Prepare the Way: Hope, Repentance, and God's Timing- Luke 1:5-20

Good morning, and welcome to the first Sunday of Advent here at Dillingham Moravian Church.

My name is Pastor Simon. May the Lord direct us in our study of the Word of

God today as we anticipate the celebration of Christ's birth. Let us pray.

O Heavenly Father, we come before you, and we are so grateful for this opportunity

to hear from you, your truth to us,

your spoken word through the hearts and minds of the people who wrote it down for you. Thank you.

Help us, O Lord, to understand by your grace what your truth is trying to say to us.

May you break down all walls, all things that we put up inside of us to prevent

you from penetrating our very hearts, our souls.

May you work in us, Lord. Grow us to be like you.

And for those who do not know you, by your grace, through faith in Jesus Christ

as their only Lord, I pray, Lord, that they would be saved and that they would

come to know you as their Lord and walk according to your ways.

We pray for that and may you use us today as we.

A work at obeying and trusting you. In your precious son's name,

Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

In the first year of our marriage, that was 24 years ago now,

I had been home during the day and then I'd worked evenings while Abigail worked days.

On one such day, I had been playing a computer game with a ginormous monster

who had horrifying eyes that were brown.

Well, I needed to get to work, so I jumped in the shower and began to get clean.

And while I was showering, unbeknownst to me, my wife Abigail had come into

the bathroom and I didn't hear her.

What you need to understand is

that the bathroom and the clear semi-see-through door was all fogged up.

Abigail then cleaned a couple of small holes in the fogged shower door and peered through.

I looked up from what I was doing, and in my mind, all I saw was these two brown eyes.

Well, I am ashamed to admit it, but I screamed. I jumped at least a foot off the floor of the shower.

I hyperventilated and it took me at least a couple of minutes to calm down.

Well, Abigail did what Abigail always does in those situations,

and that was laugh her head off.

I still haven't lived down that story after so long.

My point is that I was startled because someone suddenly appeared where I wasn't

expecting them to be. And if that situation was scary to me,

how much more so would it be if an angel of God suddenly appeared before us?

This is what happened to Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist.

Turn with me to Luke 1.5-20. Luke 1.5-20.

In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the division of Abijah.

He had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.

They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all commandments

and righteous requirements of the Lord.

But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren and they were both advanced in years.

Now it happened that while he was performing his priestly service before God

in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priestly office,

he was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense.

And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of the incense offering.

And an angel of the Lord appeared to him standing to the right of the altar

of incense. And Zechariah was troubled when he saw the angel, and fear fell upon him.

And the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has

been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will call his name John.

As we celebrate this first week of Advent, I want to bring your attention to

the first main truth that God, through Luke, is teaching us.

And this truth is that Zacharias and Elizabeth's prayer was answered.

My weekly practice is to record the previous work sermon, week's sermons,

and then upload to the podcast website and from there to our DMC website and to the social media.

And no matter how much advertising I did, there was a time when there was only

a small amount of downloads a week.

However, a few weeks ago, on a Friday, I was praying that God would increase

the amount of people listening to the podcast so that they can grow in the Lord

and that people can come to know Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Well, on the Monday following that, the downloads went from 5 or 8 downloads to 90 downloads.

I then prayed again, and a few days later, there were 88 more downloads.

I also did not do my usual posting to Facebook groups or LinkedIn. I just prayed.

Moreover, the majority of the listeners were not from Alaska,

but from England, Germany, and Africa.

I'm sharing this little testimony with you to impress upon us that God answers

prayer, but He often does not answer our prayers in ways that we would expect.

This concept of prayers being answered in a completely unexpected way is what happened to Zechariah.

Luke started off in his gospel telling the story of Zechariah,

a priest, and his wife Elizabeth, who were both descendants of Aaron.

The priest, the brother of Moses.

And this couple kept their lives pure. They were focused on God.

