Luke 1:67-80
This is God’s word. And his father,
speaking of John the baptizer, Zechariah, was filled with the
Holy Spirit. And he prophesied, saying, Blessed
be the Lord, the God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed
his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in
the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his
holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us. to show mercy that is
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 in 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 way, 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 in 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 before Israel. Pause and pray
with me, if you will. Lord, we ask that you would bless
the word that we hear tonight, that it would bless our hearts.
that it would reach our minds and that it would captivate all
our desires so that we will want to live in a way that pleases
you. Help us by your Holy Spirit. And we pray it in Christ’s name.
Amen. Some of you probably don’t know
this, but one of the most difficult things for a pastor to do is
not go to the hospital. It’s not to go to the funeral
home. It’s not to do some things, maybe plumbing repairs around
the church building. The hardest thing a pastor has
to do is come up with a Christmas message every year. Because guess
what? Everybody’s heard about the sheep.
Everybody’s heard about the donkeys and the wise men and the shepherds
and baby Jesus. You have this challenge over
the span of your ministry. If you preach 30, 40 years, you’ve
got to come up with a couple hundred Christmas messages. And
so the challenge sometimes is to come up with something really
obscure, something really unique, something new that nobody has
ever heard before. And so in thinking about what
we could consider for Christmas Eve, I want us to take a different
look at Christmas maybe a view that you haven’t thought of before,
but it’s surely what was on the mind of the people of God back
in the old covenant days when Messiah had not yet come. And so we think a lot about Christmas. We think modern day about Santa
Claus and shopping and Black Friday and Cyber Monday and Giving
Tuesday and How long is the return line going to be because Aunt
Susie got me something again I don’t like and we think about
shepherd and wise men and we think about a lot of common things
at Christmas. But to think about the perspective that the people
of old must have had is a rather unique way to look at Christmas
and I think it will be helpful to us. It will encourage us. The perspective I want us to
look at comes in the midst of the story of Zechariah the priest. Now, some of you know this story
pretty well because you heard it several months ago when we
made our way through the beginning chapters of Luke and August and
September in this church. But a lot of you probably remember
the story of Zechariah from your Sunday school days. Zechariah’s
wife, Elizabeth, was old. She was barren. She was without
child. And in their old age, they were
going to have a baby, John the Baptist. John the Baptist would
be the last prophet before Jesus. And John the baptizer would,
in a sense, pave the road. He would open the way for the
ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when Zechariah is told
by an angel that his wife, who’s rather aged, she’s past childbearing
years, Zechariah, your wife’s going to have a baby. Remember,
he didn’t believe it. He didn’t have faith. And the
rebuke he received from almighty God was that for the next nine
months, while his wife carried John the Baptist in her womb,
he would be mute. He would be unable to speak.
He could only make signs and, and, and, you know, point and
write on the tablet that was in front of him. And so for these
whole nine months, Zachariah could not speak. But when the
birth of his son, John the baptizer came, His family was looking
to him for a name. Of course, he was going to be
Zechariah Jr. That’s what they did in those
days. But according to the prophecy that God had given him, his son’s
name should be John. His son would be great. His son
would make a way for the coming of Jesus, the coming of the Messiah. And so for nine months, he did
not speak. But when the baby was born, he named the baby John
and his lips were opened. His mouth was repaired. He was
able to speak. And in the passages we just read,
they’re often called the Benedictus. Maybe you’ve been in church and
heard the benedictus sung before. We have in our hymnal the song
of Zechariah, which we sang a few Sundays back. But this benedictus,
this good benedictus word, this good word that Zechariah speaks
