Expecting - Hearing God

Advent isn’t just about counting down; it’s about cultivating expectancy. In this first message of the Expecting series, Mark Medley opens Luke 1:57–80 and lingers with Zechariah, the aging priest whose silenced voice is restored in a rush of praise and prophecy. Mark shows how God remembers the prayers we forget, and how worship becomes the space where His covenant faithfulness turns personal. Zechariah blesses the God of Israel for visiting and redeeming His people—and then, mid-song, hears a Spirit-given word over his newborn son: “And you, child…” Praise turns prophetic, and purpose is unveiled.

Mark frames worship with a simple, weighty pattern: revelation, response, and relationship. God, in mercy, discloses Himself; we respond with heart, mind, body, and voice; and that response reshapes our lives with Him. The size of our worship mirrors the size of our view of God. That’s why pondering His attributes—holiness, mercy, wisdom, sovereignty—matters. Steeping in Scripture through the week makes Sunday sing; truth inside us resonates with truth we declare. Worship, Mark insists, is not about what I like—it’s about who I love.

Drawing a thread through Scripture, Mark connects Paul’s call to sing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Ephesians 5:18–19; Colossians 3:16) with the pattern in Exodus 15. Israel celebrates what God has done, moves into adoration to God, and then declares what God will do—a Spirit-led word that never contradicts the Bible. The same dynamic appears in Zechariah’s song. We sing about God, we sing to God, and then, filled with the Word and the Spirit, we receive from God. Zephaniah 3:17 reminds us that He is a singing God; as we lift our voices, He rejoices over us with singing.

Along the way, Mark offers practical ways to lean in during Advent: choose one attribute each week and saturate your mind with Scripture; expect your worship to move from celebration to intimacy to timely, biblically faithful encouragement. Parents can expect God to speak about their children. All of us can expect Him to give hope, correction, and direction as we gather at home and in church. If you’re at a low point, take courage—Zechariah’s silence ended in a song that shaped history. Emmanuel means God with us, and worship helps us notice.

If this message helps you reframe Advent, share it with a friend and stay with us for the rest of Expecting. What is God inviting you to expect from Him this week?

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Chapters

• 0:00 Advent Begins And Series Vision
• 2:45 Christmas Songs And A Singing God
• 4:20 Zechariah’s Story And Song Setup
• 6:40 Reading Luke 1: Zechariah’s Prophecy
• 9:55 Why Worship Matters More Than Style
• 13:00 Worship Defined: Revelation Response Relationship
• 17:20 Who God Is Shapes How We Worship
• 21:05 Attributes Of God And Deepening Awe
• 26:00 From Holy To Whole: Practical Devotion
• 29:10 It’s About Who We Love Not Preferences
• 32:00 Praise That Turns Prophetic
• 35:20 Hearing God For Your Children
• 38:00 Zechariah’s Themes: Rescue And Mercy
• 41:00 Psalms Hymns And Spiritual Songs Explained
• 45:20 Exodus 15: The First Song Pattern
• 51:00 Expect Celebration Intimacy Revelation

Transcript

Mark Medley: 0:02

Hey everybody. How are y'all? Merry Christmas. Hope you had a good Thanksgiving. We did. And for all of you young theologians who got the little pads in the back, you can uh write down Luke chapter one. That's where we're going. We are really happy to be with you guys today and so happy to see. It's great. Family Sunday is great. We're so happy to see the families together. People coming into the family of God, people coming into our church family, people, little little kids entering into your families. This is just beautiful. And so we are starting a Christmas sermon series today. It's called Expecting. And uh, well, one reason is because we got a lot of people expecting here. A lot of ladies expecting. We have, as you can see, we have a lot of that going on here. That's not really the reason. It's kind of a different Christmas series because we're gonna be we're gonna be reading through the Christmas story this uh the next few weeks, and uh we're gonna be talking about worship. So it's a Christmas series that is focused on worship and it's specifically encountering God in worship. So you probably know, maybe you know, today begins the season of Advent. This is the first Sunday of Advent, and it's a time where Christians all over the world are preparing their hearts expectantly, waiting for the coming of the Lord. This is happening with our brothers and sisters in every nation. It's a time of expecting. Uh but in the Christmas story, as we read it, oftentimes there are a lot of unexpected things that happen. And a lot of things unexpected happen to us too during Christmas time, right? In the Christmas story, there are there are young and there are old. There are males and there are females, there's their nobility and uh the lowly, everyone. So it's basically a multicultural, multi-generational, multi-gender, multi-socioeconomic group. When you read that story, it's all kinds of people that are involved in this story, but they are all encountering what God is doing through Jesus, and they're all worshiping in turn. So the idea is that this story is giving us instruction on how to worship and how to expect God to be moving. So, and that's really the idea of this whole sermon series. God is active in our worship. When we're worshiping, He is present and He's doing things. So we all love to sing songs, right? Christmas songs, right? So tell me what are your what are your favorite Christmas songs? This is not rhetorical, you can actually answer. Oh, holy night. That's a great one. Isn't that a great one? What else? Joy to the world, the Lord has come. What else? Silent Night? Good. What? Oh, come, what come Emmanuel. Drummer boy? Who was that? A drummer? Oh, it was a drummer. It was a drummer. That's so funny. The drummer says drummer boy. Give the drummer some, please. What else?

