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[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. It's a Sunday Drive to church podcast for the fourth Sunday in Advent, December 21, the year of our Lord 2025.
[00:00:10] Last Sunday in Advent, the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth. We're just on the edge of celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we'll hear about that. Hints of the fact that we're just on the edge of Christmas. Just on the cusp of the celebration today.
[00:00:30] Let's start with the prayer.
[00:00:32] Stir up your power, O Lord, and come and help us by your might that the sins which weigh us down may be quickly lifted by your grace and mercy. For you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
[00:00:47] Amen.
[00:00:49] That's our last stir up prayer for.
[00:00:53] For Advent praying here that the oh boys are giving me a warning. Discard my record. No. Huh? Yeah. Let's just keep recording. Doing okay so far.
[00:01:09] The last of these great Advent colics. Asking the Lord to.
[00:01:13] Well, this idea stir up. It's like.
[00:01:17] It's like wake up or wind up or get going kind of prayers.
[00:01:24] It's that the Lord would stop resting and start working. So many of the prayers in the Old Testament are like that, Lord. Remember way back when you were doing all these miracles to rescue and save? Remember when you brought us out of Egypt? Well, we need that kind of thing again. Remember when you gave the wallop to old Pharaoh? Well, we need your walloping to happen again now we need your help.
[00:01:51] This is that kind of prayer. Stir up your power, O Lord, and come and help us by your might.
[00:01:56] That might, I think by the way, is connected to the gospel lesson where Mary sings the Magnificat and she says he has shown strength with his arm.
[00:02:11] So the Lord's might is being revealed in his saving weakness. But. But before we get there, the psalm is Psalm 111. It's a beautiful psalm. I was looking at it earlier.
[00:02:26] Praise the lord. We have 10 verses of this psalm and I forgot, like last week's psalm, this week's psalm. I forgot how much is packed in here. Praise the Lord.
[00:02:39] I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart in. In the company of the upright in the congregation. Great are the works of the Lord and studied by all who delight in them.
[00:02:52] This is one of the verses that I have on my wall that's sitting in front of me at my desk.
[00:03:03] Great are the works of the Lord and studied by all those who delight in them.
[00:03:09] Now there's a. I don't know, there's a bunch of stuff in that verse. But number one, it should remind us that every single one of us is a theologian.
[00:03:20] That we are those who study the works of God.
[00:03:25] That's what it means to be a Christian.
[00:03:29] We are people who delight in God and His works.
[00:03:36] And our delight causes us to chase after them, to look into them, to stare at them, to marvel at them, to wonder at them.
[00:03:48] Those works that cause us such delight are most especially his saving work when he rescues and delivers and blesses and shows mercy.
[00:03:59] And most especially the saving work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:04:04] So that.
[00:04:05] So that we are those who study the works of the Lord.
[00:04:12] Full of splendor and majesty is his work.
[00:04:15] His righteousness endures forever.
[00:04:17] Ah, that's beautiful. That's the olam. That's the forever that's there.
[00:04:22] This Hebrew idea olam is that there's this expansiveness, geographic expansiveness. The whole world belongs to him. Chronological expansiveness. Time, it belongs to him. Everlastingness.
[00:04:37] This is this olam. His righteousness endures olam.
[00:04:42] It just stretches everywhere at all times.
[00:04:45] It's a filling thing.
[00:04:47] He caused his wondrous works to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and merciful. He provides food for those who fear Him.
[00:04:55] This comes up also, this fearing the Lord in the magnificent verse 50. His mercy is for those who fear Him.
[00:05:05] He provides food for those who fear him.
[00:05:11] Remember that it's the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
[00:05:16] And remember, the fear of the Lord is this exclusive fear.
[00:05:20] So one of the ways that the fear of the Lord works is that when we fear the Lord, it means we don't fear anything else.
[00:05:26] Death, no. Sin? No. Devil? No. The world? No. People? No.
[00:05:33] We're not afraid of any of these things. Shame? No. Poverty? No. Sickness? No.
