Luke The Orderly Account of Truth - The God of Mercy - Luke 1:67-80

All right. We've been in a series called Luke The Orderly Account of Truth.

Luke the Orderly Account of Truth. We're going straight through the whole Book

of Luke, and Luke has investigated and written an orderly account, so that

theophilis or theophil loss, however you want to say, it would have certainty

about the things that he's been taught. So he would have certainty or know

the exact truth about everything that he had been told. That's really important to

me, I think. But I also think it's helpful for us to know

at the point of why Luke wrote the whole book. As we look at

specific parts of it, helps us view those individual pieces in light of the

whole purpose of the book, which helps bring a little bit more understanding to

it as a whole or in these little parts. And how do we know

that it's the That's what his purpose was in writing the Book of Luke.

Well, he told us in the first four verses. Let's look at Luke

one one through four. Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the

things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to

us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the Word.

With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning,

I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellently awful

Lost, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been

taught. So everything that he is talking about in the Book of Luke is

for theoph Loss to know for certain the things that he was taught, and

more specifically, the things that he was taught about what Jesus taught and what

Jesus did specifically about that. And last week we got to talk about John

the Baptist or John the baptize are finally being born. He's finally arrived.

It's been a really long nine months for Zechari and not being able to talk,

And no, that's not normative. So wives, you can't pray for

your husband not to be able to talk for nine months. But he couldn't

speak for nine whole months. But when he was finally able to speak,

he spoke with confidence because God had brought in certainty about what God's plan was

right through the signs. That's how he had certainty. God showed him and

verse sixty four in chapter one tells us that the first thing Zechariah did when

he was able to speak was that he praised God. He opened his mouth

when his tongue was loosed, he praised God. So this week, what

we're gonna do is we're actually gonna look at exactly what he said when he

did open his mouth and praise God, because that's where we're going next in

the book of Luke. So we're gonna finish the first chapter. I don't

know how many weeks we've been in it, but we're finally finishing the first

chapter of Luke. We're gonna be starting in verse sixty seven, going all

the way through verse eighty, So you can start turning there now. If

you do not have a Bible, please go to the back. You can

go right now. I'm not gonna be mad that you get up grab one.

We have him on the back table. We'd love for you to be

able to follow along. And if you don't own your own Bible, that

it's a gift for you. We would love for you to have God's word

because that's what we learn about. Everything that he teaches us to know and

believe and about his attributes is all found in his word. Okay, before

we jump into actual text, let's pray. God, we thank you for

today. We thank you for this moment to just pause from our week and

focus in on your word to your people. And so God, we pray

that our eyes are open, our minds are open, and our hearts are

open to receive from you today the things that you would have us receive.

Today. God, we pray that the things that come up that are challenging

for us, that we rise to the occasion, and you give us the

faith and strength to rise to that occasion. God, that we can accept

the challenge and just rely on you to get through it all. And so

God, we thank you that you've given us your word and that we get

to study it, and that we got to learn more about who you are

and who you've called us to be. So we thank you for all this

in the name of Jesus. Everybody said Amen. Okay, let's read through

the full text, starting in verse sixty seven, his father, John's father

Zechariah, was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, Praise be to the

Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and

redeemed them. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the

house of His David, as he has said, through the holy prophets of

long ago, salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate

us, to show mercy to our ancestors, and to remember his holy covenant,

the oath he swore to our father Abraham, to rescue us from the

hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear,

in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, my child,

will be called a prophet of the most High, for you will go

on before the Lord to prepare the way for him to give his people the

knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy

of our God by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to

shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide

our feet into the path of peace. And the child grew and became strong

in spirit, and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel.

That's a lot, and there's a lot said in this text which I'm

really excited to break down. How many you know that a promise is only

as good as the promise maker. Right. Does that make sense? When

someone says to you that they promise they're going to do something, your level

of skepticism goes up or goes down based on who made the promise. Right.

So, if it's a trustworthy person generally or like, oh, I

believe them. They said it, they're gonna do it. If their track

record is good, they've followed through on the things that they've said. If

it's an untrustworthy person, our response might be a little different, like,

yeah, sure, we'll see right, you're gonna be there at six o'clock.

