Today's scripture can be found in the Gospel of Luke chapter 1 verses 57 through 80 or on page 6 in your bulletin. 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 when 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, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, his name is John. And they all wondered. And immediately, his mouth was open and his tongue loose. And he spoke and blessing God. And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about throughout all the hill country of Judea. And all who heard them laid them up in their hearts saying, What then will this child be? For the hand of the Lord was with him." Zechariah's prophecy. And his father, Zechariah, was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, "'Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and 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 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. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, For you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways. You 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 and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace. and the child grew and became strong in spirit, and when he was in the wilderness until the days of his public appearance to Israel. This is the proclamation of God's word. There's a hymn written by Charles Wesley in the 1700s that we sing at Christmastime. Its title is, Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus. You probably know the lyrics. Come thou long-expected Jesus, born to set thy people free, From our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in thee. Israel's strength and consolation, hope of all the earth thou art, dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart. It sings of the coming of the long-awaited Savior Messiah which Israel had been looking forward to for thousands of years before Christ's birth. It's an understatement to say that that's a long time to wait. I remember when I was a young married person, I had a strong yearning for two things, for us to have a house of our own and for us to have a child. It took a while for that to happen. The house came after four years of marriage and the child came a year later. But looking back on that now, two houses and four children later, that wait was such a drop in the bucket. As children, we spend agonizing months waiting for summer vacation. or Christmas. And then more agonizing years are spent waiting to graduate from high school. Then most of us have to wait to find a spouse, unless we're Lucanville. We spend nine months waiting to meet the new baby. Then we spend 18 months waiting to see how they grow and mature. Later in life, we spend our years looking forward to retirement and a more relaxed way of living. Some have long-standing health challenges. Others have long, difficult relationships. We all experience times of waiting and yearning in our lives, and so we know a thing or two about waiting, don't we? And yet, our timelines are much shorter than those of the Israelites. Israel knew a lot about waiting and longing. They had spent long periods in captivity waiting on Almighty God to deliver them. from their captors. Many had lived in captivity and under oppression for their whole lives. Imagine yearning for freedom and looking forward to it for your entire life. It is hard to imagine. The faithful believers had long waited the fulfillment of God's covenants for century after century, for millennia. But unlike the nation of Israel, we thankfully do not have to wait thousands of years, which brings us to our study of Luke 1. Let's pray. Lord God, we thank you for this time which you have given us to explore the riches of your holy word. Please bless us through it, open our minds, free us from distractions, and orient our hearts towards you. Grow us in our understanding of your perfect plan and grant that we will be forever changed by it. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. As you spend time in the church, you'll encounter Advent each year. And during Advent, we're encouraged to revisit the events leading up to the birth of Christ. I confess, I often skip right to the birth. I like reading Luke 2. I've done it many times. But in doing that, I've often skipped over Luke 1, where there's a lot of action taking place. Things which are setting the stage for events that will happen over 30 years in the future. Of course, the birth of Christ was a world-changing event, we know that. However, Luke 1 marks the beginning of the fulfillment of God's promises, first to Israel, and then to all of humankind, to us. Let's look back in history and see how God has made promises to his people. God's final prophet in the Old Testament was Malachi, and he lived about 450 years before Zechariah. God had a lot to say to the people of Israel through him about their corruption by sin. He offered his people forgiveness for their sins, he promised that the Messiah would come to purify the nation, and he also promised that the wicked would be judged and the righteous rewarded. In Malachi 1.11, it says, for from the rising of the sun to its setting, my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering, for my name will be great among the nations. And then later in Malachi 4.5-6, God's final words were, behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord, and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction." The coming of Elijah the prophet is a reference to the coming of John the Baptist, who would come in the spirit of Elijah, and then silence for over 400 years. God did not speak. Fast forward to Zechariah 400 years later. He's not just an ordinary Israelite. He was a descendant of Moses' older brother Aaron. He was a priest in the tribe of Levi. He wasn't like the Sadducees who favored the liberal attitudes of the Greeks and believed that God should not have any part in governing the nation. He wasn't like the Pharisees who were religious zealots that created laws and then strove to uphold them. They didn't care about people, they just cared about the law. Zechariah served God faithfully as a priest in a synagogue, like a local pastor in the hill country of Judea. He was one of thousands of priests and he would have been