Benjamin Murphy
Small Group Questions
Benjamin Murphy
Sermon Series Highlights
Sermon Series Highlights

We're Expecting

We're Expecting! We Expect Joy!

Introduction:

How to Live in the Joy of the Lord (Luke 1:39-56)

  1. Magnify the Lord. (Luke 1:46-47)
  2. Minimize myself. (Luke 1:48)
  3. Meditate on God's work. (Luke 1:49-55)
    1. Get Personal . (Luke 1:49)
    2. Get Hopeful . (Luke 1:50-53)
    3. Get Reflective . (Luke 1:54-55)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

  • 01:04-01:07

    Open up your Bibles please to Luke 1.

    01:09-01:10

    Luke 1.

    01:14-01:19

    We're expecting this year at Harvest Bible Chapel.

    01:22-01:23

    We expect joy.

    01:25-01:35

    When I was in college, I worked as a magazine vendor, stocking magazines for Wal-Mart's and K-Mart's, It was not as glorious as I just made it sound just now.

    01:36-01:40

    But in this one magazine, I saw an advertisement for a watch.

    01:42-01:44

    And we have that picture we can put up there.

    01:44-01:45

    This wasn't the actual ad.

    01:45-01:48

    You know, I looked and looked and looked for the actual ad.

    01:49-01:50

    But that's the watch.

    01:51-01:54

    And the ad, it had a dark backdrop.

    01:55-02:04

    And the lighting on the watch was just so-- and it was much closer up-- that I was completely mesmerized with this watch.

    02:04-02:09

    And I'm not that, I'm just not the kind of guy that just buys stuff like this, right?

    02:10-02:16

    But I saw this watch, and I remember there was a, there was a little description by this ad for the watch.

    02:17-02:34

    And the description said something like, behold as gleaming pistons activate to elevate the stainless steel plate, revealing the shimmering time piece underneath.

    02:35-02:40

    I was like, "Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho." And it was really close up.

    02:40-02:45

    So I had in my mind this watch and the description and everything.

    02:46-02:50

    I had in mind this big James Bond looking thing.

    02:51-03:04

    And I imagine the plate was as big as my hand and you push a button and it was like, "Vrooom!" And I'm like, "Ha, ha, ha, ha." Like Dick Tracy, eat your heart out, right?

    03:06-03:07

    And I couldn't resist.

    03:08-03:13

    Like I said, I don't normally, never normally did this, and I don't know if I've bought anything from a catalog since, but I just could not.

    03:14-03:15

    I was mesmerized with this watch.

    03:15-03:16

    Anybody else there?

    03:16-03:17

    Is that picture doing it for anybody else?

    03:18-03:18

    Just me?

    03:18-03:20

    Okay, all right, Mike, thank you.

    03:20-03:22

    I had to buy the watch.

    03:23-03:25

    And the day came, I got the watch in the mail.

    03:26-03:28

    And do you know I still have the watch to this day?

    03:30-03:31

    Do you want to see it?

    03:32-03:33

    Yeah, you do.

    03:36-03:37

    I'm glad you're all sitting down.

    03:39-03:40

    Watch.

    03:42-03:43

    (Laughter)

    03:47-03:48

    Do you want to see that again?

    03:51-03:52

    Do you know...

    03:54-03:58

    Do you know how much time I spent trying to convince myself that that was still pretty cool?

    04:00-04:02

    But it was nothing like I had it in my head, right?

    04:04-04:05

    It doesn't even work.

    04:07-04:07

    I try twice a day.

    04:10-04:15

    But the reality is this, church, my expectations were to the moon for this thing.

    04:17-04:21

    And the reality was a solid meh.

    04:23-04:28

    And we've all been disappointed at times with a gift.

    04:30-04:33

    Even one that you bought for yourself.

    04:35-04:43

    But you know what, the Lord, we expect things from God, but it's a little different with Him because He always over-delivers.

    04:47-05:00

    And the story of God becoming a man, As it unfolds in Luke 1, the story begins with two women who were miraculously expecting.

    05:01-05:12

    That's why we're calling this "We're Expecting." One of these women was an elderly and barren woman, and one was a young virgin.

    05:14-05:22

    And in this passage we're going to look at tonight, These two parallel stories come together.

    05:22-05:29

    Elizabeth was the mother of John the Baptist, and Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ.

    05:30-05:39

    Their stories are strikingly and intentionally similar in almost every way.

    05:40-05:42

    And these messages are on our website.

    05:42-05:45

    If you want to go back and take a listen, go back and read the passages.

    05:46-05:49

    These two ladies' stories, they're almost identical.

    05:50-05:53

    Here's the ingredients in the story for both ladies.

    05:53-05:54

    We meet them.

    05:54-05:57

    We read of the obstacle to them getting pregnant.

    05:57-06:01

    And then Gabriel shows up, and there's a reaction to him.

    06:01-06:03

    And he makes a statement and gives a promise.

    06:04-06:08

    And then he describes the future life of this baby that's promised.

    06:08-06:19

    And then the human offers to Gabriel an objection to the pregnancy "Here's why it can't happen." And then Gabriel promises a sign.

    06:21-06:33

    And before we look at this account with the ladies' visit with each other, you need to keep in mind before they met, there was no Facebook, right?

    06:34-06:42

    It wasn't like Mary got on Facebook and said, "Oh, my relative Elizabeth's pregnant. Good to know." She found out through the angel.

    06:43-06:48

    But Elizabeth had no idea, to this point, what was happening with Mary.

    06:51-06:59

    So again, the angel told Mary that Elizabeth, that was going to be Mary's sign, that Mary was going to become miraculously pregnant.

    07:02-07:04

    And we talked about this on Sunday. Could you imagine?

    07:06-07:11

    If an angel showed up to you and said, "Hey, you know your 87-year-old Aunt Francine, you know her?

    07:11-07:22

    the one that never had children and always wanted children, you're like, "Oh yeah, I know old Aunt Francine." And the angel's like, "Yeah, she's pregnant." Like, "Whoa, you'd be like Mary." You'd be like, "I got to see this." Right?

    07:22-07:26

    And that's what Mary did. She went to see Elizabeth.

    07:27-07:28

    It was about an 80-mile trip.

    07:29-07:32

    All right? So look at verse 39 with me, Luke 1.

    07:35-07:42

    It says, "In those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah.

    07:44-07:50

    And she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth." Stop right there.

    07:52-07:59

    Understand that this is why the stories were almost exactly the same between Mary and Elizabeth.

    08:02-08:02

    Like, what do you mean?

    08:07-08:09

    Mary had never been with a man.

    08:09-08:12

    And she was told she was going to be pregnant, and Elizabeth was the sign.

    08:14-08:15

    Now let's be honest.

    08:17-08:29

    If your young teenage daughter came to you and said, "Hey, I'm pregnant, but don't worry, God's responsible for this." You're like, "Okay, I've heard them all, but this is a new one." It sounds crazy.

    08:31-08:40

    So Mary has to be thinking at this point, "Who in the world is going to believe this story?" So when she shows up to Elizabeth, They start swapping stories.

    08:41-08:43

    And Mary's like, "This is crazy, but an angel showed up.

    08:43-08:46

    And what would Elizabeth have said?" "That's what happened?

    08:47-08:53

    An angel showed up to my husband." And Mary's like, "Yeah, this angel's name was Gabriel." And Elizabeth's like, "You're not gonna believe this.

    08:54-09:02

    Gabriel showed up and talked to my husband." Yeah, and then they start swapping these stories and it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second, wait a second.

    09:04-09:09

    Mary knows now that Elizabeth is going to believe her.

    09:11-09:12

    Look at verse 41.

    09:14-09:18

    It says, "When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb.

    09:20-09:23

    And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

    09:24-09:36

    And she exclaimed with a loud cry, 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.'" "And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

    09:36-09:42

    For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

    09:45-10:01

    And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." John the Baptist leaped for joy in the womb.

    10:02-10:11

    And they're like, "Yeah, can you explain that?" And, "No, I cannot. I can't." But Elizabeth knew.

    10:14-10:16

    Right, moms? Because moms know.

    10:17-10:21

    That this wasn't normal baby movement, adjusting, shifting.

    10:22-10:25

    Elizabeth knew something was going on here.

    10:28-10:34

    Back in 1:15, John the Baptist was said filled with the Holy Spirit from the womb.

    10:36-10:37

    And understand that this is why.

    10:40-10:44

    Because John the Baptist's whole ministry was to point to the Messiah.

    10:46-10:47

    And this was his first announcement.

    10:48-10:51

    Obviously, he couldn't speak in the womb.

    10:52-10:53

    If he could, I don't think anybody would have heard him.

    10:54-10:58

    But the only way he could communicate was leaping within his mother.

    10:59-11:00

    And that's exactly what he did.

    11:03-11:13

    So Mary, in making this connection with Elizabeth, and comparing stories, and the whole baby jumping for joy in the womb, Mary breaks out in a psalm of praise.

    11:13-11:15

    All of these concepts come from the Old Testament.

    11:16-11:18

    Look at verse 46.

    11:18-11:20

    Mary's response to all this.

    11:20-11:27

    And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

    11:28-11:31

    For He has looked on the humble estate of His servant.

    11:33-11:36

    For behold, from now on, all generations will call Me blessed.

    11:37-11:42

    For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name.

    11:43-11:48

    And His mercy is for those who fear Him.

    11:49-11:54

    From generation to generation, He has shown strength with His arm.

    11:54-11:57

    He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

    11:58-12:03

    He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.

    12:04-12:07

    He has filled the hungry with good things and the richest in a way empty.

    12:09-12:19

    He has helped to serve in Israel in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.

    12:20-12:26

    And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.

    12:29-12:34

    Tonight, we're not going to look at the trees.

    12:37-12:38

    We're going to look at the whole forest.

    12:39-12:47

    Because if we were to go through every little ingredient of everything Mary said, this sermon would last some time until Easter.

    12:48-12:51

    We're not going to do that. We're going to look at some broad strokes.

    12:52-13:09

    And what you see bursting forth from Mary, as you step back and kind of take this all in, what you see bursting forth from this young teenage, suddenly announced that you're pregnant, but you're pregnant to give birth to the Messiah, what you see is joy.

