Advent: Joy, Trials, and the Promise of Restoration

Ryan: 00:00:12

Welcome back to Ryan Brian's Bible Bistro.

Ryan: 00:00:13

I'm Ryan.

Brian: 00:00:13

And I'm Brian.

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And this is the Bible Bistro Podcast.

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All about the Bible theology and all.

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Things pertaining to the Christian faith.

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Yeah, I did it.

Brian: 00:00:23

You messed me up.

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Okay?

Ryan: 00:00:24

I did.

Ryan: 00:00:24

And I'm bringing back old school here.

Brian: 00:00:26

I am wearing Carhartt.

Ryan: 00:00:28

I got Carhartt on it today.

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Columbia.

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t Looking for sponsorships in: 2025

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Anyway, I will wear Carhartt.

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We can have a.

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We could have a listeners poll.

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Carhartt or Columbia, Columbia.

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Ooh, yeah.

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Find out.

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All right, well, we're back.

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We're continuing our series.

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Advent series.

Ryan: 00:00:50

Yeah, Advent series.

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Yeah.

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So we've been.

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We've been in the book of Matthew, working through some of these genealogies.

Brian: 00:00:55

Right, well, the genealogy.

Ryan: 00:00:56

Yeah, well, it's in three sections, though, Brian.

Brian: 00:01:00

Fair point.

Ryan: 00:01:02

Anyway, the genealogy of Jesus.

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But subbed.

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Subbed out into three sections.

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All right, just let me have it.

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All right, so where are we continuing today?

Brian: 00:01:13

Well, go ahead and read Matthew 17.

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Since you mentioned these three sections.

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Matthew 1:17.

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This is kind of the summarization of the genealogy of Jesus.

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Yeah.

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Thus, there were 14 generations in all from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the exile to Babylon, and 14 from the exile to the Messiah.

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So if you remember last week when we talked about this idea of peace, we talked about that the kings, basically from David up to the Babylonian exile, the kings in this line could not establish a lasting peace.

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They were unable to do that.

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And only the promised Messiah in the future was going to be able to do that.

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So we ended last week with the end of the Babylonian exile.

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And now we begin after the exile to Babylon.

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Now here's what's different about this section of names in Jesus genealogy.

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When we talked about the patriarchs, all those names are familiar to us because we know those stories from Genesis through the book of Exodus.

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We know people like Boaz.

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We know the story of Ruth and Rahab and all these different stories.

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Last week when we talked about King David through, basically we ended with Jeconiah or I suggested this could be Jehoiakin.

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Well, it is Jehoiakin.

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That whole series of kings is mentioned in the book of first and Second Kings, First, Second Chronicles.

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Also we find some of them mentioned in Jeremiah.

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What's different with this week is that.

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What's different with this week is that these names are not familiar to us.

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And the reason is because they're really during the.

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Most of them are during the period of what we call the intertestamental period.

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Right.

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So after the writing of the New Testament or the Old Testament and before the writing of the New Testament.

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So we only find these names really here in Jesus genealogy for the most part.

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But let me go ahead and read this to you, and I want you to see if there are any of these names that do sound familiar to you, maybe even from other things that we've done on this podcast in the past.

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So verse 13, I'm going to start there.

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After the exile to Babylon, Jeconiah.

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And again, it's Jeconiah here, but it's Jehoiakin.

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In the Old Testament, Jehoiakin was the father of Shealtiel.

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Shealtiel was the father of Zerubbabel.

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Zerubbabel, the father of Ab.

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Well, Zerubbabel, I'm going to say the name just because the name rings a bell.

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Is Zadok, like, okay, well, maybe that's.

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Yeah, it's when they were coming back from Babylonian captivity.

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He was there to help rebuild the temple, rebuild the city.

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Yeah.

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Yes.

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Oh, yeah.

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He was not a good guy.

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He was good guy.

