Episode Transcript
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Our scripture reading this morning comes from
the Gospel According to Matthew, The Gospel
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according to Matthew Chapter One. We're
going to begin in the eighteenth verse and
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run through the end of the chapter, but the focus of the sermon is
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going to be on one verse right
in the Middle. The sermon text propers
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Matthew Twenty one, but I wanted
to read the entire passage, so I'll
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focus on one twenty one. But
let's give our attention to the reading of
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God's Word in the Gospel according to
Matthew, Chapter One, beginning in the
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eighteenth verse. Now, the birth
of Jesus Christ was as follows. After
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his mother, Mary, was betrothed
to Joseph, before they came together,
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she was found with child of the
Holy Spirit. Then Joseph, her husband,
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being a just man and not wanting
to make her a public example,
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was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things,
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behold an angel of the Lord appeared
to him in a dream, saying
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Joseph, son of David, do
not be afraid to take to you marry
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your wife, for that which is
conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit
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and she will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus,
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for he will save his people from
their sins. So all this was
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done that it might be fulfilled which
was spoken by the Lord through the Prophet,
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saying, behold, the Virgin shall
be with child, embarrassn and they
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shall call his name a man Nuel, which is translated God with us.
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Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did is the angel of the Lord,
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commanded him and took to him his
wife and did not know her till
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she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus.
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Thus, farthest reading of God's holy
word, the grass withers in the flower
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fades, but the word of our
Lord endears forever. Please be seated.
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Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we
thank you for this record of Your Nativity,
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of your birth. We're mindful,
Lord, in particular, of course,
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in this season where we celebrate your
birth, of the hope of your
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people through all the many centuries waiting
for your appearing and, as we've Sung,
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oh come, oh come, a
Manuel, Lord Jesus, we look
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forward with eager expectation to the day
of your return. Well, we pray,
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as we turn our attention to the
reading and the preaching of your word,
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that you would give us your grace, that we might set our eyes
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on things above where you are,
that we would set our hearts on your
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kingdom, that you would fix us
in our bodies and our souls and our
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words, our deeds, our actions
are reflection our meditations, even the thoughts
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of our subconscious in our sleep.
We pray that you would focus at all
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on the great, glorious thing that
you have done for us. Help us,
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Lord, to understand why it is
you came into this world as you
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did. Give us the ability,
Lord, to see how desperately we needed
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you to come to save us.
Help us to understand the depth of our
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being, Lord, what blessed hope
you've given us through your forgiveness of our
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sins and give us great joy.
We pray, in every trial and every
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adversity, that the day is coming, and soon will be, when you
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will return and glory and our prayer, oh come Emmanuel, will be made
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fully complete. And so we pray, Lord, that the words of my
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mouth and the meditations of our hearts
would be pleasing to you and that you
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would build us up in the inner
man, that we might be perfectly and
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more perfectly faithful unto you, for
we ask it, Lord Jesus, in
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your most holy name, Amen.
In the play Romeo and Juliet, William
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Shakespeare shows us this scene where Juliet
laments the fact that her family and the
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family of her beloved Romeo are enemies. She wishes that they had different names,
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so they had different families, so
that they could be allowed to marry.
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And she says very famously, she
says, Tis but THY name,
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that is my enemy. Thou art
thyself, though, not a montague.
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WHAT'S MONTAGUE? It is not hand
or foot, nor arm, nor faced
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or any other part belonging to a
man. Oh be some other man name.
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What is in a name? That
which we call by any by a
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rose by any other name would smell
as sweet. So Romeo would, where
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he not Romeo called, retain that
dear perfection which he owns without that title.
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Romeo. DOF THY name and for
that name, which is no part
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of Thee, take all myself.
What's in a name? Juliet asks in
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her teenaged infatuation that Shakespeare shows us. She thinks that names are an important
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she thinks that names aren't integral to
who we are. But in that I
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would say she is wrong. We
tend to think that names are just sort
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of things we call one another and
we forget or don't see so often how
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very important names are, in particular
in scripture, and as you read the
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Bible, you find that names are
exceedingly important. They really help you understand
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every just about every narrative of scripture. For instance, I think it's very
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interesting that in the Hebrew King Saul's
name means asked for. Saul means asked
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for. We read in First Samuel
that the people asked for a king rather
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than heaven. God is their king, so God gave them King asked for.
