SPEAKER_00: This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together, Church.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we come today as your people to hear you speak through your word and to respond in obedience.
SPEAKER_00: We're especially grateful when we hear words like that, Lord, say, raise us to your glorious throne, because there's more than just what we see in this world and in this life.
SPEAKER_00: But we're also grateful today for your tender mercies.
SPEAKER_00: They're new every morning.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't use up yesterday's mercy, and we're never going to run out.
SPEAKER_00: But we look back today to the messengers, the angels, the prophets, all the ways that you revealed your gospel to us, all the ways that you have prepared us for the way of our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we want to be like those who listened to the prophets and obeyed.
SPEAKER_00: So give us grace, Lord, to hear your word today and to forsake our sin.
SPEAKER_00: Prepare us, Lord, through the preaching of your word for the life to come.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name, amen.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You can be seated.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning, church.
SPEAKER_00: My name's Clyde.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the worship pastor.
SPEAKER_00: We're so glad you're here today.
SPEAKER_00: If you're new, this is your first time with us.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for checking out a new church.
SPEAKER_00: I want to invite you to take out your Bibles today and turn to Luke's gospel, chapter one, and we're going to start at verse 67.
SPEAKER_00: Luke's gospel has a very unique story in it about a family.
SPEAKER_00: And no, it's not Mary, Joseph, and Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually another family.
SPEAKER_00: Mary's cousin, Elizabeth, her husband Zechariah, and their son John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_00: See, the Gospel of Luke has not one but two births.
SPEAKER_00: The first birth is John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_00: And today we're going to pick up just after his birth has happened.
SPEAKER_00: So let's read from Luke chapter 1, verse 67 through 79.
SPEAKER_00: And his father, that's John the Baptist's 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 has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father 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.
SPEAKER_00: 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 in the way of peace.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the title of today's sermon, The Way of Peace.
SPEAKER_00: We've lit in the second candle of Advent, which is for peace.
SPEAKER_00: But before we get to that, I want us to go back to verse 67.
SPEAKER_00: We find the priest Zechariah speaking a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this was not a normal blessing.
SPEAKER_00: This was Zechariah says, filled with the Holy Spirit prophesying over his son and giving us a vision for how God would use John the Baptist to prepare the way for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's helpful for us before we get to what Zechariah said to have some background on Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing we see today is that God uses ordinary people like Zechariah to do extraordinary things.
SPEAKER_00: Earlier in Luke chapter 1, we learned that Zechariah was a priest in the land of Judea in the days when Herod was king.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this was a dark time in Israel's history.
SPEAKER_00: Even though the nation of Israel had come back from exile, they were occupied by a foreign nation, the Roman Empire, and he had installed their puppet, Herod the Great.
SPEAKER_00: Worse than that, though, was there had not been a prophet in Israel for 400 years.
SPEAKER_00: Since the book of Amalachi, you have what's called sometimes the 400 years of silence, where no one has spoken as a prophet.
SPEAKER_00: So in the meantime, you have priests like Zechariah.
SPEAKER_00: They were just continuing the ministry that God had given them.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what is a priest?
SPEAKER_00: A priest that we're talking about not back then isn't necessarily what we would think of as today.
SPEAKER_00: Priests were the people that led the people in worship.
SPEAKER_00: They offered sacrifices, they burned incense, they taught the scriptures, they served in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: And when we first meet Zechariah, that's exactly what he's doing.
SPEAKER_00: He's doing actually something very special in the temple, and he's burning incense.
SPEAKER_00: This was such a big job that you got to do it once in your whole life and you were done.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like the Super Bowl for a priest.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: So he's never going to get to do this again.
SPEAKER_00: He's got this big moment.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll come back to that in a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: But Zechariah wasn't just a priest.
SPEAKER_00: We also see he was an old priest.
SPEAKER_00: He was married to Elizabeth, who was also old.
SPEAKER_00: If Zechariah and Elizabeth were members of our church, they'd be involved in the varsity.
SPEAKER_00: If some of y'all are familiar with that, I see some of y'all 65 and older know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: So we see the problem for Zechariah and Elizabeth was they had no child.
SPEAKER_00: Elizabeth was barren.