unknown: 3:20

Mary, did you know?

Mark Medley: 3:21

Mary, did you know? Good. I'm so gall. Thank you so much for not saying grandma got ran over by a reindeer. Thank you. Thank you. I know probably some of you are thinking it, but you didn't say it, and that was very appropriate to not say it at that time. That's that's admirable self-control. Thank you. Yeah. There's a lot of them that are like just drivel, you know. They're just not even about Christmas, really. They're not about Jesus, but the songs that we sing, and we'll sing here over the next few weeks, are all focused on Jesus. Like the ones that you just uh said. And uh, you know, God loves songs, He is a singing God. We love to sing because we're created in His image. And He's a creator and He's a singer. Zephaniah says to us in chapter 3 that God even rejoices over us with singing. God is a singing God, actually. And so He's when we're singing to Him this morning, He's actually singing back over us as well. Okay, but you may not be aware that there are there are many songs in the Christmas story, and we're gonna be talking about those this next few weeks. Um, we're gonna talk about the song of Simeon, the song that Mary sang. We're gonna be talking about the song of the angels when they were speaking to the shepherds. But this morning we're gonna start at the very beginning, before Jesus was born, before Mary was visited by the angel. We're gonna begin with what's called the song of Zechariah. And that's Luke chapter 1, if you want to turn there. In some ways, Zechariah was expecting God to be active, just like all the Jews of his day. They had their own advent going on. There was an expectation that God was gonna send a Messiah, that he was not gonna leave them alone, but he was gonna enter into their world, and he was gonna do things for them as the Jewish people. This was what the prophets had spoken for many years, that he would come and act powerfully in their world. So they were expectant in some ways. But in other ways, Zechariah could not have been expecting what happened to him. You might remember that he was uh the husband of Elizabeth, Elizabeth, and the father of John the Baptist. And so he was a Jewish priest who served in the temple. And as he was serving in the temple, he was visited by the angel Gabriel. The angel Gabriel told him a lot of things, but specifically told him that his wife, who was very elderly and who was formerly barren, was going to have a baby. Now, Zechariah found that really hard to believe. And uh he doubted that prophecy, and because he he doubted that prophecy, you know, but he found it hard to believe because how many of us have prayed for something for so long and it hasn't come yet? And sometimes you've you get that little thing inside of you that starts to doubt, right? And maybe it's not gonna happen at all. And this is a prayer that Zechariah and Elizabeth had prayed for many years. God send us a son, send us a boy. This was their prayer, but they're so old now, maybe they hadn't prayed this prayer in a long time because they were so old they couldn't, she was past childbearing years. But you know what? God remembers the prayers that we have forgotten. And he doesn't lose his faithfulness just because we forget for remember, forget to remember the prayers. He remembers. So he promised the child that it would be be born to them in the old age, but Zechariah doubted it, and so he was struck mute. Means he couldn't speak, he couldn't speak at all until the baby was born, and they named him John. So after Elizabeth gave birth to the to the boy, as the angel said, and they were gonna name him John. They were at the naming ceremony, but the priests were gonna say, Hey, we're gonna name him Zechariah because that's what his father's name is. But Elizabeth says, No, his name is John, and they looked to Zechariah and they said, What's up? What is going on here? They handed him a writing tablet, kind of like the little things our kids are writing on today, probably. And he wrote down, his name is John, and his mouth was opened. His vocal cords started moving for the first time in nine months or more. He hadn't been speaking. He began to speak, but it wasn't just words. He began to sing praise to God. His voice was restored, he began to sing praise and to prophesy about his son. It's beautiful poetry here, and this is it's actually a song. So this is Zechariah's song. Let's read it together. Starting in Luke chapter 1, verse 67. And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord, God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people, and he's raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance in Israel. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for your word. God, we thank you that you are a God of faithfulness and you keep your promises. Thank you, Lord, for the stories that we're going to read over the next few weeks. And Lord, today we ask you by your Holy Spirit that you would do a work in us to open our ears to hear you, that you would give hope, that you would give revelation of Jesus, that you help us understand how to worship better. And we pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen. Okay, we don't know what this song sounded like, but we know it was a beautiful expression of worship to God. He was seeing God's faithfulness fresh in over his faithfulness over Israel in a fresh way because of his faithfulness in his own life. So why do we want to do a Christmas series that is focusing on worship? I'm glad you asked. Because