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And you can take the son of
David, the son of David's his
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name, Solomon, literally means peaceful, and we read that the reign of
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the son of David was the most
peaceful and prosperous era in all of this
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reals history. In a sense,
Solomon's very name gives us a prophecy of
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the greater son of David, the
Prince of peace, the true Prince of
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peace, who would rule over God's
people forever, bringing eternal peace to this
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world, as he brings peace between
God and man. Names, you see,
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are very important. For instance,
I named my boy Benjamin because it
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means in Hebrew Daddy's right hand man, and I wanted my boy to know
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all the days of his life that
I named him that because he is is
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my right hand man. I want
him to always know that and he can't
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avoid it now. And so here
in our passage this morning, we see
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that God tells Joseph, Jesus is
human stepfather, that he has a specific
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name for the son of God.
This child was born to be the divine
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king of the Jews, the Messiah, the Prince of peace, the savior
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of humanity. And God wants Joseph
and Mary and US and, perhaps most
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importantly, Jesus, to know that
God the father has a special calling for
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God the Son, and that calling
is embodied in the name Jesus. And
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so, since this is the first
Sunday in the twelve days of Christmas,
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if you ever pay attention to that, the twelve, first day of Christmas
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is Christmas Day. The twelve day
of Christmas is the day before epiphany,
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or January five. Most people don't
pay attention to that, but I like
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it. But anyhow, since this
is the first Sunday in Christmas. I'd
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like us to spend some time this
morning to consider what it means that God,
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the father, wanted the savior king
to be named Jesus, and will
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do that in three parts. First, I want us to see that the
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Lord is salvation, second, that
the Lord planned salvation and third, that
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the Lord Completed Salvation. The Lord
is Salvation, the Lord planned salvation,
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the Lord Completed Salvation. Now the
first part of Matthew is all about names,
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and I think that we tend to
look at the first part of Matthew,
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Chapter One and see it is this
boring list of begats. Right,
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so and so begetts so and so
Begett so and so because we got so
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and so and we can't even pronounce
all those names and what have you.
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Right, Abraham Begot Isaac Isaac,
but got Jacob. Jacob Begat Judah and
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his brothers. Jude Begat Pereis Paris, but got Zara by Tamar Part Perez
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Begot Heron Hezzr, an, environment
Roman and D Avenue, and we just
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kind of blow over it because it
seems like a bunch of well, boring
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names. But really all of this
apparently boring stuff in the first part of
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Matthew's first chapter is all here to
remind us of the Gospel. There is
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not one word in scripture that is
superfluous. It's all there for a reason,
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and so if you see a list
like this, you need to think
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why is this list here? And
it's here to remind us of the good
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news that runs throughout the Old Testament
and specifically it's here to remind us of
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God's faithfulness to his people throughout their
history. The names in this list all
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point us to various ways in which
the Lord has been true to his promises.
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If you peruse the lists, I
know that you'll find that just about
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every one of those names brings to
mind something that either your quickwitted memory or
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your Bible concordance will help you find
and you'll say, Aha, I know
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that story. All of these stories, Abraham, Isaac Jacob, Boaz and
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Ruth, Jesse, David Solomon,
they all bring to mind stories from covenant
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history that testified to the Lord's goodness
to his people. And this is what
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Matthew wants us to have in mind
as we begin to read a Gospel.
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The whole story of Man and Israel
points to and testifies of the faithfulness of
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God to his promise to redeem and
provide for his people. So, far
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from being boring, this genealogy is
given to us by the evangelist to remind
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us up front of God, God's
faithfulness to Israel throughout all history, from
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the very beginning of the covenant days
all the way down to the days of
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Matthew and I and our days as
well. It's to remind us of God's
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faithfulness. But the list of names
is also given to remind us of the
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purpose of so much of the Old
Testament, namely that we are sinners in
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need of a savior. Each of
the stories of these people in the first
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part of Matthew, chapter one is
the story of a sinner. I think
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I've mentioned this before, but I
always like to repeat it, that one
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of the most beautiful things about the
Bible, in contrast to every other religion
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in the world, is that all
of our so called heroes of the faith
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are losers. They're all wretched,
wretched sinners, and the Old Testament was
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given both to testify to us of
our sinfulness as well as to testify to
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us of a promise making promise keeping
God, who always delivers his people.
