A Song of Salvation

“The Song of Salvation”

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You know Christmas season has arrived when the music on your radio, and in the stores changes to Christmas music. A lot of Christmas music is just fun music with no spiritual meaning, but I like it.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas; or grandma got ran over by a reindeer, or all I want for Christmas is a hippopotamus, that’s good stuff!

There are two Christmas songs that I am not sure how they could possibly go together; Silent Night, and little drummer boy.

I guess it was a silent night, until the little drummer boy showed up. And I’m not sure if a baby would like a drum solo anyway, I just don’t get little drummer boy.

While I’m talking about Christmas carols; what about, “We wish you a Merry Christmas”. Have you ever sang the verse that says, “Now bring us some figgy pudding; and we won’t leave until we get some”. Bad taste, and bad manners.

There’s nothing wrong with these Christmas songs, and I’m sure you have some of them on your playlist.

Where does the idea of Christmas music come from anyway? It comes from the Bible; from the book of Luke and the Christmas story.

The gospel of Luke is called the singing gospel, because it records four songs connected with the birth of Jesus.

Luke records the songs that were sung before and after the birth of Jesus. This is the second song sung in the book of Luke; Mary has sung her song, and now Zacharias will sing the song of salvation.

Let’s get a little background before we hear the song.

Elizabeth gives birth to a son; all of her neighbors and cousins show up, and are happy for her and Zacharias. They decide they’re going to help them pick a name for the little boy. They say to Elizabeth at the time of circumcision, which was the time the Jewish people gave the baby its name; his name will be Zacharias, after the name of his father. Let’s name him Zacharias Junior.

V:60-“Elizabeth said no; his name will be John”.

Now you would think that’s all that would need to be said; after all she is the mother; and she is the one who went through all the labor to have the baby.

She should be able to name the baby whatever name she wants to.

But these are pushy relatives and friends; and they say (with squeaky voice and hand on hip) “there’s no one in your family named John”. It was their way of saying to her; you have chosen a bad name, we don’t like the name John.

So they make hand signals to Zacharias and ask him what he wanted to name the boy. This leads many people to believe that John was not only mute but he was deaf.

V:63-“he asked for writing tablet, and wrote… His name is John!

He didn’t write down, were thinking about calling the baby John, he said, his name is John! End of conversation!

Why did they call him John? Because this was the name that the angel Gabriel told Zacharias that God wanted him to be named. The name John means, God is merciful; John would introduce Jesus, whose name means God saves. It is the mercy of God that introduces you to the salvation of God!

At the very moment Zacharias wrote down the name John his mouth was open and his tongue loosed and he began to praise the Lord.

Just as unbelief closed his mouth 9 months earlier; obedience to God opened his mouth.

Once his mouth was open, and his tongue loosed; he is filled with the Holy Spirit and sings one of the greatest songs in all of the Bible, in V:67-79.

In the lyrics of this song we have some of the most beautiful word pictures of salvation in all of the Bible. In his song we learn that salvation means:

1. God has Come Down to Us!

V:68-“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he has visited and redeemed his people…

The first words of Zacharias’s song capture the heart of Christmas. God has come down to man to redeem him.

His praising God because God had come to visit his people; after 400 years of silence, between the book of Malachi and Matthew, God is going to send the Messiah. All of the joy that had been pinned up in his heart for 9 long months cascades out of his mouth as he praises God. Zacharias is blessing God for blessing him; the words that he sings or words of faith, he speaks in the past tense as if these were things that God had already accomplished.

In the coming birth of Jesus; and the birth of his son to announce the coming of Jesus, he tells us that God had visited his people.

The word visited is a verb, an action word; God has taken action and come to earth to redeem man.

Like doctors used to visit the sick and dying with concern and compassion; God has visited sin sick and dying man with salvation. There is coming a day when God will visit this world in judgment; but the visit at Christmas was a visit of grace, love and compassion!

God coming to man; God stepping out of eternity into time to bring salvation. Emmanuel, God with us!

Do you know why God came down to earth?

Because we can never get to him!

One of the pictures that pluralist use to describe how all religions lead to God is; the picture of a mountain with God on top of the mountain. And there are many roads around the mountain leading up the mountain to God. And they say, that these roads are like different religions, they all start at different places, but they all leave to the top of the mountain to God. They say that we all are traveling different roads, but all roads lead to God. The problem with this picture is that God sits on top of the mountain of his holiness; and the mountain is too steep, and God is to holy, there are no roads up the mountain to do God; none! It is impossible for man to get to God!

