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. If you have your Bibles, let's open up to the Gospel of Luke. The Gospel of Luke chapter 1, and we will be picking up in verse 67. This is the reading of God's word. 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, 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. This is the reading of God's word. Let's open in prayer. Our Father, truly, the highest praises belong to You. And we pray that now, in the way that we hear Your Word, in the way that I speak Your Word, that this would be a time filled with Your worship. Please send Your Holy Spirit to empower us to make it so. Please drive home Your words exactly where they need to go, where You intend for them to go. We ask this because we need your mercy, because we need your grace. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. So today we're coming back to Zechariah's benedictus, benedictus, if you want to be all Latin-y. And we couldn't do it all in one sermon. We just couldn't. There was too much here. And so we're coming back. And just to reorient you, where we are is Zechariah's, I mean, basically praising God for his mighty work. He's praising God, and in part, he's praising God because he has the privilege of seeing God's ancient plans come to fulfillment. And you know that the emphasis is on that fulfillment idea, because it's not just about that there's this miraculous baby sitting in his arms. Clearly he's rejoicing in that, he's celebrating that, but almost everything he has to say here is about something bigger than the baby that has been given to him. It's bigger than the fulfillment of a promise to Zechariah. It says it's bigger. It is the fulfillment of the promises to the people of God across all time. And that is exciting. That has Zechariah kind of, you know, praising God and happy about it. He is excited. He is privileged. He knows he is privileged to be at this spot in the history of redemption. And not only does he get to observe redemption being fulfilled, he gets to be involved in it. This is exciting stuff. And he can recognize that this is something that has been happening. God has been working these plans across major figures like Abraham, major figures like David, the prophets as well. They spoke of this. And who is he? And he is involved in this same plan, in this same plan of redemption that God has been working perfectly across all time. And, you know, you take those prophets Take those prophets and you think of Isaiah. Isaiah foresaw the coming of the kingdom as a time when the tongue of the mute would sing for joy. How glorious is it then we are reading the song of a formerly mute man celebrating the coming of the salvation of God. Isn't that cool? So we come back to this benedictus and our theme for the day. Here you go. Our God keeps his promises. Our God keeps his promises. We're going to go through this in three sections. History, salvation, and the hope of more. History, salvation, and the hope of more. We have to start with history because this prophecy, remember the Holy Spirit fills Zechariah and he prophesies and this prophecy is heavy on the history that has led up to the birth of John and very soon the birth of Christ. So to do that right, to do that justice, we have to go back to the history. He talks about that this plan has included David, Abraham, all the prophets, all these major people and events. They relate to this big event of John's birth. So we start chronologically. You start with Abraham. Before Abraham was Abraham, he was simply Abram. Genesis 12 recalls how the Lord said to Abram, 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 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. And so 75-year-old Abram goes. He obeys the voice of the Lord and he goes. And so you fast forward a little bit, it's 25 years later more or less, and the Lord appears to Abram to make a formal commitment out of this covenant that he's already kind of communicated, he's already expressed. And this is all after, you recall Abram and Sarai, they're trying to figure out how they can make God's plans happen. And then you have that whole disaster with Hagar and Ishmael and all these things, right? They've already tried to make their own fulfillment happen. God shows up and it's almost as if he shows up to tell them, I'm still going to keep my word. I am still going to fulfill this promise. And in that visit, he renames Abram, which meant exalted father. and renames him to Abraham, which means father of a multitude. And God spells out once more what he intends to do. Genesis 22, I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. You just can't really imagine that Abraham can fully grasp all that's being promised to him, but this is an enormous promise. God intends to bless every nation through the descendant of this one man, Abraham. And so we do this little snapshot just so I can get you to this point. This is the question I want you to consider. The question you have at the end of Abraham's life is, so how? How is God going to keep his promise? How is every nation going to be blessed through Abraham? Hold on to that question. Hold on to that. Okay, we'll come back. So you come forward to David. Now most people have a basic familiarity with the name of David, but he didn't start out as a household name, as you well know. Where David enters the story of God is as the unregarded youngest son of Jesse. God decides it's time to replace Saul as king over Israel. And so he sends Samuel out to find him. And what do you know? Only David will do. And so you have David anointed as the new king of Israel in this secret ceremony. And you have God showing his preference that he will raise up a king, even if he has none of what the world considers the qualities a king should possess. He has no problem raising up the weak. And in fact, David is raised up through no plan and intent of his own. This