[00:05:38] Whatever. We're not afraid of those things. We're afraid of the Lord. And then when we give our fear to the Lord, he says, don't fear. I'm nothing to be afraid of.
[00:05:50] He has shown his people the power of his works in giving them the inheritance of the nations.
[00:05:55] Both in his exodus work and also in his back from exile work when he brought the people out of Babylon.
[00:06:06] The works of his hands are faithful and just. All his precepts are trustworthy. They are established forever and ever. This is the word of the Lord enduring forever.
[00:06:16] He sent redemption to his people. He's commanded his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
[00:06:24] All those who practice it have good understanding. His praise endures forever.
[00:06:29] Now, we know that verse from Proverbs. It comes up twice in Proverbs. I think it's Proverbs 1 and Proverbs 9.
[00:06:37] But here it is first in Psalm 111.
[00:06:43] I think this psalm is a psalm of David. Have to.
[00:06:47] We don't know.
[00:06:50] He didn't, he didn't claim it if he did. But I think this psalm, this shows up first here. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And then the book of Proverbs becomes a, a riff on that theme.
[00:07:02] A meditation on the wisdom that grows out of the fear of the Lord.
[00:07:08] So great.
[00:07:10] Okay, a few words on the readings. The first is Deuteronomy 18, 15, 19.
[00:07:16] Fifth book of Moses. Remembering that Deuteronomy was preached 1406, when the people were just getting ready to cross over the Jordan river. And Moses can't go in, so he's going to preach. And that preaching is necessary because remember, all of the people who were originally there at Mount Sinai died in the wilderness for 40 years. They were all dying. And now it's the next generation and they're getting ready to go in. So Moses is preaching the law to them so that this next second generation can hear it and believe.
[00:07:51] Reminds us that wisdom has to be born in every generation. The word of the Lord has to come to each generation. And here's something I was thinking about last week, looking at all the kids up on the stage for the children's program is that here is this next generation that these kids are going to be the ones who are going to be the.
[00:08:13] That are going to be raising kids in the church, having their own kids in church. They are going to be the next generation of preachers and elders and trustees and people serving on volunteer committees and keeping the church going.
[00:08:28] And they're going to be telling their kids. I remember when I stood on this stage and did the Christmas program.
[00:08:35] It's marvelous to think about that generation to generation. The Lord makes his works known and Deuteronomy is a confirmation of that. Now, this verse, Deuteronomy 18, 15, 18 is going to repeat a really specific promise.
[00:08:57] And it really sticks out. If you just sit down and start reading your Bible and you're reading through the book of Genesis, you get all of these promises of the coming Messiah. I mean, Genesis 3:15, the first gospel. I'm going to put enmity between you and the woman and your seed and her seed. And then the promise when God calls Abraham.
[00:09:22] I mean, you have these big events, Cain and Abel and Noah And Babel. And then God calls Abraham and he promises your seed that will bless the nations. In fact, almost every time the Lord comes to Abraham, he comes with a version of that promise, reminding him of it. And then that promise goes to Isaac, and then that promise goes to Jacob a couple of critical times. And then that promise is prophesied to Judah. The scepter will not depart from Judah until the Messiah, the king shall come.
[00:09:53] Genesis chapter 50.
[00:09:56] So you have all of these promises of the coming Messiah and then you get to Exodus and there's no promises.
[00:10:04] In fact, I think Exodus chapter one, all the way through the book of Exodus, all the way through the book of Leviticus, all the way through the book of Numbers, all the way to numbers, chapter 18, verse 14.
[00:10:17] That's a lot.
[00:10:20] And there's no messianic promises. The only exception is the prophet Balaam. Remember the guy who donkey talked to him? The guy who was hired by the wicked king Balak to curse Israel but he couldn't do it. Weird, he didn't believe, but he had some connection where God would in fact tell him what he could say. Even though he was a pagan. He's the one who ends up plotting to get the Israelites to go and worship BAAL at Peor by putting the Moabite women on the kind of as they were passing by and the Israelite men were marrying them and then going and worship BAAL and the whole big disaster. Well, he prophesies the star arising and he speaks of the coming Messiah.
