Some time ago we met for a beautiful banquet at a hotel nearby here, and on that evening
we received commitments from the church family of about $2.7 million for the construction.
We knew at the time that wasn't going to be enough to pay for it.
We were grateful for that wonderful commitment to get us started.
And as the construction has taken place over this last year and a half or so, the vision
for what we have done has grown.
And the vision we've ended up with is so much better than where we started the process.
But the result of that is that we have a cost of this worship center of about $4.5 million.
And we still have the atrium to do out there in the front.
And so we believe, Dave and I believe, that it's time for all of us to get on board to
help make possible paying for the place that we meet and finishing this phase one of renovation.
And as you can see in your worship folder this morning, we're going to have just a brief
mini-capital campaign the first three weeks of January, kicking it off on January 4th,
culminating on January 18th.
And on that day we're going to give the opportunity for all of us to make a commitment, a three-year
commitment to the payment for the renovation work for our facility here.
We do that with a heart overwhelmed with gratitude for those of you who are maintaining
your commitments made some time ago.
We thank God for you.
We just couldn't have done this if it hadn't been for your first commitment to this project.
And by the way, we're coming in not only on time with those commitments, but actually
ahead of time.
So we praise God for that.
But now it's an opportunity for all the rest of us to come on board and help make possible
this place that God has blessed us with.
And what a wonderful place to come for us to worship, but also a wonderful place to invite
our community to come for various kinds of programs and events where we can share with
them the good things of God.
So thank you.
Be praying please about what God would have you to do to be a part of that.
One of the things I enjoy about Christmas season is the music on the radio kind of changes.
My favorite station is KDFC.
Do any of you listen to KDFC?
It's a classical station out of San Francisco.
It's one of the best classical stations in the country.
It is a commercial station.
They always have good music, in my opinion, but in the last 36 hours or so, they've actually
become a Christian radio station.
Did you know that?
Isn't that wonderful?
Let me explain to you what I mean.
They don't know it.
Okay.
They don't know it, but they have begun playing Christmas carols in all of their programs.
And the result is that several times every hour.
I mean, there's the kind of holiday music also, but every hour there are many times
during the hour when Christmas carols are being sung and the gospel of Jesus Christ
is being laid out for their listeners.
Praise God for that.
That's a marvelous thing.
I love Christmas carols because the carols that we sing encapsulate so much of the truth
about this season.
We sang some this morning.
And boy, we're going to have a great time on Wednesday evening at the Christmas Eve
services singing more of the carols and being together.
I hope you'll be with us at 4.30, 6.00, or at 11.00 on Christmas Eve.
But I have a little test for you this morning.
I want to find out how much you know about Christmas carols.
And if you're able to recognize them from some generic kinds of statements, descriptives
that I will make about them, they're going to be on the screen.
And as soon as you can identify the Christmas carol that is on the screen, just blurt it
out.
Let's go with number one.
Wanted in December, top forward incisors.
There you go.
Now you got the idea, right?
Okay, so let's go to number two.
The lad is...
I don't even get a chance to tell you.
Somebody's passed around a cheat sheet.
Who is it?
See, before I even look, you give me the answer.
Let's go to the next one.
We are Kong, Lear, and Nat Cole.
We three kings, exactly.
Far off in the hay bin.
So farmers, correct, away in the manger.
Listen.
You're good.
Try the next one.
Jubilation to the entire world.
That doesn't quite ring the same, does it?
All right.
Do you perceive the same vibrations which stimulate my auditory senses?
Yeah, I think I like that title better.
May the deity bestow an absence of fatigue to good-mannered male humans.
God bless you.
By the way, God bless you, Mary, gentlemen.
It's not Mary, gentlemen.
Did you know that?
God bless you, Mary, gentlemen.
Okay, let's go to the next one.
Somebody's already said it.
Angels we have heard from in elevation.
There we go.
All right.
And the next one.
As the guardians of the woolly animals protected their charges in the dark hours, shepherds,
exactly, watching over their sheep, and Sir Lancelot with laryngitis.
Silent night.
Exactly.
You got it.
Well now I have another one.
Which of the Christmas carols is titled Benedictus?
Benedictus.
Zachariah's song, exactly right.
It's the Christmas Carol written by Zachariah, and it's the one we're looking at this morning.
So would you open your Bible with me, please, to Luke chapter one.
Luke chapter one.
As we think about the original Christmas carols, and today Zachariah's song of hope.
Only Luke gives us this information we're going to look at today.
Only Luke tells us about John the Baptist's birth announcement, and what an announcement
that was.
