F4F | Awful Christmas Sermon "Fear Not"

Fighting for the Faith

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ.

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This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God. All right, so have you been to a big -box evangelical megachurch during Christmastime and ever thought to yourself, you know, that was like having a soup without salt, you know, when you listen to the

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Christmas message that they preach? It almost seemed like they were missing the point. If you've ever had that experience, that nagging thought that maybe something wasn't quite right, well, go ahead and hit the subscribe button down below.

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Don't forget to like the video and ring the bell so you can be notified when we update the channel.

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I've noted for a long time that when you attend a big -box evangelical megachurch, there are two times of the year, two times a year, when you are able to really, really, really see something ain't right, because there are two times a year when you expect at least to hear the gospel or hear a sermon that really centers on Jesus, and those two times a year are

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Christmas and Easter. And so during the Easter season, for a long time now, we've been doing what we call the

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Worst Easter Sermon of the Year contest. We don't do that for Christmas because it would cause me to go into deep depression, and I may not ever do the program ever again.

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I can only handle it once a year. So but as I've been working my way through some

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Christmas sermons from big -box churches, I am just profoundly blown away by how much effort they go through to not preach

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Jesus, to not mention sin, what it means to have a

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Savior, not mention repentance, not mention the reason why

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Jesus came, you know, go to the cross, bleed and die for our sins so that we can be forgiven.

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It's like, it's kind of like, remember the movie The Matrix? You know,

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Neo, he had this ability to like bend backwards and stuff like people were shooting bullets at him and so he couldn't be hit by bullets.

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That's what these people do, go through. They contort themselves. We're not going to preach the gospel.

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No, we're not going to mention Jesus. We're going to totally miss the whole point. That's what they do.

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It's crazy. It's nuts. Anyway, so I just kind of picked the one of the worst ones and thought, let's just gut it out together, shall we?

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This isn't a full sermon review. So don't worry. We're only... Oh, no, we can't do that.

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It's not a whole sermon review, but I think we'll get like into the first 10 -ish minutes and you'll get the point what

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I'm saying. So what we're going to do, we're going to head over to the Champions Center. This is where the cheap

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Joel Osteen knockoff, by the way, if you don't know what I mean. So cheap

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Joel Osteen knockoff is a reference to the fact that in the world of retail products, there are things called

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Rolexes, and it's a bazillion dollars to buy a watch, which makes no sense to me.

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But if you travel to Thailand, you can buy a Rolex for like 50 bucks, maybe 100.

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And the thing is that it's not really a Rolex. It's a faux -lex.

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Is that a word? Anyway, so Kevin Gerald is the cheap knockoff of Joel Osteen.

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He's the faux Rolex. And so we're not going to hear from him today, though. We're going to hear from one of the campus pastors, a lady by the name of Jodi Cameron.

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And we'll just say it up front, Scripture's very clear. See 1 Timothy 2, 1

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Corinthians 14. She shouldn't be doing what she's doing, all right? The Scripture forbids her to do what she's doing.

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So clearly there at the Champions Center, they don't really pay close attention to the fine details of what

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God has revealed and commanded and forbidden, and what he does allow and doesn't allow in his own church.

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And then I will say this, I'll just say it up front because I know some of you in the comments are going to mention it.

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What she's wearing is distracting. And the leggings,

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I'm not sure what she's wearing. They look like they're made out of spandex. I'm not making that up. So that's all

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I'm going to say about it. It's distracting. I'm not going to mention it again. And I'm not going to mention again 1

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Corinthians 14 or 1 Timothy 2. We've already done that. Let's kind of focus in on the content, shall we, of what it is that she's doing.

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And this is just going to be a supreme example of an adventure of missing the point, or what

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I like to refer to as putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable.

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You know, it's like if you're going to preach a Christmas text, actually give us the real message here and what's really going on.

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Why do we need a Savior? That might be something worth preaching about, you know, these texts.

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And so we'll also spend a lot of time actually looking at the text that she's preaching on because it's a great text, and look at some of the cross -references and the prophecies regarding the birth of Christ from 2

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Samuel chapter 7. We'll throw in the Gospel of John chapter 1 for good measure, and maybe a little bit of Hebrews and maybe some

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Genesis 6. Yeah, so I promise, we're going to put a lot of Bible into this episode. So go ahead and make yourself comfortable.

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If you have fuzzy bunny slippers, oh man, they just really enhance the experience, I'm just saying. Anyway, so let's head over to the

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Champion Center, shall we, and oh yeah, my desktop. So here's my desktop.

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By the way, I took that photograph. That's Congs of Inger Lutheran Church right there in Oslo, Minnesota, don't you know?

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That's the congregation that I serve, that's where they meet, and I shot this over the summer when the comet was coming through.

