Mark Medley: Hey everybody.
Mark Medley: How are y'all?
Mark Medley: Merry Christmas.
Mark Medley: Hope you had a good Thanksgiving.
Mark Medley: We did.
Mark Medley: And for all of you young theologians who got the little pads in the back, you can uh write down Luke chapter one.
Mark Medley: That's where we're going.
Mark Medley: We are really happy to be with you guys today and so happy to see.
Mark Medley: It's great.
Mark Medley: Family Sunday is great.
Mark Medley: We're so happy to see the families together.
Mark Medley: People coming into the family of God, people coming into our church family, people, little little kids entering into your families.
Mark Medley: This is just beautiful.
Mark Medley: And so we are starting a Christmas sermon series today.
Mark Medley: It's called Expecting.
Mark Medley: And uh, well, one reason is because we got a lot of people expecting here.
Mark Medley: A lot of ladies expecting.
Mark Medley: We have, as you can see, we have a lot of that going on here.
Mark Medley: That's not really the reason.
Mark Medley: It's kind of a different Christmas series because we're gonna be we're gonna be reading through the Christmas story this uh the next few weeks, and uh we're gonna be talking about worship.
Mark Medley: So it's a Christmas series that is focused on worship and it's specifically encountering God in worship.
Mark Medley: So you probably know, maybe you know, today begins the season of Advent.
Mark Medley: This is the first Sunday of Advent, and it's a time where Christians all over the world are preparing their hearts expectantly, waiting for the coming of the Lord.
Mark Medley: This is happening with our brothers and sisters in every nation.
Mark Medley: It's a time of expecting.
Mark Medley: Uh but in the Christmas story, as we read it, oftentimes there are a lot of unexpected things that happen.
Mark Medley: And a lot of things unexpected happen to us too during Christmas time, right?
Mark Medley: In the Christmas story, there are there are young and there are old.
Mark Medley: There are males and there are females, there's their nobility and uh the lowly, everyone.
Mark Medley: So it's basically a multicultural, multi-generational, multi-gender, multi-socioeconomic group.
Mark Medley: When you read that story, it's all kinds of people that are involved in this story, but they are all encountering what God is doing through Jesus, and they're all worshiping in turn.
Mark Medley: So the idea is that this story is giving us instruction on how to worship and how to expect God to be moving.
Mark Medley: So, and that's really the idea of this whole sermon series.
Mark Medley: God is active in our worship.
Mark Medley: When we're worshiping, He is present and He's doing things.
Mark Medley: So we all love to sing songs, right?
Mark Medley: Christmas songs, right?
Mark Medley: So tell me what are your what are your favorite Christmas songs?
Mark Medley: This is not rhetorical, you can actually answer.
Mark Medley: Oh, holy night.
Mark Medley: That's a great one.
Mark Medley: Isn't that a great one?
Mark Medley: What else?
Mark Medley: Joy to the world, the Lord has come.
Mark Medley: What else?
Mark Medley: Silent Night?
Mark Medley: Good.
Mark Medley: What?
Mark Medley: Oh, come, what come Emmanuel.
Mark Medley: Drummer boy?
Mark Medley: Who was that?
Mark Medley: A drummer?
Mark Medley: Oh, it was a drummer.
Mark Medley: It was a drummer.
Mark Medley: That's so funny.
Mark Medley: The drummer says drummer boy.
Mark Medley: Give the drummer some, please.
Mark Medley: What else?
unknown: Mary, did you know?
Mark Medley: Mary, did you know?
Mark Medley: Good.
Mark Medley: I'm so gall.
Mark Medley: Thank you so much for not saying grandma got ran over by a reindeer.
Mark Medley: Thank you.
Mark Medley: I know probably some of you are thinking it, but you didn't say it, and that was very appropriate to not say it at that time.
Mark Medley: That's that's admirable self-control.
Mark Medley: Thank you.
Mark Medley: Yeah.
Mark Medley: There's a lot of them that are like just drivel, you know.
Mark Medley: They're just not even about Christmas, really.
Mark Medley: They're not about Jesus, but the songs that we sing, and we'll sing here over the next few weeks, are all focused on Jesus.
Mark Medley: Like the ones that you just uh said.
Mark Medley: And uh, you know, God loves songs, He is a singing God.
Mark Medley: We love to sing because we're created in His image.
Mark Medley: And He's a creator and He's a singer.
Mark Medley: Zephaniah says to us in chapter 3 that God even rejoices over us with singing.
Mark Medley: God is a singing God, actually.
Mark Medley: And so He's when we're singing to Him this morning, He's actually singing back over us as well.
Mark Medley: Okay, but you may not be aware that there are there are many songs in the Christmas story, and we're gonna be talking about those this next few weeks.
Mark Medley: Um, we're gonna talk about the song of Simeon, the song that Mary sang.
Mark Medley: We're gonna be talking about the song of the angels when they were speaking to the shepherds.
Mark Medley: But this morning we're gonna start at the very beginning, before Jesus was born, before Mary was visited by the angel.
Mark Medley: We're gonna begin with what's called the song of Zechariah.
Mark Medley: And that's Luke chapter 1, if you want to turn there.
Mark Medley: In some ways, Zechariah was expecting God to be active, just like all the Jews of his day.
Mark Medley: They had their own advent going on.
Mark Medley: There was an expectation that God was gonna send a Messiah, that he was not gonna leave them alone, but he was gonna enter into their world, and he was gonna do things for them as the Jewish people.
Mark Medley: This was what the prophets had spoken for many years, that he would come and act powerfully in their world.
Mark Medley: So they were expectant in some ways.
Mark Medley: But in other ways, Zechariah could not have been expecting what happened to him.
