Advent | Christ

[SPEAKER_00]: You are listening to audio from Citizens Church located in Plano, Texas for more information about this ministry or to give to this ministry Please visit citizenschurch.com Good morning church If you got your bibles go ahead and grab home turn to Luke chapter 2 My name is Mike M and I oversee theological training here at Citizens Church if you're new here We're so glad that you're with us today

Luke 2 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me just share a little story from my youth.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I was in elementary school, I had this love hate relationship with the game of kickball.

[SPEAKER_00]: I loved, how fun it was.

[SPEAKER_00]: I loved the kicking part.

[SPEAKER_00]: I loved the running around and yelling part, the excitement of trying to avoid being tagged out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Love that stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: The part that I hated was all the stuff before that, the picking of the teams.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not the tallest person now, but when I was in elementary school, I was super, super short.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, if you ever play Kickball, inevitably like the two oldest or biggest or most athletic kids would be chosen, and they would stand away from the big group of the rest of the kids, and they would take turns picking who they wanted for their teams.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know how I'm out?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so,

[SPEAKER_00]: That means experiencing that agony of hoping not to be the last kid, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: The crowd of kids is like slowly getting smaller and smaller and smaller, and you're sweating, bullets hoping not to be that last rejected kid.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there were a few times it was me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And like the worst part of that experience though, it's not just being chosen last, it's when the captain's began to bar again, like, well you take him.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, I don't want you to take him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'll take him, but if I take him, you have to give me him too, because, you know, like that feeling of like, man, I'm a burden, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of you in here, no, I'm talking about.

[SPEAKER_00]: Others of you were the captain, so you have no idea what I'm talking about.

[SPEAKER_00]: But even if you are always picked first for a kickball or other things, I'm sure you have experienced that feeling of feeling overlooked, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Feeling passed over, feeling forgotten about undesirable.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were rejected.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so if you have had that experience, especially if you've had it, recently I'm extra glad that you're with us here today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because the message of the gospel is that while people may have forgotten about you or overlooked you, our God has not.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's look at today's passage one more time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Luke chapter two, I'm gonna start reading from verse eight.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the same region, there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night.

[SPEAKER_00]: And an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shown around them and they were filled with great fear.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the angel said to them, fear not.

[SPEAKER_00]: For behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Literally here, the angel says, I bring you a gospel of mega joy.

[SPEAKER_00]: What is that gospel that is not just about joy, but mega joy, verse 11.

[SPEAKER_00]: For unto you is born this day in the city of David, Savior, who is Christ, the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are now in the third Sunday of Advent and in this Advent series, we have been examining the titles that are given to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: in the Christmas narratives that we read in the Gospels.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so whether you have been consistently attending church for like decades or whole life, or maybe this is your first time back in a very, very long time, there's one thing that I know you know, and that is that Jesus is called Jesus Christ, and that people follow Him are called Christians.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what does Christ even really mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we're gonna be examining today.

[SPEAKER_00]: What is Christ actually mean, what does it signify?

[SPEAKER_00]: They're layers to this.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that means today, we're gonna be learning the meaning of one Greek word and one Hebrew word.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the tricky thing about doing these kinds of word studies is that the words that are the most familiar to us, that are taken on religious significance, are actually sometimes the hardest to teach.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, when I was a little kid, I thought Christ was Jesus' last name, a Mr. Christ, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: But Christ is not a name at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a title.

[SPEAKER_00]: There have been many, many Christ in the Bible.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to take a look at that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a reason why it's attached to His name in a special way.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let's start with the word Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: The word that our English Bibles, Render Christ, it's translating a Greek word, Christos.

[SPEAKER_00]: Say it with me, Christos.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what does Christos mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: The Greek word, Christos, is itself translating an older Hebrew word.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that word is machyak, say it with me, machyak.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of wet at the end of that word, machyak, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this is where we get the word messiah, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: So easy, like Christ, Christos, Christos, machyak, machyak, means messiah.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Christ means messiah, Jesus, messiah.

[SPEAKER_00]: But here's a problem.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is where we get in trouble because of our familiarity with this term and the deep meaning of this term.

[SPEAKER_00]: What do we mean when we say someone is a Messiah?

[SPEAKER_00]: If you look at up in the dictionary, Messiah means today a promised Savior or deliverer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus is definitely that.

