Fulfilled: The Chosen King with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaCurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

Well, if you're new with us, I want to welcome you to MetaCurch.

My name is Clayton.

I'm the lead pastor here at Meta.

You're joining us in a very, very exciting season.

We announced last week that we are going to go on a journey line by line through the Gospel of Luke.

That is one of the four historical accounts of the life of Jesus that we find in the New Testament, the Christian scriptures in our Bibles.

And we are calling this the season of obedience.

This is the season where all of us kill our excuses, we deal with our worst ways, whatever hurdles or obstacles have kept us from taking the next steps God is calling us to.

We are getting past those through faith, and we are seeing what God can do in our lives.

And we're resourcing you.

So last week we handed out hundreds and hundreds of these.

This is the Gospel of Luke.

It's very unique, the way that it is structured.

You get one page of scripture and one page to take notes.

And what we're doing is we are learning how to feed ourselves.

In the very front here, we left you a sticker.

It says how to take notes.

We gave you some, you know, indicators.

There's no right or wrong way, but if you don't know where to start, write down the big ideas.

Those are easy.

We put them on the giant screens that are in all of our venues, right?

So write down the big ideas.

It's a good jump start.

The second thing is to write down what God might be saying to you.

This is important because for a lot of believers, especially in the West, we get all of our inspiration through another person.

And so we don't get into the Word of God ourselves.

We rely on a preacher.

We rely on a YouTube.

We rely on a podcast.

And look, God does use people to speak into your life.

I hope so, because that's like my entire job, right?

It's to prepare something and pray desperately that God will use it in your life.

But the writer to the Hebrews in the New Testament, he wrote and he was chastising them.

And the way he did it, instead of just saying, you guys are being a bunch of babies.

That's what he wanted to say, right?

But he didn't say that.

Instead, he said, You guys have been following Jesus so long, you should be getting down on some wagyu ribeyes, right?

You should be in the meat by now, but you're still on milk.

And the problem, if you're a baby and you're on milk, it means someone else has to feed you.

And so you know, a lot of Christians, especially in the West, are like, I don't ever hear from God, and I don't feel like I'm spiritually mature, and I'm not seeing miracles in my life, and I don't feel like I'm living a purpose that God has given me, and I don't feel fulfilled.

And it's like we have to learn to feed ourselves.

And so that's what we're doing.

And so, like, we gave you this, and uh the good news is at the end of service, uh we have some more.

So we've got some left over.

We handed out hundreds and hundreds, we have a couple hundred left.

Um, don't grab this to put it on your shelf.

The expectation was clear, and I see it.

I see it today.

We said, if you get one, I expect to see it in your hands next Sunday and the next Sunday and the next Sunday.

And I see a lot of them in your hands right now.

And I'm not looking at you to judge you, I'm just looking at you and judging you.

Is how that's how so if you get one, uh, and if if you're just like like I have a Bible, and this like I care, you know, this is so, but if you if you get one uh today after service, I hope you get one.

I hope you get one and I hope you carry it.

And here's how it's gonna work it's like God hopefully is speaking through me to you through his word, but then you're like paying attention now, and it's different because you're seeing what God says to you through the word, maybe to you, through me, through the word.

But as long as like you have, you gotta know this.

We have to do away with this idea that somehow because someone stands on a stage, they're closer to God than you.

What's wrong?

You have the same personal relationship with Jesus that I do, and so uh there's the third thing.

So, big ideas, write down the big ideas, write down what God is saying to you, and then write down the questions that you have.

God works through our curiosity, and just some like behind the scenes on today's message, this sermon was built through a question I did not know the answer to.

I've read the book of Luke many times.

We're starting this new section of Luke, we're calling it the chosen king, right?

I'm very excited about it, but I had a question, like burning question.

And for as many times as I've read and studied Luke, I didn't know the answer.

And the question came from contrasting the other gospels.

So there's Matthew, Mark, John, and Luke.

Those are the four historical accounts, and every one of them handles the birth of Jesus differently.

Um, Mark handles it by not referencing it at all.

Mark just starts, and Mark is short and it's punchy.

Story, miracle, miracle, parable, miracle, story.

It's just very punchy.

Mark cuts out all of it.

The shepherds, the wise men, the stable, silent night, holy night.

He cuts all of it.

He just jumps to the chase.

Matthew is a Jewish man, and he is writing to a Jewish audience.

He starts with a Jewish genealogy to then get right into the birth narrative.

