Faithful Mercy (Luke 1:50)

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Good morning church. You want to go ahead and open up to Luke chapter one, we’ll be in verse 50 this morning. Luke one, verse 50, as you’re turning there, this man named Angelino Santiago. He’s a Puerto Rican immigrant to Camden New Jersey, and when he was in his late 60s, around the turn in the millennium, he started a community garden. There was a vacant lot across the street from him, always kind of littered with junk and whatnot. Kids get into trouble, and so he turned this into a community garden. He’s been tending it faithfully for 24 years now. So he’s 93 and still tending this garden, providing fresh fruit and vegetables for the community. And I just I love stories like that. I don’t know about you, I love stories of someone’s faithfulness across the long haul, like someone who’s just there day in and day out, sacrifice, time, energy, love, all that’s required to keep meeting this need actually read another one this week. Just a friend of mine down in Louisville who has a daughter with autism. Her name is Lucy Noel, which, if my etymology is correct, means the light of Christmas. So you know me and names that have meaning, I love that. And so daughter with autism, she just turned 18, and so he and his wife have just been appointed guardians for her so that they can continue to care for her in her adulthood as well. And he was helping raising funds for this school that she’s a part of, and whatnot. And same thing, you know, like these parents to a child with disability, just committing that we’re going to keep taking this on, of course, through the years, just this beautiful faithfulness that’s required. But there’s a concern, of course, that lingers there. Also like, what happens next? You’re 93 you’re probably not caring for the garden that much longer. And what happens when the parents pass on who’s going to care for the child with disabilities who will pick up the baton after a great leader passes away, whatever it might be, there’s this haunting question that we have points to a deep need that we have as well. We need faithfulness, not just in our lives time, but we need faithfulness, really, throughout the generations. We saw last week that we are in need of help as people, we’re need of deliverance, and that’s always true, which means we always need a deliverer through the ages. Will he be faithful? Will God be found faithful even when we are not? And the answer is yes, absolutely, and that’s what Mary celebrates next in her prayer of praise. Now we are just looking at one verse this morning, and so when we do that, usually that means we’re going to trace what’s going on throughout the Bible. And that’s exactly what will happen here. So kind of looking at these three great attributes of God and asking some questions of them, Mercy is the first one, because that’s where Mary begins as well. Just what does God do for us? So let me read it for us. Imagine going to read the whole prayer up to this point. Give us some context. And Mary said, My soul glorifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on, all generations will call me blessed for the Mighty One has done great things for me. Holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him from generation to generation. And see, it’s interesting there. From 49 to 50, we have this shift from God’s holiness to His Mercy. So God’s holiness we talked about this last week. That’s his his perfection, his transcendence, his glorious Godness, if we could put it that way, that’s who he is. And then we shift to His Mercy, which is how he treats us. Mercy is God’s undeserved. God’s kindness expressed to undeserving sinners, God’s kindness expressed to undeserving sinners, which, of course, is all of us. We all are in need of mercy. There’s a wonderful line in the Book of Common Prayer that talks about us being miserable sinners. It’s very evocative phrase. But what? Back when I was written, people knew what miserable meant. It means something else. Now it comes from the Latin if you want to pray, Lord, have mercy on us. You pray misery, nobis, right? And so miserable meaning in need of mercy. That’s what we are. We are miserable sinners. We are sinners in need of mercy. Mary’s already acknowledged this that she needs God’s kindness to her in her undeserving state, because he says that God saw her in her humble state. She’s saying, I’m in need of help. I’m in need of rescue. And so, of course, it makes sense that she would talk about this here. In fact, we always need to follow God’s holiness with his mercy, because his perfect. Is in such a stark contrast to our miserable imperfection. It’s that time of year, so we can just say it, right? We’re all on the naughty list, right? Because that’s just who we are. We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. There’s no one righteous, no one who seeks God, no one who does good, at least in our flesh. Those are big statements that includes everybody, that includes you, that includes me as well. And so