Have you ever just looked around you and said something's wrong?
Has there ever been something or maybe even this week or you
know, something that's happening in the world around you and you
just look at it and you say something's wrong here?
Anybody just nod your head. You don't have to raise your
hand. Something's wrong this week.
I was feeling a little guilty because I had a long standing
tradition that I kind of have broken over the last few years
and I I was starting to feel bad about it.
And that tradition was that on Thanksgiving, I like to
celebrate Thanksgiving the way the Pilgrim is meant for us to
celebrate Thanksgiving, which is by stopping at White Castle on
the way home from Thanksgiving dinner.
And so, you know, the last few years I haven't done that.
And I, I thought this year I just was feeling a little bit
guilty about that. And I thought, this is the year
that I reinstate their tradition and I get things back to normal.
Now, listen, I, I, I'm going to get myself in a lot of trouble
if I don't say some things today.
The cooking at Thanksgiving is wonderful.
It's just not my favorite meal. The food was fine, just not my
favorite meal. And so I've always supplemented
the meal with delicious White Castle sliders, the best food.
By the way, South, I probably shouldn't do advertisements, but
South Lebanon, White Castle, the freshest in all the land.
You got to check it out. Anyway, So, so Thursday night
we, we had Thanksgiving dinner and, and it was good.
It was good dinner. And on the way home, I thought,
you know, I'm not really hungry, but I really do, you know, want
to get back to my roots of White Castle.
But I went home and we're hanging out at the house.
And then a couple hours later, one of the boys wanted to come
up to the gym and play some sports.
And so I thought, OK, I'll take you up to the gym, thinking this
is my opportunity. And so I drove up to the gym,
dropped the boys off, and then I headed down 42 because the
closest one now is down at 42 and 275.
So I headed down 42 on my way to White Castle.
I got down there. There were no lights on.
Since when does White Castle close closed?
9:30 We're not talking midnight, we're talking 9:30.
Maybe I was too early, maybe they open at 11 or something.
But but I got there in my hopes and dreams were just dashed and
all I could think is something is wrong with this world when
White Castle is closed. No White Castle for me.
You ever you ever thought that? You ever just thought something
is wrong? Not about White Castle.
You probably don't have the same convictions I do.
You know, I told I'm coaching basketball this year and I told
them I'm a pastor and our services end at noon and so I
will coach. But there is no way that I can
coach any game before 1:00 PM. And I got my schedule this week
and I have some games before 1 PM 10 AM on Sunday, basketball
games. A couple weeks ago we, we had a
volleyball tournament tournament down in Nashville.
And, and listen, I, I really, I don't want anyone to think that
I'm being condescending or I don't want anyone to think that
I'm speaking I'll against you. I'm not.
But I want you to say, I want you to know that I, I think
something's messed up in our world that sports have taken
over. And, and, and listen, I'm there.
I'm not, I know, I, I'm living in this place as a parent that I
have kids that are into sports and I love sports and I want
them to be able to play. But in order for them to play,
there's conflict. And, and, and so I understand
where everyone's at, but I sat there in Nashville a couple
weeks ago and it was really great watching, I love watching
my kids play. I mean, I, I made it through the
whole first service, didn't cry until the very end.
And here I am 2 minutes in. I love watching my kids play
sports. I, I was super proud.
But I sat there thinking something's wrong when we're
spending weekends and weekends and weekends and we're not even
doing all of it, but but it something's wrong when that's
taking over life, when you look at our political system, when
you look at the way we interact, when you look at a simple
Facebook post about something you know, totally arbitrary can
turn into hatred, Something's wrong, right?
You've experienced this. We have hope.
Today is the start of Advent season.
And maybe you have thought those thoughts.
Something's wrong, something's off.
Today, as we start Advent season, the season of preparing
ourselves for the coming of the King, I want you to know that
there is something wrong. There's a lot of things wrong
with our world, but the good news is the King has come and
the King is coming again. Advent is a season that we look
back, we celebrate what has happened, that Jesus came to
earth, took on flesh, became one of us and walked this earth,
ultimately gave his life so that we could have salvation and in
life. And so we celebrate in Advent
what has happened, but we also look forward.
