Welcoming Jesus

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Don Filcek; Daniel 7:13-14 Welcoming Jesus

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. Good morning. Good morning.
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Good morning. All right. I'm glad that you're here, and I'm also really glad to be back. I'm Don Felsick.
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I'm the lead pastor here, believe it or not, and I've been out for a month -long sabbatical.
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It was really just to make sure that you guys know it was a really good break, and I'm very grateful again to the elders for their idea in giving me this time off.
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I'm also again grateful that it wasn't disciplinary, but it was just a time for me to kind of reconnect with God.
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I was able to collect my thoughts and spend a lot of time reflecting on my calling, my character, and God's character as well, and so that was really kind of the focus of the last month for me, and so I'm again grateful for that opportunity to step out and do some different things in ministry, visit some other churches, and do some things like that to kind of just see how other people are doing it, and also just spend some time in fasting.
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I would encourage you, if you have never fasted in your life, to come and talk with me about that, and it's an interesting thing.
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I don't know what comes into your mind when you think of fasting. Maybe you think of a medical procedure or something,
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I don't know, but in the spiritual focus, Jesus talks about fasting, and it's something that I took part in and was involved in over the last month at various times, and I find it very focusing as far as bringing thoughts and attention back towards God, so you can talk with me about that.
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I really love this church, I love this gathering, and not this church, I'm going to be honest,
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I don't really love this building, I don't really love this setting, but I love you as the people, and that's one thing that God really pressed on my heart is how much
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I miss you and how much I am grateful and counted a privilege to be here together with you and to do life together each week, to open the word together each week.
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It's a privilege that I don't take lightly. I'm also really grateful for the guys who stepped up and preached in my absence.
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Dale Curdy spoke three weeks, and he is a long -time friend, I don't know, raise your hand if you have a friend who knows enough about you that they could sync you in about a minute.
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Okay, any of you have a friend like that? Everybody should raise your hand, because you should have a friend like that.
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Dale Curdy is one of those friends like that for me. We go back to college days, and when you raised your hand, were you thinking of somebody who knew you in college?
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Probably. And so, Dale and I sat down and talked about his illustrations for his sermon before he preached to just make sure that nothing snuck in there about me, and he did a good job.
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I'm also really glad for Zach, Lloyd, and Bill Smith, who handled the word with respect and care in my absence, and again,
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I'm just grateful for guys, men of God, who can step up and fill in and bring the word of God to bear in our lives.
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Now, for the next few weeks, we're going to be working our way through a short topical series. I thought it would be kind of weird to come back after a sabbatical with the
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Advent season and Christmas season and launch right back into Revelation or something like that, so for a few weeks, we're going to be doing this short topical series on Advent.
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Now, Advent, how many of you have heard the word Advent recently? You've heard that. But do you have a really good working knowledge of what that word means?
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It's a pretty simple word that's just fancy schmancy, and it's a fancy schmancy word for a visitor coming over, a visitation, or someone coming over to see you.
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Now, when you know your mother -in -law is coming to stay for a few days, that's an Advent of sorts.
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That's someone who's coming to see you, right? And so the series is going to go like this.
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This morning, we're anticipating His Advent. It's kind of like, I titled the sermon
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His RSVP. He said, I'm on the way, and we're going to be looking at that from Jesus, Him talking about coming to us,
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His promise of Advent, His promise of arrival, if you will. And so it's going to go like that this morning, and the cool thing is that the anticipation that was felt in the
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Old Testament, we're going to be looking at an Old Testament passage, looking forward to the coming of the Messiah, and that anticipation is also ours in the
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New Testament. Remember that in the Old Testament, they were looking forward to His first Advent, and we in the
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New Testament era are looking forward to His second Advent, His second coming. So over the next few weeks, we're going to be planning on making room for a visitor.
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That's the focus of our time together on Sunday mornings, making room for someone who wants to come and stay with you.
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Someone's on the way, and they want to come and stay with you, and they want to come and stay with me. And this morning, we're going to be anticipating this visit just like Daniel in the
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Old Testament was eagerly awaiting the Advent of the Messiah. We're looking at His RSVP.
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He has said, I'm coming to the party. I'm coming to the party. So let's open our
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Bibles to Daniel chapter 7, verses 13 and 14. Daniel 7, 13 through 14, if you get to a big book in the
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Old Testament called Ezekiel, that's kind of your guidepost, the next book is Daniel. So that's an easy way to find it.
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I'll give you a second to get over there. If you need a Bible, if you don't have one, please raise your hand. The only reason I'd ask you to raise your hand is that somebody could bring you a copy of the
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Word of God. So let us know if you need a Bible, and we just want everybody to have a copy on your lap.
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Part of it is that that's the structure of the focus for the morning, and so if you don't have one, and you can take that with you when you leave.
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We want everybody to have a copy of the Word of God. But let's read this together. Recast Church, this is
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God's Word to us. This is what He desires for us to hear this morning. He took the time to write it, to tell us about Himself.
