<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Eric Flickinger

Good Tidings

How many of you want to help others prepare for eternity?

Well, we're going to talk about that this morning as we dive into our message, good tidings.

Father, we thank you for giving us an opportunity today to spend time in your Word, to be encouraged, to be challenged by you.

Give us, Lord, opportunities to share your love with others, to share uplifting, encouraging messages about who you are with people who need to hear it today.

So back where I live in Tennessee Southern Tennessee Chattanooga just on the the northern border of Georgia Just this past week We had a cool morning It was kind of nice.

Now I know out here in Southern California you get hot, but you don't get near humid like we get back in Tennessee.

But this past week, we started to get cool mornings, and I thought fall is finally on the way.

And fall, of course, leads to winter, and winter makes me think about Christmas.

So I'm going to share a little thought this morning that I hope will cool you off just a little bit in this Southern California heat.

My grandmother, my family as you heard earlier, I grew up in a military family.

We traveled around the world extensively when I was young.

We would move every 3 years to some new place where my father was stationed.

But just about every Christmas, we would all go back up to Ohio where my grandparents lived for Christmas.

And that was always something enjoyable for me.

Now 1 of the things that I enjoyed about that so much was my grandmother.

She was very spiritual, all my grandparents really were, but my grandmother especially was very spiritual and she would bring Christ into Christmas.

And 1 thing that she would do with the grandchildren every year would be to pick us up and sit us on her knees and recite to us from memory the Christmas story from Luke chapter 2.

Now that was powerful to me, that meant something to me.

My favorite part of the story was when the angels told the shepherds the good news that Jesus had been born.

I'm gonna read to you from Desire of Ages chapter 4 if you'd like to kind of open your Bibles or your apps or whatever To Luke chapter 2 we're gonna spend a little bit of time there as we dive in this morning But I'll read to you from Desire of Ages chapter 4 1 of my favorite books The author pens these words The king of glory stooped low to take humanity.

The angels had wondered at the glorious plan of redemption.

They watched to see how the people of God would receive His Son clothed in the garb of humanity.

Yet 2000 years ago, Jerusalem was not preparing to welcome the Redeemer.

With amazement, the heavenly messengers beheld the indifference of the people whom God had called to communicate to the world the light of sacred truth.

The priests rehearsed their meaningless prayers and performed their rites of worship, but had lost sight of their whole purpose.

In a rude building where animals were sheltered, the Redeemer of the world was born.

Mankind was unaware, but the tidings of Jesus' birth filled heaven with rejoicing.

With a deeper and more tender interest, the holy beings from the world of light were drawn to the earth.

The whole world was brighter for his presence.

Above the hills of Bethlehem were gathered an innumerable throng of angels.

They waited for the signal to declare the glad news to the world.

Much of the world wasn't looking for Jesus.

They were hoping for a Messiah, but they weren't expecting Jesus to come as he did.

Not everyone had forgotten about the coming of the Messiah.

In Luke 2 verse 8 it says, And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you, you shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, say it with me, glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men.

How the angels must have thrilled to share that message.

How they must have looked forward to that time for years when they could share with the shepherds that message of good news, the message that the Savior had arrived.

The message that you and I are to proclaim today is very much the same.

The shepherds or the angels shared with the shepherds, Jesus is coming.

You and I today get to share the message with the world that Jesus is coming again.

The Bible is full of the spreading of the good news about salvation.

Over in the book of Isaiah, turn with me there if you would, book of Isaiah chapter 61, verses 1 and 2, we read about this good news that the Messiah has to bring to the world.

In verse 1 The prophet writes, speaking of the Messiah, the spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach, to preach what?

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives in the opening of the prison to them that are bound to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all that mourn." Here Isaiah says that the Messiah is going to come and what's he going to do what's part of this good news and incidentally what's another word for good tidings Another word for good tidings is good news.

Another word for the good news is the gospel.

This is the good news that the Messiah is going to bring.

Are there any brokenhearted people in the world today?

I'm not going to ask for a show of hands, but if I were to ask today how many of you are broken-hearted, there's probably some hands that would go up.

What are some things that break people's hearts?

There are a lot of people today who are broken hearted.

Their plans for life have not gone as they desired and they're brokenhearted.

He came to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives.

Are there any people in the world today who are captive to anything?

What little 3 letter word are many people captive to?

People can be captive to alcohol, drugs, tobacco, some people are captive to relationships, work.

I mean we could make a long list of things that people are captive to today, right?

To proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.

Many people are imprisoned by the choices that they have made but Jesus came to bind up the brokenhearted Proclaim liberty to the captives and to open the prison to those who are bound.

It's interesting Jesus himself quoted these verses during the course of his ministry But he didn't quote the last part of verse number 2.

He stopped when he said to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, he did not quote, "...and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all that mourn." why didn't he quote that part?

During his earthly ministry he was there to proclaim that good news.

There's a time coming though when the day of vengeance of our God will come.

That time is coming and not too distant today.

The world is desperately searching for good news, for good tidings.

Unfortunately, many people don't seem to know where to look.

Where do people look for encouragement today?

Where do people look for good news today?

Back to Menu

Good Tidings

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Fire In My Bones

28m

Sabbath School 4th Quarter 2023: God's Mission My Mission

02 God’s Mission to Us Part 2

18m

Plenary

The Lamb and the 144,000

1h 9m

John Chung - Walking with God: Practical Ways to Maintain a Vibrant Connection with Christ

God’s Ecstasy, His Sorrow

56m

The Spirit of Prophecy Matters

1h 5m

Biblical Missionaries

The Jonah Saga

58m

That Woman Jezebel

51m

Plenary

05 Time to Leave the Cave, Elijah

51m

GYC 2012 Morning Devotional

Reaching the Cosmos

54m

Plenary

For Such A Time As This

1h 26m

The Loud Cry and Christ’s Method Alone

57m

Going Nuclear

1h

Sound Doctrine