Truth

We are spending this season of Advent looking at Characteristics we should strive to have as followers of Jesus. We will be having the shepherds, the first people outside of Mary and Joseph, to see Jesus as our example as we focus on one word each week.

We will end with the story of the shepherds on Christmas Eve. The word for this week is “Truth”. Our scripture comes from Luke 1:5-25.

5 In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. 6 Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. 7 But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old.

8 Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, 9 he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. 10 And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.

11 Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. 12 When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. 13 But 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 are to call him John. 14 He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, 15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. 16 He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

18 Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”

19 The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. 20 And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”

21 Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. 22 When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.

23 When his time of service was completed, he returned home. 24 After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. 25 “The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.”

Please pray with me…

When I first looked at this scripture and started thinking about how Zechariah reacted to what the angel told him I flashed back to a scene from the movie “A Few Good Men.” It is one of if not the most famous scene from that movie.

We have Tom Cruise’s character as a lawyer cross examining Jack Nicholson’s character as an army officer. The lawyer tells the officer that he wants to hear the truth. Does anyone remember Jack Nicholson’s character response? (Pause) “You can’t handle the truth.”

That seems to be the case in today’s scripture regarding Zechariah. He prayed for this moment to occur but when the angel tells him what will be coming true (pause)Zechariah seems to be unable to handle the truth. He seems to be unable to comprehend that his prayer is really going to be answered.

God does answer our prayers. At times, even those that we don’t think are going to be answered. We need to be willing to accept the truth and be willing to have the faith that will allow us to handle the truth.

One reason why Zechariah may have struggled with hearing from the angel was that he was not expecting an angel to appear before him. You could say that the shock factor or fear factor led him to doubt what was really happening.

It tells us in the scripture that Zechariah is in the Temple, and he is standing by the Altar of Incense. This seems like just a useless piece of information until you are able to understand where he was standing.

The Temple is divided into four areas. There was an area right outside of the temple where those that were not Jewish would be able to stand. There was a courtyard which would be where the normal Jewish people would be.

There is the Temple itself which only the priests would enter and then there was the Holy of Holies which is where God resided, that is where the Ark of the Covenant would be. Only the chief priest was allowed in this area and only once a year to atone for the sins of the people.

Zechariah is standing next to the Altar of Incense or golden altar. The purpose of this altar besides helping to lessen the smell of the burnt offerings, it was believed to be where the prayers of the people would raise up to heaven through the incense to God.

It also was the closest object to the Holy of Holies. Therefore, we have Zechariah as close to God as he was allowed to go within the Temple. If ever there was a place where a person might expect to hear from God, you would think it would be this place, but Zechariah was not expecting to hear from God.

(Transition)

This leads us to a very important question, are you ready to hear from God? We can believe that our prayers are going up to God. We can believe that God answers our prayers. But do you believe that God speaks to you, that God lets you know what is going to happen or what he would like for you to do?

What I have discovered is that the more time I give God to speak to me the more often I am able to hear from him. We need to always be anticipating to hear from God because we never know where or how he will speak to us.

Anytime that we are not prepared to hear from God is a time where we may miss the message. One of the ways that we connect to God is through times of silence. A time when our focus is not on what we are going to say or what we are going to do but a time when we are attentive to what God may be saying to us.

(Transition)

Many of us seem to love to hear ourselves speak. We continue speaking to God or to those around us and never give ourselves the time to listen. Even when we are supposedly listening many times what we are doing is preparing for what we are going to say next instead of truly listening to what is being said to us

We can do the same thing to God. We can be so focused on what we are asking God for and are in such a hurry to finish our prayer and move on to our next task that we never give God the chance to answer.

We need to try to slow down and give God the time to respond. We need to open our hearts and minds to what God may want to say to us. The shepherds were the first outsiders to meet their newborn Savior. They had probably spent many nights out in the fields keeping an eye out for predators that could at any time harm their sheep.