Right right, you're gonna follow up and make sure it happens. I've

actually learned the secret of the confirmation text when I meet you with people.

It's genius. If you guys have never done this, please try it.

It's a life changing. Hey, we're still on for three o'clock today,

right ahead of time. It's a game changer. It's a game changer.

But someone who has proven themselves time and time again, we don't ever have

to worry if they're going to show up. They're just there, right,

they follow through on their word. We trust that they will hold to their

word. That if they promise something that they will deliver. Well, God

makes a ton of promises, right. We read through Scripture and we see

a lot of promises. The pages of Scripture are filled with God telling us

what He's going to do. Not only that, it's filled with times where

God's telling us what is going to happen. Right, So it's not just

God saying this is what I'm going to do. He's also saying, this

is what's going to happen. Do you know that they are eighteen, like

around eighteen hundred prophecies in Scripture. I know because I counted them all,

just kidding, I did not count them. All scholars have The consensus is

there's about eighteen hundred prophecies in all the Scripture, and about three hundred them

are specific to Jesus. Okay, about three hundred of them. In my

bag, I have like a little print out of a hundred of them,

so I know for sure there's one hundred because I've actually read through the hundred.

But there is about three hundred prophecies specific to Jesus. And just to

add fuel to the fire, every single one of them that isn't mentioning something

that's still to come has come to pass exactly in the way it was prophesied,

every single one. That's pretty impressive track record, every single one.

When God says he's going to do something, or when God says that something's

going to happen, it happens, He does it. So what is the

main focus of the first part of Zecharaia's prophetic song that we just read through.

It's praising God for remembering and following through on the promises that he made

to his people. That's what we see is him praising God for remembering and

following through on all the promises he made to his people. And I'm not

gonna lie. I can barely remember what I had for lunch yesterday to think

that God remember promises that he made almost twelve hundred years before twelve hundred years,

we don't even live that We don't live that long, so that's also

impossible for us remember that far. But he remembers these promises. He never

forgets his promises, and he always follows through on his word. God is

the most trustworthy person ever, the most trustworthy person. He has a perfect

track record, a perfect track record. Why are we talking about all this?

I feel like it's a really strong and important foundation for us to understand.

When we talk about God promising things, is talking about his ability to

follow through. But I also believe that there is this thread that's woven through

this whole prophetic song that Zachariah is professing and praising God through. And that

thread, I believe is one of the main reasons why God remembers all of

his promises and why he always follows through the reason he has a perfect track

record, And I believe it is because he is and this is the title

of the message, he is the God of mercy. He is the God

of mercy. Well, where do you see that in the text? Greg,

I'm glad you asked. I'm gonna spend the whole rest of today explaining

why that's the title of the message. Today, we're gonna look at what

is said in Zacharai's prophetic song and how I see this thread of God being

a God of mercy, the God of mercy through the whole thing. That

it's because of God's mercy that he never forgets a promise. And I almost

called it, Lord have Mercy. I almost called that the message, but

I refrained, and then I just said it so prove that I wrote it

down. Okay, so let's get to the text. We're gonna start with

the first verse and break it down verse sixty seven. His father, Zacharai

was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied. Okay, we have to stop

writing for that, because the whole part, this whole section of scripture starts

out referencing or talking about Zacharai being filled with the Holy Spirit. John's father

was filled with the Holy Spirit, and it's through the Holy Spirit that he

began to prophesy. And that's how all prophets prophesy, they all were brought

something through God, the Holy Spirit. It's also how we have the Bible

that we have today, is that God spoke through his Holy Spirit to men

and they wrote it down. That's how we have the God inspired Word that

we have today. Inspired, meaning it was brought to men through His inspiration.

