Waiting for Christmas
The New Covenant
Luke 1:67-80
         
We return this morning to our study of the Song of Zacharias found in Luke 1.  Zacharias was the father of John the Baptist and served as a priest in Jerusalem. We also know that we was one of a handful who were awaiting the coming of the Messiah. 
 
And as he processes all that is happening involving his family and him and in response to the coming birth fo Christ, he can’t contain himself and he begins to praise the Lord.  We find his song in verses 67-80 and it is a song praising God for His faithfulness and salvation. 
 
And even though God has been silent for a long time, he is now speaking and moving and at work.  And as we’ve seen, Zacharias reflects back through 42 generations of history and remembers God’s covenants with David and Abraham and how God promised there would be an everlasting kingdom that brought salvation and deliverance from the enemies of the Jews.
 
And once that kingdom was established, they would know God’s mercy and blessing and they would be a great nation and be a blessing to the whole world. 
 
But as great as all that was, it hinged on the coming of the Messiah, and that is ultimately why Zacharias is praising God.  He knows the Messiah is about to be born.
In fact, the one who would prepare the way of the Lord and be a forerunner to the Messiah was his own son John.  Mary, the mother of the Messiah, the mother of the Savior of the world, the mother of the God/Man Jesus Christ is already 6 months pregnant and has just spent three months living with them. So he knows that the Messiah is about to arrive.
 
And that means, at least in the mind of Zacharias that it won't be many until the Messiah will launch His great ministry and everything that had waited on will finally come to pass, and he might just live to see it happen. 
 
He didn’t know about how the Jews would reject their Messiah and the gospel going to the Gentiles and the church age and all that.  He just knew Messiah was about to be delivered and all the promises and all the hopes and all the anticipation depended on that baby being born. 
 
So here is Zacharias.  He is anxiously awaiting the arrival of Messiah so they can enjoy the fulfillment of the Davidic promise.  They’re going to have their own land and king. He's anxious for the blessing that God promised to Abraham.  That's what was in his heart and that’s what is voiced in his praise.  But that’s not all.
 
There is another covenant and that’s what I want to show you this morning. 
 
Verses 76-79
 
 
 
Notice the reference to salvation in verse 77.  Now the word “salvation” can refer to a lot of things, but notice he specifies that it is salvation that comes through the remission of sins. 
 
Obviously he’s talking about a spiritual salvation rather than a physical one.  This is not the kingdom rule of David or the national prosperity through Abraham.  This is personal work of God in the forgiveness of sin in the individual heart.
 
Now think about this.  As he makes this statement, Zacharias may well have been looking at or even holding his son, John.  He has there in his arms a little 8-day old prophet.  In fact, that is what he says of John.  “You child, will be called the prophet of the Most High."
 
He knows that Mary's baby is going to be the Son of the Most High. Her Son will bring salvation through the remission of sins. 
 
Zacharias had no way of knowing the details, but if he could have pushed the fast-forward button and moved ahead 30 years he would find this same child that he holds, in John 1:23, saying, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' as Isaiah the prophet said."
 
And I want you to think about the very next word out of his mouth.  What did he say? Did he say, “Folks, get on your dancing shoes and get ready to party because our King is finally and we're about to launch into that great Kingdom God promised David?"
 
 
Did he say, "Get ready to get rid of all your anxiety and fear and worry because Messiah is coming and with Him will come all the blessing God promised Abraham.  We are about to inherit the land that is ours along with all its riches and blessing?"
 
No. When John came preaching the first word out of his mouth was “Repent!  For the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 
 
Why was that the first thing he said?  Because no one would ever know the blessing of the covenant with David or the covenant with Abraham until first of all their sins were dealt with, and no one would receive the forgiveness of sin who didn't repent. 
 
The very thing that mystified the Jews and kept them from accepting Jesus as Messiah later in life is already present at His birth. 
 
They were looking for a Messiah who would be a national hero, a king like David and set up a throne. They were looking for a Messiah who would be the provider of a welfare state and bring all the blessings inherent in the Abrahamic Covenant. But before any of that could happen, they had to come to the terms of the New Covenant. 
 
They thought that because they were Jews and because the Covenant of God to David and to Abraham was irrevocable, unalterable, the gifts and callings of God being without repentance and God being faithful, they rehearsed that again and again and again that God is faithful to His promise and never breaks it, they assumed that therefore it was just a matter of the Messiah showing up and they would get it all.
They knew they needed to be redeemed from paganism. They needed to be delivered from Roman occupation and oppression. They knew they needed to be redeemed from the difficulties they were experiencing in their life. 
 