Advent is not just about looking back, it's about looking
forward. And so today, if we say
something's wrong, yes, but I've got good news.
The King has come and the king is coming again, and all will be
made right. Over 1000 years before Jesus
showed up, there were prophecies, there were promises
of this coming king, this coming Messiah.
We're going to be looking at those over the Advent season.
Today we're in Jeremiah 23. Jeremiah is in that the the
context of Jeremiah is exactly where what I was talking about.
The people, something's wrong. They're God's people, the
Israelites, they've followed him.
He's delivered them and then and then raised up kings.
We have David and the Lion of Kings of David.
And God had delivered them and, and God had given them a place
and God had given them an identity and a purpose.
But over the course of time, those kings and leaders and even
religious leaders had LED them astray.
And all of a sudden there were false gods.
There were false idols just like there are today that God in the
way and took the place of the one God, the true God.
And so Jeremiah in this in writing.
This is a prophet. Jeremiah is called to call out
to proclaim judgment, but also to proclaim the good news.
The promised 1 is coming. Stand with me.
We're in Jeremiah 23 and this isn't going to be on the screen.
The 1st 4 verses, verse five and six will.
But the context of this is that the, the people have been LED
astray. They, they've turned away.
They're worshipping other gods, just like in our world, people
have have turned away. And it's complicated and it's
tricky and it's messy. That's where the people were the
the leadership, the kings, the religious leaders had had LED
them had begun to to go their own path.
And so in Jeremiah 23, starting in verse, one says, woe to the
shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my
pasture, declares the Lord. Therefore, this is what the
Lord, the God of Israel says to the shepherds who tend my
people. Because you have scattered my
flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them,
I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done,
declares the Lord. But then in verse 3 we see a
turn. I myself will gather the remnant
of my flock out of all the countries where I've driven them
and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will
be fruitful and increase in number.
I will play shepherds over them who will tend to them, and they
will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be
missing, declares the Lord. Now stay up because we still got
two more verses. But once again, something's
wrong. This is addressing political
leaders, kings, and it's addressing religious leaders.
Really toward the end of the chapter, it gets more into the
religious leaders, but but they've been LED astray and and
the people are living in this conflict and and they've messed
up. And so Jeremiah comes and and,
and the prophecy is there's going to be judgment, there's
going to be punishment, there's going to be exile.
But in verse 3 we see God will gather his people back.
God will take care of them. Verse 5 the days are coming.
Say that with me the days are coming.
Say it again, the days are coming declares the Lord, when I
will raise up for David a righteous branch, a king who
will reign wisely and will do what is just in right in the
land. In his days, Judah will be saved
and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he
will be called the Lord, our righteous Savior.
Praise Lord, you can have a seat.
So. So we have the prophecy of
judgment. Something's wrong.
You've been LED astray. We have the promise that God has
not forgotten about his people. He will gather them back.
Then we have the promise of a coming king, a savior.
The days are coming when I will raise up a righteous branch, a
king and and the people will be saved.
Advent is a time to look back. I've got good news.
The promised one has come. That's what we celebrated.
Advent, the king has come and we will celebrate it through this
next month. But we also understand the King
is coming again. God's promises are always true.
So let's work through this. The days are coming.
Stay with me one more time. The days are coming.
Now the reason I have you say that with me is because it's not
just the days have happened, but the days are coming.
If we're sitting here in our world and we're saying
something's wrong, something's off, something's messed up, yes,
but the days are coming when the king is coming again and he will
restore what's broken. The days are coming, declares
Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch.
I want to start here. God had promised to David that
that he would bring a a savior, A Messiah from his line.
And in Second Samuel Chapter 7, this is the promise to David.
