Transcript

We come this morning to the second installment of “Fighting for Christmas Joy,” and as I said, last week, we’re not fighting for something that we’re trying to obtain, it’s ours, it’s given to us, but you do have to fight to suppress the counterfeit and to reap and embrace and walk in the fullness of true joy, and one of the key components of that is what we’re looking at this morning as we continue in this early narrative of the birth of Christ from Luke’s gospel. Go there if you would, Luke 1, and let’s overview where we’re going here. This is Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, and miraculously, his wife, the aged and barren Elizabeth, has conceived the child, and the child is John,, John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus the Savior. And about the same time the angel tells Mary, Elizabeth’s cousin, “Mary, you’re gonna conceive a child,” and in so many words, “He’s much greater than John that Elizabeth has miraculously conceived. Your child is literally of the Holy Spirit. He’s the Son of God. He is the Most High and so you’re gonna have a child too.” And then the narrative flows forward and first we have John’s birth and, uh, John’s father Zacharias, as you remember from the gospel narrative, was stricken with muteness; he couldn’t speak for the whole time Elizabeth is carrying John because he doubted the angel. When the angel came to him and said, “Zacharias, your son, or you’re gonna rather have a son through Elizabeth,” because he said, “Wait, she’s too old and, wait, she couldn’t have a child when she was young,” and so Zacharias questioned the angel, “Is this really gonna happen?” And the angel says, “Because you doubted, you’re gonna be mute until the child is born.” But now the child is born and that’s the passage we have before us and powerful rich doctrinal truths concerning Christ, not only his birth, but all that he would be. And by the way, that’s what we see throughout Scripture. The incarnation is never separated from the crucifixion. It’s one whole. But here we have Zacharias holding John the Baptist, and he begins to say some things, much of it prophetic, and it’s interesting that though he’s holding this precious miraculous son, everything he talks about is pointing to Mary’s boy, Mary’s baby, Jesus the Son of God.

All right, Luke 1 beginning in 67.

67 And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying: 68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited us and [the past tense] accomplished redemption for His people, 69 And has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of David His servant 70 As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old 71 Salvation FROM OUR ENEMIES, And FROM THE HAND OF ALL WHO HATE US; 72 To show mercy toward our fathers, And to remember His holy covenant, 73 The oath which He swore to Abraham our father, 74 To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, Might serve Him without fear, 75 In holiness and righteousness all the days of our life.

We’re in verse 76. Now he does talk about John here but in the sense of John being a forerunner of Jesus. Verse 76,

76 “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; For you will go on BEFORE THE LORD TO PREPARE HIS WAYS; 77 To give to His people the knowledge of salvation By the forgiveness of their sins, 78 Because of the tender mercy of our God, With which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, 79 TO SHINE UPON THOSE WHO SIT IN DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH, To guide our feet into the way of peace.” 80 And the child [that’s John the Baptist] continued to grow and to become strong in spirit, and he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel.

Now obviously we know as Christians that Christmas joy is not just warm feelings, family and friends. Now thank God for that, but that’s not the essence of Christmas joy. Christmas joy, the kind we must fight for, is based on sound biblical doctrine. Many, many ways we could illustrate this but Isaiah the prophet prophesied of Christ’s coming and he says in Isaiah 96 that, “For unto us a child is born.” If you stop right there, you can make that mean anything you want and that’s what the liberal pastors and theologians and worldlings in general have done. Christmas means a child is born and that just speaks of a new beginning for mankind, a new age of equity and inclusiveness, a new love and da, da, da, they go on and on and on. Now it does include those things, but that’s not the basis of Jesus’ birth, that’s not the basic understanding of who he really is because the prophet didn’t stop when he said, “Unto us, a child is born,” he continued, he said, “Unto us a son is given.” Now it starts narrowing down more. The child wasn’t just born for God’s people, he was a son given. Then you continue on in the text and in the balance of biblical truth we know it’s God’s Son given over for our sins to be our Savior and to be our Lord.

