WEBVTT 00:00:00.960 --> 00:00:04.879 Good morning, Watermark. Great to see you today. 00:00:09.859 --> 00:00:14.660 Get set up here for a second. All right. My name is Eric, if you don't know me. I'm one of the guys 00:00:14.660 --> 00:00:20.900 on staff here at Watermark, and it's great to be able to share with you today. I'm sure everyone 00:00:20.900 --> 00:00:28.000 knows Christmas is approaching. Everyone excited for it? Parents are excited for two weeks of kids 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:33.740 at home running around going crazy. I don't know what your family is like, but I'm guessing 00:00:33.740 --> 00:00:38.079 if you're anything like my family was growing up, that you have some Christmas traditions 00:00:38.079 --> 00:00:44.519 in your family. Yeah? One that was a tradition in my family was as Christmas approached, we 00:00:44.519 --> 00:00:49.460 would watch Christmas movies. You know, there's this section of movies that only gets watched 00:00:49.460 --> 00:00:53.280 like one month per year, and everyone's really excited to watch them for that one month, but 00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:58.600 then if you try and mention it the other 11 months, forget about it. And somehow there's 00:00:58.600 --> 00:01:02.859 this one set of movies that actually people will watch all the time, but always gets included 00:01:02.859 --> 00:01:07.659 in the Christmas countdowns, and I don't have any idea why. Maybe because over the course 00:01:07.659 --> 00:01:13.140 of the school year there's a Christmas break there, but it's the Harry Potter series. I 00:01:13.140 --> 00:01:17.359 don't know why they list that as a Christmas movie, but they include it there for some reason 00:01:17.359 --> 00:01:22.099 in their Christmas countdowns on the TV channels. And if you think about the story of Harry Potter, 00:01:22.099 --> 00:01:31.159 you have a boy who is raised in this home situation where he is told and he believes lies about 00:01:31.159 --> 00:01:38.019 his identity that keep him trapped and oppressed. And he spends years and years and years of 00:01:38.019 --> 00:01:43.319 his life living in the situation where he is believing these lies and letting those shape 00:01:43.319 --> 00:01:49.099 the way that he sees reality until one day someone shows up and tells him actually something different 00:01:49.099 --> 00:01:55.280 is true about you than what you've been told your entire life. And when he realizes that his reality 00:01:55.280 --> 00:02:01.419 is different than the truth that he's been told his entire life, everything changes for him. Everything. 00:02:01.420 --> 00:02:09.900 And that's actually got a lot in common with the story of Christmas. Because at Christmas, 00:02:10.240 --> 00:02:16.400 we have God stepping down into the world, not just telling us that we have a new reality, 00:02:16.620 --> 00:02:23.620 but transforming reality for us, showing us his mercy in the middle of our brokenness so that we can 00:02:23.620 --> 00:02:30.020 have something else be true about ourselves that reshapes our reality and allows us to have 00:02:30.020 --> 00:02:36.580 transformed lives. And today, we're going to be building up towards the story of Christmas and the birth of 00:02:36.580 --> 00:02:41.500 Jesus. We're not quite at the birth of Jesus yet. We'll get there next week, so come back and hear that. 00:02:42.219 --> 00:02:49.140 Today, we're going to hear about another birth, the birth of John, John the Baptist. But as we look at 00:02:49.139 --> 00:02:55.679 this story, we're going to see God's mercy all over the place. And since we're going to talk about mercy 00:02:55.679 --> 00:03:01.679 so much today, I wanted to start off by giving us a quick definition of mercy so that you can know 00:03:01.679 --> 00:03:08.419 what I'm talking about when I say it over and over and over. Mercy is the place where God's love and 00:03:08.419 --> 00:03:15.579 faithfulness meet our brokenness with forgiveness and favor. So we have three parts to the definition here. 00:03:15.580 --> 00:03:23.740 So we have God's love and faithfulness. The Bible tells us over and over that God loves us, that God 00:03:23.740 --> 00:03:31.340 makes promises to us because he loves us, and he's