    13:12-13:13

    And that's pretty amazing.

    13:16-13:18

    I want to talk about joy for a few minutes tonight.

    13:22-13:26

    Often joy is confused with happiness.

    13:28-13:31

    We use the two terms sort of interchangeably, but it really shouldn't be so.

    13:31-13:36

    Happiness is the warm, fuzzy feeling of the moment, right?

    13:37-13:38

    Happiness is a cookie.

    13:40-13:43

    Happiness is a Christmas party.

    13:45-13:46

    Happiness is new shoes.

    13:48-13:51

    And happiness sort of comes and goes with circumstances, right?

    13:53-13:55

    But joy, joy is much different.

    13:57-14:07

    Joy is the confident assurance that God is actively in control of every detail of my life.

    14:09-14:16

    It's the confident assurance that everything is going to be okay because God is on my side in Christ.

    14:19-14:20

    Joy is the fruit of the Spirit.

    14:20-14:21

    A fruit of the Spirit.

    14:22-14:24

    Which means joy is something supernatural.

    14:26-14:30

    And joy abides, despite circumstances.

    14:33-14:45

    And while Christmas can be a wonderful time of happiness, when you know Jesus Christ like John the Baptist in the womb, You can have way more than happiness.

    14:47-14:47

    You can have joy.

    14:49-14:55

    When you know the Lord, I mean, not just know about the Lord, but I mean know the Lord.

    14:57-14:58

    Like Mary obviously did.

    15:00-15:01

    You can have joy.

    15:02-15:08

    So if you're taking notes on your outline, I just want you to jot down three things that we all see from this song of Mary.

    15:09-15:11

    How to live in the joy of the Lord.

    15:15-15:17

    How do you live in the joy of the Lord?

    15:17-15:20

    Number one, magnify the Lord.

    15:22-15:22

    Magnify the Lord.

    15:22-15:25

    You see, that's what Mary came with right out of the gate.

    15:25-15:32

    She said, "My soul magnifies the Lord." What does it mean to magnify the Lord?

    15:32-15:34

    I mean, it's not like you can make God any bigger, right?

    15:38-15:40

    Well, it is about making Him bigger.

    15:43-15:46

    In your sight, you see.

    15:46-15:46

    In your heart.

    15:47-15:48

    In your mind.

    15:50-16:02

    Because let's be honest, what we normally do, what we usually do, and I have been so guilty of this, what we usually do is magnify our problems.

    16:04-16:05

    We dwell on them.

    16:05-16:06

    We focus on them.

    16:06-16:08

    We think about them over and over.

    16:08-16:10

    And we talk to people about them.

    16:10-16:14

    And when we do that, we're magnifying our problems.

    16:16-16:17

    Anybody else been guilty of that?

    16:18-16:20

    I'll never get out of this financial mess.

    16:20-16:22

    I don't know how I'm going to do it.

    16:22-16:24

    I don't see a way out of this.

    16:26-16:27

    I'm never gonna get healthy.

    16:27-16:33

    And it just seems like every trip to the doctor, I get sicker and every medicine I take, I get sicker.

    16:33-16:34

    I'm never going to get healthy.

    16:38-16:40

    I'm never going to be able to save my marriage.

    16:40-16:43

    It's too far gone, and there's been too much hurt.

    16:43-16:52

    And when we get in that mode, that mindset, what we're doing is we're magnifying our problems.

    16:53-16:58

    And in the process, to us, God ends up looking small.

    17:01-17:02

    Like Mary.

    17:03-17:05

    You need to magnify Him instead of your problems.

    17:08-17:09

    Well, how do I do that?

    17:10-17:11

    Easy.

    17:11-17:15

    You do it the same way that you would have magnified your problems.

    17:16-17:21

    Dwell on Him, focus on Him, think about Him, talk to Him.

    17:21-17:28

    And the best way you can do that is the same way that Mary obviously did it, is by getting God's Word in your heart.

    17:31-17:32

    Because let's be honest.

    17:33-17:39

    You're like, "What does Mary know about stress?" Think about it.

    17:41-17:47

    From a human standpoint, she was facing the most stressful thing she possibly could have faced.

    17:47-17:55

    I'm young, I'm engaged, I'm pregnant, and ain't nobody going to believe what happened except for Elizabeth.

    17:55-17:57

    Nobody else is going to buy this story.

    18:01-18:02

    But you know what we don't see?

    18:03-18:05

    We don't see Mary stressing.

    18:05-18:07

    We don't see Mary getting defensive.

    18:07-18:09

    We don't see Mary panicking.

    18:09-18:10

    What do we see Mary doing?

    18:10-18:11

    We see her worshiping.

    18:12-18:13

    We see her rejoicing.

    18:15-18:28

    Because instead of magnifying all of the potential problems that she could have worried about, and there would have been a plethora of problems that she could have magnified, what are people gonna say?

    18:28-18:29

    What's Joseph gonna say?

    18:29-18:30

    What's his parents gonna say?

    18:30-18:31

    What's the town gonna say?

    18:31-18:32

    What are my neighbors gonna think?

    18:32-18:39

    And how is this going to affect She didn't do that. Her focus was on God, you see.

    18:42-18:44

    In church, you can make the same choice.

    18:46-18:51

    You can magnify your problems, or you can magnify the Lord, but you can't do both.

    18:53-18:56

    Because when you magnify one, it just automatically shrinks the other.

    18:58-19:01

    And if you think you have big problems, God's going to look small.

    19:04-19:12

    But if you think you have a big God, which you do, but if you think you have a big God, your problems are going to look small.

    19:14-19:15

    And that brings big joy.

    19:18-19:20

    Secondly, how to live in joy.

    19:22-19:28

    Not only do you want to magnify the Lord, you need to minimize myself.

    19:30-19:48

    as myself." Do you notice in verse 48, Mary said, "For He has looked on the humble estate of His servant." How many women in getting this news would have had the temptation to be proud?

    19:49-19:50

    To somehow think it was about them.

    19:51-19:55

    Like, "Yeah, I'm going to give birth to the Messiah, the promised one of Israel.

    19:55-19:57

    I can totally see why God picked me.

    19:58-19:59

    Totally get that God.

    20:00-20:02

    on the same page, I would have picked me too.

    20:05-20:08

    I certainly wouldn't have picked that witch that lives down the street.

    20:11-20:12

    I'm going to do this right.

    20:15-20:17

    Start thinking it's about them.

    20:17-20:18

    Mary, that just wasn't Mary.

    20:20-20:20

    She was humble.

    20:21-20:24

    And she recognized this was all grace.

    20:28-20:32

    Somehow we think we're going to be happy if we make more of ourselves.

    20:35-20:43

    And we live in a day, more than ever, that people are so focused on themselves.

    20:46-20:46

    That's just reality.

    20:48-20:50

    It's like, hey, check this out.

    20:54-20:57

    This picture is called a selfie.

    21:00-21:01

    Who took that picture?

    21:02-21:03

    I took it myself.

    21:06-21:07

    What's it a picture of?

    21:09-21:10

    It's a picture of myself.

    21:12-21:14

    And who's going to be looking at that?

    21:15-21:17

    I'll be looking at it myself.

    21:20-21:21

    True or false?

    21:21-21:21

    Do we not do that?

    21:22-21:29

    of ourselves for us to look at? Now look, look, look. There's nothing sinful about a selfie.

    21:31-21:41

    I hope that's not your big takeaway from tonight. There's nothing sinful about it, but can we just acknowledge that we live in a self-absorbed culture?

    21:42-21:48

    My rights, what offends me, how does it benefit me, gonna do what's best for me?

    21:52-22:04

    And when you are so self-focused and you're so concerned about making sure you get your piece of the pie and your fair share and what's coming to you, this self-focus has made people angry.

    22:06-22:09

    Everybody feels like life's unfair.

    22:11-22:18

    This self-focus means I turn every scenario that I see into grounds for drama.

    22:20-22:22

    Like, "Hey, Merry Christmas, Pastor Jeff.

    22:23-22:24

    What's that supposed to mean?

    22:24-22:29

    You call me a merry? You want to go?" We look for drama in everything.

    22:32-22:36

    And it all comes from being so stinking self-absorbed.

    22:37-22:55

    Let me ask you, this preoccupation that people have with themselves, this desire to magnify ourselves and put the spotlight on ourselves and draw the attention to ourselves, has it made people really feel more fulfilled in life?

    22:56-22:56

    Has it?

    22:58-23:00

    Do you think people are generally happier?

    23:03-23:09

    What I've found, the more self-focused you are, the less joy you have.

    23:10-23:12

    That's what I heard one person say a long time ago.

    23:12-23:15

    Say, "Joy." Right? J-O-Y.

    23:15-23:15

    Do you want to have joy?

    23:16-23:18

    J, you put Jesus first.

    23:19-23:20

    O, you put others second.

    23:21-23:22

    And Y, you put yourself last.

    23:22-23:24

    And boy, we have flipped that around.

    23:28-23:28

    But Mary got it.

    23:31-23:48

    And while there are some churches that have wrongly elevated her status, calling her the Queen of Heaven, calling her the dispenser of graces, You certainly don't see that from the Bible.

    23:49-23:51

    You obviously don't see that from Luke 1.

    23:52-23:56

    If you read Luke 1, you see Mary saying, "I'm just a servant.

    23:58-24:02

    Anything good in my life has come from God.

    24:03-24:11

    So you've got to minimize myself." And then finally, number three, meditate on God's work.

    24:14-24:15

    Meditate on God's work.

    24:18-24:19

    Meditate on God's work.

    24:19-24:26

    So the natural result - more of God, less of me.

    24:27-24:33

    The natural result - my eyes are open to the things that the Lord is doing, and for that I am thankful.

    24:34-24:37

    And if you want joy, you have to live in thanksgiving.

    24:38-24:40

    Like thankful for what exactly?

    24:41-24:44

    Well, Mary gives us three arenas to consider.

    24:45-24:46

    I'll jot these down quickly.

    24:49-24:51

    Thankful for what? Thankful where?

    24:51-24:54

    Thankful in what am I thanking God for?

    24:54-24:56

    Letter A, I would say first of all, get personal.

    24:57-24:58

    Get personal.

    24:59-25:00

    That's where Mary started.

