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Well, good morning. Mountainside. I'm super ecstatic to stand up in front of people and talk this morning, so I wanted to give a little story to start off with about my ability to speak in front of people. So I went to Wilkes community college for a couple years before I transferred to Lenoir rhyme. And if you've been to school, if you've been to college, you know that you're going to have to eventually talk in front of class. For me, you have to get you had to give a you had to take a public speaking class. So Wilkes community college, I took a public speaking class, and the requirements you had to give five public speeches, and the average of those grades would be your your score for the class, right? So I had a teacher, Brenda Moore. She was also my English professor, and somehow I took a class with five speeches, and I never gave one, and I made a C so I'm really good at avoiding this type of thing. I made a deal with her. I always had a baseball game come up or some kind of reason not to be in class the day I was supposed to speak. So I made a deal with her. She liked me. She said she'd give me a C as long as the next semester I came back and gave my speeches in front of a different class. She gave me the C I passed. I didn't come back. She never, she never went back and changed it to an F or did not qualify. So I passed this class at Wilkes Community College. I transferred to Lenore Ryan, and the only class that didn't transfer of all my classes was public speaking. So Lenore Ryan, I got to give I got to take a public speaking class. And this time the requirements six speeches and the average is going to be your your grade for the year. Somehow I navigated through this class, and I gave only the first speech, which was a three minute talk on any topic you wanted to and it was supposed to lead up, you know, getting you used to speaking in front of people. So I gave one out of 11 past two years of public speaking. So here we are. So without further ado, Julie is going to come talk today.

Yeah, this, this is, this is to get the seed to stay from 20 years ago. So last several weeks, we've been talking about Daniel. We've been talking about the Son of Man. So we've been, we went through all of Daniel, but we stopped for the last several weeks and been talking about Daniel 713, through 14, and the reference to the Son of Man, so I'm just going to read it real quick. I saw in the night visions. And behold, the clouds of heaven came one like the Son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting, an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. Daniel 713, through 14. And this is a vision that Daniel had. Daniel was a prophet in the Old Testament. So people in Jesus's day would have understood the Son of Man, was God coming to fulfill this and to take rain and to have dominion over the earth. And so we see in the New Testament that Jesus referred to himself over 80 times as the Son of Man, and it was his way of proclaiming that He was God in the flesh, and letting people know that that's who he was. So Jesus came with a specific mission, and that's what I want to speak about today. Jesus's mission, the mission is, what is a mission? A specific. Task with which a person or group is charged. And Jesus came focused with a certain mission. When he was here on earth, he was born to come and do a certain thing. That's what we're going to talk about today. Luke, 1910, Jesus is speaking to Zach is and he says, For the Son of Man, has come to seek and to save the lost. And I believe this was part of his mission on earth was to seek and save the loss. He's speaking to Zach heeus. And Zach EUs was known as a chief tax collector, and at this time, he was having dinner with Zach heeus, and everybody was appalled that he was spending time with the worst of the worst, if you will. Tax collectors were considered bad people and thieves, and they stole some of the tax money and stuff like that. But Jesus was spending time with the lost. He was trying to seek and save the lost. I think there's three aspects to Jesus's mission. The first is Jesus reveals to us the heart of the Father, the way he lives shows us what God feels about us, what God feels about me, what God feels about you, the way he showed his love for other people, the way he performed miracles, the way he cured diseases. All this was God's love pouring out on his people and showing them, you know, God's heart for us. Several months ago, me and Julie went to Pennsylvania for a conference, and leading up to it, our small group, a couple of us, have been talking and praying about God's eyes for people around us, and what it would be like if we could see what God saw when he saw certain people, like if we went to a drive through, what does God see? Not what is what does Josh see with his eyes and his mind? But what does God see? What is God's heart? So we've been talking about that and praying about that. And this particular morning, me and Julie were in Pennsylvania, I got up, and I've been walking in the mornings, and about six o'clock in the morning, just listening to worship music and spending time with God. And I got up and I was walking, had music on. I was just kind of praying. And I was I was praying this. I was saying, God, you know, would you show me your eyes for people like, kind of take away my eyes and give me your eyes, show me your heart for people around me. And I've been praying that off and on over a couple weeks, but this particular morning, God flipped a switch, and it was just like and it just floored me, like I had this overwhelming feeling of love. And the only thing I can describe it as is like the love you have for your kid. If you have kids, you know how much you love your kids, like just an infinite amount of love? Well, it was that times 800,000 It was unbelievable, and it was overwhelming. And I just started crying like the biggest baby you've ever seen. I'm sitting there at six o'clock in the morning, and I was crying and I was laughing. I was like, filled with joy and all this love. So imagine like you're in a car, and you pull up to this little Main Street in this little town, and you're turning left and you see me sitting on a little four foot wall out in front of, like a lawyer's office on a main street, and I'm just sitting there and like, snots everywhere, tears and T shirts, shorts, my hats on backwards, and I'm just and I'm laughing at the same time. You'd think I was crazy, but that's what God's love is for us. It's crazy like it's just, it's overwhelming. So that's just a personal story of what God's love is for us and for those around us. We obviously see many stories in the Bible where Jesus shows us God's love for us and for others. Anytime he cured people, he would sit with people that you wouldn't think he would sit with. He would spend time with them. He would love on them. He would care for. My favorite story is Matthew eight, where Jesus cleanses the leper, and I'm just going to read Matthew eight one through three. It's like such a simple little story, and it's so complex, and it shows so much about God's nature that it's just like this little story blows my mind so Matthew, eight, one, when he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed Him. And behold a leper. A leper came to Him and knelt before him, saying, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. And Jesus stretched out his hands and touched him, saying, I will be clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And if we, if we know anything about leprosy and being a leper, back in those days, they weren't allowed to be in the vicinity of people. You couldn't walk up and have dinner with nobody. You couldn't shake hands with anybody. You couldn't even be in town that. Why Jesus was out in the mountains. They say he was coming down from the mountain, and that's where he meets the leper. The leper is not allowed to be in cities. If the leper was coming and he saw people, he had to start screaming, Unclean, unclean. And that was to tell everybody to get away from him. So I don't know how long the leper had leprosy. I can imagine it was several months, maybe years, that he had to walk around and by himself, and I can imagine how depressed or anxious he would be by never being around people and never being touched. There's all kinds of medical evidence of what a touch does and the hormones it releases that help with anxiety, that help with stress, that help feelings of love for each other and develop relationships and stuff like that. And the leper hadn't had that in a long time. So to me, verse three, Jesus stretched out his hands and touched him, saying, I will be clean. He doesn't like just immediately cleanse the leper. The leper thinks he's wanting to be cleansed. I think really what the leper needed and wanted, and what God saw was that he wanted to be touched. And God knows that, like God knows our heart, and he does the thing that we need more than the thing that we think we want, or whatever. And I think, I think if you were to ask the leper like deep down, would you a like to either be touched and never be cured of leprosy? Or would you like to be cured of leprosy and never be touched again? I think the leper would take being touched like and I think God saw that. He just reached out and he touched him, and it's just like God seeing our heart and just knowing us and loving us so much that he knows what we need before we know what we need.