SPEAKER_00: And this was particularly painful because childlessness a lot of times had a cultural stigma attached to it.
SPEAKER_00: But Luke 1, 6, it says this about Zechariah and Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_00: They were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord, but they had no child because Elizabeth was barren and both were advanced in years.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is important for two reasons.
SPEAKER_00: One, because their childlessness, it was not a judgment for sin.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, this childlessness would be used to display the miracles of God.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not going to go back and read the whole passage, but I do want us to look at those three miracles from their lives briefly.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's what, again, God takes an ordinary man, an ordinary woman, and he does three miracles in their lives to do something extraordinary.
SPEAKER_00: The first miracle is this Gabriel the angel appears, just like we heard earlier, he appeared to Mary.
SPEAKER_00: He also appeared to Zechariah before that.
SPEAKER_00: He tells Zechariah, his wife Elizabeth is going to conceive and they're going to have a son.
SPEAKER_00: All the years that they've been praying for a son, he hears that prayer is going to be answered.
SPEAKER_00: Now, remember how I said Zechariah and Elizabeth would be in the varsity if they were in our church?
SPEAKER_00: Earlier this week, I was telling my kids this story, sitting at the dinner table, doing our advent devotional, and I said, Can you imagine if your mamma and pop pop were having a baby in their 60s?
SPEAKER_00: You should have seen the look on their faces.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, come on, dad, don't talk about that.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we we all get this.
SPEAKER_00: It's a miracle.
SPEAKER_00: But God is sovereign over every part of our bodies, including our reproductive organs that never worked like they should.
SPEAKER_00: All those stories that Zechariah and Elizabeth had heard over the years of Sarah, of Rachel, of Leah, of Hannah, of Naomi, of these people being given babies by God, what they had read about was about to become real for them because their prayer was gonna be answered.
SPEAKER_00: God is the God of the womb, and in his wisdom, he closes it and he opens it for his own purposes.
SPEAKER_00: The second miracle was not being able to speak.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this was the result of Zechariah's disbelief.
SPEAKER_00: Gabriel, the angel, had told him, Hey, I'm God's messenger and you're gonna have a son.
SPEAKER_00: And Zechariah's response is hysterical.
SPEAKER_00: His response is, I'm old.
SPEAKER_00: My wife is barren, my wife is old.
SPEAKER_00: Do you think the angel didn't know that?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm God's messenger, you're gonna have a son.
SPEAKER_00: Zechariah's response is, I'm old.
SPEAKER_00: Gabriel's response, I'm Gabriel.
SPEAKER_00: I stand in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the humor here is just it's just rich.
SPEAKER_00: So instead of trusting God's messenger, Zechariah wants a sign.
SPEAKER_00: So Gabriel does, he says, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you a sign.
SPEAKER_00: You can't talk anymore.
SPEAKER_00: It's like he took the remote out, hit the mute button.
SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna talk until all these things that I've mentioned have taken place.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Zechariah wasn't able to speak for nine months.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you wives right now are thinking, man, my husband couldn't speak for nine months.
SPEAKER_00: That'd be pretty nice.
SPEAKER_00: It's like Zechariah all of a sudden goes home, can't talk.
SPEAKER_00: A couple weeks later, he starts to realize, oh, the angel wasn't lying.
SPEAKER_00: Because he, you know, Zechariah and Elizabeth, they did what married people do, and it became clear that a woman in the twilight of her years was having a baby.
SPEAKER_00: And so now we see Zechariah has nine months to think, what has God been talking about through this angel?
SPEAKER_00: Fast forward nine months, a third miracle happens just after John the Baptist was born, eight days after his birth.
SPEAKER_00: He got all the aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins.
SPEAKER_00: They've all come for the naming and the circumcision.
SPEAKER_00: They're ready to meet little baby Zechariah, because that's what they wanted to do.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted to name him after his dad.
SPEAKER_00: That was common.
SPEAKER_00: But Elizabeth looks at her husband, who's not spoken a word for nine months, and she says, No, his name is John.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the family doesn't like that.
SPEAKER_00: So they go to Zechariah, which, by the way, this is just a side note, but lots of you have family members that do this to you.
