Luc 1.5-38

the same promise for us

(Luke 1.5-38)

Jason Procopio

We began a new series on the gospel of Luke last week. We saw last week that Luke is writing this gospel to a man named Theophilus, so that Theophilus might have certainty concerning the things you have been taught (v. 4). So he’s trying to convince Theophilus that what he’s heard about Jesus is true; it’s not just a story. But it’s interesting how he goes about it: in writing his narrative of Jesus’s life, he doesn’t begin with Jesus at all. He starts before Jesus, setting the scene for Jesus’s arrival. (Like I said last week, Luke is thorough.)

Last week we did four verses; today we’re going to do thirty-four. This is a very dense text, and there’s a lot we could stop and look at here. But we’re going to try to get a bird’s-eye view of the story, to try and figure out what the main point is: what is Luke trying to show Theophilus?

1) Gabriel and Zechariah (v. 5-25)

First we see an elderly couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth. They are a holy couple (v. 6): And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. This doesn’t mean that they were perfect, but they lived very upright lives: they obeyed the commandments well.

Zechariah is a priest. He’s working in the temple when an angel named Gabriel appears to him. Zechariah is justifiably freaked out (I love how understated Luke is, v. 12: And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him…), but the angel tells him not to be afraid, because he’s come with good news! V. 13: your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. Which is extraordinary, because a) Elizabeth is really old; and b) even when she was young, she was barren. She couldn’t have children.

So this is the first big thing we see here: the angel communicates a promise from God, the promise of a miraculous birth.

And not only that, but this isn’t going to be any normal child: this child, whose name will be John, will be important. V. 15: and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. Now, it’s hard to grasp how huge this is. No one, before or since, has been filled with the Holy Spirit in the mother’s womb. Being filled with the Holy Spirit, in this kind of situation, meant being equipped by the Spirit to fulfill a task particular task. 

And the task that John has been set apart and equipped to do, even before his birth, is huge: John will prepare the way for the Messiah. The people of Israel had been waiting for the Messiah for centuries. The prophets had predicted that God would send a Savior, who would free the people from slavery and lead them into a kingdom of perfect peace. These promises came at various times during the people’s history, and nearly all of them were painful periods—they were exiled from their homeland for a time; and now their home country was occupied by the Romans. If you read the Old Testament, you see an almost endless succession of painful situations they had to endure, and nearly all of those situations were a direct result of their own rebellion against God. So God said that this Messiah would come and free them from this rebellion, from their sin. 

And John’s task was to get the people ready for this Messiah’s coming. V. 16-17: 16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, 17 and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” 

God had promised this Messiah, but he said before the Messiah comes, God would send a prophet, like the prophet Elijah, who would get things ready for the Messiah’s coming. And it’s important that the angel indicates the way in which he would do that, because the people had essentially misinterpreted a lot of the prophecies about the Messiah, and imagined that he would be a great military leader who would free them from foreign enemies. But that’s not the Messiah’s goal.

And that is why the way John would prepare the way for the Messiah by “resensitizing" the people—he would bring them to a keener awareness of their sin, and their need for repentance. Fathers who had neglected their children would turn their hearts back to them; those who had fled from God in disobedience would desire to return to him and obey. And all of this will happen so that when the Messiah comes, preaching the kingdom of God, the people will be ready to listen.

And now, according to Gabriel, that promise was being fulfilled: the man who would come to prepare the way for the Messiah was coming, and he would be Zechariah’s own son.

Now, what is Zechariah’s reaction? V. 18: And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” It’s hard to hear this so clearly in the English, but essentially, when Zechariah says, “How shall I know this?”, he’s saying, “Prove it.”

Now this seems like a reasonable request, but it reveals something “off” in Zechariah’s heart. An angel appears to him, clearly from God, clearly powerful, clearly authoritative; Zechariah is rightly amazed to see him there…but when this angel says, “You will have a son,” Zechariah says, “Wait a minute; that seems a bit farfetched. My wife and I are both really old. What can you show me to prove this can happen? How shall I know this?” 

So Gabriel says (in one of the more intimidating episodes in the Bible), “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.” In other words, “You're kidding, right? An angel appears in front of you in the power of the eternal God, and you want to see more? OK, here’s a sign for you—you’re not going to say a word until the kid is born.” And he makes Zechariah mute on the spot.

2) Gabriel and Mary (v. 26-39)

26 In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary.

When Elizabeth is six months pregnant with John, Gabriel shows up again in Nazareth, to a young girl named Mary. Mary’s engaged to a man named Joseph. Luke goes out of his way to say twice in v. 27 that Mary is a virgin (we’ll of course see why this is important in a moment). 

So Gabriel appears and says (v. 28), “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” Contrary to what the Catholic Church says, this does not mean that Mary was without sin, or that she is able to give grace to anyone. In the Greek, this reads literally, You have found grace with God. In other words, Mary doesn’t deserve this—she’s just a girl, like any young girl in this room; she’s a sinner, in need of grace, and God gave her grace because he chose to, not because she deserved it.

Mary is (like Zechariah) freaked, but again, the angel tells her not to be afraid…and then he drops on her an even bigger bombshell than he did on Zechariah. Elizabeth was pregnant with the one who would prepare the way for the Messiah, the Son of God; Mary’s about to be pregnant with the Messiah himself. V. 31: “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

Now, this seems like something similar to what Zechariah said, but (as John Piper wrote), “Note the contrast: Zechariah says, How can I know this?—Mary says, How can this be? Zechariah asks for more evidence; Mary asks for an explanation. Zechariah says he can't be sure; Mary says she can't understand.” 

In other words, Zechariah doubted, and demanded proof; Mary believed, and wanted to understand.

So the angel answers her (v. 35), “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.” 

So this birth would be even more miraculous (if I can say such a thing). In John’s case, God would cause a barren, elderly woman to become fertile again—but it would still happen by the ordinary process of sexual relations with her husband. In Jesus’s case, there would BE no ordinary process. Mary’s a virgin, and she would become pregnant while still a virgin, and the baby she would carry would be the very Son of God.

Now, what’s going on here? This is not the main point of this text, but I do need to mention it briefly, because it very clearly brings up one of the key doctrines of the Christian faith—the doctrine of the Trinity. Question 25 of the Heidelberg Catechism puts it wonderfully: “Since there is only one divine being [God], why do you speak of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?” Answer: “Because that is how God is revealed in God’s own Word: these three distinct persons are one, true, eternal God.” So that’s it in a nutshell: one God, existing for all eternity in three distinct persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If you don’t understand, don’t worry—no one does completely. 

So when Gabriel tells Mary that the Holy Spirit will come upon Mary, and the power of God will overshadow her, and she will give birth to the Son of God, what he doesn’t mean is that God will create a new being—the Son—in Mary. The Son has always existed, and the Son is God (as we see in John 1). When Gabriel says Mary will bear the Son of God, what he means (and this is a ridiculous oversimplification) is that the Son, the second person of the Trinity, who has always existed, will take on a new, particular form: he will become an embryo and will be carried to term in the womb of this young girl Mary, and that the Holy Spirit will be the one who works in her to make that happen.

So Mary responds (v. 38), “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

3) Parallels and Contrasts

Now let’s just step back for a minute—the way Luke has structured this passage tells a lot about what he’s trying to do here. He has filled this passage with parallels and contrasts between Zechariah’s story and Mary’s story.

Parallels

• First we have an angel appearing to Zechariah to give him the promise of a miraculous birth. Then we have the angel appearing to Mary, to give her the promise of a miraculous birth. 
• First we have John, who is filled with the Spirit in the womb. Then we have Jesus, who is conceived by the Spirit in the womb. 
• First we have a barren woman becoming pregnant, when that should be impossible (because she’s barren). Then we have a virgin becoming pregnant, when that should be impossible (because she’s never had sex). 

At every point, Luke is pointing out patterns—similarities in the steps God takes to go about bringing his Messiah to the world.

And the end point of both of these promises is the same. The angel tells Zechariah, Your wife will miraculously bear a son, and he will prepare the way for the Messiah. The angel tells Mary, You will miraculously have a son, and he will BE the Messiah. 

Both of these promises have the same end result, and the same means. There are two different promises, but they are really just two aspects of the same reality: the Messiah will come to save his people from their sins, and God’s Spirit will be active in every step in that process.

Contrasts

But Luke does more than just point out similarities. There are lots of things that are the same in these episodes with Zechariah and Mary. But there is one way in which these two episodes are wildly different, and that is the way in which Zechariah and Mary respond to the promises they are given. 

Gabriel tells Zechariah, “Your wife will bear a son, and he will prepare the way for the Messiah.” To which Zechariah pridefully responds (v. 18), “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.”

It’s not a bad thing to ask for evidence—in v. 3, Luke went out of his way to give Theophilus evidence for the believability of his gospel. But it is possible to take this desire for evidence too far. Gabriel’s rebuke of Zechariah, and his subsequently making him mute, show us that Zechariah’s heart was prideful—he was saying, in essence, “I know enough to know this isn’t possible; I won’t believe this until you prove it to me.”

Now, go with Luke and contrast Zechariah’s reaction to Mary’s. Gabriel tells Mary that she will bring the Messiah, the very Son of God in the world. And that news would have been terrifying, because she wasn’t yet married. No one would believe that God himself had miraculously put this baby in her; they would naturally think, adultery. Which could very well mean death for Mary. So this was a horrifying idea. 

And yet, no matter how hard it is to believe, Mary says (v. 38), “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” In other words, “OK. I’m yours. Do with me as you will.”

Now the question is, why does Luke go out of his way to show us all of this?