worship is what we're all, each of us were created for. You are made to worship the one who created you. This is why you're never really satisfied until you're in connection with God. When you're back connected to your Maker and you're worshiping Him and enjoying Him. But many of us didn't really grow up in situations or in churches that taught us how to worship biblically, like the biblical heart of worship or the biblical forms of worship. So this is why we're doing this series. And although God is beyond us, He wants to be present with us. He wants to speak into our situation today and reveal Himself to us as we seek Him. So worship is not just the song service, the song portion of the service. Worship is not warm-up for the sermon. Worship is not, you know, just that part that happens before the announcements. Yeah. It's it's actually interaction with God. And this happens at home, by yourself, or with your family, and it happens together here corporately as we gather for church. So when we worship, God is active. So I want to tell you my story a little bit because some of you who are new here don't know this. But for years, I came to Trinity in 1985 and began singing, actually playing with the worship team uh shortly after that, and then I began leading the worship team. Some of you were here during those times. Some of our worship team members are here. Actually, one, Jack Wright over there. He was the one who led worship during that time. And I was working with Jack. We were we were worshiping together. And then in 1989, I came on staff as a pastor whose main focus was worship. And so I was trying, I was going deep into the scriptures. I was studying worship. I was trying to understand uh biblical forms of worship. I was teaching the the uh the worship teams, and um, I was also using some of the things I was learning from my music degree. And so we were trying to get more excellence spiritually, uh scripturally, musically, and in character, in our own character in our hearts, to give Jesus what he deserves. So that began a journey for me, and we began doing uh different worship conferences and things all over the United States and also uh in other nations. Uh eventually wrote a book about worship. And so all of that was just all of this for many years I've been involved in worship, and in many years I've been really thinking about what is worship. You know, how do you define it? And so I'm gonna give you my best try this morning, okay? My best try at defining worship. I think worship is three things. I think it's a revelation, it's a response, and it's a relationship. It's a revelation because God in his mercy opens our eyes to see him. He doesn't want to hide himself, he discloses himself and opens himself up, and we see him like little by little by little. You can't see him all at once. I don't think we could handle it. You know, I don't know about you, but I got up this morning and went to the bathroom. You know, when you turn the light on after you've been asleep all night long and it's so bright, it's just too bright. You kind of need a, you kind of need like a little bit of light first. Because if you turn the whole bright light on, it's too much for your eyes. And this is kind of the way it is with God. He opens our eyes little by little to see him, and in a progressive way, we see more and more of him. He reveals himself to us, and that causes us to respond. Biblically, when you see God, you respond. And that is in your body, in your soul, in your spirit. And so we're responding to what we see. And then it's a the end product is a relationship. God wants our lives, he wants to live with us, he wants to walk with us, and as we walk with him, he changes our lives. So God, in his grace, reveals himself. We see him and it causes a response, but it changes our lives. It's a walk with him, it's a relationship. That's my best understanding of what worship is. So relationship is the end goal, but it starts with revelation. God has to open our eyes to him. And the depth and the quality of our worship is directly proportionate to the way we view God. We can't worship big if we have a small God. You understand what I mean, right? God is not small, but but our understanding of him is sometimes small, and that's as far as we get in our worship because we don't see him as he is. God's, and I think we all understand God is bigger than our current revelation of him. Yeah? True? Okay. Yeah. So who is this God we worship? That's the question. That's the question of theology. Theologo, study of God. Well, A.W. Tozer said this: it's not a cheerful thought that millions of us who live in the land of Bibles, who belong to churches and labor to promote the Christian religion, may yet pass our whole life on this earth without once having thought or tried to think seriously about the being of God. Wow. Have you once thought or tried to seriously think about who God really is? So here's the other question for us this morning. What is God like? And that is not rhetorical, you can answer. What is God like? Throw it out to me. Throw it out to me. He's holy. He's love. Forgiving? True? Sovereign. Compassionate. Faithful. Merciful. Patient. All knowing. You're doing pretty good, okay? That's pretty good. That's not bad. So um, so you can think of you can think of two different categories of what God is like. Okay, and I have a little chart here. I think God's main two revelations, self-revelations in the Bible, are I think there's two main ones, and there's a bunch of other ones. One would be