Luke 1:1-25 - God Hears You
Main Idea: Carry an expectant attitude to God, believing that He will hear you and respond.
BELIEVE THAT GOD IS GOOD, EVEN WHEN LIFE IS NOT (vs. 1-7)
Rely on the testimonies of how God has worked in the past.
Faithfully follow God, even when you encounter life’s difficulties.
BELIEVE THAT GOD’S PLANS HAVE PERFECT TIMING AND THE PERFECT PIECES (vs. 8-17)
God’s delays are always intentional, for your good and His glory.
God’s blessings are meant to help you live life according to His design.
BELIEVE THAT GOD WILL SHAPE YOU INTO HIS DESIGN AS YOU PRAY (vs. 18-25)
God is more concerned about who you are than what you get.
God’s work in your life is intended to be seen by others.
God cares about your inner state, not just your outward actions.
Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)
But we're going to be in a study in the month of December, in Luke 1 and 2, entitled the series of Savior is Born for You.
Each week this month, we're going to see how the accounts in Luke 1 and 2 from 2,000 years ago are not just about how Jesus Christ entered human history, but they also highlight for us about truths about God's relationship with you today.
The sermons that we're going to be looking at are God Hears You, which is what we're going to be looking at today. Next week's sermon is going to be God Notices You. Our sermon on the 15th is going to be A Savior is Born for You.
On the 22nd, we're going to be looking at God Has Visited You, and in the last Sunday of the month, I think it's the 29th, is God is Speaking to You. As you'll notice from those titles, God is not finished with you. He's not done with you.
He has a plan for you today in your walk with him. Today, we're going to be looking in verses 1 through 25 of Luke chapter 1 at the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth, and the truth that God hears you.
Have you ever felt like your prayers were just kind of hitting a ceiling? Like God wasn't listening to you? My first year of ministry was honestly a little rough for this reason.
So I got married in May, and two months later, we were in July. We were taking some kids to junior camp, and it was about a three and a half, four hour drive down to junior camp.
I know some of you maybe in the past have taken people to like Skycroft and places like that. And if you've got fourth through sixth grade boys, which was the group that we had, sometimes they can be loud or rowdy or something like that.
And we were driving down the highway on the way back from camp. So it had been kind of a good long week. I think it had been five days worth of camp with elementary age boys.
And you can imagine it maybe didn't smell as great as could be. And we were driving down the highway and we were following a vehicle from our church that had all of the fourth through sixth grade girls in it.
And the hatch on the vehicle in front of us, it was one of those ones that, you know, there was a, you know, if there's an accident or something, you can climb out the top.
We found out later that hatch had just been duct taped on, which is not how those are supposed to be connected.
And so driving down the highway, that lid of that hatch flew off, smashed into the church van that I was driving, and my wife was in the passenger seat, and it smashed into the window and thankfully rolled off, but there's, you know, glass caved in.
And so almost, you know, almost, I almost lost my wife there. And then we got to a place to stop. We boarded it up.
We put, you know, tried to put like some cardboard or tape or something just to try and hold it till we could get back to to our city that we were in.
And then 20 minutes down the road after we did that, my front left tire started like wiggling and then blew up on the road. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is not going well.
We found out in the like day or two after that, my wife was expecting our first born son be, I say first born son, technically my only born son, but also first born. So we found out we were expecting.
So that was like, oh, then fast forward a couple of months to November.
And our church building that we lived in, the parsonage right next to the church, the church building was broken into the, the robbers stole probably about like $19,000, $20,000 worth of stuff between, you know, microphones, the music pa-
Oh, actually my wife's laptop, a couple different guitars from the music pastor there and the pastor's wife. They actually stole our car because one of the toddlers at the church had accidentally left one of the keys that my wife had in the plane.
They stole the car, so it was like, you know, I forget if that was 11 p.m. or 2 a.m. in the morning.
We hadn't noticed anything, like, you know, there wasn't a big alarm or to do or something. So pitch black at 11 p.m. or 2 a.m.