John, John's a wild boy, right?

John wrote Revelation, that last book in our Bibles that none of us understand, right?

Like John is cosmic and universal and out there.

So John he tells the birth narrative this way: In the beginning was the word, the organizing principle of the entire cosmos.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

He was with God in the beginning, and everything that has been created was created through him, and not one thing that has been created was created apart from him.

This is how he tells all of it shepherds, wise men, O holy night.

He says it like this and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

That's his birth narrative.

Now we're studying Luke, and Luke does something entirely unique from all of them.

Remember last week we saw in the first four verses, he's writing to his dear friend.

He's like, Dear friend, I have worked unbelievably hard.

I have taken years, I've interviewed every eyewitness to put together a chronological telling of the events that have been fulfilled by Jesus among us.

He's like, This book is about Jesus.

And some of you, when we just read prior to the message, you thought it was gonna be the announcement of Jesus, and y'all got tripped out when I said the name John.

Because Luke does not start with Jesus, he starts with his cousin.

We call him John the Baptist or John the Baptizer.

So I'm asking you to hear from God, to pay attention, to open your word, to write down some notes.

And one of the things I want you to write down is questions that you have.

Partly because it'll make you pay attention and partly because God will use your curiosity to enlighten you.

And so I had a question.

Why start with John?

I had that question 15 days ago, and I did not know the answer.

And I study hard, and you know, this is uh my job.

I've got all kinds of tools, I have some amazing software, it's got like every commentary ever written in the history of the universe in there.

It can do all the word studies, I can dig into the Greek, I can dig into the Hebrew.

Behind me, a library of books and concordances and references.

I've got commentaries from the greatest minds.

I'm telling you, the answer to this question, why start with John?

It did not come through that.

It came from me sitting in Luke.

I studied for this message, just so you guys know.

Okay, I did study, right?

I just asked that question and I read.

And I prayed.

And I reflected.

And like, almost everyone here is as smart or smarter than me.

You can do this if you just slow down and seek the Lord.

And I got an answer.

But I gotta give you some context.

Before we get to the answer, we gotta build some context.

And so we're gonna start where we left off because we're going line by line through the book of Luke.

If you're taking notes in your beautiful blue gospel of Luke, then you should write why start with John, because that was on the screen, so you should write that.

Why start with John?

All right, verse five.

It says this 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.

Both were righteous in God's sight, living without blame, according to all the commands and requirements of the Lord.

These are the parents of John the Baptist, Zechariah and Elizabeth.

And one of the questions I kind of naturally ask when someone gets to be involved in God's plan in such a dynamic way, is why?

Why Zechariah?

Why Elizabeth?

And I think we see some hints.

And one of the things we learn is that Zechariah is a priest, which means he traces all the way back to Aaron, who was the brother of Moses.

You probably remember something about Moses, rescued the people from Egypt, parting, parting of the Red Sea.

That's Moses.

His brother Aaron is the first priest of Israel, and his lineage, they are the Levitical priesthood, the tribe of Levi, they are the priests, and so they operate in the temple.

There's 24 divisions of the priests.

He is from the division of Abijah, which is the eighth division of 24, which means that your division serves in the temple in Jerusalem twice a year.

And it's a great honor.

Now, not only is Zechariah from the lineage of Aaron, it says his wife Elizabeth is one of the daughters of Aaron.

Now, as a priest, you were not required to marry a Levite, someone in the lineage of Aaron, but if you did, it was like righteousness extra credit.

You know, it's like, yeah, we're both from Aaron, you know, like we are really doing this thing.

And it says, this is so critical, that they were both righteous in God's sight.

And you'll notice as we go throughout the Gospel of Luke, there is this conflict, and Jesus is just calling it out left and right.

It's the conflict between the desire to be righteous in the eyes of man and the necessity to be righteous in the eyes of God.

And really, Zechariah and Elizabeth, they have both.

I mean, he is from the line of Aaron, he married from the lineage of Aaron.

They are righteous in every way, they are upholding all of the laws, the 613 laws of Moses, they are living under those, they are righteous, he is serving his duty, they are doing all of the right things, but more critically, most critically, they are righteous in the eyes of God.

And there is this conflict during the time of Jesus, during the time that Luke's gospel was written, the leaders, the priests and Pharisees and Sadducees, they had traded actual communion with God, actual relationship with God for the trappings of religion, just wanting to check the boxes and to leverage their righteousness for status and influence and power.

