Luke: The Gospel is Safe to Say (Luke 1, Jeff Kliewer)

Lord, you are the one true God. You are Emmanuel, God with us. We thank you that you would come to this world, take on human flesh, in order to die, to take away our sin.

We thank you for this Christmas message. Lord, we pray that we would receive it again today, delight in it, enjoy the one true

God. Thank you, Father, and we ask that your word now would be open to us, in Jesus' name.

Amen. Amen. So Christmas is obviously over -commercialized, right?

And there's much criticism about that, and rightfully so, that many people see

Christmas as an opportunity to make money. And there is a lot of people who celebrate

Christmas, not because of Christ, but for the sake of tradition, or for the sake of materialism, or for whatever the reason.

And so it can be easy to get jaded by all of the bells and whistles, and all of the lights, and all of the action, and all of the busyness.

It's easy to just think, oh, Christmas is a drag. Christmas is a time when, you know, people are just trying to make money, and it's just too busy, and I can't get into the spirit.

I can't feel it. Well, then again, you take a step back, and you realize, what other time of the year can you go to the mall and hear words about the

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ? You know, the book of Philippians, in the first chapter, talks about how some preach

Christ out of wrong motives, out of selfish ambition and vain conceit. Others preach

Christ out of true, genuine concern for the gospel. But Paul says, regardless of the motives,

I rejoice. He says, I am glad, because in either case, Christ is preached.

And so Christmas is a time when the voice of Christians just gets louder, and the world starts to listen a little bit.

You know, you go in, and I was in, I think it was some kind of children's store in the mall, and I heard these words, and I thought, wow.

Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king. Peace on earth and mercy mild,

God and sinners reconciled. And we understand, yeah, the world likes to hear about peace. That's a good message.

But then the second verse comes on, and I think, oh wow, this is the gospel.

Hear this, Christ by highest heaven adorned, Christ the everlasting

Lord. Late in time behold him come, offspring of the virgin's womb.

Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see. Hail the incarnate deity. Pleased as man with men to dwell,

Jesus our Emmanuel. You know, we've been singing about this name, Emmanuel.

What does it mean? God with us. That is the message of Christmas, that God has come, and Michael and I didn't even coordinate that, that this would be in the notes so early here.

Michael's songs that he chose were about Emmanuel, God with us. That name sums up the

Christian message. That he would be called Emmanuel, God with us. So today, we are moving into a new book of the

Bible. We finished up with 1 Peter, and we are going into the book of Luke. So if you'll turn with me to the book of Luke, it begins his gospel in Luke chapter one.

You know, I thought, how am I going to preach this message today? And I started to chop it up and work through it all week long, trying to find a natural breaking point of how much of this scripture can

I cover of this message? It just seems so good and so rich, and so much of the text was just kind of coming out and jumping out at me, and I thought, well, maybe

I'll preach the first eight verses, or maybe the first 15, but you know, the more I studied and the more I looked at it,

I realized something about Luke chapter one. You need the whole thing. You need the whole thing.

Because, you know, sometimes we wanna honor the word of God by focusing on the words of scripture.

And every word comes from God, so it matters. In fact, when I was down in Florida, my pastor there, he's a

Presbyterian pastor, he had preached through the book of Romans, and he did one entire sermon on one word.

The last word of Romans was amen. So the last sermon he gave on that was amen, and then we gave this, we had this, you know, big, rousing amen, hallelujah song as we finished the book of Romans.

But what I liked about that was it gave honor to every word of scripture, saying that these words are theanusta,

God -breathed, as 1 Timothy 3 .16 talks about. 2 Timothy 3 .16. That every word is

God -breathed. But in the first chapter of Luke, as I thought, you know, I really wanna break this down and pull out the meat of what's in here,

I realized the force of this chapter is in the flow of it. It's in the whole picture of Luke chapter one.

Because what we see happening is a story that's being woven, and there's a comparing and a contrasting that happens as the story unfolds.

What do I mean by that? Well, it's the story of John the Baptist's birth. Actually, the announcing of his birth.

But right after that comes the announcing of Jesus' birth. Both cases, an angel does the announcing.

And in each case, there's a response to what the angel says. And from the back and forth comparison, contrasting, we see a story that's developing, which really centers around Zechariah.

And what happens to him early in the chapter comes full circle by the end of the chapter in a glorious and powerful praise from a man who for a time was forced to be silent.