The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish
a house for you when the days when your days are over and you
rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to
succeed you and your own flesh and blood, and I will establish
his Kingdom. He is the one who will build a
house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his
Kingdom forever. I will be his Father and he will
be my Son. The promise is through David,
God will bring a Messiah, a king.
Now we Fast forward and the people have messed up the the
line of kings. Some of them were good.
David was a a good king. There were other good kings.
The current king at the time of writing this is Zedekiah.
He was not a good king. You know that sometimes we have
leaders that are good. We have leaders that are bad,
right? Hopefully you're not in one of
those bad times right now. There were good kings.
There were bad kings. There were kings that led people
toward God. There were kings that led people
away from God. There were religious leaders
that led people to God. That is my goal to point you to
Jesus. And there were kings that were
selfish and, and were self interested and were corrupt and
LED them the wrong way. And so, so the promise had come.
But at this point, if you thought of the Kingdom David's
line as a tree, it's as if the tree was withered or falling
down. Anyone have a dead tree in your
yard? Anybody.
I'm the only one. OK.
Great Waters Association is here.
Yeah. Thank you.
I appreciate you. I got this little tree in the
backyard. It's it's like nothing on it for
years. I'm like, I need to chop that
thing down. But every once in a while in the
spring, something will shoot out of it.
There's new life. You've seen that, right?
Something that appears to be dead will sprout new life and
you're reminded that it's not totally dead.
That's where the the whole line of David here.
It was like it was like the the tree was cut off.
It was like it's over in the and and they're facing the judgement
in the condemnation. But but God says the days are
coming when I will raise up for David a righteous branch out of
the seemingly dead. A new, a shoot, a branch comes
up, and that branch is Jesus. See, God had promised, and when
God promises something, it comes true.
We can mess up, we can blow it, we can get off track.
And that's what the people had done.
That's what the kings, the leaders had LED them astray and
they're facing judgement. And it's as if Jeremiah is
saying, listen, I, I hate to tell you this, but it's going to
get worse before it gets better. But the good news is it's going
to get better. The judgement is coming.
I, I love what I, I read this week.
I thought this was really good. It said the judgement was
coming, but it was just the beginning of God's ultimate plan
of restoration. See, when we face judgment or
discipline, we think it's the end.
But the truth of the gospel is God has promised us the hope of
eternal life. And when we mess up, when we
blow it, when our world is messed up and we say, hey,
something's not right here, that doesn't mean that God is gone.
He's abandoned. Yes, they blew it.
Jeremiah was there to say you've messed up, you've gone your own
way. But good news, God's promise
stands, and a righteous branch will come out of the line of
David. Jesus is from the line of David
because God's promises never fail.
That's good news. Today the king was coming.
Spoiler alert, the king has come.
That's what we celebrate at Christmas.
The king has come. The prophecy is true.
The second thing, what what is the king come to deliver?
Well, verse 5A, King who will reign wisely, who will do what
is just and do what is right in the land.
What would this king, what would this righteous branch do?
He would bring justice, he would bring wisdom, he would bring
righteousness to the land. So we look at our world and we
say something is wrong and it looks like at times that the bad
is winning over the good, right? It seems like people that are
not following God are, are prospering where at other times
the people of God aren't. But a king is coming who will
reign wisely, who will do what is just and right.
Jesus came and Jesus is the truth.
He sets things right. And so Jesus came and and he
showed up and the promise was true.
But I want to say this again, He is coming again.
And we're living in this weird in between right now where Jesus
has come and he's shown the way, but we still live under some
corruption, some difficulty, some brokenness.
And sometimes we say something's not right.
Sometimes we, I think this is probably where the people were
that, that we can be torn in the middle, like we know that
something's not right, but what do we do?
What's the path forward? And Jesus came to reign wisely,
to be just and right. Here's the good news.
The Savior has come and he's shown us the way.
We have this amazing gift, God's word, that teaches us who he is
and what he's all about. And so in the in the difficulty,
in the tough decisions, because it's tough to live in this place
where something's not right. Admittedly, guys, I'm a father,
love my kids, love sports, want my kids to do well.