Wherever they were old and they were unable to have children,

there was deep sorrow on both their hearts.

And for at least Elizabeth's.

She was deeply shamed culturally because she did not have a child.

I want you to also notice that Luke clearly wrote that Zechariah was of the division of Abijah.

To understand Zechariah's position amongst the priesthood, we need to look at

1 Chronicles 24, verses 1-10.

1 Chronicles 24:1–10

This is a long passage, but it's important that we see this.

Now, the divisions of the sons of Aaron were these.

The sons of Aaron were Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithmar.

But Nadab and Abihu died before their father and had no sons.

So Eleazar and Ithmar ministered as priests.

And David, that's King David, with Zadok of the sons of Eleazar and Ahimelech

of the sons of Ithmar, divided them according to their assignments for their service.

And more cheap men were found from the sons of Eleazar than the sons of Ithamar.

So they divided them thus.

There were sixteen heads of the fathers' households of the sons of Eleazar and

eight of the sons of Ithamar, according to their fathers' households.

And thus they divided by lot as the one as the other.

For they were leaders for the sanctuary and leaders for God,

both of the sons of Eliezer and the sons of Ithamar.

Shemiah the son of Nathanael the scribe from the Levites wrote them down in

the presence of the king , the princes and Zadok the priests,

Ahemalek the son of Abathar, and the heads of the fathers' households of the

priests and of the Levites,

one fathers' household taken from Eliezer and one taken from Ithamar.

Now, the first lot came out of Jehoiurib, the second for Jedi.

And the third from Harim, the fourth from Seorim, the fifth from Melchijah,

the sixth from Mijamin, and the seventh from Hakkos. And here it is.

This is what I want you to hear. The eighth from Abijah.

Now let's go down to 1 Chronicles 24, verse 19.

1 Chronicles 24:19

These were their assignments for the service when they came into the house of

Yahweh, according to the legal judgment rendered to them by the hand of Aaron

their father, just as Yahweh, the God of Israel, had commanded him.

You see, Zechariah was a priest who served in the outer temple two times a year.

But on this occasion, by lot, Zechariah was chosen to offer incense up to the

Lord within the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem temple, in order to send the

prayers and thanksgivings of the people up to the Lord.

To be chosen to minister in the Holy of Holies was a great honor,

and it was a once-in-a-lifetime service.

And as Zechariah walked into the Holy of Holies, he probably had a certain measure

of fear and awe, and with good reason.

Priests were not immune to sin, and sin being in God's presence was not tolerated.

It was not uncommon for God to kill a priest, and that is why they had a rope

tied to them so that the other priests could pull him out.

We can imagine what Zechariah was feeling at that time. I would be looking around

wondering if I'm good enough to be there.

And as Zechariah was praying for Israel and offering up thanksgiving to God,

it's possible that the situation of being childless comes to his mind.

And he prayed for a child because the angel said to Zechariah that his prayer,

and that was singular, had been heard.

Not the multiple prayers that he and his wife had previously offered up before.

Immediately, not later, but immediately, an angel appeared to Zechariah,

and Zechariah was severely troubled and afraid.

Now, why was Zacharias so troubled and afraid?

First, angels have that effect on people. They radiate the power and splendor of lightning.

It's also possible that Zachariah was thinking about the other priests that

were killed for not being worthy, and he may be wondering that if the angel was there to kill him.

Yet the angel reassured Zachariah by telling him not to fear,

and that his prayer had been heard, and his wife will bear him a son,

and the child's name would be John.

And what's so amazing is that Zechariah's prayer was hardly out of his lips,

and it was answered centuries before John prayed for a child.

God, through Isaiah, prophesied about John's coming in Isaiah 40, verse 3.

Isaiah 40:3

A voice is calling, Prepare the way for Yahweh in the wilderness,

make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.

The apostle John recorded in John 1, 19-23 about John the Baptist being the

fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy.

And this is the witness of John, verse 19, when the Jews sent to him priests

and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who are you?