We were already asleep and we're hearing on the door and it just woke us up with a start. And then it was like, oh, man, all of these things are are gone and stolen and destroyed and our only mode of transportation.
And for the next about year or so, I was just dealing with heavy anxiety that I couldn't even like go to sleep at night unless there was like a light turned on elsewhere in the house that like I could see, because when it was just pitch black, it was
just kind of a traumatic stress thing that I was just remembering the fright of being woken up with just horrible news at that hour. And for about a year, just felt like, OK, God, I'm asking for peace.
I'm asking for some way that I can like go to sleep out night with go to sleep at night without just like panicking and freaking out. It just didn't feel like God was was there and was answering.
That's where we find this couple in Luke, chapter one, Zachariah and Elizabeth. Zachariah was he was one that was a priest.
So from the tribe of Levi and from the family lineage of Abijah and Zachariah and his wife, Elizabeth, the Bible says they they were old. They were if you've got maybe the King James, well stricken in years.
And maybe some of you identify, yeah, I have been stricken by some years today. But God says all their life, they had prayed to be able to have children and God had never answered that request as of yet for them.
And I can only imagine month after month, year after year, decade after decade, that they went, God, are you listening? Do you hear us when we're calling?
This is something that we know from your word, from the Psalms, children are a heritage from the Lord. And the fruit of the womb is his delight. And God, I know you love children and we want children.
Why won't you answer this request? Maybe some of you have been in a situation like them. These were people that their entire lives were given to serve the Lord.
They were priests, much like today, you know, you might have a pastor or a minister or something like that. And they give their whole lives for the Lord. And this was what Zechariah did with his life.
And into their darkness and their grief, and they're feeling like, God, where are you? It just doesn't feel like you're here for me. God heard them and he answered and he noticed them.
Let's pray. And then we're going to dive into the passage and then see three really big truths we need to believe as we're praying to the Lord and as we have our relationship with him. Dear Jesus, thank you for today.
Lord, I thank you that when we pray, it's not just empty words hitting a ceiling, but that we are praying to the Lord of all. And Lord, you hear us, you answer us. And God, there will never be a time in our lives where we are abandoned by you.
Lord, thank you that you give us these comforts in your word for when life doesn't seem like it lines up with your word, that we have a recourse that we can turn to. We love you, God, and we pray all of this in your name. Amen.
Okay, Luke chapter 1 and verse number 1. I'll say this first so as to help my guys out a little bit. For this passage this morning, verses 1 through 25, we're going to see three key truths that we need to believe when we pray.
God wants you to pray. He wants you to talk to him. If you're totally messing up your life right now, you're not walking with the Lord at all, he still wants you to pray.
If you think that you're like on top of the spiritual, you know, leaderboard, God still wants you to pray. God wants you to pray to him.
As we pray, we need to be believing three truths, and we need to have this central main thought that we're going to learn about today from Zachariah's life. Carry an expectant attitude to God, believing that he will hear us and respond.
Carry an expectant attitude to God, believing that he will hear you and respond. Okay, let's dive in to chapter 1 of verse number 1. This is the gospel of Luke.
This was someone that had not walked with Jesus while he was on this earth, but Luke was one that had interviewed several of the people that had walked with Jesus on this earth.
Luke had interacted with several of the apostles, both at the church in Jerusalem. He journeyed with the apostle Paul, and so he had heard, if you will, straight from the horse's mouth who Jesus was and what he had done.
And this gospel is him writing to an individual named Theophilus to say, everything you've heard about Jesus is true. And here's how it went down.
So chapter 1 verse 1, many have undertaken to compile a narrative about the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as the original eyewitnesses and servants of the word handed them down to us.
So he says lots of people have tried to put together maybe some gospels to let people know, here's who Jesus is, here's what he's like, here's what he did.
He says, so it also seemed good to me since I have carefully investigated everything from the very first to write to you in an orderly sequence, most honorable, Theophilus.