[SPEAKER_00]: We looked at that two weeks ago, Jesus the Savior.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the word Machiaque is not used that way in the Torah.

[SPEAKER_00]: The word machia literally just means anointed one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Someone who is anointed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now here's, again, we hit a problem because that's kind of church word where we'll use the word anointed to mean like, you know, a gift-aid or like extra blessing like man, the singing was so good that the band is so anointed, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: We're using it to mean something else.

[SPEAKER_00]: But again, that's not the primary way that the word machia or anointed is used in the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean something really basic, much more basic than that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Both the word Christos and the word Machia, mean to be rubbed or smeared with oil.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what anointing me is.

[SPEAKER_00]: But why would someone get unawaited?

[SPEAKER_00]: In the Old Testament, anointing with oil was used to signify God's choosing of a particular person or thing for a particular task or job.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anointing, in other words, has to do with appointing.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the kind of the chain.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, these are people who are appointed to something by God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there are three main offices in the Old Testament that receive this sort of appointment that you could be appointed to.

[SPEAKER_00]: And these three main kinds of people that were marked by the Anointing of God were Israel's prophets, the high priests, and the kings.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can take a look at three texts and see how this word machyak, Messiah, is used here.

[SPEAKER_00]: The prophets are called Messiah's.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you were a few in number of little count and sojourners, wandering from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another, people, he allowed no one to oppress them.

[SPEAKER_00]: He rebuked kings on their account saying, this is verse 22, touch not my anointed ones, my machya.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do my prophets know harm.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see, here God calls the prophets, the machya, the Messiah, as the anointed ones.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are, in other words, Christos.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they're not what we mean when we say Messiah.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're not promised saviors.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now these prophets were chosen and marked and appointed by God for a specific task, not to disable Israel, but to speak his word, to Israel and to the nations.

[SPEAKER_00]: Next, let's look at Leviticus 4, where there's another kind of Messiah.

[SPEAKER_00]: God makes provision for the sin of God's people by marking a special priest.

[SPEAKER_00]: If it is the anointed, the machiacht priest, who sins, thus bringing guilt on all the people, then he shall offer for the sin that he is committed a bull from the herd without blemish to the Lord for sin offering.

[SPEAKER_00]: So here in Leviticus 4, where God is making a provision for the sin of his people.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's the way before I get into all of that stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's possible that the high priest himself is a sinner.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so before he comes before me to intercede for the people of Israel, he needs to be cleansed himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so this Messiah priest, Machiach priest, anointed priest, chosen priest, is just another word for the high priest.

[SPEAKER_00]: The one who was chosen for the special task of going before God and pleading for the people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, he's not the promised Redeemer.

[SPEAKER_00]: How could he be?

[SPEAKER_00]: How can he save all the people from their sins when he himself is a sinner?

[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, let's look at, for Samuel chapter 4, chapter 24, verse 6.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is, the backstory of this is David, David's men are urging him to kill Saul.

[SPEAKER_00]: Saul has gone off the deep end, has been hunting David, and David could easily kill him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And his men are like, this is the chance, do it now.

[SPEAKER_00]: David said this.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said to his men, the Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: for the Lord's anointed, the Lord's anointed, his machine to put out my hand against him, seeing that he is the Lord's anointed.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is the Lord's Messiah.

[SPEAKER_00]: King Saul here, remember, is a wicked king.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's definitely not the promised sinless savior.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe he thinks he's the deliverer, but he's definitely not.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is called God's Machiaque.

[SPEAKER_00]: God's anointed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because he's marked in a special way.

[SPEAKER_00]: So again, the word Christos Machiaque means anointed.

[SPEAKER_00]: And again, to be anointed, it means to be marked.

[SPEAKER_00]: to be appointed or commissioned or consecrated by God, to put it very simply, this means to be chosen.

[SPEAKER_00]: This person is the one who's chosen by God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so then how do we gain the fuller meaning of Messiah that we have today, the promised Redeemer?

[SPEAKER_00]: savior.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because as the years and the centuries of Israel and history unfolded, we saw prophets and priests in kings, rise and fall, there are all of these mini-Christ's, so to speak, these mini-annoyed heads, mini-deliverers, you know, rescuers come again and again, but they could never actually deliver God's people or even themselves to the other most.