What they didn't know was they needed to be redeemed from sin.  And that was the issue and when John came preaching sin, they killed him. And when Jesus came preaching sin, they killed Him.  And when the Apostles picked up the message and kept preaching sin, they killed them because the one thing they would not acknowledge was their sin.
 
But more than they needed the Davidic Covenant and the Abrahamic Covenant they needed the New Covenant. And so do you and I.  So let’s make sure we understand the New Covenant.
 
Let's start at a point we can all understand. One truth that the Bible makes unmistakably clear is that all men are sinners.  That shows us
 
1. The Need for the New Covenant
 
Now our sin is not just a behavioral problem or an attitudinal problem. It's not just a matter of how we act or speak. It's a matter of what we are and the problem, more than anything else is a nature problem. 
 
Jeremiah 17 says the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. According to Romans 3, "There is none righteous, no not even one.  In Romans chapter 7, Paul calls this presence of sin, “the law of sin”.
 
That means it is something with power and authority and control.  Just like the law of gravity or thermodynamics, this law of sin operates with control and consequences. 
 
And that creates a real problem for us because no promise from God however good it is or how often it is repeated, no matter how clearly it is understood can overpower the law of sin.
 
When God gave the promise to Abraham and said, "I'm going to bless you and give you the land and make you prosperous and through you bless the whole world, those words had no ability to make those people obey so that they could receive that promised blessing.
 
When God said to David that one day Messiah would come and take up the throne in Jerusalem and establish His rule and bring peace to Israel and destroy their enemies and deliver them, it was impossible for them to do that no matter how wonderful that promise was, no matter how glorious it would have been to receive all of the promises of Davidic blessing and Abrahamic blessing.
 
There wasn't anything in the covenant with David or Abraham that could overpower the force that was in them. There was nothing that could cause them to live their lives in a way that would bring them into the place where they would be able to receive those blessings.
 
Even the Mosaic Covenant, the Law couldn’t accomplish it.  For centuries people have tried to demonstrate you can overpower sin by keeping the law but not one has ever been successful. 
When God gave the law through Moses, He told them to obey.  He said, “If you will obey I will bless you, if you don't I'll curse you.” They couldn't obey because they had a stronger law of sin within them. And all the law did was to demonstrate their inability to obey.
 
So even though they longed for the coming of the Messiah and God had made all these promises to David and Abraham and they wanted to see that happen and longed for that to happen, they problem was they didn't have the ability in their own hearts to meet the conditions to bring it about.
 
So how then could it ever be a reality?  Were they ever going to receive the promises of God?
 
2. The Requirements of the New Covenant
 
Luke 1:77
 
In order for the promises to be a reality, two things had to happen. 
 
First, their sins would need to be forgiven.  The Davidic Covenant gave them great promise. The Abrahamic Covenant gave them great promise. The Mosaic Covenant at Sinai pointed out they couldn’t perform well enough to receive the promise.  So if the covenants would ever be realized they would need forgiveness.
 
And, secondly, they were going to have to be changed on the inside so that they could overpower the force of sin.
 
So the bottom line was they needed another covenant that could do two things:  forgive their sin and change their heart.
 
So when Zacharias shifts gears and says, "The Messiah is going to come to give His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of sins," he's now gone beyond Abrahamic, beyond Davidic and beyond Mosaic Covenants and he's talking about the New Covenant.
 
It is the only thing that provides what we need. Now to get in mind what Zacharias is referencing, turn to
 
Jeremiah 31:31-34
 
Now what did we say was require if we're going to receive promises and avoid punishment?  We need two things: 
 
-forgiveness for our sins and
-a new heart
 
Now watch this. Look at that word "law".  Remember it means power or force or authority.  God says, "I am going to put My law, My force within them, on their heart I will write it, I will be their God, they'll be My people.  And you won't have to go around witnessing to others because they'll all know Me from the least of them to the greatest of them.  And I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more."
 
Isn't that what we said we needed? The only hope for Israel to receive Davidic and Abrahamic promise is that they would have a new heart that could obey.
The only hope for Israel that they could avoid the just and righteous judgment for their sins was if they were forgiven.
 
And so whatever this New Covenant is, it needs to do two things...it needs to empower us to obedience by putting a force in us that is greater than the force that is already there, and it needs to be able to deal with all the sins we have committed against the law of God by the forgiveness of sin and that's exactly what the New Covenant does.
 
Now this is an unconditional, eternal, irrevocable covenant from God as are the other ones. God promised a future to Israel in the land with blessing and prosperity and through them to bless the world. God promised a kingdom to Israel and a King, Messiah reigning in Jerusalem over Israel and over the entire earth, ruling with a rod of iron in a Kingdom that will never end.
 