Another one, John, 316, obviously famous verse For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. This is going to lead into our second part, that Jesus came to restore our relationship with God. Um, he sent his Son to die for us to live the perfect life so that we can be in His presence. Genesis two, we see the first sin and the separation that it created between man and God. And the only way to cure that was going to be a perfect sacrifice. It was going to be Jesus, living a perfect life, living all the laws, fulfilling all them, and then dying on the cross and being raised from the dead is the only way to close that gap between us and God by dying on the cross, Jesus bore the penalty for our sins and made a way for us to be reconciled with God.

Mark 1045, For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom. For many we see here that he was set about doing his mission from the get go the whole time he had it in his mind. Jesus knew that He was going to die on the cross like his whole life was heading towards this point, and he was focused on it. He was focused on getting us back to him. God wanted to have a relationship with us. He loves us so much that this is what had to happen. And through His resurrection, Jesus made it possible for every everyone to experience eternal life. He did this just like he's sitting with Zacchaeus, who was considered the worst of the worst. He didn't do it for the best of the best, or people that are just good and had good morals. He did it for everybody. And this resurrect, this restoration wasn't just about to get us into heaven. Heaven is is a byproduct of being restored and in a relationship with God, it's to be in His presence and to be able to commune with God again. And then, as a byproduct, we get everlasting life. We get to go to heaven and live forever. The third point of Jesus's mission was to give us an example of how to live. Jesus came down. He was God. He became man, and he went through this life that we're living, and he showed us how we should live it. He gave us an example to go by John 1314, through 15. So if you, Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet, for I have given you an example that you also should do, as I have done for you. So his whole life, the way he lived, the way he treated. People was for us to be able to watch and kind of process and then do that ourselves, to love on people the way he did, to speak the way he speak with kindness and gentleness, to seek and to save the lost, to find the people that are away from God and to tell him about God, we should be the light, you know, drawing them to God, He tells us very clearly that we're to follow his example and live the way that he did, in order that others might be saved. In our small group, we talked about, we did a study several months ago, and in the study, it talked about being disciples of Jesus, and the disciples of Jesus how they you wanted to have the dust of your rabbi on you, so you wanted to follow your rabbi so closely that your your clothes had his dust on him on you, and you lived the way he lived, like you would begin to talk The way your rabbi talked, you would begin to act the way your rabbi acted. We, as mountain sides, should strive to live so closely to JESUS and FOLLOW JESUS so closely that we begin to look like Jesus. We begin to talk like Jesus. We begin to act like Jesus and people around us, they don't see us. They see Jesus's dust on us. Which is, which would be awesome, right? Like so they approach us and go, what you got all over you, you know? And this is, this is Jesus, you know. This is, this is how Jesus is acts. This is how Jesus acts. This is how Jesus is patient. He loves, he's kind, he's gentle, and they should see that on us. So the Son of Man came with a clear mission. He came to reveal God's heart, show us exactly how God feels for us, how much God loves us. He came to restore our relationship with Him. He came to bridge the gap so we can be in the presence of God, so that we can interact with him, that we get everlasting life, that we get to be in heaven. He came to seek and save the lost, and he came to live, an example for us to follow, for us to see, an example. He gives us a full, you know, video his whole life is a video for us to watch, to consume, to get to get to know and to get to like, follow and lead out ourselves. My challenge for mountainside is for us to love others the same way for us to have Jesus's dust on us, that we go out and we treat everybody we see, whether it's people on the drive thru, or people that we already love, people that we work with, or if it's people that have offended us in some way, that we somehow treat them the way Jesus treated everybody around him, that they begin to get drawn to God because of the way we live, the dust on us, how we follow Jesus so closely that they are drawn to God and that we somehow draw In the lost so that they can be in a relationship with God as well. Let His purpose become our purpose. Show others God's love for them. Tell them stories of how God loves you. Tell them stories of how God has shown his love for you, or how he's shown his love for others. Live the example that he left for us. Be kind, be gentle, be patient, be loving, seek and save the lost. We have to spend time with people that are lost. We have to spend time outside of our group. I mean, we're all great friends. We have a great church, and most of us are all saved, and we all are heading in that direction, but we have to reach out and be around people that are not saved. We have to seek and save the lost. We have to be around them. We have to form relationships with them. We can't just like be around them a little bit. We have to be intentional and form relationships with them so that they get to see this life that Jesus led, the example that Jesus led. Yeah, we have to, we have to get out there and and live what he said. As a result of Jesus's mission on earth, our sins are now forgiven. We're able to be in God's presence when God looks at us, he sees Jesus's righteousness. If we if we've been saved, if we've asked God to forgive us, and we've repented our sins, God looks at us. He doesn't see all the stuff that we did. He sees Jesus perfect life. Yeah, that's all he sees. It's, it's a impact. Possible thing for me to grasp sometimes, and you have to kind of reaffirm those things, the the things that Jesus sees. We have to, we have to accept those and believe them ourselves. It's by faith that we understand what Jesus sees when he sees us, and not kind of fall back into, Oh, I did this, you know, several years ago, or whatever we have to go, Jesus sees, I mean, God sees Jesus. So I got a couple verses. I know this is a little little quick, but Brianna, if you want to play the guitar a little bit, I'm going to read a couple verses that just kind of reinforce God's love for us and what he actually sees Now, if you're saved, and what he sees for people that he loves. And just want you to kind of sit back and relax and maybe close your eyes and soak in the truth that's in the Bible,

Psalms, 103, 10 through 12 is not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are by the earth, so great is His faithful love toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far as he removed our transgressions from us. Second, Corinthians, 318, we all with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory. This is from the Lord who is the spirit Hebrews 1010, by this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once and for all time. Hebrews 1022, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. First, Peter 224, through 25 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that having died to sin, we might live for righteousness by his wounds, you have been healed, for you were like sheep going astray, but you have now returned to the Shepherd and overseer of your souls. Romans, 810, now, if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. Romans, eight One, therefore there is now no condemnation for those in Christ, Jesus, John, 1028, I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. Galatians, five, one, let me be clear, the Anointed One has set us free, not partially but completely and wonderfully free. We must always cherish this truth and stubbornly refuse to go back to the bondage of our past.

