Sermon at Christ Presbyterian Church, Georgetown · Luke 1:67–79 · December 2025
Auto-generated transcript from the Christ Presbyterian Church (Georgetown) service, trimmed to the sermon (scripture reading through the message and closing prayer). Light caption cleanups applied; treat as a reading aid, not a polished manuscript.
Full service video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4vkSX4PAUE
Let us hear the word of the Lord as we read it from Luke 1 verses 67- 79. This is referring to John the Baptist and it's his father Zechariah who is speaking. 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. He 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 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 light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Thank you for this invitation to preach to you this morning. Sometimes I stand in for our pastor in Chester in England and his name is Pastor D. Williams. So, I feel quite as home here this morning. And I assure Dean that if ever he wants to call on me, my private jet is on standby.
So, I'd be very willing. Now when we come to the passage that we read Luke 1 67-79 uh we come to what's known as the Magnificat. That was last Sunday. That's the first of Luke's great songs of praise to God. The Magnificat is praising God for what he is going to do for his people.
And this Sunday, the song of Zechariah is called the Benedictus. It's blessing to God. And so we have a certain order here. God is praised because God blesses his people. God is praised by his people because he has blessed us with many blessings in fulfilling his promise.
It's not the kind of blessings that the world expects this Christmas. In fact, there are things in Luke chapter 1 which cut against our present ways of thinking and mentality and in two particular ways. In this chapter Luke 1, we have the presence of miracle and without these miracles, God does not fulfill his promises for his people. And secondly, we have a very strong intimation that not only God does miracles, but also that man can't do it. It can doesn't stand up in the light of Luke chapter one.
man is in need of salvation. And in fact, when we consider both the song of Mary and the song of Zechariah and the whole of this first chapter of Luke, we can say that the summary of all that Luke is saying to us is found in verse 37 of chapter 1. Verse 37 of chapter 1. For nothing will be impossible to God. For nothing will be impossible to God.
And that is the message, the theme that runs throughout these two first chapters of Luke. And we'll come back to that in the conclusion. Meanwhile, we'll develop three points from Zechariah's Song of Praise which underline this affirmation. For with God nothing will be impossible. And Luke is very subtle.
a doctor. And Luke has analyzed all that he could find about the birth of Jesus. And he has safe hands in presenting it. He's the kind of doctor you'd want to do an internal examination on you rather than Dr. house because Luke is very careful in his way of presenting things.
And he underlines this idea, nothing will be impossible with God through the names of the three people involved in Zechariah's song of praise. And this hit me as I was meditating uh on the text a couple of weeks ago. And the three people involved in Zechariah's song of praise here are Zachariah himself, John the Baptist, and Elizabeth, John the Baptist's mother. And names in Hebrew uh aren't like names in modern American or modern English. Names mean something.
So when you have a name, your name means something. And Luke is using this to underline what God is going to do in a very strange way to us because Zechariah means God remembers. Okay. John the Baptist means God is merciful and Elizabeth means God is faithful. So God remembers, God is merciful and God is faithful in fulfilling his promises.
Nothing will be impossible for God. Because God remembers his people because God is merciful to his people in remembering them and because God is faithful to his people in saving them. So nothing will be impossible to God. First of all, God remembers Zechariah. God remembers.
Now, what was the problem with Zechariah? Well, the problem with Zechariah was when the angel came to him and told him that he was going to have a son, Zechariah found that just too much to believe and he didn't trust the word of the Lord. And we're told that very explicitly in chapter one when the angel addresses Zechariah. Zechariah becomes dumb. He's struck with deafness and dumbness because he doesn't believe the word of the Lord.
And the angel said to him, "You will be deaf and dumb until this happens because you didn't believe the word of God sent to you." And Zechariah is a living picture of the history of Israel. Because for 400 years, Israel have had no word of God. There have been death to God's word and there's been no prophets. The voice of prophecy has been done and silenced for 400 years. But now God is coming to save his people.
And that dumbness will be broken. And that dumbness will be broken because God will remember his people. And God will speak to his people again in his remembrance of them. And so when John the Baptist is finally born, Zachariah's dumbness ceases and he breaks out with this great song of praise. And we'll come back to that a little later on.
But the thing is here that in this text we see that Luke is telling us this. Listen to this verse 70. As he spoke by the mouth of his prophets of old that we should be saved from his enemies, from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his covenant. There you have the remembrance that Zechariah indicates.