faithful to fulfill those promises. Part two is our 00:03:31.340 --> 00:03:37.060 brokenness. The Bible says that God has given us commands, and we have disobeyed and rebelled and 00:03:37.060 --> 00:03:43.820 rejected them, and that because of that, we deserve nothing good from God. And then part three is 00:03:43.819 --> 00:03:50.959 forgiveness and favor. That even though we deserve nothing good from God, he still looks at us, he 00:03:50.959 --> 00:03:56.400 forgives the wrong that we've done, and instead of responding with anger, he responds with favor to us. 00:03:56.479 --> 00:04:04.219 And that's what mercy is all about. And today, as we look at this passage, we're going to see that God's 00:04:04.219 --> 00:04:11.659 mercy is great to the outcast, that it is promised to the forgotten, and it is tender to the broken. 00:04:11.659 --> 00:04:19.240 It's great to the outcast, promised to the forgotten, and tender to the broken. So before we jump into 00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:25.620 the passage, let's pray. Father, we thank you that you have spoken to us through your word. We thank you 00:04:25.620 --> 00:04:32.659 for the gift of revealing yourself to us, and we pray that as we look at your word today that you would 00:04:32.659 --> 00:04:38.360 work mightily. Holy Spirit, come and transform lives, transform hearts, help us to grow in our love 00:04:38.360 --> 00:04:43.900 for you, to see you, and to be transformed by the reality of who you are and what you have done for us. 00:04:44.080 --> 00:04:51.560 In Jesus' name, amen. So as we jump into the passage, first we see that God's mercy is great 00:04:51.560 --> 00:04:56.080 to the outcast. In chapter one of Luke, verse 58, it says, 00:04:56.199 --> 00:05:01.960 And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced 00:05:01.959 --> 00:05:08.479 with her. So today's passage is about a birth, not the birth of Jesus, the birth of his relative, 00:05:08.919 --> 00:05:14.219 John the Baptist. But I think we need to take a minute and step back into the story to really 00:05:14.219 --> 00:05:20.240 understand the significance of this birth. So there's a couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth, 00:05:20.599 --> 00:05:25.679 they got married probably at a very young age. It was common for girls to get married as young as 12 00:05:25.680 --> 00:05:34.600 in that culture. And they were Jewish, which means that they had heard the stories of God creating 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:39.980 the world and placing Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and telling them to be fruitful and multiply 00:05:39.980 --> 00:05:46.180 and have lots of kids. And they knew the stories of how God had promised their ancestor Abraham 00:05:46.180 --> 00:05:51.899 that he would make a great nation out of him, and he would bless him, and he would have lots of kids. 00:05:51.899 --> 00:05:59.139 And they knew this idea of having kids and expanding the nation was something that was commanded by God 00:05:59.139 --> 00:06:06.419 and promised by God as a blessing. And so surely when they got married, they were excited to start 00:06:06.419 --> 00:06:12.699 a family of their own. But you can imagine how it felt when a couple years went by and they were unable 00:06:12.699 --> 00:06:20.939 to have kids. You can picture those awkward dinner conversations where your parents sit you down 00:06:20.939 --> 00:06:27.839 and they're like, hey, this guy from our synagogue, he's about your age. He's already given his parents 00:06:27.839 --> 00:06:35.579 three beautifully young grandkids. He is a better son to his parents than you are. Did that just get too real? 00:06:37.839 --> 00:06:44.620 But that type of conversation where their parents are pressuring them and wanting them to have kids, 00:06:44.620 --> 00:06:49.420 and their friends start having kids and maybe moving into different social groups. 