LUKE 1:57-80 VISITED AND REDEEMED2011 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Luke 1:57-80 Visited And Redeemed

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As we finish off chapter 1 this morning, we're looking at this portion which...

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At the first part is a narrative describing the birth of John the Baptist. We'll kind of cover that pretty quickly. And then we have at the ending there, the prophecy that's brought forth by Zacharias. And we'll be spending more time examining and understanding this prophecy that is brought forth. But first, if we could go back for just a moment.

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Back to the beginning of Luke chapter 1. There, if you can remember, the angel Gabriel appeared to two different people. For

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1 Samuel 3, verses 1-10.

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Now as the angel appears to Zacharias, Zacharias does not believe the message that is given. He has a heart of unbelief because for one thing he is very old, for another thing his wife is very old, and on top of that she has been barren for their entire lives. And so they've had no children before, and yet now in their old age, Gabriel says, you're going to have a son.

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Well, Zacharias couldn't believe that. He didn't believe it. And as a result, the angel said, okay, because you did not believe, you are going to be mute. You're not going to be able to speak until all these things come to pass that I've told you about.

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And so we see that happen, that Zacharias goes away mute and he's kind of signaling the people, letting them know that he had a vision, that an angel appeared to him. And sure enough, as he returns home, his wife Elizabeth becomes pregnant and she is about to give birth, we're reading of that, to this little baby which they will name John.

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Well, then Gabriel goes and appears to Mary. And Mary is kind of the opposite of Elizabeth. She's very young. For Zacharias and Elizabeth, they were given this promise of a child very late in life. In fact, it was too late. It was beyond the normal season of childbearing. But here, Mary is given this announcement and it's in contrast to Zacharias and Elizabeth because it's too early.

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Mary is not yet married. She's engaged to be married to Joseph, but she's not yet married. And Gabriel says, you're going to have a son. And she says, well, how can this be? I don't understand because I have not known a man. She's explaining, I'm still a virgin. And yet the angel Gabriel explains, well, God's going to do a supernatural work and you as a virgin are going to give birth to

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To Jesus, who will be the Messiah, the Savior of the world. And so what we see now here at the end of chapter 1 is the beginning of the fulfillment of those proclamations that the angel Gabriel gave. The first one to Zacharias in regarding their son who would be the forerunner to the Messiah. And then going on into next week, we'll see the fulfillment of Jesus being born to Mary and the miraculous work that God was doing.

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And so let's pick it up in verse 57. It says, Now Elizabeth's full time came for her to be delivered, and she brought forth a son. When her neighbors and relatives heard how the Lord had shown great mercy to her, they rejoiced with her. And so what we have here is everything falling into place and happening exactly the way that God had told them through the angel Gabriel.

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Elizabeth, she comes to term. It's nine months now has passed and she is ready to give birth and she delivers a little baby boy.

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Now it tells us there that her neighbors and relatives heard what the Lord had done and then they rejoiced with her. It seems like here Elizabeth kept her pregnancy pretty quiet. We saw earlier in chapter 1 that she hid herself away for a season. And so it seems that most of the people didn't realize that she was pregnant. They kept it quiet. And then as she brought forth a son, that's when the news spread and the family and friends and neighbors gathered together to rejoice with them.

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And they're rejoicing over the mercy that God has had on her. Because she had been barren for all of her life, this was a great act of God. This was a miraculous work. And it was thought to be the mercy of God because...

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in that culture, in that day, to be barren was really looked down upon. People who were barren were scorned. The society basically thought that they were cursed of God, that they had something wrong with them and that's why God cursed them and did not allow them to have children. And so now they're rejoicing, hey look, God's had mercy on you, He's taken away your reproach and given you this son that has been born.

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Well, now it comes to the point where they need to name the child. And we find that in verse 59. It says,

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And so as they go to this point where they're to name the child, the culture and the traditions of the day were following the law. On the eighth day, they would circumcise the boy. And at that time, they would give him his actual name, his official name.

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And so the people that are gathered together as part of this ceremony and part of this naming of the child, their intention, their thought is we're going to call him Zacharias. That was customary of their day that the firstborn would be named after the father or if not named after the father, it would be named after one of their other ancestors and so some other name from their family lineage.

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And so they thought, hey, Zacharias is a priest. It's a good name. We'll call him Zacharias.