And so they would dress themselves in righteousness.

The Pharisees, they would wear tassels that would drag on the ground behind them, just showing off.

They would wear these boxes filled with scriptures inside of them.

They would hang them from their head and hang them from their sleeves, and they would see, oh, you know, homeboy got a bigger box.

I'm getting even bigger.

Now they've got they've got like a husky tool chest just hanging, right?

And everyone look, you know, and then they would follow the law and they would advertise it, right?

I follow all 613.

And then the next guy would be like, Oh, you think that's good?

I actually made some more laws for the laws, and I even follow all those.

And so the third guy would be like, Oh, you've got laws for the laws, I've got rules for the laws for the laws.

And the fourth guy would be like, Oh, you know what?

I got guidelines for the rules for the laws for the laws.

And we're advertising it because we want to leverage our righteousness in front of others.

Another way of saying this is they're following the letter of the law, religion, they're checking the boxes of the law to make sure you know, but they are far removed from the heart of the law, which is a loving obedience to God.

And Zechariah and Elizabeth, they are not following the law to impress you, they are following the law because they love God.

And they're righteous in God's sight.

Let me tell you, that's where you want to be.

You can wear the three-piece suit, you can sing the harmony to oceans, and you can raise your hand highest in worship, and if someone raises a higher, you raise a higher, someone raises a higher, you're on the chair now, you're raising.

You can be the most holy, the most righteous in front of everyone else, and if your heart's not in the right place for God, it means nothing.

It actually hurts the cause because people see the trappings of Christianity on your life, and they don't see the heart of Christianity inside of you.

It hurts us, it doesn't help us.

And so Zachariah is real.

And their righteousness is real, and real righteousness, you don't have to worry about what people think.

It'll be obvious.

And yet there was something in their life that could cause people to doubt whether or not they were as righteous as they seemed.

There was something in their life that could cause people in that cultural context to maybe even wonder if there was some secret, hidden sin in their life that was causing God to look poorly upon them, or maybe even for God to curse Zechariah and Elizabeth.

It says they were righteous in God's sight, verse 7, but they had no children.

Because Elizabeth could not conceive.

Literally, that translates because Elizabeth was barren, her womb was barren, and both of them were well along in years.

Historically, we know they were way past childbearing years.

I've been in ministry for a while now, and I know there are a few things as heartbreaking as a couple who wants to have children and cannot conceive.

I've walked with many people through this over the years, and it is beyond heartbreaking.

It's a very unique kind of suffering.

And all of that was present for Elizabeth and Zechariah, but the culture was very different, and it heightened the intensity of this suffering.

Because at that place in that time, your only option for lineage and legacy was a child, and specifically to give birth to a son.

And there was incredible pressure on women who had a very different place in society at this place in time to give their husbands a son.

And that was part of how women were ascribed their worth in that culture, and that was wrong and gets corrected eventually by Jesus.

But for right now, Elizabeth is living under this understanding.

And we see by the end of our text today that she has lived her life feeling like a disgrace to her husband and a disgrace to her community.

And so all of this, and yet God has not blessed them.

Actually, righteous, not just to people, but righteous in the eyes of God, and still they have not received what they are praying for.

It happens during this time that the eighth division, Zechariah's division, was called to the service in the temple in verse eight.

It says when his division was on duty and he was serving as a priest before God, it happened that he was chosen by Lot according to the custom of the priesthood to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and to burn incense.

Now you got to serve in the temple twice a year, and this was exciting.

And for a lot of the religious leaders of that day, this was exciting because Jerusalem was the center of society, it was the center of commerce, it was the seat of power, and so if you were using your religion to leverage in order to increase your power, then getting to go to the temple was the most public work.

And so you could use that time religiously to build yourself up.

But for Zechariah, he's a righteous man, righteous in the eyes of God.

So he's genuinely excited to get to go to the temple, the dwelling place of God in the Old Testament, and to work on God's behalf.

Now, you got to go twice a year, but to enter the most holy place and to burn the incense before the altar of God, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

At any given time, there were as many as 18,000 priests.

18,000.

So literally, they would randomly choose who gets to go in.

They would cast lots, it was such a privilege.

They did it at random in order to make sure there was no politics involved.

And Zechariah, in his old age, is chosen.

By his age, there was a danger, he would never get chosen for this assignment.

And he goes in.

Now there's two ways to go in.

You can go in through the lens of religion.

It's very public.