And I want to look at two Peter, chapter one, which references

this the for prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets,

though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy

Spirit. They spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

And then this is exactly what's going on with Zechariah. He was filled

with the Holy Spirit and began to prophesy, and he was prophesying or speaking

the very words of God. And some people will try to argue that the

Holy Spirit didn't show up until the day of Pentecost, you know, and

the tongues of fire and the speaking in other languages. But that's just not

true. And how do we know that because we can see the Holy Spirit

at work in and through all throughout history before way before, like before the

Day of Pentecost, and then way before literally everything before everything was created.

Who was hovering over the waters The Spirit of God. God, the Holy

Spirit is hovering over the waters, or go go to U. When the

Tabernacle and the Temple were being built, the Holy spirits want to empowered the

craftsmen to do the amazing things they did. If you read about the Temple

and the designing of the pomegranates, I thought pomegrant was a food and then

it was a design Like He empowered these craftsmen to do these amazing things by

the power of His Holy Spirit. God. The Holy Spirit is eternal,

which means forever, eternity passed to eternity. Fewure God's Holy Spirit is eternal,

as is the Father and the Son, and he was active in creation

and has been active throughout all history ever since. It's the eternal God,

the Holy Spirit who filled Zechariah and caused him to prophesy the words that he

spoke. Let's keep moving. Let's look at verse sixty eight. Praise be

to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his

people and redeemed them. So today we're going to do a little bit of

like dictionary work for some definitions, and then we're also going to look at

some historical things that sometimes we just don't get to talk about as often.

So I'm really excited for it. But this first part, praise the Lord

because he has come to his people to redeem them. But what does it

actually mean to be redeemed? So let's go to Webster's Let's look at the

definition or redeem compensate for the faults or bad aspects of something, gain or

regain possession of something in exchange for payment. To redeem something or someone is

to take what is bad and make it good, or to purchase something for

a specific price, And that actually sounds pretty accurate for what God does for

us through the process of salvation, doesn't it. But this definition is from

the dictionary, and I want to look at what's the root Greek word that

word that's used, what's the definition of that? And what it does is

I don't have it. I'm not gonna put on the screen because copy and

pasting these weird symbols is not always helpful because none of us can read it.

But the Greek word adds this meaning of deliverance, but not just deliverance

in general, but specifically from the penalty of sin. Okay, so we're

talking about redeeming and adding this idea of being redeemed or to be delivered from

the penalty of sin. That God is visiting his people and redeeming them or

delivering them from the penalty of their sin by paying the ransom to free them.

Okay, Well, that word redeemed got a lot bigger, didn't it.

He's visiting his people to redeem them, to pay the hansom to free

them. Now that sounds like the Gospel much more specifically. But the text

continues and Zacharai starts to prophesy about how God intends to accomplish this redemption of

his people. So let's look at verses sixty nine through seventy one. He's

raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his Servant David,

as he said, through his holy prophets of long ago, salvation from

our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. And this I

like to stop on words. I'm like, well, what does that mean?

Things that kind of seem out of place to find out what they are,

So like, what is a horn of salvation? Well, a horn

of salvation is it was a common imagery type of term used back then,

and what it means is it's used to describe a mighty or valiant helper or

a strong king, someone who's sent to save people, which I, in

my childish brain just boiled down to a superhero. Orne of salvation is a

superhero. But it's this superhero and that's a joke. But this superhero isn't

just any superhero. It's someone who specifically came from the house of God's servant

David. Right. So if he's from the oh, not only that,

as he said through his holy prophets of long ago, right, So it's

someone who came from the house of David, as what said through the prophets

long ago. Let's look at Jeremiah twenty three and see what they're talking about.

Jeremied twenty three, verses five and six says the days are coming to

Claris the Lord when I will raise up for David a righteous branch. Well,

we're already start. Tod's starting to sound familiar. Right. When I

will raise up for David a righteous branch, a king who will reign wisely

and do what is just and right in the land. In his days,

Judah will be saved in Israel will live in safety. Historically, Judah and

Israel separated. Read the Old Testament. It's amazing. This is the name

by which he will be called. Everybody say it, the Lord, our

righteous Savior. God was prophesying through Jeremiah that there was going to be a

day when he would raise up a king for David, and that king would

save all of Israel. And what did God say? His name was gonna

be the Lord, our righteous Savior. There's only one righteous savior. There's

only one all caps Lord, and that's God himself. Right. Let's look

also in Isaiah, and I'm trying not to use too many these verses because

Duncan's gotta preach on the birth of Jesus and some I'm gonna save some of

them. But let's go to Isaiah. This is in Chapter nine, verses

six and seven. For to us a child is born, to us,

a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders, and

he will be called Wonderful counselor Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the greatness of his government and peace. There will be no end.

