Go

Contact Us

  • Phone: (509) 747-3007
  • Email:
  • Mosaic Address:
    606 West 3rd Ave., Spokane, WA 99201

Service Times

  • Sunday:  8:30 am, 10 am, 11:30 am
  • Infant through 5th grade Sunday School classes available
  • FREE Parking!

Sermons

FILTER BY:

Back To List

Dec 18, 2022

Zechariah & Elizabeth

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: Advent 2022

Keywords: change, faithfulness, dreams, zechariah, elizabeth, disappointments

Summary:

There is a lot to learn from senior saints like Zechariah & Elizabeth. Continued faithfulness over the long haul, unrealized hopes and dreams that don't distract, trust, and more all coincide with these two.

Detail:

Zach & Beth: Wisdom from Senior Saints

Advent Sunday #4—December 18, 2022

Luke 1

Last week:  Steven led us to see the faithfulness of Simeon & Anna, a couple of very “senior citizens” in the Temple, when Jesus was dedicated to God by his parents, Mary & Joseph.  Saw how they were people responsive to the leading of the Holy Spirit and deeply dedicated to experiencing the presence of God in their lives.

TODAY: learning from another couple of senior saints in the Advent story whose lives have a workshop of wisdom to share with us as we try to navigate the sometimes perplexing and faith-testing delays and disappointments of life.

Exercise: Think of at least one longing of your life that you haven’t seen fulfilled yet. Can be as big as a marriage or a desired career or children or reasonable parents or personal healing or retirement… OR anything less earth-shattering.  What are you still hoping God will do in your lifetime that He hasn’t yet…and what have you stopped even hoping for because it would now take a miracle for it to happen? 

Our lives are often shaped more by unrealized longings than already-achieved accomplishments.  That’s why, as long as we have breath, it is important that we always have a few deep-seated longings in our souls that have not yet been realized.  Absence of those dreams often sadly lead us into all kinds of dangers.

            Such was NOT the case with Simeon or Anna who we studied last week.  And such was not the case of today’s elderly couple, Zachariah & Elizabeth. But, as we’ll see, longings change over time…hopefully.  So, let’s get acquainted with Zach & Beth in Luke 1.  [Thanks, Jesse, for the sermon title.]

5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah.

Background: 

  • “The days of Herod, king of Judea”—weren’t exactly fun or comfortable days. Herod was, well, horrible.  [“Herod the Horrible”?] He was immoral.  He married, some say, 10 different women…and murdered a number of the children they gave him, one of them just 5 days before he himself died.  He reigned in Judea from 37-4 B.C. and, of course, is infamously known as the insecure, jealous king who had the infant and toddler boys of Bethlehem murdered after the visit of the Magi.  
  • Now, the name Zechariah means “God remembers”…which Zechariah must have taken by faith and lived into by faith the vast majority of his life as we shall see. Years of unanswered prayers and centuries of unfulfilled prophecies about a coming Messiah must have tested his trust in that name.
  • Zechariah was from the priestly line of Hebrews, estimated to be about 18,000-20,000 strong at that time. There were 24 divisions of priests who would each serve for 2 weeks every year in the Temple.  Zechariah had probably done this service at least 40 or 50 times before the event recorded here.  Whenever his division of Abijah was serving, every day for 2 weeks, two of their number would be selected by casting lots to offer the incense in the Holy Place of the Temple, one in the morning and one in the evening prayer time.  You were fortunate if you ever got that privilege in your lifetime.  Kids, for a grownup it was better than getting to go to Sea World or Disneyworld just once in your lifetime.  The passage continues:

And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 

By the Law of Moses, priests could only marry a virgin woman who was also from the priestly line.  Talk about limiting the pool of potential spouses! I’m sure living in a culture of arranged marriages helped significantly.  Anyway, Elizabeth, a good woman from a priestly family, married Zechariah, a good man from the priestly line.  We can imagine years earlier how these two godly young adults started life with all the hopes and dreams of most good and godly newlyweds today—looking forward to a life of having children and raising godly offspring together. 