All of the people during the burning of the incense, the people in Jerusalem, they come to the temple and they pray outside.

And so it's kind of public facing.

It's like I was the one chosen by God and I get to go in.

And so I can leverage that.

It's like, hey, everybody, you might have heard I'm the chosen priest today.

No big deal.

Guess God kind of likes me more than everyone else.

Anyway, I'm gonna go in now.

Here we go.

Going in.

It's me, just so you know.

Follow me on Instagram.

Like, I can leverage this, you know?

This is a big deal.

I get to go in, I get to see it, I get to describe it to people.

Everyone knows it's a big deal.

This is huge on my resume.

Or you can love the Lord and respond in humility and be overwhelmed by the opportunity to enter the most holy place where there is now just a veil between you and the literal presence of God.

And Zechariah gets to enter.

And we've already read what happens next.

When he goes in, the angel of the Lord appears and speaks to him.

And that alone is enough.

Can you even imagine?

How spectacular that moment would be.

But this is where we have to slow down and we have to get a little bit of context.

See, Zechariah is living at a very unique time in Israel's history.

See, right before the gospels, we have uh the Old Testament.

These are the Jewish scriptures.

And if you've ever read the Old Testament, what you know is that God calls one nation to himself for a specific time and a specific purpose to one day bring Jesus into the world.

And he calls them his own and gives them all of the privileges of being attached to the God of the universe, and he asks them to obey.

And when they obey, they live under the blessing of God, and all of the blessings that come forth, and those blessings lead to affluence, and in their affluence, they get distracted.

In their distraction, they become disobedient, they have rebellious hearts, they go after other gods from other nations, they rebel against God, and they come under the judgment of God, and when they come under the judgment of God, they realize the error of their ways, and so they repent, they change their mind.

God, we are so sorry, and God is so merciful, and he extends his hands of mercy, and so they come back under the blessings of God and they obey for a little while.

This this cycle just repeats, and their hearts are rebellious.

And here's what's interesting: through the entire Old Testament, God is speaking to his people.

God speaks to Adam, he speaks to Noah, he speaks to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and Moses and David.

He speaks through the kings, he speaks through the judges, he speaks through the prophets, and the entire time Israel is just going through this cycle: obedience, blessing, disobedience, judgment, repentance, mercy, blessing, obedience, cycling over and over, and eventually God speaks through the last prophets and says, someday, you are going to rebel.

So far from me, you will no longer be able to hear my voice.

The last prophet, Malachi.

The situation is so hopeless.

All he can do is point to a future where God would come and rescue this people.

This came to pass, and it's hard because we get to the end of the Old Testament.

If you've ever gone through the Bible, you get to the end of the Old Testament, and then it's one page.

You're just like, huh?

One page, and God is speaking to you again in the New Testament.

But that one page in your Bible represents over four hundred years in history.

Israel had not heard from God in over 400 years.

And so, yes, it is spectacular that an angel of the Lord, we find out the angel Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God himself, is in the most holy place and is speaking to Zechariah.

But when you understand the context, it's not just that that moment happened, it's that God spoke for the first time in 400 years, and he spoke to Zechariah to tell him he was sending him a son named John the Baptist.

So, why Zechariah?

It's worth noting that for hundreds of years people have been praying, and God had been silent.

And so let me ask you have you ever prayed and prayed and prayed, and what you got in return was silence.

Okay, okay.

We're gonna get this right because uh you guys obviously think you walked in to Second Baptist Pentecostal Presbyterian Lady of the Guadalupe because I just asked you a question and you stared at me.

Have you ever prayed and prayed and prayed, and God just responded with silence?

It's very interesting.

His job was to go into the most holy place to light the incense, okay?

I don't know about you, um, but I, in my 20s, uh, I went through my hippie era.

I don't know if you had a hippie era or not.

Um, mine lasted about six years, and one of the things you do as a hippie is you light incense and you pretend it smells good because it does not, okay?

And he's in the tabernacle, he's in the temple, and so it's blocked in, he's inside, and when you light incense, there's a stream of smoke thin, and it just goes straight up.

And the incense was symbolic, and what it symbolized in the most holy place was the intercession and the prayers and the petitions and the requests from us ascending towards the heavens to God.

And for 400 years, the incense had gone up and silence had come down.

And for a lot of the people in Israel, God had been silent for so long that they were no longer seeking a genuine relationship with him, they were just playing the religious game for their own status and power, really just trying to position themselves as their own gods.

