If the video above is not available, here are two other ways to view:
FTF-11
141214AM ESH-35 Spirit Filled Family.docx
Truth-3: Spirit-Filled
Living a Spirit-Filled Life,
Useful to God: is Not Easy
Luke 1:5-80
Transcript
Let’s open our Bibles to the book of Luke, and as we’re turning there, I want to remind you of what we’re doing. We’re looking at the Christmas season in the Scriptures, but we’re looking through the frame or through the lens of the Holy Spirit and seeing the Holy Spirit and the lesson, God teaches us through the people He profiles in the Scripture. Paul put it this way in 2 Corinthians 10, it says, these were written as our examples. The stories, the biographical information, the backdrop of all of these Old Testament and New Testament events were written as patterns for us. Actually, the word examples, tupas means it’s actually the word for type, but it means a form for us to learn truth from. And so, these are each beautiful picture, and we’ve seen several of them.
The first one, Simeon that showed us what the Spirit’s guidance looks like as the Lord led him by the power of the Spirit. And then last time we looked at Mary. And how the Holy Spirit can take a normal person. Mary, other than what God did for her, would’ve just gone into obscurity and oblivion. No one would’ve known about her. But God makes our lives uncommonly extraordinary when we walk through life doing what he wants us to do.
But this morning and I have it written for you, living this Spirit-filled life like Simeon, like Mary is not easy. It’s very hard to live this Spirit-filled life. In fact, I was thinking this morning as I’m reading through the Bible, the section I’m in is some of Paul dealing with sin and the sin that dwells in us and how we do what we don’t want to do and what we don’t want to do, we do. And I was thinking that sin is like living the Christian life is kind of like we have a lifelong battle with cancer. And the doctors radiate and do surgery and chemo, but then it shows up somewhere else. Did you know that’s what sanctification is about? It’s like going through constant chemo and radiation because the body of sin and death that, that we’re born with, God wants to be constantly mortifying, kill, and it’s not easy. In fact, the hymn writer said, God has not promised sky’s always blue, flower strewn pathways all our lives through. But God has promised strength for today, help for our pathway, light, for our way. That’s what we see in the life of Zacharias and Elizabeth.
But starting with me at verse five, looking at Christmas through the lens of the Holy Spirit, we see this couple living the Spirit-filled life, but they’re very useful to God. But this Spirit-filled life is not easy. But first of all, we’re in Luke, and as long as we’re in Luke, I thought I would share something with you. Each of the Gospels, in fact, you can tell I’ve started a small group study and I’m going to be doing it all year long. You’ll hear me talk about it, and I do one every year. Well, more than one. Each one of them is targeted. I do a systematic theology small group study with a lot of the men in the church, the elders and deacons, and then I do a big ol’ counseling small group study. I did that for two years with a lot of people, but this year one of my small groups is I’m going through the life of Christ and studying every detail and one of the fascinating things is the Gospel of Luke in front of us this morning is one of four Gospels and each one of the four Gospels give a different perspective of the same person. Jesus Christ is the focal point of the four Gospels as well as all the Scriptures. But each of the Gospels, it’s almost like standing and looking at the same event. But one person’s got the sun in their eyes and another person, there’s little, branches in the way and each one has a different vantage point of the same event. And that’s what we see with the four Gospels.
And basically, Luke is the third Gospel. Matthew presents Jesus as the perfect King. And Matthew was targeting the Jewish people. And that’s why all those genealogies, those generations and begat and Matthew that you don’t see in Mark and you don’t see in John. It was intentional. The Jews loved pedigrees and they loved royal announcements and all the magi coming and that’s Matthew showing the perfect King.
Mark shows Jesus as the perfect Servant, the perfect servant of God. And Mark is targeting most likely the Roman people who were really into getting things done. And so, there’s no genealogy. Servants don’t have genealogies. You don’t care who they’re related to. They’re a slave. So, Jesus has no genealogy, but He is busier working in Mark. In fact, Mark looks like a shooting script for a movie and the word “and” is constantly in the Gospel of Mark because Jesus is just kind of like unstopping.
But when we get to Luke, we go from the perfect King, Matthew, the perfect Servant, Mark, to Luke illustrates Christ in a completely different way. He shows the perfection of Christ’s humanity. He’s the perfect Man, the perfect human. For example, every time Jesus heals someone, Luke talks about their medical condition. It isn’t just that they got well. They ended their paralysis or their bleeding or their whatever. And Jesus is shown to be the perfectly compassionate, the person everyone would love to have as their friend. In Luke, He’s the perfect Man. And that was written for, of course, the Greek people who worship the human. They were so much into human thoughts, humanistic thoughts, and they worshiped the body and they worshiped the mind. So, Jesus came as the perfection of humanity.
So, in that Luke, look what he does, he starts the story of Christ, not with Christ. He starts with His family. See, Luke is into the human element, the wider circle. Nobody is alone in this world. We all came through someone and we go through life whether we like it or not, surrounded by them, and we should interact with them. And so, Luke interacts with the wider circle Christ relatives, and it is fascinating to see. So, he presents Jesus Christ as the perfect King in Matthew, the perfect Servant in Mark, and the perfect man in Luke. So how does God, by the way, Luke didn’t write this. God did. Luke was just the instrument. So, everything is not what Luke decided we needed to hear. Luke was obedient writing what God wanted us to know.
So, what did God want us to know? How does God open Luke’s portrait of Christ’s perfect humanity? Amazingly, he starts with an entire chapter starting in verse five, all the way to verse 80, and we’re going to read a portion of that this morning. It is all about the earthly family, the surrounded Christ’s birth, and we get to meet the relatives of Jesus. It opens with a glimpse of the lives of three family members. Zacharias and Elizabeth, his wife, and their promised son, John. And that constitutes the bulk of those 80 verses of this chapter.
But before we look at the entire scope of their lives, I’d like to do a little study. In fact, this I’m showing you what I do in my Life of Christ study. So, this is what we’re going to do. Let’s look at the whole chapter and see what things are repeated. That stand out and they’re in three verses in verse 15, verse 41 and verse 67. And this is the only spot as far as I can tell that we find in the Bible an entire family, every member of the family that’s labeled by God. As being filled with the Spirit. I call it the Spirit-filled family, and it’s the only one I’m aware of in all the 1,189 chapters of the Bible. In all the 3,200 people that are mentioned in the Bible, it’s the only one that I find every family member, what it says in this chapter about them.