And so if we only chop it up into little bits, we might miss the flow of what's happening here in Luke chapter one.

So today, we're gonna move quickly. It'll be a lot like reading the scripture together, but I will take time to comment briefly.

I want us to see this flow because it will speak to us a very important message.

And what is that message? Well, this chapter of the Bible is meant to give us certainty about Emmanuel.

And from that certainty, a voice. Oftentimes, our voices fall silent about the thing that matters most, the thing that matters most to us, that God has come in human flesh.

Zechariah was made silent for nine months only to come out of that silence in glorious, resounding praise and delight in Jesus Christ, his

Savior. The same thing can happen to us. As we read these words, as we allow them to penetrate into our minds and into our hearts, our certainty about Jesus Christ gets stronger.

And the next thing you know, you're witnessing to your classmate who sits next to you in school when for months and months, you had been scared to say anything.

Or to your coworker, to your friend, to a family member. These words make us bold because boldness comes from what?

Confidence. It comes from confidence in the word of God. And that boldness will well up inside of us in praise.

So it's powerful. This book of Luke, it begins this way. So we're all there. Luke 1, verses one to four.

In as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent

Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

So these first four verses are the introduction to the book of Luke. And not only that, it's the introduction to Luke and Acts.

Because Luke and Acts actually serve as two parts of the same volume. So the book of Acts will begin with a reference to the same character,

Theophilus. What is going on here? Luke is a historian. He was the personal physician that traveled with the apostle

Paul in his ministries. So you find in the 16th chapter of Luke that all of a sudden, instead of saying they in that third person, that the tense of the author, which is

Luke, who's writing that book of Acts, switches to I or we. Because at that point in the 16th chapter of Acts, Luke now is traveling with Paul.

They're on a journey together. And Luke is the private physician seeing to Paul.

Now why would Paul need a physician? Maybe the 39 lashes on his back that he received five times, the beatings within an inch of his life, being stoned, left for dead.

Paul had had it rough. And Luke was right there with him in the second half of the book of Acts.

So this is who Luke is. And he not only traveled in that circle with Paul, he also had access to Peter.

He had access to Mary. He had access to eyewitnesses.

And so this is why we see in verse two, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses,

Luke is a physician, he's well -educated, and he recognizes the need for someone to make an orderly record of the life of Jesus Christ.

And this is what he sets out to do. Now who is he writing to? Find it in the text. Verse three, he's doing this for Theophilus.

Theophilus. Now there's two theories about who this is. One theory is that this is a historical person.

This is somebody who's living at that time that needs to hear a clarification of the gospel.

Someone's preached to him, he needs to hear more. And Luke sets out to write to him. However, the name

Theophilus means God -lover. Theos, phileo,

Theophilus. And it could be that Luke is writing to God -lovers like us who are sitting here.

He speaks of us as Theophilus, those who love God, who want to hear about Jesus.

It could very well be that he's writing to us. I think it's both.

I think that the word of God is fully human and that when Luke sets down to write these words, he is writing to a historical person in a real situation.

And we know that because he calls him what? Most excellent Theophilus. This is a person who has some rank in government, some important official, perhaps in Rome.

Who knows where? This is a real person. And yet, the scripture is also 100 % the word of God.

So the very words that come off of Luke's pen are intended by the Holy Spirit for all time and for all people.

It's like the nature of Jesus. He has a 100 % divine nature. He is God. Yet he comes and fully takes on flesh so that he's 100 % man.

In the same way, these words are written in historical time for a reason, but carried along by the

Holy Spirit such that these are the very words of God. This is what we have in the scripture, the word of God.

So he writes to Theophilus, in verse four now, he writes for a purpose. And this is the thesis of what

I'm teaching today. This is the main idea, don't miss this. That you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

That word certainty, in the Greek, it's asphalia, asphalia.

It means security, safety, sureness, a firmness about what you believe that's based on a reliable thing.

So for some of us, we have an idea of Jesus, incarnate deity, we know the

Christmas hymn, Hark the Herald Angels, but as we think about that, it's almost, John Piper uses this analogy, so it's not mine originally.

He says, it's like in our minds, it's like a cloud that we can look out and see. But that cloud could very well get blown off by a strong wind and replaced by something else.

Asphalia, firmness, certainty, is not like a cloud, but like a mountain in your mind.