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So listen in. Daniel 7, verses 13 through 14, short passage. I, that's
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Daniel speaking, saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man, and he came to the
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Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.
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His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.
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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father, I thank you so much for the opportunity to be back.
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I thank you for just the Thanksgiving time that we had last week to just reflect on the way that you have blessed this church by us being a blessing to each other.
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And Father, receiving love and giving love and being connected like a family, I rejoice in that. Father, I thank you for the refreshing time away, but I'm also so grateful for your call on my life and bringing me back to this place.
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Father, I pray that you would be honored and glorified in our worship. We desire for you to be here, and we know that you don't just show up, but we come and you are dwelling with your people even as we enter this place, and it is our presence as your followers that brings you here in our hearts.
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So Father, I pray that you would speak to our hearts, that you would receive worship from our hearts. Father, the things that we do would not be wrote.
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They would not just be merely like singing songs, just words on the screen and our vocal chords exercised.
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But Father, our hearts would be exercised recognizing that you are worthy of our praise. You are worthy of all glory.
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You have all power and all authority. And Father, as we enter this Christmas season,
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Father, there's so many busynesses and so many things that are going on and purchasing stuff and wrapping packages and decorating, and Father, we can get so lost in all of these things.
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So Father, I pray that you would help us to remember it's about receiving a savior, about your son coming to this place to rescue us and to establish a kingdom that will never end.
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And so in light of that eternal kingdom, I pray that you would move in our hearts now to rejoice and to praise our
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King in Jesus' name. Amen.
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Thanks a lot today for leading us in worship. I hope that you were able to enter the throne room of God and really to see him as glorious and worthy of our worship this morning.
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I'd encourage you to get comfortable if, again, I mentioned this, I know those are not the most comfortable seats in the world.
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So if you need to get up and stretch out in the back during the message, you're not going to distract me. If you need more coffee to keep you awake, or you need more donuts or whatever, just while supplies last at either one of the tables, feel free to take advantage of that.
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Restrooms are out the doors to the end, women's downstairs, men's upstairs. We ask that you use the restrooms on this end of the building.
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Please leave those. There are some restrooms closer down here, but we reserve those for the children's ministry. So use these down here, please, if you need to take advantage of those.
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This morning we're obviously in Daniel 7, and I'd like you to keep your Bibles open there so you can kind of see. And one of the cool things is
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I usually preach through books of the Bible, and I sometimes wonder, like, okay, you know, are you guys following with me?
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Are you tracking with me when you're looking down? Are you texting your friends? What are you doing? Playing games? Whatever it might be. But I wonder, like, sometimes
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I know that when I'm listening to a preacher, I can both listen and read at the same time. So I'll read ahead, or I'll read back, or something, or just kind of get some of the context in there.
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So I encourage you, I think that it would be a great thing if all that you got this morning was a little bit of God's Word. If that's all you got, that would be glorious, that would be beautiful, if something from God's Word stands out to you.
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So that's my goal. But like I said, I usually preach through whole books of the Bible, and so we usually get the context as we go.
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And this morning we're dropping right in the middle of a book, and not just right in the middle of a book, but we're dropping right in the middle of a chapter.
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Chapter 7, verses 13 and 14 are what I read. And if I just explained 13 and 14 without taking you to some of the context here,
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I think we would probably miss the point, and maybe even get the wrong point. How many of you know that that sometimes happens?
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When you just take a verse out of context, you read it, it's like, you could take the verse from Ecclesiastes, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
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And if you just take, if I just took that one verse and preached a sermon on it, that's gonna be rough. Okay? So we gotta take all the scripture together, we've gotta understand it in its context, where's everything driving?
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How many of you ever read the book of Daniel? Okay, some of you, some of you? And Daniel's an interesting book.
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Daniel was a prophet, he was an administrator under no fewer than three foreign kings that we know of.
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There may have actually been many more under the Babylonian reign, some people say upwards of maybe even five different kings of Babylon that he served under in the course of his lifetime.
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But we know that he served the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, we also know he served a Persian king, and a
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Median king as well. He was a devout Jew though, so he's serving these pagan kings, and remember that early on in the book of Daniel, we find out right in chapter one, he's been ripped out of his culture.
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He was actually taken, Babylon conquered his nation, and took the youth who had promise, and deported them.
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And Daniel was one of those who was ripped from his culture and deported to Babylon. So the first six chapters of Daniel really probably stand out in your mind, you're like, of course
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I've read it. I remember those first six chapters really well. You get in there, the fiery furnace, ever heard of the fiery furnace?
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Yeah, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, awesome story. You know, you learned it if you went to, how many of you grew up in church? You grew up in church, so you went to a
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Sunday school class or something and they taught you that kind of stuff, so it's like, yeah, you have some kind of understanding or knowledge about that fiery furnace.
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The lion's den, everybody's probably heard about the lion's den, even if you don't attend church in our culture, you've probably heard something about that.
