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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.
The Benedictus
| Sermon ID | 925181710481 |
| Duration | 1:02:01 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | Luke 1:67-80 |
| Language | English |
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