Invite you to take your Bibles and turn with me to the Gospel
of Luke. In the New Testament Gospel of
Luke, we're going to be looking at chapter 1 beginning in verse
57. If you'd like to know where that
is in the red Bibles around you, you can notice the page printed
for you or the the page number printed for you in the bulletin.
I will say this that the irony is not lost on me that I was
supposed to preach last Sunday on this passage about Zechariah
who is unable to speak and I wasn't able to preach because I
couldn't speak last week with the head cold that I was dealing
with. But I do promise you As for a
different reason than Zechariah. Let's listen now as we hear
God's word from Luke chapter 1, beginning in verse 57.
Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a
son. And her neighbors and relatives
heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they
rejoiced with her. And on the 8th day they came to
circumcise the child. And they would have called him
Zechariah after his father, but his mother answered, no, he
shall be called John. And they said to her, None of
your relatives is called by this name.
And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted
him to be called. And he asked for a writing
tablet, and wrote, His name is John.
And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was
opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God.
And fear came on all their neighbors.
And all these things were talked about through all the Hill
Country of Judea. And all who heard them laid them
up in their hearts, saying, What then will this child be?
For the hand of the Lord was with him, and his father
Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied,
saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel.
For he has visited and redeemed his people, and has raised up a
horn of salvation for us in the House of His servant David, as
he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.
That we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all
who hate us. To show the mercy promised to
our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant, the oath that He
swore to our Father Abraham, to grant us that we, being
delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without
fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all of
our days. And you, child, will be called
the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord
to prepare His ways to give knowledge of salvation to His
people in the forgiveness of their sins.
Because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise
shall visit us from on high, to give light to those who sit in
darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into
the way of peace. And the child grew and became
strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of
his public appearance to Israel. Let's pray together.
Father, we thank you for giving us your word, and we thank you
today in particular for giving us this portion of your word
that we're reflecting on. We pray that you would open our
eyes and our hearts that we might see what You want us to
see, what we need to see. But above all, Father, we help.
Help us to see Jesus. And I pray that as we read about
this and reflect on this hymn, this ancient hymn, that you
would use it to change us, to form us into the people that you
desire us to be. For we ask it in Jesus name,
Amen. Many of you no doubt are
familiar with the song The Sound of Silence.
It was a well known hit song that was originally written in
1964 by Simon and Garfunkel. It's been remade a number of
times, a couple of which I think are better than the original.
There are differing opinions about the meaning of the lyrics
of the song. Some argue that it's about the
breakdown of communication in society, cultures, distraction
with superficial things, people's lost ability to have
deep and meaningful conversations, and the social
and emotional isolation that has come as a result the the lack of
deep, meaningful connection with one another.
Zechariah surely understood something about that.
For nine months leading up to what we just read, Zechariah had
not spoken a word. And we'll talk about why in just
a moment. But for now, just imagine that.
Imagine that. Not speaking a word for not
months, for nine months, not even being able to speak a word.
And it's also likely that he was deaf during that time as well.
We'll get to that in a second. Talk about the Sound of silence.
This is the third Sunday of Advent, a season of waiting and
preparation to celebrate Christmas.
But it's also anticipating and waiting for the second advent of
King Jesus. This year we're using the season
of Advent to reflect on these 4 hymns that Luke records in his
Gospel. Two weeks ago we looked at
Mary's hymn, The Magnificat. Today we're looking at
Zechariah's Benedictus. Next Sunday, Lord willing, we'll
look at the angels, Gloria. And then on Christmas Eve we'll
hear about Simeon's nuke Demitus.
These 4 hymns of the first advent of the first Christmas.
And you may remember 2 weeks ago we, we talked about how much
hymns can impact us, the significance of the impact that
they can have on us. They can, they can change us and
have great meaning for us. And so our goal this season is
to meditate on these ancient biblical hymns and see if we
might be changed by them to have these hymns form and to shape
us, to better make us the people God desires us to be, to better
love the Lord, to better obey the Lord, to serve the Lord, and
to love and serve our neighbors. So let's look at our passage
today and let's see three things.
