SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.
SPEAKER_00: In the days of Herod, king of Judah, there was a priest named Zachariah, of the division of Abigah.
SPEAKER_00: And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_00: And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all commandments and statutes of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.
SPEAKER_00: Now, while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by Lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense.
SPEAKER_00: And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense, and there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.
SPEAKER_00: And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him.
SPEAKER_00: But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear a son, and you shall call his name John, and you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord, and he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb, and he will turn many of the children of Israel to their Lord, to the Lord their God, and he will go before them in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and is disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.
SPEAKER_00: And Zachariah said to the angel, How shall I know this?
SPEAKER_00: For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.
SPEAKER_00: And the angel answered him, I am Gabriel.
SPEAKER_00: I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.
SPEAKER_00: And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.
SPEAKER_00: And the people were waiting for Zachariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple, and he kept making signs to them and reminded and remained mute.
SPEAKER_00: And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home.
SPEAKER_00: After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me to take away my reproach among people.
SPEAKER_00: In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.
SPEAKER_00: And he came to her and said, Greetings, O favoured one, the Lord is with you.
SPEAKER_00: But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.
SPEAKER_00: And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God.
SPEAKER_00: And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom there will be and of his kingdom there will be no end.
SPEAKER_00: And Mary said to the angel, How will this be since I am a virgin?
SPEAKER_00: And the angel answered her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who is called Baron.
SPEAKER_00: For nothing will be impossible with God.
SPEAKER_00: And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Let it be to me according to your word.
SPEAKER_00: And the angel departed from her, and so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_02: Happy New Year to you all.
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to you, particularly if you're uh new or visiting with us.
SPEAKER_02: My name is Mark.
SPEAKER_02: I'm the lead pastor here at City Church, and you're very welcome as you join us this morning at uh the start of this brand new series.
SPEAKER_02: We're going to do 14 weeks, uh, which will not take us uh through every single detail in the book of Luke, but we will do the uh the whole narrative sweep in the book of Luke on the run-up uh to Eastern as we uh prepare for uh the death and resurrection of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: You'll have noticed that immediately after Christmas, the Easter eggs went in to the shops.
SPEAKER_02: I picked up my first bag of mini eggs because our house needed more chocolate in it uh after Christmas, because immediately after thinking about Christmas, people started thinking about Easter.
SPEAKER_02: And uh in the life of the church, we kind of do that too.
SPEAKER_02: We begin to think about the run-up to uh what is a more significant festival uh for Christians, which is the death and resurrection of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And so we're gonna be tracing his life and what he said uh on the run-up to Easter in uh just about 14 weeks' time.
SPEAKER_02: Now, why is it that we're looking at uh the book of uh of Luke?
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna have to forgive my Northern Irish accent for the entirety of this series, because I say uh the verb to Luke and the male name look the same.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so you're just gonna, it's gonna have to be context dependent as to whether I'm talking about the guy or the verb, right?
SPEAKER_02: Because look and look are a homophone for us northern Irish people.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I could go Aussie and go Luke, uh, but that's hard for me to do.
SPEAKER_02: We do uh we do a gospel uh every few years.
SPEAKER_02: We did John, it felt like yesterday, but actually it was three years ago.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and we do a gospel kind of in that kind of two to three year cycle.
SPEAKER_02: We did Mark before that, uh, as a way of for us as a church, really having a uh a varied diet between Old Testament and New Testament and coming back again uh to the person that all of Scripture points to ultimately, who is the the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Uh walking through a gospel gives us a whole sweep of of who he is, what he said, what it means uh to be a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: One of the things that Luke is really concerned about for us is showing that actually the gospel is for outsiders, which I think is really good news, that those who feel like they're on the on the fringes, maybe pressing up their nose against the glass of even a community like this.
SPEAKER_02: One of the things that Luke is at pains to show us is that the good news of Jesus are for those that other people have considered to be social outcasts.
SPEAKER_02: And so throughout his gospel, he gives examples of people who would have been on the margins of society and how actually Jesus is pursuing them and inviting them in.
SPEAKER_02: People like tax collectors, Samaritans, the prodigal son, even the fact that women are so elevated in Luke's day through his gospel as the first witnesses to the to the resurrection.
