Miracle Pregnancy
Notes
Transcript
Has anyone ever watched the show “I Didn’t know I was pregnant”
If you haven’t you are not missing a lot
But the premise of this show is their are woman who have a little bit of a surprise pregnancy where they did not know they were pregnant
And they find when their labor begins to happen.
And so there are all sorts of crazy stories
There is one woman who gives birth in an amusement park, it turns out the rollarcoasters induced labor
There is another where a woman gives birth during a tornado
Theres another where a woman gives birth at a rest stop
And the list keeps going!
But you know while all of these odd pregnancy stories are a suprise today we ware going to be looking at a surprise pregnancy that happens in scripture.
And most of us are probably thinking its Jesus’s pregnancy, but it is actually a pregnancy that occurs to prepare for the birth of Jesus
And this is the birth of John the Baptist
And so we will be in Luke 1:5-25 today, but will just be starting in verses 5-7 and the passage starts by saying this:
Luke 1:5–7 (NIV)
The Birth of John the Baptist Foretold
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.
So the story starts with the focus on two people
A woman named Elizebeth and a guy named Zechariah
And what we learn is that Zechariah and Elizebeth are a very Godly couple
In fact we are told that they walked blamelessly and kept all ofof the commandments of the Lord and not just that but Zechariah was even a priest
But there is a problem that comes up in verse 7, because while they were a righteous/ Godly couple, they were unable to have children.
In fact at this point in their life Elizebeth was past child bearing age
Which meant there was no way for them to have a child.
And want us to understand how big of an issue this is because in our culture its a really difficult thing for a couple to go through when they can’t have children.
But in this culture it was a bigger deal,
Because in this culture if you coulden’t have kids people assumed (wrongfully) that the couple was doing something bad against God and that their is a reason they can’t have kids (which isn’t true)
But also it was a big issue because they did not have money set aside for retirement during this time, but their retirement plan was to have kids and when you get old it was your kids job to take care and provide for you
I am planning on this happening with Liam Finn.
Hopefully one of them makes the NFL or something
But you know with all seriousness you can begin to understand just how hard this was for them.
Because you can picture for years Zechariah and Elizebeth trying to have a child
There were probably mornings Elizebeth felt dizzy or diden’t feel well and they thought “this is it!”
Only to discover it was nothing and they were wrong.
And you can picture them stuck in this cycle for years until it was no longer possible for Elizebeth to have a child.
And I can imagine there are some in this room that can relate to this story on some level
And even if not I imagine all of us have had these moments in our life that have brought with them a sort of hopelessness
Where we are unsure what to do
Where we feel helpless
And ultimately where we ask how am I going to get through this?
And if you are here this morning whether it is from an issue your personal life or a challenge you are facing, can I just say there is hope. even in a hopeless situation.
Because look at the next part of this passage: verses 8-23 (and it is a little long, but I think it is important for us to look at this part as one section). It says:
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.
So Zechariah is chosen to enter the temple to burn incense, and a lot of times we kind of skip over this, but this is actually a huge deal.
Because at the time it is estimated that there were actually about 20,000 priest and only one would be chosen to enter the temples sacred space that was considered set apart.
So this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
It would be like winning the Biblical lottery
And so Zechariah enters the temple and something odd happens because there is an angel named Gabriel standing to the right side of the alter
And he tells Zechariah that there is a change of plans, because he tells them that Elizebeth is going to have a baby
and not only that but this baby is going to grow up and prepare the way for Jesus (which we are going to get into in a second)
But before we do I just need to point out the beauty of this passage
Because we can probably assume it was not God’s will for Elizebeth to be unable to have a child,
but whats amazing is how God picks up the pieces of this broken situation.
Because out of these moments that this couple sat there asking God why isn’t this happening
God brought this child that would eventually prepare the way for Jesus.
And you know there may be moments that just seem hopeless in our lives,
But something amazing about our God is He sees our hurts, He sees the things that happen in our life that are not fair and not our fault, He sees mistakes that we have made that have caused hardship
But in the middle of this He knows how to put the broken pieces back together in a beautiful way.
Its like how last week we were at my parents for Thanksgiving and my parents have one of those old wooden train sets with the trains that are magnetic.
and the tracks connect together so you can build the track and make a cool train track.