Why Zechariah?

It's worth noting that Zechariah was obedient to God, but he was obedient to a God who in his entire life had never spoken to him.

Zechariah was obedient to a God who his entire life had not answered his prayers.

He was obedient to a God who refused to get on his timeline.

And so the angel shows up and says, Zechariah, I have heard your prayers.

And I think if it was me, I'd be like, Have you?

I'm in my 70s.

For 400 years, we've been asking to hear from you, and we've heard nothing.

My whole life, I've been praying that you would save us from this Roman occupation to overthrow the empire.

Nothing.

My whole life, I've been praying for the long-promised Messiah, nothing.

My whole life, I prayed for a child, nothing.

I prayed for my wife, who is disgraced by our community from no fault of her own and her nothing.

And one of the things you gotta know is as angry as you are with God for not answering your prayers, he already knows.

He knows the expectations that you have for him, and that you feel like he's failing you, and you feel like he doesn't see you, and you question his plan.

He already knows.

And Zechariah kept his heart pure, and he remained obedient to a God that he had every excuse to not be obedient to.

And maybe that's what it takes sometimes to be used by God in miraculous ways.

I learned this um really hard lesson.

And it took a lot of disappointment and a lot of failure.

And it's exactly what Zechariah is teaching us in this moment.

Look at verse 10.

It says, at the hour of incense, the whole assembly of the people were praying outside.

An angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of incense.

When Zechariah saw me, he was terrified, he was overcome with fear.

The angel breaks 400 years of silence, he breaks a lifetime of silence from Zechariah.

I I want to teach you something God taught me about four years ago.

And it's it's a small semantic difference because I've always lived very expectant.

Since God really like rescued me from my own idiocy, you know, like since God really called me into this adventure, I've been very expectant.

God is going to move, God's going to change things, God's gonna do miracles, we're gonna build God's kingdom, God's gonna use us.

What I didn't realize is I had a lot of unusual success very early, like in my 20s in ministry.

And I moved from being expectant to placing on God expectations.

And so at 22 years old, I was hired to a very large church.

That very large church over the next five years almost doubled in size to be a very, very large church.

I was leading at the highest level I could have been leading without being the leader of the church.

It was amazing.

I left that church eventually for something much smaller, just a couple hundred people.

Within six months, that had doubled and then doubled again and then almost doubled again.

And I was like, bro, I've got some expectations building around how God should move.

And then COVID hit.

Here's the thing about me, um, I learn almost all of the lessons uh in the hardest way you can learn them.

Anyone else, just like, I could have learned this the easy way, but I'm just going to smash my head into this wall six or seven hundred times.

The good news is when I learn it, I usually have learned it.

Like I've learned it for the long haul.

We came out of COVID.

All of COVID, I'm standing with no one, I'm just preaching to cameras.

And I'm going, when we get out of this pandemic, we are going to not be able to contain all of the people who will rush back to be a part of the church.

This pandemic has proven we cannot put our hope in anything else except Christ alone.

People will come from the east, from the west, from the north, from the south.

They will gather together.

We will see a revival like never before.

And we actually got out of COVID and we opened the doors, and it was like my mom and my dad and a cockroach and like four other people.

And I for real was like, maybe the email didn't go out that we're open.

Like, someone check MailChimp, you know, this is not what's supposed to happen.

And we were small.

And stayed small.

And our growth has been incredible, but very incremental.

It's four years later.

Metachurch is not as big as it was before the pandemic.

Isn't that crazy?

And it's hard because that wasn't what I expected.

So why wasn't God doing what I wanted when I wanted it?

Maybe it's weird to hear it said that bluntly, but if you're honest, you probably feel the exact way sometimes.

Why isn't God doing what I want when I want him to?

And Zechariah had a life of that.

He was a priest.

He walked in to burn the incense that goes up to a God who never came down for 400 years.

And he just kept walking in obedience.

That season, God broke me and he freed me.

I can't even explain the freedom.

I can't even explain what it feels like, the difference it has made, and how I'm able to minister and pastor this church.

And so it's a balance.

And I think God expects this balance.

You should be expectant.

If not, you don't have enough faith.

God will move, God is doing things, God is in control, miracles will happen, the kingdom will be built.

We stay expectant, but we do not place expectations on God.

You know why?

Because He is God and I am not.

Here's how it works.

And this is so important.

If you can get this, you can experience what Jesus offered.

Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden.

