Luke 1:67-80 Fuel for Christmas Praise

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Don Filcek; Luke 1:67-80 Fuel for Christmas Praise

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his series,
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King Over All, from the Gospel of Luke. Let's listen in. Good morning and welcome to Recast Church.
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I'm Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here, and it is a really good thing to gather together as God's people in community.
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I look forward to this. I find joy and peace in the cadence of church life. I wanna just tell you just a little bit about myself for a second.
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I am not a traditional person at all. I don't know how many of you would identify yourself as a traditional person.
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You like traditions. You like to kinda do the same things each year and all of that stuff. That doesn't define me, but God has given us routines in our week, in our month, and in our years so that we have structure to our spiritual lives, and that's a good thing.
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Regardless of whether you like traditions or not, the cadence of life and the cadence of spiritual life is valuable.
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Christmas is, of course, one of those routines that we celebrate, and I love that our culture still has an annual recognition of the birth of our
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Lord. Whether or not the culture at large recognizes that that's what we're doing or not is a different thing altogether, but we know what
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Christmas is about, and so we celebrate that. Our text this morning, I think, comes at us at a good time for us here at the start of the
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Christmas season, a shorter Christmas season. There's just only three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, which makes it, anybody else feeling like this is just shortened right now?
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Anybody? It's like, boom, and Christmas is just on us. But for those of you that have been around for a while, you might relate to the tendency this time of the year, especially if you're like me and you've suffered loss and there's people that are no longer around for you to get together with at Christmas and you're missing some people.
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We can find ourselves chasing a feeling. Do you know what I'm talking about? Chasing a feeling. We try to hype ourselves.
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We're supposed to get into the Christmas spirit, right? Whatever that is, the Christmas spirit.
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And what is the Christmas spirit? Like, what are we driving for? Are we supposed to get sentimental and cry at Hallmark movies?
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Is that what we're shooting for? Is the Christmas spirit just nostalgia and thinking over Christmas' past?
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Or is it some nebulous sense of love and peace where you don't shove each other out of the way to get that much -coveted toy for your kid, but you just say, no, you have it, and that's the
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Christmas spirit, right? Our text this morning, I mean this sincerely, our text this morning is, in a sense, the essence of the glory of Christmas recorded for us in poetic praise.
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It is kind of the condensing of what
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I believe is meant and ought to be meant by Christmas spirit. And I believe that if we grab this passage, it's going to grab us.
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I believe that it will drive our joy, it will fuel us for not just this Christmas season, but for awe and wonder at incarnation, awe and wonder for what
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God has given to us in his son and sending forth his son. If we would keep this passage and the glorious truths we're gonna discuss this morning in our mind this season,
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I believe that God will work through it to draw us away from the distractions that are all around us in this culture during this season, and instead draw us toward a more robust thankfulness and gratitude for the advent, a fancy word that means the arrival or the incarnation, the coming of Jesus Christ.
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To some degree, I fear that we may lose our vision of the massive, glorious, cosmic, jaw -dropping glory of Christmas because human nature waters things down and we become routine about it.
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So to some degree, I fear that, but our text this morning is a poetic prophecy of praise given by the
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Holy Spirit to Zechariah, the father of John, the baptizer. And the vision he has given is meant to evoke within us awe and wonder over the many things that God is doing in sending forth his only son into this sin -cursed place.
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In this text, God will give us so many reasons to praise him for the Christmas season.
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And my hope, my hope for us, church, is that this passage and this message will aim our hearts in the right direction, setting a tone for our remembrance of God's great love for us in sending forth his son.
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It has done that in my heart. And being a nontraditional person, not being a conformist, not wanting to chase the feeling that our culture is chasing, that's kind of the way
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I'm put together, but this passage has lit my heart with joy and gladness and has propelled me towards praise, even just this past week in studying it.
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So let's open our Bibles or your scripture journals or your devices to Luke chapter one. We're gonna finish the chapter, long chapter, longest chapter in the
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New Testament, but Luke 1, 67 through 80. And recast, this is
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God's holy word, what he desires to communicate to us. Luke 1, 67 through 80.
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Hear, church, the word of the Lord. And his father Zechariah was filled with the
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Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people.
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And he has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. 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 to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father
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Abraham 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.
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And you, child, will be called the prophet of the most high, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our
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God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
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And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.
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Let's pray. All praise to you,
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Father, for sending forth your son. All the implications that are spelled out in this passage are just barely scratching the surface of the glory and the majesty and the gift, the blessing, the great, awesome incarnation of your son.
