The Everlasting Love of God

I'm gonna start turning to that part of your Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Luke, of course, is the third gospel.

And Luke one, of course, details the events leading up to the birth of Christ.

Now, the unique thing about the book of Luke is that it was written by Gentile.

Luke was a physician.

It's a Gentile, and this is actually part one of his two-part series.

We wrote the book of Luke, which obviously is an account of the life, ministry, and death of Christ.

And he also wrote Acts, which is an account of the spread of the gospel, from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria, to the ends of the earth.

And also, Luke tells us in his books, the purpose of his writing, which is really helpful.

And Luke, if you can see it easily, you can just look at Luke one, verse three.

He 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," and here's the purpose, the reason he wrote it,"that you may have certainty concerning the things"you have been taught." That's interesting, isn't it?

Theophilus had been taught things about Christ, probably had a pretty robust account, but Luke says, "I'm writing this detailed account down"so that you can have certainty about it.

"I have followed this matter closely,"as Luke says himself there.

"And here is an account for you,"so that you can have," what was the word he used there?

"Certainty." And John puts it a little bit different.

In John chapter 20, he says that he wrote his account so that you might believe upon Christ and have eternal life, which is essentially the same thing as what Luke is saying, isn't it?

John 20 · chapter mention

Luke is saying that you would have certainty, that you would believe that there would be no doubt in your mind, and John says the same thing.

I just point that out to start us out this morning, because we ought to read the books of the Bible with the purpose of the author in mind.

That helps us know how to read it.

And that helps us know that when we read Luke, when we read John, the other gospels, that we're not first and foremost looking for keys to successful Christian living.

We're not looking first and foremost to try to develop a systematic theology.

We do those things, that's true.

But those are secondary.

First and foremost, we read the gospels that our faith in Christ might be nourished, that we might read the accounts of Christ and fall on our knees and say,"I believe you are the Son of God." And you might say, "Well, I've done that.

Of course, I'm a Christian." But we do that over and over.

And that's what it means to be a Christian, to constantly confess and profess our faith in Christ.

And it's no difference for the passage we're studying this morning, which is Luke 1, 67 through 79.

God has a message for you, a word for you.

And it's Luke 1, 67 through 79 this morning.

Let me pray.

Lord, we thank you for your word.

We thank you that it is clear and that it has been preserved for us in written form.

What a blessing that is, O God.

Thank you for forgiving Luke life, for preserving his life, for putting him at the right places, at the right times to talk to the right people so that he might produce this writing for us, this scripture, this sacred writing, and also the book of Acts.

We thank you for that, O Lord.

We know that it is a mercy to us that you did that.

So we worship you.

We turn to you now.

We ask you to speak to us through your word.

Please help us in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

Let me read the text before we consider its contents.

Starting in verse 67, Zechariah's prophecy.

And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied saying,"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,"for he has visited and redeemed his people"and has raised up a horn of salvation for us"in the house of his servant David.

"As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old"that we should be saved from our enemies"and from the hand of all who hate us,"to show the mercy promised to our fathers"and to remember his holy covenant,"the oath that he swore to our father Abraham"to grant us that we being delivered"from the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear"in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

"And you child will be called the prophet of the Most High"for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways"to give knowledge of salvation to his people"in the forgiveness of their sins"because of the tender mercy of our God.

"Whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high"to give us light to those who sit in darkness"and in the shadow of death"to guide our feet into the way of peace." And the child grew and became strong in spirit and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.

This passage is about the everlasting love of God toward you.

From this love, who shall separate us?

How Christ loves you.

"For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed," said Christ.

"But my steadfast love shall not depart from thee." Believers, those mountains that you have seen, those whose vastness causes you to wonder, maybe the Rocky Mountains that you've driven across and you've looked down from the top of them, it's not that they may, but they will depart.

"Yet the love of Christ toward you"is so unfathomably high"and sure that it shall never depart, it cannot.

"Though the very heavens themselves grow old like a garment,"yet the person of Christ shall not depart." And the love of Christ remains.

Even though the heavens and the earth and every creature decays and dies, still the love of Christ toward believers will continue young and fresh and flourishing.

Love led him down to the cradle.

Love led him up to the cross.

Now, here we have a poetic prophecy uttered by Zechariah after the birth of his son, John the Baptist.

Now, remember, Zechariah was unable to speak for the duration of his wife's pregnancy.

And finally, his tongue is loosed and his first words after being completely mute for all that time was this spirit-filled proclamation.

Now, this passage, of course, it's a part of the rising action that's building toward the climax of the birth of Christ.

And that takes place soon after.

But we can't rush past this to get to the stable, not yet.

God desires to speak to you through this section of his word right now.

And here's the essence.

Here's the essence of the message to you from this passage this morning.

God delivers his people.

Or to put it another way, God is your deliverer.

Believer, I am looking at you right now.

I'm talking to you directly.

God himself is your deliverer.

I'm making as much eye contact as I can.

I want you to know that and believe it.

Now, this is a general statement and we'll see kind of how this unfolds in a moment.

But what a truth to hang your life upon.

