From the Fork of Broad/Homilies from Carlton Baptist Church

King David's sin is exposed, which leads him to confession, repentance, then joy, because he is assured that God is merciful. He experiences what Jonathan Edwards called “brokenhearted joy” - acknowledging he is sinful, rejoicing that God is a forgiving God.

Continuing our exposition of Psalm 103, we discover attributes of God-He is living, He is holy, and He is sovereign. All of these attributes call for the worship from all creation-The reason why we worship is because of who we worship-We worship God because He is God.

“He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities” - This a beautiful, cornerstone verse of Christianity – It paints a portrait of God's mercy – He doesn't give us the punishment that we deserve for our sins, He doesn't give us the payment we deserve for our iniquities. Ephesians 2:4 says that God is rich in mercy. God shows how merciful He is by saving anyone at all from their sins, because none of us deserve to be saved. John MacArthur wrote, "Is God unfair in not choosing to save everyone? 'Fair' would send everyone to hell. You don't want fair, you want mercy." The cross of Jesus Christ is all about God's mercy. It answers one of the ultimate questions of faith – How can a holy God be reconciled to unholy people – to sinners like you and me? At the cross, we see a God of justice – punishing sin – and we see a God of mercy – pouring out the punishment for eons of sin not on the sinners themselves – but on His Son. When we look at the cross we see Jesus bearing the sentence, bearing the weight of the punishment that sinners like you and I deserve.

The more we understand God's intrinsic glory (The more we understand who God is and what He's done for us), the more we will ascribe glory to God, the more we will worship, the more we will bless the Lord. Can I tell you, I believe with all my heart that the biggest problem in our world today is not that we have the wrong president or that we took prayer out of schools or illegal immigration or substance abuse – The biggest problem we have is that we don't understand who God is, so we don't understand what kind of people we are supposed to be.

David preaches the Gospel to himself, reminding himself that God is good, even in the midst of troubles in life.

Being poor in spirit means being able to admit that you have nothing and you are nothing without Jesus.   If you realize you are utterly helpless without God, though, and put your whole trust in His goodness, His mercy, and His love, that's when you're really blessed.  

Repentance isn't about sinning less so that you can impress God with your goodness – It's about treasuring God more than you treasure your sin, and the evidence of that – the fruit of repentance – will be your obedience to God's Word.  In the words of the Old Testament scholar, Dr. Chad Bird, it's time to “Trash your homemade halos.”  Stop pretending you love Jesus and you have it all together when all the evidence tells us that you have lost your mind and you love your sin more.  Let your heart be broken for your sin; receive the mercy and grace and love of forgiveness of God, and learn what life and love really is. 

John the Baptist was a polarizing figure, and stirred things up, but Jesus who was on the way, would divide people in a way that not even John the Baptist could – Luke 3:17 says His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.  The winnowing fork was like a large wooden shovel, and the farmer would toss the grain into the air with it – the heavy grain that useful would fall to the ground, and the chaff, the trash, was blown away or swept up in a pile and burned.  So John is painting a picture here of Jesus and fire – If you have faith in Christ, He uses the fire of the Spirit to make you clean and purify you from your sins so that you can enter into a relationship with the Holy God;  but if you lack faith in Christ, He uses the fires of judgment to give you're the punishment you actually deserve for your sins. 

Adam in the Garden lived in a one-rule world – don't eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or you will die – and Adam was disobedient to God's Word, he didn't trust God's will – you know why? Scripture says the fruit looked like it would taste good – Because Satan said God was holding out on him, and there was something better than what God had given him.  Adam fell for the temptation of the devil.  God was true to His character and true to His promise – Adam did die one day – But not that day.  God continued to let him live, because God is merciful, and he showed Adam grace, and He made clothes for Adam, to cover his nakedness and his shame.   Jesus in the wilderness was tempted with all the physical pleasure, all the power and possessions and popularity, and all the health and wealth and prosperity and protection that a man could ever desire – But He trusted God the Father.  He trusted God's plan for His life, and He resisted the temptation of the devil - and at another tree, He bore the punishment of death that we all deserve for our sins.  And because Jesus trusted God the Father's plan for His life, sinners like you and sinners like, even though we fall for temptation and choose other things besides God's will and God's way over and over again – sinners like us, if we repent of our sins, and trust that Jesus' dying on the cross was enough to cleanse us from our sins, God will cover our shame with the blood of Jesus, and give us eternal life.