So what I’m saying to you is, the more you understand sound biblical doctrine, the more rich is your Christmas joy. So let’s take Zacharias prophecies here and unpack some rich doctrinal truths about our Lord, his birth, and why he came, all righ?t Number one, I.: we ought to praise the Lord and stir up that Christmas joy for a procured redemption. A procured prediction. Now I picked that word “procured” specially particularly because of all that it emphasizes; for right now, though, the word “procure” simply means “to obtain,” and the word the translators use in my translation, “to accomplish,” all right?

Now subpoint A: this salvation, this rather redemption was procured by God himself. Look at verse 68. By God himself. He says in verse 68, ” Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited and He has accomplished redemption for His people.” So this isn’t something that’s accomplished by third party, it’s God himself who voluntarily, in great love for us, took on himself the responsibility to seal, to secure our redemption.

Now the word redemption is a common word out of the street language of the day. It was, it was a culture in which probably upwards to 50% of the citizens lived in some form of slavery. Now a lot of the slavery would be quite, uh, parallel to what we would call being an employee today, but there were others who were not, uh, slaves at that nature; they were more what we’d call bondslaves with no rights. Matter of fact, some slaves owned property, they got salaries, they had certain rights. It was a complex system but they did have slaves and it was also common in this way, in this day for a friend, uh, usually a family member to raise the money to pay for that slave to be released. It was a ransom payment, if you will, and that slave then would be released from the bonds of the slave market and become a free person in society. So Paul and the New Testament writers, here Luke, bring that concept out of the secular world and give it a wonderful spiritual truth, that is, that God has paid the ransom for us himself and God has accomplished for us our ransom payment, our redemption. I don’t know about you, but if you’re a sinner, maybe you’re not a sinner like I am, of course, I don’t mean that, we’re all sinners. The problem with some of you is you have such a low view of God therefore you do not have a great enough view of your sin and you understand what a glory and what a joy it is when you know who God is and how deep your sin is to have a God who came to be the ransom, the Redeemer. Literally he bought you out of the slave market of sin. Sin and Satan no longer own you or control you. You now have been redeemed and belong to another.

So he words it this way in verse 68 again, “He accomplished redemption for His people.” That speaks of the effectual nature of our redemption. In other words, God didn’t just hit a lick at trying to redeem us, he accomplished our redemption. Beautiful picture and a powerful picture. The word accomplished here means to make or to do. It’s in the aorist tense and the aorist tense in the old language meant a finished action in past time with continuing results or consequences. So he says God has come, he finished the work through his Son Jesus Christ, i.e., on the cross for us. The work is finished, redemption is accomplished and now we remain his ransomed, redeemed ones. Finished work with continuing consequences.

Now, what he does is more, therefore, than just provide for our redemption, or you could say provide for our salvation, he hasn’t just provided for it, he has accomplished it in God’s eternal mind. You see, God’s above time and space, and this is one of those passages that once again force us to view it from God’s sovereign, eternal perspective. There is a man’s perspective where, of course, we must repent and believe. That’s true. We will always preach that, but we will not neglect the fact that the Bible wants us to look very often from God’s perspective of how God did all of it totally apart from us. That, that’s something that ought to stir some Christmas joy.

Now here we have Zacharias and he’s prophesying. Now Zacharias is a Jew. He’s a leader among the Jews. Zacharias is a man versed in the Old Testament Scriptures, and so when Jesus comes and the truth about Jesus begins to unfold, these old ancient Jews, even if they’re believers like Zacharias, it’s just slowly unfolding to them all that this means because they always thought in view of God’s elect chosen people are the nation of Israel. And that’s not wrong but there’s a higher fulfillment of God’s chosen people. There’s a higher fulfillment of God’s elect people and that is the church, those who believe on Christ in this new dispensation and become God’s people. So you have two things going on here. While Zacharias is prophesying, there’s an application to Israel, nationally speaking, but the highest and full application is to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, those whom he will save and keep forever and ever. Not just a nation, but people out of all peoples, tongues, tribes and nations will be be be, uh, become a part of this what you might call the new true Israel of God, the true new people of God. All right.

