Luke chapter one, where we will read and consider by the grace of the Lord and the work of his Holy Spirit, verses 67 through 79. Let's be attentive to the reading of God's Holy Word. Now his father, Zacharias, was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, Blessed is 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 the holy prophets who have been since the world began that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us to perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant the oath which 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 the days of our life. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the highest, for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the remission of their sins, through the tender with which the Dayspring from on high has visited us, to give light to those who sit in the darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. May God bless his word to us. Let's pray together. Our Father in heaven, we pray that you would encourage us and strengthen us with the preaching of this horn of salvation raised for us in the house of your servant David. And that you would, just as your mouth spoke by the holy prophets of old and it was written and recorded for us, now as we turn to the word as it's been written from long ago, and as we meditate upon it, that we would continue to confess its truthfulness, its trustworthiness, and to receive its message, the very word of life, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. Shorter Catechism 22 asks, how did Christ, being the Son of God, become man? Christ, the Son of God, became man by taking to himself a true body and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary and born of her, yet without sin. My friend, as we've been considering this for several weeks now, we are hitting the main passages of the Nativity of our Lord, of the Word taking to Himself flesh, dwelling among us to accomplish our salvation. As we've been working through this time in the Shorter Catechism, now we'll consider what is called the Benedictus. Benedictus is just the word in Latin for blessed. And so that is the opening word of this prophecy of Zechariah. What is then the ministry of Christ? Why? Why take to himself our nature? Well, we'll consider that in two points. We'll consider first the ministry of Christ, our Redeemer, and second, the ministry of John the Baptist. First, the ministry of Christ, our Redeemer. Zacharias is inspired by the Spirit to speak says now his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied You'll remember that Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth far beyond the age of ordinarily being able naturally being able to conceive And so the Lord as he does throughout redemption history, there's going to be a great birth There's going to be what's really a miraculous birth anytime like like with our father Abraham Any time that the womb is closed so that then it can be opened by the Lord, there's no question about it. God is doing something to progress and move forward the revelation of the covenant of grace. And so Zechariah and Elizabeth are given the grace to conceive and do it. But you remember, Zechariah is silenced. He's made dumb by the Lord. So that and then it's not until he goes and confirms that when John is presented To be circumcised and when he is being named his name is being known That then he says no his name shall be called John and then the Lord loosens his tongue and he's inspired he's filled with the spirit as the prophets of old and he begins to utter these words and And this is significant because for 400 years or so, the Lord has been silent. For 400 years or so, the Lord has not given a prophet. He had sent the angel even to come to Joseph, to come to Mary. But here he sends his spirit. Prophecy once more breaks forth. And his first words are that of adoration. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. Blessed be. What does it mean to bless God? The word bless, eulogetos in Greek, it means it's a combination of you, as in E-U, a good, something that's good. And then Logos, Word. A blessing is a good word. The existence, the attributes, the works of God are to be spoken of with blessing. That is to say, they are to be spoken of with praise, with adoration. That we speak of these things as they are holy and they're good. We don't speak of them as if they're evil. We don't speak of them as if they're common. To bless God means to give to Him with our very words, as a reflection of our very hearts, to give to Him praise and adoration, to say that He is holy, that there is none like Him, and that all that He does is wonderful. The existence of God is to be blessed. For He alone is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. God in his very being, the fact that he is the I am that I am, when we speak of that, it is to be pure blessing, how glorious, how marvelous it is. There is no one else who is ase, who is from himself. Only God has that. There is no one who has all life in and of himself. God is all actual and has no potential. He is pure act. He is spirit. He is life. He is impassable. He's not moved upon. You can't move Him. He's the unmovable mover. God is glorious. He's to be praised for His very existence. His attributes are to be praised. For He alone is in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. that all