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All the things that you gave to us, all the things that you lavished upon us in sending
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Jesus. Yes, we think about the manger, and we think about the shepherds, and we think about the star that guided the magi, and we think about all kinds of things this season.
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And next week, we're gonna have the kids get up here and tell us the
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Christmas story. Many of us have heard it and heard it and heard it. But all of that leading to redemption, all of that with the intention of sending forth the one who would pay the price, not for sins in general, but for my sins, for our sins, not some general darkness, not some system out there that we don't relate to, but the system in our own hearts of brokenness, our lies, our lusts, our corruption, our deceitfulness, our manipulations, our sins.
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Light has come. We praise you for the light of Jesus sent to us.
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Yes, we think about it this time of the year, but without it, we would be lost. So we rejoice this morning.
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And please, Father, light our hearts with gladness. Bring that light in now as we sing these songs.
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Give us joy and jubilation and celebration because of what you have done for us in sending your son to us.
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I ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Yeah, you can go ahead and be seated. And if you can re -find your place in Luke chapter one.
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Again, we're starting in verse 67. We're gonna be looking at that through the end of the chapter of Luke chapter one.
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And if at any time during the message you need to get more coffee, juice, or donut holes, you can take advantage of those back there. You're not gonna distract me if you need to get up at all during the message.
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But our goal is to keep our focus on God's word for the remainder of our time together. This song that we're looking at here, it has a kind of interesting context.
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And I recognize that some of you have been here for this series, and some of you haven't. You missed here or there.
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But verse 67 tells us right out of the gate that this was given by the Holy Spirit to Zechariah, the father of John the baptizer.
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In the spirit, he says these things. And prior to this praise, there was a dramatic event in the life of Zechariah that we need to consider as we come to this text this morning.
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Zechariah was a priest, and when it was his turn to present the offerings of incense within the holy place at the temple in Jerusalem, he went in while the people outside prayed.
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An angel met him there, and he was afraid, but the angel told him, chill out, dude, and further informed him that his wife would have a baby.
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Now, not a huge deal for, you know, people have babies regularly, but Zechariah didn't believe the angel, particularly for a particular reason.
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Elizabeth, his wife, was way past childbearing years. It seemed incredible to him, and almost unbelievable that she would conceive and have a child.
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Zechariah asked for a sign in his disbelief, and the angel told him that the sign, the sign that this all was true was going to be that Zechariah would be made temporarily deaf and mute.
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And he steps out of the temple to those praying and waiting to find that he cannot hear or speak.
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Just before our text of praise, Zechariah is still mute. His son, John, had been born eight days prior to this, and they are getting ready to circumcise him and name him.
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And he's there, and he cannot speak, and he was told by the angel to name him John. The family is all very eager to pass over the mute and deaf
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Zechariah and name the boy on his behalf. They're like, oh, name him after his dad. That makes sense.
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But he's given an iPad and an Apple Pencil to write out. His name is
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John. The text says tablet, anyways. I don't know if it was an iPad or if it was an Android, but his name is
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John, he writes. And at that very point, the text, a couple of weeks ago, said his mouth is opened for the first time in over nine months, and John speaks the words we're looking at today, this psalm, this song of praise.
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And it's obvious that God had been working things in his heart, in his silence, for a while, and months of, how many of you would just go, months of silence, months of inability to talk, and you'd have some internal dialogue going on.
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You'd have some time to think. And these words are credited to the Spirit. These words are said to be prophecy, they're prophetic.
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He knows things that he ought not to know. In other words, he's given information about the future and about things that God is doing that he cannot otherwise know.
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He didn't go to seminary to study these things. These are not self -evident things, these are spiritually revealed things, and they are certainly words of poetic praise.
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We need to understand that Zechariah's given a vision of the epic and cosmic works that God is doing in these current events in his time, during his lifetime.
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So the verb tenses can get a little bit confusing, but don't let those distract you from the main points.
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This is all written in the sense that the arrival of the Messiah ensures things for humanity as if they've already been accomplished.
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So we can have a tendency to go, why does the pastor always talk about the cross at Christmastime?
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Like, why in the world is that a thing? Why aren't we just talking about the birth? Why aren't we just talking about the manger? But those two things are wrapped up together prophetically in a way that the one ties into the purpose of the other.
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He came to be the sacrifice for us, and the manger is a part of the cross.
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It's all part of our rescue and our salvation. And so Zacharias sees that. He's given an amazing, amazing and glorious insight into what the significance is of the arrival of this baby that is being born.
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Our outline is going to be robust this morning. Buckle up, there's gonna be 12 points, but that doesn't mean it's gonna go longer.
