The Gospel of Luke - Week 4

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I guess it is only two days until Christmas don't want to embarrass him. But when Isaac got up this morning, I was in the kitchen making coffee and Isaac. If you if you know Isaac, you know that he's a big fan of penguins and so he had his penguin with him this morning and he came out of his bedroom. He already had his glasses on and he had his penguin and he was holding penguin up in the penguin was nodding his head. Yes, and he came around the course. It's only two days until Christmas. We're going to Grandma's house today. He was very excited. This is what Closer Christmas for a nine-year-old feels like right as we get closer to Christmas. They these emotions that that happened start to become a little more intense, right? So it's as well as we're coming into this how you feeling. Are you feeling excited like Isaac Isaacs really excited. Are you feeling that excitement? Maybe you're feeling anxious right? There's a lot of stress in the pressure that comes with with Christmas we talked about that last week. So maybe there's some anxiousness there. Are you happy? Maybe there's some some sadness that goes along with that and we've we've mentioned over the course of the last few weeks that these emotions that that calm as we get into this time of the year very and they change in the end there fluid made they're not static Force, right? So if you ask a nine-year-old how they're feeling about the run-up to Christmas. They're going to give you an answer right and it's going to be excited one if you ask 39 year old how they're feeling about the run-up to Christmas. They're going to give you an answer and it's probably going to be sort of a stressful one. Right? And if you ask a ninety-year-old how they're feeling in the run-up to Christmas. They're going to give you an answer and it's going to be very different. I can speak to the nine in the 39 cuz I got both of those kinds of people close to me. My my nine-year-old grandmother. I've had a chance to ask her yet. So I'm not sure what she's feeling. I'll ask her tomorrow but each of these people. Is likely to give you a different kind of an answer based on where they are right? There's there's excitement there stress. There's Choy, there's trepidation there's sadness but it's also likely that none of these responses that you get if you just went out and asked a hundred people how they're feeling in the run-up to Christmas what it was it was their emotional state and most of them are not likely to answer with this idea of expectation. We don't think of expectation as something that Christmas is a is connected to my we we we think of Happiness we think of excitement we think of joy, we think of saddest thing of all these things but Christmas is really bound up with this idea of expectation. So so when I ask you a question what kinds of feeling these rise up in you when you hear expectation What was that caused in you did where where do where does your heart and mind go when you hear somebody saying the Christmas is about expectation or maybe it made it goes to a hopeful place, right? There's definitely a a a a component of Hope and expectation this space of I'm I'm anxiously awaiting. I am hopeful that what I want to see happen is going to happen, but it could also be kind of a foreboding thing right or sadness. Maybe they're there been a few too many times and you're in the course of your life that your expectations haven't been met, but you haven't quite gotten what you thought was you were going to get that you you didn't quite see what you thought you were going to see that what you thought was going to happen and it didn't happen. So expectation can have this sort of Darkness to it. Right? It could be it can be sad. It can be for boating. There's a little fear there. And if we're honest with each other expectation is a difficult thing for us to hold on to the longer. You have to hold onto an expectation the harder it gets because it's really easy for us to build it into something beyond what it's resolution is capable of right. Maybe maybe you you can think back to an experience that you've had growing up or something that's happened recently where you had this expectation of what this thing was going to be. And then you got there. And it just didn't live up to it. Right? It wasn't it wasn't exactly what you were hoping for a silly and they let me give you a silly one just to put it into context right yesterday. I'm getting it we're getting everybody lunch. And we're doing leftovers and all this kind of stuff and I'm looking trying to figure out what I want for lunch and I see in the refrigerator a leftover Hamburger and I think to myself you know, what cheeseburger sounds pretty good. I think I'm going to have a cheeseburger. So I make myself a cheeseburger and I sit down and eat the cheeseburger and cheeseburgers make me happy right? I'm not not really a respecter of cheeseburgers. I'll eat just about any cheeseburger in and then make me happy. I enjoy the way they taste I enjoy the process and I got done with my cheeseburger and it was just

