Micah McCormick: Luke chapter one, that's the second book of the New Testament, beginning to that book.
Micah McCormick: We'll read from verse five down through verse twenty-five.
Micah McCormick: Luke chapter one, verses five to twenty-five.
Micah McCormick: This is God's word.
Micah McCormick: In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest of Abijah's division named Zachariah.
Micah McCormick: His wife was from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
Micah McCormick: Both were righteous in God's sight, living without blame according to all the commands and requirements of the Lord.
Micah McCormick: But they had no children, because Elizabeth could not conceive, and both of them were well long in years.
Micah McCormick: When his division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, it happened that he was chosen by Lot according to the custom of the priesthood to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense.
Micah McCormick: At the hour of incense, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside.
Micah McCormick: An angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of incense.
Micah McCormick: When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified and overcome with fear.
Micah McCormick: But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard.
Micah McCormick: Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will you will name him John.
Micah McCormick: There will be joy and delight for you, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord and will never drink wine or beer.
Micah McCormick: He will be filled with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother's womb.
Micah McCormick: He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the disobedient to the understanding of the righteous, to make ready for the Lord a prepared people.
Micah McCormick: How can I know this?
Micah McCormick: Zachariah asked the angel, for I am an old man, and my wife is well along in years.
Micah McCormick: The angel answered him, I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and tell you this good news.
Micah McCormick: Now listen, you will become silent and unable to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time.
Micah McCormick: Meanwhile the people were waiting for Zachariah, amazed that he stayed so long in the sanctuary.
Micah McCormick: When he did not come out, he could not speak to them.
Micah McCormick: Then they realized that he had seen a vision in the sanctuary.
Micah McCormick: He was making signs to them and remained speechless.
Micah McCormick: When the days of his ministry were completed, he went back home.
Micah McCormick: After these days, his wife Elizabeth conceived and kept herself in seclusion for five months.
Micah McCormick: She said, The Lord has done this for me.
Micah McCormick: He has looked with favor in these days to take away my disgrace among the people.
Micah McCormick: Let's seek the Lord again.
Micah McCormick: Father, thank you for the power of songs, the power of your word, and we want your word to have its effect in our heart tonight.
Micah McCormick: We want to be ready to encounter you through this word.
Micah McCormick: And so we're praying for your spirit to give this word life and light in all of our hearts.
Micah McCormick: In Jesus' name, amen.
Micah McCormick: Have you ever received unexpected news?
Micah McCormick: Hey everyone.
Micah McCormick: Big news, Uncle Wally is going to be in town for Christmas.
Micah McCormick: That could be good news or bad news, depending on Uncle Wally.
Micah McCormick: In our text tonight, Zechariah receives some very unexpected news.
Micah McCormick: A child is coming.
Micah McCormick: What's so unexpected about that?
Micah McCormick: Well, aside from the fact that angels don't visit people every day of the week, the text tells us in verse 7 that Zechariah and Elizabeth had no children, that Elizabeth couldn't conceive, that they were both well along in years.
Micah McCormick: And then after the message, Zechariah responds to the angel in verse 18, How can I know this?
Micah McCormick: I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.
Micah McCormick: We don't know exactly how old Zechariah and Elizabeth were at this point in time, but once you get to a certain age, it's surprising to find out you're having a child.
Micah McCormick: It's even more surprising if in Elizabeth's case she's never been able to have a child after being married for years.
Micah McCormick: Get ready, Zachariah.
Micah McCormick: Get ready, Elizabeth.
Micah McCormick: A child is coming.
Micah McCormick: Now you might be wondering, okay, Zechariah, Elizabeth, John, what about Mary, Joseph, and Jesus?
Micah McCormick: What does this have to do with the birth of baby Jesus?
Micah McCormick: Well, this is how Luke begins his gospel.
Micah McCormick: All four of the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, yes, they're all centered on Christ.
Micah McCormick: But before Luke gets to Christ in Luke chapter 2, a portion that many of us are familiar with, before he gets there, he gives us this story.
Micah McCormick: He wants us to hear this story to prepare us to encounter the Lord Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: Verse 17 at the end gives us an indication of why Luke includes this story.
Micah McCormick: The end of verse 17 says that John will make ready for the Lord a prepared people.