The angel Gabriel appeared to him in the temple.
Only Luke tells us about his birth.
Only Luke tells us about his dedication, his being named John by his father, and then his
father breaking out in song.
Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth were a couple who lived without a lot of hope.
Personally that was true.
They were childless.
They were well along in years now, and having no child was a grief to them.
Furthermore, they lived in a time in Israel when there was a lot of oppression because
of the Roman domination of Palestine in those days.
In fact, at the end of his song he talks about living in darkness, living under the shadow
of death.
They really did.
It was a tough time to be alive.
There wasn't a lot of hope among the Jewish people on a lot of levels, but God brought
them hope in this song.
The theme of this song is one of eager anticipation for what God is about to do, and because of
that hope flows out of this original Christmas carol.
Now, hope is an emotion.
It's more than that, but it's an emotion that we feel that is based upon divine commitment.
I want you to understand that with me.
Hope is not spelled H-O-P-E and then a question mark.
It's H-O-P-E and an exclamation point.
You see, hope in the Bible is not about wondering if something might happen.
It's about having absolute confidence and certainty that something is going to happen.
Hope is based upon divine commitment.
Hope fills the heart of the one who anticipates by faith what God is about to do, and that's
Zachariah.
This man who didn't live with much hope is now filled with hope in the song that he sings.
By the way, this song that he writes for us here is probably more like a prophecy than
it is a song of praise.
He certainly praises the Lord, but if you would go back to the book of Isaiah, you would
find statements very similar to what Zachariah says here.
Zachariah had hope.
Hope empowers you to press on in the tough times.
Hope empowers you to press on.
Folks, if you don't have hope, motivation is drained from your life.
We all need hope to exist.
Hope is an emotion that is based upon divine commitment.
Now, Zachariah tells us in this song how to experience hope, how to live with hope.
I'd like you to think about that theme with me, because to live with hope, you need to
do two things.
First of all, you need to understand what God is committed to.
If hope is based on divine commitment, then you need to understand what it is that God
is committed to.
And Zachariah gives us an answer in this song.
First of all, he tells us that God is committed to His people.
Look at verse 68.
Praise be to the Lord, the God of what?
By the way, you have the Scripture there in your notes.
If you don't have a Bible with you, oh, you don't have this one, though.
You have other Scripture.
So pull out your outline.
But if you have your Bible, open it.
Then you'll know how to answer questions like I just asked.
Praise be to the Lord, the God of who?
Israel, because He has come and has redeemed what?
His people.
Notice that.
Israel.
His people.
Who are His people?
The answer to that is that it's the people with whom God is in relationship.
God is in relationship with people based upon covenants or agreements that He makes with
them.
And in history, there have been a number of these agreements or covenants.
Now these are required because God is holy.
But whatever He is going to do is based upon certain moral principles.
These principles give God a legal basis for doing everything that He does.
So when God makes a commitment, it's based upon an agreement, a covenant with His people.
And as we see here, Zachariah belonged to the people of Israel.
He was a Jew.
They're called God's people.
They were God's people because of a covenant God had made specifically with Israel.
We call it very often the covenant of the law.
Some call it the mosaic covenant because Moses is the one who mediated it.
It's a covenant that God made with them as a nation at Mount Sinai in the desert after
they had been delivered from Egypt.
Moses reminds the people of Israel in Deuteronomy chapter 7, you are a people holy to the Lord.
The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be
His people.
Verse 7, the Lord did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more
numerous than other peoples, you were the fewest.
Because the Lord loved you that He did what He did.
Verse 9, know therefore that the Lord your God is God, He is the what?
The faithful God keeping His what?
Keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep
His commandments.
God is committed to His people.
Now today in these last days in which we live, God has a new chosen people.
God has related Himself to us on the basis of a different covenant.
It's not the covenant of the law at Mount Sinai, it's the covenant of what?
How would you put it?
The covenant of grace.
Based upon not the sacrifices of animals, but the sacrifice of His Son on Mount Calvary.
You and I today are the people of God in this age for the last two thousand years.
We are part of what's called the church.
And out of all the world, those who relate to God based upon Christ's sacrifice are
the people of God and no one else.
Peter says, you know that it was not with perishable things that you were redeemed,
but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish or defect.
He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed when?
In these last times for your sake.
Through Him you believe in God who raised Him from the dead and glorified Him.
So that your faith and hope are in God.
And then he says in chapter two, a little bit later he says, you are a chosen people,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God.
You are a people belonging to God.
In verse 10 he says, once you were not a people, but now you are the people of whom?