[00:11:07] He's the only one. And it's kind of weird because he, again, he doesn't even believe.
[00:11:13] That's the only exception.
[00:11:15] And so when you get to this verse 15, we are again, someone can correct me, but I think we're looking at the only direct Messianic prophecy that the Lord gives through Moses and it just jumps off the page. I remember at some point a few years back, I just, I was trying to read through the Bible as fast as I could in the like 20 days or whatever. So I would read big chunks, big Leviticus, Exodus or Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, like in one sitting. And I remember at this jumped off the page like, oh, there's a promise of the Messiah. We hadn't seen one of those in a lot. We hadn't seen one of those since Genesis chapter 50.
[00:12:00] And it's not like Moses doesn't know about these promises because the, the Lord wrote Genesis through Moses, so he knows about how these promises go.
[00:12:14] He was mostly building a picture of heavenly Worship and the work of Christ and instituting it by the sacrifices.
[00:12:26] So Christ is in the Old Testament by promise and picture, and he's just there by presence, those three ways. And it was Moses work to build the picture through the worship that the Passover and the daily sacrifices and the Lamb of the Day of Atonement and the priesthood that was all picturing Christ. Okay. Anyway, then shows up. Verse 15. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers. It's to him you shall listen, just as you desired, the Lord your God. At Horeb, on the day of the assembly, when you said, let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, or see this great fire anymore, lest I die, the Lord said to me, they are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers.
[00:13:13] And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.
[00:13:25] So.
[00:13:27] So Moses goes back 39 years, and he says, Remember when we came to Mount Sinai and the Lord was booming the Ten Commandments from the burning mountain? And you all said, whoa, Moses, you go talk to the Lord. We don't want to. This is too much for us.
[00:13:45] Well, when you guys said that, the Lord spoke to me. And you know what he said? He said, the people are right.
[00:13:51] The people are right to back away, to look away. It's too much. They can't handle it.
[00:13:57] But I will raise up a prophet, and that prophet will be like you, Moses, and the people will listen to him.
[00:14:07] In other words, it's okay that they turn away from the booming voice of Mount Sinai, but they better not turn away from this prophet.
[00:14:16] And when.
[00:14:17] When Jesus is being well, at the transfiguration of Jesus, when the God the Father speaks from heaven, he quotes these words, this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased.
[00:14:29] Listen to him.
[00:14:31] Don't turn away.
[00:14:33] It was fine at the mountain. It was fine when it was the law.
[00:14:37] It was fine for the people to ask for Moses, but you don't get another chance. Jesus is on the way, and we listen to him.
[00:14:47] It's beautiful. It's amazing. Promise. Amazing text.
[00:14:50] Then we get to the Epistle, which is another amazing text.
[00:14:54] The end of Philippians. Well, not the very end, but pretty close. Now, remember, Paul in. He's not in Philippi. He's in Rome. He's in prison. This is one of the prison epistles.
[00:15:04] He was arrested and.
[00:15:07] Well, I suppose he was arrested in Jerusalem, captured in Jerusalem. He spent a few years in jail in Caesarea Philippi.
[00:15:16] He shipped prison ship over to Rome, shipwrecked in the meantime, but ends up making it to Rome. And he's in house arrest in Rome and he's writing to the Philippians.
[00:15:26] And if there's any time where we could excuse Paul for not being too happy, this is it. But listen to what he says. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice.
[00:15:41] There's a persistent joy in the midst of affliction, almost as if the presence of affliction is what awakens Paul's joy.
[00:15:56] I heard something about that this week. What if I can remember it?
[00:16:01] The Christian joy is not the absence of struggle, but in fact deepens and grows in the presence of affliction.
[00:16:15] That's why when Jesus says, blessed are you, when you are reviled and persecuted, and people say evil against you, rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.
[00:16:28] Or Paul In Romans 5, I rejoice in my tribulation. Or James Chapter 1, consider it all joy.
[00:16:37] All joy. Consider it all joy. What a crazy thing to consider. Trouble is that, you know, it's one of these things where you wouldn't believe it unless it's written down.