sovereign Lord, and which means he's beyond us, he's transcendent, he's unknowable, he's greater than we can understand, he's sovereign and in control. Then also he reveals himself as Father, which means he's close, he's personal, intimate, relational at hand. He's not just transcendent, he's also imminent. He's here with us. He's knowable. He's both unknowable and noble. Can you be both? Yeah, yeah, you can. He's both sovereign Lord and Father. He's beyond us and with us. You can be both. This is, I mean, we can't be both. He can be both, right? So you think of uh a lot of the things that you said about God are listed up here. And maybe on the left-hand side, we could call these, well, what theologians call them is communicable attributes of God. That means that when God created us, he gave us part of himself. He took some of his loving self and he put it inside of us. And some of his wisdom and put it in us. He we understand, we have some kind of frame of reference for truth or for beauty or for kindness or for creativity, right? We have some reference for that because God is those things and God put those things into us. But on the other side, we have what's what are called non-communicable attributes of God, which means that these are things God is, but I'm not. I am not omnipotent, I'm not omniscient, although I seem sometimes I feel like I think I know everything. And I know some people who think they know everything. But no, we don't. And we're not we're not um sovereign, we're not infinite in our capacities, right? This is not so these are things that God is that we're not. So you can think of these things altogether, but it's not just like um pick one out, uh, but it's like they're all kind of connected too. Like God is not only good, but he is infinitely wise in his expression of his goodness, and he's not only solid. Sovereign, but he's infinitely loving in his expressions of his sovereignty. You could go on forever. You could really go on forever. So one day I was in uh Moscow, Russia, doing a worship conference, and I just decided we did this session about what God is like. And I thought, well, I'm just gonna do it. We're just gonna take the whole hour and we're just gonna decide. We're just gonna say, what is God like? And we're just we're gonna see how many we could come up with. And so just like you, the first 15 or 20 are easy. You know, oh, he's loving, he's he's just, he's truthful. Okay, and so they they came. The first 20, pretty easy. Then it slows down. The next 20 is a little slower, you have to think more. When you get to 40 or 50, it gets harder. When you get to 60 or 70, things get really slow, slower, and you have to think, and you're thinking of scripture, and you're going, but we waited, we did this for an entire hour. Entire hour. So maybe show that picture. This is all in Russian, you can't read it. A few in the room can read it. A few of you can read it. Yeah. Okay. They came up in one hour, they came up with 106 different attributes of God. Okay. Okay, so I had told them that I did this with a group of Americans one time, and we did, we we stopped at 100. So they wanted to beat the Americans. So they came up with a, they weren't stopping until they got 106. So they did, which was great. Um, but but a few years ago, our youth group had a retreat, and they thought, they did, they had the same idea. They had this big blue piece of paper on the wall, and they said, let's just talk about what is God like, and they started, and they without, I wasn't there, but I am told without the aid of a phone, without Google, they came up with 128. So I just want you to know that your youth group beat the Russians. That's all I want you to know this morning. Yeah! Come on. Okay, now that was that was a a former youth group. There's this youth group here. I mean, I'm not saying anything about the other youth group. I think you're probably smarter. That's uh yeah. I think you could do like 150. So challenge right there. Challenge. Go for it. Okay, so but what if you took just one of those attributes? Like, let's just take holy, okay? Holy, God is holy, and you go home this week and you look up scriptures about the holiness of God, and they're all over the place. And you're looking in the Old Testament, you're looking at what it means that He's holy, and how people reacted in the Psalms and the prophets in the New Testament and in the book of Revelation, and you're looking, you're meditating on holiness, and that holiness idea is changing you inside. You begin to change the way you see God, the way you respond to God, and then you come back to church next week, and the worship team sings a song about the holiness of God. What do you think is gonna happen in your heart? It's just gonna explode. It's totally different because you see his holiness in a deeper way, and then when you sing about it, it's resonating with all the scripture that's inside of you. So you could take, you could take a with this list right here, you could take one a week for the next 128 weeks. Okay, two in a year, two years and a half, maybe something like that, without ever re without ever duplicating an attribute of God, you could focus on um a an attribute of God per week. And man, I'm telling you, if your your life will change, your worship will change. Because worship is a revelation and a response and a relationship. Okay, does that make sense? And worship is about who he is, worship is about God. This is this should be such a no-brainer. We sang this morning. Um, we are here for you, right? It