[SPEAKER_00]: There were small victories

[SPEAKER_00]: came again and again, both from outside and rising up inside.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what began, what began to be clear is that these anointed offices, these messianic offices of the chosen ones of God could not fulfill the promise.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they were only meant to point to the one who could.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we see that prophets begin to speak of a true and better machyaq, one who could accomplish what none of the previous or no one did once could ever do or ever have done.

[SPEAKER_00]: There would be a true prophet who would both perfectly speak and perfectly live the word of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: There would be a true high priest who would be unblemished and unstained who could redeem the people of God once all.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there would finally come a true king.

[SPEAKER_00]: unlike human kings, who would deliver and protect his people and subdue God's enemies, but not to enslave the people again or to load over them for his own good at their costs, but to set them free at his own cost.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so again, the word Christ here connects all three of these offices of Prophet, priest, and king, the word chosen.

[SPEAKER_00]: good news of mega joy, because this Christ has finally come.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a prophet, there's a priest, there's a king who has fulfilled, who will fulfill all the promises and he's been born today.

[SPEAKER_00]: You get to hear that today.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we know that Jesus is the Christ chosen by the Father, appointed by the Father to speak, God's Word.

[SPEAKER_00]: as the true and better prophet.

[SPEAKER_00]: John 12, 49, these are Jesus' words.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says this, for I've not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment, what to say and what to speak.

[SPEAKER_00]: But unlike other prophets, Jesus did not only speak God's word, but he is the very word of God, John 1, 1 in the beginning, what's the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not only was Jesus the highest and true prophet, he was also God's final appointed high priest, Hebrews 5, 5, 5.

[SPEAKER_00]: So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but he was appointed by him who said to him, you're my son.

[SPEAKER_00]: Today I have been gotten you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And unlike human high priests, Jesus, the final appointed high priest, was perfect.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hebrews 726, for it is indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest who is wholly innocent, unstained, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has no need like those high priests to offer sacrifices daily first for his own sins and then for those of the people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Since he did this once for all when he offered up himself, verse 28,

[SPEAKER_00]: as high priests.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the word of the oath, which came later, then the law, appoints a son who has been made perfect for ever.

[SPEAKER_00]: And not only is Jesus the ultimate prophet, the ultimate priest, Jesus is God's anointed king, the son of God who reigns not to Lord over us.

[SPEAKER_00]: But to rule with love and righteousness, Hebrews 1, 8.

[SPEAKER_00]: But of the Son, God says, your throne, oh God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have a love of righteousness and hated wickedness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Marked you, messiahed you, with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's because of this self-understanding,

[SPEAKER_00]: Use these words to mark the beginning of his ministry.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus read from Isaiah, look for 18th and 19th.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Marked me as Messiah.

[SPEAKER_00]: To proclaim good news, gospel news to the poor.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind.

[SPEAKER_00]: To set it liberty those were oppressed to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jesus' understanding of Himself in His ministry.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord has anointed me.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is the one who has appointed me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the Lord's Machiaque.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the Lord's Christos.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, it's really important.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are many other people who said this about themselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are many, many messiahs that came and fell.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's not that Jesus has delusions of grandeur.

[SPEAKER_00]: How do we know?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because anyone can say that about Himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: Luke 9, 3435, on the Mount of Transfiguration.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus takes three of His disciples up to the Mount, and there they see Moses and Elijah, and Peter gets super excited.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, oh man, we should make tents for all three of you, because I'm standing with the three greats, there's Moses and Elijah, and you must be also really important, because you hang with these guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then, a voice comes from heaven, and when the voice stops speaking, Moses and Elijah are gone, and just Jesus is there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is what the voice says about Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not like Moses and Elijah.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've always came out of the cloud saying, this is my son, my chosen one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: God never said this about Moses or Elijah, or any of the other anointed people in the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jesus, the chosen one of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: We call Jesus the Christ because the good news is this God did not look down on our condition of sin and misery, of suffering, of struggle and say, you know what?

[SPEAKER_00]: I will send you some really good rules to help you clean up your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a great plan for you to fix yourself up.

[SPEAKER_00]: Essentially, every other religion on this planet teaches some version of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: a truth-telling prophet, a stainless-hyped priest a merciful self-sacrificing king who in love when we were wallowing in our own filth.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of giving us what we deserve.

