Salvation Prepared

in the family. We wait for things at work to be resolved, a boss, a co-worker, a promotion. We want, we do not have, and we typically don't wait well. When we're waiting, there's typically two problems, right? We either try to figure out, all right, I'm gonna fix it on my own, and then we mess it up, and usually leads into more sin and disobedience, or we just give up. We stop waiting, we stop expecting and just grow tired. This season of Advent is teaching us to wait with expectation. So Advent is a bit confusing maybe. We're anticipating and trying to wait on a Savior who's already come. The whole goal of December services, the whole goal of the weeks leading up to Christmas is that we're trying to sing O Come, O Come, Emmanuel knowing He's already come because what we want to do as a church is realize that generations of Israelites waited very poorly for the promised Savior to come. And as we wait now for little things, Significant things. We can look and we can see God has always been good. God has always been faithful. We wait expectantly because we rely upon the God who makes great promises and keeps them. So this morning we're going to look and we're actually looking at how God has fulfilled the promise we considered last week. If you weren't with us last week, we looked at Luke 1, verses 1 through 25. And we'll look back at that with some explanation. And here, what happened is God promised a child. And we're gonna see that God fulfilled that promise. But this is it, there's a bigger picture. So this morning, we're looking at the birth of John the Baptist. John the Baptist is significant in the Bible because he is the last Old Testament prophet. He's the last man that's going to say there's a Messiah coming, and then he also gets to be the one Old Testament prophet that gets to say, look, there he is. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. We're gonna be looking at Zechariah and Elizabeth. She was barren, they were old, they could not have children. God said, you will have a son. And now, nine months later, there's a son, as you heard. And you see here there's also a song, it's called the Benedictus. It comes from the first word bless, just like the magnificat comes from the first word magnify. There's two parts to our passage. Verses 57 through 66, that's the event, that's what happened, it's this God fulfilling his promise, there's a child born, and his name is John, and then there's a song. And most of our time will be spent on this song. If you look at the song, I want you to see there's two parts to the song. Verses 68 to 75 is Zechariah praising God for Jesus, who is not yet born. Verses 76 to 79, he finally gets around to his own son who is just born. Think about that. A long-awaited son is finally born, reproach turns to rejoicing, and Zechariah doesn't immediately bless his own son. He blesses the Lord because he knows that salvation has now come. Not in his son, but in the one that he prepares the way for. Let's look back just for some context. If we look at verse 57, now the time came. Okay, there's been a time of waiting, but now the time came, Elizabeth gave birth, she bore a son. If we look back to Luke 1, we see the context, verse 7, but they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren. They were both advanced in years. They had probably become hopeless, as we see Zechariah, he had a hard time believing they would have a child. And then we look at Luke 18. Look at, look at how God changes the story, verse 13 rather. God changes the story. "...An angel said to him, do not be afraid, for your prayers have been heard and your wife will bear a son. He shall call his name John." Verse 18, Zechariah responds with a lack of faith. And so the angel says to him, I came to speak good news, and because you've doubted, you will not speak anymore. You will be silent until the Son is born. And so he's at nine months of silence. And then we look at verse 24. Elizabeth, she conceived, and she declares, verse 25, thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me to take away my reproach. among people. Probably her neighbors and relatives. They would have considered her cursed or disgraced. She hasn't been blessed with a child. There must be something wrong with her. So now we look to verse 57. Nine months later, now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. And her neighbors and her relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy. And they Rejoice. They rejoice. Her neighbors or relatives, the people that once had reproached upon her, now they rejoice with her because God has shown her mercy. Now mercy is a key word through this passage. We see it in verse 58 here. We see it in verse 72, to show the mercy promised to our fathers. And then we see it in verse 78, because of the tender mercy of God. Let's walk through our passage and figure out what does the word mercy mean here in Luke. And I want to do this because it's common to say mercy is not receiving what you deserve and grace is receiving what you don't deserve. And while that's helpful, it's simple, it's