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Anyway, that's a whole other story, but anyway, wrong button, hang on a second here. There we go. Let's whirl up the web browser here.

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Let me stretch. I don't want to throw anything out. Okay, here we go.

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Here's Jodi Cameron. Well hey, we're diving into a new series this weekend, and it's to kick us off into the

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Christmas season, and it's called Fear Not, God's Invitation to His Best for Our Lives.

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What is the cash value of that statement? Fear not, God's invitation to his best for our lives.

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Now I've listened to the sermon, I've watched it, and the text she's going to go to is Luke chapter 1, and the angel

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Gabriel appearing to Mary, the virgin, and the first words out of his mouth are fear not.

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Fear not was not the message he was sent to deliver. Fear not is like the standard greeting that happens when a sinner like Mary, yes,

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Mary was a sinner just like all of us. That whole immaculate conception stuff, bogus, it's just made up.

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Anyway, she was a sinner like the rest of us, and generally you'll note that when sinful human beings are in the presence of holy angels, there's a tendency to be quite fearful.

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That being the case, standard greeting is do not fear, I'm not here to harm you. That's kind of the point. That's the gist of why

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Gabriel said that. The message he needed to deliver was not that. If you attend a church and they're doing an entire sermon on, oh, the angel said to the shepherds or the angel said to Mary, fear not, and so you need to do these three steps to get rid of fear in your life.

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Yeah, they're not preaching the text. They don't know how to exegete, and they're doing the Neo thing.

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We're going to go through every contortion we can do to not preach Jesus, no. We can't preach about him.

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All right, let's continue on with this travesty. In this series, we're going to look at three different times where angels or an angel appeared to people on that first Christmas.

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They said these words. They said fear not or do not be afraid, and we're going to look at that.

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I pray that as we go through this message today and even in the coming weeks, if you've been feeling fear in your heart,

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I pray that you will hear fear not. That wasn't

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Gabriel's message. I pray that you will hear these words and let them resonate with your spirit.

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Fear not and know that it is God's invitation to his best.

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Really? Really? The words fear not are God's invitation to his best. Again, what does that mean?

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What is the cash value of that statement? For your life. Would you pray with me this morning?

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God, thank you so much for being with us. You can be with us right here in this room where I'm at, and you can be with us wherever the room is that the person is watching today.

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You are everywhere all at once. And God, we thank you for that. We thank you for your omnipresence.

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Okay. I pray that. Not thank you for a savior. Got it. I have ears to hear and our hearts will be open and our minds will be receptive for the word that you've put on my heart.

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Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. If you hear a pastor say,

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I'm going to preach to you a message that God put on my heart, you should, that's a red flag. That's a red flag.

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Okay. Christ makes it clear. It's out of the heart comes all kinds of sin and evil and stuff like that. It's out of the heart.

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The scripture describes the heart as deceitfully wicked and things like this. So I'm not a fan of listening to messages that have been placed on people's hearts because that's where they get really messed up.

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Those hearts are a bad place. Bad place. It will get out in a way that you want it to get out and get me out of the way in Jesus name.

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Amen. So we're going to start with Luke chapter one, and it's kind of a lengthy passage, so stick with me in it, but it's when

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Gabriel appeared. Okay. 11 verses. Kind of a lengthy passage. I'm really sorry that it's 11 verses, 11 verses, and this is a lengthy passage, and she has to apologize.

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What does that tell you? All right. Standard fare in seeker -driven megachurches, you don't even get whole verses anymore.

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You get like half a sentence ripped out of context from like two or three places in scripture, and that's enough

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Bible there. They've just barely dabbed their message with just a little bit of Bible, and now they're in a time of year where people expect to hear the

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Christmas story or parts of it or things leading up to it, and that's going to require them to read things in context, and the seeker -driven guys are all, oh, 11 verses.

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I don't know if we're going to make it. Did you bring your camel back to make sure we can hydrate along the way?

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Oh, man, 11 whole verses. I hope we keep people's attention. What on earth?

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Anyway. To Mary. So in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named

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Nazareth to a virgin betrothed or engaged to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David, and the virgin's name was?

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Mary. Mary. I'm just making sure you guys are paying attention. Yeah, because, I mean, 11 whole verses, you probably won't be able to keep their attention longer than that.

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I mean, they're already scrolling Instagram. He came to her and said, greetings, oh, favored one, the

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Lord is with you, but she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

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All right. Now, notice the text itself, fear not, and now greetings, oh, favored one, the

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Lord is with you. All right. And she's wondering what this greeting could possibly be, but here, the content of Gabriel's message is still not been delivered.

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Hello. An angel appeared in front of her. I think I would be freaking out too.

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Exactly. That's the reason why I said, fear not. So the angel said to her, do not be afraid, or in the

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King James version, it said, fear not. There was just a lot of these and nows in there that I didn't want to get confused with. So do not be afraid.