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And he was just a child when he took over as the king.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Daughter of El Natha, El Nathan, she was taken from Jerusalem, heeded evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father had done.

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And so at that time, the officers of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, advanced on Jerusalem and laid siege to it.

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And Nebuchadnezzar himself came up to the city while his officers were besieging it.

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Jehovah.

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Jehoiakin, King of Judah, his mother, his attendants, his nobles and his officials all surrendered to him.

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So at this point, Jehoiakin is taken into captivity.

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We find Nebuchadnezzar strips some of the wealth out of the temple and out of the city.

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We find some other people taken away into exile and they establish Zedekiah.

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This is down in verse 17.

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He made Mattaniah, Jehoiakim's uncle, king in his place and changed his name to Zedekiah.

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This may sound like a familiar story to anyone who's seen the Lion King, that his uncle, he's taken away and his uncle, he's deposed.

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His uncle is made the king, and it went pretty much the same way as the Lion King.

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In fact, I don't know.

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The Lion King may have been based on 2 Kings 24.

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I don't know, Probably.

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So Zedekiah, I would say, is the stupidest king of Israel because essentially what he did, because he still would be.

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From David's line, he's Jehoiakim's uncle.

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But what he does is after he's placed as kind of a vassal king, basically just he's.

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What do you call it, an empty suit, right?

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He's just a placeholder there.

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He decides to rebel against the king of Babylon.

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Now, you can imagine how well that went over.

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So what happens is when we were.

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All here and we didn't surrender, that turned out well.

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So let a smaller portion of us try to do it.

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So Nebuchadnezzar's army comes back and just levels Jerusalem and he just takes it out on.

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And then the end of Zedekiah is horrible, too.

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We're not going to talk about this today because it's just too happy of a season to talk about what happened to him.

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But look at this.

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This is in chapter 25, starting in verse 8, because the temple is, I think, a pretty important part of this whole story of scripture.

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On the seventh day of the fifth month in the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, Nebuzerad, commander of the imperial guard and official of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.

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He set fire to the temple of the Lord, the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem, every important building.

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He burned down.

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The whole Babylonian army, under the commander of the imperial guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem.

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Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guard, carried into exile the people who remained in the city, along with the rest of the populace and those who deserted the king of Babylon.

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But the commander left some of the poorest people of the land to work the vineyards and the fields.

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So essentially we call this the second exile.

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All these people are taken away, then into Babylon.

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Jerusalem is destroyed.

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The temple is set fire too.

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The palace is burned down.

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Everything is then just destroyed.

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And I'll remind you that it's kind of funny if you trace this history of the temple.

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Remember, David is the one who conceived this idea.

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Solomon implemented it.

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We see under Manasseh, he places an Asherah pole in the court of the temple.

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And God says, I'm going to take my.

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I promise my name would be here forever, but I'm going to take essentially my name away from this.

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And the temple then we see here is destroyed.

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So if we look down a little bit later, then I want you to notice.

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And I've talked about this in another podcast, I can't remember which one, another episode.

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But in 2 Kings 25, we come to the very end of the book of second Kings.

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And I want you to notice how it ends.

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Go ahead.

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You have it there in front of you.

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Go ahead.

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Read verses 27 through 30.

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This is the very end of the book of 2 Kings.

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In the 37th year of the exile of Jehoiakin, King of Judah.

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And in the year Ahel Marduk became king of Babylon, he released Jehoiakin, King of Judah, from prison.

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He did this on the 27th day of the 12th month.

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He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat of honor higher than those of the other kings who were with him in Babylon.

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So Jehoiakin put aside his prison clothes and for the rest of his life ate regularly at the king's table.

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Day by day, the king gave Jehoiakin regular allowance as long as he lived.

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Now, it's interesting that the book of second Kings ends this way.

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And I was mentioning to you just before we started today that the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah also ends exactly the same way with exactly these same words.

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That's going to become important for something we're going to talk about in just a minute.