And he confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ.

And they asked him, what then? Are you Elijah? He says, I am not.

Are you the prophet? And he answered, no.

Therefore they said to him, Who are you? So that we may give an answer to those

who sent us. What do you say about yourself?

And here it is, verse 23.

He said, I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way

of the Lord, as Isaiah the prophet said.

I give you these scriptures because it's important for us to understand that

the answer to Zechariah's prayer began back in Isaiah's prophecy and finally

was answered in John being born.

But you will notice that the timing was crucial.

As Romans 5, verse 6 tells us, that Christ died at just the right time.

Romans 5:6

And if Christ died at the right time, He had to be born at the right time.

And so did John, who was Christ's herald.

One of the things I want to encourage us with is that God does answer prayer.

He may not answer the way we want or when we want them to be answered,

but God does answer them.

Depending on the nature of our requests in our heart.

The answer may be a no, or not yet. Faith is not a belief that God will do exactly

what we want, when we want, but rather true faith is the belief that God will

do exactly what God believes is good, when and how He wants to do it.

It's also essential to understand that God may not always answer our prayers

directly for us, but indirectly, as we are part of His church,

and part of what God is doing in the world.

God's understanding of life is so beyond ours, and we just don't have all the

facts to understand the importance of our prayers and how far-reaching they can be.

We do not know what God has in store for us, but we can trust that it is for His good.

However, we'll have to change our understanding of what good is.

The second main truth of Luke's record of the angel's visit that I want you

to understand is that the Spirit of the Lord is to bring reconciliation and repentance.

Historically, travel across the North Shore Leknigig in the winter had been

by boat, if the ice was clear enough.

But this is fairly dangerous at times. Many people have come to their end,

trying to travel across the lake during the winter.

The other way of getting across the lake in the wintertime was by a snow machine,

in which we would travel around the edge of the open water to get to the North Shore.

But now we have a bridge, and we can get to the North Shore,

like to get quicker and faster and easier than before.

And this is similar to what John the Baptist's role was to be for the Lord.

That when the Lord came, John would make straight and a smooth way for the Lord

to come by turning the hearts of many in Israel back to the Lord through reconciliation and repentance.

Luke's record went on in Luke 1, verse 14 to 17, And you will have joy,

Luke 1:14–17

this is the angel speaking to Zechariah, 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 he will not drink any wine

or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother's womb.

And he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God,

and he will go before him in the spirit and the power of Elijah to turn the

hearts of the fathers back to the children and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous,

to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

First of all, in this passage, John was prophesied to be great in the sight of the Lord.

God did not say this about many people, and even Jesus, later on in Luke 7,

Luke 7:26–28

verse 26-28, taught about John's greatness before God.

What did you go out to see, Jesus said? A prophet?

Yes, I say to you, and even more than a prophet.

This is the one about whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger ahead

of you, who will prepare your way before you.

I say to you, among those born of women, there is no one greater than John,

yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.

The angel also told Zechariah that John would be filled with the Holy Spirit,

while yet in his mother's womb, and he will be a forerunner for the Lord in

the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers back to their

children, which is a quote from Malachi 4,

and disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people for the Lord.

John was to be filled with the Holy Spirit from before birth.

In fact, to be given the Holy Spirit in the womb had never happened before.

The question we need to ask here is, what was the spirit and power of Elijah given for?

In verse 17, Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit was given to John to do two

very important things, to bring reconciliation and to bring repentance.

Let me turn with me to Malachi 4, 5-6.

Malachi 4, 5-6 Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the

coming of the great and awesome day of Yahweh,

and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts

of the children to their fathers,

lest I come and strike the land devoting it to destruction.

And thus the role of John in the spirit and power of Elijah was first of all

to reconcile families because when families know and follow the Lord,

the church grows and is healthy.