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It's the same as fear not. Fear not, Mary, for you have found favor with God and behold.

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All right. You have found favor with God. That's a big statement. You will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name

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Jesus. That's the, that's right there. That's the core of the message of the angel

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Gabriel. You're going to conceive, bear a son, you're going to call his name and Gabriel would have used

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Hebrew because Mary would have been speaking Hebrew and he would have said his name would be

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Yeshua, the Lord Yahweh saves, right? He will be great.

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He will be called the son of the most high and the Lord God will give to him, listen to this, the throne of his father,

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David. He will be great and he will be called the son of the most high and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father,

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David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And he will reign forever. Yeah.

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Does Handel's Messiah start to kind of sound like it should go in and he shall reign forever and ever and you know, all these amazing things you could preach on, even though you're not supposed to be doing that, uh, that you could preach on, you know, he's the son of David.

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His name is Yeshua. So, uh, I mean all of these things, a central message of the angel

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Gabriel, which is nine months before Christmas morning, by the way, and his, what his, we've been learning about kingdom this fall and his kingdom, there will be no end.

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Right on. And Mary said to the angel, how will this be since I'm a virgin? And the angel answered her, the

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Holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy.

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The son of God. Great stuff there in that message of Gabriel. Why'd you pick the phrase fear not it's like the least important bit out of all of it.

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And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son.

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And this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. I mean, she couldn't get pregnant.

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And now she's with child. Yeah. She was practically an octogenarian. For nothing will be impossible with God that I just,

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I wonder, you know, why Gabriel, the angel, why he felt like he needed to tell

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Mary, do not be afraid. You just said you would be terrified in the presence of an angel.

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Okay. All right. Yeah. So, um, at least they heard 11 verses of the

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Bible. I mean, they don't normally hear that, but she had to apologize for that ahead of time. Fear not.

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I mean, I'm pretty sure I would be freaked out. Like I said, if an angel just like appeared in front of me, you just answered your question.

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Like Gabriel, because in my imagination, he's like this huge warrior angel with like these men.

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He did appear to Daniel. Uh, that's where Gabriel made his first appearance in scripture that we know of.

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Uh, yeah, he, you know, he was, he was sent a message to Daniel. Wings and like all the battle gear, you know?

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So like if he showed up in front of me, like I would be freaking out. So fear not makes a lot of sense to me, but I, right.

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You understand the concept. You get it. Why are you going to drill into this any farther?

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Because that's the obvious answer as to why he said, fear not to think that he was maybe going ahead in the conversation.

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Like he was, he was anticipating what she thought or what she was, uh, what she was expecting this conversation.

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Like, why are you here and what are you going to tell me? And what do I need to say yes to, you know, fear not.

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It's, it's our title. You can write this down. Fear not is God's invitation to his best for your life.

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Okay. How many times has she said that now? Four times already? All right.

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So let's do a little biblical work here. All right. But in order to do the biblical work, we got to go back in time because remember that the reference there regarding Christ that the angel

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Gabriel said to Mary was that he would be, he would sit on the throne of his father

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David and reign over the house of Jacob forever.

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There is an, there is a referent in the old Testament where those words are spoken by God to the prophet

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Nathan and then delivered to David that we would do wise to pay attention to because scripture interprets scripture.

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And I hate to say this, but a lot of people who are Christians today, they have very little understanding of the

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Bible period. But the part of the Bible they understand the least is the old Testament and a good, well -grounded understanding of the old

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Testament. And I'm not talking like the wingnuts in the Hebrew Roots Movement, all right? A good foundation in the old

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Testament is going to give you the keys to unlocking portions of the new.

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But understand this, all of the Bible is about Christ. It's not about you. It's not about me.

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It's about him and what God is doing for us. So all of that being said, let's head on over.

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By the way, so here's the Luke text, and let's see here.

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These are the words I'm going to zoom in on. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father

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David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. Because when you look at the cross -references here, this is going to take you into a very deep and meaningful understanding of how there was a prophecy given to David that is being fulfilled in this text, all right?

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So we're going back in time to 2 Samuel chapter 7. King David is still alive.

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This is before the whole thing with Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite. And David has been established, he's the king of a united kingdom of Israel, Saul is long dead, and here's what the text says.

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Now when the king lived in his house and Yahweh had given him rest from all of his surrounding enemies, the king said to Nathan the prophet, see now,

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I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.

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And Nathan said to the king, go do all that's in your heart, for Yahweh is with you. So you'll note that David wants to do something for God, and he's kind of embarrassed, if you would, for God, that the presence of God is traveling around Israel in the tabernacle.

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And it's a few hundred years old by now, a little long in the tooth, probably looking pretty shabby and tattered and not bright and shiny and sparkly like when it was first made.