00:06:50.340 --> 00:06:56.399 And on top of this, the fact that in their culture, whether or not you had kids was seen as a sign of 00:06:56.399 --> 00:07:01.740 whether or not God favored you. If you didn't have kids, people would commonly look at you and sort of 00:07:01.740 --> 00:07:07.240 think, oh, maybe God's judging you for something you did wrong, and that's why he won't let you have kids. 00:07:07.240 --> 00:07:16.139 And so you can just imagine this feeling of being more and more isolated as more and more years went 00:07:16.139 --> 00:07:25.860 by and they remained unable to have kids. And early in Luke chapter 1, it tells us in verse 6 that 00:07:25.860 --> 00:07:31.500 Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and 00:07:31.500 --> 00:07:36.620 statutes of the Lord. He says they were good people. They were obeying God. This wasn't a curse. This 00:07:36.620 --> 00:07:45.300 wasn't a judgment from God. But how would society around them know that? And so as they continue 00:07:45.300 --> 00:07:51.319 trying to obey God, to live for God, they were in a place where everyone around them just looked at 00:07:51.319 --> 00:07:59.579 them and said, how have they messed up? What's wrong with them? And you can imagine them feeling more 00:07:59.579 --> 00:08:05.540 and more outcast by society, more and more isolated and alone as the years went by. And not only that, 00:08:05.540 --> 00:08:11.080 but they're a fast approaching retirement age or potentially being too old to be able to work. 00:08:11.480 --> 00:08:15.819 And in that society, kids are your retirement policy. From a very practical perspective, 00:08:16.240 --> 00:08:20.520 they're probably wondering, where is food going to come from when I'm too old to work? 00:08:23.540 --> 00:08:29.000 And the years keep going by until one day an angel appears to Zechariah and says, 00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:36.059 your wife is going to have a baby. At this point, they're so old that Zechariah, he's not excited. 00:08:36.200 --> 00:08:44.259 He's just like, yeah, right. How's that going to happen? But it does. And the story says that God 00:08:44.259 --> 00:08:52.179 giving Zechariah and Elizabeth this baby was him showing great mercy to them. It was a great mercy 00:08:52.179 --> 00:08:59.319 that their neighbors and their relatives came to celebrate with them. And in our society, I think 00:08:59.319 --> 00:09:05.859 the social stigma of not having kids is less than it was in ancient Israel. You might still get parents 00:09:05.859 --> 00:09:12.379 pressuring you, shaming you if you're not giving them grandkids. But I think in wider society in 00:09:12.379 --> 00:09:17.939 general, there's more of an acceptance of people not having kids either because they don't want them 00:09:17.940 --> 00:09:27.480 or just a recognition that some couples aren't able to have them. But I think there are still a ton 00:09:27.480 --> 00:09:36.780 of things that do make people feel outcast and shamed and isolated and alone in our society. All of us 00:09:36.780 --> 00:09:44.240 have moments where we feel like outcasts. Maybe it's that time you're walking down the hall and you 00:09:44.240 --> 00:09:48.519 look in a window at your office and you see a meeting taking place and you're just like, 00:09:49.200 --> 00:09:53.500 hold on a second. If he's in there and she's in there and he's in there and she's in there, 00:09:53.759 --> 00:09:58.659 why am I not in there? Surely this is a meeting that I should have been included in. 00:09:59.000 --> 00:10:05.019 Why are they isolating me and leaving me out? Are they talking about me? Is that why they don't want 00:10:05.019 --> 00:10:09.039 me in there? Or do they just not want me in the office anymore? Is that why they don't want me in 00:10:09.039 --> 00:10:16.699 there? Maybe it's when we're frustrated about being single. We look around at all of our friends 00:10:16.699 --> 00:10:26.039 who are now happy in relationships and think, what is it that's wrong with me that no one wants to be 00:10:26.039 --> 00:10:34.319 in a relationship with me? I don't know what the moments are in your life where you feel this way, 00:10:34.320 --> 00:10:41.460 but I think all of us, all of us feel this way at some point in time. We feel isolated, alone, rejected, 00:10:41.840 --> 00:10:49.040 outcast. And today's passage speaks to those of us who feel outcast, who feel isolated, rejected, and alone. 00:10:49.180 --> 00:10:56.300 That's, I think at some point or other, all of us. And it tells us that God's mercy is great to the outcast. 