    25:00-25:01

    Do you see that in verse 49?

    25:02-25:07

    "He who is mighty has done great things for me." Start there.

    25:07-25:09

    What is God doing in my life?

    25:10-25:15

    What are things happening right now in your life that can only be attributed to God?

    25:17-25:19

    I would encourage you to write them down.

    25:19-25:22

    Share them with your family. Share them in your small group.

    25:23-25:26

    Get personal and get specific and get current.

    25:27-25:30

    But get personal. What is God doing in your life right now?

    25:31-25:31

    Start there.

    25:34-25:35

    Letter B, get hopeful.

    25:36-25:40

    Get hopeful. Thanks isn't just for the past.

    25:42-25:44

    You can actually pay thanks ahead.

    25:46-26:10

    In other words, you say, "God, I thank You, not just for what You're doing in my life now, but God, I thank You for what You've promised You will do, because I know that You will do it." Specifically here in Mary's song, She said that someday, God is going to flip everything upside down.

    26:10-26:11

    He's going to turn it.

    26:12-26:18

    Someday, God's going to make everything turn 180 degrees.

    26:19-26:21

    Did you see that? Look at it again with me quickly.

    26:21-26:28

    She says, verse 51, "He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

    26:29-26:33

    He has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of humble estate.

    26:34-26:44

    He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty." That day is coming.

    26:46-26:46

    That day is coming.

    26:47-26:54

    The people who choose to humble themselves, to minimize themselves, are going to be exalted.

    26:55-26:57

    The proud are going to be brought down.

    26:59-27:01

    The hungry are going to be filled up.

    27:02-27:04

    The rich are going to be bankrupt.

    27:07-27:12

    Can you just imagine how awesome that day is going to be?

    27:13-27:14

    Think about it.

    27:15-27:21

    Every arrogant politician, everyone, kicked off their throat.

    27:24-27:30

    Every greedy person that made their wealth by taking advantage of other people.

    27:33-27:34

    Their day is coming.

    27:35-27:37

    Cast down and sent home broke.

    27:39-27:44

    But everyone who has magnified the Lord and minimized themselves, the day of exaltation is coming.

    27:47-27:59

    That's why I would encourage you to make this part of your regular prayer routine, as I have, to say, "Thank you God, You have promised things will not always be as they are now.

    28:00-28:02

    It's not going to be like this forever.

    28:03-28:05

    I'm so thankful for that.

    28:06-28:06

    Get hopeful.

    28:08-28:09

    And finally, get reflective.

    28:11-28:12

    You see, God has this track record.

    28:15-28:17

    Maybe right now you're in a hard season.

    28:19-28:21

    Maybe right now you're discouraged.

    28:22-28:27

    And you're having a hard time being thankful for what's happening today.

    28:27-28:28

    Look, I get that.

    28:31-28:32

    But I want to encourage you to look back.

    28:33-28:34

    That's what Mary did.

    28:35-28:37

    She went all the way back to Abraham.

    28:38-28:40

    Say, "God, You have this awesome track record.

    28:40-28:43

    You always keep Your Word. You always come through.

    28:43-28:59

    You always fulfill Your promise. God, You're always good." And I want to encourage you, especially again, And if you're going through a hard time right now, as Christmas has a way of escalating some of those things, look back.

    29:01-29:02

    Look back where?

    29:05-29:06

    Look back right here.

    29:08-29:11

    By right here, I mean right here.

    29:12-29:14

    What's happening right here?

    29:14-29:16

    I want you to look back here.

    29:18-29:19

    Look at what we're celebrating tonight.

    29:23-29:29

    God became a man for the purpose of laying down His life on the cross.

    29:32-29:42

    So that everyone who acknowledges that they are a sinner in need of His grace can be forgiven.

    29:42-29:44

    You're going to have eternal life.

    29:46-29:47

    You're going to have the promise of heaven.

    29:50-29:57

    So within the next week, the family will be going home.

    29:59-30:00

    Your toys will break.

    30:04-30:10

    And the tree will go back into the box.

    30:11-30:19

    into the fire, and the happiness sort of fades away.

    30:19-30:29

    But, you can expect joy that's going to take you well into 2020 and beyond.

    30:31-30:39

    magnify the Lord, and minimize yourself, and meditate on the things that God is doing.

    30:41-30:46

    We're going to invite you to stand as the worship team makes their way forward, and the ushers make their way forward.

    30:46-30:54

    We're going to close with worship and candlelight as we close our time here tonight with worship.

Small Group Discussion
Read Luke 1:39-56

  1. What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?

  2. You want joy? Give thanks like Mary did in Luke 1:49-55!
    List 1-3 things from each category.
    Things I am thankful for:
    I am thankful right now God is _____________.
    I am thankful God promised to _____________.
    I am thankful that in the past, God has _____________.

Breakout
Pray for one another. Merry Christmas!

We're Expecting! We Expect a King.

Introduction:

What Kind of King Is This? (Luke 1:26-38)

  1. As God, Jesus Rules over me. (Luke 1:32, 35)
  2. As Man, Jesus Relates to me. (Luke 1:31)

    Hebrews 2:17 - Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect...

Hebrews 4:14-16 - Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

  1. As Savior, Jesus Rescued me. (Luke 1:31)

    Matthew 1:21 - She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

  • 01:04-01:08

    Open up your Bibles with me please to Luke chapter 1.

    01:10-01:11

    Luke chapter 1, are you there?

    01:14-01:19

    When I was in high school, I worked at Walmart.

    01:22-01:37

    And my job, lest you think it was too glamorous, my job was fetching the carts and cleaning the bathrooms And basically hopping from department to department to do whatever anybody needed.

    01:40-01:50

    And being new, just getting to know some people, getting to know some personalities, the one day in particular I was just getting pinballed from department to department.

    01:51-01:53

    Every department needed help with something.

    01:54-02:01

    And in particular the manager of the lawn and garden department was just piling it on.

    02:01-02:03

    I need this and I need you to come back for this.

    02:03-02:04

    And why wasn't this done?

    02:04-02:05

    Piling it on.

    02:06-02:08

    And I said, well, look, I'm going to come back.

    02:08-02:09

    I'm going to help you.

    02:09-02:11

    But the girl from foods needs help, too.

    02:11-02:13

    And everybody needs-- you just have to wait.

    02:13-02:17

    So I went and was helping the girl that worked in foods.

    02:17-02:21

    And I was just having a bad day.

    02:21-02:23

    And I didn't know this girl either.

    02:23-02:25

    But she's like, so how's it going?

    02:27-02:33

    And I said, that lady from the law and garden department is on my last nerve.

    02:35-02:44

    I said, she has been on my case and she has been barking orders at me and I don't know what her problem is, but I am about to unload on her.

    02:46-02:49

    And the girl from food says, you mean my mom?

    02:53-02:55

    There's no backing out of that.

    02:57-03:00

    There just isn't.

    03:01-03:03

    You know, I learned two valuable lessons that day.

    03:05-03:10

    The first one is, make all your words sweet, because you might have to eat them.

    03:13-03:15

    The second lesson I learned is you need to know who you're dealing with.

    03:16-03:17

    Right?

    03:18-03:23

    And we're going to find out today, from our text, who exactly we're dealing with.

    03:24-03:28

    We're expecting. We expect a king.

    03:29-03:31

    Pick up where we left off last week.

    03:32-03:53

    Verse 26. It says, "In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary." It's up there the sixth month. The sixth month of what?

    03:54-03:57

    The sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy.

    03:59-04:00

    Gabriel shows up again.

    04:00-04:02

    The same messenger that went to Zechariah.

    04:02-04:05

    We talked about that whole thing last week.

    04:05-04:09

    And it says that Mary was betrothed to a man named Joseph.

    04:09-04:12

    Betrothed was an engagement.

    04:13-04:16

    But in those days, this engagement was legally binding.

    04:16-04:22

    It wasn't just like becoming boyfriend/girlfriend and breaking up.

    04:22-04:29

    It was legally binding, so in order to break the betrothal, you had to file for divorce.

    04:30-04:31

    1 Corinthians 28.

    04:33-04:40

    It says, "And he came to her and said, 'Greetings, O favored one!

    04:40-04:49

    The Lord is with you!' But she was greatly troubled at this saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

    04:50-04:55

    And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

    04:56-05:02

    And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

    05:04-05:05

    He will be great.

    05:06-05:09

    And will be called the Son of the Most High.

    05:09-05:14

    And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David.

    05:15-05:18

    He will reign over the house of Jacob forever.

    05:19-05:30

    And of His kingdom, there will be no end." So Gabriel shows up to this young, engaged, virgin woman and says, "God chose you.

    05:32-05:42

    You are going to concede." Now we know the story, but can we just try to imagine ourselves in Mary's position here?

    05:45-05:53

    and says, "You're going to conceive." And Mary knew exactly one way that such a thing happened to human beings.

    05:56-06:04

    But she understood that Gabriel didn't mean that the conception was going to happen after marriage.

    06:04-06:09

    You know, Gabriel wasn't like, "Hey, by the way, someday, five years into your marriage, you're going to have a baby." She knew.

    06:10-06:11

    He means now.

    06:15-06:18

    Look at verse 34. It makes it clear.

    06:20-06:38

    "And Mary said to the angel, 'How will this be, since I am a virgin?'" You know, I was reading that this week, and I thought to myself, wait a minute, why wasn't Mary disciplined the way Zechariah was disciplined, right?

    06:39-06:40

    Anybody else have that question?

    06:40-06:45

    Like, wait a second, Zechariah had questions and he was struck mute and deaf.

    06:46-06:49

    Mary asked a question, and she wasn't disciplined.

    06:49-06:51

    Like, what was the difference?

    06:54-06:57

    The difference was attitude.

    06:59-07:00

    Parents get that, right?

    07:01-07:08

    You know, there's a difference between your child asking you a question for information a child questioning you.

    07:11-07:13

    Now, Mary wasn't unbelieving.

    07:14-07:16

    We're going to see this here in a second.

    07:16-07:18

    She believed everything that the angel was saying.

    07:19-07:20

    She just didn't understand it.

    07:20-07:25

    She was just humbly asking how this could happen because keep in mind, this was unprecedented.