Micah McCormick: Are you prepared to encounter the Lord?
Micah McCormick: The Bible prepares us through patterns.
Micah McCormick: Let me say that again.
Micah McCormick: The Bible prepares us in part through patterns.
Micah McCormick: Repeated words, yes, but repeated events and repeated people and repeated places.
Micah McCormick: And this is the pattern we're going to look at tonight.
Micah McCormick: A child is coming.
Micah McCormick: That's the pattern.
Micah McCormick: First, baby John and then Jesus.
Micah McCormick: Only it's not actually first John.
Micah McCormick: John is a part of a pattern of coming children that are spoken of in the Bible.
Micah McCormick: So as we reflect on this pattern, I want us to kind of zoom out from this particular story of the announcement of John the Baptist's birth.
Micah McCormick: We're going to zoom out and we're going to look at this pattern of a coming child before John the Baptist.
Micah McCormick: And then also look at this pattern after John the Baptist.
Micah McCormick: And we'll spend a little more time on the before.
Micah McCormick: Where in the Bible do we first find promised children?
Micah McCormick: You have to go back to the Garden of Eden.
Micah McCormick: You've got to go all the way to the beginning.
Micah McCormick: God tells Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, so there's the hope and expectation of children.
Micah McCormick: But to be more specific, God tells Eve that her seed, her offspring would crush the serpent's head in Genesis 3.15.
Micah McCormick: And then in Genesis 3.20, Adam names his wife Eve because she is the mother of the living.
Micah McCormick: A little explanation here.
Micah McCormick: Adam and Eve in the garden are tempted by Satan to rebel against God, to go their own way.
Micah McCormick: They give in, they do it, they sin against the Lord, and immediately they're judged.
Micah McCormick: Suffering and death are brought into the world.
Micah McCormick: And so from this promise and this command of being fruitful and multiplying, and God giving them bodies to be able to produce life, if the judgment is death, you would think, okay, no children for Adam and Eve.
Micah McCormick: But we begin to see God's mercy in these words to Eve and to Adam.
Micah McCormick: And even through the serpent's judgment, we hear this hope that no, Eve, a child is coming.
Micah McCormick: Someone who is going to crush the serpent's head.
Micah McCormick: You, Eve, the mother of all living, the life giver, is going to give birth to a death dealer.
Micah McCormick: Dealing out death to the one who captured us and held us in bondage.
Micah McCormick: And Eve's firstborn is Cain.
Micah McCormick: Here is the child.
Micah McCormick: No.
Micah McCormick: Cain actually kills his brother Abel.
Micah McCormick: He doesn't destroy the serpent.
Micah McCormick: God didn't tell Eve that her very firstborn son would be the one who crushed the serpent, but a seed is coming, a child is coming.
Micah McCormick: Somewhere, somehow, Eve, a child is coming.
Micah McCormick: That's the beginning of this pattern.
Micah McCormick: Second, I'll move on to Sarah, Abraham's wife.
Micah McCormick: God takes his promise to Adam and Eve, and he reaffirms that promise to Abraham and he sharpens the focus.
Micah McCormick: And Abraham, to Abraham, he tells him in Genesis 15, you're going to have descendants as numerous as the stars, children are coming, a child is coming.
Micah McCormick: That seed, your offspring is going to bring a blessing to the nations.
Micah McCormick: So if Adam and Eve brought judgment and curse to the nations, now this child's going to bring blessing to the nations.
Micah McCormick: And there's a problem.
Micah McCormick: Sarah's 90 years old.
Micah McCormick: Abraham's a hundred years old.
Micah McCormick: His body isn't exactly a life-giving body.
Micah McCormick: And I'm not trying to be unkind.
Micah McCormick: The New Testament actually, in two places, describes Abraham as good as dead.
Micah McCormick: So, so I was being kind of polite compared to what the New Testament does with Abraham.
Micah McCormick: But it's bringing the point that he needed God's help in a significant way.
Micah McCormick: And sure enough, God delivers on his promise and they have a child.
Micah McCormick: They have Isaac.
Micah McCormick: So if the story of Adam and Eve shows us that God mercifully brings life from death with a coming child, Abraham and Sarah shows that God miraculously can bring life from death with a coming child.
