Sermon for Sunday, December 4th, 2025 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC)
Old Testament Reading:
[Daniel 9:24-27 ESV] 24 “Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. 25 Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. And for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. 26 And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. 27 And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.”
New Testament Reading:
[Hebrews 9:11-14 ESV] 11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Gospel Reading:
[Luke 1:67-79 ESV] 67 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, 70 as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, 71 that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; 72 to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, 73 the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us 74 that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, 75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. 76 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, 77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, 78 because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high 79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Sermon Text:
[John 4:25-26 ESV] 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
Introduction
The anticipation of Christmas is known best of all to children, for those presents under the tree are a mystery waiting to unfolded, and a joy soon to be had. Adults too have great anticipation of Christmas, remembering our Christmases as a child and the joys we had, and looking forward to GIVING more than receiving.
But ultimately, we all receive a great blessing in remembering the Birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Here today, BEFORE Christmas, we anticipate that blessing saying:
Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus.
For centuries there was a great expectation of the coming of the messiah. And that expectation grew more fervent in the years before Jesus and continued fervent through his time on earth.
Daniel’s prophecy of the 70 weeks is often thought to be a messianic prophecy that contributed to that fervent expectancy. Astute readers of the Scriptures may have understood that in 490 years (70 x 7) that something profound would happen with the coming messiah. And that duration of time from Daniel going forward does land us in the time of Jesus.
Then there were other Old Testament texts that led the people to expect a Messiah:
Some were more general in their timeline. Jeremiah just says “the days are coming.”
[Jeremiah 23:5-6 ESV] 5 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’
And Micah notes the place of the coming of the Messiah, without noting the time other than that it is FUTURE.
[Micah 5:2 ESV] 2 But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.
But regardless of the timing, the expectation grew and grew, especially as the Jews were living under Roman rule.
I. False Expectations of Christ’s Coming
But here there is a division between True Understanding of the Messiah and False Expectation. The false expectation is all over the Scriptures.
We saw it recently in a passage from Matthew’s Gospel where even John the Baptist is affected by false expectations. He send his disciples to Jesus asking “Are you the one to come, or should we expect another.”
So many had this false WORDLY idea of what the messiah would do. They wanted a political revolution.
Look at what Luke says in the book of Acts. There were two men, Theudas and Judas the Galilean who used those false expectation to gain a following:
[Acts 5:36 ESV] 36 For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing.
[Acts 5:37 ESV] 37 After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered.
Later in Acts another possible false messiah is mentioned; not by name, but just as “an Egyptian.” There the Roman chief captain (or tribune) asks Paul:
[Acts 21:38-39 ESV] 38 Are you not the Egyptian, then, who recently stirred up a revolt and led the four thousand men of the Assassins out into the wilderness?” 39 Paul replied, “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no obscure city. I beg you, permit me to speak to the people.”
These movements “came to nothing.” They wanted political revolution, but Jesus would bring a spiritual revolution.
And even though Jesus clearly said “my kingdom is not of this world,” there have been Christians throughout the ages who continue to clamber for an earthly kingdom and political rule. I believe this is a great mistake whether it is the hope for the revival of the temple in Jerusalem or the desire to have a so-called “Christian Nation.” All of that is to miss the point of Christ.
There is also false expectations today in the “Health, Wealth, and Prosperity Gospel.” People are told that they will be rich, or healed, or given great influence in this world if they follow Christ. That is a false Gospel, and a false expectation. Again, all of that is the miss the point of Christ.
The change which Christ brought out — and what was Truly Understood and Expected – was a change in our status BEFORE GOD. Forgiveness of sins. That’s what people should be clamoring for. What good is political power if we are stuck in sin?! The great expectation of Advent is the coming of the messiah, the LAMB OF GOD who takes away the sin of the world.
II. True Understanding of Christ’s Coming
But let us look at the sermon text. This is a topical sermon, but I’ve anchored it to this text. The woman at the well. And we often look at this text as about salvation even for great sinners. But within the narrative is this great line about the expectation of the coming Christ. And I think this is a proper and good expectation of the sinful woman at the well:
[John 4:25 ESV] 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.”
She likely got this truth from Deuteronomy 18:15-18
[Deuteronomy 18:15-18 ESV] 15 “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers–it is to him you shall listen– 16 just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ 17 And the LORD said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.
