The People of the Promise (Part 1)

When you think about the term, “faithful,” what comes to mind?

Maybe a few of you thought of the geyser known as “Old Faithful”, which is largest regular geyser in Yellowstone National Park.

For some, you may think of a dog you have had for years who is always there to greet you at the door when you come home.

Perhaps your first thought was of a husband and wife who keep their marriage vows to each other without straying; they are faithful to each other.

This morning, I want you to see that Christmas is all about faithfulness.

The Christmas story and the events surrounding it are all about God demonstrating his faithfulness through faithful people.

Over the last few weeks, we have tried to join Charlie Brown and others throughout history in figuring out what Christmas is all about.

So far, we have gone back to to find that Christmas is all about a world that has been broken by sin. Sin is anything we do or think that goes against who God is and what he expects of us.

Even when we broke the world through our sin, God gave the hint of a promise that he would one day set the world right again.

Last week, we saw that in greater detail as we saw how God explained that promise in . We saw that Christmas is about God sending a person who would be God in the flesh, wise beyond compare. He would bring in peace like the world hasn’t known since we pushed God away all the way back at the beginning.

These promises are fulfilled in Jesus, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas.

Turn over to as we get ready to look at the life of Zechariah and Elizabeth today.

Turn over to as we get ready to look at the life of Zechariah and Elizabeth today.

This morning, we are fast-forwarding 700 years ahead of last week’s passage. In the passage we are picking up with today, the time has almost come for the promise to be fulfilled.

The man and wife we look at today aren’t in anyone’s nativity scene, and they don’t have a direct role in the Christmas story of Jesus’ birth.

However, they are a part of demonstrating how God is faithful to keep his promise.

The promise they are given is that God will give them a child, even though they are too old to have children. That child, whose name will be John, will be the one to prepare the hearts of the people to receive what Jesus, the Messiah, would do during his earthly ministry.

When you think about the term, “faithful,” what comes to mind?

Maybe a few of you thought of the geyser known as “Old Faithful”, which is largest regular geyser in Yellowstone National Park.

For some, you may think of a dog you have had for years who is always there to greet you at the door when you come home.

Perhaps your first thought was of a husband and wife who keep their marriage vows to each other without straying; they are faithful to each other.

This morning, I want you to see that Christmas is all about faithfulness.

Zechariah is a priest, and his wife Elizabeth is also from the tribe of Levi, so they are coming from a great, godly line.

Zechariah is a part of the division of Abijah, which was one of the 24 divisions of priests who rotated through serving in the temple two weeks out of year.

It is during one of those rotations where he has an encounter with the angel Gabriel that demonstrates the faithfulness of God through these faithful people.

What does that have to do with us?

Although God isn’t calling you to father the child who would be the prophet to prepare the world for the Messiah, he is still the same faithful God he was then, and he still works to show that through people who are faithful to him.

We must be willing, then, to honor God by being faithful to serve him like Zechariah and Elizabeth did.

We are going to be challenged to serve faithfully at least three different ways from this passage.

First, we see that faithful servants honor the Lord by being...

1) Faithful to serve despite disappointments.

Read verses 5-6 with me to get an idea of who this couple is.

Zechariah is a priest, and his wife Elizabeth is also from the tribe of Levi, so they are coming from a great, godly line.

Not

Zechariah is a part of the division of Abijah, which was one of the 24 divisions of priests who rotated through serving in the temple two weeks out of year, which will be important in just a minute.

They are good people. He’s a priest, and her family is from the same priestly line.No

They didn’t just come from a good family, though. Look again at how they were described in verse 6.

It is during one of those rotations where he has an encounter with the angel Gabriel that demonstrates the faithfulness of God through these faithful people.

The Bible even says they were both righteous in the sight of God…That’s an incredible commendation!

That doesn’t mean they were perfect. However, these were good, godly people.

However, these were good, godly people.

They had a genuine relationship with God that showed itself in the way they lived. People around them could see that they really loved the Lord.

If you don’t know the story, then you might be tempted to say, “So what? Of course they are doing what they’re supposed to.” After all, he’s a priest, she comes from that same lineage…you would expect them to be religious people, right?

