This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. The Gospel of Luke chapter 1, we'll be picking up in verse 57. And we'll be reading all the way through 80, although we will not be covering that all in the sermon. This is the reading of God's Word. 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, 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 opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through 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. 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 become 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 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 he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel." It's the reading of God's word. Go ahead and have a seat. All right, let's open in prayer. Our Father, we pray that you would be mighty among us. Be gracious to us. May your Holy Spirit equip us to hear the word as you reveal today. May we look past the occasion, look past the man, and may we hear you. Please keep me and guard me. May my preaching be completely faithful to what you want us to hear today. We ask this in Jesus's name. Amen. So this passage is actually really fun. I hope you get to enjoy some of the fun of what's going to go on in this passage. Now, if you recall, are you guys, by the way, are you warm? Are you going to fall asleep on me? Yeah, OK. Can we drop it like 18 degrees, please? OK, I just want to make sure it wasn't just me. OK. So, backtrack on this whole passage, okay? This whole gospel thus far, Luke saw fit to open his gospel with the story of two miraculous promises. You have the miraculous promise to the elderly couple. Right? You had that Zechariah and Elizabeth, that they were finally going to have a child in their old age, far past the age that they should have been able to. And then you have this miraculous promise to, it turns out, a relative of Elizabeth, Mary. Yet she's not old. She's just young and doesn't have a husband yet with whom to have a child. Two miraculous promises interwoven. And now we're beginning to shift to the part of the gospel where these miraculous promises come to fulfillment. That's what Luke is showing us here. What you have, by the way, as a transition between this passage and what we did last week, because last time it ended, Mary's Magnificat ends and then it says, and Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home. The sense seems to be that Mary headed out shortly before John was born. And so now you have the fulfillment of the promise and you have the birth and the naming of John. Now we have the fulfillment of that promise that Zechariah could hardly believe there is now not just a pregnancy, but there is a child born. And the people had some sense that this was miraculous, because you could picture them going around saying, hey, did you hear Elizabeth had her baby? And they're thinking, Elizabeth? Zechariah's Elizabeth? Really? Yes. She just had a baby. And so they're rejoicing with her. They recognize God has been merciful to her. And then you get to this really, I find it very entertaining episode here, the naming of the baby. The naming of the baby. So you have them waiting the eight days as prescribed by the law that John should be circumcised on that day. Well, then everyone comes ready on that day, and apparently they're waiting to name and tell them, and they want to name him Zechariah. They've got it fully in their hearts and in their minds that this is Zechariah Jr. And what's funny, something you wouldn't catch in the English, is that there's actually a really good case to be made that they were already calling him Zechariah. See, your text right now is taking one possible translation of this, that they would have called him Zechariah after his father, that's verse 59. But it really, it's a pretty good chance that they were just already calling him that. Now you picture them knocking on the door, we're ready to circumcise Zechariah. Like they're showing up to name someone else, like with a name already in mind for someone else's kid. And then you just have to say, man, good thing no one tries to name other people's kids anymore. Too sensitive for some people, maybe. But Elizabeth's response. And I tried to get this across. And the way I read it, no, no, we are not naming this kid Zechariah. I love my husband. We are not naming the kid Zechariah. You actually have that specifically in the Greek. It's an emphatic no. I don't encourage writing in your Bibles often, but I have written in mine here. Mine says no semicolon, like that conveys anything to us. No, and I wrote over it, exclamation mark. No, we are not naming this kid Zechariah. Absolutely not. To which the well-meaning but fairly nosy friends, we'll just call them the nosy neighbors from here on out, Elizabeth, you know that's not a family name for you guys. Why do you think you can name this kid something other than Zechariah? Let's go ask the dad. So they go over to Zechariah, and you just have to love this, okay? They go over to him and they start making signs to him. What do you want to name this kid? And you have to trace this back to Zechariah's story. You remember Zechariah hears the promise of the coming baby while he's doing this holy, once-in-a-lifetime work in the sanctuary. Gabriel shows up. Zechariah makes a mistake of not believing what he said. And then he said, until the day that you see the fulfillment of this promise, you're not going to be able to speak again. And so he has to come out after doing the solemn task. Everyone's a little bit worried. And he has to come out and do it. And he says, he's making signs to everyone trying to indicate what just happened. He's trying. And remember, I just said, that's just so funny to me. He's trying to make signs that this incredible experience happened in the sanctuary with Gabriel. And