Today our study is going to be in Luke 1, verses 57 through 80. 57 through 80 of Luke chapter 1. And if you don’t have a Bible with you, there are pew Bibles scattered throughout, and it’s on page 499.
And if you’re visiting with us, I’m glad you’re with us. And so we do a style of preaching here called expository preaching. And so I’m going to read through the passage, and then as we work through the sermon, I’m just going to be kind of walking us back through verse by verse. And so as you open up your Bible, please do keep them open. So let me read the text and then I’ll pray starting in verse 57, as mentioned through 80.
I’ll be reading out of the ESV. So what God’s word says. Now a time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child.
And they would have called him Zechariah, after his father, but his mother answered, no, he should be called John. And they said to her, none of your relatives is called by this name. And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, his name is John. And they all wondered.
Immediately his mouth is opened and his tongue loosened, and he spoke blessing God. And fear came upon all their neighbors. And all things were talked about all throughout all the hill country of Judea. And all who heard them laid them upon their hearts, saying, what then will this child be? For the hand of the Lord is with them.
His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited, redeemed his people. He has raised up the horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he has spoken by the mouths of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show mercy, promise to our fathers and 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 and holiness and righteousness before him all of our days. A new child will be called the Prophet of the Most High. And you’ll go before the Lord, prepare his ways to give knowledge of salvation to his people and the forgiveness of their sins as the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sun shall rise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. The child grew, became strong in spirit, and was in the wilderness until the day of his public, public appearance to Israel.
Yes, that’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray along with me?
Lord, thank you for this time. And Lord, please help me to be a good communicator of this passage today. As Ben prayed earlier, please help congregations to be good listeners. And Lord, we pray that your word would penetrate our hearts, that you use this time not only for our good, but for your glory. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen. So there’s a word in Scripture, a word that conveys hope and mercy and forgiveness that, unfortunately, I think far too often we fail to see where we might actually want to, like, bristle at this word or maybe even try to use this word as like, a sledgehammer to try to tear others down, maybe to pridefully build ourselves up. Even though this is a word that not only runs through the Gospel of Luke, but also word that really kicked off the public ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is the word repent, which basically means to turn from, or kind of tied to that, to have one’s mind changed. Now, when it comes to the word repentance, there is some negative connotations, obviously, with this word, in that we’re going one way that’s not right, that is not on the Lord, where there’s, like, sin somehow attached.
And obviously there’s negative connotations tied to those truths. However, this word repentance really is a word that’s a word filled with hope and mercy and forgiveness, a word that is filled with the love of God, making actually the word repentance or repent one of the most encouraging words in all of Scripture. This is a word not to tear us down, but a word to give us hope, because it leads us to the love and joy found in the Lord. Because as we hear a call to repent, it is the Lord calling us to, like, leave sin, to leave misery, to turn from it, to have our minds changed in ways that we come to him, which is always, always the best thing for us. This is why the New Testament speaks about, like, the gift of repentance.
It is a gift of God that he calls sinners to himself. I tell you this at the start, because our passage, this Morning I think we see the gift of repentance on display where we see a man named Zechariah who we met a few weeks back in our study of Luke. Repent of his unbelief. We’re in our text today. Zechariah turned back to the Lord with a heart full of belief as he’s filled with the Holy Spirit, filled with the joy of the Lord, the joy of his salvation.
Now before dive into this passage, just a quick reminder where we’ve been in our study of Luke, we started a multi a few weeks back. So in our study, as you know, we’ve met two women who are about to give birth through miraculous means. So the first one we met was a woman who was barren, advanced in age, woman named Elizabeth, who she became with child through her husband Zechariah, who is at the forefront of our text today. And we learned that Zechariah was a priest, but also advanced in age. And as you may remember, in our study, when Zechariah was ministering in the temple, an angel of the Lord, an angel named Gabriel, appeared to him to give Zechariah good news that his barren wife would become with child.