is purely God's work. And so you fast forward to God's promise to David. God would later promise David that one of his descendants would always sit on the throne. Now, profound promise again, but actually kind of difficult. And the reason that it's difficult is if you watch how history unfolded after that. Because maybe it's easy to picture that this promise is working out when you've got David and it goes to Solomon, right? Everything seems to be going pretty good under Solomon. But then after Solomon, it just drops off the cliff, doesn't it? Within generations, just a few generations, the kingdom is looking pretty bad. It's looking pretty broken. So what throne is God going to preserve for David's descendants? How is God going to make good on his promise that a descendant of David will always be on the throne of Israel when Israel is broken? That's supposed to cause some dissonance in our mind and in our hearts. You end up just asking yourself, how? So these are our questions then. How is God's promise to Abraham going to be fulfilled, right? How is every nation going to be blessed through Abraham? That's question number one. Question number two is how is God going to make good on his promise of a descendant of David always being on the throne when Israel is broken and conquered? These are big questions. And the importance of these promises and the questions they beg, the importance of these promises to Abraham and to David, it's only echoed by the prophets later on. The people of God never fully lose sight of these promises. Even if they have no idea how God is going to keep them or what he's doing, they never lose sight of these promises. A thousand years, more than a thousand years after Abraham, you have the prophet Micah talking about that God is going to show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old. That's Micah 7 20. 400 plus years after David, the prophet Ezekiel is somehow talking about a day to come When they will have that one true shepherd, when David will again be their king, when he will be their prince forever. That's Ezekiel 37. They never lose sight of these promises. And so you come to the time of Zechariah and the heart of God's people should be longing. It should be longing for the fulfillment of God's promises. The people of God should be begging him to fulfill the glorious promises that he made to Abraham and to David. And be begging God for the blessing that they know will flow out of that fulfillment. And so that's our context. That's where history brings us. So you have to just try, try to put your heart in this, try to get your imagination around this. Imagine what a big deal it is. when God moves to fulfill both of those promises in one fell swoop. That is where we find Zachariah. You see, it turns out that those covenants with Abraham and with David, they were pointing to the same fulfillment. The covenants are pointing to the coming of Jesus Christ. And so John's importance we've talked about. John's importance is totally derivative. We've said that. John is important because he comes right before Jesus. And Jesus is the fulfillment of every one of God's promises. Now, don't get me wrong. John is actually a big deal in and of himself. He's a big deal. He's going to be a prophet from on high. It's been centuries since they had a prophet. Do you think it'd be a big deal that there's going to be a prophet again? Yes. Yes, it'd be a big deal. But John the Baptist and his importance, it's far more than that. A prophet is on the scene. John's birth marks something bigger and it marks the convergence of the fulfillment of these glorious covenants. Salvation has come. So that takes us to our second section. We talked about the history. Now we're into the salvation. Salvation is throughout Zechariah's prophecy and it's actually throughout Luke's gospel as well. Verse 69, Zechariah will speak first of God raising up a horn of salvation for us. Raising up a horn. It's a picture of a strength. Just like an animal's horns represent its strength. This is a picture of God raising up a strong salvation for his people. Where? In the house of his servant, David. Now, remember God's promise to David. One of his descendants will always sit on the throne. So when Zechariah is prophesying about raising up a horn of salvation out of David's house, that is supposed to make us think of that promise. That is supposed to remind us of God's promises to David. God never forgets his promises. And Zechariah praises his God because God's covenant faithfulness is on display in everything that is being set into motion. Verse 71, Zechariah also speaks of being saved from enemies, being saved from those who hate us. And the truth is that the people of God have had enemies for basically their whole history. I mean, just hit rewind from the point Zechariah is at. Rome, Babylon, Assyria. You think of all the ancient tensions and battles and wars with the Philistines. Think of Egypt. Think of Ham. Think of Lamech. You think of Cain. You think of the serpent himself. As far back as it goes, the people of God have had enemies. And the Lord promises that he will deliver his people from any and every enemy. For people with a history of having enemies, that is good news. God will deliver his people from those who hate them, from their enemies. And verse 77, Zechariah can also speak of salvation in terms of the forgiveness of sins. John's ministry, John the Baptist, he would go forward and he would prepare the way for the coming of the salvation of the people of God from their just condemnation. And this really gets at the deepest part of our need. This is why we really need salvation, because the truth is you can get rid of all of my enemies near and far. And in the end, I find I am still in a mess because I've still got me to deal with. I still have the just penalty for my sins hanging over my head. We need something more than deliverance