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And so as we come down to
the twenty first verse in this first chapter,
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we're still ready to hear more about
names. And sure enough we find
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right here another name that testifies to
us of God's faithfulness, and that name
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is Jesus, the name that Joseph
has told that he's to name the child
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that the Holy Spirit conceived in his
Virgin Fiance Mary. And the reason that
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this name testifies to us of the
faithfulness of the Lord is because of what
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the name means in Hebrew. The
name Jesus, or the way you appnounce
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it in Hebrew, is a Shuwa. The name Jesus Means Yahweh, or
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the Covenant Lord Himself Is Salvation.
The Lord is salvation. That's what Jesus
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is name means. And so the
name of this soon too be born Messiah
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is the Very Gospel summarized for us
in one word. Well, how is
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that? How do I explain that? Well, it's the case because it
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brings to mind all of the promises
of the Old Testament that the Lord would
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save his people. You go all
the way back to the beginning in Genesis,
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chapter three, verse fifteen, the
Lord Catches Adam and Eve in their
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sin and he comes into the garden
with the purpose to curse the serpent,
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curse the woman and curse the man
and to give them all the consequences for
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their rebellion and sin against the Lord. And yet, and this is really,
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really important in fact, I would
say you probably are going to misunderstand
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the biblical narrative as a whole unless
you get this little factoid before in Genesis
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three, before the Lord Pronounces Judgment
on the man and his wife, he
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promises them a deliverer. He curses
the serpent and he said that there's going
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to be a dis send into this
woman who will crush Satan's head and lift
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the curse from humanity. And it's
something of an asside. Do you see
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how powerfully important that is? I
mean, think about the consequences of this
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for your reading of scripture. If
you if you think about it like this,
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God reveals an intention to redeem and
bless his people before he tells them
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about the consequences of their sin.
You've sinned. I'm going to give you
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a deliverer eventually, but right now
you have consequences. That is really powerful
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as we think about our view of
God. He promises forgiveness and acceptance apart
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from what we deserve, and he
does so in the face of our deepest
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sins and most shameful guilt, right
there in the beginning. This name Jesus,
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also calls to mind the Covenant with
Abraham in Genesis Chapter Fifteen. There
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God ordered the man to cut a
bunch of animals and half as a seal
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of the Covenant, and this was
done to show what happened to the covenant
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violator if he was unfaithful. In
other words, Abraham cut these animals up
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in the day that you sin against
me, you're going to be like them.
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But before Abraham can finish the deal, because you have to walk through
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the pieces to seal the covenant.
Before he can do that, God knocks
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Abraham out and God passes between the
pieces. And God did this for Abraham
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to show him that the Lord himself
would take the punishment that awaited Abraham and
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all's descendants when they sinned. God
is going to take the punishment for the
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sins of God's people. The name
also brings to mind David's psalms where the
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Psalmist, as we saw, a
little while ago, struggles to understand how
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the Lord could love and forgive a
man who was such a sinner as he
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was. God had chosen David to
be the king of Israel and had loved
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him even in the face of all
of his repeated sins. And never forget,
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when you read the story of David
or read his psalms, that this
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is the longest biography and scripture after
that of Jesus, and that David's story
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is the story of a man who, though he received great, awesome and
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credible promises, turned out to be
one of the most awful sinners in scripture.
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And in the face of this,
in the face of this, this
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great king was regularly overwhelmed that the
Lord could somehow find a way to forgive
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him and give him the promises that
he'd been given when he'd sins so horribly.
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He just couldn't understand how that could
be. And he tells us in
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the Psalms. He says, I
know the sacrificial system is insufficient, but
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I don't know how God's going to
save us. So you see, the
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name Jesus points to all the promises
of salvation throughout scripture. The Lord is
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salvation. And now an angel appears
to David's great great grandson, Joseph the
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carpenter, and he tells them that
this long expected savior, this Messiah,
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would be born to his virgin fiance, just as Isaiah had said, and
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Isaiah Fourteen, when he said the
Lord himself will give you a sign.