The people of God.
God is committed to His people.
Now God remains committed to His chosen people, the Jews.
They were set aside for this period of time because of their as a nation, because of their
disobedience to Christ.
And therefore God has gone into the gentile nations of the world and He is calling out
a people for His name's sake.
Acts chapter 13.
You need to understand that God is still committed to the people of Israel as well.
God remains committed to His chosen people.
And God is committed to you.
He will never leave your forsake you.
Peter says, and the God of all grace who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after
you have suffered a while, will Himself restore you and make you strong and firm and steadfast.
In other words, the God who has called you to be His people.
Even though you may suffer, even though you may go through times of darkness and times
when the shadow of death is over you too, even though there may be gloomy times, God
is going to take care of you.
He's going to restore you and make you strong and firm and steadfast.
He's committed to His people.
God's committed to His plan in your life.
He's not going to fail you.
I don't know what it may be that is shadowing you this morning.
If you've come to church and you feel a little gloomy, a little down, like the clouds that
are outside, I want to tell you something.
You can live with hope if you will simply remember that God is committed to you.
Absolutely.
Faithful is He who called you who will also do it.
What God has begun in you, He will complete at the day of Jesus Christ.
He is committed to you.
Secondly, Zachariah tells us that He has committed to His plan.
Verse 69 says, For God has raised up a horn of salvation.
A horn is a poetic term meaning something that's strong like the horn of an animal.
And some translations therefore put it this way.
He has raised up a mighty Savior for us in the house of His servant David, David's royal
family.
As He has said through His holy prophets long ago, salvation from our enemies and from the
hand of all who hate us.
God is absolutely committed to His plan as well as His people.
And His plan can be summarized in this one word, verse 71, salvation.
God brought the Messiah right on time.
And in the fullness of time, He was born, made of a woman, under the law that He might
redeem us and save us.
Zachariah himself foresaw the ultimate restoration of His people.
Zachariah did not comprehend in Luke chapter 1, Zachariah did not understand that the Messiah
that His Son was going to announce would one day be rejected by the people of God.
He did not understand that they would be set aside.
Zachariah did not see that.
But what he does see here is God's ultimate salvation for the people of Israel.
This ties together exactly with what John said, for example.
God was in the world and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize
Him.
He came to that which was His own, His own people did not receive Him.
That's the story of Christ's rejection.
And Paul says in Romans chapter 11, we should not be ignorant about this.
Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has
come in.
In other words, this plan of God for salvation was not just for the Jews.
It was for all nations of the world as promised through Abraham.
And even though the Jewish nation as a whole has been set apart, there are still some Jews
who believe on Christ.
And during this time, God is especially working among the Gentiles, the non-Jews, calling
out a people for Himself.
And He says, there is a time coming when the fullness of that call will be realized.
It will be completed.
And then He says, all Israel will be saved.
As far as election is concerned, they, the Jews, are loved on account of the patriarchs
for God's gifts and His call are irrevocable.
Zachariah couldn't have seen this.
But we see it in retrospect exactly what happened.
God's plan of salvation was accomplished through the rejection of His Son by the people of
Israel.
As a nation, they were then set aside in their unbelief.
And God's call to believe on His Son went out to the Gentiles, and it still is today,
2,000 years later.
But one day, that's going to be finished.
The church will be complete, and God is going to turn back to His people, Israel, and finish
His plan for them.
I want to tell you why, because God is committed to His plan.
He's committed to it.
And nothing is going to keep His plan from coming to pass.
Whether that be in the world, in our nation, in this church, in your family, or in your
life, God is committed to His plan.
Now that ought to give you hope on the gloomiest of days.
You also need to understand that God is committed to His promises.
Verse 72.
God has done this to show mercy to our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant He swore
to our Father Abraham.
God's promises are absolute, and they cannot fail.
They cannot fail because God's own reputation is at stake.
If He makes a promise, He has to keep it.
God made promises to the fathers of the Jews, to Abraham, and He will keep them.
Zachariah knew what you and I need to remind ourselves, and that is that God will never
lie.
God will never deceive.
God will never mislead.
God is truth.
Therefore the writer of Hebrews says, because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of
His purpose very clear to the errors of what was promised, He confirmed it with an oath.
God did this so that by two unchangeable things, His promise and His oath, two unchangeable
things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the
hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.
God is committed, my friend, to His promises.
He not only promised, He gave His word on an oath that He would keep what He has promised
to do.
You and I, if we will live in the hope of God's commitments, will be a people of great
encouragement and hope in the world, and our world today is desperate for hope.
Zachariah knew also that God is committed to His purposes.
Verse 74, he says, God has made this promise 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.
What is God's purpose?
It is that He might rescue us, that He might enable us to serve Him, that we might live
without fear of Him, might live in holiness and righteousness.
But it all boils down just to two words, and really to one word, it's a preposition in
these two verses.
It's the word before.
What is God's purpose?
It is that you and I might live before Him.
The word before means in the face of Him, in the direct sight of Him.
You see what God really wants to do is to have a relationship with you and with me through
Jesus Christ, in which we live right before Him, His eyes upon us with pleasure and love,
and we living in such a way through Christ and holiness and righteousness that God is
in continual relationship with us.
That's God's purpose, and God is committed to that.
He wants us to be right before Him, not off somewhere, straying and walking around without
aim and purpose, but living right before Him.
God has made that possible through the sacrifice of Christ.
Paul reminds us of this in Ephesians 4.
It says, He chose us in Christ before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless
where in His sight, the very same idea in the face of God.
God's purpose is that we might live and dwell with Him.
Folks, that's what heaven is all about.
That's what the New Jerusalem is all about, that we might dwell in the very presence of
God.
That's God's purpose.
God's committed to that.
Yeah.
Whatever may be your disappointment, whatever question mark may be upon your life today,
whatever shadow of death, whatever darkness may be looming over your shoulder so that
your hope is being drained out of your life, understand what God has committed Himself
to.
And if you will understand that, you will live with hope.
You can't help but live with hope.
But the song goes on.
There's another verse here.
Tone changes a little bit, just like verses often do.
You not only need to understand what God has committed Himself to, but you need to observe
where God is at work if you want to live with hope.
It's possible for you and me just to close our eyes or to be so busy we miss what God
is doing.
If we want to live with hope, we have to open our eyes and observe what God is doing around
us, where He is at work.
Now Zachariah did this.
We're going to read the rest of the song.
It says, and you, my child, who is He talking to?
John.
He's holding his little baby son, John, in his arms.
He has just named him John.
And then he's broken out into this song.
And so now Zachariah looks down at this little baby and he says, 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 sunrise will come to us from heaven, to shine on those living in darkness
in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the path of peace.
Zachariah observed, he's heading verse 68, God has come.
He has come.
And now he tells us that he's observing what his son's role is going to be in God's work.
In the first place, he talks about God's vocation for John, his calling.
And he says, John, my son, my child, you will be a prophet of the Most High.
Question.
Where did Zachariah get this information?
The answer is, he got it from the angel, Gabriel, who appeared to him nine months before this
and told him he was going to have a son.
If you look at what he says here about his boy, you see that Zachariah has been thinking
about what Gabriel had said to him.
Now he's had some time to think because he couldn't talk for these nine months.
The Lord shut his mouth so he could not speak because he did not believe what the Gabriel
had said to him.
And so he thought a lot.
And now he has named his son and he breaks out into this song, the spirit-inspired song.
And he begins to talk about his boy and he says, you're going to be the prophet of the
Most High.
John is the fulfillment of what Malachi had said.
Malachi had written 400 years before this and more.
Malachi had said, behold, I am going to send my messenger and he will clear the way for
me.
God's speaking there through his prophet.
I am going to send my messenger, Zachariah connects this.
My son, you are going to be the prophet of the Most High.
He also observed God's commission for John.
He says you're going to go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him.
He's been thinking.
Isaiah the prophet said that there would be a voice arising in the wilderness who would
say clear the way for the Lord.
Make the high places low and the low places high.
Smooth out the pathway.
Get the freeway ready.
The Lord is coming.
Zachariah says that's God's commission for you, my son.
He also reveals to us here God's intention through John.
It was to give his people the knowledge of salvation.
This salvation would come through the forgiveness of sins.
The forgiveness of sins would come, he says, through the tender mercies of God and God's
tender mercies would provide the sunrise on people who are living in gloom and hopelessness.
The sun would rise upon the people in the land of the shadow of death.
These are words from Isaiah the prophet again that John was thinking about.
You and I will have hope.
If we also will learn where God is working and get busy working with him.
That's what's happening here to Zachariah.
He understood God's commitments and then he observed where God was at work and he began
to live with hope and talks about it here in this song.
Now, frankly, most of us are not going to have an angel appear to us like he did.
God doesn't work that way all the time.
Occasionally, if you have an angel appear to you, come and tell me.
I want to know what he said.
I've had people who've told me this and I believe them.
God does use angels.
But how do you and I who are more normal, more ordinary, let's say, who experience the
more common way, how do we know where God is at work?
Let's have some things I want to work down through very, very quickly.
Here's how you can know where God is at work and where he is assigning you to work with
him.
Number one, discover from the Bible how God works.
Discover from the Bible how God works and then make any decisions based upon biblical
principles.
That's the most important thing that you can do.
Secondly, realize that God is always at work around you.
Always.
I didn't say you would always understand it, but he is always at work around you.
Are you missing it?
The point is to learn where he wants you to join him in his work.
So realize he's always at work around you.
And as you're doing that, number three, pursue what God wants most and that is a loving personal
relationship with you.
That's what he wants above everything else.
More than your work, he wants your heart.
Focus on pursuing that relationship with God.
Number four, listen to your heart.
Listen to your heart.
You got to be quiet long enough to hear it.
Listen to your heart.
Be alert to God's voice by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, in prayer, in circumstances,
and through the counsel of Godly people in the church.
Listen.
Number five, ask him to show you where he's working and where he wants you to join him.
As you're looking around you and you're seeing God at work, just say, Lord, where are you
working and where do you want me to participate with you?
Because God will speak to you.
Number six, recognize that you are to work with, if you are to work with God, it will
require, are you ready for this?
Major adjustments in your life.
Major adjustments.
I think there was a major adjustment in the life of Zachariah and Elizabeth when they
had a baby in their old age.
Now, please God, may that not be an adjustment I have to make.
If you're going to work with God though, it means you're going to have to give up some
things and add some other things.
It may mean for you, you're going to sell your home and move somewhere else.
Or you're going to have to live on a different level, a different kind of lifestyle than
you've had before.
It's going to require adjustments.
Number seven, act by faith on what God shows you to do.
Act by faith.
It always requires faith.
If God says, build a boat, build a boat.
If he says, go over to this mountain, go over to that mountain.
Whatever God says, do it.
Act by faith.
You can do nothing apart from God, but with God you can do what?
That's right.
Did you hear that?
Some of you are sitting there today saying, I could never do that.
I can never do what God wants.
Yes, you can.
You can do nothing apart from God, but with him in your life, you yielding to his control,
you can do anything through Christ Jesus who strengthens you.
Now, I want to summarize this by just a couple of statements.
When you understand God's commitments, and I hope you understand them a little better
this morning, when you understand God's commitments, you live with hope.
Why is that?
Because God is faithful.
God is faithful.
He will not fail.
He always keeps his commitments.
Number two, when you see God at work and join him in it, you also live with hope.
Why is that?
Because you are now engaged in what cannot fail.
It cannot fail because God has committed to his work.
Your labor is never in vain in the Lord.
So let your heart be filled with anticipation of what God is going to do.
Let it be filled with expectation of the worth of what he's calling you to be a part
of.
Just like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm, let
nothing move you.
Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor
in the Lord is not in vain.
Ever.
Are you living in hope this morning?
God wants us all to live in hope.
And if we will only understand what God has committed to, if we will only observe where
God is working and get busy there and join him, we will live with hope no matter what
comes against us.
No matter how gloomy the threat, no matter what shadow it is that's fallen in our lives,
we will still live with hope.
That's the way God wants us to live.
Reminds me of a story I heard, true story about a preacher.
Went to visit on Mother's Day in a nursing home.
And he observed there an older woman in her 80s sitting in a wheelchair.
She had a large corsage on, someone had given her.
And so he said to her, oh, I see you're a mother.
She said, no, not yet.
Now friends, that's hope.
That's Abraham's kind of hope, hoping against hope.
Whatever it is in your life today that may be draining the hope from your life, will
you turn away from that and see what God's committed to and get busy working with God
where he's working and know that nothing is ever in vain in your life?
Nothing.
Because God's there.
And he is the God of hope.
Let's pray together.
Father, I especially want to pray for some friend who has come this morning under the
load of a burden who may be experiencing some level of hopelessness, gloominess.
I pray that you would lift those clouds.
Lord Jesus, be the sunrise for them.
Chase the clouds away.
And today, because of your commitments to them, because of the joy of working with you
and the world and knowing that it will never fail, I pray that you will cause hope to be
reborn, hope to fill the heart.
May they abound in hope through the Holy Spirit.
Father, if there'd be someone here today who doesn't know Jesus, who's not one of your
people, Lord, help them today to believe, to enter into that relationship with you that
you so longed for and you've provided for through the sacrifice of your Son, who is
our hope.
It's in His name I pray.
Amen.