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But Elizabeth speaks up and says, no, his name is John. And the people, it's interesting, they don't really believe her. It doesn't seem like they want her to have a say in it. They say, no, you can't name him John, you know. There's no one else in your line that has that name. In fact, they doubt her so much, they kind of are fighting with her so much that they run to dad and say, hey, Zacharias, what should we call him? You see that in verse 62.

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It says, they made signs to his father what he would have him called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote saying, his name is John. So they all marveled. So Elizabeth says, his name is John. They say, no, that's not right. Let's go ask Zacharias. And so they go ask Zacharias. It's kind of funny. It says they make signs to him. Now the scripture just says that he was mute, not that he was deaf. And so either they were confused or maybe he was actually deaf in addition to being unable to speak.

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But they make signs to him. They say, hey, what's his name going to be? He says, bring me my iPad. And so they give him his iPad and he says, his name is John. He's writing tablet. His name is John, he declares. And the people are kind of marveling at this, it says. They're wondering, this is weird. This is unique. Why does his name have to be John?

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Well, we go back to Luke chapter 1 and there Gabriel tells Zacharias his name will be John. And so this naming of the child is, well, it's out of obedience to God. It's an act of faith and obedience to what God had declared to them.

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But also, God's doing a unique thing through this, and so he's calling attention to this child. This child is not, you know, a normal child. This birth is not a normal birth. God is doing something different and unique here. The name John means God is a gracious giver.

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And certainly for Zacharias and Elizabeth... This little baby boy was a gracious gift. Something that they'd probably given up hope... You know... For a long time ago... But now God has given them this gracious gift. But on a bigger scale... The larger scope of things...

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God is a gracious giver is an appropriate name for John because his role was to announce the Savior, to announce that Jesus had come, the Messiah that God had promised was here.

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And so John declares, or not John, but Zacharias declares his name is John. Everybody's marveling. And then verse 64, it says,

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So you see what God is doing here is He's directing the hearts and the minds of the people to this little child. Letting them know this is different, this is unique. Pay attention.

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Because when John, little baby John, grows up and is John the Baptist, and he comes on the scene with his powerful ministry and call to repentance, the people would remember all of the things that took place and remember that God was at work in bringing him into this world. And so Zacharias, he's mute for nine months at least. And then as soon as he writes out, his name is John,

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Then his mouth is opened, his tongue is loosed. He's able to speak and right away he begins to praise the Lord. And the people are noticing this. This isn't just some minor little thing that happened. It says,

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all around Jerusalem, all around where they lived. They were talking about, hey, did you hear what happened? Yeah, Zacharias, he's the priest and that angel appeared to him and he couldn't talk for nine months and then as soon as he wrote that the kid's name was John, then he was able to speak and not only that, but Zacharias and Elizabeth are old and they're barren and then God gave them this child and so there's this

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miraculous work going on and through it all, God is inscribing on the hearts of the people, hey, pay attention. I'm at work here. There's something special going on. It says there in verse 66, all those who heard these things kept it in their hearts.

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They kept it in their hearts. They didn't just hear about it and go, wow, and then forget about it. They would think back. They would remember. And again, when John the Baptist would finally come on the scene, they would be able to look back and go, wow, that's right. God brought him in supernaturally. There was a miraculous work of God so that when he delivers his message of repentance, the people would pay attention.

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Well, now as Zacharias is able to speak, he goes on to bring forth a word of prophecy. Verse 67. Now his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied saying, and we'll go on to look at the prophecy and spend the bulk of our time considering this prophecy that Zacharias declares.

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In fact, there's six things I'd like to point out and share with you in regards to this prophecy that he brings forth. And as we look at these things, you'll notice that they all center around what God has done for us in salvation. And so the first point I want to share with you this morning is found in verse 68 and 69, and that is that God visited and redeemed his people.

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God visited and redeemed his people. Verse 68 says, As Zacharias is now able to speak, he

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He's empowered by the Holy Spirit and he speaks forth on God's behalf. That's what prophecy is. He's speaking forth on behalf of God, but in the power of the Holy Spirit. And the first thing he says is, blessed is the Lord God of Israel.

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Right away, he's praising God. He's blessing God, not only for the work of God delivering them a child, but because of the bigger picture, the work that he will be a part of in bringing salvation to mankind. And so he says, "...Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people."

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Zacharias is praising God. He's declaring there's a bigger work going on here. God is delivering. He's redeemed his people. This word visited that he uses, I like this word because it means to look at something closely, to examine it. The idea is to go and see for yourself.

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And that's important to understand about God, that He is not just, you know, off at a distance somewhere, kind of vaguely interested, you know, we're kind of just the background. You know, sometimes like you have the TV on in the background, right? You're not really paying attention. It's just there. It's noise. And every once in a while you see something that's going on, but you're not really paying attention. Well, that's not how God relates to us.

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As the world or as mankind. He is not just somewhere distracted and thinking about other things and every once in a while look and say, Oh yeah, I forgot about you. Okay, I'll bless you. He's not just every once in a while checking in on us. He has visited us. He's carefully, personally examined and seen our situation and seen what is going on.

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You need to know that God is extremely interested in you. He's interested in your life. You are His creation and He loves you dearly. God is an up-close and personal God. And He proved that when Jesus Christ came into this earth. God became flesh and dwelt among us. He visited us. This is what we call the Incarnation.

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Understanding that Jesus Christ is God. He is eternal. He has always existed. He is the creator and yet he added to his deity humanity and he became flesh and dwelt among us. Being born of the Virgin Mary, he didn't cease to be God, but he became man.

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And he lived this life. He experienced what you experience. He went through what I went through. He experienced the great joys. He experienced the severe heartaches, the hurts, the pains, the laughs, the grief, the joy. He experienced the whole realm. Everything that we go through, he has gone through. So much so that the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews 4.15, he says, we don't have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but

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But he was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. There the author of Hebrews is saying, look, our high priest, Jesus, can sympathize with us because he's been there. He knows what it's like to suffer loss. He knows what it's like to experience victory. He's been there. He's gone through it.

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And so he's a good, sympathetic high priest. He can relate to us. He went through it all, but of course he was sinless, but he experienced it nonetheless. And so Zacharias says, blessed is God because he has visited his people. Jesus came near. He saw our situation. He came to see for himself. He lived and experienced the human condition.

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But not only that, Zechariah says, Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. Not only has he visited, not only does he love us and care about us and is he interested in what's going on in our lives, but he's also redeemed us. This word redeem, it means to release on payment of a ransom. You could think of it as ransom.

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Just like you would experience a ransom today, right? Someone is held captive. You pay me this sum of money, I'll release them to you. That is the situation that we were in, individually as well as collectively as humanity. We were in bondage. We needed to be released. We needed to be redeemed. And Zacharias now is praising God because he has redeemed us.

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His redemption plan is unfolding right here with the birth of John the Baptist. Now, who are we being redeemed from or who did we need to be redeemed from? Paul tells us in Romans chapter 6 that we were in bondage to or enslaved to sin. We needed redemption from our sinful condition. Jesus says in John chapter 8 verse 34, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. Sin is the real issue.

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Our sinful nature, our sinful actions held us in bondage, kept us enslaved. And we, individually and collectively, are powerless against this cruel master. Our sins held us hostage because our sins separate us from God. We cannot have a relationship with a holy God while we are in a sinful condition.

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It's not possible. And to say otherwise is to disregard either God's holiness or the seriousness of sin. The sin issue had to be dealt with, had to be taken care of. But we were powerless to take care of it ourselves. We couldn't release ourselves from this bondage to sin. But God has redeemed us. He has paid the price. He's paid the ransom. Our condition is that we are utterly sinful.

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We cannot release ourselves. We are powerless. But God is not. He is able. And so He accomplished this redemption on our behalf. How? What price did He pay? Well, 1 Peter chapter 1 tells us, Hey, remember, you weren't redeemed with corruptible things like gold or silver. Nothing of this world. That's not what redeemed you. Instead,

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1 Peter 1.19 says, Jesus paid the price for our redemption by shedding His own blood, by dying on the cross for our sins. He paid the price for us with His own life.

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The ransom amount was so great it could only be satisfied with the blood of Jesus, the blood of an eternal and sinless being.

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And so Zacharias here is praising God. He's blessing God because God has visited. He saw our condition, but he also redeemed. He paid the price for our sinful condition. And in doing so, verse 69 says, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. He visited and redeemed by raising up a horn of salvation, by raising up a Savior.

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Salvation is about those two things. God visiting, Him seeing our condition and our need, and then paying the price on our behalf. God became flesh to release us from sin, to redeem us from our sinful condition. Now as we go on, verses 70 through 73, we'll see that these things are the fulfillment of what God has said. That's point number two. God fulfilled His promise.

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Verse 70 says, As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets who have been since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.

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He says, as he spoke, this is not just, you know, something that God thought of last minute. And, you know, Jesus came because God realized all of a sudden, I got it. I got it. We could send Jesus and then the people could be saved. No, the Bible talks about Jesus being slain before the foundation of the world. Before he created Adam and Eve, he knew what would take place and what it would cost him.

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But he looked forward into history. He looked forward into the future. He saw Pule and he said, I can't live without him. So I'm going to create him and I know it's going to be costly to me, but I'm going to create him anyways. And then I'm going to send my son to die upon the cross. And so he knew what was going to happen. And so all throughout history, he's been making the promises. He's been declaring salvation is coming. Salvation is coming. I'm bringing a savior.

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He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets. Then in verse 72, we see that He came to perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant. It's mercy that was promised. It was declared ahead of time. God said, I'm going to do this. Then in verse 73, He says, the oath which He swore to our father Abraham. And so you see, God spoke it. He promised it. He took an oath declaring from the very beginning that

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I am going to bring a Savior. Since the world began, he says, back there in verse 70. Since the world began, he's been declaring that he will bring a Savior. Now, the scriptures that we have there in the Old Testament, they have a record of many of those prophecies, but it's not the full extent. God was doing much more and sharing and speaking through prophets much more than even we have recorded here in the scriptures.

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And those prophets of God have been promising salvation since the very beginning. To Jews as well as Gentiles, to the Assyrians and Babylonians, to the Greeks and Romans, the Amalekites, the Canaanites, the Hittites. God's been reaching out to all of humanity from the very beginning. We see some of those promises in Genesis 3, verse 15, where God speaks about the seed of woman, a reference to Jesus who would come, the Messiah.

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In Genesis chapter 12 verse 3, as God gives the promise to Abraham, how the whole world will be blessed from Abraham, from his descendants, making reference to the fact that the Savior would come in the line of Abraham. He would be a descendant of Abraham, which of course Jesus was, as well as Jesus was a descendant of David.

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In fact, when Jesus came and walked this earth, he fulfilled over 300 prophecies back in the Old Testament about the Messiah who would come. Prophecies about where the Messiah would be born. That was in Micah chapter 5 verse 2. The prophecy about how the Messiah would come into Jerusalem upon a donkey, which Jesus fulfilled. It was foretold in Zechariah chapter 9 verse 9.

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The scriptures foretold how the Messiah, the Savior, would be crucified in Isaiah chapter 53. And so all of these things, you know, that was only three, but there's over 297 more prophecies about the Savior who would come, who turned out to be Jesus. He's the one who fulfilled all of these things, and He is the fulfillment of all those promises that God has been making since the world began.

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And so he's been making these promises. Verse 71 says that we should be saved from our enemies. He gave us these promises. He told us you're going to be saved from your enemies. Now, who are your enemies? You might be thinking of co-workers, neighbors, that kid who threw eggs at your house on Halloween, you know. No, no, no. Those aren't your enemies. Who are our enemies? Sin and death. Those are our enemies. That's again what God has delivered us from.

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Sin is the real issue. It's our real enemy. Because sin will affect us for eternity. Our sinful condition has a big impact on where we spend eternity. And without a Savior, no matter how hard we work or how hard we try or how disciplined we are or how diligent we are or how faithful we are or how religious we are, without a Savior, we're lost.

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We're condemned to eternal judgment because of our sinful condition. You see, God's looking at the eternal perspective because life, well, it goes beyond what we experience here on this earth. That's just a small fraction of the rest of eternity. And so God looks at us and He sees our enemy is not these little things that are happening around us in this life, but our real enemy is, well, the things that

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impact us for the rest of eternity, that would keep us from eternity with Him and the things that He has in store for us. And so He is looking to save us from our sin. He's looking to save us from those who would destroy our souls. To perform the mercy promised, verse 72 says,

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We'll talk about mercy a little bit more in a couple of verses. But mercy is a special regard to the misery which is the consequence of sin. The idea is God looks on us, He sees, oh man, they're in a bad spot. Sin has really messed them up. Eternally and temporarily. Sin has been making a mess. And because He sees that condition, He is merciful. And He responds in mercy.

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to save us from our sin. Now we do experience consequences for our actions here in this life. And just because we're Christians doesn't mean that we don't experience those consequences. Paul makes that clear in Galatians chapter 6 verse 7 and 8. He says, you'll reap what you sow. And so we need to be walking with God and not be practicing sin because there will be those consequences. But eternally those consequences have been removed.

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The eternal judgment that is due for our sinful condition has been removed for those who have believed in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. The sin issue is taken care of at the cross, and we'll see that in a couple more verses as well. But as we go on to verse 74 and 75, we see point number three, which is God grants us to fearlessly serve Him.

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God grants us to fearlessly serve Him. Verse 74 says, "...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 the days of our life."

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And so God has visited us, He's redeemed us according to what He's promised since the world began. And now we see Zacharias is proclaiming not only has He done those things, but He has given us the opportunity to serve Him.

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Now he describes us as being delivered from the hand of our enemies. Again, the hand of those who held us captive. Sin and death, the bondage that we were in, God has delivered us from. And I like that word delivered. It gives me a very clear picture of how God is relating to us. The word delivered, it means to draw with force or violence, to drag.

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And God delivered us. He took some extreme measures. Maybe you could think of it, you know, how you would pull someone out from the path of a bus.

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You wouldn't just kind of like pat them on the shoulder lightly and say, excuse me, I think you might be in a little bit of danger. If you could just entertain me for just a moment, I think there's a bus coming and you might want to step. No, you just grab them and throw them out of the way, right? You would use extreme measures to save them, to preserve them, to deliver them. Or maybe you could relate more to a parent chasing after a kid who's about to run in the street.

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And the parent will, you know, not just gently go, okay, you know, son or daughter, you know, make sure you don't walk. No, you grab their arm. Hey, even if you pull it out of their socket to save their life, it's worth it, right? You yank them back, grab them back. Don't let them run into that in danger, that certain trouble. That's how God saw us. He saw our sinful condition. He says, this can't be.

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And so he goes to extreme measures. He grows to drastic measures so much so that he sends his only begotten son to die upon the cross for our sin, to pay the price on our behalf, to deliver us, to rescue us, to drag us out and to keep us from the destruction that sin brings. Romans chapter 6 verse 23 tells us that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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And so God cares about us deeply and he saw our sinful condition. And so he went to extreme measures, Jesus going to the cross to pay the price on our behalf. And so having been delivered, he says that we've been granted then to serve him without fear. God has granted us to serve him. Now serving God is something that's difficult to understand if you don't know God.

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For those of us who know God, we think about serving God and we think, yeah, that's awesome. Wow, what a great privilege. What a great opportunity. But if you don't really know God, then you kind of think, what is that? You know, it's like, hey, Pule, I grant you the privilege to serve me. Here, come fix my shoes. You know, that's what we think of when we think of, you know, oh, great, I get to serve somebody. Wow, that's exciting.

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But when we're serving God, it's not like what we think of in human realm. When we serve God, understand, we're fulfilling our rightful role. You see, we are God's creation. He created us. We were created by God and we were created for God.

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And so serving God is what we were created to do. And we try to fight against that and we try to run away from it, but we're never satisfied. We're never fulfilled. But guess what? When you begin to serve God, that's when you'll find the peace, the fulfillment, the joy that you've been looking for and all those other things. Serving God is the only way that we're satisfied.

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And so it's a willful, it's a joyful service. It's not forced labor or burdensome, but it's joyful. And not only that, it's rewarding. And so not only do we get to fulfill the role that we were created to fulfill, but there's rewards that go along with it. It's guaranteed. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15, 58, he says, "...be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

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He says, fill your life with serving God because you know that it's not in vain. Now there's a lot of things in this life where we work hard and we invest ourselves and we labor with great intensity and then we get nothing for it. There's no payoff. There's no payback. There's no reward for it. But serving God is not like that. There's a guaranteed reward. I kind of picture, you know, it's like digging for gold in a field that's full of gold.

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There's going to be reward. It might take a little bit of digging. It might take a little bit of labor, but there's guaranteed reward. That's what it's like to serve God. God gives us eternal rewards for serving Him, for fulfilling the role that we were created to fulfill, the thing that fulfills us, the thing that satisfies us. Not only do we get the temporary joy of it, but there's eternal rewards that go along with it.

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And so we get to serve God. He's granted us to serve Him, but not just to serve Him, serve Him without fear. And so it's not that God has a whip and you know, you better serve Him, otherwise He'll whip you back in shape. He'll whip you back in line. No, we get to serve Him without fear, without the fear of judgment or condemnation. We get to serve Him without fear. He says there in verse 75, because we are in holiness and righteousness before Him.

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Because in Christ, we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be the righteousness of God in him. And so we can serve God without fear because we've been justified. Justified, it's a word that we use a lot as Christians. Sometimes we don't fully understand what it means. The word justified simply means it's just as if I'd never sinned.

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God relates to you. He deals with you just as if you'd never sinned not even one time in your life if you've put your faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. And so we can serve Him without fear because from His perspective our sins, they don't exist. He relates to us as if we had never sinned.

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And how can he do that? Well, we'll see point number four in verse 76 and 77. It says, Point number four, God saves us by the remission of sins.

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How does God save us? How does this salvation take place? It takes place by God removing our sins from us. Here in 76, as Zacharias is prophesying, now he speaks prophetically to the little baby John the Baptist. He says, you child, you're going to be called a prophet of the highest.

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Little side reference there, side note, you know, referencing the deity of Jesus because he's going to go before the face of the Lord, John the Baptist is, and he was the forerunner to Jesus who is the Messiah. And so we see some hints there that Jesus Christ is indeed God. His role, John the Baptist's role, is to give knowledge of salvation to his people. There in verse 77 says,

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To bring an awareness of salvation. An awareness of their need for salvation, which they weren't aware of. As well as an awareness of how God was going to provide that salvation.

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They thought they were fine. They thought they didn't need a savior, but they were still looking for a savior because what they wanted was to be delivered from the Roman Empire. And so they were all confused. John the Baptist ministry was to go and say, you need to repent of your sins. You have a sin issue. That's the real issue. You think your enemy is the Roman Empire. They're nothing compared to the sin issue. And so you need to repent and repent.

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Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. We'll get to that in a couple chapters. So John the Baptist is preparing the way, bringing awareness of the need for salvation and how God was bringing salvation through Jesus. And how did God bring that salvation? How is salvation accomplished? There at the end of verse 77, by the remission of their sins. The word remission means to cause to stand away.

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It's the idea of releasing sins from the sinner. It's the putting away of sin. This is how God saves us. By removing our sin from us. By taking it away. By putting it away. Psalm 103 says that He casts our sin as far as the east is from the west. He casts our sins from us. That's how salvation occurs. We tend to think of salvation in other terms.

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in that we make up for our sin with good works. You know, we compensate or we pay God back for our sin by doing good things. But that's not the way that it works. It's not like your driving record. I don't know what your driving record is like, but once upon a time, my driving record was pretty bad. I had all kinds of things on there and it took some time, but it's worked out. And so now it's clean. But how did it get clean? Well, you get a ticket.

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and you can pay that ticket and then if you don't want that ticket to get on your record you can go to traffic school or if you don't go to traffic school the ticket will go on your record but you just wait a certain amount of time i think it's about seven years and then it goes off of your record and so then you have a clean record once again salvation is nothing like that we do fall short we get the ticket but we can't just pay the price let me just write a check

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Oh man, God, I really blew it this week. All right, I'll just give 10 extra dollars at church this week. It doesn't work like that. You can't just do a good deed. You can't just do a good act to try to pay for that price. And you can't go to church as traffic school. It's like, oh man, I really blew it this week. But as long as I go to church this week, you know, it won't go on my record. You know, God won't see it. That doesn't work either. And you can't wait long enough for the, you know, the record to be erased. Right?

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Well, if I just wait, you know, 10 years, then God will forget about that. It'll be like it never happened. That doesn't work either. The only way for that sin to be taken care of is for it to be removed from us. We can't pay the price. We can't make up for it. We can't pay it back. Salvation occurs when sin is removed. And that only happens at the cross. And that's why Jesus was able to say...

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I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. Because the only way to deal with sin was accomplished by Jesus at the cross. The remission of sins is how salvation occurs. Point number five, God saves us through his tender mercy. Look at verse 78. Through the tender mercy of our God with which the day spring from on high has visited us.

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God saves us through His tender mercy. Mercy, again, it's that regard for the misery which is the consequence of sins. God saw us in the condition that we were in as a result of our sin and He had mercy. It says tender mercy.

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Jesus came and visited us. That's what he says there. The day spring from on high has visited us because of his mercy. He saw our condition. He saw our helplessness and he provided salvation through his mercy. Understand that salvation is not through his righteousness. It's not through his holiness. It's not fairness that brings us salvation. God didn't look down at Rob and say, man, he really deserves to be saved.