should be a no-brainer. Worship is about God, it's not about me, it's not about what I like, it's not about the style of music I like or the kind of songs that I like. It's not. It's about not about what I like, it's about who I love. It's about him. Okay, so we all kind of know that, but we also kind of betray our hearts sometimes when we say things like, I just didn't get much out of worship today. As if it was about you, and as if you were the focal point of all of it, and you getting gifts and presents from God are the is the whole reason for you to come and worship. That's not okay, it's like you come into my birthday party and you leave angry because you didn't get a present. I got all the presents. That's uh well, could we just say childish? That's childish. Coming to give is mature. Now, when we give and we we worship, the thing is, the great thing is God is gracious and he gives back to us. We do receive, but we don't come to receive. And and we don't come as uh this the um spoiled brats of the kingdom who only want what we want. Amen. Thank you. That's good, okay. The main point I'm trying to get across to you is that God reveals himself when we worship and we respond. That's the main point. God reveals himself and we respond. So we should expect God to reveal himself. And how we respond with our bodies and our lives, that's gonna be a subject of the coming weeks as we study other songs in the Christmas story. But worship is a verb, there's it's something that we do. Okay, but today we're gonna tune our hearts in to hear what God reveals to Zechariah and how he responds. So Zechariah's song. Did you notice when Zechariah was singing, that he he started with praise to God, and then he hears the prophetic voice of God. His praise turns prophetic. It's all toward God, and then God speaks something to him about this child that he's holding in his hands. Zechariah's song starts as praise and ends as prophecy. God hears our praise, but he also speaks to us as we worship him personally, in our homes with our families, and in our church together. He speaks to us. And I just want to say this too, since it's Family Sunday, let me emphasize that God spoke to him about his son. God will speak to you about your children. When you're in worship, when you're worshiping him, your mind is focused on him. God will speak to you about what your child needs, how to raise your children. And I know parenting is tough because when you've never done it before and you're learning it as you go along, you know, you learn as much as you can from your brothers and sisters, and but it's not an easy thing because every child is different. There are different challenges, there are different needs. You have to you have a little different parenting style, so to speak, or approach to every child because they they're a little bit different. It takes it takes wisdom, but God will speak to you as you worship. So expect that. So, how did God reveal Himself to Zechariah? First of all, it starts with praise, right? He said, Praise to the God of Israel. Sounds like the Psalms, a lot like the Psalms when he starts out, because the Psalms were his scripture. The Old Testament was his scripture. He said, He's redeemed his people, he sent his salvation, he kept his promise to David, he kept his covenant to Abraham, and he rescued us from our enemies. So God is a rescuer, a savior, a redeemer, a promise-keeper. This is how he begins. The focus is God word. But then came this prophetic word, and God spoke to Zechariah, to his son. God, you have done this. God, you are this. God, you have done these things. God, you are this. And you, child, you will be called the prophet of the Most High. And it becomes powerfully prophetic. You will give people knowledge and forgiveness of their sins. You will go before to prepare a way for the Messiah because of the tender mercies of God. And that's exactly what happened. Just as he sang it, proclaimed it over his child, it happened in the life of John the Baptist. So a song of praise about God and what he had done evolved into a prophetic declaration of God's purpose in that moment. What God wanted to bring about in that moment, what he was going to do in the future. God speaks to us when we are worshiping him. That's the point here. He interacts. We hear the voice of God concerning our own lives, our families, our church, our community, our nation, other nations, what he's doing in this moment, something, this is something that happens throughout Scripture. So you see it in the Psalms. They start off as praise or with whatever emotion the psalmist has at that moment, and oftentimes they turn prophetic or they turn even messianic. Jesus Himself is revealed through those, through that praise. Now, Paul hinted this, hinted at this and uh in Ephesians and in Colossians. And let me read these to you just a moment because it's real insight. In Ephesians 5.15, he says, Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. Okay, then we go to uh Colossians 3.16. How many know John 3.16? How many? Okay. You have you memorized it? Okay, you ought to memorize this one too. It's another 3.16. Colossians 3.16. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Okay, so Paul Paul says this twice there. Paul was very particular about the way he wrote things. You know, he one thing for sure we know, we know there's uh like some different opinions about what these things mean. Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. One thing for sure he's telling us to sing, right? Yeah, that's for sure. Sing. But when he says, he could have just said, sing songs. And that sounds like something Paul would do if he just wanted us to sing psalms, songs. But he said, sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, three different types. So these words have a little bit of different meaning. Okay, so psalms from the word Zalmos, and it carries this hint of singing about God. We're singing about him, we're celebrating him together. We come together and we talk about how great he is. Okay, so songs like How great is our God, how great is our God, right? Name above all names. It's two, it's it's about him and it's about the greatness of God, about who he is. That's so celebration of God. Then hymns, there's a little bit of a different connotation there, a little hint of it's it's more intimate. It's about songs to God, not just about God, but our focus is not outward about him, but it's upward to him. So it's songs that are more intimate. So we are singing to him, like songs like I love you, Lord. Or your mercy never fails me. So we're singing to him. We may be singing together to him, but we're singing to him. It's more of an intimate um connotation to that one. And then spiritual songs just means it's the Greek word od pneumatica. Od pneumatica means spirit, od means song, it's a song of the spirit. It's the spirit of God singing back over us. It could be singing through us to other people, but it is like a prophetic word. There's something prophetic about that word. It's so what we have is we have celebration or singing about God together, and then we have um this adoration where we're singing more intimate to God, and then we have this revelation where God is singing to us. That's what's happening in uh many of the Psalms, that's what's happening in Zechariah's song. We're singing to him, we're singing about him, and then we get it gets prophetic. God speaks. Now, if don't get worried about the word prophetic. Prophetic, I think, just means God's particular word for a particular person or people at a particular time. What is God speaking right now? God does speak, He wants to speak, He speaks to us especially in our worship. Uh, and it doesn't have to be in the building, it can be at home, it can be in your car, and he can speak to you. But it's just God's word for you or the people you're with, and people that you are concerned with at the present time. And this is the way it this is the way it happens. We're singing to God and we hear from God. That's Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Um, but there's a prerequisite there too, right? Uh in one one in Ephesians it's be filled with the spirit. In Colossians, it's be filled with the word. Let the word dwell in you richly. When you're full of the spirit, when you're full of the word, this prophetic thing happens. So I want to read to you um an example from the very first song in the Bible. And if you want to turn there, you can. We don't have it on the screen, so you'll have to turn it if you want to read it. I want to read to you from Exodus 15. Exodus 15 is the first recorded song that we have from God. And it is the it's the song that broke out spontaneously when uh the Israelites went through, the Red Sea parted, and they went through the Red Sea, and then uh though the enemies were coming after him, them uh Pharaoh and the chariots were drowned in the sea. And what happened when that happened is this song just spontaneously broke broke out. But I want you to see that there are Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs here. There's celebration, there's adoration, and then there's revelation, um, a prophetic word from this. So this is just a great way to see it scripturally. So I'll just read it to you. Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord. So they're all singing. So this incredible miracle just happened, and they're all looking around. What happened? And then what's the most natural thing to do? Somebody starts singing. Probably it was antiphonal. The reason they could sing it together, it's a spontaneous song. It's not one that they didn't go turn to hymn number 14 and let's sing together to the Lord. It was spontaneous, but they would sing antiphonally. They would sing, one person would sing a phrase and then it would be sung back. The whole congregation would sing back to them. So that's probably what happened here. Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord. I will sing to the Lord, to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. The horse and his rider, he's hurled into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, he's become my salvation. He is my God and I will exalt him. Okay, so first of all, the focus of this thing is the Lord. I will sing to the Lord. Second of all, it's very personal, isn't it? The Lord is my strength, my song, my salvation, my God. I will exalt him. He's my father's God, I will exalt him. The Lord is a warrior. Now we're talking about God, very descriptive. The Lord is a warrior, the Lord is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his army as he hurled into the sea. The best of Pharaoh's officers are drowned in the Red Sea. Deep waters had have covered them. They sank to the depths like a stone. Your right hand, O Lord, was majestic in power. Your right hand, O Lord, shattered the enemy. In the greatness of your majesty, you threw down those who opposed you. You unleashed your anger, your burning anger. It consumed them like stubble. By the blast of your nostrils, the wild the waters