I will give you rest because my burden is light and my yoke, it is so easy.

Submission to me, giving up your need to be God and be in control.

It's the most freeing thing in the world.

We don't put expectations on God.

That's not how it works.

God puts expectations on us.

And all Zechariah did is go, I don't understand it, and I don't know why, but I'm going to stay obedient and I am going to live in submission under the expectations that God has on my life.

And when his wife is barren, and when he's way too old, and when his number is pulled, he walks into the most holy place.

And after 400 freaking years of silence, the angel shows up and goes, Zechariah, guess what?

We're back.

We are back.

God is speaking, God is moving, and you have no idea because your son is going to introduce God to the earth on the earth.

If you will quit trying to play God and just move into a season of obedience with us here at MetaCurch, you have no idea the freedom that will come to your life and the miracles that will happen around you.

Say amen if you agree.

Amen.

It's incredible, it's incredible what begins to happen.

And so I want you to read the prophecy that comes from the angel.

He says this the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zechariah, your prayer has been heard.

Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John, and there will be joy and delight for you, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord.

He will never drink wine or beer.

He will be filled with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother's womb.

That moment happens, we're gonna read about it in a few weeks.

When Mary, the mother of Jesus in her first trimester, meets up with her cousin Elizabeth in her second trimester, and John will leap in his mother's womb and will be filled with the Holy Spirit in his mother's womb.

And here's where I'm gonna bring some context in for all of us Bible scholars here at Metachurch.

This is bathed in the language of prophecy.

And prophecy is how God spoke to his people through the mouths of the prophets.

Being filled with the Holy Spirit in utero harkens us back to the great prophet Jeremiah.

Jeremiah, who God told, for I knew you before you were born, I knit you together in your mother's womb, and I called you in utero to be a prophet to the nations.

John's circumstance brings us back to the great prophet Samuel.

Samuel's mother Hannah, the exact same words used of Elizabeth were used of Hannah, that she was barren.

And God gave her a child.

And she gave that child back to the Lord.

Samuel grew up and anointed David, the king of Israel.

John will grow up, he will baptize, anoint Jesus, the King of all kings.

I already mentioned it.

If you go back to Malachi, it is the last book in the Old Testament, and he is the last prophet that speaks through the words of scripture.

I just, okay.

I I want us to focus.

Because what's about to happen in the next three minutes is not my preaching.

It's just the word.

That's all it is.

I want you to look at the last two verses in the entire Old Testament, and I want you to remember that these last two verses are the last things that God says to his people for 400 years.

Malachi 4.

It says, Look, I'm going to send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.

What will Elijah do?

Verse 6.

Elijah will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers.

Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.

And then God went silent.

Now let's go to Luke, Luke 1, 16.

Here's the prophecy of John the Baptist.

He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord, their heavenly father.

And he will go before him in the spirit and the power of, say it with me, 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.

The angel is like, Zechariah, you're a man of God.

I'm going to say this where you can't miss it.

You remember the last thing that God said to you, obstinate, rebellious, stiff-necked people 400 years ago.

I'm going to send Elijah, and Elijah will turn the children back to the Father, and the Father back to the children.

You are going to miraculously conceive a son, and that son will be the prophet who breaks the silence of God to the nation of Israel.

He will walk in the power and the spirit of Elijah.

Listen, this isn't me.

This is scripture speaking to scripture.

One more place.

Matthew chapter 11.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

These are the words of Jesus.

Jesus said, Truly I tell you, among those born of women, no one is greater than John the Baptist.

But the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Here's what he says about John the Baptist.

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been suffering violence, and the violent have been seizing it by force.

For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.

Do you know what the prophets and the law are?

It's the Old Testament, it's what they called it the law and the prophets.

They testified, then 400 years, then Jesus says, John, look at what he says, verse 14.

And if you're willing to accept it, if you have enough faith, if you have ears that can hear, Jesus says, I'm telling you, John is the Elijah who was prophesied to come.

This is unbelievable.

Scripture interpreting scripture.

Jesus talking to Luke, talking to Malachi, speaking directly to your heart today that Jesus was coming, but this plan was in place from the jump.

And John comes.

What does it say he comes to do?

It says in verse 17, he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah.

He'll turn the hearts of fathers to their children, the disobedient to the understanding of the righteous.

Here's what John's actually going to do: He's going to make ready for the Lord a prepared people.

A prepared people.

We started with a question today.

Why start with John?