Immovable, steadfast, it's not going anywhere. As we read these words, maybe we know about Jesus, we believe in him in a vague, nebulous, cloudy kind of way, but these words ground that truth in our minds.

It makes us certain as we read the book of Luke that you may have asphalia, certainty, surrounding the things that you've been taught.

That's the purpose of the book of Luke. And today, it jumps right in, so let's go. Verses five through seven is a backdrop.

It's kind of like setting the scene, setting the stage. In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named

Zechariah of the division of Abijah, and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was

Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the

Lord, but they had no child because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.

Starts off with in the days of Herod, and that is a clue that these are dark days.

When the king is insane, and a murderer, and psychotic, and he's ruling over God's people, you know something's wrong, right?

And what is wrong? Well, they have been disobedient to the covenant, and they've been under judgment, and now they're being oppressed by a foreign nation.

They're not free people. The Roman government is oppressing Israel and has them captive, and their puppet named

Herod is the king of Israel. Okay, so get this, this is a dark time, but there's a priest, and this man is righteous.

Generically, in verse six, we see that he is righteous in a blameless sense.

Now, it doesn't mean that he's the only sinless man who's ever lived up until this point. It means in the same way that Job was called righteous and blameless in his time.

This man is righteous. He's a God -fearing man who walks with God genuinely, and he's not suffering because of his own deficiency in his walk with God.

Here, we have a genuine believer named Zechariah, and likewise, his wife, Elizabeth, but the next verse, verse seven, tells us he's suffering, and so is she.

They had no child, and this is a difficult thing.

This is a struggle. It's still a struggle today when childlessness, when a couple cannot have children, but even more so in that culture when the identity was even more rooted in family and who you come from and who comes from you.

This is a difficulty that's not just something to glaze over. This is a great struggle, and it says,

Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years, meaning beyond the ability to have children, so this is a difficult, dark situation where even the righteous in Israel are suffering, not because of their own sin in this case, but it's a dark time.

Picture this. The backdrop is darkness over the land of Israel, and now the story receives some good news.

Verse eight and following. Now, while he was serving as priest before God, when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the

Lord and burn incense, so Zechariah is chosen to go into the temple.

Twice a day, there would be the burning of incense in the temple while sacrifices were happening outside of the temple, but not every priest has the opportunity to go in and do that, and I think it's 1

Chronicles or 2 Chronicles 24, 1 Chronicles 24, verses seven to 18, we're told about the 24 divisions of priests that operated in Israel, and even back then, there were these 24 divisions.

Which one did Zechariah come from? Abijah. We were told that earlier. Verse five.

So this company of priests would be a large group of people and they would cast lots among themselves and you would be lucky if you got to go burn incense once in your lifetime.

This is a big deal, to get to go into the temple and burn incense. It falls, the lot falls to Zechariah, and here the text is emphasizing something for us.

You think this is mere chance that the lot would fall to Zechariah? Is this just randomness?

No, the point is that God has a sovereign plan. God has a plan.

Now, there's five major themes that run through this, just briefly. Five major themes as we go through.

One is that God has a plan. God is sovereign over everything that's happening. Number two, that both

John the Baptist, who in a minute is just gonna be John the baby, and Jesus are sent from God according to his plan.

They're announced by angels, they come from God in a supernatural way in each case.

They're sent from God so they speak from God. Number three, that Jesus is surely greater than John.

So you have the comparison where there's an announcement from an angel and then John is born, that John will be born.

There's an announcement from an angel about Jesus being born. You have this back and forth, but there's also a contrasting that shows

Jesus greater than John. Okay, we're gonna see that. Fourth, there's a difference in how people respond to the word of God.

Some people, when the word of God is preached, they fall asleep. Other people perk up.

That's just a little warning. You gotta listen, keep listening. But it's true.

And with Zechariah, you see a wrong response. And then with Mary, you see the right response to the word of God.

And finally, number five, the final proclamation of Zechariah declares the greatness of Jesus, that he is

Lord, that he is the horn of our salvation and the sunrise over darkness. So as we go through here in Luke 1, this is the first point, the first major stop along the way.

God has a plan. It's no coincidence that Zechariah is going into the temple right now. Let's see what happens when he gets there.

Verse 10, the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense.

And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him and fear fell on him. But the angel said to him, do not be afraid,

Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard and your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son and you shall call his name

John. And you will have joy and gladness and many will rejoice at his birth.

