Zechariah & Elizabeth

Good morning. my name is JJ Jim Jensen. I’m the executive director at Heaven’s Gate for Ministry, and I’m really glad to be here today. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for watching online. I got to tell you, my heart is so full right now. I’m coming to you from a place of peace and relaxation. We had a great family time for Thanksgiving. My oldest daughter was home from college and we just ate a lot of food. And we watched some Christmas movies, and we played some board games and card games. I don’t know what your situation is, but I hope that you had something like that happen to you this week. And now we get to turn our attention to Christmas. And you can see we have a new stage design here. So glad to be with my church family. I hope you feel that way too. And we’re going to go through our Christmas series. I want to tell you a little bit about that as we get started. We’re calling it longing to see, and that comes from a place in the Bible where it says that even angels kind of long to see what God is doing with mankind. They like, they want to look more into it. And, you know, probably the story of the shepherds, right? Or the, the Magi, the wise men.

But there are all these other characters in the Christmas story, and you may not know too much about them. What’s their story? Well, they have a lot to contribute to, and that’s what we’re going to do in longing to see. We’re going to take a look at some of these B-level cast players, in the Christmas story and see what their part was and see what God was speaking to them about. And we’ll end by talking about the angel Gabriel. So it’s a very angelic, kind of Christmas, really excited about that. But today we’re going to talk, as you can see there, about Zachariah and Elizabeth. And by the way, you can always read these in advance. All the scriptures are on our app. If you have our app even before you come here. And and hopefully you can stick with us through the whole series, you can read about these people and get informed. Well, today we’re talking about Zechariah and Elizabeth, and they had a problem that is a very, common problem. We’ve probably all been through it at one point. it’s when God is silent, when you feel like God’s not talking to you. Most of the world’s people believe in God, and most people pray, which means that most people in this world believe that we can communicate with God and he can communicate with us. That’s what prayer is all about. And so were most of us are praying. We think that we can communicate with God. We have that idea.

But what about when we feel like God just isn’t isn’t speaking to us? What about that, how many are watching, like the hallmark Christmas movies? We got some candy. Guys want to raise their hand. One guy raised his hand in the first service. He was brave. I know some of you go there. There’s a guy. Thank you, sir, for your honesty. Yeah. There you go. All right, well, you know, this is a guilty pleasure. I haven’t watched too many of these, but I feel like there’s a story that’s in almost all of them. Because aren’t. Isn’t there a small town and like, every one of these movies. And then why is there a train station at them? There’s always a train station at these towns, and it’s a steam train. So the steam light comes out and the train comes in the station, and there’s always a character looking for someone to get off the train because they love them and they’re coming home for Christmas or something like that. And the people are coming off the train, and the characters like looking at each face because they want to see. They want to see the person that they love and that, and they realize after a while, wait a second, wait a second. They weren’t on the train. That’s the vibe we’re talking about today. We want to see God, but it feels like he’s he’s not even on the train. And it’s hardest to bear when we really want to hear from him the most. Right?

Because when we want to hear from God the most is when things are happening in their life, they’re difficult, like a career change, or there’s a problem in a relationship or something like that, or maybe something’s happening with our family or our children, and we really need to hear from God. And why is it that it feels like he may be silent? And, you know, it’s those kind of moments where we start to doubt God, and that’s a moment when a lot of people lose faith. That’s a moment when a lot of people walk away. And I don’t know if if you’ve experienced that or maybe you’re on the verge of something like that. Sometimes the holidays are the toughest time of all, and you want to hear from God. What if he’s silent? Well, that’s what happened with Zechariah and Elizabeth. So we will dive into their story, and we’ll try to learn principles about what to do when we feel God is silent in our life. Are you ready? Let’s go. All right. It’s Luke one, the first chapter of Luke. In the time of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zachariah who belonged to the priestly division of Abuja. His wife, Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees.

Blamelessly but they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old. Well, what’s happening here? These people I recognize these people. They were both of priestly descent. In other words, they’re church people. They’re church workers. Zechariah is a priest. I know these people, and it even says they were blameless and upright. They’re the best kind of church people. They get everything right on the outside. On the inside. Something else is going on. They want a family like most of us do. They want to have children. And this is a very short verse. But you got to understand, there are decades here. There are decades of hope and prayer and asking God, why can’t we have a family? And now they’re old and it seems like the time has passed, and that’s where Zachariah and Elizabeth are dealing with that silence. Here’s what happens next. Once Zacharias division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of the incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying on the outside. So what’s this about? Well, there was a temple and and the outside of it, everyone could kind of go to the outside, but the inside was curtained off or walled off. And that inside part, only the priests could go. And twice a day, once in the morning, once in the night, a priest would go and there was an altar there, and he would be all alone, and he would burn incense, and he would pray on the inside, kind of like closer to God or whatever.