a little too simplistic. It's overly simplistic. I believe grace and mercy, they've got way more overlap than what they have separate from one another. So let's just look and see what mercy means in this text. First, 58. Notice mercy is something shown to Elizabeth. What mercy was shown to Elizabeth? What's the context? She had a son. Mercy here is represented in the gift God has given to her. Mercy is shown by God giving her the son that she never thought she was going to have. Let's look down at verse 72. to show the mercy promised. Let's back up, verse 70. As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show the mercy promised to our fathers and remember his covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham to grant us. You see here, mercy is being shown by being saved. It's being given salvation from enemies and it's also tied to a promise. Mercy is tied specifically to that promise that he is granted, that he's given, that he's committed himself to. And then verse 78. Let's go back to verse 77 for a little context. To give knowledge of salvation to his people and the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy of God. It's tied directly to the character of God just like Ephesians 2 4 Remember but God being rich in mercy because of the great love of which he loved us. He made us alive Mercy is tied to his his character and it's tied to him showing and giving knowledge of salvation So so here's my conclusion from these texts Mercy, I think can be best defined as this promise keeping kindness It's a promise keeping kindness. It's a faithful favor that God commits himself to. Something we could look outside of Luke and see. If you go back to that second Samuel passage that Roger read earlier, verse 15, there's a word there, loving kindness. But my, I'm sorry, steadfast love. But my steadfast love will not depart from him. My steadfast love. The Hebrew word there is hesed. It's a covenant commitment that God makes to be with people and be for people. The word mercy in the Septuagint is translated there for hesed. It's a covenant commitment. It's a promise keeping kindness. And so here we see verse 58. He has shown great mercy to Elizabeth. He committed himself to do something and he has done it. He has shown her favor. God demonstrates His kindness. And we're gonna see that mercy throughout. As we continue to look, we see on the eighth day, they came to circumcise a child, and they would have called him Zechariah after his father, because this is custom. In this day and age, the first son is typically named after the father, and it's expected that that son would not only carry his name, but his vocation, and be like him. So if your father was a farmer, You'd be named after Him, and you'd expect to enter the work of farming. We actually see this in John 8. When Jesus claims to be the Son of God, the way He argues that He's the Son of God is He says, I have heard what my Father has said, I have seen what my Father does, and I say the same thing, and I do the same thing. To be the Son of a Father is to act like that Father. Sonship is a reflection business. So they expect Zachariah to bear a son who's going to be little Zachariah. But there's a lot of commotion here. It's actually pretty bold, verse 60. In this culture, for a woman to speak up and correct the peers publicly like this would have been a bit of a scene. Verse 60, Elizabeth knows the revelation of God, she knows What God has said, so she answers, no. He shall be called John. And they argue with her. None of your relatives are called by this name. And they made signs to his father, inquiring, are you sure he went by the name of John? He writes down his name is John, and then he's able to open his mouth. Verse 64, and immediately his mouth was opened, and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. That the reason Zechariah's son is named John is that he's gonna have a different vocation. He's not gonna be a priest who serves in the temple. He's gonna be a prophet who's out in the wilderness. He's going to have a special job from God who's going to remove him from his family to do a unique kind of work to prepare for the Savior. Now, Zechariah, his mouth is finally opened after nine months of waiting to say something. and he blesses God, and I believe the words that he first says in verse 64 are recorded for us in verse 68. He blesses God, and then we have thee blessed be the Lord. So we actually have the words that he said, and afterwards, the fear fell upon the people. They didn't understand what will become of the child. They can tell something is unique. I also want us to see that Zechariah, verse 67, he's filled with the Holy Spirit. God is using this man to proclaim his word. I do believe it is most likely Zachariah is not fully aware of everything he's actually saying here in this song. The Spirit is using him to say more than he's aware of because he does not yet see who Christ is and what's going to really come of the world. Now let's focus here, and I want you just to understand verse 68 to 75, that's where we're gonna spend most of our