    07:25-07:28

    Nothing like this had ever happened in the history of mankind.

    07:29-07:31

    A virgin has a baby.

    07:35-07:36

    Here's how, look at verse 35.

    07:37-07:44

    "The angel answered her, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

    07:44-07:53

    Therefore the child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God.'" Gabriel says, "Here's how this happens.

    07:53-07:56

    The Holy Spirit's going to make this happen.

    07:57-08:15

    And this child will be fully human as the Son of Mary, and the child will be fully God as conceived by the Holy Spirit." Verse 36, "And behold, your relative Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived a son.

    08:17-08:29

    And this is the sixth month with her, who was called Baron." Mary didn't ask for a sign, but she was given one.

    08:30-08:40

    Once again, I would encourage us to try to put ourselves in Mary's position here, to try to recreate in our hearts to some extent the impact this would have had.

    08:40-08:43

    Could you imagine hearing this statement?

    08:44-08:49

    The angel shows up and he's like, "Oh yeah, by the way, you know your great-aunt Francine?

    08:51-08:59

    Eighty-six years old, never had any kids, you know her?" Like, "Yeah, I know her." Like, "Yeah, she's pregnant." What?

    09:01-09:04

    God's obviously up to something big here.

    09:04-09:09

    I mean, here, pregnant virgin and pregnant elderly woman.

    09:10-09:12

    God's obviously doing something.

    09:12-09:23

    And verse 37, Gabriel says, "For nothing will be impossible with God." He has the power to do all this.

    09:25-09:28

    Verse 38 is the proof of Mary's attitude I was talking about earlier.

    09:29-09:32

    Mary said, "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord.

    09:34-09:39

    Let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her.

    09:42-09:43

    There's the proof of her attitude.

    09:43-09:44

    She wasn't unbelieving.

    09:45-09:46

    She was like, "Oh, okay.

    09:49-09:52

    God says even though I've never known a man, I'm going to have a child? Okay.

    09:53-09:55

    I'm just a servant. That's what God says.

    09:55-09:56

    That's what we're going with.

    10:00-10:00

    Let me ask you, church.

    10:02-10:21

    How many times do you think over the course of last week to today to Tuesday, how many times within that couple-week block do you think this passage will be preached in churches all over the world?

    10:24-10:38

    And so much is going to be said about the virgin birth and the character of Mary, and then maybe pulling in some other passage talking about shepherds and angels and magi, and all those things are true.

    10:41-10:43

    But all of those things are secondary issues, really.

    10:45-10:57

    Because so many Christmas messages that are preached are about how He's coming, I think what's more important is who has come.

    10:59-11:10

    And Gabriel highlights one aspect of Jesus very specifically, and I know you saw it, because he said it in at least three different phrases here.

    11:10-11:16

    It's like, okay, here's what's happening, but here's the thing I'm emphasizing, and I'm going to make sure you get this.

    11:16-11:19

    Look at verses 32-33 again.

    11:20-11:22

    And look at what he highlights here.

    11:23-11:34

    up at the end of verse 32, "And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever.

    11:34-11:43

    And of his kingdom there will be no end." You see what Gabriel was making sure Mary understood?

    11:44-11:48

    This child is going to be a what?

    11:49-11:50

    He's going to be a king, right?

    11:51-11:52

    He's going to be a king.

    11:53-11:56

    Not just a king, he's going to be the king.

    11:57-12:02

    He's not just going to be some temporary monarch in a faraway land.

    12:05-12:09

    See he's going to be the king.

    12:12-12:17

    And Mary would have known exactly what that meant, because she knew her Old Testament.

    12:19-12:23

    The King was promised to reign on David's throne forever.

    12:23-12:24

    2 Samuel 7.

    12:25-12:30

    The King was promised that He would have the government on His shoulders forever.

    12:30-12:31

    Isaiah 9.

    12:34-12:42

    And jumping to the New Testament, if you were with us in our study of Revelation last year, when Jesus returns, do you remember the name that He has?

    12:43-12:45

    He is the King of what?

    12:45-12:46

    The King of Kings!

    12:47-12:58

    If you line up every leader that's ever existed, every prime minister, every monarch, every president, you line them all up, they have a king.

    12:59-13:01

    And that king's name is Jesus.

    13:02-13:03

    The King of Kings.

    13:06-13:09

    And really, that's the part of the story that we don't love as much.

    13:12-13:29

    Because we're very content hearing the story of the young pregnant woman who persevered and she made the trip to Bethlehem and she had the baby and she put him in a manger and all that's true and all that's cozy and all that's comfortable and all that's heartwarming.

    13:31-13:36

    But if you think that that's the point of the story, then you missed it.

    13:37-13:40

    Because Gabriel made it abundantly clear.

    13:43-13:50

    "Mary, your pregnancy is going to result in the birth of the King." And that's where it gets uncomfortable for us.

    13:52-13:57

    Because if He's the King, that means He's in charge and I'm not.

    13:59-14:04

    If He's the King, that means He has the right to tell me how to live as a citizen of His Kingdom.

    14:08-14:19

    And that's why the sentimentality of Christmas gets people to church this week, but then keeps them from coming back to church until next Christmas, maybe.

    14:22-14:26

    Because, "Oh, I'll come and I'll tip my hat to baby Jesus and His brave mama.

    14:28-14:40

    I'm not going to bend my knee to King Jesus." And right now there's some people sitting here that are like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you need to back off a little bit, Pastor Jeff.

    14:40-14:49

    I don't know who you think you're talking to, okay, but I'm not opposed to Jesus being the King." And I'm here to tell you I'm sure he appreciates that.

    14:50-14:52

    But you're like, "I'm not opposed to that.

    14:52-14:55

    Okay, okay, okay, he's a king, okay, he's a king.

    14:56-15:02

    He's a king. I'm with Gabriel on this, he's a king." Good.

    15:05-15:08

    But the question is this, is He your King?

    15:09-15:10

    Is He your King?

    15:11-15:13

    And you're like, "Well, of course He's my King, Pastor Jeff!

    15:15-15:21

    I mean, Donald Trump's my President, but Jesus is my King!" Is He?

    15:26-15:27

    Is Jesus the King in your home?

    15:30-15:36

    Does Jesus in His Word power and guide the way you love your wife?

    15:38-15:39

    Or the way you love your husband?

    15:42-15:43

    Or if you have children?

    15:44-15:49

    Does Jesus in His Word power and guide the way you are raising your kids?

    15:51-16:00

    An outside observer walked in and saw how you conducted your home for the day, but they say, "Yeah, obviously Jesus is king here." Is He king of your home?

    16:03-16:06

    What about at work? Is Jesus king while you're at work?

    16:07-16:09

    Do you work as if Jesus is your boss?

    16:12-16:17

    Do you go to work with the understanding that really you represent Jesus Christ and His kingdom?

    16:17-16:31

    Or do you get caught up with the lifestyle and the work habits and the coarse joking that everyone else who doesn't know the Lord is doing, you just get caught up with that.

    16:32-16:33

    Is Jesus King at work?

    16:35-16:36

    Is He your King at work?

    16:38-16:39

    Is Jesus Christ King of your body?

    16:41-16:47

    Do you conduct your body in a way that honors the God who created it?

    16:48-16:50

    Is Jesus really your King?

    16:51-16:54

    I mean, really, like in actuality.

    16:54-16:57

    and when the rubber meets the road, like the way you live your life.

    16:57-16:59

    Do you live your life as if Jesus is your King?

    17:00-17:03

    Do you love and forgive people the way the King commands?

    17:04-17:08

    Do you serve the King in His church and in missions as He's called you to?

    17:09-17:15

    Do you see your money as belonging to the King to be used to advance His Kingdom?

    17:17-17:23

    You're like, "Well, not really." Then he's not your king! Okay? He's just not.

    17:26-17:29

    And you need to bow your knee to Him.

    17:34-17:41

    Gabriel says that we're expecting a king, the greatest king, the eternal king.

    17:43-17:52

    And if you're not on board with that, if it's just lip service, but it's not actual reigning over your life.

    17:55-17:58

    This morning, I just want you to see what kind of king this is.

    17:59-18:05

    Because I'm going to share three compelling reasons to bow down to this king.

    18:07-18:15

    Truth be told, I could probably list 20,000 reasons off the top of my head to bow down to this king.

    18:16-18:18

    But you don't got that kind of time.

    18:19-18:20

    Because Christmas is Tuesday, right?

    18:21-18:24

    So, I'm just going to give you three.

    18:25-18:26

    What kind of king is Jesus?

    18:26-18:28

    Jot these things down.

    18:29-18:30

    Number one is God.

    18:30-18:47

    "As God, Jesus rules over me." "As God, Jesus rules over me." You see twice in this passage, The Lord God, verse 32, verse 35, He's referred to as the Most High.

    18:49-18:53

    In the Old Testament, that is El, Elion, God Most High.

    18:53-18:54

    Do you know what that means?

    18:54-18:55

    Do you know what that means, God Most High?

    18:55-18:56

    Do you know what that means?

    18:59-19:00

    It means nobody's higher.

    19:01-19:02

    He is the Most High.

    19:03-19:04

    Like who has a higher rank than Him?

    19:05-19:06

    Who has a greater power than Him?

    19:07-19:08

    Who has more authority than Him?

    19:08-19:11

    Nobody, because He is Most High.

    19:11-19:13

    There's no one above Him.

    19:14-19:18

    You see, Jesus is called the Son of the Most High.

    19:18-19:24

    And to be the Son of God means He has the same essence of God.

    19:25-19:35

    In other words, Gabriel was saying to Mary, "This child being born to you is God." And some people say, "Well, Jesus wasn't really God.

    19:35-19:41

    He was the Son of God." And that is a complete misunderstanding of what that means.

    19:41-19:50

    Because we're going to see later on, spoiler alert, in our study of the Gospel of John, when Jesus said He was the Son of God, they knew exactly what He was saying.

    19:51-19:59

    To walk around and say, "I'm the Son of God," was your way of saying, "I am God in the flesh." And that's what Gabriel was telling Mary.

    20:01-20:03

    Verse 32, he says that Jesus will be great.

    20:05-20:08

    Like, wasn't that what was said to John the Baptist, mom?

