The Sunrise From on High

Good morning again. Today we will be looking at the end of the first chapter of Luke, beginning in verse 57, which is on page 856 of the Pew Bible in front of you. It's a natural place to be this morning because it's the Advent season. Advent is a season of waiting and expectation and preparation But we are waiting with expectation for something we know has already occurred and is fixed on the calendar, Christmas Day, when we remember that more than 2,000 years ago, God himself became flesh upon the earth in the form of a baby named Jesus. Advent comes from the Latin word for arrival or coming. And here on the other side of the cross and the resurrection, We are also waiting and expecting and preparing for Jesus's second coming. But as scripture clearly teaches, no one knows the day or the hour when that second advent is going to happen. Despite that truth, a great deal of energy, speculation, and theological gymnastics are devoted to trying to figure out exactly what we've been told we can't know. In our passage from Luke today, people have been waiting expectantly for hundreds of years for the coming of the Messiah. And they had no idea whether it would happen that day or during their lifetimes or long after they were dead. Many are wondering how much longer they'll have to wait. Indeed, many no doubt have given up hope and are no longer expecting God's promises to be fulfilled at all. Those following in the bulletin have been expecting Ben Bullard to preach today, but I'm not Ben. About a foot shorter for one thing, less skill and experience at preaching for another. In fact, I was expecting Ben to preach until about midday on Thursday. You don't always get what you're expecting. For very different reasons, neither Elizabeth nor Mary was expecting to be expecting. No one would expect an experienced priest like Zechariah to bungle his meeting with an angel while a young untrained girl would handle hers with faithful composure. No one expects the baby boy to be named John rather than Zechariah. In his old age, Zechariah had stopped expecting a God who could do the impossible. But from their womb, John was expecting the Lamb of God who is able to take away the sin of the world. Israel, in this time, is expecting an earthly king who can defeat human enemies. But instead, at this time, the world is blessed by the divine incarnation of the King of Kings, who defeats the forces of darkness and death, bringing eternal light and life. So what should they have been waiting for? In the words of O Little Town of Bethlehem, what are the hopes and the fears of all the years that are going to be fulfilled in Jesus? The people had been exiled to Babylon. Although after 70 years they had returned to the promised land led by Ezra and Nehemiah, the promised king in the line of David had not appeared. God's people continued to suffer. They continued to be ruled by foreigners. By the time of John's birth, they had been waiting for about 430 years since the time of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Malachi, about the same time they had been in Egypt awaiting the exodus. It was 430 years of silence. They had been waiting for the word of God, but the Old Testament had ended with Malachi. They had been waiting for a new prophet. There had been none since Malachi promised there would be a new Elijah. They had been waiting for God's promises to be fulfilled. They had been waiting for a king to redeem them from their continuing slavery. In both their prayers, Ezra and Nehemiah, even after having returned to the land, they say in no uncertain terms, for we are still slaves. They were very grateful that God brought them back into the land, but that wasn't the redemption that they had been promised. It wasn't the new exodus or the divine visitation of the Messiah. No, the announcement of those things actually didn't come until here, in our passage this morning, in Luke 1. Look at how Zechariah begins his prophecy in verse 68. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. Here, Zechariah announces the morning light of the sunrise from on high. It's a divine visitation, one which brings redemption and new life and the new and greater exodus for God's people. The silence is over. God is speaking. God is intervening in the world and bringing the preparer for Christ. And then he's bringing Christ himself. As the early chapters of Luke show us, all of this new intervention by God is initiated by the remarkable conceptions and births of two special children, the Messiah and his forerunner, Jesus and John the Baptist. Luke gives special attention to the chronicling of all sorts of details surrounding both of their births. I think that is to support what Luke says in chapter one, verse four, when he says that he composed this orderly account that you may have certainty concerning the things that you have been taught. You see, it would be amazing enough to record all that Jesus and John did in their adult lives, but isn't it all the more amazing to consider the remarkable circumstances of their births? The unbeliever can always say, there are other men who have done great things and changed the course of history in dramatic ways, and they all try to relativize Jesus in that way. But of course, no man, no matter how