It wasn't it wasn't what I hope that wasn't that does not normally how I feel after a cheeseburger. Are babies experience something like that? Probably with something a little more consequential than just a cheeseburger. probably

it's so easy for us to build an expectation beyond what it can take it hard to hold on to have you ever tried or if you ever been in a position where you had to hold onto an expectation for a longer. Of time write some days maybe some weeks, maybe some months work you've got this thing coming and it's just I'm excited and there's this hopefulness for what it is and you just have to hold on to that. You have to keep it going what if you had to hold on to that expectation for decades. or four centuries or Millennia even it's hard to do for a little bit of time. How do you do it for an immense space? This is what God's people had been doing right we've been talking about I'm out of Luke one this this expectation is this what seems to be this coming fulfillment of all of this stuff that happens in the Old Testament and and we sometimes forget how long God's people had to hold on to these expectations how long they had to hold on to these hopes. Expectation of waiting for this promised Messiah to actually come just over and over it is this him is the same as is this it is this the Messiah is this is this salvation is this what God has been talking about and and over and over again. No, we're not there yet. We're not there yet. We're not there yet. We're not there yet.

This expectation that the Israelites held onto actually goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. It is not even it's not even like at a simple kind of short time. It says a really long time to think about this Adam and Eve were in the garden, right and they are living in Paradise. They have everything they need in front of them. They've got jobs to do they don't have to work for their food. Just think about that for a second. They don't have to work for their food. It's just hey, there it is. I got to go pull some weeds. Occasionally. I don't know if they're weeds in the garden maybe at Adam had to do something. He was supposed to tend the garden. So I guess they're weeds. I don't know. But they lived in Paradise. They had a perfect relationship with God the Bible tells us that God came and walked with them in the cool of the garden.

And then send happens. I'm an atom you choose to disobey God they choose to do what God told him not to do and that relationship breaks.

And God lays a curse on Humanity. He lays a curse on Adam Eliza curse on each. He also leaves a curse on the serpent. But even in the curse, there's a seed of hope I do not turn their but it'll be up on the screen in Genesis 3 15. God is cursing the serpent in this is what God tells him. He says this is God speaking will put enmity between you and the woman in between your Offspring and her Offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. Snuff bruising doesn't sound like that big of a deal right? But but the Hebrew were here what it means is to to grip hard or to crush or batter. I so in this moment in this space of of sin where the relationship between God and man has been separated when this everything is broken down the seed of hope this expectation is planted that it's some points the serpent is going to crush or batter The Offspring of the women's heel. But he will crush the head of the serpent. I give you if you bash your heel it hurts, right you walk funny for a day or two, but you get over it. But if you get your head crushed. That's a different kind of experience right if you don't walk away from that kind of thing. Sow the seed of expectation is planted right from the beginning. And it continues all through what we see in the Old Testament write this this hope this expectation. Is there Abraham God speaks to Abraham and says, I want you to go to a country that you haven't seen I want you to trust me. I want you to go out there and to get out there and Abraham doesn't have any children and he's upset about this and God tells him to go outside and count Stars. You see all the stars. You can't count them right you can have more children than this. Me to give you a promise of a child. And and Abraham's hope his expectation is realized in Isaac and and Isaac goes through the same types of things and we see Jacob being renamed Israel as he struggles with God in this this expectation of Blessing by God for all humanity is still there. It's the continuation of the the hope of Genesis 3 in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and it moves through the Israelites become slaves in Egypt and then Moses, Moses comes as The Rescuer of the Hebrew people and we see in The Exodus over and over again these hints and these glimpses of this expectation of Hope of redemption how many people get into the promised land and we have the judges in each judge sort of stands up as a continuation of the expectation and then a King Saul King. Saul is supposed to usher in this new era of God's favor this new space of Redemptive. Hope he doesn't do so good and then we get David and David. David now, there's a king right we even get to even get a new promise between God and David. If you do go read 2nd Samuel 7 you see God's promising David that someone from his line will sit on the throne of Israel Forever This unfolding continuation of the expectation of hope that begins in the garden. after sin But David doesn't do it. It's not David the gods talking about. And then it's real goes into exile. The kingdoms are destroyed. And the prophets, and they speak continually over and over. Look forward. Look forward. Look forward. Look forward to the hope that is coming to the rescue that is coming to be the expectation of the resolution of this thing that God has been talking about for thousands of years to our people. And then this is where it gets gets gets rough for us, right because expectations hard enough to hold on to as it is. It's hard enough not to let it build up into something that it can't be resolved. And God has been speaking to his people for centuries saying it's coming. It's coming. It's coming. And then God goes silence.

What do you do with an expectation that's being built up and built up and built up and then there's no more build.

It just goes away.

all of these things happen

But the people still hold on to their expectation. They still hold on to the hope of resolution.