from our enemies. We need deliverance from our sins, from the penalty for our sins. We need forgiveness. True salvation, it's so easy to lose sight of, especially in the way that this world talks. in the way even the church talks about it. Salvation is not about our circumstances. It's not. We do not preach fixed lives here. We do not call people together so that we can sort out the train wrecks of our lives. God saves many a saint who still has a train wreck of a life. We are not about a salvation of circumstances. Salvation is not about improved character. As if we can just improve enough of us that that somehow adds up to what Jesus Christ came to do. We do not preach better people here. That's not the point either. Salvation is about our deliverance from sin and death. And where did we find that salvation? We found it in Jesus Christ and in him alone. The circumstances don't actually matter that much anymore. And yes, we want better character here. We expect that that's going to flow out of that fruit of the spirit, right? But that's not the point. We need deliverance from death and judgment. And that is what we have in Jesus Christ. And what Zechariah is so clear about, he says, you know why you have this salvation? You have it because of God's mercy. Verse 72, verse 78. Mercy, that is what we need. Salvation was not deserved. Salvation was God giving us the opposite of what we deserved. And why? Why would he give us the opposite of what we deserved? Because of the promises of old, particularly to Abraham. We asked, how? How was God going to bless the entire world through Abraham? We begin to see the answer. Jesus Christ, the descendant of Abraham, would live and die to earn the blessing that we needed, the blessing of our salvation. And this is the good news that we go and we take forward to the ends of the earth to proclaim that there is salvation, that the promise to Abraham is being kept and fulfilled and it was kept in Jesus Christ. That is what we proclaim to this world. And even with all that good news, there is still the hope of more to come. There's still the hope of more to come. At the coming of God's anointed one, hope dawns. Verse 78. The time that God's people were waiting. It was like a long, long night. Year after year, generation after generation, centuries passed and the promises were still unfulfilled. But when the dawn came, And God sets his plans in motion. And it was more glorious than anyone had imagined. The coming of the Savior is described like a sunrise coming from on high. And the connection, the connection to the promises of old, it is crystal clear. You can almost picture God saying, you're looking for the fulfillment to Abraham. You're looking for the fulfillment to David. Here's your fulfillment, the Lord Jesus Christ, the sunrise dawning on a very dark creation. And not too long ago, we got to preach and meditate on Psalm 130. In Psalm 130, verses 5 and 6, I wait for the Lord. My soul waits. And in his word, I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. The people of God across all this time, they had been like those watchmen waiting for the morning and then God met their longing for the day with the coming of the promised Messiah. The light of the world arrived and shone on those who sat in darkness. It shone on those who sat in the shadow of death. And with the coming of the Messiah, darkness would flee and death would die. Isaiah looked ahead to this day and he prophesied that the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. And with the dawn of the sun, comes the way of peace. Light on the way of peace. And finally we say peace is ours. Peace with God is ours. That ancient enmity put to rest because God has achieved peace, has won peace for his people. You think of peace even in terms of our own turmoil, everything that roils our own souls, the conscience that cries out rightfully against you. Sinner, you stand condemned. You know you stand condemned. Now no more, because God has won peace. God has brought peace, peace in stark contrast to a world that seems to know nothing of peace, with all its toil and all its division. Peace. Zechariah rejoices in the sunrise of the Messiah. He rejoiced because at long last God was breaking the silence. God's plans were marching forward, and the covenants, those ancient and profound covenants, they were finally being fulfilled. Salvation at last, peace at last, because our God keeps his word. But God has not accomplished everything he intends to. We know that God's plans include more than the glimmer of a sunrise. God intends to flood the darkness with the light of the sun. We know that God's plans were more than just the resurrection of the sun. God's plans include our resurrection as well. And so we wait. And like the people of God across all time, We wait and we look forward to the complete fulfillment of those promises of blessing, the promise of blessing through Abraham's seed, the promise of blessing through finally having a true and everlasting King through David's line. And I don't know about you brothers and sisters, but I think we're probably all on the same page here. There is one promise that seems sweeter every single day that I have to live in this creation. And it is the promise that our Lord, our savior, our God, he is coming again. Let's pray. Our Father, we rejoice. We rejoice because your plans astound us. The plans you've been working since Abraham and David, and we see them still to this day. Your plans are marvelous. You are so worthy of being worshiped. I pray that you would stir up our hearts to rejoice in our God and his masterful plans. And Lord, we pray that you would strengthen us. Strengthen us to remain true and to remain trusting as we wait for that one last promise to be fulfilled. We cannot wait for our Savior to come back for us. We pray this in Jesus's 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.