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Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and
bear a son, and you shall call
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his name Emmanuel. Okay, so
how is this Jesus to be the one
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who was promised? Well, again
he tells us, in the name Jesus,
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and again that name means Yahweh,
or the Lord is salvation. But
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this begs the question, doesn't it? How is Yahweh Salvation? Well,
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we read that right there afterward in
Matthew Fort Verse Twenty Three. He is
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salvation because he is Emmanuel. He
is God with us. Or literally,
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the name Emmanuel is like is means
Elohim, is with us. He loo
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him is the Old Testament name of
God that's used to Connot God as the
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omnipotent creator. He is the one
who made all things in the space of
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six days by the word of his
power, and all very good. Elohim
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is the name of God to Connote
the idea that he is utterly transcendent and
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so far above us that we could
never know him unless he revealed himself to
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us. He is the God who
is so holy and terrifying in his glory
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that the angels themselves cover their faces
when their face him, and Isaiah was
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cast into utter terror when he had
his vision of Heaven in Isaiah Chapter Six.
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But, as the Lord revealed to
Isaiah, this same unapproachable creator would
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become a Manuel God with us,
the creator of the universe would take on
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the nature of a man, be
born of a virgin, come to dwell
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with his people, be punished in
their place and die for them so that
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they might be right with God.
This Immanuel, this Jesus, is the
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Lord God, Omnipotent himself, and
he has come to save his people from
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their sins. The great one who
has the power to speak everything into existence
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just with a word, became a
baby. Our sins, you see,
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or so terrible that only by exercising
the very power of creation, the omnipotence
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of the Lord God Almighty, could
God take away our guilt and sin.
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Your shame is so awful that only
the divine omnipotent son of God, with
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all of his power and strength,
could take your shame from you. And
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because he loves us so very much, the father in heaven sent his own
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son, as God himself, as
a manual, as this Jesus, this
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baby, so that the Lord could
be your salvation. So in the first
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place we see that the Lord is
salvation, and the second place I want
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us to see that the Lord planned
salvation, and we see this in the
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first part of our verse and the
verse before it. He says, Joseph,
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son of David, do not be
afraid to take to you. Marry
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your wife, for that which is
conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit,
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and she will bring forth a son
and you shall call his name Jesus.
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The Angel Tells Joseph not to be
afraid. The child that Mary carries
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is the answer to the promise that
that Isaiah was given and Isaiah Chapter Seven,
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verse fourteen, that the Virgin would
conceive and bear a son. But
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more than that, it's the fulfillment
of the whole section of Isaiah that runs
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from Chapter Seven all the way through
chapter nine. I want you to listen
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again to a bit of what we
read earlier in the service from Isaiah and
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nine, he says, by the
way of the sea, beyond the Jordan
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and Galilee of the gentiles, the
people who walked in darkness have seen a
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great light, those who dwelt in
the land of the shadow of death.
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Upon them a light has shined.
For Unto Us, a child is born,
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unto us, a son is given, and the government will be upon
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his shoulder and his name will be
called wonderful counselor mighty God, everlasting father,
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Prince of peace, of the increase
of his government in peace, there
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will be no end upon the throne
of David and over his kingdom, to
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order it and establish it with judgment
and justice. From that time forward,
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even forever, the zeal of the
Lord of hosts will perform this. Here
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we see that this savior, this
Emmanuel, is indeed the Lord himself.
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We see here that he's also the
son that was promised to David and second
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Samuel, where the Lord promised a
future son of David who would establish his
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throne forever. But not only does
this, does this son of David,
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this Jesus, fulfill these prophecies?
In fact, he fulfills all of them.
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From Genesis Three Fifteen, through the
histories, through the writings, through
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the many promises of the prophets,
Jesus is always the answer to the hope
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of God's people. Every promise of
salvation, every promise of a better sacrifice,
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all those promises of the restoration of
Israel and the hope for day of
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the Lord have come about in Jesus. And the reason I'm reiterating all of
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this is there's an important point here, and that is this. Our God
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is the Lord of History. Our
God is the Lord of History, and
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not just history in the abstract,
but history in the concrete, the Lord
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of your history and mine. As
Paul reminds us in Romans Chapter Eight,
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Verse Twenty Eight, our God is
now and always has been, in the
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business of working all things together for
good for his people. He is working
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all of the events of history together
to bring his people to himself. In
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Ephesians Chapter One, verses three and
four, Paul says this blessed be the
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God and father of our Lord,
Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with
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every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, in Christ, just as he chose
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us in him before the foundation of
the world that we should be holy and
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without blame before him in love.
