So Much Praise

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Don Filcek; Luke 1:67-79 So Much Praise

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week,
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Pastor Don Filsack preaches from his series, Christmas Praise. Poems of worship from the Gospel of Luke.
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Let's listen in. I'm Don Filsack, I'm the lead pastor here, and I am really glad to be gathered together with all of you as an expression of the body of Christ here in Mattawan, Michigan.
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How many of you are glad to be here? Glad to be here? All right, let's go. God is bringing us into connection with each other to grow us in faith, grow us in community, and grow us in service.
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We believe that taking in God's word is the way that we grow in faith, that he is calling us to increase in our knowledge of him and trust in him in our daily lives, and he does so in community.
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He desires for us, he's created us for connection with others, and then he has also gifted us, and that's what we mean by growing in service.
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He's brought us all together for a purpose, not just merely to kind of take in a show on Sunday morning or something like that, or to just learn some tidbits of information, but he wants us to serve one another well, and so we want to be continuing to grow in service.
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I'm looking forward to looking deeper into praise over the next few weeks leading up to our Christmas celebrations.
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We're going to be looking into the poetry of praise written in the gospel, the gospel of Luke, surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ, and I'm convinced that starting with our text this morning,
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God is going to be working through the scriptures to draw us away from the distractions of this season, and instead he is seeking to draw us toward a more robust thankfulness and gratitude for the advent.
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That is the word that means the arrival or the coming of Jesus Christ, the incarnation of Jesus Christ in his first advent.
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Where we live, we look forward to an advent yet to come, a second coming, but right now we think of that first advent as an anticipation and a building up of the recognition that he is indeed coming back for us.
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So, to some degree, I think we may lose the vision of what I would just say is a massive, glorious, cosmic, jaw -dropping, epic glory of Christmas, because I think human nature has a tendency to water things down into routines and traditions, and there's nothing wrong with tradition.
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How many of you would just say you love some of your Christmas traditions? Like, you love some of those things.
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Like, there's just something that's kind of comforting about the cadence and the routine and the doing of things, but that's great as long as that doesn't become self -serving, right?
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Like, the traditions and the routines that can kind of water down in our minds the things that God wants to really teach us and do in us.
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Our text this morning is maybe a familiar passage to many of us. To be honest, it's a familiar passage to me that I hadn't dissected before.
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I hadn't really dug in and really wasn't very thoughtful. I've read this passage many, many times, but it's a poetic prophecy of praise given by the
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Holy Spirit to a man named Zechariah, who is the father of John. We'd say John the
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Baptist, although he wasn't a formal Baptist like we would think of today. He was
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John the Baptizer, named because he baptized people. But the vision that he has given, that the father of John the
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Baptist has given, is meant to evoke within us all and wonder over the many things that God is doing in the sending forth of his only son to this muddy and dirty place where we live.
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In this text, God will give us so many reasons to praise him this
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Christmas. So many reasons. And I hope you're a note taker this morning, because I'm going to encourage you to take notes.
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And this might be, if you do take notes this morning, I believe that this is a list that you ought to keep at the front of your
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Bible so that you can keep turning back to it. And over the course of the season, in the busyness, when you kind of go like, another party, really?
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Another busy thing in this season? Another thing to do? And you can turn back to that and say, this is the point.
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Jesus Christ is the point. And I think you'll see as we go through this, a bunch of different things that will help set the trajectory.
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My hope is that this passage and this message this morning will aim our hearts in the right direction.
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Aim our hearts in the right direction, setting a tone for our remembrance of God and his great love for us in the sending forth of his son.
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So let's open our Bibles, or your apps, or your devices. We're going to be looking at the first chapter of Luke.
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Near the end of that chapter, actually the very end of that chapter, Luke 1, verses 67 through 79.
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So the gospel of Luke, give you a second to get there. But recast, this is God's holy and precious word. Revealed to Zechariah, a prophecy directly from the
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Holy Spirit surrounding the birth of Jesus. Luke 1, 67 through 79 says this to us today, church.
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And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, blessed be the
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Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. And he has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant
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David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophet. Prophets from of old.
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That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us.
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To show the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant. The oath that he swore to our father
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Abraham to grant us, that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear.
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In holiness and righteousness, before him all of our days.
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And you child, will be called the prophet of the most high. For you will go before the
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Lord to prepare his ways. To give knowledge of salvation to his people, and the forgiveness of their sins.
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Because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high.
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To give light to those who sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
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Let's pray. Father, the way of peace seems hard to find.