That might be a regular name, you know, you got Roy or you got John, his name might be Theophilus.
It also might be a pseudonym for perhaps a Roman official that couldn't like let it be known or let it get out that this person was a Christian, was a believer in God. The name Theophilus, Theo or Theos in Greek is God. Phyllis or Phileo is lover.
So Theophilus, lover of God, might be his name that his parents called him, might have been as well a pseudonym.
And so Luke is saying I wanted to let you know everything that happened with the life of Jesus, verse number four, so that you may know the certainty of the things about which you have been instructed.
He says, I want you to know this isn't fairy tales. This really did happen. I interviewed the eyewitnesses and the people that were with Jesus.
And here's what they tell us about what happened. And he starts not with Jesus' life, but with Jesus' uncle and aunt. He says, in the days of King, I have that family relationship wrong, but I'm going to press on.
We'll get there eventually. In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest of Abijah's division named Zechariah. His wife was from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
So these were the people that in the 1st century, a Jewish temple, they were going in, they were lighting the candles, they were doing the sacrifices. All of that was happening through these people.
He says, both were righteous in God's sight, living without blame according to all the commandments and requirements of the Lord. So he lets him know, these people have a good pedigree and good behavior.
It wasn't just, you know, they came from a good line, but they were really messed up people. He says, these were good, solid people. He says, but they had no children because Elizabeth could not conceive.
And both of them were well along in years. He says, this didn't come because, you know, God's judgment for evil. He says, sometimes life hurts.
Sometimes life is bad. I mean, it's not because God is punishing you. It's because we live in a wicked world where we need a savior.
Verse number 8, he says, when his division, when Zachariah's like priest rotation was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, it happened that he was chosen by law, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the
Lord and burn incense. So if you will, you rolled the dice and you went, all right, well, is Mary or Dave or Kathy or Roger, like, are they going to do this today?
And he was chosen to enter and to burn incense, to have these candles that he lit to say, hey, we love the Lord. We remember he's always with us. And so this candle is burning.
He says, at the hour of incense, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside. An angel of the Lord appeared to him standing to the right of the altar of incense. Now, I know that's new for some of you.
Lord Willen, today, no angels are randomly gonna show up here in this sanctuary. This is abnormal. This was also abnormal in Bible times.
It's so abnormal that almost every time an angel shows up, it's so startles and scares people that they have to go, hey, don't fear. Angels are spiritual beings.
If we believe in God, who of course is the ultimate spiritual being, scripture also tells us that he has his messengers that he sends from the spiritual realm. And this is one of those angels standing to the right of the altar of incense.
He says, when Zachariah saw him, he was terrified and overcome with fear. You see, angels, they don't look like the chubby babies that you might see with valentines. And that's not the picture that you should be thinking of.
Or on the tree back there, you know, you have a pretty lady with nice long hair and a poofy dress. That's not what angels look like. These are, you can look at Isaiah 6 and see some of the descriptions.
And so to see an angel was a fear inducing moment in a person's life. And so justifiably, Zachariah is terrified and overcome with fear. But the angel said to him, do not be afraid, Zachariah, because your prayer has been heard.
Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. We learned about him in our series in John 1, John the Baptist, Jesus' cousin. So if that is the cousin, then I do have that right with his uncle and aunt.
He says, there will be joy and delight for you, and many will rejoice at his birth. He says, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord and will never drink wine or beer. That's how you know he's John the Baptist.
No, this is a joke. He says, he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother's womb. He says, God's presence is going to live in this child.
He says, 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 fathers to their children and the disobedient to the understanding of the righteous, to
make ready for the Lord a prepared people. Here was the final fulfillment of a promise that had been given to the children of Israel hundreds of years earlier that said, The Messiah, God's chosen one that will usher in God's kingdom and God's rule
and reign, he is coming and there's going to be someone that comes before the Messiah to say, shape up guys, we got to turn back to the Lord. We've been going about our own way of religion. We've been going about our own sins and our own ways.