Generated Transcript

Well, good morning. Glad to be with you guys again this morning. From the onset, I

I'm excited. I'm looking forward to the end of the service where I say worship team, if you could come up, that's just gonna be fine. So you don't have to add that to the podcast. Well, it just made me laugh this morning.

No Good morning this Sunday, as Eric did last week, he said it's going to be a little bit different, and he had candy. I don't have candy. Sorry, kids, I know. And Julie, yeah,

Julie was sad about that, but last week, Eric definitely covered the Hebrew scriptures and how it pertains, and points to Jesus as the Son of Man. And so this week is a bit of a response to that. It's actually kind of a hybrid and amalgamation, you might say, of a normal Sunday and a prayer and praise Sunday. It's not going to be as prayer and praise, as a prayer and praise Sunday, but it's not going to be as normal as a normal Sunday anyway. So that's the background. But what we're going through right now is we're looking at Jesus as the Son of Man, the human one who takes the place of humanity on the throne that God created for them when he created them, created us. And so Eric last week, he covered how Jesus when he says he is the Son of Man, what does that mean when it comes to the ancient or the Hebrew Scriptures. And so today we're going to be looking at it from the lens of an ancient hymn comment them. Hymn for us right now called O come, o come Emmanuel.

We're going to be looking at learning and experiencing this hymn together. And it's filled with the language of the Old Testament, prophecy. The hymn itself has its roots to the seventh or ninth century. Different people say different things, and it was originally written in Latin, and it's based on seven prayers known as Antiphons. These Antiphons are prayers said before a scripture reading. And so there's seven that we're gonna explore today that make up the now five and actually it became, it was seven verses. Then became or seven prayers became five verses. And now other people have said, Well, why don't we make it seven? And then some people are like, Well, why don't we make it eight, right? So we're gonna be looking at those today. And these prayers, each one of them says come, and then something come, Lord or Come Emmanuel come key of David. And so these are necessarily Advent prayers. Advent of the season that we're in right now in the church calendar is the season of anticipation. It's the time period where we as a church, go back and we put ourselves in the shoes of the ancient Israelites, the ancient Jews that were waiting for their coming Messiah. They were waiting for the Son of man to come and redeem and restore all things. An Advent, which means arrival or beginning of something or someone, is actually where we get our word adventure and and we often think of Advent as we're going to light these candles as as a season preparing for the coming of Christ as a babe, 2000 years ago. But as many of you know, we actually also are preparing for Advent. Are as we participate in Advent, we're preparing for the coming of Jesus once again, and he's going to restore all things. So simultaneously, we are looking at the arrival of Christ as a babe and His Second Coming, when He will make all things right. And so for the next few minutes, what we're going to do is we're going to look at these seven Antiphons from the Latin prayers. We won't read them in Latin. We'll read them in English. I'm going to give a little bit of background for each of the different ideas behind it. We're going to look at the scripture that supports it, and then we're going to pray the prayer together. And so it'll be up on the screen, not yet, but it'll be up on the screen. We'll pray, and then we'll keep going. So the first one ospentia, or wisdom, it highlights Christ as the wisdom of God, and it's partly based on proverbs eight. But Dallas Willard, theologian and philosopher, he says that we often think of the the smartest people in the world. We think of Einstein, or we think of, I don't know who are some other smart people. That's all I got right now. I don't know. No, we don't think that thinks, though, but we think of these really smart people. But is Jesus in the conversation for smartest people in the world? And oftentimes he's not. Oftentimes we we think of other people. Maybe Oppenheimer, he might be because he's very smart, also problematic. So anyway,

but Jesus, necessarily, is the smartest person to have ever lived. He's the wisdom of God made flesh. And so proverbs eight says, does not wisdom. Cry out.

And understanding. Lift up her voice. Oh, you simple ones. Understand prudence, counsel is mine, and sound wisdom, I am understanding. I have strength by me. Kings reign and rulers decree justice. I love those who love me and those who seek Me diligently will find me. The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his way, before the works of old, I have been established from everlasting, from the beginning, before there was ever an earth. I was beside him as a master craftsman. I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him. Whoever finds me finds life. These are a bit of excerpts from the speech that lady wisdom gives in Proverbs eight she is the personification of the wisdom of God, and declares that the whole earth was ordered by this wisdom. In wisdom, God delighted and by wisdom, the kings rule the earth. This opening Antiphon that we're about to read, it highlights and it sets the stage for the rest of the Antiphons, with Christ being wisdom personified. Paul picks up this idea in a number of his New Testament letters, when he specifically calls Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. And then later, in one Corinthians, he says that Christ became the wisdom of God. For us, Jesus is the embodiment of wisdom. He is the logos of John's gospel. Wisdom is not an ethereal idea, but it is a person whose name is Jesus. The Hebrew Scripture spoke of wisdom, longing for the world to be reordered, to reflect the wisdom of God. And so now we too long for God's wisdom, Jesus Christ to order the world, so the world, the whole earth, would reflect the glory of God, that his kingdom would be established all over the earth. So if you want to go to the poem or the Antiphon, we'll read this out loud together. OH Wisdom coming forth from the mouth of the most high reaching from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things come and teach us the way of prudence. The next Antiphon is O Adonai, which is the word for Lord in Hebrew. It is often used to reflect the personal name of God Yahweh that was spoken to Moses from the bush. This reflects on the law given to Moses from Mount Sinai. This Antiphon sees Christ as the one speaking from the bush and the great lawgiver on Sinai, and as Moses led Israel from slavery, this Antiphon prays as we'll see that Christ would come and redeem His people. Now Exodus. Three, two and 14 say, the angel of the Lord appeared to him, that's Moses, in a flame of fire in the midst of a bush. So he looked and behold the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. And God said to Moses, I am who I am. And then in Exodus 24 he says, The Lord said to Moses, come up to me on the mountain and be there and I will give you tablets of stone and the law and commandments which I have written that you may teach them. So this first image of the burning bush, which is a consuming fire that's unable to consume the tree with which it's lighting. It has often been thought of to reflect the identity and Person of Jesus, being the wholeness of God and the wholeness of man, a consuming fire that doesn't consume the tree. This paradox, paradox is reflective of the ultimate paradox of the God man. Yet this image is even more complex when the God man, the fullness of God and the fullness of man Christ is consumed by death on a tree, the God, who is inconsumable, becomes consumed by death. Yet we know that this consumption is not the end of Jesus' story. No, the resurrection is the consumption of the ultimate consumer, death, which affects all is consumed by the resurrection of Christ, and by raising from the dead, Jesus renders death powerless, and in so doing, he comes and he redeems us with an outstretched arm. Zachariah, when in Luke chapter one, when he is rejoicing over the coming Savior. He says, Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. Paul in Galatians, three talks about Christ having redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming the curse for us. Jesus, the fullness of Yahweh made flesh, has redeemed us, you and me, by becoming the curse and we are made free in him, Adonai, the leader of Israel. What's interesting about Jesus being the ultimate law giver is we know when Jesus comes, he no longer writes his law on tablets of stone, but on flesh. And he transforms us from Hearts of Stone to having hearts of flesh. In this Antiphon, it reflects.