great, can change the circumstances of his own birth. So isn't it remarkable that the most remarkable man in history was born in the most remarkable way? And as we focus on today, that his forerunner was born under miraculous circumstances as well. Notice what jumps off the page as we read this account is that God is doing a great work, that God is visiting his people, that God is drawing near to work in remarkable ways to fulfill his plan. As Luke 1, 4 says, this adds certainty to the gospel message because we can see God's own hand at work. And right from the outset, notice that it does not matter that Israel has been unfaithful. It does not matter that they've broken the covenant. It does not matter that they have been cast into exile and that the Davidic dynasty is no more. It doesn't even matter that John's own father, Zechariah, was unbelieving, that he, as a priest going into the temple to burn incense on behalf of the whole nation, he couldn't even believe that God would give him a son. All that really matters is that God is faithful. He's the God who remembers the oath that he swore to the fathers, and every other obstacle only becomes an occasion for him to display the greatness of his power, the depths of his mercy, and the wisdom of his plan in bringing all of his purposes to pass. You see, the point of this passage today is God's faithfulness to bring salvation for a sinful people according to his promises and through his Messiah. If you want a one-sentence summary of the main point, that's it. God is faithful to bring salvation for his people through his Messiah and according to his word. God is faithful to bring salvation for his people through his Messiah and according to his word. We're going to see that today in three main points. First, John's role. Secondly, God's salvation. And finally, third, Jesus's identity. John's role, God's salvation, and Jesus's identity. First, John's role, verses 57 through 66. These verses record for us John's birth. Earlier in the chapter, we were introduced to Zechariah and Elizabeth as a godly older couple. Zechariah was a priest and held a high position, but their great shame and sorrow is that they were barren. But one day, Zechariah is selected by Lot to be the one to enter the temple and burn incense before the Lord. This would have been the most significant moment of his priestly career. At that moment, the angel Gabriel appears to him and declares that his prayer has been heard and he and Elizabeth will have a son, whom they are to name John, and he will be great before the Lord. But instead of believing Gabriel, Zechariah replies, how shall I know this? For I am an old man and my wife has advanced in years. He simply doesn't believe that God really can or will do what he has said. So Gabriel essentially says, here's how you'll know this. You'll be mute and unable to speak until these things take place. And when John finally comes out, all the other priests were waiting for him, he was mute, and he could only make signs to them. Well then, just as God said, Elizabeth conceives, and as verse 57 tells us, the time came for her to bear the child, and she brought forth a son, just as God had said. In verse 58 it tells us her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her and they rejoiced with her. This is a direct fulfillment of what Gabriel had said in verse 14. And it's hard for us to even imagine how socially significant it was for a barren woman, the wife of a priest, to bear a child, especially a son. This is a tremendously joyous occasion. And verse 59 says, and on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. Circumcision was always on the eighth day because that was explicitly commanded in Genesis 17, 12, when circumcision was first instituted with Abraham. But it also seems like this became the traditional time to name the child as well. Note in Luke 2, 21, Jesus was also both circumcised and named on the eighth day. A contemporary Jewish rabbi has said that they do this even till this day because when God instituted circumcision, that's also when he changed Abram's name to Abraham. However, what's important here is that the rest, what's important here is that the rest of the family is about to name the child Zechariah after his father, but Elizabeth stops them and says, no, he shall be called John. Now shockingly to us, they didn't seem to think it necessary to consult Elizabeth. But shockingly to them, Elizabeth proposes the name John, and no relative has that name. They're thinking, this barren couple whose great shame and sorrow of heart is that they have no one to carry on their name and represent their family identity, finally has a son. Why would they not name him Zechariah, or at least someone else from within the family? So they reply in verse 61, none of your relatives is called by this name. And in verse 62 it says they made signs to his father inquiring what he wanted him to be called. Now it's interesting that they made signs to John, even though John is mute, why didn't they just speak to him? Well, the word mute back in chapter one, verse 22 is a word that can also mean deaf. So it's possible that Zechariah was both mute and deaf during this time. In any case, in verse 63, he motions for a writing tablet and he writes out, his name is