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Even when it was first made, it wasn't all that impressive on the outside. And so David, you know, is thinking, you know, we could do a little better for you than this

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God. I mean, you're wandering around Israel in this humble, kind of gross, ugly looking thing, right?

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But here's the thing. The tabernacle of the Old Testament, where the presence of God was in this humble tabernacle, that was a foreshadow, a type and shadow of Christ.

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Let me show you the reference to kind of bear that out. In the Gospel of John, in the Gospel of John chapter 1, we have these words,

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In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God, and all things were made through him.

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And without him was not anything made that was made. And in him was life, and the life was the light of men.

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And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it. Good Christmas text, by the way.

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So the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. Now let's fast forward just a little bit here, and we'll pay attention to the words.

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And the Word, and the

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Word became flesh, and dwelt.

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And here's where, this is an interesting word, eskenosin, you can translate that tabernacled.

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And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.

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So then you go, oh, wow. Okay, so let's kind of go back and set this up properly then.

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So here's the thing. David wants to do something for God. But when you consider all the religions of the world,

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I have been required to take classes in world religions as well as Islam, and so I've studied

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Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, if you don't know what that is, it's one of the world religions,

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Taoism, I've also studied Islam, Animism, and different forms of witchcraft and things like this as part of my world religions courses.

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And the one thing I can say in having studied world religions is that every single one of them all have something very much in common, although they're very different in so many ways.

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There is a common denominator between them all. And the common denominator between all of them is that whatever their concept of the deity is, it is up to you and your obedience to earn the favor of that deity.

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Salvation is by your works, your sacrifice, your obedience, your fortitude, your faithfulness, you, you, you, do, do, do.

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Every religion. Christianity is different. From beginning to end, from the beginning of the first words of scripture, in the beginning

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God created the heavens and the earth, to the final refrains of the amens of the book of Revelation, from beginning to end, the entire

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Bible teaches us that it is God who saves us. He demands the sacrifice, he provides it himself.

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He demands obedience, he puts forward his Son, he's obedient in our place.

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He requires that sin be punished. God the Son is punished in our place, and God laid on him the iniquity of us all.

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So what God demands, God provides all of it. And so it would be out of place for David to do something for God.

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Instead, God is going to do this ultimate gospel jiu -jitsu move. You want to do something for me?

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You want to build me a house? Is that what you want to do, David? God says, tell you what, I'm going to build you a house.

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It's awesome when you think about it. And so, and yes, this has everything to do with this text from Luke. All right, so, all right, so, reviewing here, kind of getting our place and carrying on.

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Now, when the king lived in his house, Yahweh had given rest from all of his surrounding enemies. Who gave him rest?

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The Lord did. The Lord gave him rest. Yahweh did. King said to Nathan, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.

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Nathan said to the king, go do all that's in your heart. Yahweh is with you. But that same night, the word of Yahweh came to Nathan.

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Oh, by the way, did you notice that David never hears the voice of God directly? He always hears it through his prophets.

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Anyway, that same night, the word of Yahweh came to Nathan. You go and tell my servant David. Thus says

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Yahweh, would you build me a house to dwell in? And when you kind of ask the question that way, you sit there and go, doesn't sound that smart, does it?

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Would you build me a house to dwell in? I've not lived in a house since the day I brought the people of Israel from Egypt.

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Notice, God brought the people up from the people of Israel from Egypt. I have not lived in a house since the day

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I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day. But I've been moving about in a tent from my dwelling.

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The word became flesh and tabernacled among us. In all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did

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I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel whom I commanded to shepherd my people, saying, why have you not built me a house of cedar?

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No, God never complained about living in the tabernacle. He commanded that it be made and never griped about it to any of the judges, right?

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So now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, thus says

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Yahweh, the God of armies, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people

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Israel. God did that. And I have been with you wherever you went. God has done everything.

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And I have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.

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And I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and I will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more.

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And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly. From the time that I appointed judges over my people

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Israel, and I will give you rest from all of your enemies. Now, this is an important little theme here.

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Now, a little bit of a note. You have to understand that all Christians are grafted into Israel.

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This is clearly taught in the section of the book of Romans, Romans chapter 9 through 11.

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If you're not familiar with it, I'm not going to read it now, but I would reference that. So you need to understand that the

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Church never replaces Israel. The Church can't replace Israel. That's silly, all right?

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Instead, the idea is that every individual Christian who has faith in Jesus Christ is grafted into Israel.

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So only Israel is saved. That's just straight out the fact. And being genetically a descendant of Abraham does not make you a child of Abraham.

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Having the same faith as Abraham makes you a child of Abraham. Again, read

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Romans 9 to 11, and you'll see what I'm saying. All of that being said, you'll note that here is a promise that God is going to deliver

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Israel from violent men, and violent men will afflict them no more as formerly.

