Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus

pray

Amazing Grace—366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions 3. Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus

Come, thou long-expected Jesus, born to set Thy people free; from our fears and sins release us: Let us find our rest in Thee; Israel’s Strength and Consolation, hope of all the earth thou art; dear Desire of ev’ry nation, joy of ev’ry longing heart.

Born Thy people to deliver, born a child and yet a King; born to reign in us forever, now Thy gracious Kingdom bring. By Thine own eternal Spirit rule in all our hearts alone; by Thine all sufficient merit, raise us to Thy glorious throne.

The main theme of this song is hope of deliverance. So what is deliverance?

It’s a crazy movie about some guys going rafting. Don’t watch it. But that’s not what we’re talking about.

It doesn’t have anything to do with Door Dash and food delivery.

It’s about being delivered from something bad, or saved. Have you ever had someone or something after you? Or get you and trap you? Have you ever had a person who is much larger than you sit on you? And tickle you? And hope an even larger person will come and rescue you?

God’s people have a true enemy that Scripture says wants to devour us…

God’s people look to Heaven with hope for deliverance only He can send.

Hope in the Bible is a little bigger than it is in our world…

Hebrews 11:1 ESV

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

We have three stages of deliverance we’re thinking about tonight. I thought of something to help us understand these three stages. Have y’all heard of this Taylor Swift person? Ok, I’ve heard she’s popular. I want to let the Era’s Tour help us understand how we have one hope, but it comes in multiple stages and in different ways…

Partial Past Deliverance

Wesley wrote this song while reading in the book of Haggai, chapter two.

give brief explanation of the book of Haggai, read 1-9

God gave them relief from those enemies and let them experience his glory in his Temple. But there were more enemies to come later, and the ultimate enemy was still at large. This deliverance is good, but it’s only a shadow of what God is truly pointing to. We see that in the birth of Christ when Jesus brought full deliverance from Satan and sin.

Full Past Deliverance

While the Old Testament Hebrews saw a partial fulfillment of his prophecy, what he was truly looking forward to was realized in the birth of our Savior, Jesus. Zechariah… prophesied about it in Luke 1.

read verses 68-75

Through Jesus, we are delivered from our sins. We receive forgiveness because he paid our penalty. He left Heaven and was born on the Earth among sinful humanity who would reject Him and kill Him so his people could be delivered!

So Taylor’s Eras Tour. The difference between the partial deliverance they saw in the OT and the deliverance that Jesus brought to his people is like the difference between watching the Eras Tour on Disney plus and having tickets to the concert. Front row seats!

Future Final Deliverance

God’s people today, us, still await our final deliverance that will happen when Jesus comes again… This is prophesied about in the book of Revelation, we see the final defeat of our enemies at the end of the book.

read 19:11-21; 20:7-10

The Eras Tour. The difference between the deliverance we received when Jesus came the first time and when He comes again to do away with his enemies forever is… so lets imagine that Taylor is going to get a residency in Vegas at some point and it’s going to be the best show ever. And that all her ex-boyfriends and people she’s beefed with are going to be locked away forever too! We can think about the advance of deliverance from the first time Jesus came to when He comes again kind of like the difference between seeing the Eras Tour and seeing Taylor live in Vegas at the best show ever every night with all her enemies locked away.

And there is only paradise left. This deliverance is only possible through Jesus. You can only be delivered through Jesus. You can only enter his Kingdom when He returns by faith in Him.

Gospel invitation