First of all, why Zechariah sang.
Secondly, what Zechariah sang. And then thirdly, how we can
sing like Zechariah. So first of all, why Zechariah
sang. Now we need to remember the
context in order for this all to make sense.
And the immediate context of our passage today is back in verses
5 through 23. There we're told that Zechariah
was a priest and he was married to a woman named Elizabeth.
We find out later that she's a relative of Mary.
Elizabeth was barren and both of them were in old age.
We're told that both Zechariah and Elizabeth were considered
righteous, that they walked blamelessly before the Lord.
And one day Zechariah was serving in the temple.
He was burning some incense for the people, and the Angel
Gabriel showed up. Zechariah was greatly afraid,
but Gabriel told Zechariah his prayers had been answered and
his wife Elizabeth is pregnant with his son.
He goes on to tell Gabriel goes on to tell Zechariah that the
name of his son is to be John and he will be great before the
Lord. He'll be filled with the Holy
Spirit and he will go before the Lord, preparing the way.
Now that was hard for Zechariah to imagine.
He actually questioned Gabriel. He doubted that this could
actually happen. It's not recommended to do that.
If an Angel shows up to doubt what he's telling you about
God's word, It's almost here, as Gabriel said, OK, you want to
doubt me. You want to doubt God's word.
I'll let you know how you'll know this is true.
You're going to be unable to speak until your son is born.
Well, that's where our passage picks up today in verses 57 and
following. Nine months later, Elizabeth
gave birth to his son and the family and the neighbors
gathered around they they came to the home and to celebrate
with the family and then, as was the instruction of the law, on
the 8th day they took their son to get circumcised.
It was custom to announce the name when the son was
circumcised, and the assumption that everybody had was that the
boy's name would be Zechariah after his father.
That was a common practice, but Mary said no, his name will be
John and nobody understood why. The crowd motions to Zechariah
and asked Zechariah what his name will be.
Now notice verse 62. They motioned to Zechariah.
Many scholars believe that that's indicating that he was
also deaf during this time period.
They had to motion to him so because he couldn't hear the
question. Well, still not able to speak,
Zechariah grabs a writing tablet and he writes down his name is
John. Not his name will be John, but
his name is John. It's been decided.
It is already certain. Verse 64, we read that
immediately Zechariah's mouth was opened, his tongue was
loose, and what did he do? What did he do?
What did he say? He spoke blessing God.
He praised the Lord. He sang a hymn of praise and
worship to the Lord. Now, his hymn is what's recorded
for us in verses 67 to 79. We're going to look at that in
just a moment, But for now, notice why Zechariah sang.
He had had nine months of silence, not able to speak,
likely not able to hear. And it was as a result of
doubting God's word that came to him through the Angel Gabriel.
Nine months of reflecting on his wrongdoing of his sin and he had
come to terms with the fact that he had been wrong to question
Gabriel and to doubt God's plan and ability.
He came to realize that he could and he needed to trust the Lord
to praise him for his wonderful plans and his fulfilled
promises. It is interesting that God
waited to give Zechariah his speech and hearing back until
Zechariah acted in faith, trusting the Lord.
Zechariah had learned his lesson.
That's why he sang. He had learned that he could and
he needed to trust the Lord's faithfulness, goodness, grace,
mercy, love and care for His people.
The right, the appropriate response is to sing to the Lord
and give glory to the Lord, the worship that he deserves.
So that's why Zechariah sang. Sang because he trusted the
Lord. He learned his lesson.
But what did Zechariah sing? Well, his hymn is in verses 67
to 79. And it's really easy to see that
it's kind of broken up into two sections.
Each section is 1 long sentence. The first is in verses 67 to 75
and, and there Zechariah is praising God for his
faithfulness, his faithfulness to his promises and his
faithfulness to his covenant. And then the second part of the
hymn is in verses 76 to 79, and he praises God for the role that
his son John would play in preparing the way for the
Messiah to come, the mercy of God coming to his people.
Now the first part of the hymn is about God's faithfulness.
It's in verses 67 to 75. And really what he's talking
about here is God's faithfulness to His promises.
First of all, to David. You can see that in verse 68,
beginning in verse 68. 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
servants. David.
That's a reference there to David, a reference back to
Second Samuel Chapter 7, where the Lord made a covenant with
David and he told David, and your house and your Kingdom
shall be made sure forever before me.
Your throne shall be established forever.
The Lord made that promise to David, and things looked pretty
good about that promise being kept by the Lord until Solomon
died. After Solomon died, the Kingdom
split, The Kingdom divided. Eventually the people went into
exile, and there were 600 years without a Davidic king.
And in Zechariah's day, Israel was being ruled by the Romans.
Had God forgotten his promise? Was he disregarding the covenant
that he made with David? Was he abandoning his people?
And Zechariah sings, and he sings about the faithfulness of
the Lord to the promises of David, to the promises to David.
Zechariah's own son John would grow up to be the one who would
prepare the way for the Messiah, who would come as the rightful
heir of the throne of David, who would come and establish that
throne forever. God is faithful to his covenant
promises. He fulfills them perfectly.
But it's not just about David that he references here.
He also references God's promise to Abraham.
You can see that in verses 72 and 73, to show the mercy
promised to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, the
oath that He swore to our father Abraham.
That's a reference to some promises that were made back in
the book of Genesis to Abraham, between God and Abram, Abram and
Abraham. Genesis chapter 12.
We read that now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country
and your kindred and your father's house to the land, that
I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will
bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a
blessing. I will bless those who bless
you, and him who dishonours you I will curse, and in you all the
families of the earth shall be blessed.
Also think about the promise made in Genesis chapter 2 when
Abraham almost sacrificed his son.
There we read by myself. I have sworn, declares the Lord,
because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your
only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply
your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is
on the seashore. Zechariah sang a song of God's
faithfulness to his promises, His promises to David, his
promises to Abraham. The arrival of the Messiah meant
that the Lord was continuing to be bring his covenant promises
to fruition, that through Christ, through the Messiah, the
Lord would bless the nations. So the first thing that
Zechariah sings about is God's faithfulness to his promises.
But then notice that he sings about God's faithfulness to his
covenant and to talk about God's covenant with his people.
Zechariah points out what God has done.
We see that first in verses 68 through 72.
The Lord, he says, has visited and redeemed his people.
It, it hasn't even happened yet, but he's speaking about it in
the past tense because it's that certain.
It's that sure. He's raised up a horn of
salvation for his people, He says, the horn being a symbol of
strength. He's saved his people from their
enemies, both spiritual and physical.
He's shown mercy to His people as He promised them long ago,
and His covenant with them. The Lord is faithful to His
covenant with His people. That's what the Lord has done.
And notice why He's done it. In verse 74, He says that we
being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve Him.
The proper response to the Lord visiting and redeeming and
saving His people of the Lord showing His mercy to His people,
is for His people to serve Him, to praise Him, to glorify Him
with all of who we are. But then notice how we are to
serve the Lord because of His covenant faithfulness.
The end of verse 74. It is without fear, he says, No
Fear of judgement, No Fear of being abandoned or forgotten by
the Lord, No Fear of Jesus coming back again, No Fear of
judgement, No Fear of being abandoned, no No Fear of man or
of persecution, not even fear of death.
He goes on the beginning of verse 75.
He says our service is to be done in holiness and
righteousness, seeking not to disobey God's word and seeking
to do everything that it says that we are to do.
He goes on at the end of verse 75 and says our service is to be
before the Lord, having a sense that that our service is for His
glory, that it's in His sight. It's with His knowledge that we
serve. And then at the very end of
verse 75, he says that our service is to be all of our
days. We're called to serve the Lord
until that day when we see Him face to face and then into all
eternity. The goal of God's redemption and
salvation is that His people would serve Him without fear and
in holiness and righteousness before Him all of our days.
Zechariah sings about the faithfulness of the Lord.
He praises the Lord for his faithfulness, faithfulness to
his promises, His faithfulness to His covenant with His people.
And then the second part of the hymn, Zechariah praises the Lord
for the role his son John would get to play in preparing the way
for the mercy of God coming to the people through the Messiah.
