Believe God's Words

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:10

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

00:18

Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

00:25

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The scripture text tonight is taken from the gospel of Luke 1, verses 1 -23.

00:36

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent

00:57

Theophilus, so that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

01:04

In the days of Herod, the king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the division of Abijah.

01:12

And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. They were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and the statutes of the

01:22

Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren. Both were advanced in years.

01:29

Now, while he was serving as priest before God, when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by law to enter the temple of the

01:40

Lord and to burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense.

01:46

And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

01:52

And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him,

01:58

Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name

02:07

John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the

02:16

Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the

02:21

Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the

02:27

Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and the power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the

02:41

Lord a people prepared. Zechariah said to the angel, How shall

02:47

I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years. And the angel answered him,

02:54

I am Gabriel, I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.

03:01

And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.

03:11

And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple.

03:17

And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple, and he kept making signs to them and remained mute.

03:27

And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home. In the name of Jesus.

03:34

Now when I was a kid, I thought my mom was crazy sometimes. I mean, we'd go about our daily lives doing, well, the normal things we do.

03:45

You know, I'd go to school, we'd come back, we'd do homework. My mom would cook dinner, she would do the dishes.

03:50

And then eventually I learned how to do the dishes. And we had this normal rhythm that we would go through.

03:56

But every now and then, the rhythm got disrupted when we got word that grandma was coming.

04:03

And I don't know what would happen to my mother, but she would transform into somebody else. And what was once an acceptable level of clean in the house, now rose to the level of pigsty.

04:16

It was absolutely awful. So there I was as a young lad. I mean, we're going about our normal business.

04:23

The house looks, well, normal to me. It looks as clean as it is. And my mom was already a very clean housekeeper.

04:30

And then she would say, this is not going to do. Do you see the dirt in the grout? What dirt?

04:36

What's grout? Look at this vacuuming job here in the living room. It's not good.

04:42

Do it again. And it's like, what has gotten into my mother? And then my grandma would show up and everything would be fine.

04:50

And then after she left, it was like we were able to go, ah, you know, back to normal life.

04:56

And my grandmother never even noticed anything. It was just the strangest thing.

05:02

Well, think of it this way. Is that Advent is this time of, well, preparation, anticipation.

05:11

Somebody important is coming to town. And there is a major theme within Advent, and that is the theme of preparing, in preparation.

05:22

And that is what we hear about John the Baptist. John the Baptist is the forerunner of Christ, and he is preparing the way of the

05:29

Lord. And his call, as we will hear this Sunday, is repent. But as we look at our

05:36

Gospel text, we're going to be working our way through the opening portions of the Gospel of Luke, I think it is very important that we note here that God now is preparing to fulfill

05:49

His promises. And God Himself is doing the preparation in light of His soon appearing.

05:59

And so with that, as we consider God preparing to fulfill His own promises, we remember that at the very end of Genesis 1, this is the chapter of the

06:10

Bible where we're here, that God said, let there be light, and there was light, and He created everything that you see.

06:16

The stars, the sun, the moon, well, the animals, the rivers, everything.

06:23

He created them in six days. And at the very end, He creates humanity, and God declares that all that He had created was very good.

06:35

Yeah, but we all know that something went terribly wrong. As the story tells us,

06:41

God's enemy invaded the garden of the Lord and deceived our first parents.

06:47

And through His deception, well, tempted them to disobey the Lord. And as a result of their disobedience, we were plunged into death and into a curse.

06:59

Misery, suffering, disease, broken marriages, murdered children, wars, famine, pestilence, mental insanity, starvation, destroyed friendships, and societies steeped in sin and idolatry have followed in its wake.

07:17

See, our parents ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and unfortunately, we have known experientially both good and evil ever since.

07:28

But if you're honest, it feels like what little good we experience is quickly overrun by the evils of this world.

07:37

And I don't know about you. It seems like the longer I live, the more tired

07:42

I get. Tired. I feel like I'm languishing under the curse and the tyranny of darkness.

07:50

But remember, there was a promise given in the garden, a prophecy that would dare to have us hope, but that hope seems only like a whisper there in Genesis 3.

08:04

But whether it's a whisper or a thundering voice from heaven, when God speaks and when he promises, he never reneges.

08:13

He never lies. And so as a result of this, this promise, like everything we're going to see in our

08:18

Gospel text, calls for belief, calls for faith, calls for trust.

08:24

Here again, the words from Genesis 3 were God pronouncing judgment on our first parents.

08:31

It says that they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden of the cool of the day. The man and his wife, they hid themselves from the presence of the

08:37

Lord and God called among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to them,

08:44

Where are you? He said, Well, I heard the sound of you in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.