He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding

it with justice and righteousness. From that time on and forever. The zeal

of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. There's only one person who gets to

be called wonderful counselor Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.

It's God himself. He's the only one that gets to claim those titles.

God will reign on the throne of David forever. And the throne of David

also is symbolic there was an actual throne, but also symbolic for the one

who is to rule God's people forever. God is the one who has prophesied

long ago to be the horn of salvation. Let's read it again, Verses

sixty nine through seventy one. In our text, he has raised up a

horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he

said through his holy prophets of long ago, salvation from our enemies and from

the hand of all who hate us. Child to be born to us,

the one we just read about in Isaiah, will be the horn of salvation

that comes from the line of David, and he will sit on the throne

and reign as king forever. Who's the child? Say it loud, Jesus,

not trick question. I know sometimes it sounds like the trick question.

It's totally not a trick question. It's Jesus. Jesus is that child.

It's God in the flesh. It is Jesus. And then we see this

verse seventy one talking about the horn of salvation saving them from their enemies,

Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. And

there are so many times that God came through for the people of Israel and

save them from their enemies. They've had a lot of them all throughout history.

We don't have time to look at all of it today or too much

of it today, But just survey the Old Testament and you'll see, or,

as I say in my notes, take a trip to the Old Testament.

It's a good one. But I was reading a commentary this week and

it said that this verse is most likely referencing or is a reference to Psalm

one oh six, which is the psalm about when God saved his people from

Egypt, when he parted the Red Sea so they could escape Pharaoh. Do

you guys remember the movie Prince of Egypt. Oh, yeah, that's a

solid movie. Not theologically solid, but it's like pretty good. It's a

good fun movie. It's entertaining. Yeah, but it's that movie to kind

of bring the picture into your head. But the Israel's being pursued by an

enemy that they were powerless against. They were powerless against Egypt. They had

no way to beat him, and they were completely helpless. They had been

chased into the Red Sea and they had nowhere left or run with the sea

at their back and Pharaoh and his Egyptian army coming at him. If God

didn't do something, they were gonna be captured or maybe worse right. They

were completely reliant upon God to do something. So Moses what he did was

he obeyed the Lord, and he stretched out his hand over the water.

And what did God do. He sent the wind and parted the sea so

that the Israelites could walk across on dry land. And then later Egyptian army

would follow them. He'd close the waters and they all drowned. So he

saved him. Right, that's the point, which is really, I know,

slightly morbid for a kid's movie, but it's true. It's in the

Bible. But I think that God might be trying to point out a deeper

truth here. Then we might see at first glance when we read the text

that we're reading today, God didn't send Jesus just to save his people from

their physical enemy. And that was a misunderstanding that the Jews had. When

Jesus showed up, right, they said about the Messiah, like the Messiah

is gonna come and overthrow the government essentially and re establish us. Right,

they thought it was all about the physical realm. But there's something deeper going

on here. We are saved from our greatest enemy, the one that we

are completely powerless to defeat on ours just like the Israelites. We're standing at

the Red Sea and we have nowhere left. We have nowhere to run,

no where to turn. And if God doesn't do something but toast like God

has to do something. And our greatest enemy is what it's sin and death,

the thing we can't overcome on our own. We are dead in our

sins and trespasses. Before God does something, there's nothing we can do to

our save ourselves. It's only through what God has done that we can be

saved from the enemy. That we're powerless again. So the horn of salvation

that was prophesied long ago, the one who will bring us eternal salvation,

he is that one, and we will see God confirm that this is the

salvation that he's talking about. When we keep reading in Zecharai's prophecy, we're