Look at verse 15, first of all in your Bible, and just circle these five amazing words in verse 15. Notice what it says for he will be great in the sight of the Lord and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be, and here’s the five words, filled with the Holy Spirit. This is the promise of John the Baptist coming. A promised child and notice the tag that’s put on him filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb, and he’ll turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. So that’s interesting. Now keep going down to verse 41 and you notice the same tag, and it happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, same five words. That’s interesting that you don’t, this is an uncommon tag to put on people now. It’s an important way to live. It’s what we’re studying. It’s part of the Christian life. It’s the power source. It is the entry into everything that God wants us to have and to know. But it’s interesting that God tags these people with those words. Now, keep going down to verse 67. Same chapter, Luke 1:67 and it says there, now his father Zacharias was, guess there’s the five words, filled with the Holy Spirit. Son, verse 15, mother and wife, verse 41, father and husband in verse 67. Every member of the family tagged by God.
Now, what’s so fascinating about this is that the Bible was engineered, the Bible was put together not haphazardly. The Holy Spirit oversaw the writing down of the very word of God. Every part of it. He orchestrated, He breathed out, He pheromenoid is one of the Greek words. It’s like He directed he theopneustas, He breathed out. And so, this detail is put right in the entrance to the great Christmas chapter two of the shepherds and all of the events and the birth of Christ. All of that is previewed in chapter one by the Spirit-filled family.
So, I just think it’s very interesting and a chapter with the first and the only time that every member of one family is described as being filled with the Spirit. And that’s why this passage is so special. We have a description of what God points out, first of all, that they’re Spirit filled, but what is the example? If God says that John and Zacharias and Elizabeth were sphere filled, what is it he wants us to see about that? Because he tagged them for us to see something. So that’s what we’re going to do this morning. See what he wants us to see.
And basically, what God points out and what God notices in this spirit-filled family’s life is, I could simply say, is this, living a Spirit-filled life that is useful to God is not easy. This notion that Christianity is kind of like a little like an energy drink, you know that you just feel better and go through life, feeling better. No, it’s not. It’s more like constant chemo and radiation. Because if you want to be useful to God, he is constantly wanting to remove from us self-reliance, self-focus, self-absorption, self- everything, the selfishness. We were all born with our flesh. God wants to mortify and he wants to roll it back in our lives, and he’ll use almost any means. In fact, he does use any means possible, and that’s what we see in their lives and I’ll just show it to you because to be useful to God means that God sees and honors and blesses and rewards any person that’s useful to him with endless eternal reward, we’re rewarded in Heaven forever for being useful to God.
Now that’s really interesting because that goes contrary, because most of us are more tied up with how to get the most out of this life, how to enjoy it the most, how to be the healthiest, how to have the most freedom, how to have the most security and comfort. That’s how we’re wired. We just, security and comfort and convenience are kind of like the American dream. You know what God says? I can use you more if you’re not secure. I can use you more if you’re uncomfortable. I can use you more if you do not have convenience in your life. I want to get your attention and I want you to be useful to Me and we see it. It’s kind of a difficult life. Anything in our lives that’s not pleasing to God will vanish away. It will turn to smoke and ashes. Paul tells us it will be forever forgotten. Anything that wasn’t useful.
So, you and I are given three score and ten years, 70, and if by reason of strength we get to 80 and whatever in that time period was useful to God, lasts forever. Everything else gone. Now knowing that should alter where we point our lives, especially the younger we are. That’s why Paul pointed out to Timothy and that from a child, you have known all this and you and I should be responsible for cultivating, for wanting greater and greater usefulness to God. What’s interesting is that out of all the thousands of Levites serving in the Temple in the first century, Zacharias is one of the only ones we know by name. Have you thought about that? When you’re reading the Bible there are all these different names in here. How come we know Zacharia’s name? Because Zacharias was useful to God. And God pointed that out and He pointed out what made him useful.
Well, here’s the first truth, and I think this is so fascinating. God knew where to find Zacharias. Now think about that for a moment. Have you ever turned in a resume and not heard anything and thinking maybe they lost it? Have you ever applied for a job or filled an online application and sent it off and you didn’t hear anything? You think, oh, what if it didn’t go through, you look in the outbox to make sure it really sent and you even, get one of those programs you can get in Google where it shows exactly what time they opened it and what they did with it. You and I are so conscious and concerned that someone might not get something. In fact, you go through a period of time where someone that’s specialty and you think maybe they lost your phone number or your email address, have you ever thought about Zacharias?
Zacharias is an example to us of the truth that God knew right where to find him. God does not require that we have a big flashy, well-known life to be significantly useful to Him. God says all that matters is what I see in your life, what I think about what you’re doing, and that I’m pleased with your life. And so, as we read Luke’s account, we see this is not a flashy, outgoing couple. They were not the splash of Jerusalem. Everybody knew them. They were kind of like household names. Rather they’re dutifully behind the scenes in their lives. Zacharia and Elizabeth were just a tiny, almost insignificant part of a community of thousands of people that were exactly like them. I’m not talking about Israel, I’m talking about the Levitical community, the tribe of Levi, especially the part of Levi, the descendants through Zadok the priest that were serving in the Temple.
That’s what Zacharia was. And he was one of thousands that all dressed alike and did the same thing. How would you like to work somewhere where you all wear the same uniform, same badge, do the same thing, kind of like you feel like you work at the Apple factory and Chengdu, you know? And you just make millions of iPhones for people that you don’t even know who they are, and you are nameless, faceless and like everybody else. Yeah, that’s what it was like to be a Levi. I know we kind of glorify it, but can you imagine spending your life cutting open animals and getting their intestines out and having blood all over you and scraping the fat off of the kidney? They did all kinds of stuff. They were like professional butchers. A lot of them that burned the meat. Can you imagine the smell? You ever smell burning? That’s what they did most of them all day long. Wow.
Well, out of all these thousands, and there were 24,000 of them; they were Levitical priests. They were in 24 teams. They took their turns on duty covering all of the details of the Temple, and Zacharias was just one of 24,000 who got to serve two weeks every year on duty. Now, the rest of the time, they were doing behind the scenes stuff, but they actually suited up and went into the Temple and did all that work prescribed in Leviticus and in Exodus. And they did it two intense, it’s kind of like, you know how they firemen have 3, 24 days on? I don’t know how they do it. I’ve known so many firemen. All I knew is they were lifting weights half the time and then they were in desperation every fire. But you work like three or four shifts and then you get two or three off and a lot of people have these incredible schedules. These guys work two weeks on, 50 weeks off. Kind of sounds like living in France or something. I know that it’s not the American way, but they were really intense for two weeks.