Here’s what sets them apart, though: Zechariah was serving despite a severe disappointment.

Read with me verse 7…

Zechariah and his wife were not able to have any children.

In our society, that brings mixed emotions. Some couples are choosing to be childless, and that’s between you and the Lord.

Others, like Zechariah and Elizabeth, long to have children and for whatever reason, God hasn’t seen fit to move in that way in your marriage. Although we understand that there are a variety of complications that can cause a family not to have children, it can still be a great source of pain.

In that day, it would have been even worse.

You see, in , Solomon writes that children are a gift and a reward from the Lord.

So, then, many

Those who lived around Zechariah flipped that around backwards and assumed that if God didn’t give you children, you must have done something wrong and were being punished.

Luke makes it clear that

I love that Luke starts his gospel out by showing that this isn’t true at all!

That’s not the case, though, is it? They were just described as righteous and blameless!

They were just described as righteous and blameless, so it had nothing to do with punishment!

They weren’t childless because of their sin; they were childless because God was doing something different in and through their marriage.

Unfortunately, though, this would have been an ongoing source of pain for them.

You know they caught the sideways glances and heard the whispers.

It may have even been more overt than that, where people acted like Job’s friends and pestered them about what they had done wrong.

Even if no one thought wrongly of them, they still had the pain of trying, hoping, and not being able to have a child.

They carried the weight of that hurt for years, and yet they continued to serve faithfully.

And then, as the years went by, they reached the point where it was no longer possible to have children.

They carried that disappointment, knowing that there was no way it was ever going to happen.

And yet, where do we find Zechariah and Elizabeth? Faithfully serving the Lord.

Verse 8 finds him fulfilling his calling to serve in the role God gave him.

Are you willing to be faithful like that?

Are you willing to faithfully serve the Lord when you are wrecked by some disappointment that may never go away in this life?

Are you willing to serve in spite of doubts and questions about why God did or didn’t do something?

The first mark of faithfulness in Zechariah’s life is that he is continuing to serve the Lord, living a life that honors God in every area, despite a major disappointment and pain.

That’s where we find him in verse 8-10.

He had been appointed to offer the incense on that given day, which would have been a special honor. In fact, this would be the only time in his life he would have this privilege.

That incense represented the prayers of the nation, and while he was representing the nation, an angel appeared with an incredible message.

As he was faithfully serving, he is confronted with an impossible situation.

His wrong response, however, shows that he was…

2) Faithful to grow despite failures.

Stick with me on this; it will make sense in a bit.

The angel has tremendous news. Not only will Zechariah and Elizabeth have a child, that child will be the one who prepares people for God to send the Messiah!

Their son will be the prophet who gets the people ready to receive the one who will rescue Israel from sin, who had been promised for thousands of years!

This would be hard to believe, right?

Zechariah responded with doubt. Look at verses 18-20.

“This is impossible—we’re too old!”

I love the angel’s response. He quickly straightens Zechariah out by telling him who he is and where he comes from.

Because of his unbelief, Gabriel tells Zechariah that he will be unable to speak until John is born.

That doesn’t seem much like being faithful, does it?

It sure wasn’t a high point of Zechariah’s walk with the Lord. Here he is, serving in the temple, doing one of the highest honors in serving the Lord he could be given, and he is doubting a direct message from one of the few named angels in the Bible.

Isn’t this great to read, though? I love that the Bible doesn’t sugar-coat things. This great man, whose son was going to prepare the way for the Messiah that everyone was looking for, is still human and doubts the actual words of a real angel who just showed up in front of him!

If that was the last we had, we would conclude that Zechariah wasn’t faithful.

However, the story continues.

He goes home, and in the course of time, his wife Elizabeth conceives, carries, and delivers a healthy baby boy.

Once they name the baby, which we will talk about in a moment, Zechariah’s mouth is opened, and he begins to talk.

Read verse 64 with me.

What was the first thing he did when his mouth was opened? Scream and yell at God for being unfair for so long?

No, he immediately begins to praise God for all He had done and was going to do through his son John.

That’s where we see Zechariah is faithful to grow.

He was wrong about what God could and couldn’t do, even though an angel told him directly what would take place.