    20:09-20:10

    Zechariah, actually?

    20:11-20:12

    That John the Baptist would be great?

    20:12-20:14

    Isn't that what Gabriel said to Zechariah?

    20:16-20:16

    No.

    20:17-20:20

    Actually, he said that John the Baptist would be great before the Lord.

    20:21-20:24

    Meaning, in the sight of the Lord.

    20:25-20:29

    Meaning, yes, God made John the Baptist great.

    20:29-20:30

    That's imputed righteousness.

    20:31-20:32

    God made John the Baptist great.

    20:32-20:38

    But Jesus would be great. See the difference?

    20:39-20:41

    The difference is Jesus would be great inherently.

    20:43-20:44

    Unqualified statement.

    20:45-20:47

    That Jesus wouldn't be made great.

    20:47-20:50

    Jesus wouldn't just be regarded as great.

    20:50-20:54

    Jesus isn't going to someday become great.

    20:56-20:59

    He says He will be great. Period.

    21:00-21:01

    And this speaks to His holiness.

    21:02-21:04

    Jesus Christ is in a class of His own.

    21:05-21:07

    No one is great like this coming King.

    21:12-21:14

    Again, look at verse 33 again.

    21:15-21:28

    "He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." So Jesus Christ reigns for how long?

    21:29-21:31

    Four-year term? Is that a four-year term?

    21:32-21:34

    Open for re-election in 2020?

    21:36-21:37

    Who's all voting for Jesus?

    21:37-21:39

    Who's all voting for Jesus at the next election?

    21:40-21:41

    Nobody is.

    21:42-21:44

    Do you know why? Because it's not up to a vote.

    21:45-21:47

    Because He is King forever.

    21:51-21:52

    So put it all together.

    21:54-22:00

    Gabriel's saying to Mary, "No one is higher, no one is holier, and He is King forever.

    22:00-22:02

    He is God. He is perfect.

    22:02-22:03

    And His reign is eternal.

    22:04-22:07

    There's no one greater, and there's no one more deserving.

    22:07-22:11

    God rules over everything!

    22:12-22:17

    Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, is King over everything!

    22:20-22:21

    Including me.

    22:23-22:24

    That's the kind of King we have.

    22:26-22:27

    bowed down to Him.

    22:30-22:39

    Number two, not only as God, Jesus rules over me, secondly as man, Jesus relates to me.

    22:42-22:51

    Now even though Jesus' conception was obviously supernatural, the rest of Mary's pregnancy would have been normal.

    22:53-23:09

    And somehow, Jesus' growth from baby to boy to man was what we would call normal human development, according to Luke 2.40.

    23:11-23:19

    Yes, Jesus Christ is fully God and totally man at the same time.

    23:21-23:25

    I'll be honest with you, there's a part of me that finds that even more awesome.

    23:28-23:41

    The fact that He didn't just have this man costume on, He literally became a human being like us.

    23:41-23:43

    Like, was He really like us?

    23:43-23:45

    I mean, was He really like us?

    23:46-23:48

    Well, here's a couple passages to look at.

    23:48-23:49

    Hebrews 2.

    23:51-24:03

    He says, "Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers," meaning human beings, "in every respect." So yeah, Jesus fully human in every way.

    24:04-24:10

    Then you jump to Hebrews 4, and it says, I'm not going to read all this, just to highlight the main part here.

    24:10-24:16

    "Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God." Let's hold fast our confession.

    24:17-24:17

    Look at this.

    24:19-24:33

    We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

    24:35-24:42

    So as man, as God, Jesus rules over me, but as man, Jesus relates to me.

    24:44-24:45

    What difference does that make?

    24:48-24:49

    Here's all the difference.

    24:51-24:52

    Hear me, church.

    24:52-25:01

    When you share an experience with someone, when you share an experience with someone, you relate to that person in a special way.

    25:03-25:03

    You get it.

    25:04-25:05

    You've been there.

    25:05-25:06

    You understand.

    25:10-25:13

    Find two people that went to the same high school.

    25:15-25:20

    They talk about having the same teachers, the same classes. There's a camaraderie there.

    25:21-25:24

    There are two people that worked in the same place.

    25:25-25:27

    Anybody else have to clean the bathrooms at Walmart?

    25:29-25:29

    Just me?

    25:33-25:36

    Anybody else unknowingly badmouth somebody's mother at Walmart?

    25:38-25:38

    Just me?

    25:41-25:45

    Two people sharing an experience. There's a connection that happens.

    25:46-25:50

    Find two people that each recently lost someone close to them.

    25:51-25:52

    Yeah, I get that.

    25:53-25:54

    Yeah, it's been hard.

    25:55-25:56

    I know you understand.

    25:57-25:58

    You just lost someone too.

    25:59-26:00

    I get that.

    26:01-26:03

    Find two people that have the same kind of pet.

    26:06-26:10

    Super spiritual, I know, but do you know what Aaron and I and Patty Kitchen were doing before church?

    26:10-26:11

    Do you know what we were doing?

    26:12-26:15

    We were sharing dog stories and looking at pictures of dogs.

    26:17-26:18

    We have a connection there, right?

    26:20-26:21

    As I do with all dog people.

    26:24-26:27

    People that are caring for aging parents, you get the point.

    26:29-26:31

    People that share that common experience.

    26:31-26:34

    There's a special connection that's made there.

    26:35-27:10

    And I know for me personally, you go back about 20 years ago, and I'd be somewhere in public, and I'd I'd see a parent wrestling with an obviously autistic child, I would just kind of shrug and think, "Oh, that stinks." But I've got to tell you, now, now when I see that, I'm like, "Man, I get that." Over the last 14 years taking our kids to therapies, doctors, being in the waiting room and seeing these other parents, I see it in their face.

    27:10-27:13

    Like, beat down and worn out.

    27:14-27:17

    And I'm like, man, I so get that.

    27:17-27:18

    I so get that.

    27:18-27:19

    I understand.

    27:21-27:22

    I feel it.

    27:23-27:28

    You see, it's one thing to see it before I had to walk through some things.

    27:28-27:34

    It's one thing to see it and be like, "Well, that kind of stinks." But it's another thing to actually go through it.

    27:36-27:41

    And I'm like, "What's your point?" The point is Jesus has gone through it.

    27:43-27:51

    Jesus, according to God's Word, experienced everything that we experience except for sin.

    27:54-28:02

    So we can never accuse God of not knowing what it's like, of not understanding how hard life is.

    28:04-28:05

    Because He was here.

    28:06-28:16

    And He was here, not just as this floating, detached spirit, He was here in the flesh to experience all of this.

    28:17-28:18

    Now please hear me, church.

    28:20-28:29

    I am not saying, I am not saying that God was lacking knowledge in any way before the incarnation.

    28:29-28:30

    I am not saying that.

    28:31-28:42

    What I am saying is there is something profound in the truth that God not only knows, but has experienced what we all experience.

    28:43-28:56

    So when we pray church, it is not to some detached king who lives in some ivory tower somewhere far away who couldn't imagine what our situation must be like.

    28:59-29:01

    When we pray, it's like, "Yeah, yeah God, you get it.

    29:02-29:04

    I know you understand this, God.

    29:04-29:08

    I know you know the hurt of betrayal.

    29:08-29:10

    I know you know the hurt of abandonment.

    29:10-29:13

    I know, God, you know the hurt of broken relationships.

    29:14-29:21

    You've been here, you've seen it, you've experienced it." That's the kind of king we have.

    29:23-29:24

    We bow down to him.

    29:27-29:46

    And finally, "Not only as God, Jesus rules over me, and as man, Jesus relates to me." Number three, "As Savior, Jesus rescued me." You're like, "Where do you see that in the passage?" It's all over, right?

    29:47-29:52

    "You shall call His name Jesus." You know, we get some more information about that in Matthew's account.

    29:52-29:56

    The name Jesus is the name Joshua.

    29:56-30:09

    It's the same name, and it means "the Lord saves." And that's why, very specifically, this is the name that God attaches to Himself in the Incarnation.

    30:09-30:21

    Matthew 1.21 gives us some further clarification that says, "She will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus." Why are we going to call Him that?

    30:22-30:22

    There it is.

    30:23-30:33

    "For He will save His people from their sins." This majestic, holy, awesome, transcendent God, why did He become a literal man?

    30:34-30:37

    It was so much more than just relating to us.

    30:40-30:42

    Jesus became a man in order to save us.

    30:45-30:57

    Once upon a time, A human man named Adam brought sin and death into the world and condemned us all.

    30:59-31:07

    And it would require a sinless human man to pay the death penalty so that we could be forgiven.

    31:09-31:13

    That's why sometimes in the New Testament, Jesus is referred to as the second Adam.

    31:16-31:28

    In other words, though we rebelled against God, He came to save us from His own holy wrath.

    31:29-31:34

    And He rescued us by dying in our place.

    31:37-31:38

    That's the kind of king we have.

    31:40-31:41

    If you bowed to Him.

    31:43-31:45

    We have the opportunity now.

    31:46-31:55

    If our ushers would come forward, and if the worship team would make their way up, we're going to close our time here together by gathering around the Lord's table.

    31:58-32:09

    And as we gather around the table, I know a lot of times there are so many things that we think about regarding these emblems representing the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

    32:12-32:17

    Gabriel told us to expect a king, and that's exactly who came, and that's exactly who's coming again.

    32:18-32:29

    So as we take the Lord's Supper today, I just want to encourage all of us that we're going to take it together after everyone receives, I'll lead us in taking it together.

    32:32-32:48

    But as we think about not only the Lamb of God who laid down His life, I want you, as we take the Lord's Supper together, I want you to think, the King of the universe shed His blood for me.

    32:50-32:58

    The King of the universe became a man to lay down His body as a sacrifice for me.

    32:58-32:59

    The King did that.

    33:01-33:07

    So as the worship team plays and the elements are distributed, I'm going to ask you to hang on to them.

    33:08-33:10

    We'll receive the Lord's Supper together moments.

Small Group Discussion
Read Luke 1:26-38

  1. What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?

  2. Why was Zechariah disciplined for questioning God’s Word, but Mary wasn’t? Support your answer. (hint: see Luke 1:38)

  3. How would you respond to someone who asks, “Why should I bow down to Jesus now?”

  4. How does it encourage YOU knowing that Jesus has experienced everything human beings experience?

Breakout
Pray for revival in Pittsburgh! Pray that area churches would faithfully preach God’s Word, and the Spirit would open hearts to receive Jesus Christ.