This passage speaks of the enemies who hate us, God's tender mercy toward us and our wholehearted devotion to our deliverer.

And I want you to see this prophecy and this passage as a token of God's love towards you, for you.

So let me show you some particulars about the passage.

We can divide the passage into three sections and it's helpful to note and you'll see this, I think, that it moves from a general description, the sort of zoomed out view to a more specific.

So a general description of God's deliverance and then specific details.

So think of it like a pair of binoculars where you hold them up and you can hit the little lever and it zooms in 10 times.

You can hold it up, you can click it again and it zooms in 50 times.

You see more detail each time though you see less of the big picture.

That's what this passage does.

So the first section, the big picture, this is verses 67 through 69.

We'll start in 68 with a prophecy.

It says, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,"for he has visited and redeemed his people.

"He has raised up a horn of salvation for us"in the house of his servant David." So here we have the big picture of God's action towards his creation.

We can't see the details here.

There's really not any details given, deliverance, salvation, we don't see the details.

Instead, we're given the thesis statement of history.

The thesis statement of our whole existence, God is the Redeemer of his people.

Now mankind has fallen into a state of sin and is hopeless, lost and separated from God, but all those whom the Father has given to Christ will certainly come to Christ and be redeemed by the Father.

And I want you to notice who the active party is in those, the two verses of the prophecy I just read.

It is God who does the action.

He does the saving, he does the delivering.

We are passive, we merely receive the blessed deliverance.

This truth has important implications and effects.

Don't miss this, this is critical.

Those who know that deliverance is all from God worship more wholeheartedly.

Those who slide into the error of thinking they had something to do with their salvation, don't worship wholeheartedly because they have to hold some praise back for themselves.

Don't miss this.

We are like Gomer, we play the harlot and while we were still sinners, God pursued us.

He treated us tenderly, he redeemed and rescued us.

Psalm 111.9, he sent redemption to his people.

He has commanded his covenant forever, holy and awesome is his name.

And Psalm 130 verse seven, Oh, Israel, hope in the Lord for with the Lord there is steadfast love and with him is plentiful redemption.

So God redeems his people.

And if you are a believer this morning, God has redeemed you and he is redeeming you and he will not fail.

But please do not overlook this important aspect of God's redeeming work.

God's saving work toward his people originated in God himself.

He redeemed you because he loves you and he chose you.

You did not force his hand by your good works.

You did not meet the moral standard to qualify for this great blessing.

He loved you when you in no way loved him.

But now let's zoom in a bit closer.

In the next section, we're given a bit more clarity about God's redeeming work.

Verses 70 through 75 would be the next section in this prophecy.

And here we're given the general contours of what God does to deliver us.

Here when we click the button in the binoculars and it zooms in, we're given more detail.

What we see in these verses is a progression.

We see God's mercy for his people, which resulted in his deliverance of his people.

And then God's merciful deliverance of his people results in their turning to him to serve and worship him.

You see that?

Mercy, deliverance, worship.

Those who are delivered from sin and death are made spiritually alive and given a new heart oriented toward God.

His spirit dwells within them.

Therefore, they no longer serve Satan, but God.

What a beautiful redemption.

What a beautiful story.

Those who are born again are like Zacchaeus and say,"Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor.

And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold." You see, when God delivers someone, they turn to him and they worship.

We turn to him and we worship.

We are here this morning because God has delivered us, are we not?

Now look, in this passage, there are three gospel promises.

Look at verse 74 and 75.

After it speaks of his mercy, then it says that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies, there's the deliverance, might serve him.

And there's the worship.

But look what it says, it qualifies the service.

It says, describes it, says that we might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all our days.

These promises are rooted in the death of Christ.

Watered by his precious blood.

Let me explain it.

We serve God, we worship God without fear and dread because the blood of Christ, through his blood, we are made children.

And God is no longer our wrathful judge, but our loving father.

We serve God in righteousness and holiness because through the blood of Christ, God looks upon us as though we have never sinned.

That's astounding, isn't it?

With the robes of Christ on us, his righteousness, God looks upon us as though we have never sinned.

And the work of the spirit in us results in lives that are more and more conformed to the image of Christ.

And we serve God forever, forever.

We serve God forever.

We worship him forever because through the blood of Christ, our eternity is secure.

The death of Christ is sufficient to lay claim on us permanently.

There will be no transfer of ownership here.

No one, nothing can pluck us out of the hand of God who can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

There are many things that will change in your life, believer, you will go through chaos and tumult, but your name will never be blotted out of the book of life.

Christ's love towards you will never change.

In the last section, section three, here we see specific plans.

So the first section we have the thesis statement, the big idea.

And in the second section, we see the general contours, mercy of God, deliverance, us turning to worship him.

And then in section three, there's actually very specific plans here.

And we know where this is all headed, right?

We understand whenever I say deliverance, you automatically think a hope of Christ walking up to Golgotha.

But when this prophecy was uttered by Zachariah and the people heard it, and those reading this book for the first time when Luke wrote it, they don't know where this is.

They're thinking, wow, what's going to happen?

Well, in this section, 76 through 79, there's some clear plans laid out.