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But Jeremiah, kind of the end of the book of Jeremiah follows the story of the end of the kingdom and the exile to Babylon.

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You might remember Jeremiah, his job was basically to say, look, guys, this.

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That's what's going on.

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I got some bad news for you guys.

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You know, we call him the Weeping Prophet.

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He had this.

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He had this horrible news to tell people.

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But Jeremiah also did give a note of hope.

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And I want you to notice there's a note of hope here, too, because God had promised David that he would never fail to have a man on the throne.

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If you read Jeremiah, there's times where Jehoiakin is mentioned specifically.

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And this is interesting, this is actually, we should do this as an episode sometime.

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But Jehoiakin has said that his line will be cut off.

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But what happens here is we find a note of hope here that this descendant of David is still alive.

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And in fact, not only alive, but we get this idea at the end of the book that he's been elevated, he's been taken out of the prison, that he's being treated nicely by this foreign king.

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So there is some hope.

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Now, Jehoiakim, remember Jeconiah?

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Not a good guy.

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Well, not a good guy, but he is one of the ancestors of Jesus.

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He's in this genealogy.

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That's the name.

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That's why I wanted to mention this.

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That's the name that we have here.

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So as we go on, look at the Book of Ezra then, because fast forward 70 years, the Babylonian exile is taking place here.

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Ezra is the story of the return from exile, right?

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And it begins in this way.

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This is Ezra 1:1, in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia.

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So now the Persians are in charge.

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They've defeated the Babylonians.

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There's a whole story about that in the Book of Daniel.

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We can reference our series on Daniel if you want to read about that.

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But in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, there it is.

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Basically, Jeremiah said, you're going into exile, but after 70 years, God is going to relent.

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The message Jeremiah has after the Babylonian exile is inevitable is he says, settle in Babylon, do good business, plant gardens, have children, because you guys are going to be there for a while.

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But then after 70 years, God is going to bring you out.

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That's the message of Jeremiah.

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So it says to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus, king of Persia, to make a proclamation throughout the realm.

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Also put it in writing.

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This is what Cyrus, king of Persia, says.

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The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth.

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He's appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem and Judah.

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Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem and Judah and build the temple.

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Lord.

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It goes on from there.

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Basically says that those who still live in the land should give them gold and silver.

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That didn't happen.

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But Cyrus not only releases these Israelites, the descendants of Abraham, from captivity, but he also says that he wants them to rebuild the temple, right?

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So this temple that was destroyed by the Babylonians, Cyrus says part of what they need to do is they need to rebuild this temple.

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So we find the list of names of people who go back.

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Look at Ezra, chapter three.

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We're not going to read that genealogy.

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One genealogy a day is enough for a season.

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But then Ezra 3:1 it says when the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns, the people assembled together as one in Jerusalem.

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Then Joshua, son of Jizodak and his fellow priest and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his associates began to build the altar of God to Israel to sacrifice burnt offerings on it.

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So here we find the name Zerubbabel, as you mentioned, he comes.

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He's one of the ones who.

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Not everybody returns from captivity, but he is the one who returns.

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And these two names, when we look at the book of Zechariah, which we're going to do at the end of this episode.

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Joshua is the priest.

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Zerubbabel is kind of the leader of the people.

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And those two together become very instrumental in Jerusalem being built back up in the temple being restored.

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And so that's the beginning of what we see here, the rebuilding of the temple.

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It says very specifically that Zerubbabel brings out the foundation stone.

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I did want to finish this in verse three, it says, despite their fear of the peoples around them, they built the altar on its foundation and sacrificed burnt offerings.

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So this wasn't an easy time, but this was a very difficult thing that they were called to do.

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And so this return from exile, now, I haven't mentioned this yet, but the third week of Advent is about joy.

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And so why am I equating this part of Jesus genealogy with joy?

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I think it has to do, first of all, with this idea of returning God's promise being fulfilled, that they're returning to the promised Land.