piled up. I love it. The surging waters stood firm like a wall, the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy boasted, I will pursue, I will overtake them, I will divide the spoils, I will gorge myself on them, I will draw my sword, and my hand will destroy them. But you blew with your breath, and the sea covered them, and they sank like lead in the mighty waters. Who among the gods is like you, oh Lord? Who is like you? Majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders. You stretched out your hand and the earth swallowed them. Do you see how descriptive it is? You see, it is people celebrating together and even getting more intimate with God. You, oh Lord, have done these things. Who is like you, Lord? You are it's it's descriptive, a revelation of God. It's powerful. You are majestic, you're fearful, you're a wonder worker. And in the midst of this praise, it turns prophetic. You stretch out your hand, and the earth swallowed them. In your unfailing love, you will lead them. Oh, it becomes futuristic. The people you've redeemed, in your strength, you will guide them to your holy dwelling. The nations will hear and tremble, anguish will grip the people of Philistia, the chiefs of Edom will be terrified, leaders of Moab will be seized with trembling, people of Canaan will melt away, terror and dread will fall upon them. By the power of your arm, they will be as still as a stone until your people pass by. O Lord, until the people you bought pass by, you will bring them into the land and plant them in the mountain of your inheritance and place and put them in the place, O Lord, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, your hands have established. The Lord will reign forever and ever. It got prophetic. It started out celebrating, started out seeing who God is and what God has done. And then God began to speak. And it happened again. Exactly as they said. They did go into the land. The inhabitants of the land did melt away in dread. And God did bring the people into the land and establish them into the land. It happened. And I just want to tell you, this happens when we're worshiping. God speaks while we're encountering Him in worship. We can expect that. As Zechariah expected, as Zephaniah spoke, that God will rejoice over us with singing. We sing about God, we celebrate, we sing to God, it's more intimate. We hear from God. It's prophetic revelation. So, okay, what do we learn? What are we supposed to expect? When we gather together in our homes, if we're by ourselves or with our family in our homes, or if we're here at church, we should expect some things. Number one, we should expect to make God smile as we celebrate who He is together. Do you know that we get to make God smile? The psalmist says it this way: Bless the Lord, my soul. Bless the Lord. We get to bless the Lord. This is a great revelation Jack Wright taught me 40 years ago, I guess, Jack. What a great thing it is that the lesser can bless the greater. That's so powerful. What mercy that is from God. We get to make him smile. Number two, our times. We can expect our times to go from celebration to intimacy. We're celebrating together, and then it gets even more intimate. I mean, sometimes we think of this as praise and worship. Praise is celebration. Uh it's kind of a one one uh like phase of singing together. And then we think of worship as more intimate. You know, I don't know if you can really make those uh hard and fast definitions, but it is, it does go from celebration to intimacy for sure. And number three, we should expect God to be present and interactive, speaking through a scripture that's quickened to your heart, or through an encouraging word, or through a prof prophecy, or other gifts of the spirit. And number four, we should expect God to change us as we behold him. Second Corinthians 3 18 says, as we behold him, we're changed into his image from one degree of glory to another, from glory to glory. And this is done by the Spirit, by the Lord who is the Spirit. So God will change us, He'll work in us. God is blessed, God speaks, God changes us in our worship. Just like He did in these songs that we're gonna be reading here in the Christmas story. So do you believe we serve a God who still speaks today? But but to you, do you think he speaks to you? Yeah, that's another step, isn't it? Sure, God can speak, but God speaks to me. That's another step. But he does speak primarily through his written word. This is it. This is his word, which stands forever, which is unalterable, and you can count on this. But also he speaks through his spirit, who leads us in ways in it's always according to the written word and never contrary to the written word. And he speaks through the gifts he gives to people words of prophecy, words of knowledge, words of wisdom, discerning, words of faith, words of encouragement. That's an that's a spiritual gift. Exhortation is a spiritual gift. He encourages people. So he does speak. In the Christmas story, he spoke through uh the remembrance of the scriptures, through the voice of angels, through events like signs in the night sky, through dreams, and through at least four prophetic songs that we're gonna look at over the next few weeks. He spoke in that story, in this Christmas story. God is God is not aloof and far off and unconcerned. He really does want to speak. If we listen, we will hear. And our worship tunes our hearts to his frequency. So, what might the Lord be speaking to you this morning? Or what might the Lord be speaking to you this