Mark Medley: You might remember that he was uh the husband of Elizabeth, Elizabeth, and the father of John the Baptist.
Mark Medley: And so he was a Jewish priest who served in the temple.
Mark Medley: And as he was serving in the temple, he was visited by the angel Gabriel.
Mark Medley: The angel Gabriel told him a lot of things, but specifically told him that his wife, who was very elderly and who was formerly barren, was going to have a baby.
Mark Medley: Now, Zechariah found that really hard to believe.
Mark Medley: And uh he doubted that prophecy, and because he he doubted that prophecy, you know, but he found it hard to believe because how many of us have prayed for something for so long and it hasn't come yet?
Mark Medley: And sometimes you've you get that little thing inside of you that starts to doubt, right?
Mark Medley: And maybe it's not gonna happen at all.
Mark Medley: And this is a prayer that Zechariah and Elizabeth had prayed for many years.
Mark Medley: God send us a son, send us a boy.
Mark Medley: This was their prayer, but they're so old now, maybe they hadn't prayed this prayer in a long time because they were so old they couldn't, she was past childbearing years.
Mark Medley: But you know what?
Mark Medley: God remembers the prayers that we have forgotten.
Mark Medley: And he doesn't lose his faithfulness just because we forget for remember, forget to remember the prayers.
Mark Medley: He remembers.
Mark Medley: So he promised the child that it would be be born to them in the old age, but Zechariah doubted it, and so he was struck mute.
Mark Medley: Means he couldn't speak, he couldn't speak at all until the baby was born, and they named him John.
Mark Medley: So after Elizabeth gave birth to the to the boy, as the angel said, and they were gonna name him John.
Mark Medley: They were at the naming ceremony, but the priests were gonna say, Hey, we're gonna name him Zechariah because that's what his father's name is.
Mark Medley: But Elizabeth says, No, his name is John, and they looked to Zechariah and they said, What's up?
Mark Medley: What is going on here?
Mark Medley: They handed him a writing tablet, kind of like the little things our kids are writing on today, probably.
Mark Medley: And he wrote down, his name is John, and his mouth was opened.
Mark Medley: His vocal cords started moving for the first time in nine months or more.
Mark Medley: He hadn't been speaking.
Mark Medley: He began to speak, but it wasn't just words.
Mark Medley: He began to sing praise to God.
Mark Medley: His voice was restored, he began to sing praise and to prophesy about his son.
Mark Medley: It's beautiful poetry here, and this is it's actually a song.
Mark Medley: So this is Zechariah's song.
Mark Medley: Let's read it together.
Mark Medley: Starting in Luke chapter 1, verse 67.
Mark Medley: And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord, God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people, and he's raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.
Mark Medley: As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from 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 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 our days.
Mark Medley: And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the 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 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.
Mark Medley: And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance in Israel.
Mark Medley: Let's pray.
Mark Medley: Father, thank you so much for your word.
Mark Medley: God, we thank you that you are a God of faithfulness and you keep your promises.
Mark Medley: Thank you, Lord, for the stories that we're going to read over the next few weeks.
Mark Medley: And Lord, today we ask you by your Holy Spirit that you would do a work in us to open our ears to hear you, that you would give hope, that you would give revelation of Jesus, that you help us understand how to worship better.
Mark Medley: And we pray these things in the name of Jesus.
Mark Medley: Amen.
Mark Medley: Okay, we don't know what this song sounded like, but we know it was a beautiful expression of worship to God.
Mark Medley: He was seeing God's faithfulness fresh in over his faithfulness over Israel in a fresh way because of his faithfulness in his own life.
Mark Medley: So why do we want to do a Christmas series that is focusing on worship?
Mark Medley: I'm glad you asked.
Mark Medley: Because worship is what we're all, each of us were created for.
Mark Medley: You are made to worship the one who created you.
Mark Medley: This is why you're never really satisfied until you're in connection with God.
Mark Medley: When you're back connected to your Maker and you're worshiping Him and enjoying Him.
Mark Medley: But many of us didn't really grow up in situations or in churches that taught us how to worship biblically, like the biblical heart of worship or the biblical forms of worship.
Mark Medley: So this is why we're doing this series.
Mark Medley: And although God is beyond us, He wants to be present with us.
Mark Medley: He wants to speak into our situation today and reveal Himself to us as we seek Him.
Mark Medley: So worship is not just the song service, the song portion of the service.
Mark Medley: Worship is not warm-up for the sermon.
Mark Medley: Worship is not, you know, just that part that happens before the announcements.
Mark Medley: Yeah.
Mark Medley: It's it's actually interaction with God.
Mark Medley: And this happens at home, by yourself, or with your family, and it happens together here corporately as we gather for church.
Mark Medley: So when we worship, God is active.
Mark Medley: So I want to tell you my story a little bit because some of you who are new here don't know this.
Mark Medley: But for years, I came to Trinity in 1985 and began singing, actually playing with the worship team uh shortly after that, and then I began leading the worship team.
Mark Medley: Some of you were here during those times.
Mark Medley: Some of our worship team members are here.
Mark Medley: Actually, one, Jack Wright over there.
Mark Medley: He was the one who led worship during that time.
Mark Medley: And I was working with Jack.
Mark Medley: We were we were worshiping together.
Mark Medley: And then in 1989, I came on staff as a pastor whose main focus was worship.
Mark Medley: And so I was trying, I was going deep into the scriptures.
Mark Medley: I was studying worship.
Mark Medley: I was trying to understand uh biblical forms of worship.
Mark Medley: I was teaching the the uh the worship teams, and um, I was also using some of the things I was learning from my music degree.
Mark Medley: And so we were trying to get more excellence spiritually, uh scripturally, musically, and in character, in our own character in our hearts, to give Jesus what he deserves.