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And so I would imagine they set out with a great deal of joy and rejoicing.

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It talks about that.

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They sang songs.

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It talks about the excitement that they had as they gathered together in order to return to the promised Land.

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Some of them had never seen it before, and the very oldest of them may have remembered what it was before, but they were excited and they had these stories, and so they were very excited about returning to the land.

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And so joy, I think, is accompanying this.

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But I want you to notice this one way that joy is used when it talks about the temple being rebuilt.

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Do you have Ezra 3 there in front of you?

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Did you get that?

Ryan: 00:16:43

Oh, I can get it.

Brian: 00:16:45

I'm sorry.

Brian: 00:16:46

That's fine.

Ryan: 00:16:46

No, I got it.

Ryan: 00:16:47

No, I got it.

Brian: 00:16:47

So start down in verse 10.

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Just read verses 10 through 13.

Ryan: 00:16:51

Yeah.

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When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests and their vestments, and with trumpets and the Levites, the sons of Asaph with symbols took their places to praise the Lord as prescribed by David, King of Israel.

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With praise and thanksgiving, they sang to the Lord, he is good.

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His love toward Israel endures forever.

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And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.

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But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads who had seen the former temple wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy.

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No one could distinguish the sound of shouts of joy from the sound of weeping because the people made so much noise.

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And the sound was heard far away.

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I love this story.

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I find it really fascinating.

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It's about our expectations, right?

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And do you notice the word joy there?

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Shouts of joy on behalf of these younger people who are seeing the temple for the first time.

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They've reestablished this way that they can offer sacrifice and be in right relationship with God again.

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But the older people who remember Solomon's Temple, they remember the glory of the former temple, weep because Zerubbabel's temple isn't anything like that.

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So here's the question about joy.

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Here's the thing that I want to talk about with joy today.

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And it's one thing to experience joy when God's promise is fulfilled to us or where we see his blessings.

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But what about those times where the expectation doesn't live up?

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Or the reality, I should say, doesn't live up to the expectation, right?

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They see this temple and it was not what they had anticipated it being.

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And so it says there they wept.

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I think the point I want to make is that in the Bible, joy can be had in both of those circumstances.

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Joy is not dependent on the reality meeting our expectation, I guess, is what I want to say.

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The reason I say that is the way that joy is used in the Bible.

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The first place for me that I ever came across this idea is in James 1.

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And I remember the first time I read this, I thought, that's really strange.

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But verse two says, consider it pure joy.

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So not only joy, but pure joy.

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My brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds.

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And I thought, what in the world can that mean?

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How can trials result in joy?

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He goes on, he says, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

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And then he goes on and says, perseverance does work in us so that we become more of the people that God intended us to be.

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And the problem is sometimes we use the word joy in our culture to mean that kind of.

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Well, like the season, right?

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We talk about joy, but a lot of times we mean all the glitter and the glamour and all the things in this Christmas season.

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But the biblical word joy has more to do with us being in the right place for God to do his work in us and through us.

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Another example I want to give you this.

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This is in the book of Hebrews 12.

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This is about Jesus.

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And it says, therefore we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witness.

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Let us throw off everything that hinders the sin so easily entangles us.

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Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

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So he's our example, basically.

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And then the Hebrew writer goes on and says, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross.

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And you can think of very few things that we read about in Scripture that are worse than the description of what we see Jesus going through in the cross.

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And you might remember, even in the upper room with his disciples, Jesus talked about making his joy complete.

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The Hebrew writer says it was because of the joy that was set before him that he endured the cross, scorning its shame, sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

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And so he becomes for us an example that even when things are as difficult as the cross.

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Right.

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That there is a joy that can be had in the midst of it.

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Any thoughts on that or what is that?

Ryan: 00:21:14

Yeah, you kind of brought this up.

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I've been doing some work in John myself, in John 15, that joy complete.

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This is Jesus farewell discourse.

