November 30, 2025 • 52 mins
Advent isn’t just about counting down; it’s about cultivating expectancy. In this first message of the Expecting series, Mark Medley opens Luke 1:57–80 and lingers with Zechariah, the aging priest whose silenced voice is restored in a rush of praise and prophecy. Mark shows how God remembers the prayers we forget, and how worship becomes the space where His covenant faithfulness turns personal. Zechariah blesses the God of Israel for visiting and redeeming His people—and then, mid-song, hears a Spirit-given word over his newborn son: “And you, child…” Praise turns prophetic, and purpose is unveiled.
Mark frames worship with a simple, weighty pattern: revelation, response, and relationship. God, in mercy, discloses Himself; we respond with heart, mind, body, and voice; and that response reshapes our lives with Him. The size of our worship mirrors the size of our view of God. That’s why pondering His attributes—holiness, mercy, wisdom, sovereignty—matters. Steeping in Scripture through the week makes Sunday sing; truth inside us resonates with truth we declare. Worship, Mark insists, is not about what I like—it’s about who I love.
Drawing a thread through Scripture, Mark connects Paul’s call to sing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Ephesians 5:18–19; Colossians 3:16) with the pattern in Exodus 15. Israel celebrates what God has done, moves into adoration to God, and then declares what God will do—a Spirit-led word that never contradicts the Bible. The same dynamic appears in Zechariah’s song. We sing about God, we sing to God, and then, filled with the Word and the Spirit, we receive from God. Zephaniah 3:17 reminds us that He is a singing God; as we lift our voices, He rejoices over us with singing.
Along the way, Mark offers practical ways to lean in during Advent: choose one attribute each week and saturate your mind with Scripture; expect your worship to move from celebration to intimacy to timely, biblically faithful encouragement. Parents can expect God to speak about their children. All of us can expect Him to give hope, correction, and direction as we gather at home and in church. If you’re at a low point, take courage—Zechariah’s silence ended in a song that shaped history. Emmanuel means God with us, and worship helps us notice.
If this message helps you reframe Advent, share it with a friend and stay with us for the rest of Expecting. What is God inviting you to expect from Him this week?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Mark Medley (00:02):
Hey everybody.
How are y'all?
Merry Christmas.
Hope you had a goodThanksgiving.
We did.
And for all of you youngtheologians who got the little
pads in the back, you can uhwrite down Luke chapter one.
That's where we're going.
(00:23):
We are really happy to be withyou guys today and so happy to
see.
It's great.
Family Sunday is great.
We're so happy to see thefamilies together.
People coming into the familyof God, people coming into our
church family, people, littlelittle kids entering into your
families.
(00:43):
This is just beautiful.
And so we are starting aChristmas sermon series today.
It's called Expecting.
And uh, well, one reason isbecause we got a lot of people
expecting here.
A lot of ladies expecting.
We have, as you can see, wehave a lot of that going on
here.
That's not really the reason.
It's kind of a differentChristmas series because we're
(01:04):
gonna be we're gonna be readingthrough the Christmas story this
uh the next few weeks, and uhwe're gonna be talking about
worship.
So it's a Christmas series thatis focused on worship and it's
specifically encountering God inworship.
So you probably know, maybe youknow, today begins the season
(01:25):
of Advent.
This is the first Sunday ofAdvent, and it's a time where
Christians all over the worldare preparing their hearts
expectantly, waiting for thecoming of the Lord.
This is happening with ourbrothers and sisters in every
nation.
It's a time of expecting.
Uh but in the Christmas story,as we read it, oftentimes there
(01:48):
are a lot of unexpected thingsthat happen.
And a lot of things unexpectedhappen to us too during
Christmas time, right?
In the Christmas story, thereare there are young and there
are old.
There are males and there arefemales, there's their nobility
and uh the lowly, everyone.
(02:08):
So it's basically amulticultural,
multi-generational,multi-gender,
multi-socioeconomic group.
When you read that story, it'sall kinds of people that are
involved in this story, but theyare all encountering what God
is doing through Jesus, andthey're all worshiping in turn.
So the idea is that this storyis giving us instruction on how
(02:33):
to worship and how to expect Godto be moving.
So, and that's really the ideaof this whole sermon series.
God is active in our worship.
When we're worshiping, He ispresent and He's doing things.
So we all love to sing songs,right?
Christmas songs, right?
So tell me what are your whatare your favorite Christmas
(02:54):
songs?
This is not rhetorical, you canactually answer.
Oh, holy night.
That's a great one.
Isn't that a great one?
What else?
Joy to the world, the Lord hascome.
What else?
Silent Night?
Good.
What?
Oh, come, what come Emmanuel.
Drummer boy?
Who was that?
A drummer?
Oh, it was a drummer.
It was a drummer.
That's so funny.
(03:15):
The drummer says drummer boy.
Give the drummer some, please.
What else?
unknown (03:20):
Mary, did you know?
Mark Medley (03:21):
Mary, did you know?
Good.
I'm so gall.
Thank you so much for notsaying grandma got ran over by a
reindeer.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I know probably some of you arethinking it, but you didn't say
it, and that was veryappropriate to not say it at
that time.
That's that's admirableself-control.
Thank you.
Yeah.
There's a lot of them that arelike just drivel, you know.
(03:44):
They're just not even aboutChristmas, really.
They're not about Jesus, butthe songs that we sing, and
we'll sing here over the nextfew weeks, are all focused on
Jesus.
Like the ones that you just uhsaid.
And uh, you know, God lovessongs, He is a singing God.
We love to sing because we'recreated in His image.
(04:07):
And He's a creator and He's asinger.
Zephaniah says to us in chapter3 that God even rejoices over
us with singing.
God is a singing God, actually.
And so He's when we're singingto Him this morning, He's
actually singing back over us aswell.
Okay, but you may not be awarethat there are there are many
songs in the Christmas story,and we're gonna be talking about
(04:30):
those this next few weeks.
Um, we're gonna talk about thesong of Simeon, the song that
Mary sang.
We're gonna be talking aboutthe song of the angels when they
were speaking to the shepherds.
But this morning we're gonnastart at the very beginning,
before Jesus was born, beforeMary was visited by the angel.
(04:52):
We're gonna begin with what'scalled the song of Zechariah.
And that's Luke chapter 1, ifyou want to turn there.
In some ways, Zechariah wasexpecting God to be active, just
like all the Jews of his day.
They had their own advent goingon.
There was an expectation thatGod was gonna send a Messiah,
(05:12):
that he was not gonna leave themalone, but he was gonna enter
into their world, and he wasgonna do things for them as the
Jewish people.
This was what the prophets hadspoken for many years, that he
would come and act powerfully intheir world.
So they were expectant in someways.
But in other ways, Zechariahcould not have been expecting
(05:34):
what happened to him.
You might remember that he wasuh the husband of Elizabeth,
Elizabeth, and the father ofJohn the Baptist.
And so he was a Jewish priestwho served in the temple.
And as he was serving in thetemple, he was visited by the
angel Gabriel.
The angel Gabriel told him alot of things, but specifically
told him that his wife, who wasvery elderly and who was
(05:59):
formerly barren, was going tohave a baby.
Now, Zechariah found thatreally hard to believe.
And uh he doubted thatprophecy, and because he he
doubted that prophecy, you know,but he found it hard to believe
because how many of us haveprayed for something for so long
and it hasn't come yet?
And sometimes you've you getthat little thing inside of you
(06:25):
that starts to doubt, right?
And maybe it's not gonna happenat all.
And this is a prayer thatZechariah and Elizabeth had
prayed for many years.
God send us a son, send us aboy.
This was their prayer, butthey're so old now, maybe they
hadn't prayed this prayer in along time because they were so
old they couldn't, she was pastchildbearing years.
(06:47):
But you know what?
God remembers the prayers thatwe have forgotten.
And he doesn't lose hisfaithfulness just because we
forget for remember, forget toremember the prayers.
He remembers.
So he promised the child thatit would be be born to them in
(07:09):
the old age, but Zechariahdoubted it, and so he was struck
mute.
Means he couldn't speak, hecouldn't speak at all until the
baby was born, and they namedhim John.
So after Elizabeth gave birthto the to the boy, as the angel
said, and they were gonna namehim John.
They were at the namingceremony, but the priests were
gonna say, Hey, we're gonna namehim Zechariah because that's
(07:29):
what his father's name is.
But Elizabeth says, No, hisname is John, and they looked to
Zechariah and they said, What'sup?
What is going on here?
They handed him a writingtablet, kind of like the little
things our kids are writing ontoday, probably.
And he wrote down, his name isJohn, and his mouth was opened.
(07:51):
His vocal cords started movingfor the first time in nine
months or more.
He hadn't been speaking.
He began to speak, but itwasn't just words.
He began to sing praise to God.
His voice was restored, hebegan to sing praise and to
prophesy about his son.
It's beautiful poetry here, andthis is it's actually a song.
(08:18):
So this is Zechariah's song.
Let's read it together.
Starting in Luke chapter 1,verse 67.
And his father Zechariah wasfilled with the Holy Spirit and
prophesied, saying, Blessed bethe Lord, God of Israel, for he
has visited and redeemed hispeople, and he's raised up a
horn of salvation for us in thehouse of his servant David.
(08:42):
As he spoke by the mouth of hisholy prophets from old, that we
should be saved from ourenemies and from the hand of all
who hate us, to show the mercypromised to our fathers, and to
remember his holy covenant, theoath that he swore to our father
Abraham, to grant us that we,being delivered from the hand of
(09:04):
our enemies, might serve himwithout fear, in holiness and
righteousness before him all ourdays.
And you, child, will be calledthe prophet of the Most High,
for you will go before the Lordto prepare his ways, to give
knowledge of salvation to hispeople in the forgiveness of
(09:28):
their sins, because of thetender mercy of our God, whereby
the sunrise shall visit us fromon high, to give light to those
who sit in darkness and in theshadow of death, to guide our
feet into the way of peace.
And the child grew and becamestrong in spirit, and he was in
(09:48):
the wilderness until the day ofhis public appearance in Israel.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you so much foryour word.