And this child that Elizabeth was going to give birth to was just not some ordinary child, but he was actually the promised prophet of the Old Testament, the one who would come to prepare the way of the Christ or the long awaited Messiah, the Savior of God’s people. However, as you may remember, when Zechariah learned of this news through Gabriel, ultimately from the Lord, you may remember Zechariah doubted the message he pridefully did not believe. So in his unbelief, Zechariah was disciplined by the Lord. Disciplined in ways that he was not able to speak until the child was born. The second child to be born that we learned in Luke came through an even greater miracle, even greater than the Baron Elizabeth becoming pregnant while advanced in age.
But as the second child was going to be born of a young virgin named Mary, who became with child through the power of the Holy Spirit, where her child would be even greater than the child of Elizabeth. And Zechariah, as the child of Mary would indeed be the long promise, the long anticipated Christ, the one she was to name Jesus as Jesus is the Savior, the one God has sent to his people to save and to redeem us from from our sins. Now, today, as we work through a little bit longer text, we come to the time of Elizabeth to give birth to her son, where not only we see a good amount of community Involvement. And this child is about to be born. But as mentioned, I think we see Zechariah repent, where as he repents, we see his tongue now loose, and he becomes filled with joy, where we see him give what some call the first New Testament prophecy.
Okay, so that as our intro, if you want to look back with me, Starting in verse 57 of our text, and as you look back, for those here who are taking notes, you’re going to be really kind of two parts of this passage. So the first part will just be around the narrative of John being born. So this is found in verses 57 through 60, and then after that, from 67 through 80, after Zechariah repents, we see this prophecy that Zechariah gives as he now by faith lives in light of repentance. So verse 57. So we see there in the text, the time had come for Elizabeth to now give birth.
And as she gave birth, in accordance with the angel told Zachariah earlier in chapter one, she bore a son, a son that she bore. We see in the text that this birth brought with it a lot of excitement and a lot of interest from the community. We’re in verse 58, her neighbors and her relatives, as they heard about this birth, there was this recognition of the Lord’s hand that was on Elizabeth and how the Lord had shown great mercy to her. We’ll just say again, before this point, was barren, advanced in age. Where in chapter one, we actually see that Elizabeth lived with, like, cultural shame for years for not having children.
But now, as the son was born, not only is the shame lifted, but in the text now the community is actually like rejoicing with with her. Is it all like celebrating the evidence of God’s grace on Elizabeth? Verse 59, according to Scripture, in line with the covenant God made with Abraham and verse in Genesis 17, we read that on the eighth day, it came time for this child to now be circumcised. With circumcision being the Old Testament sign of being part of God’s covenant community. And as a child’s about to go through this circumcision ceremony, the community around Zechariah and Elizabeth, we see, began to talk among themselves.
And as they started to talk among themselves, they decided that this child, this son, was going to be named Zechariah. They were going to name him after his father. Now, from my study this week, there seemed to be a tradition of firstborn sons being named after their father or grandfather. So here this scene, the community assumed the child would be named Zechariah after his father, the priest. However, as the community started to call this child Zechariah, we see in verse 60 that Elizabeth, the child’s mom, spoke up.
No, we’re not going to name him Zechariah. I know that’s a tradition, but we’re not going to name him Zechariah. Instead, this son, he’s going to be called John, which is a name that means, like the Lord is merciful. Which already in the text, this is what Elizabeth in the community had declared, that the Lord was merciful with Elizabeth as she was with child. So Zechariah would have been a properly a culturally appropriate name for the son John.
That’s the name that the Lord chose. That’s the name that Zechariah received from Gabriel. That’s the name that Elizabeth was going to name the son. Verse 61 says the community was informed by Elizabeth that the son would be called John. We see they were confused by this.
So they respond back to her, no, Elizabeth, like, we know you, we know Zechariah, we know your family line. And from our records, none of your relatives had the name John. So Elizabeth, Elizabeth, this doesn’t make any sense. You know, for you to break tradition here, you really, really ought to name the child Zechariah. So an appeal to correct.
But they deemed a mistake by Elizabeth to name the son John. We see they actually go to the father, to zechariah in verse 62, where we see that they made signs of him inquiring to Zechariah, like, okay, what do you want to name this child? And I’m not exactly sure why they had to make signs in here. Perhaps Zechariah not only was mute because of the discipline of the Lord, but maybe also his death, or at least in his old age, maybe his hard of hearing. So they couldn’t like simply like verbally ask him.