Luke knows Theophilus is coming to this story after the fact. Theophilus has already heard about Jesus; he has already heard that this man lived, that he taught in Galilee, that he was crucified. It would have been hard for him to believe that someone whom the Romans would crucify as a criminal (and crucifixion was the worst possible punishment they had) could really be who everyone was saying he was. So Luke is trying to draw his attention to two things.

Similarities: Jesus’s coming was miraculous. 

Firstly, he wants Theophilus to see that even before Jesus started doing anything—before he taught anything, before he performed any miracles—just his being here was profoundly miraculous. Jesus’s birth, and everything surrounding it—from the announcement of the angel, to John’s being filled with the Spirit as an embryo, to Jesus’s being conceived by the Spirit in the womb of a virgin—everything about this event was miraculous. He wants Theophilus to see past the way Jesus died, in order to see that this man Jesus was not some kind of theological anarchist: he was indeed the Son of God.

Contrasts: Theophilus will have to respond. 

What about the contrast? Why would Luke show us the different ways in which Zechariah and Mary responded to the angel’s announcement? 

By faithfully telling Theophilus how these two different people responded to these specific announcements, he’s very subtly showing Theophilus that “before too long, you’re going to have to do the same thing. You’re going to have to decide how you’re going to respond to this man.

Theophilus—and we—are living in a time and place after these promises have been fulfilled. The Messiah has come; God did put all of his resources to work to send him. Jesus was born of Mary, and he did live a perfect life on behalf of his people; he did die a horrible death, to take on the punishment for their sins. Everything the angel predicted, everything the prophets before him predicted, actually did come to pass. Jesus was and is everything the prophets said he would be, everything the angel said he would be. The Lord has given him the throne; Jesus does now reign over his people, today; and his kingdom will never end. That is the fulfillment of the promise God gave to Zechariah and Mary.

And as Theophilus keeps reading, he will realize that it goes even further—the promise is not just that Jesus would be born, or that he would live: the promise is that (v. 33) of his kingdom there will be no end. He still reigns today.

So think about all that comes with Christ’s status as king, and what the Bible promises to those who are united to him. The Bible says that all those who hear about who Jesus is and what he did, and who turn to him in faith, become fellow heirs with him (Rom. 8.17), and thus come to share in all of the benefits Jesus has received as the sacrificed and risen King. And for those of us who have faith in him, that promise is what we have to trust, every day of our lives. Every day of our lives, we are set before the same choice as Zechariah and Mary: either wait to obey until we have proof it will work, or respond in faith.

You see, Luke wants to warn us from the very beginning that this book is not just about gathering data to support the existence of this man Jesus. He wants to be very clear that this is not a mere intellectual exercise—like Mary and Zechariah, we will have to respond to this God, and there is a right way and a wrong way to respond. And we will have to respond to God, in one way or the other, every hour of every day of our lives.

4) Responding to the Promise

Now what would this look like in practice?

Let’s say you feel like God is calling you to go be a missionary in an undeveloped country, or to plant a church. Both situations in which you will be in either physical danger, or dire financial trouble, or both, for the foreseeable future. And you don’t want to do it, because the idea of that danger and instability scares you to death. What’s going on in that moment of hesitation? You’re not believing the promise. The promise is that the Messiah has come! He lived, he died, he was victorious over sin and death, and now he reigns sovereignly over all of creation. And he did it all to accomplish something so much bigger than your personal safety, or your financial stability. But you have a hard time believing that, because what he’s called you to do seems so impossible, you can’t imagine how it could ever work.

So what’s the alternative? The alternative is Mary’s response: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” In other words, “Lord, I don’t understand how you could ever make this work. I can’t imagine where the money would come from. I can’t imagine leaving behind everyone I know and love. But I know you. I know you are on the throne, and that you reign, and that you are good. So do with me as you will, and I will do as you ask. Let it be to me according to your word.”

Or let’s say you’re not married, but you’re sleeping with your girlfriend. You know that the Bible says that sex is to be enjoyed by a man and a woman only in the context of marriage. But you love each other very much, and you probably will be married one day, so you give in. What’s really going on in that moment? You’re not believing the promise. The promise is that the Messiah has come! He was victorious over sin and death, and God has given him the throne of his father David. And now, all that is his is yours—all of the joy that he has in the Father’s presence, the eternal pleasures he enjoys at God’s right hand (Ps. 16.11), are yours, because you are united to him. But you don’t believe that. You’re not entirely convinced that being united to Christ, and pursuing conformity to Christ together, as husband and wife, will be far more pleasurable than giving in to pleasures you have no right enjoying right now. You don’t completely believe that the pleasure of being united to God in Christ is better than sex. 

Every time we sin (whatever that sin may be), we sin because we don’t fully believe that God will make good on his promises to us. We want proof before we give ourselves fully to him—proof that whatever he’s commanding us to do will actually make us happier than whatever it is we want to do in that moment.

So what’s the alternative? The alternative is Mary’s response: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” In other words, “God, I really don’t understand how not having sex now will actually change anything. I don’t understand how resisting the desire to sleep with this woman I love will actually make me happier than enjoying sex with her now. But I trust you, because you are God; you are my Creator; and you will make good on your promises. So do with me as you will, and I will do as you ask. Let it be to me according to your word.”

Or let’s say you’ve heard the gospel, you’ve heard the message of Christ, and it seems attractive, but not entirely plausible. So you’re holding out. You keep coming back to church, you enjoy your time with other Christians, but you don’t actually call yourself a Christian because you’re still not sure any of it is real. Why are you on the fence? Because you’re not trusting the promise. The Messiah has come. He lived our life and died our death, and now he reigns over all creation, and all the benefits he has received for his life and death are yours, if you place your faith in him. But these things just sound so impossible… So you’re waiting, saying, “Lord, if you’re there, give me more proof, and I’ll believe.”

What’s the alternative? “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word. I don’t understand how Jesus’s death on the cross, and his resurrection, could be of any benefit to me. I don’t get how this works! But I trust you, because no matter how crazy the metaphysics of all this sound, I know enough about you to trust that you are trustworthy, and that you will make good on your promises. So do with me as you will, and I will do as you ask. Let it be to me according to your word.”

Conclusion

The call of this passage is unbelievably simple. Whatever it is you are going through, whatever the situation in your life, Gabriel’s promise to Mary and Zechariah is God’s promise to us—the Messiah has come. Miraculously born of a virgin. Lived a perfect life. Died the death we deserved. Raised again three days later. Ascended into heaven. Seated at the right hand of God. Given the throne to reign over his people. And anyone who places their faith in him has access to all of the benefits he has received by virtue of his life, death and resurrection. 

So the question is, how will we respond to that promise? God calls us to respond like Mary. No matter how hard it is to accept or believe his promises, we are called to say, Behold, we are your servants; let it be to us according to your word.

This is our call. We have been given a promise—the promise of Jesus Christ—and we are called to trust that God will make good on his promise. Let us hear the promise, in whatever situation we find ourselves in, and let us respond as Mary did. Because the Messiah has come—he has come miraculously. He did everything God sent him to do. Now he is seated on the throne, at the right hand of God. And if we belong to him, all his benefits are shared with us. Let us always look to him, and say, like Mary, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word

Luc 2.1-20

A Very Unexpected Birth

Luke 2.1-21

Jason Procopio

When Prince George was born in 2013, he was welcomed by gun salutes in the capitals of Bermuda, the UK, New Zealand, and Canada; the bells of Westminster Abbey and many other churches were rung; and iconic landmarks in the Commonwealth realms were illuminated in various colors (mostly blue).

This kind of thing doesn’t just happen for royalty—when Beyoncé gave birth to twins back in June, she had magazines and websites all over the world celebrating their birth!

This is the way we all wished our babies could be celebrated when they’re born. After Jack was born I found myself wanting to show pictures of him to random strangers on the street. When he came out I lost it; I cried so much that it was infectious—I had the nurses in the maternity ward in tears. When we see royal babies born, and how the world celebrates, we see what we wish we could give our own children. 

So try to imagine the most important royal birth in history, the son of the greatest king who ever lived—what would you imagine that celebration might look like? It would be huge, and decadent, and the entire country—quite possibly even the entire world—would want to get in on the celebration. 

Now, what would it look like if the baby born were not the son of the king, but the Son of God? If the baby born were divine? What would that celebration be like?

We don’t have to wonder. That birth did take place. The Son of God was born, a little more than two thousand years ago. We have the account of his birth written in chapter 2 of the gospel of Luke. And as it turns out, the actual birth of the Son of God was far less opulent than anything we would have imagined—it was in fact far less opulent than the birth of most ordinary babies today.

1) The birth of Jesus…in a stable

Luke 2:1–7:

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

Caesar Augustus was the ruler of the Roman Empire at the time. “Augustus” means “holy” or “revered;” up to that time the title was reserved exclusively for the gods of Rome. An inscription at Halicarnassus called him “savior of the whole world.”

He decreed that “all the world” (viz., everywhere under Roman authority) should be registered—it was a way of showing the extent of Roman rule, to affirm Rome’s might. 

Luke’s telling us this on purpose, for two reasons: 1) to explain why Joseph and Mary are traveling to Bethlehem from their hometown of Nazareth, and 2) again, to show this incredible contrast between the so-called “savior of the whole world” and how he affirms his authority, and the actual Savior of the world, and how he goes about making his appearance. The contrast could not be greater.

Joseph and Mary have had to make a long, hard journey, in the middle of winter, with Mary being pregnant to term. Maybe if they were lucky they were able to get an animal to ride on; otherwise, she was on foot. They arrive in the village of Bethlehem, completely exhausted, and there is not a single bed in the local inn—everyone had traveled here for the census, and there is no room left.