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And then there's the story of the refusal to eat the king's food and how that all went down and stuff, so there's really intriguing stories.
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And so, some of you have like, at some point in your life, you've sat down to read the book of Daniel and been like, this is cool stuff. And you're reading and you're chugging along, and then you get to chapter seven, it's like, oh, what just happened here?
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It was really interesting, it was historical, it was kind of fun, it was all these really awesome stories, and then you hit Daniel chapter seven and everything takes a turn.
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Chapter seven begins by telling us that Daniel went to bed one night and is now recording for us his dreams.
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I don't know if you ever just wake up in the morning and you had some like, crazy wild dreams, and they were really vivid, but you're like, that was just stark, it was like it was real.
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You ever do that? I think some people seem to have more vivid dreams than others, and at different times in my life I've had more vivid dreams, but Daniel says, this is no question, this was not just a dream, it was a vision given to me by God, and he's able to understand it, and it's recorded for us here in scripture, but he's recording for us his visions and his dreams, and they get pretty wild.
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And this happened to be a nightmare in chapter seven. He has a flat -out nightmare,
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I mean there's monsters coming out of the water and attacking and stuff, and people are being trodden down, and one beast is given the right to eat his fill of flesh, like it's like, whoa, this is scary stuff.
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And so he was given what is understood to be a figurative history of political powers, some past to his era, some present and some future for him, four specifically.
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But each empire was represented by a monster rising up out of the sea of humanity, the chaos that is humanity, and each one was a monster of political power, some kind of an empire or some kind of a society or a culture or rulership that was given the ability to take charge.
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And each empire, over the course of his dream, each one rises up to power, and its dominion is taken away from it, and another monster rises up to replace it.
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The visions became progressively worse until the fourth monster appears, the final beast is described in verse seven, so chapter seven, verse seven, and he says this, after this, this is speaking of the fourth beast, after this
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I saw in the visions, and behold, a fourth beast terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong.
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It had great iron teeth, it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet.
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It was different from all of the other beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns.
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Now I point that out not because I'm going to launch into a big apocalyptic description of who this beast is or anything like that, but just to say terrifying, dreadful, exceedingly strong describes whatever this future manifestation of political power, whatever this empire, whatever this entity is, it was terrifying, dreadful, it is not a good thing.
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Now, people have speculated down through the ages, and some of you maybe even can think, you've been around, kicking around church, so you know who people might say this fourth beast is.
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Some people have said Rome, some have said Western imperialism, or even some future one world government is what is being pictured here.
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I'm not going to get into all those details with you. Whatever kingdom this represents in human history, it is massive, powerful, and not good.
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That's all that we need to know for our purposes this morning, is that he's seeing these visions of these beasts and of these political powers, and he is terrified.
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He is covered with dread as he envisions these monsters again coming up out of the water, and they are politically powerful, and these empires and rulers.
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So in this vision of four kingdoms that were coming upon the earth, four earthly kingdoms were having, are you ready for the word?
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They were having an advent, an arrival. He sees the advent of four different kingdoms, four different rulerships.
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And then, in our text, we find a fifth advent is revealed, a fifth coming of a kingdom.
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A fifth kingdom arrives, and it is a coming that will be in stark contrast to these previous four kingdoms of humanity.
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And this is where we begin in our text this morning. Dale Kurdi, by the way, it was kind of cool how this tied in.
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He did a great job of speaking about the kingdom. I had the opportunity to hear, I love it that we record these things so I can hear even when
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I'm gone what's going on here and stuff. So Dale spoke about the kingdom, and as I listened to his sermons,
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I was amazed at how his messages were so timely in light of understanding the arrival of the king.
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That's what we're celebrating when we're talking about Christmas, the arrival of the king, his coming, his advent.
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And so, in verse 13, Daniel was still in a state of dreaming. He says, I was still dreaming, and in the middle of this nightmare with monsters coming out of the sea, he took his gaze for a moment off the waters from where the beasts had arrived, and he apparently looks to the sky.
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And in looking up, he saw one coming from above. Everything else in the text, everything else in Daniel 7 has come from where?
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Below, from the sea so far. It's come from below. The kingdoms of mankind are forged in the chaos of human might and strength and brawn.
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Below. Below. Human kingdom building is fraught with terror, bloodshed, treachery, and all kinds of other sins.
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The stuff of below. But behold, the text says, behold, look at the word there in verse 13, and I saw in the night visions, and behold, shazam, check this out, says
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Daniel. I want you to pay special attention to what's happening right here. Behold, one comes with the clouds of heaven.
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Everything else has come from below, but this one is coming from above.
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Throughout the Old Testament, it's clear from my study and from my research this week that throughout the
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Old Testament, the word clouds appear about a hundred times, roughly, and about 70 % of them, about 70 % of them are in the context of the presence of God.
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Clouds are often mentioned in his presence. He arrives at Mount Sinai, clouds. He leads his people in the wilderness, cloud.