SPEAKER_02: Uh another reason why it's good to look through the book of Luke, see, told you, is uh is because Luke meets doubt and questions uh with uh with grace.
SPEAKER_02: Uh Luke is kind of an investigative journalist.
SPEAKER_02: He's a doctor by uh by trade, by profession, uh, but as somebody who had lots of questions himself, he treats the the questioner with a lot of of dignity.
SPEAKER_02: And Luke shows us, and this is where we're going to go more deeper today, that faith, what it is to follow Jesus, that faith in him is first and foremost about the heart before it's about behavior.
SPEAKER_02: And so we begin Luke right from the start, wanting to think clearly about what faith is, what it is to have it.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you have faith, maybe you have a faith that is going strong, you feel good at the start of the new year, maybe you have a faith that you're like, it could definitely be deeper, my disciplines could be better, I could have Jesus could shape my life more.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe faith is actually just something you would love to have.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you've sat talking to somebody who's brought you to church this morning, like, I'd love to have the faith that you have.
SPEAKER_02: Luke helps us to understand.
SPEAKER_02: Well, what does it mean actually to have faith?
SPEAKER_02: What does it mean to follow Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: Luke is not a Jew, he's not part of the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_02: He's a non-Jew, he's a Gentile.
SPEAKER_02: So he himself is an outsider, and so he knows what it's like not to be from a kind of a religious family and to come into a religious, a faith-centered community.
SPEAKER_02: Like I said, he has a medical background and he became a companion of another guy, uh, a guy called Paul, St.
SPEAKER_02: Paul, who wrote many of the letters of the of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_02: He became a travel companion and really a kind of traveling secretary of Paul.
SPEAKER_02: And you read about that in the book of Acts, because Luke wrote two books.
SPEAKER_02: He wrote his gospel, the Gospel of Luke, and he wrote the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_02: He has a two-volume uh author in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_02: And in his second volume, he talks about the spread of the church and his traveling with this guy, Paul, who essentially was a terrorist going around capturing and murdering Christians, uh, and who comes to meet and have his life transformed by by Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And so in Luke's own, in Luke's own life, he shows us something of what faith is.
SPEAKER_02: The faith for for him, and what he would encourage us with this morning, is something that's rooted in history.
SPEAKER_02: It's not a fairy tale, it's not a it's not a myth, it has a it has an object, it has a place, it has a context, it's rooted in history, that it's something that's awakened by the grace of God, that God actually has to act in order to bring faith, uh, to awaken it in our lives.
SPEAKER_02: And that it's something that's lived out, that it's lived out in trust and obedience and following God and what he says.
SPEAKER_02: And so that's going to be the three uh principles that govern uh our time this morning.
SPEAKER_02: Rooted in history, awakened by the grace of God, and expressed, lived out through trust and obedience.
SPEAKER_02: So let's dive in.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, it's faith is something that is rooted in history.
SPEAKER_02: The writers of the four gospels, uh, you must think of them as biographers.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I read, I don't know if you might have read biography over Christmas.
SPEAKER_02: I read Anthony Hopkins' biography over Christmas.
SPEAKER_02: You can ask me why I didn't what was interesting about that, but that's what one of the books that I decided to read.
SPEAKER_02: And Luke is a biographer, he's a biographer of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And in Luke's biography of Jesus, he wants you and I to have confidence that the message of Jesus, what Jesus did, what he said, was in fact true.
SPEAKER_02: He makes that explicit from the start, verse one.
SPEAKER_02: Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.
SPEAKER_02: Luke is writing to someone, this guy Theophilus.
SPEAKER_02: We don't know much about him, but what we can infer from both the start of Luke and the start of Acts is Theophilus is himself, again, a non-Jew, probably a Roman, probably somebody of means.
SPEAKER_02: And what he has done is he has made Luke his kind of uh his personal investigator.
SPEAKER_02: He is Luke's patron.
SPEAKER_02: That is, he's paying Luke, say, look, I'll cover your expenses, you go and investigate this, compile it into a narrative, and deliver it to me.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to verify for me, because I trust you, that what has happened in Jerusalem is true.