00:10:56.299 --> 00:11:04.120 That God's love and faithfulness reach through the pain and exclusion that we have experienced 00:11:04.120 --> 00:11:10.279 to give us hope. And the moment where we start to feel outcast, start to tell ourselves 00:11:10.279 --> 00:11:15.959 that that's what defines us, the story of God blessing Zechariah and Elizabeth with a child can 00:11:15.959 --> 00:11:21.740 remind us that God's mercy is great to the outcast, and our circumstances don't define us. 00:11:21.740 --> 00:11:30.000 God and what he has done for us defines us instead. But not only is God's mercy great to the outcast, 00:11:30.060 --> 00:11:36.980 it's also promised to the forgotten. So after the baby is born, Zechariah starts prophesying. 00:11:38.019 --> 00:11:43.180 He had actually been mute for the entire time of the pregnancy, and this is like basically the first 00:11:43.180 --> 00:11:50.560 thing that he says after nine months of not being able to speak. And he mentions in verse 72 that 00:11:50.559 --> 00:11:57.699 that God is showing the mercy promised to our fathers and remembering his holy covenant. So when 00:11:57.699 --> 00:12:04.559 he refers to the fathers here, what he's talking about is in the Old Testament, the earlier part of 00:12:04.559 --> 00:12:11.839 the Bible here, there were several people, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jacob's 12 sons, who God made these 00:12:11.839 --> 00:12:18.639 promises to, that he was going to bless them. He was going to make them a great nation. He was going to 00:12:18.639 --> 00:12:25.460 give them loads of descendants. He was going to make them a blessing to the other people around them. 00:12:27.539 --> 00:12:32.220 And there was this period of time for a few hundred years where it looked like that was starting to come 00:12:32.220 --> 00:12:38.840 true, but then it all fell apart. And as Zechariah speaks these words, Israel had been living under 00:12:38.840 --> 00:12:45.160 oppression from foreign powers for most of the past 600 years. 00:12:47.420 --> 00:12:54.000 And at the time when he speaks these words, they're under the control of Rome. And I think most of us 00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:58.180 have heard great things about Rome, so we don't hear Rome and think like, oh, that's terrible, right? 00:12:59.180 --> 00:13:05.259 But think about the idea of living in a land oppressed and ruled by a foreign enemy. 00:13:05.259 --> 00:13:11.039 I mean, the newspaper this week has been filled with stories about the anniversary of the rape of 00:13:11.039 --> 00:13:17.759 Nanjing. And you can see these reminders of how terrible it is to live under foreign oppression. 00:13:17.899 --> 00:13:23.019 If you go to the Hong Kong History Museum, you'll see stories up on the wall about the Japanese 00:13:23.019 --> 00:13:29.319 occupation of Hong Kong and how Hong Kongers were forced to learn Japanese language and culture at the 00:13:29.319 --> 00:13:34.319 expense of learning their own. And when you live in a land that's occupied by a foreign power, 00:13:34.320 --> 00:13:39.120 you're constantly in fear. Fear that you're going to say the wrong thing and your neighbor is going 00:13:39.120 --> 00:13:42.960 to turn you in to try and gain favor with a foreign power. You don't know who you can trust. 00:13:44.980 --> 00:13:49.780 You don't feel comfortable being yourself and living out your own cultural heritage. 00:13:52.260 --> 00:13:57.000 It's not a good situation to be in. It's not something that any of us wants to be in. And when 00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:03.000 you're in that situation for an extended period of time, it's easy to start to wonder, has God forgotten me? 00:14:04.320 --> 00:14:13.400 Has God forgotten about me? And that's what life was like for Israel in those days. Based on their 00:14:13.400 --> 00:14:19.200 circumstances alone, it would be easy for the people of Israel to feel that God had forgotten them. 00:14:19.700 --> 00:14:25.640 He made promises to them almost 2,000 years ago, and they still hadn't come true and didn't look like 00:14:25.639 --> 00:14:33.379 they were anywhere near coming true. You know, we've talked here before about this idea of an 00:14:33.379 --> 00:14:37.740 internal live stream, how there's thoughts constantly running through your mind all the time, every day. 00:14:38.299 --> 00:14:42.840 And when you're in this type of situation, you can just imagine the thoughts going through that 00:14:42.840 --> 00:14:50.139 internal live stream. You have doubt. Will God actually keep his promises? Feeling rejected by God. 00:14:50.139 --> 00:14:58.080 This fear of, is everything ever going to change? Being forgotten. Feeling alone. 00:15:01.139 --> 00:15:07.159 And these are emotions that all of us face, even if we're not living under the oppressive rule of a 00:15:07.159 --> 00:15:15.439 foreign military or government. But Zechariah's prophecy here is a reminder to us that God's mercy 00:15:15.440 --> 00:15:25.020 reaches to the forgotten. Then and now. He's prophesying here about the birth of Jesus. And if 00:15:25.020 --> 00:15:28.520 you look at what Jesus does, you look at these promises that God made to Abraham, 00:15:29.080 --> 00:15:34.720 I'm going to make a great nation, a great people. I'm going to be a blessing. And when you look at what 00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:44.780 Jesus accomplishes later in his life, he rescues a people for God. He's the king of an everlasting kingdom. 00:15:44.779 --> 00:15:52.059 He blesses all the nations of earth, including Israel. He is the fulfillment of all these promises 00:15:52.059 --> 00:16:00.620 that have been made to the Israelites over the years. Jesus, Christmas and Good Friday and Easter 00:16:00.620 --> 00:16:10.419 is living proof that God has not forgotten his people. That God's mercy is promised to the forgotten, 00:16:10.419 --> 00:16:17.419 but also that he fulfills that promise. And in our world, there are a ton of people who are feeling 00:16:17.419 --> 00:16:22.719 forgotten today. I mean, just look at the news. What have we had in the news the past few years? 00:16:23.319 --> 00:16:32.439 ISIS, Brexit, rise in nationalism across the globe. Why do these things happen? Because people feel 00:16:32.440 --> 00:16:41.120 forgotten. Either there's a war that just wipes out your livelihood or jobs being sent overseas or 00:16:41.120 --> 00:16:46.620 whatever it may be. People are left in this position where they're unable to provide for their families. 00:16:47.420 --> 00:16:51.120 They're unable to take care of their children. 00:16:51.120 --> 00:16:53.120 They're unable to take care of their children. 00:16:53.120 --> 00:16:57.299 Or at least they feel like they are. And they look around and they say, 00:16:57.500 --> 00:17:02.659 there's no way for me to change my circumstances. I think the world has forgotten about me. 00:17:03.620 --> 00:17:08.000 And then one day, someone comes along and says, I haven't forgotten about you. 00:17:08.220 --> 00:17:10.359 I remember you. And I'll tell you what. 00:17:11.799 --> 00:17:18.539 I will take care of your family, feed your children, feed your wife, make sure their medical bills are paid. 00:17:18.539 --> 00:17:22.500 If you will strap a bomb to yourself and go blow yourself up in the middle of a crowd. 00:17:24.059 --> 00:17:31.359 And in that, this person hears hope. This person hears, my life has been purposeless. I've been 00:17:31.359 --> 00:17:36.559 unable to provide for my family. And now I have an opportunity to do that. Someone has remembered me 00:17:36.559 --> 00:17:46.339 and my family. And people will do terrible, terrible things and support terrible regimes for the sake of 00:17:46.339 --> 00:17:49.619 being remembered and not feeling forgotten anymore. 00:17:53.039 --> 00:17:59.139 And it's not just this big global thing. Again, it's something that happens in each one of our lives. 00:17:59.240 --> 00:18:04.399 We each have times where we feel forgotten, where we wonder, does anyone remember me? 00:18:06.079 --> 00:18:09.619 Does anyone care what's happening in my life? 00:18:09.619 --> 00:18:16.279 You know, it's that feeling you have when you're a parent and your kid becomes a teenager and stops 00:18:16.279 --> 00:18:23.359 listening to you. And you're just like, do you recognize all of the time and energy and countless 00:18:23.359 --> 00:18:31.359 hours that I have spent investing in you and helping you become a sustainable human being? 