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He's getting ready to go to the cross and he's talking about his joy being made complete.

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It's in the disciples and their obedience and following in his ways.

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But.

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But he's got joy even in that moment as he's going to the cross.

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And that it's not.

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We oftentimes think of joy as a conditional piece of this.

Brian: 00:21:42

Right.

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And instead it's really being in the place God has for us at that time.

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Sometimes part of God's plan for us is sometimes the way we're shaped through trials, through difficulties.

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Right.

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And I think joy has that deep seated sense.

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I always define joy as a deep seated sense of satisfaction that we are in the right place and in the right purpose for God to work through us.

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Final passage.

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I was going to read from the New testament.

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This is 1 Thessalonians 1.

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Paul says, Therefore we know, brothers and sisters, loved by God, that he's chosen you because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit, with deep conviction.

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And you know how we lived among you for your sake.

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You became imitators of us and of the Lord.

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For you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.

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So there again suffering, but equated with joy there.

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I think the important thing to notice is Paul says that this comes from the Spirit of God.

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It's not a naturally occurring.

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It's not our natural response to these difficulties.

Brian: 00:22:48

Right.

Brian: 00:22:50

Excuse me.

Brian: 00:22:51

Instead, it is something that the Spirit gives us in the midst of these difficult situations.

Brian: 00:22:57

I think as we recognize God's work Through us.

Ryan: 00:23:02

Yeah, well, you know, I'm thinking about even Jesus coming is a reflection of this joy coming from unexpected places.

Ryan: 00:23:09

You know, we talked about.

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We don't know many of these names in the second half of the.

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Like, the kings become less and less important.

Ryan: 00:23:16

I mean, we just, you know, and so then when Jesus comes, it's like, what good can come from Nazareth?

Ryan: 00:23:21

You know what I mean?

Ryan: 00:23:21

Like, it's.

Ryan: 00:23:22

Even though he's in this lineage, you know, it's from an unexpected place.

Ryan: 00:23:28

Like, the line of David had in some ways been pushed down a little bit.

Ryan: 00:23:33

I mean, they still saw it that way.

Ryan: 00:23:35

But even in the line of David, it seemed like it wasn't possible from Jesus.

Brian: 00:23:41

And that's an interesting point.

Brian: 00:23:43

I was going to, you know, this will relate to what I'm getting ready to talk about.

Brian: 00:23:46

Yeah, those people, you know, they had lives and we don't know about them, but they, you know, they lived, they had children, they worked, they had bad days.

Brian: 00:23:56

I'm sure they had difficulties that they got through.

Brian: 00:23:59

If God blessed them with old age.

Brian: 00:24:02

They saw their grandchildren, maybe their great grandchildren, but they still were part of this line.

Brian: 00:24:08

God was still working in them and through them in ways that they couldn't even understand.

Brian: 00:24:12

Right.

Brian: 00:24:13

And I think that's the way with us, that we can have joy in knowing, even if we don't know where this is headed or how God is going to use these things.

Brian: 00:24:21

If we're aligning ourselves with his will, if we're aligning ourselves with his purpose for us, then there are ways in which we can have joy, knowing that the fruition is going to come down the road, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Brian: 00:24:36

This is where I kind of want to go with Zechariah chapter 4.

Brian: 00:24:39

I love this chapter.

Brian: 00:24:39

And again, we've already done a whole series episode on Zechariah 4, a whole series on Zechariah.

Brian: 00:24:46

But he talks about this gold lampstand that go to these seven lamps and there are two olive trees.

Brian: 00:24:55

And we talk about that.

Brian: 00:24:56

There's a constant source of oil for these lamps.

Brian: 00:25:00

They have everything they need.

Brian: 00:25:02

This oil is being channeled to the lamps which are representative of God's people.

Brian: 00:25:07

This image occurs again in Revelation chapter one is the reason I mention it Here at the end of Zechariah chapter four, we find out these two olive trees are none other than Joshua the priest and Zerubbabel, right?