So this is primarily speaking not of Israel nationally, though it does include that, it’s primarily speaking of a spiritual redemption wrought through the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Now it’s interesting in verse 68 again, the word visited in the New American Standard, “For He has visited us.” Now he could have just said he has accomplished but the word visited according to A. T. Robertson, the eminent, uh, Greek scholar among Baptists, the word visited is a, is a pregnant word. It has a lot of dimensions to it and it has the idea that, um, of examining, of, of, of inspecting something. And also in the ancient Jewish mind, when you would say we had a visitation from God, that almost always meant God’s coming in judgment. You didn’t wanna hear somebody say God is visiting us. Oh, my goodness, they would think judgment is coming. But a new dispensation is dawning, a new age of grace is coming and now God comes to visit not in judgment but in grace and in mercy and love and in forgiveness of sins. But as A. T. Robertson points out, God is, has examined so he visited us, he comes to examine or inspect. In other words, God has come and he’s thoroughly examined our case. God has come in his inspection and he’s thoroughly examined our condition. He knows the facts. He, with his omnipresent eye and his omniscient mind, has studied our case and has concluded what is the proper course of action because Jesus came to save the children, and having with his omnipresent eye and his omniscient mind studied the case, God and God alone knows exactly the course of action needed that we might have this redemption. That’s what the text is telling us.

So he chooses, therefore, to do the right thing according to God’s definition of the right thing to bring about our redemption, i.e., to accomplish, that’s the word here, to accomplish our redemption. So it does not mean God came to seek to help us toward redemption. It does not mean that God came to seek to offer a possibility at redemption. It does not mean that God just provided “a way for redemption.” Verse 68 says he accomplished redemption. It’s done. It’s paid. It’s finished. You see, on our own we are too weak, we are way too helpless to achieve this on our own. So this points to the doctrine of what theologians call particular redemption and effectual. Effectual means it accomplished what it set up to perform. Jesus, God sent the Son Jesus Christ, and God the Father, and God the Son, determined that we were going to accomplish for the children what they can’t accomplish for themselves. And, and I’ve got news for you: what God sets out to accomplish gets accomplished, i.e. he procures, obtains it on our behalf. You see, Jesus when he came literally and actually accomplished redemption. He literally and actually paid the ransom for us when he died on the cross. He did not die just to give us a chance at redemption, but when he died, my redemption was literally actually finished and accomplished.

Now in this day, again, when one used this common Greek street language word of the day, lytrosis, it meant to ransom someone out of the slave market. It was the act of a third party purchasing or paying the price to release another from the bondage of slavery. And when they paid that payment, that person was released. It was finished. And by the way, a lot of those slaves, that’s all they had ever known and when somebody purchased their redemption, they paid their ransom, a lot of times they didn’t act like a free person for a long time. They had to learn to enter into the joy of their redemption and that’s what I try to do each week is preach into you more truth so you can joy more in your redemption. You know why? You leak. You get kind of filled up under the word of God, maybe you had a good quiet time, maybe with this or that foundationally so sitting under the preaching of the word of God, and then you go out there and you turn on the television, you open up the computer, you go out in the world and you start finding joy in other things, and God sits in heaven and says, “You fool. Child you have the most glorious wondrous pleasures afforded to anybody if you would just enter into them. If you’d just embrace them. If you’d just fight for them.” And that’s what we’re doing, we’re, we’re in a fight for joy. Not that we can lose it, but to enjoy it because it most glorifies God when we’re most joyous in God, when we’re most satisfied in our Lord.