John. Not just I wanna call him John, not just you should call him John, his name is John. It's an unchangeable statement of fact that was given to him by the angel. With his speech, excuse me, with his last bit of silence, Zechariah has the faith that he did not have before. And he's gonna begin to speak as his mouth is opened. All those who were gathered wondered. They're thinking, what on earth could cause both Zechariah and Elizabeth to agree together to name their only son John? And if that wasn't amazing enough, at that very moment, verse 64 tells us, his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed and he spoke, blessing God. He went from questioning God to blessing God. He's seen the evidence that he needed, the evidence that he should not have needed because he had been told by the angel of God, but he does recognize the truth of what has happened, and he blesses God. They have seen a miracle take place before their very eyes, and the man who had last spoken words of disbelief nine months before now bursts forth in praise of God. Verse 65 tells us, and fear came on all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, what then will this child be? For the hand of the Lord was with him. They don't understand what's going on. They don't know who John is going to be. They don't know who he's going to be telling them about. They don't know that Jesus is going to be born in a few months from now in miraculous circumstances. But they do clearly recognize that the hand of God is in this. And they recognize that God has a special purpose for this child. So then what is the significance of John's name? Why does God name him, and why does Luke spend so many verses explaining this? Well, the name John means the Lord is gracious. The Hebrew is Yohanan, and in Greek, that's Yohannes. That's where the Germans and the others get names like Johan, and Ivan, and Jan, and Ian, and in English, it got collapsed down to John. but Yohanan in Hebrew. It's the same root word in Hebrew as Samuel's mother, Hannah. Grace. Yo or Yahweh, Hanan, grace. The Lord is gracious. The Lord has been silent for 400 years and now his grace is coming upon his people. I think the point is that John's role is not primarily to represent and identify with his own family, even though he's the only child of their old age. His role primarily is to identify with and represent God himself and the grace that is coming into the world. He is a special child for whom God has great things in store, and God has claimed him for himself even from his mother's womb. It is undoubtedly a great act of faith by Zechariah and Elizabeth to name him this. Something like Hannah pledging to give her son Samuel into the Lord's service even before his birth. Zechariah and Elizabeth are essentially doing the same thing by naming him John, just as God commanded. So John's role is to be set apart for God and to represent him in a special way. But his role is even made clearer than that if you look ahead to verses 76 and 77, where Zechariah says, and you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High. You will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins. This is a citation of Isaiah 40 which we read earlier as part of the offertory. And this is a point that Luke makes over and over again. Four separate times Luke quotes this passage. He quoted it in Luke 117 when the birth of John was announced. He quoted it in Luke 176 as we just heard. He quotes it again in Luke 3-4 when Luke describes the start of John the Baptist's ministry. And finally, in Luke 7, 27, he puts it in the very mouth of Jesus, who is talking about the great ministry of John when he says, this is he of whom it is written, behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you. So John is not called out for just any purpose or for any message. He is called out to be the one who will prepare the way before God's anointed, who will prepare the way for Jesus Christ. We have already heard back in Malachi 4 that the son of righteousness shall rise with healings in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. That's what happens to God's people. And at the same time, you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act, the Lord of hosts says. Malachi goes on to say, behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. So we've heard that Elijah is coming. We've heard that he's coming before the Lord comes in his great visitation. We hear it again from Isaiah 40. In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. And we know it's going to happen for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. So we see this idea that the Lord is coming and is going to lead his people out. There's going to be a voice from the wilderness proclaiming that God is coming to redeem his people. And we've already read that. John is going to spend the time before his ministry in the wilderness, and then he starts his ministry in the wilderness and people go out to him to hear what he has to say. Likewise, Elijah was similarly calling a wayward nation to repentance from the wilderness in hopes of renewed faithfulness. John basically finishes that work as the Messiah comes to bring about the new exodus. And it tells us here in this passage that John will bring the knowledge of salvation