SPEAKER_02: So Theophilus has heard some things, and now he's getting a PI, Luke, to go and investigate.
SPEAKER_02: That's what's going on.
SPEAKER_02: And so he's he's done that work and he's writing this compilation for Theophilus, who has covered his expenses.
SPEAKER_02: And this is what, so what does he do?
SPEAKER_02: He goes and he says, I've compiled a narrative and I've sought to make an orderly account.
SPEAKER_02: Now, if you read a biography, say you read a sports biography, or indeed my Anthony Hopkins biography over Christmas, it what it's not, it's not a it's not a day-by-day blow of everything that Anthony Hopkins did in his life.
SPEAKER_02: In the same way, biographies of Jesus are not a day-by-day blow of what Jesus did.
SPEAKER_02: It's not Jesus woke up on a Tuesday and he had eggs for breakfast, and on a Wednesday he had, you know, a grapefruit.
SPEAKER_02: It's not like that.
SPEAKER_02: But it is an orderly sweep.
SPEAKER_02: The things are in the right order.
SPEAKER_02: The main events are uh are included.
SPEAKER_02: That is what Luke means by an orderly account.
SPEAKER_02: It's not an account that is an ex that is an exhaustive one, because no biography is exhaustive, but they are true, they are coherent, and they are reliable.
SPEAKER_02: How does Luke do this?
SPEAKER_02: How does he ensure its reliability?
SPEAKER_02: He tells us says that he is interviewed, received, and verified eyewitness testimony.
SPEAKER_02: And all the way through Luke's gospel, you'll see him talking about specific times, specific people, names that in the first century could be uh could be gone to and verified.
SPEAKER_02: He is writing within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses, and this is true of all four of uh the biographies of Jesus: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that they are written in the lifetime of the people who have seen the events, and so those events can be verified.
SPEAKER_02: One of the sources that Mark as that Luke is using is the Gospel of Mark, which is the earliest gospel written around about 55 AD.
SPEAKER_02: So well within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses.
SPEAKER_02: And Mark is at pains throughout his gospel to give us examples that can be verified by the first readers in the first century that what he is saying is not just some made-up myth or legend, but is recounting and recording something that actually people have seen and heard and borne witness to.
SPEAKER_02: Why does Luke do this?
SPEAKER_02: Again, he tells us he wants Theophilus and us, verse four, to have certainty concerning the things that have been taught.
SPEAKER_02: Not some vague reassurance, but firmness, stability, something solid to stand upon, something solid to build your life upon.
SPEAKER_02: Because actually, if you're investigating Christianity, one of the questions is like, can I really kind of put lean all the weight of my life and decision making on this thing?
SPEAKER_02: Is it firm enough for me to do that?
SPEAKER_02: And that's what Luke wants us to come away with.
SPEAKER_02: He wants you to come away with knowing, yes, this is something solid to rest upon.
unknown: C.
SPEAKER_02: S.
SPEAKER_02: Lewis said, uh, you know, lots of people want to say, I just like to have an open mind.
SPEAKER_02: C.
SPEAKER_02: S.
SPEAKER_02: Lewis said, having an open mind is like having an open mouth.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you have an open mouth in order to close it on something nutritious and solid.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so Luke wants to say, Yeah, come with an open mind to the biography of Jesus in order that you might have grasp hold intellectually and emotionally on something solid and firm that will give you a certainty and a stability at the core of your life.
SPEAKER_02: That's his objective.
SPEAKER_02: And so he begins.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, sorry, which means that faith is not some vague wishful thinking.
SPEAKER_02: Faith has an object.
SPEAKER_02: And people say, ah, I'm just a I'm a person of faith.
SPEAKER_02: Faith in what?
SPEAKER_02: Trusting what or who?
SPEAKER_02: Faith has an object, and for Luke, the object is Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Who he is, what he said, what he did.
SPEAKER_02: Is it true or is it not?
SPEAKER_02: Is Jesus telling the truth or is he a liar?
SPEAKER_02: Faith has an object, not simply a feeling.
SPEAKER_02: This also means that Christianity as a as a worldview, as a belief system, invites investigation.
SPEAKER_02: It actually wants you to scrutinize it, to ask questions of it.