Mark Medley: So that began a journey for me, and we began doing uh different worship conferences and things all over the United States and also uh in other nations.
Mark Medley: Uh eventually wrote a book about worship.
Mark Medley: And so all of that was just all of this for many years I've been involved in worship, and in many years I've been really thinking about what is worship.
Mark Medley: You know, how do you define it?
Mark Medley: And so I'm gonna give you my best try this morning, okay?
Mark Medley: My best try at defining worship.
Mark Medley: I think worship is three things.
Mark Medley: I think it's a revelation, it's a response, and it's a relationship.
Mark Medley: It's a revelation because God in his mercy opens our eyes to see him.
Mark Medley: He doesn't want to hide himself, he discloses himself and opens himself up, and we see him like little by little by little.
Mark Medley: You can't see him all at once.
Mark Medley: I don't think we could handle it.
Mark Medley: You know, I don't know about you, but I got up this morning and went to the bathroom.
Mark Medley: You know, when you turn the light on after you've been asleep all night long and it's so bright, it's just too bright.
Mark Medley: You kind of need a, you kind of need like a little bit of light first.
Mark Medley: Because if you turn the whole bright light on, it's too much for your eyes.
Mark Medley: And this is kind of the way it is with God.
Mark Medley: He opens our eyes little by little to see him, and in a progressive way, we see more and more of him.
Mark Medley: He reveals himself to us, and that causes us to respond.
Mark Medley: Biblically, when you see God, you respond.
Mark Medley: And that is in your body, in your soul, in your spirit.
Mark Medley: And so we're responding to what we see.
Mark Medley: And then it's a the end product is a relationship.
Mark Medley: God wants our lives, he wants to live with us, he wants to walk with us, and as we walk with him, he changes our lives.
Mark Medley: So God, in his grace, reveals himself.
Mark Medley: We see him and it causes a response, but it changes our lives.
Mark Medley: It's a walk with him, it's a relationship.
Mark Medley: That's my best understanding of what worship is.
Mark Medley: So relationship is the end goal, but it starts with revelation.
Mark Medley: God has to open our eyes to him.
Mark Medley: And the depth and the quality of our worship is directly proportionate to the way we view God.
Mark Medley: We can't worship big if we have a small God.
Mark Medley: You understand what I mean, right?
Mark Medley: God is not small, but but our understanding of him is sometimes small, and that's as far as we get in our worship because we don't see him as he is.
Mark Medley: God's, and I think we all understand God is bigger than our current revelation of him.
Mark Medley: Yeah?
Mark Medley: True?
Mark Medley: Okay.
Mark Medley: Yeah.
Mark Medley: So who is this God we worship?
Mark Medley: That's the question.
Mark Medley: That's the question of theology.
Mark Medley: Theologo, study of God.
Mark Medley: Well, A.W.
Mark Medley: Tozer said this: it's not a cheerful thought that millions of us who live in the land of Bibles, who belong to churches and labor to promote the Christian religion, may yet pass our whole life on this earth without once having thought or tried to think seriously about the being of God.
Mark Medley: Wow.
Mark Medley: Have you once thought or tried to seriously think about who God really is?
Mark Medley: So here's the other question for us this morning.
Mark Medley: What is God like?
Mark Medley: And that is not rhetorical, you can answer.
Mark Medley: What is God like?
Mark Medley: Throw it out to me.
Mark Medley: He's holy.
Mark Medley: He's love.
Mark Medley: Forgiving?
Mark Medley: True?
Mark Medley: Sovereign.
Mark Medley: Compassionate.
Mark Medley: Faithful.
Mark Medley: Merciful.
Mark Medley: Patient.
Mark Medley: All knowing.
Mark Medley: You're doing pretty good, okay?
Mark Medley: That's pretty good.
Mark Medley: That's not bad.
Mark Medley: So um, so you can think of you can think of two different categories of what God is like.
Mark Medley: Okay, and I have a little chart here.
Mark Medley: I think God's main two revelations, self-revelations in the Bible, are I think there's two main ones, and there's a bunch of other ones.
Mark Medley: One would be sovereign Lord, and which means he's beyond us, he's transcendent, he's unknowable, he's greater than we can understand, he's sovereign and in control.
Mark Medley: Then also he reveals himself as Father, which means he's close, he's personal, intimate, relational at hand.
Mark Medley: He's not just transcendent, he's also imminent.
Mark Medley: He's here with us.
Mark Medley: He's knowable.
Mark Medley: He's both unknowable and noble.
Mark Medley: Can you be both?
Mark Medley: Yeah, yeah, you can.
Mark Medley: He's both sovereign Lord and Father.
Mark Medley: He's beyond us and with us.
Mark Medley: You can be both.
Mark Medley: This is, I mean, we can't be both.
Mark Medley: He can be both, right?
Mark Medley: So you think of uh a lot of the things that you said about God are listed up here.
Mark Medley: And maybe on the left-hand side, we could call these, well, what theologians call them is communicable attributes of God.
Mark Medley: That means that when God created us, he gave us part of himself.
Mark Medley: He took some of his loving self and he put it inside of us.
Mark Medley: And some of his wisdom and put it in us.
Mark Medley: He we understand, we have some kind of frame of reference for truth or for beauty or for kindness or for creativity, right?
Mark Medley: We have some reference for that because God is those things and God put those things into us.
Mark Medley: But on the other side, we have what's what are called non-communicable attributes of God, which means that these are things God is, but I'm not.
Mark Medley: I am not omnipotent, I'm not omniscient, although I seem sometimes I feel like I think I know everything.
Mark Medley: And I know some people who think they know everything.
Mark Medley: But no, we don't.
Mark Medley: And we're not we're not um sovereign, we're not infinite in our capacities, right?
