Zechariah
Worship Chrits • Sermon • Submitted
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· 5 viewsZechariah, full of the Holy Spirit, prophesied that his son, John, would call people to repentance and to renew their faith in God.
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Our theme for Advent is “Worship Christ.” By God’s grace, we’ll learn from what Zechariah, Mary, Joseph, the Shepherds, Wise Men, Simeon, and Anna did, not only how they worshipped Christ, but how we can worship Christ also.
Righteous But Barren
This morning, we’re looking at Zechariah. Zechariah was a priest. He was from a family of priests and was married to Elizabeth, who also is descended from Aaron, a family of priests. Such a match was considered blessed and ideal. They were both righteous. That is, they were devoted to God in all things. They were blameless. They were not perfect, no, but despite their limitations, they stood above the rest of the people as being people you’d look up to.
There was one thing that simply didn’t make sense. Elizabeth was barren, unable to have children. It was thought back then, as indeed it still is today, that if you were a righteous person then all these things would be added unto you. If you worked hard to live a godly life, then life would go well.
Many Christians get themselves into a thither because life doesn’t follow this prescription. Some become Christian because they hope for a better life now. Some think that it will make everything better. But when trouble happens, when life happens, when the same thing that happens to everybody in the world happens to Christians, they wonder what has happened to God, what they did wrong, what did their family do wrong. God must not love them anymore, or some such thing.
Zechariah and Elizabeth, like Job, like countless faithful people throughout history, remind us that God doesn’t demonstrate his love for us through our bank accounts, the size of our families, and the status of our position in society. God demonstrates his love for us through his Son, his life, death, and sacrifice on the cross to save us from our sin, as we’ll see in just a second.
God’s Plan
Zechariah and Elizabeth were normal people, who worked hard at demonstrating their love for God. They watched their lives; they watched their thoughts. They trusted God’s plan. They prayed earnestly for a child. They prayed earnestly for Israel. They expressed their love for God in the way they lived, seeking to glorify him in everything. Waiting, waiting for the coming of the saviour.
God, for no purpose other than his good will, chose them to be the parents of a prophet like Elijah. Their son, John would prepare the way for the messiah. And so, nine months or more before the events recorded in our passage, God sent an angel.
Zechariah, doing his priestly duties, was chosen by lot to offer the incense, the once in a lifetime opportunity, standing alone in the most holy place (not the holy of holies) offering the incense and praying. An angel of the Lord appeared and told him that though he and Elizabeth were like Abraham and Sarah, they would be like Abraham and Sarah, they would have a child, and they were to call him John.
Zechariah, afraid of the angel, recovered from his fear, couldn’t believe what the angel was saying, and expressed his doubt. As punishment, he was mute from that moment on. Not until his son was born and it was time to name him was he able to speak. Elizabeth was telling everyone his name was John, but people weren’t believing her. Then Zechariah, exasperated, grabbed a pen and paper and to everyone’s astonishment, wrote: HIS NAME IS JOHN! Then, his tongue was loosened and he spoke, and this is what he said because he was filled with the Holy Spirit. Read our passage: Luke 1:67-79.
God, it seemed, could hardly wait to remove the curse. Zechariah, understanding God’s intent in the punishment, simply gave praise to God. He fulfilled the words of the psalm, “may the meditations of my heart and the words of my lips be pleasing to you, O Lord” (Ps. 19:14).
Zachariah’s prophecy is beautiful. The words are amazing. We could spend hours on them. But we’ll take out just a few things, as time permits.
God’s Redeeming Love
The first words of Zechariah’s prophecy describe God redeeming his people. Isn’t that the greatest expression of love?
What is this book all about? God’s love for his enemies. God’s passion to seek and save those who crossed over to the enemy’s side. God relentlessly pursuing his people. God being just and holy, putting the punishment, the wages of sin, directly upon his shoulders so that his people can be saved from it.
That’s what Zechariah is talking about. That’s the hope he longed for. That’s the prayer God answered. The prayer for a child, his own who would prepare the way for the messiah, the child that was promised who would crush Satan’s head.