God, we thank you that you area God of faithfulness and you
keep your promises.
Thank you, Lord, for thestories that we're going to read
(10:10):
over the next few weeks.
And Lord, today we ask you byyour Holy Spirit that you would
do a work in us to open our earsto hear you, that you would
give hope, that you would giverevelation of Jesus, that you
help us understand how toworship better.
And we pray these things in thename of Jesus.
(10:31):
Amen.
Okay, we don't know what thissong sounded like, but we know
it was a beautiful expression ofworship to God.
He was seeing God'sfaithfulness fresh in over his
faithfulness over Israel in afresh way because of his
faithfulness in his own life.
(10:52):
So why do we want to do aChristmas series that is
focusing on worship?
I'm glad you asked.
Because worship is what we'reall, each of us were created
for.
You are made to worship the onewho created you.
(11:12):
This is why you're never reallysatisfied until you're in
connection with God.
When you're back connected toyour Maker and you're worshiping
Him and enjoying Him.
But many of us didn't reallygrow up in situations or in
churches that taught us how toworship biblically, like the
biblical heart of worship or thebiblical forms of worship.
(11:34):
So this is why we're doing thisseries.
And although God is beyond us,He wants to be present with us.
He wants to speak into oursituation today and reveal
Himself to us as we seek Him.
So worship is not just the songservice, the song portion of
the service.
Worship is not warm-up for thesermon.
(11:55):
Worship is not, you know, justthat part that happens before
the announcements.
Yeah.
It's it's actually interactionwith God.
And this happens at home, byyourself, or with your family,
and it happens together herecorporately as we gather for
church.
(12:15):
So when we worship, God isactive.
So I want to tell you my storya little bit because some of you
who are new here don't knowthis.
But for years, I came toTrinity in 1985 and began
singing, actually playing withthe worship team uh shortly
after that, and then I beganleading the worship team.
Some of you were here duringthose times.
(12:36):
Some of our worship teammembers are here.
Actually, one, Jack Wright overthere.
He was the one who led worshipduring that time.
And I was working with Jack.
We were we were worshipingtogether.
And then in 1989, I came onstaff as a pastor whose main
focus was worship.
And so I was trying, I wasgoing deep into the scriptures.
(12:58):
I was studying worship.
I was trying to understand uhbiblical forms of worship.
I was teaching the the uh theworship teams, and um, I was
also using some of the things Iwas learning from my music
degree.
And so we were trying to getmore excellence spiritually, uh
scripturally, musically, and incharacter, in our own character
(13:21):
in our hearts, to give Jesuswhat he deserves.
So that began a journey for me,and we began doing uh different
worship conferences and thingsall over the United States and
also uh in other nations.
Uh eventually wrote a bookabout worship.
And so all of that was just allof this for many years I've
(13:42):
been involved in worship, and inmany years I've been really
thinking about what is worship.
You know, how do you define it?
And so I'm gonna give you mybest try this morning, okay?
My best try at definingworship.
I think worship is threethings.
I think it's a revelation, it'sa response, and it's a
relationship.
It's a revelation because Godin his mercy opens our eyes to
(14:05):
see him.
He doesn't want to hidehimself, he discloses himself
and opens himself up, and we seehim like little by little by
little.
You can't see him all at once.
I don't think we could handleit.
You know, I don't know aboutyou, but I got up this morning
and went to the bathroom.
You know, when you turn thelight on after you've been
(14:27):
asleep all night long and it'sso bright, it's just too bright.
You kind of need a, you kind ofneed like a little bit of light
first.
Because if you turn the wholebright light on, it's too much
for your eyes.
And this is kind of the way itis with God.
He opens our eyes little bylittle to see him, and in a
progressive way, we see more andmore of him.
(14:48):
He reveals himself to us, andthat causes us to respond.
Biblically, when you see God,you respond.
And that is in your body, inyour soul, in your spirit.
And so we're responding to whatwe see.
And then it's a the end productis a relationship.
God wants our lives, he wantsto live with us, he wants to
(15:08):
walk with us, and as we walkwith him, he changes our lives.
So God, in his grace, revealshimself.
We see him and it causes aresponse, but it changes our
lives.
It's a walk with him, it's arelationship.
That's my best understanding ofwhat worship is.
So relationship is the endgoal, but it starts with
revelation.
(15:29):
God has to open our eyes tohim.
And the depth and the qualityof our worship is directly
proportionate to the way we viewGod.
We can't worship big if we havea small God.
You understand what I mean,right?
God is not small, but but ourunderstanding of him is
(15:50):
sometimes small, and that's asfar as we get in our worship
because we don't see him as heis.
God's, and I think we allunderstand God is bigger than
our current revelation of him.
Yeah?
True?
Okay.
Yeah.
So who is this God we worship?
That's the question.
That's the question oftheology.
Theologo, study of God.
(16:10):
Well, A.W.
Tozer said this (16:12):
it's not a cheerful thought that millions
of us who live in the land ofBibles, who belong to churches
and labor to promote theChristian religion, may yet pass
our whole life on this earthwithout once having thought or
tried to think seriously aboutthe being of God.
(16:32):
Wow.
Have you once thought or triedto seriously think about who God
really is?
So here's the other questionfor us this morning.
What is God like?
And that is not rhetorical, youcan answer.
What is God like?
Throw it out to me.
Throw it out to me.
(16:53):
He's holy.
He's love.
Forgiving?
True?
Sovereign.
Compassionate.
Faithful.
Merciful.
Patient.
(17:13):
All knowing.
You're doing pretty good, okay?
That's pretty good.
That's not bad.
So um, so you can think of youcan think of two different
categories of what God is like.
Okay, and I have a little charthere.
I think God's main tworevelations, self-revelations in
(17:36):
the Bible, are I think there'stwo main ones, and there's a
bunch of other ones.
One would be sovereign Lord,and which means he's beyond us,
he's transcendent, he'sunknowable, he's greater than we
can understand, he's sovereignand in control.
Then also he reveals himself asFather, which means he's close,
(17:59):
he's personal, intimate,relational at hand.
He's not just transcendent,he's also imminent.
He's here with us.
He's knowable.
He's both unknowable and noble.
Can you be both?
Yeah, yeah, you can.
He's both sovereign Lord andFather.
(18:20):
He's beyond us and with us.
You can be both.
This is, I mean, we can't beboth.
He can be both, right?
So you think of uh a lot of thethings that you said about God
are listed up here.
And maybe on the left-handside, we could call these, well,
what theologians call them iscommunicable attributes of God.
(18:41):
That means that when Godcreated us, he gave us part of
himself.
He took some of his loving selfand he put it inside of us.
And some of his wisdom and putit in us.
He we understand, we have somekind of frame of reference for
truth or for beauty or forkindness or for creativity,
(19:02):
right?
We have some reference for thatbecause God is those things and
God put those things into us.
But on the other side, we havewhat's what are called
non-communicable attributes ofGod, which means that these are
things God is, but I'm not.
I am not omnipotent, I'm notomniscient, although I seem
(19:23):
sometimes I feel like I think Iknow everything.
And I know some people whothink they know everything.
But no, we don't.
And we're not we're not umsovereign, we're not infinite in
our capacities, right?
This is not so these are thingsthat God is that we're not.
So you can think of thesethings altogether, but it's not
(19:44):
just like um pick one out, uh,but it's like they're all kind
of connected too.
Like God is not only good, buthe is infinitely wise in his
expression of his goodness, andhe's not only solid.
Sovereign, but he's infinitelyloving in his expressions of his
(20:04):
sovereignty.
You could go on forever.
You could really go on forever.
So one day I was in uh Moscow,Russia, doing a worship
conference, and I just decidedwe did this session about what
God is like.
And I thought, well, I'm justgonna do it.
We're just gonna take the wholehour and we're just gonna
(20:26):
decide.
We're just gonna say, what isGod like?
And we're just we're gonna seehow many we could come up with.
And so just like you, the first15 or 20 are easy.
You know, oh, he's loving, he'she's just, he's truthful.
Okay, and so they they came.
The first 20, pretty easy.
Then it slows down.
The next 20 is a little slower,you have to think more.
(20:48):
When you get to 40 or 50, itgets harder.
When you get to 60 or 70,things get really slow, slower,
and you have to think, andyou're thinking of scripture,
and you're going, but we waited,we did this for an entire hour.
Entire hour.
So maybe show that picture.
This is all in Russian, youcan't read it.
A few in the room can read it.
(21:11):
A few of you can read it.
Yeah.
Okay.
They came up in one hour, theycame up with 106 different
attributes of God.
Okay.
Okay, so I had told them that Idid this with a group of
Americans one time, and we did,we we stopped at 100.
So they wanted to beat theAmericans.
So they came up with a, theyweren't stopping until they got
(21:32):
106.
So they did, which was great.
Um, but but a few years ago,our youth group had a retreat,
and they thought, they did, theyhad the same idea.
They had this big blue piece ofpaper on the wall, and they
said, let's just talk about whatis God like, and they started,
(21:54):
and they without, I wasn'tthere, but I am told without the
aid of a phone, without Google,they came up with 128.
So I just want you to know thatyour youth group beat the
Russians.
That's all I want you to knowthis morning.
Yeah! Come on.
(22:17):
Okay, now that was that was a aformer youth group.
There's this youth group here.
I mean, I'm not saying anythingabout the other youth group.
I think you're probablysmarter.
That's uh yeah.
I think you could do like 150.
So challenge right there.
Challenge.
Go for it.
Okay, so but what if you tookjust one of those attributes?
(22:39):
Like, let's just take holy,okay?
Holy, God is holy, and you gohome this week and you look up
scriptures about the holiness ofGod, and they're all over the
place.
And you're looking in the OldTestament, you're looking at
what it means that He's holy,and how people reacted in the
Psalms and the prophets in theNew Testament and in the book of
(22:59):
Revelation, and you're looking,you're meditating on holiness,
and that holiness idea ischanging you inside.
You begin to change the way yousee God, the way you respond to
God, and then you come back tochurch next week, and the
worship team sings a song aboutthe holiness of God.