that God is, in and of himself, his simplicity, his power, his omnipotence, his omniscience, that God's knowing and his willing and his, all of God and what he does, that he is good, that he is gracious and merciful and slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, that he by no means clears the guilty, but that he will be faithful and merciful to those who love him. The attributes of God which are very reflective and one with his own existence. Because he is who he is. He is that he is. We praise him and bless him for his attributes. And we praise him and we bless him for his works. His works are to be blessed. The creation of God is to, when we think of God and his work of creation, we're to bless him for that. All of the creation, even the parts that we don't understand, like cockroaches and what purpose they serve, we don't know. But we can bless God for that somehow. And just even in the mystery of it. Everything. Deserts, the scriptures speak about deserts that God takes care of and sees that no one is ever gonna live in. The fact that God has been taking care of underwater sea creatures that no one has ever known until the invention of scuba diving. And the resources for that within the last hundred years. All these things that we have never known. The highest heavens and the stars which are just constantly showing up and are glorifying God or singing His praise. They're humming in the spheres. The sunrise and the sunset. glorifies God. You ever become discouraged because it seems like you do everything over and over and over again? Friend, God makes sunrises and sunsets every day to glorify Him. And we see them every day and we think this is the most marvelous thing and the exact same thing is going to happen 24 hours later. That's what God does. That's why He's to be blessed. His work of creation, you're to bless Him for that. His work of providence, not only does He make everything, but the deists believe He made everything. He takes care of everything. He takes care of you. He made you. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, and God made you, but not only that, He takes care of you. He knows your back hurts. He knows you're tired. He knows you've had a rough week. He knows all these things, and He's taking care of you the entire way. We are to praise God for His providence. How marvelous it is that God made a giant ball of fire in the sky, and things just swirling around in unknowable and uncontrolled, what we think are uncontrolled cycles around it, in their spheres just going about. And yet, they stay perfectly where they are. God holds it together. The providence of God is a remarkable thing. But not only for His creation, not only for His providence. We praise Him, we bless Him for His redemption. God has saved for Himself a people. It's in this last aspect Redemption is like the crowning jewel. It is the first, it is the foremost cause of praise and blessing God. It is the focus of our text. It's the focus of angelic and celestial worship in heaven before the throne, where the souls of just men are made perfect. That he is the Lord God Almighty, who was, who is, who is to come. We praise him for his being. but we praise the Lamb. Worthy is the Lamb who is slain. Everything takes us back. As glorious as creation is, as glorious as providence is, it's this redemption. It's this thing that is so mysterious and so good that even the angels look in on the worship of God's church to see what's going on. This is a mystery for them and for us. All of his works are to be blessed, and the greatest of these is love, and the greatest of these is redemption. And so when all truth about God, thought or spoken, should lead us to bless God. Theology is not just an abstract discipline. It is a devotional discipline. When you read the works of whatever you think of monasteries, when you read the works of monks, whether it's Anselm in Canterbury, whether it's Augustine in Hippo, when you read their works of doctrine, it is full of prayer. It's full of blessing. Because they knew that to think about anything related to God, was to lead us to bless God, to lead us to speak well of God. Not like today, when men sit at their desks and they think about and they try and innovate on this or that doctrine. And they abstract it as if it has nothing to do with how glorious God is. Everything that we know about God, everything that we reason about God, everything that we reflect on about God, from his word, from his creation, is to lead us to bless God. It's not just to stay there in your mind. It's to move to your heart. There's an old saying that the distance between heaven and hell is 18 inches, the distance between your head and your heart. This is true. Do you know a lot about God? But you don't know God? And do you know God, then you must worship Him. You must. And so the ministry of Christ is described here in our text. And there are two themes, both with the ministry of Christ and the ministry of John, different themes. But the two themes regarding the ministry of Christ is the Exodus and the Psalms. So everything Zacharias is saying about Christ is reflecting, is coming out of reflection on the Exodus and the Psalter. Everything that he's saying about John is reflecting upon Isaiah 40 and Malachi. But here, listen to what he says to the ministry of Christ. He begins by summarizing, this is what he will