For he will be great before the Lord and he must not drink wine or strong drink. And he will be filled with the

Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the

Lord their God. And he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready for the

Lord a people prepared. So an angel shows up to Zechariah while he's in the temple burning incense and declares all of these things.

Notice, God could have just done these things without announcing it ahead of time.

God could have just sent John the Baptist. He could have just sent Jesus, but he announces it first by an angel before it comes to pass.

Why? To show that God has a sovereign plan and he is working all these things together according to his plan.

Prophecies were foretold of everything that we see happening here in the book of Luke. Of the coming of Jesus, born to a virgin,

Isaiah 7, 14, that the son would be given, the government will be on his shoulders, Isaiah 9, 6.

All of these things that we're going to read about were foretold by prophets. Why? Because God sends his word ahead of his works, that we would understand him and know who he is and trust in the thing that's happening.

That Jesus would be crucified on a cross. It's not enough that a man die and rise from the dead.

It's essential that we understand the meaning of that death, the meaning of his resurrection from the dead.

So an angel announces the coming of John, just like Isaiah chapter 40 announced the coming of John.

Just like the last two verses in the Old Testament announced the coming of John. All of this is according to plan and prophesied.

So that when it comes to pass, we understand God, the meaning of what he's doing.

Verse 18 and following. And now we get into the first speech, the first thing that a person says.

So an angel has spoken, but here you have Zechariah about to speak.

What should you say when an angel shows up and speaks to you? Well, let's hear what

Zechariah said. And Zechariah said to the angel, how shall I know this? For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years.

What do you think? Right answer, wrong answer. The first thing he says is a statement of his disbelief.

The word comes from God through the mouth of an angel. And he says, how would

I know that? How would I believe that? And the response from Gabriel, probably Gabriel here, we're told the next visit was

Gabriel, but the angel here says what? Verse 19. Oh, now we know. I am

Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God. And I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.

You hear the indignation in his voice, a little bit of a temper there, like what are you asking me this question for?

I came from God and behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.

So the angel rebukes him roundly, resoundingly. Verse 21, and the people were waiting for Zechariah and they were wondering at his delay in the temple.

And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them. And they realized he had seen a vision in the temple.

And he kept making signs to them and remained mute. And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home.

So he's using his hands to try to explain what he saw. Can you imagine like this big game of charades right outside the temple?

What is he describing here? Everybody's looking at him, he can't speak. Here is the point.

This is the counterexample for us. The statement of disbelief, which is our natural tendency.

This is what needs to be overcome. And we'll see it happen as the text unfolds.

Okay, 24 and following. After these days, his wife Elizabeth conceived. And for five months, she kept herself hidden, saying, thus the

Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me to take away my reproach among people.

Just a simple statement of joy. A simple accepting statement of faith. Now it's not real deep at this point.

It's simply focused on what God has done for her in taking away the reproach of childlessness.

It's not so much yet about Jesus as it is about her. But it's a simple statement of trust and acceptance of the word of God.

Now 26 and following. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named

Nazareth to a virgin, betrothed to a man whose name was

Joseph of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, greetings,

O favored one. The Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

And the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name

Jesus. And he will be great, and he will be called the son of the most high.

And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father, David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

So we once again have an angel show up, predicting the birth, this time of Jesus, who would be

John's cousin. Verse 34, this is not a statement of disbelief, but an asking for clarification.

And it's okay to seek God and seek wisdom. Look at verse 34, and you'll notice the response of the angel is not indignation, but accepting of the question.

Verse 34, and Mary said to the angel, how will this be, since I am a virgin? It's a legitimate question, it's a legitimate question.

There's never been a virgin birth before. Now there's a prophecy in Isaiah chapter 7, 14, but in the near context of that, there's an application of that as a young woman.

Now, we're seeing a literal virgin birth. Look at this, verse 35, the angel answered her, the

Holy Spirit will come upon you. And the power of the Most High will overshadow you, therefore the child to be born will be called

Holy, the Son of God. Stop there, that word therefore is important.

We will do a little word study here. Therefore means that what comes after it derives from that.

So the child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God. Is it necessary that Jesus was born to a virgin?

Isn't it enough that he was crucified and rose from the dead? It is absolutely essential, therefore, that he was born to a virgin.

Because it means that he is fully God, he has no earthly father, his father was the

Holy Spirit in this sense. Well, God conceived Jesus in the womb.

