God Has Visited His People

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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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

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

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. Our scripture is taken from the gospel of Luke chapter 1, verses 57 through 80.

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Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth. She bore a son. Her neighbors and her relatives heard that the

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Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. And on the eighth day, they came to circumcise the child.

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And they would have called him Zachariah after his father, but his mother answered,

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No, he shall be called John. And they said to her, None of your relatives is called by this name.

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And they made signs to his father inquiring what he wanted him to be called. He asked for a writing tablet, and he wrote,

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His name is John. And they all wondered.

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Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed, and he spoke, Blessing God! And fear came on all the neighbors.

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And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea. And all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying,

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What then will this child be? For the hand of the Lord was with him. And his father,

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Zachariah, filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the

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Lord God of Israel! For he has visited and redeemed his people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant

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David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father

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Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all of our days.

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And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High. And you will go before the

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Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our

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God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

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And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.

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In the name of Jesus, I wonder as I wander out under the sky how

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Jesus the Savior did come for to die for poor, wonderful word next, ornery people like you and like I.

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So our text tonight, this final midweek service of Advent, as we anticipate the arrival, the birth of our

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King, it's a lot about wondering, wondering what is going on.

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So we return to our gospel text, and where we last saw Zechariah, Zechariah was, well, in the temple.

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The angel Gabriel appeared to him to let him know that his prayers, prayers that he had prayed decades earlier, had been heard by God, and that his wife

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Elizabeth would bear a son. Zechariah, not exactly filled with faith, although terrified at the presence of this angel, doubted, how will

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I know this be? I'm old, my wife's old, she's been through menopause, we did the hot flash thing already.

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And Gabriel, incensed, says, fine, it's going to happen because God never lies.

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Your lack of faith doesn't nullify God's word. But I'm going to shut your mouth, make it so you can't talk.

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And he went on, now, for the better part of a year, nine months, without being able to say a word.

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There's some wonderfully funny things in this text as well. Here's what it says, the time came for Elizabeth to give birth.

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She bore a son, old lady giving birth.

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Her neighbors and her relatives heard, watch what it says, that the Lord had shown great mercy to her.

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And that's what that was, mercy. Children are a blessing from God, and it was a curse for her to go decade after decade after decade not able to have a child.

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And now God has shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.

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And on the eighth day, they came to circumcise the child. Now, you've got to pay attention to biblical numbers, brightly so, there's a lot of people who do some quacky things with them.

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But if you think of it this way, how many days did it take for God to create the heavens and the earth?

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Six. So the person who says to you, God created the heavens and the earth in seven days is lying.

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He did it in six. He rested on the seventh. And so in biblical numerology, which is a terrible way of putting it if I think about that, in the biblical numbers, seven is a complete number.

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But children are circumcised on the eighth day. Jesus is raised from the grave on the eighth day.

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Eighth day is the first day of the new creation. And so circumcision, which is a type and shadow of baptism, promises are made.

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And physically, there's a cutting off of the flesh. And when we are baptized, there's a cutting off of the flesh inside of our hearts by the hands of Christ.

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And so on the eighth day, they came to circumcise the child. They would have called him Zachariah after his father.

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And I want to know who the they is there. Now these are some very ornery people.

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These are some pretty pushy relatives. I mean, in my family, my mother, my brother, my sister -in -law, none of my cousins, none of them had any authority to name any of my children.

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So I want to know who this they is. They would have named him Zachariah. But his mother answered, no, he shall be called

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John. And you can just see them saying, listen, woman, you don't know what you're talking about.

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Let's talk to the man. But we can't. And watch what it says. So they said, none of your relatives is called by this name.

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So they made signs to his father. He can hear just fine. Okay, he's having a problem talking.

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So you can almost see them going, Zachariah, what shall we name the...

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It's so wrong on so many levels, right? So they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted to be called.

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And he asked for a writing tablet. And he wrote, his name is John, vindicating his wife.

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And they all wondered. And there's the word, wondered, wondered.

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And immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue loosed.

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And he spoke, not cursing God, blessing him. Fear came on all their neighbors.

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And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea. Now this makes perfect sense.

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Okay, the hill country of Judea is not a big town. It's a small town, it's rural. We know how news travels so fast out of the rural areas, does it not, right?