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He arrives in his tabernacle or temple, clouds. And the idea of clouds being the transportation of deity in ancient times is like assuming that celebrities travel in limos.
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How many kind of have that picture in your mind? Okay, celebrities travel in limos, and they said
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God's travel on clouds, okay? So that was the idea that they had in their culture and in their time. So the vast majority of scholars of ancient literature believe that this mention of the one coming with the clouds is very locked tight in historical context that this is deity.
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This is God coming to us. It indicates that he is deity. God is coming riding his chariot of clouds, if you will.
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And he is adventing. He is coming. He is in transit.
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He is on his way. After the terrible images of beasts and carnage, remembering that the third beast was told to take his fill of human flesh, now
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God is coming. After these terrible kingdoms of mankind have had their run of the earth, he's on his way.
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My goal in this message is to help us at the start of this Christmas season to begin with some anticipation, some wonder, some enthusiasm, some excitement for this coming, this advent that has become so complicated and obscured by our great human traditions.
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I love how Dave said it. It's great. There's all kinds of traditions and all kinds of fun things, and I'd encourage you to take part in this.
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I'm not anti -tradition, but I would suggest to you, and I think you would agree with me, that a lot of even our good family traditions can get in the way of a genuine awe and wonder of thinking about the advent fresh and new.
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We get in these patterns. I'm going to have a bit of a routine centered around this time of the year. Pretty part and parcel.
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You know what the day is going to look like. You know who's going to be there. You know how it's all going to go. Again, it's not just title the sermon,
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Jesus is the reason for the season. Is that what pastors are supposed to preach this time of the year? I'm talking about wonder.
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I'm talking about anticipation. I'm talking about enthusiasm that could get worn off on us after a few turns around the sun.
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How many of you have a few of those? A few turns around the sun? A few Christmases behind? This isn't your first rodeo, right?
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And so, where's the wonder in the arrival of the king? And that's what I'm hoping that this message has some influence on our enthusiasm, our joy, our excitement.
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I'm sure after all the beasts. Think from Daniel's perspective here. Kind of hard to put ourselves in the ancient culture serving pagan kings.
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He's been exiled. He's wondering what's become of the people of God because now they've been scattered throughout
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Babylon. They've been exiled. There's not even a temple anymore. The temple was destroyed. He might have even seen that with his own eyes as he was being led in shackles out of the city and he looks back behind him at the smoldering ruins of his culture and his city.
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What happened to his parents? We don't know what happened to his friends. Well, we know he's got a couple, at least that he probably made on the pathway there,
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Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. You know that you've got some friends there with him, but what happened to his life back there?
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Gone. And then he sees this image, these beasts, these rulerships, these kingdoms, and Daniel is pleased now to see in his vision one that's coming in the clouds that looked human.
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It says in the text, he looks human. What did the others look like? Iron, sharp teeth, all kinds of crazy images that the text, you can go back and read it, all kinds of things that the text says of the appearance of these beasts, but he sees one coming like a human.
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He had the appearance, says Daniel, like a son of man. Now that's a weird way to talk.
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Like a son of man. There's some implications in the wording that he uses. This one that he sees coming with the clouds has the form of a human, but Daniel knew that he was not merely human.
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If Daniel thought that the one that was coming in the clouds was just another dude, he could have easily said in Hebrew that a son of man came in the clouds, or a dude came in the clouds, or a person came in the clouds.
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He could have said all different kinds of things, but instead he says one like a man, one like a child of humanity came in the clouds, one that had the appearance of, but he knows that this is not just merely a human.
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This is a point that's worth lingering on. Who is this one that's coming in the clouds? Who is it?
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One who is both deity, coming with the clouds, like a son of man, one who is a son of mankind, but equally
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God, deity. Even in the Old Testament we see evidence that the coming
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Messiah would be indeed both God and man. There's one small word that we could easily overlook in this arrival.
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One small thing that if we don't have a sanctified imagination, if we're not looking at the text and actually thinking it through, we'd probably skip the word and just go on because it's, of course, this is the way that it is, but it's a significant word for us.
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Daniel did not look up, hear me carefully, Daniel did not look up and see a royal army of heaven that none could count coming with the clouds to slay the beasts.
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Is that what it says in the text? A great massive army that none could count on the warhorses of heaven coming to defeat and slay the beasts.
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He didn't look up and see legion upon legion of fiery angels arrayed with armor and weapons for battle.
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The text says he looked up and saw what? One. One.
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One. Just one. Not a host of fighters, not a huge army.
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One solitary individual to stand against the tide of human wickedness and evil.
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One to stand against the forces of darkness. One to defeat the enemies.
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Just one like a son of man to take the battle to the enemy.
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One who would be given an eternal kingdom that nobody can ever conquer. I'm guessing that some of you,
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I hope that some of you have already guessed who the one is. I haven't said his name yet, but I think you might know.
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And no, it isn't Chuck Norris. Just wanted to be clear. Some of you were like,
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I think I've seen that movie. Or Arnold. Wasn't there one about that?