SPEAKER_00: They don't get what they want from you, so then they go to your husband or they go to your wife.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's called triangulation.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna see a lot of it over the holidays, so be looking out for it.
SPEAKER_00: John steps up, he asks for something to write with, and it says, His name is John.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, a voice that they had not heard for nine months is speaking.
SPEAKER_00: It's like God took that remote out, unmute, and now Zechariah can speak.
SPEAKER_00: And his speech was that third miracle.
SPEAKER_00: That was the proof that God had spoken through the angel that his work and his will would be done.
SPEAKER_00: We say all this to begin here, just to say that God is at work at every moment of your life.
SPEAKER_00: God is at work in every moment of my life.
SPEAKER_00: We don't always understand God's purposes.
SPEAKER_00: He often uses unexpected events and unexpected people to accomplish those purposes.
SPEAKER_00: See, God had prepared Zechariah and Elizabeth through every season of their long lives for this moment.
SPEAKER_00: The very ordinary feelings of excitement to be married, to have children, of having unanswered prayer for those children, of growing older, of experiencing resignation with childlessness, and then the surprise of a pregnant woman in her 60s or 70s.
SPEAKER_00: God used their whole lives to show us how he does extraordinary things with ordinary people.
SPEAKER_00: G.K.
SPEAKER_00: Chesterson once said this: the most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's often through the mundane, ordinary, taken for granted things that God uses to make his point.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that was a long introduction to get us to Zechariah's blessing in verse 68.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, or as Uncle Lewis says to Aunt Bethany in Christmas Vacation, the blessing.
SPEAKER_00: How I like to remember this.
SPEAKER_00: But uh now, again, this is just a side note, but we get to a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: This is very important to me as a dad.
SPEAKER_00: Uh now I want to speak to the parents in the room, especially the dads.
SPEAKER_00: I want to encourage you to take note here.
SPEAKER_00: Get in the habit of regularly blessing your kids.
SPEAKER_00: Speak God's promises over them in their life.
SPEAKER_00: Tell them that God has a plan for them in their life.
SPEAKER_00: Put them in their bed at night.
SPEAKER_00: Ask God to bless them and keep them.
SPEAKER_00: Make his face shine upon them.
SPEAKER_00: Don't confuse material blessing of the world with the spiritual blessing of being a father.
SPEAKER_00: Young men, there's some men in this room, you're married, you haven't had kids yet.
SPEAKER_00: Be thinking now, what are the things you want to say when you're handed your newborn child?
SPEAKER_00: Start thinking about those things.
SPEAKER_00: So Zechariah begins his blessing by blessing God and remembering what he has done in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the second thing we see today comes from verse 68.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all still with me?
SPEAKER_00: That was a long introduction.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for sticking it out.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is the second thing today.
SPEAKER_00: You can't understand Jesus without the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Verses 68 through 74, this is a summary of all that God has done to save his people up to this point in history.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 68 says that God has visited and redeemed his people.
SPEAKER_00: And this was the plan the whole time.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't come by accident.
SPEAKER_00: He was sent as the plan from the beginning to save God's people.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's just two things we want to highlight here.
SPEAKER_00: One, Abraham's covenant, and two, the lineage of David.
SPEAKER_00: God appeared way back to Abraham in Genesis 12, and it says this, and I will make of you a great nation.
SPEAKER_00: I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse.
SPEAKER_00: And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: See, even though Abraham and Sarah were old, just like Zechariah and Elizabeth, God gave them a son in their old age, and they became a great nation.
SPEAKER_00: This is what we call the Abrahamic covenant.
SPEAKER_00: God's plan to bless the world came through Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: That's by the way, what one of our core values as a church is blessing.
SPEAKER_00: We have gospel, community, mission, and blessing.
SPEAKER_00: When we do our part as the church, we are a part of God's blessing.
SPEAKER_00: The blessing that God's telling Abraham about, that's us.
SPEAKER_00: We are that blessing as the church.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the other person I mentioned is David.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 169 says that God raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.
SPEAKER_00: David was the greatest king of Israel, and God also made a covenant with him, 2 Samuel 7.
SPEAKER_00: God says to David, and your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me.