SPEAKER_02: It's not a well just accept it and don't ask any questions.
SPEAKER_02: I know that there are certain there are churches, perhaps even you have grown up in churches like that, where it's like you don't ask questions, you don't ask why, you don't uh that sort of pursuit is not invited.
SPEAKER_02: That's not true of Christianity.
SPEAKER_02: And Luke shows us.
SPEAKER_02: He's an investigator.
SPEAKER_02: He wants to kick the tires on Christianity and to make sure that it's actually something solid.
SPEAKER_02: Faith, therefore, doesn't ignore evidence, it rests upon it.
SPEAKER_02: So Luke begins by telling us a story that is trustworthy, it's grounded in real events, in real people, real places.
SPEAKER_02: But he doesn't just stop there or list out bullet point facts on a on a page.
SPEAKER_02: He takes us from verse 5 into the story.
SPEAKER_02: Because the story of Christianity, the story of the life of Jesus, is played out in ordinary people's lives.
SPEAKER_02: And that's one of the wonderful, compelling, and beautiful things about the message of Jesus, that it's not a belief system that is just abstractly handed down by somebody who encountered an angel, but it's actually lived out in the narrative of ordinary people.
SPEAKER_02: And so Luke brings us inside the story, and he shows us in doing that that faith is awakened by the grace of God.
SPEAKER_02: This is our second point.
SPEAKER_02: The faith is awakened by the grace of God.
SPEAKER_02: From here we're in uh we're in verse five uh through to uh through to around about uh well, through to around about 25, actually.
SPEAKER_02: So this is the the Zechariah in the temple bit that Peter read if you were in for the reading.
SPEAKER_02: If you missed the reading, pull it up on your phone.
SPEAKER_02: Uh everybody has access to the scriptures.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you didn't bring a Bible, but you can all of you can go to your web app and just search Luke 1 ESV, and that'll bring you right along.
SPEAKER_02: And you can look there from uh from verse 5.
SPEAKER_02: And you'll see in verse 5, he immediately begins.
SPEAKER_02: In the days of Herod, he invites us into a particular time in history.
SPEAKER_02: Luke does not begin once upon a time, yeah, because it's not a myth, it's not a fairy story.
SPEAKER_02: In the days of Herod, okay, so we know the actual geopolitical climate that these things are taking place in.
SPEAKER_02: In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zachariah, right?
SPEAKER_02: Who was Zachariah?
SPEAKER_02: Well, he was of the division of Abijah.
SPEAKER_02: And so if you were particularly au fae with uh the divisions of priests, uh there was 24 of them, by the way, we'll get to that.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but he's he's putting in those details, those details in order to give you confidence.
SPEAKER_02: He introduces us to this person, Zachariah, Zachariah's priest.
SPEAKER_02: Not only that, but Zachariah is married to Elizabeth, who is of kind of the priests of all priests lines.
SPEAKER_02: She's a daughter of Aaron.
SPEAKER_02: She's from that descendant, the high priest.
SPEAKER_02: So very well.
SPEAKER_02: To do a religious family, and he tells us that they were uh that they were righteous.
SPEAKER_02: That is not to say that they never committed any sins, but that they were faithfully, religiously observant.
SPEAKER_02: They were they were religious, spiritually governed, quote-unquote good people, right?
SPEAKER_02: In Northern Ireland, when I grew up, you would call those people good living, right?
SPEAKER_02: Uh Zachariah and Elizabeth were good living.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, they had put their toaster in the cupboard, and uh, there we go.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and they they went to church twice on twice on Sunday for the main service and then the gospel meeting at six o'clock in the evening.
SPEAKER_02: That was Zechariah and Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_02: They were old and they hadn't been able to have any children.
SPEAKER_02: Naturally, that would have been the expectation, it certainly would have been the expectation of the people around them.
SPEAKER_02: So Elizabeth said that uh when she realizes that she's pregnant, she says, the Lord has decided to take away the reproach of the people.
SPEAKER_02: That is, people would have looked away at Elizabeth and gone, I wonder what sin she committed in her life that the Lord didn't bless her with children.
SPEAKER_02: That would have been the natural societal expectation, and that's something that they would have hoped for as a couple, but they're old now, and so any hope for that really would have faded long since.