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It seems like not the reality of my past month, my past six months, my past year.
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I'm thinking going back to the start of this pandemic, and going back to even childhood, there have been difficulties, and frustrations, and pains, and all kinds of things.
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There's been glory, there's been great things to give thanks for, but we recognize that this world is not the way that it was meant to be.
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I recognize that some people are coming off of fabulous weeks, and they're like, they don't even know what I'm praying about right now. They're just thinking, wow, this has been a great run, and all rainbows and butterflies.
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But then others are here in a difficult place right now. But for all of us, we recognize the need for you to break in.
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The need for you to come and rescue. The need for you to come and set things right. We thank you for the many things that are sealed for us in the first coming of our
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Lord and Savior. The things that were set in motion there, that are for our ultimate good, and for our ultimate peace, and for our ultimate blessing, that our sins will be dealt with, and are dealt with on the basis of his arrival here among us, to be one of us to take our sins on his shoulders.
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I pray that that would result in great joy as we talk about these things this morning, as we think about these things, as we just read these things.
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I pray that that you would light up our hearts with joy and gladness, like the sunrise dawning after a dark night.
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And that the weight of what we deserved, in light of what we're actually granted as forgiveness and holiness and eternity with you, would just spill out of us in praise and gladness in our singing this morning.
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We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Yep, you can go to be seated. But if at any time during the message you want to get up and get more coffee or juice or donut holes, you can take advantage of that back there.
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You're not going to distract me at all if you get up during the message. And then the restrooms are out the double doors down the hallway on the left -hand side if you need those.
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And then I ask that you also please keep your Bibles open to Luke chapter 1, 67 through 79, so you can follow along in the text and see.
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And this is going to be a very much follow -along, verse -by -verse kind of message. And so I would encourage you to just have that open in front of you so that you can take advantage of seeing that the things that I'm saying are coming straight out of the
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Bible. This song that we're looking at, really this praise is set in an interesting context.
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Verse 67 tells us right out of the gate that it was given by the Holy Spirit to a man named Zechariah.
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Now many of you have read and you know the history of Zechariah, but he had this interesting thing. Prior to this praise that he utters prophetically, revealed by the
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Spirit, there was a dramatic event in the life of Zechariah that we need to consider. It's helpful for us to understand to set some of the context of this praise that he offers.
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Zechariah was a priest, and the priest during this era took turns serving in the temple. And they might not even live in Jerusalem.
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They might live out in other places, but they traveled to Jerusalem on their turn to go offer incense, offer sacrifices.
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In this particular case, it was Zechariah's turn to offer the incense within the holy place.
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So he went in there, and as was custom, people prayed outside as he entered in that holy place, where there was fear.
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There was fear surrounding this, and that he knew he was a sinner. He knew he had sinned. He had to bring sacrifices and all of that before he entered that holy place, even as a priest, to offer that incense.
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When he was in there, the people are praying outside. An angel met him, and they're afraid. They begin to increasingly pray, and I think the prayer got more and more fervent as it took him longer while he was in there.
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It says that in the first chapter of Luke earlier on than where we're at this morning.
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An angel met him there. He was afraid, but the angel told him, chill for just a minute, calm down and listen.
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And he informed him that his wife was going to have a baby. Well, Zechariah didn't believe the angel, and it even says he didn't believe the angel, because Elizabeth, his wife, was past childbearing years.
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She was older, and so he's like, nah, you're wrong. Speaking to an angel. Starts off with fear, and then by the end, he kind of, like humans usually do, we kind of pluck up our courage and eventually stand our ground, and that's what he did.
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Nah, you're wrong. There's no way that my wife is going to have a baby. So the angel says, I'm going to give you a sign, dude.
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I'm going to make sure that you know that the things I'm saying are true. When you walk out of this curtain, you're no longer going to be able to talk until the baby is born, and that's exactly what happens.
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So imagine that you're in that prayer group outside. Zechariah walks in, takes a little bit longer.
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You're praying for him. You're going like, God, don't smite the guy. He walks out. He can no longer talk. You're like, what happened? He can't even tell them what happened behind the curtain.
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So he obviously, eventually, is probably able to write to them or whatever, but he steps out of the temple to those praying, and he can't speak.
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So just before our text of praise, Zechariah is still mute. His son has just been born.
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Now, we know that because he's eight days out, and the naming ceremony for a child during this time was eight days after their birth, and they are getting ready to circumcise him and name him.
