Luke 1:5-25 | The Promise Before the Promise
Good morning. It’s my pleasure to kick off our Christmas teaching series this
morning. I’ll tell you a little more about where we’re going in just a minute or two
but our text for this morning can be found in Luke CH 1. This morning we’re going
to look at the birth narrative of John the Baptist. Although many of you have
heard that incredible story, it will be helpful to have it in front of you while we go
through it. I invite you to grab your bible or your phone and turn/swipe to Luke
chapter 1.
As you know, the Christmas season is here. For so many reasons, the
Christmas season is a special time of year. I want to encourage all of us to slow
down & enjoy the many unique and wonderful sights, sounds, tastes and
traditions of the Christmas season. Don’t rush through this amazing time of year.
Savor it! Enjoy it! Use the Christmas season to think about the gift of a Savior.
(By far the very best gift you will ever be offered.) Take advantage of
opportunities to encourage and bless others as God directs your heart. Be
generous with others. Hold the door open for someone when you enter the store
to shop. Thank a sales associate for their help…..or more likely, the Amazon
delivery person. In general, be intentional, be prayerful, & be thankful this
Christmas season. Make Jesus the “reason for the season.”
Of course, remembering and celebrating the birth of Jesus is the most
significant part of the Christmas season. After all, Christmas, “CHRISTmas” is all
about Jesus, ….the Christ, ….the Promised Savior. The arrival of Jesus was no
accident, and it was by no means unannounced. The birth of Jesus was the
fulfillment of a promise made, some suggest, over 4,000 years ago. (4,000!) Ever
make good on a promise you made 4,000 years ago? God did! Starting in Genesis
3:15, the very first book of the Bible, and throughout the Old Testament, there are
over 300 prophecies about the promise God made to send a much-needed Savior.
The Christmas season is all about a PROMISE MADE and a PROMISE KEPT.
That’s why our Christmas teaching series is called, ““God is a promise-maker
and a promise-keeper.” For four Sundays we’re going to focus in on truth that the
birth of Jesus demonstrates that God is not only a promise-maker, …..He’s also a
promise-keeper. During this series, we’ll look at the promise God made that He
would send a much-needed Savior into the world. We might not always think
about it, but the birth of Jesus, the incarnation, God becoming human, highlights
the promise God made and kept by sending Jesus to save us from the power of sin
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and the deserved judgment for our sin. In many ways, Christmas is very much
about THE GREATEST promise ever made and kept. (Pause)
The Prophet Isaiah put it this way, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful
Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the greatness of
his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and
righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will
accomplish this.”
Next week, Levi will introduce the primary promise of the Christmas season…the
birth of Jesus. Because God didn’t want anyone to miss out on the forgiveness,
the joy, & the peace Jesus would bring, He also promised to send a special
messenger just ahead of Jesus to prepare the hearts of people to receive Him.
That’s the promise we’ll look at this morning. I’ve entitled this morning’s message,
“The Promise before THE Promise.” It’s a promise that gives hope and
encouragement by reminding us of God’s faithfulness. (The fact that God ALWAYS
keeps His promises. God ALWAYS does what He says He will do.) Let’s get to it.
Follow along as I read 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
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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.” (Pause)
Luke, the author starts by giving some historical context when, in verse 5, he
writes, “In the time of King Herod” – There are a number of King Herod’s in the
NT. This King Herod was also called “Herod the Great”. This is the same guy you
can read about in Luke CH2 who ordered that all the male children 2 years old and
younger in Bethlehem be killed because he was threatened by the news that a
new king had been born. King Herod was very wicked. As wicked and evil as he
was, he had no idea that, in his attempt to kill off an earthly king he thought
threatened his power, he was attempting to kill THE King of all Kings.
So, Jesus and John the Baptist, were both born in a very dark season of history.
Evil seemed to have the upper hand. There was very little hope for the future.
