SPEAKER_00: If you were gonna tell the story of Christmas, where would you begin?
SPEAKER_00: You know, for Mark, that that's not even a question.
SPEAKER_00: Mark, Mark ain't got no time for a manger.
SPEAKER_00: You know, here's the Messiah, he's been baptized, we got things to do, people to save, let's go.
SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
SPEAKER_00: That's totally that's obviously very fine.
SPEAKER_00: That's divinely inspired, that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it just means that on Christmas morning, nobody's gonna like gather in their jammies with their cocoa and their kids and read Mark chapter two.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe Jesse's family would, but we would probably look for something a little more Christmassy.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Matthew, Matthew, like a good accountant, begins the Christmas story by making sure that all the paperwork is in order.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: There are covenant blessings for Abraham's son, there are covenant blessings for David's son, and here's a genealogy that is meticulously aligned to make sure you realize Jesus is entitled to both of them.
SPEAKER_00: All the math checks out, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's a very Matthew-like thing to do.
SPEAKER_00: And the genealogy he gives you, by the way, is a royal genealogy.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Matthew's got a very regal kind of Christmas to him.
SPEAKER_00: And just to make sure you don't miss how significant that Christmas is all about a king and kingdoms and the king finally showing up, just to make sure you don't miss that, Matthew tells the Christmas story by having three kings come from afar carrying gifts to meet a fourth king, to ask, where has been born the king of the Jews?
SPEAKER_00: We saw his star.
SPEAKER_00: Like Matthew's Christmas has a lot of crowns in it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: John, John the theologian, he spreads the aperture as wide as it could possibly go.
SPEAKER_00: He broadens the scope to its maximum level.
SPEAKER_00: His is a cosmic Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: He sets his story of the incarnation all the way back in creation.
SPEAKER_00: He begins in the beginning, with the Word who was with God and the Word who was God.
SPEAKER_00: John's Christmas is the story of the divine light bursting into the darkness of humanity.
SPEAKER_00: The only begotten Son coming to reveal the Father by putting on flesh and dwelling among us, full of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_00: John's Christmas is eternity breaking into time.
SPEAKER_00: It is light dashing away darkness.
SPEAKER_00: It is divinity and humanity brought together in one glorious Son.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not where Luke begins.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Luke tells a Christmas story that's a little more personal, more intimate, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: And he begins his story in a, I think, an unlikely place.
SPEAKER_00: You know, before you get to the manger, before you arrive in Bethlehem, before a decree goes out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be counted.
SPEAKER_00: Before any of those things happen, you gotta go to chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: But before Mary sings her song of praise, before even the angel Gabriel comes to visit Mary and announce to her the miracle that she is going to bear in her womb before all of those things, Luke begins the Christmas story like this.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you see, there was this sweet elderly couple that lived in Israel named Zechariah and Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_00: Why start there?
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's because Luke is reminding us that the Christmas story begins with waiting.
SPEAKER_00: And before you get to Bethlehem and chapter two, you've got to get through chapter one, which, by the way, is the longest chapter in your New Testament Bible.
SPEAKER_00: There are 80 verses in it.
SPEAKER_00: Personally, I think Vitiwana should award a solid gold truth pin to any kid who is capable to get that one down cold.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I'm feeling it.
SPEAKER_00: I think we'd have three truth scripts in my house.
SPEAKER_00: 80 verses to get there.
SPEAKER_00: In a way, I think that makes Luke the most adventy of our Gospels.
SPEAKER_00: Because it begins with waiting.
SPEAKER_00: And as we all know, waiting can be hard.
SPEAKER_00: It certainly is for Zechariah and Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_00: Here's how Luke introduces them to us in verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah.
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 the commandments and statutes of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But they had no child.
SPEAKER_00: Because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.
SPEAKER_00: For Zechariah and Elizabeth, life was hard.
SPEAKER_00: Both personally hard, inside the context of their home.
SPEAKER_00: It was hard.
SPEAKER_00: But it was also hard broadly in their world.
SPEAKER_00: Luke lets us know that this story we're reading is set in the days of Herod, king of Judea.
SPEAKER_00: And that puts it somewhere on the timeline between 37 BC and 4 BC.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, they didn't know to call it BC, but hey, we'll get there in chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: And this Herod, who is the king, is known as Herod the Great.
SPEAKER_00: And by a lot of measures, he was very great.