SPEAKER_00: Your throne shall be established forever.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the reasons that Matthew's gospel opens up with this long list of people that had a role to play in the history of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Starts at Abraham, goes to David, and ends at Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when I think about this first section of Zechariah's prophecy from 68, uh going down to verse 75, it's interesting to note to this point.
SPEAKER_00: Zechariah, like I said, has had nine months of silence to think about what that angel said.
SPEAKER_00: The blessing that he's giving here, it's really a great act of worship.
SPEAKER_00: Great acts of worship often come from great seasons of silence and of stillness.
SPEAKER_00: As we read this blessing, we read the words of a man who's been thinking deeply.
SPEAKER_00: What did he think about?
SPEAKER_00: Did he think about God's promise of salvation?
SPEAKER_00: Did he think about the endless role that he had as a priest?
SPEAKER_00: Of the endless rivers of blood that spilled and flowed with each generation of priests that made endless sacrifices that could never fully atone for endless sins?
SPEAKER_00: Did he think about scripture?
SPEAKER_00: Did he think of history?
SPEAKER_00: Did he think of his son John preparing the people for the coming of the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: You know, as we hear the words of this blessing, the answer is yes.
SPEAKER_00: Even though Israel had lived through centuries of exile now, even though they had no king from the line of David, even though they're living under foreign rulers, Zechariah's words remind us that God still remembered his oath to Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: All that time of silence and stillness, it wasn't punishment, it was discipline.
SPEAKER_00: When we hear Zechariah's blessing, we hear a man that has a new understanding.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verses 72 and 73.
SPEAKER_00: It says this to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: Zechariah, his name is a combination of two words, Zakar and Yah.
SPEAKER_00: Zakar means remember.
SPEAKER_00: Yah means Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: So his name means Yahweh remembers.
SPEAKER_00: But it gets better.
SPEAKER_00: Elizabeth's name, two words.
SPEAKER_00: Eli and Shiva.
SPEAKER_00: Eli, God, Shabbat is an oath.
SPEAKER_00: Her name means God is an oath.
SPEAKER_00: Just picture these two people throughout their whole lives waking up each morning.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh remembers.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
SPEAKER_00: God is an oath.
SPEAKER_00: And saying those names and having that understanding of God and wondering, are our prayers ever going to be answered?
SPEAKER_00: Not just prayers for the baby, but the prayers for the restoration of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And at the end of their lives, they're given their newborn son, looking at each other, holding their son in bed, whose name means God is gracious.
SPEAKER_00: That's what John means.
SPEAKER_00: God is gracious.
SPEAKER_00: See, the Old Testament is a book of people that looked back in faith to what God had promised.
SPEAKER_00: But it's also a book of people who look forward in the hope for God to keep that promise.
SPEAKER_00: And the lesson for us is really the same.
SPEAKER_00: God always keeps his promises.
SPEAKER_00: The greatest promise is found in sending us that Messiah, the Son of David, Jesus Christ, to save us from our sins.
SPEAKER_00: He's the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises.
SPEAKER_00: Just like Zechariah looked back in history in faith.
SPEAKER_00: We look back in history in faith.
SPEAKER_00: The message of Advent is really the same.
SPEAKER_00: Look back in faith, look forward in hope.
SPEAKER_00: Our hope is in that second coming, the future resurrection that we just sang about earlier, the new heavens, the new earth.
SPEAKER_00: Our hope is that Jesus will return and make all things new.
SPEAKER_00: And it takes the whole Bible, Old and New Testaments, to wrap our heads around this faith and this hope.
SPEAKER_00: There's an idea that shows up throughout history that God of the Old Testament is somehow different than the God of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: It goes something like this: the God of the Old Testament was mean, he was inferior, he was judgmental, he was all about wrath and all about keeping the law.
SPEAKER_00: The true God, though, was the God of Jesus, the God of Paul, the God of love, the God of grace.
SPEAKER_00: This is a bad idea, and it's shown up several times throughout history.
SPEAKER_00: It started with this guy named Marcion, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: His solution was to get rid of most of the Bible and just give us parts of Luke and ten of Paul's letters.
SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the reasons that passages like this are so important, because Zechariah speaking through the Holy Spirit shows us that God had been saying the same thing, past, present, and future.