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This is a promise that will find its full fulfillment in what? In the end, when

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Christ returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, when he establishes his kingdom here on earth.

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That being the case, this is a great promise, because have you ever noticed that we human beings are just terrible, and we just are kind of dumb when it comes to putting rulers over us who are complete murderous tyrants?

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It just keeps happening over and over and over again. And you'll notice the tyrants of earth are nothing like Jesus.

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The tyrants of the earth are murderous. They are absolutely malice -filled.

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They demand complete allegiance, almost religiously like worship, and if you don't obey them, you get one little toe out of line, and then it's off with your head.

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But Jesus isn't like that. Jesus is the Prince of Peace, and he brings kindness, mercy, gentleness, and love.

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In fact, the whole point of the Christmas story is that God so loved the world that he gave, he gave his only begotten

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Son that whoever, including you or me, whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

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And so, you'll note that Christ, the Prince of Peace, here, he's going to ultimately deliver his believers, those who are grafted into Israel, he's going to deliver them from a world of violence, a world of hatred, discord, and malice, when he returns, new heavens, new earth, no pain, no suffering, no tyrants, only the

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Prince of Peace ruling over us and his kingdom forever. Sign me up.

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These are good promises, by the way. It's like, you just kind of tease this stuff out and say, this is rich.

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Exactly. Anyway, moreover, Yahweh declares to you that Yahweh will make you a house.

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All right, when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers,

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I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom, and he shall build a house for my name.

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Now, it's really easy when you read this portion here to think that this is referring to Solomon, because Solomon ended up building the temple.

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It's not. It's referring to Jesus, and I'll show you how you can tell this from the text, all right?

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So, I will raise up for your offspring after you who shall come from your own body. I will establish his kingdom.

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He shall build a house for my name. I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

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Now, Solomon, he did build a temple. He did. Has his throne been established forever?

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No. The line of Solomon, they haven't reigned since Zedekiah, not since Nebuchadnezzar sacked

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Jerusalem, and Zedekiah tried to escape, by the way. When you read the prophet

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Jeremiah, Jeremiah had an interesting encounter with Zedekiah. Zedekiah basically asked, what do I need to do in order to live?

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And Jeremiah said to him, Yahweh says surrender.

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You go out there and you march yourself out to King Nebuchadnezzar, and you surrender to him right now, and you will live, and you'll be all right.

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And did he do that? Nope. He tried to escape by night. You know, he found a way out while King Nebuchadnezzar was coming in, but Nebuchadnezzar's men caught him near Jericho, and Zedekiah was deposed as the king of Israel.

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But worse than that, Zedekiah had his sons slaughtered in front of him, and then after he watched his sons be slaughtered by the

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Babylonians, he had his eyes gouged out to ensure that the last thing he saw in this life was that.

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It came to a terrible end. And there hasn't been a king from Solomon's line reigning in Israel since then.

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So his reign has not been established forever. But remember what the angel

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Gabriel said. Okay? So you can see, now you can connect this text with Luke 1.

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And when you do that, it's like, whoa. Okay, this is amazing stuff. So, he shall build a house for my name.

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Oh, by the way, what is that house that this son of David is building?

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Well, let's take a look. Let's see here. I think I can do this from memories. All right, so it's 1 Peter chapter 2.

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As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious.

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You yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

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So 1 Peter chapter 2 makes it clear. The house that this son of David is building is a living temple.

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And each individual Christian is a stone, is a living stone in the house that Jesus is building.

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So yeah, when you look at how this is all fulfilled, it's just absolutely amazing. So coming back then.

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All right, so when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.

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He shall build a house for my name. I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

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I will be to him a father. He shall be to me a son. And now here comes the most complicated bit.

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When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men and with the stripes of the sons of men.

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But my steadfast love will not depart from him as I took it from Saul whom I put away from before you.

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Now, Scripture is very clear that Christ has been tempted in every way that you and I have been tempted, and yet is without sin.

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So how can this be a prophecy about Christ saying that when he commits iniquity,

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I will discipline him with the rod of men? The answer is found in the prophet

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Isaiah chapter 53. In fact, let me pull this up, Isaiah 53, and listen to this prophecy and you'll see how it works.

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Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed?

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For he grew up before him like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, no beauty that we should desire him.

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The Word made flesh and tabernacled among us. Humbly, right? He was despised, rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.

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And as one from whom men hid their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not.

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Surely he has borne our griefs and he has carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

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He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.

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Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

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All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way, and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

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The idea is this, is that God, you know,

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God the Father has gathered up your sin and mine, all of our sin, and has placed it on Christ, and has imputed it to him, and reckoned it to him as if he committed it.