Do you hear that phrase? Before the
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foundation of the world, God chose
a people for himself and set his love
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on them. Before he set the
stars in their places, before he lit
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the Sun Aflame, before the first
bird flew or the first fish swam,
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he had loved his people and determined
to overcome our wickedness and send his son
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to save us from our sins.
That, my friends, is an important,
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powerful, life altering sort of thought. May just think about it.
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Jesus has loved and known you before
you were conceived. Imagine what it means
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that all of the events of your
life, all of them, not just
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the high points, but even the
lowest of lows that no one knows but
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you, all of them, have
been directed by God in some incomprehensible way
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to bring you to know him and, having come to know him, to
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grow in grace with him. He
has planned your salvation from before the beginning,
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and this is a huge, huge, huge encouragement. When our faith
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is weak or when our assurance is
gone, when you feel alone, when
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you think that maybe God is forgotten
you, when all seems lost, that
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when you think your way is hidden
from the Lord or that maybe he's just
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gotten so sick of you that he's
kicked you out, remember that he has
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brought you to the place where you
find yourself now, wherever your life has
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led you. Though it isn't God's
fault that you sin the way you send,
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and though it isn't God's fault that
events have turned out so terribly,
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or whatever the case may be,
nevertheless, God has allowed these things to
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happen so that you could be where
you are today. And today God has
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you in the palm of his hand. Today, therefore, you are at
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the very best possible place you could
be today to receive God's perfect blessing that
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he has for you today. That
is an amazing thought. He is Immenuel,
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even in this low spot, whatever
this may be. Today, before
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the foundation of the world, the
Lord God Omnipotent, knew that you would
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be in the bind that you are
in today, and he has bent,
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twisted, formed the entire history of
the earth, all the affairs of men
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and angels, to provide for you
to day. Jesus is Elohim with you
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and he is governing the world to
bless you. He knew you from before
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he created time and even now he
is with you and by the power of
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the Holy Spirit, he is in
you. Now, perhaps this doesn't seem
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so great, maybe this idea doesn't
really move you will consider this. Just
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as it took the infinite power of
God himself to take the punishment for his
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people, it is also taken the
entire flow of human history to save you.
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He has been at work since the
beginning to bring about the circumstances of
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your salvation. No aspect of your
life, not one microsecond, has been
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outside of his loving care. There
is a Gospel Truth that you are more
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sinful than you could ever imagine,
and it is taken all of this to
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bring you to God, and only
the eternal purpose of God and his all
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powerful love could deliver you. But
maybe you don't see yourself as being that
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bad. Maybe you think that you're
pretty much all right and yeah, you
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don't really need God's forgiveness. Well, maybe you can think that, but
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I can tell you that someday everything
won't seem so rosy. Someday you'll look
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around and you'll find that your laughter
is turned to morning and your joy to
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gloom. And when that happens,
remember that there is a God who loves
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his people. There is a God
who turns the sorrows and miseries of life
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into joy and Thanksgiving for his people. When you get so low and you've
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lost hope, have hope inness that
if you turn to Jesus and sincerely ask
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him for His forgiveness and his love, then you're already his. In the
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day of your despondency, turn to
Jesus and ask him for his love,
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and be assured no one who calls
upon the name of the Lord is forgotten,
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no matter how low you may be. I can assure you of this
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truth. He has done it for
me and he'll do it for you.
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So we see that the Lord is
salvation and the Lord has planned salvation.
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And finally, in the third place, we see that the Lord has completed
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salvation, and we see this in
the last part of our verse. He
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says you should call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from
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their sins. Now the last phrase
in this verse is a quote from the
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hundred and Thirtieth Psalm, from Verse
Eight. It's the Psalm we read earlier
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in the service, and here we
see that the psalmist cries out to God
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because he sees the great weight of
his sins in the Psalm David. His
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sin, as in in the is
it in the depths of sorrow over what
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he's done. He knows that if
the Lord were to remember all of his
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many sins that he would be lost. But in a hundred and thirty psalm
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he also tells us that he knows
that somehow the Lord will take away his
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sin and forgive him. He doesn't
know what it is, but he's confident
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that the Lord will forgive him and
give him peace in his heart. He
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says, I wait for the Lord. My soul waits. And in his
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word do I hope. My soul
waits for the Lord more than those who
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watch for the morning, yes,
more than those who watch for the morning.