6 And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. 

It’s interesting how many times we’ve seen that Luke comments on the spiritual life of the people in the Nativity story.  We saw it last week with Simeon and Anna.  We saw it the two weeks before with Mary and Joseph.  God was choosing seemingly unimportant and definitely obscure people, young and old, to play HUGE roles in the most important events of His sovereignly-determined human history.  The single most important determining factor was their standing before God—“righteous.”  That doesn’t mean they were perfect or sinless.  But it does mean they were walking with God from the heart.  When God labels someone “righteous”, it’s not a commentary on their religiosity or outward appearance.  It is a statement about their heart-relationship with Him that flowed out into right living with others. 

            I don’t know about you, but if God made that statement about me, I’d want to think I’d die a completely happy man:  “Righteous before God and walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.”  But we all have other hopes and dreams in daily life too.

7 But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.

Here’s a tough reality.  Doing everything right before God doesn’t guarantee we get everything we want from God. 

            Childlessness is never easy in a marriage.  Some of you know that pain first-hand.  It creates all kinds of stress, all kinds of feelings of frustration, of inadequacy and, for God-followers, all kinds of struggles with God who we know has the power to change it.  Zechariah and Elizabeth had an additional cultural issue to deal with that is not present in American culture (but may still be in many cultures of the world).  Barrenness meant you were “damaged goods”.  It was generally accepted that barrenness was a result of God’s doing, possibly a sign of his disfavor.  (See Hannah, 1st Sam. 1:6-10, “The Lord had shut her womb.”)

            We know exactly how it made Elizabeth feel.  It had become a part of her social profile/identity.  In Luke 1:36, when the angel Gabriel is speaking to Mary, he tells her about Elizabeth’s pregnancy by calling her “her who was called barren.”  How would you like to have that identifier hung on your Facebook page women?  “Status:  barren.”  Wow!

            Luke 1:25 tells us that when Elizabeth did eventually conceive, she makes this heartbreaking reference to what this pregnancy did to change the stigma she carried for decades:  It has “take[n] away my reproach among people.” 

            I don’t know why we do this to each other.  Why do we hang stigmatizing labels on those who don’t perfectly fulfill some expected “norm”?  Why do so many people feel “reproached” because of factors outside their control, yes, even things God is withholding from them for reasons we may never know in this life? 

APP:  Have you felt some “reproach” some sense of inadequacy or incompleteness about something beyond your control in life?  Know that God doesn’t view you the way people do!  His opinion of you doesn’t depend in the least on what you can accomplish, what gifts and skills you have, how plain or good looking you are, how tall or small, thin or stocky, or how smart or average, fertile or infertile you are.  You may have been sidelined, ridiculed or marginalized your whole life by most people.  But those things that make us feel wonderful or horrible in the eyes of people don’t shape God’s estimation of us in the least.  He always looks at our inner life…our hearts…and looks for the beauty of humility and righteousness and purity and love… qualities that are within reach of every one of us if we are cultivating a heart for God.  (1 Sam. 16:7—shepherd boy David; Ps. 51:17 & Is. 57:15—God loves a contrite heart…and dwells with us when we have one.)

            This one simple, life-shaping reality of a childless couple who spent a lifetime living righteously and blamelessly shouts volumes to us. 

APP:  We must not let life’s disappointments dominate our relationship with God or people.  Oh, I’m pretty sure both Elizabeth and Zechariah had plenty of down days wrestling with God about their childlessness.  I’m sure they both did their share of crying in secret.  But year after year, they refused to let that disappointment dominate faithful following of God.  Zechariah kept going to the Temple year after year after year for his 2-weeks of service.  He kept praying day after day.  He kept going to synagogue and studying the Scriptures and being an honest businessman in “the hill country of Judea” (Lk. 1:65) and a faithful husband at home. 