SPEAKER_00: The whole Bible, Old Testament, New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: There's one God, three persons.
SPEAKER_00: God the Father planned redemption, God the Son accomplished redemption, God the Holy Spirit applies redemption.
SPEAKER_00: Three persons, one God, acting consistently through all eternity.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the first part of Zechariah's blessing.
SPEAKER_00: It's a reminder, you cannot understand Jesus without the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And you cannot understand the Old Testament without Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus himself said this later on in Luke's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: After his death and resurrection, he meets two disciples on the road to Emmaus.
SPEAKER_00: And in chapter 24, verse 27, it says this, and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
SPEAKER_00: If you were to open your Bible to the Old Testament and begin reading, would you be able to do what Jesus did?
SPEAKER_00: Would you be able to understand how the Old Testament shows our need for someone more than just a priest, someone more than just a prophet, someone more than just a king, but a savior.
SPEAKER_00: There's over 400 prophecies that predict the coming of the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus fulfilled every single one of them.
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament shows us this pattern of God's activity again and again that predicts this coming of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And Advent helps us to see that Jesus is just as necessary in the Old Testament as he is in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Which brings us to our third thing.
SPEAKER_00: We see that Advent has more to do with the ministry of John the Baptist than it does with the birth of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So verse 76, Zechariah turns his attention now to his son, and he says, And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways.
SPEAKER_00: See, Christmas is all about the birth of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Advent is all about preparing for the coming of Jesus, his first coming and his second coming.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 76 tells us that this was John the Baptist's whole job description, to go before the Lord to prepare his ways.
SPEAKER_00: Now, how did John prepare those ways?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 77 says this to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins.
SPEAKER_00: He told people what they needed to know.
SPEAKER_00: What did they need to know?
SPEAKER_00: They were sinners in need of forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: That's your need, that's my need, forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: How did that forgiveness happen?
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says in Hebrews, there can be no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of what?
SPEAKER_00: Blood.
SPEAKER_00: No forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you had to have a priest like Zechariah who would slay animal after animal, shedding blood for the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_00: That's why this story is so compelling, because Zechariah had a son whose job it was to say, Hey, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: Dad, you and me, we're about to be out of a job because there's coming a high priest who's going to make one sacrifice for all.
SPEAKER_00: There's going to come one prophet who's going to reveal God's word once and for all.
SPEAKER_00: His name is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's why John the Baptist says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
SPEAKER_00: This is how John the Baptist would prepare his ways.
SPEAKER_00: Later in his life, we see John the Baptist, and that's precisely what he's doing: preparing people to meet their God.
SPEAKER_00: He was called John the Baptist, by the way, uh, because we don't have a John the Methodist or John the Presbyterian.
SPEAKER_00: We got a John the Baptist, right?
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I got a little heavy in here.
SPEAKER_00: Are we y'all still with me?
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: I hope I'm doing this right.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so we meet John the Baptist later in his life, and he's baptizing people as a sign of repentance, for forgiveness for sin.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance from sin, but also forgiveness for sin.
SPEAKER_00: And he would preach this simple message repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
SPEAKER_00: When John grew up, he was very good at making religious people angry.
SPEAKER_00: So priests, Scribes, Pharisees, they hated John.
SPEAKER_00: They couldn't stand it.
SPEAKER_00: Tax collectors, soldiers, prostitutes, they loved John.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because they understood what he was preaching about.
SPEAKER_00: They understood themselves.
SPEAKER_00: They knew they were sinners in need of forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_00: They knew they were sick and needed healing.
SPEAKER_00: These were the kind of people that were prepared for the coming of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: John wasn't just out there making people feel bad about their sin.
SPEAKER_00: He was pointing forward to the one who was going to come and do something about that sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's how he prepared people.
SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about this week.
SPEAKER_00: I think preparing for the coming of Jesus is a lot like getting ready for a wedding.
SPEAKER_00: I actually brought you some pictures to give you an example.
SPEAKER_00: This is my wife on the left with her bridesmaids.
SPEAKER_00: And you can kind of see, you know, they're putting on makeup, they're getting their hair just right, uh, making sure the dress looks good.
SPEAKER_00: You know, all this is a part of getting the bride ready to meet her groom.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a picture of what John the Baptist did.