God will again come to his people with a new word. And this is underlined in verse 76. You child will be called the prophet of the most high. and you will go before the Lord to prepare his way. So God remembers his people in breaking his silence after many years and bringing his word to them.
And John the Baptist will be the prophet of the Lord who will prepare the way of the great prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ himself who will be the final, the one true prophet. And Christ will be the word made flesh. Christ will be prophecy made flesh to bring salvation and deliverance to God's people. So God has not forgotten. God remembers his people.
And finally, he remembers his people in sending them the true prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ, the word of God, the word made flesh, to make all God's promises real and actual and living. And there is no other word of God for us than the Lord Jesus Christ. Because in him, God remembers all our needs. God remembers all our misery. God remembers all our sinfulness.
And he comes to speak to that through his great prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ. There is nothing that God will not do because the Lord Jesus Christ is God the Son sent for our salvation. There will be nothing impossible to God because of the Lord Jesus Christ. Very often we forget that and we look elsewhere where all that we need to do is to remember that God has remembered us and nothing will be impossible to God because of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, that's the first point.
But the second goes on in saying nothing will be impossible to God because when God comes, God comes as the merciful one. God will be merciful. God will not come in Jesus Christ to judge the world. I came not to judge the world but to save the world from sin. And God will come as the merciful one.
And for the mercy of God, nothing is impossible. Nothing will be impossible because God is merciful to his people. And that is John the Baptist. John the Baptist will prepare the way for the Lord Jesus Christ. But how will he prepare the way for the Lord Jesus Christ?
Well, he will prepare the way by showing the mercy promised to our fathers. Verse 72, he shows the mercy promised to our fathers. And what is this mercy? Verse 77. You will be the prophet of the most high.
You will be go before the way of the Lord to prepare his ways. Give knowledge of salvation to his people and forgiveness of their sins. This is how God will be merciful to us. Nothing will be impossible to God because God will provide the ultimate sacrifice. God will provide the forgiveness of all our sins.
And this is very wonderful because walking in darkness, bound by the guilt of sin, God will provide forgiveness for each of us, for all his people as he forgives their sins. Because the great high priest is coming. The great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ himself will come and show mercy to God's people. And so God will be merciful in forgiving them their sins. And what does forgiveness of sins mean?
verse 75. That we might serve him in holiness and righteousness all our days. Holiness and righteousness are established by our great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to forgive our sins and to provide with forgiveness, holiness because he is the holy one and righteousness because he is the one who is righteous. He is Jesus Christ, the just, the righteous one before God. And as the holy one and the righteous one, his sacrifice will atone for all our sin.
Now we are in Texas and in Texas you go to HB, huh? So, we'll go to Heb this morning and underline this point because there's something in HB that speaks directly to this. Hebrews HB chapter 2 verse 17. Listen to what the epistle to the Hebrews that he says in chapter 2 verse 17. Therefore, Jesus had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become what?
A merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of his people. There is the mercy of God for us. Propitiation, the covering of the sins of his people. That is true mercy. God remembers our sin no more because the Lord Jesus Christ offered himself in a propitiationary sacrifice.
The just for the unjust to bring us to God. In the Lord Jesus Christ, God not only remembers us, but he remembers us in mercy because he remembers us by forgiving us all our sin. And this is the deliverance that Zechariah is praising the Lord for. Deliverance from sin. Yes.
Maybe Zechariah and even Mary did not fully understand the extent of God's deliverance. Maybe they were still thinking in social and political and geographical terms. But when you read what Zechariah says, you have no doubt that the ultimate deliverance from sin is not a political one or a social one, but it's a spiritual one because God forgives us our unbelief. He forgives us our unrighteousness and our sin. And he delivers us from what we are as sinners.
No, nothing will be impossible for the Lord because God forgives sins and we are made acceptable in the beloved because God has forgiven our sins. That means that we can accept one another as forgiven sinners as well. Now the third point concerns Elizabeth and Elizabeth means God is faithful and this concerns God's oath of faithfulness for his people. God swore an oath. Verse 73.
the oath that he swore to our father Abraham to grant us. God as the eternal king binds himself by an oath to be faithful to his people and to bring them salvation from their sin. And he does this through sending the Lord Jesus Christ, the true son of Abraham. And he fulfills his promises for his people through fulfilling the promise he gave to Abraham. In you all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
And in keeping his oath, God sends his king into the world in order to bless all the nations of the earth. Through the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of glory became man, humbled in flesh and raised in holiness to fulfill this oath. that God would save his people and bless every nation through him. So God through Abraham and the realization of the promise he gave to Abraham 2,000 years before now appears and establishes his kingdom in the one who will come in the Lord Jesus Christ. So God is faithful.