Prayers are answered, they aren’t answered in our timing, but in God’s perfect timing. Why did Zechariah and Elizabeth have to wait so long to have a child? Why do things happen to us? Why do loved ones have to wait? Why are good things given and then taken away?
Praise God
We don’t know. Job didn’t know. Zechariah and Elizabeth didn’t know. But what they did know was, “Praise God.” Live a life worthy of God’s calling. Sanctify each day, each moment, for God. Make decisions to do so.
We can worship God by the words we say, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.” We can worship God by the actions we do. People are watching us. They are aware of what we say and do, even on Facebook.
Zechariah’s prophecy is instructive. It points us to Christ. Jesus is the greatest gift. Jesus gives meaning to life. It is not as though we derive meaning from what we do, whom we’re with, the fun times, the escapes. No, we get the most out of life when we look at Jesus as the centre of our being.
Jesus is our redeemer. He has rescued us from the evil one. Even Zechariah, anticipating Jesus’ birth, writes in the past tense. He has redeemed his people. He has exercised his mighty power on our behalf. He has poured out his spirit on us.
He did this because he promised to do it. What has Christ promised you, us? He has promised to never leave us. He has promised his Spirit. He has given us a spirit of sonship by which we call God, Father. We have received from Him every spiritual gift in heaven.
The reality, spiritually, is that we lack nothing. Not one thing. Physically, it means that we also lack nothing. Because we live in rich Canada? No, because we see what we have as God’s wonderful gift to us.
The result is that we can go through life not worrying about what we have, or don’t have. When good things come our way, we rejoice! We delight in them, as they are given for enjoyment, that we might also enjoy God.
When bad things come our way, as they surely do, we accept them as from the Lord’s hand. Knowing that through them, we are supported and sustained by God’s power and might. This redeeming act of God is continuous. The same passage that talks about us being able to refer to God as father talks about facing death all day long. It gives the assurance that nothing, height, depth, angels, demons, no power; nothing can separate us from God’s love.
For he has rescued us. We are safe, safe to serve him without fear, with holiness and righteousness before him all our days. God has so rescued us that we are able to exercise worship—that is, living holy and righteous lives. We do this because the same Holy Spirit who was specially given to Elizabeth, Zechariah, John and Jesus, has been given to everyone.
This is the result. We begin to desire the things that please God. When we look at our lives and see the sins we’ve made, it makes us feel awful. We hate sin, and so we turn away from it, putting it to death, through the work of the Holy Spirit. He moves us to move away from sinful temptation and to move toward God instead.
And then, having expressed our worship, we delight in the Lord. Who he is, the powerful one, the one who sent John to prepare the way. The one who sends us to prepare the way for the Son’s second coming. We go out as John did, giving people the knowledge of salvation.
This is it. The knowledge of salvation. So many times, we’re tempted to use this book for other things. But the simple true message of the book is the salvation of sinful people by God’s mighty hand, through his Son.
Why? Because God is full of tender mercy. Constantly we come up against people who complain about God. They go through the Bible, and they only see war. They see God exacting his righteous judgement, but they fail to see his powerful patience. They think of people as basically good, and God as basically mean. But the Bible accurately describes both. People are basically bad, and God is lovingly patient and kind, and just and good!
God didn’t even spare his son, but sent him to sinners, enemies, as I’ve already said, because he his full of tender mercy.
And Christ comes, the rising Sun, shining in the darkness. He still is shining. The darkness still hasn’t overcome him. We are truly living in the shadow of death. Death is revealed as but a shadow, a passing from this life to the next for those who live in Christ. Death has no victory, death has no sting.
For we are enveloped in Christ, and he leads us. His Spirit guides through the minefields of the world, along the invisible path of peace.
Trust in Christ. Trust in him to lead you and guide you. It is easier than you might think. He has given us the knowledge we need to know what to do. We simply have to execute it, to participate in his plan. Is it hard? At times, excruciatingly so. When we don’t know why, because we’re so very, very rarely told why, when we endure pain we’ve never known. When we recoil at our own sin, when we despair for loved ones who have turned away, we trust.
Trust in God to guide you. Worship him as Zechariah did. Proclaim God’s goodness. Proclaim the truth, salvation through Christ. Proclaim your transformed life. Share God’s goodness with everyone. Amen.