SPEAKER_00: His job was to help get the bride ready.
SPEAKER_00: His job was to turn the nation of Israel back to their God, to turn disobedient children back to the Father, to make ready for the people, for the Lord, a people that were prepared.
SPEAKER_00: We, the church, are the bride of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And God gave the apostles, the evangelists, the shepherds, the teachers to equip the saints to the work of ministry.
SPEAKER_00: But what's more than that, he gave gifts from the Holy Spirit to each of us and commands us to use them to strive in building up the church.
SPEAKER_00: That's the work of a bridesmaid.
SPEAKER_00: That's the work of someone who's getting the bride ready to meet the groom.
SPEAKER_00: So when you put money in those boxes, when you go next door and rock babies, when you go on mission trips, when you share the gospel with your coworker, that's bridesmaid work.
SPEAKER_00: And remember, that's how God has called you to prepare the bride to meet the groom.
SPEAKER_00: As John the Baptist approached the end of his ministry, he said, You yourselves bear me witness that I said, I'm not the Christ, but I've been sent before him.
SPEAKER_00: The one who has the bride is the bridegroom.
SPEAKER_00: The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete.
SPEAKER_00: He must increase, but I must decrease.
SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist's job was to prepare the way and then get out of the way.
SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist didn't have what the kids call these days main character energy.
SPEAKER_00: Students, y'all know what that is, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's a Gen Z term, no cap.
SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist was there to get us ready for the one who did have main character energy.
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's so fitting for us, Grand Parkway, the bride of Christ in the year 2024, to do what these words on the screen say.
SPEAKER_00: To just make this our prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Come, Jesus, come.
SPEAKER_00: Because it echoes those words of revelation.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit and the bride say, Come, come, Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We want this kingdom of this world to decrease and for the kingdom of heaven to increase.
SPEAKER_00: Advent is all about getting people ready for that reality.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to catch someone's attention, instead of saying Merry Christmas this year, just go up to them and say, May you decrease and may Jesus increase.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine just checking out at the line at H E B?
SPEAKER_00: May you decrease and may Jesus increase.
SPEAKER_00: Your faces are like, we're gonna stick with Merry Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, man.
SPEAKER_00: This brings us to the fourth and final thing today, and that's this.
SPEAKER_00: Very simple.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the only way to peace.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me, verse 78.
SPEAKER_00: It says that 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.
SPEAKER_00: The image Zechariah gives us here is of the sun rising on the darkness and shining the light on the path of peace.
SPEAKER_00: Again, just to remind us of our history here, Zechariah is living in a time of deep darkness.
SPEAKER_00: God had not sent a prophet for 400 years.
SPEAKER_00: They were in the dark.
SPEAKER_00: They were waiting for a king to come and deal with the darkness and make them a kingdom again and defeat their enemies.
SPEAKER_00: And we all want that.
SPEAKER_00: We all want the bad guys to lose and the good guys to win.
SPEAKER_00: We want someone to come and deal with the darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Peace is what happens when our enemies get defeated.
SPEAKER_00: We feel that need for a king to come and fight the darkness on the outside.
SPEAKER_00: But what about the inside?
SPEAKER_00: We all want somebody to deal with rebels.
SPEAKER_00: But what about our rebellion?
SPEAKER_00: See, once we begin to understand this, we begin to understand this way of peace.
SPEAKER_00: One of the problems we see over and over in the Bible and in the world is that people do not know the way of peace.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 59, 8 says, the way of peace they do not know, and there's no justice in their paths.
SPEAKER_00: They have made their roads crooked.
SPEAKER_00: No one who treads on them knows peace.
SPEAKER_00: This is every person's natural state: anxiety, chaos, conflict, wars, rumors of wars.
SPEAKER_00: Sin makes the world this way.
SPEAKER_00: And in spite of all of our self-effort, in spite of all our advances in technology and knowledge, by the way, I know that this screen back here has been blinking.
SPEAKER_00: It was driving me nuts.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all have been ignoring it this whole time, by the way, right?
SPEAKER_00: I love technology until it goes wrong.
SPEAKER_00: So in spite of all of our advances, in spite of all the things we've seen happen in the history of the world, we're unable to walk in the way of peace.