It's made clear that God's deliverance is centered around the removal of our sin.

In this section, John the Baptist's role in God's deliverance of his people is described with some detail.

We are told that he will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins.

So here it's zoomed in really tightly on the ministry of John the Baptist, which is a part of God's overall work of deliverance.

Remember the first section, God is delivering his people.

God delivers his people.

He does it because of his mercy and his people would turn to worship him.

And now we see the specific mechanics of it.

Well, John is going to go before the Lord?

Wow, he's gonna go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins.

But what I want to key in here is this specific part, forgiveness of their sins, because that hasn't been mentioned yet in the prophecy.

It says that we're going to be delivered from our enemies.

But here, finally, we see it has to do with our sins being wiped away and that our enemy isn't just Rome.

It's not some physical material enemy necessarily, talking about spiritual realities here.

And because of sin, we sit in darkness.

God's redemption of his people hinges upon forgiveness of sin.

We are in the shadow of death, but the light of the gospel leads us to faith in Christ and repentance of sin.

John the Baptist would preach in the wilderness and point people to Christ.

That was his role.

Of course, no one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket.

No, they put it on the table so all in the house might see.

John the Baptist testified, he said himself,"I am not the light," but he did remove the basket and he pointed people to that light that they might receive forgiveness of sin and be saved.

The forgiveness of sin, of course, is necessary.

We've already mentioned that all is sin and falls short of God's glorious standard.

No one's life holds up under the scrutiny of God's law.

So I must ask here, what will you do with your sin?

I'll skip the part where I ask you if you've ever sinned.

We all know you've sinned, I've sinned, all have sinned.

The real question is not have you sinned, but what will you do with your sin?

What will you do with it?

What is your hope of deliverance?

Do you profess to be a Christian?

If you do, what is the root, what's at the root of your profession?

What makes you a Christian?

Remember, salvation is of God alone.

It is all of grace.

And if you examine yourself and you think through that question carefully, and you find that anything but the blood of Christ is at the root of your profession of faith, then you are in grave danger.

Dear unsettled soul, if there are any here, the shepherds of this flock, Grace Bible Church, we are here to reason with you.

To lead you to faith in Christ and Christ alone for the forgiveness of sins.

Let's wrap this up.

Let's close with some applications and some helps.

In Zacharias prophecy, we see a breathtaking survey of the love of God toward his people.

God is our deliver.

His tender mercy toward us has compelled him to act on our behalf.

And now we turn to worship.

We enter into the way of peace and we serve our God without fear forever.

So let's close by meditating upon three particulars about the love of Christ that's laid out for us here in this passage and see if we can draw a few applications.

First this, consider that no condition was so low to which Christ did not condescend to show his love for you.

Nothing was too, no position was too low to stoop to for Christ, to show his love for you.

High love stoops low and the higher the love is, the lower it is willing to stoop.

There was once a great prince who shed his royal garments and put on the clothes of a day laborer so that he could take up employment with a crew of men who were building a house because that's where his beloved lived.

He did it so that he could simply catch a glimpse of her.

This is what Christ did.

He emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a servant.

He became of no reputation to draw near to his beloved you.

How low he stooped for you.

How high is his love?

Second, consider that there is no failing, there's no weakness, no sin so vile that he does not overlook to declare the surpassing greatness of his love for you.

What an unpleasant thing it is to consider our sin.

What an unpleasant thing it is to examine our lives up until today and consider the ways that we have failed God and that we have rebelled against him, broken his law.

How unpleasant that is.

But how glorious it is to consider that Christ knew of all of that, every last detail, every last thought, every last motivation and he said, my love is set on you and it will not fail and I will rescue you.

Great love passes by and pardons great faults and how great are our faults?

Peter denied Christ three times yet Christ loved him.

Those things which men will not overlook in their neighbor, Christ does.

His love is far greater than ours.

Lastly, consider that no gift was so great that Christ did not bestow upon you.

Love gives gifts and Christ has given you all things for all things are yours.

Isaac's love to Rebecca was shown by the gifts that he sent to her.

Believers, for your sake, Christ became poor that through his poverty, you might become rich.

You have eternal life, you have heaven.

Yet what greater gift is there than Christ himself?

Christ has given himself for you and to you.

Christ said, as the father has loved me, so have I loved you, abide in my loves.

Brothers and sisters, God is your deliverer and he is compelled by his steadfast love, his tender mercy toward you.

And that love and mercy originates in God himself.

It's not based on your performance, what he did or didn't do.

And because it originates in God himself, it will not change.

Lord, we thank you that your love for us does not change.

That your tender mercy is constant.

Though the mountains crumble and fall into the sea, though the earth give way, though the sea toss and turn in chaos, though it seem everything around us is shaking, your loving gaze set upon us will never change.

Your love for us and your mercy toward us does not ebb and flow like the tide.

It doesn't change.

Being like our emotions change is constant.

And we thank you, oh Lord.

Upon that we ground our lives.

Upon the gospel, the greatest demonstration, the clearest demonstration of your love for us.

It's in Christ name we pray, amen.

Thanks.