Now he does all of this for his own people, the text tells us. Look at verse 68. Um, matter of fact, that’s B in our outline. It’s not only accomplished by God himself, that is our redemption, it’s for his own people. There is a particular application. Now, some of those who are more the Armenian bent and want to make salvation be the product of God does his part, now you gotta do your part, they don’t like this and I understand that, but I still love them, but there is a particular element to redemption. Verse 68 again, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited us and accomplished redemption,” in there, “for His people.” You see, there are some who are his and there are some who are not his, and even if you are the most man-centered in your theology and you believe over here the weight of it depends on you doing these things in order to get saved. I’ve told you 1001 times sure you have to repent and believe on Christ, but when you’ve done that in back of that you find God was working anyway. But no matter what you believe, you believe in a limited atonement, a limited redemption, because all of those who do not repent and believe will not receive the effects of Christ’s death. It’s limited to those who believe. That’s the man-ward perspective. The God-ward perspective is it’s limited to those who are his elect or chosen, his people. Both are true. I just don’t understand why we can’t just preach the whole counsel of God and preach what looks contradictory but it’s not contradictory, God’s just wiser than we are.

So this was a particular people. Now remember who is prophesying, what is the context? It’s Israel. It’s the nation of Israel. Nobody, nobody in ancient Israel would tell you that they are not the chosen, called, elect people of God. Even those who disagree with our theology would say now we hold that Israel, God chose Abraham and didn’t choose Joe or Charlie or, or Billy or anybody else from any other nation. He chose Abraham and out of Abraha, to have a great nation, and Abraham and his great nation were God’s chosen people. Everybody believes Israel is God’s chosen people who’s a Christian, and then God brings it over into the era of grace, and to the shock of the Jews, God still has his chosen ones but now he’s choosing them out of Jews and Gentiles. All peoples, tongues, tribes and nations will be included in the final host of heaven who glorify the Father, but from a, a Jewish perspective, they’re learning, if you will, that all of this points to Jesus. Matter of fact, if you start in Genesis 13, the very first book of the Old Testament, the Bible says in Genesis 13:14 through 16, “The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, ‘Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever. I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered.” There’s the nation of Israel, and God’s prophesying through Abraham, “It’s going to comfort you, and it’s going to be great. Your descendants will have this land,” and that’s the very land we call Israel today. But wait, wait, for generations at a time Abraham’s descendants, i.e. Israel, did not possess that land, and for generations Abraham’s descendants were led away away from that land into captivity in Egypt or in Babylon or Assyria. So as Luke writes this narrative, we even know that Rome possesses the land. Israel is captive in their own land.

So when God promised to Israel that he would accomplish redemption, this, including, included rather redeeming the land back to Israel. By the way, they’re in it today. But it was not a universal redemption. All people didn’t come back to their land. Israel, particularly Israel, was redeemed and brought back to their land. This concept of a particular redemption is thoroughly biblical. Jews knew nothing else but that. It was a redemption of coming back to the land God promised us, a particular piece of land for a particular people but then again, the promises through Abraham have a higher fulfillment than just Israel and just literal geographical physical land. It was a work of God to bring about the spiritual redemption and the spiritual restoration and, and bringing together of God’s true people from all peoples, tongues, tribes and nations.

Now I used the word procured, he’s procured redemption. We want to praise him for procuring this redemption because the word procure has, has the idea to obtain or to secure – now listen – by special means, special effort, or special care. I think it’s quite special that when God wanted to redeem us, he spent, he sent rather the special one. He sent his own Son. It wasn’t just any redemption. Special care went into this. God sent his own Son. So if you’re gonna fight for Christmas, Christmas joy, let’s praise him this season for the procurement of our redemption. He sealed it. He did it. He accomplished it. Nothing you can add to it.

Now II. This Christmas season we ought to praise him for a powerful redemption, and we get this straight out of our text. He wants to emphasize now the power of this, uh, redemption by saying in verse 69, Zacharias is prophesying, holding John the Baptist, but he’s talking about Jesus because John came to honor Jesus and Zacharias is honoring Jesus, verse 69, he “has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David His servant.” The horn of salvation has maybe four ideas behind it. It was a common phrase in the, in the old world. First of all, it speaks of dignity. Uh, when a dominant buck deer raises his head and he’s got antlers, great antlers on his head, it speaks of his dignity. It also speaks of a call to battle. It was common throughout the ages in the ancient world that they would have those battle horns, and a man would be designated when he blows that battle horn, then the troops would release into battle. So it’s about dignity. It’s about a call to battle, but also it’s an emblem of strength. When the dominant male buck during the rut part of the year, and by the way it’s, it’s starting around here right now, that’s why you’re gonna see more deer crossing the roads, committing suicide, running into cars, 18 wheelers, but during that time of the year, that buck will run out into open places he normally would never show his face, and he’ll raise his head tall to say, “I am the top dog,” top deer, excuse me. “I’m the king. I’m the powerful one.”