We're Expecting! We Expect God to Keep His Word.

Introduction:

I Pray with Expectation (Luke 1:5-25):

  1. Because God will keep His Word . (Luke 1:13-17)

    Jeremiah 1:12 - ...I am watching over my word to perform it.

  2. Because God will keep His Word, according to His Timing . (Luke 1:20)

    Psalm 27:14 - Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!

  3. Because God will keep His Word, according to His Timing and unbelief only hurts Us . (Luke 1:20)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

  • 00:00-00:01

    Luke 1, are you there?

    00:01-00:10

    The next three messages are called, "We're expecting." We all come to Christmas time with expectations.

    00:11-00:13

    No one more than a kid.

    00:13-00:17

    And no kid more than me when I was a kid.

    00:18-00:21

    One year for Christmas, I remember, and Darren, you remember this well.

    00:21-00:25

    One year for Christmas, I wanted a pogo ball.

    00:25-00:28

    How many people, show of hands, know what a pogo ball is?

    00:28-00:30

    A lot more than I expected.

    00:30-00:46

    For those of you that are like, "What in the world is a pogo ball?" Follow-up question, "Why in the world did you want a pogo ball?" I want to take you back to the most glorious chapter of history since biblical times.

    00:47-00:48

    We call it the 80s.

    00:49-00:51

    Right, Jesse? Right? Okay, alright.

    00:51-00:55

    And turn your attention to the screen, and you're going to see exactly why I wanted this pogo ball.

    00:56-00:57

    I know what you're thinking.

    00:58-01:00

    How could I not have wanted that?

    01:01-01:04

    I mean, I saw that commercial and I was sold.

    01:04-01:12

    I'm like, "I want a pogo ball." And I don't remember what year it was, what Christmas it was, but do you know what I got?

    01:12-01:16

    You're like, "You got a pogo ball, didn't you?" No, I got a Saturn ball.

    01:16-01:18

    Do you know what a Saturn ball is?

    01:19-01:21

    It's the knockoff of the pogo ball.

    01:22-01:27

    And I gotta tell you, with this Saturn ball, was the most fun I've ever had for about 20 seconds.

    01:29-01:30

    Not even as long as the commercial.

    01:30-01:40

    It was almost as thrilling as regular jumping, only it was harder because you also had to squeeze the top of this ball between your feet.

    01:41-01:50

    And if that wasn't bad enough, for the 20 seconds I was in my basement trying to play with this thing, my brother was singing this song.

    01:50-01:51

    Do you remember the song that you sang?

    01:51-01:52

    You remember the song that you sang?

    01:53-02:01

    "Here we go on our Saturn ball, our Saturn ball, our Saturn ball..." And I'm like, "Alright, I'm done with this stupid thing." Do you remember that song? You don't remember that?

    02:01-02:03

    I'm going to call in a third witness. We have another brother.

    02:04-02:05

    I know he remembers that.

    02:06-02:09

    I know. You guys make fun of my Saturn ball.

    02:09-02:12

    Well, why are you telling us all this?

    02:13-02:19

    Here's the point. Much of life on Earth is extremely high expectation, right?

    02:19-02:44

    I had in mind when I got my Pogo/Saturn ball that I was going to play the keytar on stage or be serving food at a restaurant jumping on this thing and it was going to be awesome and the reality was much much much more disappointing than the expectation. And the series we're going through is called "We're We're expecting.

    02:45-02:54

    And while on the earth, earthly expectations and reality leads to a lot of disappointment, here's a reminder of the next three messages.

    02:55-02:57

    Jesus Christ never disappoints.

    02:57-02:59

    He never disappoints.

    02:59-03:00

    We're expecting.

    03:01-03:04

    The series is going to call us to live in expectation.

    03:05-03:10

    We want to believe that God is and will be actively at work.

    03:11-03:15

    Every day we look to God's goodness That's the way a child looks to Christmas.

    03:17-03:22

    The second reason we're calling it "We're Expecting" is all three of these sermons have something else in common.

    03:22-03:24

    They're about a pregnant woman.

    03:26-03:30

    They're like, "Oh, you mean when Mary was pregnant with Jesus?" Yes, but not today.

    03:31-03:34

    Today we're actually going back a little earlier than that.

    03:34-03:41

    Luke 1.5, we're going to be starting by talking about John the Baptist's mother and his story.

    03:41-03:44

    This is really how the Christmas story begins.

    03:45-03:58

    Luke 1.5 says, "In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the division of Abijah, and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.

    03:59-04:11

    And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord, but they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.

    04:12-04:17

    So Zacharias was a priest, and he was married to the daughter of a priest.

    04:17-04:20

    God-fearing, God-seeking people, and they had no children.

    04:20-04:28

    And in those days, it was wrongly believed that if you didn't have children, you were cursed by God.

    04:28-04:29

    He closed your womb.

    04:29-04:31

    You did something bad, and He judged you.

    04:32-04:34

    That's a common misconception.

    04:35-05:11

    Regardless, Elizabeth was barren, were old. So from their perspective it didn't look like they were going to hear the pitter-patter of little feet anytime soon. Look at verse 8. It says, "Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty according to the custom of the priesthood he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. The whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense." Stop right here, I'm going to give you a little history lesson to sort of explain what's going on.

    05:11-05:19

    Every priest served at the temple two times a year, for a week, and they weren't consecutive.

    05:19-05:22

    Okay, so two times a year we were going, serving a week.

    05:23-05:27

    And usually their job was to kill the sacrifices.

    05:27-05:30

    They were basically like butchers.

    05:30-05:39

    They would stand and they would slaughter the animals that were brought for sacrifice, but each time they would cast lots.

    05:39-05:42

    What was that? It was kind of like throwing dice.

    05:42-05:50

    It was a lottery system they had in place to see which of the priests were going to be allowed to burn incense.

    05:52-05:56

    And most of the priests, because there were so many of them, they never got chosen.

    05:57-06:00

    Most just didn't ever get the opportunity to do it.

    06:00-06:07

    But if you were one of the ones who did get chosen, you were only allowed to do it once in your lifetime.

    06:08-06:08

    That's it.

    06:09-06:11

    And you're like, "All right, Pastor Jeff, hang on a second.

    06:11-06:12

    I'm missing something.

    06:13-06:16

    What was the huge deal about burning the incense?

    06:16-06:21

    I mean, my wife does that, but I've never seen her get all giddy before she does it." Well, here's the big deal.

    06:22-06:24

    Do you know where the altar of incense was?

    06:25-06:26

    It was in the holy place.

    06:27-06:40

    So that meant, if you were a priest and you were chosen, you were able to go in to the holy place, and the altar of incense was actually right next to the veil that separated the holy place from the holy of holies.

    06:40-06:55

    So the priest was like, "Hey, physically on the earth, this is the closest I will ever get to God, and I have the opportunity to be right on the other side of the curtain from the place where God sits." So yeah, it was a huge deal.

    06:56-07:08

    So what they would do is they would take coals from the altar of the burnt offering, and they would take those coals into the holy place and put them in the altar of incense, and then they would actually put the incense on the burning coals.

    07:09-07:19

    And we've talked about this many times in the past, but the purpose of that incense, it was to represent the prayers of the people as a fragrant aroma going to the Lord.

    07:20-07:25

    And that's why verse 10 says people were outside praying while this was happening.

    07:25-07:29

    It was a picture of we are coming before God and raising up our prayers.

    07:30-07:30

    All right?

    07:31-07:36

    Verse 11, you have the scene, Zechariah, he's in the holy place, he's burning the incense.

    07:36-07:45

    Verse 11 says, "And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

    07:46-07:50

    And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him.

    07:50-08:01

    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.

    08:02-08:16

    And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 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.

    08:17-08:37

    And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, 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." So this angel shows up.

    08:37-08:41

    You have this scene, Zechariah, big deal, holy place, burning incense.

    08:41-08:49

    and an angel shows up and the angel says, "Hey, your prayer has been heard, and you are having a son.

    08:50-08:53

    And this son is going to be special." Like, every son is special, right?

    08:53-09:12

    He goes, "Yeah, but this is special in biblical proportions, because he's going to be great before the Lord, he's going to be full of the Holy Spirit from birth, he's going to bring revival in Israel as he prepares people for the Messiah." And that's John the Baptist, and we spent some time talking about him, didn't we?

    09:13-09:16

    To me, one of the most fascinating people to ever walk the planet.

    09:17-09:19

    This angel's like, "Hey, your prayer's been heard.

    09:21-09:27

    Your wife is going to give birth to a global game changer." What did he say to that?

    09:28-09:29

    Well, let's look at what he said. Verse 18.

    09:30-09:34

    "And Zechariah said to the angel, 'How shall I know this?

    09:34-09:41

    "For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years." Like, that's the response we're going with here.

    09:41-09:41

    Okay.

    09:42-09:44

    He says, Zechariah's like, "Haven't you heard?

    09:46-09:47

    "We're old.

    09:47-09:53

    "I don't know if you got the memo, "but I gotta give credit for Zechariah here for one thing.

    09:53-10:00

    "Do you see what a gentleman he is?" He says, "I'm an old man, "but my wife is advanced in years." Isn't that nice?

    10:01-10:02

    Can we just stop and acknowledge?

    10:03-10:07

    But I just thought that was very gentlemanly of him to say it that way.

    10:07-10:08

    Apparently just me, okay.

    10:10-10:14

    But Zechariah is like, well, how am I gonna know this?

    10:14-10:20

    Because I'm old and my wife's advanced in years and the angel was like, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize your age.

    10:20-10:22

    I mean, you look very good for your age.

    10:23-10:26

    And apparently I'm going to need to go back to heaven to update our files.

    10:27-10:32

    Forget all the pregnancy talk, forget I was even here, I didn't know you were old.

    10:33-10:34

    Is that what your Bible says?

    10:35-10:37

    No, because that's not what the angel said.

    10:37-10:39

    Look at verses 19 through 23 with me.

    10:40-10:41

    Here's what the angel actually did say.