Mark Medley: This is not so these are things that God is that we're not.
Mark Medley: So you can think of these things altogether, but it's not just like um pick one out, uh, but it's like they're all kind of connected too.
Mark Medley: Like God is not only good, but he is infinitely wise in his expression of his goodness, and he's not only solid.
Mark Medley: Sovereign, but he's infinitely loving in his expressions of his sovereignty.
Mark Medley: You could go on forever.
Mark Medley: You could really go on forever.
Mark Medley: So one day I was in uh Moscow, Russia, doing a worship conference, and I just decided we did this session about what God is like.
Mark Medley: And I thought, well, I'm just gonna do it.
Mark Medley: We're just gonna take the whole hour and we're just gonna decide.
Mark Medley: We're just gonna say, what is God like?
Mark Medley: And we're just we're gonna see how many we could come up with.
Mark Medley: And so just like you, the first 15 or 20 are easy.
Mark Medley: You know, oh, he's loving, he's he's just, he's truthful.
Mark Medley: Okay, and so they they came.
Mark Medley: The first 20, pretty easy.
Mark Medley: Then it slows down.
Mark Medley: The next 20 is a little slower, you have to think more.
Mark Medley: When you get to 40 or 50, it gets harder.
Mark Medley: When you get to 60 or 70, things get really slow, slower, and you have to think, and you're thinking of scripture, and you're going, but we waited, we did this for an entire hour.
Mark Medley: Entire hour.
Mark Medley: So maybe show that picture.
Mark Medley: This is all in Russian, you can't read it.
Mark Medley: A few in the room can read it.
Mark Medley: A few of you can read it.
Mark Medley: Yeah.
Mark Medley: Okay.
Mark Medley: They came up in one hour, they came up with 106 different attributes of God.
Mark Medley: Okay.
Mark Medley: Okay, so I had told them that I did this with a group of Americans one time, and we did, we we stopped at 100.
Mark Medley: So they wanted to beat the Americans.
Mark Medley: So they came up with a, they weren't stopping until they got 106.
Mark Medley: So they did, which was great.
Mark Medley: Um, but but a few years ago, our youth group had a retreat, and they thought, they did, they had the same idea.
Mark Medley: They had this big blue piece of paper on the wall, and they said, let's just talk about what is God like, and they started, and they without, I wasn't there, but I am told without the aid of a phone, without Google, they came up with 128.
Mark Medley: So I just want you to know that your youth group beat the Russians.
Mark Medley: That's all I want you to know this morning.
Mark Medley: Yeah! Come on.
Mark Medley: Okay, now that was that was a a former youth group.
Mark Medley: There's this youth group here.
Mark Medley: I mean, I'm not saying anything about the other youth group.
Mark Medley: I think you're probably smarter.
Mark Medley: That's uh yeah.
Mark Medley: I think you could do like 150.
Mark Medley: So challenge right there.
Mark Medley: Challenge.
Mark Medley: Go for it.
Mark Medley: Okay, so but what if you took just one of those attributes?
Mark Medley: Like, let's just take holy, okay?
Mark Medley: Holy, God is holy, and you go home this week and you look up scriptures about the holiness of God, and they're all over the place.
Mark Medley: And you're looking in the Old Testament, you're looking at what it means that He's holy, and how people reacted in the Psalms and the prophets in the New Testament and in the book of Revelation, and you're looking, you're meditating on holiness, and that holiness idea is changing you inside.
Mark Medley: You begin to change the way you see God, the way you respond to God, and then you come back to church next week, and the worship team sings a song about the holiness of God.
Mark Medley: What do you think is gonna happen in your heart?
Mark Medley: It's just gonna explode.
Mark Medley: It's totally different because you see his holiness in a deeper way, and then when you sing about it, it's resonating with all the scripture that's inside of you.
Mark Medley: So you could take, you could take a with this list right here, you could take one a week for the next 128 weeks.
Mark Medley: Okay, two in a year, two years and a half, maybe something like that, without ever re without ever duplicating an attribute of God, you could focus on um a an attribute of God per week.
Mark Medley: And man, I'm telling you, if your your life will change, your worship will change.
Mark Medley: Because worship is a revelation and a response and a relationship.
Mark Medley: Okay, does that make sense?
Mark Medley: And worship is about who he is, worship is about God.
Mark Medley: This is this should be such a no-brainer.
Mark Medley: We sang this morning.
Mark Medley: Um, we are here for you, right?
Mark Medley: It should be a no-brainer.
Mark Medley: Worship is about God, it's not about me, it's not about what I like, it's not about the style of music I like or the kind of songs that I like.
Mark Medley: It's not.
Mark Medley: It's about not about what I like, it's about who I love.
Mark Medley: It's about him.
Mark Medley: Okay, so we all kind of know that, but we also kind of betray our hearts sometimes when we say things like, I just didn't get much out of worship today.
Mark Medley: As if it was about you, and as if you were the focal point of all of it, and you getting gifts and presents from God are the is the whole reason for you to come and worship.
Mark Medley: That's not okay, it's like you come into my birthday party and you leave angry because you didn't get a present.
Mark Medley: I got all the presents.
Mark Medley: That's uh well, could we just say childish?
Mark Medley: That's childish.
Mark Medley: Coming to give is mature.
Mark Medley: Now, when we give and we we worship, the thing is, the great thing is God is gracious and he gives back to us.
Mark Medley: We do receive, but we don't come to receive.
Mark Medley: And and we don't come as uh this the um spoiled brats of the kingdom who only want what we want.
Mark Medley: Amen.
Mark Medley: Thank you.
Mark Medley: That's good, okay.
Mark Medley: The main point I'm trying to get across to you is that God reveals himself when we worship and we respond.