00:18:31.359 --> 00:18:39.219 Have you forgotten that? It's the feeling you have when you have a fight with your spouse and they walk 00:18:39.219 --> 00:18:45.599 out the door after the fight. And you think, have you forgotten the fact that you promised to stick 00:18:45.599 --> 00:18:56.659 with me forever? All of us have these moments where we feel forgotten, where we feel alone. And the awesome 00:18:56.660 --> 00:19:04.640 thing about Christmas is that Christmas shows us the way to be remembered isn't to reach out to extremes 00:19:04.640 --> 00:19:15.740 to make people remember us. Because God has already remembered us. Christmas is the proof that God has 00:19:15.740 --> 00:19:22.340 rescued us in the moment when we were feeling forgotten and that his love and faithfulness reach out to us. 00:19:22.339 --> 00:19:27.619 And understanding this truth reshapes the way that we view reality and live our lives. 00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:34.740 Here's how. Think about this. Imagine it's your birthday. You're excited. It's your birthday. 00:19:36.159 --> 00:19:42.240 But no one says anything about it to you. You're like, terrible friends. They've forgotten about me. 00:19:43.459 --> 00:19:47.259 Item number one on my to-do list for the next year of my life, find better friends. 00:19:47.259 --> 00:19:53.799 And you try and call people and you're like, hey, you want to grab dinner tonight? And they're like, 00:19:53.839 --> 00:19:59.759 no, I'm busy. And you're like, what's going on here? Has everyone forgotten about me? 00:20:02.579 --> 00:20:07.079 And if that's all we have, if those circumstances are all we have, we're going to make some judgments 00:20:07.079 --> 00:20:12.000 based on those circumstances. We have terrible friends who don't love us and don't care about us, 00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:20.480 and we're all alone and we're going to die alone. But imagine that you had different perspective on 00:20:20.480 --> 00:20:28.119 this. Imagine that as this day is going on when no one wants to hang out with you, you knew that the 00:20:28.119 --> 00:20:33.700 reason no one was available to hang out with you is because they were planning the most epic surprise 00:20:33.700 --> 00:20:41.080 party ever for you that evening. And they couldn't spend time with you because there was so much 00:20:41.080 --> 00:20:45.259 planning and preparation that needed to go into making this party totally awesome. And they actually 00:20:45.259 --> 00:20:52.220 did a good job keeping it a secret, which never happens in the real world. As this day goes on, 00:20:52.620 --> 00:20:58.500 and you're still maybe alone for parts of the day, but are you thinking, I have terrible, 00:20:58.500 --> 00:21:04.519 miserable friends that I need to replace with better ones? No, you're thinking, wow, my friends 00:21:04.519 --> 00:21:10.599 are incredible. They're taking care of me. They're putting so much effort into this party for me. 00:21:11.180 --> 00:21:19.619 And instead of feeling forgotten and alone, you're having hope and joy and expectation of this amazing 00:21:19.619 --> 00:21:26.940 celebration that's going to happen tonight. Our perspective and our understanding of what reality is 00:21:26.940 --> 00:21:33.160 changes the way that we live our lives. When we believe that we have been forgotten by God and the 00:21:33.160 --> 00:21:42.320 world, we're going to live sad, neglected, pitying ourselves. But when we recognize that no matter how 00:21:42.320 --> 00:21:49.160 we feel in this moment, God has remembered us and God has amazing things that he's doing in us and for us, 00:21:49.420 --> 00:21:54.539 we can have hope even when our circumstances seem to say that there's no way for hope. 00:21:54.539 --> 00:22:02.319 So the fact that God has remembered the forgotten is something that can transform our lives. And not 00:22:02.319 --> 00:22:08.319 only is God's mercy great to the outcast and promise to the forgotten, but it is tender to the broken. 