SPEAKER_02: Now, in those days, there were a lot of priests, there was about 18,000 priests knocking around Israel, and you can't have 18,000 priests in the temple all at the same time.
SPEAKER_02: And so what they did was they divided them into these 24 divisions.
SPEAKER_02: And a division of priests would go and minister at the temple twice a year for a week, right?
SPEAKER_02: They give up a week from their normal job, usually agriculture, right?
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and they would go to Jerusalem and they would deal with the sacrifices, they would offer the incense in the temple, and they would do all of the priestly duties twice a year.
SPEAKER_02: And what Luke tells us is that it's Zechariah's turn.
SPEAKER_02: It's Zachariah's division that just so happens to be at the temple at this time.
SPEAKER_02: And then we're told that Zechariah is chosen by Lot, that is by the casting of dice, okay, to be the one to go inside the temple, because not all the priests did that, to go inside the temple and to offer incense.
SPEAKER_02: So there was a there was a podium with essentially an incense burner on it, and every day a priest would go in and burn incense, and they would that was to symbolize the prayers of the people uh rising up to heaven.
SPEAKER_02: And so Zachariah is chosen by lot.
SPEAKER_02: Now, this is hugely significant because not all priests uh got this opportunity.
SPEAKER_02: Some priests live their whole life without the lot ever falling on them.
SPEAKER_02: And if you got it once, that was your one time, your name was taken out of it.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: And so what is what we're being told here by Luke is Zachariah has waited his entire life, and now just at this time, he just so happens to be at the temple, and it just so happens that his name comes up for the most spiritually significant moment of his entire career as a priest.
SPEAKER_02: You get me?
SPEAKER_02: And so he goes into the temple and he has a bit of a moment because he meets an angel.
SPEAKER_02: The angel Gabriel comes and speaks to him and says that he, or his wife rather, is going to have a child.
SPEAKER_02: This going into the temple to offer incense was not just significant to him as a priest, therefore, but it turned out to be rather significant for him personally.
SPEAKER_02: And as the angel Gabriel will go on to tell us, it's ultimately significant for the whole people of Israel.
SPEAKER_02: But friends, all of this chat of priests and priestly divisions and casting of dice and who did what when.
SPEAKER_02: Here's the point this is how God works.
SPEAKER_02: He acts when it seems like all hope has faded.
SPEAKER_02: Zachariah and Elizabeth had long since cried their tears over not being able to have a child.
SPEAKER_02: Their disappointment, I'm sure, had given way to just a quiet, cold resignation.
SPEAKER_02: And then God shows up.
SPEAKER_02: Haven't you found yourself at various points almost at the very end of yourself?
SPEAKER_02: Before actually God has intervened.
SPEAKER_02: People often say, Well, God will never give you more than you can bear.
SPEAKER_02: Nonsense.
SPEAKER_02: God does that all the time.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because at that moment when you are totally spent and way over beyond over your skis, where you are beyond yourself, that's when he acts.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: So that you will know that it was not you because you had no strength left.
SPEAKER_02: You'd no hope left.
SPEAKER_02: So you know that it was him.
SPEAKER_02: This is how God acts.
SPEAKER_02: And so just at the right time, when he was old, his lot comes up for him to empty the and enter the temple to pray.
SPEAKER_02: God has remembered him again.
SPEAKER_02: God has remembered his wife, Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_02: God has remembered his people.
SPEAKER_02: God remembers us.
SPEAKER_02: And as he's praying, the angel speaks to him and promises that Elizabeth will have a child.
SPEAKER_02: God, up to this point in the Bible, God has been silent for 400 years.
SPEAKER_02: It's been 400 years since the Old Testament, since the prophet Malachi stops speaking the oracles and words of God.
SPEAKER_02: 400 years of silence until this angel shows up.
SPEAKER_02: And now he speaks and promises a son, not just any son, but a son who will be like Elijah.
SPEAKER_02: Now Elijah is an old testament prophet, kind of the prophet of prophets of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_02: And he is uh the prophet Malachi promises that Elijah will come back before the Lord's return.
SPEAKER_02: And so the angel is saying, your wife's about to basically have Elijah.
SPEAKER_02: He's going to look and sound like Elijah in order to prepare the way for the Lord's coming.
SPEAKER_02: Zechariah is um skeptical, uh, shall we say, and he questions the angel.
SPEAKER_02: Had years of disappointment, so shaken his faith, because there is a kind of there's an unbelief in his question, there's a testing of God in his question.
SPEAKER_02: But isn't it reassuring to know that after Zachariah asks the question, the angel doesn't go, how dare you ask that?
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna go and pick another priest.
SPEAKER_02: There must have been another old one, right?
SPEAKER_02: You're done.
SPEAKER_02: One strike in your eye.
SPEAKER_02: No, God's not like that.
SPEAKER_02: The question is tinged with unbelief, it's tinged with skepticism, and yet the angel still works with Zechariah.
SPEAKER_02: And I think there's something reassuring about that.
SPEAKER_02: The angel doesn't withdraw the promise of God, but Zechariah is placed into a season of trial, of suffering, as a consequence of it, because Zechariah is struck dumb.
SPEAKER_02: Because he didn't take Gabriel at his word, and Zechariah won't be able to speak any words until John is born.
SPEAKER_02: Is it judgment?
SPEAKER_02: Maybe not, but is it discipline?
SPEAKER_02: Certainly.
SPEAKER_02: God allows us to go through disciplinary trial, suffering like this, in order to strengthen weak faith.
SPEAKER_02: Faith is not awakened by human optimism, it's awakened by God's gracious initiative.
SPEAKER_02: And God meets Zachariah not at the moment of highest confidence in the promises of God.
SPEAKER_02: He meets Zachariah in the depth of his own weariness, in his own questioning and wrestling, and works in his life to deepen faith.
SPEAKER_02: None of our waiting, whatever it is that you're waiting for God for, none of your waiting is wasted.
SPEAKER_02: God often begins to work.
SPEAKER_02: When hope feels thin.
SPEAKER_02: And what's more, when God came to Zechariah and showed him grace and began to deepen his faith, he actually made Zechariah's life harder in the short term.
SPEAKER_02: He couldn't speak.
SPEAKER_02: Grace often feels disruptive like that before it shows itself to be redemptive.
SPEAKER_02: So if God has laid you in a season of disciplining and refining, it actually feels painful.
SPEAKER_02: Why are you doing this right now, God?
SPEAKER_02: It is for his own redemptive purposes.
SPEAKER_02: It's so that he might deepen your trust.
SPEAKER_02: And what Luke wants us to see is this the faith doesn't begin with us getting strong.
SPEAKER_02: It begins with God coming close.
SPEAKER_02: Grace comes first, God speaks first.
SPEAKER_02: Grace acts while we still feel fragile.
SPEAKER_02: But this same grace invites a response.
SPEAKER_02: And that raises the question that Luke now asks: what does it look like when Grace meets us personally?
SPEAKER_02: And how should we respond to it?
SPEAKER_02: So Luke shifts the scene from an old priest in Jerusalem to a young woman in Nazareth.
SPEAKER_02: And there we see faith not just awakened but willingly embraced.
SPEAKER_02: And this is our third and our final point.
SPEAKER_02: The faith is something that is lived out through trust and through obedience.
SPEAKER_02: The scene shifts uh dramatically in some senses.
SPEAKER_02: We've gone from the center of uh of religious power, political power in Jerusalem, and uh now we are in the countryside.
SPEAKER_02: Now we've gone off to a backwater town called Nazareth.
SPEAKER_02: We're in verses 26 uh through to uh 26 through to 38 if you're following along in your Bibles.
SPEAKER_02: Nazareth is insignificant, it's nothing uh there's nothing in here to suggest it's important.
SPEAKER_02: Mary herself is young, she is unknown, she's socially vulnerable because yes, she's betrothed, she's engaged, but she's not yet married.
SPEAKER_02: And yet this is where God sends his angel.
SPEAKER_02: Gabriel clearly is having a busy day.
SPEAKER_02: Uh Gabriel tells Mary that she is favored by God.
SPEAKER_02: This is this is translated and makes its way into the Roman Catholic prayer that she is full of grace.