time. The reflection that Zechariah has on the coming Savior. The blessing that he gives to the Lord God of Israel. So the main assertion is, bless the Lord, the God of Israel. Praise God, he doesn't have to say, bless the God of somewhere, whoever he may be, or whoever she may be, whatever he's like. It's a very specific prayer to a very specific God because that one God has made Himself known. He's Yahweh. He's given us His name. He's given us His history. He's not just some God somewhere. He's the Lord God who has committed Himself to Israel through these promises. They know exactly who He is. And there's this key word, bless. It's a way of expressing gratitude. Psalm 100 verse four, give thanks to the Lord, bless his name. That's parallelism, those two things go together. Giving thanks and blessing his name are very, very similar. Zechariah's wanting to exalt the Lord God of Israel out of gratitude because of what he's doing. All right, so this song, this particular part of the song, verse 68 to 75, it breaks down very easily into three parts, or four parts. Bless the God of Israel, okay, that's the first part, and then there's three transitions. For, as in verse 30, and that in 74. Bless the God of Israel for he has saved us as he promised so that we might serve him. Bless the God of Israel for he has visited and redeemed his people because he saved us. We're blessing him and thanking him because of something he's done. Verse 70, it isn't something new, it's something he's talked about for many years. As he said, for many prophets of old. And then verse 74. So that, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, we might serve him. There's a reason, there's a history, there's a purpose. So the summary of this particular passage, bless God because he saves us as he promised so we can serve him. Let's first look at bless the Lord because he saves us. Verse 68. For he has visited. It's great to read the visitors. This word actually has the connotation that someone is sick, they're not well, and so they receive a visitor who would give them a prayer, anointment, a blessing. It's the person that when you're sick, they bring you chicken soup. It feels good to receive that visit because you're pathetic, and you're laying on the couch, and you feel horrible, and so somebody visits you. That's what this word carries with it. Bless the Lord because He's visited. It's definite. Bless the Lord because He's not distant in our weakness and in our troubles. He draws near to us. Bless the Lord because He comes in our need. So bless the Lord he has visited us and then we have another action that we're blessing God for we're thanking God for He redeemed his people These two things go together. He visits and he redeems the these two actions go together simultaneously The word redemption comes from Exodus Israel was a people they had been Called out by God, they've been claimed by God. He then sent them into Egypt. Egypt's a foreign nation, but the Israel, the people, they're put there, so Egypt can kind of be like an incubator. Egypt protects them so they grow numerous, but then the Egyptians, they see how numerous the Israelites are and they start to get upset. So they enslave them. They abuse them. all according to God's plan. So that in Israel, while in Egypt, they would cry out to God, help us. And God came and visited them and redeemed them. He sent 10 plagues on Egypt. And the final one finally broke Pharaoh. So he said, get out of here, I've had enough. So the Israelites, they gather all the gold of Egypt, they march out of this land that had enslaved them and abused them because of God's great power and destruction, but God was not done yet. Exodus 14, four, God says, I'm going to harden Pharaoh's heart one more time to have glory over him. He's going to pursue Israel and I'm going to crush him so that Egypt will know that I am the one God, Yahweh says. So here's Israel. They've been complaining the whole time during these plagues. They've been saved for most of them. They haven't had to suffer through them. They're there for the Egyptians, but they've been complaining and frustrated because of the consequences. They finally get out of Egypt. They get there, the Red Sea, and they look back in Pharaoh's army. They're charging in. So what do they do? Do they turn and pray to God? No. Were there not enough graves in Egypt that you brought us out here to die in the wilderness? What a faithless people. I would have smitten him right there. But not God. Because he made promises. Because he has mercy. Because he has a promise-keeping kindness. God moves the glory of his cloud and his fire behind Israel to protect them from Egypt, and then he parts the waters, and then they walk through on dry land. and then it removes the glorious protection, the Egyptians rush into the sea and they get destroyed. That's deliverance. We're gonna see a number of references to enemies. That was the pressing in enemy that Israel was afraid of and God destroyed them. We have to understand that as Israel is to the Red Sea, we are to the cross. The Red Sea, that is the