Christ Centered Praise (Part 2)

Praise for Christ’s Incarnation and Redemption in Luke 1

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. Mike Abendroth here at the helm, Ben Gudge. When I was taking a group of young people to Disneyland in 1982, something happened. I was the leader of a camp and I had my 10 young men to take along and be accountable for.

We made it back, by the way, all in one piece, all safe, and I said, hey, come with me right now. Get out of this ice cream line. I guess we couldn't have ice cream because it was an overweight camp that I was a sports director of, and so let's go over there.

I mean, I think we had our carrots and our little celery snacks. I had to eat what they ate even though I wasn't overweight, but at night I'd sneak out for one of those cookie ice cream sandwiches, chipwiches dipped in some tiny chocolate chips.

Anyway, I saw Walter Cohen from Star Trek there, and Wrath of Khan, the movie, the second Star Trek movie had just been released, and of course Khan, Ricardo Montalban, Kanani and Singh captured Chekov and to make him be his puppet and his robot and do what he wants him to do against Kirk and Spock and the Enterprise and all that.

I saved the Spock, Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise. He put an earwig bug, some kind of bug from who knows where into his ear and you could see it crawl in. I thought, oh, so when I introduced myself to Walter, I normally don't go up to stars and say hello, but I don't know why I did.

Maybe I wanted to show off in front of the kids or something, who knows, but normally like when I saw Warren Beatty and Madonna walking past me with holding hands, I didn't say anything until they walked past and I said to Kim, that's Warren Beatty and Madonna.

I just walked past Jack Nicholson. Can you imagine that? And even when I met Leonard Nimoy, I didn't say anything. I didn't say thanks, Leonard or anything. I did look at his ears though, and here I looked at Walter's ear.

What is it about Star Trek? And we have to look at their ears. I have no idea what's going on there, but my name is Mikey Bendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry, affectionately known as Duplex Gratia Radio, double benefit Jesus for pardon, I think terms of justification, Jesus for power, that is he leaves his Holy Spirit and he, the Holy Spirit, dwells in us and so we can have power to say no to sin and yes to righteousness, Christ for pardon, Christ for power, Duplex Gratia Radio.

I may make the switch someday, who knows? There is probably some traction for No Compromise Radio Ministry, probably negative traction, but as Keith Richards and Mick Jagger would say, negative press is still press.

Just speaking of that, it's interesting that when it used to be more of a, you know, attack blog, radio pod, we had more followers. Oh well, that's okay. I have realized now at 63 years old that I'll never be a superstar in evangelicalism, nor do I want to be.

Just fine right where I am and if I can encourage you and influence you and to get you to study the Lord Jesus' life and death and resurrection, ascension, session, soon return, I'm happy, right? You can write me, Mike, at NoCompromiseRadio.

We're talking today about praise, just like we talked about last time, because I'm preaching through Luke and everywhere you go in Luke 1, there's a bunch of praise and songs galore, all kinds of songs with Latin names, right?

The magnificat, the benedictus, and that just means magnification and praise, like the benediction, right? Bene, good, word, and so it's a good word. And Zechariah has some good words to say about the Messiah and his own son.

Interestingly, in that order, not his own son first, but the Messiah first. We're just talking about praising the Lord, Zechariah's prophecy, right, a little bit different than Mary's in the sense that she modeled her praise on 1 Samuel 2 and the Psalms, and Zechariah, he models his praise in Old Testament prophets, similar in the sense that they both use a lot of past tense verbs because it's as good as done, redemption's as good as done.

So you can say like Romans chapter 8, you're glorified, even though you're not glorified, but why would you say you're glorified, Paul, when you're not glorified? Because it's as good as done. In the mind of God, it's done and you will be glorified.

The promise is going to be kept. Let me talk a little bit about some reasons you can praise the Lord Jesus. Now, in life in general, we can say things like, oh, I'd like to praise God for opening my eyes.

I'd like to praise God for giving me a godly wife. Well, that's wonderful. Keep going. That's certainly true. By the way, why do I have here, I have pencils and pens, I have primers and vases and Joel Osteen cubes and catechisms for children and a gospel assurance book.

I have a pen in my hand, and that pen says Tupperware. Tupperware. Huh, Tupperware pens. It's pretty cheap. I'm not saying Tupperware is cheap, but this is pretty cheap. Tupperware was pretty cheap when they put those pens on.

