back to index2016-12-25 At the Fullness of Time
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If you can turn your Bibles with me to Galatians 4.4. 00:00:12.000 |
We're going to read just one verse and then we're going to jump in. 00:00:17.000 |
I know all of you guys have a very busy schedule, 00:00:19.000 |
but again, I can't think of a better way to celebrate Christmas 00:00:22.000 |
than to come and give worship to the man who is the birthday that we celebrate. 00:00:31.000 |
"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, 00:00:44.000 |
Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for blessing our families, 00:00:51.000 |
We thank you, Lord God, for constantly sustaining and answering our prayers 00:00:56.000 |
Especially today as we remember Christ's sacrifice 00:00:59.000 |
and him humbling himself and taking on human form, 00:01:05.000 |
We pray that as we celebrate in the busyness of the holidays, 00:01:09.000 |
help us, Lord God, to reflect deeply upon the sacrifice that you've made. 00:01:14.000 |
And again, not just simply for us, but for many Christians around the world, 00:01:18.000 |
especially those brothers and sisters who are living in places with heavy persecution. 00:01:24.000 |
I pray, Father God, that you give them extra strength, extra faith, Lord God, 00:01:29.000 |
to sustain them, that their love for you would only grow stronger 00:01:35.000 |
We pray, especially for our Sunday school teachers and our children, 00:01:39.000 |
that you would allow us, Lord, not just for our generation, 00:01:42.000 |
but for the next generation, for many generations to come, 00:01:45.000 |
that we would truly be lovers of Christ in all things. 00:01:48.000 |
So help us, Lord, that all that we do may establish your grace and blessing 00:01:55.000 |
So we thank you in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 00:01:58.000 |
All right, so the passage that I read, I'm going to be jumping from text to text 00:02:03.000 |
in various passages, but in Galatians 4.4, it says, Paul says, 00:02:09.000 |
"When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, 00:02:15.000 |
Paul describes basically Christmas and Jesus' ministry and his time on earth 00:02:20.000 |
as the fullness of time, meaning that it was God's ordained time. 00:02:24.000 |
God was waiting for that particular time in human history 00:02:33.000 |
Why did he wait until at that time to send his Son? 00:02:37.000 |
Human history for hundreds of years, maybe even thousands. 00:02:45.000 |
They had their history. They had many other things going on. 00:02:48.000 |
But what made that particular time, the ideal time, God-ordained time, 00:02:56.000 |
Superficially, we can look at that and say, well, Romans, 00:02:59.000 |
they were in charge and everybody knows that Rome was known for their roads. 00:03:05.000 |
So it was commonly understood that you were able to travel 00:03:12.000 |
That all of a sudden, that if the Gospel was going to be preached, 00:03:16.000 |
you'd have to be able to travel from region to region. 00:03:22.000 |
You could argue that maybe it's because of the cultures that were united. 00:03:25.000 |
That Alexander the Great got together and conquered the nations. 00:03:28.000 |
And the Greek culture dominated even the Roman Empire. 00:03:31.000 |
So as a result of that, they were able to communicate with one another, 00:03:37.000 |
We could argue that possibly because of the diaspora of the Jewish community, 00:03:42.000 |
that they went out and went everywhere that the Apostles and Paul went 00:03:46.000 |
to preach the Gospel, that there was a synagogue there already ready 00:03:53.000 |
And obviously, all of these things played a key role in the success 00:03:58.000 |
of the Gospel being preached, superficially looking. 00:04:01.000 |
But was that the reason why God waited until that particular time 00:04:07.000 |
Couldn't He have prepared the roads prior to that? 00:04:11.000 |
Well, when we take a closer look at how God works, 00:04:15.000 |
we know that God is not frustrated by human history. 00:04:17.000 |
He wasn't waiting for the Roman government to be established 00:04:20.000 |
because He couldn't get His Apostles to travel unless there was roads 00:04:26.000 |
Scripture says that the law was given to the nation of Israel 00:04:32.000 |
And He needed that to play out in Israel's history. 00:04:38.000 |
Scripture says that Christ came to be the light of the world. 00:04:44.000 |
And in order to highlight the light, you need to turn off the light. 00:04:49.000 |
The light becomes more evident and more useful when there is darkness. 00:04:54.000 |
