Advent: Responding to God — in Faith or in Doubt

Opening Idea

Have you ever received unexpected news? How did you respond?

This is almost an unfair question, right? The reaction totally depends on the news!

When I was in fourth grade, an unexpected LIMO picked up me and my best friends from school, and we got in and it took us to Chuck E Cheese. I was THRILLED by this unexpected gift.

When I’d get to class nervous about a quiz I wasn’t prepared for and hear that it had been postponed? I would feel RELIEVED.

The kind of news determines our reaction… or does it?

Have you ever seen two people respond to the SAME news differently?

In those situations, their reactions reveal what is in their heart. One sibling may be thrilled to take vacation while the other feels anxious about traveling. One person may love that they’re getting their way while the other feels overlooked and unheard.

When it comes to getting unexpected news, our reaction reveals what’s in our hearts. Love or apathy. Fear or trust. Doubt or confidence.

Transition

We’re officially in our Advent series now! Advent is the four weeks leading up to Christmas. Christians use this time for reflection and preparing for the “advent”= the coming or arrival of Jesus. So we are looking in this series at Luke 1 and 2 because that’s when Jesus was on His way!

But one thing I want you to take away from this series and from this season of Advent is that God didn’t stop showing up after Jesus. He still shows up in our lives, and how we respond to Him matters.

Let’s open up and read Luke 1:5-7.

Teaching

Luke 1:5-7 (NIV)

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 descendent 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.

Alright; we are gonna pause a couple of times just to make sure we keep all of our details straight.

So we have Zechariah. He is a priest. That means he served in God’s temple. He was the one cutting up the animals and draining the blood for the sacrifices and all that.

He and his wife Elizabeth are GOOD people. They follow all the rules and do what God says always.

They are old people. They did not have any kids.

Then Zechariah gets chosen for temple duty so he goes into the temple alone to burn oil. Now, when they sent the priest into the holy of holies, they would tie a rope and a bell around the ankle and listen because if the priest was not totally pure before God then when he went in, he would collapse dead. So they needed to hear the bell to know he was still alive, and they needed the rope to pull the dead body out.

So Zechariah gets chosen for this duty and he goes in, and here’s what happens:

Luke 1:11-17

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 a 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.”

This news is CRAZY. And there’s a lot in here, so let’s be sure we’re understanding it:

He goes into the holy of holies ALONE and BAM there’s an ANGEL in there! SCARY!

Here is a drawing of what an angel might have looked like based on how they are described in Revelation: [picture] CREEPY right?!

But Zechariah knows that no one else is in here and that no one else can go in here without dying, so when he sees this creature, as terrified as he is, he knows this being has to be from heaven to be standing in this room and not dying.

Then the angel says, Your super old wife is gonna have a baby. Congrats! God has heard your prayers.

So for Zechariah it probably feels like that request for a child is an old one that he has lost hope in because it went unanswered for so long.

But not only is Elizabeth now going to have a baby. She will have a baby who…

Already has a name. (John)

Already has the Holy Spirit

Already has a mission—prepare Israel for the Messiah.

And how does Zechariah respond? Verse 18

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.”

Zechariah, despite the craziness of the setting and the creature, doubts what is said. We like to believe things that we can prove. We want things to have facts and evidence behind them. And that’s exactly what he asks for.

His response reveals that even though he had prayed for a baby, he stopped believing that God would answer his prayer.

He knows how old his wife is! He knows how long they have tried to have a baby and how long they not been able to…

Sometimes our reality makes us doubt: “God, I don’t think you’re gonna do this. I don’t think you can. I don’t believe you will. I don’t trust your word because my circumstances make me think otherwise.”

Do you ever feel like this? That God needs to prove it to you before you can trust Him?

There’s another way to respond, and we are going to read that next: Luke 1:26-28

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendent of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

Six months later, exactly what the angel had said to Zechariah was now happening. Elizabeth is pregnant, and now God sends the angel to go tell someone else about a miraculous pregnancy that she’s going to have.

Mary is a young, unmarried girl. She is engaged to Joseph, but they don’t live together yet.

And God favors her.

Luke 1: 29-33

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

So Mary is going to have a baby! He is the Son of God—the God she worships—and he will be some kind of king. That is big news!

And how does she respond? Let’s look in verse 38:

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

Mary trusts God with humility. Now she asks some follow up questions, but they are asked with an attitude of obedience and seeking to do what God wants. She doesn’t doubt that God can’t or won’t do what He has claimed through the angel.

She knows that none of what was just said will be able to happen outside of God, so if God said He’s going to do it, she believes Him.

Unlike doubt, trust says, “I believe God can and will do what he promised.”

I am going to guess that Mary was scared. She was young. She was unmarried.

So Mary shows us that we can be scared and still trust God.

Mary and Zechariah. What did these situations have in common?

Both pregnancies were physically impossible!

If someone told you that an impossible thing was going to happen, it would be hard to believe!

Why do you think God likes to work in impossible situations?

What these responses to the impossible show us is that our responses reveal what’s in our heart.

Why does this matter for us today?

God is still active in our lives. He rarely send angels now, but He still leads us and asks us to do things for Him—even things that might feel impossible to do.

What is something God is leading you to do? (give suggestions of what it looks like in middle school)

Who will you respond like?

Trust opens the door for God to work. Advent invites us to reflect and to respond in faith.