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He's there. He cannot speak. Zechariah cannot speak, and he was told by the angel to name him
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John. The family is all very eager to step over the mute Zechariah and name the boy on his behalf.
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The guy can't talk anyway, so why don't we just name him? And they were ready to name him Zechariah Jr., the text tells us.
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They were going to name him Zechariah Jr., but he's given an iPad. It says a tablet right in the text.
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It literally says a writing tablet, so what do you expect? And he writes on there, his name is
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John. And at that point, when he honors the word of the
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Lord through the angel given to him in that most holy place, when he honors that and says, no, we're not going to name him
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Zechariah. We're going to follow the prophecy of God, and we're going to name him John. At that point, his mouth is open for the first time in nine months, and John speaks the words we're looking at today.
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That's the context of what we're talking about this morning. A pretty dramatic event,
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I think, in the life of Zechariah. I said John speaks the words we're looking at today. Zechariah speaks the words we're looking at today.
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And these words are credited to the Spirit directly in the text. These words are said to be prophetic words, and these are certainly words of poetic praise for us to take on.
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We need to understand that Zechariah is given a vision of the epic and cosmic work that God is doing in these current events, current, of course, in the lifetime of Zechariah.
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These are things that are going on during his lifetime, things that are epic and cosmic in their scope.
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So the verb tenses in prophecy can sometimes get confusing, but this is all written in the sense that the arrival of the
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Messiah ensures things for humanity as if they have already been accomplished. So when we talk about the arrival of Jesus at Christmas, spelling our redemption, well, how many of you know something else needs to happen first?
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Like the eight -pound baby Jesus in the manger didn't save you from your sins. Did he have to do something else?
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What did he have to do? He had to die for us, right? Well, that hasn't happened yet, but Zechariah in a prophetic voice is speaking as though those things are sealed.
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And how many of you know they're done in God's eyes? Like those are things accomplished. Like he doesn't live in time and space like us.
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And so when the Spirit says these things are realities because Christ came, you can take that to the bank.
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You can take it to the bank that we're gonna live forever with him on the basis of our faith because of what
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Christ has done for us, even though we yet know that there's more yet to be done.
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And so our outline is going to be robust. Buckle up this morning. There's going to be 12 points because each one of these verses contains a facet of the advent of the
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Lord, what the Lord has done for us by sending forth his Son. So each verse a point. No, we're not going to be here until this afternoon.
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We're gonna get through this. Actually, it might be just a couple minutes after noon. I don't know. We'll see.
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I just made a promise I couldn't necessarily keep, but we can translate these verses into 12 reasons to praise
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God during this Christmas season. And you can see why I said in my introduction that I would love for you to take notes, write these 12 things down, 12 things for you to go back to over the course of this season.
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If you're running low and you're running low on reasons to thank the Lord, this is a good list.
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And by the way, this is not just for Christmas. This is a good list to have beside you. But these are things that the first advent of our
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Lord secures for us. So out of the mouth of this mute priest flows the revelation of the
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Spirit as he has given a vision of what the Lord is doing for you and for me.
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So we'll start off with the first one. In verse 68, we see that in his advent, God has come to bring redemption.
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In his advent, God has come among us to bring redemption. The purpose of everything that comes after this verse is set out at the beginning of this text.
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Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. All of this is for the purpose of blessing him.
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It is clear that Zechariah's words are meant to bring glory to God and him alone. He will shine,
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Zechariah will shine a spotlight on what God is doing. And the core of what he is doing is visiting, according to this verse, visiting and redeeming.
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Visiting and redeeming, arriving and restoring is another way to say that. He is pitching his tent among us to rescue us.
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Christmas and Easter church must touch each other. Look at verse 68.
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Visited, think incarnation and Christmas. Redeemed his people, think Good Friday and Easter.
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The two of them are a package deal in our salvation. That he arrived that he might pay the price for you and for me.
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Zechariah has given a vision we all need here at the start of the season. God deserves praise for coming to rescue us.
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In his advent, God has come to bring redemption, to pay for our sins. The second thing is, in his advent,
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God has exercised his mighty power to save. In verse 68, to raise up a horn is to exercise might or power.
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And we might not relate to this use of the word horn at all. Like when you hear horn, you think like honking horn, like on your car, like what kind of horn are we talking about here?
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Like devil's horns? What is the meaning of that phrase, the horn of salvation?
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In a primarily agrarian society, in a pastoral society, in a society that raised sheep, sheep were currency.
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The visual images of powerful rams clashing in the field and the hills were a common thing.