That idea and highlights Jesus as this ultimate law giver, giving us, freeing us both from the law and into the spirit. And so we can go and pray this together, oh Adonai and the leader of the House of Israel who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai, come and redeem us with an outstretched arm. So you see what we're doing here is we're reflecting on the identity of Christ, where we're not even actually saying the name Jesus in these prayers, but we are reflecting on the his rich identity found in the Hebrew Scriptures. And so the next Antiphon, the next identity that we're going to look at is O radix, which translates to root. It highlights Jesus as the offspring of Jesse, and it highlights Jesus as the root, or maybe the vine by which all branches have life. Isaiah, 11 says, There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jess and a branch shall grow out of its roots. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. With righteousness, He shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips. He shall slay the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his loins, and faithfulness the belt of his waist. And in that day, there shall be a root of Jesse, who shall stand as a banner to the people, for the Gentiles shall seek him, and his resting place shall be glorious. The root of Jesse, the descendant of David, will one day rule the cosmos as king. He will judge the world with righteousness in all the peoples, with faithfulness. Jesus, the root of Jesse, is this promised King, and he actually, he picks up that idea in a very unique way in John 15, when he calls himself the vine, he says, I am the vine, and you are the branches. He who abides in Me bears much fruit, for without Me, you can do nothing. And it's actually only through Christ this vine that we are able to be grafted into the family of God. And in this we remember as our poem is going, our prayer is going to suggest that our cry is for the for Christ to deliver us, that he would delay no longer, for we are as branches dependent on Christ the vine, the root of Jesse for all life, nutrients and sustenance. Let's pray a root of Jesse standing as a sign among the people before you, kings will shut their mouths to you. The nations will make their prayer come and deliver us and delay no longer

the next one, oh, clavis or key, translates or highlights Jesus as the key of David. He is the scepter from the throne. As Jesus as the key, he unlocks the prison doors and he sets the captives free. And as the as the scepter, Jesus extends the invitation to us to approach the throne of grace boldly, like Esther Isaiah 22 says, The House of David, I will lay on his shoulder so he shall open and no one sorry. The key of the house of David, I will lay on his shoulder so he shall open and no one will shut, and he shall shut and no one will open. Then Isaiah, 42 I the Lord, have called you in righteousness, and I will hold your hand. I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles, to open blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house. This image of the key, it suggests power and suggests control over the entry and exit. And yet the poem goes beyond just seeing Christ as holding the key, but it calls him the key itself. He's the one that fits perfectly into the lock. He is the opening by which we all enter into the kingdom of heaven. John picks up this idea in Revelation 22 when Jesus says this, or Revelation three, when he says this about himself, that Christ holds the key of David and John Bunyan, Puritan writer who wrote the Pilgrims Progress, picks up this idea of the key when he talks about Christian and hopeful, when they're in the doubting castle in the dungeon of the giant of despair, set the stage. You have this giant name despair, and his wife is named diffidence. And diffidence means shyness and approaching God, or distrust in God's mercy. And Christian and hopeful. They got there because they strayed from the path. And there was a path that looked easier, and it led them straight into the dungeon of despair and doubting castle. And so for three days, despair wails on Christian and hopeful. And Christian himself is even wanting to give up. He's wanting to give in and say, there.

No point. I can't he distrusts God's mercy. He says, I don't want to keep going. Yet hopeful encourages him to remember the past faithfulness of God. And it's through prayer and remembrance on God's past faithfulness that Christian is reminded of the key called promise. That key is hanging around his neck, and he pulls it out and he goes, I wonder. He doesn't say this, it's Puritan language. So he says, I'm like, oh, thou, what? Yeah. But he says, basically, he says, I wonder if this key could fit into the lock and set me free from the prison doors. And he tries it in one door and it swings wide open. And then he tries that same key in another door, and it swings open. And pretty soon, all the doors have been opened, and Christian and hopeful are running away from doubting Castle, from the giant of despair with his wife, diffidence, this key of promise is Jesus. He's the key that fits into the prison doors and sets us free. Jesus himself says so in Luke chapter four, when he says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He sent me to heal the broken hearted and to proclaim liberty to the captives, the recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Christ is our liberator. He leads us, former prisoners of death and chaos into life and light. Let's pray, Oh, Key of David and scepter of the house of Israel, you open, and no one can shut. You shut, and no one can open. Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house, those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death. This next one might be one of my favorites right now. It's called O Orions or Dayspring. We might think of that more readily as the sunrise the spring of day. It identifies Jesus as the ultimate light, and Malachi four says, but to you who fear, my name, the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings. This idea of Dayspring, or sunrise, as we would want to call it, beautifully and captures and enraptures us the in the beauty of Christ, this that his light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. Christ is the light and life of men. This idea actually has greater meaning when we explore other ancient myths. Malcolm guide, who actually I'm drawing on a lot from his book waiting on the word, and if you're interested, I can tell you more about that later. But he explores this idea of other pagan myths that I highlight, the idea of the human journey as a movement from sunrise to sunset. Homer and Virgil both set their characters on journeys westward. It's the idea of maturity that we mature from our birth at sunrise, and then we have full strength and vigor in the apex of the sun, and then our strength wanes in our human life, but we are more mature as the sun sets. Christianity, however, turns that idea around. And in Christianity, we actually go from sunset to sunrise, from west to east. We go from the from death. We enter by the Christian life through death and we are journeying towards the ultimate light. CS Lewis picks up this idea in his book Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which actually, as I was preparing this, it clicked in my mind. Ah, Dawn treaders, that is what we are. We are treaders of the dawn, and they're moving eastward to the ultimate sunrise. Right? You have reepichee, who's running out or swimming, and he's swimming towards the sunrise, where he meets Aslan, our journey from west to east, or towards the dayspring, towards Christ, is fully, or is fully, and pictured in Revelation, in the new creation, where the city will have no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God will illuminate it. For the lamb is its light. We are treaders of the Dawn who are moving towards the ultimate light, the dayspring, who is Christ. We look forward to the day when Christ shall return and fully dispel darkness. Let's pray. O day spring, splendor of light eternal and Sun of Righteousness come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness. This next one, ORex Gen Tim, or king of Gentiles or nations, highlights Jesus as King of Jews and Gentiles, that all nations will bow and worship before Jesus. Haggai two says, once more, and it is a little while, I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the desire of nations. I will fill the temple with glory, says the Lord of hosts. And isaiah 49 says, Thus says the Lord the Redeemer of Israel, their holy one.