The story from our text this morning is a story about God getting ready to break
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through the darkness of evil and hopelessness, not only in Judea but throughout
the entire world. Here’s the first truth I don’t want you to miss this morning.
God is good and He is at work even when things look dark. What darkness are
you facing right now? (A broken relationship? A personal struggle with a sin issue
that leaves you feeling defeated and ashamed? Maybe there’s someone you love
who seems to prefer the darkness more than the light? A health concern?
Loneliness? A financial burden? Regret? Grief? A loss of some kind? The death of
a dream or a desire? Darkness takes many forms. The fact that God not only
makes promises, but He keeps them, reminds us that God is always at work in
ways we don’t often see or understand. (It reminds us that “His ways REALLY are
higher than our ways.” That’s because His ways are eternal and ours are not.
If we’re completely honest, there are times it’s hard to believe that God is good.
You look around and it SEEMS like nothing goes your way. You pray and pray and
try to do the right thing and still it feels like you can’t catch a break. You begin to
ask a couple long standing-old questions, “Where are you God?” & “If you are
there, are you good?” People want to know if God can be trusted.
Zechariah and the people of his day could relate. It had been some 400 years since
God last spoke through the prophets. There’s 400 years of silence from God
between Malichi, the last book in the OT and the NT. (When they print the Bible
they should include 400 empty pages between the OT and the NT as a reminder of
those years of silence.) …..When God is silent there’s a temptation to believe that
God has forgotten about us. Or worse yet, that He doesn’t care about us.
I’m sure the Jewish people Zechariah served in the Temple asked themselves
regularly, “God, what about all the promises you made through the prophets
long ago? Did you forget about that?” (Pause) The story of the birth of John the
Baptist reminds us that God is at work in the darkness, even when we don’t see it.
Levi, Seth, & I and most pastors and priest today choose to go into the ministry.
Zechariah was a priest because of his family lineage. (He was from the line of
Aaron, who was the brother of Moses. Aaron was Israel’s first high priest, and his
descendants were set apart for priestly duties.) Elizabeth, Zechariah’s wife, was
also a descendant of Aaron. She was more than likely the daughter of a priest.
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It appears they were a nice upstanding couple. Luke says in V6 that, “Both of them
were righteous in the sight of God.” When Luke describes them as “righteous”,
he’s not suggesting that they are perfect or sinless, because they weren’t. What
Luke wants us to know is this; they authentically loved and served God. The did
their best to obey God. When it came to faith in God, they were the “real deal”.
As such they lived a charmed, blessed life without a worry in the world. Right? All
their hopes and dreams had become reality. They lived on “easy street”. Isn’t that
how it’s supposed to go if you do your part to love God? Not so fast! In V6 Luke
tells us of their genuine faith and then in V7 he states, “They were childless, and
they were very old.”
Infertility today is an incredibly painful experience, and I don’t in any way want to
make light of it. However, in the ancient Jewish culture Zechariah & Elizabeth lived
in, not only did they have to experience the grief associated with their unfulfilled
dreams of having children, but there would also have been a ton of religious and
cultural stigma attached to it.
Today, infertility is understood to be a physical health issue. In those days it was
thought to be a public sign that God was not pleased with you. (The bible does not
teach or support that view but it existed.) Can you imagine dealing with all that on
top of all the other emotions a couple might be already feeling. Beyond that was
the practical issue of not having children to look after and provide for you in your
old age.
There was darkness in the world in which Zechariah and Elizabeth lived and there
was darkness in their home. That’s true of us today. No matter how “buttoned
up” it looks on the outside there is always some “darkness” at home. By
“darkness” I mean some effects of the fall, sin entering the world. That may come
in the form of health issues or the aging process. Physical sickness is the result of
sin and brokenness brought into the world in the garden of Eden. It may be a
financial concern, a family relationship struggle. There are simply no perfect
families because there are no perfect people.
