He Redeems The World Part 1

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Over 2,000 years ago, Jesus was born in a small country in the Middle East. That birth became the turning point between B.C.

and A.D. But another child was born first, a forerunner of Jesus, whose name was John. Today, his story.

Stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, tell us about the series that begins today, The Baby Who Changed the World.

Well, Dave, I don't know about you, but I'm ready for Christmas. After all that has happened this past year, isn't it wonderful for us to anticipate once again our celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ? And in a world that is torn politically and spiritually and health-wise, we all know what has taken place in the year 2020. We anticipate the fact that once again we put these things aside and emphasize that which is most important, that a redeemer has been born. I believe that this series of messages is going to be a great blessing to many, many people.

The series is titled The Baby Who Changed the World. You know, here at the Moody Church, I preached many, many messages about Christmas, about the birth of Christ, and I never tired preparing those messages. Who can possibly become weary thinking about the good news that took place in a manger? So let's just open our hearts now and be blessed as we talk about The Baby Who Changed the World.

We'll go back to some of the background material, but from here on out, it's all about the Christmas season. The Baby Who Changed the World. And that baby did change the world. I have an atheist friend who told me one time that he didn't even believe that there was evidence that Jesus existed. I said to him, all that you need to do is to look at a calendar and see that there is a B.C. and an A.D. and know that Jesus turns out to be the hinge of history.

Of course he existed. The manuscript evidence for Jesus and for the New Testament is overwhelmingly positive and it's compelling. Jesus changed the world back then.

He changes the world now and he especially is going to change the world in the future. At his glorious return, Jesus is the baby that changed the world. Take your Bibles for a moment and turn to Luke chapter 1, Luke chapter 1, where we have the remarkable story not only of the visitation of the angel to Mary, but we have also the same angel coming to a man by the name of Zechariah. This is Luke chapter 1. And when you look at this passage, you must realize, of course, that Zechariah is not the Zechariah of the Old Testament. He's not the Old Testament prophet Zechariah who lived hundreds of years before this Zechariah. But he goes into the temple and there an angel appears to him and says, you are going to have a son and he's going to be the forerunner of the Messiah. And Zechariah doesn't believe it. And as a result, the angel said, you'll know that it's true because you are going to be struck dumb.

You are going to be mute until the baby is born. And right on the spot, he tried to learn sign language. The Bible says he came out of the temple and was trying to sign to people to try to explain to them why it is that he couldn't speak. Nine months later, John is born. And this also is in Luke chapter 1.

And now we're in verse 57. And after he is born, they wonder what the child will be called. And normally in those days, you called the child by his father's name. So they expected this to be Zechariah Jr. But the angel had said, no, he is going to be called John.

So now Zechariah takes a tablet. The Bible says in verse 63, he wrote his name is John. And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed. And he spoke blessing God. And fear came upon everyone.

Here's a man who had not talked for 270 days. And though he had not talked for that long period of time, now he blesses God and we have the content of what he said when he blessed God. And that's why we ask you to turn now to verse 67 of Luke chapter 1, where we begin this remarkable story, this remarkable poem called the Benedictus.

You may find that in your Bibles. It is the Benedictus because in Latin, the first word is Benedictus. You remember there was a Latin translation of the Bible made by Jerome. And when he made it, the first word blessed is Benedictus. And that's why that may be a heading in your Bible, the Benedictus.

Next week, we're going to look at the Magnificat. And that word in Latin means my soul magnifies. That's based on the poem of Mary. But this is on the poem of none other than Zacharias. When you look at the New Testament, which was written in Greek, remember the New Testament was written in Greek. The word that is used here, blessed, is eulogatos, eulogatos.

And what does that remind you of? It's the word from which we get the word eulogy. So he is here eulogizing God. All of us know what it is like to eulogize people.

Usually we wait until they are dead. And then we say all of those nice things about them. And I'm sure that all of those nice things are true. But there is a story you've probably heard that I'm going to tell you. It's been floating around for many years about twins. And these twins were really evil men. I mean, they were thieves. They were liars.

They extorted money from people. And when one of them died, the other said to the pastor, I want you, as you eulogize my brother, I want you to make sure that in your eulogy, you say he was a saint. I want those four words in his eulogy. So the pastor, as he thought about it, gave the eulogy and said, the deceased was an evil man. He was an extortioner. He was a liar. He was a thief.