God not only remembers, God not only is merciful, but God is faithful to what he's engaged to do, and that is to bless his people and the nations through the realization of the promise given to Abraham. But there's not only Abraham here in Zechariah's prayer of praise. There's also David, isn't there? So, we not only have the founder of the people mentioned, we have the great king mentioned. And if we read verse 69 and 70, we see that God has raised up a horn of salvation in the house of his servant David as he spoke by the mouth of the holy prophets of old.
So what's all this talk about horns? He will raise up a horn of salvation for us. Well, my daughter, one of them lives in Spain. And you know, in Spain, they have bull fighters. I don't recommend it at all.
I don't like the idea of men fighting against bulls. It always seems that the men win and the poor old bulls are always on the receiving end of it. But in a bull fight, you know what the bull fighter wants to avoid is not just the rush of the bull because he can dodge that. He has his red cape, you know. He wants to avoid the horn because the horn is the power of the bull.
And these bulls, they pick up men with their horns. They throw them up in the air and it's mortal. Huh? Well, you know something about that in Texas, too. Huh?
You have, of course, the Longhorns here. And boy, they're terrific horns. You know, the Aggies found out all about Longhorns week last Saturday. And I'm very sorry for you. The power is in the horn and God is saying that he is going to raise up the powerful one to fulfill the kingdom of God as promised to his servant David.
The horn of salvation, the power of salvation will come through the descendants of David. True kingship will be accomplished through him. And how is this power revealed? Well, here it is. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness. On them the light has shined. For to us a child is born and the government will be on his shoulder. He will be the true king of his people in a spiritual way. And David at the end of his rule as king was very conscious of the future kingship of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And in the second book of Samuel chapter 23 and verse 9. I'm just finding this in my Bible here. 2 Sam Sham Samuel chapter 23 and verse 9, sorry, verse three says uh the following thing. 2 Samuel 23 verse three says, "The God of Israel has spoken. The rock of Israel has said to me, this is David speaking at the end of his life.
When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth. The son of God will come as the great king, the son of David, David's greater son. And in coming, he will shine on his people with new light. He will raise up a horn of salvation for us. He will visit us and redeem his people.
God establishes the kingdom of light in King Jesus, the descendant of David, the horn, the power of our salvation. So nothing will be impossible for God because God will fulfill his promises. God remembers God has mercy on his people and God comes in King Jesus to fulfill all his promises. So just a few words in conclusion to draw all this together. Nothing will be impossible with God.
which means that everything will be possible with God. That's what Luke is saying to us through Zechariah's hymn. Everything will be possible for God. All our needs will be supplied in the Lord Jesus Christ. That also means if nothing is possible with God, it means that nothing will be possible with men.
H you follow me? If nothing is impossible for God, it means that nothing is possible for men and that everything will be impossible for men left on their own. But this underlines the greatness of our need of salvation. We can never find salvation for ourselves. God has to save us.
God must come to save his people. That's why the Lord Jesus Christ came and what is impossible for man is possible for God. And that's why we have these miracles at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke and in particular two great miracles. Firstly, the Lord sends his son through a virgin. What is impossible to man is possible to God.
He sends his only begotten son through the Holy Spirit's work in the womb of the Virgin Mary. And so he brings his salvation to us in a way which we couldn't predict ourselves. in which we would never understand ourselves. God saves us through this miracle by which he co becomes man living among us as a man, the Lord Jesus Christ, God incarnate. And the second miracle of course is Elizabeth's miracle.
Here is a woman who's too old to have a child. She's sterile, her husband is. And uh well you can understand Zechariah in a way for not believing the angel. How could this be possible? But God brings John the Baptist out of sterility to life.
And John the Baptist will precede the Lord Jesus Christ because God acts in a miraculous way that is beyond all that we could imagine in order to secure our salvation. God has to save us. And these miracles at the beginning of the Gospel of John show that we cannot save ourselves. that God has to intervene to save us. And the great myth of modern man as articulated by your former regretted President John F.