Gabriel just made him mute because he didn't believe that he was going to have a promised baby in his old age. So he comes out. And now here you have it like 40 weeks later or whatever. And his neighbors are like, And it's just, it's funny, too, because, I mean, you just don't picture that there's any really equipped translating types like Megan or something, right? They're just doing their best to play a game of charades here and try and get him to agree. Let's name it the name we all think it should be named. And what makes this, I mean, really possibly even funnier, why are they signing to him? Can't he still hear? It's just wonderful. I mean, OK, to be fair, OK, so there's two sides to this case. And the side I take tends to be that Gabriel made no mention that he wasn't going to be able to hear. Until you see the fulfillment of this promise, you won't be able to speak. And then what's going to come up in verse, I don't know, 64, is that then his tongue is loosed and he can speak again. There's no mention that now you can hear again, right? It seems to be that he just couldn't speak. But some people say, giving the nosy neighbors the benefit of the doubt, if he could hear, why are they sitting there signing to him? I prefer to just take this in the fully ridiculous light and it's so real life that they're like, the guy can't speak, so I guess he can't hear. It's like if you meet someone and they don't speak English, or if you've been somewhere else and you don't speak their language. Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth? Right? We do this. It's just so real life that we just do these ridiculous things sometimes. I don't think it's actually just maligning the nosy neighbors that say they might have just been in the heat of the moment, and they're like, he can't talk, so we better do big motions for him. It's just wonderful. I mean, you have to just read your Bible slowly sometimes and enjoy the humor that is there when it is there, because when it's there, it's really funny. These friends and these relatives, they want to name someone else's kid, and then they go and they embarrass themselves even further by trying to act out the whole thing to a man who's sitting there who can hear them, right? That's how I take this. So, Zechariah, he calls for a writing tablet, which is generally gonna be like a wood tablet covered in wax so that you could write. You can imagine he's been using that a lot over the past nine, 10 months. He writes, his name is John. His name is John, and you can almost picture if he had more room. Get over it, people. His name is John. We are naming our kid what we want to name our kid. Now, and what you might even have here too, though, his name is John. That's actually not the same as like, his name is John because I've named him. You maybe see Zechariah acknowledging that he didn't name John. Someone else named John, God named John. That's in part where you have to think that he and Elizabeth are being so emphatic. No, no, no, no, no, no. This is John. God said so. And when he says that and he agrees with his wife, everyone, they sort of get it, I guess, for a moment. And they're in, they're in wonder. And then to cap the moment even more, there's one more fulfillment. See, we've had the fulfillment of the baby come. Now we have the fulfillment that Zechariah can speak again. So his name is John, underlined. And then all of a sudden, they all know he hasn't been able to talk for months. And then all of a sudden, his tongue is loose. Remember, he was silenced because of his lack of faith. Now, nearly a year later, his tongue is loose, and all he can do is speak blessing about the Lord. What a wonderful moment, and awe comes upon the neighbors. Because they're putting these things together. There's this miraculous pregnancy, a couple that should not be having a baby, just had a baby. There's a name that in their books should not be the name. It is an unexpected name. And then after a confirmation of that name, Zechariah is made able to speak right before their eyes. And they know something is happening here. They know something of the Lord is happening here. And it says they lay all the people who heard these things, they laid these things up in their hearts because they realized they're asking themselves a question. What is this child going to be? Because they could see that God's hand clearly was with him. And so you come to this next part. of the passage, and this is often known as Zechariah's Benedictus. Again, taking that first word of the Latin translation, just like we did with the Magnificat. That's what this has been known as. Zechariah filled with the Holy Spirit, and he begins prophesying. He begins speaking, not just on his behalf anymore, but this is God speaking through him. And we won't read it all again, but this is how it starts, verse 68. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. So there's just way more than we can do in one sermon, but we're going to try and do a good chunk right now. Why? Why is this God to be blessed? Why is he to be praised? because he has visited and redeemed his people, his people. Again, the acknowledgement that there has been a people of God and God has watched over them and God has helped them and God has entered into covenant with them. And he has visited his people. And when God visits, this isn't like when you visit your relatives over in the Bay Area or something like that. The visitation of God, it is a mighty act. And you can see it either as a gracious thing sometimes, or sometimes it's even a visit of judgment. But this is a mighty act of God. He has visited his people, and he has redeemed them. And we're going to camp here for a minute because redemption, redemption is so cool in the Bible. It is so rich. So you start out. Zechariah can say that God has redeemed, E-D, redeemed