going to see that. So let's keep moving. Let's look at verse seventy

two to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant, the

oath he swore to our father Abraham to rescue us from the hand of our

enemies and to enable us to serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness

before him all our days. Now we get to the why God would raise

up a horn of salvation? Right, we just read that this is what

he's gonna do, and then we get into the why he did it to

show his mercy and to remember his covenant. Okay, so it starting to

show up in the text, right, We're starting to see this a little

bit. Why would God raise up this horn of salvation to show mercy to

our ancestors and to remember his holy Covenant. It's because of his mercy that

he's doing all of this. It's it's because he will always remember his promises.

And what was his oath or promise to Abraham. I'm glad you asked,

because I couldn't remember it either. So we're gonna go to Genesis twenty

two. The Angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time

and said, I swear by myself, declares the Lord. The Lord has

nothing hired to swear by but himself. That because you have done this and

have not withheld your son and your only son. Pause a little bit of

context and reference. This is when when Abraham was told to sacrifice his son,

his only son, to the Lord, the one that God promised all

of this stuff to come through was his son, that because you have done

this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely

bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.

I should reference he didn't actually sacrifice his son. You should probably read there.

I just realize maybe it should tell in case you haven't read the story.

He didn't do it. God stopped him at the last second. It

was amazing, as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sands

on the sea shore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their

enemies, and through your offspring, all nations on earth will be blessed because

you have obeyed me. God's covenant to Abraham was that his descendants would be

as numerous as the stars and the sky or the sand on the sea shore,

that they would take possession of the cities of their enemies. And not

only that, only that, but I think the big one in there is

that it's through his offspring, that all the nations on earth will be blessed.

Through his offspring. That's a pretty big promise that God made. So

let's see how God did it fulfilling them. Let's turn to Galatians three.

We're going to skim through a little bit three different parts here. Let's start

in verse six. How did God do at fulfilling his promise? So also

Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Understand then that

those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify

the Gentiles by faith and announce the Gospel in advance to Abraham. All nations

will be blessed through you. So those who rely on faith are blessed along

with Abraham, the man of faith. If you have faith, you are

a child of Abraham. His descendants will be as numerous as the stars.

And first off, Abraham's grandson, right, Abraham Isaac Jacob is the father

of the twelve sons who became the twelve tribes of Israel. That's a lot

of people those are descendants of Abraham. But it's not just about his physical

children. Because that's what Galatians is correcting right here. If we have faith,

we are a child of Abraham. His descendants go way beyond the twelve

tribes of Israel. Because of what God, the whole plan that God set

up this Gospels for every nation every tribe and every tongue, and we have

been blessed if we have received faith. So skiphead to verse sixteen in chapter

three. The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does

not say and to seeds meaning many people, but and to your seed meaning

one person who is Christ. Okay, so it's correcting some of our understanding,

or not just our understanding, but the Jewish people's understanding of what God

said. The offspring that will bring blessings to all the nations on earth is

that the blessing that God is referring to or the seed that God is referring

to as Jesus, one person who is who Christ? Which is Jesus.

And lastly, I want to look at verse twenty six. You should just

read all of Glatians three. I think it makes a whole lot more sense

when you just read it straight through. But let's look at here verse twenty

six to twenty nine. So in Christ Jesus, you are all children of

God through faith. It's belief for all of you who were baptized into Christ,

have been, or have clothed yourself with Christ. There is neither jew

nor gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male or female,

For you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ,

then you are Abraham's seed and heir according to the promise. So this text

right here, this three spots we went to in Galatians, is confirming that

if we belong to Jesus, then we are one of Abraham's descendants and we

are included in the promise, the promises that God made all the way back

in Genesis twenty two. We are part of the fulfillment of God's oath and

covenant to Abraham. That's pretty awesome. I remember. I don't know how

many years it is, but it's a lot of years to remember and continually

make good on a promise God's set. But what about the take possessions of

the cities of your enemy's part. You thought I forget. I did not

forget. God didn't forget. He put in the Bible. That's why I

remembered. The people of God did make it to the promised land. If

you go back and read the Book of Joshua, that's where God led the

people into the land and help them overtake their enemies or defeat their enemies and

take possession of the land. So they made it there you go. Track

record for remembering and keeping his promises is one hundred percent nailed at God,

one hundred percent. His track record is perfect. And he's also the end

of the tech the main text we're in right now. And he's also made

it so as people can serve Him without fear and holiness and righteousness all the

rest of their days. But now Zachariah's prophetic song, he's been kind of

staying in this raising up praises to God for the things that he's remembered.