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I don't know. Daniel has a terrifying history of humanity laid out in front of him.
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And it leaves him weak. It says later in the text, he actually lost his color. I don't know if he looked in a mirror or he looked in the water as a reflection or whatever, but he's like,
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I lost my color. And it took me a while to recover from this vision. He's weak. And God's answer is one.
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And his name is Jesus. Because that is all we need.
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He is enough. He needs the help of none in order to overcome.
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Who is the one? Jesus. Jesus often used the title many times.
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Many, many times. He used the title for himself, Son of Man. But the clincher isn't just that, that he identified himself regularly and routinely as the
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Son of Man. But he even referred to this very text in Matthew 26, 64, when he was speaking before the
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Sanhedrin and the high priest on trial the night before he was crucified. And he said, you will see the
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Son of Man coming in the clouds. And when he used this passage to speak of himself in front of the high priest in Matthew, the high priest tore his robe and accused
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Jesus of blasphemy. Because the Jews in that era and that time understood this to be God's arrival.
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And Jesus says, yeah, that's me. That's me. I'm the one.
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You talk about the one who's coming, he's arrived and he's standing here in your midst.
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It's clear that the Jews understood the deity of the Son of Man.
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And in our text, Jesus doesn't come to earth, but instead comes into his throne room. I want to be clear that Daniel's text is not strictly a
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Christmas text. I'm borrowing it. I'm using it to show the anticipation that the
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Jews had for their coming Messiah and to think through our anticipation. I see this
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Old Testament anticipation as a parallel for our anticipation. Both of this holiday season where we celebrate in repetition the coming of Christ the first time, but also as a reminder of the second advent, where we live in a time of significant anticipation, where we think and say, come,
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Lord Jesus, come. Advent, please, arrive for us.
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And this one, like a Son of Man, Jesus is welcomed in the present of, according to our text, the ancient of days, the one whose existence cannot be calculated.
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That idea is like innumerable days is the Hebrew phrase there. And here we have a meeting in the court of heaven between the
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Father and the Son, and Daniel is given a vision of the coronation of the king over all kings, the ruler.
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And in verse 14, Jesus is given dominion and glory and a kingdom. Now remember that Daniel isn't given a full history in his vision, and so what he sees here is a coming of Jesus sometime after the cross, because Jesus is already victorious.
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There's a lot left out of the receiving of this kingdom. He's granted the kingdom, but we don't know how or what the mechanism is according to Daniel, but you and I do know that there's a lot left out here.
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But from our vantage point, remember, we live in Daniel's future. We've lived years after him to understand the history and the record of the
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New Testament and all that we've been given there. And so from our vantage point of living in Daniel's future, looking back, we know that the kingdom came through pain and suffering of the
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Messiah. His glory, as mentioned in the text, came through shame.
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His dominion, as mentioned in the text, came through a pathway of weakness, pain, and even death.
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His kingdom came through a pathway of abuse, rejection, and betrayal.
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Not the normal ways we think a person comes into power, is it? How does a person come into power?
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In the below way of establishing kingdoms, putting themselves forward.
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We're seeing a lot of that right now. Anybody notice that maybe in the media? Do you see anybody in the media putting themselves forward, speaking quite highly of their credentials, being the best one at everything?
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That's how kingdoms are established here on this earth. That's how people rise to power when we rise from below.
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But how did Jesus arrive to power? Through weakness. Through suffering.
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Through humility. Through pain. Through serving others. Through putting the needs of others ahead of himself.
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God is our king. And that's how he came into his kingdom. But his victory was sure even before he ever set foot on planet earth.
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Daniel, hundreds of years before Jesus Christ was born, woke up one morning with a vision of one who would be both
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God and man, who would be granted by the Father an eternal kingdom comprised of all peoples.
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Look at the text. All peoples. All nations. All languages. And Daniel knew that this one would have the rightful claim to be served by all humanity.
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The text says, all humanity that all should serve him.
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That all should serve him. Have you considered that? All people should serve the king.
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All people should serve Jesus. Now we can't make anyone serve him.
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You ever tried to get your kids to do something? Those of you with children here, have you ever tried that? How does that work?
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You know, you can force them only so far, right? And certainly you can't force their heart. Okay? And if we're honest, we don't really have to go to illustrations of our kids.
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You have a hard time forcing yourself to serve him? You struggle with that sometimes? Being consistent in your service to God?
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But are you willing to say this? Humanity should serve the one.
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Can you bring yourself to say that? We live in a culture that cannot abide by that statement any longer.
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To say one? What about options? What about choices? What about our free will?
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What about our ability to make things happen? What about the other options that are out there?
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What about the other religions? What about the other world views? What about this? What about that? But this text is talking about one.
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You've got to make sense of that. Nobody else is coming in the clouds for us.
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No other came to offer an eternal kingdom. Nobody else shed his blood on a cross for you.