We can see in Israel's history, and we're highlighting three specific things 00:04:59.000 |
that we want to look at this morning, that highlights the fact that 00:05:03.000 |
the nation of Israel was experiencing the darkest period of their existence 00:05:10.000 |
The first thing we want to point out is the Roman domination. 00:05:14.000 |
I think every Jew, every single day, was reminded that they were under 00:05:23.000 |
They were maybe the fourth or fifth empire that took over. 00:05:27.000 |
See, this domination, this captivity, happened as early as 600 years prior 00:05:35.000 |
It was the Assyrians, and then after the Assyrians came the Babylonians, 00:05:39.000 |
and after the Babylonians came the Persians, and then after the Persians 00:05:44.000 |
came the Greeks, and then finally the Roman Empire took over. 00:05:48.000 |
But of all the empires that took over and was dominated, no other nation 00:05:53.000 |
made themselves more aware of their dominating presence 00:06:02.000 |
In fact, the account of Jesus' birth in the book of Luke, chapter 2, verse 1, 00:06:07.000 |
it says that Caesar wanted to take a census, so he had everyone who was 00:06:13.000 |
traveling or maybe moved, had to go back to their hometown, wherever they 00:06:17.000 |
were born, and they had to go back to wherever that was and take a census. 00:06:21.000 |
And the reason why they had to take a census was it was Roman government 00:06:24.000 |
way of, one, keeping track of the people that they conquered, 00:06:28.000 |
in order that, you know, just in case there's any kind of movement going on 00:06:31.000 |
and they needed to make sure that if there was any kind of rebellion going on, 00:06:35.000 |
they were keeping track of everybody that they conquered. 00:06:38.000 |
And again, it was a vast empire, so they had to do this quite frequently. 00:06:43.000 |
But another more practical reason was in order to collect taxes. 00:06:47.000 |
So they had to go back to their hometown and be counted so that they know 00:06:53.000 |
exactly how many people were in this hometown, and then they would exact 00:06:59.000 |
The account of Jesus' birth begins in the book of Luke by telling us that 00:07:06.000 |
because Caesar enacted this census, that Joseph and Mary, who was in Nazareth 00:07:12.000 |
at the time, had to move back to Bethlehem to give birth, to be counted. 00:07:20.000 |
100 miles would be from here to, I don't know, Northridge, the grapevine? 00:07:24.000 |
I don't know, is that even further than that? 00:07:26.000 |
But imagine traveling that distance on unpaved road, for the most part, 00:07:31.000 |
without a motor vehicle, while your wife is pregnant, 00:07:40.000 |
I mean, it was a tremendous burden, just that journey alone. 00:07:44.000 |
And the whole reason why you're doing that is not to visit your parents, 00:07:47.000 |
is not to celebrate a holiday, just so that you can be counted by the Romans, 00:07:53.000 |
It's the end of this journey, all of it was so that you can give money 00:08:00.000 |
So can you imagine that every single person living at that time 00:08:04.000 |
who was moving around just to be counted in the census, 00:08:07.000 |
that every single time that they walked, every step that they took, 00:08:10.000 |
they had in their mind, "We have to do this because 00:08:13.000 |
these Romans are making us do this and pay taxes." 00:08:17.000 |
They were very aware of the situation that they were in. 00:08:21.000 |
In fact, Jesus is teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, 00:08:28.000 |
"If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles." 00:08:33.000 |
In modern day culture, you and I, how do we even apply that? 00:08:36.000 |
When was the last time somebody said, "Hey, go with me a mile." 00:08:39.000 |
And then, "Oh, Jesus told me to go two miles, 00:08:41.000 |
so I'm going to go two miles with you." Right? 00:08:44.000 |
How does that even apply to us? What does this mean? 00:08:47.000 |
Well, in order to understand what Jesus is saying, 00:08:50.000 |
you have to understand what the people were going through at that time. 00:08:53.000 |
Another law that the Roman government exacted upon the people that they conquered was 00:08:59.000 |
because in order to keep peace in this vast empire that they were overseeing, 00:09:05.000 |
they had to spread their soldiers out everywhere. 00:09:08.000 |
So, it was a common scene to see the Roman soldiers roaming around wherever you were at. 00:09:13.000 |
And because the Roman soldiers were burdened to carry all of this equipment around, 00:09:17.000 |
and all of this was a public demonstration that if you ever rebel against God, 00:09:23.000 |