Jesus' Mission - He came to free those held in the bondage of their sins – people who can't shake their addictions – people who wrestle with their guilt and their shame and can't get loose from it on their own – people who want to do the right thing but make bad decisions and carry a grocery list of moral failures in their hearts – Jesus came to give more than physical healing to people who couldn't see – He came to a light in a dark world, exposing our sinfulness, but offering us healing through the power of His death and resurrection.  Jesus is preaching and proclaiming the good news of the Gospel.

In Scripture, Jesus addresses a lot of felt needs – He heals the sick, He gives sight to the blind, He makes the lame walk – But we have to remember that Jesus' ultimate purpose was not to address my physical illness;  Jesus' ultimate purpose was not to help me have more money in my pocket;  Jesus' deepest concern was not the condition of my checking account – When Jesus is ministering to me and to you, His biggest focus is not on my personal condition, but on the condition of my soul. 

There's a great dividing line happening here – The Gospel, this good news about Jesus makes blind people see; it makes people who are slaves to their sin free; it gives people who are chained and crushed by their sin liberty; it brings dead men to life; it makes men who are filthy in their sins clean, white as snow.  How you respond to Jesus determines whether you are a child of God, or child who will receive the wrath of God.  Jesus reading from the prophet Isaiah and saying everything Isaiah said is being made complete in Him was a provocative act – It challenged people to define who He truly is, and challenges them and us to a point of decision.

Here's what Luke is doing in this text today – He is establishing that Jesus Christ is the sovereign God – He is in control.  He holds all authority. He is Lord over all, and thus the proper response to Him is to hear His message, submit to Him, and do what He says – repent and believe the Gospel.  Repent and believe in Jesus.

Jesus' teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum is so powerful, so authoritative, so pregnant  with the sovereignty of God, not only are the visible, human listeners astonished by His words, but also the invisible world, and the world we can't see, is hit with an irresistible impact. Jesus not only astonishes the visible audience – He drives a demon out of the darkness and forces him to acknowledge the truth of who Jesus is.    

Our message for today – The Word has become flesh and dwelt among us.  Jesus has come into the world.  And He is more than a man.  He is God. And we know that He is God because He is full of truth, He is omniscient, He is omnipresent, and He extends mercy to sinners, even sinners like me, even sinners like you.   And when you come to an understanding of who Jesus is, you become caught in the grip of an irresistible grace, a calling to your heart that radically alters the course of your life.  Christ embraces us in mercy; we respond by embracing Him Him in obedience, and following Him where He leads us.  He saves our souls, then uses us to save souls.  He erases the power of our sins, so that we can magnify the power of His Name.

Jesus encounters a man with leprosy in this episode - He is in need of something beyond a natural solution to his problem.  He is in need of divine intervention.  So he comes to the one whom Mark 1:27 calls “The Great Physician” – A little later on in Luke 5:27, when Jesus asked why He spends so much time with those on the fringes of society, with sinners, He says “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”  The solution to this man's problem, the answer to the horrors of sickness and shame caused by original sin, is Jesus Himself.

When we sin, it's God's law that we have violated.  God is the only individual who has any right to be offended by our sinfulness, because He is the one who authored and perfected the law.  And since He is the One whom we offend with our sin, He is the only One who has any right to forgive us of our sins. Jesus has put Himself on the judgment seat, the place where only God Himself can sit.  The pharisees are outraged.  Jesus tells them, “Just so you know that I have the authority to forgive sins (he looks at the paralyzed man on his bed and says) rise, pick up your bed and go home.  And immediately he rose up before them…”  Jesus is saying, “Yes, I have the same authority to forgive sins as God, because I am God in the flesh.  If you don't believe me, watch this – I can show you better than I can tell you.”