contains what we might call good Old Testament Sunday school material. And this is what I was mentioning
earlier to you. We want to think tonight about
the perspective, not that we have about Christmas, but that
they back in those days may have had about Christmas and the coming
Messiah. And in particular, if you look
at verses 74 and 75 in the first chapter, of Luke’s gospel, you read these
words. He says, that we, being delivered
from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear
in holiness and in righteousness before him all our days. What was it that Zechariah understood? What was it that he believed
to be happening? And not only the birth of his
son, but most especially the birth of the Christ child that
would come a few months later. The birth of Jesus would follow
the birth of John the Baptist by just a few months. But what
was it that Zechariah And others for that matter, Mary, for example,
in her song, which you can read if you backtrack a little bit,
a few verses in Luke’s gospel, what was it that they believed
was taking place with the birth of Jesus? Well, it wasn’t something
new to them. That’s what the first thing I
want us to see tonight is that in the birth of Jesus, God was
not really doing something new. He was doing something greater
than he had done before. but he was not doing something
new. And I think when I mentioned
this, you’ll remember, you’ll say, oh yeah, I think I understand
that from the Bible. Maybe you’ve heard this language
before. God says to his people, I save you that you might worship
me. I redeem you from your enemies
that you might bow your knee and serve me. Maybe the little
bells are going off in your head, the ding-dings are going off
and you’re saying, that sounds like what Moses said to Pharaoh
when he said, let the people of Israel go, that they may enter
the wilderness and worship Yahweh. Start to ring a bell? God saves
people throughout the history of redemption, throughout all
the stories of the Bible. He saves people that they might
serve him. He delivers that they may worship. He redeems in order that they
might walk for him and be a blessing to others. And we see that in
the story of the Exodus. We remember well that God says,
is it at the beginning of the 10 commandments? Maybe some of
you have them memorized from Your Sunday school days, how
does it begin? I am the Lord your God who brought
you out of the land of Egypt. You shall have no other gods
before me. You shall not make for yourselves
a graven image. You shall not take the name of
the Lord thy God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day and
keep it holy. You see that pattern. I saved
you, now worship me, serve me. We see it also in the life of
Mary. If you look just a few chapters
back, that’s something you can maybe do this evening as you
go home and want to read more of the Christmas story. Mary,
a young gal who’s probably 12 or 13 years old when the angel
Gabriel visits her says, Mary, you’re going to have a baby.
And this baby’s gonna be someone special. This baby will be the
Messiah. This baby will be the Christ
child. This baby will be the one who will save all his people
from their sins. And so just as Zechariah has
done here with his benedictus, his good word, his praise to
almighty God, Mary sings a little song. We call it the Magnificat. Some of you probably heard it
sung before as well. And in her Magnificat, in her
song, like Zachariah, she says something to the effect of, God,
you have saved me. You have saved your people. And
we, therefore, want to worship you. We want to serve you. But
one of the interesting things that Mary does, and I don’t know
what it would be like to be that young and to be with child. I know it was part of the custom.
the way things went in those days, but that’s young. That’s
rather scary. And she’s just engaged at this
point. But Mary in her maturity, Mary
in her upbringing, she says to God, if I am to be the handmaiden
of the Lord, if I am to carry this child and this child is
to be great, then so be it. God, you have loved me. And God,
you have kept your promises to me and God, you have saved me. And if you’ll save me, I’ll be
of use to you. I’ll carry this child. I’ll give
birth to this little one. I’ll raise him and I will offer
him to you for service. You see, again, a pattern of
God saves and the person saved becomes of use to the Savior. You begin to see the pattern,
don’t you? It’s interesting when we get to the birth of Jesus.
We get to the birth of Jesus. He’s born in Bethlehem. They
go there for the census. They go and he’s born in a cattle
stall. He’s born and laid in a manger.
We know he’s there for a little time. The wise men make their
way, they visit. And there’s a little part of
the story, and maybe we don’t think of it too often, But there’s
that part of the story where the wise men come and they first
come to Herod. And we know that Herod hates
Jesus. Herod wants Jesus dead. And so remember that Herod attempts
to trick the wise men, you go worship Jesus and when you found
him, you come tell me where he is. Well, God in his wisdom and
by the power of the spirit warns the wise men, go home another
way. Or more or less this, don’t you
dare tell Herod where baby Jesus is. And remember, Herod is so
angry. Herod is so utterly angry that
he calls for a genocide. And he calls for the death of
every male under a certain age. That passage from Isaiah fulfilled,
a voice was heard in Ramah and people, mothers, women were weeping
for their children. And so Mary and Joseph did not
stay long in Bethlehem. In fact, they did not go home
to Nazareth. Remember where they went? They went to Egypt. Think back to Israel and Egypt
and slavery and bondage. And what did God do? What did
God do when Israel was in Egypt? rescued them from Egypt. He delivered
them from Egypt so that what? So that they might worship him,
so that they might enter the promised land and serve him and
be a holy nation, a kingdom of priests, worshiping and bringing
glory to the name of almighty God. And so Jesus, Jesus in his
own individual person does what Israel did. He goes down to Egypt. He sojourns in order to escape
Herod. And it’s a fulfillment of the
prophet Hosea, who said, out of Egypt, I called my son. And so Jesus is called out of
Egypt. He is, in a sense, delivered
out of Egypt. He’s delivered from the danger
of Herod, but he’s also delivered up out of a pagan country. And
his family returns to Nazareth, where Jesus lives his young life
before his public ministry. And what does then Jesus do? He serves God. So you see that
pattern. You see that pattern throughout
the scripture. You see it throughout this nativity story. Jesus delivers
an order that we might save and worship him. Now, how about you
enter the story? You’re a sinner. You’re born
in Adam’s sin. You’re born with Adam’s original
corruption. You’re born not only with Adam’s
original sin, but from that original sin comes your actual sins. And
so we are by nature sinners and by our behavior sinners. The Bible teaches us that. All
have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Our own
experience confirms it. Every one of us would be a liar
if we were to say, oh, never sinned. Never done a thing wrong. I’ve been pretty good. So both
the Bible and our own experience remind us that we are sinners
in need of deliverance. And so when we read verses like
74 and 75 in chapter one of Luke, where it says, we being delivered
from the hand of our enemies, so that we might serve him without
fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. Friends, this is a call to each
and every one of us to realize that at Christmas, at Easter,
when we realize that the Lord Jesus Christ has has delivered
us from our sin. He’s delivered us from Satan.
He’s delivered us out of the kingdom of darkness and brought
us into the kingdom of light. He’s plucked us up our feet out
of the miry clay. He has set us on firm ground.
He’s done that, that we might worship him, that we might serve
him. He has delivered us. He has ransomed
us. He has rescued us. And we find
this really summed up well in our first question of our shorter
catechism, what is man’s chief end? You know it. Man’s chief
end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. And so why
did God save you? To glorify him and to enjoy him
forever. Why Christmas? So that we could
glorify God and enjoy him forever. So as you think on Christmas
this year, as you think on redemption this year, as you think on salvation
this year, remember that there is a purpose behind salvation. You know, we’ve all, for the
most of us, at least grown up in the South or lived in the
South, and we’ve been evangelized in the South. And evangelism
in the South is kind of like a fire insurance salesman, right?
You don’t want to go to hell, do you? Right? That’s what we
hear. And so salvation in our minds,
if we’re conditioned that way, is Jesus has saved me so that
I don’t end up in hell. But I wanna tell you, dear friends,
the gospel is bigger and better than that. Jesus saves you that
you might worship him in this life, but also in the life to
come, in his eternal presence and in heaven forever. Pause
and pray with me, if you will. Our God and heavenly father,
we are grateful that your word, your scripture throughout all
of its pages show us that you’re a God who saves and from the
beginning of creation all the way to the end when Jesus returns
on the pages of scripture and in the experience of every Christian
and on the pages of Christian history, we understand that you’re
in the business of redeeming a people for yourself, that they
might worship you, that they might serve you, that they might
glorify and enjoy you. And so help us this Christmas
to remember just that. We were saved. We were saved
in order to bring glory to your name. And so we ask that you
would help us do that by your word, through the ministry of
the church, and by the strength and power of your Holy Spirit. And we ask for your help and
grace in this in Jesus name. Amen.