And once you receive the forgiveness of sin and a new heart, it’s all yours.  And obviously it all centers in Jesus. 
 
Can you get a feel for what was in the heart of Zacharias as all this begins to unfold?  To illustrate that, look at the next two verses because there we find
 
3.  The Results of the New Covenant 
 
Verses 78-79
 
 
 
Now as Zacharias is reflecting on all of this, he’s talked about the Davidic Covenant and the Abrahamic Covenant and deliverance and kingdoms and reigning and a New Covenant that will bring forgiveness of sin and now his attention really focuses on the Messiah Himself.  The center of attention in the New Covenant is not David and it’s not Abraham, but it is Jesus. 
 
And he describes his coming as the Mercy of God visiting us as
 
“the Dayspring from on high”
 
What is the “Dayspring from on High”?  Other translations us the word "sunrise" and he doesn’t identify the body that rises, whether it's the sun or the morning star or the glow of dawn that precedes the sun as it's just below the horizon.
 
He simply is talking about the rising or we might call it the first light or the dawning.  And what he is saying is the New Covenant is the dawning from on high. Now where is on high? That’s Heaven.
 
So when we put all that together, he's saying there's going to come a great light from heaven and it’s not the sun or the morning star.  It’s not the glow of dawn that precedes the sun or the first light of day. 
 
Remember, we transitioned from the physical to the spiritual and he’s still in that frame of reference and what he is saying is there's coming from on high another Sun, a Sunrise, a Dayspring who will shine on those who are in darkness. 
 
He’s talking about the coming of the S-O-N not the s-u-n.  He’s telling us about a Savior, the Son of the Most High. 
 
Now this Savior brings with Him two primary characteristics that Zacharias shares. 
 
First of all,
 
  • He brings Light
 
 In fact, we will discover later that He is, in fact, the Light of the world!  That by the way, is not just New Testament terminology.  Describing the Messiah as light has been around for a while, and it’s no wonder Zacharias uses this particular term.
 
I‘ll guarantee you there was one verse of Scripture this old man named Zacharias knew and that was a little verse in the last chapter of Malachi at chapter4, verse 2 where Malachi said,
 
"Get ready, folks, because the Sun of Righteousness will arise with healing in His wings.”
 
Now it’s been at least 400 years since Malachi wrote that down and the Sun of righteousness hadn't arisen and it was darker than it had ever been.
 
But now John the Baptist has been born and angels have been talking with folks and Mary is pregnant with the Messiah and Zacharias says, “The Day is dawning!  The Son is rising! And he knew the Messiah was coming in fulfillment of Malachi 4:2. 
 
And notice in verse 79, Messiah would shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.
Man is pictured in moral darkness, intellectual darkness, literally under the shadow of eternal death.
 
Darkness is used, for example, to describe matters unknown, matters hidden. Darkness is used to describe ignorance and error. Darkness is used to describe sin and wickedness and iniquity. Darkness is used to describe the presence of Satan. Darkness is used to describe hell which is outer darkness.
 
So here, metaphorically, is the whole world of unconverted people sitting in the depth of darkness and lostness and ignorance and the shadow of death. And they are in desperate need of the light to shine.  They are waiting for the SON! 
 
The people, wrote Isaiah, who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine upon them.
 
Now John said of God, 1 John 1:5, that He is Light and in Him there is no darkness at all. Consequently when the Messiah comes, the light comes.
 
So, Zacharias knew that the coming of Messiah was the coming of the light.
 
And then the other thing is right at the end of verse 79.  Not only will the Messiah bring light, but
 
  • He will bring Peace
 
There’s not been much time at all in their history when Israel has known peace. 
 
But Zacharias knew the promises of God.  He knew about the covenants, he knew about the mercy, he knew about the forgiveness of sin and the coming of the light and he knew about God’s promise of peace. 
 
. Isaiah 54:10
 
In the New Covenant there was the promise of peace so much so that he calls it "My covenant of peace." That's the New Covenant. What an immense, rich, profound insight we get from just three little verses.
 
Forgiveness, a new heart, a new spirit, the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, the knowledge of God, the law of God implanted, light shattering the darkness, and peace in place of turmoil, peace forever...all that Zacharias anticipated would come in the Messiah, all would come in the Messiah.
 
And you and I, when we believe Christ and receive New Covenant salvation, we receive blessings now that are like those that will come through Abrahamic fulfillment, and we receive the rule and the sovereign reign of Christ in our lives personally like will come in the Davidic and earthly Kingdom of Christ and we can have forgiveness of sin, a new heart, the knowledge and joy of living in the light and peace with God.
 
It’s all a part of the New Covenant. 
 
Let’s pray