Together they refused to let their disappointment dominate even their relationship with each other.  Life crises and tragedies have a way of splitting even the best of marriages.  But if these two were judged by God as “righteous…and walking blamelessly”, you can be sure that they kept loving each other.  They kept thinking the best of each other.  They kept being kind and compassionate and gentle with each other.  Their disappointments drove them to intimacy, not abandonment.  They didn’t blame each other for their pain.  They didn’t give up marital intimacy.  They didn’t drift apart.  Disappointment is a very poor reason for destroying relationships, especially the best ones God gives us. 

APP:  Is there some relationship that is suffering in your life because of your disappointment?  It’s probably time to take a page from Z. & E. about leaning into God more in times of disappointment rather than running from Him.  Only God can heal our disappointments with people and life.  But we rob ourselves of that healing when we run from Him rather than to Him in disappointment.

APP:  Here’s another challenge from these two saint’s lives.  Keep showing up to keep growing up.  What if Zechariah had decided that he was getting too old and tired to keep going to Jerusalem for his annual 2 weeks of service?  What if he had been so discouraged about the state of the nation that he didn’t want to get out of bed that day?  Instead, he kept showing up!  Showing up is half the battle most of the time.  Whether it is showing up for school or work, showing up for worship or prayer, showing up for family devotions or private Bible reading, showing up matters.  We must show up to grow up!  And we must do it year after year after year. 

            Where and when is God asking you to just show up?  Devotional time with Him daily?  Some Bible study?  Some fellowship group?  Some prayer time?  Worship service?  We have no idea what God may have in store for us on the next regular, seemingly uneventful opportunity to grow.

Back to our story:  8 Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, 9 according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. 10 And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. 

What’s this deal about incense?  [Show layout of the Holy Place with lamp on left, table of bread on right and altar of incense up against the Holy of Holies veil.] 

Twice a day, during set prayer times in the morning and evening, a priest would enter the Holy Place in the Temple to offer incense on the altar.  While they were doing that, all the people in the Temple courtyard would be praying.  The incense offering was a visual, tactile and olfactory picture of the prayers of God’s people rising up to Him in a pleasing aroma.

What were people praying about outside?  Probably the same things you and I pray about day by day—sick and dying family and friends, financial challenges, family problems, everything. 

But when you were priest in the Holy Place praying, I’m pretty sure your prayers took on a different scope—a larger, big-as-the-nation, historic tone.  After all, you were closer to the manifest presence of God, the Holy of Holies, than you would ever be in your life.  It wasn’t time to pray for Aunt Ester’s bunions or little Samantha’s cold.  This was like praying at a Presidential inauguration.

Q:  What do you suppose were the most common prayers of a priest?  National spiritual revival?  That God would visit His people with salvation? That He would send the Messiah to rescue his people.

11 And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. 12 And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. 13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. 

As Zechariah was offering the incense and thinking about what he was praying, suddenly an angel appeared to him and announced that his prayers had been heard. (I wonder if there was much of a pause between that first announcement about God hearing his prayers and the next one about having a child?)  Certainly, it was shocking enough to see an angel.  But that first message wouldn’t have been all that shocking: that God had heard his prayer. 

But which prayer?  And here came the shocker.  A prayer that I’m pretty sure he had stopped praying years if not decades before… that his wife would get pregnant… was the prayer God was going to answer.  And in God’s great design, the answer to that prayer was going to play a part in the answer to his prayer for the nation.

Interestingly, it wasn’t the prayer for the Messiah that caused doubt for Zechariah.  It was the long-let-go-of prayer for a child that really threw him.  But here is a wonderful reality about prayer:  While we may fade and forget some truly important prayers, God never forgets the good, history-shaping, passionate and persistent prayers of His people.  He just chooses to answer them at different times and different ways than we may want.  And when God does, expect your schedule to be radically changed, even upset. 

ILL:  Many of us are praying for a spiritual awakening and revival in our land.  We’ve been praying for decades.  The difficult reality is that, when God chooses to answer, it won’t be convenient.  It won’t even be comfortable.  It will demand a lot more of us than we are used to giving presently—more time, more energy, more resources.  It will upend our leisure-life.  It will change our worship life.  It may lead you into completely different careers, lifestyles, housing options or even cities. 

When God answers our history-shaping prayers, expect unsettling change. 