And so, this was his two weeks. And what is amazing is as an agent, man, you notice that it says in the text that, that I alluded to that, that he was really old and he got the chance in his two weeks. And you only got this once in your whole lifetime because there were only 24,000 priests and there are only so many days in a year, and you only live so long. And priests could only be a priest for a regulated period of time. He got to go in and offer the incense on the altar in front of the veil of the Holy of Holies. This was like, this was the zenith of his life. And they, by lot, picked who got to do it and it was his turn on the day that we pick up with his life. Amazing. His once in a lifetime opportunity. And so the incense was offered daily before the morning sacrifice about 9:00 AM and then we know from Jewish custom in the evening sacrifice about 3:00 PM probably. This was the evening offering at 3:00 PM assigned to Zacharias. But what the lesson is this, God knows our address.
Now, what we are going to read in the text this morning is Zacharias and his wife Elizabeth, had been praying earnestly for one thing over and over, and those prayers had gone up and in their routine life. Everyone’s else’s life had gone on looking pretty comfortable, well-adjusted except for them. Their prayer was never answered. They never had any children. They especially didn’t have the crown of first century life, a son. And sometimes it might have felt like to Zacharias. I think the Lord lost my email address. I don’t think He has my phone number. I don’t think He knows where I live. I know He’s hearing this, but He’s not responding. You know the lesson is God knows our address. You can be plain unknown to most people in the world, never achieving public fame, live as an ordinary person, have a nondescript life, and still be living a Spirit-filled life, useful to God. And that’s what we’ll see in Luke chapter one. And we’re going to read verses five down through verse 17. Okay, you ready? You thought we weren’t going to read? You got it. Luke one. And let’s all stand together and you follow along in your Bible. And let’s ask the Lord to teach us something about this Spirit-filled life through the example of this incredible couple, starting in verse five.
And there was in the days of Herod, the King of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron and her name was Elizabeth, and they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless, but they had no child because Elizabeth was barren. And they were both well advanced in years, and so it was that while he was serving as a priest before God in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the Temple of the Lord and the whole multitude of people was praying outside at the hour of incense.
Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard, and your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you 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 in the sight of the Lord and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb, and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before Him in the Spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Wow.
Let’s bow before the Lord in prayer. Dear Father, I thank You that we get this snapshot of one day in the life of Zacharias. And I pray that as we go through this passage that You would unleash the truths that you want us to learn. As You progressively make us more useful to You, and You do that through Your truth because You sanctify us through Your truth and the source of truth is Your Word because Your Word is truth.
So, I pray that even some of the most distractible would be locked into what Your Spirit has to say through Your Word to our lives today. And that we wouldn’t merely hear it but that we would invite You to do something in us today. In Jesus’ precious name, we ask this. Amen.
You may be seated as you’re seated, so God knows your address. God knew where to find Zacharia. But here’s the second truth, and that is God’s Spirit is controlling every circumstance in my life and yours too. I want you to think about that, the circumstances of our life. Now, I’m not talking about our choices, I’m talking about our circumstances, the things we cannot control. God controls those and He directs them, and He is constantly through His Spirit using the circumstances of our lives. Now, for example, look at this couple. What were the circumstances God explains to us that these ordinary people? This one man out of 24,000, that were all doing the same job, were old and almost looked down upon by most of society.
Zacharias and Elizabeth were looked down on by people in the know that knew him well, because in Israel, almost the greatest visible blessing possible for most people would be to have a son. Even a daughter was better than not having any children back then. But look at the word that’s used for Elizabeth. It says in verse seven, and I want you to feel this. I just read it but I want you to feel what it was like being this couple. The word God used for Elizabeth’s childless condition was a harsh word. It was the word barren. Now, barrenness is a condition as well as a feeling. See, it’s one of those conditions that has a feeling attached to it. Barren describes a condition of not having children, but barren is how she felt as the people looked on her. Because everybody looked at Elizabeth and Zacharias saying, huh, I wonder what secret sin they’re hiding because God, here they are of the descent of Aaron and they go into the presence of God and God has withheld from them the greatest blessing. Do you remember the man who was born as a child blind and everybody whispered about, was it his parents’ sin or did he do something, and that was just the way people in this close-knit community were. There was a lot of whispering, speculating.
Elizabeth was barren. Barren sounds a lot like how it felt. When you think of Baron, you think of wind swept, empty, lifeless, deserted. I kind of think of the tundra, or something in Siberia, barren. Or Western Oklahoma. Western Oklahoma is barren. It’s just got more gas. In fact, there’s, did you know that before they made Western Oklahoma a national monument that there is enough natural gas underneath Western Oklahoma to power the whole country for 50 years? But it’s a national monument. We won’t drill, but that’s great. It’s pretty out there, but it’s barren, and there’s nothing there except what’s under the surface. But think about it.
Barrenness is a condition as well as a feeling to be barren, to be childless, to be without a son meant that your family name ended. Your family line stopped. There’s no future. A lot of people feel barren nowadays. They look back at their life and they say, wow, it went by so fast and nothing to speak of. 18% of all Americans will never get out of debt. That was New York Times said it and I believe it, even though who knows if they’re telling the truth. It says that a fifth of all Americans have decided to give up. They said, we’re just going to keep buying and charging and borrowing enough money to get us out of debt, and we’re just going to keep doing that and doing that, and we’ll never pay it back. They have this barren life where they realize they’re never getting anywhere. That’s Elizabeth.
She could have gotten embittered by that hopeless, paralyzed. She could have withdrawn from society. But what’s the lesson in the application? God is in charge of my circumstances. Elizabeth knew that you can be hopelessly headed towards nothing as far as everybody outside can see and still be living a significant spirit filled life that’s useful to God. Why? Because all the unchangeable parts of my life, God is in charge of. And for me to have great joy, I just need to acknowledge that and say, Lord, if I am barren, if I am childless, if I am, whatever the circumstance is, what is Your plan for that? Because I want to fulfill what You want me to do to be useful in that. And that’s exactly where Elizabeth did.
Well, how did Zacharias and Elizabeth, how did they do this? Well, let’s do a little study. What did Zacharias and Elizabeth know about God? And I always like to think about what people knew back then. In fact, I always look at how much of the Bible they had, and I would like you to go with me to the longest book in the Bible.