Mark Medley: That's the main point.
Mark Medley: God reveals himself and we respond.
Mark Medley: So we should expect God to reveal himself.
Mark Medley: And how we respond with our bodies and our lives, that's gonna be a subject of the coming weeks as we study other songs in the Christmas story.
Mark Medley: But worship is a verb, there's it's something that we do.
Mark Medley: Okay, but today we're gonna tune our hearts in to hear what God reveals to Zechariah and how he responds.
Mark Medley: So Zechariah's song.
Mark Medley: Did you notice when Zechariah was singing, that he he started with praise to God, and then he hears the prophetic voice of God.
Mark Medley: His praise turns prophetic.
Mark Medley: It's all toward God, and then God speaks something to him about this child that he's holding in his hands.
Mark Medley: Zechariah's song starts as praise and ends as prophecy.
Mark Medley: God hears our praise, but he also speaks to us as we worship him personally, in our homes with our families, and in our church together.
Mark Medley: He speaks to us.
Mark Medley: And I just want to say this too, since it's Family Sunday, let me emphasize that God spoke to him about his son.
Mark Medley: God will speak to you about your children.
Mark Medley: When you're in worship, when you're worshiping him, your mind is focused on him.
Mark Medley: God will speak to you about what your child needs, how to raise your children.
Mark Medley: And I know parenting is tough because when you've never done it before and you're learning it as you go along, you know, you learn as much as you can from your brothers and sisters, and but it's not an easy thing because every child is different.
Mark Medley: There are different challenges, there are different needs.
Mark Medley: You have to you have a little different parenting style, so to speak, or approach to every child because they they're a little bit different.
Mark Medley: It takes it takes wisdom, but God will speak to you as you worship.
Mark Medley: So expect that.
Mark Medley: So, how did God reveal Himself to Zechariah?
Mark Medley: First of all, it starts with praise, right?
Mark Medley: He said, Praise to the God of Israel.
Mark Medley: Sounds like the Psalms, a lot like the Psalms when he starts out, because the Psalms were his scripture.
Mark Medley: The Old Testament was his scripture.
Mark Medley: He said, He's redeemed his people, he sent his salvation, he kept his promise to David, he kept his covenant to Abraham, and he rescued us from our enemies.
Mark Medley: So God is a rescuer, a savior, a redeemer, a promise-keeper.
Mark Medley: This is how he begins.
Mark Medley: The focus is God word.
Mark Medley: But then came this prophetic word, and God spoke to Zechariah, to his son.
Mark Medley: God, you have done this.
Mark Medley: God, you are this.
Mark Medley: God, you have done these things.
Mark Medley: God, you are this.
Mark Medley: And you, child, you will be called the prophet of the Most High.
Mark Medley: And it becomes powerfully prophetic.
Mark Medley: You will give people knowledge and forgiveness of their sins.
Mark Medley: You will go before to prepare a way for the Messiah because of the tender mercies of God.
Mark Medley: And that's exactly what happened.
Mark Medley: Just as he sang it, proclaimed it over his child, it happened in the life of John the Baptist.
Mark Medley: So a song of praise about God and what he had done evolved into a prophetic declaration of God's purpose in that moment.
Mark Medley: What God wanted to bring about in that moment, what he was going to do in the future.
Mark Medley: God speaks to us when we are worshiping him.
Mark Medley: That's the point here.
Mark Medley: He interacts.
Mark Medley: We hear the voice of God concerning our own lives, our families, our church, our community, our nation, other nations, what he's doing in this moment, something, this is something that happens throughout Scripture.
Mark Medley: So you see it in the Psalms.
Mark Medley: They start off as praise or with whatever emotion the psalmist has at that moment, and oftentimes they turn prophetic or they turn even messianic.
Mark Medley: Jesus Himself is revealed through those, through that praise.
Mark Medley: Now, Paul hinted this, hinted at this and uh in Ephesians and in Colossians.
Mark Medley: And let me read these to you just a moment because it's real insight.
Mark Medley: In Ephesians 5.15, he says, Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.
Mark Medley: Okay, then we go to uh Colossians 3.16.
Mark Medley: How many know John 3.16?
Mark Medley: How many?
Mark Medley: Okay.
Mark Medley: You have you memorized it?
Mark Medley: Okay, you ought to memorize this one too.
Mark Medley: It's another 3.16.
Mark Medley: Colossians 3.16.
Mark Medley: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Mark Medley: Okay, so Paul Paul says this twice there.
Mark Medley: Paul was very particular about the way he wrote things.
Mark Medley: You know, he one thing for sure we know, we know there's uh like some different opinions about what these things mean.
Mark Medley: Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.
Mark Medley: One thing for sure he's telling us to sing, right?
Mark Medley: Yeah, that's for sure.
Mark Medley: Sing.
Mark Medley: But when he says, he could have just said, sing songs.
Mark Medley: And that sounds like something Paul would do if he just wanted us to sing psalms, songs.
Mark Medley: But he said, sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, three different types.
Mark Medley: So these words have a little bit of different meaning.
Mark Medley: Okay, so psalms from the word Zalmos, and it carries this hint of singing about God.
Mark Medley: We're singing about him, we're celebrating him together.
Mark Medley: We come together and we talk about how great he is.
Mark Medley: Okay, so songs like How great is our God, how great is our God, right?
Mark Medley: Name above all names.
Mark Medley: It's two, it's it's about him and it's about the greatness of God, about who he is.
Mark Medley: That's so celebration of God.
Mark Medley: Then hymns, there's a little bit of a different connotation there, a little hint of it's it's more intimate.
Mark Medley: It's about songs to God, not just about God, but our focus is not outward about him, but it's upward to him.
Mark Medley: So it's songs that are more intimate.