SPEAKER_00: He ruled over Judea as a client king under Roman authority.
SPEAKER_00: He was appointed by Mark Anthony of all people.
SPEAKER_00: He's not a Jew, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: He is an Edomite by descent.
SPEAKER_00: Edom, that historic enemy of the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: But he did his best to play the part of a Jewish king.
SPEAKER_00: He put on pomps and he put on airs and he tried to present himself as if he was a good Jewish king.
SPEAKER_00: And in many ways, he did great things inside of his reign.
SPEAKER_00: He built massive structures to include a remodeled temple right there in Jerusalem and what we now know as the famous fortress of Masada.
SPEAKER_00: Herod the Great built those things.
SPEAKER_00: So in some ways, he was great.
SPEAKER_00: But in person, he was a cruel man.
SPEAKER_00: He was wicked.
SPEAKER_00: He was petty.
SPEAKER_00: He was paranoid.
SPEAKER_00: He was vindictive.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted power at all costs.
SPEAKER_00: In order to hold on to his power, he murdered his wife.
SPEAKER_00: He murdered his brother.
SPEAKER_00: He murdered at least three of his sons.
SPEAKER_00: He is a cruel and wicked man.
SPEAKER_00: In order to maintain his position of power with the Roman authorities, he dutifully carried out any restrictive policies that were imposed by Rome against the people who were supposed to be his subjects, the people he was supposed to protect and care for and lead.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he oppressed them.
SPEAKER_00: And in order to do that, he employed a 2,000-man personal bodyguard to function as a not-so-secret police, rounding up and brutally squashing any kind of dissension.
SPEAKER_00: Josephus, who is a Jewish historian who lived at this time, tells us a little bit about Herod, who, even though he tried really hard to make people think he was a good Jewish king, was just happy to bring in all of the vices of Rome and all the pagan entertainment.
SPEAKER_00: He had no problem with those things.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he had no problem erecting pagan statues right outside the entrance to the temple.
SPEAKER_00: There were idols that Herod helped put together.
SPEAKER_00: So I guess, well, at least in that way, he's not all that different from the Jewish kings we read about in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Nonetheless, this little detail that this story is set in the days of King Herod, this little detail reminds us that the world of Zechariah and Elizabeth was filled with hardship.
SPEAKER_00: It was exceptionally difficult.
SPEAKER_00: Everywhere they looked, every street they walked on, every gathering they attended, everywhere they were surrounded by constant reminders that their world was not the way it was supposed to be.
SPEAKER_00: This is not what it was supposed to look like.
SPEAKER_00: A Roman military state was always watching them and threatening to snatch away their freedom at any chance.
SPEAKER_00: A sham political apparatus that prized power over righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: The constant pressure of oppressive taxes that were always being levied upon them to pay for blasphemous structures and the elite class, ruling class opulence.
SPEAKER_00: And in the midst of this sea of suffering and difficulty and hardship, there we find Zechariah and Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_00: A little island of faithfulness and a world of chaos and difficulty.
SPEAKER_00: Zechariah, we see, is a priest, a priest of the division of Abaijah.
SPEAKER_00: There were thousands of priests in Israel, something like 18,000 priests that were scattered all across the land.
SPEAKER_00: And they lived in the cities and in the towns and the hamlets, and they lived all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, in order to keep them straight, they were divided up into groups, 24 different divisions.
SPEAKER_00: And Zechariah belonged to the division of Abijah, named after uh one of the leaders historically in Israel's past of these priestly divisions, and he belonged to that division, and each of these divisions took their turns, as it were, a couple of times a year for the major festivals and through a rotation to come down to Jerusalem, and there they would serve inside the temple.
SPEAKER_00: There they would do all of the priestly functions the temple demanded, and there were lots of them.
SPEAKER_00: But most of the year these priests lived out in their cities and in their towns and in their villages and hamlets.
SPEAKER_00: And they would do things like teach the scriptures inside of the synagogues, and they would offer religious judgments about issues that came up, and tried to be faithful and point the people towards God.
SPEAKER_00: So we recognize that Zechariah has a noble calling.
SPEAKER_00: And Zechariah is married to a woman named Elizabeth, who was herself not only from the tribe of Levi, but was from the actual family tree of Aaron, the brother of Moses, the very first high priest in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Next to the royal house of King David, there was no family tree more highly regarded in the nation than the people who were descended from Aaron, the first high priest.
SPEAKER_00: I tried to think about what this would be like for us in our setting.
SPEAKER_00: This would be like an American who decided to get married, and he married someone who was a direct descendant of George Washington, right?
SPEAKER_00: Or he finds a wonderful girl down there in Virginia from the family of Jefferson, right?
SPEAKER_00: Which I would imagine would do pretty well if you were going to, you know, run for office, run your fundraisers out of Monticello and Mount Vernon.
SPEAKER_00: That seems like a good choice.
SPEAKER_00: It's a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: Elizabeth is kind of a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: So Zechariah's got a noble calling, and he's got a noble wife.
SPEAKER_00: And together, the two of them lived out a noble life.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it says.
SPEAKER_00: They were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: They were the real deal.
SPEAKER_00: They were genuine, bona fide believers.
SPEAKER_00: I think we're so conditioned as Christians now that when we open up our gospels and we bump into the priests, we think, oh, those hypocrites.
SPEAKER_00: I know what they're like.
SPEAKER_00: But not Zechariah and Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_00: They're the real deal.
SPEAKER_00: They were faithfully following the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Luke isn't saying here that they were sinless.
SPEAKER_00: There's only one human who is ever sinless, and he's going to come in the next chapter.
SPEAKER_00: But they're faithfully following the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: They're obedient to his word.
SPEAKER_00: They're sincere in their walk and they're honest in their conduct and they're genuine in their godliness.
SPEAKER_00: They sought to live their lives obeying the command in Deuteronomy 6 to love the Lord their God with all of their heart and all of their soul and all of their strength.
SPEAKER_00: And they desperately longed to teach that commandment to their children.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what makes the situation in verse 7 so challenging.
SPEAKER_00: Because they had no child.
SPEAKER_00: For Elizabeth was a barren.
SPEAKER_00: And both of them were advanced in years.
SPEAKER_00: Zechariah and Elizabeth had lived a long life filled with obedience and integrity and faithfulness, but not filled with family.
SPEAKER_00: And the common belief at the time was that if you were stricken with this kind of barrenness, well, that was obviously a sign that God was displeased with you.
SPEAKER_00: That was obviously an indication that you had done something to make God angry.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you had some hidden secret sin tucked away in the corners that no one else knew about, but God knew about it, and he was demonstrating how displeased he was with you by keeping you away from having a child.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, after all, doesn't Psalm 127 say that children are a gift from God and a reward to the faithful?
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, Zechariah and Elizabeth must not be as faithful as they appeared.
SPEAKER_00: Surely their neighbors were whispering, you know, they put on a good show, but I think Zechariah and Elizabeth must have some hidden scandal they won't tell us about.
SPEAKER_00: God is punishing them.
SPEAKER_00: Examples of godly and righteous women like Sarah and Rachel and Hannah, who should be crying out to Zechariah and Elizabeth and to us here today that that is not what is happening.
SPEAKER_00: The lack of a child in no way points to a lack of righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: But even if Zechariah and Elizabeth would read these stories and find some encouragement in them, nonetheless, it doesn't deny the reality that their waiting was very painful.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 25, Elizabeth, of her own mouth, describes what this situation and time of barrenness was like by calling it a time of reproach among the people.
SPEAKER_00: That for her, this was carrying a disgraceful burden of pain.
SPEAKER_00: And even though she knew it wasn't the result of her sin, it didn't make it any less difficult for her to bear.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps in some ways it made it harder to understand.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what the name Zechariah means?
SPEAKER_00: It means God has remembered again.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what the name Elizabeth means?
SPEAKER_00: It means God, in my God I trust, or in my God is my favorite.
SPEAKER_00: I have to wonder how many times over those decades that those names just felt like a cruel taunt.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember God?
SPEAKER_00: I've been faithful my whole life.
SPEAKER_00: I've kept all the commandments.
SPEAKER_00: I've served in your temple, I've served in your synagogues, I've ministered to your people, I've taught your scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: Have you forgotten me?
SPEAKER_00: How can I trust you?
SPEAKER_00: My family goes all the way back to the tabernacle.
SPEAKER_00: To the very first priest.
SPEAKER_00: There have been generations and generations and generations of faithfulness, and you're just gonna cut it off here.
SPEAKER_00: Why does Luke begin the Christmas story here?
SPEAKER_00: I think it's because they are the perfect picture of what it looks like to wait faithfully even when it's painful.
SPEAKER_00: And in this couple, this elderly priest with a historic family tree and a righteous wife, we find the story of all of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Here, personified in one couple, is the experience of all of God's people walking the earth right there next to them.
SPEAKER_00: They were oppressed by wicked rulers.
SPEAKER_00: There was not a king from the lion of David sitting on the throne.
SPEAKER_00: They were bent under the weight of personal sadness and tragedy in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: And the decades of Zechariah and Elizabeth's barrenness are now stretching back centuries.
SPEAKER_00: God's people waiting, always waiting for the fulfillment of promises whose echoes seem to be disappearing into forgotten whispers.
SPEAKER_00: Does God remember us?
SPEAKER_00: Is he really going to come?
SPEAKER_00: It's been 400 years.
SPEAKER_00: 400 years since God had spoken to them by sending a prophet.
SPEAKER_00: 400 years since Malachi had last told them on behalf of God that his salvation is going to come.
SPEAKER_00: Just wait.
SPEAKER_00: And before it comes, before the Messiah appears, he's going to send a prophet.
SPEAKER_00: And that prophet is going to come like Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: And he's going to bring the people and make ready a path for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Just wait.
SPEAKER_00: It's been 400 years.
SPEAKER_00: Has God forgotten?
SPEAKER_00: Is his promise still to be trusted?
SPEAKER_00: Is salvation ever going to come?
SPEAKER_00: When Christmas begins, Luke reminds us with waiting.
SPEAKER_00: Trust in God's promises even when waiting is hard.
SPEAKER_00: And God remembers.
SPEAKER_00: And in his perfect time, in his perfect way, he will bring every one of his promises to pass.
SPEAKER_00: And Zechariah is about to learn that lesson.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 8, it just so happened to be Zechariah's turn to go and serve in the temple in Jerusalem with his division.
SPEAKER_00: Probably something he'd done lots of times.
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.
SPEAKER_00: This is probably something Zechariah had done countless times before, a few times a year for several decades, he'd gone down there.
SPEAKER_00: But this time it was different.
SPEAKER_00: This time old Zechariah was chosen for a very special job inside of the temple to enter inside and to burn the incense.
SPEAKER_00: There were thousands of priests all over Israel, and there were just as many jobs to be done in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: And who knows how many times Zechariah had gone down there and fulfilled his duty and reached into the old bingo balls.
SPEAKER_00: Zechariah, you're on goat duty.
SPEAKER_00: The goats are over there.
SPEAKER_00: Um, have fun.
SPEAKER_00: Or how times he came down there, he pulled it out.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Zechariah, you are on burning the entrails outside of the city duty this week.
SPEAKER_00: It's great.
SPEAKER_00: There are shovels in the back, further back.
SPEAKER_00: You'll find them.
SPEAKER_00: How many times he had gone and been faithful in discharging his duties, but now, oh now it's the big time.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: His name gets drawn to go into the temple and to burn the incense.
SPEAKER_00: It is literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity because once a priest had had their name drawn to do this job, they were never allowed to do it again.
SPEAKER_00: That was how special it was.
SPEAKER_00: A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: And I bet all of his friends thought, hey, good for old Zach.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, he's juggling along, and this is a good way to finish off a long career.
SPEAKER_00: It's good for the resume.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I still think maybe he's a sinner, but you know, I'm happy for him.
SPEAKER_00: And so when the appropriate time came in verse 10, Zechariah enters the The temple and all the other priests and all the people stayed outside and they prayed.
SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of the whole point of the incense.
SPEAKER_00: That was what it was there to do.
SPEAKER_00: The sweet smelling smoke served as a symbol of all the prayers of God's people ascending to the Lord, where he would receive them and delight in them.
SPEAKER_00: And if you remember that diagram that some sweet Sunday school teacher showed you so many years ago, if you got into the temple building, there were two parts to it.
SPEAKER_00: There was the holy place, and that was where you found the temple of the showbread, and that's where you saw the menorah and the candle la and all the light was there.
SPEAKER_00: And right?
SPEAKER_00: Almost no one ever got to go inside there.
SPEAKER_00: It was just one guy that got his name drawn to go in and do it.
SPEAKER_00: And then there was a second place, the Holy of Holies, and there sat the Ark of the Covenant, on top of which was the mercy seat of God, where God's presence was manifested in its most profound way on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And no one gets to go in there.