So they had made signs to him. And as Zechariah received the signs, we see understood was being asked to him. So Zechariah with name is son. Please help us. More importantly, please help Elizabeth understand.
The son is going to be named after you. He’ll be called Zechariah. However, the priest got the message we read in verse 63 that he didn’t jump on board with this thought. Instead we see he went for his, like his writing tablet. And he wrote on the tablet, his name is John not.
I think we should name him John not. I’m okay with Elizabeth here. And we can break tradition, go with that. Not like, you know, I’m kind of open to suggestions, but right now I’m leaning towards John. No, Very definitively.
Right. No room for discussion. His name is John, which, once again, this is the name given to Zechariah by Gabriel ultimately from the Lord in the temple. And for me, I think this act here, I think this is Zechariah repenting. He received the intended discipline of the Lord who disciplined him in his unbelief.
But now as he writes, his name is John, Zechariah, he’s filled with belief. He’s trusting the word of the Lord, which by the way, is always the intended purpose of the discipline of God. That through his discipline, like we would repent in ways that we believe, that we’re trusting in him, that we’re going to him which is mentioned. That’s always, always the best thing for us. Then in verse 63, as John informed the community, his son’s name is John, we see the community basically like stood in wonder and perhaps even further confused by what’s taking place.
And as they stood confused in verse 63, immediately the mouth of Zechariah, right, this mouth that was stopped for the past nine months, stopped because of unbelief, where he could not talk immediately, his mouth was open, his tongue was loosed, and Zechariah was able to speak. Where as he spoke, we see he speaks words filled with belief, belief in God, praise of God. We see at the end of verse 64, the very first words that come out of his mouth after a long nine months was Zechariah declaring the blessing of God. Which by the way, this also is intended purpose behind the discipline of the Lord, that as we turn from unbelief to believe in the Lord, that our hearts, that our mouths are filled with the blessings of God. So, friends, when it comes to the discipline of the Lord, he doesn’t like discipline his people because he’s harsh or because he lost his cool.
And now he’s taken out his anger and his rage upon us. He doesn’t like discipline us because he’s bored. He has nothing else to do where this discipline is just kind of aimless. But the scripture tells us, even though discipline feels painful in the moment, which I’m sure it did for the long nine months for Zechariah, his discipline is for our good and he disciplines us. Why?
Because he loves us and he always has the best holy right intentions in mind as he uses discipline to bring us back in the joyful praise, the joyful worship of him. Keep going. Verse 65.
As a community witnessed Zechariah now being able to speak, speak his praises to the Lord, we see that a fear now spread on all of the neighbors. As he understood the Lord just did a work in this man’s life. And as fear came upon those at the scene, that fear led them to start speaking about all that had happened. As they began to talk about what had happened, the news of this work of God spread. Text tells us all throughout the hill country of Judea, which you learned in chapter one.
This is where Zechariah and Elizabeth lived. There’s all this news is now spreading all over the area in verse 66. As those who heard the events that took place see that God touched their hearts. And they touched their hearts in such a way that people all over started to speak among themselves, speaking with wonder, confusion, praise. What then will this child, this John, what.
What is he going to be? As people all over understood, something significant just took place as people all over could see that the hand of the Lord was all over this. Which by the way, further reminder, when it comes to the discipline of God that leads us to repentance, friends, it can have so much of a bigger impact than just what God is doing in our own lives. But as we repent, as we turn back to the Lord in belief in praise and worship, God often uses that work in our own life to touch the lives of others, as he’s calling others back to himself. As well, as mentioned at the start, this is kind of the first section of the passage today where we get some insights into how these events transpired, where we see Zechariah turn from his unbelief and trust in the word that God gave to him.
Through Gabriel, Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth named their son John. But before we move on to the second section where we see Zechariah further respond to this work of God, further praise. I do want to just point out a couple things here. So first I just want to point something in my small group I actually talked a lot about on Monday morning, which just concerns like the community aspect of verses 57 through 66. And there’s probably some aspects here where the community, you know, maybe went too far.
