Rev. Dr. Moses O. Biney – Expect and Unexpected

Malachi 3:1-4

¹See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. ² But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like washers’ soap; ³ he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.^{[a] 4} Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord, as in the days of old and as in former years.

Philippians 1:3-11

Paul’s Prayer for the Philippians

³I thank my God for every remembrance of you, ⁴ always in every one of my prayers for all of you, praying with joy ⁵ for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. ⁶ I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete^[a] it until the day of Jesus Christ. ⁷ It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because I hold you in my heart,^[b] for all of you are my partners in God’s grace,^[c] both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. ⁸ For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the tender affection of Christ Jesus.⁹ And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight

¹⁰ to help you to determine what really matters, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, ¹¹ having produced the harvest^[d]of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

Luke 3:1-6

The Proclamation of John the Baptist

¹In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, ² during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. ³ He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, ⁴ as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
    make his paths straight.
⁵ Every valley shall be filled,
    and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
    and the rough ways made smooth,
⁶ and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ”