Well, good evening. It is good to be with the Lord's people on the Lord's Day, whether that be with my church home at Grace Fellowship Church, it's about, my goodness, I think just about 12 minutes down the road, or whether it be with you brothers and sisters, some of you that I've just met for the first time, it is true nonetheless that it is good to be with the Lord's people on the Lord's Day. Well, I don't want to share too much about myself because I don't want to take up too much time tonight on that when we got so much time to spend in the good graces of the word of the Lord tonight in verses 67 through 80 of Luke's gospel chapter 1. So very quickly I just shared just a tidbit. I am the pastor over at Grace Fellowship Church, a fellow Reformed Baptist congregation here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. My wife and I have been down here For just a little bit over a year, we came down here, accepted the call to pastor Grace Fellowship Church back in September of 2017. Before that, we had been in Clinton, Mississippi, where I was the associate pastor at Wildwood Baptist Church and SBC Church up there in the Jackson metro area. So we're thankful to be down here on the coast. It's been a good time so far. We've gotten to see the Lord slowly but gradually grow our congregation at Grace Fellowship Church through the preaching of his word and through the fellowship that I was talking about earlier that we get to experience on Sundays as we eat together, as we commune together. I know that you're a like-minded church that does those same things as well. In the last year, I've had the privilege of growing in friendship with your pastor, Jake Stone, a like-minded brother that I am beyond thankful for to be ministering alongside here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. To be able to say that he's a like-minded Reformed Baptist brother that I get to serve with in Mississippi, that makes me feel a little bit more at home down here on the coast, to know that I'm not in the ranks alone and to know that I'm not alone here tonight. It might be the first time that I've met a lot of you, but you're my brothers and sisters in Christ. I know we stand in union in that reconciliation that this brother was speaking of earlier, and we stand in union in our confession, in our understanding of the Word, and of those sweet doctrines that we cherish together. All that being said, I would encourage you to open up your copy of God's Word to Luke's Gospel, and this evening we'll be looking at chapter 1, verses 67 through 80. Luke 1, 67 through 80. Now, as you turn there, I would like you to, if you would, to ask yourself a question. And this is a question, all fair warning, you maybe have never asked yourself this question before. As I was preparing for this text and I found myself asking this question, I thought to myself, I've never thought this myself. And so I want to ask you to think for just a moment that when you wake up in the morning, what's the first thoughts that normally come into your mind? Now, if you're anything like myself, Sometimes I can honestly, with genuineness, say that sometimes when I wake up, truly the first thoughts out of my mind are praise be to God. Praise be to God for not, as Votie Bauckham so often says, for killing me in my sleep like I would have deserved, praise be to God for that. But oftentimes, brothers and sisters, if I'm being completely transparent, especially on Mondays sometimes when I'm exhausted, I wake up and praise be to God are not the first thoughts out of my mind. Sometimes in this life I wake up and the first thoughts are, man I can't wait to go back to sleep tonight. Sometimes the first thoughts out of my morning is, Lord, I need that cup of coffee that I'm going to get in just a few minutes. And unfortunately, I have to admit that not as often as I would like to say the first thoughts out of my mind are not praise be to God. It is not just my heart overflowing in worship and praise. Now that might seem like a weird question. If it's never been a question that you've asked yourself before, maybe a little bit of a homework assignment this week is to maybe think about that when you wake up. When we've been asleep, we've been asleep for, you know, depending on the person, you might not sleep that long, but the average person sleeps seven to nine hours. And now, it's not common for us to talk in our sleep, so we might not think about it, but if you think about it, you've basically been, functionally speaking, mute for seven to nine hours. You haven't said a single word for half of a day. And so when we wake up, those first words out of our mouth, those first thoughts that come in our mind, I would argue, and I'm going to argue this evening, I think do tell us a little bit about the state of our heart. Is it worship? Is it praise to God for not striking us dead, for not doing what He could have done in His justice and wrath, and just take us out, just to be really blunt? Is it worship to God for His grace and His mercies in Christ Jesus? Or is it complaint? Is it grumbling? Now this might seem like a silly question. It might not seem like that big of a deal because it's just a night's sleep. What's the big deal there? But what might be a little bit more of a big deal, imagine if you would, being unable to speak for almost a year. If you had nine months where you literally could not utter a single word. I would argue, as I have earlier with just those seven to nine hours of sleep, that even more so, if you've been unable to speak for a year, the first words out of your mouth might say a lot about who you are. It might say a lot about where your heart is. Now, for most of us, hopefully for most of us, this is just going to be a hypothetical. Hopefully this is never going to happen to you or to me. I hope not. I like talking too much. I am a pastor. But for at least one man, this has been a reality. And that man we read of this afternoon in Luke's Gospel, these verses 67-80, that this has actually happened to a man by the name of Zachariah. That for almost a year, he was made deaf and dumb, his tongue tied tight, he unable to speak any words at all. And after nine months, we get a picture into the state of a man's heart this afternoon in these verses. He's had nine months to think about his sinfulness. He's had nine months to think about, previously in Luke chapter one, if you're familiar with that gospel, really the last time we heard about Zechariah was when the angel came to him and told him of his son that he would give him, this forerunner of Christ, told him this great and wonderful news. And did Zechariah respond the way we would hope a priest of the Lord to do? Not at all. Did Zechariah respond in faith and obedience? Not at all. Zechariah responded much how I think we would probably respond, in doubt and in faithlessness. And so, by the command of the Lord, the hand of the angel Gabriel, Gabriel strikes him deaf and dumb and tells him that he's going to remain this way until these things are fulfilled. And so we come upon this passage this morning. It's nine months have passed since these things have taken place. Nine months of this priest, this knowledgeable man of the Lord. He's had almost a year to ponder his doubt, to ponder his faithlessness, to ponder his shame, and to ponder these words that the angel has spoken to him. We get a little bit of insight into his heart, A little bit of an example I would argue this afternoon of where our hearts should be as well. And I'm going to tell you right from the get-go. As my old mentor pastors used to tell me, a good pastor says what he's going to say, he says it a bunch more times throughout the sermon, and he says it again. And I'm going to do that same thing this morning to where we're on the same page. Not many applications this morning. There is one simple, streamlined, straightforward takeaway that I want us, all myself included, to leave here on the same page about as we read God's Word, and that is we should be overflowing with worship and praise for our Redeemer. This is what we saw coming from the mouth of Zachariah, and hopefully it's what comes out of our mouths and out of our hearts as we wake up in the morning and as we go throughout our lives. Now before we read that praise prophetically uttered by spirit-led Zachariah, I would ask that we would go to God in prayer for just a moment, that we would ask for that help of the Holy Spirit to give us insight and wisdom, to give us those eyes to see and ears to hear. Let's go to God in prayer. Gracious Father and Heavenly Lord, Father, we praise you for this day. We worship you for this Christian Sabbath that you have given us, Lord. That after some of us have went through stressful weeks and hard weeks and anxiety-filled weeks, Lord, some of us suffering with sickness, some of us suffering with sin, Father, each of us having our own issues and strivings, Father, we praise you that in your grace and mercy to us in this life, Lord, that you have given us a day of rest. We praise you, Lord, that as your word says, a day of rest remains for the people of God. Father, we pray that as we come to your word this evening, God, we pray that you would speak to us through it, that you would guide us into truth, for your word is truth. Father, I pray for myself that you would help me to speak your word in authenticity, in clarity, in boldness. Lord, that I would give the simple, plain, and straightforward meaning of the text this morning, that I would not get in the way of the inerrant words of God. Father, I pray for this congregation, myself included tonight, all the hearers of your word, Lord, that you would give us the ears to hear, the eyes to see, and the hearts which are receptive to understand the words of Christ and to obey them. Father, we ask all this in the name of our Redeemer, in the name of Christ. Amen. Amen. Luke 1, 67 through 80, if you're not there, I invite you to turn there. This is God's inspired, inerrant, infallible, sufficient word. This is the only standard of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience that God has given to his people. Hear the word of the Lord this evening. 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 remembered 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 and 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 the spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but, brothers and sisters, the word of our Lord will stand forever. May God bless the reading and the hearing of his word this evening. Amen. Now here in these few, this relatively small portion of God's word this afternoon, what we're going to see is a response of Zachariah. Now, I've been preaching through Luke to my people at Grace Fellowship Church, and so they're, as they've been here since chapter 1, verse 1, as I've gone through it, they've been a little bit more up to the context. I'm going to try not to take too much time, but to catch us all up to where we're on the same page of the context of this passage here that we're in this evening. Back earlier in chapter 1, I mentioned just briefly earlier, the last real encounter that we had with this man named Zachariah was really, we just got a picture of his sinfulness, of his doubt, and of his shame. But the angel told him that this was going to be a sign, that he would remain mute until these things of which he spoke were fulfilled. And in the very last passage before this, if you look to the birth of John the Baptist, as most of our copies of God's Word are going to title that section in verses 57 through 66, what has happened here is Zachariah has received a confirmation of God's promises. His mouth has been loosed exactly how Gabriel said it would be, and Zachariah responds almost identical to how Mary did back in verses 46 through 56 in what we call the Magnificat. And how does he respond? He doesn't respond with grumbling. He doesn't respond with complaint of how to hear the Lord make him mute for nine months. He doesn't respond with small talk. He doesn't take advantage of not being able to talk for nine months and go on about meaningless babble. He doesn't use it to debate or to talk about this or that. He responds in one singular fashion after nine months of being mute with a song of worship and a song of praise. Now, if you look through Luke's first chapter of his Gospel account, you're going to find something happening over and over and over again. You're going to find something so common that you might find yourself thinking that it's a little bit redundant. And that is worship. So much of Luke's first gospel chapter here in the introduction to his gospel. In fact, 33.3% if you're counting and adding up the verses. That's a third of this first chapter is worship. Think about that. If you've ever been in school and you've had to write essays, would the teacher always tell you that the first paragraph is really important? It sets the tone for the rest of your essay. You're supposed to tell people what your essay is going to be about. You're supposed to set the direction, the path on which you're going to be on. And usually, it's a good idea to tell people the main point of your story in the very opening paragraph. And so what does Luke kind of tell us there in the very first chapter of his gospel? What's supposed to be the big takeaway of all of this story of Christ? We're here to worship before the feet of our Redeemer. 33% of it is worship and this chapter is no different. This section is no different. And so if you read through Luke chapter 1 and you're thinking there's a lot of praise, you're not wrong. And if you're reading through chapter 1 and you're thinking that all this praise and worship is kind of redundant, hasn't he already said that? Isn't it a little unnecessary? You couldn't be farther from the truth. As we look at Luke chapter 1, we get a picture of something beautiful. We have the old passing away and the new coming. And when Luke thinks about this idea of old covenant going away and that he's in the presence right now of the new covenant being ushered in, he has no other possible response than to worship. Brothers and sisters, the new covenant being ushered in deserves no other response than worship and praise. The idea of that covenant of works, which I know you guys are in Hebrew, so you're going to get plenty of it if you haven't already. That idea of covenant of works, of the law of Moses, of that covenant that Hebrews talks about, that it couldn't save, it couldn't last. When Luke, when Zachariah thinks about that going away, and this beautiful covenant of grace being ushered in, he realizes that it is worthy of worship and praise. The coming of Christ the Redeemer demands it. It demands our worship and our praise. And so we arrive to this passage, a hymn of prophetic praise, a response of a man who has had nine months to think about what he's going to say. And what's he say? Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. And so it's important for us to understand just a little bit more context as we come here. Nine months, no talking. Now, as a pastor, I'm sympathetic to Zachariah, a man who functioned in a role similar to that of a pastor for a while, a man who part of his job was to teach. I'm sure he liked to talk. Nine months of not talking would be very difficult for me, and I can imagine it would be very difficult for Zachariah. This is a lot of time of essentially isolation. As you look to the text, we find throughout chapter one that he was not only deaf, but what we used to would say deaf and dumb, he's deaf and mute. He couldn't talk and he couldn't hear. Now in fulfillment, Gabriel loosens his tongue, enables him to speak once more. And upon realizing this, Zechariah bows and worships, saying, blessed be the Lord God of Israel. If you look back to verse 64, We're told that. And immediately his mouth was open and his tongue loosed and he spoke. And what did he speak? Blessing God. Now what the passage does is interesting. It doesn't tell us right then and there what he said. It tells us a little bit more, gives us a little bit more of what's going on. And now in verses 67 through 80, we get insight into actually what he says. We're going to learn a lot from this. I think we're going to see a good example of where our hearts should be as the people of God. Now I am going to give a fair warning. As we examine the contents of Zacharias Praise, we're going to dig just a little bit. I mean, just a tiny little bit in some great doctrines such as covenant theology, such as redemption, such as good works, all topics that have sparked discussion and debate over 2,000 years of church history. Now, as we dive into these topics, I'm going to let you know a little bit something about myself. Covenant theology is one of my favorite topics in the Scriptures. In all of doctrine, I think covenant is something you see as a strand going throughout the Scriptures more so than even the doctrines of grace. You see it from Genesis to Revelation. Now, thankfully, I know that Jake has been with y'all in Hebrews for just a little while, so I'm not going to spoil covenant for him. I'm going to let him carry out into the depths of those doctrines. It's not really the main point this morning. The point of all those little doctrines that we're going to touch on this morning is one thing, and that is worship. It is praise. It is praise and worship. Blessed be the Lord our God. The whole point of the passage this morning, honestly we could just leave on this note the very first word that Zachariah says, blessed. Blessed be the Lord our God. And so I want us to leave this place this afternoon more so than anything, with hearts overflowing with worship when we think upon the salvation that God has given us through Christ, the Redeemer. If I have not done that, I have failed to faithfully exegete this passage, and I have no problem saying that. This is a passage that preaches itself, and my only prayer is that I don't get in the way of these beautiful truths that we're going to see in God's Word this evening. Now as we do look at this passage called the Benedictus, we're going to see three things in this praise and this worship of Zachariah that I want to point out to us this afternoon. Those three things being the picture of salvation, the purpose of salvation, and the privileges of salvation. So we're going to see Zachariah really praising and worshiping God for him that we should do as well this afternoon. Praising him for the picture of salvation, the purpose of salvation, and the privileges of salvation. Now firstly, as we come to verses 68 through 70, we see Zechariah praising God for the picture of salvation. Verses 68 through 70 tell us, Zechariah said, 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. After nine months, first word out of his mouth, blessed be. I think I might be complaining a little bit, honestly. Nine months? That seems kind of harsh, man. He just doubted the Lord just a little bit. He just questioned just a little bit. Isn't it kind of similar to what Mary did, honestly, back a little bit previously? She seemed to question God a little bit, and she didn't get nine months of punishment. I can honestly, you know, we would expect Zachariah, he's a guy just like we are to be a little upset, but he's not. He's had nine months to get himself in check. He's had nine months to think about how gracious God has been that honestly that he didn't strike him dead right there in the temple. And he says, blessed be the Lord God of Israel. Now, back in a previous passage in Luke 1, verses 39 through 45, we saw this word blessing come up a good bit. Now, once again, I've been preaching through Luke expositionally to my people at Grace Fellowship Church, so I'm going to try to, in just a few minutes, play a little bit of catch-up for all of us, that we can have a little bit of helpful context here. Because blessing, this word blessed, blessing, and all the different variations of it, are almost every single page in Luke's Gospel, and there's a point that he's trying to get across there. Now back in Luke 1.39-45 in that passage that's commonly called the visitation where Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth. We saw the word blessing there. We see it there, blessed, blessing. And we saw two different meanings of the word come forth in the Greek. Now, I just want to tell you, brothers and sisters, because y'all haven't been going through Luke expositionally, that blessing in God's word, whether it be in the Hebrew Old Testament or the Greek New Testament, and when it's in reference to a person, when you see one person blessing another person, when you see one individual saying, blessed be another person, it's always going to have one of two meanings. Spoiler alert, neither of those is happy. I just want to make that clear this morning. Blessed doesn't mean happy, but we do have two meanings that it can mean in reference to a person. Sometimes, and I think this is most often in the Hebrew and the Greek, we see that the word blessing, to be blessed, to have the Lord's blessing, means to be covenantally favored by the Lord. It means that in reference to God, in relationship to God, you don't have His covenant wrath, you have His covenant blessings, and hey, happiness might be one of the side effects of that. Another meaning that's interconnected but a little bit different is joyful. Now joyful is a little bit different than happy. Happiness can be there in one minute and be gone the next. I'm happy when I'm eating at an all-you-can-eat catfish buffet like I did at Catfish Charlie's the other night with my wife. We went there for the first time and man oh man I was happy eating that buffet. Now about an hour later I was not so happy as I thought I was gonna die from all the catfish I'd eaten. My happiness was fleeting. It was gone in a moment. But brothers and sisters joy is not like happiness. Joy is something that the Lord gives to those with whom He has covenantal favor. Joy is that peace which surpasses all understanding, that in the midst of hardship, in the midst of suffering, in the midst of trials and tribulation, the believer can have joy in the Lord. Now those are two very common meanings of the word blessed blessing. It's always going to mean one of the two when it's in reference to a person. But when used in reference to God, it has a different meaning. In our passage today, we come across a usage of blessed that is different than we're going to see any time that it's used towards a person. And it's different, to put simply, because when we talk about the creator, our language needs to be different than when we talk about the creatures. It's that creator-creature distinction, and we see it right here with this word blessed. We would be in error, a grave error, to think that when we bless the Lord that we are somehow adding covenantal favor to the Lord. How dare we think that? Or to think that we're somehow adding joy to the Lord, the one who is full of joy in and of himself. This is not what it means when we talk about the Creator. It's not what Zechariah means here. When used in reference to the Creator, to God, the word blessed means as strong defines it, to be praised or to be adored. Or as one commentator, I think so artfully put it, Daryl Bach, to be honored with praise. Put simply, when we read of God being blessed, we don't need to think we're giving Him more blessing, or that we're adding blessing to that account. How dare we think that? When we talk of God being blessed, when the scriptures speak of someone blessing the Lord, they're saying that the Lord is worthy, that He is deserving of all our worship, honor, and praise. And so the rest of our passage today is built on that very first word that comes out of the mouth of Zechariah after nine months of not being able to talk. First thing out of his mouth is how worthy and deserving this God is of our worship, honor, and praise. And so from the get-go, When Zachariah expresses that he is worthy of this worship, he does something here. He looks upon what we're going to call this afternoon a picture of salvation, and he simply says, I can't do anything else but praise this God. Now I say picture of salvation because the text here in these first couple of verses in 68 through 70, there's some words that are used here that are very visual words. Very illustrative, very what we would call, and I always get tongue-tied on this word, anthropomorphic words. It's where we talk of something when we say, like, the waves hiss. Waves don't have a mouth. They don't hiss. We're using language to help us understand what something does. And Luke does that here. Zechariah does that here. He uses three words here that are very visual. They're intended to produce a picture in us to help us better understand this salvation that our Redeemer has secured. And I find that very helpful. I'm a visual learner. I'm a visual person. I can't do flashcards. I can't just listen to an audio book. I gotta have my finger following the line. I gotta draw doodles in the sidelines. I learn visually, and thankfully Zachariah knew that some of us learn that way. As the saying goes, a picture's worth a thousand words, and Zachariah paints a beautiful picture of salvation for us this morning. beautiful picture of it. And I think this is helpful for not just visual learners like me. I think it's helpful for any and all of us who grew up in the church, any and all of us who grew up in church culture. Because if we grew up in the South, if you grew up in the church, if you grew up around church people, there are certain words that we so overuse, that we have used so much that it almost loses its meaning. Now blessed is one of those. We say this person is blessed, that person is blessed. Well brother, how you doing? I've been blessed. I think if most of us were asked what that actually means, we'd kind of struggle to give a definition to it. I think salvation is one of those, where we use it so much that we might not be able to give a full biblical scope of the picture of it. So Zachariah seeks to help us a little bit this afternoon with giving us these three vivid illustrative words, and those three words in this text are visited, redeemed, and this last one might seem a little silly at first, but I'll explain it, horn. It's going to use three words, visited, redeemed, and horn. They're going to hopefully give us a beautiful picture of the salvation that our Redeemer has secured for us, and in turn, cause us to worship. And so firstly, Zachariah begins the picture of salvation with saying that God has visited his people. That God has visited his people. Now, from the get-go, from the onset, before we even get into a deeper definition of this word, this simple thought, however we understand this, when we think that the Almighty God, the one seated on His heavenly throne in glory and splendor, the one who's arrayed in all holiness, in all righteousness, the fact that He would visit us in any meaning of that word, should just absolutely blow our minds and cause us to worship. That in itself should cause us to praise, but the word doesn't just mean that. The word doesn't mean visit the same way when I go visit my friend. The word isn't visit the way we visit a peer or someone on an equal level to ourself. The word doesn't just mean that, but rather it means to look upon or to help or benefit. It's the equivalent of when we say we look after someone, when we've cared for someone, when we've provided for them. To help us out a little bit, this word used, visited here in our text, is the same word used in James 1.27 to describe going to see the poor and the afflicted like widows and orphans. It's the same word used in Matthew chapter 25 when Jesus talks about going to visit the strangers, and the naked, and the sick, and the hungry, and the thirsty, and the prisoners. And so when we look at the picture of our salvation and realize that God has visited us, brothers and sisters, we have to understand that He hasn't done so as an equal visits an equal. That He has not done so the way we visit a buddy down the street. No, God has visited us in a similar way in which we would visit an orphan or a widow, the poor and the afflicted. God has visited us in a similar way to how we visit a sick, hungry, naked prisoner or stranger. It's God visiting us out of mercy. It's God visiting us out of grace. It's the way we visit someone who, in some capacity or another, is in a lesser state than we are. And this is so contrary, I think, to what so many in the current Christian culture would have us to believe. That God has visited us in salvation, that He saved us because He needed us. that He saved us because we would just fit the heavenly criteria so well, that we would just help Him out so much, that God has visited us because He just was needy for us and lonely in heaven. This is not why God has visited us at all, brothers and sisters. He's not visited us as though we were owed a visit. According to Romans 5, God visited us in salvation when we were weak, when we were ungodly, when we were sinners, and when we were enemies. When we were enemies, not just dirty. Y'all were here, I wasn't down here on the coast here in Katrina, but even up in North Mississippi where I grew up in Grenada, we still saw the commercials on TV. During Katrina and during almost every storm that comes and you're in spills like the BP oil spill, Don Dish Liquid has a way of having these really moving commercials where there's a duck that's been made all filthy and stuff from the storm debris or has been covered in oil and they cover him Don Dish Liquid and clean him off and it's meant to make you sad, it's meant to make you feel sorry for the duck. So when we talk about us being sinners, when we talk about us being ungodly and weak, that's not the picture I want us to understand this morning. That's not the picture the scriptures convey because in Romans 5 he ends it all by telling us that we were enemies of God. We weren't just dirty ducklings like in the Don commercial. We were enemies, cosmic traitors to the Lord God King of the universe. This is how God visited us, brothers and sisters. According to Ephesians 2, God visited us in salvation when we were dead in our trespasses and sins. When we were not trying to find Jesus, but according to Ephesians 2, He visited us in salvation when we were actually following after the other guy. when we were in the midst of loving the sinful passions of our flesh. It was when we were sick in our depravity that He healed us in His blood. It was when we were hungry and thirsty for only that which was sinful that God visited us and fed us with the bread of life, visited us and hydrated us with the eternal wellspring. It's when we were naked in our iniquity that He visited us and clothed us in righteousness. It's when we were a prisoner to the flesh that He visited us and set us free. It's when we were strangers because of our sins which had separated us from our Creator that the Lord our God visited us and irresistibly drew us by His Holy Spirit and didn't stop there. He adopted us as children and grafted us into Christ and seated us at His table. This is how God has visited us in our salvation. He has done so not as an equal, not as a peer, but as a king who visits a slave. Or more correctly, the way a king would visit a slave who has conspired against him. And yet somehow, instead of striking us dead upon the moment of His visitation, He shows us mercy instead. We should expect when we look upon the holiness of God, and by contrast our own depravity and rebellion, that God's visitation would bring about nothing but wrath and judgment and punishment. And yet instead of striking us, the rebellious slaves to death, Zachariah continues with this glorious picture of salvation and worships that God has redeemed us. He's redeemed us. Now this is another word that I'm thankful that he chooses to use an illustrative word here. This is a word we use if we're church people. I've been in the church since I was in middle school. We always talk about being redeemed. I never really knew what it meant until I got a little bit older and dug into the language here. Redeemed is language from something that we don't like talking about, but it's language from the slave trade. It's slave talk. It literally means to purchase or ransom a person out of bondage. If someone is in slavery, there's really only two ways out. They either die, or someone in graciousness and mercy, who just happens to have enough money, comes and buys them out of that slavery. And so Zachariah pictures that in salvation, that brothers and sisters, this is what God has done for us. He has visited the rebellious slave. He has visited the rebellious sinner, enslaved in their depravity, and instead of striking them in wrath or at the least just leaving us there, man, He would have been just to do that. He graciously redeems them and doesn't just purchase them and set them free. He purchased them and gives us a seat at His table. And what was the price for our ransom? There's always a price to be paid when purchasing another person out of slavery. And what is the price for our ransom? How has God remained righteous, holy, the one who upholds these perfect standards, and yet the one at the same time who has forgiven us of these iniquities? Well, Zechariah tells us as he continues in this picture of salvation this morning, he gives us the answer when he tells us that God has quote, 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." Now I said earlier, this is out of the three, this is kind of a funny one. We almost go, what in the world? What's a horn of salvation? What is he talking about? What is Zachariah saying here? Now we get a little bit of insight, hopefully you're already looking and thinking in the right direction. You know, Sunday school answers, the answer's Jesus. But he tells us he's raised up a horn of salvation for us, where? In the house of his servant David. Well, who came from the lineage of David? And who is this horn? It's the one spoken of by the mouth of his holy prophets of old. This is where there's a certain resource called Thayer's Greek Lexicon that you can find. This is my favorite kind of resource, the one you can find for free online. And this is where it comes of invaluable resource here. When it explains to us that this horn of salvation means, quote, it says, since animals, especially bulls, defend themselves with their horns, The horn with the Hebrews is a symbol of strength and of courage and is used as such in a variety of phrases. It's used to describe a mighty and valiant helper. It's used to describe the author of deliverance, none other than the Messiah himself. And so you hear that? The horn of salvation is who God has given us to redeem us and to visit us. The horn of salvation is the Messiah. It pictures a strong, courageous, mighty, valiant helper. the author of deliverance, Christ Jesus himself. And so God has been able to remain righteous and yet visit us in grace and redemption. How? Through his horn of salvation. None other than Christ Jesus himself. And what do we know about this Christ? This is an important question. Christ essentially just means Messiah. And everybody has a certain picture of Messiah. A lot of people had a picture of Messiah back in The days of Jesus 2,000 years ago that didn't match up to the Messiah that came. Today, we might not use the language of Messiah, but everyone, everyone looks for Messiah, for a Savior. Most look for a political Savior, or a military Savior. We're not too different than the Israelites were 2,000 years ago, brothers and sisters, in our culture. But this isn't the Messiah that God sent. This isn't how Christ came. And we're told this, right here in the text by Zechariah, that this Messiah wasn't going to be any of that. It's the Messiah that was prophesied long ago. It's the Christ of whom Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 53, the one who, quote, has borne our griefs. This is the Messiah who has carried our sorrow. This is the one whom we esteemed stricken, smitten, and afflicted. This is the Messiah who was pierced for our transgressions, who was crushed for our iniquities. This is the one upon whom was the chastisement that brought us peace. and the one by whom's wounds we are healed." Now hopefully this description is clear enough if we weren't on the same page already. This horn of salvation is Jesus Christ. No one else fits this description. And so when Zachariah thinks about what God has done for him, he paints us a vivid picture of salvation. That in Jesus Christ, the horn of his salvation, God has visited us and redeemed us. And this leads us to no other proper response than to pause and worship at the feet of our Savior. And yet Zachariah doesn't stop there. We're already like 30 minutes in, and there is more goodness to come, brothers and sisters. If you're not already worshiping, there is more. It's like those, what are those cleaning commercials? He always says, but wait, there's more. Zechariah does the same thing right here. But wait, there's more. Because he doesn't just praise him for the picture of salvation, he praises God for the purpose of salvation. That is, it's not enough to just worship God for the fact that he has saved us. When we stop and think about why he has saved us, that moves us to praise him all the more. And we see in verses 71 through 73, what's the text tell us? Why has he saved us? that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. Why has he saved us? To show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant. Why has he saved us? Because of this oath that he swore to our father Abraham. So why has God visited us? Why has God redeemed us through the horn of his salvation, Jesus Christ? We see here in these verses, Zechariah puts forth two reasons. One, because let's put it really simply, it was the only way to save us from our enemies. And we praise God for that, that we've been saved from our enemies, absolutely. But there's an underlying reason here, that the text really brings out and spends more time on, and this is the reason even why He saved us from our enemies, and that is to fulfill that covenant of promise. So when we think about this, when we understand that Zachariah is praising God because we've been saved from our enemies, I think it's an important question to ask. who are our enemies. Now, the Jews were expecting a political messiah, a military redeemer, so they would have said their enemies were wrong, that it was a political enemy, that the state was their enemy, that their persecutors were their enemy. But we know that God's Word doesn't speak here of physical enemies, such as Rome, who currently control Jesus. We know that from the Word, from the testimony of Christ. We know, we look at the Gospels, I mean, my goodness, what labors Jesus went to to make Himself clear here and people still didn't understand. That He did not come to save them from Rome. He didn't come to upturn the current political magistrate. Jesus made it abundantly clear that he was not there as this type of protector. When we look to God's Word, when we look to our own lives, brothers and sisters, we know that Christ has saved us not from physical enemies. If that were the case, we wouldn't suffer. We wouldn't be persecuted. We might not have too much of a taste of that here. We look to places like China, to places in the Middle East. Those brothers and sisters know with us out of a doubt that those are not the enemies that Christ has saved us from. Who are the enemies that Jesus addresses? Who are the enemies that Paul makes clear that Christ saved us from? We need look no further than our own flesh, to our own depravity, to the enemy of death and that enemy, the devil. And these are enemies that I think every person on earth, whether religious or not, whether Christian or not, understands to some capacity as an enemy. Every human on earth has feared death at some point. And brothers and sisters, it's not wrong to admit that even as Christians, even with our hope of everlasting life, it strikes a little bit of fear in us to think that one day we're going to die. That's natural. It is a natural God-given thing. It puts things in perspective. As Paul writes in Romans 8, 7-8, he makes clear that not only is death an enemy, but our own sinful flesh is an enemy. Because what does Paul tell us about the flesh in Romans 8? That the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God. For it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Paul tells us our flesh is weak, brothers and sisters. You know what good you can do in your flesh? Paul says none. Left to ourselves, we cannot, in our fleshly efforts and striving, save ourselves from the enemy which is our own flesh. That doesn't even make sense. If the enemy is our flesh, how can our flesh save us from our enemy which is the flesh? Does that make a lick of sense to you? It doesn't make a lick of sense to me. It didn't make a lick of sense to Paul either. The flesh is our enemy and the flesh can't save us from the enemy. And despite all the medical advances in the world, when we think about that enemy of death, one day we will all face that enemy face to face. Thanks to medical advances, we might have added a year or two. What's it now, 85? Maybe if you're really lucky and you're eating healthy and you're doing stuff like keto. But even doing stuff like that, you ain't gonna live forever. As the old saying goes, as unfortunate as the end, there are two things that are certain in this world, death and taxes. And you're gonna have to do both of them. As Hebrews 9, 27 states, just as it appointed for man to die once. That's all of us, brothers and sisters. And then comes judgment. We face these enemies of death and of the flesh. And when faced with these enemies, what hope do we have of victory over them? Well, in and of ourselves, we have no hope of victory over them. Our only hope is this horn of salvation that Zechariah has been praising God for. As Christ Himself states that He is the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him. No exceptions. As John writes in chapter 17, verse 3 of his Gospel, He says very simply, this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Only Jesus Christ, only this horn of salvation that Zachariah praises God for has conquered death through His resurrection. No one else has done this. Only Jesus Christ is made lasting atonement by His sacrifice for the sins of the flesh. And therefore, brothers and sisters, only in Christ may we be rescued from these enemies. And Zechariah, when he thinks about this, he worships God for it, and we should do so as well. We worship God when we think of the Redeemer that He has sent us. And so Christ has saved us firstly. Why has He done so? To save us from our enemies. There was no other hope, and man, we could stop right there, go home, worship God for that. But there's an underlying reason. Why has He done so? Why has He saved us from our enemies? Why has He become our Redeemer? Now, once again, contrary to what so many, so many of those pastors on channels like TBN would have us to believe, God has not saved us for a life of material prosperity, health, wealth, material blessings, for a comfortable life, for our best life now. God has not saved us because He just wanted us so much. Brothers and sisters, God has not saved you because you were worthy of that salvation, not for half a second. You want to know the ultimate reason that God has saved you? Because He is faithful to His Word. Because He is not a man that he should lie. All the way back in Genesis chapter 12, we see a promise given. And God has remained true to that promise to save a people for Himself to make a blessed remnant come from Abraham. And not of the flesh, Paul says, but of faith, of the Spirit. We see that blessed promise in places like Ephesians 1, that it didn't only start in Abraham, but that that covenant of promise, that covenant of grace, is rooted in a covenant of eternity past. A covenant made among the members of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, to redeem a people for themselves. And if God would say that He would remain faithful to His promise to Abraham, how much more so would He remain faithful to a promise that He has made with Himself? I don't think that's a promise He's likely to break. The oath that He swore to our father Abraham, the text says, the mercy promised to our fathers, this holy covenant, this is that covenant of grace. Now, fair warning, this is one of my, as I've already said, this is one of my favorite topics. And my goodness, I could keep you all here for like four days talking about covenant theologies. I'm sure Jake has probably wanted to do a time or two himself. We have that in common. I'm not going to do that because the text I don't think allows for me to do that as much as I would like to. It's a good doctrine. You're going to get a lot into it in Hebrews, I think, if you haven't already. But it'll suffice to say for now that this covenant that the text is talking about, that this is the covenant of grace. It is a covenant which was, as our confession states in chapter 7 of the London Baptist Confession, first revealed to Adam through the seed of the woman, and after that it was revealed step-by-step until the full revelation of it was completed in the New Testament. This covenant is based on the eternal transaction between the Father and the Son concerning the redemption of the elect. So, it'll suffice to say for right now for us to understand why he's worshiping God, why he's praising God, why he's saying, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, why he has saved us because of this holy covenant. that he speaks here of the covenant of grace, the one first revealed in Genesis to Adam, the one that was promised to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12, but the one that was not ratified, it was not brought into fulfillment, and it was not realized until Christ. And so why does Zechariah worship right now? Because he's at a climax of human history right here. He has been a priest of that old covenant. He has been one of the ones who has had to make continual sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice to no avail. And now he sees, right now taking place in front of him, a new covenant being ushered in. This covenant of grace coming on the horizon and he has to pause and he has to worship God for the source of his salvation, for the reason of his salvation. It's not because of him. It's not because of anything he would do or that his son would do even. is because God is not a man that he should lie. He is faithful to his promises. He is faithful to his promises. God has saved us because he gave his promise, because he gave his word that he would do so, and he is not a man that he should lie. As J.C. Ryle so artfully puts it, and if you would allow me to give somewhat of a lengthy quote, but it's from J.C. Ryle, so I think it's worth our time. J.C. Ryle says when he's thinking about this passage here, he says, let us learn to rest on promises. and rest on them and embrace them as Zachariah did. Let us not doubt that every word of God about his people concerning things future shall as surely be fulfilled as every word about them has been fulfilled concerning things past. Their safety is secured by promise. The world, the flesh, and the devil, they shall never prevail against any believer. Their acquittal on the last day is secured by promise. They shall not come into condemnation, but shall be presented spotless before the Father's throne. Their final glory, that is our final glory, brothers and sisters, is secured by promise. The Savior shall come again the second time, as surely as He came the first, to gather His saints together and to give them a crown of righteousness. And so let us be persuaded of these promises. Let us embrace them and not let them go, because they will never fail us. God's Word is never broken. He is not a man that He should lie. We have a seal on every promise which Zechariah never saw. We have the seal of Christ's blood to assure us that what God has promised, God will perform, and we worship Him because of it. And so Zechariah worships God, and brother and sister, I think we can pause and worship God for the picture of salvation that He has visited us, that He has redeemed us through His Messiah. We worship God when we think about the reason of it. Praise be to God it's not because of me. If it was because of me, he would have changed his mind real quick on that one. As Charles Spurgeon says, we should know that we've been chosen for salvation before we were born, because He sure wouldn't have chosen us afterwards. Praise be to God that the purpose of salvation is not anything in me, but it is rooted firmly in a promise made to Himself and to His people. We praise Him for that, and we not only praise Him for that in the little bit of time that I have left, we want to praise God for the privileges of that salvation. And there are privileges indeed, brothers and sisters. We see those privileges in verses 74 through 78. Those verses read, that we, in a little bit of context because we've been talking for a minute, we've been saved. All of this has happened that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear and holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, child, will be called 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 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 in Israel. We worship God for the privileges that we've been given in salvation. I mean, salvation, that's a privilege, right? If we just didn't have to go to hell, I think I'd be worshiping Him for that. But, you know, there's bonuses. There's extra, there's more. But I will say this, as I've already said, and I'm going to say it probably a couple more times if that's okay, that those privileges are not what we often think they are. Those privileges are not a life of material health, wealth, and prosperity. It's not an easy life. It's not my best life now. It's not a life of comfort. It's not the American dream, brothers and sisters. You know, when we look at these passages, and I would say when we look at the plethora of the rest of God's Word, what the primary privilege of our salvation is? One word, service. The primary privilege of our salvation is service. Verse 74 tells us, why have we been saved? That we may serve Him. That's it. That we may serve Him without fear and holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. Zachariah is not on his own here. I hope you know that when we look to the rest of God's Word, we see that common thread there. It's exactly what Paul says in Romans chapter 1, in verse 5, right there in the introduction to that one of the most important books of Christianity we have right there. That the very reason Paul says that we have received grace, what's the text say? Romans 1, 5. That we have received grace to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations. Brothers and sisters, you have been saved, I have been saved, we have been saved, that we might serve the Lord our God. God has not saved you and I for our happiness, but for your holiness. God has not saved you and I for our material prosperity, but that you would be enabled to obey him. Our rescue is not an end in and of itself, but rather a means to something more. As commentator Daryl Bach writes, the idea of being rescued is subordinate to the idea of serving God. The covenant is made and granted to the faithful in order that once the faithful are rescued that they may fearlessly serve God. Why does God fulfill covenant? God fulfills covenant so they can serve Him fearlessly. God saves for service. His deliverance enables one to serve God with one's life. Brothers and sisters, service and worship are inextricably tied together. If you do a little bit of a word search, you don't have to be a Hebrew scholar, free app called Blue Letter Bible. Get it if you don't already have it. It will help you out in a heartbeat. And you can do this. You can go to Blue Letter Bible or any other resource that you have that will help you read the Hebrew Old Testament and do a word study on the words worship and works and service. And you know what you're going to find? That that word avod that we translate worship is also the same word that we translate to work or to serve. It means the same thing to the Hebrews. To worship God is to serve God. To worship God is to do the works that God has commanded. Now we know this. We're a Reformed Baptist Church. I know y'all are just like we are. God has not saved us because of our good works. We have known. But God has saved us for good works. So what is our worship? Now it is indeed our singing on Sundays and praise be to God for that. It is indeed our singing on Sundays and I love that time. But more than that, our worship is primarily lived out in a life of service to the Lord our God. A full scope of the biblical understanding of one who worships God is one who serves God. One who does the good works that God commands and desires him or her to do. Isn't this exactly what Paul describes in Romans chapter 12 verse 1? when He says that we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. And what does He say? Which is your spiritual worship. And so, I just want to caution, and I have to preach this to myself, please believe me on that one, that if we gather on the Lord's day and sing songs, yet Monday through Saturday our life is void of any semblance of obedience or service to the Lord, you're not worshiping God. That is vain, empty, meaningless worship that will benefit you none. It is not worship at all. We worship, yes, in song, and I love singing praises to the Lord my God. We worship, yes, in song, but brothers and sisters, if it stops there, it's not the full biblical scope of worship. We worship in service, in obedience to the Lord our God. And so why is it that He had to save us in the first place to serve Him? It's because the type of service that He requires, we can't produce on our own, brothers and sisters. We can't. We can try. And a lot of people try. Man, I tried for the first 13 years of my life. Growing up in vacation Bible school, growing up doing Bible drills, I tried as hard as I could to render the service to God which He demanded. And it was futile. It was pointless. We cannot produce this type of service in and of our flesh before we are born again in the Spirit. The type of service which God requires is according to verses 74 through 75 of our text here this morning, a type of service that is done without fear, in holiness, in righteousness, all our days. Now while we were dead in our trespasses, We may have absolutely done deeds which outwardly conformed to the moral law of God. But if those deeds were done only out of a fear of hell, they are not the service which God demands and requires. It must be service, the text tells us this morning, without fear. It must be service that rather comes out of an overflow of worship and praise. It must be done in holiness and righteousness. And we've already established we have none of that apart from Christ. It must be done all our days, not just on Sundays. This type of service, this type of worship that God requires, we can't do in and of ourselves. It required the horn of our salvation. It required this Messiah. It required Him to visit us and redeem us. This privilege of service required a few other privileges, namely what the text tells us that Christ has given us in salvation in verses 77 through 79. What are those other privileges that we see there? We see in verse 77 that we have received pardon. that we have received pardon. We've been told, we've already established that biblical service must be done without fear. Yet brothers and sisters, in our sin we stood fearfully condemned before a wrathful righteous God. And so what does God do for us in order that we may serve Him without fear? He gives us pardon. He pardons us by the penal substitutionary blood of Christ. Isn't that amazing that in the new covenant It's not like the old covenant. We see what we call the Deuteronomic formula. If you do this, then I will do this. And they almost all the time failed at the doing this. Because they couldn't do it in themselves. The New Covenant is a better covenant. The New Covenant is a different covenant. In the New Covenant, He always gives that which He requires. He requires us to serve Him without fear. So what does He give? He gives us pardon. And not only that, He gives us the benefit, the privilege of receiving light. The text tells us in verses 78 through 79. And why do we need light for biblical service? Because if you're familiar with 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 4, Paul gives us a beautiful picture of the problem that all humanity finds itself in. That when we were dead in our sins, it says the enemy had blinded us and kept us from seeing the light of the glory of the gospel of Christ. We were blinded. We couldn't see the things that we needed to do. He tells us in another place in 1 Corinthians 2 that we didn't even understand the things. How can I do something if I don't even know what I'm supposed to do? Or in Romans 8, as we've already said, that we were incapable of pleasing God. We were blinded. So what does He do? He gives us light to see. He removes the scales from our eyes. He removes the blinders and enables us to do that which He requires. And then finally, He gives us not only pardon and not only light, but brothers and sisters, He also gives us peace. That peace which surpasses all understanding in order that we may serve Him. Now each of us have our besetting sins, and I have no problem confessing to you this morning. One of my worst besetting sins is that of stress and anxiety. I struggle with it. I've struggled with it my entire life. I've struggled with it even as a believer. And let me tell you, as someone who struggles with anxiety, it is hard to serve the Lord the way He requires if you're a person that struggles with anxiety and with stress. Yet God has given us peace which surpasses all understanding. That means when my life is in crumbles, when my life is falling apart, I know that my eternity stands secure. And that leads me to worship. That leads me to service. God has saved us and has given us the privileges of pardon, the privilege of light, and the privilege of peace so that we might exercise the privilege of service unto Him. And so we worship Him. This worship and this service is the whole point of our salvation, brothers and sisters, not us, not you, not me. We have been saved that we might glorify the Lord our God in our service, in our worship. And so as we close, man, let's just worship with Zachariah. Let's praise in the same strain of thinking that Zachariah does here. Because think about this, Zachariah didn't have near as much to go on as we do. Zechariah had Old Testament. Zechariah had some words that Gabriel said to him. We have it complete. We have the full and complete revelation of the Word of God that he has given to us. We have 2,000 years of church history of seeing how faithful God has been to his promises. We have all the more reason, we have way more reason than Zechariah to worship and to praise the Lord our God. And so when we look upon the picture of our salvation, that in Jesus the Messiah, the horn of our salvation, that God has visited us and redeemed us, what do we do? We worship. We worship. When we think upon the purpose of salvation, that we might be saved from our enemies and that he would keep his covenant of promise, what do we do? Man, we worship! If that seems too simple, it's okay sometimes. I think the Scriptures sometimes are a lot more simple than we want to make them out to be. The point is worship. The point is worship. And when we think upon the privileges of our salvation, of pardon, and light, and peace, for the sake of service, we don't grumble because we have to do works for the Lord. A brother touched on this earlier. Wouldn't it have been a lot easier for the Lord just to send His angels to do His job? Couldn't He just snap His fingers, spoke in the same way He did in creation and done it Himself? He didn't get us to serve Him because He needed our help. I think, actually, we get in the way a lot more than we help. He chose us as an act of grace. Why does He leave it up to us to fulfill the Great Commission? I mean, I've been an apostle now, in some capacity or another, for about five or six years. I've been a believer for A little bit more than double than that. And I still struggle with that one. Why on earth? It would have been way easier to just do that one himself. He does it as an act of grace. It's a privilege that we may serve him and he gives us all the things that we need. All the tools we need to do that which he has put us for. So brothers and sisters, let's go to God in prayer. And I would just encourage you as you go out into a Monday, and I know Mondays are rough. Look, Mondays are rough, Tuesdays are rough, Wednesdays are rough. It's all rough. This side of glory, it's rough, and that's to make us want the other side of glory. But I hope this encourages us and helps us as we go into a new week, as we leave this Lord's Day, to go out and worship, as we wake up tomorrow morning, to let the first words out of our mouth be praise be to God, blessed be the Lord God of Israel. Let's go to God in prayer. Gracious God, Lord, you are worthy of our worship and of our praise. Father, if you had done none of this, he would be worthy of our worship and our praise. And yet in your grace and your mercy and your infinite wisdom, you have chosen from eternity past before the foundation of the world to save a people for yourself. God, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but simply because of your plan, simply because of your will. Lord, you have saved us. Lord, You didn't just send a prophet to do it. You didn't just send a teacher to do it. You didn't send a political or military leader to make our lives more comfortable. But Father, You sent Yourself. You sent Your Son to take on the form of us, to take on human flesh, to live a life as we without sin, to die upon a cross, to save us. Father, You have done all of this. or to save us from our enemies and to fulfill that covenant of promise. And God, we praise You. We praise and worship You that You have visited us, that You have redeemed us. We praise You and worship You for the Messiah that You have given us. We worship You for that beautiful covenant of grace. Lord, a covenant which the more we dig into it, the more we are blown away. The more we dive into it, the more we worship and praise. Father, we praise you that you are not a man, that you would lie. Father, and we praise and worship you for those privileges, for pardon, and for life, and for peace, that enables us to go forth and worship you the biblical way, in a life of service and obedience to those things to which you have called us. God, we pray that you would give us the power by your Holy Spirit, as weak as we are, as sinful as we are, that as we go into a new week, that we may live lives set apart in worship and in service to the Lord, our God, who is worthy of all of our worship and praise. It's in Christ's name, that blessed name that we pray. Amen.