You know, naturally I actually did want to push back on this passage. Like, why is the community trying to name the sun for me? Naturally, like, mind your own business. However, on Monday, as we talked about this, actually a good amount, the more we talk, the more encouragement we actually found from the community here. I mean, they were clearly invested in Zechariah and Elizabeth and the baby boy.
They’re rejoicing with them not only invest in his family, they also invested in the family line, that they knew all the names of the family line. Notice how many times the word all is used in verses 65 through 66. This community here, like a fear came out of all the neighbors. All things were talked about all throughout the hill country. All who heard laid them upon their hearts.
I’m going to say it again. Naturally, there’s things I want to push back here. I like my Midwest bubble. I kind of like my space. I like my privacy.
So a lot of me is actually pretty annoyed with the community scene and maybe some parts rightly so. But I do think maybe there’s some good things we can learn here from them. What it looks like just to actually maybe be involved in each other’s lives. We’re like rejoicing with each other. We’re like.
We actually really know each other. We’re actually present, like really present there present. When big things are happening in each other’s lives, whether they’re good or not so good that we’re there. Not because the time constraints. I can’t speak to this as much as I’d like to, but maybe today, maybe just take some time to ponder this passage here and maybe some of the examples that we can learn from the community.
You know, as a church, we talk about our desire to connect with connect. Even being one of our church pillars, we’re in this desire to connect. Maybe we need to be a little bit more willing to let people in. Maybe a little less private, maybe a little more proactive of really trying to get to know other people and to be there when big things are happening so we all can be encouraged by what the Lord might be doing. The second thing I just want to point out before I move on, I do want to just continue to point out.
I think this is Zechariah repenting as he receives the discipline of the Lord. And in this repentance here of Zechariah, I think he gives us a good example what Scripture refers to as godly grief. So not just like simply stuff up like a worldly sorrow, or like maybe in worldly sorrow, we might, like, feel bad about something, maybe regret getting caught in some type of unbelief. Perhaps we wish something were not so. That is.
But we really don’t make any steps to actually turn from sin, to turn from unbelief, to turn to the Lord. We just kind of Keep doing the same old, same old, with no real change in attitude towards our sin or towards our unbelief or towards the Lord when it comes to godly grief. When there’s godly grief, that’s actually what we do. Like we turn to the Lord, turn and praise him, and we make steps in line with that repentance to leave and forsake that which is keeping from God. To leave, forsake our sin, to live with godly grief, not only find forgiveness.
That’s where the Lord restores us to the joy of his salvation, where the fruit of the Spirit now becomes on display in our lives, right? Love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self control, which I do think we see in the second part of our text. In Zechariah, we see like godly grief, true repentance, real forgiveness, where through the power of the Holy Spirit, we just see joy on display. Okay, let’s keep going. Verse 67.
Then as Zechariah turns the Lord through repentance, we see he’s like filled with the Holy Spirit of God and begins to prophesy. As I mentioned, the start, this is psalm labels as the first prophecy of the New Testament age, where this prophecy comes to us like actually in a form of a song. A song at times referred to as the Benedictus, which is actually the first word of the song. Blessed in verse 68 is there with praise and worship towards the Lord that are in step with his repentance. Zechariah now sings with his loosened tongue, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and he has redeemed his people.
I think I’ve read it here. You can just feel like the joy, the excitement here of Zechariah as repentance not only loosened his tongue so he could speak, but his heart is now filled with the Spirit of God, filled with the joy of the Lord. We’re in this verse line, I think we actually feel like the freedom that Zechariah is now experiencing, which by the way, repentance always brings sin, unbelief, burden us, tie us down from repentance, turning back to the Lord. That’s where freedom is found. The first line, through repentance, you see that we’re redeemed.
We are redeemed by God, brought to him as he has come to visit his people, which is a visit that’s filled with his love and his grace and his mercy towards his people. Verse 69. If you take your eyes there Zechariah joyfully declared how God has been good to his people by visiting and redeeming them. He further declared how God, in his goodness, according to his journal plan, has even, like, raised up a horn of salvation for us from the house of his servant David, just as the Lord said he would do, as he’s spoken by the mouth of his holy prophets of old, that we should be saved from our enemies, from the hand of all who hate his people. Let me pause a couple things here.