Brian: 00:25:23

This leader, this son of David, this one from the line of King David, who is also.

Brian: 00:25:28

We find out in Matthew 1, an ancestor to none other than the Messiah, none other than Jesus the Christ.

Brian: 00:25:35

And so they become the ones that God is using in order to give his people what they need in this period of time.

Brian: 00:25:44

That's the first image that we have here.

Brian: 00:25:47

But then it comes on and says this.

Brian: 00:25:48

And I think there's several good messages here.

Brian: 00:25:50

This is starting in verse six of Zechariah, chapter four.

Brian: 00:25:55

So he said to me, and this is the angel you remember.

Brian: 00:25:57

Zechariah has certain apocalyptic features.

Brian: 00:26:00

So there's this heavenly messenger who's coming to bring this message.

Brian: 00:26:03

So he said to me, this is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel.

Brian: 00:26:07

Not by might nor by power, but my spirit, says the Lord Almighty.

Brian: 00:26:13

And I'll just stop there and say, the first point I think to be made here is, as we've said repeatedly, God's kingdom does not come the way that a normal earthly kingdom comes.

Brian: 00:26:28

It's not by military might, it's not by political power, but it comes through the strength of the Lord himself, through his direction and his guidance.

Brian: 00:26:42

And so Zerubbabel here, in the midst of having opposition from people around him, having this very difficult task, and I should repeat this, I forgot to mention Zechariah.

Brian: 00:26:54

The primary reason Zechariah is written is to encourage them to complete the work of the temple.

Brian: 00:26:58

They begun it and then they got sidetracked by all these other things that are going on around them.

Brian: 00:27:03

And so Zechariah's message essentially was, you need to get back and you need to finish this very important part of what God's plan is again, the temple, Tracing the history of the temple here, you need to finish that work, but you're not going to do it.

Brian: 00:27:18

You're going to only do it by my spirit, says the Lord Almighty.

Brian: 00:27:23

Then he goes on to verse seven, says, what are you, mighty mountain, before Zerubbabel?

Brian: 00:27:26

You will become level ground.

Brian: 00:27:28

Then he will bring out the capstone to shouts of God bless it.

Brian: 00:27:32

God bless it.

Brian: 00:27:33

So whatever obstacle, whatever mountain he is facing, with God's spirit, it can become level ground.

Brian: 00:27:43

It's not insurmountable when God is on our side.

Brian: 00:27:46

You see the joy here with this idea of the capstone, the finishing of this project coming out.

Brian: 00:27:52

Yeah.

Brian: 00:27:53

What were you saying?

Brian: 00:27:54

No, that's it.

Brian: 00:27:55

Okay.

Brian: 00:27:55

Verse 8 says, Then the word of the Lord came to me.

Brian: 00:27:57

The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of the temple.

Brian: 00:28:01

His hands will also complete it.

Brian: 00:28:03

So this is kind of the prophecy.

Brian: 00:28:04

He laid the foundation he's also going to be the one who puts the capstone on it.

Brian: 00:28:09

Then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you.

Brian: 00:28:13

So this is going to be a sign that God is doing this and he's going to be able to accomplish this.

Brian: 00:28:17

But then verse 10, I think, is an important word for us as well.

Brian: 00:28:20

Who dares despise the day of small things, since the seven eyes of the Lord that range throughout the earth will rejoice when they see the chosen capstone in the hand of Zerubbabel.

Brian: 00:28:31

The day of small things, I think, is a very.

Brian: 00:28:34

It's a very, for me, evocative image.

Brian: 00:28:37

And that's what makes me think of those that you mentioned, Akeem and his son Elihu.

Brian: 00:28:42

Right?

Brian: 00:28:43

I don't know.

Brian: 00:28:44

There's these two guys in the line of Jesus.

Brian: 00:28:45

But do we despise the day of small things?