do. He has visited and redeemed his people. This word visited is where we get our word overseer, bishop, from episkopos. But to visit doesn't just mean to look over, but it means to visit in order to care and support. That's what the word meant. Just like in our day, overseer, to be an overseer, to be a bishop, to be an elder, It's not just to be a supervisor looking over you, but it's to be in the weeds. It's to be engaged up close and personal in care. He has visited and redeemed his people. And this is the same message that's brought at the beginning of Exodus. In Exodus 3.16, and Moses is being told to go back into Egypt, to liberate, to bring out my people. And he says, Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, appear to me saying, I have surely visited you and seen what is done in Egypt. God has visited. He has come and he has come to redeem His people, and the Word has literally visited. He has literally come. The Word has come from heaven to earth to be among His people in order to redeem them. Christ has become the kinsman redeemer. He has become our kinsman in order to redeem us. Like Ruth, we had a kinsman nearer to us, right? Adam. Adam, who could have been our Savior, but he sinned. And in his sin, we are guilty. We all have fallen. But where he advocated and where he built, Christ has come bringing something even greater. He has brought a salvation even greater than that of the Exodus. The Exodus was just pointing to this. There in the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah are there speaking with Christ, and it says in Luke that they're speaking about His departures, how most English translations, but the word is exodus. They're talking about His exodus, the exodus of His death, the bringing out, the making the captives free of His death. What has Christ come to do? He has come, he has visited us to redeem us. How has he visited us and redeem us? The text moves on. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us. Was not this a favorite description of the psalmist? Psalm 18, we sang, the Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my God, my strength in whom I trust, my buckler, the horn of salvation. and my high tower. The Psalms speak of God and Christ as the horn of our high tower. The horn is twofold. It is defensive and it is offensive. The horn is the protector. You come and attack the rhinoceros, you're gonna get rammed through with this horn. But it is also a provision. It's to conquer. Wherever he wants to go, if he wants to conquer, the rhinoceros can ram through with his horn. It is an offensive mean of conquering and a defensive means of protecting. And so Christ is our protector and he is our victor. He protects us and he has gone forth conquering. Whence then this salvation, this horn of salvation from the house of his servant, David. David is the king. He is the pinnacle king. He is the king after God's own heart. And here we have the king. Who is God himself? Who is the word made flesh? Psalm 132. There I will make a horn to sprout for David. I have prepared a lamp for my anointing. He is the king, David, and he is the shepherd king. He's the bishop king. Ezekiel 34 says, I will send my servant David to be prince among them. I will set up one shepherd, my servant David, to feed them. This is what Christ has come to do as he spoke by the mouth of his prophets who have been since the world began. Or a better translation would be, much simpler, his holy prophets of old. Here we have the surety of the word of God. Psalm 89, I will not violate my covenant or alter the word that went forth from my lips. Once for all, I have sworn by my holiness. I will not lie to David. Friend, God has not lied. His word is true. He said he would bring salvation. He said he would raise up a horn of salvation from the house of his servant David. And here he has. It is in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the answer to this petition. It is the fulfillment of this promise. He has visited us and redeemed us by raising a horde for our salvation. Secondly, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. Verse 71. Now the question is, who are our enemies? When Zechariah is prophesying this, who are the enemies? Is it the apostate Pharisees? Is it Herod, the treacherous king? Is it the oppressive Romans? That's what many were looking for. But no, Zechariah defines further who these enemies were in verse 77 when he says, he has come to give knowledge of salvation to his people by remission of their sins. What are the enemies? The enemy is our sin. Our sin is the great enemy. This world, the sins of this world are the great enemy. The devil is our great enemy. Friend, who do you view as your enemies? Do you see your sin as a great enemy? Do you see the corruption of this world as the enemy, as it hinders and holds those who bear God's image from serving Him? Do you see the devil as a great enemy who leads many astray, but shall not always be permitted to deceive the nations? We have many enemies in this world, but they are all lieutenants under orders from these three generals, the flesh, the world, and the devil. And so how does Christ save us from these enemies? He does so through his life, his death, and his resurrection. All of these things crushing, utterly crushing his enemies. So that he says, it is finished. And when he is seated at his throne, all of his