*As a side note, if you are ever tempted to believe that your life is so much more
difficult than everyone else’s life is, don’t be so sure. When you look across the
street it may look like everything is going great but, more often than not, you don’t
know the entire story. Every one of us experiences the impact of the darkness sin
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bought to the world we live in. I’m not saying that everyone struggles in this life at
the same level, but I am saying, don’t be too quick to assume you would trade
situations if you could.
Here's what I want you to hear. All throughout Scripture we read about people
with an authentic love for the Lord who faced significant hardship and trials. (Job,
Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Esther, Paul, Jesus Christ Himself.)
You can add Zechariah and Elizabeth to the list. Their lives were far from perfect.
Luke goes on to say in VV 8&9 that, while on duty serving at the Temple, Zechariah
is chosen by lot to burn incense. (The temple was divided into several sections.
The Outer Court was where people would gather for worship. The Holy Place was
where the incense was burned and only priests could go in there to perform their
duties. The incense represented the prayers of the people going up to God. The
Most Holy Place was entered only once a year by the High Priest.
Bible historians tell us there were likely between 20 to 24,000 priests at that time.
Many of them, like Zechariah, traveled from the hills and villages where they lived
twice a year to serve for one week. It was considered a great honor to burn
incense in the Temple while worshippers prayed outside. *You can do the math,
but it was no accident that Zechariah was chosen to burn incense in the temple
that day. (God had not forgotten the promise He made 400 years ago. In His
perfect timing He was beginning to make good on fulfilling “the promise before
THE promise.”)
So, Zechariah is in the Temple enjoying his 5 minutes of fame, while many fellow
Jews were outside praying. In V11 we read that “an angel of the Lord appeared to
him.” In V19 we discover that the angel’s name is Gabriel. (One of only 2 angels
named in the bible, the other is Clarence. ……… Opops! Wrong story. The other is
Michael.) In the book of Daniel Ch 8&9, the bible records that Gabriel brought a
message from God to Daniel. In Luke Ch 1, Gabriel visits both Zechariah and Mary,
the mother of Jesus with miraculous birth announcements.
Zechariah’s response to Gabriel’s angelic visit to the Temple is the same as others
when they are visited shock and awe! We’re told Zechariah was “gripped with
fear”. We’re not told if this fear comes from the physical appearance of Gabriel or
the fact that Gabriel had regular direct contact with God or both. Gabriel, aware
that Zechariah is afraid reassures him that he’s not there to harm him and then he
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tells Zechariah that “his prayer has been heard.” What a reassuring thing to have
an angelic messenger announce that your prayer has been heard! There’s some
debate among Bible commentators as to which prayer Gabriel is talking about.
Some say that Gabriel was talking about the Personal Prayer Zechariah and
Elizabeth had, no doubt, prayed for many years asking God for a child. They had a
deep longing to have a child that had gone unmet into their old age. In fact, it’s
possible, because of their old age, they had stopped praying for a child. Clearly, at
some level, Gabriel’s announcement was an answer to their many prayers prayed
to conceive a child. (On that note, is there unmet longing in your own life that
you’ve stopped praying for. Maybe it’s time to start praying about it again.)
Other Bible commentators say that the prayer Gabriel referred to was a National
Prayer for a Messiah or Savior who would deliver Israel from the oppression of
Rome. As a priest, Zechariah would have prayed many public and private prayers
that God would send the promised Savior. While many of those prayers focused
on the political rather than the spiritual rescue they needed, God was about to
give them what they really needed, (spiritual rescue), rather than what they
desired, (political rescue).
I’d say most respected Bible scholars believe God was answering both a Personal
Prayer for a child and a National Prayer that God would send the promised Savior.
This interaction between Gabriel and Zechariah highlights the truth found in
Ephesians 3:20, that God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or
imagine, according to his power that is working in us. God has unlimited power.
His abilities are beyond our understanding or imagination. He can do stuff we
can’t even think up. He has the ability to do stuff we aren’t even bold enough to
ask for. In short, Our Promise Keeping God Often Exceeds our Expectations. (I’m
not suggesting that we approach God as if He were a vending machine or a “genie
in a bottle”. I just want to make the point that God often does more than we ask.)
In V13 Gabriel announces that when their son is born he is to be called “John”.
Take another look at VV14-17. 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
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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.”
John is the promise before THE Promise of Jesus that the Prophet Malachi talked
about in Malachi Ch 4, the very last book of the OT. 5 “See, I will send the prophet
Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. 6 He will turn
the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their
parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”
God, through the Prophet Malachi, promised one who would fulfill the role of
Elijah in preparing the way for the Messiah or Savior. He would have a ministry of
calling people to turn from sin and come to Jesus. Gabriel’s announcement
confirms that God is ready to make good on that 400-year-old promise to the
Jewish people and to the world.
So how does Zechariah, the “righteous priest” respond to this awesome news?
Look again at V18 – Zechariah asks Gabriel, (with the supernatural being standing
right in front of him), “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is
well along in years.” Essentially Zechariah is asking for a sign to prove that God is
going to do this amazing thing. (He’s asking for a sign that God can and will keep
His word.) I don’t mean to put Zechariah down, I’m sure I wouldn’t have handled
the situation as well as he did but, it’s not like someone slid a handwritten note
under the temple door. There was an angel standing in front of him!
In V19 Gabriel responds to Zechariah’s doubts. “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.” The consequences for Zechariah’s doubt in God was a form of
both correction and an assurance that God’s word, not matter how hard it was to
believe, would come to pass. An old man and an old woman, much like Abraham
and Sarah, would have a promised child. Every morning Zechariah got out of bed
and wondered, “Was this all a dream?”, his inability to speak would remind him
that it was no dream. God was about to fulfill the promise he made hundreds of
years earlier through the Prophets. God promised to send a messenger to prepare
the way for THE Promised Savior, Jesus.
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We’re told in Luke 1:26 that this angelic visit took place 6 months before Gabriel
was sent by God to make a second birth announcement in Nazareth, a town in
Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph. Let’s not get
ahead of ourselves. We’ll let Levi tell us all about that visit next week.
As we finish this morning, let’s talk a quick look and see how God made good on
His promise to Zechariah and Elizabeth. Follow along as I read, Luke 1:57-66.
57 When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. 58 Her
neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they
shared her joy.
59 On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to
name him after his father Zechariah, 60 but his mother spoke up and said, “No! He
is to be called John.”
61 They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who has that name.”
62 Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the
child. 63 He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote,
“His name is John.” 64 Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free,
and he began to speak, praising God. 65 All the neighbors were filled with awe,
and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these
things. 66 Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, “What then is this
child going to be?” For the Lord’s hand was with him.
Our Christmas teaching series is about God and His faithfulness. As we think about
the miraculous birth of John the Baptist, we see a powerful reminder that God is
faithful to His promises, even in the midst of what feels like silence or darkness.
Zechariah and Elizabeth lived in a time of spiritual darkness and personal
disappointment, yet God was working behind the scenes to fulfill His plan in ways
that exceeded their expectations. He worked to answer their personal desire for a
child and the worlds need to be pointed to the coming Savior.
In the same way, God is still at work in our lives and in our world, even when we
can't see it clearly. His promises are sure, His timing is perfect, and His plans are
far greater than we can imagine.
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The challenge for us is to trust Him in the waiting. When life feels overwhelming or
our prayers seem unanswered, we can hold fast to the truth that God's purposes
are always good. Is there an area of your life where you feel uncertainty or
discouragement. Ask God to help you see His faithfulness and open your heart to
the possibility that He may be doing more than you expect. Let the story of John’s
birth remind you that God is not limited by our circumstances. He is still writing His
story in your life—you can trust Him to do more than you could ask or imagine?
Lets Pray