Micah McCormick: Next installment of this pattern is Rebekah.
Micah McCormick: So Abraham and Sarah's son Isaac marries a woman named Rebekah, but Genesis 25, 21 says, Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was childless.
Micah McCormick: And God opens Rebekah's womb and gives her two boys, Esau and Jacob.
Micah McCormick: And yet these children end up feuding like Cain and Abel in some ways.
Micah McCormick: But in Genesis 26, God affirms his promise again to Isaac that your seed will bless all nations.
Micah McCormick: A child is coming, a child is coming, a child is coming.
Micah McCormick: Last installment of this pattern we'll look at in the Old Testament is Rachel.
Micah McCormick: So Isaac's son is born through once again a woman that has trouble conceiving.
Micah McCormick: Listen to Genesis 28, 15.
Micah McCormick: God visits Jacob and reaffirms the promise, I'm going to bless all the nations through your offspring.
Micah McCormick: And yet in Genesis 29, 31, it says that Rachel, so this is Jacob's, uh this is Jacob's wife, Isaac's son.
Micah McCormick: Rachel was unable to conceive.
Micah McCormick: Barren womb, barren womb, barren womb, promise of children, promise of children, promise of children, life, life, life, fulfillment, fulfillment, fulfillment.
Micah McCormick: And sure enough, God remembers Rachel and opens her womb and she becomes a life giver.
Micah McCormick: Her son's name is Joseph.
Micah McCormick: Of all the children in the Old Testament, I think that Joseph is the one that comes closest to being the child.
Micah McCormick: He follows the Lord, he helps preserve his family during a famine.
Micah McCormick: He even helps preserve the nation of Egypt.
Micah McCormick: It's like he's bringing a blessing to the nations.
Micah McCormick: Only Joseph dies, like everyone else has died.
Micah McCormick: And another Pharaoh arises in Egypt who doesn't remember Joseph.
Micah McCormick: Are you hearing the pattern?
Micah McCormick: Eve to Sarah, to Rebecca, to Rachel.
Micah McCormick: God prepares his people through patterns.
Micah McCormick: A child is coming, a child is coming.
Micah McCormick: Hopefully that puts this announcement to Zachariah and Elizabeth in a whole new light when they're told a child is coming.
Micah McCormick: It's like we've seen this movie before.
Micah McCormick: We know something's coming.
Micah McCormick: How does Hallmark produce so many holiday movies?
Micah McCormick: It's because they're not different movies.
Micah McCormick: Do you understand?
Micah McCormick: There's a woman, her husband has died.
Micah McCormick: It's her first Christmas alone.
Micah McCormick: She's gonna go to the Christmas tree farm and get a Christmas tree because that was their tradition.
Micah McCormick: She goes to the Christmas tree farm.
Micah McCormick: She has a little trouble loading up the tree because she's by herself now.
Micah McCormick: Thankfully, there's another man there who's willing to help her.
Micah McCormick: Very nice, very handsome.
Micah McCormick: And amazingly, his wife has died also.
Micah McCormick: This is not a suspense.
Micah McCormick: We know where this is going.
Micah McCormick: We've seen this movie before.
Micah McCormick: They're going to end up under the mistletoe.
Micah McCormick: They are going to end up at the altar.
Micah McCormick: We've seen this movie before.
Micah McCormick: Now, leaving aside the merits, artistic merits of Hallmark, in the Bible story, we've heard this before, but it hasn't found its resolution yet.
Micah McCormick: It's been a repeated promise in an anticipation, in anticipation, but it actually hasn't hit that happy ending.
Micah McCormick: There is the suspense for who is going to be the child.
Micah McCormick: So when we get to the story here of the announcement of the birth of John, this is more than just wow, this couple wanted to have a child and God let them have a child.
Micah McCormick: God's a really nice guy.
Micah McCormick: It's more than that.
Micah McCormick: It's bringing to fulfillment this pattern that's been happening all throughout the Bible of a child is coming.
Micah McCormick: Now I said we'd look at the pattern before this announcement to John to uh Zechariah and Elizabeth, and we've done that.
Micah McCormick: Then I said we'd look at the pattern after the birth of John the Baptist.