SPEAKER_00: In spite of all of our governments, all the peace treaties.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, this is one of the reasons that the uh the Kellogg Brian Pact was a joke.
SPEAKER_00: And y'all say, What in the world is the Kellogg Briand Pact, Clyde?
SPEAKER_00: In 1928, a bunch of elite government officials and rich people got together and they decided they were gonna outlaw something.
SPEAKER_00: Guess what they wanted to outlaw?
SPEAKER_00: War.
SPEAKER_00: 1928.
SPEAKER_00: No more war.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna get along, you're gonna get along.
SPEAKER_00: Why was that a joke?
SPEAKER_00: Because this guy named Hitler came along and he showed why that was a joke, if you know your history.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I mean, they were so confident this was gonna work, they even gave them a Nobel Peace Prize.
SPEAKER_00: Like, really?
SPEAKER_00: See, our problem is that peace is a nice ideal, but it's not a reality.
SPEAKER_00: All the words we use around Advent, hope, peace, joy, love, those are nice sounding sentiments, but they're never realities in every area of our lives without Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: How do I know this?
SPEAKER_00: Because I drive in Houston traffic.
SPEAKER_00: It does not give me hope.
SPEAKER_00: Despair?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Hope?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: There's no peace on the road, just anxiety and speed.
SPEAKER_00: I feel no joy when I sit down here at West Airport in 1464 and sit through three cycles of lights.
SPEAKER_00: So there's plenty of ways we know that peace sounds nice, but it's not a reality.
SPEAKER_00: Peace is only temporary.
SPEAKER_00: And at the best of times, it's a fragile peace.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, just look at the world.
SPEAKER_00: Shifting alliances, power imbalances, uncertainty of the future.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what's going to happen in Ukraine.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what's going to happen in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Peace becomes pointless often because it never seems to last.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing: that's the world's peace.
SPEAKER_00: That's the best it has to offer.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said this peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.
SPEAKER_00: Not as the world gives, do I give you peace?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, My kingdom is not of this world.
SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
SPEAKER_00: Neither is his peace.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because this is a peace that causes us to look forward beyond the powers of what men can do, knowing we won't have true peace until we have faith that our sin has been dealt with.
SPEAKER_00: Of all the enemies of darkness, our greatest enemy is sin.
SPEAKER_00: Until you deal with the reality of sin, you cannot have peace.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the Bible says that Jesus made peace by the blood of his cross.
SPEAKER_00: He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.
SPEAKER_00: Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.
SPEAKER_00: Peace cannot be understood until sin is understood.
SPEAKER_00: We may think about peace within ourselves, peace with one another, peace between nations.
SPEAKER_00: Our biggest need is peace with God.
SPEAKER_00: Do you have peace with God?
SPEAKER_00: And if not, do you know how to have it?
SPEAKER_00: Are you ready to be done with being at war with God?
SPEAKER_00: When you meet God, how will that go?
SPEAKER_00: Because for the Christian, our confidence is that Jesus paid for our sin.
SPEAKER_00: This is what allows us to face the grave, knowing that we will rest in peace, because we will rest with God.
SPEAKER_00: My kids don't call tombstones tombstones.
SPEAKER_00: Um, they call them ripstones because of the words rest in peace spelled out on them.
SPEAKER_00: We try to explain, girls, that means rest in peace.
SPEAKER_00: No, they're called ripstones, Dad.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00: But those stones, those words, rest in peace, that's that's a sobering reminder because resting in peace is only possible with a relationship with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Advent reminds us that we can face the end of our lives knowing that we'll find peace.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is coming.
SPEAKER_00: He comes to the world to judge the world for sin.
SPEAKER_00: And he comes to take his bride to be with him in peace.
SPEAKER_00: And we we don't want to be naive about peace.
SPEAKER_00: It's not, can't we just all get along?
SPEAKER_00: The Bible's clear in the world you will have trouble, but I leave you my peace.
SPEAKER_00: If we ever have peace in this world, though, according to the world's terms, it's always gonna be complex and fragile at best.
SPEAKER_00: It will always be temporary.