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So I'm going to save him. No, he looked down at us. He saw our sinful condition and through his mercy, not because we deserved it, not because we earned it, quite the contrary. We were against God and yet in his mercy, he brought salvation to us. God didn't owe it to us. You don't want what's right and fair because what we deserve is judgment. But by faith in Jesus Christ, our sins are removed.

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Because of his mercy. And so we have forgiveness. We have salvation. Well, finally, point number six, we find that God gives light and peace. Verse 79 says, to give light to those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. He came to give light to those who sit in darkness. Who are those who sit in darkness? Well, that was us.

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We were under the shadow of death. The shadow of death is looming over us, casting the shadow of darkness upon us. We were hopeless. Because in our sinful condition, death is a very scary thing. Not only because of the uncertainty of what's beyond it, but because of the judgment that is in store for those who have not received salvation. And so for the unbeliever, death looms over us. It's a very scary thing.

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Without forgiveness, that death brings the appropriate judgment for sin. But He came to give light to those who sit in darkness, to open our eyes, to show us our need of a Savior, to bring us out from the shadow of death so that we have the hope of life, the hope of eternity with God. And He guides our feet into the way of peace. Peace. It's a nice word. It means the absence of strife, the end of strife.

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It's the state of a person who is untroubled or undisturbed. Salvation in Christ brings us peace. It's the only way to have peace. You know, people run around the world and try all kinds of things to try to get peace. They try to get peace within by making peace on the outside and making peace between the nations and making peace in all these things. They try to get peace by all kinds of ways. But peace is only found. The only way...

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within, to have peace, to be untroubled, to be undisturbed, for there not to be a battle, is to have a right relationship with God. That's the only way, to have a right relationship with God. Now, in Christ, please understand, there are battles, but it's a whole different thing. You see, before Christ, we battled against God.

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It was a battle that we had already lost. You can't fight against God and win. And our heart will never be at peace when we are not right with God, no matter how much we try to say otherwise. We'll never have peace until we're right with God. We're fighting against God and it's a fight we can't win. Now, in Christ, as believers, there are battles. We battle against the enemy. We battle against the flesh and the world.

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But it's a battle that we've already won. It's not an internal battle, it's an external battle. And it's a battle that we fight from the position of victory, knowing that God has already done the work. Knowing that we've already won. And so Christ came to bring us peace. That finally, internally, there would be that stillness. Untroubled, undisturbed, the end of strife.

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Well, finally, verse 8, he says, So the child grew and became strong in spirit and was in the deserts till the day of his manifestation to Israel. So Zacharias gives forth this prophecy and then it just gives a little bit, you know, short talk about John the Baptist and he grew up in the deserts and we're going to see in a couple chapters how he's revealed to the nation and brings forth the fulfillment of all these things that Zacharias is prophesying.

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We can see here through the prophecy of Zacharias, the amazing work that God has done on our behalf. And with that in mind, it's a perfect time for us to partake of communion together. So if I could have the worship team come up and the ushers get ready. As we partake of communion, we're remembering the salvation that Christ has provided for us. Communion is something that was given to us by Jesus to help us remember.

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what he did for us. It's something that he instituted. He gave us the bread. He said, eat this. It's representative of my body, which is broken for you. And he gave us the cup and he said, drink this. It's representative of my blood, which is shed for the remission of sins. And so communion is about remembering what Christ did for us.

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We're remembering what Zacharias was prophesying about. The salvation that God has done. He visited us. He redeemed us. He had mercy upon us. He removed our sins from us through His tender mercy and has given us light and peace. And so as we partake of communion together, it's a time to remember what Christ has done. To rejoice in what Christ has done. To receive what Christ has done there upon the cross for us.

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This morning, if you're here, I don't know what the state of your heart is and how you came into this place, but if you're here and you're not right with God, if there's not that peace within that Zacharias is talking about, this is a great opportunity for you to get right with God, for you to receive these elements that Jesus gave us and

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receive them testifying to the Lord, I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe what He accomplished for me upon the cross. And Lord, I receive Your forgiveness and Your salvation. I'm going to follow You. That's what communion is all about. And so it's a great opportunity for us as believers to remind ourselves so that we continue to stay faithful in our relationship with God, trusting in Him for salvation.

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But also if you need to get right with God, it's a great opportunity. And so I would encourage you to partake with us. They're going to pass out the bread and the cup, hold both portions, and then we'll partake together at the end of the song. So let's worship the Lord together and reflect on what Christ has done for us.

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We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of His Word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.