What do you think is gonnahappen in your heart?
(23:22):
It's just gonna explode.
It's totally different becauseyou see his holiness in a deeper
way, and then when you singabout it, it's resonating with
all the scripture that's insideof you.
So you could take, you couldtake a with this list right
here, you could take one a weekfor the next 128 weeks.
(23:42):
Okay, two in a year, two yearsand a half, maybe something like
that, without ever re withoutever duplicating an attribute of
God, you could focus on um a anattribute of God per week.
And man, I'm telling you, ifyour your life will change, your
worship will change.
Because worship is a revelationand a response and a
(24:05):
relationship.
Okay, does that make sense?
And worship is about who he is,worship is about God.
This is this should be such ano-brainer.
We sang this morning.
Um, we are here for you, right?
It should be a no-brainer.
Worship is about God, it's notabout me, it's not about what I
like, it's not about the styleof music I like or the kind of
(24:27):
songs that I like.
It's not.
It's about not about what Ilike, it's about who I love.
It's about him.
Okay, so we all kind of knowthat, but we also kind of betray
our hearts sometimes when wesay things like, I just didn't
get much out of worship today.
As if it was about you, and asif you were the focal point of
(24:54):
all of it, and you getting giftsand presents from God are the
is the whole reason for you tocome and worship.
That's not okay, it's like youcome into my birthday party and
you leave angry because youdidn't get a present.
I got all the presents.
That's uh well, could we justsay childish?
That's childish.
(25:15):
Coming to give is mature.
Now, when we give and we weworship, the thing is, the great
thing is God is gracious and hegives back to us.
We do receive, but we don'tcome to receive.
And and we don't come as uhthis the um spoiled brats of the
kingdom who only want what wewant.
(25:35):
Amen.
Thank you.
That's good, okay.
The main point I'm trying toget across to you is that God
reveals himself when we worshipand we respond.
That's the main point.
God reveals himself and werespond.
So we should expect God toreveal himself.
And how we respond with ourbodies and our lives, that's
(25:58):
gonna be a subject of the comingweeks as we study other songs
in the Christmas story.
But worship is a verb, there'sit's something that we do.
Okay, but today we're gonnatune our hearts in to hear what
God reveals to Zechariah and howhe responds.
So Zechariah's song.
Did you notice when Zechariahwas singing, that he he started
(26:21):
with praise to God, and then hehears the prophetic voice of
God.
His praise turns prophetic.
It's all toward God, and thenGod speaks something to him
about this child that he'sholding in his hands.
Zechariah's song starts aspraise and ends as prophecy.
(26:45):
God hears our praise, but healso speaks to us as we worship
him personally, in our homeswith our families, and in our
church together.
He speaks to us.
And I just want to say thistoo, since it's Family Sunday,
let me emphasize that God spoketo him about his son.
(27:06):
God will speak to you aboutyour children.
When you're in worship, whenyou're worshiping him, your mind
is focused on him.
God will speak to you aboutwhat your child needs, how to
raise your children.
And I know parenting is toughbecause when you've never done
it before and you're learning itas you go along, you know, you
(27:26):
learn as much as you can fromyour brothers and sisters, and
but it's not an easy thingbecause every child is
different.
There are different challenges,there are different needs.
You have to you have a littledifferent parenting style, so to
speak, or approach to everychild because they they're a
little bit different.
It takes it takes wisdom, butGod will speak to you as you
(27:47):
worship.
So expect that.
So, how did God reveal Himselfto Zechariah?
First of all, it starts withpraise, right?
He said, Praise to the God ofIsrael.
Sounds like the Psalms, a lotlike the Psalms when he starts
out, because the Psalms were hisscripture.
The Old Testament was hisscripture.
He said, He's redeemed hispeople, he sent his salvation,
(28:09):
he kept his promise to David, hekept his covenant to Abraham,
and he rescued us from ourenemies.
So God is a rescuer, a savior,a redeemer, a promise-keeper.
This is how he begins.
The focus is God word.
But then came this propheticword, and God spoke to
(28:30):
Zechariah, to his son.
God, you have done this.
God, you are this.
God, you have done thesethings.
God, you are this.
And you, child, you will becalled the prophet of the Most
High.
And it becomes powerfullyprophetic.
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You will give people knowledgeand forgiveness of their sins.
You will go before to prepare away for the Messiah because of
the tender mercies of God.
And that's exactly whathappened.
Just as he sang it, proclaimedit over his child, it happened
in the life of John the Baptist.
So a song of praise about Godand what he had done evolved
(29:17):
into a prophetic declaration ofGod's purpose in that moment.
What God wanted to bring aboutin that moment, what he was
going to do in the future.
God speaks to us when we areworshiping him.
That's the point here.
He interacts.
We hear the voice of Godconcerning our own lives, our
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families, our church, ourcommunity, our nation, other
nations, what he's doing in thismoment, something, this is
something that happensthroughout Scripture.
So you see it in the Psalms.
They start off as praise orwith whatever emotion the
psalmist has at that moment, andoftentimes they turn prophetic
(29:59):
or they turn even messianic.
Jesus Himself is revealedthrough those, through that
praise.
Now, Paul hinted this, hintedat this and uh in Ephesians and
in Colossians.
And let me read these to youjust a moment because it's real
insight.
In Ephesians 5.15, he says, Donot get drunk with wine, for
(30:21):
that is debauchery, but befilled with the Spirit,
addressing one another in psalmsand hymns and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody to theLord with your heart.
Okay, then we go to uhColossians 3.16.
How many know John 3.16?
How many?
Okay.
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You have you memorized it?
Okay, you ought to memorizethis one too.
It's another 3.16.
Colossians 3.16.
Let the word of Christ dwell inyou richly, teaching and
admonishing one another in allwisdom, singing psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs withthankfulness in your hearts to
God.
Okay, so Paul Paul says thistwice there.
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Paul was very particular aboutthe way he wrote things.
You know, he one thing for surewe know, we know there's uh
like some different opinionsabout what these things mean.
Psalms, hymns, and spiritualsongs.
One thing for sure he's tellingus to sing, right?
Yeah, that's for sure.
Sing.
But when he says, he could havejust said, sing songs.
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And that sounds like somethingPaul would do if he just wanted
us to sing psalms, songs.
But he said, sing psalms andhymns and spiritual songs, three
different types.
So these words have a littlebit of different meaning.
Okay, so psalms from the wordZalmos, and it carries this hint
of singing about God.
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We're singing about him, we'recelebrating him together.
We come together and we talkabout how great he is.
Okay, so songs like How greatis our God, how great is our
God, right?
Name above all names.
It's two, it's it's about himand it's about the greatness of
God, about who he is.
That's so celebration of God.
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Then hymns, there's a littlebit of a different connotation
there, a little hint of it'sit's more intimate.
It's about songs to God, notjust about God, but our focus is
not outward about him, but it'supward to him.
So it's songs that are moreintimate.
So we are singing to him, likesongs like I love you, Lord.
(32:30):
Or your mercy never fails me.
So we're singing to him.
We may be singing together tohim, but we're singing to him.
It's more of an intimate umconnotation to that one.
And then spiritual songs justmeans it's the Greek word od
pneumatica.
Od pneumatica means spirit, odmeans song, it's a song of the
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spirit.
It's the spirit of God singingback over us.
It could be singing through usto other people, but it is like
a prophetic word.
There's something propheticabout that word.
It's so what we have is we havecelebration or singing about
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God together, and then we haveum this adoration where we're
singing more intimate to God,and then we have this revelation
where God is singing to us.
That's what's happening in uhmany of the Psalms, that's
what's happening in Zechariah'ssong.
We're singing to him, we'resinging about him, and then we
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get it gets prophetic.
God speaks.
Now, if don't get worried aboutthe word prophetic.
Prophetic, I think, just meansGod's particular word for a
particular person or people at aparticular time.
What is God speaking right now?
God does speak, He wants tospeak, He speaks to us
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especially in our worship.
Uh, and it doesn't have to bein the building, it can be at
home, it can be in your car, andhe can speak to you.
But it's just God's word foryou or the people you're with,
and people that you areconcerned with at the present
time.
And this is the way it this isthe way it happens.
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We're singing to God and wehear from God.
That's Psalms, hymns, andspiritual songs.
Um, but there's a prerequisitethere too, right?
Uh in one one in Ephesians it'sbe filled with the spirit.
In Colossians, it's be filledwith the word.
Let the word dwell in yourichly.
When you're full of the spirit,when you're full of the word,
this prophetic thing happens.
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So I want to read to you um anexample from the very first song
in the Bible.
And if you want to turn there,you can.
We don't have it on the screen,so you'll have to turn it if
you want to read it.
I want to read to you fromExodus 15.
Exodus 15 is the first recordedsong that we have from God.
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And it is the it's the songthat broke out spontaneously
when uh the Israelites wentthrough, the Red Sea parted, and
they went through the Red Sea,and then uh though the enemies
were coming after him, them uhPharaoh and the chariots were
drowned in the sea.
And what happened when thathappened is this song just
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spontaneously broke broke out.
But I want you to see thatthere are Psalms, hymns,
spiritual songs here.
There's celebration, there'sadoration, and then there's
revelation, um, a prophetic wordfrom this.
So this is just a great way tosee it scripturally.
So I'll just read it to you.
Then Moses and the Israelitessang this song to the Lord.
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So they're all singing.
So this incredible miracle justhappened, and they're all
looking around.
What happened?
And then what's the mostnatural thing to do?
Somebody starts singing.
Probably it was antiphonal.
The reason they could sing ittogether, it's a spontaneous
song.
It's not one that they didn'tgo turn to hymn number 14 and
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let's sing together to the Lord.
It was spontaneous, but theywould sing antiphonally.
They would sing, one personwould sing a phrase and then it
would be sung back.
The whole congregation wouldsing back to them.
So that's probably whathappened here.
Moses and the Israelites sangthis song to the Lord.
I will sing to the Lord, to theLord, for he is highly exalted.
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The horse and his rider, he'shurled into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and mysong, he's become my salvation.