[00:16:47] I try to remember this verse, but always Forget James Chapter 1. It's right out of the box. I mean, James chapter one, verse two.
[00:16:54] He doesn't mess around.
[00:16:56] He's not killing time waiting to get there.
[00:16:59] My brethren, count it all joy.
[00:17:03] When you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing your faith produces patience.
[00:17:10] Let patience have its perfect work.
[00:17:13] It's like, that's an amazing verse.
[00:17:17] So that it's not. We're not just enduring suffering, but rejoicing through it, but almost as if the presence of affliction is reminding us that we're joyful.
[00:17:29] And then let your reasonableness be known to everyone. Okay, The Lord's at hand.
[00:17:35] So that the promise of the Second Coming is another cause for joy and reasonableness.
[00:17:40] Oh, that's interesting.
[00:17:42] I'd forgotten about this.
[00:17:45] A lot of times. The idea that the Lord is coming back makes people kind of go crazy.
[00:17:50] So you all know people who are so excited and convinced that the Lord is coming back any moment because of the signs of the times, and we should be among them. We should be expecting the Lord's return any moment now, because that's what Jesus teaches us. To be ready any moment. But you know those folks that are looking for all these different signs being fulfilled, these prophecies being fulfilled, and for that reason they're excited that the Lord is is coming back. It seems like the Lord being at hand does not lead to reasonableness and joy.
[00:18:25] In fact, a lot of times it leads to distress and anxiety.
[00:18:31] So knowing that the Lord is at hand, we should double down on reasonableness and joy.
[00:18:40] That's the result.
[00:18:43] And then the Bible's prescription for what to do about anxiety.
[00:18:49] Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.
[00:18:59] And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
[00:19:08] So that we're the opposite of anxiety and is prayer and supplication and thanksgiving.
[00:19:16] It's especially that thanksgiving that I think is the key kind of active ingredient in the Lord's anti anxiety prescription here. Because Thanksgiving, remember, takes our eyes off the future and puts it on the past. It takes our eyes off of the undone and looks at the things that are finished. It takes our eyes off ourself and looks at what God has done. And so thanksgiving to give thanks, we have to look back and recognize the goodness of what the Lord accomplished yesterday. And it reminds us that the Lord who did those things yesterday is the same today and he's going to do them today too. That the Lord is busy and active, that he's not sleeping, that he is stirred up, that he is working.
[00:20:02] It's Marvelous.
[00:20:04] Whoa, we're 20 minutes in. Better look at the Gospel. But this. So maybe especially at this time of holiday frenzy, this verse is going to be our grounding. Anxious for nothing prayer supplication, which is just asking for help. Supplication is a specific kind of prayer which is to ask for help for ourselves and others. So prayer that is supplication and thanksgiving. So we begin with thanks.
[00:20:36] And if, if you are not, if there's. If you think to yourself there's, there's something wrong, like I feel like there's something wrong with me, or there's something wrong with my mind, or there's something wrong with my heart, or there's something wrong with my schedule, or there's something wrong with my life, there's just something wrong, which is always something. But when we feel that, I think that's what anxiety is, that kind of fuzzy sort of buzz in the inside that's recognizing that there's something wrong, then that's the Holy Spirit reminding us to give thanks, to be thankful, and that thankfulness is a transformative thing. Giving thanks is a transformative act. It sets the Lord's peace to sit there like a guard duty, to walk back and forth in front of the heart, in front mind, and to keep anxiety out.
[00:21:35] You have to wait for the sermon to hear most of the gospel. But it's the visit of Mary and Elizabeth. In those days, Mary arose and went in haste to the hill country, a town in Judah. She entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. What's she doing over there? Well, probably she's. She's getting out of town because here she is pregnant and she's not married to Joseph.
[00:21:57] There's a lot of shame, especially in Israel.
[00:22:03] You know, it's interesting, the shame associated with being pregnant before you're married.
[00:22:09] It's stronger in places and others, not in others.
[00:22:15] It used to be stronger in our own culture. It's less so now.
[00:22:20] It's interesting the role that that shame plays.