Mark Medley: So we are singing to him, like songs like I love you, Lord.
Mark Medley: Or your mercy never fails me.
Mark Medley: So we're singing to him.
Mark Medley: We may be singing together to him, but we're singing to him.
Mark Medley: It's more of an intimate um connotation to that one.
Mark Medley: And then spiritual songs just means it's the Greek word od pneumatica.
Mark Medley: Od pneumatica means spirit, od means song, it's a song of the spirit.
Mark Medley: It's the spirit of God singing back over us.
Mark Medley: It could be singing through us to other people, but it is like a prophetic word.
Mark Medley: There's something prophetic about that word.
Mark Medley: It's so what we have is we have celebration or singing about God together, and then we have um this adoration where we're singing more intimate to God, and then we have this revelation where God is singing to us.
Mark Medley: That's what's happening in uh many of the Psalms, that's what's happening in Zechariah's song.
Mark Medley: We're singing to him, we're singing about him, and then we get it gets prophetic.
Mark Medley: God speaks.
Mark Medley: Now, if don't get worried about the word prophetic.
Mark Medley: Prophetic, I think, just means God's particular word for a particular person or people at a particular time.
Mark Medley: What is God speaking right now?
Mark Medley: God does speak, He wants to speak, He speaks to us especially in our worship.
Mark Medley: Uh, and it doesn't have to be in the building, it can be at home, it can be in your car, and he can speak to you.
Mark Medley: But it's just God's word for you or the people you're with, and people that you are concerned with at the present time.
Mark Medley: And this is the way it this is the way it happens.
Mark Medley: We're singing to God and we hear from God.
Mark Medley: That's Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.
Mark Medley: Um, but there's a prerequisite there too, right?
Mark Medley: Uh in one one in Ephesians it's be filled with the spirit.
Mark Medley: In Colossians, it's be filled with the word.
Mark Medley: Let the word dwell in you richly.
Mark Medley: When you're full of the spirit, when you're full of the word, this prophetic thing happens.
Mark Medley: So I want to read to you um an example from the very first song in the Bible.
Mark Medley: And if you want to turn there, you can.
Mark Medley: We don't have it on the screen, so you'll have to turn it if you want to read it.
Mark Medley: I want to read to you from Exodus 15.
Mark Medley: Exodus 15 is the first recorded song that we have from God.
Mark Medley: And it is the it's the song that broke out spontaneously when uh the Israelites went through, the Red Sea parted, and they went through the Red Sea, and then uh though the enemies were coming after him, them uh Pharaoh and the chariots were drowned in the sea.
Mark Medley: And what happened when that happened is this song just spontaneously broke broke out.
Mark Medley: But I want you to see that there are Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs here.
Mark Medley: There's celebration, there's adoration, and then there's revelation, um, a prophetic word from this.
Mark Medley: So this is just a great way to see it scripturally.
Mark Medley: So I'll just read it to you.
Mark Medley: Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord.
Mark Medley: So they're all singing.
Mark Medley: So this incredible miracle just happened, and they're all looking around.
Mark Medley: What happened?
Mark Medley: And then what's the most natural thing to do?
Mark Medley: Somebody starts singing.
Mark Medley: Probably it was antiphonal.
Mark Medley: The reason they could sing it together, it's a spontaneous song.
Mark Medley: It's not one that they didn't go turn to hymn number 14 and let's sing together to the Lord.
Mark Medley: It was spontaneous, but they would sing antiphonally.
Mark Medley: They would sing, one person would sing a phrase and then it would be sung back.
Mark Medley: The whole congregation would sing back to them.
Mark Medley: So that's probably what happened here.
Mark Medley: Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord.
Mark Medley: I will sing to the Lord, to the Lord, for he is highly exalted.
Mark Medley: The horse and his rider, he's hurled into the sea.
Mark Medley: The Lord is my strength and my song, he's become my salvation.
Mark Medley: He is my God and I will exalt him.
Mark Medley: Okay, so first of all, the focus of this thing is the Lord.
Mark Medley: I will sing to the Lord.
Mark Medley: Second of all, it's very personal, isn't it?
Mark Medley: The Lord is my strength, my song, my salvation, my God.
Mark Medley: I will exalt him.
Mark Medley: He's my father's God, I will exalt him.
Mark Medley: The Lord is a warrior.
Mark Medley: Now we're talking about God, very descriptive.
Mark Medley: The Lord is a warrior, the Lord is his name.
Mark Medley: Pharaoh's chariots and his army as he hurled into the sea.
Mark Medley: The best of Pharaoh's officers are drowned in the Red Sea.
Mark Medley: Deep waters had have covered them.
Mark Medley: They sank to the depths like a stone.
Mark Medley: Your right hand, O Lord, was majestic in power.
Mark Medley: Your right hand, O Lord, shattered the enemy.
Mark Medley: In the greatness of your majesty, you threw down those who opposed you.
Mark Medley: You unleashed your anger, your burning anger.
Mark Medley: It consumed them like stubble.
Mark Medley: By the blast of your nostrils, the wild the waters piled up.
Mark Medley: I love it.
Mark Medley: The surging waters stood firm like a wall, the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea.
Mark Medley: The enemy boasted, I will pursue, I will overtake them, I will divide the spoils, I will gorge myself on them, I will draw my sword, and my hand will destroy them.
Mark Medley: But you blew with your breath, and the sea covered them, and they sank like lead in the mighty waters.
Mark Medley: Who among the gods is like you, oh Lord?
Mark Medley: Who is like you?
Mark Medley: Majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders.
Mark Medley: You stretched out your hand and the earth swallowed them.
Mark Medley: Do you see how descriptive it is?
Mark Medley: You see, it is people celebrating together and even getting more intimate with God.