Such was the reality for Zechariah and Elizabeth when God answered.  The child they had longed for years ago was not going to BE the quiet, normal kid they probably had envisioned.  Neither was their parenting going to be when or how they envisioned. 

“…your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. 14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15 for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. 16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, 17 and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

Q:        How easy and comfortable do you think raising John the Baptist was for parents who were probably in their 60s, maybe 70s?  Having a geriatric pregnancy for the first time couldn’t have been easy for Elizabeth…or giving birth.  Raising a strong-willed boy that John had to be to become the “voice in the wilderness” he would be couldn’t have been easy.  How many times a day did they have to get up from their easy chair to actually discipline that little boy rather than just shout at him from across the room?  Disciplining him to abstain from alcohol as a teenager or young adult must have been a parenting challenging in a culture flowing with strong drink.  God’s answers to our prayers will sometimes be surprising and unsettling. 

NOTE:  If God ever blesses you with having children later in life, let me just encourage you.  I think older parents can make better parents.  I said this to a friend of mine about 25 years ago when he found out he was going to have twins in his 50s.  He later came back to me and said how true he had found that to be.  Older parents are hopefully more relaxed, less demanding and controlling, and more mature, godly parents. So if you’ve had older parents (as I did), thank God that you got a good end of the parenting spectrum.

Just look at the blessings these two geriatric parents would have: 

  • 14—"Joy and gladness” would fill their lives. These two got probably the double joy of being first-parents and feeling like grandparents all at once! And their little family would even make others happy (“…many will rejoice at his birth.”) 
  • 15—the next generation of their family would fulfill THE greatest hope of any godly parent—that their children will “be great before the Lord.” Sandy and I honestly couldn’t care less what anyone in this world thinks of our children.  We don’t care whether or not they are applauded or cursed by the world.  We don’t care if they are well-known or unknown, rich or poor, or a host of other things as long as they are “great before the Lord.”  If they achieve that, they will have achieved THE most important thing in all of life. And we will rejoice over them for all eternity.  [BTW—Zach & Beth probably didn’t get to see John’s ministry develop and prosper.  They didn’t get to see him change thousands of people’s hearts and relationship with God.  And they probably didn’t have to experience the pain of seeing his unjust beheading by a tyrannical king.  But I can assure you their joy and gladness in heaven is something to behold!]
  • Last thing I want us to observe here about this angelic “birth announcement” is also in 15—John would be “filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb.” Remember when that started?  (When Mary showed up to Elizabeth’s house when E. was 6-months pregnant.)  Elizabeth felt the difference having even a baby filled with the Holy Spirit made to her.  APP:  Kids, you will bless your parents in ways they will feel when you live your life as children and youth “filled with the Holy Spirit.”  In John’s day, it was mostly a sovereign choice and work of God when the Spirit rested on someone and equipped them for a divine mission as His prophet.  But today being filled with the Holy Spirit is available to anyone who has surrendered their life to Jesus and is “walking in the Spirit” through obedient dependence upon and submission to the Holy Spirit.  Be that blessing to your parents!  (And parents, be that blessing to your children…FILLED with the Holy Spirit!)

Let’s finish up this passage.

18 And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” 

Q:  What’s the difference between Zechariah’s response to Gabriel and Mary’s response?  (Wanting more proof rather than simple belief and submission; being a senior-saint vs. being a teenage-saint.) 

Q:  What’s the difference in Gabriel’s response?  (Rebuke vs. no rebuke.)

APP:  Senior saints, there is a danger that decades of yet-to-be-answered prayers or just the disappointing events of life will lead to a skepticism and what God is going to do.  We need to guard against a narrowing vision of God the older we get.  Our belief in what God might and could do should be expanding, not shrinking.  Don’t let the challenges and disappointments of life dull your expectant faith in what God wants to do. 

            Young people, take your optimism and youthful zeal and let GOD fill it with His calling.  Don’t buy into the pessimism of your peers.  Your future is very different from theirs IF your life is hidden in Christ.  Believe God for great things.  Pray for them.  Work hard for them.  And you may just get to see some of them come to be in your lifetime.  But you never will if you don’t allow God to speak some impossibilities into your experience. 