to his people and the forgiveness of their sin. And we see that coming later where John will be preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. So John is sent to be this great forerunner, to prepare the way for the Christ who is coming, to point to the Christ who is coming. Every time John is mentioned, he says, I must be less, and points to Jesus and says, he must increase. How does that apply to us today? Well, John has a unique role, but we too should be preparing the way for the Lord in a certain sense as we prepare for his second coming and his visitation at the end of time. As in 1 Peter 2.12, it says, keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. As Robert Murray McShane said, the Christian is a person who makes it easy for others to believe in God. What do you do to prepare the unbelievers around you for Jesus's second coming? Do you point others to Christ? Do you show yourself to be prepared in what you believe and how you act? Do you work to prepare others? Do you glorify God with your actions, making the gospel attractive to non-believers? Or do you damage the name of Christ by ignoring his commands and undermining what you say about the gospel with actions that indicate you don't really believe it? You are Christ's ambassador. here on this earth during the church age. And you're called to represent him in his fullness, in his knowledge, in his goodness, in his holiness. And in doing so, you point people to him and prepare the way for his coming again to judge the righteous and the unrighteous alike. The next two points in the sermon both come from the remaining verses, 67, through 80. They're both throughout the entire passage, but there are at least a couple of different focuses that we can have here. Last week, Keith preached through Mary's prayer in verses 46 through 55, and mentioned that it was known as the Magnificat, from the first word in Latin, magnifies. This prayer, or more accurately, prophecy of Zechariah, is known as the Benedictus, from its first word, blessed. Second point we're gonna look at today from this passage is God's salvation. We had John's role, now we're looking at God's salvation. As I've already mentioned, God has been silent for 430 years. but now he speaks. Something is wholly different. God is reaching into the world. We've seen this repeatedly here in this first chapter. Angels and the Holy Spirit are repeatedly speaking for God, providing the certainty of the truth of what is being spoken. We had angels visit Zechariah and Mary and give them directly the word of God. We had the Holy Spirit fill John from the womb, and he identifies through the Spirit Jesus in the womb, pointing with God's authority to who Jesus is. The Spirit is going to overshadow Mary and bring God's Son into the world, and now This Holy Spirit has filled Zechariah to bring God's prophecy. Starts out, blessed be the, excuse me, to fill God's prophecy. One thing I think is interesting, and I don't want to get into the weeds on the, doctrine of the inspiration of scripture. But both the prayer of Mary and this prophecy of Zechariah are very finely tuned literary devices. They're very careful, they're very deep, they're very well constructed. And I don't know about Mary and Zechariah, but my guess is that they couldn't write things like this on their own. The Holy Spirit is providing the words, as it tells us here in Scripture, that the Holy Spirit is filling them and providing these words with the certainty that it is the truth of God. Let's dig into this passage now. If you'll look at the insert on your bulletin at page nine, it looks something like this. You will see that these verses are organized, as I said, finely tuned as a literary device called a chiasm. The term chiasm derives from the Greek word for marked with the letter chi, what we would call an X. And you can see that sense of an X there in the presentation in your bulletin. It's a way to arrange ideas or words that are repeated in reverse order, similar to a rhyme structure like A, B, B, A. In this case, it's A all the way through G, and then G back to A. And in a chiasm, the main point is at the center. So we can see those words there along the left-hand side. Visitation, people, salvation, prophets, enemies, fathers, covenant, covenant, fathers, enemies, prophets, salvation, people, visitation. So what we can see here is the core is this holy covenant, this covenantal faithfulness that God has sworn to his people, that he will visit them, that he will bring them salvation from their enemies. and that he will fulfill the promises that he has given to their fathers, and that he has reaffirmed and clarified by the prophets in his word. God swore this. He swore to do these things, and the time for their fulfillment is finally here. The time for their fulfillment is finally here. And there will be much, much rejoicing. As we can see, looking through this, it starts with the visitation. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed. He is coming to visit his people in the very flesh as Jesus Christ the Son. And he's not just coming to visit, but he's coming to redeem his people. He is coming to call out his people from the slave slavery to sin and death and to save them. He's going to save them. He's going to raise up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant, David. Jesus, the descendant of David, the true king, has been sent for the salvation of his people. And this was promised by the mouth of the holy prophets from of old. It's been quiet for 400 years, but they promised 400 years ago. And there are many enemies that we are going to be saved from, and from the hand of those who hate us. He's going to protect us. We're not gonna have to worry about anything again with the salvation of the Lord. He's going to show us the mercy promised to our fathers. Again, this is a longstanding promise that goes back at least to Abraham, that he's going to remember his holy covenant that he established with Abraham. He's going to remember this covenant that was a sworn oath. And then we start the repetition to our father Abraham. to grant that we're going to be free from our enemies, that we being delivered from the hands of our enemies might serve him without fear. Our lives are gonna be different and transformed in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. We're gonna be changed by this visitation and our lives are gonna be different. We're not just gonna be speaking words and wondering what's gonna happen. We're gonna be transformed and regenerated and be enabled to be holy and righteous and imitate the Messiah that's being sent to us. And although the prophets haven't spoken for 430 years, now there will be a new prophet. You child, John the Baptist, you will be called the prophet of the most high. He's speaking again. For you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways. Why? To give knowledge of salvation. so that his people, God's people, the ones that he has called out, will receive forgiveness of their sins. And this visitation, which was announced in the first sentence of this prophecy, is returned to. And even with the glorious words of the Lord God of Israel visiting his people and providing redemption, somehow it's even sweeter. in this last verse because of the tender mercy of our God. Whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high. He loves us. He has tender compassion for us. He has not left us in our sin and our darkness, but he is going to be the light who comes and saves and gives us light. He's gonna come down from above. He's not gonna leave us. He's gonna come down and join us and dwell with us to give us light to those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death. to guide our feet into the way of peace. He's gonna come and change us and give us everything that we need in order to lead us into peace. This points to the new creation, to Jesus's everlasting kingdom of peace that is coming. It's coming in fulfillment of the promise that goes back to Genesis, to Abraham. specifically in Genesis 22, beginning in verse 16, where God speaks to Abraham and says, by myself, I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, speaking of Isaac, I will surely bless you. And I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies. and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. All the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. This powerful prophecy of Zechariah could be four or five sermons, and I'm only gonna be able to take two points out of it. The first of these was God's salvation. But how can we apply this to our lives? First of all, I think the unbelief of Zechariah that he had when he was approached by Gabriel in the temple is in great contrast to the way this song exudes hope and faith. He was once without faith and without hope, and now he has the greatest level of faith and hope, and he shares it with us, that God has come, that God's promises are being fulfilled. God's great faithfulness in fulfilling his promises for the first advent should provide hope and confidence for us as we depend on his promises for our salvation, as we depend on his promises for our sanctification, and at his promised second coming for our glorification. making us sinless and perfect and able to be in his presence forever. Just as God fulfilled the hope and promise he had given Abraham in the coming of the babe Jesus in the manger. So we too can trust God's promises for what he has for our lives and for our eternal life. Third point today also comes from verses 67 through 80, and that is on Jesus's identity. Jesus's identity. As in all things related to John the Baptist, it's all about pointing to Christ. And as we see in this final point, drawn from the same prophecy, it happens again here. Although the prophecy is about the child John the Baptist, and it does say that he will be the prophet of the Most High, the bulk of the prophecy is actually about what Jesus has come to do, to visit and redeem his people, to be a horn of salvation, to be the one spoken of by the holy prophets, to save his people from their enemies, to show the mercy, to remember the covenant, to deliver from the hand of enemies, to provide forgiveness of his people's sin, to show the tender mercy of God and the light that he brings from above. All those things are coming from Jesus, not from John. Even as he's blessing God for this son that he has been given, Zechariah is already focusing more on the other child, the son of David, the son of God. We have seen, multiply today, and it occurs in many other