his people. And he's doing something just like Mary was in the Magnificat. He's talking in the past tense about something that is actually still to come in the future. And the sense seems to be that once the work of the Messiah begins, there's just no doubt about the result. Because there was no spot in Jesus's ministry that everyone's like, I hope he makes it through this spot. And if he makes it through, we're going to be okay. As soon as the Messiah puts his hand to the plow, so to speak, the work is getting done. And yes, the redemption is still future, but there's very much a sense in which it has already been accomplished. and how I want you to see this. I want you to see, I want to trace this thread of redemption across history, across time. And I'll just say at the get-go, I was particularly blessed by an entry I read by a scholar named Robert Hubbard Jr. I very much owe him for what I got to see in this. When we talk about redemption, we're often using it as a synonym for salvation. But if you want to get really specific with it, redemption is actually talking about a specific part of our salvation, and that's the release from bondage, a release from slavery. And what you're going to see is that God across all time has been preparing his people for the importance of their redemption. all across time. You see it in the law. In the law, redemption is everywhere. There's a law for understanding that there could be a redemption for negligent criminals. There's the idea that there could be a redemption for certain categories, certain instances with slaves. You have the famous instance of the kinsman redeemer, right? And the kinsman redeemer, as you see in Leviticus 25, but maybe most famously in the book of Ruth, is the idea that a relative would come alongside one of their relatives and help them out, buy back property that was mortgaged or buy them out of slavery. And you see redemption of land that was sold. There was an idea that you could redeem back the land. But when you talk about redemption, the most notable occasion that you have to think of if you're thinking about the scriptures, it's the redemption of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. You maybe cannot overestimate how important the redemption of Israel out of Egypt was in the Old Testament and what God was trying to show us. God redeemed his people from a brutal dictator. And this time he didn't redeem them with money. Moses didn't show up with a caravan of treasure and say, I'll trade you. God redeemed them not by money, but by power. And he wrested his people from Pharaoh's grip. And he redeemed them. He makes it clear he redeemed them because of his prior covenant relationship. Because this is his people. And he had a covenant with their forefather. He is the god of their ancestors. He makes it very clear to them. That is why he is there. And reflecting on the importance of the Exodus redemption, David in 2 Samuel 7 will later say to God, who is like your people who you redeemed out of Egypt? And there is this recognition. There is a special status to being the redeemed people of God. And they recognize that they were redeemed in spectacular fashion. That is what David is reflecting on here. And over time, though, as God revealed more and more about his redemption, God's people came to understand that the redemption that God was thinking of was bigger than merely Egypt. You see the sober description in Psalm 49, 8, that there is no one who can pay a price sufficient to redeem their own life from death. You start seeing this is bigger than Egypt, and you could understand if they're saying so. Well, what can they do? Yet there is hope. Yet there is hope. This is actually a psalm that you hear read often with our worship. Psalm 130 verses 7 and 8. Oh Israel, hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is steadfast love. There is covenant love. And with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. So then God redeems not just from worldly slavery and oppression, he can redeem from sin itself. And this is where Zechariah picks up on the prophecy. The redemption that God demonstrated in the Exodus and that he required in the law, it would now come to full consummation in the Lord Jesus Christ. staggering pictures to trace across the scriptures. And so now, taking the whole picture of our redemption, the whole picture is this. I want to ask you a question. What are God's people redeemed to? You see, Israel was redeemed from the slavery in Egypt, and I would argue they were redeemed to the Promised Land. God's people are redeemed from sin and judgment, but what purpose does that redemption serve? Now, if we can skip ahead just briefly to verses 74 and 75, that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. The redemption and deliverance that Zechariah is talking about, it leads to pure and undistracted service to God. The people of God were redeemed with a purpose. And they were redeemed not just for any old purpose, they were redeemed for God's purpose. You see, redemption is not just some mere empowerment so that we can go do the things that we want to do. Now that I'm redeemed, I can really work on my character, I can really do the self-improvement I've always been meaning to do. Now that I'm redeemed, I can go and achieve all kinds of goals. Now that I'm redeemed, I can go discover myself. Redemption from the Lord's slavery delivers us to the Lord's service. Redemption from the world's slavery delivers us to the Lord's service. We go from being the world's slaves to being God's slaves. Now, that's not the most marketable statement. I recognize that. But if you have a problem with that, If you want more freedom than that, you want something different than what God is offering. God delivers his people so that they can serve, which is actually a very important word, la truo, so