The standard of every religious system outside of Christianity is that if you are good enough, you will go to Heaven.  What sets Christianity apart is that Jesus calls sinners to Himself, to repentance and an eternal relationship with God in Heaven. Jesus said “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”  Who needs a doctor? Sick people.  Who needs forgiveness for sins? Sinners.  There are two verses that contain the core of the Gospel – II Corinthians 5:21 - For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.  God has what we lack and what we need to be in right relationship with Him – holiness – and holiness is what He demands – the good news is that what God demands, He supplies in the person of Jesus – Hebrews 7:26 says that Jesus is “holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners” – But at the cross, He takes on our sins, and gives us the gift of His righteousness, so that we can enjoy an eternal relationship with God. 

As we continue our line by line journey through the Book of Luke, we find the tension escalating between Jesus and the Pharisees - Jesus defies their man-made Sabbath laws by healing on the Sabbath, and in doing so, declares Himself to be "Lord of the Sabbath". Jesus chooses mercy over empty religious works.

In this episode, Jesus chooses 12 apostles, or emissaries, to carry on His message of repentance, forgiveness of sins, and love. He chooses a most unlikely array of characters to fulfill His mission and build His church, from bad-tempered fishermen to tax-collecting extortionists to outright traitors - And does so to demonstrate that the work to be done is not man's work, but God is to receive all the glory.

Luke describes the controversial beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist, including his powerful first recorded words in Scripture. John's preaching calls us all to repentance and faith in the one who can save us from our sins.

Jesus is presented at the Temple, and Simeon and Anna prophesy over Him, declaring Him to be the Messiah. We don't hear from Jesus again until He is 12 years old, when He is found teaching the religious experts in the Temple, and He openly states for the first time that He is the Son of God.

The narrative of Christ's birth contains the story of two kings-One, Caesar Augustus, had a name whose meaning was “supreme and majestic”, and he was expected to be worshiped like a god; the other was born in the most humble way possible-Jesus was born in humiliation, and would die in humiliation. One was a king; but the other was the King of Kings. Hear the Christmas story as it defines the person and work of Christ as we continue our line by line journey through The Book of Luke.

Zechariah's song at the birth of John the Baptist beautifully binds together the Old and New Testaments by pointing out that Christ is the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, the New Covenant. Israel has expected God's promises to be fulfilled through a leader that would lead them to political power and prosperity, but John the Baptist's message paved the way for the Messiah by calling for repentance of sins, a “bone in the throat of Israel”, which didn't see a need for salvation from sin-and also a bone in the throat of many who don't recognize their sinfulness today. If you can't admit that you're a sinner, you'll never understand that you need a Saviour.

Luke is writing to a Roman official named Theophilus in order to explain the ministry and work of Jesus, and strengthen his faith. But Luke is doing more here than just writing a biography about Jesus. This is more than just facts about the life of Jesus.  What Luke wrote is about what God accomplished in human history through Jesus - This is a story with eternal ramifications.  This is salvation history – theologians call it “redemptive history”. Luke's two books - Luke and Acts - are constantly dipping into the waters of the Old Testament, to show how God saves those whom He has loved since before time began from their sins, and drew them to Himself through the teachings, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.  Luke 19:10 says “the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost”, and that's the central theme of Luke – How God sends His son to die on the cross so that man's sins can be forgiven, so that man's brokenness can be repaired, so man's depravity can be wiped clean, and we can have hope.  This is the story of God saving sinners. 