[00:22:24] On the one hand, that it would press us towards chastity and say, hey, remember, before we're married, the Lord has called us to be chaste, sexually pure and decent lives. This is what the sixth commandment requires of all Christians and that there's some sort of cultural expectation that reflects that. On the other hand, that shame can lead to bad consequences where.
[00:22:50] Well, especially the worst is where the pregnancy is ended. Abortion, which ends the life of the child, is accomplished to keep the sin secret or to keep the shame covered.
[00:23:07] We want to be able to be ashamed of any sort of sinful activity, including any sort of intimacy outside the bonds of marriage.
[00:23:16] And we also want to be able to receive if the Lord gives children as a gift. Sometimes that's a tricky line to manage and walk, but that's the line we're trying to walk with the Lord's word. But we have to remember that especially this would have been shameful for Mary. In fact, it comes up later in John chapter 8, where the Pharisees are fighting with Jesus and he says, we know who our parents are. In other words, they found out that Jesus was born out of wedlock, these Pharisees.
[00:23:50] Anyway, Mary goes to visit Elizabeth and she receives him and they're both pregnant. And when Mary comes in, John the Baptist preaches his first sermon with his feet, Boop, boop, kicks. He's leaping for joy. And then this blessing from Elizabeth. How is it granted that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
[00:24:11] So the mother of My Lord.
[00:24:14] That's an amazing phrase.
[00:24:16] So that Elizabeth knows that Mary is pregnant and that the baby is the Lord.
[00:24:27] This is very close to the title that the church gives to Mary, the mother of God, which is shocking to the ears, but that's the point. And it's not saying anything about Mary. It's saying everything about Jesus.
[00:24:40] That Jesus, the man, Jesus, this Christ child is God in the flesh. So that the things we can speak of Jesus, we can speak of God.
[00:24:49] Jesus is born. God is born.
[00:24:53] Jesus has a birthday. God has a birthday.
[00:24:57] Jesus has a mother. God has a mother.
[00:25:02] It's amazing.
[00:25:04] We cannot say those things apart from the Incarnation, but because of the Incarnation we can speak of, for example, in Acts chapter 20, the blood of God, then the suffering of God, the death of God, the tomb of God, all of these things that we can speak of Christ, we can speak of God. And Mary hears this sermon from Elizabeth and she's amazed and she cries out, my soul magnifies the Lord.
[00:25:37] My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.
[00:25:40] Mary also needed a savior. This perfection business of Mary and the Immaculate Conception and all this stuff is. It's got to go. Because Mary's our sister.
[00:25:51] I mean she is so blessed to be the, the one who carries in her womb the, the Lord Jesus. But she is our sister, not, not our mother.
[00:26:04] The church is our mother.
[00:26:06] The Lord casts down and lifts up. That's the big theme of Mary's hymn. And that's what we'll talk about in the sermon. Okay. Hymn of the day, O Come, O come Emmanuel. This ancient hymn that we've been studying a lot in the midweek sermons. Vicar did a great job putting that together in the Christmas program.
[00:26:22] Last week was also glorious. It's all these seven promises from the Old Testament. O wisdom, O key of David, oh God with us. And put to put to this hymn showing us that God is on the way. Reminding us again that Jesus is there in the Old Testament presence. Promise, picture.
[00:26:40] And those promises are precious to us.
[00:26:44] All right, Bible class, we're going to look at back at the augsburg confession article 15 today. So that'll be great. And don't forget we got Christmas schedule this week. So Christmas Eve, 4 o' clock and 6:30.
[00:27:00] Family choir practicing today. Jonathan said people can jump in I think today double check, but jump in. That's singing at 4 o' clock on Wednesday afternoon. And then 6:30 the regular choir and that's it. Both candlelight services, both hymns and carols. And then most important, the celebration of our Lord's incarnation with the Lord's supper and preaching and sermon and everything on Christmas Day at 10 o'. Clock. That's Thursday, so make sure to put that on your calendar. That'll be really wonderful to gather with the Lord's people on Christmas. Okay, Drive safe. Sunday Drive to church podcast. God's Peace be with you. See you soon.