primary deliverance imagery that we see over and over again in the Old Testament. It's the same great salvation they experienced as we know we experience now because we look at the cross. Where our greatest enemies are destroyed, death is defeated in the death of Christ. He rose again. Sin and his power to enslave us and destroy us is defeated because Christ has has taken upon our guilt He's taken upon our consequences. He's taken upon our sin and suffered in our place so that we will no longer suffer We will be forgiven If we believe in him He came and he visited to redeem us Christ came and took upon a form of a man and God added to himself a human nature so that he could live just as us. He lived just like us, only he had no sin. So that when he dies on the cross as a sinless man, he takes our place as sinless men and women to be crushed on our behalf so that he receives our unrighteousness and he receives our punishment so that we might receive his righteousness in his life. This is the glorious visitation of redemption to heal us of our sin. Well, there's one other action we have mentioned. He has visited and redeemed his people. Verse 69. And he has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. He is exalted. He's raised up this horn of salvation. What is a horn of salvation? The best we can understand here is that a horn was a representation of power. If you go back and study ancient Near Eastern kings, as many of you I know do in your free time, you'll see pictures of crowns with horns. The horn was a very common way of symbolizing sovereignty, power. The horn of salvation is God's power of salvation. And notice it's connected to a king. in the house of his servant, David. We just read, or heard read, we listened to 2 Samuel 7. David had just said, God, I wanna build you a house. No, David, you're not the one who's gonna build me a house. You're gonna have a son who'll build me a house. But I'm gonna give you a dynasty, a house. I'm gonna raise up from you, from your line, one of your children, the root of Jesse. Jesse's David's father. Someone who will have the Holy Spirit anointed upon him. He's going to be a son to me. I will be his father. He will reign forever. One of the most interesting things about that second Samuel 7 passage is the stripes. Every one of David's sons was disobedient. and suffered the stripes for that disobedience, except for Jesus. He's the righteous king who was not ever disobedient, but he suffered more stripes than any other king. Why? Because we're disobedient. He suffers the stripes as the righteous kings of our disobedience, again, to take away our sin. So as we look at this horn of salvation, the powerful king of salvation that comes from the line of David, we can stand back and just see, this is a planned salvation. God knew what he was doing a thousand years before Christ was born and making that promise to David. This isn't a new plan, and it's a powerful plan. We sing his, He makes his blessings flow as far as the curse is found. One of my favorite lyrics from Christmas Carols. He makes his blessings flow as far as the curse is found. We introduced all kinds of trouble with our sin in this world. That's the power we have to bring real bad destruction. To spread the curse as far as we can go. But God's power is greater to bring blessings as far as a curse is found. He is powerful to redeem us and reconcile us. So the first thing we see is, bless me the Lord, because he's come. He's delivered. He's brought the power of salvation that he's been promising, and we're gonna see even now more clearly, it's promised. Verse 70. It's not new. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel because He saved us just as He spoke. God has spoken. We can look back to 2 Peter 1 21. Many prophets were carried along by the Spirit to declare what God had them to say. Or Hebrews 1, God has spoken in many times in many ways to many prophets, but now He's spoken finally through His Son. It's very clear that God has been speaking for a long time through a lot of different prophets. Here we see God speaks and it's a word of mercy. Verse 71, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. To show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham. Now, if you're thinking of history, okay, Jesus died 30 AD. David 1050 BC. Abraham about 2000. We're going back further than David? We're going back to to Abraham who in Genesis 12 is the man who God's gonna say, all right, you're a pagan, but I'm gonna call you out. You're gonna have people. You're gonna have many people. Here we see great mercy. And it really is worth your time to consider the Abrahamic covenant. It begins in Genesis 12, and because Abraham was so unfaithful to keep it, it's restated in chapter 15 of Genesis, and then it's restated again in chapter 17. And I want us to ask, what is the mercy promised to Abraham specifically? I'm gonna narrow it on one particular declaration. Genesis 17 verse eight. Genesis 17 verse eight. If you're using a pew Bible, that's going to be on page 12. I will give to you and to your offspring after you The