And then everyone else would be on the outside, and it says that they were casting lots. And just so you understand what that means, it’s like, rolling dice or drawing straws. For us today, there were actually more priests than there were jobs available for priests during this time. So to make it fair, they would just, do it randomly.And he got chosen randomly to go in and pray in this, in this closed off area and light the incense. So that’s what he’s doing. But something happens he doesn’t expect. An angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him, do not be afraid, Zachariah, your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and a delight to you. And many will rejoice because of his birth, because he will be great in the sight of the Lord. So this is not normal for the priest to experience. He goes in and he sees an angel. It’s incredible, in fact, up into this moment, there have been 400 years where there was no prophet, there was no angel, there was no word from God at all. 400 years of silence. It was broken right in this moment. Now, how do you think Zechariah is going to react? How would you react?

I mean, it says he’s fearful, but what’s he going to say? May not be what you expect. Zachariah asked the angel. How can I be sure of this? I’m an old man and my wife is well along in years. The angel said to him, I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God. I have been sent to speak with you and to tell you this good news. 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. Now you have to understand how incredible this is. I mean, have you ever seen an angel? I haven’t, but if you were to see an angel, would you be able to look that angel in the eye and say no? I don’t think so. Did I’m old, I’m old. But this is not going to happen. What’s going on here with Zachariah? See, his heart has become hard. It’s been decades. His heart’s become hard to God. He’s a priest on the outside. He’s a he’s a church guy. He’s all smiles on the outside. He’s doing his job on the inside. It’s a different story. God has been silent and he’s lost his faith. He’s lost his hope so that even an angel telling him what’s going to happen doesn’t move him. Incredible. Decades of silence. I think that it doesn’t take decades for us. Sometimes it just takes a week or two. We don’t hear from God, and then we’re like, well, what’s going on here? Like, I’d really like to know. I’d really like to have some direction for my life.

And it doesn’t happen. We get confused, we get angry, we start making assumptions about who God is and what he can do in our lives. Maybe we doubt that he’s going to speak to us. Maybe we doubt that he cares about us. Maybe we think he’s not really capable of speaking. And I’ve just been making all of this up in my head. We begin to have doubt. Maybe he’s not even there. We get confused, we get angry, and then we get sullen. And this is exactly what’s happened to Zachariah. He’s gone through all of these stages, and now his heart is just dead. I got to tell you, just, I’m going to share personally, because I want you to know that this happens to everyone. It happens to religious people and religious people. It happens to all the people that seem on the outside to have a lot of faith and trust in the Lord. It can be hard when God is silent. Back in my college days, I met a girl and we started dating. We dated for a year and a half. We fell in love and at the end of my senior year, I bought a ring and I asked her to marry me and she said yes. And we were engaged. And because I was an education major, I had to do an extra semester of work. So that was the summer of my senior year. In the fall, I went back to my hometown to do my student teaching because I wanted to do it in my old high school, and the college was five hours away. So, and, my fiancé was a year behind me in school.

So she went back to school and I went back to my hometown, and we communicated a few times. We were away from each other. This is before, like, you know, social media and stuff like that. So as time went by, a couple of months into that, I got a call from her and she said, you know, I’m really confused. I’ve been seeing somebody else. And I was like, what? So I got in my car and I drove down the five hours and I knocked on her door and I said, we got to talk about this. And we talked about it. And, she gave me that ring back and that was it. And obviously I was devastated. I mean, I had this future that I thought was going to be mine. I thought that things were going to be different. And, they weren’t going to be that way. It was hard. I mean, I’ll just be honest, it was hard to take. And I spent the next year asking God why that had happened. And God was silent for me. And it was really difficult. I know a little bit about what Zachariah and Elizabeth are feeling here. You just wonder, is there a future for me? Is God ever going to show me the next thing, or has he just abandoned me? I made a lot of assumptions. I think Elizabeth is going through her own thing, and I think we need to talk about her for a little bit. the the text doesn’t mention her as much in this passage.