Now he's gonna take a big shift in this next verse. So let's look

at verse seventy six. We'll just take the seventy six and seventy seven.

And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the most High,

for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him

to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins.

So zachari now begins to prophesy about who John is going to be, that

he will be a prophet of the most High. Who's the most high?

Amen, there's no one higher than Christ. He's the highest of the high.

He's gonna be a prophet of the Most High, that his job will

be to prepare the way for God. And how is he going to prepare

the way by giving God's people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their

sins. John's job is to point people to Jesus. That's how we get

forgiveness of our sins. That's how we find salvation through belief in Jesus.

So what's John's job point to Jesus. That's what he does to tell them

he is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

That we receive forgiveness for our sins, and in turn, we receive salvation

through Jesus and only Jesus. And they're about to see the Gospel story unfold

right before their eyes. They get to see this play out right in front

of their faces. They're gonna see God walk in the flesh, or they're

gonna see God in the flesh, walk on the earth, live the perfect

life. He's gonna die in undeserved death. He's perfect. He didn't do

anything to deserve that. He's going to experience the wrath of God on sin,

all of God's wrath is going to be poured out. God's wrath on

sin is gonna be poured out on Christ. Also that those who believe in

Him will be forgiven, receive that amazing forgiveness, undeserved forgiveness, and get

to live forever with him. That's what they're going to see play out right

in front of their eyes. And that's what John is getting them ready for,

which is an extremely important job. And now where the text shifts,

we're going to see something familiar. We're gonna see again the why behind why

God would give his people the knowledge of salvation. I think it's very important

when you're reading through scripture just to see when there's subtle shifts in what's being

said. You can see like, oh, they've said the what, Now

they're shifting over to the why. It's important because now we're changed focus a

little bit, so clue in on those things sometimes. Let's look at verses

seventy eight and seventy nine. This is the why because of the tender mercy

of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven

to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to

guide our feet into the path of peace. It's because of the tender mercies

of God. That's why he would give his people the knowledge of salvation.

Because the tender mercies or the tender mercy of God, that's why he brings

up the rising sun from heaven. Who is Jesus. Jesus is the rising

sun, who comes from heaven. And what does that rising sun do?

While we just read it shines on those living in darkness and in the shadow

of death. Well, who are those people? Those are the lost which

all of us were at one point before. The beautiful light of Jesus shone

on us in our darkness. It's the mercy of God that guides us into

the path of peace. Can I have the band come up? Please?

The mercy of God that guides us into the path of peace. And the

last verse of the text for today is after Zachari's Prophecy's over and kind of

like an update on John and the Child. John grew and became strong in

spirit, and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel.

So he continued to grow strong or cantue to grow and became strong in the

spirit until it was go time to start prepping people. That's what it was.

But what I want to do is I want to go back a little

bit and focus in and talk about this common thread, the why God would

do the things he's doing, This thing that we see kind of woven through

all of this prophecy, and we saw that it is because of his mercy.

It's because of God's mercy. I told you. We get to this

like seeing it a little bit better by the end. Right. And we

spend a lot of time talking about God's grace in church, which we absolutely

should, because God's grace is we're only saved right by grace through faith in

Jesus. Right, so we should talk about grace a lot. But something

we don't often talk about, and maybe it's just us. I don't know

what it's other churches. I can't speak for them, is God's mercy.