And we need to turn back to what God has said. And now the angel is telling Zachariah, this isn't just like coming in the future. This is coming now, and it's going to be your child.
He says in verse number 18, he says, how can I know this, Zachariah asked the angel, for I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.
Can I remind you what is impossible with humans, what's impossible with regular people and circumstances, is not impossible for God.
This is how God started with Abraham and Sarah, right at the beginning, that people that were old and unable to have children on their own, that God works miraculously.
And I'm thankful that God's work of miracles isn't just relegated to maybe giving children to people that didn't think they could have any, but God is in the business of sparking new life in you.
That maybe you felt like, I've gone through too much of my life, there's too many struggles, I've had too many heartbreaks, I've failed too many times.
And so there's no way that I could be loved, that people could know me and genuinely want a relationship with me. There's no way that God could forgive me or accept me into heaven.
And the truth is, God is the miracle working God who brings new life and he wants to bring new life to you. Then in verse number 19, to this question of how is this going to happen? I'm too old.
He says, the angel says, I am Gabriel who stands in the presence of God. And I was sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. Here's Zachariah doesn't say like, Lord, what have I done deserve this?
He doesn't say like, how is this going to happen? In essence tells God, thank you for hearing my prayers. I don't think you can answer the prayer.
And so here Gabriel tells him, I am the one who stands in God's presence. He told me to tell you this. And he says, now there is going to be a consequence for this.
He says in verse 20, 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. He almost says this.
Zachariah, you have been praying for decades. You've wanted God to hear you. God heard your prayers for decades.
And now you're not going to be able to speak until this baby is born. And yet God will still hear and will still answer you even when you can't speak.
Verse number 21, Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zachariah, amazed that he stayed so long out in the sanctuary. So here, all of these people that were outside praying, waiting for the priest to go in, light a candle and come back out.
I'm sure they were like, oh, I wonder if he's having difficulty with the flint and whatever. Like, come on, guy, how hard can it possibly be to light one candle and walk back out? So they're wondering, where is he?
Verse number 22, when he did come out, he could not speak to them. Then they realized that he had seen a vision in the sanctuary. He was making signs to them and remained speechless.
I don't know what those signs might have looked like. They didn't have American sign language back then. So I don't know if it was like, hey, angels flapping wings, lots of eyes everywhere, the promise of God.
I don't know what those signs might have looked like. But they realized something happened. He had some sort of encounter with God in this place.
Verse number 23, when the days of his ministry were completed, he went back home. So he served out the rest of his rotation, his tour of priestly ministry. And then he went back on home to Elizabeth.
It says, after these days, his wife Elizabeth conceived and kept herself in seclusion for five months. She said, the Lord has done this for me. He has looked with favor in these days to take away my disgrace among the people.
Here for this woman, that for decades, perhaps people wondered like, what did she do that God didn't answer this prayer request of hers?
That they might have wondered or said to her like, hey, maybe if you just believe a little harder, maybe if you just prayed a little more, or, you know, who knows what the different solutions from humans might have been to say, here's what you need.
But now God himself had answered in a miraculous way. And she realized, hey, I prayed for decades, and now God has answered and has heard me. From this passage, we're going to look at three truths that we need to believe this morning when we pray.
The first of these truths is that we need to believe that God is good even when life is not. Believe that God is good even when life is not. You see, your circumstances don't determine whether or not God is good.
You might say, if God is good, then why are my circumstances not? The truth is today that we live in a fallen, cursed, sin-cursed world. A world in which people decide what they want to do.
They take the actions that they want to take. And for this moment in time, they have freedom to do that. Our creation itself is slowly falling apart with disease and natural disasters that we can see as we look all over the place.
But even though our world is falling apart, the Lord is not. And in fact, the promise from God's Word is that this world, as it currently is, is this life that you are currently living today, is not the end. There is a new earth that's coming.