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We see the confidence and the hopeful
expectancy of the center. He doesn't
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know what great new thing God's going
to do to prove that he saved,
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but he resolves to wait to find
out. And finally, after waiting and
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waiting, the psalmist turns and he
encourages God's people. In verses seven and
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eight, the last two verses of
the Psalm, he longs for the salvation
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of the Lord, like a parched
man in the wilderness longs for the cool
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spring water, and he urges all
of his brothers and sisters to be con
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Fiden, for the Lord will save
them, he says, he shall redeem
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Issril from all his iniquities. And
now in Matthew, we find that the
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angel comes to Joseph and he quotes
this psalm to let him know that the
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day David had waited for has come. The hope for salvation has come in
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the form of this little baby whose
name is the Lord is salvation, a
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man you all has come, and
now the Lord will do this great new
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thing that the psalmist waited for so
many centuries before, though, the second
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person of the Trinity, the Son
of God, Very God, a very
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God. Nevertheless, out of the
great love that he has for his people,
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he left the glory of Heaven and
took on the form of a slave,
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as Paul says, so that he
could serve our greatest need. And
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he serves our need by taking the
place of those that the father has given
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him on the cross of calvary.
He died that we might live. He
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became the final, perfect sacrifice for
us so that all of our failings could
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be washed away and forgotten, just
like David Hope for on that cross,
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Emmanuel, the Creator with us for
the full weight of our sin so that
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we'd never have to bear it.
And then, having taken it, he
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died, he rose again and even
now is seated at the right hand of
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his father. And by his resurrection
and ascension, Jesus proves to us that
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our salvation has been completed. That's
why he said on the Cross it is
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finished. He has finished the work
and now he rules in heaven and,
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having saved us, he has promised
to bring us through every trial and temptation,
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to bring us through every sorrow and
struggle, so that we will never
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be lost, no matter what difficulty
we face. As Paul says in my
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favorite verse in Scripture, he works
all things together for good for us,
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and nothing shall be able to separate
us from the love of God which is
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in Christ, Jesus, Our Lord. Having saved us, he will never
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ever let go of us. So
listen as we bring it in for a
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landing. When you're worried that you've
sinned too greatly, when Satan, the
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adversary, comes against you and accuses
you and rubs your nose and all of
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your failures, or if one of
his servants does it. Remember, Jesus
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is salvation. He has saved his
people, he has paid the full price
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for all of your guilt and shame. And though it may seem unbelievable that
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with all of that guilt and shame, he will still accept you, it
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is true. You're already forgiven,
accepted and loved. There is nothing that
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can separate you from the love of
God that is in Christ, Jesus,
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for he is your salvation, he
planned your salvation, he is completed your
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salvation. And so, when you
sin, when you do evil, terrible
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things, when you feel like you
are so dirty and nasty and awful because
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of your sin, when you are
so ashamed and guilty over what you've done
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that you can't even open your eyes
or lift up your head turned to God,
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turn to God and remember that Jesus
loves you so much that he took
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the guilt for that sin. Turn
to God and thank the father of lights,
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from whom every good and perfect gift
comes, that Jesus has a raised
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your shame and has become your salvation. Juliet asked what's in the name?
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Well, here's what in the name
of Jesus. You can know the Gospel.
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You can know that it's true that
when you were dirty and guilty and
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lost and hopeless, the Lord of
the universe, the creator of all things,
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came down as a little baby that
he might be God with you.
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And as we enter this New Year, remember that this is the Christians Christmas
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message. It's not warm fuzzies,
necessarily, it's not a hot cup of
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00:41:00.440 --> 00:41:05.269
cocoa. It's that the god of
the universe lay down his life because you
409
00:41:05.349 --> 00:41:10.909
are more valuable than his life,
and he took his life up so that
410
00:41:12.030 --> 00:41:15.869
he could reign for you, because
you are so valuable that he will not
411
00:41:15.949 --> 00:41:22.659
let a hair or hair on your
head fall without his express permission, and
412
00:41:22.780 --> 00:41:27.300
I think that's good news. Amen.