So, in order for them to make it easy for the Roman soldiers to be able to travel between places, 00:09:29.000 |
they made a law that if the soldier asked you to carry their equipment, 00:09:34.000 |
that you have to stop whatever it is they're doing. 00:09:37.000 |
You may be in the middle of business, you may be in the middle of farming, 00:09:43.000 |
but if the soldier asked you to take his equipment and take it for one mile, 00:09:49.000 |
So, Jesus was speaking specifically to that law, and he says, 00:09:53.000 |
"Well, I know that you resent this, but if they ask you to go a mile, 00:09:58.000 |
instead of responding in anger and frustration, he said, 'Go an extra mile.'" 00:10:02.000 |
He was referring to that particular frustration of the law that they exacted. 00:10:08.000 |
But beyond that, beyond what the Romans were doing, 00:10:12.000 |
beyond the constant reminder of the burden of being conquered by this pagan nation, 00:10:18.000 |
and seeing a statue of Caesar and being forced to bow before they enter the temple, 00:10:28.000 |
And Idrumite, the history goes back, and basically he was an Edomite in the Old Testament, 00:10:35.000 |
So, if you read the Old Testament, you'll know that the Edomites 00:10:42.000 |
They were the closest, and yet they were the biggest antagonist of the nation of Israel. 00:10:49.000 |
you'll notice that the Edomites are often mentioned as rejoicing over the fall of Israel. 00:10:55.000 |
And he said, "God is going to judge the Edomites for rejoicing instead of mourning." 00:10:59.000 |
So, can you imagine that above the Romans conquering them, 00:11:04.000 |
that the very king that the Romans placed to oversee the nation of Israel 00:11:13.000 |
The nation of Israel was existing during that period of Jesus' coming, 00:11:20.000 |
Now again, they've been under dominance for over 600 years, 00:11:29.000 |
no other kingdom was more prominent and made their presence known more 00:11:33.000 |
than the nation of Israel, than the Roman Empire. 00:11:43.000 |
that the nation of Israel themselves were split into four separate groups. 00:11:47.000 |
Again, anytime hardships come, you see people reacting in a different way, 00:11:54.000 |
Some people coil up and they just kind of disappear. 00:11:57.000 |
You have some friends who are like that, when hardship comes, they just disappear. 00:12:01.000 |
You have some friends who become very verbal, they're always reaching out, 00:12:07.000 |
I have friends like that, whenever they drive, 00:12:10.000 |
and for whatever reason, when there's something going on in their life, 00:12:15.000 |
So, everybody has their different ways of responding, 00:12:18.000 |
and their own solution to how to solve this problem. 00:12:23.000 |
Because of this frustration, because of this pagan dominance, 00:12:27.000 |
they had groups that came in, one group called the Sadducees. 00:12:31.000 |
Their answer was, "Well, let's make the best of it." 00:12:35.000 |
They were the aristocrats, they were the ones who were rich, the landowners, 00:12:39.000 |
and they were the leaders of Israel, the Sadducees. 00:12:42.000 |
These were the liberal people who basically gave up on God. 00:12:46.000 |
What's the point in praying to God? What's the point of being religious and all this stuff? 00:12:49.000 |
And after 600, 700 years, this is all we got. 00:12:57.000 |
And they were the ones who were the most afraid of losing their power, 00:13:00.000 |
because they've learned to hold on to power within that system. 00:13:05.000 |
And obviously, because of that, they were very resented. 00:13:08.000 |
Even though they were the leaders of Israel, all of Israel resented them for that. 00:13:13.000 |
There was another group of people called the Essenes. 00:13:16.000 |
Now, other than the fact that you're learning about this at church, 00:13:19.000 |
you never hear about the Essenes, because these people basically went to the cave and disappeared. 00:13:24.000 |
These are the kind of friends that when hardship comes, they just disappear for a while. 00:13:32.000 |
And the only reason why we know so much about the Essenes is because we found a cave where they were dwelling, 00:13:37.000 |
and there was all these artifacts that they found, and that's where we get the Dead Sea Scroll, 00:13:43.000 |
They basically disappeared. They just dropped out. 00:13:46.000 |
We don't want to deal with Rome. We don't want to deal with the Sadducees. 00:13:49.000 |
So they just dropped out, so we don't see them. 00:13:51.000 |
We have a small group of people called the Zealots, 00:13:54.000 |
and they are mentioned here and there through the New Testament. 00:13:56.000 |