Why does Luke start with the story of John?

Why not get to Jesus, bro?

Why not get to the main event?

I want the shepherd.

I want the wise man.

I want a way in a manger too.

I want to get to Jesus.

Why are we starting with John?

It's a cool story.

But why John?

I think there's many reasons, but I'm gonna share with you what the Lord spoke to me.

John came to prepare the way, to create a people prepared to receive the coming king.

John is the voice crying out in the wilderness.

John was a wild boy.

He lived in the desert, kind of like Elijah did.

He wore animal skins, kind of like Elijah did.

He stood toe to toe with the seat of power and spoke truth like a man, like Elijah did.

He did not pull his punches, he preached against sin, but loved, deeply loved those entrapped by their sin.

He called people to repentance to change their minds so that their eyes could be open, so when the Messiah came, they could see it and accept it.

Why start with John?

I told you, I just asked a question.

I I wrote it in my in my gospel of Luke that we're giving to all of you.

And here's what God showed me.

Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke, but he also wrote the book of Acts.

And the book of Acts is the history of us.

It's the history of the church, the called-out people of God.

And we think Luke wrote these documents somewhat concurrently.

He did all of his research and he lived through a lot of the early church and he wrote all this.

So Luke is uniquely among gospel writers, writing with the church in view.

And it seems pretty obvious to me that John, in his person, embodies the role that the church now fulfills in the world.

Paul says to the Corinthians, You are ambassadors of Christ, crying out to the wilderness, crying out in the darkness for anyone who has ears to hear, change your mind, and be reconciled, become from enemies to children of the one true God.

Let me say it to you this way: John prepared the world for the King, Jesus' first coming, and now the church prepares the world for the king's second coming.

We are fulfilling the legacy of John the Baptist.

He started with John so you and I could find ourselves in this text.

John was saying, He's coming, and people said, Bro, God hasn't spoken in 400 years.

John's like, you don't understand.

John is speaking, God is speaking through John right then and there.

We thought the Messiah was coming for like 500 years.

John's like, I am telling you, he is coming, and you better be ready.

And the church's job is to be bold and audacious and countercultural.

We are not the Pharisees, we are not the fake priests, we are not dressing ourselves.

I can't tell you.

There are so many people, I see it, I see the comments, I see, I don't care, but it's like, bro, how could the Holy Spirit move when the pastor is wearing a hat in church?

And people looked at John like this fool eats bugs.

God, that's filthy.

God doesn't want anything to do with that.

This fool lives in the wilderness, he's stinky, he's dressing in animal skins.

Like, grow up, bro, get a house, you know, like do something with your life.

This isn't about dressing the religious part.

This is about whether or not we will be a movement who takes our job seriously, who will stand in the legacy of John the Baptist, called by God Himself to prepare the way for Jesus.

That is our job now.

Jesus started the movement by dying for our sins and raising, defeating death itself, offering that to us for free.

It is a free gift of grace, taken in through faith, grabbed a hold of, giving you eternal life, making you a part of the movement so you can cry out to a world, a world that largely doesn't want to hear, and we just keep crying it out and we keep living it out, and our righteousness is not fake, and our righteousness is not phony, and our righteousness is not a costume that we wear.

Our righteousness is our dedication and our love and our obedience for God and our submission to him, believing he will do miracles, expectant without placing expectations on him, and we can see miracles in our lifetime.

I'm telling you, man, we can see miracles in our lifetime.

Zechariah was almost dead, bro.

He was so old, and God used him to pave the way for Jesus.

What can God do in your life?

Now I want to show you a really interesting end of the story.

I'm just gonna read all of it because I'm out of time.

Zechariah asked this, 18, how can I know this?

For I'm old, and my wife is well along in years.

And the angel answered him, I am Gabriel.

I love that.

He's like, Do you know who you are talking to?

I'm Gabriel, I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you to tell you this good news.

Now listen, you will become silent and unable to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words.

And those words will be fulfilled in their proper time.

21, meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah, amazed he had stayed so long in the sanctuary.

When he didn't come out, when he did come out, I'm sorry, he could not speak to them, and they realized he had seen a vision, he was making signs to them, but he remained speechless.

And when the days of his ministry were complete in the temple, he went home.

After these days, his wife Elizabeth conceived.

She kept herself in seclusion for five months.

Here's what Elizabeth said.

The Lord has done this for me.

He's looked with favor in these days to take away my disgrace among the people.