That night they had no expectation that it would be any different than any other night. But unexpectedly an angel showed up and told them that their Savior had been born. We need to try to always be available to hearing the voice of God.

We never know how or when God will speak to us. Zechariah never imagined that it would be at that place and at that time that God would tell him that his prayer was going to be answered. He was not prepared to hear from the Lord. God may speak to us at any time and at any place.

(Transition)

It is important that we leave ourselves open to hearing from our Lord and Savior. (My story after seminary class and saying I loved all people only for God to tell me I didn’t on my way home)

If I had not left myself open to hear from God who knows if this important message would have gotten through. What happens when we aren’t listening to God? Does someone that needs to hear about Jesus just walk away? Does someone who is hungry go without food?

Do we have to wait until another opportunity to hear what God wants us to do with our lives? God wants to hear from us, but he also wants us to be listening for his voice. I bring this up before our prayer time on Sunday mornings, prayer is supposed to be a conversation between us and God.

A conversation is supposed to be two-sided. It is one person speaking and another listening and then vice versa. We need to give God time to speak back to us. This is not only true for us individually but also as a church.

We recently presented our mission and vision for the church. Prayer will be important in making this mission become embedded into our understanding of what God desires for us and from us as followers of Jesus and as the church.

It is through God that we will learn how we are to live out connecting to those in our communities and showing love to all people. God should be our guide. We need to be listening for his direction.

(Transition)

This next part may be the hardest for most of us. We also need to be willing to accept the truth. We need to be willing to take the message given to us by God and believe that what God tells us is what we need to do, what we need to say, or what is going to happen.

Zechariah obviously didn’t believe. He doubted the word of the angel and suffered the consequences of not being able to talk until his son was born. What if Zechariah was not able to talk so that he would spend more time listening to God?

Zechariah may have learned not just a lesson of not doubting God but also how to be available for God to speak to him in the future. Not being able to talk allowed him and would allow us more time to listen.

(Transition)

We might not want to accept the truth because the truth may be something that we don’t want to hear. The truth may be an area of our lives that we need to work on. God may decide to have us begin working on an area of our lives that is not good for our relationship with him and those around us. He may choose to challenge us to work on that thing.

God may choose to tell us about a new calling that he desires for us to follow. This may be true individually or as a church. We may be comfortable where we are and with what we are doing, but God may have another plan for us. We need to be willing to follow God’s plan.

What is the point that I am trying to make, no matter what God is telling us we need to not doubt why we are being told. We need to be willing to listen and respond to whatever God is speaking to us about.

We need to allow our faith factor to be greater than our fear factor and follow the will that God has in our lives and in the life of the church. Back to the shepherds, they hear that the Messiah is born and then they go to see him.

They could have said “thanks for the info but we have sheep to watch.” They could have just looked at each other and said, “what was that all about.” They chose to have faith in what they saw and heard and then they went to see the Messiah.

What is most important is for us to remember that Jesus is the ultimate truth. When he tells us that he is the way, the truth, and the life we need to have the faith to believe and to follow the guidance that he offers us in scripture.

When we look at our first reading today it is focused on looking at Jesus as the light that has been in existence since before the creation of the earth. It says in verse 14 that Jesus was full of grace and truth.

We could say that in the beginning was the truth and the truth is God and the truth was with God. We can go on and see that John the Baptist will end up testifying that Jesus is the truth. He didn’t let the opinions of others sway his words or actions. He followed the calling that God had given to him.

Do we choose to live our lives as if what Jesus says is the truth? We need to desire to spend time with God so that the truth can be spoken to us and through us. We need to be open as a church to what God is saying for us to do to be the church that God desires for us to be.

But the message doesn’t stop there. Jesus not only listened to his Father but he also acted. He let the words become action. He believed the truth and moved in a direction to fulfill the truth all the way to the cross.

My challenge for you today is to give God a chance to speak to you. I know that some of you already have listened and made tough decisions to go and do what you felt called by God to do. Let us allow God to speak to us and then go and be the person and the church that God desires for us to be.

Let us pray…