If you were to pass today, if you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, if you've repented from sin and turned to Him following His way, God says that if you were to die today, that you would be in the presence of God, where there is no more
sin, there's no more crime, there's no more death, there's no more disease. And that is the world that God is leading us to and towards. I'm thankful for that because this world is imperfect. Other people will treat us in bad ways.
They'll be rude to us. And frankly, many of us have been in that spot where we have been rude and unkind to others, where we have taken advantage of another person.
But our sins, our failures, the wickedness of this world and its fallen state does not mean that God is not good. In fact, God is the definition of good. You might say, hey, love is a good thing to have.
Love is a good characteristic to embody. And that's true because God is love. You might value justice and fairness and equity.
And that's because our God is a just God and he has instilled that value in all of his creation. We find that God is good even when life is not. How do we believe that?
What helps us to believe that? Well, first, I want us to see that we can rely on the testimonies of how God has worked in the past.
So verses one through four, the author of this gospel, Luke, is writing to Theophilus to say, I know you have questions about your relationship with Jesus, your walk with the Lord and with God, and you want to know if this is real, if you can really
trust God, if you can trust in Jesus. And he says, listen to the eyewitnesses, listen to the servants of the word.
For your prayers, for your belief, when it's dark and when you can't verify the faithfulness of God yourself, rely on those who have walked their entire lives with God.
Rely on the testimonies and stories of scripture and find strength to continue in knowing that if God was faithful then, then he'll be faithful to you now.
He provided financially for the widow who was going to lose two of her sons to slavery in the Book of Second Kings. He provided safety and survival for Coryton Boom during the Holocaust. He provided eventually peace for me and my anxiety in my life.
He will be faithful to you to provide what you need. When you can't see the future, when you don't know if God's going to be faithful to you, listen to the testimonies of others.
That's why I'm thankful that our church isn't made up of kids or teens or 20 year olds. Our church includes people in their 90s that we can go to and say, hey, you know, is God faithful? I can look at Jim.
Jim's not in his 90s, but I can say, hey, Jim, has God been faithful to you in your life? And we can hear from one another in various circumstances, whether you've gone through like a miscarriage or something like, me and my wife have.
Maybe if you are one that you've lost a child, that there are others in this room that have walked through that valley, that we can hear the testimonies of others to say, I can believe that God is good even when life is not, because I've heard it
from Myron. I've heard it from Laura. And I know that God is faithful.
Not only can we believe that God is good because of the testimonies of how God has worked in the past, but we can also believe that God is good by faithfully following God, even when we encounter life's difficulties.
There in verses five through seven, where we saw like Zachariah and Elizabeth, they were still praising and worshiping and serving the Lord in the temple.
They could have said, God for decades has not answered this prayer request in the way that we wanted. We're going to walk away. He's not hearing us.
We're gone. We're no longer following this God who doesn't answer prayers, but they still faithfully followed him, even when they encountered life's difficulties. For you today, what stops you from following God?
I don't necessarily mean what causes you to abandon the faith entirely. If you're in this room today, you've probably not abandoned the faith entirely. What stops you from acting and talking like a Christian?
If you have a bad day at work, do you stop acting like a Christian spouse or grandparent? If someone sits in your seat at church or a friend forgets to text you, do you forget about forgiveness and patience and kindness?
For those of us that have been through the deaths of loved ones, personal tragedy, world rocking events, we could tell you there are going to be big difficulties and trials.
And if we're not faithfully following God when even the little problems show up, how can we possibly expect to last through the big problems?
Let's ask the Lord to help us be faithful to Him every single day in the little difficulties and call on Him to be our anchor in the impossibly big trials.
So not only do we need to believe that God is good even when life is not, but secondly today we need to believe that God's plans have perfect timing and the perfect pieces. Perfect timing and the perfect pieces.
In verses 8-17, where Zachariah is first interacting with the angel, we can see this. First, that God's delays are always intentional for your good and for His glory.