How often do we talk about his mercy? So let's look at the definition

of mercy Compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone when it is within one's power to

punish or harm. Okay, so it's compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone when

it is within one's power to punish or harm. This is the definition that

we get from the dictionary, mercy is choosing not to punish someone when you

have the power or authority to do it, or I say, in short,

mercy is not getting what you deserve in the negative sense. Right,

let's not getting what you deserve. You break the law, you deserve to

go to jail. Mercy is you don't have to go to jail by the

ones. We have the authority to say that. But the Greek word mercy

that's used here in the text is a little bit more specific, and so

that I want to look at here kindness or goodwill toward the miserable and the

afflicted, joined with the desire to help them. Of God toward men.

It's general providence or providing and offering salvation by Christ. That's a little more

specific this type of mercy that we see in the text. This definition comes

from the words using the text we just went today. We all deserve death

because of our sin. What about the innocent children? I've never met anyone

more selfish in my life than a child who lies more than a child?

Did you eat the cookie? No, you have cookie crumbs on your face.

You have cakes frosting smeared everywhere. Did you hit your brother no,

I pushed him with my hand. I got two boys. I get it.

Everyone has missed the mark. Everybody needs Jesus. Because of our sin,

we all deserve death. But God, because of his mercy, has

decided to help us, the miserable and the afflicted. That's us, the

miserable and the afflicted. God, because of his mercy, has the desire

to help us, not only in general providence, which is just prepared,

like providing for our basic needs, general province of reigns, and so the

grass will grow and food will grow, like general providence. It's more than

that, but also in providing salvation for us through Jesus. He has this

desire because of his mercy to help us. He has chosen and he didn't

have to. It's the whole point of mercy. He didn't have to do

this. He chose to provide a way for us to be right with him.

He chose to provide a way to fix everything we've broken with our sin.

The thread I see woven through Zacharai's prophetic song is the threat of God's

mercy. It's the reason why God did it, or the motivation he had

was to show his mercy to his people to his children. And if you

still don't believe me, let's take it from the top. Just kidding,

but I want to go through and do like a quick speed look through on

how I see this. God shows his mercy in verse sixty eight by redeeming

his people in verse sixty nine, by raising up a horn of salvation in

verse seventy two, by remembering the covenant or promise he made with Abraham in

verse seventy four, by rescuing his people from their enemies in seventy four and

seventy five, by enabling his people to serve him without fear in verse seventy

six, by sending John to get the people ready in seventy seven, by

revealing the knowledge of salvation forgiveness in verse seventy nine, to bring light to

those in darkness, and also in seventy nine, by guiding our feet into

the path of peace. Every single one of those. Why he didn't have

to do any of them. Why do you do it? Because this is

the God of mercy, That's why. Because he's merciful to his people,

he's extended his mercy. And it's not only it's only through his tender mercy

that He's done all this. But what was the result of God's mercy and

him showing us all this? According to Zechari's prophecy, do you remember,

let's go back and look at the last two verses of our text, or

verse seventy eight and seventy nine. Because of the tender mercy of our God,

by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on

those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet

into the path of peace, to guide our feet into the path of peace.

The result is that the light of Christ shines on us, that we're

no longer living in darkness, Thank you God, and he guides our feet

in the path of peace. And I'm not talking about general peace. I'm

talking about eternal peace. We need to shift our view a little further on

the horz. He doesn't just bring us peace for tomorrow, peace in our

house, peace at work, fill in the blank, peace with all of

those. It is way bigger than that. It is way more important than

that. He brings us an eternal peace with Him, an eternal peace with

our Creator. Look at Romans five. Therefore, since we've been justified through

faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus, through our

Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace

in which we now stand and we boast in the hope of the glory of

God. That's amazing. Through faith in Jesus we get to have peace with

God. There should be nothing more important to any human being than being reconciled

to God. That means to be in right standing with Him, to be

at peace with him. He's the creator of all things. He created you,

he created me, he created all of us. He created everything you

see. And if he's God, King Lord, and we understand those words,

there should be nothing more important to us than being right with him.