It’s also an emblem of victory. The ancient world, they would bring this concept that they saw in the, the realm of nature into, to their application and Alexander the Great, for example, the great victorious king of Greece, would put horns on the coins he developed for use in his economy because, why? “Because I’m the great victor.” Those horns expressed victory and the Bible says in Lamentations 2 that David cut off all the horns of the wicked. In other words, he reduced them to nothing.

So Zacharias is saying, “A, a great horn of salvation, the great strength and dignity and power of true salvation has now come upon us and His name is Jesus.” He says, “It’s gonna come of the house of David His servant.” You know, King David in the Old Testament gave a temporal redemption to Israel by his military might. We see that in 1 Samuel 18:6 and 7, “It happened as they were coming, when David returned from killing the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with joy and with musical instruments. The women sang as they played, and said, ‘Saul has slain his thousands, And David his tens of thousands.'” David was a great, victorious redeemer of ancient Israel. Now one like David has come but greater than David. David, you see, was a type of Christ in that he secured Israel’s physical redemption through his might as a warrior, but also Zacharias is not talking about just David, he’s talking about one in the lineage of David, Jesus Christ. He will be the true horn of salvation for all of those who repent and believe. Jesus Christ has the righteous dignity for the office of Redeemer. Jesus Christ has the righteous courage to enter the arena of battle. Jesus Christ has the righteous strength to defeat our enemies. And Jesus Christ has won the victory over all of our enemies. He is the horn of salvation.

So this Christmas as we fight for Christmas joy, we praise the Lord that he has procured our redemption, we praise the Lord for this power, that this is a powerful redemption coming from the strength and power of Christ himself but, thirdly, we praise him that it was a prophesied redemption. In other words, this didn’t just come about, this was God’s plan all along. God’s plan from the very beginning was that everything would be centered in Jesus Christ. God’s plan that everything that would be done for his eternal work and kingdom would be accomplished through the Son Jesus Christ. Look at verse 70. Zacharias is reflecting back and says, “As He,” our God, “spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old.” He’s saying what we’re seeing here in Jesus coming has been, has been told to us over and over throughout the ages. So this speaks of Jesus. Jesus is the theme of the Old Testament, he’s the theme of the prophets, he’s the theme of all the prophecies. As we begin the Bible in the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve have sinned in the garden of Eden and then a prophetic word goes forth and he says, “He,” reflecting forward to Jesus the horn of salvation, “He shall bruise you, Satan, on the head and you shall bruise Him on the heel. Satan, there’s coming one, He’s not here right now this coming one to the earth. He’s gonna visit and, Satan, He’s gonna go to the cross and when He dies on the cross, He’s gonna crush your head. Now you, you, you may be able to bring his physical body to death for a little while, but that it won’t take long, He’ll be back alive.”

So the Bible begins with the prophecies of Christ and his coming, and then we go all the way to the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi 4, and the Bible says in Malachi 4:1 and 2, “‘For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear My name,'” here he is, here’s Jesus, “the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.” In other words, you’ll have great joy when you see all that God’s going to do through this coming Jesus.

One of the, um, shall I call it problems, shall I call it challenges, of being a pastor in the same place for 42 years is that if you’ve tried to preach the truth, the folks have heard it over and over again. And it is true in our fallenness familiarity can breed contempt and you lose the quest to investigate afresh, to dig in anew, and unearth the joy that’s yours again. But I charge you, you must do that because from Genesis all the way through the Old Testament to the last book Malachi, and all points in between, Jesus has been foretold.