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Their horns were a clear symbol of power. And when God sends forth his son, he is clashing with our enemies.
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The mention of David here is a reminder of our past year studying the book of 2 Samuel. It's right here at Christmas time, and yet it's a reminder of all that we've studied for the past year in that book about King David.
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God promised David to raise up a mighty ruler from his line who would smash the enemies of God and bring about peace.
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That was the promise to David, and here it's reflected that that promise is being kept. Consider this season that in sending forth his son,
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God is raising up his head to clash against our enemies. What kind of enemies?
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Well, our enemies of sin, our enemies of death, our enemies of the world, the flesh, and the devil, the enemy of pride, the enemy of lust, the enemy of want, and covetousness, and gossip, and slander, and lies.
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He's setting in motion a powerful act of salvation to rescue us, and he is doing it through the promised descendant of King David.
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In his advent, God has exercised his mighty power to rescue, to save. The third thing is in his advent, he is fulfilling the prophetic promises.
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This is the third point. In his advent, he is fulfilling the prophetic promises. We're going to see a lot of emphasis.
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At least three of these points are going to center around the idea of God's faithfulness. In verse 70,
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Zechariah says that what he is doing is in accordance with the holy prophets of old.
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What God is doing is new. It's a new thing in Christ, but it has always been a part of God's divine plan.
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This is significant because we see that the advent of Jesus was a part of the plan all along. It was always what God was going to do.
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Sending Jesus to die for our sins was not some kind of plan B, or C, or D. You know, if this doesn't work, then
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I'll try this. If this doesn't work, then I'll try this. God is fulfilling promises that he made to Eve, and to Abraham, and to Moses, and to David, and to Isaiah, and to Malachi, and to Micah, and to all of these prophets.
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In his advent, we see God faithful, faithful to keep his promises. And so in his advent, he is fulfilling those prophetic promises.
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In his advent, also, verse 71, the fourth thing, he has rescued, God has rescued us from our enemies.
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Now, I mentioned earlier, but I want to flesh it out a little bit more, that he has saved us because the church still has enemies.
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Not even merely metaphorical enemies. And we know that the Jews suffered from an expectation that this meant that Jesus was going to come and remove the
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Roman occupier. So we want to turn this metaphorical really quick, and I did a little bit of that earlier by saying sin, and death, and lost, and lies, and all those enemies that we face.
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But there's a real, there's a reality to which these are, these are genuine enemies. You see, we could just say the
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Jews got it wrong, and leave it at that, and go, well, Jesus didn't come to oust the Romans, and defeat them, and set the
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Jews free, and let them rule, and reign, and be their king, and set up an earthly kingdom. So we could, we could emphasize the fact that they got that wrong, and misunderstood these things, without much thought to what it really does mean, that God will defeat our enemies.
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You see, here's, here's a problem, church, in understanding this. We live in such a unique age.
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You see, most people in Christian history would read this, and cling to the promise of vindication, and vengeance against those who put to death their fathers, and their mothers, and their sisters, and their brothers, and their neighbors, and their friends, and other people in their church.
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The church's history has been one of being fed to lions. It is a history of being burned as candles at dinner parties for the
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Caesars, or imprisoned, or thrust through with spears, or killed in a variety of ways, dipped in vats of boiling oil, all kinds of gruesome things that were done to Christians in history.
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When Jesus returns, He is not going to come back, and just say, hi everyone.
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It's not going to be like, thumbs up, chill Jesus. He will come back to establish
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His eternal kingdom. He will cast down all of His enemies, and not just metaphorical enemies, though He will deal with sin and death, and praise
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God, that's like, that's like the greatest thing, but real people, and real demons who have rebelled against Him will be cast down on that last day.
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The advent of the Lord spells real and true justice for His people. It will not be until later, but it is sealed by His coming in the flesh.
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So do you consider, church, it's a strange application, but do you consider celebrating during Christmas that all wrongs will be made right because this child was born?
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There is hope for vindication. There is hope for true and abiding justice because that child was born.
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That includes the judgment of those who have done wicked things to His people. The fifth thing,
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I remind you what the fourth was, God has rescued us from our enemies. The fifth is that in His advent,
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God has fulfilled His covenant, verse 72. This is pretty significant because there's some people that think there's still a lot of covenant stuff that needs to be fulfilled, but three of the 12 points this morning revolve around the idea of God keeping
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His promises. He is faithful. God's faithfulness is so important. It is such a major theme in Scripture because everything hinges on whether or not you can trust
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Him. If He's capricious, if He just changes His mind, if He's unfaithful to the things that He said that He's done or that He will do, then we're all kind of like in trouble, right?