However, as Zechariah saw God work and do what He said He would, Zechariah grew to know God better, not only for what He had done, but also for what He could do.

When he saw God work in giving them this child, it led him to grow in faith and believe that God could use his son John to prepare the way for the Messiah.

Had God given them a child when they were younger, during the normal course of life, and then told him that their son would prepare the way for the Lord, Zechariah may very well not have believed him.

However, as God walked along with Zechariah, shaping, correcting, and challenging him throughout the years, He brought Zechariah to the place where he would trust God to do the impossible.

Let me ask you: how do you respond when you read something from the Bible or hear something from a sermon and God shows you that you are wrong?

Do you dig your heels in, defend yourself, and try to fix things on your own, or are you faithful to grow through that challenge, trusting God in a greater way than you did before?

Do you pull back, feel worthless, and give up, or do you lean into it, thank God for the correction, and trust Him with what’s next?

Zechariah was faithful to grow, even though it cost him the ability to speak for several months.

That growth was displayed in more than just his words, though.

He had been faithful to serve the Lord throughout his life, even though he had faced great disappointments.

He was faithful to grow, even though he wasn’t perfect.

Lastly, we see that he was…

3) Faithful to obey despite opposition.

When the angel appeared to Zechariah, he gave him clear instructions in verse 13 to name the boy, “John.”

That would have been a counter-cultural move, though, because in those days, it was expected that you would name your son after yourself or someone in your family (which is why you have so many people with the same names in the Bible).

We see that objection in verses 57-66.

Remember, people already thought something was off with Zechariah and Elizabeth because they were just now having a kid.

When they push back against the norm even further, they were again putting themselves in a strange place.

However, as God had grown Zechariah, he was willing to faithfully obey what he had been told to do, naming his son John.

We are all wired with a desire to please people. We don’t like to be thought of as weird or outsiders.

Think back to when you were a kid and someone started a secret club on the playground and you weren’t invited. It hurt, didn’t it?

When you become a teenager, you felt it about the popular group at school that everyone wanted to be a part of.

As an adult, it may be some professional level you want to achieve or a neighborhood you want to live in.

Let me think about how many people eat turkey on Thanksgiving even though they hate it!

We all want to fit in and belong.

So when people around us don’t understand or like what God has called us to do, we may be tempted to cave.

After all, what difference does it make what the kid is named? A rose by any other name would smell so sweet, right?

However, we don’t have the right to change what God has called us to do, even if it doesn’t seem like it matters to us.

He knows exactly how everything will play out, and we are called to be faithful to obey no matter who does or doesn’t like it.

Are you willing to be faithful to who God is calling you to become?

Are you willing to be faithful to server when life is filled with disappointments?

Growth is often painful like it was for Zechariah, yet he was faithful to grow in his knowledge of and trust in the Lord. Are you willing to allow God to stretch you, challenge you, and grow you so you can know Him better?

When He does, you will find yourself in league with Elijah, Zechariah, and all the other great servants of God throughout history—facing opposition for doing what God wants. Are you going to be faithful to obey, even when opposed?

Are you willing to faithfully serve God when no one around you will? Are you willing to have others accuse you and oppose you for doing what God has called you to do?

Why? Because you have the privilege of joining God in His plan redeeming the world. You can serve

Faithfully follow the example of Zechariah, our first character of Christmas.

I imagine some of you might be sitting here, though, and you have one big question: why would I serve God when he disappoints me and things don’t work out? Why should I serve him faithfully when he is going to make me change and grow? Why should I serve him when I could just go along with what everyone else is doing and live an okay life?

Because God has been faithful to us. Although we pushed him away, he sent Jesus, as God in the flesh, as the baby we celebrate at Christmas.

That baby grew up and showed us that we weren’t living like God had called us to live.

Unlike Zechariah, he was faithful and never doubted what the Father called him to do, even when that called for Jesus, as God in the flesh, to go to a cross and die in my place.

Why should we be faithful to God? Because he has been more faithful to us than we could ever have deserved.

In fact, that’s what Christmas is all about: God demonstrating his faithfulness to a broken world, keeping a promise he made to send someone to make it right again, and using faithful people to bring it about.