Next week, we’re going to look a lot more about Elizabeth and a conversation she had with Mary, the mother of Jesus, because it turns out that Elizabeth and Mary are related. And the same angel that talks to Zechariah also talks to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and tells her that she’s going to give birth to the Messiah. And she also says, your relative Elizabeth is six months pregnant because God did fulfill his word and she did get pregnant right away. Mary goes out to visit Elizabeth, and they have this great conversation that is actually recorded in Luke. And I don’t want to go through all of it, because I don’t want to spoil it for next week, you know? But there’s one thing that Elizabeth says to Mary, and I want to point this out. She says, blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. Blessed is she who believed. Isn’t that interesting that Elizabeth would point that out about Mary, because Mary believed the angel Elizabeth did not. And now she’s looking back at the other side of this, and she’s saying to Mary, you know what? Good for you. You actually believed when God spoke to you. And and I did not Zachariah did not. You know what the song says? Don’t stop believing. Mary’s advice is really good. We should continue to believe that God has something for us. Because here’s the thing you have to understand God’s silence is not the only thing that’s going on here. That’s not the only thing that’s happening. Let’s find out how the story wraps up.

When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy. Then they made signs to his father to find out what he would like to name the child. He asked for a writing tablet and to everyone’s astonishment, he wrote, his name is John. Immediately his mouth was open and his tongue was set free, and he began to speak, praising God. Elizabeth. Her disbelief turns to joy. Zachariah. His disbelief turns into worship. What a transformation. And I think it’s interesting in that the angel punishes Zechariah by having him be silent, probably for most of a year. You know, it takes nine months to make a baby, and maybe there was a few months before that. So we’re talking about like a year of silence. And I just think it’s interesting because this is the very thing that Zechariah was mad at God about. You’re silent in my life. Do you get the irony? And an angel’s like, okay, well, you’re going to be silent for a year. And it’s interesting that as soon as his tongue is set free, he the first thing he does is praise God. So something has happened to Zachariah in this year that has changed his perspective, that has changed his heart and heart. I imagine that he got a little bit of God’s perspective. You know, just because he was silent doesn’t mean he wasn’t there for Elizabeth. It doesn’t mean that they weren’t together. Doesn’t mean that he didn’t care for her. Doesn’t mean that he didn’t rejoice when his son was born.

Maybe he got a little perspective of how God feels when he’s working in the world. See, I think God is helping Elizabeth and Zachariah understand something that’s very important for all of us to understand today. And it’s this silence does not equal absence. It’s not the only thing that’s going on. We make assumptions. We make assumptions because we don’t hear from God that he hasn’t heard us, that he’s not working, that he doesn’t care. Let’s bring this all together and talk about the different silences we’ve experienced. First, let’s talk about those 400 years. Do you remember me saying that it was 400 years before the last book of the Old Testament, and this and this story of Zechariah and Gabriel. This literally is the moment where God breaks 400 years of silence for the nation of Israel. But even though he was silent, he was not absent. We know what happened during these 400 years. Do you want to know? Here’s one thing that happened. The world became philosophically prepared to receive God’s truth before this 400 year period. It was paganism. It was household gods. People were not asking the big questions. But these 400 years, these are the years of Plato and Socrates and the Greek philosophers and mankind started asking bigger questions. Why am I here? What’s the purpose of my life? Is there anything beyond what I can see? What does God want of me? These questions prepared the way for the gospel of Jesus because the gospel answers these questions. God was preparing people to receive the gospel. That’s not the only thing. The world became linguistically united in these 400 year silence.

This is the time of Alexander the Great, who conquered the known world and spread Greek language through the known world. He did it so well that Greek was a universal trade language, and the New Testament is actually written in Greek. That’s why. Can you imagine how fast, how fast the gospel spread? Because there was a common language in the known world for people to receive it. Yeah, that happened during that 400 years of silence. That’s not all. The world became connected by roads up until this 400 year period. It was very difficult to get anywhere. Travel was uncoordinated and dangerous. But this 400 years marked the rise of the Roman Empire. And Rome did one thing really well. They built roads. They maintain them, and they protected them with soldiers. And so for the first time, you were able to travel with security, so that when the gospel exploded out of Jerusalem, there were roads ready for the missionaries, and the people who were sharing faith. And the gospel exploded through the whole world. During this 400 year silence, those roads were built, and I’ve been to Rome, I’ve been to Italy, and I’ve seen those roads. A lot of them are still around. It’s incredible. That was during that 400 years of silence. Also, the Jews became ready for a Savior. During this 400 years of silence, the Jews were pretty much ruled by foreign powers and they were desperate for a Savior, some Messiah, someone that would save them, anyone that would talk about things like that. And so when Jesus came on the scene preaching this gospel of freedom, they were ready to hear it. Isn’t that amazing? It was silent, but God was not absent.