enemies are being made his footstool. The initial campaign has been a success. He is enjoying the spoils of victory. He conquers the sins of our flesh by putting to death its punishment and its power. He has put to death our punishment. Friend, God is not the enemy for His people. We deserve the wrath of God. We are enemies of God. But God is not the great enemy. God is the Savior. He has saved us by His Son. He has put to death the punishment for sin by putting that upon Himself and His Son. And he has put to death the power of sin, so that sin does not have dominion over you. You sometimes say, but I can't help but be angry. I can't help but respond and be anxious. I can't help being despairing in my circumstances. Yes, you can. If you could not, you would not be in Christ. But because you are in Christ, sin no longer has dominion over you. And so He has put to death the punishment of sin in Himself. He has put to death the power of sin. He is the conqueror of the world. He conquers this world by filling it with His praise. He does not just destroy it. He washes it. He cleanses it. He fills it with His worship. And he conquers the devil, and this in two ways. First, that he has robbed him of his dominion. The strong man had dominion, and the stronger has come, has bound him, and has taken his power. That's what Christ has done. Satan does not have dominion over this world anymore. Christ has come, has entered into this world, has taken his dominion, and says, I am the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. He has robbed him of his dominion, and he will defeat him, finally, fully, forever, at the last day. He will be cast into the lake of fire. He will not be permitted to come and corrupt the new heavens and the new earth. Christ saves us from these enemies. And do not be deceived about these. These things hate you. These enemies hate you. It says, from the hand of all who hate us. The world does not understand this. They think that the church is the party full of hate on this account. The church is not the hater of this group. Their throat is an open grave. Their inward part is but wickedness. And to such sinners Christ has come to bring salvation. From such enemies Christ has come to bring salvation. They're the ones that are full of hate. But the church is proclaiming a message of love that God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. That is a message of love. But you have to deal with sin. You have to kill the enemy. And that is exactly what Christ has come to do. He has come showing no mercy on the enemy, no mercy upon your flesh, no mercy upon this world, no mercy upon the devil, but he has come to perform mercy, it says, for his people. In verse 72, he has come to perform mercy. It is not enough to merely defeat an enemy, but God would give mercy. We cannot be opposed to our enemies, but then neutral towards God. We cannot have no death, but then have no life. In the meeting out of justice towards his enemies, God gives mercy to his elect, to his covenant people. And so again, we're reminded he is giving the mercy promised to our fathers to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our father, Abraham. This is what we have in Exodus chapter 2. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God, and God heard their groaning, and God remembered the covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel. God knew. Just as he said, he will conquer his enemies, and he will do mercy. Why has he redeemed us? So we have who is our redeemer, we have how we are redeemed. Why has he redeemed us? To grant us, verse 47, to grant, or verse 74, to grant us that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve him. This is right out of Exodus 8. The Lord said to Moses, go unto Pharaoh, say to him, thus says the Lord, let my people go that they may serve me. How is it that we can serve the Lord who has need of nothing? God says, if I were hungry, I would not tell you. If I were thirsty, I would not tell you. Cattle on a thousand hills are mine. How can we serve the Lord who has not need of nothing? We praise him. We bless him. We serve others because whatever you do to the least of these, you've done unto me, says Christ. We keep his commands. We make known his glory and invite others to serve him as well. But why do we serve the Lord when he has need of nothing? Because he delights in it. He delights in his praise, though it is weak and unimpressive. A small child makes a birthday present, and it's just nothing but paper and glue and glitter. and it's unimpressive, and it's sticky, and it brings it to you, and still you love it. You're full of love and delight. It brings joy. Our praise is feeble compared to the angelic chorus, and yet it is sweet and it is pleasant in the ears of our Father. It is a good thing. God delights in it. And it is a delight for us as well. It's a delight to praise the Lord. It is. It is a good thing. It is a fitting thing. It's a beautiful thing. It is the beauty of holiness. And so what should be the quality of our service to the Lord? He says that they may serve him without fear. And holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life without fear. Why is it fitting that we should serve the Lord without fear? Well, fear happens when our focus is on ourselves rather than on God. When we're afraid, it's because we're not looking to the Lord. Remember