God's people are healthy. And in order for families to truly know and follow

God, they have to reconcile with God first, and then with each other and forgive

each other and repent of their sins to God.

What can we learn from God using John the Baptist to lead Israel to repentance

and reconciliation with God and within families?

There are two applications that I see in Luke 1.14-17.

The first application I want you to see is that God wholeheartedly desires that

the world repent of their sins and be reconciled to Him.

Paul in 2 Corinthians 5.18-20 explained, Now, all of these are from God,

who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation,

namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself,

not counting their transgressions against them, and He has committed to us the

word of reconciliation.

So, then we are ambassadors for Christ as God is pleading through us.

We beg you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

If you're here today and you're listening to this message, and you've never

completely trusted or surrendered your life to Christ Jesus as your only Lord,

I want to strongly urge you to respond to the grace of God in Jesus Christ even today, even right now.

And repent of your sins, and by faith turn away from them, as you,

by faith in Christ, commit your life to Christ as your only Lord.

And here's the truth. God in Jesus Christ, through Christ's death on the cross,

has given all people the opportunity to be forgiven and to be reconciled with God the Father.

Yet the forgiveness and reconciliation that Christ died to bring us will not

be applied to you unless you, through faith in Christ,

personally repent of your sins and make the lifetime faith allegiance that Christ

is your only Lord, God, and Savior.

Then Christ's forgiveness and reconciliation will be applied to your account,

and you will be transformed into new creations as children of the Most High

King and be allowed in His presence.

Through the Holy Spirit, Christ will make His home in you as you trust and abide in Christ.

And for those of us who are Christians, in Christ we are positionally holy and

without blame before God.

Yet down here in our mortal bodies we still sin.

And thus, you and I, we all need to confess our sins to God.

We need to repent of our sins daily, maybe even more than that,

recommit our lives to Christ and take up daily our cross of abiding in Christ

and making disciples for Christ for the glory of God.

The second way to apply Luke 1.14-17 is that God wholeheartedly desires families

to be reconciled to each other in Christ. Why is this so?

Because the outflow of being reconciled to God is to be reconciled to each other in Christ's church.

Jesus in John 17, 20-21 prayed to the Father, saying this, I do not ask on behalf

of these alone, but for those also who believe in me through their word,

that they may all be one, even as you, Father,

are in me and I in you, that also may be in us. Why?

So that the world may believe that you sent me.

If we are one in God and one with each other, the world will know that the Father

has truly sent Christ, and they will come to know Christ.

And the building block for all human life, including the church, is the family unit.

If there is not love and reconciliation in our family, how are we to share to

others that they need to be reconciled to God?

I believe this is also why the Christian marriage is designed to be the example

of Christ's love for His bride, the church.

If the husband and wife are not loving God by loving each other within the roles

that He has set down for us, then the children will grow up not completely convinced

of their parents' love for them.

And if children have trouble believing in their parents' love,

then how can they believe in God's love for them?

If families are not living in the love of Christ together, then our local churches

that we are part of will be traumatically affected through lack of service in

the church, conflicts, division, and so on.

And if the local church is not being an example of the love of Christ,

then how do we expect the world out there to be drawn to Christ in us when Christ's

love in us is nowhere to be seen?

You see, it all starts in the family, from the marriage to the kids and outward

to our churches and then to the world around us.

Moreover, if one spouse is a Christ-believer and the other is not,

then there is a very high chance that only half of our kids will be Christians.

Unless the Holy Spirit intervenes, the next generation of children may not know Christ at all.

Do you see how important the family is to God? This is why it's so important

that all the family is to be reconciled to God and to each other.

So far we've learned the angel described how important baby John would be in

the sight of God and in John's ministry would lead Israel to repentance and

bring reconciliation to families.

The last point that I want to bring to your attention is that in order to have

faith, we have to have hope.

Many of you know that my wife Abigail and I were unable to have children for

about 14 years, and during that time, we lost eight babies.