They're able to look and say God has been telling us it's coming. Let's hold onto that lets let's keep hoping.

Turn off to almost 500 years. in the midst of the Roman occupation of Palestine

even in their Homeland there not a sovereign people anymore. They're under the occupation of Rome after almost 500 years Gabriel shows up. Zechariah is walking into the temple to do his his part of the duty as a priest. This is the only time in his entire life that it's likely that he will get to do this Genesis walking in praying for the people. He adds his prayer for a son and there's Gabriel. And he says you're going to have a son you're going to call him Jon and he's going to make the way he's going to prepare the way for the realization of the expectation that God has been talking about for centuries. It's coming it's coming.

And then you know Zacharias said something silly and can't talk for 9 months.

And then on another night close to this Mary is alone in her room and Gabriel shows up. How do you say that? You're highly favored? Here's what God is going to do this thing that he has been talking about since the fall of humanity. It's coming. And it's coming now. You're going to be overshadowed by the presence of God. You're going to have a child. He's going to be a boy. You're going to name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. the resolution of Millennia of expectation by God's people realized finally

all the expectation of all creation realized Let me see this happening Luke 2 so I can so I want you to I want you to look at look to have it up on the screen and we going to read verses 1 through 7 or just kind of walk our way through this a little bit. But what I want us to do is I don't want you to sort of glazed over because we've heard Luke to a fair bit. Right? This is this is the passage that Linus gets up and says in the Charlie Brown Christmas special that we all watch every year right everybody. Is it just me to watch is it every year now? Okay, good. We'll watch this every time this is what line is says, right and we see the sun Christmas cards and we hear it in sermons and we and we read it on Christmas morning. Sometimes we read it and Christmas Eve some time. We've seen this a lot don't glaze over the fact that Luke 2 is the resolution of the entirety of the expectations of the people of God since the fall of humanity.

This is a really big deal.

So Luke 2 verses 1 through 7 and those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the world should be registered. This was the first registration when quirinius was governor of his of Syria and all went to be registered each to his own town and Joseph also went up From Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David which is called Bethlehem because he was at the house and lineage of David to be registered with Mary his betrothed who was with child and while they were there the time came for her to give birth and she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a Manger because there was no place for them in the end. Is he Joseph and Mary they travel to Bethlehem, right Caesar declares that there's going to be a a census. He wants to know how many people are in his Empire. How how big is my rule kind of a thing? Right? What's the stack himself up and in so he declares census? Everybody has to go to their town that they're their family lineages from to be registered. This isn't like I like the sense that the US states right with our country takes a census about once every ten years. They hire a whole bunch of volunteers who go around door to door asking questions about who lives here and what age you are are you from all the stuff? I'm just a sort of the opposite of that rather than having people come to your door. You have to go somewhere else. And so Joseph who is from the lineage of David has to travel to David's ancestral home in order to be registered for this census. And so he has to pack up Mary who is is very pregnant by this point. Like I don't know if you've ever traveled when you're very pregnant again, I haven't a because I've never been pregnant but there was this one time where we had to go to a wedding in Canada good friends are getting married. They're getting married in Canada. And Janae was basically 9 months pregnant with Isaac. And so we loaded baby Micah in the car and we loaded pregnant Janae in the car and we drove 900 miles to Washington and spend a week playing on the lake. That was fun. And then we did it. All again. We loaded up the car. We drove another like 400 miles across Canada to do this wedding and then we drove the Eleven Hundred or so Miles how I don't know how you look it up later. Don't trust me a lot of miles from Canada back home was pregnant. It's not easy traveling when you're even a little bit pregnant. It's much less easy traveling when you're a lot of it pregnant. Mary doesn't have a car. So they load up like all of our traditional viewpoints on this I could you see a nativity right? She's riding on a camel donkey that may have been the case. She may have walked. We don't know. But they have to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem to be registered and what's so interesting about this is that Bethlehem is the place that Isaiah. Promises will be the birthplace of the Messiah 700 years before Caesar Augustus declares that there's going to be a census. 700 years beforehand Isaiah says Bethlehem This is where it's going to be. You are small and your unimportant but this is where the Messiah will be born. This is where the resolution of the expectations of God's people will be found is here. Has a seizure in his Grandeur says we're counting everybody and God says I've been planning this for 700 years. I don't know what you think you're doing.

The name Bethlehem means House of Bread. That's what that's what it means. And shouldn't be lost on us that in the House of Bread Jesus. The bread of life is born.