how can a holy God a God of perfection like that? How can a holy God abide the presence of sinful people like you and me? It really is the Bible’s big question. That’s the question that’s getting answered on every page, because our sin is an affront to a holy God, and God’s holiness demands a response. It’s like when you get an infection, your white blood cells just go to town. They don’t stop and ponder, what’s my response to me? They just it, just attacks it, and that’s what holiness does with sin. So how can a holy God by the presence of sinful people? The big question, it’s really the question Isaiah asks in a really famous scene in Isaiah chapter six, he is granted a vision of God’s throne room. He says, I saw the Lord high and exalted. He’s seated on the throne. The train of his robe fills the temple with glory, like he’s seated up in heaven. It’s just the hem of his robe, and it’s filling the temple with his glory. And there are angels around him. They’re the seraphim. SERAP means burning, one like flaming, well, like that’s again, God’s holiness is purity. Even the beings who surround him are as pure as fire, and they’re singing, holy, holy. Holy is the Lord God Almighty. And if that’s God, what hope do we have? Isaiah doesn’t know. What does he cry out when he sees God? Woe is me. Woe is me. I am ruined. I am undone. I am unmade in the presence of God, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I am surrounded by a people of unclean lips. It’s like the light has shined on. Have you ever brought like a white shirt out into the blazing sunlight, and you look down and you realize, oh, that is not white, is it not in every place, at least that’s just, that’s what happened to Isaiah right there. Every stain in his life is suddenly been completely visible, and so he’s expecting to be struck dead, like Uzzah is when he touches the ark, like Ananias and Sapphira, like Nadab and Abihu, we should expect to be struck dead. We should expect to be damned eternally at every moment again. That’s what Isaiah expects, but but no. Instead, the Seraph takes a coal from the altar and presses it to Isaiah’s lips to purify him. The angel says, see your guilt is removed and your sin has been atoned for. And that is God’s kindness to one undeserving sinner, at least that is His mercy, which he showers on his people now his people is is key, as we’re going to see here, as we keep going. But one reason why his people’s key even now is the word mercy that Mary’s using here in this verse is used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament to translate the Hebrew word hesed, which is one of the most important Hebrew words, one of like three that you should definitely know no matter who you are, hesed and it means God’s covenant love, like his loyal, faithful love to his people. It’s the love that that God reveals to Moses. When Moses asked to see God’s glory, this is what God shows him, says he passes by Moses, Exodus, 34, six and seven, and he proclaims the Lord, the Lord the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in the same word, mercy, that we have here, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining hesed love, mercy to 1000s, forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. And this is not just an empty declaration that God makes, either, like he has proven it already, because he’s saying this to Moses right after he turns away from his wrath, his righteous anger at the People’s sin, because what happened just the chapter before Exodus 32 they’re worshiping the golden calf. Right after God has brought them out of Egypt in the Exodus, they’ve turned away from him all ready. And yet God turns away from his wrath against idolatrous Israel and promises Moses that he will go with. Them still into the land that he has promised them. That’s mercy. That’s God’s kindness to undeserving sinners. It’s the same mercy that David celebrates as well, like Mary, he breaks out in song many, many times because of God’s mercy, which he’d experienced, of course, his elevation to the kinghood is part of this. When God promises David that one of his descendants is going to rule on his throne forever, David goes, who am I? Who is my family? That we should be brought this far? I don’t deserve this Lord. In other words, and probably because he knew some things about himself that God knew also we think of sins like Bathsheba, the census, that is still coming, even at this point. So So listen to to David’s song. Here. We’re gonna look at a good chunk of it in Psalm 103, this is what David says, Praise the Lord my soul, all my inmost being, praise his holy name. So just like Mary, he starts with God’s holiness. But just like Mary, he goes, I better keep going, otherwise I’m gonna just do the Woe is me. I’m undone thing here. Praise the Lord my soul and forget not all His benefits. Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, Who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with, guess what? Word that is, hesed, exactly with love and compassion. He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel. And then he quotes Moses. He goes, I know what part of God’s character we’re talking about here. The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in hesed. He will not always accuse nor will He harbor His anger forever. He does not treat us as our sins deserve, repay us according to our iniquities. That’s mercy, right there. God’s kindness to undeserving sinners. What we deserve is not what we get from God. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His hesed, his love for those who fear him. That’s important, because Mary quotes that right as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children to the Lord, has compassion on those who fear Him, for he knows how we are formed. He remembers that we are dust. But from everlasting to everlasting, from generation to generation, even we could say the Lord’s love is with those who fear Him and His righteousness with their children’s children. There’s the generations again, with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts. I’m gonna come back to some of this as we go. But what just happened with David is what we talked about last week, right? He sees and he sings. He sees who God is, and he bursts forth in song. It’s like he’s saying to himself and saying to us, look at the record of God’s kindness to you again. That you’re even breathing right now shows that he’s not treating you as your sins deserve. He has shown you mercy. And of course, you sing all the louder when you remember how he accomplished that. I mean, how exactly did he atone for Isaiah sin? How exactly did he remove David’s transgressions from him? Well, Isaiah tells us later, of course, in his prophecy about the the servant of the Lord. We all, like sheep have gone astray. That’s again our sin. We’re on the naughty list. Again, we all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him, the servant of the Lord, Jesus Christ, the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Our guilt was atone. Our transgressions removed. We were shown mercy because of this right here, because God made Jesus Who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness, the spotless perfection of God. That’s mercy, that’s mercy, and every one of us is living it right now. Of course, if you’re in Christ, you know that if you’ve turned from your sin and trusted in Jesus, you know that it’s all mercy. But even if you’re here and questioning or maybe even resistant to the claims of Jesus, he is still showing you mercy. How do I know that? Because you’re here, you’re breathing, you’re alive, he hasn’t struck you dead, yet he is giving you time still to turn and trust and it gets even better, because it’s not just that the Lord begrudgingly shows us mercy. The Lord delights to show us mercy. Hebrews tells us that it was for the joy set before Him that Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before him. He did it willingly. Or Micah seven, verse 18, who is a God like you who pardons sin and forgive, forgives the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance, you do not stay angry forever, but delight, but delight to show mercy. It. Can you understand why Mary highlights this attribute? That’s the very error we breathe. But for how long will His mercy go on forever? That’s the next question. Brings us to the next attribute as well, which is God’s faithfulness. So what does God do? He shows us mercy. When does he do it? Well, let’s look at it. His mercy extends to those who fear Him, from generation to generation, as David said, from everlasting to everlasting, the Lord’s love is with his children’s children. There are other generations again. I love the way John Donne put it. John Don many of you probably know him as a romantic poet, but he was also a pastor later in his life, and he writes this. He says, God’s mercy has no relation to time, no limitation in time whom God loves, He loves to the end, and not only to their end, to their death, but to his end. And he’s punting here because, of course, God doesn’t have an end. So we shifted from like end to purpose, goal, aim or whatever, but he loves us to his end, and his end is that he might love them still. So we have this celebration of God’s faithfulness to his people through the ages, from Adam to Abraham to David to Jesus. And it just keeps going. This is what Mary is thinking through as she prays this prayer. Mary looks at the coming deliverance. Looks at the birth of the deliverer who is now growing in her womb. And that’s what she sees and remembers. He has been faithful what God has always done. He is doing for us once again. Psalm, 100 for the Lord is good, and his love endures forever. His faithfulness continues throughout all generations. You look at that verse right there up on the screen, you think those are bold claims. The Lord is good. His love endures forever. His faithfulness continues. He’s always being faithful to you, those are bold claims. And and you may be thinking, show me the proof. Show me the proof, especially if you’re in a season