God had delayed Zachariah and Elizabeth's childbearing for decades because he wanted one specific child to be born at one specific time in human history so that he, John the Baptist, would be the herald of Jesus Christ, the one preparing the way of
the Lord. Did you think about that? It wasn't an accident that John the Baptist was born when he was. It wasn't an accident he was born to the parents that he was.
It wasn't an accident the year that he was born. It was all intentional by God.
For you today, when God doesn't answer your prayer request when you'd like him to, it's not because he's waiting for you to earn enough brownie points with him, or because he is unable to answer your request.
It's because he knows what you actually need and when you actually need it. That's real tough. All of us, when we pray to God, we're thinking, God, I need this right now.
That's why I'm asking you for it right now. But the truth is, God knows what the right timing is and what the right pieces, what the right answer is. Additionally, God cares more about other people than you do.
So he might actually be delaying what you've been praying for, so that it makes a bigger impact on others than if he gave it to you right now. Paul highlights this for us in 2 Corinthians.
He says, we've gone through all sorts of terrible things, journeying, preaching Jesus. He says, but because we've been comforted by God in our difficulties, then we can pass along that comfort to the rest of you.
In the latter part of the book where he's saying like, hey, I had a thorn in my flesh. I had some difficulty between me and my life, my walk with the Lord, that it just kept on causing issues. And he says, I asked God to take it away three times.
And he says, God said, no, my grace is sufficient for you because my strength is made perfect in weakness. Everyone knew that Zachariah and Elizabeth were childless. It had been decades.
During this time in the ancient world, it was not the practice that many people have today of like, I don't know if I'll ever have kids. It was something that was assumed, like you needed to carry on the family lineage, was the thought.
And so for people not to have kids was viewed as like, maybe judgment by God or something like that. It wasn't something that God had said, but it was something that people had thought on their own.
So everyone knew this priest, this one that's supposed to follow God, this one that's supposed to be uniquely blessed by God, he's not experiencing this blessing. Everyone knew they were childless, had been for decades and were now past hope.
However, now that Elizabeth was going to have John, all of those people knew that God had worked a miracle. Would anyone in your life know if God answered a prayer of yours today?
Are you sharing your prayer requests with others, inviting them into your prayers to the Lord? God wants your prayers to not just benefit you, though certainly he is a good father who wants good things for us.
He also wants it to show other people God can work.
I look across this room and I remember prayer requests that people were praying for a year ago, or praises that they gave several months ago where they said, hey, I was praying for this family member and God saved them.
There were things that my wife and I were praying for, for individuals in this church since February or March that God finally answered in November.
That frankly just had me stoked to say, God, you heard and you answered and it didn't just benefit us. It wasn't God give me a million dollars or a Bugatti or something. God, I want to see you working.
And when we share our prayer requests with others, when we don't just like hold it in for ourselves, when we have that transparency and that honesty with others to say like, Hey, I am praying for this thing. Would you pray with me?
Then when God answers and when God moves, then everyone gets to rejoice in God's answers. Not only are God's delays always intentional for your good and for His glory, even as we'd read in Romans chapter 8 and verse 28.
And we know that all things work together for good to those that love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For whom He did for no, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His dear Son.
God is working all things out for His glory and for your good. If He is telling you not right now or if He's telling you no, it's not because you're not good enough. It's not because He can't do it.
It's because He has a better plan in mind. And then we can see in verses 14 through 17, as the angel highlights for Zachariah, here's all the things that John the Baptist is going to do.
God's blessings are meant to help you live life according to His design. God's purpose in giving John was so that God's plan would be accomplished on earth. Do you pray or your prayer requests so that you can accomplish God's will or your own will?
James chapter 4 and verse 3 tells us you don't ask the Lord for anything, so you don't receive. You ask Him and you don't receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
Perhaps God isn't answering your request in the way that you're wanting because it has nothing to do with His plan for your life and is simply your own way. I'm thankful for the prayers in my life that God told me no.
I can remember, you know, being late high school and very early into college and being like, God, would you please help me to be able to marry this person? And I'm thankful that God, that's not what I got for you.