SPEAKER_00: Years ago, John Lennon wrote a song back in the 60s called Give Peace a Chance.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is that in this world, peace is always gonna be just that: a chance.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't come to purchase the chance of peace, he purchased the certainty of peace.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know how Zechariah's story ended, how many years he had left to enjoy watching his wife become a mother, raising a son together, but we do know that he was looking back and looking forward.
SPEAKER_00: He was looking back at the promises God had made to his people, works that he did through Abraham, Moses, and David.
SPEAKER_00: He was looking back at the miracles God had done in his own life.
SPEAKER_00: He was looking forward in faith to the Savior who gave meaning to his entire life, his entire work as a priest.
SPEAKER_00: None of it mattered without the Savior who had come.
SPEAKER_00: He looked forward to that great high priest who would atone for sin in a way he never could.
SPEAKER_00: And at the end of his life, in the twilight of his years, he faced death, knowing he would find peace because he was prepared to meet God.
SPEAKER_00: Today, on the second Sunday of Advent, we're invited to do the same, to look back in faith and to look forward in hope.
SPEAKER_00: When we look back, it's easy to look at our past, to feel depression, despair, regret.
SPEAKER_00: When we look forward, it's easy to worry, to feel anxiety, to feel fear.
SPEAKER_00: Is the past going to repeat itself?
SPEAKER_00: We do this because we're focused on ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: The good news of the peace of Advent is we take our eyes off ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We set them on the coming of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: His first coming, his second coming, to find that he meets us, he visits us, and he forgives us.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way of peace, peace with God.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: Just bow your heads.
SPEAKER_00: Ask the Holy Spirit to speak to your head and to your heart.
SPEAKER_00: There's some questions on the screen to guide you during this time.
SPEAKER_00: Lindsay's gonna come, play, she may sing something.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just spend some time thanking.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord, that we're a remembered people.
SPEAKER_00: You've never forgotten us for the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: You chose us, you've never forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you for the forgiveness that only comes through the shedding of blood.
SPEAKER_00: We look forward and we look back.
SPEAKER_00: Behold the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world.
SPEAKER_00: As we look forward and we look back today, that that leaves us with peace.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a peace that's to come, but also a peace for the present.
SPEAKER_00: A peace that speaks to us now and shapes the way that we react when things don't go the way we planned.
SPEAKER_00: So, Lord, speak now.
SPEAKER_00: Your servants are listening.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: We can say it is well with our souls.
SPEAKER_00: When all around us, when all outside of us, when all our circumstances are not well, let us be the people, the people of God, because of what we know has happened, what is happening, what will happen.
SPEAKER_00: Through the gospel of your son, that it is well with our souls.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray today those words from the Lord's Prayer, just deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_00: Keep us from evil, Lord, and bless us.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that our lives would be lives of abundance and blessing for material things like presence under the tree after a good year, but more importantly, for spiritual abundance, for faith that is maturing and growing, for confident peace in the face of the days to come.
SPEAKER_00: Teach us, Lord, how to live as people who have been delivered from evil and delivered to the way of peace.
SPEAKER_00: When trials come, draw near to us, meet us there, guide us with your presence.
SPEAKER_00: There's a loyalty that goes deeper than mere sentiment, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to be a people of sentiment.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be a people of understanding.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to live in that understanding today.
SPEAKER_00: We pray all this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: And all God's people said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for being here.
SPEAKER_00: Again, if you're new, we're glad you're here.
SPEAKER_00: There's a number that's gonna be up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: You can text, welcome to that.
SPEAKER_00: That's just a way to let us know that you were present today.
SPEAKER_00: If today's the day you worship through giving, we do that in these boxes by the doors.
SPEAKER_00: You can just drop it in there or give online.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're gonna have some pastors down front at the conclusion of our service.
SPEAKER_00: If there's anything you heard today you have questions about, or you just want somebody to pray for you, that's what we're here to do.
SPEAKER_00: Let's stand together.
SPEAKER_00: I want to speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_00: Hold your hands out like this.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord bless you and keep you.
SPEAKER_00: Make his face shine upon you.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
SPEAKER_00: And as you work and eat, sleep, and worship during this Advent season, may you decrease and may Jesus increase.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Bless you.
SPEAKER_00: You're dismissed.