    10:41-10:43

    The angel answered him, "I am Gabriel.

    10:44-10:46

    I stand in the presence of God.

    10:47-10:50

    And I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.

    10:51-11:01

    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.

    11:02-11:06

    And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple.

    11:06-11:12

    When he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple.

    11:12-11:15

    And he kept making signs to them and remained mute.

    11:16-11:19

    When his time of service was ended, he went to his home.

    11:19-11:27

    Okay, so people outside are like wondering, "What's going on in there?" Typically, priests got the business done as fast as they could.

    11:27-11:46

    There was this fear that if I did something irreverent in the holy place, God was going to strike me dead, so let's take care of business and get out." And people were like, "He has been in there an awfully long time, and he couldn't speak when he came out." Typically, when the priest came out, they gave a little speech, a benediction.

    11:46-11:51

    It was typically the Deuteronomy 6.24 benediction.

    11:51-12:00

    But since he couldn't speak, they were like, "Something happened in there to him." Could you imagine how badly he wanted to tell people what happened?

    12:01-12:04

    I mean, if that was you, couldn't you... you couldn't wait to tell...

    12:04-12:12

    "You won't believe who I saw in there! And you won't believe what he told me!" And I'm sure he was busting it to seems to tell, but he couldn't.

    12:13-12:17

    Oh, and by the way, we're going to find out in verse 62, he was also deaf.

    12:18-12:19

    This was all God's discipline.

    12:19-12:21

    Like, "Hey, you don't want to hear the Word of God?

    12:22-12:23

    Then you're not going to speak the Word of God.

    12:24-12:28

    Oh, and you're not going to hear anybody else's words either, if you're not willing to listen to the Word of God.

    12:28-12:31

    This was an act of discipline on Zechariah.

    12:31-12:35

    "Well, does that mean he changed his mind about the promise?" Absolutely not. Look at verse 24.

    12:36-12:52

    It says, "After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, 'Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when He looked on me to take away my reproach among people.'" There it is. You know, that's the first miracle of the New Testament.

    12:53-12:59

    Zechariah comes home, Elizabeth conceives, because God allowed her to become pregnant.

    12:59-13:02

    You're like, "Well, why did she stay hidden?" I kind of get that, right?

    13:03-13:10

    Because here's a woman advanced in years, going around telling people, "Hey, an angel told my husband I was going to get pregnant.

    13:10-13:14

    My husband came home, next thing you know, I'm pregnant." Isn't that the craziest thing you've ever heard?

    13:14-13:26

    They're like, "Yeah, you're crazy." So she kept herself hidden until about the five-month mark, when not gonna sound so crazy when there's evidence that you are pregnant.

    13:26-13:28

    Right? I think that's why she kept herself hidden.

    13:28-13:32

    But regardless, she knew. She knew what happened. God made this happen.

    13:33-13:37

    Isn't that a great story? I would say that is a great story.

    13:37-13:39

    I would say most of that is a great story.

    13:40-13:47

    Because I kind of wish verses 18 through 23, I kind of wish those verses didn't happen.

    13:47-13:49

    I kind of wish the story went like this.

    13:50-13:52

    The angel shows up and says, "Zechariah, God heard your prayer.

    13:53-14:01

    You're going to have a son. He's going to be awesome." Zechariah's like, "Great! High five!" Goes home, Elizabeth has John, but that's not how it happened.

    14:02-14:04

    He didn't believe Him, and God disciplined him for that.

    14:05-14:08

    And it's real easy to criticize Zechariah, isn't it?

    14:08-14:16

    "Shame on you! How could you not believe?" But the truth is, this hits closer to home than I think most of us would want to admit.

    14:16-14:22

    In verse 18, remember, the angel says, "You're going to have a son." And here's exactly what he's going to be like.

    14:22-14:29

    Verse 18, "Zechariah said, 'How shall I know this?'" Wasn't he praying for this?

    14:30-14:40

    According to verse 13, Zechariah had been praying for this, at least once upon a time, and I don't know what happened over the course of his prayer life.

    14:41-14:43

    But I know what's happened over the course of mine.

    14:44-14:58

    when I've prayed for the same thing over and over, and days turn into weeks, turn into months, and then suddenly, years later, I'm still saying the words.

    14:58-15:03

    I mean, I'm still down, and I'm still saying the words to God.

    15:04-15:06

    But you know, I'm just being honest.

    15:06-15:14

    I've really had to take a hard look at my life in times to ask myself, Am I praying with expectation?

    15:14-15:26

    Or has years of discouragement put me in this place of, "I'm more saying my prayers than I am praying." Can we get back to praying with expectation?

    15:26-15:27

    Can we get back there?

    15:27-15:30

    Can we get back to the place where we know that God's going to keep His Word?

    15:31-15:41

    And if you're like me, if you've ever struggled in this area, I just want to give you today three things that Zechariah teaches us about praying with expectation.

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    So jot this down if you haven't outlined.

    15:44-15:46

    Again, if you're like me, if you're like, "You know what, Jeff?

    15:46-15:53

    There's things I've been praying about." Maybe some of you are like, "You know what? I just stopped praying about it because I just didn't think it was going to happen.

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    And I dressed it up.

    15:56-16:07

    I said, "Oh, maybe perhaps this is not God's preordained sovereign will for my life, so I'm just going to stop praying for that." And really, when I'm being honest, I just got discouraged.

    16:08-16:10

    Let's get back to praying with expectation.

    16:11-16:14

    Number one, I pray with expectation because God will keep His Word.

    16:15-16:18

    I pray with expectation because God will keep His Word.

    16:18-16:26

    Remember Zechariah in verse 18, he said, "How shall I know this?" This is actually kind of funny, I think. He probably didn't think so.

    16:26-16:30

    But I think this is kind of funny, that Zechariah is like, "How will I know?

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    How will I know this is true?" And Gabriel's like, "I don't know.

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    Maybe like if God did something huge like send an angel from heaven to tell you face to face in the temple, would that do it?

    16:49-16:51

    Like what kind of sign are you looking for, man?

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    Gabriel says, "Here's how sure I am that God's going to keep his word.

    16:58-17:02

    I'm not going to give you some vague prediction.

    17:02-17:11

    I'm going to tell you what the name of this baby is going to be, and I'm going to tell you exactly what he's going to be like.

    17:12-17:23

    Just ask yourself. I had to kind of go through this myself this week as I was wrestling through this, but ask yourself, "What if an angel showed up to you today?" Maybe not in the holy place, maybe in your kitchen or whatever.

    17:25-17:28

    What if an angel showed up and said, "Hey, you know that thing you've been praying for?

    17:28-17:32

    Do you know God's heard every prayer, and He's giving you that?

    17:32-17:34

    He's going to give you exactly what you want.

    17:35-17:35

    What would you say?

    17:36-17:42

    Would you be like Zechariah and sort of talk yourself out of why God can't answer your prayers?

    17:42-17:44

    Sort of reason it out.

    17:44-18:02

    "You know, I prayed for healing for my kid, but you know what, we've tried everything, we've been to every doctor, we've done every treatment, we've done every therapy, we've seen every therapist, I just..." "Yeah, I hear what you're saying and I wish I could buy in, but we've sort of been there, done that, I got the t-shirt, nothing to show for it.

    18:03-18:14

    And like Zechariah, I just have to ask myself, and you need to ask yourself, have we sort of talked ourselves out of the truth that God still hears and answers prayer?

    18:15-18:17

    Have we reasoned ourselves out of that?

    18:18-18:19

    Because church, I'm gonna tell you something.

    18:19-18:22

    There are some things that God cannot do.

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    Yeah, I said that right.

    18:24-18:25

    Write this down.

    18:25-18:28

    There are some things that God cannot do.

    18:29-18:31

    One of them is lie.

    18:31-18:32

    He cannot lie.

    18:33-18:40

    That's why I love Jeremiah 1.12, when the Lord says, I love this verse so much.

    18:41-18:45

    He says, "I am watching over my word to perform it." Do you know what that means?

    18:46-18:52

    That means it's like God has a copy of the Bible on his desk and he's looking through it.

    18:52-18:56

    And he's like, yeah, I said that, I'm gonna make sure that happens.

    18:56-18:58

    Yep, I said that, I'm gonna make sure that happens.

    18:58-19:00

    Oh yeah, I'm making sure.

    19:00-19:01

    Did I miss anything?

    19:01-19:02

    No, I didn't miss anything.

    19:02-19:06

    I'm doing every single thing that I said, I'm gonna do it.

    19:07-19:14

    And I'm rereading it and I'm watching over to make sure everything happens exactly how I said it's gonna happen.

    19:14-19:16

    Isn't that an encouragement for us today?

    19:17-19:17

    He's watching.

    19:18-19:19

    He's watching.

    19:19-19:27

    So Zacharias' doubts and my doubts and your doubts, let's acknowledge them for the foolish things they are.

    19:27-19:30

    If God says He's going to do something, He's going to make it happen.

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    He's watching to make sure that He keeps every promise.

    19:34-19:38

    We have to start there. God will keep His Word.

    19:38-19:40

    So I can pray with expectation.

    19:40-19:46

    Number two, I pray with expectation because God will keep His Word according to His timing.

    19:47-19:48

    According to His timing.

    19:49-19:51

    Look at the very last phrase in verse 20.

    19:52-19:53

    The last couple of phrases, I guess.

    19:54-20:01

    Gabriel says to Zechariah, "Because you did not believe my words," which were God's words, right?

    20:01-20:02

    He was just repeating them, right?

    20:03-20:10

    "Because you did not believe my words," look at this last phrase, "which will be fulfilled in their time." In their time, right?

    20:12-20:19

    Sometimes the only thing that's between you and answered prayer is just a little bit of time.

    20:20-20:21

    Like, so what do we do in the meantime?

    20:22-20:23

    We wait on the Lord.

    20:24-20:25

    You know what Tom Petty said about the waiting.

    20:26-20:26

    Do you know?

    20:27-20:28

    You know?

    20:28-20:29

    Somebody tell me, what did he say?

    20:30-20:30

    Yeah.

    20:30-20:37

    ♪ Waiting is the hardest part ♪ I love that song because my sons sing that with me.

    20:38-20:38

    It's true.