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They're just shorter points, but 12 points because each of these verses contains a facet of what the Lord has done for us by sending forth his son.
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We can translate these into 12 reasons to praise God this Christmas season. I am starting off your
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Christmas season with 12 reasons. Zacharias is starting off your Christmas season with 12 very robust theologically -informed reasons to praise him right now.
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12 reasons to praise God during this Christmas season. Out of the mouth of this mute priest flows the revelation of the
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Spirit as he is given a vision of what the Lord is doing for us.
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This matters for us where we sit today. The first thing here in verse 68, we'll just jump right in.
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In verse 68, we see that in his advent, God has come to bring redemption, a cause for praise.
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In his advent, God has arrived to bring redemption. The purpose of the first advent of Jesus is stated here in verse 68.
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It's clear that Zacharias' words are meant to bring glory to God. His whole purpose in what he's speaking in this text is praise, glory, worship of God.
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He will shine a spotlight on what God is doing. The core of what he is doing is visiting and redeeming.
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That's what Zacharias understands God to be doing, visiting and redeeming. He's arriving and restoring.
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He is pitching his tent among us in order to rescue us.
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Christmas, as I said already, Christmas and Easter must touch each other. Look at verse 68, visited, think incarnation and Christmas, redeemed his people, think
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Good Friday and Easter. Do you see it? Visited and redeemed.
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Zacharias is given a vision we all need at the start of this season. God deserves praise for coming to rescue us.
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The second thing, in his advent, God has exercised his mighty power to save. In verse 69, to raise up a horn is the term that's used there.
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To raise up a horn is to exercise might or power. We might not relate to the use of this word, this phrase, this word picture.
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The idea of a horn at all. Is it a musical instrument? What is he talking about? But what you need to understand is that this culture, even though Zacharias goes back and forth to the city, he lives a rural country life.
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He's a priest, he's used to animals. This was an agrarian, pastoral, as in like pasture kind of society.
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Sheep were currency. The visual images of powerful rams clashing in the fields and hills around Jerusalem and all throughout
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Judea were common. Their horns were clearly used all throughout scripture as symbols of power.
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What's he getting at here? When God sends forth his son, he is clashing with our enemies.
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When he sends his son, he is taking it to our enemies with his power and his strength, raising up his horn to smash the enemy.
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Any of you ever been around goats or sheep or rams? You get that kind of, they get their look in their eye and then they rear up and you better get out of the way because that head is coming down, right?
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They get that kind of like reared up look and then boom, they're coming in. This is what
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God is doing to our enemies. God promised to David to raise up a mighty ruler from his line who would smash the enemies of God and bring about peace.
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Consider this season. This is a strange application, but consider this season that in sending forth his son,
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God is raising up his head to clash against our enemies. What enemies? Well, there's a lot of enemies, but particularly sin and death, the world system that opposes
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God, the flesh, the devil, pride, lust, greed. He is setting in motion a powerful act of salvation in sending forth his son and he is doing it through the promised descendant of David.
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God is showing himself powerful in the sending forth of his son to rescue. The third movement in the text is, third reason to praise really is his advent.
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In his advent, he is fulfilling the prophetic promises. Versus verse seven, 70, verse 70.
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Zechariah says that what he is doing is in accord with the holy prophets of old.
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What God is doing is new in sending forth his son, but always been a part of the plan.
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That's significant because we see that at the advent of Jesus Christ, it was all part of the plan all along.
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Sending Jesus to die for our sins was not plan B or C or D or somewhere along that line all the way to Z.
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God is fulfilling promises that he made clearly about sending one. He promised to Eve, he made a promise to Abraham, he made a promise to Moses, he made a promise to David, he made promises all throughout the prophets in the
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Old Testament. In his advent, in the advent of his son, in the coming of his son
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Jesus Christ, we see God is the faithful one who keeps his promises, amen? God is faithful.
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The fourth thing, in his advent, cause for praise. In his advent, God has rescued us from our enemies.
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Now, I kind of already said that a little bit earlier, but verse 71 reiterates it, and I mentioned it earlier, but I think it's worth fleshing out a little bit more because the church still has enemies, and not just the figurative ones that I mentioned earlier.
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We know that the Jews suffered from an expectation, though, that this conquering of enemies meant that Jesus would come and defeat the
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Roman occupiers. They thought of it as a quite literal military conquest of the
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Romans during this time, and they were looking forward to a Messiah who would raise up his king, raise up an army, and defeat the
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Romans. So we could just think about this when we hear about God sending forth a
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Messiah to judge the enemies, that the Jews kind of got this wrong a little bit, and they didn't really quite understand the nature of the
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Messiah coming as the suffering servant the first time, and all of that, and so then we could just move on and go, yeah, they misunderstood it, without much thought to what it actually does mean, because there is meaning behind this, the idea of him defeating our real enemies.