that they can serve without fear. This word, it actually only has connotations about service that's carried out in religious duties. See, this is not general service. We describe people that work for the government or something as public servants. That's a general service. That's not what we've been delivered, we've been redeemed for. We have been redeemed to worship. We have been redeemed to serve our God. That is why God redeemed his people. He redeemed his people for service. And you know what that actually is just like? The exodus. This is just like the exodus, and it is no accident. The purpose of the exodus was to letruo, to serve God. Of course, that's talking about the Greek translation and not the Hebrew. Likewise, what was the conflict between God and Pharaoh? It was let my people go that they may serve me. We find that we're walking in familiar footsteps here. By no accident at all, God patterns our redemption after the Exodus. He wanted us to see something in that remarkable deliverance of his people in Egypt, and he was actually setting forward the pattern of his salvation. So then you have God saying to sin, you have God saying to the world, you have even God saying to us, let my people go that they may serve me. And let my people go that they may serve me without fear. In the Greek again, without fear, it is emphatic that fearlessly they may serve me. God intends for his people to have no fear of oppression. And for us, that doesn't always trigger a lot. That doesn't mean a lot. We don't fear a lot in general. But I want you to consider our brothers and sisters around the world. I want you to think about their hardships and their fears. And you start wondering, do you think it would mean a lot to our brothers and sisters that they could serve their God without fear? That means no more secret meetings. That means no more criminal charges for proselytizing. That means no more monitoring your internet connection to see if the government's spying on you at the time. The Lord redeems his people out of slavery to serve him without fear. And the worshipers that he redeems are to do so in holiness and in righteousness. Holiness, meaning they've been set apart to God. They belong to God. Righteousness, meaning that they are living like God's people should. And we see across all of this that redemption serves God's purposes. God did not set Israel free from Egypt to go wherever they liked. He didn't get them outside of, you know, Egypt's boundaries and say, okay, guys, wherever sounds good, you go that way. Nor did he set his people free to act however they liked. God set his people free to serve him and to live like he calls them to live. So two different paths of implications for us, of applications for us. And I start of course with you who believe. If you believe, if you are a follower of Christ, God redeemed you for his service. God did not save you to go wherever you want and to do whatever you want. God actually had every intent of totally taking control of your life. He meant to redefine all of it. Yet often, We find ourselves trying to hold back some for ourselves. Maybe it's a little bit, maybe it's a lot. We find ourselves in an arm wrestling match with God about how much we are willing to give to him. I will give up this much, but the rest is for me. So then after that, we resent God when he tells us what to do with our time. We resent God when he tells us what to do with our money. We resent God peering into our hearts and evaluating whether we are in line with his standards, whether everything is acceptable. We look at God and we say, I didn't give you permission to do that. You're right, you didn't give him permission. God took the rights to your life and not from you, he took them from your former master. He crushed the head of the pharaoh of this world and he liberated his people from slavery. No, we never gave him permission, but our God, like our kinsman redeemer, he bought the rights to our lives with the precious blood of his own son, the spotless lamb. Child of God, your life is his, with no ifs, ands, or buts. He meant to make you his servant. You are not your own, but you belong, body and soul, to your faithful Savior. He set you free not to rule like a little monarch. He set you free to live in humility and in total dependence upon Him. Now, if you don't believe, if you wouldn't describe yourself as one of those who follows after Christ, who trusts in Christ, you should know either way what God's call is on your life. God calls you to his service. And actually, from another perspective, he offers to take you into his service. He offers to set you free from the tyrant you currently serve. But He does not offer to set you free so that you can go your own way and do whatever you want. He will set you free so that you entirely belong to Him. Don't come to the Lord under any pretense that you are keeping anything for yourself. You come to Him and you give it all to Him. Your current master is cruel, and he is heartless, and he offers no reward that lasts. The Lord is compassionate. He is good. He is forgiving. He will make you holy. He will make you righteous. He will give you life that will never fade. And so I ask you, and we'll close with this, Really, what choice is there? Let's pray. Our God, we thank you for a glorious redemption. Spectacular, Lord. Your work is spectacular. And we thank you for setting us free from our cruel master. We thank you for bringing just miserable slaves like us into your service. Help us to live as belonging wholly to you. Lord, let us cling to nothing, but let us give it all to you, willingly, joyfully. And I pray that you would help those who have not yet come into your service. Lord, especially for our young, we pray that you would bring them in, redeem them into your people. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.