And as if it couldn’t get any worse, there Mary goes into labor. They presumably have to hurry to find a place for her to give birth. We have a hard time imagining how awful this was, because we have been spoiled—we’re used to hospitals and sterile operating tables and drugs! Very few women know what it is like to give birth without these things.

I have friends in Colorado who know a bit about this: she went into labor, they were in the car on the way to the hospital, and they got stuck in a blizzard. The dad had to deliver the baby right there in the car, with their other two little girls in the back “assisting.” Impressive stuff—but even that is a good sight better than what we see here, because they were in a car, on plush, cushioned seats, with blankets and bottled water.

Mary most likely gave birth on the ground, in the dirt. Luke doesn’t explicitly mention a stable, but it’s a logical assumption, because in v. 7 Luke says,  

And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. 

Mangers were feeding troughs for animals. So it is very likely that she gave birth in a stable, on the dirt, surrounded by the smell of animals. And the first bed of the Son of God on this earth is a trough where cows and horses and sheep would have eaten their meals.

It is hard to imagine a less dignified beginning. But that was the point. I said something last week that I knew I’d be repeating today:  

We have all disobeyed God; we have all sinned and rebelled against him. There is not one human being for whom this is not true. Because of this, if we wanted to be saved from God’s wrath, we needed God to come down to us and pull us up out of the mess we’d gotten ourselves in. 

There is only one human being in all of history who did not need to be saved in this way, who did not need for God to come down to him, and that was this tiny baby. We needed God to come down and rescue us—and when it finally came time for him to do so, he did not merely come down to us, to pull us out of our weakness and frailty; he joined us in our frailty by becoming a weak, helpless infant. 

So as we go along there is one question that will need to ring in our minds, over and over again: What kind of a God is this, who would not only save us, but who would save us IN THIS PARTICULAR WAY? 

2) The birth announcement…in a field

Luke 2:8–14:

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

So the Messiah, the Savior of the whole world, the Son of God, has been born…and nobody even knows it. This is so wrong, on so many levels! How many people knew about the birth of Beyoncé’s twins? You’d think that when God’s own Son is born, he would want people to know about it, right?

Right! God does make an announcement! He does tell people about his Son’s birth! But again, when he does, he doesn’t do it like you’d expect. He doesn’t go to Caesar’s palace; he doesn’t go to the religious authorities in Jerusalem. 

He goes to a field outside of Bethlehem. 

There is a group of shepherds out there, watching their flocks. 

Being a shepherd was one of those jobs that automatically knocked you down several pegs on the social ladder. Shepherds were those guys no one wanted to be seen with, no one wanted to talk to, and certainly no one wanted to be. And yet, it is to them that God sends his messenger—an angel, shining with the very glory of God. He appears in front of them (which was an incredible shock; the shepherds are petrified), and he says (v. 10), 

“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

These shepherds, despite being pretty low on the social ladder, would have known who “Christ” is—“Christ” is the title for the Messiah, the Savior God had promised his people. So this is monumental news.

As if that weren’t enough, immediately afterward, a whole multitude of angels appear before them, praising God and saying,  

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” 

This is the ultimate birth announcement—it means that through this child, God will be glorified, and this child will inaugurate peace for the whole earth. This is the best news in history, the news all humanity had waited for!

But this news came in a very strange way—God doesn’t tell it to important people, to influential people, to powerful people. He goes to the very last people you would ever expect.

So again—What kind of a God is this, who would announce the greatest event in human history, the birth of his Son, to a group of men most people wouldn’t be caught in public with?

3) The first visitors…a group of shepherds

Luke 2:15–20:

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. 

So the shepherds don’t wait around. They leave their sheep and they take off running to Bethlehem, to see this baby that has been born. Now, if I were them, I probably would have expected to see huge crowds around the place where the baby was. After all, they were only shepherds—no way the angel would have only come to them! Surely this announcement was made to everyone, and they only saw it because they happened to be in the right place at the right time.

But no. When they arrive, they are the only ones there. The streets are quiet. No one is in sight. So at that point they must have realized something: When God gave this news, he gave it to us, and only us. 

The same thing goes for Mary and Joseph. They are there all alone, trying to recover after the ordeal of the delivery, trying to keep the baby warm. They hear footsteps running their way… And in walks a group of dirty shepherds, who say an angel appeared to them and told them to come here and see the newborn Savior.

How would that have made you feel, if you were in their shoes? to know that you all—poor, unassuming shepherds—were the only people to whom God announced the birth of his Son? I like to think I’d be honored (that I’d be intelligent enough to grasp it), but I think mostly I’d be confused. The question the shepherds must have been asking themselves, the question Mary and Joseph must have been asking themselves, is the same question we’ve been asking this whole time: when God came to announce the birth of his Son, why would he make this announcement to these people? What’s so special about them?

And the answer is, of course, nothing. Nothing was special about these shepherds. They were just ordinary people living their lives. But that is the very kind of people that Jesus came to save.

The angels said to the shepherds: 

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” 

In other words, the Savior’s peace comes to those who please God. And how is it that we please God? 

How do we—ordinary folks—make God happy? How do we please him?

We have the answer to that question most explicitly given in the Bible in Hebrews 11:6:

Hebrews 11.6:

And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

What is it that pleases God? FAITH! It is not riches; it is not power; it is not influence. Faith is what pleases God; he is pleased with those who believe in him. And he gives faith to his children no matter their social class, their background, their education, their job, their nationality...or their age. He is pleased with those who believe in him, and who come to him looking for the reward of eternal life.

It is exactly what Mary said in her prayer (which we saw last week): 

Luke 1.51–53:

He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

God brought Jesus into the world in the poorest of circumstances, announced the birth of Jesus to poor shepherds, and welcomed those shepherds to visit Jesus, to show that Jesus came for ANYONE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM, no matter how poor or weak or young or old they are. 

EVERYONE is invited; and ANYONE can come.

Conclusion

In this text, God is calling us, brothers and sisters—little brothers and little sisters—to come to Jesus. If you don’t feel like God would want you, you’re wrong. If you don’t feel like God would accept you, you’re wrong. If you feel like you don’t know enough, you’re wrong. If you feel like you know too much, you’re wrong.

God calls us all to come to Jesus with faith, to believe that he is our Savior. And when we’re afraid God is too big to consider us, he calls us to remember that when he sent his Son, he didn’t send him as a great military leader, but as a helpless baby lying in a manger.

When we’re afraid he may not love us, he calls us to remember that the first people he invited to come to his Son was a group of poor, lonely shepherds no one else wanted. 

Come to Jesus, put your trust in him, and he will welcome you with open arms, for this is what he has done since the very beginning.

Communion

We’re going to take communion now, and before we get into it I need to say something we don’t often say here. I need to say this because this is the first time we’ve ever had our children with us during communion; so the elders met this week and together we decided how we think we should approach this.

We often read out of 1 Corinthians 11 before taking communion. In v. 23-27, Paul explains what we’re doing when we take communion:  

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

So the bread represents the body of Christ and the juice represents his blood—these are symbols. They are not literally his body and blood, but ways of representing them and remembering them. And in the context of this passage, Paul shows us that communion is also a way of declaring to one another that we belong to the body of Christ. When I take the bread and the juice, I am saying to all of you, “I am one of you. I have faith in Christ. We both belong to the same body.”

Why am I saying all this? 

I’m saying it because today, our children are here, and most of our children have not been baptized. So at a time like this the question will certainly be asked: “Should our kids take communion with us, or no?” 

The Bible doesn't directly address the question of whether or not our children should take communion with us or not, and opinions differ on the subject. So I'm going to quickly address two different cases here (and you should know I am simply giving my opinion here—many solid Christians would disagree with me on this).

The first case is of children who are still very young, and who are unable to decide for themselves, in a conscious way, to accept or reject the gospel. When they are small, they follow their parents’ example. During this period of their lives, most of us consider our children to be a part of the body of Christ very naturally—we view them as our little brothers and sisters, our children, who are under our spiritual responsibility and whom we raise as little disciples of Christ. 

We often say that children are the future of the church. I understand what they mean by that, but I have to disagree—our children are not the future of the church; they are the present of the church. Given the way Jesus welcomed little children (and actually chastised his disciples for trying to leave them out), I have a hard time imagining him telling our small children that they are not welcome at his table. Communion is not just a statement of faith; it is a means of grace. Through communion we understand Christ more fully and we trust him more completely. So my personal opinion is that small children should be welcome at the table just as we are.

The second case is of children who are a little older (that age will vary from child to child, so parents—you need to know your kids), and who are able to consciously decide to accept or reject the gospel. In that case, we'll want to treat them as any rational adult.

In either case, parents (and regardless of whether you agree with me or not), we’ll ask you to follow a simple rule of wisdom. Take an extra few seconds if necessary to talk to your kids, and most especially to ask yourselves the following questions:

• Do your children understand what Christ did for them, and do they trust in Christ for their salvation (even if their understanding of precisely what that means is limited)? 

• Are they growing in obedience as a fruit of repentance? (Not, "Are they perfect?" cut rather, "Are they GROWING in obedience, and why?")

• Do they understand what it means to belong to the body of Christ (even if their understanding of that belonging remains limited)?

• Do you believe your small children are a part of the body of Christ (even if they will soon reach an age where they might reject the gospel)?

If you feel like the answers to these questions is “Yes”, then feel free to invite them to come along with you. But if you are uncomfortable with this, then explain to your kids what’s going on, and invite them to remain in their seats while you rise for communion.