SPEAKER_00: Only once a year was the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place opened once a year that one high priest could go in and he could sprinkle the blood and skedaddle.
SPEAKER_00: And here's Zechariah.
SPEAKER_00: And he comes in and he gets to stand at the altar of incense, right in front of the curtain, feet away from the Holy of Holies, bringing the prayers of God's people before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And as he stands there, verse 11, an angel of the Lord appeared standing on the right side of the altar of incense.
SPEAKER_00: It really wouldn't be a Christmas story without unexpected visitors dropping by.
SPEAKER_00: And this was certainly unexpected.
SPEAKER_00: It had been almost 500 years since the last time anyone had ever seen one of God's angels inside of his temple.
SPEAKER_00: That was years ago when another Zechariah, the prophet Zechariah, had seen an angel in that exact same spot.
SPEAKER_00: And you gotta admit, God has got a literally glorious sense of dramatic irony.
SPEAKER_00: And Zechariah responds basically the way all of us would respond if we saw an angel.
SPEAKER_00: He's terrified.
SPEAKER_00: That's the appropriate response.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 12 Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him.
SPEAKER_00: That is what you do when an angel shows up.
SPEAKER_00: And so the angel does what the angel does when an angel shows up and says, Do not be afraid, which I have to assume is covered on like day one of angel training.
SPEAKER_00: Like all the rookie angels are like, listen, here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta tell them not to be afraid, otherwise, they're not gonna listen to anything else you say.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: And so the angel says, Don't be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: For your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.
SPEAKER_00: So apparently, when Zechariah entered into the temple, symbolically carrying all of the prayers of the people of God, he he brought one in for himself too.
SPEAKER_00: And I can't say I blame him.
SPEAKER_00: If I was given the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enter into the holy place and to give God all of the prayers, I would bring one for myself.
SPEAKER_00: And he learns once and for all that God really does remember.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Luke doesn't spell out for us exactly what Zechariah prayed for.
SPEAKER_00: And admittedly, most of the commentaries will say that Zechariah was probably praying for a son because after all, Gabriel says the Lord heard your prayer and you're gonna have a son.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to admit that makes a lot of sense.
SPEAKER_00: But I think, personally, it's more likely that he was praying for something else.
SPEAKER_00: When you get to verse 18, it's pretty obvious that Zechariah was not expecting a son to be the answer to his prayer.
SPEAKER_00: That was not what he was anticipating to hear.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, hey, angel, I think maybe you got the wires, the holy spiritual wires crossed a little bit, something's wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And the whole point, the whole point of Zechariah in this story is that he is the very model of faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: He is the very picture of obedience.
SPEAKER_00: He always did his duty.
SPEAKER_00: And my guess is that when he went into the holy place, he was there fulfilling his duty, because that's what he always did, Zechariah.
SPEAKER_00: And I think he went in there and he offered the prayers of the people, and he prayed the same prayer that they were praying for outside.
SPEAKER_00: God, bring your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: God, rescue your people.
SPEAKER_00: God, end our suffering.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I think he was praying.
SPEAKER_00: Now I think he's genuinely surprised to find out that a son is part of the deal.
SPEAKER_00: But either way, whether he's praying for a son and he gets salvation, or he's praying for salvation and he gets a son, it's a package deal.
SPEAKER_00: And this son is going to be special.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 14, he is going to bring you joy and gladness, and many people are going to rejoice at his birth.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: That happens to a lot of parents.
SPEAKER_00: But not verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: He will be great before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Now that is underselling it a bit, there angel.
SPEAKER_00: Remember in Matthew 11, Jesus says, in fact, point of order, for every person who's ever been born, from any woman from the beginning of time up till this point, none of them are greater than John.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm saying, yeah, he's gonna be great before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And it says here that in verse 15, he goes on, he'll be set apart.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna be holy for God's service.
SPEAKER_00: He's never gonna be defiled by drink, he's never gonna be defiled by action.
SPEAKER_00: And from the time he's in his mother's womb, he's gonna be filled with the Holy Spirit, empowering him to do a great and mighty work on behalf of God.
SPEAKER_00: God is gonna give this young boy, John, a mighty task to fulfill.
SPEAKER_00: And that task, verse 16 and 17, is that he is going to prepare the people for their Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before them in the spirit and the power of Elijah to turn the hearts of fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.
SPEAKER_00: Do you get it?