responsible for teaching the people about the Old Testament scriptures. He would have taught them of the covenants that God had made with Israel before them. He knew well the promises that God had made to Israel, and he was waiting on God to deliver. He wasn't sinless. He wasn't filled with the Spirit, but he was found to be faithful in serving God. Luke says that Zechariah and Elizabeth were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. They were true believers, They were true believers, like many before them, who were waiting on Messiah. They were waiting on God to speak again. Part of Zechariah's responsibilities would have been to spend a couple of weeks each year serving in the temple of the Lord, which included burning incense. Sound familiar? Malachi 1, burning incense? It was there that he met the angel Gabriel. After 400 years of silence, God stepped back into time and began speaking through an angel. Right there, Zechariah would have already known that something very significant was taking place. Remember, God had been silent for over 400 years. No prophets, no angels, nothing. This was momentous. Despite that, when Gabriel told him that God had heard his prayers and that Elizabeth would have a child, he did not believe that it was possible. They were both advancing the years, maybe in their 70s, and they had not been blessed with children. And so Gabriel rendered Zechariah silent and unable to speak. As he came out into the courtyard, Zechariah's silence demonstrated God's power to those who witnessed it. They knew that something significant had just happened. God blessed Zechariah and Elizabeth, and she was with child, a child with a God-given purpose. He would be the precursor to the Messiah, who would come in the spirit of Elijah, as was prophesied by Malachi. He was filled with the Holy Spirit even in his mother's womb. Now fast forward nine months, and in verse 57, we find ourself at the time of John's birth. Elizabeth had given birth to a son, Verse 58 says that her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy on her and they rejoiced with her. This was a big event. But Zechariah still remained silent. Continuing in verse 59, on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child and they would have called him Zechariah after his father. The tradition was to announce a Hebrew baby's name on the eighth day at the time of circumcision. But this is curious to me. The parents don't choose the name of the child, the community does? I did some research and I found that there were a number of different naming practices among the Hebrew people, but I could not find one that involved community naming. Perhaps this had something to do with Zechariah being mute? We're not sure. The people thought he should be named after his father, but Elizabeth says, no, He will be called John. This is confusing to those that were gathered as there were no known relatives named John. So they turned to Zechariah and they made signs to him asking him the same question. Some believe that making signs meant that he had been rendered both deaf and mute, but Luke doesn't explicitly say that. Zechariah asked for a writing tablet, which was likely a slab of stone covered with some wax, He would have taken something like a stick and written on it, his name is John. Boom. The shackles were removed from Zechariah. His mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed and he could finally speak again after nine months. So what were his first words? Hey, I can speak again. Look how cute this child is. No, he had very likely spent nine months contemplating the wonders of God after hearing him speak through his messenger Gabriel. And so his first words were rightly used to bless God. The priest whose mouth had been silenced could speak again and he was blessing God. This was so significant that verse 65 says that fear came on all of their neighbors. And all of these things were talked about throughout the hill country of Judea. And all who heard them laid them up on their hearts, saying, what then will this child be? For the hand of the Lord was with him." Now, mind you, it's interesting to note that all of this happened and Zechariah was not even filled with the Spirit yet. As a priest, he was an Old Testament theologian. He's from the Aaronic line, a descendant of generation after generation of priests, going all the way back to Moses' older brother Aaron. You could say that being a priest was in his bones. Zechariah knew that what was happening was affirming the Old Testament prophecies. He knew that the covenants were now being fulfilled. He'd been waiting expectantly all of his life for this moment to come to pass. Verse 67 says, he was then filled with the Holy Spirit and began prophesying. Remember, it had been 400 years since Malachi had last prophesied about Elijah. After 400 years, Zechariah begins speaking prophecy. This isn't a work of Zechariah here, it is a work of the Holy Spirit. It is a work of God. The baby given to an old barren couple the nine months of silence for the priest Zechariah, the birth and naming of the child as directed by the angel, the restoration of Zechariah's ability to speak, and finally, the praising of God. The Holy Spirit always points us to God. Point for point, that is exactly what is happening here in Luke 1. We are pointed to God's power in bringing new life to a barren couple. We are pointed to God's faithfulness in keeping his covenants over thousands of years. And we're pointed to God's provision of a savior and the announcement of it through the testimony of John. Now we'll look at Zechariah's prophecy. In the next section, beginning in verse 67, we see Zechariah's prophecy, also known as Zechariah's song of salvation, or more simply, it's often called the benedictus, from the Latin word, blessed. Zechariah is speaking from his heart under the leading of the Holy Spirit. Really, it is Old Testament scripture that's coming out of his mouth. He is directly quoting scripture in some cases, and in others, he's referring to it. There are three covenants that God made with man, which all have a salvation component. Zechariah knows that the covenants are now being fulfilled. So what is a covenant? A covenant is a binding agreement between