Believe God's Words

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 Minnesota.

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

And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The scripture text tonight is taken from the gospel of Luke chapter 1, verses 1

-23.

In 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 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 Theophilus so that you may

have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

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

Abijah 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 Lord

but they had no child because Elizabeth was barren.

Both were advanced in years.

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 Lord and to burn incense

and the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense and there appeared to him

an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense and Zechariah was troubled when he

saw him and fear fell upon him but the angel said to him 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 John and you will have joy and gladness

and many will rejoice at his birth for he will be great before the Lord and he must not drink

wine or strong drink and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's

womb and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the 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

Lord a people prepared.

Zechariah said to the angel how shall I know this for I am an old man and my

wife is advanced in years and the angel answered him 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 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 and the people were waiting for

Zechariah and 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 and

remained mute and when his time of service was ended he went to his

home.

In the name of Jesus 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 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 and then eventually I learned how to do the dishes and

we had this normal rhythm that we would go through but every now and then the rhythm got

disrupted when we got word that grandma was coming 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 pig sty.

It was absolutely awful.

So there I was as a young lad I mean we're going about our normal business the house looks well normal to me it

looks as clean as it is and my mom was already a very clean housekeeper and then

she would say this is not going to do.

Do you see the dirt in the grout?

What dirt?

What's grout?

Look at this vacuuming job here in the living room.

It's not good.

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 and then after she left it was

like we were able to go ah you know back to normal life and my grandmother never even

noticed anything.

It was the strangest thing.

Well think of it this way.

Is that advent is this time of well preparation,

anticipation, somebody important is coming to town and there is a major theme within

advent and that is the theme of preparing and preparation 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 Lord and his call

as we will hear this Sunday is repent.

But as we look at our 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 his promises and God himself

is doing the preparation in light of his soon appearing.

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 Bible where we hear

that God said let there be light and there was light and he created everything that you see.

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

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.

Yeah but we all know that something went terribly wrong.

As the story tells us God's enemy invaded the garden of the Lord and deceived our first

parents and through his deception tempted them to disobey the Lord

and as a result of their disobedience we were plunged into death and into a curse.

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.

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.

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

of this world.

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

I get.

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

But remember there was a promise in the garden, a prophecy that would dare

to have us hope but that hope seems only like a whisper

there in Genesis chapter 3.

But whether it's a whisper or a thundering voice from heaven, when God speaks and when he promises

he never reneges.

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

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

Here again the words from Genesis chapter 3 where God pronouncing judgment on our first

parents.

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 Lord and God called among the trees of the garden.

But the Lord God called to the man and said to them, where are you?

He said, well I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.

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.

He said, the woman that you gave to be with me, she gave me of the fruit

of the tree and I ate.

And the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you've done?

And the woman said, well the serpent deceived me and I ate.

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.

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.

I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your

offspring and her offspring.

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

So the promise of the offspring of the woman, if you think about it and do the math,

went unfulfilled for millennia.

Generations came, generations went.

Civilizations, they rose and they fell in the years between the promise and the arrival of the seed.

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 Noah and his family

survived.

As we read through the Old Testament, we follow now the scarlet thread of this

seed, this promised one.

God appeared to Abraham, we learn, brought him into Canaan.

God wrestled with Israel and brought the 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 plunged in Israel, sorry, King David and his descendants ended up plunging Israel into

idolatry and God punished them by sending them into captivity in Babylon.

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 Old Testament prophets.

Talking 1500 years of history in the Old Testament from the time the children of Israel

arrive in Judea to the time when, well, the final

prophets speak.

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

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

prophet of the Old Testament.

We'll look at two brief passages.

Malachi chapter 2 starting at verse 17.

It's kind of a brutal prophecy.

It says, It's a fun

place to start, isn't it?

You've wearied Yahweh with your words, but you say, well, how have we wearied him?

By saying, everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord and he delights in them.

Or by asking, where is the God of justice?

That's an interesting place to start.

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

the Lord.

Does that sound like it could have been written today?

Are there not well, let's be frank here.

Are there not buildings that call themselves churches that bless sin?

That tell people that God blesses them in their sin?

It's a terrible plight.

And in the midst of this terribleness where these people have worn God out,

God gives another promise.

Behold, I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me.

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

in whom you delight.

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?

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 Jesus in the temple

preaching and teaching.

Oh, and the Pharisees and the Sadducees coming to test him and leaving while

dissatisfied.

And then the closing chapter of the prophet 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.

The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says Yahweh of hosts, Yahweh Saveoth

in the 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.

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 I

act, says the Lord of hosts.

Remember the law of my servant Moses and the statutes and the rules that I commanded at Horeb for all of

Israel.

And behold, I will send to you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord

comes.

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

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

Because He is.

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

first advent of Jesus.

And so it is, how shall we say it, a good biblical tradition, a good biblical

practice to talk about Jesus' first and second advent in ways that combine

the two.

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.

And here are the words that end the prophet Malachi's book.

Behold, I will send to you 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.

And then after Malachi puts his pen down

God stops speaking for 400 years.

For 400 years.

Silence.

But He never stopped speaking through His word.

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.

And so when Jesus shows up finally, we read in the New Testament that over again

the people were expecting Him.

They knew He was coming.

They were anticipating His arrival.

Even Jesus' enemies.

So at the time when the New Testament opens, as we read in Luke chapter 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.

And what is called for in this time of anticipation?

Belief and repentance.