when Peter is walking on the water, and he takes his eyes off of the Lord, and then he's filled with fear, and then he falls in the water. That's what it's like. When we have our eyes on the Lord, we're not afraid. We're just, we're going, we're following Him wherever He leads. We are following Him. But when we are afraid, we're looking at ourselves. We're looking at our circumstances. We're not looking to the Lord. It's unfitting because we're not looking at God, and fear is an unfitting thing because what it causes us to do. There are three responses to fear. I'm sure you're familiar. Fight, flight, freeze. These are the three things that anybody does at any given point in time when you're afraid. You fight. Certainly we cannot fight against God. Like the one who in uncertainty or disappointment lashes out and blasphemes because he's angry with God or he's afraid of whatever's going on. You cannot fight against God. Fear? If fear causes you to fight, that is an unfitting thing to be fearful. You cannot fight against God. What about flight? You cannot run from God. Where can you go that He is not? Nor should you try. Like the one who in uncertainty or disappointment begins to look for a new religion or a new experience or just simply a new congregation. Or freeze. Friend, you cannot just stop time. You can't just stop serving the Lord. For if you're not growing in the Lord, you're declining. You're like the one who will not forsake. His uncertainty or his disappointment, but he also won't apostatize. He just remains cowering in impotent doubt and vexation, neither hot nor cold. Fear causes fight, flight, or freeze. Both are unfitting. It's unfitting than fear. But you say, should we fear God? Yes, but fear of God is different. Fear of God is different than fear of the world or sinful worldly fear. Fear of God is appropriate. He should be feared. Whereas, fear of circumstances or other creatures is often not appropriate. It's appropriate to fear a mountain lion if you see one walking down the street. But not just to sit there and fear a mountain lion if they're just out there in a picture book. Don't fear it. Fear is not an appropriate response there. You should fear God. Fear of God drives you to God. Fear of creatures drives you away from the creatures. The child who's afraid of the dark runs out and gets a nightlight. When you fear God, you run to God. You go to God. And fear of God is meant to mature to love. When you fear the things of this world, the whole point of that fear is to just push you down and down, like nailing you into the ground with that fear so that you can't be moved out from it. But when you are fearing God, that fear actually matures and it cultivates and it grows into love. So you are to serve God with fear. You're to serve God with holiness and righteousness before him. You become like what you worship. Psalm 115 says, whoever makes these lifeless gods, these idols which are vain, whoever puts their trust in them, and time becomes the same. You become like what you worship. When you serve the Lord, who is holy and righteous, you will grow in holiness and righteousness. Holiness in the Old Covenant Impurity was a contagion you remember like you touch anything that was pure it was contagious holiness was also contagious When you were there with the altar And you touch the altar you would become holy Think about Isaiah and the taking off the coal from the fire and touching his lips why to make him holy and When you are serving before the Lord, you are growing in holiness. You are to grow in holiness and righteousness because you are like what you worship. And you're to do this all the days of our life. So you start serving the Lord now, and then some. All your days and then some. All eternity. World without end. Before the face of God. The question is then, well isn't this just a new slavery? If you think about, you were serving Pharaoh, thinking of drawing from Exodus, and you're serving him all of your days, isn't this just a new Pharaoh? Now there's a vast difference between service to God and service to Pharaoh. Pharaoh was full of hate. God is love. Slavery to Pharaoh was meaningless. Service to God is rewarding and is not in vain. Pharaoh took away straw for making bricks. God gives us his own son and spirit to strengthen us. Pharaoh takes, God gives. Pharaoh exploits the weakness of Israel. God accommodates and provides. There's no reprieve in Egypt. God gives a Sabbath. The commandments of Pharaoh were burdensome. The commandments of God are not burdensome. There couldn't be a greater difference. You have to serve something. Even the service of yourself is service to the devil ultimately because you're following him you're being like your father But serve the Lord And there is great joy to be found there and that is what Christ has come to do He has come to visit and redeem us in order that we might serve him And so just to draw brief applications here. I First, God's Word is the primary instructor on how you should bless God, and the manner in which you should bless God. When you read God's Word, like Zechariah, He's drawing from, even inspired by the Spirit. He could make up something new by the Spirit. It's the Spirit's Word. Instead, He draws from the Scriptures, like the Lord Christ. Christ is the Word, and yet He quotes the Word to draw on His arguments. The Word of God instructs us