00:22:09.240 --> 00:22:16.599 If we jump down to verses 77 and 78, Zechariah says that John will give knowledge of salvation to his 00:22:16.599 --> 00:22:21.899 people in the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall 00:22:21.900 --> 00:22:26.880 visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death and to 00:22:26.880 --> 00:22:33.519 guide our feet into the way of peace. He's saying that his child that's just been born, John, is going 00:22:33.519 --> 00:22:40.360 to go before the Lord, that's Jesus, who's going to be born soon, to prepare the way for him and give 00:22:40.360 --> 00:22:46.960 knowledge of salvation to his people. And he makes a reference to the tender mercy of God. 00:22:46.960 --> 00:22:55.400 Now, this is a difficult phrase to translate. Maybe heart mercy would be a more literal translation, 00:22:55.539 --> 00:23:00.920 but that's just awkward. But to give you some perspective on what he's saying here, this word 00:23:00.920 --> 00:23:10.200 tender is in the original language used in Acts chapter 1 verse 8, when Judas hangs himself and his 00:23:10.200 --> 00:23:17.160 bowels spill out onto the ground. The word for tender here and the words for bowels there are the same 00:23:17.160 --> 00:23:24.200 word. So what he's saying is it's this thing that's like deep inside you that if it comes out of you and 00:23:24.200 --> 00:23:32.080 spills out of you, you die. He's saying mercy is so core and central to God's character that without it, 00:23:32.140 --> 00:23:40.019 he's not God. That mercy is something that's central to what it means for God to be God, 00:23:40.019 --> 00:23:46.460 in relation to us. And the best part is it's not just an abstract concept, but it's something that finds 00:23:46.460 --> 00:23:53.639 its expression in real action in the real world. And that's the action of sending his son to rescue us. 00:23:54.299 --> 00:24:01.420 And this is vital for us. Because apart from God's mercy, we're broken. 00:24:01.420 --> 00:24:10.860 The Bible says that God created us, that he created us for a relationship with himself, and that we rebelled against him. 00:24:11.560 --> 00:24:17.740 We said, I'd rather be the king or the queen of my own life, and that we have consequences because of that. 00:24:17.800 --> 00:24:24.580 That we deserve death, and we experience feelings and emotions in line with that reality. 00:24:24.579 --> 00:24:31.159 We feel guilt. We feel shame. We feel anxiety because of this brokenness. We don't just feel broken. 00:24:31.259 --> 00:24:39.039 We feel broken because we are broken. And the awesome news of Christmas is that God didn't just 00:24:39.039 --> 00:24:44.159 sit back in heaven and be like, well, too bad for them. Maybe they can figure out a way to fix it. 00:24:44.160 --> 00:24:49.220 But that God, in our brokenness, looked down at us and said, I love them. 00:24:51.360 --> 00:24:58.920 I love them so much that I'm willing to give up my son to rescue them, to make them whole, 00:24:59.540 --> 00:25:09.740 to heal them in the areas where they have messed up. And again, this is hugely important for our lives 00:25:09.740 --> 00:25:17.120 today. You know, I mentioned earlier that internal live stream that we have. There's this internal 00:25:17.120 --> 00:25:24.079 dialogue going inside each one of our heads every day. And in a lot of ways, that's the most important 00:25:24.079 --> 00:25:31.460 conversation any of us have ever. Because that conversation inside our heads is telling us what 00:25:31.460 --> 00:25:39.240 to believe about God, the world, ourselves, reality. And if we listen to the wrong voices in this 00:25:39.240 --> 00:25:45.059 internal dialogue inside our heads, we're going to respond the wrong way in real life. 00:25:47.039 --> 00:25:55.220 That every day, this internal dialogue, it's an opportunity for us to believe lies about ourselves 00:25:55.220 --> 00:26:05.400 and God and the world, or to fight those lies with truth. And whichever voice we listen to is going to 00:26:05.400 --> 00:26:09.860 shape the way that we live our lives. So if you're anything like me, it's common for this dialogue 00:26:09.860 --> 00:26:19.280 to be like, you're broken. Nobody wants to be around you. Nobody likes you. And if we listen to that voice, 00:26:19.680 --> 00:26:25.680 we're going to respond as if we are broken and nobody likes us. 00:26:25.680 --> 00:26:33.460 But in the moment when those voices come in to our minds, we have this option that we can