First, this horn of salvation from the house of David. So this is Zachariah now starting to sing about Jesus, the one who is our great Redeemer, right? This is why Christ came for his glory, to redeem a people to himself, to bring his people back to God. And the singing about Jesus, this is always something there when there’s repentance and faith. We sing to the Lord in praises of him.
The text in this prophecy, Zechariah is professing Jesus, the child of Mary, who at this point is actually still in her womb, like he is the one who God has raised up. He is the horn of salvation from the house of David. He is the promised one of God. Jesus is the Christ. He is the Redeemer.
He is the Savior of his people. And by the way, we get to Luke 3 and the genealogy of Jesus, so there’s a list of names that might be kind of boring for us to read, but Luke includes the genealogy just to see how indeed Jesus is the one who came from the house of David, which is the house that the Messiah was promised to come from. Second thing, just to notice here in verse 70, just notice how Zechariah is really trusting in God’s Word here, the word spoken from the prophets of old. I mentioned this a few times already. Gabriel came to Zechariah to speak God’s word to him in the temple.
At first, Zechariah doubted. He doubted. He rejected God’s word and he was disciplined with a tongue that was bound. But now here, Zechariah is walking in repentance. He’s doing so in ways.
He’s trusting God’s good word. He’s trusting in ways that he’s now declaring God’s good word with his tongue. Third, as I mentioned, as Christ came as the horn of salvation was a picture of strength. We see in the text that the strength in which Jesus came is that of a strength of like a conquering warrior and king, one who saves his people from their enemies, from those who hate them. And this is actually Important for us to understand when it comes to the Lord Jesus, friends, he’s the king.
He’s the conquering king. He’s the one who will put all things under his feet. None of the enemies can stand before him. Keep going. Even though Jesus has come to be the conquering king, the one who conquers his enemies.
We also see in verse 72, Jesus has come as the benevolent king, a king who is kind and loving and merciful and tender hearted towards his people. Read the king. Jesus has come to show mercy that has been promised to our fathers as God remembers his covenant. A covenant that he promised to be their God, which is a covenant you can read all throughout the Old Testament, a covenant that God’s people broke over and over and over again, again. But the good news, because God is good, because he’s merciful and faithful.
God is the one who keeps his end of the covenant, covenant he has kept and fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re in verse 73 if you’re into Isaiah. This covenant, this oath that God swore to our fathers, Abraham, that he would grant to his people was one that he would indeed deliver us from the hand of our enemies. Why so in the text we might serve him without fear. So we will discern before him in holiness and in righteousness all of our days.
This is Zechariah further testifying, further trusting in God’s good word. He’s trusting the promises that God gave to his people that through the Messiah that was to come, that he not only would free them from their enemies as a conquering king, but as a kind and merciful and benevolent king. He was free his people to serve him without fear. Friends, that actually is where our joy is found. There’s so much joy and serving our great kind, benevolent king, that’s actually what repentance and faith, that’s what it frees us to do, to serve the Lord.
Keep going. Verse 76. We see Zechariah shift from prophesying about the Christ who is about to be born to his son John, who just was born where we read in you, child John, you’ll be called a prophet of the Most High. And as a prophet of the Most High, you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways once again. This is Zechariah continuing to trust the good word of God as he trusts the prophets of old, who spoke of a forerunner who was to come, who prepared the way of the Lord, which here Zachariah believes, understands that his son John, he is the fulfillment of that word that was spoken through the Old Testament, which is what Gabriel told them back in the temple.
And to go back even to verse 66 and the question the community had, you know, what will this child John, what will he be execrate? Gives us the answer. He is the prophet of the Most High, the one who would go before the Lord and prepare his ways as John, indeed the prophet who’s to come to prepare the way of the Lord. Verse 77, we see the ministry that John would have would be a ministry calling people to repentance and faith in God as he would be used by the Lord to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins. Now a few things here.