Okay. Any of you know which book has more words than another word? It’s not Psalms that has the most chapters. Jeremiah, yes. I heard that. Jeremiah. And go with me to chapter nine. Jeremiah has more words than any other book in the Bible. He wrote, Jeremiah wrote on the inspiration of God’s Spirit, more words than anybody else. And this is what Jeremiah chapter nine, if you want to go there with me, this is something that in the Jeremiah was a major prophet and Jeremiah was a person. In fact, we know that Daniel righteous following the Lord Daniel was studying Jeremiah. It was a big study point for the Israel devout people. But look what they knew about the Lord. This is interesting.
The Old Testament book of Jeremiah, the longest message from God tucked inside this longest book of the Bible is Jeremiah nine in verses 23 and 24. And notice what it says, thus says the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory in his riches. So there goes most of the stuff that people live for. Now look at verse 24 and I have this all bolded and highlighted and underlined and everything in my Bible because, in fact, look up from your Bibles. I want to tell you why this verse means so much to me.
I remember one of the times I got in trouble in college. I got in trouble a lot in college. I was always having to go see the Dean of Students and the Dean of men, and I never intended to get in trouble. It’s just that I just got in trouble. I was one of those people that got in trouble. And did you know that the Dean had behind? He used to sit. He was one of those people. When you meet him, you know it, both of his eyes would look into one of your eyes. Have you ever felt drilled by someone where they piercingly and they don’t say anything? I would walk in with my little slip saying I had an appointment with him. And he’d go. And I’d sit in the chair.
And then he’d put both of his eyes drilling into one of mine. And you just sit there and you start confessing everything you can think of. Oh, I didn’t mean to do this. I didn’t mean. He said, I didn’t come in for that. I didn’t bring you in for that. I didn’t know you did that. And you just, and finally, when I overcame the drill, I thought if I didn’t look at him, and what he had behind his desk on a giant barn wood, several pieces of barn wood nailed together and beautifully painted on that wood was this verse. He had bought it at some art sale, and so I had a lot of times in his office and I spent a lot of time looking behind him so he wouldn’t drill at me and reading this verse and what is, I can still see those.
This verse 24 was in bigger, darker writing on the barnwood and it just kind of jumped off the frame for me. But let him who glories, glory in this. If you want to accomplish something in life that is significant, that is lasting, that is eternal, look what God says it is, that he understands and knows Me. You know what the greatest thing in all of life is knowing God and you can know him in a factory in Chengdu making iPhones. You can know Him working in the same place in America if you can keep your job that long. Nowadays most people don’t live, work the same place their whole life.
You can know God if you are housebound. You can know God if you’re an ill health and can’t travel. You can know God if you’re at the top of your game. You see this is portable and available everywhere. It just has to be a choice. And what he says is don’t spend your life glorying and learning just to know more stuff.
Don’t glory in how strong and powerful and mighty you are. Don’t glory, verse 23, in how much riches you have in possessions because all of that is meaningless, unless verse 24 is true, unless we glory in this, that we understand and know God and what does it say for I am the Lord. I exercise loving- kindness, judgment, righteousness in the Earth. For in these I delight, God says, I want you to know My character and how I operate. And the more you know that I delight in it, and what God is saying is, I am in charge of your circumstances. So that’s what really helped Zacharias and Elizabeth, they were lifelong seekers of knowing God.
Now go back to Luke chapter one with me, because Zacharias and Elizabeth also had another element to their life because they had read the Scriptures. God’s Spirit empowered them, not just to know truth about God, but to experience that truth about God. Here’s a couple who lived around a group of people who were religious professionals. Do you remember I said there were 24,000 of these priests? All of them did the same thing. All of them chanted the same words, all of them dressed in the same outfits that were prescribed by Moses. These people were constantly in the presence of God. They were religious professionals. They were paid to be in the presence of God at the Temple and to do work either in public for two weeks or in the background the other 50 weeks of the year. They knew what they were doing and they did it professionally, day in and day out.
And as we see from Christ’s ministry and his constant run in with the priests and the Sadducees. Did you know that Zacharias’ coworkers were the biggest antagonists of Christ’s ministry? Did you know that the priests and the Sadducees, those the Sadducees were the priestly class? The priestly family, they constantly were against Jesus Christ. This is a hostile group for God. Even though they were professional God knowers, they had never personally experienced Him. Most of them, it was just their job. It was just what they were good at. They were professionals. Think about it. Who were these priests? The priest could look back 15 centuries into their genealogies, into the tribe of Levi descending from Aaron through Zadok. But Christ in His time, the personal devotion these people were to have for the Lord had waned in most of their lives.
You know what, it reminds me of almost a decline of the genuine Christianity in America. It’s almost like there’s this veneer of Christianity in our country, but it doesn’t affect how anybody lives or their morals or their convictions or their ability to tell the truth. It just seems like it’s a coding in a lot of churchgoing people. Yeah, that’s what was going on in the first century. They lived in the presence of God by the temple. They saw all day long the symbols and pictures of salvation that were in the temple, that God prescribed and told exactly to Moses how to build them. They’re the ones that held the revelation of God’s word. They actually held the Bible and read it to the people. Most of the people didn’t have a personal copy. They had to come and hear it read, and these were the readers. The scribes as well as the priest, they sang every day from the Psalms in the Temple. That’s what the Levites did. They recited, they memorized, they discussed the Word of the Lord. That’s what they did all day long. They were paid to do it.
And you know what’s so interesting? We don’t know hardly any of their names except for one man and his wife, because these were the ones that had experienced God personally. It wasn’t just professional, it wasn’t just what they were supposed to do, they knew God. They knew and delighted in knowing God.
You know what we can say, and this is what the Lord did. God saw genuine hearts in this couple. He saw 24,000 people. I don’t know how many of them were really genuine, but I do know this couple were, and what’s interesting is they’re the only ones we know by name in this whole generation. And that’s because they truly wanted to know God.
So many of the priests allowed all that exposure to God to end up only in their head, not in their hearts. Did you know that most people in the Western world will miss Heaven by 18 inches? They’ve heard. They’ve never received by faith reaching out to Christ. They just know it. And they miss Heaven by the 18 inches between their head and their heart. God saw their heart. God saw that Zacharias and his wife sought the Lord. So many of the priests did not choose to let those truths invade and take over their hearts and wills, but not Zacharias. God saw his heart. Zacharias wanted to know the Lord. He wasn’t perfect. He was afraid. He didn’t believe that he struggled. See, Spirit-filled living is not easy. It’s hard because you’re growing in how much you know the Lord, and you’re increasingly aware of what a traitorous person by nature we are against God. Our flesh is always at enmity with God, trying to distract us, trying to separate us, trying to make us complain and live for everything else.
In fact, Jesus pointed out that so many of the priests had a spiritual overexposure to the light of God’s truth. People that get overexposed to the sun, what do they get? Skin? What? Cancer. Yeah. If you get overexposed to UV light, whether naturally or fake, you begin to develop skin cancer. Hey, guess what? That happens with overexposure. To the light of the truth of God. If it never enters your soul and life and becomes a part of you over exposure on the outside develops the skin cancer of spiritual indifference. That’s deadly. That’s what, in fact, Jesus put it this way in Matthew 15 verse eight, these people draw near to Me with their mouth. They honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. He said it’s just external. They can mouth it, say it. They can talk the line. It isn’t changing them from the inside out. Think of the dangerous place these priests that surrounded Zacharias found themselves every day. They dressed up in their priestly vest every day. Their hands and clothes were deeply filled with the indelible scent of the incense of God. Every day they came home with bloodstained clothes, but it never got inside of them. And as far as we know, this was one of the most resistant groups to Christ. The group Zacharias was from. Wow.
Well, the next truth that we need to think about is one thing about Zacharias and Elizabeth was extraordinary. They actually believed all that truth about God. God was real to them. They loved Him. They served Him as best they could, and so what that tells us is the next truth. In fact, if you look at verse six, it’s right there. God’s Spirit only will use listening people. See what it says in verse six, it says, but they were both righteous before God. They were both walking in all the commandments and the ordinances of the Lord, and they were blameless, which doesn’t mean they were perfect. It means as much as they were consciously able to do they said, Lord, imperfectly, in completely at times, struggling at times, but with my whole heart I want to seek You, I want to know You, and I want You to keep working on me.
All my failures, all my lapses, all of my indifferences and whatever. What they were is they were normal functioning Christians. Paul called us syn agónizomai. Syn means with, agónizomai means strugglers. We go through life as a group of people struggling against our flesh and wanting more and more of our life surrendered to God. That’s what they were. And Luke reminds us of this dear couple. And notice what it says in verse six, they were righteous before God because they knew what God said. They walked in His commandments. They didn’t just mouth them, they ate them. Remember what Jeremiah said, Jeremiah 15:16, thy words were found and I did eat them and they became to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart. They were not anorexic or bulimics spiritually like all the other priests around him. They ate it and it changed their life.
Now, the lesson for us is this, are you listening to God speak through His Word? He can use you and I in unbelievable ways if we carve out a place in our daily routine for God if we pray and worship fully, offer ourselves to Him. So, look what happens. God usually uses active people. Look at verse eight. It says about this couple, while he was serving as a priest, God says, just go through your normal daily life. Go through everything that you’ve been doing your whole life. Just keep going through it. I’m going to use you. You don’t have to worry. I know your address. I know who you are. I know My plan. I know your circumstances. Just go through life. Don’t constantly be waiting for something bigger and better. A lot of people, they just, it’s like they’re standing at the bus stop and 5,000 buses have gone by and they’re waiting for a better one. God says, just get on, just go through life. I will use you wherever you are.
Remember, Bonnie’s the way at my son’s graduation at University of Oklahoma, and so I have been, got my list of stuff I want to do to surprise Bonnie and I spent a lot of yesterday. In the basement cleaning that part of the basement that is off limits for everybody else, and it’s all the stuff from when my dad died and we just brought this gigantic trailer and it’s just stacked there. And I was sorting through that and I thought so much of my dad as I looked at all that stuff. And I thought he worked in Lansing for 46 years in the same building for Oldsmobile. General Motors, Oldsmobile, Plant 3, 46 years. And when I look at that, I think either he could have looked at himself as a prisoner or he could look at himself as that was where God put him. And you know what he did? He started Bible studies. He taught himself biblical Hebrew. He taught himself biblical Greek. He read through and through the Bible. He was a Sunday school teacher and everybody knew that he belonged to the Lord.
He used to tell me all kinds of stories. He’d walk in with his little metal member lunch pails. They had the thermos in the top and the sandwich in the bottom, and you open them up and you ate. He would walk in and set that on the table and the guys would go, ugh, and they’d all get up and they’d say, we can’t tell those stories in here. The deacon is here. And they’d all go out to tell their shenanigans in their whatever, dirty stories. And he didn’t tell him to get out. He just said, I’m going to let God invade my life and I’m going to unashamedly stand up for Him and live for Him.
Here’s another lesson, which is so interesting. Look at verse 13. It’s the sixth truth of their life, and we only have one more and then we’re going to go but Luke chapter one, in verse 13, it says this, but the angel said to him, do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer. You know what is interesting? It isn’t plural. They both knew what the angel was talking about. Zacharias and Elizabeth were struggling people, and they said, God, why don’t we have a son? God, we are upright, we are obeying You. Why are we looked down and why are we scorned for our hearts? That was their prayer. It wasn’t prayers. Anybody that knew them, knew there was something they were constantly asking God for. You know what’s amazing? God’s Spirit often uses struggling people. The words about this couple in verse 13, your prayer is heard. We see a part of this couple’s life that they had ordinary problems.
Most of us think that we have extraordinary problems, but the more you step back and look beyond the circle of your own life and your own problems, we find that we all face what Paul describes is what is our normal struggle. What James says is common to man. Everybody has something they struggle with. Not everybody knows about it, but everybody has something they struggle with, and God knew exactly what they were struggling with.
By the way, when we pray, it says in Romans 8:26, our prayers rise from our heart and they’re captured by the Holy Spirit and He actually delivers them to God. Isn’t that interesting? He helps us pray because we don’t even know what we need to pray for sometimes. And so for all of their lives, the Holy Spirit had been listening, tracking, taking, and bringing those requests and putting them into the bowl in front of the throne of God the Father. And God says, yes. Yes, I have the perfect moment. He’s going to be so excited.