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How many of you know what I'm talking about? Like if God just willy -nilly just decides like, today I'm just not going to accept the blood of Jesus for salvation.
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You hope you don't die today, right? Of course that's not the case, and that's why the
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Scriptures go over the top to emphasize His faithfulness because we have no hope and we have nothing to cling to without His faithfulness.
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So it wants to make us understand deep in our souls that God will complete that which
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He started, and in verse 72 the focus of His faithfulness is to keep His promise in order to show mercy.
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He promised to forgive sins in the Old Testament. He promised to grant people new hearts. He promised to grant eternal life.
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He promised to give His people the Holy Spirit. Many, many promises, and I'm just scratching the surface of the promises that God gave in that Old Covenant that's now fulfilled in the
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New. His arrival is to show that God is faithful to complete the acts of mercy that He has promised in His ancient covenant to rescue us from sin.
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He said, I'm going to crush the head of the serpent, and it was revealed to Zechariah that God was initiating that very mercy in his lifetime.
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The sixth one is that in this advent, God has fulfilled His promises to Abraham specifically.
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Abraham, a very key character in the Old Testament. Abraham was the first one that God gave a specific covenant to that He met with.
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I remember I was reading through the Bible in 90 days a few years back, and I remember getting emotional when
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I got to Genesis 12. It was weird because I didn't expect it, and I didn't see it coming, but the darkness of those first 11 chapters, it just spirals and spirals and spirals until every thought was only wicked, and everybody was just focused on themselves, and the darkness that came from that glorious beginning of being in the garden with God, and the fall, and the brokenness that just, it just seems to accelerate in those first chapters of Genesis.
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And then you get to 12 and Abraham, and God doing something different.
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God coming to man and saying, I will redeem, I will save,
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I will promise, and I will secure a covenant with people. We don't deserve that.
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We don't deserve God to reach out to us, but He did in Abraham. So that's the kind of significance we're talking about here when it says that He's going to fulfill
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His promise to Abraham in Christ, in the arrival of Christ. You see, Abraham was given a very specific three -part promise there early in Genesis, well, in the middle of Genesis.
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He was told that God would multiply His people, He would give those people a great land, so that one of His offspring would be a blessing to all people.
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Who is that offspring? Who is it? Jesus. He's the promise given to Abraham that one of His offspring would be a blessing to all people.
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You see, the promise of making a great nation out of Abraham, the promise of giving him a land, was all for the purpose of bringing forth a
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Messiah. In other words, in Jesus, all the promises of Abraham are fulfilled.
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The promise of the nation has served its purpose. It preserved the Jewish line all the way down to Jesus.
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The promise of the land has served its purpose. It sustained the people until the arrival of the
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Messiah. In Christ, God was once again showing Himself to be faithful.
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So we would do well to focus some time this season meditating on and then praising
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God for His faithfulness demonstrated to us in the sending forth of His Son. The seventh one here in the verse 74, in this advent,
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God has removed our fear. God has removed our fear. We have nothing to fear.
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Personally, I need this reminder here at the start of this Christmas season. Our culture feels more divided than ever.
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The stakes seem to be higher than ever in our culture. And persecution of the church seems like it could be right around the corner.
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We don't know which direction we're going to fall off this hill, but we know that it's sliding. And yet, look right at the text of verse 74.
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Go ahead and look at it with me. That we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve
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Him without fear. We have security in the arms of Jesus, church.
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Though they feed this body to a lion or riddle it with bullets or call me dirty names and drag my reputation through the mud,
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I need not fear for the advent of Christ, the defeat of my enemies has been secured.
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So faithfulness to the truth of God may bring persecution in the coming years. I encourage you to be faithful to God.
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But the Spirit through Zechariah is reminding us that we are brought to a bold fearlessness in the service of our
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God. Service like evangelism, service like singing His praises, service like taking a strong stand on truth without fear.
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Two words we might not readily associate with Christmas, right? Pretty packages, good cheer, sparkly
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Christmas lights, good food, good friendship and fellowship. But those things give way in our hearts, must give way in our hearts, to a more robust and sustaining tradition of considering the boldness that the advent of Christ is meant to ignite within us.
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He has come to secure us for eternity so that we can boldly live for Him now.
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In His advent, God has removed our fear. The eighth one, in His advent
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God has granted us holiness and righteousness before Him forever. In His advent,
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God has granted us holiness and righteousness before Him forever.