Luc 1.1-4

“That You May Have Certainty”

Luke 1.1-4

Jason Procopio

Welcome to Église Connexion! We are thrilled to be celebrating our third anniversary as a church, to be beginning our fourth year of ministry in Paris, with the gospel of Luke. If this is your first time here, you should know that we’re beginning today what we’ve always done—we go through books of the Bible. We start at the first verse and work our way all the way through to the last verse. So that’s what we’re going to do again now—we’re starting at verse 1 of the gospel of Luke, and we’ll go through to the end. The gospels we find in the Bible all tell the story of the life of Jesus; but they all emphasize different aspects of his person and work, and they all have different goals. And more so than the other three, Luke emphasizes his goal in writing this gospel very explicitly, in the opening verses. So we’ll be looking at just the first four verses today, to give us a sense of where we’re going and why.

Before we get into how and why Luke went about writing his gospel, just a couple words on Luke himself. Most scholars believe Luke wrote his gospel sometime around A.D. 62 (not even thirty years after Jesus’s ministry); it’s one of the earliest gospels written. The Catholic Church made Luke a saint early on, and (this is useless information, but I include it because it’s hilarious) for them he is the patron saint of artists, physicians, surgeons, students and butchers.

According to the Bible (Col. 4.14), Luke was a doctor—an educated man who met Christ sometime after Christ’s ascension, and who accompanied Paul on his later missionary voyages. In fact, the gospel of Luke is actually the first in a two-part series; the “sequel” to this gospel is the book of Acts, which he also wrote. And he’s very humble: he never talks about his own story, or how he joined up with Paul on his travels; about halfway through Acts 16, he simply stops talking about what “they” did, and begins saying that “we” did this; Luke joined Paul just before he arrived in Philippi. 

That’s pretty much all we know about Luke himself: he was a doctor, an educated man, and worked with Paul on his travels. But his personality shines through in these first four verses, when he mentions both how he went about writing the gospel, and why he did it.

How?

So let’s first look at how Luke wrote the gospel. The first thing we should say about Luke’s process (which he doesn’t mention here) is that he used the gospel of Mark (the first gospel written) as a blueprint. 60% of Mark’s gospel is quoted word for word in Luke’s. In addition, Paul would have told Luke all he learned from Jesus about his life, so he certainly used this information when compiling his narrative. But that’s not enough for Luke—being an educated man, he doesn’t want to base his narrative on the testimony of two guys. He wants to be more rigorous than that. 

So he tells us what he did to compile his gospel in v. 1-4.

1 Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, 2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

Luke had followed Paul for ages; he had heard what the apostles taught about Jesus. And he trusted what they said because they were there. They saw Jesus do these things. The criteria for a believable news report today is two to four sources; in a historical book, you’ll typically look for at least two sources to corroborate each piece of information you include. And because the events he recounts in this book are so astounding, Luke holds himself to that same standard: he sets out to write an “orderly account” of what had occurred by compiling the testimonies of eyewitnesses.

And it’s not as if all the things the apostles were saying weren’t verifiable. During Jesus’s ministry, thousands of people heard him preach, saw him live, saw him perform miracles. The same holds true after Jesus’s resurrection. The credibility of everything we believe rests on whether or not Jesus actually did rise from the dead after he was crucified; if Jesus is still dead, then (as Paul said), our faith is vain. But we know from Paul’s writings that there were eyewitnesses to Christ’s appearance post-resurrection as well. He says in 1 Corinthians 15.3-9:

3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

Here’s the point: Luke is not one to depend on blind faith. Luke is methodical and meticulous—he is that guy who will hear someone say something, and immediately think, Okay, I need to find someone else who can verify this.

For whom?

Next—for whom did Luke write this gospel? Every book in the Bible was written for a specific reason, at a specific time, for a specific group of readers. The books of Luke and Acts are unique, because they are not letters (like the letters to Timothy or Philemon, for example), but rather narratives of events which occurred during and after Jesus’s ministry. And yet they were both written for one specific person: a man named Theophilus. In v. 3 Luke says, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus… We don’t know precisely who Theophilus was, but we have a good clue in that Luke calls him “most excellent” Theophilus. This phrase “most excellent” was used by Luke in the book of Acts to refer to the Roman governors Felix (Acts 23.26, 24.2) and Festus (Acts 26.25); it was an expression of respect usually reserved for a person of high standing. So more than likely, Theophilus was a man of wealth or social influence, possibly even a Roman official himself.

We know a little more about Theophilus from v. 4, where Luke says he wrote this gospel that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. This tells us that Theophilus has been taught certain things about Jesus and his life and work, but that so far he remains uncertain—he’s been taught these “things,” but he doesn’t yet have “certainty” about them.

This should be good news for many of us. Can we just be honest here? It’s difficult to swallow many of the things we see in these writings. Turning water into wine; walking on water; multiplying bread and fish; coming back from the dead… These are not things most people can accept easily. And that’s okay—God isn’t surprised by this in the least. The wonderful thing about the Bible is that it doesn’t require you to believe what it’s saying in order for you to pick it up and read it, to engage with the story. There is no prerequisite for hearing the story of Jesus. If you’re skeptical, if you have a hard time believing some of these things, then Luke would have loved to talk with you; he wrote two whole books specifically for someone just like you.

Why?

The most important question Luke answers here—the question which matters most when reading this gospel—is not how Luke wrote it, or when, or for whom, but why. And Luke gives us two reasons, and his first reason is specific to Theophilus himself. This is the part where skeptics will get uncomfortable, and again—that’s okay. You don’t have to go with Luke; you just need to be aware of where he’s going.

Luke says in v. 4 that he compiled these eyewitness testimonies, that he researched the veracity of these accounts of the life of Jesus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. Luke doesn’t just want this gospel to inspire you, or to give you a moral model to follow, or to help you navigate your day-to-day life. Those things are all there, but they are not the main goal. The goal of this gospel is certainty. He is very up front about the fact that he wants to convince you that these things are true. God doesn’t expect you to blindly follow him, with no reason for your conviction that these things are true. The longest gospel in the Bible was written with the express purpose of giving us reasons to be certain that these things are true.

And that’s what we’ll see from here on out—all the way to the end of this book, Luke will continue to make absolute truth claims. He will say repeatedly that these things happened. They are not mere stories, they are not one possible truth among many; these things are true, regardless of what anyone chooses to believe about them. 

Although this book was written over two thousand years ago, nothing could be more relevant to our modern culture. Charles Taylor wrote that the defining characteristic of our secular age is not that people have rejected God, but rather that every belief has become debatable. And it goes much further than simply saying, “I choose not to believe in God.” We have somehow come to a point where we actually believe truth is up for grabs—people don’t necessarily say that what the Bible says is not true, but rather that if you choose to believe it, it’s “your truth”—it’s true for you. Or, to put it negatively, they say that there is no absolute truth; there are many possible varieties of truths that can be accepted or rejected as need be.

It’s one thing to say, “I don’t believe this is true,” or “I don’t know what’s true”—that at least is an honest statement. But saying “there is no absolute truth” is not an honest statement. “Relative truth” is a contradiction in terms, because when you declare that truth is relative, that there is no absolute truth, you are making an absolute truth claim—you are stating absolutely that nothing can be stated absolutely. 

Some things are true, and what I choose to think about them changes nothing about the things themselves. I can say whatever I want to say about you and your life; I may even firmly believe it. But what I say or believe about you won’t change for a moment who you are or what your life is like. And the reason for that is because you’re real. You exist. These days everyone thinks they’re Neo in The Matrix, able to change reality with a simple thought, but reality doesn’t bend to my wishes. Some things just are, and whether we decide to believe them or not doesn’t make them not.

So in his gospel, no matter how shocking it may seem to us, Luke is going to make absolute truth claims—he’s going to say, “This is true, this happened”—and he’s not going to apologize for them. He accepts that there must be some things that are absolutely true, and that all of these eyewitness accounts of the person and life of Jesus are true (just as, if we read a news report corroborated by five hundred eyewitnesses, we wouldn’t hesitate to believe it, no matter how incredible): Jesus really did these things, Jesus really said these things.

And his goal is something which, again, is scandalous to most people in our society: he wants to lovingly convince Theophilus that what he has believed up to this point is wrong, and that the gospel is the truth—not merely in ideas, but in the facts of the life of Christ. Theophilus—and you—can choose to believe him, or to reject what he says; but in the end that won’t change reality in the slightest.

Luke’s second reason for writing this gospel is simpler, and more global. This reason is found in v. 1: he says that he set out to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us. In other words, he doesn’t just want to show what happened during Jesus’s life; he wants to show his reader that Jesus accomplished something specific. And as we’ll see as we proceed—even from the opening chapters of this gospel—the specific thing he accomplished is the fulfillment of the promises God had given to the people of Israel. He desires to show that this man Jesus is where all of the stories of the Jewish people—all of human history, in fact—have been leading. 

Luke takes everything these eyewitnesses have seen, and he makes a link between the events that happened, and what the Old Testament prophets said would happen, hundreds of years earlier. He makes a link between the life of Jesus and the story of the human race, asserting with remarkable clarity that the story of humanity in general, and of Israel in particular, finds its culmination and fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ. In other words, he doesn’t just report the facts; he also interprets those facts, and sets out to prove to Theophilus that he has interpreted rightly. He says, in essence, “Here’s what happens, and here’s what it all means.”

Implications

All of that is introduction (at least to this book). Now that we’ve said all of that, there are a number of implications we need to see in the way Luke introduces his letter—these things will help us going forward, and will also help us as we read the Bible this week.

1. God works in history. 

We all know people who dabble in everything—who are into yoga, who are interested in Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, the power of positive thinking, astrology, mentalism, and any other subject they have a book on in the “Spirituality” section of the local bookstore. They pick an idea from here, another idea from there, a principle from over here, a story from over there, and they mix it all together to come out with a kind of bastardized worldview that fits their personality. They do this because this is the way our society is built today—ours is a consumer society, so spirituality has become a consumer sport: you take what you want, and leave behind what you don’t.

The problem is that this is fundamentally unrealistic—this is not how the world works. If you live in Paris, you take the things you like (the beauty, the culture, etc.), but you also have to take those things you’re not so comfortable with (the noise, the pollution, etc.). 

And this is how God works in the world, whether we like it or not. He does not just work in ideals, or principles, or feelings—he works in history. He is a God of facts, of events. Luke tells Theophilus, many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, 2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us. He’s not talking about ideas; he’s talking about things that happened—things that have been accomplished among us, things which had multiple eyewitnesses. 

God established his chosen people and promised them throughout history to give them a Messiah, who would free them from the oppression of sin. He sent this Messiah in the person Jesus Christ.

Jesus was born a real baby, in a real town called Bethlehem.

He was raised by a real family, trained to do a real job (he would have been a carpenter, because his father was a carpenter).

He performed his ministry in a real part of Galilee, he preached to real people.

He was condemned by a real Roman official, Pontius Pilate, was crucified on a real hill outside of Jerusalem, and was buried in a real tomb.

Three days later, he was really raised from the dead (as incredible as it sounds), he appeared to hundreds of real people, before ascending into heaven in front of more of these real people.

These things happened. God does not deal in abstracts; he deals in concrete, visible, tangible reality. 

2. God does not only work in history, but for people. 

There is a fact about this book that is simply incredible, that I’ve already touched on quickly. We know that the Holy Spirit inspired the books of the Bible; he breathed out these Scriptures so that they might be transformative for thousands of years to come. The book of Luke is a gospel, narrating the life of the most important man in history, and the Holy Spirit inspired Luke to write this book. And when he did, it was addressed to one specific person, Theophilus. And this Theophilus wasn’t even a believer.

Brothers and sisters, God is not only interested in the big picture. There is definitely a big picture, and it is first and foremost in his mind. But he does not pay attention to the big picture to the detriment of the people he loves. The fact that such a vitally important book was inspired by God so that one man may have certainty concerning the things he had been taught is simply astonishing. 

There is no prerequisite you have to achieve in order for God to turn his eye on you. He does not lend his attention merely to the righteous or the moral; Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. And he did it before they turned to him, not after; this book was written for Theophilus before he believed.

So if you have a hard time believing that any of these things are true, this book is for you. If you have a hard time believing God would be interested in someone like you, this book is for you. If you have a hard time believing God would accept you because of things you have done in your life, this book is for you. 

Conclusion

We don’t know what happened to Theophilus. We don’t even know if he ever did come to faith in Jesus. But if he did, it wasn’t merely by force of persuasion. Paul says in Romans 1.16, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Notice he does not just say that the gospel is what Jesus did. He says that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. The gospel does not just give us information about Jesus; when the gospel is proclaimed, the Holy Spirit uses that good news to save us—to give us new hearts, to transform us, to give us faith in Christ.

Luke would have known this. He was not ignorant of the Holy Spirit (in fact, he spends much of the early section of this book mentioning the Spirit’s activity in the gospel). He writes his gospel so that the Holy Spirit might use it to transform Theophilus’s heart—to give him absolute, rock-solid certainty that these things are true. Faith and reason are not opposed; the Holy Spirit who transforms our hearts, who convinces us of the truth (often before answering our most burning questions!), also inspired this beautifully meticulous and methodical narrative of Jesus’s life. And he consistently uses one to feed the other.

So my prayer over these next several months is that the Spirit would use this beautiful gospel to awaken faith in the hearts of those who have none, and that he would use these credible eyewitness testimonies to strengthen the faith of those of us who already believe. We don’t need to believe blindly, brothers and sisters. He has given us so much to lean on. So let’s lean on it together in the months to come.

Luc 10.17-24

His Joy and Ours

Luke 10.17-24

Jason Procopio

This is an important text for me personally. 

I grew up in a context in which people believed certain things about the gospel and about Jesus, and it was easy to see why the gospel was good news: they believed that we needed a Savior, that Jesus came to be that Savior (and they were right). It was good news in theory—but in practice, it often ended up having a lot of strings attached: You CAN be saved, if and ONLY if you meet the following qualifications.

It is good news to have the possibility of being saved; it's good news to have the door to salvation opened. But if that possibility depends on conditions which I have to fulfill, but which in reality are out of my reach, the good news becomes bad very quickly—and even ends up being worse than if the door was simply closed, because it's a tease: like a mean adult who holds a cookie down to a child only to snatch it away just before the child can reach it.

Salvation always seemed that way to me: Jesus opened the door to salvation for me, and all I had to do was walk through it. But in order to stay saved—in order to stay in that room and not be yanked back out the door—I had to do things I knew I couldn't do. As Charles Spurgeon quoted in his famous Defense of Calvinism, 

"If ever it should come to pass,

That sheep of Christ might fall away,

My fickle, feeble soul, alas!

Would fall a thousand times a day."

So the few times that I read my Bible when I was young, with this slightly confusing theological context in my mind, when I came to texts like today's texts, I had no idea what to do with them.

Remember that Jesus has just sent out his seventy-two disciples into villages to proclaim the good news—we saw that last week. Now, the disciples come back from their journey, and Jesus is going to talk to them again. He's going to talk to them about why the gospel is such good news. And what’s amazing here is how he’s going to frame it. He’s not just going to present the gospel as good news for the people they’ve just shared it with; he’s going to present the gospel to the seventy-two disciples who have just come back from the ministry, as good news for them (and by extension, for everyone who has accepted their message). 

Joy in Salvation (v. 17-20) 

17 The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” 18 And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19 Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.”

So the seventy-two return, and they’re pretty excited about all that they were able to do on the road. Essentially, the power of Jesus worked through them. They healed people; they cast out demons in his name. That’s great, and Jesus doesn’t deny it: “Yes, this is good. This is the beginning of the end for Satan, and you get to be a part of it.”

But he’s not going to leave it there; he’s going to say there’s something even better. 

20 “Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” 

This is an image given multiple times in the Bible. The picture is of a book, a register, in heaven, in which God has written all the names of all of his children throughout history. What’s this picture trying to convey? It means that if you have faith in Christ:

• God knows your name—he knows you personally, not just as “a Christian”.

• Whatever gets written in his book stays written in his book (cf. Rev. 3.5). If your name is there, it will always be there, regardless of how imperfect you are.

• Your salvation is not just won by Christ, but assured by Christ. Nothing you do can take back what he has given you.

Why is this such a big deal? Because ordinarily, our relationships depend on how well we perform for the other person. People are friends, and they enjoy one another...until one of them does something to offend or hurt the other. Then they're not friends anymore. People get married, and then one spouse cheats on another, and they get a divorce. People get jobs, and then they realize their boss is cheating them out of their retirement, and they end that professional relationship.

Usually our relationships depend on both parties in that relationship doing their part to make it work.

There is one exception—one relationship that does not depend on performance to keep existing. And that, obviously, what a parent feels for their children.

Children may grow to hate their parents...but unless there's something seriously broken in them, parents always love their children. The child doesn't have to do anything in particular to earn that love; they don't have to "do their part" for their parents to keep loving them; and no amount of disappointment or pain will ever make them love their children less.

In France, every family has a book in which all the names of everyone in the family are written: the livret de famille. If your name is written in that book, it means that you're either the parent or the child of that parent. It's like a visual manifestation of the solidity of that relationship: nothing a child does can take their name out of that book. Nothing they do can make them not be their parents' child.

How far removed is this from the way we usually view our relationship with God? 

We almost always imagine that our relationship with God depends on our performance to keep existing. Since it began with a choice to follow Christ (we'll get to that in a minute), we imagine that if we want God to keep loving us, we've got to do a "good job." And if for some reason we fail, or don't have enough faith, or love him enough, then he's going to get tired of us a throw us away.

But that's not how this relationship works. Our names are written in heaven. When we come to faith in Christ, we don't enter into a professional exchange of services—we are adopted by God. We are his children. Our names are written in his livret de famille. Nothing we do can ever make him love us more, or less.

So as much power as you may wield, even over demons, that is the smallest thing you have to be thankful for. This is why I have a problem with charismatic churches who put spiritual gifts on a pedestal as the most important part of the Christian life. I believe in spiritual gifts. I believe God still uses them for his glory today. But I don’t believe that they should be the center of our lives, or of our church, or of our preaching, or of our prayer, because Jesus says not to rejoice in our power in the spiritual realm, but rather because our names are written in heaven.

If you belong to him, you probably barely even realize just how great his love is toward you. Just how massive the gift of salvation is for you. Whatever good things he has given you, they are not the main reason for you to rejoice.

Christians are commanded to be happy. And they will be happy, for this specific reason: that their names are written in heaven.

Now I love what happens next. Jesus gives us a reason for us to rejoice. But then he does something incredible: he turns from our joy to his own.

Joy in Revelation (v. 21)

21 In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 

This is one of the most glorious and incomprehensible truths of the Bible. 

If you think about the way things usually work, and you think like I do, your mind will automatically go to action movies. The ones who always figure out the important things—the enemy’s master plan, the only way to stop him—are always the most brilliant and capable ones. The Tony Starks of the world. You never see ordinary people let in on this kind of monumental plan, because they’re ordinary, and you have to be brilliant to understand it.