For a while, the pain of those losses was overwhelming to us.

And speaking for myself, I lost a lot of hope that we would ever have children.

I did not lose faith in God, but I did regarding children for us.

And yet God never gave up on us. He came through for us. He brought Jonathan

to us in a miraculous way.

Then later, Paul came, and of course, Jamal has always been a comfort to us.

My point with this testimony is that it is challenging to have faith when your hope is diminished.

I believe that is what was going on with Zechariah, according to the angel's announcement.

Luke continued on writing in Luke 1, verse 18-20.

Luke 1:18–20

And Zechariah said to the angel, How will I know this? For I am an old man,

and my wife is advanced in years.

And the angel answered and said to him, I am Gabriel, who stands before God,

and I was sent to speak to you and bring you this good news.

And behold, you shall be silent and unable to speak until the day when these

things take place, because you do not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time.

Previously, the angel announced that God had heard Zechariah's prayer and had

granted that his wife Elizabeth would bear a son.

When Zechariah heard the announcement, he responded to the angel,

How will I know this? For I'm an old man.

My wife is advanced in years.

I want you to understand that Zechariah was not asking about the mechanics of

how God's answer to prayer would come about, like Mary did.

Rather, Zechariah was saying to the angel, how can you prove to me that we will

have a child? What sign can you give me?

It's possible that because of the years of hurt and loss, Zechariah had given

up hope that he and his wife would ever have a child for themselves.

When the angel announced to him that Elizabeth would have a child,

that diminished hope in his heart blocked him from believing the angel's words.

The author of Hebrews, in Hebrews 11, verse 1, wrote about the importance of hope to faith.

Hebrews 11:1

Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.

Zechariah had lost hope, not just in having a child, but he'd also have lost

some hope in what God could do for him as well.

He was not sure in the hope that God would give him and Elizabeth a child.

And so Zechariah had trouble believing that the Lord would do this for him.

Of course, we know that there are consequences for unbelief,

and Zechariah lost his ability to speak until the baby was born.

And Zechariah acknowledged that the baby's name was John.

But I also want you to see that God still granted Elizabeth and Zechariah a

baby because the baby's importance was so much greater than just being about

Zechariah and Elizabeth.

Rather, baby John would be a key player in salvation coming to the world.

As followers of Christ, this can often be a problem for us in living out our faith in Christ.

In this life, we've often been hurt so many times and our hopes and dreams dashed

that we give up hope in the promises of God.

But without hope, we cannot have faith. Faith and hope are deeply connected.

If our faith is damaged because we have so little hope, then no wonder we struggle obeying the Lord.

Don't give up hope. Keep your eyes on the Lord.

We need to let go of our problems and pain and surrender them to the Lord and let God do his job.

So what is God teaching us today? That God does answer prayer,

but it will be according to His will and not our own.

And as we reconcile the God and others, God will bring the world to repent and reconcile with Christ.

Thirdly, our faith is connected to our hope in the Lord, so we must keep holding on to our hope in God.

And as we are anticipating the celebration of Jesus' birth, let us not forget

to keep surrendering to the Lord.

And in the reconciliation that Christ has bought for us, may we continue to

repent and reconcile with God, with our families, and with the people around us.

Amen? Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we are so grateful for the truth of your word.

Help us, O Lord, to live in trusting who you are and in your power,

trusting that you can do whatever you want, whenever you want.

And help us to believe that you are working in us and through us and using us.

Lord, help us. Thank you. Thank you for reconciling us to you.

And may we continually repent of our sins and go out and seek to be reconciled

with others, with our families, with our communities, with our villages.

May your will, your truth be known through us and may Christ's will be spread

throughout this earth through us.

In your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.

I'll leave us with this blessing from Psalm 67, verse 1-2.

Psalms 67:1–2

May God be gracious to us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us,

that your way be known on the earth, and your salvation amongst all the nations.

Have a wonderful Sunday. May the Lord bless you.