of loss or suffering right now. Doubt, questioning, is this actually true? How do I know he’s faithful, especially when we’ve been we’ve been hurt and disappointed so many times. There’s so many people like, why trust him? Is he reliable? And the good news, of course, is that our God is not just a promise making God, but a promise keeping God. And we see it from the beginning. The very first promise God makes, he makes like moments after our fall into sin, when Adam and Eve sin in the Garden of Eden. And it’s interesting too, because this promise actually comes when he is cursing the serpent. So as he’s working through the consequences of our sin, He is already promising to show us mercy. It’s remarkable. So he says to the snake that Imma put enmity hostility between you and the woman and between her offspring and your offspring. Then he says, your offspring, little baby snake, is gonna nip his heel, but Mama’s offspring is gonna crush his head. That’s the first promise right there, given again to Eve, the mother of all living things, is what her name, Eve means life. And of course, she gets us ready for Mary, like Mary is the next Eve, because she is the mother of Him who is life itself, the resurrection and the life. So we got this promise, and now we’re going wait. Is this about to be fulfilled here in the birth of Christ, when the seed of the woman will crush the seed of the serpent, the promises just keep coming, because then God, shortly thereafter, begins binding himself to his people, where he’s not just making promises, but covenants. And covenants are like promises on steroids, because there’s this guarantee. It’s like a treaty that’s that’s put together. Here he makes the covenant with Noah. After the flood, the world has now seen the seriousness of sin again. What our sins deserve, the judgment we deserve. But now God promises to forbear. He will not flood the earth again. He promises redemption. Then he’ll narrow his focus to a single man, Abraham, and a single family Israel. What does he promise Abraham through a covenant that he cuts with Abraham, it can be a great nation. He’s going to live in this land, and in fact, he’s going to be a blessing. To all nations. I told you, covenants are serious things, right? They’re bigger than promises. And so there’s a little ceremony that accompanies a covenant cutting. And it’s called cut a covenant because of what happens in the ceremony. They cut animals in half, bunch of animals. You can read about this Genesis 15, and they let the blood pour out, makes like a little river in the dirt. And basically what that is supposed to mean, you walk through the the river of dirt then, and you’re saying, If I break my promise, may this happen to me. And so Abraham’s doing this. And by the way, what’s his end of the covenant to keep God’s commandments perfectly? That’s a bad scene, right? You ever watched, like, one of those movies where the guy’s about to bet, like, everything the house, the money he doesn’t even have on this one hand? And you’re like, don’t do it. I know how this ends. It’s bad. I saw the previews. That’s how I know what it and you know that’s what’s happening here. Where you’re like, Abraham, you and your descendants are not going to be able to do this, don’t sign this covenant, but he doesn’t, not because he’s smart, by way, but because God puts him into a deep sleep, the kind of sleep that prophets have when they’re about to be granted a vision, which is exactly what Abraham gets because he has a vision, then of a fire pot. Fire like holiness, purity, right, passing through this river of blood, the fire pod is God. God is saying, I tell you, what, if either one of us breaks this covenant, let it happen to me, not to you. That’s mercy. That’s God’s kindness to undeserving sinners. But go back to the promises. All right, so Advent, I know we get confused about this. We’re gonna talk about this. We’re gonna talk about this more on the 22nd but we think we’re in the Christmas season right now. You know, you’re not in the Christmas season, right? 12 Days of Christmas starts on the 25th we’re in Advent. We skip Advent. I think it’s a mistake we make, because Advent is a period of longing, of awaiting, right? It’s a sense of things aren’t here yet. God has not set all things right. So Advent really is a time of grieving, almost. Where are the promises? Well, Abraham had that, didn’t he? Because look at the end of his life as Abraham dies. What has happened to God’s promises? You’re gonna be a great nation. He’s got one son not promising at this point, right? And you’re gonna have this land, the promised land that I’ve, you know, I promised to you. And how much land does he own at the end of his life? Tiny little piece of land where he buried his wife. That’s it. That’s all he owns. Is a burial plot. Has he been a blessing to all nations? Certainly not northern nation even knows he exists, really, and yet. And yet, can we doubt God’s faithfulness to Abraham? Now, didn’t Abraham’s descendants become a great nation? Weren’t they brought into