SPEAKER_02: Uh heal Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
SPEAKER_02: But it is not that she herself has lots of grace within herself to give out.
SPEAKER_02: Now, what the angel Gabriel is saying is that she has been a wonderful recipient of God's grace, that it rests upon her.
SPEAKER_02: Gabriel's announcement to Mary is greater than the one that Zachariah heard in the temple.
SPEAKER_02: He says that, uh, so we'll pick it up in verse 28, greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you.
SPEAKER_02: But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.
SPEAKER_02: And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God, and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, and he will be great, and you will be called son of the most high.
SPEAKER_02: And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.
SPEAKER_02: This child will be great, he'll be given the throne of David.
SPEAKER_02: This is a fulfillment of a uh of a centuries-old prophecy in the in the Old Testament, where God comes to King David, David of David and Goliath fame, right?
SPEAKER_02: So he becomes the king after slaying Goliath, and God comes to him at a point in the Old Testament in 2 Samuel chapter 7, uh, and says, Do you know what, David?
SPEAKER_02: I don't really want you to build me a house.
SPEAKER_02: Don't build me a temple.
SPEAKER_02: I'm God, I don't live in a house, right?
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but do you know what I'm gonna do?
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna establish your house, not your bricks and mortar, but your lineage, your line, your throne.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna have someone coming from your line who will sit on your throne forever, and his kingdom will have no end.
SPEAKER_02: Hearing language of what Gabriel say?
SPEAKER_02: What Gabriel is saying is that's about to come true.
SPEAKER_02: But not only, I mean, how would one of David's sons sit on the throne forever?
SPEAKER_02: Well, he also needs to be the son of the most high God.
SPEAKER_02: What have we just been singing in uh uh in carol services over the last few weeks?
SPEAKER_02: Or what have we just been reading?
SPEAKER_02: Like words like Isaiah 9, that he will be the wonderful, the mighty God, the uh everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, the wonderful counselor, that this eternal son will come and sit on David's throne.
SPEAKER_02: His kingdom will last forever.
SPEAKER_02: John, who will be born to Elizabeth, will be like Elijah, who will prepare the way for the Lord, and the son who will be born of Mary will be the Lord himself, that he is the king.
SPEAKER_02: Mary's question, then in uh verse 34, Mary said to the angel, How will this be since I am a virgin?
SPEAKER_02: Her question is different to Zachariah's.
SPEAKER_02: It's different in tone, it's different in thrust, it's different in kind.
SPEAKER_02: Zachariah's question is give me a sign to know that this is um that this is trustworthy and true.
SPEAKER_02: Basically, prove yourself to me, angel.
SPEAKER_02: Mary's question is different.
SPEAKER_02: Mary's question is is one of mechanism.
SPEAKER_02: It's like, well, can you tell me how?
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm not married and and I'm a virgin, I haven't had sex with anyone.
SPEAKER_02: Zachariah's question is, how can I be sure?
SPEAKER_02: Mary's question is, how will this happen?
SPEAKER_02: She believes that it will happen already, do you see?
SPEAKER_02: But she's asking, how will this come about come about?
SPEAKER_02: She is not resisting God's word, she's trying to understand how it will unfold.
SPEAKER_02: And so Gabriel explains that the Holy Spirit will come upon her, the power of the Most High will overshadow her.
SPEAKER_02: These words, in itself, they echo Genesis chapter one, where God's creation narrative, the Holy Spirit overshadowing, hovering over the waters of the uh of the deep before new life is is brought out of the out of the chaos.
SPEAKER_02: Luke is therefore showing us that God is doing something entirely new, that the spirit that brought life of creation is now about to bring about the new creation through the birth of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: The God who sought to bless the whole world through another childless couple, Abraham and Sarah, this time will begin to bless the whole world through another childless elderly couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_02: That just as God had promised a king from his line, from David's line to sit on his throne forever, now a descendant of David is about to come, who is the eternal God.
SPEAKER_02: All of the threads of the Old Testament, and there's even more that we could go into, are all coming together in the birth of this child.
SPEAKER_02: And Mary's response is the response of a heart that has truly encountered and received the grace of God.