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So the news spread, Elizabeth gave birth. We wanted to name him

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Zachariah, but she wanted to name him John. And then, we don't know what happened, what came over Zachariah, but he sided with her.

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And you could just see the scuttlebutt just, right, throughout the neighborhood, right? But they're all wondering, what does this all mean?

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And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea. All who heard them laid them up in their hearts saying, what then will this child be?

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Clearly God's hand is on him. For the hand of the Lord was with him.

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They could all see it. And then as Zachariah, his father, filled with the Holy Spirit, he prophesied.

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This is another one of the wonderful section of Scripture. One of the few times where we get songs spoken prophetically in a historical narrative.

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Blessed be the Lord God. Yahweh Elohim Chai Israel.

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The Lord God of Israel. He has visited and he has redeemed his people.

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And this phrase takes you back to the Exodus. Visited his people.

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Pay attention to God's visitations. His visitations always go really well for his people.

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His visitations also go very poorly for his enemies. Exodus chapter 4, verse 27, just by way of reminder, cross -reference,

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Yahweh said to Aaron, go into the wilderness to meet Moses. Moses has been commissioned. He's on his way back to Egypt.

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So he went and met him at the mountain of God, kissed him. Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord with which he had sent him to speak and all the signs that he had commanded him to do.

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And then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. You see, remember the burning bush.

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It just happened a chapter earlier. God commissioning Moses. And Moses saying, please pick somebody else.

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Please, please. And that's not how it goes. So now fully commissioned, ordained, set apart by God, he and Aaron, they go and the first people they talk to are the people of Israel.

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And Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses, did the signs in the sight of the people and the people believed.

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And when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and they worshipped.

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And so Zechariah here, his song hearkens back to this time in Israel.

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Blessed be Yahweh Elohim of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people.

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He's visited us. He's seen our affliction. He has seen us laboring under the curse.

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Next phrase. He raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant

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David. A little bit of a tricky phrase. He's raised up a horn of salvation for us.

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How beneficial are horns of salvation? What exactly is this talking about? Well, I think you could compare this, if you would, to the negative example.

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When you read like in Daniel chapter 7 or in the book of Revelation, the dragon with the horns.

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The horns are mighty ones. They're like kings. And the ultimate evil one is this horn that raises up and literally takes apart three other horns.

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Read Daniel 7. You'll see it there. And so a horn is a king. A horn is a metaphorical statement of one who is mighty.

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And this would make perfect sense in a culture where there are rams and sheep and things like that.

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The mighty, mighty goats and rams, they have horns. So that's the picture.

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He has raised up for us a horn of salvation in the house of his servant

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David as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.

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Now we as Christians, we understand that our battle is not against flesh and blood.

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It's always for flesh and blood. Our battle is, well, against the demons, the devil himself and his horde.

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He's an enemy we do not see with our own eyes, but oftentimes we see his hand upon those who are our neighbors, our relatives, our friends, our government officials.

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They are doing the work of their father, the devil, and have made themselves our enemies and made it their goal in life to oppress us, to hate us, to make our lives miserable.

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And so the idea then here is that they are doing the work of our ultimate enemy, the one who we pray in the

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Lord's prayer to deliver us from the evil one. They, the evil one, the devil, is truly our enemy.

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And so God has raised up a horn of salvation to set us free. And the holy prophets of old spoke that we would be saved from our enemies, namely the devil, to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father

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Abraham. Now isn't this interesting? Zechariah prophesying under the unction of the

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Holy Spirit notes that the covenant that God has made is not the covenant of Mount Sinai.

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It is not the covenant of the thou shalt not. It's the covenant of the promised seed of Abraham in whom all the world will be blessed.

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Show mercy, to show mercy, and that's what we need.

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So that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve

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God without fear. What kind of fear is being talked about here?

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Serve God without fear? Is that saying, oh, well, I live in the

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United States. We have freedom of religion. So I can serve the God of my choice without fear.

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Nope. Nope. That's not what's being talked about here. To serve God without fear is to serve

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God knowing that you are forgiven. Knowing that God himself has been merciful.

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And you'll notice the salvation language, salvation, mercy, and promise, and grace.

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To be able to serve God without fear is to be able to say, God's wrath has been put away and does not burn hot against me.

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Not because I have earned my salvation. Not because I have meritoriously worked and earned the wage from God so that he says, you know what?