Mark Medley: You, oh Lord, have done these things.
Mark Medley: Who is like you, Lord?
Mark Medley: You are it's it's descriptive, a revelation of God.
Mark Medley: It's powerful.
Mark Medley: You are majestic, you're fearful, you're a wonder worker.
Mark Medley: And in the midst of this praise, it turns prophetic.
Mark Medley: You stretch out your hand, and the earth swallowed them.
Mark Medley: In your unfailing love, you will lead them.
Mark Medley: Oh, it becomes futuristic.
Mark Medley: The people you've redeemed, in your strength, you will guide them to your holy dwelling.
Mark Medley: The nations will hear and tremble, anguish will grip the people of Philistia, the chiefs of Edom will be terrified, leaders of Moab will be seized with trembling, people of Canaan will melt away, terror and dread will fall upon them.
Mark Medley: By the power of your arm, they will be as still as a stone until your people pass by.
Mark Medley: O Lord, until the people you bought pass by, you will bring them into the land and plant them in the mountain of your inheritance and place and put them in the place, O Lord, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, your hands have established.
Mark Medley: The Lord will reign forever and ever.
Mark Medley: It got prophetic.
Mark Medley: It started out celebrating, started out seeing who God is and what God has done.
Mark Medley: And then God began to speak.
Mark Medley: And it happened again.
Mark Medley: Exactly as they said.
Mark Medley: They did go into the land.
Mark Medley: The inhabitants of the land did melt away in dread.
Mark Medley: And God did bring the people into the land and establish them into the land.
Mark Medley: It happened.
Mark Medley: And I just want to tell you, this happens when we're worshiping.
Mark Medley: God speaks while we're encountering Him in worship.
Mark Medley: We can expect that.
Mark Medley: As Zechariah expected, as Zephaniah spoke, that God will rejoice over us with singing.
Mark Medley: We sing about God, we celebrate, we sing to God, it's more intimate.
Mark Medley: We hear from God.
Mark Medley: It's prophetic revelation.
Mark Medley: So, okay, what do we learn?
Mark Medley: What are we supposed to expect?
Mark Medley: When we gather together in our homes, if we're by ourselves or with our family in our homes, or if we're here at church, we should expect some things.
Mark Medley: Number one, we should expect to make God smile as we celebrate who He is together.
Mark Medley: Do you know that we get to make God smile?
Mark Medley: The psalmist says it this way: Bless the Lord, my soul.
Mark Medley: Bless the Lord.
Mark Medley: We get to bless the Lord.
Mark Medley: This is a great revelation Jack Wright taught me 40 years ago, I guess, Jack.
Mark Medley: What a great thing it is that the lesser can bless the greater.
Mark Medley: That's so powerful.
Mark Medley: What mercy that is from God.
Mark Medley: We get to make him smile.
Mark Medley: Number two, our times.
Mark Medley: We can expect our times to go from celebration to intimacy.
Mark Medley: We're celebrating together, and then it gets even more intimate.
Mark Medley: I mean, sometimes we think of this as praise and worship.
Mark Medley: Praise is celebration.
Mark Medley: Uh it's kind of a one one uh like phase of singing together.
Mark Medley: And then we think of worship as more intimate.
Mark Medley: You know, I don't know if you can really make those uh hard and fast definitions, but it is, it does go from celebration to intimacy for sure.
Mark Medley: And number three, we should expect God to be present and interactive, speaking through a scripture that's quickened to your heart, or through an encouraging word, or through a prof prophecy, or other gifts of the spirit.
Mark Medley: And number four, we should expect God to change us as we behold him.
Mark Medley: Second Corinthians 3 18 says, as we behold him, we're changed into his image from one degree of glory to another, from glory to glory.
Mark Medley: And this is done by the Spirit, by the Lord who is the Spirit.
Mark Medley: So God will change us, He'll work in us.
Mark Medley: God is blessed, God speaks, God changes us in our worship.
Mark Medley: Just like He did in these songs that we're gonna be reading here in the Christmas story.
Mark Medley: So do you believe we serve a God who still speaks today?
Mark Medley: But but to you, do you think he speaks to you?
Mark Medley: Yeah, that's another step, isn't it?
Mark Medley: Sure, God can speak, but God speaks to me.
Mark Medley: That's another step.
Mark Medley: But he does speak primarily through his written word.
Mark Medley: This is it.
Mark Medley: This is his word, which stands forever, which is unalterable, and you can count on this.
Mark Medley: But also he speaks through his spirit, who leads us in ways in it's always according to the written word and never contrary to the written word.
Mark Medley: And he speaks through the gifts he gives to people words of prophecy, words of knowledge, words of wisdom, discerning, words of faith, words of encouragement.
Mark Medley: That's an that's a spiritual gift.
Mark Medley: Exhortation is a spiritual gift.
Mark Medley: He encourages people.
Mark Medley: So he does speak.
Mark Medley: In the Christmas story, he spoke through uh the remembrance of the scriptures, through the voice of angels, through events like signs in the night sky, through dreams, and through at least four prophetic songs that we're gonna look at over the next few weeks.
Mark Medley: He spoke in that story, in this Christmas story.
Mark Medley: God is God is not aloof and far off and unconcerned.
Mark Medley: He really does want to speak.
Mark Medley: If we listen, we will hear.
Mark Medley: And our worship tunes our hearts to his frequency.
Mark Medley: So, what might the Lord be speaking to you this morning?
Mark Medley: Or what might the Lord be speaking to you this Christmas season?
Mark Medley: Or in this season of your life?
Mark Medley: And maybe you have an inkling, maybe you have an understanding of what that might be.
Mark Medley: Maybe you don't know for sure, but you can ask.
Mark Medley: And like a good father, he will speak.