So God came down to man; visited man, and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Tragically Israel and the Jews did not recognize the day of their visitation.

God came to this earth, to do for us what we could never do for ourselves!

Salvation is possible only because God came to this earth on that first Christmas to bring us salvation.

-“Jesus came into the world to save sinners…

In his song we learn that salvation means:

2. God has Set-Us Free from Sin!

V:68-“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he has visited and redeemed his people…

Christmas means that God has visited man to redeem him. To understand the purpose of God’s visit, you have to understand redemption.

Redemption is paying the price required to set someone free.

It can refer to the releasing of a prisoner, are the freeing of a slave.

The greatest Old Testament example of redemption; is the freeing of God’s people from Egyptian bondage. The Jewish people were in Egypt, enslaved by the Pharaoh; God sent Moses to tell the Pharaoh, let my people go. The Pharaoh resisted, God sent a series of plagues; the last plague was the worst one- death.

The firstborn in each family would die; unless they sacrificed a lamb in the place of the firstborn, and placed the blood of the lamb on the doorpost of their home. The lamb died, the people who trusted God lived; the Pharaoh let the nation of Israel go, God had redeemed, delivered, set free his people from slavery.

You’re thinking, that’s a great story, but what does that have to do with me?

Everything! Zacharias is telling us that God is redeeming his people all over again, but not from an earthly enslavement to an Egyptian king, but from enslavement to our own sins.

The Bible teaches, that we’re all in bondage to our own sin; and we need forgiveness of our sins. But were unable to pay the price for our sin, or to set ourselves free from the grip of sin; we need redemption, someone to pay the price for our sin and set us free!

The grip of sin is too strong, and the debt of our sin to great for us to redeem ourselves. So on that first Christmas God visited us, to redeem us; to pay the price for our sin and set us free!

When I was a kid me and my friends were playing baseball in my neighbor’s front yard that was adjacent to a vacant lot. The baseball was hit and went right through our neighbor’s front window.

Some of the boys ran; some of us were too afraid to run; the neighbor came out the front door, he was red in the face and he said, somebody is enough to pay for this! Those were scary words for a

10 or 11 year-old boy! There was no way on the face of the earth I could pay for that window!

Since I was the one holding the baseball bat; and since he knew me, he said Eddie, I’m calling your dad, and he’s going to have to pay for this window. And my dad did, he dug in his wallet and paid what it cost to fix my neighbor’s window.

When it comes to our sin; the only person who could pay for our sin and set us free was Jesus Christ, the Redeemer!

Jesus paid the price necessary for our redemption on the cross:

-“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace”.

We’re not redeemed with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Jesus!

In his song we learn that salvation means:

3. God has Delivered Us from Satan’s Power!

V:69-75.

In these verses he is singing about the power of salvation; V:69-“the horn of salvation from the house of David”.

The horn of an animal was used as the symbol of power and strength; God promised in the Old Testament to lift up a horn of salvation from David’s family. Jesus is the strong mighty Savior from the house of David!

The salvation that Jesus offers delivers us from the penalty of sin, and the power of Satan!

-“For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil”.

Jared Bumpers said:

“Christmas was a declaration of war on Satan and his kingdom”!

-“And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it”.

When you trust Jesus Christ as your personal savior, you are delivered from Satan’s power, moved into God’s kingdom; no longer a child of wrath, no longer controlled by the Prince of the power of the air, no longer powerless to defeat Satan. We are delivered from the power of Satan; by the indwelling person of the Holy Spirit!

Salvation delivers you from the control of Satan, and the power of the flesh!

V:71-“saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all the hate us…

V:74-“we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him…

Today this mighty “horn of salvation” is able “to save completely those who come to God through him” (). Whoever we are, whatever we have done, no matter how heinous our sin—whether it is murder, infidelity, perversion, betrayal, embezzlement, lying, jealousy, hateful gossip, or whatever—Christ, the “horn of salvation,” can save us completely and eternally.

In his song we learn that salvation means:

4. God has Forgiven Us of Our Sins!

V:77-“To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins”.

John the Baptist message would be, the message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

The word remission means, to send away, to dismiss, to forgive as a debt.

The essence of salvation is the forgiveness of sins!

When the people of Israel heard this message of deliverance; they were thinking primarily in political terms. Deliverance from Rome, a better economy, with more personal freedom. But that was not the kind of salvation God came to offer.