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Does anybody feel that? Does anybody feel what is true of you in light of that?
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Or is that just words? Let me say it again. In His advent, God has granted us holiness.
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Raise your hand if you feel holy today. Righteousness.
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Are you righteous? Have you done everything right this week? Raise your hand if you did it all right this week.
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Did you get it? Did you nail it? No. In His advent,
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God has granted us, church, holiness and righteousness. Where?
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Before Him forever. Holy cow.
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How in the world? How can we be unmoved by that? I can tell you
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I don't deserve an ounce of that. Nothing about me is holy except Christ my
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Lord. Nothing. That's what He came for. To declare us holy and righteous before the
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Holy and Almighty One that's before Him like at His face. How many of you just acknowledge,
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I would be torn apart if I stand before Him in my sin. I should be consumed and toast.
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What has Christ done for us, church? Has He bought us some diversion?
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A kind of drab and dark month of December so that we've got some fun. That's actually sunny, isn't it?
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A nice sunny day to illustrate with. Has He bought us some diversion so that we've got some fun stuff to do in the darker winter months of December?
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I want to remind you that Zechariah is being given a vision of the whole complex of salvation rolled up in the arrival of Jesus.
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At first advent, we know that Jesus died on the cross to save us, but His arrival and the birth in the manger sets the entire process of our salvation in motion.
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So the advent of Jesus allows us to serve God without fear, but also now we look forward to a day when we will serve
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Him in holiness and righteousness. The holiness mentioned here, by the way, when I mentioned that and you kind of go like what when
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I was asking you, are you holy? Are you righteous? To clarify what those words mean, holiness mentioned here is an internal purity.
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Righteousness is a more external purity so that holiness has to do with your thoughts and your feelings and what's going on inside you while righteousness is in relationship to others around you.
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We respond in righteousness and acts and deeds. So our destiny is shifted on the basis of what began with His advent.
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If anything should make us praise God this Christmas season, it is this, that we will spend unending days in holiness and righteousness before Him because He came to set us free from sin and death.
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And if that sounds boring, then you might need some help with your imagination. God made us to be creative.
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He made us to subdue creation, to work, to rest, to enjoy, and all of that will continue in eternity.
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In holiness and in righteousness before Him, all of our days does not mean in an unending church service forever.
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I can understand why you might think that's boring, but what it means is picking up where we left off with a command to be
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His image bearers to this world, a real physical place. That's why it's called the new heavens and the new earth.
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That's our destiny. It's not floating on clouds with harps and ethereal angel bodies or something like that or spirits.
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That's what the resurrection, that's what Christ was raised for, to bring back flesh, to make sure that we recognize that these bodies will be redeemed in the end.
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And we in that future will be corporal, there will be technology, there will be advancement, there will be all kinds of things because of the way that God has designed us and made us.
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There will be no sin, but most importantly, Jesus Christ our Lord will be our
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King, and He will reign, as we sang earlier, forever, forever in righteousness.
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Raise your hand if you look forward to that day. Even so, come Lord Jesus. Verse 76, ironically, there's a little bit of a break in the text.
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It introduces Zechariah's son, John the baptizer. After eight verses describing the blessing of the
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Messiah, there's one verse that is granted by the Spirit to introduce John the baptizer.
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This is his dad prophesying, and you would expect all of his prophecy to be about the birth of his son.
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It's not, it's almost all about Jesus. One verse dedicated to John's purpose, and John's purpose is clearly expressed in verse 76.
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He is the forerunner, the herald, the one who will prepare the hearts of the people to receive the glory of the Son.
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And what he does for the people is is still part of what I'm going to include in the things that God has done for us in sending forth his son.
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John's ministry still serves the much higher ministry of Jesus. So that point nine,
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I'm going to credit to the ministry of Jesus, so it's performed through his herald, John. And it's this one, the ninth one, verse 77.
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In this advent, God has given us the knowledge of salvation and the pathway of repentance. That pathway of repentance is a way of saying
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He's going to show them their sins, and that's what John's ministry primarily was. In this context of the times of Zechariah, the hearts of the people needed to be prepared for the arrival of Jesus.
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The reason being that most people were living their lives. You see, I think we can have in our minds that everybody was just waiting for Jesus to be born the day that He was born.
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Like everybody was out in the, everybody was kind of like, okay, Messiah is going to be here any minute. But how many of you are like, in all honesty, like you're like,
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Jesus could come back like any minute, but it just doesn't seem very likely. It's going to be today, that's going to be my lifetime, like who knows?