If he says something, we say yes and amen. Why Because he is

God. It's all about Jesus. So, if you're sitting here today and

you have not put faith in Jesus, I implore you, which means I

beg you to be reconciled to God, get right with God, to repent

of your sin and unbelieve and believe in Jesus. There's nothing you could do

to save yourself. All you have to do is say thank you God and

believe. Because he's the one who moves in your heart. There is no

other way for you to get to experience this path of peace that's on the

other verse that we had the path of peace. Don't get to experience that

any other way. There's no other way for you to have eternal peace with

God. So we look to Jesus to get eternal life and forgiveness, a

life full of God's grace and to get to live in His presence for eternity.

And if you're already a believer, this is what I want you to

do. I want you to consider the mercy that God has extended to you.

Consider the mercy. And I call it the rear view mirror trick.

Right driving in your car, you have a rear view mirror. It has

a purpose. Well, what's the purpose. It's not to stare at while

you drive, but it is to look at to see what's behind you and

to see where you've come from. That's what the rear view mirror is for,

to see what's behind you and to see where you've come from. So

think about where God's brought you from. Think about it, Think about what

he saved you from, think about what He's forgiven you of. If you've

put faith in him. Every single one of your sin's, past, present,

and future is forgiven. Think about what he saved you from. Think

about what he's forgiven you of. Think about what we deserved when we were

in disobedience to Him, when we lived in disobedience to His commands. That

we deserved the wrath of God on sin for all eternity on us. And

then, after considering all that, I want you to rejoice. He wiped

away the debt we're freed. The lifelong sin debt we started accruing. He

wiped away and put it on Jesus, who stood in our place and died.

We are forgiven and free from sin. So every day this week I

want you to celebrate and thank God for the mercy that he has shown you

in Christ. I want you to do that in prayer, privately with Him.

I want you to do it with your families around meal times. I

want you to do it with your friends. Go grab coffee with a church

friend and just sit there and celebrate God and his mercy on us and what

He's done for us. I want us to recognize and remember all that the

Lord has done for us for this purpose to grow in our affections and love

of him. Sometimes the application we have is like, hey, you got

to go and forgive somebody, So go and have a conversation and forgive him.

Today's application for the text is to remember his mercy and celebrate it.

I want you to grow your affections, your love for God. I want

you to love him more than anything, to love him with what all of

your heart, soul, mind and strength, yes above everything else, to

love God. To remember the tender mercy he has shown you, because He

is the God of mercy. Heymen, can you guys stand on your feet

please. We're gonna go into a time of prayer and singing and worshiping the

Lord, So myself and any of the other available elders will be on the

side ready to pray for you guys. For anything you need, we'd love

to pray for you. We also have our connect card so if you are

uncomfortable coming and get in prayer. On the back you can write any prayer

requests you have or if you have any questions, and if you want it

to we send them out to everybody to pray for because more people praying is

always better. Why not if it's something you want to keep private though,

and just have the elders pray for Just write private on there, and then

we'll only send to the elders and we will be praying for them. We

pray for them every week. There's also information on the front so we can

connect with you better and help you get better connected to us. Here I

came prepared to give. You can use the offering envelopes that we have.

Both of these. If you don't have any near you are on the offering

box on the way out, and that's the same place you can drop them

off so that we can get them from you. Yes, so come get

prayer. We're gonna sing and worship and that's it. So God, we

thank you for your word. God, we thank you for your mercy.

God, that you you didn't have to You didn't have to do any of

the things you did. Us in our sin deserve death, and you would

be completely just and righteous letting us die in our sin. But because you

are the God of mercy, you changed. You made a way. You

made a way for us not to be in our sin anymore, to change

our heart of stone into a heart of flesh. So thank you God.

I pray that we remember that as we go through our week, that we

daily just celebrate and thank you for your mercy, that we consider where we've

been, what you've saved us from, where you've brought us from, and

it just makes us fall more in love with you, that we have nothing

but joy. There should be no one happier on this planet than a believer,

because we're right, and we're in right standing, and we're in good

standing with the Creator. We are reconciled to you God, So remind us

of this, and let us just continually celebrate you and your amazing mercy on

us. In Jesus name, everybody said, Amen, Let's worship