Finally, as an old priest, the crowning event of his life, he’s going to get to offer the incense. And at that moment, Gabriel, you know I’ve got you on reserve. I want you to go down there and stand to the right of the altar and scare the daylights out of him and tell him I’ve been listening. See, God often uses struggling people. They spent their entire married life waiting for a child, waiting for a son, living and finally giving up on ever being able to have a child. If we think about it, there are so many lessons that God wants to teach us from their lives. They didn’t get bitter. They didn’t get troubled with God’s character. They just said, Lord, You know our heart, and they never stopped asking. If we’re struggling with something, do we feel we have an impossible challenge and an unmovable obstacle? Let God hear. He’s the one that put it there. He’s in charge of the circumstances.
But here’s the last element. God always uses surrendered people. Remember, that Zacharias it says in verse 18, how can I know this? He doubted God. And then it says in verse 20, behold, you’ll be mute and not able to speak. Do you remember all that? Do you know what that event shows us? That Zacharias was a surrendered person. Yeah, he struggled with believing God, all of us do, but whatever God did, he surrendered to it. How do I know that? Well, we know the gestational period.
By the way, I was talking to Wednesday night, I was at the dinner and I talked to someone. I said, hey how’s your daughter doing? She’s going to have a baby. They said, yeah, she’s in her 11th month. Come on you guys. 11? I said, is she having an elephant? The gestational period for an elephant is 12 months. They meant no, the 11th week. I said, okay, just checking. So we all know that most humans take 40 weeks, nine months, 40 weeks. So if John the Baptist was normal, how long did Zacharias fall under the muting button of God? 40 weeks. He couldn’t talk. That was a direct, you could call it punishment from God for his unbelief.
Do you know there’s two things he could have done. Shut down, withdrawn, and gotten distant from God or what he did. What did he do? Well, look at the ending of the chapter starting in verse 68, because what we see is after 40 weeks of waiting, Zacharias had been studying God’s Word. And when John is born and his dad speaks. What was Zacharias doing while he had no voice? Zacharia was studying. In fact, we can find starting in verse 68, he quotes from Psalm 18, Psalm 23, Psalm 32, Psalm 34, Psalm 83, Psalm 106, Psalm 132, and extensive other passages from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Malachi. That’s all in this benedictus and it’s so woven together. When the Holy Spirit came upon this man who surrendered to God’s will, he wasn’t perfectly obedient. He didn’t always do everything right, but he wanted to do what God wanted. He wanted to be useful to God.
When he got to open his mouth, verse 68, he says, this one is going to visit and redeem, in verse 68. Now, who is he talking about? Only Jesus can visit and redeem anybody. John the Baptist, couldn’t. You and I can’t. Only Jesus. He was talking about Jesus’ ability in verse 69. He is the horn of power in verse 71. He can save, only Jesus can save anyone anywhere. Look at verse 74. He can deliver. In verse 77. The knowledge of salvation to anywhere anyone that responds to the Gospel, Jesus can instantaneously see. He started studying all the promises of this coming one that his son was going to herald, and he went through a study of Christ coming in the Old Testament, and he, as a surrendered man, spoke for God.
That’s the last thing to think about. Have you invited God’s spirit to use you this Christmas? Are you carrying around Gospel tracts? Did you know this is when people think about Christianity a little bit. They have questions about Christmas and why we study. In fact, last night at the concert. I sat in the midst of a group of people that talked through the whole concert and they were guests of someone and they were speaking not in English, and they were constantly, they were watching the slides and listening to the words and discussing, trying to figure out what this whole thing was about.
Are you ready this Christmas? When people wonder about Christ. You say, you know what the purpose of Christmas is? Jesus came to save. Have you ever heard of the plan of salvation? Can I show it to you? Here’s the Gospel tract. Can I circle these verses? Will you read this? Could I read it to you? Has anybody ever pointed you to Christ? What would keep you right now from calling out to the only one that can save you? Have you invited the Holy Spirit to use you? He used Zacharias and Elizabeth because they checked in with Him and said, we want to be useful, use our lives. God wants us to be useful.
Let’s all stand before him. And as you stand, we’re going to close in prayer. As we close in prayer. If you need someone to pray with you and encourage you, maybe you would like to reach out to Jesus Christ and you’ve never done or you don’t know how, or you want to talk to someone, have them show you from God’s Word. We have elders and Titus 2 women, women of God that know the Word of God and men of God that know the Word of God. That will be here at the front. But for the vast majority of us, we already know the Lord. So why not? As we close in prayer, say, Lord, how do you want to use me this Christmas at work? Whatever’s left at school? What do you want me to do with my relatives and all my coworkers and friends? You know what would be neat if all of the tract racks in this church. We’re destitute of tracts because all of God’s servants got one and said, Lord, this Christmas I’m going to give you the gift of being a tool in your hand, and I want to look someone in the eye and share the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Let’s bow before Him in prayer. Father, thank You for Zacharias and Elizabeth. Ordinary people that were living the difficult life of being useful to You. I pray that You would give us the power by Your Spirit to do what’s hard and impossible at times and serve You with our lives. In the name of Jesus, we pray and offer ourselves for Your glory, and all God’s people said, Amen. God bless you as you go.
Notes
Today we are looking at Christmas through the lens of the Holy Spirit. We see another way God teaches us about the Spirit’s work, using the lives of everyday people surrounding Christ’s birth.
First we saw Simeon Illustrating Spirit-Guided Living.
Then, we saw Mary illustrating Un-Common Living Prompted by the Spirit.
Now we come to Zacharias & Elizabeth where we find them illustrating that Living a Spirit-Filled Life, Useful to God: is Not Easy.
Before us this morning is an astounding section of Scripture. As we open to Luke 1, we are opening to the third Gospel. Like each of the other Gospels, Luke has a unique perspective on Christ.
Jesus Christ: the Perfect King, Servant & Man
In Matthew Jesus Christ is presented as the Perfect King. From Christ’s genealogy to the Wisemen coming to announce Him to Herod: Matthew emphasizes Jesus as the Perfect King.
In Mark Jesus Christ is presented as the Perfect Servant. From His lack of genealogy to His non-stop powerful actions: Mark emphasizes that Jesus is the Perfect Servant.
In Luke Jesus Christ is presented as the Perfect Man. From Luke’s portrayal we see Christ’s compassionate care of the weak, poor, sick, and oppressed: Luke emphasizes that Jesus is the Perfect Man.
So how does God open Luke’s portrait of Christ’s perfect humanity? Amazingly, God starts with an entire chapter about the earthly family surrounding Christ’s birth; and we get to meet the relatives of Jesus. Luke chapter 1 opens with a glimpse into the lives of Zacharias, Elizabeth & John in verses 5-80, where family insights fill this account.