the promised land. I mean, yeah, they got exiled again. But even they got brought back. We could talk about that. Of course, not going to, like, brought into the promised land. And of course, when I say, Oh yeah, they got brought into the Promised Land, like, that’s not a small thing. We’re talking again about the Exodus, like a massive undertaking, when God’s mercy and might are on display, leading his people out of Egypt and then bringing them into the Promised Land through the conquest. And as that’s happening at Sinai, God crystallizes the covenant, continues to bind himself to his people. Here’s the covenant in a nutshell, I will be your God, and you will be my people. That’s the promise of the covenant. And he says, I’m going to dwell with you like he lives in the middle of their camp, which is why there’s a whole bunch of laws at this time, laws dealing with things like purity and holiness. Why? Because how can a holy God abide the presence of a sinful people? That’s we gotta have a whole system set up priests and sacrifices and a temple to deal with this question so that God can dwell in their midst. The problem, of course, is that the people aren’t faithful, even though God always is. So he allows oppressors to come to shock them awake. They they get so bad, you know, everyone starts doing what’s right in their own eyes. So God eventually sends a king to lead the people. And then he promises David that his son will rule on David’s throne forever. And you think, okay, maybe now we’ve arrived. And then we meet David’s son, Solomon, who has 1000 wives and girlfriends, and each one of them brought their own God, and he worships all of them, and Solomon’s not even one of the really bad kings, either. So the Kings themselves are wicked, and so the people are sent into exile, no land, no king. They’re not even a people anymore. Hosea tells us, where are God’s promises? And God brings them back from the. Exile in his mercy. And might we talk about this a lot in Daniel and yet, and yet. I mean, look at them when they come back. The temple they rebuild is so piddly that the old men weep at the sight of its foundations being laid. This is not Solomon’s glorious temple. They’ve got an impure priest. Zechariah has a vision of Joshua, the high priest, standing before God, and His clothes are filthy with excrement. That’s how sinful even the high priest is. And of course, at this moment when Mary is praying this prayer, yeah, we’ve got a king on Israel’s throne. It’s not a son of David, it’s not even a son of Abraham is a Herod who is an immensely wicked man. But then you can see why Mary sings about this specifically because with the birth of Jesus, she knows there will be no more questions about God’s faithfulness, as Paul says, Second Corinthians, one, verse 20, for no matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ. And so through him, the Amen is spoken by us to the glory of God. Every promise of God is yes. And Amen in Christ Jesus so that we cannot possibly doubt His faithfulness ever again, Jesus is the promised seed of Eve, the offspring of Eve who comes to crush Satan’s head. He’s also the the child of the promise, born to Abraham, who is made into a great people. Because, of course, the people of God are not the physical descendants of Abraham, but the spiritual descendants of Abraham who trust in God by faith, like Abraham Paul tells us in Galatians three, Jesus is the ark, as we’ve talked about in recent weeks, in whom all who trust can be rescued from the coming flood of God’s wrath. Jesus is the blessing to all nations, as he explains to the Samaritan woman, even salvation comes through the Jews. How? Because he is born a Jew, and he is our salvation. The Gentiles are grafted into the olive tree that is God’s people. Jesus is the new and better Moses and the new and better Joshua, who leads us into the true Promised Land, our eternal rest, which is not a sliver of land by the Mediterranean Sea, but the new heavens and the new earth, the New Jerusalem that will descend at the end of a time. Jesus is the true son of David. We just saw this last week, right? Verses, 32 and 33 same chapter, the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever. His kingdom will never end. Jesus is the great high priest who offers himself as an unblemished sacrifice in the temple of his flesh. This is the fulfillment of the fire pot as Jesus’s blood flows in the desert. He’s saying, if you don’t keep the covenant, let this happen to me. It just happened to me. And there is your salvation so that we can be God’s people, and he will be our God, because our guilt is removed and our sin is taken away.