by its promises to know the substance of our faith, the substance of our praise, and even to give us the very vocabulary of that praise. Colossians 3.16 says, Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. The argument of why we say we need to sing psalms and Psalms, hymns, and songs are all referring to titles of the Psalms. So speaking of the Psalter collectively as a whole, and we're saying that we sing that in worship, is because Paul is taking that for granted. He says, now what you've been singing in worship is to so instruct you that what you say outside of worship is reflective of what you've been singing in worship. So those things that you have been singing, those psalms that God gave to you, that hymnal of the covenant of grace that God has given you, those stones of the altar which you should not chisel at, that God gave you, these things are just so instructive that the very words you speak are reflective of those. So that when you talk to one another, you talk to one another as if you're constantly just quoting the Psalter. You are so soaked in the praise of God from His Word that when you get wrung out by circumstances, that's just what falls out. God's Word is the instructor in our manner of blessing Him. He gives us the vocabulary. We could not think of ways on our own to praise God without going into some kind of idolatry. But God gives to us his word that we may praise him. And God's works are the primary occasion for blessing God. Take time to reflect upon the work of the Lord in your life, the work of the Lord in others. You're supposed to stop. To praise the Lord when you wake up in the morning and you think through these are all the things I have to do today You're seeking God's blessing and then you lay down at night and you think these are all the things I did today And I really need forgiveness. I really need help The the work of God and his providence in your life is to instruct you Okay, this is time to bless God and then the word tells you this is how you bless God for this occasion So where is your strength Where is your strength? What is the horn of your salvation? It must be the Lord, and Him alone. Go to Him for your every need, and know that He hears your prayer, and that His word is true. How much the Spirit of God tells, is teaching this infant church here, as John is born, John the Baptist, preparing the way of the Lord, and He's saying, all the things that I've told you before are true, and they're happening. Friend, all the things that God has said in His Word are true. Second we have lastly and briefly the ministry of John the Baptist so we've seen the ministry of Christ our Redeemer now the ministry of John the Baptist and here Zechariah is by the Spirit really drawing from Isaiah 40 and the book of Malachi Isaiah 40 is that wonderful message of comfort Malachi is that great olympic prophet constantly disputing you say this well, how about this I? Christ is the purifier of his people is the great theme of Malachi. And so John would be a prophet. You child will be called the prophet of the highest. John is the last of the Old Testament prophets, even though it's after maybe a page in the middle of your Bible that says New Testament. John is the last of the Old Testament prophets. Malachi 3 you have two messengers in Malachi 3 1 behold I will send my messenger and he will prepare the way for me and The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight behold He is coming says the Lord of hosts Jesus is the messenger of the covenant, but John is the messenger to prepare the way for him He is preparative for the ministry of Christ. Verse 76, you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways. This was spoken of in Isaiah 40, verses 3 through 5. A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain shall be made low. The uneven ground shall become level, the rough places plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. John is going to pave the way, and he does so in two ways in his preaching, to give knowledge of salvation to his people. To speak, as it says in Isaiah 40, comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare has ended, her iniquity has pardoned, she has received from the Lord's hand double for all of her sins. He has gone to preach, to preach the word of the Lord. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And he has gone forth preaching and baptizing. It says there, by the remission of their sins. The purpose of John's baptism was repentance for, that is to signify remission, forgiveness, washing from sin. So we have it today. The washing away from sin, signified in baptism. John has gone preparing the way of the Lord. And then, Zechariah goes back to Christ. Okay, we've had two verses of John, time to go back to our Redeemer. He must decrease, and Christ must increase. And he says, through the tender mercy of our God. It was all for love that God sent his Son. He says, with which the day spring from on high has visited us. This word day spring, or better translated as sunrise, And this has two interesting ways of being understood. The first is that this word, sunrise, is used for the word branch in the Septuagint, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Branch, remember the prophecies concerning the branch, Isaiah 11, or perhaps you remember Zechariah 6, 12 through 13. The Lord of hosts, behold the man whose name is the branch, for he shall branch out from his place and he shall build the temple of the Lord. It is he who shall build the temple of the Lord, and shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule on his throne, and there shall be a priest on his throne, and the council of peace shall be between the both. You have a priestly king called the Branch, the Sunrise. You have Jeremiah 23, five through six. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called Jehovah Tekinu, the Lord of Righteousness. Christ is this branch. He is this prophet, priest, king. He is this righteousness of God for us and in our place. And he is the sunrise. Malachi 4, 2-3, But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. "'You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall, "'and you shall tread down the wicked, "'for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet "'on the day when I act,' says the Lord of hosts." Through the tender mercy of our God, God has sent this sun to rise, to give light to those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death. Those who have no light, And that valley of darkness is the shadow of death. It leads only to death. To guide our feet into the way of peace. Friends, he is the Prince of Peace. And he guides us in his peace. And so as we make application to First, notice the God-centeredness of the Christian mind. Zechariah's son is just born, and all he speaks about, and he couldn't speak for nine months, and everything he talks about is about Christ. Not about his son, who is just born, but about a son who is yet to be born, would be born in just a few months. And so too, everything in our lives should take us back to the blessing of God. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every blessing in the heavenly places. Everything about this prophecy regarding John is only about John in relation to Christ. His preparing the way of the Lord, his pointing to the Lord. John says about his own ministry, he must increase, I must decrease. Everything that we are is in relation to what we are in Christ. This is the great identity crisis. This is why people have identity crisis, because they don't know what it is to be in Christ. Everything we are is about being in union with Christ. And when we are in union with Christ, we're following the head. We know our purpose. We know where we fit as a member of his body. We know that our purpose is to glorify him and to enjoy him and that we get to do that forever. This is the God-centeredness of the Christian life. Why do you have skirmishes in your marriage? Why do you have troubles in your soul? It is because you do not get back to this fundamental principle of the God-centeredness of the Christian life. Stop looking to yourself. Start looking to the Lord. You can be patient when you're looking to the Lord. You can be encouraged in the midst of distressing circumstances when you're looking to the Lord. You can suffer and even die well when you are looking to the Lord. You can prosper and rejoice well when you are looking to the Lord. And then secondly, what does the advent of our Lord do? What did it do then? What does it do now? First, it removes ignorance and excuse. The Word has come and we cannot help but hear it. The Word has come into the world. Everything changed. The whole cosmos changed the moment the Redeemer stepped into this world. What that change entails is far beyond what we can imagine. But something changed. When the Word became flesh, and Paul says, the times of ignorance are now over with. There was this time, there was this time, God overlooked this thing, but now He commands everybody, the word has come, and you cannot help. Every person cannot help but hear it. He removes ignorance, He removes excuse, and He removes sin. This is the whole point of Malachi, in a nutshell, is to cleanse out the priesthood. And here you have a priest, drawing from Malachi, saying, He has come. The one who has come to clean house has finally come. Malachi 3 2 through 4 it says, but who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears for he is like a refiner's fire in the like fuller soap He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver They will bring offerings and righteousness to the Lord Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years What has Christ come to do? It has come to clean house, to remove sin, to purify the sons of Levi. And friend, if you are in Christ, you are among the priesthood of believers. This is what Christ does. The light comes into the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. What a Savior. What a God who is worthy of praise. What a God who is worthy to be believed on, with all that we have, for all that we are. to serve without fear and holiness and righteousness for all the days of our life. And friend, you will do it in the very face, before the very face of the living God because Christ has come. because God has raised up a horn of salvation for us from the house of his servant David. May God bless his word to us. Let's pray for his blessing. Almighty God, we give you thanks and we ask that you would strengthen us with such reminder and encourage us and that we would walk God-centered lives, that we would look to you with all that we have, that we would keep our eyes off of ourselves and the things in this world and look to you in Jesus' name. Amen.