    20:39-20:40

    It is the hardest part.

    20:41-20:43

    That's what Tom Petty said, but we're not here to talk about him.

    20:44-20:44

    We're here to talk about God.

    20:44-20:45

    Here's what God said.

    20:45-20:46

    God said, "Wait for the Lord.

    20:47-20:50

    "Be strong and let your heart take courage.

    20:50-20:54

    "Wait for the Lord." This is a whole other sermon series.

    20:54-20:57

    The Bible says so much about waiting for the Lord.

    20:57-21:00

    Why? Why does the Bible say so much about that?

    21:00-21:04

    Because God's going to keep His Word, and He's going to do it according to His time.

    21:04-21:11

    And in the meantime, we have to grow in the strength of our faith while we wait on Him to do what He said.

    21:12-21:18

    And you're like, "Well, I don't like waiting." Right. "I don't like waiting either." You know why?

    21:19-21:20

    I think because we're Americans.

    21:21-21:23

    And we're not used to waiting for anything.

    21:24-21:29

    I mean, I know not all of us here are from America, but by virtue of you being here, I'm calling you an American now.

    21:30-21:36

    And there are people that listen to these messages, other places in the world, maybe they can relate on some level.

    21:37-21:39

    I can only speak to America. We don't wait for anything.

    21:40-21:45

    We stand in front of the microwave and we say, "What's taking this stupid thing so long?" Right?

    21:46-21:54

    They put, "Here's how much we don't like waiting for anything." Do you see they put shampoo and conditioner in the same bottle?

    21:55-22:04

    It's like, I don't have time to go into the shower with all these bottles and all these shampoos and all these conditioners.

    22:04-22:05

    Like, what am I, a chemist?

    22:05-22:07

    Like I don't have this kind of time.

    22:08-22:12

    Wait for the shampoo to do its thing and then wait for the conditioner to do its thing.

    22:13-22:17

    Can you just put it all in one bottle and then do the same with peanut butter and jelly?

    22:18-22:19

    But we don't like to wait.

    22:19-22:22

    "Look, I'm just as guilty." I'm not pointing fingers at anybody, I'm just as guilty.

    22:22-22:35

    Somebody will send me a YouTube video, and they're like, "Hey, check out this video," or, "Hey, we're thinking about doing this worship song," and I'll click on the link, and they'll be like, "Your video will play in 15 seconds." I'm like, "Not for me, click.

    22:36-22:41

    "Guess I'll never know what was happening there." Not waiting for that, 15 seconds?

    22:41-22:42

    What am I, Rip Van Winkle?

    22:42-22:45

    Like, I'm not waiting for that, right?

    22:46-23:00

    Then the Bible says, "Wait on the Lord," And we're like, "What?" And it's something that we need to get back to, to say, "Look, look, God is not the God of everything, instant, when I want it, how I want it.

    23:00-23:03

    God has a plan." You're like, "Well, why?

    23:03-23:04

    Why wait?

    23:04-23:06

    If God's gonna do it, why doesn't he do it now?

    23:06-23:11

    Why wait? Why wait? Why wait?" Well, why wait for the cake to get done baking before you eat it?

    23:12-23:16

    I mean, your five-year-old is eventually going to drive a car.

    23:16-23:18

    Why wait to teach him when he's 16?

    23:19-23:20

    I think you see the point, don't you?

    23:21-23:22

    Sometimes waiting is just necessary.

    23:23-23:24

    Sometimes it's just necessary.

    23:25-23:25

    You've got to wait.

    23:26-23:31

    And God in His perfect wisdom, He has a reason for doing things when He does them.

    23:32-23:34

    You've been praying for healing? I know a lot of you have.

    23:34-23:36

    I get the Friendship Register prayer request.

    23:36-23:37

    We talked about that last week.

    23:37-23:40

    Some of you have been praying for healing for someone for a long time.

    23:41-23:43

    God will bring it about. He will, in His time.

    23:44-23:46

    Some of you have been praying for provision.

    23:47-23:51

    God is going to provide you everything that you need in His time and in His way.

    23:52-23:58

    And I know a lot of you have been praying for salvation for someone, for loved ones to receive Christ.

    23:59-23:59

    It's coming.

    24:00-24:09

    You need to believe that these answers are coming, and you need to believe that these answers are coming in God's time, and you need to trust God while you wait for it to happen.

    24:10-24:16

    So I pray with expectation, finally, number three, because God will keep His Word according to His timing.

    24:17-24:20

    And unbelief only hurts us.

    24:21-24:22

    Now, let's choose your own adventure.

    24:22-24:25

    I could say unbelief only hurts you, and you don't get to put anything in that blank.

    24:26-24:29

    But you can write "us." Unbelief only hurts us. Same point.

    24:29-24:35

    You can choose not to believe the Word of God, but God doesn't become any less God.

    24:36-24:41

    He's no less awesome. He's no less powerful. He's no less able to keep His Word.

    24:41-24:43

    The truth is unbelief only hurts us.

    24:43-24:51

    Now, Zacharias' consequences - I always say John - Zacharias' consequences, they were obvious to everyone.

    24:51-24:52

    He comes out and he can't speak.

    24:52-24:55

    I mean, that was an obvious hurting yourself kind of thing.

    24:56-25:02

    God might not strike you mute in death for not believing Him.

    25:03-25:04

    That would be really interesting if that happened, though.

    25:05-25:08

    It would affect a lot more of us than I think we would realize.

    25:09-25:16

    God might not strike you mute for disbelief, but even if He doesn't, there are consequences that we face when we don't believe.

    25:17-25:17

    Like what?

    25:18-25:19

    Like worry.

    25:20-25:24

    I know people that their lives are just consumed with worry.

    25:25-25:27

    You're hurting yourself by not believing God's Word.

    25:29-25:49

    Anxiety, discouragement, a discouragement that leads to despondency, a despondency that leads to what the Bible calls losing heart, and over time you choose disbelieving the Word of God as a lifestyle, that's going to lead to a form of godliness that denies its power.

    25:50-26:06

    It eventually leads to religion without relationship. I show up to church, I got my checkmark from God, but I'm not really expecting him to show up in power and do I'm going to do some transformational, God-sized thing in my life.

    26:06-26:08

    I'm just not really expecting that anymore.

    26:08-26:10

    Maybe I did once upon a time, not anymore.

    26:12-26:17

    But I still go to church, disbelieving the Word of God.

    26:17-26:19

    Unbelief. It only hurts us.

    26:20-26:28

    Zechariah would tell us, now that he has his voice back, he would say, "If God tells you something, look, just believe it.

    26:28-26:29

    I just believe it.

    26:29-26:30

    It's going to happen.

    26:31-26:33

    It's going to happen when God wants it to happen.

    26:34-26:38

    And if I choose not to believe it, I discover that that's a terrible idea.

    26:39-26:51

    And as we close, you might say, "Pastor Jeff, I hear everything you're saying, and I wish I was there." I'm just going to be honest with you, my faith is really small right now.

    26:52-26:52

    And that's awesome.

    26:53-26:56

    Because it's not about the size of your faith.

    26:57-27:00

    It's about the size of your God, whom you have faith in.

    27:01-27:03

    I can remind you of the story of the ice skater.

    27:03-27:04

    I think about this guy a lot.

    27:05-27:06

    You know the story of the ice skater.

    27:06-27:08

    This kid loved ice skating.

    27:08-27:09

    There was a little pond by his house.

    27:11-27:16

    And soon as the weather got cold and the pond froze, he grabbed his ice skates and he put them on.

    27:16-27:21

    So excited, he ran down and he jumped right on the pond, but it wasn't very thick.

    27:22-27:23

    And he fell right through.

    27:23-27:49

    And he crawled and scrambled and fought, got on shore, shore, got on the side of the pond, I don't think ponds have a shore, there are no seagulls, you know the point, he climbed to the side, should've rehearsed this again, he climbed to the side of the pond, cold, wet, scared, well a week later, another cold blast comes in, like really cold, and the pond freezes again.

    27:50-27:57

    Loved ice skating so much, he goes, "I am going ice skating," and he goes down to the pond, he puts his ice skates on, but this time, He's not jumping onto the ice like he did before.

    27:57-28:03

    Right, this time he's kind of like very slowly stepping on, very slowly.

    28:04-28:11

    And then after some time, he saw the ice was thick enough to skate upon and he did and had a jolly good time.

    28:12-28:13

    And here's the point of that story.

    28:13-28:20

    The first time he went down to the pond, he had a really strong faith, but the object of what he had his faith in was weak.

    28:21-28:30

    The second time, he had a really weak faith, But the thing that he had his faith in, the object of his faith, was very strong.

    28:30-28:33

    It's not about the size of your faith, it's about the size of your God.

    28:34-28:39

    Are you confident that God can do what He promised?

    28:40-28:41

    Because we can expect God to keep His Word.

    28:42-28:43

    Let's pray.

    28:43-28:50

    Father in heaven, we thank You that You are watching over Your Word to perform it.

    28:50-28:51

    God, I thank You for that.

    28:52-29:00

    And God, You know in my life, the times I've wondered, the times I've doubted, the truth be told, way worse than Zechariah.

    29:02-29:07

    And I'm sure, Father, that I have some brothers and sisters that are sitting right here that would say the same thing.

    29:08-29:20

    That, "Yeah, I've been praying for something for a long time and it hasn't happened, so I kind of quit, or I kind of lost any expectation that it might happen." And God, I pray today that we would take a hard look at Zechariah.

    29:21-29:23

    He gave up hope. He had his reasons.

    29:24-29:25

    The word just trumps them all.

    29:26-29:35

    I simply ask God for myself, for our church family here, that you would renew in us, praying with hopeful expectation.

    29:36-29:42

    Give us eyes of faith to see how you're answering these prayers in your time.

    29:42-29:44

    We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Luke 1:5-25

  1. What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?

  2. Why do you think Zechariah didn’t believe the angel? Have you ever “lost expectation” while praying for something for a long period of time?

  3. Zechariah faced some consequences for not believing the word from God. What are some consequences WE face when we choose not to believe the Word of God?

Breakout
Pray that we learn to wait on the Lord. And pray that He would restore in us a spirit of belief and expectation, trusting Him to keep His Word