I got someone a little better for you. Yeah, praise the Lord. I'm thankful for God's no's.
I'm thankful for times in my life where I went, hey, should I be taking this job or move to this area or take this position? And God said no, because it meant that then he was able to put me and my family here.
I'm thankful for God's no's, his delays, when he has said, I know you're asking for this thing, but this isn't my plan for you. I've got something better so that you can accomplish not just your will, but my will.
Maybe for those of you here today that you wouldn't call yourself a Christian, you don't believe in Jesus, you don't follow him, maybe you've wondered why God doesn't seem to answer your prayers.
Have you considered that God's will for your life and his blessings and his intervention are for a greater purpose than you are currently living for? Because I'd like to tell you today, God does have a plan for your life.
2000 years ago, he came to this earth because everyone has sinned. We have been alienated from God because of our wickedness, the things we thought and said and did that is against God's character and his law and his word.
And there is a punishment for our sin. It is judgment and death and separation from God forever in a place called hell.
But Jesus came and he died in our place that we deserve justice, we deserve punishment for breaking the law of the God of the universe. And Jesus took that punishment on himself so that we could be forgiven.
He rose from the dead three days after his crucifixion, and he now calls on you to repent, to turn from your sin and your way, and to turn to Jesus in faith to say, God, I'm no longer going my way. I trust in you. I need your salvation.
I need your forgiveness that you offer to me, and I'm gonna follow the Jesus way. The Bible says whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Maybe you've been worried about, hey, God, would you give me a bunch of money?
Would you give me a car? Would you fix my relationships? When God wants to call your attention to the fact that you don't just need stuff, you need a relationship with him.
If you don't know him, today you can make that decision. When I was almost nine years old, or no, I was nine years old back in 2006, I pray, I lost half of you there. That's fine.
When I was nine years old, I realized I had grown up in church, I knew Bible verses, I knew songs, but I had never accepted Jesus's payment for my sin. And I realized that December 1st, 2006.
And that night, with my parents, I prayed something like, Lord, I know that I'm a sinner. I believe that you came, you died for me, and that you rose again. Please come into my life and save me and help me to live for you.
And I'm so thankful that from that moment on, I have a relationship with God through the work of Jesus Christ, that I didn't have to give enough or do enough or attend enough, or just not be bad enough to get a relationship with God, but that because
of Jesus, I have a relationship with God, that thankfully, he doesn't give me everything I ask for, what good parent would give their child everything that they ask for. I've got a four year old and a two year old.
If they got everything they asked for, they would probably be dead at some point. You can only eat so much sugar and donuts. A good parent says, no, you don't need that, you do need this.
I'm thankful for God that gives us blessings to help us live life according to his design.
And lastly, today, not only do we need to believe that God is good even when life is not, and we need to believe that God's plans have perfect timing and the perfect pieces, we also need to believe that God will shape us into his design as we pray.
In verses 18-25, this is as the angel is interacting with Zachariah's unbelief, where he lets Zachariah know, okay, this is about more than just you receiving a son.
This is also about your relationship with God, that you would realize that God genuinely hears you and loves you. You have been praying for decades, but you're not carrying an expectant attitude to God, believing that he will actually answer.
You've been praying, but you haven't actually believed. Even as we would read in Hebrews 11, the ones that come to God have to believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him.
We can see that first in verses 18 through 20, God's more concerned about who you are than what you get. We think the money, the relationship, the house, the car, we think that's what we most need the answer from God.
Like, God, answer this prayer request, because this is what I really need. And God knows, like, you can have all the stuff in the world. You can have perfect relationships, and all the money, and all the things.
But if you aren't becoming more like Jesus, it's all pointless. The point is Christ to get more of him, and to be closer to him. God didn't just care about Zachariah and Elizabeth receiving a son.
He wanted them to know that he loved them, heard them, and was responding to their need in his perfect time. However, Zachariah doubted God, and yet still God wanted to show him that he heard Zachariah's prayers when literally no one else could.
