against them,
    you were angry.
    How then can we be saved?
6 All of us have become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
    and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
No one calls on your name
    or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us
    and have given us over to our sins.

8 Yet you, Lord, are our Father.
    We are the clay, you are the potter;
    we are all the work of your hand.
9 Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord;
    do not remember our sins forever.
Oh, look on us, we pray,
    for we are all your people.

How many Gods have been seen who act “on behalf of those who wait” (verse 4)?

Who does God come to help (verse 5)?

How does God react to those who “continued to sin” (verse 5)?

What are “our righteous acts” like (verse 6)?

What has God “given us over to” (verse 7)?

How is God related to us (verse 8)?

What does Isaiah ask not to be remembered “forever” (verse 9)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage reveal to us about what God can conceive that we can’t?

Matthew 20:17-28 – New International Version (NIV)

17 Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. On the way, he took the Twelve aside and said to them, 18 “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death 19 and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”

20 Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him.

21 “What is it you want?” he asked.

She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”

22 “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?”

“We can,” they answered.

23 Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.”

24 When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. 25 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Where was Jesus going (verse 17)?

Who will “the Son of Man” be delivered over to (verse 18)?

What will “the Son of Man” be condemned to (verse 18)?

What will happen to “the Son of Man” when He is handed over to the Gentiles (verse 19)?

When will “the Son of Man” be raised to life (verse 19)?

Who came to Jesus to ask a favor of Him (verse 20)?

What was the favor (verse 21)?

In your opinion, why did they not “know what you are asking” (verse 22)?

Who do the places on Jesus’s right or left belong to (verse 23)?

How did the other ten disciples react when they heard about the request (verse 24)?

What do the “rulers of the Gentiles” do (verse 25)?

Who must become “your servant” (verse 26)?

What did “the Son of Man” come to do (verse 28)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage reveal to us about what God can conceive that we can’t?

In your opinion, how does “the mother of Zebedee’s sons” in Matthew 20:17-28 illustrate the way we all become unclean as prophesied by Isaiah 64:4-9?

1 Corinthians 2:1-10 – New International Version (NIV)

1 And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
    what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
    the things God has prepared for those who love him—

10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

How did Paul not come to the Corinthians (verse 1)?

What did Paul proclaim to the Corinthians (verse 1)?

What did Paul resolve to know when he was with the Corinthians (verse 2)?

How did Paul come to the Corinthians (verse 3)?

What was Paul’s message and preaching given with (verse 4)?

What did Paul want the Corinthian’s faith to rest on (verse 5)?

Whose wisdom did Paul not speak (verse 6)?

Whose wisdom did they declare (verse 7)?

What would the “rulers of this age” have not done if they understood “the mystery that has been hidden” (verses 7 and 8)?

What has “no human mind” conceived of (verse 9)?

What has God “revealed to us by his Spirit” (verse 10)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage reveal to us about what God can conceive that we can’t?

In your opinion, how does 1 Corinthians 2:1-10 reveal about how God answered Isaiah’s plea to “not remember our sins forever” in Isaiah 64:4-9?

In your opinion, what does 1 Corinthians 2:1-10 reveal about the “ransom” that Jesus said He would give in Matthew 20:17-26?

Philippians 3:7-11 – New International Version (NIV)

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

What does Paul “consider loss for the sake of Christ” (verse 7)?

Why does Paul “consider everything a loss” (verse 8)?

What does Paul want to gain (verse 8)?

How does “the righteousness that comes from God” come (verse 9)?

In your opinion, what does it mean to become like Christ “in his death” (verse 10)?

What does Paul want to attain (verse 11)?

What does Paul “press on to take hold of” (verse 12)?

What “one thing” does Paul do (verse 13)?

How has God called Paul “heavenward” (verse 14)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage reveal to us about what God can conceive that we can’t?

In your opinion, what does Philippians 3:7-11 reveal about the solution God presents to overcome the filthiness of the righteous acts of those who wait for God in Isaiah 64:4-9?

In your opinion, how does Philippians 3:7-11 reveal that the blessings “Zebedee’s sons” actually received were more wonderful than what their mother requested of Jesus in Matthew 20:17-26?

In your opinion, how is Paul knowing nothing “except Jesus Christ and him crucified” in 1 Corinthians 2:1-10 an important step toward considering “everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus” in Philippians 3:7-11? 

In your opinion, how do these passages from Isaiah, Matthew, 1 Corinthians, and Philippians reveal what God has done that our eyes can’t see?

In your opinion, what should our response be to what Jesus “took hold of” for us?

(sprucewhispers.blogspot.com)

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