Well Liam and I were building our train track and we made it pretty big, it had a couple hills and a bridge and we were still working on it, when all of the sudden Fill comes crawling through our masterpiece and grabs a track and starts chewing on it (and this happened multiple times)
But whenever this would happen Liam would stop and scream at me and then look at me like: “Dad?!”
But every-time this would happen we would gather up the pieces and put them back together in a new way.
But really thats what God does in this story and in our lives.
Because there are times we want to yell at God and say “God?! Whats going on?”
But God is working at putting the broken pieces back together in the middle of it feeling like things are falling apart.
And He is doing it is a way that is more beautiful than we can imagine.
But here is the thing we need to be open to how He can move.
Because Zechariah this righteous man receives this news and it says that he looks at Gabriel and in verse 18 says:
“How can this happen?”
“How can I know it will happen?”
“because we are old” Elizebeth can’t have kids anymore so its kind of impossible?!”
And what happens is the angel actually makes it so he is unable to speak until the baby is born.
And Zechariah walks out of the temple and can no longer talk and I always laugh a little, because I picture him trying to describe what happened by playing charades
5 words
(angel wings)
Elizabeth (long hair)
is pregnant (make belly look big)
But on a serious note this forced Zechariah to watch silently all the things God was going to do over the next few months and take it in.
But all of this to first off say God can move in the most hopeless situations, but the question is are we ready to accept the path HE is using to redeem the situation, or are we going to say “No God; I am not going to do what you are asking”
Are we going to say “That is impossible and will not work” or will we say “I trust you”
Are we going to say thats not how I would of done it, or will we lean into what God is wanting us to do.
(possibly add an illustration about admiring something) (possibly Frozen play)
But secondly when God moves it is important to take a moment to step back and just take a moment to be amazed at what He is doing and to praise Him for it.
And look what happens in verses 24-25 because it says this:
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.”
The passage ends by God moving, redeeming the situation, and carrying out on His promise.
But something so beautiful about this passage is that as I mentioned the child born is John the Baptist who prepares the way for Jesus.
And in verse 17 we learned that he is filled with the Holy Spirit and prepares people to turn to Jesus.
And I thought this would be a good way to end, because we are in this season of advent where we are looking forward to Jesus coming
But as we are looking forward to Him coming there is also a reminder of the preparation that should be happening in our lives right now.
Where we are preparing for our lives to be fully surrendered to Him.
I mean are there areas in our lives where we are living a life different than where God has called us.
Because what will so often happen is life gets crazy and we end up neglecting our relationship with God.
And what happens is we allow that relationship to decay.
Its almost like how a couple months ago Harold and I were replacing some of the exterior door frames on the church.
And these doors really needed changed, because we wanted to change them a couple years ago but Covid happened and we couldn’t find the right door frames.
So for reasons beyond our control these the doors were neglected for a couple years.
And because of this the door frames were rotted and decaying.
And not just that, but the wood behind it was.
And I remember going this isn’t good.
But Harold is amazing and we were actually able to just cut off the rotted and place a new peice of wood in its place.
And I am telling that story because you might feel like you are far from God.
It feels like your relationship with Him has decayed and you are far from Him.
But the beautiful thing is God can take the decayed pieces of our lives and our decayed heart that is far from Him
And make us new.
And God wants to do this in us.
And this morning God can give you a new heart.
You know I think of John the Baptist as he grows up he baptizes people pointing them to what Christ can do for them.
Because baptizing represents us dying to our old sinful decayed life and coming alive in Christ!
And as a side note if you have not been baptized yet, but have accepted Christ I would encourage you to pray about signing up for it as a way of showing you are dead to the old and you have come alive in Christ.
But you know while baptism represents this ultimately it can only happen through Jesus and you know we will be finishing up today by receiving communion, and really when we recieve communion there is nothing special about the bread or juice,
But it represents us recieving God’s grace in our life and that grace makes us new where it does not just cover our sin but it changes us to be the people God has called us to be.
And so during this song I would invite you to ask yourself are their things I need to do today as we look forward to the coming of Christ?
For some maybe its accepting Him in our lives
For others it may be surrendering an area
For others it may be a practical step where we may even want to be baptized
But lets use this time to prepare to receive these elements.
Will you pray with me?