For those nine months, which I have to imagine were some of the best months of Elizabeth's life. Wives, can you imagine? If your husband could not speak for nine months, what peace there would be in your home?
No one could hear Zachariah, but God could. Maybe you come into today, and you're bringing some doubts to God, and you're like, hey, God, I know I've been praying for this. I don't really think you're going to answer.
I don't think you're going to save this loved one. I don't think you can provide for this need that I have. I'm going to keep on praying because, you know, I'm religious, and that's what I got to do.
I got to keep bringing it to you. I encourage you, like, bring that expectant attitude to God, say, God, I believe that you will work.
But realize that God also might want to change and transform you before he answers your request, or maybe in place of the request that you're answering, he might just change you into someone more like Jesus.
Do you ask God for things or demand things from him, but have no interest in becoming more like him, in becoming more like the person that he created you to be with his character, his love, and his patience?
But not only is God more concerned about who you are than what you get, his work in your life is intended to be seen by others.
As Zachariah exits the sanctuary, everyone knows he's seen a vision, he's met with God, as all the people realize, hey, Elizabeth is pregnant, God has answered this prayer request. Other people are meant to see God's work in your life.
God didn't save you to be a hermit or a monk living on the side of the mountain. He saved you to shine out Jesus' light to everyone around you. There's no point in putting batteries on a flashlight that never turns on.
The fact that God hears your prayers and wants to answer and work in you means that you need to include others in your prayer life. Include others in praying for victory over sin. Include others in praying for provision.
Include others in praying over fears and hopes. That takes vulnerability to say, I am in need of something and you can't fix it, but we know the one who can. And I'm thankful for the truth that Jesus highlights for us in Matthew 18.
They're talking about the church discipline where he says, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst.
I'm so thankful that that God that's with us in the hard choices, in the hard circumstances, is also the one that Jesus says, hey, if any two of you agree in my name on what you ask, it will be done for you in heaven.
I'm thankful for James 5 in verse number 17, where it says, confess your faults to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. God wants you to include others in your prayers so all the praise can go to God when he answers.
And then from verses 24 and 25, we can see that God cares about your inner state, not just your outward actions.
As Zachariah comes home, him and Elizabeth conceive John, and Elizabeth, she secludes herself away for five months, and for five months, she's treasuring, God, you heard me. You answered my request.
Decades after, I thought you were going to do it, but God, you really knew me, heard me, loved me. And she says that God has done this for me. He has looked with favor in these days to take away my disgrace.
With how other people thought about her, with the shame that she felt, God worked even in that. God doesn't just care about your outward actions. He also cares about your inner state, your anxiety, your lust, your shame, your grief.
God wants to meet you and hear you and work in you. Elizabeth had been looked down on, and God loved her enough to help her not just achieve her outer goals, but even to be respected by others, that she would no longer have disgrace, but honor.
When you pray today, ask God to help your mind, your thought process, your emotions.
You might think you really just need a new job, or for you and your husband to stop fighting, but God might want to help you realize that you're in a really unhealthy mental place of holding on to bitterness, or finding your security in things other
than God. So don't just ask God to work on giving you stuff. Ask God, help me to be transformed from the inside out to be more like Jesus. Today, God hears you.
Have you ever turned to Jesus asking him to forgive you of your sin and to give you a relationship with God? You can make that decision today. Today, do you genuinely believe that God is good even when your circumstances are not?
Do you believe that God's timing and his answers to your prayers are what you really need? We think, God, you're not providing for my needs because you're not answering this when I want how I want it.
But will you accept that the Lord of all knows better than you? And he will give you what you need when you need it. Are you willing to not just receive things from God, but be changed by him in the process?
And are you living your life today carrying that expectant attitude, saying, if I'm praying to God, then I know that God is going to hear me and he's going to work.
It might not be what I want him to do, but he's going to work in the way that is best, that he knows that I need.