Look at this, the child will be called Holy, the Son of God. His divinity, his holiness, who he is, rides on this truth that he was born to a virgin.

It's a supernatural birth. But not only so, he comes from Mary.

In Genesis 3 .15, there was that strange promise, remember, in the Garden of Eden? The seed of a woman would crush the head of the serpent.

Normally women don't have seed. How can the seed of a woman crush the head of the serpent?

Mary contributes the humanity of Jesus. Jesus fully comes from Mary, 100%.

He is 100 % human, he's not anything other than a human being in the womb, growing as any ordinary baby would grow in the womb.

100 % human, sent to crush the head of the serpent. This supernatural fulfillment of Genesis 3 .15.

It requires both deity and humanity in order that he would be that bridge between a sinful man like me and a holy

God. He is fully God and fully man to bridge that gap.

The virgin birth is crucial here. Therefore, he's called Holy, the Son of God. Keep going, verse 36.

And behold, your relative Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived a son. And this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren, for nothing will be impossible with God.

And Mary said, this is crucial. This is the contrast between Zechariah now and Mary, between the man who was esteemed and had power in Israel versus this humble woman, who was thought of as being low and almost nothing in that culture.

Mary said, behold, I am your servant. I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.

And the angel departed from her. So you see a contrast here.

Zechariah, disbelief. Stopped his mouth. Mary, speaking acceptance of the word of God.

Let it be. Amen. Verse 39. Now we have this really interesting exchange between Jesus and John the

Baptist while they're both still in the womb. This is awesome. 39. In those days,

Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted

Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb.

And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Last time we saw

Elizabeth speaking the same thing, just kept saying to herself, the

Lord's done good things for me. Now the Holy Spirit is taking over. Her confidence is growing.

Her certainty, she's feeling it. The Holy Spirit has come over her and listen to what she says.

Elizabeth, filled with the Spirit, she exclaims with a, what? Loud cry.

She has a voice. She says, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the

Lord. That's referencing Mary's response in verse 38. Here, she's saying, look, you believed.

You have faith. Bless God for that. The right response.

There's all this joy. And then, you know, sometimes when two women get together and one's excited, next thing you know, the other one's really excited too.

Have you ever seen that happen? Women have a way like that. Just, you hear their excited story and then the other one's all happy too.

It's really fun to watch. Well, that's what happens here. Mary, she sees Elizabeth all excited and she says, my soul magnifies the

Lord. That word magnify is a big word, isn't it? It's exalting of Christ.

And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. The name

Jesus means Savior. Yahweh is salvation, Yeshua. For he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.

For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed. For he who is mighty and has done great things for me.

And holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.

He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant

Israel in remembrance of his mercy. As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.

And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home. So this is called the

Magnificat. Where Mary magnifies and exalts in God her

Savior. She has a voice. But there's yet one more to speak. And at this point in the text, why isn't he saying anything?

He can't. His mouth has been stopped. And so let's see the resolution of that.

Verse 57 and following. Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth and she bore a son.

And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her. And they rejoiced with her.

And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father.

But his mother answered, no, he shall be called John. And they said to her, none of your relatives is called by this name.

And they made signs to his father. What does that mean? He's deaf too.

Because if he wasn't also deaf, they could have just asked the father. But now they're having to do signs. So he's been in complete silence, not only unable to speak, he's unable to hear.

He's sitting there quietly, trying to discern their sign language. But then he calls for a writing tablet.

Verse 62, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. 63, he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, his name is

John. And they all wondered. But 64 is another miracle.

And immediately his mouth was opened. Pray right now in your spirit that your mouth would be opened the way

Zechariah's was. And his tongue was loose and he spoke, blessing God.

And fear came on all the neighbors and all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea. And all who heard him laid up in their hearts saying, what then will this child be?

For the hand of the Lord was with him. And his father Zechariah was filled with the

Holy Spirit and prophesied saying. Before we read it, just consider this.

You see the flow of the text? He was struck dumb. He couldn't talk. He had to just sit there in the thoughts of his mind and recognize.

It was all leading up to this moment. Mary got it right. Elizabeth got it right. But now Zechariah, his tongue is loose.

What will he say? Let's read it, 68 and following. Blessed be the

Lord God of Israel. For he has visited us and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant

David. Is he delighting in his own son or the son of God? The son of God because the son of God comes from the house of David.

Both Joseph and Mary are descendants from David according to the promise of 2

Samuel 7. That a son from David's line would sit on the throne forever.