So first the knowledge of salvation. Scholars point out this is more than like simply head knowledge where people are just like intellectually knowledging the salvation of God. They can use that for playing like Bible trivia or something like that. Rather, this knowledge here is so much more than just that. This is a knowledge found deep in the recesses of our heart where there’s a change of heart, a repentance by which the Lord or by which people are churning where they’re going and turning back to the Lord and to the knowledge of Him.
We get to Luke 3, we can see this more clearly as John, who becomes known as John the Baptist, says he begins his public ministry much like Jesus. He starts off by calling people to repent.
Third or second, just notice as John prepares the way of the Lord and the salvation that the Lord brings, notice this is a salvation. It’s not only a salvation over their enemies as Jesus rules as king, but the salvation of Christ is also a salvation over our sins as Jesus rules over our hearts, forgiveness, sins that he offers, which he offers through his death on the cross and resurrection from the dead on the third day, where on the Christ or on the cross, Christ takes on the punishment of our sin so that through his death, through his resurrection, through his blood that was spilled on our behalf, that’s how we are forgiven. This forgiveness sin that Christ offers is to all who by faith turn from sin and turn to Him. Friends, this forgiveness of sin that Christ offers is actually one we all need. Because we all have sinned.
And because we all have sinned, Scripture tells us by birth, by choice, that apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, we actually all stand as enemies of God. We’re apart from repentance and faith forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ, we all stand under God’s good just judgment. Which further speaks why this call to repentance is such A gift, a call filled with such hope. Because in this call of repentance, we’re called to change our minds, change from being enemies of God. So by grace, through faith in Christ, through His death, resurrection on our behalf, we now move from being enemies of God under His judgment, to being his people who he forgives, his people who he deeply loves.
Verse 78, if you want to take your eyes there, the Lord does this incredible work in the lives of sinners who repent and come to Him. He does this all because of his tender mercy. We didn’t do this, he did this for us. Because he is so merciful to his people, whereby in his tender mercy in the text, in this song we see the sun rise, shall visit us from on high in ways that the sunrise will give light to those who sit in darkness, who sit in the shadow of death. So by his light he would guide our feet into the way of peace.
And you just notice the word visit here and notice how that is at the beginning and at the end of the prophecy of Zechariah, making this word visit almost like an inclusio or a sandwich, as a literary device to kind of help keep passages together. So you can look back to verse 68, start. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. Now, verse 78, at the end, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high, keep saying, this is the Lord’s doing. Like, I don’t know, we don’t go visit Him.
He comes to visit his people, to shine his light on us. And he shines his light on us even when we sit in darkness, even in the shadow of death where we sit, even in the worst of our sin and our unbelief. We’re in his tender mercy. The Lord visits us. He shines his light on us so that by his grace he would guide us to his peace and friends.
If not for the mercy of God who visits us, that shines his light upon us even in our darkness. If not for the Lord’s mercy on us, we all would be on a hellbound race with no hope. Because God is good, because he’s merciful, because Jesus is redeemer, because of repentance, we now live with such hope. We don’t have to live stuck in darkness, but by grace, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we can joyfully, we can freely walk in the light as he is the light and ends the song Zechariah, right? This joyful song of Zechariah being restored to the Joy of his salvation.
And finally we’re going to end our text today. Verse 80. If you want to take your Isaiah and the child John and the spirit of the great prophet and priests, the Old Testament, Samuel, we see how he grew and became strong in spirit. And he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearing to Israel. So today we’ll come back to chapter three.
We will start his public ministry as John calls people to repentance and faith as he prepares the way of the Lord. Okay, now let’s close the sermon. I want to close just a few thoughts concerning repentance and I’m just going to give you these simple thoughts concerning like the when, the how, the what and the why of repentance. Just very simple summary thoughts. So first just the when.
Okay, so when do we repent? Well, we repent when we sin. When unbelief is like taking us further and further away from the Lord. This is simple. That’s the right answer.
We repent when we sin. We ought to do this like as soon as we can, like today, to not wait and wait and wait to repent. But as we sin, as we see unbelief taken us further and further away, we repent like quickly, urgently now. Yes, God is a very patient God where He is patiently at work in our lives to accomplish all that he sets out to accomplish. Right in the passage, God was patient with Zechariah for nine long months.