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But you kind of don't think about it every moment of the day, right? Just being honest. I'm a pastor,
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I'm raising my hand, like look, I don't think about it every day. Like not every day I'm like, oh, today's the day
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Jesus is coming back. It's not the way that they lived during that time either.
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Most were subsistence farmers, meaning that they ate what they grew or they raised. How many of you think that might take up quite a bit of energy?
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If you were like, the only thing that you would put in your mouth was the things that you grew, you might spend a little time farming.
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You might spend some time taking care of that goat or that cow or whatever it is, right? They were oppressed by the
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Roman occupiers. They were heavily taxed and that took a lot of energy. They had wrapped up their spiritual lives in a deep ritualistic legalism, which allowed them to feel really good about themselves because they had done the things even if their hearts weren't in the things.
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So a lot of it was just religion on the outside during this time. So John was like the last of the
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Old Testament prophets before the arrival of the Messiah, declaring like the prophets are prone to do, as prophets like to say, you suck.
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You're going to be judged unless you turn. You see, if you were scandalized by a pastor standing up and saying that, that's the effect.
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Like that's what the prophets would do. Like if it was scandalous and it was like, whoa, you're not supposed to say that, then that's the right effect.
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You're going to be judged unless you turn your hearts over to God. That was John's message. And then he added, because the
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Messiah is here, and on one particular instance that we have it recorded, he says, and by the way, he's right over there. He's right here.
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He's among us in the crowd. He's here. He was reviving among the common folks an interest in genuine relationship with God.
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You can have a real relationship with God, not just going through the motions, take your sheep once a year to the sacrifice and be done with it.
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The advent of Jesus is meant to do this for all of us as well. Let's allow this
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Christmas to be a time of reflecting on what we deserved in contrast to what God has given to us. And then let's draw close to him by faith, because here's the truth.
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We do suck. We do deserve judgment, and God sent his son to fix that because he loves us.
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The tenth thing, in his advent, God demonstrates his tender mercy to us. Verse 78, a beautiful phrase, tender mercy.
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I love that verse 78, by the way, comes on the heels of 77. Convict us of our sins. Show that he's expressing tender mercy toward us who don't deserve it.
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The knowledge of the forgiveness of sins requires the conviction of sins. You kind of have to be broken down and recognize what you really are in your sin before you will come to understand the great glory of what he's done for you.
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And yet in the pathway of salvation, through the advent of Jesus, we see God's tender mercy. This is a phrase of deep feeling.
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It's got the word guts in it. This is mercy from his innards, like the way he feels inside.
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The old ancients would translate this as a phrase that's going to divert your attention to other things, but it's bowels of mercy.
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Like they thought, we will identify feeling in the, what? We identify feeling in the heart.
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Well, why? That thing's just pumping blood, right? Like it's not, there's no emotion in it. And they identified that, because where do you feel?
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Like when you feel deep emotion, where do you feel it? Like we talk about butterflies in your stomach, or we talk about like, like when you just have agony and you're like emotionally wrecked, where do you feel that?
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Well, you just kind of feel that just generally like in your torso, right? So they would just say bowels of compassion, or he's moved from internally to demonstrate mercy towards people, tender mercy from the core of his being.
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His tender mercy is what has led to the advent of Jesus, his coming. Why did
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Jesus come into the world? Because God has a deep and abiding heartfelt mercy toward you and toward me.
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And from that tender mercy comes the drawing of a great light, the dawning of a great light, that leads to our 11th point here.
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The 11th point in verse 79 is that in his advent, God has given us freedom from sin and death.
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The advent of Christ is likened to the sun breaking out at dawn, like after a really dark night, and you haven't been able to sleep, and you see the sun coming up, and it's like, okay, it's day.
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I imagine, by the way, that in, we haven't really experienced darkness. Now, there have been a couple of times where there's been a storm, and the power is out, and you're trying to find a candle.
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Any of you ever have those experiences? Now, multiply that times every night, like 365 days a year in this ancient world, like always fumbling for a candle, right?
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Like, you know, that when you're out and under the stars, like the moon is your only light, and I mean, that would be, there would be some terrifying nights.
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How many of you would just admit that, like, oh, darkness in ancient times would be mildly scary, right?
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And so, that light dawning is a significant glory, a significant beauty that's being demonstrated here, the light, the dawning of Jesus, the advent.