I've got the ware part, silverware. What's a Tupper? I always say Tupperware. There's got to be some etymology behind that. Tupperware, Tupperware. So today we're going to talk about some things that you might not normally praise God for, but you could and you should.

And I think since I know you as listeners, you will. And the first sentence in Zachariah's praise in the Benedictus is praising God, the Lord of Israel for the Messiah, particularly how the Messiah has come to visit us.

That's the incarnation. So when's the last time you praised God about the incarnation? About the Messiah's redemption, forgiveness of sins, right? We were enslaved to sin, and now we're forgiven, enslaved to Satan.

Now we're, you know, heavenly citizens. That one's probably more typical of our praise. Praising God for the Messiah's, the prophecies about the Messiah's, Messiah that's been fulfilled, not Messiah's, and the ability to serve God.

That's really what he's after. If you boil it down into four easy things to praise God for, praising God for the Messiah's incarnation, for the Messiah's redemption, for fulfilled prophecy about the Messiah, and the ability to serve God.

It's all in one sentence. And it's, again, in past tense, because it's as good as done. God is faithful. And those whom he justified, he also, what? Glorified. And he begins to praise. And by the way, I think it's proper to talk a little bit about even what that word praise is.

In Luke 1, verse 68, it's blessed. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. This covenant-keeping God. This covenant-keeping God, Zechariah, blesses. The Greek word is where we get our English word, eulogy.

E-U is good, and L-O-G-O-S is a word, a good word. Speak a good word. And as one writer said, it's not because God is dead and you're given a eulogy, like Nietzsche said, God is dead. But God is alive.

God is well. God is active, as this writer said. He's doing things. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of his what? Benefits.

This is to be well-spoken of word. And so God, he is to be well-spoken of. To be spoken well of. I wish I could speak well. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers! I want the truth!

You can't handle the truth! Whoa, come on, back down a little bit there, buddy. Remember that song? I think it's a John Newton song. Glorious things of thee are spoken. That's the idea here. Bursting out with praise.

Remember, he's been mute for nine months. What's the first thing he says? If you can't talk for nine months, what do you say? You say to your wife, honey, I love you. You know, son, I'm proud of you. Daughter, I'm proud of you.

I mean, there's lots of things you could say. It's hard to say, son, I'm proud of you if you're Zachariah, because your son's only eight days old. But you could still be proud. For an eight-day-old child, I'm proud of you.

This is like Ephesians 1 -3. Blessed be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. This is like 1 Peter 1 -3. What do you tell a suffering group of people that Peter writes to?

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Praises for a triune God.

Praise for the Father. Praise for the Son. Praise for the Spirit. This whole section is praising the Lord Jesus, the Messiah. And Luther said, I need my Savior as much the day I die as when I was converted.

We always need the Savior. Zechariah, all right, are you ready for me to get into preaching mode here at No Compromise Radio? Here we go. Zechariah was a Christ-centered preacher. Did you know that? Zechariah was a Christ-centered preacher.

Huh. To quote my brother, Pat Abendroth. Huh. What's this one here I have here? Medication. What is the... How did Judge Judy get in my soundboard? It's interesting. Fill with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit points to, well, the Lord Jesus.

Yes, he convicts sin. And I know there are other ministries of the Holy Spirit, but he points to Jesus right here. Zechariah is filled to the brim with praises about the Messiah. Spurgeon. The motto of all true servants of God must be, we preach Christ and Him crucified.

A sermon without Christ in it is like a loaf of bread without any flour in it. Know Christ in your sermon, sir, then go home and never preach again until you have something worth preaching. He goes on.

Leave Christ out? Oh, my brethren, better leave the pulpit out altogether. If a man can preach one sermon without mentioning Christ's name in it, it ought to be his last. Certainly the last that any Christian ought to go to hear him preach.

A sermon without Christ at its beginning, middle, and end is a mistake in conception and a crime in execution. And I mean by Christ, not merely by his example and ethical precepts of his teaching, but his atoning blood, his wondrous satisfaction made for human sin and his grand doctrine, believe and live.

A crisis sermon, a brook without water, a cloud without rain, a well which mocks the traveler, a tree twice dead, plucked up by the root, a sky without a sun. It were a realm of death, a place of mourning for angels and laughter for devils.