Look at verse 76, he says, 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. You can almost see Zechariah
turning and looking at his eight day old son, addressing his
eight day old son and he praises the Lord for the Lord's mercy.
He starts by describing the salvation that God has provided
through the forgiveness of their sins.
You can see that in verse 77 and the beginning of verse 78.
Part of John's ministry was to give knowledge to the people of
the salvation of God's people, that salvation would come
through the forgiveness of their sins.
This salvation that God was bringing, that God would provide
to his people, it was not something that they would earn.
It's not something they would merit.
It's not even something they could inherit.
It would come to them as it says, the beginning, verse 78,
because of the tender mercy of our God.
And John's role would be to declare the arrival of the
Messiah, who, because of God's great mercy, would provide
salvation for his people through the work that he would achieve
and the forgiveness of their sins.
So he sings about God's mercy, the salvation through
forgiveness of sins that is coming from the Messiah.
But he also sings about God's mercy that's demonstrated in the
light coming into the darkness. That's what he talks about at
the end of verse 78 and end of verse 79.
A light coming into the darkness of the world.
In the Bible, darkness often represents despair,
hopelessness, doom, depravity, death.
And Zechariah is singing praise to the Lord.
Because the light of the world is going to come into those into
the darkness of the world. It will come to those who sit in
darkness, who sit in the shadow of death.
He says the sunrise shall visit the people from on high.
Clearly a reference to Jesus, the light of the world coming
into the world. Jesus would come into the
darkness of this world and the darkness of his people's lives
and hearts, and he would fill the the world with light, the
light of truth and grace and hope.
And notice at the end of verse 79 what the light does for us.
It guides our feet into the way of peace, peace with God, peace
that we have with brothers and sisters in Christ because of our
union with Christ. This is what Zechariah sang.
How can we sing like Zechariah? How can we sing like Zechariah?
3 things as we finish. The first is this.
We must trust in the faithfulness of the Lord.
That's the lesson that Zechariah had to learn the hard way after
nine months of silence. But he learned it.
The Lord is faithful to His promises.
The Lord is faithful to his covenant.
The Lord is faithful to his people.
The Lord is faithful in His work of salvation in our lives.
He said that He would provide the solution to the problem of
sin, that He would provide the solution to the consequence of
death. He made that promise to Adam and
Eve in the Garden of Eden. And then the Lord kept telling
his people over and over again throughout redemptive history
until eventually Jesus did come into the world and He lived a
life of perfect love and obedience.
And then He died on the cross and paid for the sins of his
people. And when he died, Jesus said it
is finished. Salvation is achieved for his
people and is completed. We need to trust the Lord's
faithfulness in accomplishing salvation for us in Christ.
Your sins are forgiven. We need to trust in the
faithfulness of the Lord and bringing the work that He has
started in our lives to completion.
That's what Paul tells us in Philippians chapter 1.
He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at
the day of Jesus Christ. We need to trust the Lord is
faithful and that promise that He's made to us.
The Lord will bring to completion the good work that He
has begun in each one of His people.
We need to trust the Lord's faithfulness and working all
things together for good for those who love Him.
That's what the apostle Paul said in Romans chapter 8.
Even when we can't tell what the Lord is doing, even when we
don't like what the Lord is doing, we need to trust that He
is faithful in His promise to work all things together for the
good of His people. We can admit we don't understand
how that's the case, but we also must trust that it's true.
Trust the faithfulness of the Lord in what He is doing.
The Lord was faithful in what He told Zechariah about Elizabeth
being pregnant. A son would be born.
The Lord is faithful to His promises and His covenant.
The Lord is faithful in His work of salvation and is faithful.
He is faithful to complete that work in His people.
He is faithful to work all things together for their good.
We need to trust the faithfulness of the Lord.
Secondly, we need to serve the Lord.
That's what Zechariah said in his hymn, God's salvation.
God's redemption for his people should lead them to serve Him.
If that was true in Zechariah's day, how much more so is it true
for those of us who understand so much more.