Brian: 00:28:48

Everybody wants to be involved in the victory when the thing's complete, when we're having the.

Brian: 00:28:54

We have the big celebration, when we bring out the big cake and.

Brian: 00:28:57

And say it's all completed.

Brian: 00:28:59

But it takes those days, those days of small things, those times when God's people are faithfully, day after day, doing the little things that God is calling them to do that day.

Brian: 00:29:11

That's what leads up to God's plan being fulfilled and these days of victory being complete.

Brian: 00:29:19

It's only in those days of small things.

Brian: 00:29:21

So I think the message here is you can't despise those days.

Brian: 00:29:26

You can't say, oh, these are just.

Brian: 00:29:30

Let's get past all this small minutia in order to get to the big things that we really like.

Brian: 00:29:37

And so again, I think that brings us to joy is that joy can be found in those daily faithful repetitions of things that we're called to do in the lineage of Jesus.

Brian: 00:29:53

One of the things I really wanted to get across in this Advent series, I don't know how well I've done it, is Jesus in his earthly nature came from a line of real people we've seen.

Brian: 00:30:04

Some of them were a mess, some of them were foreigners.

Brian: 00:30:09

There were all kinds of different people that made up this ancestry to the Messiah.

Brian: 00:30:16

But if we think about this part of the line again, Akim and Elihud, we don't know anything about them.

Brian: 00:30:23

But I imagine Akim was a faithful follower of God.

Brian: 00:30:29

I imagine he read the Scriptures, right?

Brian: 00:30:31

And he prayed and he prayed for God.

Brian: 00:30:33

God, will you one day bring your Messiah?

Brian: 00:30:36

That's what people were praying during that intertestamental period.

Brian: 00:30:42

And maybe he's praying that, not even realizing that it's going to be from his specific line that the Messiah is going to come, but he's praying for God's will to be accomplished.

Brian: 00:30:55

I think he raises his children to be faithful.

Brian: 00:30:58

Right.

Brian: 00:30:59

That's part of what he's doing.

Brian: 00:31:00

That's part of his everyday.

Brian: 00:31:01

That's the days of small things.

Brian: 00:31:05

He's being faithful in the midst of challenges.

Brian: 00:31:08

The same kind of things that you and I face, the same tragedies of life, the death of a loved one, the unexpected illness, all these kind of things are the kind of things that people in Jesus lineage went through.

Brian: 00:31:26

And I think my point I want to get across this week is that joy can be found even in the midst of those kind of things, even in the midst of those kind of days and in those kind of eras, that there is joy to be had even then.

Brian: 00:31:43

So there's certainly joy when the capstone comes out and the temple is completed, but there's also joy in all the days that lead up to that as well.

Ryan: 00:31:52

Great.

Ryan: 00:31:52

It's a good word.

Brian: 00:31:53

All right.

Ryan: 00:31:54

All right, well, thank you, Brian.

Ryan: 00:31:56

I really appreciate it.

Ryan: 00:31:57

No problem.

Ryan: 00:31:58

We have one more episode.

Brian: 00:32:02

We may do a Christmas thing too.

Brian: 00:32:04

I don't know.

Ryan: 00:32:04

Oh, well, we'll see, huh?

Ryan: 00:32:06

We'll see.

Ryan: 00:32:07

All right.

Brian: 00:32:07

Well, Brian, that would end out the year, you know.

Ryan: 00:32:09

Yeah, end out the year and then we'll take a shorter break than we.

Brian: 00:32:12

Typically take because we were taking an unexpected break.

Ryan: 00:32:16

Yeah, I wouldn't call it a break, but we've just not been here.

Ryan: 00:32:19

All right, well, thanks so much, Brian.

Ryan: 00:32:21

Appreciate you.

Ryan: 00:32:22

And we'll see you next Tuesday.

Brian: 00:32:23

All right, see you then.

Ryan: 00:32:24

Bye.