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And the light comes to us in our darkness. The light falls on we, according to verse 79, who sit in the shadow of death.
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The power of the arrival of Jesus is found in nearly inexpressible glory that he arrived to deal with our darkness.
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Like, personalize that for a minute, and think about your own sin. Sins like lust, or harsh words, or unforgiveness, or hate, or lying, or cheating, or backstabbing ways.
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Not merely some generic darkness that's out there, but the real darkness in your heart, the real darkness that we all carry with us.
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He has come to exchange that darkness for light. And further, we have lived all of our days in the shadow of death.
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Under the specter of limited and very finite reality, that we have a numbered amount of days here to live this life.
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His advent was to exchange that fear of death for the hope of eternal life.
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So, this Christmas, celebrate that the light has come, and that the light spells nothing less than the exchange of our darkness for his light, and the exchange of the fear of death to the hope of eternal life.
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And lastly, we see also in this final verse 79, in his advent, he has created a pathway to shalom.
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This phrase is, even as I was writing it, and thinking about it, and meditating on it this week, it caught in my throat a few times, because it's so astonishing when you understand the scope of what it means to for God to be restoring peace.
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In this text is found the glory of the redemption that God is bringing forth with the giving of his son. This is pointing to the restoration of shalom.
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That's the peace that existed in the garden before sin ravaged our relationship with our creator.
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A peace that is so much more than the mere absence of war. A peace that is better defined by a great friendship without any more goodbyes.
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Good food and feasting without the fear of clogged arteries. Good time spent in nature without the fear of being mauled by a bear, or bitten by a serpent.
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Good life with no more fear. Life the way it was meant to be.
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Life the way that it was in pure fellowship with our creator before Adam and Eve sinned against him.
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In this sense, shalom is particularly difficult for us to define. I don't know if you've ever thought about it, but you have never lived a day of peace.
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Not pure and true peace. You've never seen it. You don't really know what it tastes like.
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You don't really know what it looks like. You don't really know what it feels like, because we have lived all of our days in darkness.
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We've lived all of our days under the shadow of death. We've seen approximations of it, amen?
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How many of you say, yeah, I've seen some good days. I've had some good things. They're approximations of shalom, approximations of peace, vacations with family, or marital bliss, or the little newborn's hand holding onto our finger.
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But I say approximations because it is all stained by the reality of fear and loss.
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And we come to our time of communion this morning. Let's remember what is bought for us, what is brought to us in the arrival of Jesus Christ, in his advent.
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I encourage you to feel free to get up and come to the tables to remember what he came to do, to rescue sinners like us from divine wrath.
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If you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you have put your trust in him and said, I am broken.
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I am busted. And only on the basis of what you have done for me do
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I have hope. Then I encourage you to come to the tables and take some time to consider what
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God did for us in sending forth his son. The reality cannot and must not be reduced to December 25th.
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The epic cosmic glorious dawning of light, the arrival of his tender mercy, the carving out of a people who will serve him in holiness and righteousness without fear forever, the deliverance from all enemies that will result in a people who serve him forever and ever and ever to bring forth the forgiveness of sins and his movement to usher in true, lasting, abiding shalom.
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My hope and prayer is that this message will serve to set your Christmas celebration this year on the right trajectory.
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And let's aim for praise this Christmas season. Let's pray. Father, the word thanks seems really cheap and chintzy in light of all that you have done for us in the sending forth of your son, but I don't know what else to give, so I will just say thank you.
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And I pray that that would be just well up within all of us that we would all be motivated and moved to just awe, real praise, real thankfulness, real gratitude.
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I pray that where our traditions and where our habits around this season war against thankfulness and gratitude,
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I pray that you would push those things aside. Maybe this is a year of shedding some traditions that just get in the way.
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And Father, I pray that you would give us all a more pure thinking towards gratitude and gladness this year.
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And not just this Christmas season, but the awe and wonder of incarnation, the awe and wonder of you sending in the form of that young child, the
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Savior of the world. And I pray, Father, if there's anybody here who does not know you as Savior, that some of these delights and some of these joys might appeal in a way that draws deeper in a hunger, a desire for these things.
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You've done so much for your people. And so, Father, I pray that you would bring salvation to those who do not know you.
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I pray that you would be with us now as we take communion. We thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
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I remember for years thinking that talking about your death around Christmas time muddied the glory of the incarnation, but it's all just one big package deal.
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Christmas and Easter rolled up in our salvation. And so, we thank you for coming and we thank you for dying for us in Jesus' name, amen.