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We live in such a unique age that most people, we don't relate to the majority of Christians that have ever lived.
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That sounds really strange to say, but we just don't. We live in a very unique age. Most people in Christian history would cling to this promise, like this would cause praise and elation in the gathering of God's people.
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They would shout and whoop and be like, God's gonna defeat our enemies? God's gonna defeat our persecutors?
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Well, why would they act that way? They would cling to this promise of vindication and vengeance against those who had put to death their fathers, their mothers, their sisters, their brothers, their friends.
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The church's history has been one of being fed to lions. Do you relate to that? I don't. Burned as candles at dinner parties, in prison, thrust through with spears, decapitated, hung, crucified, on and on and on, right?
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That's the history. When Jesus returns, he is not going to come back and say, hey, what's up?
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He's gonna come back to establish an eternal kingdom. He will cast down all of his enemies and not just metaphorical enemies, like sin and death, or lust or greed, but real people and real demons who have rebelled against him with intention.
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The advent of the Lord spells real and true justice for his people. It will not be until later, but it is sealed by his coming in the flesh.
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Do you consider celebrating during Christmas that all wrongs will be made right because this child was born?
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Consider it this Christmas and praise God that all injustices will be made right.
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That includes the judgment of those who have done wicked things against his people. The fifth cause for praise in this passage is in his advent,
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God has fulfilled his covenant, verse 72. Three of the 12 points this morning revolve around the idea of God keeping his promises.
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Three different verses, three different things that Zechariah is given by the Spirit to declare God's faithfulness, to keep his promises, to keep his covenant.
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God's faithfulness is so important and such a major theme in scripture because everything hinges on whether or not
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God is trustworthy. It was interesting because I don't do this very often. I don't edit my sermon notes much past Saturday, but just this morning
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I added this because it came up in my quiet time. I was reading, I'm reading through an advent by John Piper and he says this about God's faithfulness centered on this advent celebration.
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There's a quote from John Piper. He says this about God's faithfulness. God's truthfulness, no,
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God's faithfulness is the constant in a universe of flux. God's truthfulness is the unwavering absolute.
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If we forsake God's truthfulness, the anchor is up, the rudder is loose, the keel is broken, and the ship of life, political life, social life, educational life, scientific life, family life, is simply at the mercy of the wind of human wishes.
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What happens if God is not faithful? Oh my goodness, scrap it all, church.
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Scrap it all if he's not faithful. But he says to us time and time again in scripture, story after story, episode after episode, encounter after encounter, he is the faithful one, amen?
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He's the faithful one. In verse 72, the focus of his faithfulness is to keep his promise to show us mercy.
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He's promised us mercy. He promised to forgive sins. He's promised to grant to his people new hearts.
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He has promised to grant eternal life. He promised to give his people the Holy Spirit. In his arrival, in his arrival, he has shown that God is faithful to complete the acts of mercy.
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He has promised in his ancient covenant to rescue us from sin. He said he would crush the head of the serpent, and it was revealed to Zechariah that God was initiating and remembering that mercy promised in his lifetime.
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The sixth cause for praise this morning in this text is in God's, in Christ's advent,
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God has fulfilled his promise to Abraham. Another fulfillment, another example of his faithfulness.
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Abraham was given a very specific three -part promise. He was told that God would multiply his people.
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He would give that people a great land so that one of his offspring would be a blessing to all people.
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People, land, and blessing to all through his line. The promise of making him a people and giving him a land was for the purpose of bringing forth a
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Messiah. In Jesus, all of the promises to Abraham are fulfilled. The promise of the nation has served its purpose.
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God preserved the Jewish line to bring forth Jesus. The promise for a land has served its purpose.
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It sustained the people until the arrival of the Messiah, a good place, a safe place for them to flourish until the arrival of the
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Messiah. In Christ, God was once again showing himself to be faithful and in fulfilling this promise to Abraham, God has opened up the blessings once for Israel alone to the world like us through Jesus.
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We here in this gathering, we're primarily a Gentile people and we ought to be particularly glad that God kept his promise to Abraham, that one would come from him who would be a blessing to all nations, not just the
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Jews. Amen? If that had not happened, we would still be lost in our sins, but he has opened it up to us too.
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Through the birth of the promised offspring of Abraham, we have received spiritual blessings beyond count, beyond measure.
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The seventh clause for praise in this advent, God has removed our fear, verse 74. Oh my goodness, this is awesome.
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Personally, I need this reminder here at the start of this Christmas season because our culture is increasingly divided. It still is.
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And yet look right at the text of verse 74. Go ahead and put your eyes on it for a second. That we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear.
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We have security in the arms of Jesus.
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Though they feed this body to a lion or riddle it with bullets or call me dirty names and drag my reputation through the mud,
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I need not fear, for in the advent of Christ, the defeat of my enemies has been secured. Faithfulness to the truth of God may bring persecution in the coming years, but the spirit through Zechariah is reminding us that we are brought into a bold fearlessness in our service to God.
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And in what ways are we called to serve him, by the way, when it says in our service to him, serve without fear, service like evangelism, service like singing his praises, service like taking a strong stand on truth in a culture that can't stand a strong stand on truth?
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We are to do this without fear, without fear. Two words that might not readily associate with Christmas.
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We think about pretty packages and good cheer and tinsel and sparkly Christmas lights, but those things must give way in our hearts, church, to a more robust and sustaining tradition of considering the boldness that the advent of Christ is meant to ignite within us.
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We are meant to have boldness as a result of this, not just sentimentality, not nostalgic feelings of Christmas's past, but about the future with boldness, without fear.
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He has come for us to secure us for eternity so that we can boldly and fearlessly live for him now.
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The eighth cause for praise in his advent, God has granted us holiness and righteousness before him forever, verse 75.
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Again, I wanna remind you that Zechariah is being given a vision of the whole complex of salvation rolled up in the arrival of the
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Messiah. We know that Jesus died on the cross to save us, but his arrival in the birth in the manger sets the entire process of salvation in motion.
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Through the advent of Jesus, God initiated the entire, entire process of salvation.
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And that process will culminate on a day when we will finally be able to serve him in holiness and righteousness.
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Anybody looking forward to that day? When we will serve him in holiness and righteousness and perfection? The holiness mentioned here, by the way, is an internal purity, an internal purity that none of us have quite experienced yet.
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And the righteousness is an external purity in our actions. Again, something that we've never quite fully realized.
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In our hearts and in our deeds, we who are saved now, in the here and now, serve him all of our days.
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And in Christ, those days will extend forever. And one day, in holiness and righteousness, we will be perfected to be able to serve him with unending days, forever and ever and ever, with glory and dignity and true worship like we've never seen.
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Our destiny has shifted on the basis of what began with his arrival. And so, if anything should make us praise
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God this Christmas season, it's this, that we will be spending unending days in holiness and righteousness before him, because he came to set us free, church, came to set us free from sin and death.
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And if that sounds boring, if the idea of us serving him forever and ever and ever in holiness and righteousness sounds boring, then
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I would suggest to you, you need some help with your imagination. You need some help with your imagination. God made us to be creative.
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He made us in a physical world to subdue creation, to work, to rest, to enjoy. And all of that will continue on in eternity, in holiness and in righteousness before him, all of our days.
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This does not mean that heaven or the new earth is gonna be one unending church service forever.
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It means picking up where we left off with a command to be his image bearers to this world. Only in that future,
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Jesus Christ will be our head. And he, as we sang earlier, will reign forevermore.
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Our righteous king, ruling over us over a very abundantly physical eternity where we will learn, where we will produce, where there will be art, where there will be sport, where all of the things that humanity has been able to create.
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Imagine all the stuff that we've been able to create over our entire history with sin.
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Imagine that without. Imagine that without sin. Oh, it'll be glorious.
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It'll be amazing. Lift your eyes up to see the glory of eternity that has been purchased for us in Christ.
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He came, because he came, we who have placed our trust in his son will be holy and righteous forever.
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Verse 76 is where something shifts, and there's an irony, and I haven't really addressed it until here.
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It introduces, it's finally Zechariah's gonna talk about his own son. And that sounds a little bit strange.
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All of these verses have been about a cousin, really, rather, a nephew that's about to be born and isn't even born yet.
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And in prophecy, he's at the naming and circumcision of his own son, writes a song about another.
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After eight verses describing the blessings of the Messiah, there is one verse to introduce his own son,
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John. John the baptizer. John's purpose is clear. He's the forerunner, the herald, the one who will prepare the hearts of the people to receive this glorious son that Zechariah's prophesying about.
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But how would you like your dad to compose a song about the glory of your cousin to commemorate your birth?
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I guess if my cousin was Jesus, I could forgive him, right? But seriously, this calls into question something that we ought to fundamentally ask.
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How important is Jesus? How important is Jesus? What gravity does he possess that pulls all towards his significance that even this man,
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Zechariah, at the birth of his own son would be extolling the glories of this one instead?
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Consider all the attention that Jesus garners in our culture. Hollywood script writers go out of their way to intentionally write his name in scripts to curse.
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Those aren't incidental. When you watch a movie, somebody wrote those words. Did you know that?
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Somebody wrote it. Somebody intentionally, a writer sat down to use his name as a curse word and put it on paper for an actor to act out.
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Water cooler talk on Monday morning can be stifled at the mention of this name, right?
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You wanna kill a conversation at your workplace? Mention your love for Jesus. You know what?
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You know what, I know that you love partying on Friday night. I love Jesus. Try it, see what happens.
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Maybe don't be a jerk, I don't know. Some would respond, though, at the name of Jesus with ecstatic delight and newfound hope, hearing his voice calling to them to come follow him.
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And we in this room have responded, we've heard. Have you not heard? Have you heard him calling your name?
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Have you responded? Zechariah's wife, Elizabeth, gives birth to a son. Zechariah prophesied the glory and majesty of ancient fulfillments over his soon -to -be -born cousin.
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There's an irony in that. And what John does for the people is still part of what I'm gonna include in the things that God has done for us in sending forth his son.
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The ministry of John is under and serves the much higher ministry of Jesus.
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And he even said in his own words later in the gospel, I must decrease and he,
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Jesus, must increase. John understood his role. He wasn't mad that his dad extolled this one.
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That's what his whole purpose was. John was like, that's my job. Thanks, Dad, getting a head start, pointing to the one.
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And what John does for the people is still part of that inclusion in what Jesus has done. So that .9,
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I'm gonna credit to the ministry of Jesus, though it's performed through the ministry of his herald, John, and that's the ninth cause for praise.
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In this advent, God has given us the knowledge of salvation and a pathway to repentance in verse 77.
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In the context of the times of Zechariah, the hearts of the people needed to be prepared for the arrival of Jesus.
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The reason being that most people were living their lives, most were subsistence farmers, meaning that they ate what they grew or raised themselves, and they were kind of about their own lives.
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And how many of you can imagine a people that were living day to day kind of more about their own lives? That's the way this time and era was, and human life has almost always been.
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It's almost always been about ourselves, right? People live for themselves. Well, further, the people during this era were oppressed by Roman occupiers, heavily taxed, heavily burdened.
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They had also wrapped their spiritual lives in a deep ritualistic legalism, I can't imagine, which allowed them to feel really good about themselves because they had done the things even if their hearts were not in them.
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They had all kinds of things they could do to make themselves feel acceptable to God. So John was like the last of the
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Old Testament prophets coming on the scene like a storm, declaring like prophets are prone to do, and I don't use this word lightly.
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I use it prophetically. They said, you suck. You're gonna be judged unless you turn your hearts over to God, and that was
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John's ministry. And then John gets the privilege as the last of the
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Old Testament prophets to declare, and the Messiah is here. He's here among you.
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That's what he said to the crowds. He's here. Not gonna point to him right now, but I will in a minute.
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I will at his baptism. When he comes out, I'll show you who he is. He's alive now.
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Can you imagine the energy in that statement? You better get your life right. The king is coming.
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Oh, just kidding, he's here. He's here in our midst, and the advent of Jesus is meant to do this for all of us.
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You see, he was reviving among the common folks an interest in genuine relationship with God, awe at the arrival of the king, and that's what
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John's ministry should do for us as well. So let's allow this Christmas to be a time of reflecting on what we deserved in contrast to what
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God has given to us. This is the great, we do suck, and we do deserve judgment, and God has sent his son to fix it because he loves us.
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The 10th cause for praise is in his advent, God demonstrates his tender mercy. Oh, this is a side of God that is undersold.
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I really did like, oh, what was the book by Ortland? Gentleman Lowly, a really good book to just highlight
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God's tenderness toward us, his love in sending his son, how he doesn't crush the one who comes to him in brokenness.
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I love that verse 78, by the way, comes on the heels of 77. You suck, and God has tender mercy toward you.
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I love the way that that comes at us. Causes for praise in the sending forth of his son.
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We are broken, we need to be reminded of that in order to receive the Messiah, and in order to receive his tender mercies.
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The knowledge of the forgiveness of sins requires the conviction of sins that came in verse 77, and yet in the pathway of salvation through the advent of Jesus Christ, we see tender mercy,
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God's tender mercy. This is a phrase, by the way, God's tender mercy is a phrase of deep feeling. It's about the deepest feeling you can evoke using the
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Greek language. This is like saying mercy from his guts. Like tender mercy from the very core of God's being.
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His tender mercy is what has led to the advent of Jesus Christ. What is the father showing us in the sending forth of his son?
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His tender mercy toward you and me. Why did Jesus come into the world? Because God has deep and abiding, heartfelt mercy toward you.
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Toward you and toward me. And from that tender mercy comes the drawing of a great light that leads to our 11th point.
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In his advent, God has given us freedom from sin and death. Verse 79, the advent of Christ is likened to the sun breaking out at dawn.
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Anybody see the sunrise this morning? That's beautiful, that's great. I even took a picture. Pictures never do as good as, you're looking at the thing, and then you look at your camera, and it's like, that wasn't it.
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But the light of that dawn that comes to us in our darkness, the light falls on we who sit in the shadow of death, the text tells us.
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The power of the arrival of Jesus is found in the nearly inexpressible glory that he arrived to deal with our darkness.
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He arrived to deal with our darkness. Like our lust, our harsh words, our unforgiveness, our hate, our lying, our cheating, our backstabbing ways, our greed, not merely some generic darkness as I prayed earlier, but the real darkness of our hearts, the real darkness of our real life actions against him and against others.
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He has come to exchange that darkness for his light. And further, we've all lived all of our days in the shadow of death, have we not?
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Under the specter of a limited amount of time and the ever -present reminder of the reality that this is not going to end well.
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We all know we're gonna die. His advent was to exchange that fear of death for the hope of life.
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This Christmas, celebrate, I encourage you to celebrate the light that has come. And that light spells nothing less than the exchange of our darkness for his light and the exchange of the fear of death to the hope of eternal life.
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And lastly, lastly, in his advent, God has created a pathway to shalom, verse 79.
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This final phrase increases my ability and really has helped me, even just this past week, to be able to celebrate
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Christmas more this year. You see, in this text is found the glory of the redemption that God is bringing forth with the giving of his son.
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And this is pointing to the restoration of the word shalom or peace, the peace that existed in the garden before sin ravaged our relationship with our creator.
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A peace that is so much more than the mere absence of war, absence of argument, absence of animosity.
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A peace that is better defined by really good things, like things that you would enjoy.
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A peace that's defined by great friendships without any more goodbyes. Good food and feasting without the fear of clogged arteries.
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Good time spent in nature without the fear of being bitten by a snake or attacked by a bear. Good life, good life, church.
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Good life without fear. Life the way it was meant to be. That's shalom, that's peace.
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In this sense, I want you to think about this, church. In this sense, shalom or the peace that God sent
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Christ to initiate for us is something that is really hard to define.
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Do you know why it's difficult to define? You've never seen it. You've never experienced it.
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You have never known it. And so we can't quite define it because our entire lives are lived under the pale of sin and death.
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The entire lives lived in the valley of the shadow of death, right? All of it.
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All of it knowing that even in our best moments we fear that that which we enjoy in the moment might be taken away, right?
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Have you felt it? All of us live there. I'm not trying to be down on our celebrations or try to spin something negative over your positives.
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I'm just saying what we all know to be true. And yet what God is promising for us here in the sending forth of his son is shalom, glory, the way it's meant to be, what we've never experienced.
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And beauty and majesty and glory and holiness and integrity and right motives, right?
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You've never experienced that. You've never had it just right. You've lived in fear.
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It's hard to define because we've never seen it. But he promises it. He who is faithful has promised it.
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We've seen approximations of it, by the way, certainly. Kind of lazy Saturday afternoon maybe when
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Michigan wins, I don't know. We've seen approximations of it in vacations with our families, marital bliss or in the little newborn's hand holding our finger, right?
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Approximations of shalom, approximations of glory and beauty and majesty that is promised for us in this ultimate peace through his son.
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But I say approximations because it's all stained by the reality and the fear of loss.
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In the sending forth of Jesus, God has promised that he is guiding us all toward a true and abiding shalom, a true peace.
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In this baby, we have found the key to getting back to the way that things were meant to be. And our text ends with a declaration that baby
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John grew physically and he grew spiritually. And he went off into the wilderness in preparation for his public ministry.
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Went off into the wilderness, just a little side note here that's not in my notes, but it doesn't say he went off into seminary.
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Didn't say that he went to the school of the prophets. Where did he go to grow in spiritual strength?
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He went off into the wilderness. I'm not against seminaries. As a matter of fact, I think Trent's gonna start a program there and I think it's really good, but I think it has all to do with what you bring to it.
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If your heart's in a good place and you go to seminary, then you get spit out humble with a little bit more information.
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But if your heart is proud going into seminary, guess what seminary does a good job of? Fueling your pride.
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And it has a lot to do with what you bring into it. But here, God says, head out into the wilderness, I'll meet you there.
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Pretty cool. But I recognize that these 12 reasons to worship might have come at you this morning like drinking from a fire hose.
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But let me encourage you then as an application. Here's your application. I would really love for you to do this. And actually,
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I would love to hear if you actually do it. I like to assume that if I don't hear from you, you just didn't let me know, but you still did it.
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But you know, I'll believe good about you. But man, it would be really cool to hear maybe God lay something on your heart.
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But let me encourage you then as an application to go back through this passage this week sometime.
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Go back through it. Go read it again. And take some notes. Write in your own words one or two of these things that made
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Zechariah worship God at the arrival of the Messiah. What are some things that he celebrated in here that you would say, man, that's something that strikes me.
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That's something that hits me. What moves your heart to rejoice this season?
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Is it the giving of gifts? Is it the buying of stuff? Is it the getting really good deals online?
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Is it making all those UPS drivers come to your house seven times today? They don't like that,
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I can tell you. There's some of them here that are just like, some of them work until 10 o 'clock at night for you. They're doing it for you.
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But no, what is it that gives you joy? What is it that gives you gladness this season? And I would encourage you to go back into the text to find it here, not out there.
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That's cheap and chintzy. Do you know what I'm talking about? What's available at the world is that thin and it's no wonder that it wears on you.
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It's no wonder that by the end of January 1st, you're all exhausted and you're all just like, man,
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I'm glad that's over with. Celebrating the arrival and the advent of our
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Lord and you leave it going, I'm glad it's over. I thought he said something about worshiping him in holiness and righteousness forever, right?
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When you get back into the text and figure out what God wants to point out to you. What moves your heart to rejoice?
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Our goal isn't to get all stoked up in our hearts this holiday season. Our goal ought to be to be fervent and enthusiastic for the things that God did for us and to really be enthusiastic about that all year long.
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But if you can't be bothered to get excited at the epic and amazing things God has done for us, then
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I would encourage you, no, I'm not gonna bash you, I'm just gonna say borrow Zechariah's. Borrow his enthusiasm.
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And in your own personal reflection on these things, I believe Zechariah's praise might very well become yours if you dig in and see the things that made him excited and refresh yourself about the things that I've set up here through the text this week.
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Our goal isn't to achieve a certain mood or attitude to fit in with the cultural expectations, like I said, of the fake and flimsy gladness this season.
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Our goal ought to be that we would be moved to deeper praise. And here it is, church, theologically informed joy.
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Let that be your target this holiday season. Theologically informed, biblically informed joy.
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As we come to our time of communion this morning, feel free to get up and go to the tables to remember what he came to do to rescue sinners like us from divine wrath.
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God visited us to redeem us, incarnation and atonement, manger and cross.
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So if Jesus is your Lord and Savior and you're at peace with others here, then I encourage you to go take a cracker and juice.
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You can take those back to your seat. And then when you get back to your seat, I'd encourage you to take a moment to consider what
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God did for us in sending Jesus. Again, one more reflection on thankfulness and gratitude toward him.
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This reality of thankfulness for what he has done in sending forth his son cannot and must not be reduced to one day in a calendar year.
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It can't be just Christmas day. It can't be December 25th. It ought to break out. Let it break out for you this season beyond one day or one week, or just a few weeks of the year.
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The epic, cosmic, glorious dawning of the light, the arrival of his tender mercy, the carving out of a people who will serve him in holiness and righteousness forever, the deliverance from all enemies that will result in a people who serve him without fear to bring forth the forgiveness of sins and usher in that final and eternal and glorious peace, that shalom that will reign over his people forever.
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My hope and prayer is that this message will serve to set your Christmas celebration this year on the right trajectory.
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So let's aim for praise this Christmas season. Let's pray. Father, I praise you.
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I am so glad for the words of Zechariah, these words that just broke out of him after a season away from speech and hearing a season of reflection on your glory and your majesty and what you were doing, revealed by the
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Spirit, here for our encouragement, here as fuel and kindling for our praise.
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Father, I pray that these things that you revealed to Zechariah, the truths of what the coming of your son, his arrival, means and spells for our eternity, that those things would ignite within us joy and gladness, a theologically informed joy this season.
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Father, set us on the right pathway, not chasing after something that the culture calls
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Christmas spirit, but really fueled by your Spirit guiding and directing us into truth that lights us up with gladness, that we might even testify boldly without fear to those around us of the glory of what this season truly means.