[SPEAKER_00]: God gave us his precious boy.

[SPEAKER_00]: He gave us his son.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus said, I'm anointed to proclaim good news, to proclaim liberty.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then say, I came to kick-in doors and kick-in teeth, because I'm really angry at you guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: The good news is that Jesus is chosen to be Savior.

[SPEAKER_00]: OK, so Jesus was chosen by the Father for this mission.

[SPEAKER_00]: OK, what exactly is the chosen as four?

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus was chosen to live a perfect life.

[SPEAKER_00]: but also to suffer and die, accrual in unjust death.

[SPEAKER_00]: At the hands of his own people, the people that he loved, the very people who are waiting and waiting and waiting for hundreds of years for the chosen one missed his coming, missed the first advent, because while they knew one thing about him, they knew that Machiaque means chosen by God.

[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't know if what he was chosen for.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what he said about what they said about Jesus as he hung on the cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: The thing he was chosen to do, Luke 23, 35.

[SPEAKER_00]: The people stood by watching, but the ruler scoffed in him saying this.

[SPEAKER_00]: He saved others, let him save himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: If he is the Christ of God, if he is the Messiah of God, the anointed of God, his chosen one.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if he's a chosen one of God, this would never happen to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let him prove his chosenness by avoiding the cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: At the very moment that Jesus was accomplishing the thing that He was chosen for, the height of His manifestation of God's very love for His people, His death on the cross, His own people took the cross to be evidence that He was not the chosen one.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there's no thicker or tighter irony than this.

[SPEAKER_00]: The mark of His chosenness was used against Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus was chosen by the Father, and He was chosen to suffer and die for the sins of His people, but there's another really important aspect of this concept of being chosen, of being the Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's not as if Jesus was sent down to us like kicking and screaming like, I don't want to, I don't want to do it, you know, Father, get down there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have, we have to fulfill these contractual obligations, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't read the fine print, but man, it's right there.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, oh man, okay fine, you know, like there's some division within the Trinity.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like people have talked about the sacrifice of Jesus' divine child abuse, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: My God's punishing his son because he's got to like get his anger out, you know, and he feels better afterwards.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is not the story of the gospel at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: John 10, 17, 18, this is the way Jesus explains this heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay my life down that I may take it up again.

[SPEAKER_00]: No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.

[SPEAKER_00]: This charge I've received from my Father.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's no division in the wills of the three members of the Trinity.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's important to know that Christ is not just Jesus is not just Christ, the chosen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is the Christ who is the chooser.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is so, so important.

[SPEAKER_00]: The goodness of Christmas is that in the darkness of the Advent season, in our longing, in our waiting, in our struggling.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus was not forced to come down to us against his will, but he ran to us with love and joy.

[SPEAKER_00]: He chose to come.

[SPEAKER_00]: He chose to live the life we couldn't live any chose to die the death that we deserve, that I deserve.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: He was 12, too.

[SPEAKER_00]: We looked at Jesus, the founder, and perfected over our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: Despizing the shame and his seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus comes to us in our sorrow, in our misery, in our sinfulness, with his overwhelming joy and the offers to trade us.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is the gospel.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is so important.

[SPEAKER_00]: When Jesus makes that trade, it's not like He runs out.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we've got it all.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's got nothing.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the beautiful thing about when Jesus divides the loaves.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's more left over at the end than when they started off with, even after everybody ate as much as they could.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a spring of life, welling up.

[SPEAKER_00]: It never runs out.

[SPEAKER_00]: You will never exhaust the grace of God, the love of God, the mercy of God, the kindness of God, the favor of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: He overwhelms us with His generosity and His grace.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let it, if you are suffering right now, if you're going through a dark season of your soul, if the holidays bring more loneliness than they do, happiness.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're going through relational difficulty right now, if you're grappling with an addiction that just won't let go, I urge you to turn to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: He stands with arms open and welcome.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do not fall to the temptation of putting your trust in the lesser Messiahs that cannot save.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whether it's money or power or sex or that perfect Christmas gift that if only you could afford it,

[SPEAKER_00]: The gospel urges us to turn to Jesus the gift of heaven, the bread of life, the Lamb of God, the Christ, the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's one other thing I want to point out about this term of Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: The last piece of what it means that Jesus is Christ and that we are in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right now we live in that time of we said in the time between the two admins of Jesus, the two arrivals of Jesus, Jesus has come and he shall come again.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I spoke earlier of how miserable it felt when I was a kid to be overlooked and unchosen and rejected by the other kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in this season, it can so easily feel like that at times.