One to Him whom man despises, to Him whom the nation of whores, to the servant of rulers. Kings shall see and arise. Princes also shall worship, because the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, he has chosen you, Jesus is the King of kings, and the Lord of lords, and to Him all the nations will come and worship. This is the great news of the coming of the Magi. The Magi when, when Christ was born, before he even did anything, the nations were coming to worship Jesus. Yet this Antiphon, as we're about to see it, doesn't see King Jesus as distant or removed from his people. Rather, we see Christ as the fashion of humanity from clay. He is the King who got his hands dirty in the mud in Genesis two, his coming and taking on of human flesh as becoming of the Son of Man, the human one reflects that same idea that God's pursuit of mankind would take the extreme form of love of Christ, putting on flesh. It is this very putting on of flesh that it and obedience that exalts Christ, as Zach and Eric talked about Philippians two reflects this beautifully as it talks about Jesus humbling himself and taking on flesh, becoming obedient. And it is this humility, this obedience to the point of death, death on a cross, that ultimately exalts Jesus above all as king. And Paul even goes beyond just the king of nations coming and worshiping. But he says, the whole cosmos, those above, those on the earth and those below the earth, will come with bent knee, humility and worship of Jesus. Let's pray, Oh King of the nations and their desire the cornerstone making both one come and save the human race, which you fashioned from clay. And this leads us into our last one, the one we're the most familiar with. Oh, come, Oh Come Emmanuel, God with us. The beauty in this phrase, God with us is overwhelming, and as Eric reflected on last week, it's almost impossible to communicate the fullness of this idea with words. But Isaiah, seven says, Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son. Shall call his name Emmanuel. And Luke adds the line, which means God with us.

Since the beginning of creation, God longed to be with humanity. He walked with humanity in the garden, and even after Adam and Eve fail, he decided that he wanted to continue to pursue humanity. He met with Abraham. He spoke with Moses, descended in the midst of the people of Israel in the wilderness. He dwelt in the temple. The whole movement of Scripture is God's wondrous and surprising move to be with his people, a people that rejected him and continued to reject Him, a people that choose lesser gods over him, that resist His tender drawing of them near. It was these people that God chooses to move toward, and ultimately, Christ is the fulfillment of the witness of God, the cry of this Antiphon as we're familiar. It's that God would come and save us. It is an admittance of the need and of need, and a correct understanding of who Christ is, our Lord and our God. Let's pray, Oh Emmanuel, our King and our lawgiver, the hope of the nations and their Savior, come and save us Lord our God. Through exploring these seven Antiphons, we have called on Christ to be our wisdom, our Lord, our root, our key, our Dayspring, our King and our God with us. And the beautiful thing about this exploring these seven ideas is some of us in this room probably need to really remember and reflect and be encouraged by Christ as the key by which we are set free. Some of us might might be encouraged in a need to hold fast to Christ being our day spring, the one in whom all light is found. And still, some of us might need to reflect and remember that God is with us, that Christ is the witness of God by which we can be encouraged. This season of Advent is we're reflecting on the coming of Christ as a babe encourage and instructs us to reflect in desire and hope for the His Second Coming, as I've said before, his second coming when all things will be made, right? So we worship Him now, and we will worship him then, as the God that is with us.

Generated Transcript

Thanks, Sarah. Morning everybody. I'm Eric. If you don't like the sermon, the other guy is usually better, and you probably won't see me for like, six months. So, you know, don't worry about it.

So yeah, we just read Daniel seven. Obviously, we were in Daniel for, I guess, 11 weeks before last week, right? And we're jumping back to Daniel seven a little bit for this Son of Man series, I'm going to talk about the biblical theme of the Son of Man and how it relates to the importance of the Incarnation. And I actually want a little bit of audience participation, so we're going to do something different this week. So I'm going to read from Proverbs, 17 eight, a bribe seems like a magic stone to its owner. Wherever he turns, he succeeds. Now I would bet that this is probably not a top 100 preached on passage in scripture. I'm also not going to preach on it. Instead, I'm going to bribe you guys to answer questions. Okay, so I'm badly misinterpreting this verse and taking it out of context. Don't take this as an example of good scriptural exegesis, most verbs, most verbs, most verses in Proverbs or the Bible about bribery, talk about the wicked taking bribes. It's wicked to take a bribe. The righteous don't take bribes, or they're like examples of wicked people taking bribes. So this is a proverb that talks about how the world is not how the world should be. All right, moving on from that. Oh, and also, for my bribery, I'm using peppermints of some kind. And what's that? They're the melty ones, Sam says, and I think they're like, gluten free and everything. All the things are basically just sugar. So if you're not allergic to sugar, you should be able to eat them. And I will give preference to under eighteens for my question and answer time. But you know, adults, you can, you can jump in there too. First question is a pretty easy one, who is the Son of Man? Raise your hands. Jesus. Awesome. Here you go. So how? How do we know that the Son of Man is Jesus? What are some bits of evidence that we have, he gives miracles. Okay, oh, you can have candy for that. It's not what I had in mind. Okay, the Bible says it. How does the Bible say it? You don't know. All right, where Here you go.