Son of God is born

and this is my favorite part of the story because heaven can't be silent about it by this is a very humble birth. Let's be honest. This is a very humble birth. The king of glory is born on Earth and this could be an end. Most of us would say this should be something that should be massive right? There should be some sort of massive palatial birthing center that the king of Heaven is is Born Into right? There should be gold in there should be hot water and all of this stuff everything that we can think of that extravagance. And it said he's born in a very humble States. born in a manger in a small town that nobody thinks of

but Heaven cannot be silent about this. That they get this is my favorite part of the story. Look at verse starting at verse 8 through 14 Luke 2 8 through 14. And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night and an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord Shone around them and they were filled with great fear and the angel said to them fear not for behold. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people for unto you is Born This Day in the city of David a savior, who is Christ the lord and this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the Heavenly Host praising God and saying glory to God in the highest and on Earth peace among them among those with whom he is pleased. DDD Shepherds They knew about the expectation they'd have this expectation likely maybe they've given up we don't know.

They're just doing their job. They're just doing what Shepherds do and all of a sudden or give God Appears. Lights up the sky there's there's an angel right and we see we think of angels right if I say angel what you think like, it's kind of a good-looking dude. Maybe have a beer if you got a white robe on this kind of shiny, right if if there were an angel that showed up right here.

It'll be very different experience how much you think it would be? There's never a moment in scripture where an angel shows up in and it's somebody goes cool. It's always fear. Because these angels are they exist in the presence of God? They reflect the glory of God. They bring it with them and it's in those space space with God's glory that we will always be afraid because we see God as he is. We see what his Holiness looks like we see what his Perfection looks like. And this glory of God just lasts into the night sky above the Shepherds and they're afraid an angel says Don't Be Afraid. Hold on. It's okay. Don't be afraid. Because I am bringing you good news of great joy. Your long-awaited hope that expectation that your people have held on to 4th Century. It's now it's not coming anymore. It's here. You need to go and find the baby is in a Manger wrapped in swaddling clothes. Don't do it. Direct spectation has been filled. They've been resolved that thing that they've been hoping for collectively as a people. Happens and it's in this space that that a multitude and suddenly with the angel was a multitude of the heavenly host and it's a really great word because basically what what Luke is telling us is that there's a lot of them, right and we at least here multitude and we think a lot. Okay, we get that. We don't understand. How much is a lot of the Heavenly Host. What what Luke is saying is that if you looked up from Horizon to Horizon from Horizon to Horizon is filled with angels.

the entire sky filled with the Heavenly Host praising God and saying glory to God in the highest. And on Earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.

In their joy and excitement the Shepherds have to go see what has happened. Like you can't not go see this. I can't we can't not do anything. Like that was cool. Let's just do the Sheep are awake now, so I don't know. Is light a fire know they leave the Sheep, so we have to go look at verse 15.

Bluetooth starting verse 15 when the angels went away from them into heaven the shepherd said to one another let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us and they went with Jesus and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger and when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told to them concerning this child and all who heard it wondered if what the Shepherds had told them that Mary treasured up all these things pondering them in her heart and the Shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it have been told to them and at the end of eight days when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. The shepherd's go and they find Mary and Joseph. They find Jesus in the manger and and they're excited. And so they tell them this is what we saw it. Like I just want you to imagine for a second if you just be giving birth or your wife is just giving birth and you're there and there's the baby and it's it's nice at this moment, right? And then these stinky Shepherds show up. They probably didn't smell good to hang out with sheep. And if you've been around sheep, they don't smell good. So the stinky Shepherd show up and say hold on guys. We just saw a bunch of angels and they told us that this baby was going to be here and that he's he's Christ is the Lord. He's the savior. He's the Messiah. This is the realization that everything that we've ever hoped for.

And these words cause wonder and everyone who hears them.

Wonder like oo

maybe even a little tinge of disbelief because it's been so long and they've hope so hard and their expectation is gone for so long without being fulfilled. There's Wonder in the hearts of everyone who hears what the Shepherds have to say. Which of the Mary takes these things that the shepherd say and then she treasures and she holds them clothes in her heart. This is the confirmation of what the angel told her. This is the confirmation of what Elizabeth prophesied over her. It it's it's true. It's not just something that she made up in her own head. This really is the Messiah laying here. This really is. savior laying here

Christmas is about the realization of the greatest expectation that Humanity has ever had.