He even has a criminal record. But if you compare him to his twin brother, he was a saint. So he worked it into his eulogy. But here we have eulogizing God. Have you ever wondered why the Bible says in Psalm 103, bless the Lord, O my soul. We are to bless God. You say to yourself, well, you know, I know that God is to bless me, but why should I bless God? Does God need a blessing? And the answer to that is found right here.

The answer is yes. In this sense, we get to eulogize God. And if you're in trouble today and you're living in darkness and hopelessness and you don't know what the future holds and you don't know where to go from here because life has done you many, many bad turns and you're in pain either physically or emotionally. Let me tell you that there is one thing you can do that will give God glory and praise, and that is to eulogize him. Memorize Psalms such as Psalm 103. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make its boast of the Lord.

And on and on it goes. You bless God, you eulogize him. And that's what Zechariah does. Now he gives us actually the outline of the eulogy by referring to two covenants that God made that he is in the process of fulfilling. Two covenants.

Let's look at them. First of all, verse 68, blessed be the Lord God of Israel. By the way, in the Bible, the phrase the God of Israel occurs more than 200 times. You look at that thread running throughout the scripture, the God of Israel. And 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 prophet from 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 and his oath that he swore also to Abraham. Notice that that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear. David is referred to in verse 69 where it says the horn of salvation in the house of the servant David. That's the first covenant he refers to.

Do you remember second Samuel chapter seven? God comes to David and David says, God, I want to build you a house. You know, the old tent, the tabernacle had been used for worship and of course it was tattered.

It no doubt needed repairs. And David said, I want to build a permanent place for the tabernacle. I want to build you a temple.

I want to build you a house. And God said, no, David, you can't do that, but I will build you a house. He says, after you have died, there will be posterity that will come.

You'll have a son and he may be disobedient. And that's a reference to Solomon, but then your kingship and kingdom will be established forever. And that was God's promise to David. And now Zachariah is looking at this and he is seeing the birth of Jesus, which is to take place in chapter two.

Of course, John was three months older than Jesus. And so he is giving this and he's saying that this is a fulfillment of the promise made to David. And you'll notice that he goes on to say, first of all, that he has redeemed his people, verse 68. The redemption of God means the fact that God came to save us from our sins. That is the redemption that we have. And he has raised up a horn of salvation, imagery, figure of speech.

When the ancients began to think about strength, they would think about oxen. And here was a horn that was being raised up as a very strong force that would be able to crush whatever it is before it. And that this promise of God for victory was being fulfilled in Jesus. Now we have to back off for a moment. And I know that your Bibles are open or your cell phones, as the case may be.

Let's look at this more carefully. Jesus Christ is about to be born. And you'll notice verse 70, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from 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. Was that ever fulfilled? Has there been a time when the God of Israel has preserved Israel from those who hate Israel and from its enemies?

No, that has not yet happened. Let's be clear about this. When Zechariah is speaking, he is thinking about an immediate fulfillment. The Redeemer has come to redeem us from our sins. But in his mind, he is also thinking of an ultimate fulfillment that is referred to in the Old Testament as the coming kingdom when Jesus will be established as King in Jerusalem, finally fulfilling the Old Testament promises. But Zechariah didn't see that.

He didn't necessarily see that Jesus was going to die and be crucified. And there was going to be a church age of 2,000 years before Jesus Christ returns to fulfill all of those promises, Israel saved from its enemies and delivered from all those that would exterminate her. That has not yet happened.

But happen it will. So Zechariah here is in an outburst of praise. This particular poem is laced with Old Testament scriptures. Clearly, he was a man who was steeped in Old Testament, so he has allusions and sometimes direct quotes to the Old Testament and the fulfillment of prophecy. But not all of the prophecies have yet been fulfilled. For example, you remember the angel said to Mary, he shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Most High and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Has that been fulfilled as Jesus reigned on the throne of David?

I don't think so. Not yet, but it will be fulfilled someday. Do you remember those Old Testament promises such as Isaiah chapter 11?

Yes. Also Isaiah chapter 2, I believe it is where it says these words, he shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people and they shall beat their swords into plow shears and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation neither shall they learn war anymore.