The Zealots were the people who were like, "Okay, do or die. 00:14:00.000 |
I know humanly we can't, but we're not going to let them. 00:14:09.000 |
So they were carrying swords around them constantly, 00:14:12.000 |
just waiting for an opportunity to get into a holy war. 00:14:16.000 |
And these Zealots are the ones who got Israel in trouble later on, 00:14:22.000 |
and they come and destroy the nation of Israel as a result of their rebellion. 00:14:29.000 |
the fourth group of people are the people that we hear the most about in the New Testament, 00:14:35.000 |
The word "Pharisee" basically means to be set apart. 00:14:39.000 |
And their answer to what was happening to the nation of Israel was 00:14:46.000 |
maybe if we prayed more, maybe if we gave more, 00:14:50.000 |
maybe if we apostatized and we kept the law of God perfectly, 00:14:54.000 |
that God would be appeased, and maybe He will come, 00:14:59.000 |
Now each one of these groups didn't get along with each other. 00:15:03.000 |
Not only was there a constant reminder of the Roman dominance, 00:15:08.000 |
even within the nation of Israel, there was no consensus. 00:15:12.000 |
They were divided even within their own families. 00:15:16.000 |
But all the trouble that the nation of Israel was under, 00:15:20.000 |
the greatest and the most darkest part of Israel's history 00:15:28.000 |
The Scripture tells us that after Malachi finishes his prophecy, 00:15:32.000 |
that there is no prophet for 400 years until John the Baptist shows up. 00:15:37.000 |
Theologians often call this period 400 years of silence. 00:15:44.000 |
There was no prophet sent by God to speak on his behalf. 00:15:51.000 |
And it was a clear judgment that God brought upon the nation of Israel. 00:15:59.000 |
Amos shows up during a period when there was a lot of religious activity 00:16:06.000 |
And this is the final judgment that God pronounces upon the nation. 00:16:10.000 |
It says, "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord God, 00:16:14.000 |
when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, 00:16:17.000 |
nor a thirst for water, but a hearing of the words of the Lord. 00:16:21.000 |
They shall wander from sea to sea and from north to east. 00:16:24.000 |
They shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, 00:16:30.000 |
Now we may look at that and say, "Well, that was 400 years of silence, 00:16:39.000 |
Maybe there was no place to go because of the judgment of God. 00:16:43.000 |
But on the contrary, if you look at that period of Israel's history, 00:16:47.000 |
they were more religious than any other period in their life. 00:16:51.000 |
There was more activity happening in the temple. 00:16:54.000 |
Pharisees were actually committed to memorize Scripture. 00:17:00.000 |
They were even proselytizing, sending people out to make disciples. 00:17:04.000 |
They set up a synagogue in almost every city. 00:17:10.000 |
there's only one or two cities that he went to where there wasn't a synagogue. 00:17:15.000 |
Every single city that he went to in the Roman Empire, 00:17:21.000 |
So he would go into the synagogue, and he would be given basically the pulpit 00:17:27.000 |
So the fact that there was silence for 400 years 00:17:30.000 |
doesn't mean that the word of God wasn't being preached. 00:17:40.000 |
actually has the exact number of lambs that were sacrificed 00:17:44.000 |
in a particular year during the time of Jesus' ministry. 00:17:51.000 |
that he was basically hired by the Roman Empire 00:17:54.000 |
to take a census of how many animals were being sacrificed, 00:17:58.000 |
the lambs were being sacrificed, in order for them to take a census. 00:18:02.000 |
So he has the exact number that was given to the Roman Empire, 00:18:05.000 |
256,500 was the exact number that he gave the Roman Empire. 00:18:11.000 |
And each one of these lambs represented at least 10 adult male. 00:18:16.000 |
So basically what that means is that the sacrifices that was taking place 00:18:20.000 |
at the temple was probably more numerous than any other time in their history. 00:18:26.000 |
And part of the reason why is because there was a prophecy, 00:18:29.000 |
or there was a teaching going around in the Jewish Empire, 00:18:35.000 |
that the Messiah was going to come during the Passover. 00:18:39.000 |
And so this was beginning to spread, and it became a popular view. 00:18:43.000 |
And during the Passover there was a stir upon Israel. 00:18:47.000 |
So can you imagine when Jesus was riding on the donkey during the time of Passover, 00:18:51.000 |
and people thinking that he was the Messiah, and the stir that must have created. 00:18:56.000 |