SPEAKER_00: John's an advent prophet.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he does.
SPEAKER_00: He preaches repentance from sin and preparation for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he does.
SPEAKER_00: Zechariah and Elizabeth will have a son named John, and he's gonna be the one that Malachi promised.
SPEAKER_00: The prophet who would prepare the way for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: God does remember.
SPEAKER_00: That is the whole hope of Advent, that God is faithful to come and faithful to his promise of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: It's been more than 400 years, absolutely, since God made his promise to send the prophet to prepare the way for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, God never forgets his prayers, his promises.
SPEAKER_00: It's been more than a thousand years since God had promised to David that one of his sons was going to come and sit on the throne and rule in righteousness for all eternity.
SPEAKER_00: But God never forgets his prayer, his promises.
SPEAKER_00: It's been 1,500 years since God had made his promise to Moses that he would send another deliverer, a greater deliverer, like Moses, who would rescue his people from an even greater exodus.
SPEAKER_00: But God never forgets his promises.
SPEAKER_00: It's been more than 2,000 years since God looked at another childless, elderly man and said, Abraham, I'm gonna give you a son.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna make your son a nation, a mighty nation with princes and kings, and I will be their God, and they will be my people, and they will bring blessing to the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: And God never forgets his promise.
SPEAKER_00: Since God had looked into the eyes of Adam and Eve and promised that I will send the seed of the Lord, and he will come and he will crush the head of the serpent, and he will undo the curse, and he will take away your sin, and he will put death to death, and God never forgets his promise.
SPEAKER_00: That's the hope of Advent.
SPEAKER_00: That God will bring his salvation just as he promised, and neither time nor tyrants, nor tragedies, nor trials, nothing, neither height, nor depth, nor anything is going to stop God's faithfulness to his promises.
SPEAKER_00: But that's a lesson that Zechariah has to learn the hard way.
SPEAKER_00: Because you see in verse 18, Zechariah hears all this good news about a son and salvation, he's a little bit overwhelmed.
SPEAKER_00: And instead of leaning on God's faithfulness, which he had done for his entire life up to that point, he slips into disbelief.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, angel, no offense, but you're gonna have to give me some proof because this is just too incredulous to believe.
SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, I'm pretty old, and my wife, you know, just between you and me, she's no spring chicken.
SPEAKER_00: And listen, I how do I know, how do I know that this is actually gonna happen the way you said it is?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, old Zachariah went from fearful to feisty pretty fast, right?
SPEAKER_00: And I cannot imagine the amount of chutzpah it takes to stand in the temple and to look the angel of God in the eye, or eyes, and say to him, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I don't buy it.
SPEAKER_00: And some people wonder if there's sarcasm in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, that's how I read the angel's response.
SPEAKER_00: I imagine him blinking his four pairs of eyeballs a couple times, and then responding, I am Gabriel.
SPEAKER_00: I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and bring you this good news.
SPEAKER_00: Zechariah's like, hey, how can I trust you?
SPEAKER_00: And the angel's response is basically, do you know who you're talking to?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's one of only two holy angels that's named in the Bible, the other one's Michael.
SPEAKER_00: This is Gabriel.
SPEAKER_00: All right?
SPEAKER_00: The same Gabriel that showed up and spoke to Daniel in captivity.
SPEAKER_00: The same Gabriel who in just a few months is going to go visit Mary and announce to her the miracle that she's gonna bear in her womb.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, Mary takes the news a lot more gracefully than Zechariah does.
SPEAKER_00: And Gabriel's like, You want a sign?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'll give you a sign.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20, and behold, you will be 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 time.
SPEAKER_00: And here I think you're seeing another answer to prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Because not only does God answer Zachariah's prayer to bring salvation and a son, here we see God preventing Zechariah from speaking the whole nine months of his wife's pregnancy, which was probably one of Elizabeth's prayers.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that's funny, but there's something that is absolutely serious about this event.
SPEAKER_00: Something that is absolutely serious about the chastisement of Zachariah's punishment.
SPEAKER_00: And that is that God is going to fulfill his promise.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a classic example of the punishment fitting the crime.
SPEAKER_00: Gabriel says, Well, you want to be dumb.
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
SPEAKER_00: And even though Zechariah's words fail, God's never will.
SPEAKER_00: Personally, I'm very grateful that the Bible is filled with imperfect saints being held fast by a perfect Savior.