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Good way to think about it is just think through your own life. Think through the ways in which you have broken

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God's commandment. You shall have no other gods. Every kind of idolatry is utterly a breaking of the first commandment.

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When you are trusting in yourself, trusting in wealth, trusting in the government, trusting in whatever to meet your needs, then you are looking to that thing and worshiping it and expecting good from it rather than from God, you're an idolater.

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Think of all the ways in which you've blasphemed God, believed falsely, spoken falsely of God, all right?

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Those are the primary ways in which somebody blasphemes. All the ways in which you have despised hearing his word.

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And then you can talk about, well, breaking the commandment that says honoring your father and mother, and that's going to include everybody who is in authority over you.

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You've dishonored your parents, dishonored your government leaders, dishonored all the, you know, just your boss, your magistrate, your governor, oh, there's all kinds of dishonoring going on right now.

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And then we can talk about murder. Scripture's clear, when you understand what Christ, how he defines murder, if you even hate your brother, we're all guilty of murder.

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Adultery. If you've even looked at a woman with lustful intent at all who's not your wife, you're guilty of adultery.

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And then we can talk about all the different things that we've stolen, all the different ways in which we've lied about and slandered our neighbors, and then, no, don't even talk to me about coveting.

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Oh, our whole economy is built on coveting. So when you consider all of the ways in which you have broken

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God's holy commandments, and you have incurred his wrath by doing so, God has laid on Christ the iniquity of us all.

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And by laying on Christ the iniquity of us all, here Isaiah 53 makes it clear that God sees him as the one who committed those sins.

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That's how he's able to die for your transgressions. And so here in 2

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Samuel, which is the cross reference to our text in Luke 1 that this lady's preaching from, here in 2

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Samuel, you get a clear picture of an allusion to the fact that Christ is going to die for our sins, and God is going to consider him to be the one guilty of it all.

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When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men and with the stripes of the son of men.

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It makes it very clear in Scripture that Christ was scourged. That means as part of his suffering for our sins, that the

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Roman soldiers took him and fastened his arms to a pole.

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He was on his knees with his back exposed to them while they took out a cat of nine tails and opened up the flesh of his back.

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And that was your sin on him, my sin on him, that caused him to be suffering that way.

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So here you've got a clear reference to Christ's passion and suffering for our sins. So when he commits iniquity,

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I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men. But my steadfast love will not depart from him as I took it from Saul whom

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I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me.

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Your throne shall be established forever in accordance with all these words, in accordance with this vision

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Nathan spoke to David. Wow. All right?

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Wow. Now, what's David's response to this? What can one's response be but gratitude and praise?

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So King David went in and he sat before Yahweh. He said, who am I? Oh, Lord. Oh, God, what is my house that you have brought me thus far?

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And yet this was a small thing in your eyes. Oh, Lord God, you have also spoken of your servant's house for a great while to come.

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And this is instruction for mankind, oh Lord. Even David recognizes that what was just prophesied is instruction for the whole world, all of mankind.

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And that it's something that people should consider for generations to come, including this one, right?

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And what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, oh Lord God, because of your promise and according to your own heart you have brought about all this greatness to make your servant know it.

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Therefore you are great, oh Lord God, for there is none like you.

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There is no God besides you according to all that we have heard with our ears. And who is like your people

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Israel, the one nation on earth whom God went to redeem to be his people, making himself a name and doing for them great and awesome things by driving out before your people whom you redeemed for yourself from Egypt, a nation and its gods.

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And you established for yourself your people Israel to be your people forever. And you, oh

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Yahweh, became their God. And now, oh Yahweh God, confirm forever the word that you have spoken concerning your servant concerning his house and do as you have spoken.

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And your name will be magnified forever saying, Yahweh Tzavaoth is God over Israel and the house of your servant

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David will be established before you. For you, oh Yahweh Tzavaoth, the

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God of armies, the God of Israel, you have made this revelation to your servant saying, I will build you a house.

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Therefore your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you. And now, oh Lord God, you are

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God and your words are true and you have promised this good thing to your servant. Now, therefore, may it please you to bless the house of your servant so it may continue forever before you.

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For you, oh Lord God, have spoken with your blessing, shall the house of your servant be blessed.

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And you'll note then that this prophecy then sits dormant. Solomon wasn't the fulfillment of it.

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The reign of the sons of David comes to an end with Zedekiah, and there hasn't been one on the throne of David since.

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But now our Gospel text. In the sixth month, the sixth month after Gabriel appeared to Zechariah, all right,

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Zechariah is the husband of Elizabeth, he was working as a priest, he was in the temple, he was offering up incense, and what ended up happening is that Gabriel shows up in the temple and announces to him that his wife is going to be pregnant, that the boy that's going to be born to them is going to be the fulfillment of the prophecies regarding the forerunner of Christ, she's not to have wine, he's not to have any alcohol, and all these kinds of things, right?