So, yeah, a son of man is a way to say a human one. So you're right about that. And I was actually going to mention that in a minute, so I'll give you candy. I have lots of candy so I can afford to be generous. There we go. Double candy. Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man more often than any other title that's used that he uses for himself right elsewhere in the New Testament. He's largely referred to as the Christ, which is another word for the Hebrew word, the Messiah. But he himself refers to Himself as the son of man more than any other title. Job Description for the Son of Man given in Daniel seven and he, he kind of matches the description. Among other things, he rides at a cloud to be seated at the right hand of the Ancient of Days, which is something that we see describing Jesus in the gospels as well. Jesus is the Son of Man referred to in Daniel seven, as he refers to himself. He matches the job description. He rise on the cloud. I just want to establish that, because it's basic, kind of foundational thing for what we're going to talk about. Zach talked about this some last week as well. And like Cole mentioned, Son of man is, in one sense, just a way of saying a human one. Okay, so son of is like of the kind of. It's like a set Hebrew phrase for of the kind of. So an example of a verse where Son of Man doesn't refer to Jesus is like numbers 2319, it says God is not a man that he should lie, or son of man that he should change his mind. So there it's that's just an example of how Son of man can often be used just to mean a human person, you know, but in this case, this son of man is obviously special, because he's going to go be seated at the right hand of God and to rule with Him. So I'm going to jump around a bit with my questions, but I'm going somewhere with it, so just trust me first. Next question is, What does God first say that he's creating man to do way back in Genesis to steward it. Okay, yeah, that's pretty, pretty close. Stuart is a good word. Grown Ups anybody to rule? So, yeah, Genesis 126 God says, Let us make mankind in our image, according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, livestock, and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth. So what kind of rulership is this talking about? That wasn't a question for candy, unless somebody has a you know, answer, no, I would say that we're not being called here to lord it over the animals, right to, you know, beat our dogs and throw darts at the elephants and put tigers in little cages. And I don't know if anyone actually throws darts at elephants. That's just an example. We're not supposed to rule them with an iron fist, right? And the reason I say this, it is important. It's also not, well, yeah, I'll get to that. It's it's also not about like, eating meat, although perhaps that sort of flows out of it later. But really, in this past. Passage, everyone's a vegetarian right. Later in the passage, it talks about the food for the animals and the humans. The humans are given the sea for the plants yielding seed, and this fruits from the trees yielding seed, whereas the animals are given every green plant for food. And I actually think that implies that the humans in their rulership have a responsibility to provide for all the animals as well, and to rule benevolently, to steward as Cole, as Cole said, I think stewardship is an excellent word. Another reason, I don't think it's a an iron fisted rule. I just want to, I'm getting somewhere with this. Go ahead and go to Deuteronomy, 1716, through 20. This talking about this is instructions for the kings of Israel. Okay, and so this is before they even had kings. But God, God provided for that when he gave them the law. So it says, In any case, he is not to acquire many horses for himself, nor shall he make the people return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, you shall never again return that way. And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, so that his heart does not turn away, nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself. Now it shall come about, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests, and it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, so that he will learn to fear the Lord his God, by carefully following all the words of this law and these statutes so that his heart will not be haughty toward his countrymen, and that he will not turn away from the commandment to the right or the left, so that he and his sons may live long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel. This passage, again, shows this. This king is supposed to be a Bible nerd, basically a Bible scholar, right and study the Word. But also, he's not supposed to gather horses for himself. And this isn't because God has something against people with a lot of horses. Horses, at this time, when this was written, were kind of like the height or, you know, one of the main representations of military technology and military power. So to gather horses, to yourself, is actually to amass a great and powerful army. Okay, so he's not supposed to be a, you know, conquering war making King, who gathers a big standing army and takes over other countries. He's not supposed to gather a bunch of women to himself. And, you know, do that he he's not supposed to, he's not supposed to gather riches to himself. He's not supposed to be running towards these human idols, really, of money, sex and power, right? He's he's supposed to be a scholar of the word and to rule benevolently. And then, of course, we have the example of Jesus, who, speaking of the Son of man, said, The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Or in another passage, says, the greatest among you shall be your servant. So I want to highlight the style of rulership, and we'll, we'll come back to this in a little bit, but it's going to be important later, as we examine the Son of Man's victory over the beast that we read about just now in, uh, in Daniel seven. So God makes the humans to rule. How does that go poorly? You didn't raise your hand, but do you want a candy? Okay? It goes pretty it goes pretty bad right right away, basically, at least in the terms, at least in the the storyline, right away, a snake convinces them that they should rule on their own terms, right? Or the terms that he convinces them are in their favor, that they should see what is good in their own eyes, this fruit, right, and take it and that they should learn good and evil, that a difference, or they shouldn't have the knowledge of good and evil right without, without being taught it by God. They should take it for themselves. And so instead of ruling the beasts, they're tricked by a beast and and this beastly way of ruling, if you will, is introduced to humanity in Genesis 315, is a passage from the or as part of the passage that we typically call the curse that comes after Adam and Eve take the fruit. Sure you're probably all familiar with it, but part of what God says to the snake is, I will make enemies of you and the woman and of your offspring and her descendant. He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise Him on the heel. So God's giving this promise of an eventual descendant of the woman who will crush the head of the snake, right? Or it says this translation says bruise, others say crush, I think also strike is sometimes used. And they all basically kind of give this picture of like he stomps the head, but he gets bitten in the process, right? And if you've ever, you know, if you lived in a place with poisonous snakes, which we technically do, but if that was something that was maybe a more everyday part of your life, you might recognize this as, like, oh, getting bitten in the heel by a snake. That's like a way people die. So there's maybe a hint of his, of his death in this, in this promise as well. But this pattern starts over the course of Scripture. Now, where the the seed of the snake, which is like, you could look at it, kind of like evil in humanity is, is fighting against the seed of the woman, which fighting against humanity itself, really, and people start to rule in the way of the snake, or the way of the beast. They see what they want, and they take it and. Pretty quickly. This turns into not just, you know, picking fruit that they're not supposed to pick, but doing what they have to do, to take from other people, what they want from them, right? And so kids, how quickly does somebody kill somebody after after this passage with Cain and Abel right? Right away that basically the next chapter, Cain kills his brother, Abel because of jealousy, because he doesn't get what he wants and and that that pattern just continues. And you know Kane's Kane descendants, particular one in particular, Lamech is even worse than Kane. He brags about killing multiple people. He takes multiple wives. So even though this is before Deuteronomy, we're starting to see this, this way of kings, of killing and taking what you want, women and countries and riches. And you start to wonder, you know, like, when is this? When is this snake Crusher going to come? And you realize God would be entirely justified in destroying the whole human race and starting over. And he almost does that right pretty quickly. After this we have, we have an A near destruction of the human race. What's, what's that, kids, the flood? Yeah, exactly. God destroys almost the whole human race. But he is completely committed to his promise. He has decided that he's going to rule the world with a with a beautiful, benevolent rulership, and he's going to do it through humans. And so He preserves Noah and his family through the flood. And he's made this other promise too, that he's going to send a snake Crusher. He's going to send a seed of the woman who's going to stomp out the snake. And so if you were, we all are, of course, probably familiar with these stories from childhood, right? And so we're, we're incredibly blessed to I think most of us have grown up with the stories about Jesus and known, you know, for a long time who Jesus was, and you know his the message of salvation that we get through him. But if you were reading this for the first time, and just starting from Genesis, going all the way through, you might start to think like, Who's this? Who's the snake Crusher going to be right? And so you you start to encounter characters that you're like, oh, maybe, right, maybe, maybe Noah. And Noah doesn't. Noah doesn't cut it. He gets drunk, and something weird happens in a tent.