He is my God and I will exalthim.
Okay, so first of all, thefocus of this thing is the Lord.
I will sing to the Lord.
Second of all, it's verypersonal, isn't it?
The Lord is my strength, mysong, my salvation, my God.
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I will exalt him.
He's my father's God, I willexalt him.
The Lord is a warrior.
Now we're talking about God,very descriptive.
The Lord is a warrior, the Lordis his name.
Pharaoh's chariots and his armyas he hurled into the sea.
The best of Pharaoh's officersare drowned in the Red Sea.
Deep waters had have coveredthem.
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They sank to the depths like astone.
Your right hand, O Lord, wasmajestic in power.
Your right hand, O Lord,shattered the enemy.
In the greatness of yourmajesty, you threw down those
who opposed you.
You unleashed your anger, yourburning anger.
It consumed them like stubble.
By the blast of your nostrils,the wild the waters piled up.
(37:37):
I love it.
The surging waters stood firmlike a wall, the deep waters
congealed in the heart of thesea.
The enemy boasted, I willpursue, I will overtake them, I
will divide the spoils, I willgorge myself on them, I will
draw my sword, and my hand willdestroy them.
But you blew with your breath,and the sea covered them, and
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they sank like lead in themighty waters.
Who among the gods is like you,oh Lord?
Who is like you?
Majestic in holiness, awesomein glory, working wonders.
You stretched out your hand andthe earth swallowed them.
(38:22):
Do you see how descriptive itis?
You see, it is peoplecelebrating together and even
getting more intimate with God.
You, oh Lord, have done thesethings.
Who is like you, Lord?
You are it's it's descriptive,a revelation of God.
It's powerful.
You are majestic, you'refearful, you're a wonder worker.
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And in the midst of thispraise, it turns prophetic.
You stretch out your hand, andthe earth swallowed them.
In your unfailing love, youwill lead them.
Oh, it becomes futuristic.
The people you've redeemed, inyour strength, you will guide
them to your holy dwelling.
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The nations will hear andtremble, anguish will grip the
people of Philistia, the chiefsof Edom will be terrified,
leaders of Moab will be seizedwith trembling, people of Canaan
will melt away, terror anddread will fall upon them.
By the power of your arm, theywill be as still as a stone
until your people pass by.
(39:25):
O Lord, until the people youbought pass by, you will bring
them into the land and plantthem in the mountain of your
inheritance and place and putthem in the place, O Lord, you
made for your dwelling, thesanctuary, O Lord, your hands
have established.
The Lord will reign forever andever.
(39:46):
It got prophetic.
It started out celebrating,started out seeing who God is
and what God has done.
And then God began to speak.
And it happened again.
Exactly as they said.
They did go into the land.
The inhabitants of the land didmelt away in dread.
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And God did bring the peopleinto the land and establish them
into the land.
It happened.
And I just want to tell you,this happens when we're
worshiping.
God speaks while we'reencountering Him in worship.
We can expect that.
(40:28):
As Zechariah expected, asZephaniah spoke, that God will
rejoice over us with singing.
We sing about God, wecelebrate, we sing to God, it's
more intimate.
We hear from God.
It's prophetic revelation.
So, okay, what do we learn?
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What are we supposed to expect?
When we gather together in ourhomes, if we're by ourselves or
with our family in our homes, orif we're here at church, we
should expect some things.
Number one, we should expect tomake God smile as we celebrate
who He is together.
Do you know that we get to makeGod smile?
The psalmist says it this way: Bless the Lord, my soul. (41:14):
undefined
Bless the Lord.
We get to bless the Lord.
This is a great revelation JackWright taught me 40 years ago,
I guess, Jack.
What a great thing it is thatthe lesser can bless the
greater.
That's so powerful.
(41:35):
What mercy that is from God.
We get to make him smile.
Number two, our times.
We can expect our times to gofrom celebration to intimacy.
We're celebrating together, andthen it gets even more
intimate.
I mean, sometimes we think ofthis as praise and worship.
Praise is celebration.
Uh it's kind of a one one uhlike phase of singing together.
(42:02):
And then we think of worship asmore intimate.
You know, I don't know if youcan really make those uh hard
and fast definitions, but it is,it does go from celebration to
intimacy for sure.
And number three, we shouldexpect God to be present and
interactive, speaking through ascripture that's quickened to
your heart, or through anencouraging word, or through a
(42:24):
prof prophecy, or other gifts ofthe spirit.
And number four, we shouldexpect God to change us as we
behold him.
Second Corinthians 3 18 says,as we behold him, we're changed
into his image from one degreeof glory to another, from glory
to glory.
And this is done by the Spirit,by the Lord who is the Spirit.
(42:47):
So God will change us, He'llwork in us.
God is blessed, God speaks, Godchanges us in our worship.
Just like He did in these songsthat we're gonna be reading
here in the Christmas story.
So do you believe we serve aGod who still speaks today?
But but to you, do you think hespeaks to you?
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Yeah, that's another step,isn't it?
Sure, God can speak, but Godspeaks to me.
That's another step.
But he does speak primarilythrough his written word.
This is it.
This is his word, which standsforever, which is unalterable,
and you can count on this.
But also he speaks through hisspirit, who leads us in ways in
(43:36):
it's always according to thewritten word and never contrary
to the written word.
And he speaks through the giftshe gives to people words of
prophecy, words of knowledge,words of wisdom, discerning,
words of faith, words ofencouragement.
That's an that's a spiritualgift.
Exhortation is a spiritualgift.
(43:57):
He encourages people.
So he does speak.
In the Christmas story, hespoke through uh the remembrance
of the scriptures, through thevoice of angels, through events
like signs in the night sky,through dreams, and through at
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least four prophetic songs thatwe're gonna look at over the
next few weeks.
He spoke in that story, in thisChristmas story.
God is God is not aloof and faroff and unconcerned.
He really does want to speak.
If we listen, we will hear.
And our worship tunes ourhearts to his frequency.
(44:44):
So, what might the Lord bespeaking to you this morning?
Or what might the Lord bespeaking to you this Christmas
season?
Or in this season of your life?
And maybe you have an inkling,maybe you have an understanding
of what that might be.
(45:04):
Maybe you don't know for sure,but you can ask.
And like a good father, he willspeak.
In this season, Christmasseason, we celebrate the fact
that Jesus came and he lived thelife that we could not live,
perfect obedience to the Father,and he died the death that we
(45:25):
should have died because we didnot obey the Father perfectly.
And then God raised him fromthe dead, and by faith in what
he has done, I can have you canhave eternal life.
We can be connected again withour Father, back in worship,
back in fellowship with ourFather.
(45:46):
This is a beautiful message ofChristmas.
Emmanuel, God is with us, andwe need God with us.
Amen.
It was at the lowest point inhis life that Zechariah heard
God and encountered the kindnessof God.
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Late in his life, his yearswere spent, he didn't have any
children.
The thing that he had hoped forand prayed for for so long
didn't happen.
Maybe he felt like he let Goddown.
He had this encounter in in theholy place.
He couldn't speak, he actuallycouldn't communicate, unable to
(46:30):
express himself in in words.
Maybe he thought he failed ashis at his duty, as his duty uh
as a priest, and maybe he feltGod was angry with him.
I don't know.
I don't know.
He was poor in spirit though.
But this is what our God does.
He speaks.
Even at your lowest, it doesn'tmatter where you're at, he will
(46:52):
speak.
God broke in, he answered hisprayers, he changed his life, he
gave him a future, he gave hima hope, he gave him offspring.
He allowed the effect of hislife to continue into
generations.
Not only that, he allowed himto see that he was part of God's
big plan, his overall plan forthe Messiah.
(47:16):
What a great Christmas presenthe God wants to give to you.
He wants to give you life, newlife, and he wants to give you
new ears to hear him.
Can we pray for that thismorning?
Let's do won't you stand withme?
Oh, Father, we thank you.
(47:36):
Thank you that we're not amongthose who are trying to appease
some God, trying to do some kindof a sacrifice so that this God
won't be angry or that theymight procure some kind of a
blessing.
We thank you that we don't bowlike billions do on this earth
(48:05):
to a God with no life, a God ofstone, that has the form of ears
but can't hear, that has theform of a mouth but can't speak.
We don't have a God like that.
Thank you, Father.
We have you that you havebrought us into your family and
set us at your table, and youwant to have a conversation
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around this table.
Lord, we thank you because wedidn't deserve it, and yet you
give it, you give it freely tothe praise of your glorious
grace.
And Lord, we say this morningthat glory goes to you because
from you are all things, andthrough you are all things, and
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to you are all things.
To you be glory forever.
Lord, I want to pray for all ofus today and during this
season.
Many of us are facing changesthis year.
This is a different Christmastime than we've ever experienced
before.
Maybe there's a loss in thefamily or something that's
(49:13):
happening, just a situationthat's never been.
But I know that that doesn'tstop you from speaking, Lord.
So I want to pray, God, thatyou would tune our hearts, tune
our ears to hear you in themidst of these circumstances,
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God.
And Lord, I pray as we worshipyou by ourselves with our open
Bibles in our homes, or as afamily together, or here in
church, Lord, that you wouldopen our ears to hear you, that
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you would receive our praise.
Lord, we don't come to getpresence.
This is your, this is yourparty, Lord.
This is yours.
This is about you.
But I thank you that you dogive to us the things that we
need.
You do speak to us, Lord.
You do give us presence.
So we want to be open to hearthat, Lord.
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Lord, as we're learning toworship together here
corporately, as we're in thesemoments where it's quieter or
the music is playing and there'sno words on the screen, Lord,
that you would just teach us tosing our songs to you.
Teach us how to do this, Lord.
(50:37):
Some of us have experiencedthis in the past, Lord, and we
just need to be refreshed in it.
Some of us have neverunderstood it, and we need to be
taught.
And so, Lord, let your spiritteach us to lift our words of
praise to you.
Lord, you are worthy of it all.
And this Christmas, I pray,during this whole season, Lord,
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not only that you would speak tous, but that you would speak
through us.