The priest Zechariah is visited by the angel Gabriel, who announces to him that he's going to be the father of a son. Zechariah responds with unbelief, because he and his wife are old, and she is barren. So the question for today is, how do you respond to the Word of God?  There's only two responses – either you respond with unbelief, or with belief. Either you trust God, or you don't.  RC Sproul wrote, "In the Bible, there are two ways that people die. They either die in faith, or they die in their sin. If you die in your sin, in unbelief, it is too late. The judgment of God will be upon you, not simply for a few months as it was for Zechariah, but forever." God's judgment for Zechariah speaking in unbelief was to take his voice until John the Baptist was born.   We all have times when we struggle with doubts – when we seem to have insurmountable odds to overcome, when we never can seem to get ahead financially, when the medical condition just won't get better, when the relationship issues just won't resolve – But these are temporary lapses – When John the Baptist was born, Zechariah's voice was restored, and his first words are described in Luke 1:67-68  And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, 68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people 69 and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David."  Those are the last words we hear from Zechariah. See, he had moments where he wasn't righteous and blameless – But God's righteousness is always consistent, always faithful – it never wavers.  What we learn from Zechariah - Trust in God.

The angel Gabriel appears to Mary and delivers a message - "Mary, you're going to give birth to the Son of God, God in the flesh – His name will be Jesus". Here's what's interesting about the name Jesus – it means Healer – It means Saviour.  Mary understands the implications of this -She knows the Old Testament teaching about a Messiah coming from the family tree of David to save Israel from their sins – A King who will have more than an earthly reign of 10 or 20 or even 70 years – but He will be an eternal King over all the Heavens and the Earth. Mary is terrified.  We said last week that Elie Veisel once wrote, “If an angel appears, and tells you ‘Don't be afraid', it is most definitely time to be afraid”. But Mary received the message in faith, and the rest is history.  

Magnifying God isn't about making God look bigger than He really is – It's about sharing a true picture of how big our God is.  Our worship of God, in our singing and in our normal, day to day activities are opportunities to demonstrate how incredible and magnificent Jesus is, even though the world doesn't pay Him much attention; even though Hollywood and Washington, DC don't think He's that important. Mary's story teaches us that magnifying God doesn't mean you have to do huge things for God; just do small things with huge love.  The greatest spiritual act of worship that Mary ever performed in life was carrying and giving birth to and nurturing a baby.  The most profound and eloquent sermon she ever preached was being a mom. In worshiping God with her lips and with her day to day living, Mary magnified her God, and she took incredible joy in magnifying God, so the world could see how big He really is.  John Piper wrote, “The whole duty of the Christian can be summed up in this: feel, think, and act in a way that will make God look as great as he really is” – My entire purpose, your entire reason for existing, is to magnify God.

The birth of John the Baptist brought about joy, wonder, fear, and finally, hope.  When the people saw how powerfully God was moving, they asked the question, “What then will this child be?”  The real question was, “What's God going to do next?”  Even as an infant, God was working in John the Baptist's life, blessing him and guiding him toward his fulfilling his purpose.  John the Baptist drew crowds of thousands.  He defied the status quo.  He didn't wear trendy clothing or have fog machines or big auditoriums to draw a crowd.  His preaching was abrasive and provocative.  He called the most religious men of his time serpents and sinners. In Luke 7:28 and Matthew 11:11,  Jesus called him the greatest man born of a woman. If Jesus calls you the greatest, that really makes you something, right?  But the consuming purpose of John the Baptist wasn't to bask in his own limelight and point to himself – it was to point to someone even greater, then fade away – He said in John 3:30 – “He must increase, but I must decrease.” John the Baptist understood that you won't find hope in a mortal man.  We hope a president or politician will make life better.  We hope that a certain salary or amount of money in the bank will make us feel secure.  We hope that some physical pleasure will satisfy us and make us feel whole.  We hope the right pill will make us feel better or lose weight or that the right medical treatment will heal us and ease our anxieties.  But earthly hopes are temporary hopes.  John 17:3 says that knowing Jesus will give us an eternal hope – a hope that won't disappoint and won't fade away.    John the Baptist would become a signpost that pointed men to hope – His sole purpose in life was to point sinners like you and sinners like me – to Jesus.