two equal parties. In the case of the biblical covenants between man and God, it is not remotely possible for man to be on equal footing with God. So the covenant that God gave men were universal. God had all of the power and yet he committed himself to a promised course of action. The first covenant is the Davidic covenant, which was made with David about a thousand years before Zechariah. Long time. It's found in 2 Samuel 7, starting in verse 11. The Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you. who shall come from your body and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne will be established forever. Out of David's loins will come a great king whose kingdom will be established forever. The promised Messiah would come from the line of David. The Davidic covenant is unilateral and it's unconditional in its promises. Next is the Abrahamic covenant. Reading in Genesis 12.1, now the Lord said to Abraham, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and I will make your name great. so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Not just Israel, but all of the families in the earth. On that day, moving to chapter 15, verse 18, on that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying, to your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates. The Abrahamic covenant was an unconditional covenant. It did not rely on Israel's behaving a certain way. And God's promises to Abraham's descendants were to be fulfilled literally. They will do more than just occupy the land. They'll live a life filled with holiness and restoration. Salvation and forgiveness will be given for all people. A third covenant, called the New Covenant, was prophesied about a thousand years before Zechariah. Beginning in Jeremiah 31, 31, we read, Not like the covenant that I made with their families on the day when I took them by their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant that they broke Though I was their husband, declared the Lord, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and teach his brother, saying, know the Lord, or they shall all know the Lord. From the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. And again, it was prophesied about 600 years prior to Zechariah in Ezekiel 36, 24. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put in within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave your fathers and you shall be my people and I will be your God. God is going to do this work from the inside. He says, I will remove your heart of stone and I will replace it with a heart of flesh. This is the covenant that has a personal, individual component and you are part of that covenant. None of these promises had come to pass until Luke 1. So now turning to Zechariah's prophecy, beginning in verse 67 we read, And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people, 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 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 of our days. This should sound familiar in light of the three covenants that we just explored. The horn is often used to refer to a mighty beast like an ox. The horn of salvation refers to salvation coming through an all-powerful person. Messiah was the promised horn of salvation who would save them from their enemies. Nobody else could do that. Nobody else had done that. Zechariah knows that what is happening is unparalleled in all of history. Next, we have a sweet picture of Zechariah holding the baby John, who is also a fulfillment of prophecy. He knows that John is the fulfillment of Malachi's prophecy, and he continues. 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 and the forgiveness of their sins. Because of the tender mercy of 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. In verse 80 says, in the child grew and became strong in the spirit. And he was in the wilderness until the days of his public appearance to Israel. So John was a Nazarite from birth. The Nazarite was an Israelite who was set apart for a holy purpose. He lived in the desert. He ate honey and wild locust. He abstained from fermented drink. He did not cut his hair. John had to have his mind and his thoughts be clear and pure so he could follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. He was set apart for a special purpose. He would be the one who came to point people to Christ. He was the signpost pointing to what lie ahead. What a great account. After thousands of years of waiting on God, and more recently, over 400 years of silence, Zechariah's prophecy was the first time that people had heard from God in over 400 years. The long-promised covenants began to be fulfilled in Luke 1. Zechariah recognized it, and the people were blessed by his prophecy of what was to come. This was huge. Something huge had happened. The people knew it. Almighty God had stepped back into history. Hallelujah. So now, 2,000 years after Zechariah, we're sitting here, and what does this mean for us? Well, for starters, let's remember that God made his covenants with Israel, and most of us are not of Jewish descent. That means that our ancestors were the Gentiles. They were on the outside looking in. Also, the Israelites did not normally have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them. God would occasionally bless them and bring it upon them for a specific purpose, but that later changed at Pentecost. The same Holy Spirit that filled Israel and Zechariah and John is the same Holy Spirit that fills all people who have put their faith in Christ. College students, teenagers, children, pay attention. Salvation for your sin does not come from your parents or your grandparents. It does not come about as a result of being at New City on a Sunday morning. It does not come for your Sunday school teachers or your youth group leaders. It does not come about as a result of the good that you do, even when you obey your parents, which is nonetheless good and wise to do. It only comes through the work of Jesus Christ. If you have faith in Christ, you already have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives inside you. In fact, it's the Holy Spirit that enables you to have faith in Christ. Without it, you would be unable to have faith in Christ. Think about that. And