Mark Medley: In this season, Christmas season, we celebrate the fact that Jesus came and he lived the life that we could not live, perfect obedience to the Father, and he died the death that we should have died because we did not obey the Father perfectly.
Mark Medley: And then God raised him from the dead, and by faith in what he has done, I can have you can have eternal life.
Mark Medley: We can be connected again with our Father, back in worship, back in fellowship with our Father.
Mark Medley: This is a beautiful message of Christmas.
Mark Medley: Emmanuel, God is with us, and we need God with us.
Mark Medley: Amen.
Mark Medley: It was at the lowest point in his life that Zechariah heard God and encountered the kindness of God.
Mark Medley: Late in his life, his years were spent, he didn't have any children.
Mark Medley: The thing that he had hoped for and prayed for for so long didn't happen.
Mark Medley: Maybe he felt like he let God down.
Mark Medley: He had this encounter in in the holy place.
Mark Medley: He couldn't speak, he actually couldn't communicate, unable to express himself in in words.
Mark Medley: Maybe he thought he failed as his at his duty, as his duty uh as a priest, and maybe he felt God was angry with him.
Mark Medley: I don't know.
Mark Medley: He was poor in spirit though.
Mark Medley: But this is what our God does.
Mark Medley: He speaks.
Mark Medley: Even at your lowest, it doesn't matter where you're at, he will speak.
Mark Medley: God broke in, he answered his prayers, he changed his life, he gave him a future, he gave him a hope, he gave him offspring.
Mark Medley: He allowed the effect of his life to continue into generations.
Mark Medley: Not only that, he allowed him to see that he was part of God's big plan, his overall plan for the Messiah.
Mark Medley: What a great Christmas present he God wants to give to you.
Mark Medley: He wants to give you life, new life, and he wants to give you new ears to hear him.
Mark Medley: Can we pray for that this morning?
Mark Medley: Let's do won't you stand with me?
Mark Medley: Oh, Father, we thank you.
Mark Medley: Thank you that we're not among those who are trying to appease some God, trying to do some kind of a sacrifice so that this God won't be angry or that they might procure some kind of a blessing.
Mark Medley: We thank you that we don't bow like billions do on this earth to a God with no life, a God of stone, that has the form of ears but can't hear, that has the form of a mouth but can't speak.
Mark Medley: We don't have a God like that.
Mark Medley: Thank you, Father.
Mark Medley: We have you that you have brought us into your family and set us at your table, and you want to have a conversation around this table.
Mark Medley: Lord, we thank you because we didn't deserve it, and yet you give it, you give it freely to the praise of your glorious grace.
Mark Medley: And Lord, we say this morning that glory goes to you because from you are all things, and through you are all things, and to you are all things.
Mark Medley: To you be glory forever.
Mark Medley: Lord, I want to pray for all of us today and during this season.
Mark Medley: Many of us are facing changes this year.
Mark Medley: This is a different Christmas time than we've ever experienced before.
Mark Medley: Maybe there's a loss in the family or something that's happening, just a situation that's never been.
Mark Medley: But I know that that doesn't stop you from speaking, Lord.
Mark Medley: So I want to pray, God, that you would tune our hearts, tune our ears to hear you in the midst of these circumstances, God.
Mark Medley: And Lord, I pray as we worship you by ourselves with our open Bibles in our homes, or as a family together, or here in church, Lord, that you would open our ears to hear you, that you would receive our praise.
Mark Medley: Lord, we don't come to get presence.
Mark Medley: This is your, this is your party, Lord.
Mark Medley: This is yours.
Mark Medley: This is about you.
Mark Medley: But I thank you that you do give to us the things that we need.
Mark Medley: You do speak to us, Lord.
Mark Medley: You do give us presence.
Mark Medley: So we want to be open to hear that, Lord.
Mark Medley: Lord, as we're learning to worship together here corporately, as we're in these moments where it's quieter or the music is playing and there's no words on the screen, Lord, that you would just teach us to sing our songs to you.
Mark Medley: Teach us how to do this, Lord.
Mark Medley: Some of us have experienced this in the past, Lord, and we just need to be refreshed in it.
Mark Medley: Some of us have never understood it, and we need to be taught.
Mark Medley: And so, Lord, let your spirit teach us to lift our words of praise to you.
Mark Medley: Lord, you are worthy of it all.
Mark Medley: And this Christmas, I pray, during this whole season, Lord, not only that you would speak to us, but that you would speak through us.
Mark Medley: God, that you would even give your words of encouragement and hope and words that would guide people into a relationship with you through Jesus.
Mark Medley: You would give us these gifts of kindness and these gifts of hospitality, these gifts of encouraging words and mercy, gifts of faith and discernment, Lord, and gifts of prophecy and words of knowledge and wisdom, God, that you would speak to us and through us this year, Lord, so that the knowledge of Jesus would spread.
Mark Medley: That's our heart, Lord.
Mark Medley: We thank you.
Mark Medley: We give you praise.
Mark Medley: We ask you to do what you want to do, Lord, in us, in our hearts.
Mark Medley: Come and be born in us today, Lord.
Mark Medley: As we expect you, Lord, this advent, Lord.
Mark Medley: Show us things we've never seen, we pray.
Mark Medley: We thank you for your willingness to do that.
Mark Medley: We pray it in the name of Jesus.
Mark Medley: And Lord, I pray your blessing on these people, Lord, that you would bless and that you would keep them.
Mark Medley: Lord, that you would make your face shine upon each one.
Mark Medley: You would be gracious to each one.
Mark Medley: That you would lift up your countenance on all of us, Lord.
Mark Medley: You would give us peace.
Mark Medley: We pray for that in Jesus' name.
Mark Medley: Amen.