Oh, Christian, we must have Christ. Do see to it that every day when you wake, you give a fresh savor of Christ upon you by contemplating his person. The spirit of God bears no witness to Christless sermons.

Leave Jesus out of your preaching and the Holy Spirit will never come upon you. Why should he? Has he not come on purpose that he may testify of Christ? Did not Jesus say, he shall glorify me for he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you.

Leave Christ out of your preaching and you have taken the milk from children and you have taken the strong meat from men. In the day and age of arguments about Christotelic, Christ-centered, redemptive historical, I mean, we have to define all those terms.

Isn't it enough to think when I talk about God, when I talk about the Bible, when I teach Sunday school, when I do a funeral, when I officiate a wedding, when I preach on Sunday morning, when I open up my Bible with my children, when I'm discipling other men, ladies, when you're teaching children and discipling other ladies, Titus chapter 2, do you think you should talk about Jesus?

Here's Zechariah. He's filled for the Spirit. And when Spirit-filled people, you know what they do? They talk about Jesus. That's correct. They talk about Jesus. And I think I can get most people, well, I can get everybody to agree here.

Yes, he's talking about Jesus. That's true. Maybe other places where Jesus isn't talked about, well, you don't want to import him into the text where he's not there. People will argue a variety of different ways.

But can't we just all agree? Can't we just Rodney King it and all get along by saying this? If Jesus isn't in the verse or in the passage, because it's ethical exhortations in the Proverbs, for instance, about run from immorality, Proverbs 5.

It never says Jesus in all of Proverbs 5. I mean, you might get to Jesus in Proverbs 8. That's another story. But can't we say something about Jesus in that sermon? Can't we say something about Jesus when we're talking to our sons about sexual morality and sexual immorality?

As a matter of fact, it says the beginning of chapter 5 of Proverbs, my son, and you can already see these are instructions from a loving father to a son. And that loving father wants his name to be honored by his son's good conduct.

And that loving father wants his son to have an easier life to do the right thing, unlike the dad, because the dad has learned the hard way. But it's from the hand of a father who loves the son. And of course, it's not a hand that says, if you disobey me and you ever look at a woman with lust, I'm not going to have you be my child anymore.

And I'm going to make you no longer a son. And I'm going to send you to the foster care home. No, it's not that at all. It's from a father to a son. And as we see that a little bit larger picture, we see as Christians, we read Proverbs 5 and we think the heavenly father gives us these exhortations as sons.

And of course, daughters can learn from Proverbs chapter 5 too, can they not? Yes, of course. And how could we have such a relationship with the father? The father gives us by the words of the Holy Spirit in Proverbs 5 through Solomon to us as well, not just Solomon's son, run from sexual immorality, flee sexual immorality to use the words of 1 Corinthians 6.

But how is God a father to us? Satan used to be our father. How can we have a father now? Answer, because of Jesus. Hello. Yes, because of the Lord Jesus. It's not that hard. But if you're so myopic with grammatical, historical, authorial intent, just looking at the passage with verbs and nouns and constructions and other things, lexical issues, word studies, syntactical issues, do all that.

I do that. I might not say it in every sermon, but I can tell you where the imperfect tense is in chapter 1, verse 64 of Luke. Yeah, I did the work. But I have to telescope back a little bit because I have Genesis to Revelation.

I have John chapter 5. I have Luke chapter 24. I have types and shadows pointing to something. I have fulfillment in the Lord Jesus. I have the ultimate Israel, Jesus, the ultimate son, Jesus, the ultimate prophet, Jesus, the ultimate priest, Jesus, the ultimate King, Jesus, everything pointing to, everything leading up to, everything driving toward the great fulfillment of Genesis 3 .15.

James Stewart said, in every sermon, Christ is to be preached. And Graham Goldsworthy goes farther. And I think he's right. I can think of no more challenging question for the preacher's self-evaluation than to ask whether the sermon was a faithful exposition of the way the text testifies to Christ.

For Zachariah, filled by the Spirit of God, a long, long, long, long sentence of several verses talking about Jesus, praising Him. You say, well, it doesn't say you should do that. Well, no, it doesn't say you shouldn't.

But we see these, you know, you read a Psalm and you think, that's how I want to praise the Lord. You read Ephesians 1, 3 -14, you say, that's how I should praise the Lord. You read 1 Peter 1, verses 3 -9, you think, that's how I should praise the Lord.