08:51

He said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? And now comes the first passing of the buck.

09:01

He said, The woman that you gave to be with me, she gave me of the fruit of the tree and I ate.

09:08

And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this that you have done? And the woman said, Well, the serpent deceived me and I ate.

09:14

And the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all the beasts of the field.

09:20

On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. And here's the whisper of a promise.

09:29

I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.

09:38

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

09:45

So the promise of the offspring of the woman, if you think about it and do the math, went unfulfilled for millennia.

09:54

Generations came, generations went. Civilizations, they rose and they fell in the years between the promise and the arrival of the seed.

10:05

The civilizations that arose in the shadow of Eden, they were eventually judged by God for their wickedness and the entire earth was flooded and only

10:15

Noah and his family survived. As we read through the Old Testament, we follow now the scarlet thread of this seed, this promised one.

10:26

God appeared to Abraham, we learn, brought him into Canaan. God wrestled with Israel and brought the

10:33

Hebrews to Egypt where they were enslaved for 400 years. Keep that number in your mind. God delivered them through Moses and brought them to the promised land and raised up King David and his descendants and then

10:44

King David and his descendants ended up plunging Israel into idolatry and God punished them by sending them into captivity in Babylon.

10:55

And after bringing them out of captivity, he reestablished them in Judea and he spoke to them for just a brief period of time through the last of the

11:03

Old Testament prophets. We're talking 1 ,500 years of history in the

11:08

Old Testament from the time the children of Israel arrive in Judea to the time when, well, the final prophets speak.

11:19

And then, well, there's 400 years of silence after that.

11:26

And I think it's important to note what exactly God said in the parting prophet of the

11:33

Old Testament. We'll look at two brief passages. Malachi 2, starting at verse 17.

11:42

It's kind of a brutal prophecy. It says, You have wearied Yahweh with your words.

11:48

It's a fun place to start, isn't it? You've wearied Yahweh with your words.

11:55

But you say, well, how have we wearied him? By saying, everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the

12:01

Lord and he delights in them. Or by asking, where is the God of justice? That's an interesting place to start.

12:12

Wearing the Lord by telling everyone who does evil that it is good in the sight of the

12:18

Lord. Does that sound like it could have been written today? Are there not, well, let's be frank here.

12:27

Are there not buildings that call themselves churches that bless sin? That tell people that God blesses them in their sin?

12:40

It's a terrible plight. And in the midst of this terribleness where these people have worn

12:47

God out, God gives another promise. Behold, I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me.

12:56

And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come into his temple and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight.

13:04

Behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears?

13:11

For he's like a refiner's fire and like a fuller's soap. And already, as you listen to this prophecy, you can begin to see

13:19

Jesus in the temple preaching and teaching. Oh, and the Pharisees and the

13:25

Sadducees coming to test him and leaving while dissatisfied. And then the closing chapter of the prophet

13:33

Malachi reads this. For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all of the arrogant, all of the evildoers will be stubble.

13:43

The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says Yahweh of hosts. Yahweh Sabeoth in the

13:50

Hebrew. So that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.

14:02

You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. You shall tread down the wicked for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when

14:11

I act, says the Lord of hosts. Remember the law of my servant

14:16

Moses and the statutes and the rules that I commanded at Horeb for all of Israel. And behold,

14:22

I will send to you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.

14:29

And if you pay attention here, in this closing chapter of the Old Testament, prophet

14:34

Malachi, it sounds like the Lord is prophesying the second return of Jesus.

14:43

Because He is. But you're going to also notice He's also prophesying the first coming of Christ.

14:51

The first advent of Jesus. And so it is, how shall we say it, a good biblical tradition.

14:57

A good biblical practice to talk about Jesus' first and second advent in ways that combine the two.

15:06

First and second visitations coming together. And so, you'll notice, we have an eye for the future day of judgment, but also we have an eye of the first advent of Christ.

15:19

And here are the words that end the prophet Malachi's book. Behold, I will send to you

15:25

Elijah the prophet before the great and the awesome day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with the decree of utter destruction.

15:44

And then, after Malachi puts his pen down,

15:51

God stops speaking. For 400 years. For 400 years.

15:59

Silence. But he never stopped speaking through his word.

16:06

And so for those 400 years, the generations that came and went, they heard the promises and they were in anticipation of the fulfillment of them.

16:19

And so when Jesus shows up, finally, we read in the New Testament that over again, the people were expecting him.

16:28

They knew he was coming. They were anticipating his arrival. Even Jesus' enemies.

16:34

So at the time when the New Testament opens, as we read in Luke 1, when the curtain comes back up and God begins to move again and to stir and is getting ready to speak, everybody is in anticipation.