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Nobody else has the authority or right to claim kingship over all humanity but this one.
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And God himself has given the authority only to Jesus.
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So God forbid that for all of us Christmas would just be about a cute little baby born in a manger.
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By the way, I think that's what a lot of people drive for. At least you're thinking about Jesus. That would be a good step in the right direction.
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If last Christmas was all about the presents, then make it about the baby in the manger. That would be great. That would be a good step.
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But this is the one. The one who comes from above when all else that is offered comes from below.
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From the chaos that is humanity. This is the one who enters the throne room of heaven and steps out wearing the crown.
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He is the rightful king over the whole universe. And it makes sense that Daniel 7 .13 is one of the most written about passages by Jewish scholars.
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Books and books and thousands of pages written about this one verse. By not
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Christians. I mean you add the Christians that have added commentaries, it's a lot more than that. But just Jewish scholars writing on this.
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This text is, pardon the pun, pregnant with anticipation.
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One is coming who will be granted a kingdom. And it will never end.
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And we do well to study history. I say history, I know some of your eyes glaze over. Some of you are like, get a little drool coming out of the corner of your mouth.
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You're like, I need more coffee. No, he mentioned history. Some people find it boring, but the reality is you're living it.
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I don't know if you knew that, but it's kind of the study of the way that life goes. And so you're actually forging history by your life.
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Everything, every day, every month, every year, every decade is adding to history.
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And you're a part of it. It doesn't mean you have to love studying and researching, but it is kind of valuable.
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I mean in the past we can trace different societies like the great Egyptian society with massive power and strength and the architecture and all of the technological advancements of building and pyramids and all of that stuff.
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All the way to its demise. Most of those cities are covered in sand.
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The great dynasties of China with the building of the Great Wall and the invention of gunpowder until they eventually maxed out and declined.
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The Mongols who conquered Europe just to be conquered themselves. The Persians, the Medes, the Muslims with their massive expansion across North Africa all the way reaching up into Spain and France.
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The Greek rise to power and of course the great Roman Empire itself and more recently the
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British Empire, which I don't know if you've noticed has shrunk a bit. The Third Reich, which is no more.
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Saddam Hussein's reign, which is no more. And the thing that history teaches us is that kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall.
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And so we are being asked this morning to take on faith that there is a kingdom that will never fall.
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There is a king who will never be defeated. There is a king who will always be there.
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What? We have to rip ourselves out of the below to believe by faith that which comes from above.
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And he says, I'm sending one to you and he will establish a kingdom that will never.
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We have to take it on faith. Look at the end of verse 14 with me.
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Verse 14, wrapping things up. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away.
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His kingdom, his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. We have to ask ourselves,
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Daniel, why say it three times? You said it three times, same thing, same meaning, three different ways. Why waste the ink?
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Why waste the scroll? Why waste those commodities in a time when those were valuable? It says his dominion will never end.
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It shall never pass away. And it shall never be destroyed. Nuance differences but basically the same gist.
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And that's because God through the prophet Daniel wants us to be clear on this. We observe and study the ends of dominions.
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We even sometimes celebrate the end of dominions. We have studied kingdoms that have just slowly imploded or declined.
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We have studied and in our lifetime experienced the destruction of some kingdoms. And so we are being asked to believe that the kingdom of Jesus will never end.
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So Daniel was given a vision. Hundreds of years before the advent of Jesus Christ, he foresaw that one would come who would become the king over all kings.
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And he would establish his kingdom with no end. So my application this morning is going to run in four different directions.
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Just to think this through. If this is true, if what I have preached here this morning is accurate, which
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I pray every week that the things that I say up here would be accurate, would be clear, and would be said with the passion that's worthy of the text.
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But if this is true, then Jesus is the one king who deserves your allegiance.
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Who deserves my allegiance. And I would humbly suggest to you because I've experienced it in myself,
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I've got a verifiable, like I am a living experiment of the reality of this.
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And that is that the default setting for a human, I can say this for myself, but I can also say it because the text says it.
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The default setting for the human is kingless. Kingless.
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Godless. Autonomous. Self -oriented. Now you can say godless or kingless, well, no.
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All of us do worship something. There's a component of that and more often than not it is ourselves.
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Make it more comfortable for me. Make it better for me. Make it more successful for me. But this text requires us to consider a different reality than that.
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You have a king. Whether you serve him or not, whether you believe it or not, you have a king.
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Jesus is the one who God has designated as the ruler over you and me. Now that would be scary if we didn't have every clear indication in Scripture that he is kind and compassionate.
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How many are grateful that your king is kind and compassionate? So glad for that. But God has made a way for us to turn from our autonomy, to turn from our kingless and godless life to embrace the true and rightful king.
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We do that by admitting our rebellion through sin and trusting Jesus to be our king.
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And if we do so, we can start over and have a place, a guaranteed place in his eternal kingdom that will be without end.
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If you're here and you don't think that Jesus is your king, you're like, I don't really know. I mean, you've got a new concept to me and thought that I have a king.