Kennedy who said there's no fault that man did that man can't repair. He said that in one of his famous speeches. But it's totally wrong. The American dream won't save you. Man cannot save himself.
The capitalist system will not save us. Man cannot save himself. Nothing can bring us new life. No human medicine can bring us new life. And no human medicine can ultimately save us from death.
Only the Lord can save us and bring us life out of death as he brings light through the gospel and new hope to those who trust in him because God remembers his people because God has mercy on them and God is faithful to his word to save them. Zechariah shows that we cannot help ourselves. We cannot help ourselves. With Zechariah, everything is impossible. And Zechariah has to come to that understanding that what the Lord has said to him will come true.
And so Zachariah leaves his service as priest in the temple and he goes off deaf and dumb and he finds his wife and they bear a child. And when the child is born, Zechariah shows that he has come to faith in God because he says as the angel had said, "His name will be John." And he wrote it on a slate. His name will be John, not Zechariah like me. And Zachariah is now believing that with God nothing is impossible. He has come to faith out of a situation of unbelief.
And this shows us what we can do as well. What we have to do in order to be saved. What is impossible for us because of our sin is possible to God because God calls us to trust and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the one who took our sin upon himself in order to abolish it in order to die for us on the cross. So God has remembered us and our need. God has forgiven us.
And God has made his promises to us in the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. And you only got to do one thing this morning. Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. The miracle of salvation enters into our lives when we renounce self-trust and throw ourselves on the Lord Jesus Christ in for salvation. God remembers our needs.
God is merciful to us and God is faithful. God is sovereign. Lord, we are called to trust in him, to rest on him, and to believe in him. Salvation begins by faith, and we must continue in faith as well. You don't begin in faith and then change gears and slip into works.
That is wrong. You begin in faith and trust in God and you continue in faith and trust in God. And John Calvin said, commenting St. Jerome, who invented the notion of merits, Calvin said, I regret the day when Jerome even spoke about human merits because before God there are no merits. So we begin by faith and we continue by faith, not by works.
That removes all boasting from us. We continue in faith because God remembers, because God is merciful, because God is faithful, because he's done everything for our salvation. And there's nothing for us to do for ourselves but believe in the Lord Jesus Christ in order that we be saved. And that's where many evangelical churches go wrong. And they go wrong in three ways.
And I warn you against them. One of them is perfectionism. And perfectionism says, "I am better than everyone else." and I will do better than everyone else. And that's beginning in faith and that's continuing in workfor salvation. But there are no workfor salvation.
And perfectionism is impossible. So perfectionism makes people bitter against others who aren't perfect like themselves. And when perfectionism gets hold of a church, it turns that church into a community which is out of contact with reality because we are just by faith. And we continue to be sinners before God. And we continue to need salvation day by day.
And so there is no perfectionism. It's an impossibility. legalism. Now, legalism is thinking that you're better than anyone else, that you have a set of laws and those laws are what counts and they're what you live by. And so, you judge everyone else according to those laws.
But salvation is by faith alone. It's not by a set of laws. So, trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and in him alone. You're having difficulties and struggles in your life. Doing what's right won't help you.
Trusting in Christ will help you. You'll find that liberating. Laws are enslaving. God is liberating. And he wants his people to be free by faith, to serve him with joy and gladness because he remembers us, because he's merciful to us, and because he's faithful to his word.
And finally, avoid, brothers and sisters, all hypocrisy. And hypocrisy in the church is a terrible thing. It's pretending to be what you're not. You do one thing and you believe another. And hypocrisy is the end of you.
It undoes you because be sure your sin will find you out. If you're a hypocrite pretending to be good and right and hiding your sin from yourself or others, one day your sin will find you out and your hypocrisy will be exposed and that's a terrible thing. So don't look to works. Works can do nothing for you because nothing is possible with man and everything will be impossible with man. But with God, everything will be possible.
Come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Set your heart on him. Treasure him with all your being and vow to live for him day by day and to walk by faith and not by sight. Because God has remembered you. God has had mercy on you and God is faithful to you.
Yes. Sometimes brothers and sisters, we get to a point where we think is there a way forward and we can't see the way forward. Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Lord of light and he is the Lord of life. He is the one who brings light and life into our lives.
And if we can't see the way ahead, he knows the way ahead. So cast aside all cares because he cares for you and come to him and find the meaning of life this Christmas. Amen.
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