Christmas season? Or in this season of your life? And maybe you have an inkling, maybe you have an understanding of what that might be. Maybe you don't know for sure, but you can ask. And like a good father, he will speak. In this season, Christmas season, we celebrate the fact that Jesus came and he lived the life that we could not live, perfect obedience to the Father, and he died the death that we should have died because we did not obey the Father perfectly. And then God raised him from the dead, and by faith in what he has done, I can have you can have eternal life. We can be connected again with our Father, back in worship, back in fellowship with our Father. This is a beautiful message of Christmas. Emmanuel, God is with us, and we need God with us. Amen. It was at the lowest point in his life that Zechariah heard God and encountered the kindness of God. Late in his life, his years were spent, he didn't have any children. The thing that he had hoped for and prayed for for so long didn't happen. Maybe he felt like he let God down. He had this encounter in in the holy place. He couldn't speak, he actually couldn't communicate, unable to express himself in in words. Maybe he thought he failed as his at his duty, as his duty uh as a priest, and maybe he felt God was angry with him. I don't know. I don't know. He was poor in spirit though. But this is what our God does. He speaks. Even at your lowest, it doesn't matter where you're at, he will speak. God broke in, he answered his prayers, he changed his life, he gave him a future, he gave him a hope, he gave him offspring. He allowed the effect of his life to continue into generations. Not only that, he allowed him to see that he was part of God's big plan, his overall plan for the Messiah. What a great Christmas present he God wants to give to you. He wants to give you life, new life, and he wants to give you new ears to hear him. Can we pray for that this morning? Let's do won't you stand with me? Oh, Father, we thank you. Thank you that we're not among those who are trying to appease some God, trying to do some kind of a sacrifice so that this God won't be angry or that they might procure some kind of a blessing. We thank you that we don't bow like billions do on this earth to a God with no life, a God of stone, that has the form of ears but can't hear, that has the form of a mouth but can't speak. We don't have a God like that. Thank you, Father. We have you that you have brought us into your family and set us at your table, and you want to have a conversation around this table. Lord, we thank you because we didn't deserve it, and yet you give it, you give it freely to the praise of your glorious grace. And Lord, we say this morning that glory goes to you because from you are all things, and through you are all things, and to you are all things. To you be glory forever. Lord, I want to pray for all of us today and during this season. Many of us are facing changes this year. This is a different Christmas time than we've ever experienced before. Maybe there's a loss in the family or something that's happening, just a situation that's never been. But I know that that doesn't stop you from speaking, Lord. So I want to pray, God, that you would tune our hearts, tune our ears to hear you in the midst of these circumstances, God. And Lord, I pray as we worship you by ourselves with our open Bibles in our homes, or as a family together, or here in church, Lord, that you would open our ears to hear you, that you would receive our praise. Lord, we don't come to get presence. This is your, this is your party, Lord. This is yours. This is about you. But I thank you that you do give to us the things that we need. You do speak to us, Lord. You do give us presence. So we want to be open to hear that, Lord. Lord, as we're learning to worship together here corporately, as we're in these moments where it's quieter or the music is playing and there's no words on the screen, Lord, that you would just teach us to sing our songs to you. Teach us how to do this, Lord. Some of us have experienced this in the past, Lord, and we just need to be refreshed in it. Some of us have never understood it, and we need to be taught. And so, Lord, let your spirit teach us to lift our words of praise to you. Lord, you are worthy of it all. And this Christmas, I pray, during this whole season, Lord, not only that you would speak to us, but that you would speak through us. God, that you would even give your words of encouragement and hope and words that would guide people into a relationship with you through Jesus. You would give us these gifts of kindness and these gifts of hospitality, these gifts of encouraging words and mercy, gifts of faith and discernment, Lord, and gifts of prophecy and words of knowledge and wisdom, God, that you would speak to us and through us this year, Lord, so that the knowledge of Jesus would spread. That's our heart, Lord. We thank you. We give you praise. We ask you to do what you want to do, Lord, in us, in our hearts. Come and be born in us today, Lord. As we expect you, Lord, this advent, Lord. Show us things we've never seen, we pray. We thank you for your willingness to do that. We pray it in the name of Jesus. And Lord, I pray your blessing on these people, Lord, that you would bless and that you would keep them. Lord, that you would make your face shine upon each one. You would be gracious to each one. That you would lift up your countenance on all of us, Lord. You would give us peace. We pray for that in Jesus' name. Amen.