Zechariah's song is one of four songs sung in The Book of Luke. The overarching theme in Zachariah's song is hope– remember, this is a people who have lived under Roman rule as slaves; they've not heard from God in 400 years – and now suddenly, their deepest hopes, hope for freedom from God's wrath, hope for reconciliation with God through Christ, is unfolding right before their eyes. The major theme of this song is this - God has not forgotten you.  There might be times you have forgotten God, when you neglected God, when you out right chose the pleasures of your flesh and the joys of this world and you completely caved to the temptation to prioritize everything else over Jesus, and forgot about God and acted as His enemy– But God hasn't forgotten about you.  Through Christ, He offers you redemption through Himself, reconciliation with Himself through Himself, salvation by Himself, from Himself, and victory over death and sin by His own initiating action of sending John the Baptist to announce the coming Saviour – then sending Jesus Himself to make the work of reconciliation complete.

There are constant battles going on in our world – on a macro level, we see the United States and China bickering about airspace; we see Democrats and Republicans debating about gender ideology and race and inflation;  on a smaller scale, we see husbands and wives arguing over loading the dishwasher incorrectly; we see parents and children quarreling over grades and what the kids want to wear and the kids being buried in their phones all day; on the playground at pre-k, there's 4 year olds fighting over who's first in line or who's touching who.  There's always something to fight about, on big scales, and down to the smallest scale we can imagine.  James is going to answer the question "What causes quarrels within us?" by identifying three battles, three wars that produce conflict in everyday life –   -the war inside us -the war outside us -the war up above us If you find yourself wanting what the world has to offer, listening to all the voices in the world that tell you to chase that perfect Instagram moment and you'll be happy, earn this amount of money, and you'll be satisfied, or get ahead of this or that person, or win this battle with your spouse or that person you can't stand, and you'll feel complete, you're wrong.  There's a greater satisfaction.  If you will drop your own need to win fights and drop your grudges and drop your need to feel justified, and beg God for mercy, God will give you Himself.  This is what God showed us with the gift of Christ on the cross.  Being rich in mercy, He didn't give us what we deserve.  Instead, He gave us Himself. 

We've arrived at a place in James where there are ten commands grouped together.  Now, they're sandwiched between two statements about humility – James 4:6 says God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.   If you need Jesus, all you need is to be humble enough to admit your need.  God's grace is extended even to individuals who would never imagine that they deserved grace. In fact, the defining characteristic of grace is that it isn't deserved at all.  It can't be earned in any way whatsoever.  So if you humble yourself, admit you need a Saviour, then God gives you not just a small helping of grace, but a rich, overflowing grace - John 1:16 says …from His fullness we have all receive, grace upon grace. For all of us sinners who aren't afraid to admit we need a Saviour, Jesus extends to us grace upon grace upon grace upon grace.  If you lived to be 1000 years old and sinned every day, you couldn't begin to exhaust the storehouse of grace that Jesus has available for you.  Then, at the end of today's text, in James 4:10, James writes, Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.  Humble, yourself, and there's a rich reward for you from God. 

When you slander and grumble, you're removing God from the judgment seat, and placing yourself on the throne.  When you slander and grumble, you magnify the faults of others and minimize your own – That's called hypocrisy.  Matthew 7:1-5, Jesus said, “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.”  You see what this is?  It's a call to self-examination – Jesus is not saying that you can never tell someone that they have a pebble in their eye – He's just saying to make sure you work on that concrete block in your own eye first.  Don't judge someone else's actions, when your own actions are just as sinful.  You don't have to be the judge.  God holds that authority.  I Corinthians 4:5 says Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.  We don't have to judge others, because God is going to judge us all.  James wrote, "...behold, the Judge (with a capital “J”) is standing at the door."