Rev. David Holwick ZM Christmas Sunday
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
December 22, 2002
Luke 1:67-75
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I. The biggest thing you've seen God do.
A. Personal stories of revelations or rescues.
B. One key event can be the focal hinge of our spiritual life.
C. A priest named Zechariah recognized a hinge for all of history.
II. Zechariah had a problem.
A. Mouth problem - he was struck dumb.
1) God told him his elderly wife would have a baby. 1:7
a) Barrenness was considered a huge curse.
2) Zech's inadequate response brought speechlessness.
B. Really more of a faith problem.
1) He didn't believe God could do great things.
2) Some of you have similar doubts.
a) God can do stuff for others, but not for you.
b) We trust him for heaven but don't expect much to happen
here on earth, right now.
C. Birth of his son taught him a lesson.
1) God gave him back his whistle.
2) God gave him a reason for changing his tune.
III. God's gotta be praised.
A. Zech's praise flows in a torrent. ["Benedictus" in Latin]
1) In the Greek, verses 68 to 75 are a single sentence!
2) He has several months to meditate on this, and he used
his time well.
B. He focuses on God and his accomplishments.
1) (You are all experts on praise thanks to my recent sermon)
IV. What God has done already.
A. He has come. 1:68
1) God is not a distant watcher. He gets involved.
a) Zechariah is using language from Israel's past - the
Exodus.
b) But he is really thinking of what God is doing at that
moment, with the imminent birth of Jesus.
2) Essence of Christmas - God has come down to us.
a) Zech recognized this.
b) Do you recognize God's coming or presence in events?
B. He has redeemed his people.
1) Redemption is a buying-back from an enemy.
a) Example from modern life.
At our Shoprite Supermarket, if you want a shopping
cart you have to put a quarter in the handle.
To get your quarter back, you have to return the cart.
I always get my quarter back.
One night during a storm, an employee who was gathering
carts in the parking lot asked if he could take mine.
I hesitated. Then I let him take it.
"Do you want your quarter, mister?"
"Of course!" I responded.
Celeste was appalled. "For crying out loud, David,
it's Christmas Eve!"
I ALWAYS get my quarter back.
b) Humans are in hock to God's righteousness.
1> He cannot just let us off the hook.
2> A price must be paid - and he pays it himself.
2) Horn of salvation - an animal's point of strength.
a) "America's Funniest Videos" - small rhinoceros grabs a
man with his horn and flips him over instantly.
b) Zech recognizes Jesus as God's horn of salvation.
1> He can overcome any enemy.
V. The world remains a dangerous place.
A. Enemies and people who hate us. 1:71
1) We still have enemies today.
2) Addictions and terrorists.(smallpox)
3) Tolkien parallels. "The Two Towers."
The latest blockbuster movie in the series has a much gloomier air
than the first one.
Monstrous orcs battle humans and elves - and even trees.
It contains some truths that many moviegoers will undoubtedly miss.
Kurt Bruner and Jim Ware wrote an article entitled "Finding God in
the Lord of the Rings."
The say Tolkien's work is "a tale of redemption in which the main
characters overcome cowardly self-preservation to model heroic
self-sacrifice.
Their bravery mirrors the greatest heroic rescue of all time, when
Christ 'humbled himself and became obedient to death - even
death on the cross!'"
Perhaps one of the most powerful truths taught in the Lord of the
Rings is that great things can happen through personalities who
are not large.
In this tale, the hero is a little guy, more specifically a boyish
hobbit with hairy feet.
There are plenty of strong characters with incredible abilities within
the context of the tale.
However, none of the superhero-like characters is the one chosen to
carry and protect the ring.
Followers of the Lord Jesus know that God often uses the foolish
things, the little things of this world to confound those who
think themselves so wise.
In Tolkien's fiction, good triumphs over evil via a hobbit with a
ring in his little hands.
God often brings the deliverance of his people through the most
unexpected means - Gideon's army of 300, a lad with a rock in his
sling or a baby in a Bethlehem manger.
#24381
B. We can be rescued.
1) Jesus can save us out of any situation.
2) Examples of addictions broken, etc.
VI. God remembers his promises.
A. Zech's song is composed as a large "chiasm" (x-pattern).
1) Opposite ends work toward a center emphasis.
2) Pinnacle of this chiasm: oath and covenant.
B. It all began with Abraham.
1) He's first human to have a special relationship with God.
2) God made him a promise, and Abraham accepted it with faith.
a) Abraham never got it all, but he kept believing.
C. It was completed by Jesus.
1) God's new covenant - he won't hold our sins against us
because of Jesus.
2) When Martin Luther was in a discouraging situation he would
say over and over, "I am baptized." #2499
a) This puts everything else in perspective.
b) What can humans do to us?
VII. We can serve God without fear.
A. Fear issues in modern life...
B. All our days - it is for all of life, not just for youth.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATION USED IN THIS SERMON:
# 2499 "Baptism In A Coffin," by Ralph C. Wood, Leadership Magazine,
Spring 1993, page 96.
#24381 "From Tolkien To A Baby In A Manger," by John Yeats, Baptist
Press, December 20, 2002.
These and 23,000 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,
absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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