However, that being said, we never want to take the patience of the Lord for granted or to like abuse his patience. Ship Shah does talk about God’s like patience like coming to an end and like windows of repentance like closing. So the when of repentance, friends, it’s always today. Don’t wait. Don’t let your pride stop you from coming to Jesus Christ for His forgiveness, for the redemption that he offers for his joy.
Say this morning, you just know that you’re bound up by some type of unbelief or some type of sin where there’s no joy today in this moment. Turn to Jesus, repent, find forgiveness that he offers. Second, just how repentance or how to repent, we just simply change our direction, we change our minds. We change from some type of sin that we are embracing some type of unbelief that is moving us away from the Lord, we turn back to Him. We just seek his forgiveness, we seek his mercy when it comes to sin to some kind of unbelief that’s moving us away from the Lord.
Often things feel like Very complicated in those moments. So complicated that we’re kind of bound up in our hearts. We’re kind of twisted around, tied up in knots. But those complex problems, there’s a simple answer to them. We repent, we come back to Jesus, we seek after him, we ask him for forgiveness in ways that we’re like trusting him, trusting in the good Word he’s given to us, trusting in his death and resurrection, and that’s enough.
Trusting that indeed Jesus is the light who shines in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it. Trusting that Jesus is good and he will lead us on a path of peace. So the how of repent, we just stop going wherever we’re going by faith. We turn to Jesus, clinging to Him. This leads to the why.
Okay, so why repentance? So I mentioned at the start, yes, when it comes to repentance, like, there’s negative things associated with that word, right? The negative of our sin, the negative our unbelief. All these things that, like, bind us up. But to keep saying repentance, to repent is where it filled with such hope, friends.
Because when we repent, when we turn to the Lord, there’s such forgiveness, there’s such peace. Peace that surpasses understanding. There’s such hope, there’s real joy, friends. That’s a better path to live. That’s why.
Right? That’s why you and I ought to be quick to repent, to change direction, to change our minds from where we’re headed. If we’re going away from the Lord, to turn back to him, the praise of him, to joyfully, to freely serve Him. And there’s nothing better than that which leads us to the final thing, just kind of the what of repentance. So say, what should we do as we’re seeking to repent?
And what is, is they’re just actually willing to leave all things behind in order to have Jesus knowing in the end, if all we have is Christ, not only is that enough, but that’s all that we need.
What could be better than having Jesus? We can have worldly sorrow. We can kind of maybe feel bad about some things, wish some things weren’t there that are there, but not actually repent. But when we repent or we have godly grief, what we’re willing to do is we’re willing to do any and all things necessary to remove ourselves from our sin, from our unbelief, in ways that we make, like no more provision for the flesh.
So we can just cling to Christ, trusting that in the end that by his grace, because of his tender mercy, he’s actually the one who’s clinging to us, the one who in his kindness, has come to visit us, maybe even in this moment. For some of us here, friends, repent, repent in ways that maybe we actually have to let, like, community in to help us with this. Don’t be so, like, private, even with like sin or struggle, like, let others in to provide, like, accountability. As a church, may we connect in that way where we’re graciously, lovingly trying to help each other to put away whatever it is that is keeping us from Christ, that we all might continue to seek after him all of our days, maybe be that type of community. So, churches, we hear the call of Scripture to repent, to believe.
May we hear it as a call of hope, a call filled with love and mercy and grace and kindness. So by faith, may we respond and continue to respond to this call. And may the Lord Jesus use repentance and faith among us to spread the message of Jesus all throughout that others may testify that the hand of the Lord is on us. Let’s pray.
Lord, thank you for your kindness, such good kindness that you call sinners to repent and believe.
Lord, I pray for those here who may be just really bound up this morning with some type of sin or some type of unbelief, where they are experiencing like no joy of salvation.
Lord, I pray that the gift of repentance would fall on their hearts in ways that you would turn them back to you for your glory and their good.
Lord, please forgive us of our pride or far too often we just want to hold on to sin or to run headstrong into unbelief.
So, Lord, thank youk for just forgiveness even for those dark sins.
Lord, in this time, please let the light of Christ shine. Press on Jesus name, Amen.