I want I want to say that again Christmas is about the realization of the greatest expectation that Humanity has ever had. The birth of Jesus is the breaking through of Eternity into our broken world.

God and man lived in perfect relationship with each other and in the garden prior to the fall and and Adam and Eve shattered that with their sin. Not just not just break their relationship, but break everything. There's no death prior to this. There's no separation between God and man part is there is no separation between the man and the woman prior to this wrap your head around this. Sometimes it is it it's sort of easy quote on quote for us to say. Yeah, you know God man getting together. That's cool. Yeah, you know things didn't die. That's cool. There was no conflict between Adam and Eve prior to this. I didn't fight about anything. It was Paradise. They broke everything death comes. de que comes

toil and work and strife and War and famine and sickness. Come because of this.

And the birth of Jesus is the breaking through of Eternity into our broken world. It's the appearance of Salvation to free us from death.

The realization of the hopes and expectations of the people of God are not about the establishment of this forever is real Kingdom. It wasn't a political thing. He was there to kick Roman rule out of Palestine and establish the Throne of David again as a political entity.

He was there to set us free from death. He came to establish the kingdom of God. This higher than any human political organization the first coming of Jesus fulfilled the expectation of thousands of years and set the stage for the ultimate. Hope of God's people.

Easy Christmas is found in the shadow of the cross.

You can't fully get Christmas if you don't get the cross to. Because without Christmas Easter doesn't happen. Christmas isn't just about the things that we've made it about and we're all pretty good at saying that right. It's not about presents and it's not about these things, but we don't get what it's really about. I say it's about family and in families good family is good. Christmas is about salvation. Christmas is about restoration. Christmas is about the realization of the deepest hole that you can have in your heart that said I know I can't make it.

I Christmas is about Jesus breaking into our world to say I know you can't make it either but I'll make it for you.

Jesus came to live our life as it should be lived. He was a perfect human. Right, he wasn't sinful in any way.

Not just a better version of us a perfect version of us.

Not only did he come to live. Our life is it should be live. He came to die our death as we should die to Bear the weight of the wrath of God force in the consequence the punishment for our treason. poured out on Jesus

came to exchange our sin and shame for his righteousness.

This should cause us to be like the Shepherds who left Jesus is present glorifying and praising God for all they had seen and heard.

This is a joyful thing Christmas is about the realization of expectations. It's about the realization of the ultimate expectation.

And it should cause us to feel Joy.

Maybe you're here and you don't feel that.

You don't feel that Joy.

You can ask God to show you his glory. You can ask God to reveal himself to you and such a way in like the shepherd's. Show me.

There's a pole that happens. God draws people to himself, right? We we don't find Jesus he finds us. He pulls us toward him and I'm fairly confident that there's some polling that's happening in our hearts today. And you may be in a spot where where you you're a follower of Jesus, right? You you believe how you've been saved and you've been redeemed by him. You're still being pulled toward him because we're not there yet. So there's some pulling that is going on in the room this morning. This afternoon.

So do you feel the expectation of Christmas? Do you feel the resolution? of the hope of all people

Do you see the Brokenness in your own life and see? It's solution. It's restoration. It's healing it's redemption in Christ in the baby born in a manger.

If you do then you should rejoice.

Stand up with the Shepherds and say this is amazing. Look what God has done. All of our hopes have been realized now in this baby a savior. Born who is Christ the lord? Rejoice with the angels who sing glory to God in the highest and on Earth peace to those with whom he is pleased.

Be like Mary and treasure these things in your heart and Ponder of them and hold them close.

But if you don't you don't feel that it's feeling that pole and it doesn't feel it's not what you want. It doesn't feel right. And you need to ask God.

So you can see his glory. Let him show you the glory of Christmas. Let him show you what the realization of these expectations actually looks like. Because it looks like a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a major will be assigned to us. The Savior has been has come.

Jesus Christ the lord

Christmas is about expectation. And it's about the realization of expectation. So we're going to pray. And in this space where we're praying together. If you're struggling with this if you feel this pole, and you don't know what to do with it Let Jesus draw you to himself. Don't resist it. Let him pull you. Because seeing Jesus is way better than holding off.

There's an imperative to believe in the birth of Christ. God does not sit back and say, you know, I'm going to do some kind of mystical things here. And then if you figure it out good on you. He says I'm coming. I'm here. believe

ask God to show you his glory today.

Let's pray.

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