land of your sojournings all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession And I will be their God There's a couple different elements of the Abrahamic Covenant. One is you're gonna have a land. That's great. I You're gonna have a land. At this time, having land, that's how you lived. You have to have land to grow crops, to have a farm. And then it says you're gonna have a lot of kids and grandkids. Well, that's great too, because who's gonna mow the grass on that land if you don't have kids? Two elements, there's land and there's children. And those are such great blessings. But the real merciful blessing of the promise I will be their God. The greatest blessing God gives us is Himself. It's not the stuff. The greatest blessing God can possibly give you is Himself, because there's nothing greater than God. The greatest thing you can ever have is a relationship where you get to know God and be known by Him in love. It's so encouraging. Let that just be what you think about today. I will be your God. I'll visit you. I'll redeem you. I'll save you. I will be your God as I've always promised. Another way this language is used through Scripture I will be with you. I will be for you. As we think about the context of this, in the midst of your enemies, in the midst of your trouble, I will keep the promise. I will show kindness. My favor is faithful, God says. And so as we go back, we can think, alright, there's this, whatever terrible thing there's going on in the world today, Be at peace. God is with you. God is for you. Whatever your circumstances are, whether it be a family crisis, a health crisis, be at peace. God is with you. He's for you. Whether it's disease, cancer, pain, suffering, God is with you. God is for you. Whatever that temptation is that overwhelms you and regularly conquers you, be at peace. You can fight the good fight. God is with you. He's for you. This is why waiting has to have an expectancy to it. Waiting is good because we can wait with great hope, with even great joy, because God said, I will be your God and you will be my people. I'm with you and I'm for you. This is the comforting words of God. And if you're prone to anxiety, if you're prone to worry while you wait, Christmas is a wonderful season. Because you get to go back and you can say, wow, God made all those promises all those thousands of years before Christ came. He doesn't fail. He does even beyond what anyone could have imagined He would do. He Himself came down and walked among us. He's faithful. I believe this is why Paul came with great boldness declared, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything. By prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. It's a high calling and a great blessing for those who are believers in the covenant. where God is with us and He's for us. Let's look at the last two verses of this particular section. Verse 74 and verse 75, we see God be blessed because He saved us as He's always said He would, He is with us. Verse 74, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. It's kind of interesting here that the ultimate purpose here is that we might serve Him. We might think the ultimate purpose is that we could kind of sit on the beach and relax. No, the glorious way we get to get involved in what God is doing is He grants us. It's a privilege that we could serve Him. We get to serve the Lord. Again, Paul, as we'll get to in Ephesians in a few weeks, he says, slaves, work as though you're serving Christ, not your earthly master. Don't be a people pleaser just to do things so you might look good according to the world, but realize everything you do can be done in a way of serving God, the glorious one. Now the word serve here I think has a specific context. Zechariah is a priest. He serves in the temple. He has a very specific obligation. We saw earlier in Luke 1, he went in to burn incense in the temple. That was part of his service. And something that's very important to remember that in Israel, serving God was something you did with fear and trembling from a distance. Service was a fearful act that was done from a distance. What was beautiful about now that God is with us, He's come to redeem us, to give us a clear conscience, is that we no longer serve from a distance. We serve in holiness and righteousness before Him in His presence, verse 75, all our days. So what do you think about this? Blessed be the Lord who has saved us in accord with his promise so that we can serve him. What's the other option? Right, so that's the song Zechariah sings. Blessed be the Lord because he saved us as he promised so that we can serve him. Here's the other option. Blessed be me because I can do all things according to my strength as I think highly of myself and serve myself. That's really the other option. Something that needs to be crystal clear, we are designed to serve and we are always serving someone or something. You might think, well, I'm neutral. No, no, you're living your life for someone or something. It's either Christ or it's yourself typically. Jesus makes it very clear. You are serving