So before the Savior came, John the Baptist came to prepare the people for the coming Savior.

John the Baptist message was a message of repentance from sin, the confession of sin and their need for forgiveness of sin! That their sin must be forgiven, so they might escape from the wrath of God!

We’re like the people of Israel, we are usually wrong about what we need the most. We look at our outward circumstances; and we want God to save us from things like a bad work situation, a financial difficulty, a troubled marriage, a rebellious teenager. Of course God is able to handle these problems, and it is right for us to pray for his help.

But the first thing he has to deal with is our sin!

There can be no real transformation, without spiritual regeneration!

To really understand Christmas, and why it is such good news, we must understand that Jesus came to provide forgiveness of sins!

I know sin is a word that is not politically correct; and we now call sin by other nicer names. But the Bible says that it is our sin that separates us from God! Our sin is offensive to a holy God! And unless something is done about your sin; you we spend eternity separated from God in a place called hell!

I read recently that only 17% of the American population refer to God in any way when asked to define “Sin”.

In that same survey, 83% see sin as merely something negative that has a bad impact on their life that they need to clean up. God did not send his son to this earth the first Christmas, to help you put the bits and pieces of your life back together again, are to give you a better lifestyle. Jesus did not come to provide a little religious Energizer battery that would make you a nicer person. Jesus came to provide forgiveness of our sin through his death on the cross! The greatest need you have is a right relationship with God; and this can only come through the forgiveness of your sins.

-“through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.

When we trust Jesus Christ, God forgives our sins-all of them, no matter what we have done!

Thank God Jesus died, shed His blood for the forgiveness of our sins!

In his song we learn that salvation means:

5. God has Given Us Spiritual Light!

V:78-79-Read.

God’s tender mercy had come to give light in the darkness. Israel is pictured as a caravan of travelers, lost and overtaken by darkness; unable to move; they’re just sitting in their darkness, and had been for 400 years. There in great danger as they sit in darkness, it is a darkness and shadow of death.

This was Israel situation during the dark days before Jesus Christ was born. It is the situation we’re all in; until we’re saved; were sitting in the spiritually darkness of our sin, waiting for death to devour us!

But then the dayspring from on high visits us!

Malachi had prophesied that the son of righteousness would rise with healing in his wings.

Jesus, is the son of righteousness, Jesus is the light of the world!

Jesus is the one who gives light for darkness, life for death, peace for fear!

V:79-“To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the way of peace”.

Salvation delivers us from spiritual darkness and gives us spiritual light, life and peace!

-“the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts”.

What a great song that Zacharias sings; the song of salvation through Jesus Christ!

So what should you do about what you’ve heard today?

1. Believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Believe that Jesus came down that first Christmas; to pay the price of your sin to set you free.

That Jesus death and resurrection delivers from the power of Satan.

Believe that through Jesus blood you can experience the forgiveness of sins. Believe that Jesus can deliver you from darkness and death and fear, and give you light and life and peace!

Come this morning; and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord!

2. Obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

If you have trusted Jesus as your Savior and have been delivered from your sin; you have been delivered for the purpose of serving God.

V:74-“That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life”.

Jesus Christ did not come to this earth on the first Christmas, set us free from our sin, deliver us from the power of Satan, shed his blood to forgive our sins, and give us a light life and peace; for us to serve ourselves!

To serve God is to glorify him in our worship and everything else we do. God saved us to do more than simply get us to heaven; his goal is for us to live for his glory! God salvation is for our sanctification; and this always leads to service. We are delivered to serve the Lord.

3. Share the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

What God called John the Baptist to do, he has called us all to do; V:77-“to give knowledge of salvation under his people…

People need to know about salvation through Jesus Christ! And we have that knowledge; and we must share that knowledge, are were keeping back from people what they need the most; the forgiveness of sins!

This word for knowledge, is not a theoretical knowledge; but a personal knowledge of the inward experience salvation, the forgiveness of sins.

Sadly, many people sit on church pews; who have a heart knowledge of salvation, but have never experienced the forgiveness of sins! There is 18 inches between heaven and hell; that is the distance between your head and your heart!

When did you experience the forgiveness of sins? The burden of your sin is lifted, and it feels like the world has been lifted off your chest; your life is forever changed, and you want others to experience the forgiveness of sins! Let’s leave this place and give others the knowledge of salvation through Jesus Christ!

You can leave here today singing the song of salvation; believe the gospel, obey the gospel, share the gospel!