He was literally preparing the way for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now let’s take a look at Zechariah and Elizabeth. They had to wait a long time for their son John, and to them it felt like forever. And they got hardened hearts because of it. They went through a lot of difficulty. But here’s what they didn’t know their son John, would grow up to be John the Baptist, the prophet that would prepare the way for Jesus. And so John the Baptist and Jesus needed to be contemporaries. They needed to be of the same generation. And so Zechariah and Elizabeth had to wait. It wasn’t the right time for John to be born. That’s the reason. Even though God was silent in their lives, there was a reason they had to wait. God was working in the world and their son was going to be so important, but he had to be born at the right time. And I’ll tell you, even in my own life, I mean, that year was really tough for me, and I really wouldn’t want to go through it again. But even though God was silent in my life, he was doing things in my life. He was working in my life. I ended up going to New York City, to my first church, my first ministry, and I met a woman there that had grown up in that church. She was very pretty and I liked there a lot. And we started dating and went well. And while we were dating, I realized I would have made a huge mistake marrying my first fiancé. We fell in love, but we didn’t know each other. We were not suited for each other. I know that marriage would have ended in divorce. It would have been awful.

I just didn’t know it. I was too immature. God was actually protecting me. In that year of silence. He was helping clear the slate. He was preparing the way for me to meet the woman that I was going to marry. He was also protecting my first fiancé and her future as well. He was looking out for her to and for me, and for my wife of 23 years and my children. God saw all of that. I didn’t. There’s there’s no way that any of us can understand the intricacies of our own life, let alone the 8 billion people that are on this planet right now. Who could do that, who could look at past, present, and future and see all those choices and all those possibilities and and work them all out? Only God Almighty can do that. There’s no way that we can do that on our own. We take this silence and we think that God doesn’t care. We think that he doesn’t know, but he does. He does know. He does care. And this is the proof. Look at Galatians four for when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son. When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth Jesus. Jesus is the proof that God understands that he cares, that he knows. He sent us a Savior to forgive us of our sin, to die on the cross, and to be raised again. That is the gospel. He did that for us in the fullness of time that. So what do you want to know? We want to know everything that’s going on. We want to know the meaning of our past, the reality of our present. We want to know what’s going to happen in the future. Guess what? We’re not going to know all of that.

We may never know exactly what is going on because it’s not for us to know. But do you want to know that God hears? Yes. Gabriel’s message is Zechariah was God has heard your prayer. And I want to say to you today that God hears your prayer. He loves you. He cares about you. Just because he is is silent does not mean that he’s absent in your life. He’s never stopped working in your life. And I’ll tell you something when you can get this concept that God’s silence does not mean his absence, then you don’t have to be so freaked out when you can’t hear him speak. Just trust. Have faith in him that he is doing what he needs to do in your life behind the scenes, and I don’t know where you are. Maybe you’ve come back to church for the Christmas season. Thank you for being here. Thank you for watching online. You made a great choice. Church is a great way to connect with God. You’re in the right place. Keep going. Be with us through this Christmas series and see what God would say to you during this special time in our church’s life. And maybe, and I see many friends that I know in church that have been here all year, and maybe you’ve been here many years, maybe 20 years. I want to say to you, do not give up your faith just because God hasn’t spoken to you the way you wanted him to. Have faith that he is working in your life. He is working. He is working things out for you. Stay the course, stay with him. And even today, we have a special time that we can come together around the table and experience communion together in the bread and the wine, the very presence of God in our lives.

What a privilege to connect with God in that way. As we prepare for that, we’re going to sing a song. And I just want to encourage you to be seated, but please engage with the song. The lyrics are so important to encapsulate what we’ve been talking about today. Even says at one point, far be it for me to not believe even when my eyes can’t see through it. All my eyes are on you. And it is well, let let that be our prayer today. And if we need to confess something to God, this is our moment to confess our sin to him. And maybe we have to confess the sin of a hard heart and say, you know what? I’ve been wondering about God. I’ve been making assumptions about him. This silence has been hard to bear. But I confess that to you, and I release it to you. And I will trust that you are working. Maybe that’s where you are right now, and I just want to encourage us to take this moment and to be with him, to sit with him and to sing this song together. Let’s do that.