Truly, His mercy extends from generation to generation, and what that means for us today is that we have no reason ever to doubt that God will keep his promises, that he will do what he said, even in the darkness, even in the darkness, even in the waiting and the longing of Advent. We know it will happen if you did the Advent devotional that we handed out. I know some of you are doing it. You came across the phrase this week, Latin phrase post tenebras looks after darkness light. That’s the promise we have. Here it is in Revelation. This is how the story ends. This is God keeping all of his promises. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven, and the first earth had passed away. There was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Look, God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and He will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. That’s the heart of the covenant. Again. There it is. It’s fulfilled. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, the old order of things has passed away. If he came the first time and fulfilled so many promises, will he not come again to fulfill all the rest? Surely, surely he will. So we cling to His promises in the meantime, that’s the heart of the Christian life pleading the promises, right? I’ll just give you a smattering of examples. Philippians, four, six and seven. Right? Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ, Jesus. How’s that for a promise? God doesn’t promise. I’ll give you what you want in the time you. Want it. What he does promise is that you will have peace in the midst of whatever is causing you anxiety. Or Romans 828, we know that God works all things for the good of love. Those who love him and are called according to His purpose, but those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. There’s a promise, right? Not that every situation we are in will be good, but that God will use every situation for our good to make us more like Jesus. Any moment we’re walking through, we’ve got Isaiah, 4110, do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I’ll strengthen you and help you. I’ll uphold you with my righteous right hand. We cling to these promises because God has proven Himself faithful, so that we believe. Luke 137 which we talked about last week as well, for no word from God will ever fail. But, and this is a big qualifier, the promises are not for all willy-nilly, the promises are for God’s people. And that’s the last piece we gotta look at. This is the attribute of God’s holiness, which, of course, we’ve talked about, and this is the part that calls forth a response from us. How do we respond? Here’s the verse again, His mercy extends to those who fear him. From generation to generation, His mercy extends from generation to generation to those who fear Him. That is a subset of humanity that is not all people. Regardless, the covenant promises are for God’s covenant people. We see this all over. I’ve read it for you many times already this morning, like in Psalm 100 103, sorry, the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him, and His love is with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts. It’s even here in the Christmas story, by the way, in the very next chapter, the angels come. They’re singing their their Gloria. Enoch, Chelsea deo, to the to the shepherds, and they say, peace to those on whom his favor rests, not peace to all. Peace to those on whom his favor rests. By the way, his favor and our obedience are flip sides of the same coin, his favor, his grace, is what prompts our love and fear and obedience. If you love me, Jesus said, keep my commandments. That’s how we show that we trust him. We obey his precepts. That’s what Godly fear is, because that’s the word that’s used here, right his mercy extends to those who fear Him, what Godly fear is. It’s not empowering in God’s presence. That’s not what we’re called to do. We’re supposed to go boldly before His throne of grace, to receive mercy in our time of need, where his children, of course. But godly fear is simultaneous acknowledgement of who God is, which is holy, and who we are in the flesh, which is sinful, imperfect. In other words, coming to God with fear is living with the tension of the Bible’s big question, how can I possibly draw near to God sinner that I am? And the answer is Jesus, Jesus, as we’ve seen. So the big question for us then is, how are you responding to Jesus? Right now? How are you responding to Jesus? You know, when Jesus was crucified in our place, for our sake, there are two thieves crucified, one on either side of him, and they kind of show the two ways you can respond to Jesus, because one mocks Jesus, the other pleads mercy. Here’s Luke, 2339 and 41 Aren’t You the Messiah? The one thief says, Save yourself and us. But the other criminal rebuked him. Don’t you fear God, he said, since you are under the same sentence, We are punished justly for we are getting what our deeds deserved. But this man has done nothing wrong. You see the two responses there? Because it’s interesting that the first thief still says, Hey, Jesus, would you save me? Is that what we’re supposed to do we all want deliverance from our sins and from the sorrows of this world, but not all of us want to acknowledge that we deserve the sorrows of this world, that we deserve the pain, the punishment and the coming wrath. So to fear God means like Isaiah, to admit your guilt and sin