The full extent of what God did, the full extent of the
redemption that He has provided all of our lives is to be
service to the Lord for the purpose of bringing Him glory
and praise. And just like Zechariah saying
we should serve the Lord without fear.
No Fear that He won't like the service that we do.
No Fear of what the world thinks about us serving the Lord.
No Fear of judgement from the Lord or persecution from the
world. Service to the Lord should be
with No Fear. It should also be with holiness
and righteousness. It should be in accord with what
God's Word says about how we are to live our lives.
Our service to the Lord should have that sense that we are
doing it before Him, in His presence, in His sight.
And we should serve the Lord all of our days, not just when we're
young, not just when we're old. We should serve the Lord all of
our days. So what are some ways that we
can serve the Lord this way? Well, one of the ways that we
can serve our Lord this way is in our vocations, our jobs.
Think about how you serve and treat your employers, your
employees, your patients, your bosses, your subordinates, your
customers, your teachers, your students.
You can serve the Lord by serving in your vocation
according to the Word. You can serve the Lord certainly
by volunteering. You can volunteer within our
church. There are always lots of
opportunities to serve the Lord and serve your brothers and
sisters in Christ and our church family by volunteering to do
things. In fact, every single week in
the bulletin, we have AQR code there that you can click on and
it will just tell you what the greatest needs are right now
that you can sign up to do. You can also volunteer outside
of the church. Find a local ministry that we
support or even one that we don't support and offer to
volunteer. Offer to volunteer in the school
system. You can serve the Lord by loving
your neighbors and serving your neighbors, getting to know them,
finding out what their needs are, ways that you could come
alongside of them and show them the love of Jesus.
There are all kinds of ways that we can serve the Lord, but the
key point is that we are called to do so.
God's grace to us, God's mercy to us in the gospel is meant to
move us to love and to serve Him all of our lives.
How is God's mercy to you motivating you to serve Him?
Lastly, we need to hope in the light that will will return.
Zechariah saying about the light of the world coming into the
world the first time. A hope that would bring that
would come for the people who were sitting in darkness,
sitting in the shadow of death. And now we are waiting for the
light of the world to come back a second time, to come into the
world a second time, a second advent.
And as we wait, we are to wait. As people of hope, we say it all
of the time. Biblical hope is not the same
hope that the world speaks about.
Worldly hope is more about wishing that something will
happen, not having a a certainty about something that.
But I hope this takes place. Biblical hope is something that
is different. It is a lifestyle based on the
certainty of God's faithfulness. Christians have certain hope
that Jesus, the light of the world, is coming back.
The light will once more come into the darkness of our world.
The light will once again shine on people sitting in darkness
and and the depravity and the death of this world.
When our son Riley was diagnosed with Melanoma and before we had
much more concrete information, I talked with our family about
not assuming the worst, not expecting the worst, and then
living in the present with that assumption.
Biblical hope is exactly the opposite.
We hope for the return of King Jesus, and we are to live in the
present in light of what we know will happen in the future.
Of course, we all have moments and sometimes seasons of of
despair and discouragement and doubt and darkness.
But as God's people, we are to be people of hope as well.
We have the true and certain biblical hope that a light, the
the light is coming back into the darkness of this world, that
everything that is wrong and dark and broken and depraved is
one day going to be undone. And that certainty of the future
must impact how we live in the present.
One last thing here about the light that's coming in our hope
for that light that's coming, it should also motivate us to be
ready to tell other people about that light, to be to be ready to
give the reason for the hope that we have.
To be prepared to tell others how they can have that hope as
well. Trust in the faithfulness of the
Lord. Serve the Lord.
Hope in the light that is coming back.
Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for the
hymn of Zechariah. We thank you for the model that
this hymn is to us, and we pray that as we meditate upon, it's
not just now, but throughout this week perhaps we pray that
you would use this ancient biblical hymn to form and to
shape us into the people that you desire us to be.
Father, fill us with joy. A joy that is not just a
feeling, but a way of life. A joy that is not the joy of
this world. A joy that is anchored in the
incarnation of our Savior in the hope of His second Advent.
Help that joy then to drive us to greater love for you and
greater loving obedience to your Word.
All this we ask in Jesus name, Amen.