If you trace the lineage of Joseph, you find as a legal father, he fits the bill.

Mary descending in the same way. You have two genealogies in the Gospels, right? Matthew chapter one and Luke at the end of chapter two.

One traces Joseph, one traces Mary. Jesus is a descendant from the house of David.

Zechariah is not, what is he? He's a Levite, he's a priest. Blessed be the

Lord God of Israel for he has visited and redeemed. I love that he uses the past tense there. The redeemer is coming.

It's as good as done in Zechariah's mind. That doubter, the man of disbelief, he sees this thing as sure, he's certain now.

The redeemer has come, he has redeemed his people. I don't care if we still see Roman soldiers around, the redeemer has come.

He gets it. He's raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant

David. When you hear the horn of salvation, what do you picture? I pictured like a cornucopia, you know, like this horn.

And then I said, wait a minute, that can't be. No, that came from Greek mythology where Zeus broke off some horn and from that all these good things flow out of it, which is false and a lie.

What is this horn? This is the horn of an ox. Proverbs 14, four, from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest.

Israel didn't have big tractors to clear the ground and to till the field.

They would see the strength of that ox pulling the plow. I don't know if you've ever been up close with an ox.

Anybody been at a zoo or something and see these big horns? These things are massive. They are just a picture of strength.

And their horn represents their strength. That was the symbolism. The strength of the ox, the power of an ox is represented by the ox horn.

And so when Zechariah says he's raised up a horn of salvation, it speaks to power over the enemy.

With this horn, Christ can impale the enemy. He can crush the serpent. He's a strong God, a horn of salvation.

This is a powerful, certain, surefire praise. He goes on, verse 70, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.

He's connecting the dots. The prophecies are fulfilled. His mind is becoming sure.

That virgin born promise is gonna be a virgin born son. He gets it.

It's all coming together in his mind. It's becoming a mountain, not just a cloud in his brain.

Verse 71, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant.

The oath that he swore to our father Abraham to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear.

Fear is an enemy to faith. In holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And now, picture the scene.

He's got his voice back. He just named his son, eight days old, on the day of circumcision. He looks at him and he says, 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 God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death and guide our feet in the way of peace.

This story started in darkness. Verse 80 ends it. And the child grew, became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.

That's where the story picks up, and we know the Christmas story we'll read next week, the birth of Jesus.

But this chapter was about the promise of the birth of John, the promise of the birth of Jesus, the response of Zechariah, the right response of Mary and Elizabeth.

Here is the message of it. Darkness was over the land. Maybe you feel darkness over your soul.

Where is that sunrise? Where is that horn of salvation? It's Jesus.

It's the Savior. It's us becoming certain in our minds, asphaliah, certain, a surety, a safety of these things.

This is where the light comes from, to give light to those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death.

We are all Zechariah and Elizabeth without Jesus. We're barren.

Our lives are passing away and we can't hold on to them. We live in a land, the valley of the shadow of death.

But a sunrise has come. We're looking back on it now. Zechariah was just before it.

This story gives us confidence to speak like Mary did, to speak like Elizabeth did.

You hear the word, don't you hear the word? These are the words of God. It should make you sure. And if you're sure, you should speak.

Christmas, it gets loud, doesn't it? Join your voice to the chorus. They're not gonna get saved just by hearing the

Christmas carol, but they might get their mind thinking. You talk to your coworker, you talk to your friend.

You go tell that a Savior has come. He is the horn of salvation.

He is the deliverer. Go strong, go bold. You have this certainty if you have these words.

The word goes before that work. You're certain in your heart, you're certain in your soul. You feel it in the depths of your bones.

That's why you can speak. That's why Zechariah could speak. He had to be silent for a while before he could speak.

And once his eyes were on Jesus and it all came together in his mind, he became a witness with power,

Acts 1 .8. So let's pray for that power to fall on us this Christmas, that we would speak.

And worship team, come on up. We'll close with a song. Let's ask for boldness.

Let's ask for faith, it's a gift. Ask for him to stir up our faith and to strengthen us through his word that we would speak.

Father God, thank you for your word. Thank you for the certainty that it gives us.

Without your word, we would be lost and hopeless in the dark, but Christ has come and you have communicated this truth to us through the word of God.

Make us certain, make us strong. Fill us with your Holy Spirit that we would go tell it on the mountains.