[SPEAKER_00]: The last thing I want to point out about the title of Christ is this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus Christ is the chosen one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus Christ is also Christ, the chooser.

[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't just choose his path, choose himself for that path.

[SPEAKER_00]: He also chooses for himself a particular people.

[SPEAKER_00]: The New Testament is full of this language.

[SPEAKER_00]: Closions 3, 12.

[SPEAKER_00]: Put on then as God's chosen ones.

[SPEAKER_00]: Holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, become like Jesus, you're chosen for that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Verse Peter 29, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation of people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

[SPEAKER_00]: What's true about those who have put their faith in Christ as Savior as Lord?

[SPEAKER_00]: What's true?

[SPEAKER_00]: is that that faith is a reminder that even if the whole world works or reject us, Jesus never will.

[SPEAKER_00]: That even if you never make it under the special guest list that you are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, even if you are not chosen for the kickball team, God has chosen you to be with him.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to remember the kinds of people that God chooses in the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's always Jacob, the second son, David, the runt of the litter.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the unlikely, the past over, the forgotten.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, again, God says, no, I want that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want your leftovers.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in the New Testament, who is at the Jesus spends the most time with?

[SPEAKER_00]: What are our favorite stories?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the woman at the well, the woman with the condition of bleeding.

[SPEAKER_00]: Zeki is the text collected, the leopard, the blind man, the cripple, the prostitute.

[SPEAKER_00]: They unwanted the unlikely, the forgotten, the rejected, the past over.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those who place their trust and their faith in Christ, God does something in Jesus that's marvelous.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is called the Passover Lamb.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we understand one side of that, but he also, there's a mirror side of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: In Jesus, the Passover Lamb, he passes over our sin.

[SPEAKER_00]: He passes us over for judgment.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what it means to be in Christ to be united with him is that Jesus does not pass you over for blessing.

[SPEAKER_00]: He does not pass you over for his favor, for his love.

[SPEAKER_00]: He does not pass you over for resurrection, for restoration, to be made in the likeness of Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even if everyone else doesn't see you, he sees you, he sees you.

[SPEAKER_00]: He does not pass over.

[SPEAKER_00]: He loves you, he chooses you for blessing and for favor.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is why we read Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3 through 6 this.

Ephesians 1:3–6

[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 4, even as he chose us.

[SPEAKER_00]: in Him, in Christ, before the foundation of the world, before you cleaned up your life, before you perfected your spiritual disciplines.

[SPEAKER_00]: Before you became the best version of you, he chose you, he loved you, he saw you, in love,

[SPEAKER_00]: He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us in the beloved.

[SPEAKER_00]: Recording to the purpose of His will to receive blessing in Christ, again, all of those who placed the faith in Christ, the chosen one of God, what is revealed as true about them is they have been seen and loved and chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: He sees you, but more than that, he has always seen you, always.

[SPEAKER_00]: You may never have been chosen for the special thing, and you may have been rejected by someone that you love.

[SPEAKER_00]: but God sees you, and he places his favor upon you, and he has chosen you, chosen you to be citizen of heaven, chosen you to be a child of God, chosen you to be a son or daughter of the king, that is what it means, and only the Christ can make that choice.

[SPEAKER_00]: Going back to what I said at the top, a nointing means a pointing.

[SPEAKER_00]: It means to be chosen to be marked for God for a particular purpose.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what Jesus says in John 15.

[SPEAKER_00]: You did not choose me, but I chose you, and I appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should buy so that whatever you ask a father in my name, he may give it to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now I don't know if you have watched the show called the chosen anybody.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's pretty popular.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is what the title of the show is about.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you've ever wondered, that's kind of a weird name for a show, the chosen, chosen for what.

[SPEAKER_00]: The show could be called the elect.

[SPEAKER_00]: The show could be called the anointed.

[SPEAKER_00]: The show could be called the appointed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like any of those words, the show is not about hardworking, righteous people choosing themselves for salvation and then working to make it true.