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Zechariah kind of lips off to the angel Gabriel, and the angel Gabriel shuts him up for nine months.

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He's not able to speak for nine whole months. All right, made date night really awkward for him and his wife.

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Anyway, all of that being said, now it's six months since she's been pregnant with John the

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Baptist, and now the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named

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Nazareth. And we're going to note something here. To a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was

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Joseph of the house of David. He's the rightful heir to the throne of David, and he lives in a backwater village in the

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Roman Empire called Nazareth. At that time, maybe a town, a village of maybe 50 families, tops, and what's he do for a living?

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He's a day laborer. We like to think of him being a carpenter by way of thinking, oh, he worked in his carpenter shop.

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The word for carpenter really kind of means like day laborer, so what's he doing for a living?

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He's working in paint, stucco, he's slinging a hammer, you got the idea. That's...

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He's a common everyday construction worker, that's what he is.

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Wow. Yeah. The virgin's name was Mary, and Gabriel came to her and he said, greetings, oh favored one,

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Yahweh is with you. But she was greatly troubled at the saying, try to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

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So she's getting a little nervous here, she's greatly troubled. So you'll note, the reason why the angel says, fear not, or do not be afraid, is because it says she was greatly troubled.

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So she's already kind of like, what? All right. Do not be afraid, Mary, for, gar, for, don't be afraid.

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Why? Why should I not be afraid? Because you have found favor with God.

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Now, this is one of those phrases that is a little confusing, and let me explain why. Favor with God.

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The Old Testament explains it, but I'm going to give you a quick way to get to it. So let me show you one of the instances where this shows up.

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In Genesis chapter 6, it says, Some translations will say, only evil all the time.

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That really kind of gets at it. But, Noah found favor in the eyes of Yahweh.

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How does one find favor in the eyes of Yahweh? I've already made it clear that the

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Scripture, the Bible, from beginning to end, teaches salvation by grace through faith. Well, you have a cross -reference in Hebrews chapter 11.

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Consider this cross -reference. Noah is mentioned, but we'll have to put it in context. Faith is the assurance of things that are hoped for.

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It is the conviction, or you can even say certainty, of things that are not seen. For by faith the people of old received their commendation.

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By faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of the things that are visible.

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By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous,

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God commending him by accepting his gift. So, how was Abel commended as being righteous?

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By faith. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.

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By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found because God had taken him.

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Now, before he was taken, he was commended as having pleased God. And verse 6, and without faith it is impossible.

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Not difficult, it's impossible to please God. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

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And now here's verse 7. By faith, Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear, constructed the ark for the saving of his household.

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By this, by his faith, he condemned the world and became the heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

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Ah, so how does one find favor in God's sight? By faith. And so we read in this text, then, that the angel

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Gabriel, seeing that Mary is very deeply troubled by the initial greeting, he says to her, fear not, for you have found favor with God.

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How? She's a woman of faith. She believes the promises of God in the

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Old Testament for her salvation, for her deliverance regarding the son of David who would come and free them from all of their oppressors.

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All of the enemies, sin, death, the devil, you get the idea. She's a woman of faith, and because of this, she's found favor with God.

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And behold, you will conceive in your womb, and you will bear a son, and you shall call his name

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Yeshua. Yahweh saves. He will be great. He will be called the

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Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

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See, this is all about Christ, man. And now you've seen the initial prophecy. Now you see the beginnings of the fulfillment of it.

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Hundreds of years have gone by, hundreds of years have gone by since Nathan the prophet spoke that prophetic word to David, and now the fulfillment is coming, and this should give all of us hope, hope that there's salvation for us, hope of deliverance from a world of violence, hope that there's forgiveness of our sins.

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It's a gift that none of us asked for, but all of us need.

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And so we get the first strains of the real themes of Christmas. Is it any wonder why

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Handel's Messiah, which is played and sung during this time of the year, says, and he shall reign forever and ever.

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So Mary said to the angel, how will this be since I'm a virgin? And the angel answered her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, the power of the

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Most High, he will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called Holy, the

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Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her older age is also conceived, and in the six months with her who is called barren, for nothing will be impossible with God.

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And listen, nothing is impossible with God, including your salvation.

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Nothing is impossible with God. Christ has died for you. And Mary said, behold,

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I am the servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word, by faith.

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And the angel departed from her. All right, so that's what the text is about. And when you pull all the pieces together, wow, it's all about Jesus, right, and what he's going to do for us.

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I hate to say this. It's time for us to go back to this miserable thing that is the sermon.

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And let's see what Jodi does with it. Let me back this up.

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It's our title. You can write this down. Fear not is God's invitation to his best for your life.