There's a lot of places in my life that I feel this tension of
something's wrong. Good news is the king has come
who is right and just and you. And you know what?
When the world is full of hatred, when the world is
worshipping idols, we don't have to because the king has come, a
king who will reign wisely. See, there were kings that were
good. There were kings that were bad.
But but King David, you know, King David was a good king.
You know, he didn't always do everything perfectly.
In fact, he messed up in some pretty big ways.
But the true king has come who is right and just the one who is
perfect. It goes on in verse 6 and the
days in his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in
safety. So so the king is coming.
The righteous branch is coming up from the line of David.
He is the king that is just and righteous and is wise and and
but I want you to see this next part.
It says in his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in
safety. This is is a short term promise,
but it's also a long term promise and it's for all of us
that we can live in the safety and salvation of Jesus, the King
who has come and is coming again.
Here's the thing. He's not just a good king that's
wise. He's not just a good king that
is righteous. He's not just a good king that
brings justice. He's a king who loves his people
and wants to save his people and wants to give them life and
peace and safety and hope in the midst of brokenness.
Jesus is the King that delivers justice, righteousness, and
salvation to the people. That's us.
Somebody get excited about this guy.
Somebody say Amen. Come on.
I feel like nobody's with me here.
Come on And listen, I get it. We talk about this every year
and I feel that as a pastor. But I want you to know that the
King has come and he's coming again.
And he didn't come just to be a good king.
He came to save his people. And that's good news, because
that's the only reason that any one of us is here.
He brings justice, He brings righteousness, He brings
salvation. Jesus is the king.
And even in a broken and a corrupt world, we can live.
This is the cool thing, guys. We can sit here as the church
and we can say something's wrong and we've all done that right.
Just nod with me so I know you're with me.
We've all done that right? We've said something's wrong
here, OK? Can I tell you that?
Because Jesus has come, because the righteous and just King has
come and offers salvation and grace, we the people of God can
live right and just right now in 2025, in the brokenness, we can
be a people of peace and righteous and righteousness and
justice. All right, let me, I talked
about sports. I'm going to, I'm going to take
a detour back here for a second. I want to encourage you guys if,
if sports are an issue, which they are for my family and they
are for a lot of us, I want to encourage you that you can still
worship. You can still worship every
single day. You can still pray and, and you,
you can even still worship on the weekends.
Maybe your, maybe your games are going to be during worship time,
but I promise you, there are churches.
One of the, one of the great things about today is that we
have the opportunity to put the service out there so that you
can join us. Even if it's later, you can join
us or there are all these other churches.
This is really cool. I went to Nashville.
I got on Google Church of the Nazarene.
There were two churches of the Nazarenes within 10 miles of me
that I could go to. Praise the Lord.
I had the gift of being able to worship even though I had the
struggle. OK, political stuff, the hatred,
the division. You don't have to be a part of
that. In fact, not just you don't have
to be a part of it. You should not be a part of it.
You should be a person of grace and love and truth, not a person
of division and hatred. Good news, the King has come,
He's righteous. He's, he's bringing justice, he
is good, he loves his people, and he offers us the path today.
You're not left to your own devices to figure out how to
live a righteous life in a broken world.
You have the and you can pray and you can be guided by the
Spirit to know how to navigate this world.
It's tricky guys, please understand, I am not getting on
anybody. I'm not trying to bring
condemnation, but I do want to be true to the word of God,
judgement and that our world is corrupt and broken.
And it's tricky and it's tough. But there's a king that's come
and he reigns. And if he reigns in my heart and
my life, he shows me the way, shows me how to live in the
midst of the mess. Jesus has come.
The third part of this, This is the name by which he will be
called the Lord, our righteous Savior.
So, so the righteous branch is coming.
The promise is fulfilled, the promise is true.
A king is coming. He's a good king.
He's a righteous king. He's a just king.
He's also a king for his people, that loves his people, that
offers us justice and righteousness and all of that.