That’s what happens in movies because that’s what happens in the world. 

But that’s not what happens here. God never goes about things the way we would expect. He chose to hide his plan from the wise and understanding—for example, the religious leaders of his time who should have seen it coming—and reveal them to “little children.” To the ordinary. To the uneducated. To those who had no reason to be involved in such a story.

Jesus says this was God’s “gracious will.” 

This should be good news to those (like me) who are idiots. Because clearly God is not interested in mere efficiency, at least not in the way we view efficiency. To my way of thinking, God could have gotten things done much faster and much more effectively if he had revealed these things to the Einsteins of the world, to the “wise and understanding,” as Jesus puts it. But he’s not interested in mere efficiency—he’s interested in grace. 

God would rather reveal his plan to simple, uneducated men and women who know they can’t succeed, than to brilliant men and women who will soon be tempted to think they had anything to do with the plan’s success. And on those occasions when he does choose to use someone who is educated and brilliant (like the apostle Paul), he breaks the illusion of self-sufficiency first, showing Paul just how little he can do on his own, so that he might say, “I worked harder than anyone…yet it wasn’t me, but the grace of God that is with me” (cf. 1 Corinthians 15.10).

The first thing you realize when you begin to come into contact with the gospel is just how incomplete and ridiculous your efforts to succeed ever are. Even if everyone around you sees what you do as a rousing success, when compared with the eternal scope of God’s plan, your success is like that of a three-year-old who’s just learned to put on his shoes. (“Good job, kid, but it’s not that big a deal: I’ve been doing that for thirty-five years.”) 

When we come into contact with the gospel, and we realize that our best efforts to succeed are actually pretty pitiful, we learn the wonderful, glorious news that that’s okay! That’s exactly the way it was meant to be—God chose to reveal his will to “little children,” rather than the wise and understanding.

Now, what’s most incredible about all this is not that God would choose to reveal his will to “little children” like us. What’s most incredible is that here we have an open window into Christ’s own thinking and emotions. 

People, when they picture God, almost always imagine him as solemn and hyper-serious. They think of the old, angry God from Monty Python. When they think of Jesus, they think of a man who goes through life with a kind of assured stoicism—he only has two facial expressions: sad or serious. And in those rare moments when someone paints Jesus smiling, it’s usually in such a saccharin-sweet context that we can’t take it seriously (Jesus sitting on a rock in a halo of sunlight, surrounded by sweet children and butterflies and lambs—no wonder people have a hard time thinking he has anything to offer them). 

But here we see Jesus actively rejoicing, and he says why he’s so happy.

“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.”

Jesus loves that the Father wouldn’t do what people are expecting; that he wouldn’t reveal his will to the so-called important people.

And it’s a big deal that Jesus would rejoice in this. He is the Son of God; the Creator of all things. He’s seen a lot, because he made everything—how hard must it be to impress him?

When the sovereign Lord and Creator of all gets excited about something, that’s a pretty good indication that it’s a very, very good thing. 

So Jesus gives us a reason for joy—that our names are written in heaven—and then gives a reason for his own joy—that God has chosen to reveal these things to little children rather than the wise and understanding. And now he’s going to take his joy, turn it around, and apply it to us—he’s going to help us make his joy our own.

But to do this he’s going to have to go back a step—back before our efforts, back before we every tried to know him or serve him. He’s going to lay down the simple foundation that unless he himself acts, none of us can make any efforts at all.

Joy in Election (v. 22-24)

Let’s take it bit by bit. V. 22:

22 All things have been handed over to me by my Father...

So the Father God has ultimate authority and ownership over everything that exists, and he has given this authority and ownership over to Jesus.

...and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son...

This simply means that no one knows God but God. Because we are created in his image, our souls are drawn to God; they desire to know him. But because we are born in sin, we can’t know him. The only man who can know God is the man who is God—the only man who is without sin. God the Son, the man Jesus, knows God the Father, and he is the only man who can know the Father by himself. 

That sounds like bad news: because we are sinful beings, it is impossible for us to know God. That’s the way things work naturally. But Jesus goes on:

...no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

So if Jesus chooses to reveal the Father to you by his Holy Spirit, on the basis of his life, death and resurrection, then you can know him, because your sin has been removed from you. Jesus took it on himself and bore the punishment for that sin.

Let’s look at this in the context of what he has said so far.

Certain people reject Christ, and certain people accept Christ (we saw that last week).

If we accept Christ, then God fulfills all his promises to his people for us. 

If we reject Christ, the means of God’s salvation, then God rejects us.

If we accept Christ, our names are written in heaven. We will always belong to him. We will always love him. The moment when we placed our faith in Christ, we met God; we know him now, and we are constantly growing in our knowledge of him.

And if that has happened for us, if we know God today, it is because Jesus chose to reveal him to us.

No one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

This answers the question of how our relationship with God began. 

If you have faith in Christ, if you have accepted his gift of salvation, if your name is written in heaven, if you know God, it is only because Jesus freely chose to give you this great gift of knowing him. It has nothing to do with you, or anything you did. It is only because of his free choice to reveal the Father to you.

And this fact, Jesus says, should make us wildly, eternally HAPPY.

23 Then turning to the disciples he said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” 

In other words: you guys are lucky beyond all comprehension. You all are blessed beyond all reason. This is something so many people have wished for, and not gotten. Their souls desired God, but because they didn’t desire him as God—because they didn’t want to submit to God as he reveals himself—they didn’t get God. 

Everyone who rejects God gets exactly what they ask for; and they don’t even realize that the thing they rejected is the very thing they always wanted. And let’s be clear: this is the case for all of us naturally—because we are all sinners, we all naturally reject God. 

But God, in his sovereign wisdom, gave all authority to Christ, and Christ, in his incomprehensible love for sinners, chose to reveal the Father to us, though we are no better than those who don’t know God, and sometimes we’re even worse. 

We want to find some kind of rhyme or reason in our salvation—I’m saved because I made the right choice to follow Christ, or I’m saved because I understood something about God that others don’t, or I’m saved because I have something God needs to fulfill his plan.

All of that is a lie. God doesn’t need us, and on your own you couldn’t choose to follow Christ or understand him. If we are saved, it is only because Jesus chose to reveal the Father to us. It is only because when the choice was put in front of us to accept or reject Christ, he showed us what we needed to see, and he made us hear what we needed to hear. 

This is why he doesn’t say we are worthy or deserving, but blessed.

“Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” 

Four Results

This text is absolutely loaded with things for us to take away, but I’d like to simply observe four. If we take what Jesus says here seriously, there will be four inevitable results in our lives; if we take the words of Jesus here in the context of the whole of Scripture, four things will be more and more visible in our lives.

The first result is humility. 

If you are saved, it is not because you first chose to accept Christ, but because Christ chose to reveal the Father to you. The only reason you made that choice is because he chose you first. 

Jonathan Edwards called this God’s “arbitrary choice”—not arbitrary in the sense that there’s no reason, but in the sense that we can’t understand why God did what he did. There is nothing you have ever done, or could ever do, to make yourself more—or less!—worthy in God’s eyes. 

The gospel makes humble servants, who know the grace they have received, although they can’t see the reason why; and who are then driven to show that same grace to others, although they may have every reason to do otherwise.

The second result is thankfulness. 

If you are saved, your salvation was given to you by the One who had every reason to condemn you. And the measure of your salvation is much greater than most Christians believe: God didn’t just make salvation possible for you; he made you saved. You were dead, and he made you alive. 

Paul says in Colossians 2.13:  

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him...

We were dead in our trespasses—that is, we were dead, and we deserved it. And even so, God made us alive.

If you know this—think about it—it will change the way you see every relationship, and every circumstance. You will be less likely to grow frustrated with people, because you’ll know how frustrating you are. You will be less likely to cynically assume the worst about people, because you’ll know that God doesn’t see you as you are, but as what he’s making you become. You will be less likely to despair at disappointment because (as I often joke), whatever pain you’re going through, you should be in hell…so it’s still a good day.

The third result is assurance. It is the assurance of knowing that if you are saved, you will stay saved. If you look at the language Jesus uses in this text, there is nothing unsure or conditional about it—these things are sure.

In v. 18 Jesus makes this surprising proclamation:  “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” In other words, this is the end of Satan’s reign.

He says (v. 19) that he gives the seventy-two authority over all the power of the enemy. Now, this is a narrative text: it describes something that happened, not necessarily something that is true for all believers. It doesn’t mean that all Christians will be able to cast out demons or walk on serpents and scorpions. 

But Satan’s authority over us is indeed broken—those who belong to Christ are no longer under the authority of Satan. We now have the power to say no to his temptations, and the authority to order him to flee. He will come back and tempt us again, but we now have the authority of Christ to never let him win.

And our assurance is even greater than that. Not only has Satan fallen like lightning from heaven, but our names are written in heaven. In Revelation 13, when John sees his vision of Satan having influence over the world, there is one group who is not under Satan’s influence:

everyone who name was written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain (Rev. 13.8).

If you have faith in Christ, you name is written in the book of life…and it always has been. God had your name written in the book before he even created the world. God’s plans always come to pass; what he proclaims from the beginning, he achieves at the end. If he planned to save you, he will save you.

If your name was written in his book before the foundation of the world, it will still be there when Christ comes to renew the earth.

God’s children can have absolute, iron-clad assurance that if they belong to him, they always will.

The last result is obvious, given all that Jesus has said: it is JOY. 

We have a long list of reasons for joy in this text.