God, that you would even giveyour words of encouragement and
hope and words that would guidepeople into a relationship with
you through Jesus.
You would give us these giftsof kindness and these gifts of
hospitality, these gifts ofencouraging words and mercy,
(51:24):
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.
That's our heart, Lord.
We thank you.
We give you praise.
We ask you to do what you wantto do, Lord, in us, in our
(51:48):
hearts.
Come and be born in us today,Lord.
As we expect you, Lord, thisadvent, Lord.
Show us things we've neverseen, we pray.
We thank you for yourwillingness to do that.
We pray it in the name ofJesus.
And Lord, I pray your blessingon these people, Lord, that you
would bless and that you wouldkeep them.
(52:11):
Lord, that you would make yourface shine upon each one.
You would be gracious to eachone.
That you would lift up yourcountenance on all of us, Lord.
You would give us peace.
We pray for that in Jesus'name.
Amen.
Hey everybody.
How are y'all?
Merry Christmas.
Hope you had a goodThanksgiving.
We did.
And for all of you youngtheologians who got the little
pads in the back, you can uhwrite down Luke chapter one.
That's where we're going.
(00:23):
We are really happy to be withyou guys today and so happy to
see.
It's great.
Family Sunday is great.
We're so happy to see thefamilies together.
People coming into the familyof God, people coming into our
church family, people, littlelittle kids entering into your
families.
(00:43):
This is just beautiful.
And so we are starting aChristmas sermon series today.
It's called Expecting.
And uh, well, one reason isbecause we got a lot of people
expecting here.
A lot of ladies expecting.
We have, as you can see, wehave a lot of that going on
here.
That's not really the reason.
It's kind of a differentChristmas series because we're
(01:04):
gonna be we're gonna be readingthrough the Christmas story this
uh the next few weeks, and uhwe're gonna be talking about
worship.
So it's a Christmas series thatis focused on worship and it's
specifically encountering God inworship.
So you probably know, maybe youknow, today begins the season
(01:25):
of Advent.
This is the first Sunday ofAdvent, and it's a time where
Christians all over the worldare preparing their hearts
expectantly, waiting for thecoming of the Lord.
This is happening with ourbrothers and sisters in every
nation.
It's a time of expecting.
Uh but in the Christmas story,as we read it, oftentimes there
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are a lot of unexpected thingsthat happen.
And a lot of things unexpectedhappen to us too during
Christmas time, right?
In the Christmas story, thereare there are young and there
are old.
There are males and there arefemales, there's their nobility
and uh the lowly, everyone.
(02:08):
So it's basically amulticultural,
multi-generational,multi-gender,
multi-socioeconomic group.
When you read that story, it'sall kinds of people that are
involved in this story, but theyare all encountering what God
is doing through Jesus, andthey're all worshiping in turn.
So the idea is that this storyis giving us instruction on how
(02:33):
to worship and how to expect Godto be moving.
So, and that's really the ideaof this whole sermon series.
God is active in our worship.
When we're worshiping, He ispresent and He's doing things.
So we all love to sing songs,right?
Christmas songs, right?
So tell me what are your whatare your favorite Christmas
(02:54):
songs?
This is not rhetorical, you canactually answer.
Oh, holy night.
That's a great one.
Isn't that a great one?
What else?
Joy to the world, the Lord hascome.
What else?
Silent Night?
Good.
What?
Oh, come, what come Emmanuel.
Drummer boy?
Who was that?
A drummer?
Oh, it was a drummer.
It was a drummer.
That's so funny.
(03:15):
The drummer says drummer boy.
Give the drummer some, please.
What else?
unknown (03:20):
Mary, did you know?
Mark Medley (03:21):
Mary, did you know?
Good.
I'm so gall.
Thank you so much for notsaying grandma got ran over by a
reindeer.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I know probably some of you arethinking it, but you didn't say
it, and that was veryappropriate to not say it at
that time.
That's that's admirableself-control.
Thank you.
Yeah.
There's a lot of them that arelike just drivel, you know.
(03:44):
They're just not even aboutChristmas, really.
They're not about Jesus, butthe songs that we sing, and
we'll sing here over the nextfew weeks, are all focused on
Jesus.
Like the ones that you just uhsaid.
And uh, you know, God lovessongs, He is a singing God.
We love to sing because we'recreated in His image.
(04:07):
And He's a creator and He's asinger.
Zephaniah says to us in chapter3 that God even rejoices over
us with singing.
God is a singing God, actually.
And so He's when we're singingto Him this morning, He's
actually singing back over us aswell.
Okay, but you may not be awarethat there are there are many
songs in the Christmas story,and we're gonna be talking about
(04:30):
those this next few weeks.
Um, we're gonna talk about thesong of Simeon, the song that
Mary sang.
We're gonna be talking aboutthe song of the angels when they
were speaking to the shepherds.
But this morning we're gonnastart at the very beginning,
before Jesus was born, beforeMary was visited by the angel.
(04:52):
We're gonna begin with what'scalled the song of Zechariah.
And that's Luke chapter 1, ifyou want to turn there.
In some ways, Zechariah wasexpecting God to be active, just
like all the Jews of his day.
They had their own advent goingon.
There was an expectation thatGod was gonna send a Messiah,
(05:12):
that he was not gonna leave themalone, but he was gonna enter
into their world, and he wasgonna do things for them as the
Jewish people.
This was what the prophets hadspoken for many years, that he
would come and act powerfully intheir world.
So they were expectant in someways.
But in other ways, Zechariahcould not have been expecting
(05:34):
what happened to him.
You might remember that he wasuh the husband of Elizabeth,
Elizabeth, and the father ofJohn the Baptist.
And so he was a Jewish priestwho served in the temple.
And as he was serving in thetemple, he was visited by the
angel Gabriel.
The angel Gabriel told him alot of things, but specifically
told him that his wife, who wasvery elderly and who was
(05:59):
formerly barren, was going tohave a baby.
Now, Zechariah found thatreally hard to believe.
And uh he doubted thatprophecy, and because he he
doubted that prophecy, you know,but he found it hard to believe
because how many of us haveprayed for something for so long
and it hasn't come yet?
And sometimes you've you getthat little thing inside of you
(06:25):
that starts to doubt, right?
And maybe it's not gonna happenat all.
And this is a prayer thatZechariah and Elizabeth had
prayed for many years.
God send us a son, send us aboy.
This was their prayer, butthey're so old now, maybe they
hadn't prayed this prayer in along time because they were so
old they couldn't, she was pastchildbearing years.
(06:47):
But you know what?
God remembers the prayers thatwe have forgotten.
And he doesn't lose hisfaithfulness just because we
forget for remember, forget toremember the prayers.
He remembers.
So he promised the child thatit would be be born to them in
(07:09):
the old age, but Zechariahdoubted it, and so he was struck
mute.
Means he couldn't speak, hecouldn't speak at all until the
baby was born, and they namedhim John.
So after Elizabeth gave birthto the to the boy, as the angel
said, and they were gonna namehim John.
They were at the namingceremony, but the priests were
gonna say, Hey, we're gonna namehim Zechariah because that's
(07:29):
what his father's name is.
But Elizabeth says, No, hisname is John, and they looked to
Zechariah and they said, What'sup?
What is going on here?
They handed him a writingtablet, kind of like the little
things our kids are writing ontoday, probably.
And he wrote down, his name isJohn, and his mouth was opened.
(07:51):
His vocal cords started movingfor the first time in nine
months or more.
He hadn't been speaking.
He began to speak, but itwasn't just words.
He began to sing praise to God.
His voice was restored, hebegan to sing praise and to
prophesy about his son.
It's beautiful poetry here, andthis is it's actually a song.
(08:18):
So this is Zechariah's song.
Let's read it together.
Starting in Luke chapter 1,verse 67.
And his father Zechariah wasfilled with the Holy Spirit and
prophesied, saying, Blessed bethe Lord, God of Israel, for he
has visited and redeemed hispeople, and he's raised up a
horn of salvation for us in thehouse of his servant David.
(08:42):
As he spoke by the mouth of hisholy prophets from old, that we
should be saved from ourenemies and from the hand of all
who hate us, to show the mercypromised to our fathers, and to
remember his holy covenant, theoath that he swore to our father
Abraham, to grant us that we,being delivered from the hand of
(09:04):
our enemies, might serve himwithout fear, in holiness and
righteousness before him all ourdays.
And you, child, will be calledthe prophet of the Most High,
for you will go before the Lordto prepare his ways, to give
knowledge of salvation to hispeople in the forgiveness of
(09:28):
their sins, because of thetender mercy of our God, whereby
the sunrise shall visit us fromon high, to give light to those
who sit in darkness and in theshadow of death, to guide our
feet into the way of peace.
And the child grew and becamestrong in spirit, and he was in
(09:48):
the wilderness until the day ofhis public appearance in Israel.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you so much foryour word.
God, we thank you that you area God of faithfulness and you
keep your promises.
Thank you, Lord, for thestories that we're going to read
(10:10):
over the next few weeks.
And Lord, today we ask you byyour Holy Spirit that you would
do a work in us to open our earsto hear you, that you would
give hope, that you would giverevelation of Jesus, that you
help us understand how toworship better.
And we pray these things in thename of Jesus.
(10:31):
Amen.
Okay, we don't know what thissong sounded like, but we know
it was a beautiful expression ofworship to God.
He was seeing God'sfaithfulness fresh in over his
faithfulness over Israel in afresh way because of his
faithfulness in his own life.
(10:52):
So why do we want to do aChristmas series that is
focusing on worship?
I'm glad you asked.
Because worship is what we'reall, each of us were created
for.
You are made to worship the onewho created you.
(11:12):
This is why you're never reallysatisfied until you're in
connection with God.
When you're back connected toyour Maker and you're worshiping
Him and enjoying Him.
But many of us didn't reallygrow up in situations or in
churches that taught us how toworship biblically, like the
biblical heart of worship or thebiblical forms of worship.
(11:34):
So this is why we're doing thisseries.
And although God is beyond us,He wants to be present with us.
He wants to speak into oursituation today and reveal
Himself to us as we seek Him.