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I have somebody I report to. I have somebody I'm responsible to. I have somebody that I should obey and follow. He loves me and I should love him.
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Come and talk with me. I'd love to speak with you. I'm going to be out by the door at the end of the message, but pull me out of the line there, and I would love to come and talk with you about that.
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The second thing is in a political year, everyone is asking you to trust them.
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Notice that? How many of you have some people asking you to trust them? Some of you maybe even got an email from someone that wants you to trust them.
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Okay, some of you are just watching it generally on the news. We're going to get inundated. How many of you can feel it coming, the tide?
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Record your shows and get ready to fast forward through the commercials, right, because it's going to get ugly. And you know it.
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So in this kind of year, they're asking us to trust them, and they're telling us that they are the solution to our problems, right?
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That's why they're running. That's why they're out there. They're saying, we've got some answers. We've got some solutions. We can solve this, whatever it is.
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And they want you to believe they're the solution, but they are not. Not a one of them.
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Democrat, Republican, Independent, whatever you are, whatever they are, they're not the answer.
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They are not the answer. I even saw a headline this past week that's extremely troubling. God isn't going to fix this.
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Oh, are there Republicans? Are there Democrats? Who's going to fix it again?
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I tell you what, we're in trouble if God can't fix it, right? You guys know that? So that's just an ugly statement.
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That's an ugly statement that is patently false to say God isn't going to fix this. He is.
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And his answer is one. He's going to fix it with one. He doesn't need an army.
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He doesn't need an occupying force. He'll do so with one. So the second application is where is your trust?
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You can choose to hope in the kingdoms of this world, but I tell you that's a fast track to disillusionment, a fast track to disappointment.
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If your trust is in America, uh -oh. If your trust is in a political party, uh -oh.
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If your trust is in a political leader, uh -oh. One place that your trust is well founded, unshakable, will never be destroyed.
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All kingdoms rise and fall except one. So consider your allegiance this morning.
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Consider where your hope is placed. The third, if you call Jesus your king.
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So some of you are here and you're like, I'm with you, Don. First two points. I feel like I'm kind of nailing those. My hope is in America. My hope is in Christ.
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It's not in myself. I've crossed that line and I've asked Jesus to save me. A logical question from this text is how are you serving him?
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That all should serve him is in the text. And by the way, it's not just that he's egotistical.
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He really is worthy of our service. He really is that great and that majestic of a king that he is worthy of us saying no to sin and yes to him.
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We know examples from the Christmas events in Scripture that when Jesus was about two years old, some leaders came out of the east bearing gifts to serve the new king.
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Earthly realms should bow and serve this one. And what about your little kingdom?
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Do you bring him gold, frankincense, and myrrh? Probably not literally. Do you give of your time to love others in his name?
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Are we too busy making this holiday season conform to the standards of our little kingdom? Some of you know exactly what
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I'm talking about when I just said that. What about helping at the food bank? What about giving to the poor?
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What about serving a family in need this year? Maybe you have a creative idea about ways to serve
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Jesus this Advent. We should serve him. To a person, we should serve him.
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And I want to encourage you. I'm going to ask you to do something different. I'd encourage you to post your ideas to the Recast Facebook page.
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If you have a creative idea or a creative tradition that you've done in order to serve others during the holiday season, put it on there to encourage others.
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Put it on there not for the purpose of showing your great works, but put it on there for the purpose of letting us see what you do and to share ideas and thoughts.
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I would encourage that this Christmas. Go ahead and post those things. Maybe you have an idea that you've never used before, but you're thinking, man, if I had three or four more people to do this, then
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I'd be able to make it roll this holiday season. Man, we're at the first week of December. We can do something about it.
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Let us know. You can call me. You can put it on the Facebook page to encourage others and just see what happens.
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But maybe this could be a year of inspiring each other to serve Jesus. And by the way, the way we serve
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Jesus, I want to be clear because I just jumped over maybe what might have been some understanding for you. How do you serve
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Jesus? Some people think it's to get down on your knees and pray in the morning and read your Bible. That's great stuff. That's really good.
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But the best way you can serve Jesus is by loving others, doing for others, serving others.
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Jesus said the two greatest commandments are love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. How do you do that? By loving your neighbor as yourself.
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If you were destitute this Christmas, if you couldn't afford presents for your kids, what would you want somebody to do for you this holiday?
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Put yourself in their shoes. Love your neighbor as yourself. Lastly, as we enter into this
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Advent season, is there any room in your heart for anticipation? I mentioned earlier that this might not be your first spin around the sun, not your first Christmas.
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And so the question for all of us is, is there room for wonder in your heart?
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Or is it just anticipating? Maybe for some of us, if we're just flat out honest, we're anticipating the advent of family this season.
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We're anticipating the advent of presents. Or to spin it maybe in a nicer way, we're anticipating the advent of smiles on our children's faces on Christmas morning.