The 400 years of silence from Malachi to John the Baptist 00:19:01.000 |
wasn't because the Word was not being taught. 00:19:07.000 |
It wasn't because they didn't have enough permittings. 00:19:10.000 |
That in the context of doing all of these things, Jesus says, 00:19:14.000 |
"You call me Lord, Lord, but your heart is far from me." 00:19:17.000 |
It was a lot of religious and a lot of smoke screen, but not genuine worship. 00:19:22.000 |
He said, "You're doing all these things, but yet it has nothing to do with me." 00:19:27.000 |
And at the end of Jesus' ministry, they didn't even recognize their Messiah. 00:19:33.000 |
That their leaders, their Pharisees, have been proclaiming and teaching. 00:19:38.000 |
The prophets have been-- every prophet in the Old Testament 00:19:41.000 |
almost ends with, "The Messiah is coming, Messiah is coming." 00:19:44.000 |
And yet when he finally comes, they completely miss him. 00:19:47.000 |
John 1, 9-11, "The true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. 00:19:53.000 |
He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 00:19:59.000 |
He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him." 00:20:04.000 |
See, the darkness in the nation of Israel, with all the physical signs, 00:20:09.000 |
all the things, all the sentences that they had to take, 00:20:12.000 |
all the taxes that they had to give to the Roman Empire, 00:20:15.000 |
their greatest darkness was a darkness in their own hearts. 00:20:20.000 |
And that's why when we read the account of Jesus' birth in the book of Matthew, 00:20:26.000 |
it wasn't the priests or the scribes or the Pharisees or even their own king. 00:20:35.000 |
Some of your Bibles translated them as "wise men." 00:20:40.000 |
Now, their identity is kind of a mystery, but there is a consensus 00:20:44.000 |
that they believe that these are Persian scholars, maybe astrologers. 00:20:49.000 |
Why did they know, and why did they recognize the coming of a foreign nation's king? 00:20:56.000 |
Well, again, it's a common view that they believe that there was a prophecy given by Daniel 00:21:02.000 |
and that they were studying that Daniel was a prominent figure during that period, during the captivity. 00:21:07.000 |
And they think, again, this is a theory, that possibly these guys were looking into this intently, 00:21:12.000 |
and they were able to calculate, based upon Daniel chapter 9, 00:21:15.000 |
that this was a period when the king of Israel was going to appear, 00:21:21.000 |
Now, again, all of these things are theories. We don't know that for a fact. 00:21:25.000 |
But what we do know is that the whole nation of Israel was completely blind to his coming, 00:21:31.000 |
and that these three pagans, outside of Israel, were the ones who were coming. 00:21:39.000 |
Not only that, we see in the account of Luke, that the angels appear, 00:21:45.000 |
not to the chief priests, not to the Pharisees, but to the shepherds. 00:21:50.000 |
The shepherds, at that particular time, was considered the lowliest job that you can have. 00:21:55.000 |
Because they were out in the field, they couldn't bathe, they had to tend to these animals, 00:22:03.000 |
It was not a job that young men and women would aspire to be. 00:22:09.000 |
So if you say you're a shepherd, automatically they say, "Oh, you're a shepherd." 00:22:13.000 |
So the fact that the account in Luke emphasizes that the angels showed up to the shepherds, 00:22:20.000 |
lowly people, who have no significance, humanly speaking, in this world, 00:22:26.000 |
that they were the ones that God reveals the coming of the Messiah. 00:22:29.000 |
They were the first ones to come and want to give worship to their king. 00:22:37.000 |
And there's a reason why John the Baptist, when he comes to preach about the kingdom, 00:22:44.000 |
He goes outside the Jerusalem, and he brings everybody out. 00:22:48.000 |
Because all of this is to convey what was happening with the nation of Israel. 00:22:53.000 |
The 400 years of silence wasn't simply because the material wasn't being exposited. 00:23:00.000 |
Their hearts became so hardened that even though the Word of God was being taught, 00:23:05.000 |
even though the sacrifices were being made, God was not in their midst. 00:23:15.000 |
"Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, 00:23:20.000 |
behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, 00:23:24.000 |
'Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? 00:23:26.000 |
For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.' 00:23:31.000 |
But when King Herod heard this, he was troubled." 00:23:36.000 |
We understand why King Herod would be in trouble. 00:23:39.000 |