So worship is not just the songservice, the song portion of
the service.
Worship is not warm-up for thesermon.
(11:55):
Worship is not, you know, justthat part that happens before
the announcements.
Yeah.
It's it's actually interactionwith God.
And this happens at home, byyourself, or with your family,
and it happens together herecorporately as we gather for
church.
(12:15):
So when we worship, God isactive.
So I want to tell you my storya little bit because some of you
who are new here don't knowthis.
But for years, I came toTrinity in 1985 and began
singing, actually playing withthe worship team uh shortly
after that, and then I beganleading the worship team.
Some of you were here duringthose times.
(12:36):
Some of our worship teammembers are here.
Actually, one, Jack Wright overthere.
He was the one who led worshipduring that time.
And I was working with Jack.
We were we were worshipingtogether.
And then in 1989, I came onstaff as a pastor whose main
focus was worship.
And so I was trying, I wasgoing deep into the scriptures.
(12:58):
I was studying worship.
I was trying to understand uhbiblical forms of worship.
I was teaching the the uh theworship teams, and um, I was
also using some of the things Iwas learning from my music
degree.
And so we were trying to getmore excellence spiritually, uh
scripturally, musically, and incharacter, in our own character
(13:21):
in our hearts, to give Jesuswhat he deserves.
So that began a journey for me,and we began doing uh different
worship conferences and thingsall over the United States and
also uh in other nations.
Uh eventually wrote a bookabout worship.
And so all of that was just allof this for many years I've
(13:42):
been involved in worship, and inmany years I've been really
thinking about what is worship.
You know, how do you define it?
And so I'm gonna give you mybest try this morning, okay?
My best try at definingworship.
I think worship is threethings.
I think it's a revelation, it'sa response, and it's a
relationship.
It's a revelation because Godin his mercy opens our eyes to
(14:05):
see him.
He doesn't want to hidehimself, he discloses himself
and opens himself up, and we seehim like little by little by
little.
You can't see him all at once.
I don't think we could handleit.
You know, I don't know aboutyou, but I got up this morning
and went to the bathroom.
You know, when you turn thelight on after you've been
(14:27):
asleep all night long and it'sso bright, it's just too bright.
You kind of need a, you kind ofneed like a little bit of light
first.
Because if you turn the wholebright light on, it's too much
for your eyes.
And this is kind of the way itis with God.
He opens our eyes little bylittle to see him, and in a
progressive way, we see more andmore of him.
(14:48):
He reveals himself to us, andthat causes us to respond.
Biblically, when you see God,you respond.
And that is in your body, inyour soul, in your spirit.
And so we're responding to whatwe see.
And then it's a the end productis a relationship.
God wants our lives, he wantsto live with us, he wants to
(15:08):
walk with us, and as we walkwith him, he changes our lives.
So God, in his grace, revealshimself.
We see him and it causes aresponse, but it changes our
lives.
It's a walk with him, it's arelationship.
That's my best understanding ofwhat worship is.
So relationship is the endgoal, but it starts with
revelation.
(15:29):
God has to open our eyes tohim.
And the depth and the qualityof our worship is directly
proportionate to the way we viewGod.
We can't worship big if we havea small God.
You understand what I mean,right?
God is not small, but but ourunderstanding of him is
(15:50):
sometimes small, and that's asfar as we get in our worship
because we don't see him as heis.
God's, and I think we allunderstand God is bigger than
our current revelation of him.
Yeah?
True?
Okay.
Yeah.
So who is this God we worship?
That's the question.
That's the question oftheology.
Theologo, study of God.
(16:10):
Well, A.W.
Tozer said this (16:12):
it's not a cheerful thought that millions
of us who live in the land ofBibles, who belong to churches
and labor to promote theChristian religion, may yet pass
our whole life on this earthwithout once having thought or
tried to think seriously aboutthe being of God.
(16:32):
Wow.
Have you once thought or triedto seriously think about who God
really is?
So here's the other questionfor us this morning.
What is God like?
And that is not rhetorical, youcan answer.
What is God like?
Throw it out to me.
Throw it out to me.
(16:53):
He's holy.
He's love.
Forgiving?
True?
Sovereign.
Compassionate.
Faithful.
Merciful.
Patient.
(17:13):
All knowing.
You're doing pretty good, okay?
That's pretty good.
That's not bad.
So um, so you can think of youcan think of two different
categories of what God is like.
Okay, and I have a little charthere.
I think God's main tworevelations, self-revelations in
(17:36):
the Bible, are I think there'stwo main ones, and there's a
bunch of other ones.
One would be sovereign Lord,and which means he's beyond us,
he's transcendent, he'sunknowable, he's greater than we
can understand, he's sovereignand in control.
Then also he reveals himself asFather, which means he's close,
(17:59):
he's personal, intimate,relational at hand.
He's not just transcendent,he's also imminent.
He's here with us.
He's knowable.
He's both unknowable and noble.
Can you be both?
Yeah, yeah, you can.
He's both sovereign Lord andFather.
(18:20):
He's beyond us and with us.
You can be both.
This is, I mean, we can't beboth.
He can be both, right?
So you think of uh a lot of thethings that you said about God
are listed up here.
And maybe on the left-handside, we could call these, well,
what theologians call them iscommunicable attributes of God.
(18:41):
That means that when Godcreated us, he gave us part of
himself.
He took some of his loving selfand he put it inside of us.
And some of his wisdom and putit in us.
He we understand, we have somekind of frame of reference for
truth or for beauty or forkindness or for creativity,
(19:02):
right?
We have some reference for thatbecause God is those things and
God put those things into us.
But on the other side, we havewhat's what are called
non-communicable attributes ofGod, which means that these are
things God is, but I'm not.
I am not omnipotent, I'm notomniscient, although I seem
(19:23):
sometimes I feel like I think Iknow everything.
And I know some people whothink they know everything.
But no, we don't.
And we're not we're not umsovereign, we're not infinite in
our capacities, right?
This is not so these are thingsthat God is that we're not.
So you can think of thesethings altogether, but it's not
(19:44):
just like um pick one out, uh,but it's like they're all kind
of connected too.
Like God is not only good, buthe is infinitely wise in his
expression of his goodness, andhe's not only solid.
Sovereign, but he's infinitelyloving in his expressions of his
(20:04):
sovereignty.
You could go on forever.
You could really go on forever.
So one day I was in uh Moscow,Russia, doing a worship
conference, and I just decidedwe did this session about what
God is like.
And I thought, well, I'm justgonna do it.
We're just gonna take the wholehour and we're just gonna
(20:26):
decide.
We're just gonna say, what isGod like?
And we're just we're gonna seehow many we could come up with.
And so just like you, the first15 or 20 are easy.
You know, oh, he's loving, he'she's just, he's truthful.
Okay, and so they they came.
The first 20, pretty easy.
Then it slows down.
The next 20 is a little slower,you have to think more.
(20:48):
When you get to 40 or 50, itgets harder.
When you get to 60 or 70,things get really slow, slower,
and you have to think, andyou're thinking of scripture,
and you're going, but we waited,we did this for an entire hour.
Entire hour.
So maybe show that picture.
This is all in Russian, youcan't read it.
A few in the room can read it.
(21:11):
A few of you can read it.
Yeah.
Okay.
They came up in one hour, theycame up with 106 different
attributes of God.
Okay.
Okay, so I had told them that Idid this with a group of
Americans one time, and we did,we we stopped at 100.
So they wanted to beat theAmericans.
So they came up with a, theyweren't stopping until they got
(21:32):
106.
So they did, which was great.
Um, but but a few years ago,our youth group had a retreat,
and they thought, they did, theyhad the same idea.
They had this big blue piece ofpaper on the wall, and they
said, let's just talk about whatis God like, and they started,
(21:54):
and they without, I wasn'tthere, but I am told without the
aid of a phone, without Google,they came up with 128.
So I just want you to know thatyour youth group beat the
Russians.
That's all I want you to knowthis morning.
Yeah! Come on.
(22:17):
Okay, now that was that was a aformer youth group.
There's this youth group here.
I mean, I'm not saying anythingabout the other youth group.
I think you're probablysmarter.
That's uh yeah.
I think you could do like 150.
So challenge right there.
Challenge.
Go for it.
Okay, so but what if you tookjust one of those attributes?
(22:39):
Like, let's just take holy,okay?
Holy, God is holy, and you gohome this week and you look up
scriptures about the holiness ofGod, and they're all over the
place.
And you're looking in the OldTestament, you're looking at
what it means that He's holy,and how people reacted in the
Psalms and the prophets in theNew Testament and in the book of
(22:59):
Revelation, and you're looking,you're meditating on holiness,
and that holiness idea ischanging you inside.
You begin to change the way yousee God, the way you respond to
God, and then you come back tochurch next week, and the
worship team sings a song aboutthe holiness of God.
What do you think is gonnahappen in your heart?
(23:22):
It's just gonna explode.
It's totally different becauseyou see his holiness in a deeper
way, and then when you singabout it, it's resonating with
all the scripture that's insideof you.
So you could take, you couldtake a with this list right
here, you could take one a weekfor the next 128 weeks.
(23:42):
Okay, two in a year, two yearsand a half, maybe something like
that, without ever re withoutever duplicating an attribute of
God, you could focus on um a anattribute of God per week.
And man, I'm telling you, ifyour your life will change, your
worship will change.
Because worship is a revelationand a response and a
(24:05):
relationship.
Okay, does that make sense?
And worship is about who he is,worship is about God.
This is this should be such ano-brainer.
We sang this morning.
Um, we are here for you, right?
It should be a no-brainer.
Worship is about God, it's notabout me, it's not about what I
like, it's not about the styleof music I like or the kind of
(24:27):
songs that I like.
It's not.
It's about not about what Ilike, it's about who I love.
It's about him.
Okay, so we all kind of knowthat, but we also kind of betray
our hearts sometimes when wesay things like, I just didn't
get much out of worship today.
As if it was about you, and asif you were the focal point of
(24:54):
all of it, and you getting giftsand presents from God are the
is the whole reason for you tocome and worship.