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Or we're anticipating the advent of good eats on Christmas morning,
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Christmas day. Right? There's all different kinds of things coming to us this season, and they're going to arrive.
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And I'm not saying that those are bad. I'm not trying to say, oh, you're naughty. You're on the naughty list because you're looking forward to the food.
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Look forward to the food, man. I'm looking forward to some food. Anybody like baked goods this time of the year? Whoa, yeah.
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Good stuff. And that's not a bad thing, but it's what is a priority in your life. What is driving you this advent season?
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Is there room for anticipation? Is there room for wonder? Put yourself in Daniel's shoes.
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He served in dark kingdoms ruled by pagan kings. He had visions of kingdoms to come that may very well have left him feeling helpless and hopeless.
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But God in his grace caught him up in the vision of the one who would come to make it all right.
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And this is the one that we have the privilege of annually celebrating this time of the year. We celebrate his first advent while anticipating deeply his second advent.
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The book ends, by the way. You know how the book ends? It's this book called the Bible. The way that this thing ends is the phrase,
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Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Even so, all of this history, all of these things that have happened, would you please come?
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We look forward to and long for your return to set it right. My hope is that this message produces within us a level of anticipation.
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Over the next few weeks, we're building towards a visitor's arrival. He RSVP'd to us here in Daniel.
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Tell him I'm on the way, I'm coming. And that's what we're thinking about over the Christmas season, his arrival, his coming.
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Any of you remember this? Any of you do this? Me and my sister did this every Christmas day. A lot of times on Thanksgiving too, depending on what family was coming over.
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There were two seats in the front window of our house. We would camp out there waiting for Grandpa and Grandma's advent, their arrival.
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Any of you do that? Did any of you do that? I don't know what your situation was, what your household was like, but we would camp out there and wait with enthusiasm.
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And that was, of course, before cell phones. They couldn't call and say when they were 10 minutes away or 15 minutes away or whatever.
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They couldn't post you on their progress. I grew up here in West Michigan, so some of those
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Christmas days with just thick snow coming down, are they going to make it? Are they going to get stuck? Are they going to have to turn around?
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And some Christmases that happened, any of you remember those? Bad years where it was like they couldn't travel anywhere, and so they ended up turning around halfway or more than halfway or under halfway or whatever.
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Not more than halfway. They're not weird. I don't know why I said that. But you know what it means to anticipate.
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That's what I'm getting at, is the anticipation. And you can tie that into something else if you don't relate to that story. But next week, we're going to be looking at the part that I never understood while I was sitting in that window as a child.
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I had a lot of anticipation, but that's not the whole picture. Because while I was in the window waiting for my grandparents and uncles and aunts to arrive, where was my mom?
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In the kitchen, preparing for their arrival, getting ready.
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And both were reasonable responses to having visitors arrive, right? Anticipation and preparation.
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Today we remember that he's on the way, but next week we're going to look at making room for him. Making some space in our lives for the arrival of the one.
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The following week after that, we're going to talk about his arrival. And then the Sunday after Christmas, we're going to be remembering why he came.
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So we take communion every week at Recast in part because of texts like this. This drives me towards that, and it's been part and parcel of the reason that I do this.
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Daniel doesn't speak of the cross, I don't know if you noticed that. He doesn't talk about the cross here. There's actually nothing in our text that indicates that Daniel was granted that vision of the suffering of the
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Messiah. He sees the coronation, he sees the glory, he sees the giving of the kingdom, but he doesn't understand how that comes in.
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Yet we know that the pathway to his exaltation, as I mentioned earlier, was through suffering. He is our king, and we can follow him because he has removed the barrier between us and him.
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Sin and death were dealt with at the cross and at the empty tomb. So if you've asked
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Jesus to be your king and have asked him to save you from your sins, then come to one of the tables and take the bread to remember his body that was broken for you.
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Take the cup of juice to reflect on his blood that was shed for you.
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And do it in remembrance of the sacrifice of your compassionate king. If you've never asked
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Jesus to be your savior and king, I'd encourage you to skip the table and take in the song that's going to be played here in just a moment.
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And again, I would love to talk with you about my king. If you'd like to talk to me about him and how much he loves you, if you're here and you don't have a relationship with Jesus, today would be a great day to start.
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Father, I thank you so much for the king that has been given to us. We didn't treat him so well. And that's why we go to this table and remember our sinfulness from below in light of his glory and majesty from above.
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And yet, in our brokenness and in our messes, and there at the cross in the midst of our sin being dealt with, we recognize your great love for us.
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Your great sacrifice for us. So Father, I pray that you would help. If there's any in this room who do not recognize you as king, and this is a new concept,
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I pray that you would be working in their hearts to bring about that conversation, bring people into their lives, maybe even give them the boldness to come and talk with me about that.
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Father, for those of us who are in your kingdom, I pray that you would help this just to be a celebration of delight and rejoicing that one has been provided for us.
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And just the one, but all that we needed. Thank you for Jesus, and it's in his name that I pray.