Now there are three subpoints in this prophecy list I want to bring out this morning. First of all, notice that, um, this horn of salvation is gonna bring deliverance from all of our enemies. Deliverance from all of our enemies. Look at verse 71. Zacharias is prophesying holding John the Baptist but talking about Jesus and says, “Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.” Now that meant something to national Israel. They always had enemies. I’ll tell you what, go around in the Shoals area and tell everybody, “I am the chosen elect one of God.” Now that’s biblically true, but I don’t necessarily advise you to do that unless you want enemies, but that’s what Israel told the rest of the world. “We’re God’s and you’re not.” So they had enemies. Egypt, Babylonians, Medo-Persians, Assyrians, the Philistines and even now their enemies possess them as slaves in their own land, Rome. The Romans possess them. But we know that the greater fulfillment is the spiritual fulfillment. Think about our enemies, Satan. Satan, the accuser of the brethren. But his mouth’s been shut by the horn of our salvation, Jesus Christ. There is no accusation Satan can bring against any child of God that bears any merit before the Holy Father because Jesus sits at God the Father and Satan runs in and says, “Yes, but he fails and he sins and he has a bad heart attitude,” and on and on. “He’s broken Your law.” And Jesus looks over to the Father and says, “There’s a nail print in that hand.” And the Father says, “Not guilty. That boy’s, that lady’s redemption has already been accomplished.” Woo! All of our enemies are defeated through the horn of our salvation, Jesus Christ.

What about sin? Sin is your enemy. Sin, you see, sin robs you of Christian and Christmas joy. Sin robs you of the peace God meant for you to have. Sin robs you for the love and the compassions and the affections for God and the people of God that are the greatest blessings of your life. But sin robs us and robs us and robs us, but God has defeated that enemy of sin and we’re growing in sanctification and ultimately will be delivered from the presence of sin completely. What about death? Death is our enemy but Jesus has removed the stinger from death. Death now has become a friend to us. Death is but a messenger that takes us over to a better land.

So all of our enemies have been conquered. What about the law of God? The Bible speaks of the law of God as being against us, not that the law of God is bad, it’s just that the children come into this earth with hearts that are lawbreaking hearts, then as we do our behavior in life, we have lawbreaking behavior and the law of God condemns us. But Jesus fulfilled the law and took the punishment for our lawbreaking on himself so our redemption has been paid, it’s been accomplished. That’s Christmas joy right there.

Well, deliverance from all of our enemies. Secondly, B: a determined mercy. This prophecy points out that God – now hang with me here a minute – God determined in godly determination because he has no other kind, God-sized determination has set itself to deliver to the children mercy. That means to be good to, show kindness to, give redemption to the most unworthy. “Yeah, but I’m not worthy pastor. I’m not.” I don’t care what you are. Quit looking at you. Look at Jesus. Look at the horn of your salvation. God’s determined to show us rotten sinners mercy.

Look at verse 72, as Zacharias continually prophesies holding John the Baptist but talking about Jesus, 72, “To show mercy toward our fathers, And to remember His holy covenant.” Verse 73 continues with the oath that he swore. Notice he’s remembering the covenant. He swore this oath. He’s showing mercy. Now God’s covenant with Abraham and his descendants, the nation of Israel, was based on God’s determined and infinite mercy but jump down to verse 76 now, “And you, child,” now he’s talking about John but in context of Jesus. Holding John he says, “Now you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; For you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways.” But now he talks specifically of John about Jesus and he says, “John, your job is gonna be,” now this is just a little baby but “John, your job’s gonna be is to prepare for Jesus’ work because that’s the main thing.”

Let’s continue on and let’s jump down to verses 76 and 77. Oh, let’s go to 77, “To give to His people the knowledge of salvation.” Wait a minute, to who? His people. Not the people, his people, “the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.” So the point is as Zacharias is holding this baby boy, that’s his baby boy miraculously conceived, of his seed but by miracle because his wife Elizabeth was old and barren, he’s holding that miraculous baby and says, “Your job is to make the way so that people can know and embrace the salvation that comes through Jesus, and that’s the boy that Mary’s caring. Your, your, your, your mom’s cousin is carrying Jesus the Savior. But John, you’re gonna go forth and make the way for Him.” You see, John could not save but he could go forth and provide a way for the knowledge of the one who would save and that’s what he’s saying here.