That's not okay, it's like youcome into my birthday party and
you leave angry because youdidn't get a present.
I got all the presents.
That's uh well, could we justsay childish?
That's childish.
(25:15):
Coming to give is mature.
Now, when we give and we weworship, the thing is, the great
thing is God is gracious and hegives back to us.
We do receive, but we don'tcome to receive.
And and we don't come as uhthis the um spoiled brats of the
kingdom who only want what wewant.
(25:35):
Amen.
Thank you.
That's good, okay.
The main point I'm trying toget across to you is that God
reveals himself when we worshipand we respond.
That's the main point.
God reveals himself and werespond.
So we should expect God toreveal himself.
And how we respond with ourbodies and our lives, that's
(25:58):
gonna be a subject of the comingweeks as we study other songs
in the Christmas story.
But worship is a verb, there'sit's something that we do.
Okay, but today we're gonnatune our hearts in to hear what
God reveals to Zechariah and howhe responds.
So Zechariah's song.
Did you notice when Zechariahwas singing, that he he started
(26:21):
with praise to God, and then hehears the prophetic voice of
God.
His praise turns prophetic.
It's all toward God, and thenGod speaks something to him
about this child that he'sholding in his hands.
Zechariah's song starts aspraise and ends as prophecy.
(26:45):
God hears our praise, but healso speaks to us as we worship
him personally, in our homeswith our families, and in our
church together.
He speaks to us.
And I just want to say thistoo, since it's Family Sunday,
let me emphasize that God spoketo him about his son.
(27:06):
God will speak to you aboutyour children.
When you're in worship, whenyou're worshiping him, your mind
is focused on him.
God will speak to you aboutwhat your child needs, how to
raise your children.
And I know parenting is toughbecause when you've never done
it before and you're learning itas you go along, you know, you
(27:26):
learn as much as you can fromyour brothers and sisters, and
but it's not an easy thingbecause every child is
different.
There are different challenges,there are different needs.
You have to you have a littledifferent parenting style, so to
speak, or approach to everychild because they they're a
little bit different.
It takes it takes wisdom, butGod will speak to you as you
(27:47):
worship.
So expect that.
So, how did God reveal Himselfto Zechariah?
First of all, it starts withpraise, right?
He said, Praise to the God ofIsrael.
Sounds like the Psalms, a lotlike the Psalms when he starts
out, because the Psalms were hisscripture.
The Old Testament was hisscripture.
He said, He's redeemed hispeople, he sent his salvation,
(28:09):
he kept his promise to David, hekept his covenant to Abraham,
and he rescued us from ourenemies.
So God is a rescuer, a savior,a redeemer, a promise-keeper.
This is how he begins.
The focus is God word.
But then came this propheticword, and God spoke to
(28:30):
Zechariah, to his son.
God, you have done this.
God, you are this.
God, you have done thesethings.
God, you are this.
And you, child, you will becalled the prophet of the Most
High.
And it becomes powerfullyprophetic.
(28:52):
You will give people knowledgeand forgiveness of their sins.
You will go before to prepare away for the Messiah because of
the tender mercies of God.
And that's exactly whathappened.
Just as he sang it, proclaimedit over his child, it happened
in the life of John the Baptist.
So a song of praise about Godand what he had done evolved
(29:17):
into a prophetic declaration ofGod's purpose in that moment.
What God wanted to bring aboutin that moment, what he was
going to do in the future.
God speaks to us when we areworshiping him.
That's the point here.
He interacts.
We hear the voice of Godconcerning our own lives, our
(29:39):
families, our church, ourcommunity, our nation, other
nations, what he's doing in thismoment, something, this is
something that happensthroughout Scripture.
So you see it in the Psalms.
They start off as praise orwith whatever emotion the
psalmist has at that moment, andoftentimes they turn prophetic
(29:59):
or they turn even messianic.
Jesus Himself is revealedthrough those, through that
praise.
Now, Paul hinted this, hintedat this and uh in Ephesians and
in Colossians.
And let me read these to youjust a moment because it's real
insight.
In Ephesians 5.15, he says, Donot get drunk with wine, for
(30:21):
that is debauchery, but befilled with the Spirit,
addressing one another in psalmsand hymns and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody to theLord with your heart.
Okay, then we go to uhColossians 3.16.
How many know John 3.16?
How many?
Okay.
(30:42):
You have you memorized it?
Okay, you ought to memorizethis one too.
It's another 3.16.
Colossians 3.16.
Let the word of Christ dwell inyou richly, teaching and
admonishing one another in allwisdom, singing psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs withthankfulness in your hearts to
God.
Okay, so Paul Paul says thistwice there.
(31:02):
Paul was very particular aboutthe way he wrote things.
You know, he one thing for surewe know, we know there's uh
like some different opinionsabout what these things mean.
Psalms, hymns, and spiritualsongs.
One thing for sure he's tellingus to sing, right?
Yeah, that's for sure.
Sing.
But when he says, he could havejust said, sing songs.
(31:23):
And that sounds like somethingPaul would do if he just wanted
us to sing psalms, songs.
But he said, sing psalms andhymns and spiritual songs, three
different types.
So these words have a littlebit of different meaning.
Okay, so psalms from the wordZalmos, and it carries this hint
of singing about God.
(31:43):
We're singing about him, we'recelebrating him together.
We come together and we talkabout how great he is.
Okay, so songs like How greatis our God, how great is our
God, right?
Name above all names.
It's two, it's it's about himand it's about the greatness of
God, about who he is.
That's so celebration of God.
(32:04):
Then hymns, there's a littlebit of a different connotation
there, a little hint of it'sit's more intimate.
It's about songs to God, notjust about God, but our focus is
not outward about him, but it'supward to him.
So it's songs that are moreintimate.
So we are singing to him, likesongs like I love you, Lord.
(32:30):
Or your mercy never fails me.
So we're singing to him.
We may be singing together tohim, but we're singing to him.
It's more of an intimate umconnotation to that one.
And then spiritual songs justmeans it's the Greek word od
pneumatica.
Od pneumatica means spirit, odmeans song, it's a song of the
(32:52):
spirit.
It's the spirit of God singingback over us.
It could be singing through usto other people, but it is like
a prophetic word.
There's something propheticabout that word.
It's so what we have is we havecelebration or singing about
(33:13):
God together, and then we haveum this adoration where we're
singing more intimate to God,and then we have this revelation
where God is singing to us.
That's what's happening in uhmany of the Psalms, that's
what's happening in Zechariah'ssong.
We're singing to him, we'resinging about him, and then we
(33:35):
get it gets prophetic.
God speaks.
Now, if don't get worried aboutthe word prophetic.
Prophetic, I think, just meansGod's particular word for a
particular person or people at aparticular time.
What is God speaking right now?
God does speak, He wants tospeak, He speaks to us
(33:58):
especially in our worship.
Uh, and it doesn't have to bein the building, it can be at
home, it can be in your car, andhe can speak to you.
But it's just God's word foryou or the people you're with,
and people that you areconcerned with at the present
time.
And this is the way it this isthe way it happens.
(34:20):
We're singing to God and wehear from God.
That's Psalms, hymns, andspiritual songs.
Um, but there's a prerequisitethere too, right?
Uh in one one in Ephesians it'sbe filled with the spirit.
In Colossians, it's be filledwith the word.
Let the word dwell in yourichly.
When you're full of the spirit,when you're full of the word,
this prophetic thing happens.
(34:41):
So I want to read to you um anexample from the very first song
in the Bible.
And if you want to turn there,you can.
We don't have it on the screen,so you'll have to turn it if
you want to read it.
I want to read to you fromExodus 15.
Exodus 15 is the first recordedsong that we have from God.
(35:02):
And it is the it's the songthat broke out spontaneously
when uh the Israelites wentthrough, the Red Sea parted, and
they went through the Red Sea,and then uh though the enemies
were coming after him, them uhPharaoh and the chariots were
drowned in the sea.
And what happened when thathappened is this song just
(35:26):
spontaneously broke broke out.
But I want you to see thatthere are Psalms, hymns,
spiritual songs here.
There's celebration, there'sadoration, and then there's
revelation, um, a prophetic wordfrom this.
So this is just a great way tosee it scripturally.
So I'll just read it to you.
Then Moses and the Israelitessang this song to the Lord.
(35:48):
So they're all singing.
So this incredible miracle justhappened, and they're all
looking around.
What happened?
And then what's the mostnatural thing to do?
Somebody starts singing.
Probably it was antiphonal.
The reason they could sing ittogether, it's a spontaneous
song.
It's not one that they didn'tgo turn to hymn number 14 and
(36:08):
let's sing together to the Lord.
It was spontaneous, but theywould sing antiphonally.
They would sing, one personwould sing a phrase and then it
would be sung back.
The whole congregation wouldsing back to them.
So that's probably whathappened here.
Moses and the Israelites sangthis song to the Lord.
I will sing to the Lord, to theLord, for he is highly exalted.
(36:30):
The horse and his rider, he'shurled into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and mysong, he's become my salvation.
He is my God and I will exalthim.
Okay, so first of all, thefocus of this thing is the Lord.
I will sing to the Lord.
Second of all, it's verypersonal, isn't it?
The Lord is my strength, mysong, my salvation, my God.
(36:52):
I will exalt him.
He's my father's God, I willexalt him.
The Lord is a warrior.
Now we're talking about God,very descriptive.
The Lord is a warrior, the Lordis his name.
Pharaoh's chariots and his armyas he hurled into the sea.
The best of Pharaoh's officersare drowned in the Red Sea.
Deep waters had have coveredthem.
(37:14):
They sank to the depths like astone.
Your right hand, O Lord, wasmajestic in power.
Your right hand, O Lord,shattered the enemy.
In the greatness of yourmajesty, you threw down those
who opposed you.
You unleashed your anger, yourburning anger.
It consumed them like stubble.
By the blast of your nostrils,the wild the waters piled up.
(37:37):
I love it.
The surging waters stood firmlike a wall, the deep waters
congealed in the heart of thesea.