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You're pretty good after all. No. No. It's when we hear that God says,

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I love you, and I forgive you. Only then can we serve him without fear.

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And the person who does not understand salvation by grace, through faith, because of God's mercy, and that he has visited us to set us free, to redeem us, believes that somehow they have got to placate the wrath of God by doing good things.

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And that person, well, they're under a curse. Because they're constantly serving

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God in fear. In the fear that if I don't do these things, then

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I will perish eternally. If I don't do these things and continue to do them, then

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God is going to cast me into the lake of fire. This is no way to do your good works.

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And you cannot serve God without fear in that scheme. Only through God's mercy, only through his grace, only because he has visited us, has raised up a horn of salvation for us, has redeemed us as he promised, and shown us mercy, can we now serve him without fear.

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In holiness and righteousness before him all of our days. All of our days.

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Well, how many days do we have? It's a trick question if you think about it.

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How many days do we have as Christians? Well, I've been around for 40 years.

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And if the Lord tarries, I might make it until I'm 80 -ish, whatever, right?

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You never know. Maybe 90 if I give up carbs. How many days do

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I have? You're counting them wrong. You're counting them wrong.

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You have days without end. You have been forgiven.

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You already possess eternal life. What is eternal life like?

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It's like today. Tomorrow, it'll change, where there will be no more evil.

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But we will serve God without fear in holiness because we have been made holy, in righteousness because we've been clothed with the righteousness of God before him.

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We will see him face -to -face all of our days. How many are there? They're days without end.

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From the ages into the ages. The apostles write, sounds like a long time.

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Indeed, it is. You have no less days now than when you begun.

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And so you, child, John the Baptist, you'll be called the prophet of the most high, and indeed he was, the last of them.

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You will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, and indeed he did, and his message was repent.

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And John the Baptist gave knowledge of salvation to God's people in the forgiveness of their sins.

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To be forgiven is to be saved. Or as David writes in Psalm 32, blessed is he whose lawless deeds are forgiven.

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Blessed is the one to whom the Lord does not impute wickedness. You are saved if you are forgiven.

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To give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy of our

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God. And if it were not written for us there, we would hardly believe it was true.

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Because we have the law written on our hearts, and the law every time we screw up says, you've screwed up!

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You've messed up! And our thinking about God as a result of his law, screaming in our faces that we have failed once again, is that God is somehow up there, arms folded, flames in the eyes, getting brighter and redder, and oh boy, we're in trouble.

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He's starting to really get mad now. He's going to come unglued, and once he does, oh, we're toast. No, this says, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy of our

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God. It's not just mercy. It's tender mercy.

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And it's tender mercy to you. Your God loves you.

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He is tender and merciful to you. Whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

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The picture is us completely suffering and languishing in the dark, and then all of a sudden, the sunrise appears, and now we can see where we are, and we can walk out now of the shadow of death and find the right path into the way of peace.

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We will hear from the angels very shortly the announcement of the birth of our

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Savior, peace, peace.

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It seems like this whole life of ours is one battle after another, battle against our own sin, battle against our neighbors, battle against our husband, battle against our wife, battle against, right?

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Peace seems to be the thing that none of us has. Read the news.

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I wouldn't call 2016 the year of political peace. It still isn't.

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But God is guiding us through the valley of the shadow of death into the way of true peace, and that peace begins with God, and then flows from God to us, to our neighbors.

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What a wonderful prophecy. What a tantalizing glimpse into the present and in the future, and to show us the true nature and heart of God, as tender, forgiving, merciful, visiting his people, rescuing, redeeming, saving.

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All of the words are so hope -filled, and this is no pipe dream, because this is truly how

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God is. So I wonder as I wander out under the sky,

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I can hear the snow squishing underneath my feet. How is it that Jesus, the

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Savior, did come forth to die for poor, ornery people like me and like you?

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I wonder. And John the Baptist grew, became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness into the day of his public appearance to Israel.

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Wonder, indeed. It's the talk of the town. Something's afoot.

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The hand of God is visibly present. What does it all mean?

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It means salvation. It means peace. It means the end of the curse and days without end.

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Oh, dare we have such hope? Dare we?

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Yes, we dare to hope, because not only did Jesus come and was born of the

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Virgin Mary, He went to the cross, died, and rose again for our salvation.

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In the name of Jesus, Amen. Amen. Amen.