Trust and making your path straight before the Lord.

Seeing your sin for what it is.

And seeing the salvation that God is providing for us.

And so our Gospel text opens with these words.

With Luke writing to Theophilus.

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

You see Luke was a physician of his time.

An educated man.

Probably a Gentile.

Convert to Christianity.

Potentially through the Apostle Paul.

And he's writing to a gentleman whose name is Theophilus.

What a funny name.

Theophilus.

The lover of God.

That's what it means.

I love it.

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

entendre.

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

Because it is.

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 eyewitnesses and ministers of the 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, O most excellent Theophilus.

So that you may have.

Listen to this word.

It is so outrageous.

Certainty.

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

Notice the days we live in.

The thing that we're taught to embrace by society is doubt.

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

Well, we all know what that person is.

They're arrogant.

Isn't that what the society says?

See, society values doubt.

Doubt blurs definitions.

Doubt creates ambiguity.

And in ambiguity, there is no sin.

There is no judgment.

There is no condemnation.

There just is.

Like one big bowl of three day old oatmeal.

But we have been written to by Luke.

So that we would have certainty.

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.

God began to fulfill his promises.

The promises he made all the way back at the beginning of time.

See, back in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, there was a priest.

And his name was Zechariah.

The division of Abijah.

And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron.

And her name was Elizabeth.

This reads like history.

Not mythology.

Because it is.

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

A little bit of a note.

And that is that you are going to notice righteous and blameless.

Righteous before God is how we talk about our standing before God by grace through faith.

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

other.

And so, Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah, they were righteous by faith and

blameless in how they conducted their affairs with other people.

But they had no child because Elizabeth was barren and both were advanced in years.

And there's that wonderful motif.

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

conceiving.

Why is it always this difficulty conceiving?

And now in the 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?

That's kind of what the whole motif is pointing to.

From Sarah, to Isaac's wife, to even Samson's mother or the mother

of Samuel.

All of these women who had trouble conceiving.

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!

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

Because that's what he was doing.

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 Lord and to burn incense.

And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense.

Ah, let your prayers rise before you as incense, lifting up my hands as the evening

sacrifice.

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.

Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him.

But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, for your prayer has been heard.

Your wife, 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?

You think Zechariah was still praying for his son while his wife is an octogenarian?

Probably not.

But his prayer had been heard.

His prayer had been heard, and your wife, 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 Lord, and he must not drink wine or strong drink, which means he's a Nazarite.

He'll be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb.

Hmm.

It's as if the angel Gabriel believed in, well, infants can have faith, because they can.

And so he will turn many of the children of Israel to the 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 Lord a people prepared.

Now at this point, Zechariah should have been doing an end zone dance.

Yes!

This is awesome!

But he didn't have certainty.

He had a lot of doubts.

A lot of doubts.

And, well, they manifested.

Zechariah said to the angel, how shall I know this?

For I'm an old man.

My wife is advanced in years.

It's like, Gabriel, do you not know how to read a calendar?

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.

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

I am Gabriel, as if he's supposed to know that's like important.

I'm Gabriel.

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

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 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.

And whose words were Gabriel's words for real?

They were God's.

And they will be fulfilled in their time.

And see, that's the thing.

God always fulfills his words in his time.

He knows what he's doing.

So while the people were waiting for Zechariah, they were wondering at his delay in the temple, and he came

out.

By the way, delays like that generally mean that the priest died.

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 little bells, and they took a rope like this and

tied it to his ankles.

Because if he did something wrong, there was a good chance that God would strike him dead.

And so when the jingle bells stopped, you take the rope and you

drag the body out from behind the Holy of Holies.

Otherwise, God will kill you in the process.

So it's like, Zechariah's taking a little bit too long.

You don't think.

Oh, I hope not.

So they were thinking the worst.

So the people were waiting for Zechariah.

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.

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 Zechariah trying to explain to them without words that he saw an angel.

And how do you go about doing such a thing?

Anyway,.

Not very holy.

So, he's a poor fellow.

He's just absurd.

But it's wonderful.

So he kept making signs to them and remained mute.

And when his time of service was ended, notice that they didn't give him any days off.

Yeah, well, you lost your voice.

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 Advent, teaches us

that God is stirring.

God is moving.

God is finally fulfilling His promises in His time.

That is what Advent is really about.

The anticipation, the arrival of Christ, and the fulfilling of God's promises.

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 Holy Spirit, prepared the way of the Messiah, making the path

straight through the preaching of repentance and baptism.

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 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 John did.

And so this calls for faith.

Not doubt.

This calls for certainty.

Not, I don't know.

And that's what faith is.

It's trust.

It's belief that God fulfills His words in His time.

You see, God never reneges on a promise.

And it's important for us, this Advent season, to remember and again go over

what it is that God has promised to us.

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.

For the Scripture says, in Romans 10, verses 11 and 13, that everyone who believes

in Jesus will not be put to shame.

That is a great promise.

Because every time we examine our lives in light of God's law and the Ten Commandments, we see how woefully

short that we fall.

And it is good news for us that God has sent His 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.

You will not be shamed on the day of Jesus' return.

There will only be, well, like the leaping of a calf.

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.

Thank God I can't wait.

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek.

The same Lord is Lord of all.

And God bestows His riches on all who call on Him.

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

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.

And so, this Advent, let's do what Malachi teaches us to do.

Keep our eyes both on Jesus' first Advent and His second 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.

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.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

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And again, thank you for listening.