woe is me, and then to receive His grace and compassion. We talked about how Christ is our atoning sacrifice. You know, atone is a made up word. Word, and it literally is just two words stuck together at one, because that’s what God does through Christ. If he makes us at one with him again, there’s your answer to the Bible’s big question, how can we dwell? Because Christ has made us at one with God. He’s our God. We are His people, if we come through Christ. And when you do so overwhelmed with gratitude and love that you will delight to please your Lord. And how do you do that? You keep his commands? That’s what it looks like to fear the Lord, to live in awe and reverence before him. That is our big idea as well. Kind of our takeaway from this verse, live in awe of God’s merciful faithfulness. Live in awe of God’s merciful faithfulness. Fear the one who shows mercy from generation to generation, fear the one who should destroy but instead delivered you now. What might that look like, practically today? Just a few closing thoughts for the Christmas season, specifically, first one, get to know the Bible storyline, like what we talked about today, and we just skimmed across the surface, of course, like skipping rocks, get to know the Bible’s story line. Whether you’re like investigating Christianity right now, or you are a long term follower, learn the whole story so that you can see his faithfulness throughout the generations, because you understand what it looks like, from Adam to Abraham to David to Jesus and beyond. And by the way, parents teach this to your kids too. Help them to see it. Help them see it, from Genesis to Revelation like trace the Gospels threads throughout the whole Bible. Second one, pray for the generations. Like, have a longer view than your generation. Pray for the generations. The story is so much bigger than our provincial lives. Like, pray for your spiritual legacy. There’s a company I read about in Japan that had put together, you know, like most companies have a five year plan, 10 year plan or something, they put together a 500 year plan. Really bold, by the way, with technology and stuff like, good chance you don’t know what’s coming. But I like the the initiative at least. And here’s the good news, we know what’s coming in 500 years, because spiritual realities are unchanging. Of course, no matter what happens to technology, what’s your 500 year plan? Spiritually speaking, what difference are you going to make in 500 years? I’ve shared this before. It’s one of my favorite illustrations that you know, the cathedrals like Notre Dame just opened back up yesterday. Kind of thing like the cathedrals in Europe were built across hundreds of years. No one who started them saw them finished. Just remarkable when you think about it. So what’s the first thing that cathedral builders would do before they or as they started construction. They would plant a forest because they knew they were going to use the timber, and the next generation was going to need timber as well. How are you planting spiritual forests now your kids lives, the lives of those around you, whatever it might be, pray for the generations we know God will be faithful to them. Will we be found faithful the part we have to play? Third and finally, take a bold step of obedience today to prove your all, to prove you fear the Lord, even as I say that, like, what was your little prick of conscience? Right? There we went, right? I should, I should do that. Maybe it’s got something to do with Christmas. Maybe you can sense your leaning into materialism with the gifts you’re hoping to receive or with the gifts you’re giving. Even maybe it has something to do with family, because you’ll probably have to see them this holiday season, and not everybody’s stoked about that. Maybe, you know there’s conflict that you are not responding to biblically. Maybe it’s even in this room and you’re going, boy, God made me right with him, and I can’t make things right with so and so maybe it is leaning into lament and the waiting, or maybe it’s leaning into joy. Maybe it’s sharing the good news we talked about this morning, proclaiming it to those who need to hear it, whatever it is, take that step of obedience. Why? Because you want to live in awe of God’s merciful faithfulness. Let’s pray to him now. You, Lord, You are indeed a God of mercy and love, and your faithfulness extends from generation to generation of those who fear you. And so Lord, we come before you now with fear, knowing who we are and who you are, but we come with gratitude and joy as well, because we know that you do not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities, that you have saved us. You’ve sent your Son into the world to be the Savior of the world, so that in him, we can return to you, be made at one with you once again. And so, Lord, help us to do that. Help us to live in awe of you and to live like we are in awe of you, because we seek to please you in all that we do show us how we can do that, even we today, we pray for Your name’s sake. Amen.