16:51

And what is called for in this time of anticipation? Belief and repentance.

17:02

Trust and making your path straight before the Lord. Seeing your sin for what it is.

17:08

And seeing the salvation that God is providing for us. And so our

17:15

Gospel text opens with these words. With Luke writing to Theophilus.

17:20

And as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us. You see,

17:26

Luke was a physician of his time. An educated man. Probably a Gentile.

17:32

Convert to Christianity. Potentially through the Apostle Paul. And he's writing to a gentleman whose name is

17:38

Theophilus. What a funny name. Theophilus. The lover of God. That's what it means.

17:44

I love it. Because if that was really his name and not some pseudonym that he was using, it's a wonderful double entendre.

17:51

Because you can say, well, I guess that's written to me too. Because it is.

17:57

So as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitness and ministers of the

18:07

Word, they have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely and for some time past, to write an orderly account for you,

18:16

O most excellent Theophilus, so that you may have... Listen to this word. It is so outrageous.

18:24

Certainty. So that you may have certainty concerning the things that you have been taught.

18:31

Notice the days we live in. The thing that we're taught to embrace by society is doubt.

18:38

The person who, well, has the audacity to say that they know something with certainty, well, we all know what that person is.

18:45

They're arrogant. Isn't that what the society says? See, society values doubt.

18:54

Doubt blurs definitions. Doubt creates ambiguity. And in ambiguity, there is no sin.

19:05

There is no judgment. There is no condemnation. There just is. Like one big bowl of three -day -old oatmeal.

19:15

But we have been written to by Luke so that we would have certainty.

19:23

And so the story begins. In the days of Herod, the king of Judea, you see, in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, God began to stir.

19:33

God began to fulfill His promises. The promises He made all the way back at the beginning of time.

19:40

You see, back in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, there was a priest, and his name was Zechariah of the division of Abijah.

19:48

And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. This reads like history, not mythology, because it is.

19:55

And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments.

20:00

A little bit of a note, and that is that you're going to notice righteous and blameless. Righteous before God is how we talk about our standing before God by grace through faith.

20:13

Blameless before others is the second table of the law in how we conduct ourselves with each other.

20:20

And so Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah, they were righteous by faith and blameless in how they conducted their affairs with other people.

20:29

But they had no child because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years. And there's that wonderful motif.

20:35

I seem to remember in the Old Testament there were a bunch of women who had difficulty conceiving.

20:42

Why is it always this difficulty conceiving? And now in the

20:48

Christmas story, we not only get it once, we get it twice. Because, I mean, who can have more difficulty than a virgin giving birth?

20:56

That's kind of what the whole motif is pointing to. From Sarah to Isaac's wife to even

21:03

Samson's mother or the mother of Samuel. All of these women who had trouble conceiving.

21:09

God is in the Old Testament preparing us for what is coming so that when the promises are fulfilled we can sit there and say, of course,

21:18

He's been telling us this is the way it was going to happen the whole time. Because that's what He was doing.

21:26

So, while Zechariah was serving as a priest before God, when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by Lot to enter the temple of the

21:39

Lord and to burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense.

21:46

Let your prayers rise before you as incense. Lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

21:53

And there, while they were praying and he was burning the incense, an angel of the Lord was standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

22:02

Zechariah was troubled when he saw him and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him,

22:08

Do not be afraid, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife

22:14

Elizabeth will bear you a son and she'll call his name John. And you just have to wonder if you were to pull out that prayer and look at the stamp to see when they stamped it and the date on it, how many years had gone by?

22:32

You think Zechariah was still praying for his son? While his wife is an octogenarian? Probably not.

22:40

But his prayer had been heard. His prayer had been heard. And your wife

22:45

Elizabeth will bear you a son. You shall call his name John and you will have joy and gladness and many will rejoice at his birth for he will be great before the

22:54

Lord and he must not drink wine or strong drink, which means he's a Nazarite. He'll be filled with the

23:00

Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb. Hmm. It's as if the angel

23:05

Gabriel believed in. Well, infants can have faith because they can. And so he will turn many of the children of Israel to the

23:14

Lord their God and he will go before him in the spirit and the power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just and to make ready for the

23:26

Lord a people prepared. Now at this point, Zechariah should have been doing an end zone dance.

23:35

Yes! This is awesome! But he didn't have certainty.

23:42

He had a lot of doubts. A lot of doubts. And well, they manifested.

23:50

Zechariah said to the angel, How shall I know this? For I'm an old man.

23:56

My wife is advanced in years. It's like, Gabriel, do you not know how to read a calendar?

24:02

What's going on here? Gabriel now whips out righteous indignation because this is not how one who believes in Yahweh and trusts in His word is to respond to His words.