If you connect those two texts, you’ll see that the Words of God in the mouth of Christ shall be spoken to all whom God commands and so the woman can say “he will tell us all things.” He’s not literally telling all things – like the score of next week’s football game or the actual population of China or anything like that. It is not all facts that the messiah well tell, but it is all important things of God. It is the Gospel, the truth of salvation.
That is why there is such fervent expectation. Even though the people have heard the Gospel in the Old Testament, the coming messiah will repeat, reaffirm, and clarify the Gospel before COMPLETING the truth of the words in his death on the cross.
So there can be no doubt why the disciples in John 1:41 have great joy in that statement: “WE HAVE FOUND THE MESSIAH!”
The woman at the well knew two facts:
The messiah will come.
And the messiah will tell us great things. Perhaps that is literal speaking of great things, or perhaps it will be “telling” in the sense of “doing.” The actions of Christ will indeed “speak louder than words.” Or at least just as loud.
She is one example.
It is argued that there was great messianic expectation, but a wide variety of expectation of what the messiah would do.
But Jesus answers that question. He is the messiah, and he did great things. He was prophet, priest, and king. He came to His own, but His own received him not. They didn’t recognize him, for their had false ideas about the messiah.
They had false ideas BECAUSE they did not believe the Scriptures. They certainly read them. The Jews had the Scriptures in their possession for centuries. They heard over and over again the reality of the coming of the messiah, the place of his birth, the family he’d be born into, maybe even the time of his coming. But their eyes did not see and their ears did not hear.
People today still do not come to believe in Jesus Christ for the same reasons. And they are without excuse. The Bible is everywhere. But people don’t read it, and they don’t believe it. They change it to suit their own interests. Some things are “hard to believe” and so are dropped.
They don’t know the messiah because they can’t know the messiah. As Martin Lloyd Jones says in a sermon:
“The principle is, that we have become such as the result of the fall and the result of sin that we cannot recognize the messiah. We cannot recognize our savior. As the princes of this world didn’t know him and killed him, crucified him, regarded him as an imposter and a blasphemer, so the world still doesn’t know him. And the teaching is the world cannot know him. He has to be revealed to us.”
Now God has revealed himself to us.
He reveals himself to the woman of Samaria.
And she says later “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”
She asked that as a question, but I think its clear that she believes him to be the Christ. It is perhaps rhetorical: who can this be other than the Christ?
III. Celebrating Christ’s Coming
So we can celebrate the expectation of the coming Christ.
Even better we can celebrate Christ who has come.
AND we can look with great expectation to his return; the 2nd coming.
I think we sometimes forget how prevalent that Scriptural teaching is; the 2nd coming of Christ.
Christ’s 1st coming only heightened the desires of believers to have him return. So our desire and expectation of his return NOW in the Christian era is even greater than the expectation of the 1st coming in the time of Christ.
I liken it to a meal with an appetizer. The people come hungry. And once they taste food (an appetizer) they get even hungrier! But the meal is yet to come! The great feast in heaven is yet future.
So great is that expectation of what is yet to come that Paul can say “to live is Christ, to die is gain.”
What a great hope we have; a hope in the resurrection because of Jesus Christ, but also a hope an eternal life with the Lord in glory.
So we remember the expectation of the messiah.
And His coming.
And we take joy in that expectation of his second coming.
Conclusion
But all of this pales in comparison to something else.
Unless we “make Christ our own” then the expectation and coming of Christ, whether the 1st of the 2nd time, are only academic, historical, or prophetical pieces of information.
The more common phrase is to “make faith your own.” And we say that especially when children grow up in a Christian family and become adults. They are to “make the faith their own.” But we also, adults, are to “make Christ our own.” To embrace the Lord through faith.
Think of it this way: the baby in a manger might be cute, but Christ in your heart changes your life.
The celebration of Christmas, if done in a secular way, is a very limited celebration. The colors might be pretty, the lights dazzling, the food enjoyable.
But joy in Biblical expectation, and remembrance, and expectation again for the second coming of Christ, is all premised on the truth that Christ IS come for something profound – the salvation of sinners in taking their sins upon him on the cross, and giving to them righteousness and eternal life.
All who have merely touched their toe to the waters are faith in Christ, are called to jump in. Make Christ your own. Come to him and know salvation.
That’s why we look forward to Christ. Because in him we have salvation. And in Him we know the Living God. And in Him we have hope and life eternal.
Jesus revealed his identity to the Samaritan women at the well, saying, “I am He.”
And through the scripture he reveals his identity to us.
Jesus’ birth proves that God keeps all his promises. His promises are sure and will not fail.