Now so John’s ministry is to inform the people of the provision of salvation that one, Jesus, has come to procure our redemption, the great horn of salvation. Now look at verse 77, “To give to His people the knowledge of salvation,” last phrase, “By the forgiveness of their sins.” And then back down in verse 78, come back to mercy again, that’s our point, a, a determined mercy, “Because of the tender mercy of our God to which the Sunrise from on high will visit us.” Everything, brothers and sisters, that God does for us through Jesus flows out of God’s tender mercies. God has a capacity to look on us sinners and on the one hand he doesn’t lie. He doesn’t like so many of these people today believe something, “Well, I’m a woman. I’m a man.” All this stuff and they believe stuff that radically isn’t true. No, God believes the truth about us. “Here’s a sinner, a lawbreaker and from the core of their being, from their innermost nature to every act they perform, they are unholy and offensive to Me. There’s nothing in them that evokes My sympathy other than I determined to show the most undeserving and unattractive mercy.” That’s Christmas joy. That little baby is the emblem of God’s determined mercy to look at me, the chief of sinners, and say, “I declare in the greatness of My character and attributes to love you and cast on you mercy, you the most unworthy ones.” That’s Christmas joy. If they don’t give you joy, I can’t help you. Go out there and do something silly in the world and find joy that doesn’t work and doesn’t last.

The word tender here when he says in verse 68, 78, his tender mercies, in the old language that meant the bowels, the innermost deep part. God goes to the core of who he is and in the innermost core of the true nature of God is a determined mercy toward you. Good heavens, that’s good. That’s good preaching if I say so myself. That’s good stuff. It’s just good stuff no matter who says it.

So in these prophecies we see a deliverance from all of our enemies, we see a determined mercy and then, thirdly, see, we see a perpetuity, our perpetual discipleship, ongoing. In other words, God makes us his, we become his disciples, his children, you could say, and it never ends. It just keeps on going. You see, when God saves you, you’re gonna miss hell, but that’s not what salvation primarily is, primarily salvation is you’ve gotten off the track of Satan being your father and the world being your aim and you’ve turned to a new track of Jesus being your Lord and God being your Father and a new purpose and pattern of life, i.e. discipleship, and it never ends. So maybe some ups and downs, strong seasons, weaker seasons, but it never ends. It’s a perpetual discipleship.

Notice how he says it here in our text. Look at verse 74, “To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, Might serve Him,” that’s discipleship, “without fear.” Well that’s, that’s pretty powerful and see if you go down there, let’s see, um, I lost my phrase. There it is, verse 75. Verse 74, we will serve him without fear. Verse 75, “In holiness and righteousness before Him all the time,” he says, “all the days.” Now how in heaven’s name, how in heaven’s name can you and I born as the enemies of God. The Bible text will tell us that when you are a one-celled human being in the womb of your mother, the only thing you can invoke in the heart and mind of God is his wrath toward you. Ephesians 2, by nature you’re the children of wrath. How in heaven’s name when the very core of my conception and being I had an innermost nature that was so defiled, so polluted, so unholy that only, that the only thing I could evoke out of God is the wrath of God, so how am I going to walk in holiness and righteousness, i.e., true discipleship all of my days? Verse 79, “To shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.” I don’t know about you, if the core of your being is rottenness and offensive to God, you’re in darkness and you sit every moment in the shadow of death but those in that condition, last phrase verse 79, but “To guide our feet,” that’s discipleship, “in the way of peace.”

So now being redeemed by my Redeemer, that little baby that came born of Mary that Christmas morning, he changes me through his gospel and in his eyes, based on the merits of his Son on my behalf, every day, weak, strong, struggling, successful failure, I’m his disciple and in his eyes I serve him through the merits and the person of his Son in holiness and righteousness. That’s the way God looks at us. You say, “Wait a minute, I’m not holy and righteous.” No, you’re not but Jesus is and you’re in him as far as God’s concerned, God the Father is concerned. And that brings you to peace.