Before we look at the entire scope of their lives, note with me one common denominator that God wrote down for us. I like to call Zacharias & Elizabeth:
The First Spirit-Filled Family
Look at Luke 1:15 and in your Bible circle these five amazing words: “filled with the Holy Spirit”. Who was being described here? John, the son of Zacharias & Elizabeth, was promised to be filled by God’s Spirit from his mother’s womb. That is an amazing element of God’s working that we seldom see recorded in Scripture, but that God promised here. So John the Baptist was recorded as being “filled with the Spirit”.
Now, move on down to Luke 1:41 and in your Bible circle these five amazing words: “filled with the Holy Spirit”. Who was being described here? This time it is Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist who is filled with God’s Spirit. She goes on to praise God as the baby John leaped within her womb at the sound of Mary’s greeting.
Now, move on down to Luke 1:67 and in your Bible circle these five amazing words: “filled with the Holy Spirit”. Who was being described here? This time it is Zacharias, father of John the Baptist who is filled with God’s Spirit. He goes on to give one of the most powerful hymns of praise to God ever written. Zacharias overflows with a lesson about Christ’s coming from no less than eight[1] different Old Testament passages he knew and had carefully studied.
There you have it, in one chapter we find the first and only time that every member of one family is described as being “filled with the Holy Spirit”, and that is why this passage is so special. Here we have a description of what God points out for us in a Spirit-filled family. What we find is not what we would expect.
What does God point out that He notices, and is pleased by in this Spirit-filled family? Each detail written down in Luke, was placed there by God, Luke was only the human author; but God chose what He wanted recorded, and guided every word of this book.
Here is the amazing lesson for us from these verses in Luke 1:
Living a Spirit-Filled Life, Useful to God is Not Easy.
What does that mean? “Useful to God” means that God sees, honors, blesses, and rewards with endless honor that person.
Anything in our lives that is not pleasing to God will vanish away, turn to smoke & ashes, and be forgotten. Most people do not use God’s standard for significance, and therefore their lives will amount to nothing.
What’s interesting is that out of all the thousands of Levites serving in the Temple in the First Century, Zacharias is one of the only ones we know by name. So we have been given a special God-given insight.
Truth-1: God Knew Where to Find Zacharias
God does not require that we have a big, flashy, well-known life to be significant to Him.
God says that all that matters is: what He sees, what He thinks, and how He is pleased with our lives.
So as we read Luke we see this is not a flashy, outgoing couple. They are dutifully, behind the scenes in their lives. Zacharias & Elizabeth were just a tiny, almost insignificant part of a community of thousands of Levitical priests, grouped into 24 teams that took their turns on duty at the Temple of God.
Zacharias was one of 24,000 priests who served 2 weeks each year by rotation. As an aged man, it was a supreme honor given once in a lifetime to serve at the altar of incense.
The incense was offered daily before the morning sacrifice at about 9 AM, and after the evening sacrifice, about 3 PM in the afternoon. It was probably the evening offering that was assigned to Zacharias.
Application: God knows your address. You can be plain, unknown to most people in the world, never achieving public fame, live as an ordinary person, having a non-descript life: and still be living a Spirit-filled life, useful to God.
Please stand with me as we read what God wants us to know about Zacharias in Luke 1:5-17 (NKJV):
- 5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6 And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. 7 But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years.
8 So it was, that while he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, 9 according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. 10 And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense. 11 Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. 12 And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.
13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. 14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. 15 For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. 16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
Pray
Truth-2: God’s Spirit Controls the Circumstances of My Life
Next God explains to us that these ordinary people were also old, and almost looked down upon by most of society.
In Israel almost the greatest visible blessing possible for most people would be having a son. Even daughters were better then, than not having any children.
The word God used for Elizabeth’s childless condition was harsh: it was the word “barren”.
Barrenness is a condition as well as a feeling.
Barren sounds like how it felt: windswept, empty, lifeless, and deserted.
To be barren, childless, and without a son meant that your family named ended, the family line stopped, and there was no future.
Application: God is in charge of your circumstances. You can be hopelessly headed towards nothing, as far as the world can see things: and still be living a significant life, useful to God.
What Did Zacharias & Elizabeth Know About God?
Think about what they knew.
That is my first step as I study. Examining just what they could have known about God. Here is just one thing that Zacharias would have surely known. It was one of the greatest statements in the Old Testament about how to be famous in God’s sight. Jeremiah wrote these words in the book of the Old Testament that has more words than any other book of the Bible. It is the longest message from God. Tucked inside the longest book (by words) of the Bible is this amazing truth:
Jeremiah 9:23-24 (NKJV) Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; 24 But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the Lord.
Application: God used this couple because they sought to know God personally. Think back to what we saw earlier. Of all the tens of thousands of priests living and working in the Temple, surrounding Christ’s birth: how many do we know by name? How many do we know their wife’s name? How many do we know their child’s name? So why are these two lifted above the crowd? Because:
Truth-3: God’s Spirit Empowered them to Experience God
Here is a couple who lived around a group of people who were religious professionals.
They knew what they were doing and did it professionally day-in and day-out. As we see from Christ’s ministry, and His run-ins with the priests & the Sadducees: many of Zacharias’ fellow priests were over familiar with God.
What a sobering warning for us this Christmas. Are we experiencing God through His Son Jesus Christ, by the illuminating power of the Spirit?
Who were these priests? The priests looked back 15 centuries to being of the Tribe of Levi, and descendants of Aaron through Zadok. But by Christ’s time this personal devotion had waned for the most part.
They lived in the presence of God.
They saw all day long the symbols and pictures of salvation.
They held the Holy revelation of God’s Word.
They sang each day from the Psalms.
They recited, memorized, and discussed the Word of the Lord.
They wore the clothing that reminded them in every way of God.
They only held God’s Word in their hands – not in their souls.
God was only near in their mouths – and not in their hearts.
God Saw Genuine Hearts in Zacharias & Elizabeth
So many of the priests allowed all that exposure to God to end up only in their head, not in their hearts. But not Zacharias, God saw his heart. He sought God.
So many of the priests did not choose to let those truths invade and take over their hearts and wills. But not Zacharias, God saw his heart.
So many of the priests had the spiritual skin of their lives, overexposed to the Light of God’s truth, and had developed the deadliest cancer of all – spiritual indifference.