SPEAKER_00: Because it helps me to remember that the grounding of every one of God's promises is always in him and never in me.
SPEAKER_00: How do I know that God is actually gonna keep his word?
SPEAKER_00: How do I know?
SPEAKER_00: How can I trust that God is actually gonna do these things?
SPEAKER_00: Because God is the one who's made the promise.
SPEAKER_00: How do I know that even though my sins are like scarlet, he will make them white as snow?
SPEAKER_00: Because God never forgets his promises.
SPEAKER_00: How do I know that when Jesus says, I'm gonna go and prepare a place for you and I'm gonna come back to get you, how do I know he's gonna do that?
SPEAKER_00: Because God never forgets his promises.
SPEAKER_00: How do I know that the one who began a good work in me is gonna be faithful to complete it all the way to the day of Christ Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Because God never forgets his promises.
SPEAKER_00: How do I know that one day he is going to come in the clouds and take me to be with him?
SPEAKER_00: Because God never forgets his promises.
SPEAKER_00: They depend on him, not me.
SPEAKER_00: We do advent blocks at our house in the month of December for our December devotionals, little advent blocks.
SPEAKER_00: And if we had to wait until we had lived the day perfectly in obedience before we could turn the block, we'd never make it to day one.
SPEAKER_00: But praise be to God that his promises rest on his faithfulness and not ours.
SPEAKER_00: I think Zechariah is a picture to remind us that God is more faithful than we are.
SPEAKER_00: Advent encourages faithfulness in our waiting because God's faithfulness is never ending.
SPEAKER_00: Luke wraps up this part of the story with a couple of scenes that seem pretty humorous to me.
SPEAKER_00: The people are outside waiting and praying for Zechariah to come out, and he doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: It's been a while.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, he is kind of old.
SPEAKER_00: You don't think, you know, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's pretty funny.
SPEAKER_00: And then here he comes and can't speak, which I imagine caused everyone else to talk a whole bunch.
SPEAKER_00: Somehow communicates to them what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: They realize it says that he had seen a vision in the temple, but they don't really know what it is yet, and he keeps making signs to them and remains mute.
SPEAKER_00: And then he returns home.
SPEAKER_00: And he has to explain all of this to his wife, and he can't talk, which I think was probably fun.
SPEAKER_00: It involved a lot of nodding.
SPEAKER_00: But then Luke tells us that just like God promised, Elizabeth conceives a child.
SPEAKER_00: And all the joy and the gladness that Gabriel had predicted comes to pass.
SPEAKER_00: And it replaces all of the reproach, all of the shame, all of the sadness that had come before it.
SPEAKER_00: And then Elizabeth knows she can trust her fate to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: No, we call this time of year Advent.
SPEAKER_00: And we make it a point to pause and be intentional with our waiting for the coming of Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a good thing to do.
SPEAKER_00: My kids are excited about it.
SPEAKER_00: But in actuality, the whole of the Christian life is Advent.
SPEAKER_00: Every day we live in the light of one coming in the anticipation of another.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter reminds us as we wait that the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
SPEAKER_00: And listen, friends, if you're here this morning, and you've never heard Zechariah's son's message.
SPEAKER_00: You've never repented from your sins and made way for the Lord to come into your heart.
SPEAKER_00: If you have never put your faith and your trust in the Messiah who came, the Lamb of God, to take away your sins, then today is the day I have to ask, what are you waiting for?
SPEAKER_00: Are you ready to meet the Christ?
SPEAKER_00: And if you're here and you are a believer and you are living in the light of salvation and you have the hope of eternal life, then I encourage you to remember the verse that Lulu read for us just this morning in James.
SPEAKER_00: Where he encourages us to be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it receives the early and the late rains.
SPEAKER_00: You also be patient.
SPEAKER_00: Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
SPEAKER_00: God's salvation is coming and it is worth waiting for.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for your faithfulness to your promises.
SPEAKER_00: We know that you will not allow even one word to go unfulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: And so we ask that you would help us to trust in you, especially in those seasons where our waiting is hard or painful.
SPEAKER_00: When we don't understand your providence, let us learn how to embrace your goodness.
SPEAKER_00: Keep us faithful until you return or call us home.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of Jesus, we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: And now, for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_01: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_01: area, I would love to see you at Emanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_01: For more information on our church or our current service times, go to iBC.church.
SPEAKER_01: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_01: location, go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_01: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.