without Christ, we are dead in our sin. That is our lowly, humble estate. It is only through the work of the Holy Spirit that our hearts of stone can be softened and our eyes open to the gospel and we receive hearts of flesh. Salvation is an act of mercy and not something that you can earn by your works. There is no other way. We have no part in the matter. Salvation is a work of God alone, and this is referred to as monergism or monergistic, meaning God working alone. Like the Israelites, we are unable to obey God's laws in our own power, but thankfully the Holy Spirit works in us to regenerate us. And it's the same Holy Spirit that filled Zechariah over 2,000 years ago, but Even with the Holy Spirit, life can be challenging. As Paul said in Romans 7.15, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. We have the same problem. We may think that we're bad examples and people won't receive the gospel from us because they see all of our flaws. Have you ever asked another person to share the gospel with someone for you? I have. I recall once, asking someone to share the gospel with my mother because I did not think that she would listen to me because she knew me too well. She knew my flaws. It would never work. We have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, and yes, we struggle with sin still. Like Zechariah, our mouths are often bound. Sometimes we do this willingly out of fear because people know us too well. They know our sins. Or perhaps we do it out of a mistaken view that we are called to just be a good example. You may be familiar with the quote which is often attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi, preach the gospel always, and if necessary, use words. This has been interpreted as if you live a life that visibly reflects the love of Jesus, You're being a great Christian because you're sharing the gospel with your actions. It's really telling us that Christians should not challenge others with the truth of the gospel by words and dialogue. It also allows us to live within our Christian comfort zone because it takes less courage to preach with our actions than with our words. Does this ring familiar? It is much better that people see God through our actions than hear of God through our words. It's much safer that way. Unfortunately, it's also wrong. It's bad theology. Here's some good theology for you to consider. God is revealed to humankind by two different means or kinds of revelation. The first is through general revelation. which is God's revelation to all humankind through the glory of his creation and also through our conscience. Both of these point to the existence of a higher power. However, general revelation is not sufficient to lead us to salvation. It is not salvific. It does not point us to the work of Christ. It does not tell us of God's promise of salvation through Jesus Christ. The second means is through special revelation, where God reveals himself through the holy scriptures, through the teaching of the prophets, and through signs and miracles. Today, God's plan of salvation is revealed to us through the scriptures. We receive these revelations through reading the Bible and through hearing the teaching of God's word. Only special revelation is able to provide us with the saving knowledge of God. From time to time, the elders of New City learn of people who have come to New City as unbelievers and later came to faith in Christ. This is not because of anything except the faithful preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. Quoting Romans 1.16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. So in other words, we need to hear the gospel. It is the only thing that has the power to change our hearts. Consider the Pharisees. They believed that their righteousness came from zealously obeying the law. But did it? No. Circling back to Francis's command to preach the gospel always, and if necessary, use words, our godly actions are a blessing to our family and to our neighbors, to be sure. However, these actions are not sufficient to bring them to salvation. We are called to take the gospel to them. There's an old song that asks the question, if God is so important, then why are we always just talking about the weather or sports? Wise words. Instead, our mouths should be open and we should be sharing the good news with them. I am saying here that we must not be like St. Francis. We need to do more to than point to God with their actions. The Pharisees did that. We need to point to God with our words. We need to be intentional about it. We need to do this with our spouses, with our children, with our family, with our neighbors, and even in the workplace. It can take work to set the stage for a gospel conversation, but it is good work that should not be neglected. So, What is the good news? What is the gospel? The gospel that has stood for over 2,000 years and has completely altered the course of history and the lives of people is this. While we were dead in our sin, God sent his one and only son, Jesus, who lived a perfect life and became the perfect sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sin. Through Christ's death and resurrection, we are redeemed from the penalty of sin given the righteousness of Christ and made sons and daughters of God. We could not do it ourself. Our good works cannot bring others to salvation. It is only through the gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit. It's so easy, and yet, sadly, people reject it all the time. They reject it because they feel that they need to make themselves right before turning to God. They want to do the work. They want to be in control, but they can't succeed. It's impossible. The problem is we can never make ourselves right before a holy God, and we need someone to do that for us, and that someone is God himself. Just think about this. What is God saving us from? He loves us so much that he is willing to save us from his own righteous judgment. We deserve judgment, but he wants to save us from it. That is the greatest demonstration of his love for us. For our part, we must surrender, we must place our faith in God, and he will grant us salvation. May we not lose sight of this as we go through this special time of year. Let us pray.