Remember what Jesus said about people over-exposed to His truth?
Matthew 15:8 ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me.
Think of the dangerous place these priests, that surrounded Zacharias, found themselves in.
Every day as they dressed in their priestly vestments the sacred anointing oils made with the secret and unique formula mandated by God, causing them to smell like no one else on earth ever could as they approached the Lord.
Every day their hands and clothes were deeply filled with the indelible scent of incense as the fragrant smoke rose before God as a picture of their prayers of worship.
Every day they came home with blood stained clothes from the substitutionary sacrificial animals they offered according to God’s Word.
Zacharias and Elisabeth were a priest and his wife. They lived and worked in the shadow of the Temple of God. They were of the priestly family, able to trace their family tree all the way back to Aaron and the Tribal genealogy of Levi.
From their earliest days they had known about the Lord. They had grown up much like many Americans of past generations—surrounded by the truth, seeing and hearing it in many ways and places.
Application: But one thing about them was extraordinary—they actually believed all that truth about God. He was real to them and they loved Him and served Him as best they could.
Truth-4: God’s Spirit Only uses listening people
Luke reminds us in v. 6 with those words about this couple “walking in all the commandments”. John’s parents were Zacharias and Elisabeth. Zacharias means “God remembers,” and Elisabeth means “His oath.” Together their names mean, “God remembers His oath.” And so God talked to a priest who had been listening to His voice in His Word. Zacharias had faith in God’s Word and a heart for God’s truth.
God had made a promise to David that one of his descendants would have an eternal reign. Luke sets the stage for us to see that Christ is that descendant. “God remembers His oath!” God breaks through into human history after 400 years of silence.
Application: Are you listening to God speaking through His Word, so He can also use you in an extraordinary way? Have you carved out a place in your daily routine for God’s Word, prayer, and worshipful ministry? God wants to use those who LISTEN to Him.
Truth-5: God’s Spirit Usually Uses Active People.
God reminds us in v. 8 with those words about this couple “while he was serving as priest”, that
If you look closely you may notice that God often speaks to His people and calls them while they are busy doing what God called them to do in their daily tasks.
Moses and David were called from the fields caring for sheep; Gideon was called while threshing wheat; Peter and his partners were called while mending nets; and Paul as he was on a business trip out of town. It is hard to steer a car that is not moving; when we get to work at what we are called to do—God starts to direct us into further and wider fields of ministry.
So it was on this day for Zacharias, while placing fresh incense upon the altar before the great curtain of the Holy of Holies towering 60 feet into the air above: that Gabriel appeared with a message from God. After four hundred years – God’s silence was broken. God had remembered His oath.
Application: Are you doing what God called you to do? Whether we eat, drink, teach, sell, nurse, build, make or whatever we do, DO all to the Glory of God (I Corinthians 10:31. God wants to use ACTIVE people for His Glory.
Truth-6: God’s Spirit Often Uses Struggling People
In v. 13 with those words about this couple “your prayer is heard” we see that part of this couple’s life is that they had ordinary problems. Most of us think that we have extraordinary problems. But the more you step back and look beyond the circle of your own life and problems—you find that what we face is what Paul describes as what “is common to man” and what James calls “like passions”. Life is hard, all people have problems and the key is only what we will do with those problems.
Zacharias & Elisabeth are such a model of how to go on in spite of what others would call extraordinary challenges. This couple lived in a world that measured God’s blessing and your personal worth by whether or not you had a son.
They never did. They spent their entire married life waiting for a child, waiting for a son, living and finally giving up on ever being able to have a child. If we think about it, there are so many lessons God can teach us from their lives.
No matter what they faced they kept on serving the Lord and growing. Even in the weeks of silence—Zacharias kept on in the Word so that when he at last could speak God’s Word flowed from his heart.
Application: Are you struggling with something? Do you feel that you have an impossible challenge, an unmovable obstacle in your life? Let God HEAR your prayer. He wants to use struggling people.
Truth-7: God’s Spirit Always Uses Surrendered People.
After Zacharias hears the good news of his son of promise, John the Baptist, he waits in muted silence for his unbelief.
After 40 weeks of waiting (and studying God’s Word) John is born and his dad speaks. What was ZACHARIAS doing while he had no voice?
This song that Zechariah sings summarizes the ministry of John pointing to Jesus.
This song introduces the Coming One – Jesus, and explains why He came. But this song also reflects the notes from Zacharias’ 40-week Bible study conducted as he waited in mute silence for his son’s birth. Here are all the places Zacharias found promises of Christ’s coming. First he quotes from Psalms 18, 23, 32, 34, 83, 106, and 132. Plus he uses extensive quotations from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Malachi!
Application: It would appear that he spent much of the time while he was set aside, handicapped as it were, studying God’s Word! If you are incapacitated, crippled, handicapped, out of circulation, laid aside, out of work, and so on—you can waste the time or turn it to gold. The choice is yours!
Invite God’s Spirit To Use You This Christmas
Look back over those words we just read. There are several clear statements of what Christ’s coming would make possible in the lives of those who come to Him:
Only Jesus can “visit and redeem” anyone who calls out to Him. Think about it, who else would even hear anyone, anywhere calling out? Only Jesus would be able to respond anywhere at anytime v. 68.
Only Jesus can be the “horn” or power “of salvation”. Jesus is the power of God unto salvation. That Greek word for power is where we get the English word dynamite v. 69.
Only Jesus can “save” anyone, anywhere v. 71; and v. 72 “perform the mercy promised” to anyone, anywhere.
Only Jesus can v. 74 “deliver” anyone, anywhere from “fear”.
Only Jesus can make us to be “in holiness and righteousness before Him” v. 75.
Only Jesus gives the “knowledge of salvation” v. 77 to anyone, anywhere that responds to the Gospel; and only Jesus can grant instantaneously the “remission” of their sins.
Finally, in v. 79, only Jesus can give “light” to anyone in the shadow of death; and only Jesus can guide anyone, anywhere no matter what they have done in their life, “into the way of peace”.
This Christmas we all need to pause and connect to God by prayer, and ask Him to do some extraordinary work through us also!
[1] Zacharias quotes or alludes to in v. 68 (Psalm 106:48; Exod. 3:16); in v. 69 (2 Sam. 22:3); in v. 70 (Gen. 49:10); in v. 72 (Lev. 26:42; Gen. 22:16-18); in v. 76 (Psalm 83:18); and in v. 78 (Isaiah 9:2).