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When that angel, when Gabriel said fear not to Mary, he was basically telling her, he was saying, listen,

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I know what's coming next might seem challenging. No, he said fear not, for you have found favor with God.

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Finish the sentence. What's coming in front of you, what I'm about to tell you, it might be scary.

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But there's also great rewards that come with it. And he gave her examples.

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He built up her faith in that moment to say, even your cousin who couldn't get pregnant is now six months pregnant.

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Nothing is impossible with God. Fear not, Mary. This is your invitation.

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This mindset, this concept, this phrase was Mary's invitation to God's best for her life.

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What? When you see what it's all about, you do the work in Scripture.

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You can't come to a conclusion like this. I don't know what she's talking about. And it's the same for us.

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Fear not, that phrase, that mindset. It's God's invitation for you and for me to enter into his best.

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It is? What's his best? For our lives. Here's just a simple example.

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Recently, my family, we were planning this trip to go out of town to celebrate my mom's birthday.

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And one of our sons, who will remain unnamed, decided suddenly, a couple of trips ago, that he was scared of flying in airplanes.

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And so all the way leading up to the trip, till the moment that we were getting picked up to go to the airport, we were on this roller coaster of emotions.

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I mean, everything from negotiations to full -out hysteria crying. And Ryan and I got to the point where we were like, okay, maybe we should cancel this trip because we don't want this to become like this, you know, traumatic adventure thing that we put on our kid.

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Like, how bad of parents are we? And then we decided, no, we're gonna, we're gonna talk him through it.

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We're gonna try to put some reasoning into this child and help him face his fears.

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We're also not above bribing him. Come on.

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So because the angel Gabriel said to Mary, fear not, we need to learn how to face our fears.

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All the parents out there, you know what I'm talking about. If a parent ever tells you never bribe your child, they are lying to you.

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So we get in the car, there were no more tears once we got in the car.

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And they were legit tears. They weren't just like, I'm gonna get something out of this tears. Like, they were legit tears.

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But when we got to the car, no more tears. We got to the plane, no tears, no more hysteria. We got to our destination.

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We had a good time. We came back on a plane, no more tears. We landed home.

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So a round trip later, and we had the opportunity to have this conversation. How great was it to face your fears?

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Even though you were afraid. Even though something seemed challenging, seemed scary.

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But you pushed through your fears. And how much fun did we have?

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We were able to have that conversation because, why? Because we helped him push through his fears.

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The first thing that I want to share with you today is that fear not means turning the tables on fear.

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There's no way to fix this sermon. It's broken beyond repair.

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Because she's going through all the gyrations and movements necessary to avoid actually preaching

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Christ from this text. This is just psychobabble.

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This is, I want to call it moralistic therapeutic deism. This isn't Christianity. I don't know what this is.

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Fear not means turning the table on fear. Really? Fear not means turning the tables on fear.

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Rather than being afraid to serve, think about what you're missing out on.

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So this is a pep talk to get people to serve as volunteers at the Champion Center.

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By turning the tables on fears because the angel said fear not. So sign up to be a volunteer. By not serving.

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Rather than being afraid to give. Oh, yeah. So having fear to tithe because the angel said fear not.

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Why not think about what you're missing out on by not giving? Rather than being afraid to start.

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Why not think about? I assure you that this text has nothing to do with you volunteering at the parking lot crew or at the coffee shop at your megachurch.

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It has nothing to do with tithes and offerings at all. How different your future is going to be if you don't start.

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Turn the tables on fear. That's as far as I can go.

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And believe me, it gets worse. Yeah. So you get the point. And here's the thing.

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This is not an isolated example. Just tune into the YouTube channel of your favorite megachurch, and look at the sermons that they've been putting out over the past few weeks during the

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Christmas season. They have no concept of Advent. During the Christmas season, and see who they preach about.

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Are they preaching and proclaiming Christ? Our Savior and His birth and the mercy of God and sending us a son of David.

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The one who will give us rest from all of our enemies forever. The one who will reign forever and ever.

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The one who goes to the cross and dies in our place and suffers the wrath of God.

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And God lays on Him the iniquity of us all so that we can live and we can be pardoned. We can be forgiven and have life.

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Do they preach any of that? No. It's conspicuously missing.

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And this is just one of many examples that I could have given you. One of many.

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So what did you think? I'd love to get your feedback. You'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard, you know, on this edition or any previous editions of Fighting for the

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Faith. My email address is down below. It's talkbackatfightingforthefaith .com. If you found this helpful, please share this video with other people.

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And have them prayerfully consider what it is that they're listening to in the sermons that they're hearing

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Sunday after Sunday, if it's proclaiming Christ or not, and if it's really a faithful handling of God's Word.

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And so maybe, maybe God will open their eyes to something like this. So until next time, may

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God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ, this vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.