And so we'll move on then. But how about, how about Moses? God uses him to do these great deeds, right? He leads the people out of Israel. He, like performs these size signs and wonders that God empowers him to do, God parts the Red Sea by Moses's arm or staff arm, I think. But so is Moses the one. No. Okay, why not? What? What's wrong with Moses, yeah, but he's supposed to speak to it, right? He murders a dude, right? Yeah, that's not cool. So yeah, you're right. Though, the things I was particularly thinking of are Moses strikes the rock when God tells him to speak to it, and Moses, Moses murders a guy, which, you know are both not, not great. Murdering the guy is kind of a beastly way of of trying to accomplish what God actually did want him to accomplish, which was to to free the the people of Israel, right? Okay, so it's not Moses. What about David? David gets a lot of screen time, and he's like, but okay, here Hear me out. Though he's God's anointed king of Israel, okay? Israel, like, really prospers under him. He's super righteous in the way he waits for his taking the kingship. He doesn't kill Saul when he has the opportunity, which he could have totally done. Pretty cool. What does he do? Well, yeah, he, you're right. He didn't take too many wives. That's, that's one. What about what else? Not just, essentially, he just straight up committed adultery, yeah, yeah, and then he murders the girl's husband, right? Yeah, really, woman's husband, okay, well, we don't know that for sure, but you're probably right. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, really, really uncool. Beastly, wave rolling, right? Murder, taking women for yourself, seeing what is good, seeing something that's beautiful, which that passage uses that same phrasing that, you know, Eve saw that the fruit was, was good to see, and took it well. David sees that Bathsheba is, you know, pleasing to the site, and takes her right. And so, so he's doing that same he's falling in that same pattern. Okay, so David doesn't make it. How about Solomon? He is the richest man, the wisest man. He builds the temple, a place for God's for God to dwell among his people. Does he do something wrong? Lots of wives, multiple wife thing is really killing these kings. I tell you what? Anything else that he does wrong? His wives make him turn away from God. And, okay, go ahead. Yeah, he erect idols for those other gods. Here you go. Whoop. And not only that, but he gathers a bunch of chariots and horses. He actually does basically the exact inverse of that passage in Deuteronomy that we read. He builds this huge army and chariots where, you know. Military technology had evolved, and so now chariots are, you know, better than just horses. So he has a bunch of chariots. He has horses for the chariots. He has stables for the chariots, and he amasses a bunch of wealth for himself, which It also mentions in Deuteronomy, and, of course, lots of wives and concubines. And he worships other gods. He really screws it up. So Solomon doesn't do so great. Then there's a whole line of kings after him. Some are better, some are worse. None of them cut it. So we're now in Daniel. Daniel is actually pretty awesome. He like he doesn't eat the king's food. He doesn't bow, presumably, doesn't bow down to the the big idol that the king erects. It doesn't really talk about him in that passage, but I think it's safe to say he didn't worship the idol. He continues to worship the Lord and to pray to him when that's outlawed and survives a trip to a lion's den because of it. What about Daniel and oh, and we know from the first chapter that he's of the royal line. He said like I skipped over a promise, but there was now a promise to David as well, right? That the line of David will will continue into forever, basically anyone think of anything that's wrong with Daniel. Daniel's an unusual character. He has no apparent moral failings. But ultimately, Daniel gets old, gets sick, gets weak and dies. He doesn't overcome death candies for me, no, I'm just kidding. Daniel's not the snake Crusher, even though he's he's pretty great, but ultimately he has the same human weaknesses and failings that the rest of us do. So none of them are the guy. We're left wondering, who's going to fulfill God's Genesis one mandate, to rule, who's going to crush the snake? Who's going to rule as God intended? Now I want that was a rhetorical question. You can ask your mind what that means, if you don't know so, and Daniel is wondering himself, actually. So we come back to Daniel seven, and we actually see God's promise repeated in Daniel's night vision, and I would say, kind of with the volume turned way up. So we've gone from a snake, Which, admittedly, snakes are scary. I've almost been bitten by a poisonous snake along with Canaan Cole Asher and Jack. Yeah, it was scary, right? Boys, did I scream? Boys run away, yeah. Oh, you were a different time. Okay, so you were with me. Anyway. Snakes are terrifying. These things in Daniel's dream are a lot worse than snakes, right? We've got like, these hybrid monsters coming out of the chaos waters. They've got like, heads that don't match their bodies. So one of them's got multiple heads. One of them has a horn with eyes, which is weird. One of them has 10 horns, which is like, I don't know of any creature with 10 horns, but they're like, they've got wings, but they're land animals coming from the sea. They're like, hybrid monster creatures, right? And we're told these, these beasts, is the term that's used. They represent earthly kingdoms. That's the the interpretation is given to us, which is super helpful, because if I had this dream and didn't get an interpretation, I'd be like, Whoa. I was that was weird, right? But it's gone from just like again, gone from just taking a fruit and eating it, to like, empires that stomp out whole cities and peoples to get what they want. And we see the these snakes, or these, uh, these beasts, slash snakes, in a way, are are devouring and and crushing, right? And so this, this lust for power of human kingdoms, has just gotten way out of control. But the promise of the snake crusher is also repeated, and we start to find out more about him. He's going to be the king of an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. And when the beastly kingdom of the seat of the snake is destroyed, then the sovereignty, the dominion and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints, of the highest one. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all the Empires will serve and obey Him. So in other words, he's going to take that rulership. He's going to take that seat beside God's throne to rule as humanity was originally intended to rule. And apparently, from this passage, it seems there's going to be other kingdoms under him. All the Empires will serve and obey Him. All the greatness of all the kingdoms will be given to the people of the saints, of the highest one. So humanity, he's going to restore humanity to rule in the way that they were intended to as well. It's not going to be just him. He's going to bring other people to life with him. And man like this is an awesome hope. Like for Daniel, he's been like. He's seen he's seen this, this, this vision, which is scary, but he's also seen the interpretation of the vision in real life, like one of these empires. I don't know if Babylon was one of the four that are that are mentioned, but that's not really the point. An empire has come and taken his city and killed his people and taken him into exile. He has lived this firsthand, and frankly, it's probably not that unfamiliar to us. In the 21st century. There. We still see this happening all around the world, if we're if we're paying attention,