The enemy boasted, I willpursue, I will overtake them, I
will divide the spoils, I willgorge myself on them, I will
draw my sword, and my hand willdestroy them.
But you blew with your breath,and the sea covered them, and
(38:02):
they sank like lead in themighty waters.
Who among the gods is like you,oh Lord?
Who is like you?
Majestic in holiness, awesomein glory, working wonders.
You stretched out your hand andthe earth swallowed them.
(38:22):
Do you see how descriptive itis?
You see, it is peoplecelebrating together and even
getting more intimate with God.
You, oh Lord, have done thesethings.
Who is like you, Lord?
You are it's it's descriptive,a revelation of God.
It's powerful.
You are majestic, you'refearful, you're a wonder worker.
(38:43):
And in the midst of thispraise, it turns prophetic.
You stretch out your hand, andthe earth swallowed them.
In your unfailing love, youwill lead them.
Oh, it becomes futuristic.
The people you've redeemed, inyour strength, you will guide
them to your holy dwelling.
(39:04):
The nations will hear andtremble, anguish will grip the
people of Philistia, the chiefsof Edom will be terrified,
leaders of Moab will be seizedwith trembling, people of Canaan
will melt away, terror anddread will fall upon them.
By the power of your arm, theywill be as still as a stone
until your people pass by.
(39:25):
O Lord, until the people youbought pass by, you will bring
them into the land and plantthem in the mountain of your
inheritance and place and putthem in the place, O Lord, you
made for your dwelling, thesanctuary, O Lord, your hands
have established.
The Lord will reign forever andever.
(39:46):
It got prophetic.
It started out celebrating,started out seeing who God is
and what God has done.
And then God began to speak.
And it happened again.
Exactly as they said.
They did go into the land.
The inhabitants of the land didmelt away in dread.
(40:07):
And God did bring the peopleinto the land and establish them
into the land.
It happened.
And I just want to tell you,this happens when we're
worshiping.
God speaks while we'reencountering Him in worship.
We can expect that.
(40:28):
As Zechariah expected, asZephaniah spoke, that God will
rejoice over us with singing.
We sing about God, wecelebrate, we sing to God, it's
more intimate.
We hear from God.
It's prophetic revelation.
So, okay, what do we learn?
(40:50):
What are we supposed to expect?
When we gather together in ourhomes, if we're by ourselves or
with our family in our homes, orif we're here at church, we
should expect some things.
Number one, we should expect tomake God smile as we celebrate
who He is together.
Do you know that we get to makeGod smile?
The psalmist says it this way: Bless the Lord, my soul. (41:14):
undefined
Bless the Lord.
We get to bless the Lord.
This is a great revelation JackWright taught me 40 years ago,
I guess, Jack.
What a great thing it is thatthe lesser can bless the
greater.
That's so powerful.
(41:35):
What mercy that is from God.
We get to make him smile.
Number two, our times.
We can expect our times to gofrom celebration to intimacy.
We're celebrating together, andthen it gets even more
intimate.
I mean, sometimes we think ofthis as praise and worship.
Praise is celebration.
Uh it's kind of a one one uhlike phase of singing together.
(42:02):
And then we think of worship asmore intimate.
You know, I don't know if youcan really make those uh hard
and fast definitions, but it is,it does go from celebration to
intimacy for sure.
And number three, we shouldexpect God to be present and
interactive, speaking through ascripture that's quickened to
your heart, or through anencouraging word, or through a
(42:24):
prof prophecy, or other gifts ofthe spirit.
And number four, we shouldexpect God to change us as we
behold him.
Second Corinthians 3 18 says,as we behold him, we're changed
into his image from one degreeof glory to another, from glory
to glory.
And this is done by the Spirit,by the Lord who is the Spirit.
(42:47):
So God will change us, He'llwork in us.
God is blessed, God speaks, Godchanges us in our worship.
Just like He did in these songsthat we're gonna be reading
here in the Christmas story.
So do you believe we serve aGod who still speaks today?
But but to you, do you think hespeaks to you?
(43:11):
Yeah, that's another step,isn't it?
Sure, God can speak, but Godspeaks to me.
That's another step.
But he does speak primarilythrough his written word.
This is it.
This is his word, which standsforever, which is unalterable,
and you can count on this.
But also he speaks through hisspirit, who leads us in ways in
(43:36):
it's always according to thewritten word and never contrary
to the written word.
And he speaks through the giftshe gives to people words of
prophecy, words of knowledge,words of wisdom, discerning,
words of faith, words ofencouragement.
That's an that's a spiritualgift.
Exhortation is a spiritualgift.
(43:57):
He encourages people.
So he does speak.
In the Christmas story, hespoke through uh the remembrance
of the scriptures, through thevoice of angels, through events
like signs in the night sky,through dreams, and through at
(44:20):
least four prophetic songs thatwe're gonna look at over the
next few weeks.
He spoke in that story, in thisChristmas story.
God is God is not aloof and faroff and unconcerned.
He really does want to speak.
If we listen, we will hear.
And our worship tunes ourhearts to his frequency.
(44:44):
So, what might the Lord bespeaking to you this morning?
Or what might the Lord bespeaking to you this Christmas
season?
Or in this season of your life?
And maybe you have an inkling,maybe you have an understanding
of what that might be.
(45:04):
Maybe you don't know for sure,but you can ask.
And like a good father, he willspeak.
In this season, Christmasseason, we celebrate the fact
that Jesus came and he lived thelife that we could not live,
perfect obedience to the Father,and he died the death that we
(45:25):
should have died because we didnot obey the Father perfectly.
And then God raised him fromthe dead, and by faith in what
he has done, I can have you canhave eternal life.
We can be connected again withour Father, back in worship,
back in fellowship with ourFather.
(45:46):
This is a beautiful message ofChristmas.
Emmanuel, God is with us, andwe need God with us.
Amen.
It was at the lowest point inhis life that Zechariah heard
God and encountered the kindnessof God.
(46:06):
Late in his life, his yearswere spent, he didn't have any
children.
The thing that he had hoped forand prayed for for so long
didn't happen.
Maybe he felt like he let Goddown.
He had this encounter in in theholy place.
He couldn't speak, he actuallycouldn't communicate, unable to
(46:30):
express himself in in words.
Maybe he thought he failed ashis at his duty, as his duty uh
as a priest, and maybe he feltGod was angry with him.
I don't know.
I don't know.
He was poor in spirit though.
But this is what our God does.
He speaks.
Even at your lowest, it doesn'tmatter where you're at, he will
(46:52):
speak.
God broke in, he answered hisprayers, he changed his life, he
gave him a future, he gave hima hope, he gave him offspring.
He allowed the effect of hislife to continue into
generations.
Not only that, he allowed himto see that he was part of God's
big plan, his overall plan forthe Messiah.
(47:16):
What a great Christmas presenthe God wants to give to you.
He wants to give you life, newlife, and he wants to give you
new ears to hear him.
Can we pray for that thismorning?
Let's do won't you stand withme?
Oh, Father, we thank you.
(47:36):
Thank you that we're not amongthose who are trying to appease
some God, trying to do some kindof a sacrifice so that this God
won't be angry or that theymight procure some kind of a
blessing.
We thank you that we don't bowlike billions do on this earth
(48:05):
to a God with no life, a God ofstone, that has the form of ears
but can't hear, that has theform of a mouth but can't speak.
We don't have a God like that.
Thank you, Father.
We have you that you havebrought us into your family and
set us at your table, and youwant to have a conversation
(48:28):
around this table.
Lord, we thank you because wedidn't deserve it, and yet you
give it, you give it freely tothe praise of your glorious
grace.
And Lord, we say this morningthat glory goes to you because
from you are all things, andthrough you are all things, and
(48:51):
to you are all things.
To you be glory forever.
Lord, I want to pray for all ofus today and during this
season.
Many of us are facing changesthis year.
This is a different Christmastime than we've ever experienced
before.
Maybe there's a loss in thefamily or something that's
(49:13):
happening, just a situationthat's never been.
But I know that that doesn'tstop you from speaking, Lord.
So I want to pray, God, thatyou would tune our hearts, tune
our ears to hear you in themidst of these circumstances,
(49:33):
God.
And Lord, I pray as we worshipyou by ourselves with our open
Bibles in our homes, or as afamily together, or here in
church, Lord, that you wouldopen our ears to hear you, that
(49:56):
you would receive our praise.
Lord, we don't come to getpresence.
This is your, this is yourparty, Lord.
This is yours.
This is about you.
But I thank you that you dogive to us the things that we
need.
You do speak to us, Lord.
You do give us presence.
So we want to be open to hearthat, Lord.
(50:16):
Lord, as we're learning toworship together here
corporately, as we're in thesemoments where it's quieter or
the music is playing and there'sno words on the screen, Lord,
that you would just teach us tosing our songs to you.
Teach us how to do this, Lord.
(50:37):
Some of us have experiencedthis in the past, Lord, and we
just need to be refreshed in it.
Some of us have neverunderstood it, and we need to be
taught.
And so, Lord, let your spiritteach us to lift our words of
praise to you.
Lord, you are worthy of it all.
And this Christmas, I pray,during this whole season, Lord,
(51:00):
not only that you would speak tous, but that you would speak
through us.
God, that you would even giveyour words of encouragement and
hope and words that would guidepeople into a relationship with
you through Jesus.
You would give us these giftsof kindness and these gifts of
hospitality, these gifts ofencouraging words and mercy,
(51:24):
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.
That's our heart, Lord.
We thank you.
We give you praise.
We ask you to do what you wantto do, Lord, in us, in our
(51:48):
hearts.
Come and be born in us today,Lord.
As we expect you, Lord, thisadvent, Lord.
Show us things we've neverseen, we pray.
We thank you for yourwillingness to do that.
We pray it in the name ofJesus.
And Lord, I pray your blessingon these people, Lord, that you
would bless and that you wouldkeep them.
(52:11):
Lord, that you would make yourface shine upon each one.
You would be gracious to eachone.
That you would lift up yourcountenance on all of us, Lord.
You would give us peace.
We pray for that in Jesus'name.
Amen.
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