The Christian’s joy is the joy of knowing that although you are imperfect, you are being made perfect; the joy of knowing that although you don’t deserve it, you have received boundless love from the holy God; the joy of knowing that although you sin every single day, you never have to doubt your salvation or wonder if you’re “still saved”; the joy of knowing that you are a part of something bigger—a mission which has eternal, cosmic significance.

Jesus rejoices that the Father has hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. And this fact—the source of his happiness and ours—that our names are written in heaven—that we see and hear things that many people long to see and hear—gives glory to God. To reveal these things to us was his gracious will.

Jesus rejoiced in this. And he commands us to rejoice in this.

So the call of this text could not be simpler: Christians, be happy. Don’t be happy for the sake of happiness; be happy in your God. See the grace that he has given you to open your eyes and open your ears and open your heart; see the grace that he has given you in having written your name in heaven before the world began—and rejoice.

It’s possible that for today, this is easy for you. Most of you here are young, and haven’t lived long enough to have the joy beat out of you. I know you don’t believe that when you’re twenty-five, but trust me: however bad life has been so far, it’ll probably get worse. A lot worse. That’s life in a fallen world. So although this sermon may not feel necessary for you today, it will be soon. 

There will come a time when you will suffer—perhaps more than you ever imagined possible. And that’s the moment when you’ll understand why God doesn’t just encourage us to be joyful, but actually commands us to rejoice. When we know that joy in God is not just a gift he gives us, but a responsibility as his children, we understand that we’ll need to work at it. We’ll need to fight for it. When the pain of life crowds everything else out, we’ll need to work hard to call to mind all the reasons he has given us for joy—and the reasons he gives us barely scratch the surface of his grace to us. 

So do not take this as an exhortation: it is a command. Do not rejoice at the power you have received to resist the devil—that’s circumstantial. Rejoice that your names are written in heaven. The real reasons for joy God gives us do not depend on our situation: they cannot be touched by any circumstance or painful situation. No matter what we’re going through, these things will not move or change.

So rejoice, brothers and sisters. Today, tomorrow, and forever.

And if you don’t know God today, this commandment is for you as well—come to Christ, and rejoice in him forever. If you come to him today, not only are you not under God’s wrath; you have received every reason for joy that we have.  

Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

Luc 1.39-80

The Root cause

Luke 1.39-80

Jason Procopio

Christianity is difficult. We pretend like it isn’t, selling it almost as a quick-fix to the problems in people’s lives—“In Christ you’ll find the peace and satisfaction you’ve always desired!” And while that’s true, it’s nearly always a pretty far cry from what we had always imagined that would look like. There is peace and satisfaction in Christ, but it usually comes with a good deal of pain. Stephen Mattson wrote, “[While] following Christ is beautiful and worthwhile, disappointment, pain, suffering, betrayal and hurt are also a part of life, and Christians aren’t immune or excluded from these horrors. Contrary to a life of ease, comfort and luxury, following Jesus demands sacrifice, honesty, vulnerability, conflict and a lifetime dedicated to loving others. This is really hard—a commitment not meant to be taken lightly.” 

The question is, if God demands such difficult things of his children, what makes any of us think we’ll actually be able to obey him? 

Today’s text answers that question. We’ll be starting at verse 39 of chapter 1 of Luke’s gospel. In last week’s text (v. 5-38), we saw an angel appear to the priest Zechariah, to announce that he and his wife Elizabeth were going to have a baby, and that this baby would be the one the prophets predicted, the man who would prepare the way for the Messiah. (This announcement was all the more difficult to believe because the soon-to-be parents were both very old, and Elizabeth had always been sterile.) Zechariah doubts the announcement, and the angel renders him mute on the spot.

Then we see the angel coming to a young girl named Mary, and announcing that she too would have a child, although she is a virgin, and that this child would be the Savior that God had promised—the Messiah, the Son of God. Mary believes, and accepts what the angel says.

Last week’s narrative may have felt a bit anticlimactic, because we left Zechariah in a sad state: mute and shamed because of his doubt. But there was a point to be made in this—that all sin, all rebellion against God, has its root in disbelief in God’s promises. Every time we sin, we sin because we doubt that God will be faithful to accomplish what he said he would accomplish.

This week’s passage is the necessary conclusion to last week’s, because in this passage we see a fuller picture of what it looks like to boldly declare and rest in those promises. As the promises announced by the angel begin to come true, Mary and Zechariah both turn their minds to God's past promises to his people. They reaffirm God's character in the light of his present faithfulness to bring about these miracles.

Like last week, today’s passage is quite long, so we won’t get to all of it. We’re going to spend most of our time focusing on the two monologues we see here—Mary’s prayer of praise, and Zechariah’s prophecy. And we’re going to do this because these two monologues, like the two stories from last week, complement each other: they work together to correct false ideas about God for those who have reasons to wonder what kind of God he really is (viz., the Israelites, who could well have felt abandoned by him).

Mary & Zechariah: Continued

In v. 39, the pregnant virgin Mary (what a fantastically weird phrase!) goes to visit Elizabeth in her 6th month of pregnancy (Elizabeth is related to her, possibly her cousin). And when Mary enters the room, little baby John the Baptist leaps in his mother’s womb! (Not literally, of course—have you ever tried to jump while floating?) The point is, John is filled with the Spirit in his mother’s womb (as the angel predicted in v. 15), and when he comes in proximity to the embryonic Messiah, he feels it, and makes a sudden and strong movement. 

Elizabeth then does something astounding: she is filled with the Holy Spirit, and exclaims (v. 42-43):   

“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

So through the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth recognizes that Mary is pregnant with “my Lord,” with the Messiah. And then she gives the first confirmation of what we saw last week (v. 45):  

“And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” 

After this, Mary prays her magnificent prayer (often called the “Magnificat”), stays with Elizabeth for three months, then goes back home.

In v. 57, Elizabeth has her baby boy. Everyone’s happy and amazed (because it’s a miracle, of course). Then, as is the custom for the Jews, when he is eight days old they go to circumcise him, and although he should have been named Zechariah (after his father), Elizabeth insists his name should be John, because that’s what the angel said to do. 

Then in v. 62 we meet Zechariah again. And the image we have of him now is that of a humbled man. The way Luke describes the situation in v. 62 is perfectly realistic—his says that Zechariah’s relatives made signs to [him], inquiring what he wanted [the baby] to be called. Zechariah’s not deaf. He can hear just fine. But people always forget that one ailment doesn’t necessarily imply another: so rather than talking to him, they’re making signs. This is the kind of thing we’ve all done (like when we’re speaking to someone whose French isn’t very good, and in addition to slowing down, we for some reason feel the need to speak REALLY LOUDLY). And it must have been humiliating to Zechariah. This is an important man, a priest in the temple of the Lord!… And yet he has been reduced to the kind of person with whom you couldn’t have any kind of normal communication.

So Zechariah takes a writing tablet and confirms what his wife has said, that the baby’s name is John. And at that exact moment, he is healed. He can speak again. 

He’s healed because because accepting John’s name is a way of showing that he has now fully submitted to God’s will: he now believes what the angel had said to him about his son, and that his son really would be the person the angel said he would be: John, the one who would prepare the way for the Messiah.

Upon getting back his ability to speak, Zechariah immediately is filled with the Holy Spirit, and begins to prophecy. God’s discipline has had its desired effect: Zechariah has been humbled, and now here he is, restored.

So let’s take the rest of our time together and look at these two monologues—Mary’s prayer and Zechariah’s prophecy—back-to-back. And as we read, let’s remember again that Luke is making intentional choices here—he’s not including everything that happened prior to Jesus’s birth, but rather choosing to include certain things, certain discourses, for a good reason. 

So the question we have to ask ourselves once again is, “Why is Luke choosing to include this? What is it about Mary’s prayer, and Zechariah’s prophecy, that makes Luke want to include them, one after the other?”

The answer, I think, is evident—because they go together: they don’t say exactly the same thing, but they complement each other to such an extent that it’s hard to imagine one without the other.

Both monologues say a number of things about God himself. So to make things easier to track, I’ve narrowed it down to six—three things which Mary affirms about God, and three things which Zechariah affirms about God.

1) God saves.

V. 46-48: 

And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.”

The first thing Mary says should calm many a Catholic: my spirit rejoices in God my Savior… In other words, Mary is not divine, nor is she perfect. If Mary were divine, she would be subject to no one; if Mary were perfect, she would not need a Savior. My guess is that if Mary could have seen what the Catholic church would make of her in the future—into a quasi-divine intermediary between God and man—she would be appalled. 

I say that because of what she says right here: she is rejoicing because God has looked on the humble estate of his servant. Mary was in no position to demand anything of God; she did not deserve anything from God… She was helpless and unable to save herself…and yet, God looked upon her humble estate and rescued her.

This is what God does. There is only one human being in all of history who did not need to be saved in this way, who did not need for God to come down to him, and that was the baby in Mary’s womb. And that is an incredibly important fact. God created the world, and mankind rebelled against God. We needed him to come down and rescue us—and when it finally came time for him to do so, he did not merely come down to us, to pull us out of our “humble estate”: he joined us in our humble estate by becoming a weak, helpless infant in the belly of a young girl. And this young girl now rejoices before the grace shown to her to simply be a part of all of this.

2) God serves.

50 And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. 

When Christians think of God’s mercy, we often think of the cross—and that is absolutely, gloriously true. God showed us his mercy by sending his Son to take our place and take our punishment on the cross, so that we wouldn’t have to endure God’s wrath. But that is not the only way God shows us mercy. Mary rightly says here that God shows his people mercy by serving them.