            So to Zechariah’s skepticism and doubt, Gabriel talks about his encounters with God. 

19 And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. 

Zechariah was, in that moment, standing closer to the presence of God on earth than any other human being on the planet.  And I’m sure it was a bit terrifying and a lot wonderful.  But Gabriel doesn’t just say, “Believe me because I said so!”…like parents are prone to do.  No.  Instead he tells Zach about his relationship with God.  He lives in the very presence of God that would kill any human being to be in!  He had been divinely sent from the throne room of GOD!  And the message he had was the WORD of God! 

APP:  Folks, the only real authority we should try to pull in this world with other people is the authority of our relationship with God.  We don’t have any real authority unless we are walking with God…unless we are hearing His commands and obeying His Word.  Exercising our limited human authority usually just leads to power struggles.  But when what we are doing, saying and asking of others comes from God, you can be sure that the results will be far more effective and dramatic.  Just ask Zechariah. 

20 And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” 21 And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple. 

Sounds like a lot of church people waiting for the pastor to wrap up the sermon on Sunday morning!

22 And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept making signs to them and remained mute. 23 And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home.

Oh, this passage is so chuck full of truths and wisdom.  Notice just a couple of things.

  1. We are called to fulfill our service to God regardless of the limitations of our lives. The text tells us (vs. 23) that Zechariah stayed with his priestly ministry until he was released to go home even though he couldn’t speak, i.e. was less effective with people around him.  He was far less effective verbally than he had ever been.  But I’m pretty sure that his angel-encounter did something to him that, even without an ability to speak, others were touched by, impressed with and perhaps even change by. Personal limitations are do not void divine calling.  They just give God more opportunity to be glorified and honored…and us more opportunity to exercise active, persistent faithfulness. 

ILL:  Missionary—Eleanor Young

  1. Trust the work of God in other people’s lives…even when it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

We need to remember that Elizabeth knew nothing of what had transpired in Jerusalem or in the Temple or with her husband while he had been gone for a couple of weeks.  She sends him off for his annual priestly pilgrimage to the capital only to get this struck-dumb, mute husband back. 

            Let’s assume that she knows how to read and that Zechariah knows how to write.  So he comes home, wide-eyed and bushy-tailed about his trip to the big city.  Maybe he scratches out the rough details of what happened:

  • I was chosen to offer the incense!
  • The angel Gabriel appeared to me in the Temple!
  • God has heard my prayer!
  • We’re going to have a baby!!!

How do you suppose that little kitchen table discussion went from there?  Oh, there are a million options. 

  • You’ve clearly suffered a stroke and need to lie down!
  • Is this some sort of late-life crisis you’re having?
  • You didn’t just get a new dose of those little blue pills, did you?
  • I hope you haven’t told this story to anyone else!

Whatever her initial thoughts, the bottom line became, would Elizabeth believe her husband about the work God was doing with him even when all the pieces didn’t fit together in her mind?  This seems to be one of the themes running through the Advent story.  Mary and Joseph faced the same challenge:  will I trust my spouse enough to believe them and what God is doing with them? Both Elizabeth and Joseph had some pretty big pills to swallow in believing their spouses and what God was doing with them.  But when they did, they become some of the most blessed people in human history.

24 After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, 25 “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”

APP:  Is there someone near you whom God is working with… but you’re having a hard time figuring out what He is doing?  It may be that God has put a call on their life and, if it’s true, it’s going to change your life dramatically. 

ILL:  My parents called to not retire but change careers for the next 20 years of their life at age 64. 

APP:  Maybe God’s work in their lives isn’t even that clear.  Maybe their lives are a mess and you are just being asked by God to trust that He is working with them despite their rebellion, their addiction, their mental illness, you name it?  Will you trust the work of God in other people’s lives…even when it doesn’t make sense to you in the moment?  God knows what he is doing, even with people in rebellion. 

CLOSE: