The Way Of Peace Is Through Jesus Christ

God Centered Theology

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All right, you can turn your Bibles to Luke chapter 1. And so far we have looked at a couple different things surrounding the time of year that we're celebrating from things in Matthew and in Luke as well.

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And we looked at what Mary's prayer from earlier in this chapter and verses 57 through 66 you see where John the

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Baptist is born. This morning I want to take a look at Zachariah's prophecy

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Luke chapter 1 verse 67 all the way down through verse 79.

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These are some sections of scripture that I think which we can't say we know because there's a whole lot of churches out there and maybe there is a lot of this going on but at least in my experience my lifetime have not been preached and looked at as often as some of the other places.

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Obviously Luke 2 is looked at quite a bit and things like that and then there's nothing wrong with that obviously.

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But I want to kind of focus this month of December on some of the things we don't look at quite as much and so we've been doing that.

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And so in Zachariah's prophecy who is the father of John the Baptist his son is born and Zachariah in verse 67 it says his father

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Zachariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied saying, blessed be the

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Lord God of Israel for he has visited us and accomplished redemption for his people.

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Notice that in the mind and in the mouth of Zachariah even before Jesus has gone to the cross before he has even at this point even been born because at this point

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John the Baptist has been born but Jesus has not and he still sees redemption as an accomplished fact for the people of God.

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God existing outside of time and space because time and space is a created order is a created thing.

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He sees the beginning from the end he's the alpha and omega so he sees redemption both as an accomplished fact but also the elements of redemption happen in time in a linear sense as time progresses.

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So that is why we would say that salvation is both a stated fact but also a process.

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There is the moment in time in which we are justified in our repentance and faith but there's ongoing sanctification is involved in our salvation.

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There's the future glorification when we will receive a new body and no longer have to be dealing with the effects of sin and so salvation is so much more than simply just the moment in time in which we are justified in Christ and thus saved for the penalty of our sins and the wrath to come for our sins which we know wages of sin is death obviously but the gift of God is eternal life.

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The same eternal life that Jesus told Nicodemus about in the garden or in the I don't know if they were in a garden but he told when

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Nicodemus went to him at night and he told him about being born from above and having eternal life just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so Jesus would be lifted up and all those that would call in the name of Christ would be saved.

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But David writes about this we see this throughout all scripture there's the being saved from sin not just in terms of its penalty but being saved from our ability to sin this how sin consumes us and sort of causes us such injury and there will come a day where we won't have to deal with it anymore not just its effects and causing us to sin against God but the way sin affects our bodies all the pain and sorrow and things we go through and you know even weeds in the ground or an effect of sin we see this in Romans where Paul talks about how the creation itself longs for the day of the redemption of the body for when our bodies are redeemed and we receive our glorified bodies and the eternal state is ushered in there will be no more sin curse on this earth as well and so things will be as they should be paradise lost will be paradise restored and so Zechariah sees this event in John the

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Baptist being born and now he sees and prophesies how

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Jesus being born will be God notice he says the God of Israel literally visiting us and accomplishing redemption for his people the people that were alive at this time

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God's people understood that when the Messiah came he would be there for the purposes of saving and redeeming

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God's people and you see this start to pick up in earnest after the writings that came after the period of the time of the kings in Israel you see a lot of talk at Isaiah about the suffering servant the coming redeemer and all this and so they've passed away from thinking of having a human king in Israel to where now they're supposed to be looking for the

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Messiah but we see in the time of Jesus that still seems to be what the people were looking for they kept saying are you going to be the king they kept wanting to make him king he kept there's so many times in the gospel you see

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Jesus sort of hiding himself away or kind of getting himself away from the crowds because he knew they were trying to make him a king then but they just wanted a political ruler they wanted somebody to overthrow the ones that were in charge of them they weren't looking for the actual type of kingdom and salvation that Christ had actually came to earth to bring and that is redemption from sin for his people and so Zachariah goes on he says he has raised

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God of Israel has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David his servant recognize here or or notice rather the recognition here not just on the point of for the standpoint of Zachariah knowing what he's saying here but think about the prophetic nature of this this horn of salvation that's raised up he says in the house of David they were well aware that salvation was going to come through the line of David and we dealt with this in Sunday school this morning in both

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Matthew 1 and Luke chapter 3 you see the the genealogy brought out um

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Luke 3 it picks up in verse 23 and we we noticed in Sunday school in Matthew 1 it does the genealogy in the sense of this person was the father of this person the father of that person whereas in Luke 3 it's the son of this person the son of that person and so you see this entire genealogy from the time of Abraham to David to Babylon all the way down to Jesus showing that this was in fact a savior coming to the house of David and I want you to notice here when it says he's raised up a horn of salvation for us this wording this choice of wording horn of salvation this is fulfilled prophecy not just in what

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Zachariah is is saying here now in Luke when he's saying that this is a horn of salvation for us but this is building on a lot of Old Testament prophecy pointing forward to the time in which this horn of salvation would come to the people of God we see this in some various places and I'm going to go through these uh sort of quickly here for you the first spot we see this pop up is in all the way back in first Samuel chapter 2 remember

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Hannah and not my daughter Hannah but Hannah from the Old Testament and so Hannah you're named after a a great

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Old Testament bible character if you want to read about her you can read first Samuel first Samuel we know

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Samuel was you know prophet of God and Samuel was born to Hannah and so if you have a little boy one day you can call him

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Samuel but Hannah and I can't laugh every time

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I say that because she's sitting right there uh Hannah song of thanksgiving and see Hannah like to sing too my girl

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Hannah likes to sing so you have a lot a lot in common with Hannah the bible um but she had a song of thanksgiving here in chapter two um about her boy and and if in uh first Samuel chapter 1 verse 27 excuse me 20 verse 26

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Hannah says oh my lord as your soul lives my lord I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the lord for this boy

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I prayed and the lord has given me my petition which I asked of him so I have also dedicated him to the lord as long as he lives he is dedicated to the lord and he worshiped the lord there and so then her

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Hannah's song of thanksgiving in chapter 2 verse 1 it says then Hannah prayed and said my heart exalts in the lord my horn there's that word is exalted in the lord my mouth speaks boldly against my enemies because I rejoiced in your salvation the people of God have always known that the

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God of Israel is a God of salvation this understanding of God redeeming his people from his sins is not new to new testament believers it has been the case for all believers of all time we see this very clearly here what

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Hannah sings about and if you go down if you're following with me if good if not you can just listen along but if you go down in the song to verse 10 of chapter 2

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Hannah says those who contend with the lord will be shattered against them he will thunder in the heavens the lord will judge the ends of the earth and he will give strength to his king and notice here he will exalt the horn of his anointed now obviously as time plays out this takes on fulfillment in obviously there's there's different kings of Israel there's

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David obviously who comes along but then we see the ultimate fulfillment of this in Jesus Christ himself so now you get a deeper understanding these people knew their old testament scriptures they knew about these things so Zechariah and Luke 1 when he prophesied here in verse 69 says he's right he has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David his servant so many people alive at the time of Christ missed it that's why

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Jesus had to tell some of them to look they're they're asking him for a sign all the time says look you've got

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Moses and the prophets and that's not enough for you to figure it out so I'm not giving you a sign you've got all you need

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Zacharias clearly understood what was going on so you get that with there with with Hannah and first Samuel 2 but then also

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Psalm 18 um get my reference here it's in Psalm 18 it says in verse 1

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I love you lord I love you oh lord my strength the lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer you could if you ever want to have a it will take you some time but it'll be a very beneficial study a very heartwarming study for you start at Psalm 1 go through the entire collection of Psalms and get you a notepad and write down the reference like Psalm 1 1 or 2 15 or whatever the any time you see the words rock rock fortress deliverer and you will be amazed at how often the psalmist speaks of God as being the rock and the fortress of refuge and the deliverer of salvation the lord is my rock my fortress my deliverer my god my rock in whom

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I take refuge notice my shield and the horn of my salvation my stronghold

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I called upon the lord who is worthy to be praised I am saved from my enemies also we see in Psalm 89 in verse 17 it says for you are the glory of their strength and by your favor our horn is exalted for our shield belongs to the lord and our king to the holy one of Israel so you see this very plainly well we're not done yet Psalm 132

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Psalm 132 in verse 17 it says there

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I will cause the horn of David to spring forth

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I have prepared a lamp for my anointed his enemies

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I will clothe with shame and upon himself his crown shall shine one more place

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Ezekiel 29 21 Ezekiel 29 21 it says on that day

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I will make a horn sprout from the house of Israel and I will open your mouth in their midst then they will know that I am the lord notice all the prophetic language about the coming horn the coming king the coming savior all wrapped up and fully realized here in Luke 1 when

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Zechariah says he has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David his servant he goes on he says as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us now here in verse 71 when

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Zechariah says that God has spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old verse 71 he's quoting

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Psalm 106 verse 10 when he says from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us so once again as I've said countless times hopefully you're not too bored by this

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I'm going to repeat it again so if you feel the need to roll your eyes or something and here he goes again you're just going to have to get over it because the harmony and the consistency of scripture is by far my favorite thing and we see it once again the new testament writers which in this case we have a new testament writer in Luke recording what