SPEAKER_02: She says, I am the servant of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Let it be to me according to your word.
SPEAKER_02: You think about that for a moment.
SPEAKER_02: She's a young girl, probably a teenager.
SPEAKER_02: Mary does not have a detailed plan, assurance of safety, clarity at this point about Joseph's response.
SPEAKER_02: But she does have God and his word.
SPEAKER_02: She trusts it and she's willing to obey it.
SPEAKER_02: Faith, therefore, Luke shows us, is not a passive belief, it's not simply an emotion.
SPEAKER_02: It's a surrendered trust to what God says.
SPEAKER_02: Faith often means saying yes to God before you can see the outcome.
SPEAKER_02: Have you done that in your life?
SPEAKER_02: Have you done that in moving here to Dublin?
SPEAKER_02: In taking that job, in entering into that relationship.
SPEAKER_02: It has felt like, like in some sense, it's a blind step into the unknown, a step of faith where you're you're placing your hand in God's and saying, I actually don't know how this is going to pan out, but I'm going to trust you.
SPEAKER_02: That's often how faith works.
SPEAKER_02: Obedience, that is, faith lived out.
SPEAKER_02: Obedience often comes before clarity, before we know exactly why God is asking us to do a particular thing.
SPEAKER_02: God works through willing hearts more than he does through impressive resumes.
SPEAKER_02: Mary shows us that the faith is something that is rooted in God's work in the world, in his promises, in his word, that it's shaped by grace that is God's kindness towards us, and that it's expressed in active trust and obedience.
SPEAKER_02: So as Luke opens his gospel, he wants us to understand faith as it truly is, that it's not wishful thinking, it's not emotional optimism, it's not blind obedience.
SPEAKER_02: It is rooted in history, what God has actually done.
SPEAKER_02: It is awakened by grace.
SPEAKER_02: God moves towards us first.
SPEAKER_02: It is lived out in trust and obedience.
SPEAKER_02: When we respond to him and to his word.
SPEAKER_02: Zachariah shows us that faith can be fragile and God can still be present with us in it.
SPEAKER_02: Patient, gentle, kind.
SPEAKER_02: Mary shows us the faith doesn't have to wait for certainty.
SPEAKER_02: It trusts the God who speaks.
SPEAKER_02: And at the center of it all is this baby whose life we're going to trace over these next few months.
SPEAKER_02: The king that God has promised, the son that he has sent into the world, the salvation that he has accomplished.
SPEAKER_02: Luke leaves us with the same invitation that he gives to Theophilus.
SPEAKER_02: Will you have certainly will you trust the story?
SPEAKER_02: Will you receive this grace as God comes to you now and speaks to you?
SPEAKER_02: Will you say with Mary, let it be done according to your word, whatever you want with my life, Lord?
SPEAKER_02: We start 2026.
SPEAKER_02: Let it be done according to your word.
SPEAKER_02: Whatever you want.
SPEAKER_02: My life is in your hands.
SPEAKER_02: There's a famous poem, and I didn't write it down, but it feels like it's a it's a good way to uh to finish our time and to move into the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_02: There's a famous poem, it's called The Gateway of the Year.
SPEAKER_02: It was uh read out by by King George the Sixth, one of the Georges, right?
SPEAKER_02: And it says, I came to the man at the turning of the year, and I asked that he might give me a lamp to light my way.
SPEAKER_02: And he looked at me and said, Place your hand in the hand of God, for that is more sure than any lamp, and more certain than any way.
SPEAKER_02: Can't we pray there?
unknown: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_02: May it be according to your word, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: This is where faith begins.
SPEAKER_02: And this is how our faith grows.
SPEAKER_02: Deepen faith.
SPEAKER_02: We pray that Jesus might be formed in us and among us as a church.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for your patience in our weakness, in our fragility.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you that you are so kind and gracious to us.
SPEAKER_02: So you don't wait for us to strengthen our own faith, but you come close to us and speak words of life, comfort, and so we pray uh that you would uh guide and form and help us by your spirit to trust and to follow you through this year and beyond.
SPEAKER_02: We ask these things for Jesus' sake.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to this week's sermon.
SPEAKER_01: If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, visit our website found in the links below.