You know what we do as a staff all the time? We try to get people to peace in this understanding of their relationship with God. “But yeah, but I’ve failed and I’ve sinned and I really need to repent more and I’ve struggled here and I’ve strayed here and…” I don’t care. He has made you righteous and he examined your case on the basis of his omnipresent eye and his omniscient wisdom, and he knows the case and he solved the case through the death of his Son to be the horn of your salvation and accomplish your redemption. Quit groveling around and just joy in your Redeemer. You will not sin less by grovelling and beating yourself down about your sin, you will sin less by joying in the Redeemer who keeps you despite your sin. That’s both are true. We’re repenters, amen, but more than that, we’re respecters of what he’s done. You know the world can’t get none of this. They think we’re crazy. I love the word of God. Who else could do this but God? Who could write this stuff? Only God could do this.

All of our days, verse 45, 75 said. So in the provision of his Son, i.e., the horn of our salvation, i.e., the one who accomplished, finished past tense verb, accomplished salvation we therefore have holiness and righteousness in God’s eyes as our perpetual discipleship condition. In Christ we stand holy and righteous, again in verse 74, be that we might serve him without fear. Why are you afraid that God’s gonna do something bad to you? He sent his Son to make you his. Yes, he does chastise from now and then, but it’s always in love, it’s always so you can get back to joy, not get deeper in, in misery.

All of our days. Some of you even now, “But what if?” The covenant God initiated with us through his sons, Son singular, the covenant God has for us through his Son removes any and all consequences of what if.

So Zacharias prophecies of a deliverance from all our enemies, a determined mercy that’s coming through this one Jesus and a perpetual discipleship where we can have peace with God knowing that in his eyes through the marriage of his Son we are holy and righteous before him. Now let’s conclude with verse 76, “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High,” talking to John now but, but about what Jesus is gonna do. Well, you will go before the Lord, the one’s gonna be born of Mary, to prepare his ways. John the Baptist, Zacharias’ boy, prepared the way. Jesus is the way.

There’s a family and, um, sweet loving family. The children were aged 7 to 15, but they loved each other. You’ve seen a family where the kids just love to play with each other, just love each other? I know it’s rare, but it happens. And mom and dad loved them and they just loved being with mom and dad. It was just a close-knit, joyous loving family, and dad came home from the hospital and they said, “Dad, what’s happened? What’s happened?” And Dad said, “I’ve got a baby boy and you’ve got a new baby brother, and tomorrow I’ll be bringing him home to all of us.” And they just rejoiced and were beside themselves, and happy and shouting.

When Jesus died on the cross and accomplished our redemption, the Bible says he appeared to the disciples, but Thomas missed the first appearance. And the disciples told Thomas, “We’ve seen the resurrected Lord,” and he said, “I will not believe it. Nope, not unless I touch the scars.” Well, they’re meeting in a room and the doors are closed and Jesus just appears. He’s in his glorified state. He said, “Now, Thomas, put your finger in these holes in My hand. Thomas, feel this gaping wound in My side.” And Thomas did it, and Thomas said, “My Lord and my God.”

Now, now was the main thing that Thomas would know he’s alive? Well, that’s certainly essential and foundational, I know, but you see, other people have come back from the dead. Lazarus came back from the dead and I love that story in the gospel where there’s a funeral procession and Jesus just touches the casket and the guy sits straight up. He ruined the whole funeral and, and God brought him back from the dead. But all the other people who came from back from the dead didn’t come back having procured our redemption. Jesus ascends back up into heaven and all the angels and all the hosts of heaven are praising him and glorying and excited. Then it gets quiet and one of the host of heaven walks forward and said, “Jesus, what have You done?” Puts out that nail print hand and puts out that nail print hand and he shows him the wound in his side and he points to the deep gashes on his head from the crown of thorns. “I have procured the children’s redemption and I’ll be bringing all of them home soon.” And that’s going to be a glorious day. That’s Christmas joy and that’s a joy worth fighting for.