You read this and you go, that's how I should praise the Lord. Even before his own son is mentioned, he hasn't talked for nine months and he begins to praise the Messiah. And he doesn't have the New Testament.

It's all future. The only thing he has is the Old Testament. The only thing he has is the Old Testament. That's amazing to me. Well, this is Mike Abenroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry. I don't know what you think about this, but I think if we just settle in very easily and say, when I, or when you, get any opportunity to open up the Bible to talk to people, whether it's evangelism, Bible study, or anything else, I'm going to talk about Jesus.

By the way, don't ask me to come and speak if you don't want to hear about Jesus. I would be the wrong person to ask. Come and talk about prayer, but don't mention Jesus. No. Come and talk about a freedom of liberties that we have, but don't talk about Jesus.

No. Come to National Day of Prayer and you can pray in God's name, in your name, but you can't say in Jesus' name, no, no, no, and no. I'm stupid in a lot of areas, and I'm sinful in a lot of areas, and weak in a lot of areas, but this is a non-negotiable.

Did you hear me? It's a non-negotiable, and this just shouldn't be for pastors, or evangelists, or leaders, or elders. No, this is for everybody. Now, I'm not saying if you have a work meeting, you're going to talk about Jesus or else.

I'm talking about inappropriate spots. Evangelism, teaching the Bible to Sunday school classes, family worship, friends, etc. In that context, that's what I'm after. If you have to get up and give a speech in class for a history class, and you're an eighth grader, okay, I understand that.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying when we talk about God, we talk about Jesus. When we talk about the Bible, we talk about Jesus. When we're talking about good news, we talk about Jesus. That's what we do.

And if you want to give exhortations, and commands, and ethical instructions, good, good, and good. May you never hear from No Compromise Radio, we don't care about the law. That's just such a farce. But that's not the only thing we talk about.

Mormons are moral. Everybody's got the law written on their hearts. Pagans, JWs, unbelievers, Muslims, people call themselves Christians. Zachariah, do you see with your own eyes what he's doing? Yes.

Blessed be the God of Israel. And you just read through that whole section. It's all about Jesus. And he starts off with the incarnation. That's a good place to start, with the incarnation. Praising God for the incarnation.

Amazing. Well, my name is Mike Avendroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry. Sometimes I think of movies. And if I entitled a movie called The Visitation, what would you think? It's like some aliens visiting us.

M. Shamala Knight or something, The Visitation. There's probably a movie called The Visitation. I don't know. I should probably look it up. But I'm on live radio, nationwide, international. The Visitation.

Reminds me of my grandparents. You know, can you come over to visit? I'd like to come over and have a visit. Here the text says, he's visited us. And that's why we're to praise God. He's visited us. Now, is Jesus born yet?

No. But this is as good as done. He's visited us. And the word visit could also be translated looked after. Jesus uses it in Matthew 25. I was sick and you looked after me. You visited. You came to do something.

We've been waiting for the Messiah. We've been waiting for the Messiah. We've been waiting for the Messiah. Oh, Malachi, there's going to be the forerunner first. Then the Messiah is going to come. Here comes the forerunner.

Now the Messiah is going to come. The long expected Messiah. He's going to visit the planet. Yeah. Visit the planet. The God-man visiting the planet. We're going to have to have a visit from the Lord because we can't save ourselves.

If there's no visitation, there's no salvation. Did Jesus have a visitation ministry? Yes. And if it wasn't Jesus visiting us, there'd be no salvation. And what does visit mean? It means he's already existed and now he visits.

This is not origin. This is not when he started. This is not, you know, Jesus never existed until now, till the conception. The eternal God, second person became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory full of grace and truth.

This is like great indeed. We confess as the mystery of godliness. He was manifest in the flesh. You're manifest in the flesh when you're already existing. Right? What if I were to say, my name is Mike Abendroth, 1960, May 12th, I came to visit the earth.

And Jesus was sent. Jesus was manifest. He is preexistent. That's the point. That's my point. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins. It's the same thing, manifest. Well, my name is Mike Abendroth, this is No Compromise Radio.

What's my point? The point in what I'm saying is this, that in fact, you have John the Baptist being born and he's pointing to someone else and Zechariah knows it. And therefore he begins to praise the Lord.

Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. Make sure you email me, mikeatnocompromiseradio .com.