Because he was already unpopular with the nation of Israel. 00:23:42.000 |
So if the true king of Israel comes, the Messiah comes, 00:23:45.000 |
of course he would be the first one who would be threatened. 00:23:48.000 |
So we understand why he was threatened, but if you continue reading, it says, 00:23:52.000 |
"Not only was he troubled, but all of Jerusalem was troubled with him." 00:24:00.000 |
And then in verse 4 it says, "And assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, 00:24:04.000 |
he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. 00:24:07.000 |
They told him, 'In Bethlehem of Judea, for it is written by the prophet.'" 00:24:12.000 |
Now what that reveals to us is that the revelation of the coming of Christ was made clear. 00:24:19.000 |
So when Herod gathered them together and asked them about the coming Messiah, 00:24:29.000 |
You notice that it says that it doesn't say that all nation of Israel was troubled, 00:24:36.000 |
And the significance behind that is that Jerusalem represented the spiritual elite of that time. 00:24:42.000 |
And again, as I said, this is the reason why John the Baptist doesn't enter into Jerusalem. 00:24:49.000 |
Because there was a spiritual darkness in the temple. 00:24:53.000 |
There was a spiritual darkness in the teaching. 00:24:55.000 |
There was a spiritual darkness among the Pharisees who was fasting, who was praying, 00:25:00.000 |
who was even evangelizing. But there was a spiritual darkness in them that they did not recognize. 00:25:06.000 |
That in the midst of all this religious activity, they did not know God. 00:25:15.000 |
They were reading it. They were memorizing scripture. 00:25:22.000 |
And every opportunity they got, they were talking about the coming Messiah, 00:25:32.000 |
after healing the sick, opening the eyes of the people who are blind, 00:25:37.000 |
walking on water, calming the storm, even raising the dead, 00:25:41.000 |
after three years of revealing Himself to them, 00:25:50.000 |
There's a reason why in the book of Isaiah, why false religion is highlighted. 00:25:56.000 |
And why in Jesus' ministry, He highlights the Pharisees' hypocrisy 00:26:01.000 |
above the prostitutes, above the tax collectors. 00:26:05.000 |
He said, "They were made righteous, but you were not." 00:26:08.000 |
These were the ones who were praying. These were the ones who were giving. 00:26:10.000 |
These were the ones who were proselytizing and making disciples. 00:26:18.000 |
He tells His disciples, "Do what they tell you to do," 00:26:21.000 |
because they sit in the seat of Moses, yet do not do what they do. 00:26:31.000 |
Think about the harsh message that Isaiah had to give to the nation of Israel. 00:26:35.000 |
After seeing the glory of the presence of God in chapter 6, 00:26:41.000 |
he sent to the nation of Israel, and the primary message that he has to the nation of Israel 00:26:49.000 |
We have the prophecies about the Messiah coming more written in the book of Isaiah 00:26:56.000 |
But the primary sin of the nation of Israel wasn't paganism. 00:27:01.000 |
It wasn't idol worship. It wasn't about following God. 00:27:04.000 |
All these things did exist, but it wasn't the prominent sin of the nation of Israel. 00:27:12.000 |
And he begins in the book of Isaiah, chapter 1, 11, he says, 00:27:15.000 |
"What to me is a multitude of your sacrifices," says the Lord. 00:27:19.000 |
"I have had enough of burnt offerings, of rams, and the fat of well-fed beasts. 00:27:23.000 |
I do not delight in the blood of bulls or lambs or of goats." 00:27:27.000 |
What's interesting about everything that he says in chapter 1 00:27:30.000 |
is everything he says here is prescribed in the Mosaic law. 00:27:36.000 |
Moses, because it was given to the nation of Israel through God, 00:27:42.000 |
they were doing all of these things because God prescribed them. 00:27:44.000 |
But instead of describing them as worship, God says, 00:27:56.000 |
Their assembly for worship, they called it evil assembly. 00:28:01.000 |
Instead of delighting in their gathering, he says, 00:28:06.000 |
In fact, he uses the term of their religious gathering as hate. 00:28:13.000 |
I think there's a reason why Jesus emphasized it. 00:28:18.000 |
Jesus didn't all of a sudden come and say, "You know what? 00:28:21.000 |
We've been tolerating this up to this point, but now this false worship, 00:28:25.000 |
God has been saying this throughout the nation of Israel's history. 00:28:29.000 |
Their primary sin was a deception that because of their many sacrifices, 00:28:37.000 |
because of their temple attendance, because of all of these things, 00:28:49.000 |
It was the fullness of time because the law of God became utterly sinful. 00:28:54.000 |
The sin of Israel, the darkness that was upon the nation of Israel, 00:28:57.000 |
was darker than any other period in Israel's history. 00:29:03.000 |
Imagine how hardened their heart must have been 00:29:05.000 |
when their own Messiah, the creator of the universe, 00:29:13.000 |
And the response that he gets from them is they pick up stones 00:29:20.000 |
even in the midst of all of these sacrifices. 00:29:29.000 |
no matter what angle we look at the nation of Israel, 00:29:36.000 |
Politically, financially, and especially spiritually, 00:29:43.000 |
It would only make sense that God would wipe them out 00:29:48.000 |
It would only make sense if God would just wipe his hands clean 00:29:54.000 |
These people are not worth salvaging and just to move on. 00:30:04.000 |
because it is in darkness where his grace and his light 00:30:13.000 |
It isn't until that we see the need for a Savior, 00:30:31.000 |
Why would he give himself to these young teenagers 00:30:35.000 |
with no money, traveling 100 miles just to get home 00:30:42.000 |
Why would an all-powerful, almighty, all-knowing God 00:30:47.000 |
place himself in the shoes that he placed himself in? 00:30:59.000 |
The nation of Israel is often quoted in the scriptures 00:31:04.000 |
Everything that happened with the nation of Israel 00:31:06.000 |
and it's explained to us in 1 Corinthians 10, 00:31:09.000 |
it happened as an example for us to look at and see, 00:31:13.000 |
"Well, those people, I'm glad I'm not like them." 00:31:15.000 |
He says, "No, all of this happened as an example 00:31:20.000 |
Their spiritual darkness represented all of us. 00:31:30.000 |
See, every single one of us, when things happen, 00:31:34.000 |
we have a tendency to react just like the nation of Israel. 00:31:42.000 |
Some of us think that we have to be more clever. 00:31:44.000 |
Some of us think that we have to align ourselves 00:31:46.000 |
with the right people, that maybe we need to do this, 00:32:37.000 |
But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, 00:32:48.000 |
Christmas is where He breaks into that silence. 00:33:03.000 |
and Jesus Christ comes, and He breaks into that deception. 00:33:06.000 |
And He says, "No one comes to the Father but through Me. 00:33:09.000 |
I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life." 00:33:22.000 |
1 Timothy 2, 5-7, it says, "For there is one God, 00:33:33.000 |
So the whole ministry, the whole incarnation, Emmanuel, 00:33:39.000 |
If you read the Gospel, there's two very detailed accounts 00:33:47.000 |
the other one is written in the book of Luke. 00:33:52.000 |
And that's why Matthew begins with the genealogy, 00:33:59.000 |
So that's why the book of Matthew highlights the fact 00:34:02.000 |
that the prophecy went out, the King was coming. 00:34:09.000 |
they recognize that they're not bringing gifts 00:34:12.000 |
to this lowly family, but to the King of Israel. 00:34:19.000 |
all of these things were gifts that you would offer to a king. 00:34:25.000 |
the book of Luke, it's completely the other side. 00:34:30.000 |
The lowly shepherds are the ones who hear about it, 00:34:32.000 |
and they come to Him, and then the account of Him 00:34:43.000 |
And the reason why that is written in that way 00:34:46.000 |
is because Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man. 00:34:55.000 |
could be the perfect mediator between us and God. 00:35:06.000 |
Because we could not go to Him, He came to us. 00:35:14.000 |
"who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, 00:35:20.000 |
"has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 00:35:36.000 |
You know how difficult it is for us to be humble. 00:35:44.000 |
Our whole life is about elevating our status. 00:35:48.000 |
We may not, some of us are good at hiding it. 00:35:51.000 |
Some of us are a little bit more sophisticated than that. 00:36:37.000 |
that he can save mankind is to humble himself. 00:36:53.000 |
that he might become the righteousness of God. 00:37:22.000 |
because you bought presents for your family members. 00:37:24.000 |
These are all blessings that God has given us. 00:37:27.000 |
You know I thank God that we are able to come 00:38:39.000 |
but because of the darkness that resides in you 00:38:43.000 |
And that the only way that He could have reconciled us 00:39:03.000 |
that you and I may become the righteousness of God. 00:39:07.000 |
Let's take some time to meditate and think about that, 00:39:10.000 |
again, as we invite our worship team to come up 00:39:32.000 |
where you are in desperate need of the grace of God