Zechariah is a righteous man, truly righteous.

And in the prophecy, the angel.

Gave him, there are massive implications that Zechariah would have understood.

The second Elijah is coming.

Zechariah knows Malachi.

He knows the second Elijah prepares the way for the one who was promised all the way back to Abraham.

It's happening.

National revival is happening.

Worldwide salvation is happening.

God is rescuing his people.

Do not miss this.

Because the question is: if we are called to be John the Baptist, are you taking your job seriously?

And I believe Zechariah just showed you the main obstacle.

Zechariah had no problem standing in front of an archangel.

He had no problem believing that God could save the nation Israel, that God could send the Messiah, that God could bring salvation to the world, that the second Elijah had come.

He had no problem believing these massive miracles that were impersonal.

The one thing he couldn't believe is the one miracle that involved him.

And if you think the church is just some ubiquitous thing that you happen to attend sometimes, you will be tempted by the devil himself to count yourself out of the impact that we are supposed to have for the kingdom.

Maybe you can believe big impersonal miracles.

Oh, dude, I believe the church can see revival, the church could have impact, the church could change the city, the church could transform the world, the church could change my family, the church, the church, the church.

What about you?

You are the church.

And the problem is, it's the same problem I have.

You know you.

You know your shortcomings.

You know your lack of education.

You know the family that you came from.

You know all the mistakes in your past.

You know the worst ways that are still hanging on.

You know that you don't know a lot of Bible.

You know you can't just quote scripture.

You know that you're new to the faith.

You know that you don't even have faith right now.

You are the easiest person for you to count out.

Zechariah did it.

And he said, you know what?

I hear your doubt.

And what I'm gonna do with that doubt is I'm going to shut your mouth so you can doubt no longer.

Here's my prayer for you.

Those false narratives that make you count yourself out, I pray that God will shut the mouth of those false narratives running through your head until you can believe that you have a role, until you can pick up the legacy of John the Baptist and see yourself as a voice in the wilderness crying out.

Friends, if we do this, we will be the movement that we are supposed to be that prepares the way for the return of our king.

Would you pray with me?

Right where you're at, across our venues, just bow your head, close your eyes, create some space.

I want to ask you a couple questions.

If you are a believer in Jesus, how are you managing the tension between expectant and expectations?

And you must manage it because you can fall into error on either side.

You can begin to put expectations on God, and what you are doing is a incorrect role reversal where now you are God and you're in charge, and that will be a burden you simply cannot bear.

It's counterintuitive, but you release the burden on your life when you submit to God and let Him be God and just walk in obedience.

At the same time, you can fall into error on the other side of this if you fail to be expectant.

We are called to be people of audacious faith.

We are called to believe in miracles.

We are called to build an eternal kingdom.

Part of what today's message shows, for those of you who do not know Jesus, you've never put your faith in him, you do not have a relationship with God.

It shows the lengths that God went to to get to you.

It didn't start with Jesus, it didn't start six months earlier with John the Baptist, it didn't start 400 years before that with Malachi, it didn't start 500 years before that with Elijah.

Scripture says that Jesus is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the earth was laid.

God had you on his heart, he had you on his mind, he has been pursuing you before you were you.

God's love is made evident, and we're gonna see that in the Gospel of Luke.

And I hope, if you don't know Jesus, that you'll come into a relationship with him today.

He does not ask for religious exercise, he invites you into relationship.

All he asks is for your faith.

So with everyone's eyes closed across our venues, if you have never had a moment in time where you've put your faith in Jesus, I want to invite you to do that right now.

It'll be obvious.

The Holy Spirit has a hold of your heart right now, engaging with you, encouraging you to submit.

So with everyone's eyes closed, if you're ready for the first time to put your faith in Jesus, I'm gonna ask you to simply raise your hand right where you're sitting by lifting your hand.

It's a symbolic gesture that says, Today I choose to put my faith in Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

For those who raised a hand, we can say with confidence God sees your faith, accepts it, forgives your sin, has brought you into his family and given you eternal life.

What I want to do is help you acknowledge this moment through a very simple prayer.

So for those who raised a hand, I want to invite you to repeat this with me.

And I'm going to ask all the believers across our venues to pray this as well.

Let's pray like this.

Jesus, today I choose to put my faith in you.

I believe you are God that you died for my sins and rose from the grave.

I thank you for loving me and forgiving my sins.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

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Man, I love you guys and I hope you have a great rest of your day.