and yeah, this hope. This hope is amazing to to quote part of the passage from the Advent reading last week, the people walking in darkness have seen a great light on those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned. Daniel seeing a vision of the of this dawning of the light. And that's it brings it brings amazing hope. So I want to switch gears a little bit here and bring it kind of into the the Christmas season, if you will, the Advent season, because I think the way God fulfills this prophecy is super surprising, even to this day. And so I want to remind you of how shocking it is, because I think we need to be reminded of that repeatedly. So if the sermon was a click bait article on the internet, it would be titled something like, good and loving. God gives a beautiful world to humanity to steward and care for, but they trash the place. You'll be shocked by what God does next. Okay? So because, what do we what do we expect? Like, how do we think the beasts will be overthrown? Basically, we think, like, when we think of an empire being destroyed, we think of a conquering right. We think of an overthrowing, usually by violence. Andrew Peterson has a song called so long Moses, where he said, where he imagines the Israelites saying we want a king on a throne full of power with a sword in his fist, right? And that's what we're I think that's what even we are also guilty of imagining we that's exactly what we want a lot of the time. We want someone who will, by strength, take power over our adversaries and destroy them, right? And, and I think a lot of people who claim to be the Messiah, because other people claim to be the Messiah, claim to be the Christ, besides Jesus, who kind of didn't exactly claim to be the Messiah, but instead use the term Son of man, but he does affirm when other people say he's the Messiah. Just, I don't want to preach any heresy here accidentally, but other people claim to be the messia, and they did just that, right? They they got swords to themselves and their followers, and they they tried to overthrow Rome, or whoever the the ruling Empire was. And even some of the disciples seem to expect that based off of what we read in the gospels, based off some of the stories. But amazingly, God actually doesn't overthrow these beastly Kingdoms by violence, at least not by violence against them. The Son of Man comes, not as a king on a throne full of power with a sword in his fist, but he comes and submits himself. He comes as a baby, which we'll talk about, but he submits himself to the violence of of the empire, right of one of these beastly empires that's described in Daniel seven, and submits to the point of death. And he even he rejects the violence option. He rejects the violent overthrowing. And he could have an army of angels at his command. In Matthew 26 it talks about when, when he was taken in the Garden of Gethsemane to go to the cross. And it says, And behold, one of those who were with Jesus reached and drew his sword and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, Put your sword back into its place, for all those who take up the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot appeal to my father and he will at once put at my disposal more than 12 legions of angels? How then would the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way, and so he he rejects kind of two violent options here. One was Peter trying to take a sword, and like, Peter's plan wasn't good, okay, so, like, even just from common sense, Jesus probably would have rejected that one. But you know, like Peter was about to get Peter was about to get stabbed, but Jesus steps in, fixes the guy's ear, right, and tells Peter, hey, that's, that's not how we're doing things. But not only does he not go with the like, little band of guys with swords against, you know, contingent of Roman soldiers, he also points out, like, Hey, Peter, I could have 12 legions of angels, which I looked this up, a Roman legion was 6000 men. So for assuming the same kind of Legion, that's 72,000 angels, which I think would have done the trick. But he didn't. He didn't take that right. He renounced that right. In Philippians two, six through 11, it says about Jesus, he as he already existed in the form of God. He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a bond servant and being born in the likeness of men and being found in appearance as a man. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, death on a cross. For this reason, also, God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father. So of course, again, I mentioned this, but we benefit from this hindsight, right? We know, we know the end of the story, and maybe even sometimes we look down a little bit. It on the disciples and other people who thought like that he was going to come, you know, with a sword in his fist, because we know what actually happened. But really, like, if you look at their situation, why wouldn't they think that they knew as well as we do today, God would have been totally within his rights to just wipe the slate, clean, destroy humanity, start over, right? Humanity was full of violence. That's why he destroyed it in the flood, but he preserved Noah, right? That's he could have done the same thing in the era of the Romans. I'm sure humanity was full of plenty of violence back then too. I know it was, but he didn't. And I don't think our Hindsight is really quite 2020, I think we often again, can be just as prone, sometimes more so to to believe in the power of redemptive violence, the myth of redemptive violence, as other people can. But God was so, so devoted to his plan to rule the earth through humans, that the Son of God, the second person, the Trinity, right, who was in the beginning with God, the Father, by whom all things were created, right in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, we have all these passages that describe him. He became a man. He became this, the Son of Man, right, a son of man, a human one. He came as a baby, and like imagine in this baby, according to another verse, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. He came and made himself helpless and innocent. Of course, he was innocent. I guess God is innocent of sin, that's anyway. But he became this. He became this helpless baby. He wasn't even a royal baby, right? He wasn't, he was but like, he wasn't, right? He wasn't a pampered Palace baby born to a king, right? He he had a he had a hard life. And he, I'm sure, like, none of us in here probably have had as hard of a life as Jesus had, and I'm not even talking about like that. We've got refrigerators and flush toilets and stuff, okay. He, like, immediately became a refugee, went to Egypt for a while, came back, grew up in this, like backwater town in our, like Roman colony on the edge of the empire, where there was, like, a bunch of rebels hanging out, because Nazareth was kind of like a hub for for rebel rebel activity. And then ultimately, you know, walked around Israel for a few years and then died a humiliating death on a public torture device like a criminal. And that was counter to all our intuition. That was his in from it, right? That's when he said, Just prior to that, from now on, you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of the Father. So this, it's, it's the moment. This the crucifixion is the moment, basically where this Daniel seven prophecy is fulfilled of the Son of Man, riding on the cloud, seated at the right hand of the Father. And instead of using violence and force to overcome the violent kingdoms of the world, the light of the world submitted to their very violence. And somehow, and this is kind of a mystery, like, I can't even explain this, really in words, but somehow, by doing that, the light and life of God overcame the darkness and death, which is why, like by God's by God's power, by the Spirit. How, however it happened, he rose from the dead, right? And the defeat of the the beast was not by a king on a throne full power with a sword in his fist, but by like a submission, a death of of a of an innocent man. I don't have like more of a wrap up than that, like now that now that man, the Son of Man, one of us, and yet, of course, also God, is seated on a throne, ruling forever with the kingdom of peace, of which there shall be no end. So I'm going to finish by reading one of my favorite Psalms, and it meditates on God's design, design for mankind, but it also looks forward to the arrival of the Son of Man who now rules the world. Psalm eight, oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens, out of the mouths, out of the mouth of babies and infants. You have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place. What is man that You are mindful of him, and the Son of Man, that you care for him, yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. Oh, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

Resources (*the views expressed within the following content are solely the author's and may not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Mountainside Church):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6cWEcqxhlI