24:16

So the angel answered. You can almost see his feathers kind of ruffling up, right?

24:22

I am Gabriel. As if he's supposed to know that's like important. I'm Gabriel.

24:29

I stand in the presence of God and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.

24:36

You should be rejoicing. You should be happy. You should be like, Wow! And you're not. And behold, since you don't believe the word of the

24:45

Lord, we're going to make it so you're not able to make any words yourself. And so behold, you'll be silent, unable to speak until the day that these things take place because you did not believe my words.

24:55

And whose words were Gabriel's words for real? They were God's. And they will be fulfilled in their time.

25:07

And see, that's the thing. God always fulfills his words in his time.

25:14

He knows what he's doing. So while the people were waiting for Zechariah, they were wondering at his delay in the temple.

25:22

And he came out. By the way, delays like that generally mean that the priest died. Okay? In case you didn't know, not only were they required to wear something like this to cover up, but at the bottom of their robes, they had like little bells.

25:37

And they took a rope like this and tied it to his ankles. Okay? Because if he did something wrong, there was a good chance that God would strike him dead.

25:46

And so when the jingle bells stopped, you take the rope and you drag the body out from behind the

25:53

Holy of Holies. Otherwise, God will kill you in the process. So it's like, Zechariah's taking a little bit too long.

26:01

You don't think. Oh, I hope not. So they were thinking the worst. So the people were waiting for Zechariah.

26:08

They were wondering at his delay in the temple. And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them. And they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple, and he kept making signs to them.

26:19

I always kind of crack up at this. A little bit of a side note. Okay, this part of Scripture actually makes me really laugh because I picture

26:27

Zechariah trying to explain to them without words that he saw an angel. And how do you go about doing such a thing?

26:35

Anyway, that's not very holy. So he's a poor fellow.

26:43

He's just absurd, but it's wonderful. So he kept making signs to them and remained mute.

26:49

And when his time of service was ended, notice that they didn't give him any days off. Yeah, well, you lost your voice.

26:55

Well, that's too bad for you. Get back to work. So when he was done, he went home. And so our text today, tonight, this

27:03

Advent, teaches us that God is stirring. God is moving.

27:10

God is finally fulfilling his promises in his time. That is what

27:16

Advent is really about, the anticipation, the arrival of Christ, and the fulfilling of God's promises.

27:22

And you'll notice who's doing the preparation. God is. So in the days of Zechariah, his soon -to -be -born son, the son he didn't believe was coming, well, this son, through the power of the

27:36

Holy Spirit, prepared the way of the Messiah, making the path straight through the preaching of repentance and baptism.

27:44

Today, God is still stirring. God is still moving. Today, Christ has sent pastors and Christians into the world to prepare the way of Christ's arrival, that second

27:57

Advent, his coming in glory to judge the living and the dead. He's sent us to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins, baptizing and teaching, very similar to the way

28:09

John did. And so this calls for faith. Not doubt. This calls for certainty.

28:16

Not, I don't know. And that's what faith is. It's trust.

28:22

It's belief that God fulfills his words in his time. You see, God never reneges on a promise.

28:29

And it's important for us, this Advent season, to remember and again go over what it is that God has promised to us.

28:38

Because with all of the people running around the religious landscape making all kinds of promises for God that he never made, we need to hang on to the ones we know for sure that he's given to us.

28:49

For the scripture says, in Romans 10, verses 11 and 13, that everyone who believes in Jesus will not be put to shame.

28:59

That is a great promise. Because every time we examine our lives in light of God's law and the

29:06

Ten Commandments, we see how woefully short that we fall. And it is good news for us that God has sent his

29:15

Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world may be saved through him. And so everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.

29:23

You will not be shamed on the day of Jesus' return. There will only be, well, like the leaping of a calf.

29:32

That excitement, that fun, that great thing to look forward to. New heavens, new earth, world without end, no more curse, no more knowing evil.

29:42

Thank God, I can't wait. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. The same

29:47

Lord is Lord of all. And God bestows his riches on all who call on him.

29:54

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

30:00

But remember what Peter said in 2 Peter 3 .13. According to his promise, we are waiting for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

30:13

And so this Advent, let's do what Malachi teaches us to do. Keep our eyes both on Jesus' first Advent and his second

30:21

Advent, because the two go together. And let us also, well, drop all of the sin that entangles us, all of the sin that makes our own paths crooked.

30:35

Let us repent, be forgiven, bear fruit in keeping with repentance, and live like children of the day that is dawning rather than children of the night.

30:47

In the name of Jesus, Amen. Oslo, Minnesota 56744

31:28

We thank you for your support. All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message.