respond 00:26:33.460 --> 00:26:41.000 and say, no, that's not true. Because God's mercy is great to the outcast. It's promised to the 00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:49.340 forgotten. It's tender to the broken. Even if I feel these ways, they don't define me. See, when I define 00:26:49.339 --> 00:26:57.480 myself as broken, if I say I am broken, how am I going to live? I'm going to have a pity party 00:26:57.480 --> 00:27:03.299 and try and get everyone else to join in it because I want them to know how messed up I am. 00:27:04.159 --> 00:27:11.599 Maybe I'll act out in ways that show my brokenness because I want other people to recognize how broken 00:27:11.599 --> 00:27:19.119 I feel inside. And I feel like the way to do that is by acting out on it. Or maybe I'll act out 00:27:19.119 --> 00:27:24.379 to get attention because I feel so lonely and I feel like the only way to get people to notice me 00:27:24.379 --> 00:27:32.919 is by doing things that are just like beyond social acceptable. This is why kids in a classroom 00:27:32.919 --> 00:27:39.139 will act out when they're neglected at home because they realize if I behave badly, I get attention. 00:27:39.140 --> 00:27:46.780 And the thing I want more than anything is for someone to notice me. And so when we tell ourselves 00:27:46.780 --> 00:27:55.140 that we're broken and that's what defines us, we act out in a way that's in line with what we feel 00:27:55.140 --> 00:28:02.960 is true about us. But when we recognize I'm not broken, I am a child of God and his mercy is healing 00:28:02.960 --> 00:28:09.660 my brokenness. It's like when you have the friends preparing a surprise party for you, right? There's 00:28:09.660 --> 00:28:15.680 hope, there's excitement, there's recognition that my circumstances right now don't define me. And we 00:28:15.680 --> 00:28:22.720 actually have power to go out and show love to others because when we have experienced this type of love 00:28:22.720 --> 00:28:27.279 and acceptance, that transforms us and we want other people to experience that as well. 00:28:27.279 --> 00:28:37.740 Well, the truths we believe about ourselves shape the way that we live our lives. And our circumstances 00:28:37.740 --> 00:28:44.779 will tell us again and again, you're outcast, you're rejected, you're forgotten, you're broken. 00:28:46.519 --> 00:28:53.980 And the truth of Christmas is that those things do not define us because God has reached out to us 00:28:53.980 --> 00:28:58.960 and he has showed us that we are loved, we are accepted, we are forgiven, we are wanted. 00:29:04.960 --> 00:29:10.799 This isn't just pop psychology telling us to feel better about ourselves. If Christmas didn't happen, 00:29:10.880 --> 00:29:15.740 it would be. It would be just, you know, try and feel better, try and tell yourself something to make 00:29:15.740 --> 00:29:20.059 yourself feel better. But this isn't that because this is true. 00:29:20.059 --> 00:29:31.879 This is God, Christmas is God stepping down into our world, transforming the very fiber of what it means 00:29:31.879 --> 00:29:42.299 for us to be us, taking us out of our brokenness, giving us hope, showing us mercy, reaching us in our 00:29:42.299 --> 00:29:48.899 brokenness with love, faithfulness, forgiveness, and favor. Let's pray. 00:29:50.059 --> 00:29:55.859 Father, we thank you for Christmas. We thank you for your love. We thank you for rescuing us. We thank 00:29:55.859 --> 00:30:03.919 you for Jesus. We thank you that when we were at our worst, you didn't give up on us, but you came 00:30:03.919 --> 00:30:13.299 down to seek us and to save us and to make us whole. I pray that we would believe those truths today, that 00:30:13.299 --> 00:30:18.940 those things would transform our lives, that we wouldn't live as if we were broken, as if we were forgotten, 00:30:18.940 --> 00:30:25.259 as if we were isolated, that we would live knowing that we are your children, that we are loved, 00:30:25.940 --> 00:30:31.680 that we are accepted, that we are wanted, and that we are now free to show that love and acceptance 00:30:31.680 --> 00:30:40.160 and welcome to others. Thank you that you're good. Thank you for Christmas. Thank you for rescuing us. 00:30:40.160 --> 00:30:41.000 Amen.