sin and it becomes your master. You're serving Christ and he becomes your master who loves you. Be challenged. We're serving someone. Christ has come to save us so that we might serve the one who designed us to serve for our good. Now let's look at verse 76. The last section of the song. He finally turns to his own child. The child is the occasion, but we finally, after praising God for Jesus Christ, unnamed, but praising God for Jesus Christ, and you, child, John, you'll be called the prophet of the Most High, for you'll go before the Lord prepares His way. This is an unusual blessing. If you think about when your child was born, or what would normally happen here, It's simply, God, would you care for this child, bless this child? Would this child prosper? Would this child have peace and bless them with salvation and a faithful spouse and a good job? Bless this child. No. God, may my child be always second to someone else. May my child be used to promote and exalt another child. You, child, are going to be the prophet. You're going to go before someone else and make him great. As I wrestle with this, it really helped me see how much my prayers reveal my idolatry. In terms of the way I pray for my children, when I pray for my kids, I literally see a white house with a white picket fence. It looks so peaceful. It looks so nice, and yes, Paul says pray for, know that the king will be a peaceful king so you can live a peaceful life, but I don't pray for my kids to do hard things in hard places. That might bring hardship. For the glory of Jesus Christ. And it reveals my idolatry. I like peace and comfort way too much. I'm not willing to say that my priorities should be according to Christ and I should teach my children to love and enjoy those priorities. See, our true values are seen in how we realize our kids, what we desire for them. Notice he states something a little more specific here, verse 77. He actually goes straight back to Christ. That you will be a prophet of the Lord, most high, and that you'll go before him Here's what you're gonna do. You're going to give knowledge. You're going to be a prophet. You're going to proclaim the knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of sins. You're going to go before, and you're going to be able to say, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Not like that lamb in Egypt that was put over the doorpost where the angel of God went over the sins. No, this lamb, when he's slain, he's going to take away, as far as the east is from the west, The sins of all who believe in Him. Because of the tender mercy of God. Because God's made promises and He's kept those promises. Because God is faithful to show favor. And I love this next illustration. I love the declaration. Whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sin in darkness and in the shadow of death Got our feet into the way of peace. What a beautiful picture. It's pitch black outside. You can't see anything until that sun rises. The day starts. And there were things there, but you just couldn't see them because they were dark. But then the sun rises and you see everything. When Jesus Christ comes, he comes to the light of the world. He comes to reveal what is true and what is real. And we have to realize, okay, well, who's sitting in darkness in the shadow of death? Us. Apart from the light of God showing us how sinful we are, and how much we need His grace, and how death is living so definitely to destroy us. Until that light comes, we're hopeless. But He visited us. redeemed us, but with a great hoard of salvation to give us light so that we might see our sin, so that we might see what a great Savior He is, so that we might be led into peace. The common way of talking about peace I believe is probably contentment. Christ came to bring us into peace. If you think about it, this is what the world longs for. This is the one thing they actually do appreciate about Christmas is that it's the time to think about peace. But they don't understand that peace really begins with God crushing sin and death. Peace begins with what God's going to do to end the rebellion that we've began with Him. God takes away our sin so that we might know His peace. This is why we need to meditate on all the promises. He's with us, he's for us, he's kept these promises to redeem us. This is where we'll find peace. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you have put together Not a story, but these promises and these events. These small stories like Zechariah and Elizabeth to help us see. You promised a child and months later this child is born and great rejoicing takes place and we can see that you promised David a child and a thousand years later that child was born and even greater rejoicing because you finally, personally visited us. to redeem us. Lord, as we seek to live for your glory in a world that lacks peace, help us, Lord, to rejoice in the peace you've given to us. Help us, Lord, to love that peace, to long for it, and to be the peacemakers that you've called us to be. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.