[SPEAKER_00]: The showrunner, the creator of the show said he wanted to make a show about the process of how Jesus chooses these unworthy people to be as disciples, men and women who everyone else would have looked over, who would have rejected.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you watch a show, there are a lot of creative liberties because it's a TV show, read the Bible.

[SPEAKER_00]: But

[SPEAKER_00]: But one of the things that the show gets totally right is when you watch a show, you really get a sense like, man, these guys are kind of knuckleheads, like, you know, like, this is not the 18, you know, and Jesus loves them and he's patient with them and he places his favor on them and he says, you are beloved, I'm making you into something.

[SPEAKER_00]: The show is about Jesus how Jesus has anointed and appointed people for himself to be rescued, to be ransomed, to be transformed.

[SPEAKER_00]: that the ones that no one would ever call wanted, he says, you are beloved.

[SPEAKER_00]: I wanna end with something.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm really, I hope that, you know, you learned some cool facts about the Greek and Hebrew words and stuff like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: The purpose of this is ultimately, I want to make a double connection, a sermon by itself cannot fix your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul said, the kingdom of God does not consist in talk, but in power.

[SPEAKER_00]: to both Christ, to make a vertical connection, and also to connect you to God's people.

[SPEAKER_00]: I urge you, if you're in a home group, to share your burden, your struggle with your home group.

[SPEAKER_00]: Come to recovery on Wednesday night, if you're not in a home group.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're here, you don't know anyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Come down front, I urge you, come, pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let us pray for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Connect with the people of God at this church so that we can love you and know you better, so we can love you better.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is part of, if you go back to these scripture references again, I urge you to look at them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And look at what always follows the annoying and the appointing.

[SPEAKER_00]: marked to be like Jesus, that's essentially again and again and again, to bear fruit in keeping with your calling.

[SPEAKER_00]: Second Corinthians 1, 20, 32 that I know read at the top says this, for all the promises of God find their yes in Him in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is why through Him that we utter our amen to God for His glory.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And who has put also His seal on us and given us His spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

[SPEAKER_00]: The promise of Christ, the anointed one, is that He comes to anoint others with His anointing.

[SPEAKER_00]: that the chosen one of God comes to gather his chosen people to love them, not because they are worthy, but because he's worthy.

[SPEAKER_00]: My prayer for you is that God would make all his promises, yes to you, as you place your faith, as you place your trust in Christ, the trust worthy, the chosen.

[SPEAKER_00]: that you would find yourself to be chosen, to be unhointed, to be appointed, to be wanted and seen, loved, that you would feel what is true for God's people, that we are established, that we are sealed, that we are guaranteed God's loving, God's favor.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now what this does not mean is that life suddenly gets easy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: All the promises of God find there, yes in Him does not mean that tomorrow you're gonna scratch off a ticket and win a million dollars, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: What we learn about this time in the Advent is that our path follows Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus who lived and who died and who rose again.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that promise will be made true for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: All those promises.

[SPEAKER_00]: that the people yearn for, the people who walked in great darkness, they finally saw a light, and that light is Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I pray that you would find yourself in Christ, find those promises come to fruition in your life, that you know that you would held by Him, seals forever, that you are bought with a price, you are not your own, no one can steal you out of his hand.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, we thank you for your faithfulness.

[SPEAKER_00]: We thank you for the Christ of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or that before we even cried out to you, Lord, you saw us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like you said, to Nathaniel, I saw you at the tree.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or you see us and you love us and you want us, God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, I pray for those who are struggling.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those who feel alone overlooked rejected.

[SPEAKER_00]: God, that they would know

[SPEAKER_00]: that you love them, that you set your favor on them, whether you call them to yourself, whether they would place their faith more deeply in you, but I pray that for myself, God, I believe, help my unbelief, or that I would grow in faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I pray for every person here, who can hear the sound of my voice that that we would place our faith in you again, and again, and again, and find you faithful.

[SPEAKER_00]: What helps me a church that practices the way of Jesus, that loves our neighbor, that strengthens and shares our burdens with each other, got to help us to care for each other practically and physically and emotionally, spiritually.

[SPEAKER_00]: Got to help us to be a church that act as citizens of heaven where that you receive all the glory and that we receive great joy.

[SPEAKER_00]: I pray all these things in the matchless name of Jesus Christ.