Micah McCormick: So after this account that we read, in the New Testament, where do we find the stories of barren women, promise of a child to come who's going to crush the serpent's head?
Micah McCormick: We don't.
Micah McCormick: We don't find those stories.
Micah McCormick: Elizabeth is the end of the line of this pattern of barren women and God's promise to give life.
Micah McCormick: I told you it's gonna be a lot shorter to talk about the after than the before.
Micah McCormick: Except, except there is a woman, a cousin, Mary.
Micah McCormick: She's not old and advanced in years.
Micah McCormick: She's not she's not barren, only she's never been with a man.
Micah McCormick: She's engaged, but she's never been with a man.
Micah McCormick: So God fulfills his promise through this pattern, but with an even greater magnitude.
Micah McCormick: Abraham and Sarah needed a lot of help from the Lord to have their son Isaac.
Micah McCormick: Mary to conceive without a man, that's a miracle of an extraordinarily next level.
Micah McCormick: And that's the kind of thing that God does.
Micah McCormick: He ramps up his promise because he's bringing our focus to this attention, to this point in history, to this baby, to this birth.
Micah McCormick: And John gets to be the final preparation for this coming child.
Micah McCormick: There's more though.
Micah McCormick: Here in Luke chapter 1, verse 17, Zechariah is told at the end that John the Baptist is preparing people for the Lord.
Micah McCormick: For the Lord.
Micah McCormick: What about the child?
Micah McCormick: The child, the child.
Micah McCormick: The child is the Lord.
Micah McCormick: All of these other children were merely human.
Micah McCormick: They couldn't bring about the restoration of all things.
Micah McCormick: This child is truly human.
Micah McCormick: He's truly born of Mary, but he's not merely human.
Micah McCormick: He is the Lord.
Micah McCormick: He's the Lord of glory.
Micah McCormick: So God fulfills his promise by sending his own son.
Micah McCormick: Are you prepared for the Lord tonight?
Micah McCormick: I don't mean, do you have your Christmas tree up, all the lights decorated?
Micah McCormick: Did you get your presents?
Micah McCormick: Are you still got to do some shopping and get some cards?
Micah McCormick: Are you prepared to encounter the Lord Jesus Christ?
Micah McCormick: This is good news for us that Jesus has come.
Micah McCormick: It can be good news for you.
Micah McCormick: It's good news because He came and lived a perfectly obedient life that no other child ever lived.
Micah McCormick: He came and died the death that we deserved to die because of our rebellion against God, and he did it as a substitute.
Micah McCormick: That's good news.
Micah McCormick: It's good news for everyone.
Micah McCormick: It's good news for you if you have 12 children or two children or no children.
Micah McCormick: It's good news for you if this season, your family is all gathered together, enjoy.
Micah McCormick: It's good news for you if your family doesn't have the measure of holiday cheer that you might like.
Micah McCormick: It's good news because what God has made and designed us most for is to know and enjoy Him, and this we can experience through Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: If you're here tonight and you do know Jesus Christ, enjoy today and tomorrow as much as you're able to, but don't be pulled away from your worship of the Lord, no matter what circumstances are going on in life, good or not as easy.
Micah McCormick: And if you're here tonight and you want to know the Lord, but you've never truly trusted in Jesus Christ, on behalf of our church, we can we can testify a child has come.
Micah McCormick: Let's pray.
Micah McCormick: Lord, how we marvel at this.
Micah McCormick: Promise.
Micah McCormick: How we marvel that the Lord of the ages has clothed himself in frail humanity.
Micah McCormick: You've come and visited your people.
Micah McCormick: We've already seen the climax of the movie.
Micah McCormick: We know how it's going to end, and it ends well for all who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: Lord, give us hearts that can truly sing, there is a redeemer, Jesus God's own Son.
Micah McCormick: Give us hearts that can speak of a silent night that is not merely picturesque for our own childhood memories, but for our soul's rest in you.
Micah McCormick: And Lord, may we all find rest in your beloved Son.
Micah McCormick: Thank you for sending a messenger.
Micah McCormick: Thank you for sending this final piece of preparation.
Micah McCormick: Even the one who would later in his life cry out Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Micah McCormick: May we be people prepared to encounter the Lord.
Micah McCormick: In Jesus' name.
Micah McCormick: Amen.