You know that at the United Nations across the street there is what is known as the Isaiah wall and it quotes they shall beat their swords into plow shears their spears into pruning hooks nation shall not lift up sword against nation neither shall they learn war anymore. And underneath it says Isaiah. It doesn't give the reference because if it gave the reference people might actually look it up and discover that this was messianic. It is when Jesus shall reign among the nations then there shall be peace then the lion and the lamb shall lie down together. Nowadays if the lion and the lamb lie down together if you notice carefully when the lion gets up the lamb is missing it's not there but the day is going to come when all those prophecies shall be fulfilled. But here Zechariah is speaking about the fact that the redeemer has been born redemption he's looking at it as if he's been born he knows that messiah is coming and he rejoices in the fact that even now today you can be redeemed by God because the redeemer has come. So he refers to the promise made to David that's verse 69. Notice in verse 73 he now refers to the promise that was made to Abraham. 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 of our days. Once again he's referring now to the oath that God made to Abraham. If we were to go back to Genesis chapter 12 we would discover that God said Abraham I'm making you certain promises. First of all your name shall be great and that has been fulfilled.

Not only shall your name be great but also you will be a blessing and in you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. In other words it was an allusion already to the coming redeemer and when God made that promise to Abraham he ratified it eight times in the book of Genesis alone and it was what was known as an unconditional covenant. That is to say a covenant that would be fulfilled by God and not even dependent upon the faithfulness of the Jewish nation. The Jewish nation throughout its history as you know has been wracked by idolatry, apostasy, turning from God and all those things and still the angel comes to Mary and assures us and Mary that in the future those kinds of covenants are going to be fulfilled dependent upon the faithfulness of God and in Abraham's seed all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed. And so what the prophet here is saying, what Zechariah is saying is he's seeing the beginning of the fulfillment of these prophecies because without the Messiah the prophecies cannot be fulfilled. Jesus as Messiah, Jesus as King comes and the prophecies are going to be fulfilled. So what you have in this Benedictus, in this eulogy to God are first of all thanksgiving for the promises God gave to David and then he goes a thousand years before that thanksgiving for the promises that God made to Abraham and the fact that the fulfillment of those prophecies is beginning. And then he turns to his own son John and this is what he says, and you child I'm now in verse 76 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. And you know that John the Baptist of course when he went out into the wilderness and preached to the people, the people actually came to him because they recognized that he was a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. You know the Bible says for example in the book of Kings or rather I should say the scripture says in chapter 1 verse 17 right here of Luke that he will go before him in the strength and power of Elijah because one of the last prophets of the Old Testament, Malachi, predicted that Elijah would come before the day of the Lord and John the Baptist fulfills that because he actually has the role of being a prophet and is so to speak the forerunner of Jesus.

In fact he also fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah when Isaiah says that there is a voice crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord. Get ready for the intervention of God.

Be ready because it is going to happen. And then the text goes on with this beautiful language. It says 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 light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace. The imagery there would have been much more pronounced and clear to the people of the first century. Sometimes when people were in a caravan they were delayed for whatever reason and they were overtaken by darkness. Now if you are overtaken by dark darkness and you're in a caravan, number one the road is unclear.

You're not sure exactly where you should be going and therefore you can become confused easily. It is very dangerous because you don't know what animals there are that lurk in the darkness. And the Bible says in the book of Psalms and how accurate the scripture is that it says those who are wicked they stumble in the darkness and they don't even know what it is that they're stumbling over. They don't know whether they're stumbling over a piece of gold or a piece of steel or some wood that was left along the way.

They do not know. Darkness is terrible and it's terrifying. But Jesus Christ is the sunrise. My friend isn't that wonderful no matter how dark it is. We have Jesus Christ and he is indeed the sunrise.

Let me ask you a question. Have you been blessed as a result of running to win? Perhaps you've been listening for many years and you've never connected with us. Would you stand with us during this Christmas season and say that yes you are willing to help us get the gospel of Jesus Christ to more than 20 different countries. Thousands upon thousands of people listen to running to win and the reason that this ministry can continue is because of people like you who say yes we will pray and we will give.

Consider becoming an endurance partner. Those are people who stand with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts and we are so grateful for the many of you who have committed yourself to help us. In order to find more information here's what you do. You go to rtwoffer.com.

Now I'm going to give that information to you again. Give you a chance to get that pen and pencil or if you prefer you can call us at 1-888-218-9337 but on the web it's rtwoffer.com. Click on the endurance partner button and that's where all the information is that you will need to become an endurance partner helping us share the good light of the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world. Here's what you do. You can also call us as I mentioned at 1-888-218-9337. God bless you as you stand with us because together we are making a difference.

You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. Jesus did not appear on earth without advance notice. Many Old Testament prophecies foretold His arrival. In the New Testament we find an amazing prophecy given just before His birth through a man named Zechariah. Next time on Running to Win, more from Luke Chapter 1. For Dr. Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.