And verse 6 tells us he's the Messiah.
He is the Lord, our righteous Savior.
Now this is kind of cool. At this time King Zedekiah, the
king of the people, was a messed up bad king that led them
astray. The the name Zedekiah actually
means God is righteous. It's it's his name proclaims
that God is righteous and good, but his leadership in his life
LED people away from God's goodness and righteousness.
You see the problem there? But this righteous branch, this
king, well, his name is the Lord, our righteous Savior,
Jehovah Sidkanu, the Lord, our righteousness.
Not just a name, but in function, Jesus, the one that
has come, the one that we look back and we celebrate, and the
one that we look forward to, his coming again is our
righteousness. 2nd Corinthians 5 says God made him who had no sin
to be sin for us so that in him we might become the
righteousness of God. This is so cool, guys.
We can look around and we can say the world's messed up, but
if I'm being really honest, I can stand before you today and
say I failed. I've messed up, I've fallen
short. And there's not a person in here
that can sit, can stand up here and not say the same thing.
Every single one of us has fallen short, but a savior has
come, the Lord of Righteousness. He's not just a prophecy.
He's not just a king. He's not just a good king.
He's not just a king that's for his people.
He is our savior and our righteousness.
Here's the beautiful thing. I don't care what you've done.
I don't care how far you've missed the mark.
If you accept Him as your Lord and your Savior, when you stand
before God, it won't be a laundry list of all of your sins
and all of your shortcomings. What the Father will see is the
righteousness of Christ. That's good news, guys.
The King has come, the promised one has come.
He showed up. God made him who had no sin to
be sin. That doesn't mean that Jesus
sinned. It means that that he took on
the sin of all of us and gave his life as a sacrifice so that
we could be saved, that that he took our place.
And now he is the Lord, our righteous Savior.
Praise the Lord, guys. Something's wrong with our
world, to be honest. Something's wrong in the church
sometimes something's wrong with leaders.
We're not perfect. And sometimes kings and
political leaders and, you know, bosses and all of those things,
sometimes something's wrong. I've got good news.
The king has come and he's righteous and he's just, and he
is the Lord, our righteous savior worship team.
Come on up, stand with me. Today as we start Advent, we
look back. We're talking about hope today
for the people in Jeremiah, for the people of Israel that
Jeremiah is prophesying to. His message is a message of
judgment, but his message is ultimately a message of hope and
a message of a coming Messiah and Savior.
And the message is the same today.
Something's wrong. There will be judgment.
Here's the beautiful thing. Jesus has come.
He gave his life so that we could be forgiven, so that we
could be saved. So as we start the Advent
season, I want to call you to worship.
And, and here's the thing, all you have to do to to have the
righteousness of Christ is accept him as your Lord and
Savior to say, forgive me for my sins.
I want you to be my Lord. I want you to be my king.
Sure, we're going to live under presidents and we're going to
live under bosses and we're going to live under, you know,
crazy things that are messed up. But today there is one true
King, and He is our first authority, and he lives.
As we talked about earlier, He lives.
And today all you have to do is believe, surrender, repent, and
turn to Him. And you are made clean.
You are given righteousness. And yeah, something's messed up
in our world, but we don't have to be.
We can live in his righteousness.
As we sing this last song, I want to encourage you to
respond. If you've never made that
commitment, today you can make that commitment.
It's simple. It's just to say, hey, I've
messed up. But Lord, I want to follow you.
If you've already done that, then this should be a time of
celebration and praise and recommitting ourself.
Let's make sure that every single one of us is there.
Jesus came. The promised one showed up and
he offers us life and salvation today.
Don't miss it. Father, speak to us, help us to
respond to you today. We give you everything.
We worship you. If there's anyone here that's
been maybe missing the mark, if there's anyone here that's been
messed up, if there's anyone here that's maybe been
worshipping the wrong gods, Lord, today I pray we would
surrender everything to you, that you would be our savior,
You would be our king. I thank you Lord, that you're
here for moving our hearts in Jesus name.