51 He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; 52 he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; 53 he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

One of the hallmarks of our culture is that we pride ourselves on self-sufficiency—everyone wants to be independent, to imagine they can live life on their own terms and get things done by themselves. The rich don’t generally feel like they need to be saved; the proud don’t think they need to be helped; the mighty don’t feel like they need to be rescued. So all too often, when they experience God’s common grace in their lives, they’re not even aware of it—they chalk it up to their own abilities and resources, saying, “I did that.”

“The humble,” on the other hand, know they need help; they know they can’t do it alone. “The hungry” know they need to be filled. So when God provides for them, the first thought to cross their mind (after perhaps the simple relief of being helped) is, Someone must be taking care of me, because I definitely didn’t make this happen.

But there’s a catch: none of us naturally think we need God. We are all naturally proud; we all desire to be self-sufficient. So when God gives us grace, one of the first things he always does is to “scatter us [the proud] in the thoughts of our hearts.” By sending his Son to serve us, he shows us that we need to be served. By sending his Son to save us, he shows us that we need to be saved. And once he has broken in and shown us this reality, once he has devastated us with the knowledge that we are not self-sufficient, he comes alongside us and says, “But remember—I sent my Son for you. You don’t need to be self-sufficient, because my grace is sufficient for you.”

3) God keeps his promises.

V. 54:  

54 He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, 55 as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.

In order to get what she’s talking about here, we have to go way back, practically to the beginning of the Bible. In Genesis 15, God made a covenant with a man named Abram (who would later be renamed Abraham). A covenant can take several different forms, but probably the most common is when one party agrees to do one thing, on the condition that the other party does something else. God promised Abraham that if his descendants, who would become the people of Israel, listened to him, loved him and obeyed his commandments, they would be God’s own people, and he would be their God. This is a covenant the people of Israel failed to live up to, at nearly every turn. 

Now this is a big deal, which we’ll see more as we go on, because since Israel failed to keep their part of the covenant, the covenant should have been broken. God would have been perfectly just to not keep his promises to Israel, because those promises were given in the context of a covenant—“I’ll do this if you do this,” and Israel didn’t do their part. But God kept his promises anyway. And it goes even further than simple kept promises. God did not only keep his promises to Israel; he kept Israel’s promises to God. 

He sent Jesus, his Son, God himself, as a man belonging to the people of Israel. Jesus became Israel’s representative, and Jesus kept Israel’s part of the bargain. Where God’s first son Israel had failed, God’s true son Jesus succeeded—he held up Israel’s part of the bargain for them, and thus perfectly preserved the covenant between God and his people.

So you see, God went much further than merely keeping his part of the covenant; he also kept Israel’s part of the covenant, for them. Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel, because he did what they could not do themselves.

Now, a little later, Zechariah is filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophecies—and in his prophecy, many of the same elements are there, but he takes them further, unpacking them for us.

4) God protects.

V. 68:  

68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people 69 and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David...

This phrase “horn of salvation” is a strange phrase. Think of an animal. As R. Kent Hughes writes, “An animal’s horn is its weapon for defense and vengeance, and also its ornament of beauty.” An animal’s horn is not there for decoration; it is also its way of defending itself and of fighting its enemies. 

God’s “horn” would be a king from the line of David who would save God’s people—he would be the figurative “horn of salvation”—both a display of the beauty of God, and God’s means of defending his people. 

And Zechariah explains this a little more explicitly in v. 70-71:  

70 as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, 71 that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us...

Now was Israel really “saved” from their enemies? Is he talking about military salvation? Of course not. God’s people would be under Roman rule until long after Jesus left the earth. So how precisely could he say that this “horn of salvation,” Jesus, would save God’s people from their enemies?

Salvation from enemies does not mean that none of God’s children will die at the hands of their enemies; it means that their enemies will not win. 

God protects his children. He saves his people from their enemies—not by preventing them from being persecuted, but rather by uniting them to Jesus, so that even if they are killed, they have lost nothing. They’ve only lost their lives! But in return, they have gained everything. As Paul says in Philippians 1.21, For to me to live is Christ, and to die is GAIN, because when we die, we go to be with Christ, and that is far better. God protects his people from anything which might separate them from what truly matters, and protects his gospel from being crushed under the heel of its persecutors.

5) God makes us holy.

Zechariah says that God remembers his holy covenant, (v. 73) the oath that he swore to our father Abraham… Why? Why was God so doggedly determined to keep his covenant with Abraham? Does it come down to something so elemental as, “Because he said he would?” No.

God remembered his holy covenant, 

73 the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us 74 that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, 75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

This is absolutely stunning. God fulfills the covenant perfectly in Jesus Christ…so it might be tempting for us to say, “Great! Christ is our representative! He was perfect in our place! So now we don’t need to be bothered with holiness. We’re free to live as we please want because Christ was holy for us!”

While this is partially true (at least in the sense that it is not our holiness which saves us, but only faith in Christ), anyone who thinks this way betrays a profound misunderstanding of the gospel. God did not remember his promise to Abraham so that his people could be free to live in any way which pleased them; he remembered his promise to Abraham so that his people could be free to live like him!

He did it (v. 74) that we might be delivered from the hand of our enemies—that we might have the absolute, rock-solid assurance that nothing—no enemy, no persecution—could ever separate us from him! NOTHING! And why did he do that? 

Second half of v. 74:

THAT WE…MIGHT SERVE HIM WITHOUT FEAR, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. 

How many of us try to serve God because we’re afraid? How many of us try to obey God’s commandments because we’re worried that if we don’t obey well enough, we’ll lose our salvation? that something or someone (maybe even ourselves!) will come and snatch us out of his hand? 

Loanne and I once listened to a pastor preach on Romans 8, and it was an excellent sermon. He arrived at the end of chapter 8, and declared with incredible force and conviction:

“If you are in Christ, if your faith is truly in him, if you have been united to him, then nothing! nothing! nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus!…” 

He paused for a long moment, then added, “Well… Maybe one thing… Yourselves. Your unfaithfulness. Your sin.”

By adding that tiny, final sentence, he completely destroyed the good news he had just spent an hour proclaiming.

Inciting people to fear that God will let us go if we fail him is definitely an effective way to create well-behaved, presentable, “good little Christians,” but obedience rooted in fear isn’t really obedience at all.

Imagine a child with an abusive, violent father. That child might be perfectly well-behaved at home, and outside the house people might even comment on how “good” he is. But his good behavior isn’t coming out of a heart that really wants to do good; he’s only doing it to keep from getting hit by his daddy. The external evidence of good behavior is there, but what’s underneath that good behavior is utterly tragic and rotten. His behavior is not a credit to himself, and certainly gives no honor to his father—quite the contrary.

Now take that child and place him in a context where he is loved; where he is protected and cared for; where he doesn’t have to worry about being abused if he makes a mistake. When he obeys, what is happening then? He’s obeying because he wants to obey. He’ll make mistakes, sure—but he’s not worried about not being loved by his parents if he does. So when he messes up and asks for forgiveness, you know he is sincere; and when he is obedient, you know that he is not being obedient because he’s afraid of what will happen if he doesn’t, but because it makes him happy to do so—it pleases him to imitate and honor his parents who love him.

Brothers and sisters, God keeps his promises so that we might not be afraid of losing him! So that in that perfectly secure context, we might grow in true holiness and righteousness, obeying for all the right reasons. People who truly understand the gospel, who truly understand their eternal security in Christ, do not become more sinful (as some suggest)—quite the opposite. They grow to be more holy, more obedient, more like Christ; and their obedience glorifies God, because they don’t obey out of fear, but because it simply makes them so happy to be loved by God and to be like God.

6) God always accomplishes his plans.

We saw last week that all of this is leading to the coming of the Messiah—Jesus Christ, who would save his people from their sins. The first step in that process was to send John, who would prepare the way for the Messiah. And what would he do? V. 76:  

76 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, 77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, 78 because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high 79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

John would prepare the people for Christ by helping them get used to the idea that God was going to save them not through military might, but by forgiving the people of their sins. He would resensitize the people to their sins; he would preach forgiveness, so that when Christ came, they might look on him and say, “He is light. He is peace. He is forgiveness,” and that they might turn to him, and believe.

John’s coming was proof that when God has a plan, he makes it happen. Often in ways we don’t expect and with timing we don’t expect. But he always accomplishes his plan. John’s coming is the beginning of that accomplishment.

4) Conclusion

Brothers and sisters, salvation is a sovereign work of God. Read back over these monologues and notice who does what. God is not the only actor here—we have a part to play—but everything we do is a result of what he did first, and dependent on what he did first, and assured by what he did first. The root cause of everything that we do as Christians is God himself. He is the reason why we can have a realistic hope that we will be able to obey him, that we will be able to live this life he calls us to!

We cannot deserve his “tender mercy” (he saves the humble, not the proud!); we can’t work for it (he saves the weak, not the mighty!); we can’t purchase it (he saves the poor, not the rich!). God sent Christ to save those who cannot save themselves. This is the whole point of the gospel.

And faced with this glorious God, who saves us, who serves us, who keeps his promises to us, who protects us, who makes us holy, who accomplishes his plans for us…again, we must respond. In v. 45, Elizabeth says to Mary,

“And blessed is she who BELIEVED that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” 

Mary responded with faith; and Zechariah, after being loved enough by God to be disciplined by him, also responded in faith. We too must respond in faith. We are called to believe that we cannot save ourselves. That it is God who serves us, so that we might serve him. That he protects us in order to give us the freedom and the confidence to live like him. 

This is our call in this text: to believe in the abounding faithfulness of our God. Blessed are we who believe that the Lord will fulfill what he has spoken to us.