scriptures as well, that John the Baptist is a new Elijah, preparing for the way of the Lord. As Christians, we are so used to calling Jesus Lord that we don't see the full import here. We don't see the radical nature of this pronouncement to the Jewish people. In calling Jesus the Lord, In saying that the Lord of Isaiah 40 and the Lord of Malachi 3 and 4 is Jesus, Luke and John are saying that Jesus is the same as Yahweh, the Father, the Lord, the God of Israel, the Lord of the Old Testament. If you go back and look at your Bibles, you'll see that in those passages, the word Lord is done in small capital letters. That's the way most modern Bibles and even the King James identified the name of the Lord, Yahweh. Not simply a title, like Adonai, for the Lord, but his name, Yahweh. And the Lord whose way is being prepared is Yahweh. And now that Lord is identified as Jesus Christ. God Himself. Not just some other human king, not just somebody who happened to be descended from David in the flesh, but God Himself came down, took on flesh, to dwell with his people. It's particularly, God became flesh to live the sinful. God himself came in the flesh to live the sinless life we could not live, to die for sinners, and to call and redeem a people for himself. He is the son of righteousness. come to bring us light and life. Malachi 3 makes it clear that the messenger that is coming is God himself. Those of you who have a Pew Bible, you can turn to page 802. In Malachi 3, which we did not read earlier, in a prologue to the Malachi 4 passage we did read, it says, behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? And it goes on to describe the great judgment that will come when the Lord comes. And so the messenger, the one who is preparing the way before me, that messenger of the covenant He is going to be God himself. He is going to be the judge who's going to judge the righteous and the unrighteous alike. He's going to bring light and shine upon us as this great son of righteousness. He is going to give us He's going to fulfill the great promise to bring the people of God into the light. And as we can read in 1 Peter 2, Christ has indeed fulfilled this promise. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. This is not just some other man coming. This is the divine visitation of God. This is the incarnation. Jesus himself is revealed as God's glory who was promised. As Isaiah 40 verse five says again, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all the flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. And I don't have time to read the entire passage, but John in his gospel goes into great detail about it, particularly in chapter one, where he talks about Jesus coming as the God-man, coming as the light to save his people. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. And that is the good news of Jesus Christ's coming. Next week we will hear the story about how he was born and as his life begins, what he will do. But he is the promised son of righteousness. He is the promised light that we have been given. He is the promised Messiah. He is God himself. So how can we apply that to our lives? Well, first of all, I want to speak to the believers here. As I've already said, this should change you to your very core. What Christ has done for you, his coming, the salvation that he brings, calls you to be a member of his holy people, to come before him, and to seek Him and to prepare the way for Him to come, both in your own life and in how you reach out to others. You're reminded, as 1 Peter said, that you're a chosen race. You are special and called out. You're a royal priesthood. God, who is the King of kings, has made you part of His royalty and given you the role as priests to minister before Him. He's made you a holy nation that you might live pure, that you might follow His commands. He's made you a people for His own possession. He owns you and you should live like you know that. And it tells us that we ought to be proclaiming His excellencies. We ought to be sharing the good news of Jesus Christ to everyone so they too might know the good news. And as to that, that group, those who don't know, the unbelievers who are out there this morning, that I speak finally. How are you going to respond to the word you've heard today? It's a crazy story. God become man to save a sinful people for himself, but he promised he was going to do it, and he fulfills his promise, and his word is certain. Will you trust Him? Will you trust what Jesus has done for you and call Him Lord and Savior? I pray that you will. I pray that you will set aside your own human failings and admit that it is only through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross and his resurrection that you can be saved. And if you have any questions about that, I encourage you to speak to any of those around you today who will be able to tell you more and provide you discipleship. May we all believe in the greatness of the Savior that is coming. John the Baptist was sent to let us know that he was coming. And we've been sent out into the world to tell others that he is coming again. And we need to be faithful. We need to be filled with the love and spirit so that we might be empowered to do all that we have been called to do. Let us pray.