Speaker 1: 0:17

Hi, my name is Emma Taylor and I am a sophomore at Benicia High School. I am reading Luke 1-5-20. In the time of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah. His wife, Elizabeth, was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord's commands and decrees blamelessly. But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive and they were both very old.

Speaker 1: 0:44

Once, when Zechariah's division was on duty, he was serving as a priest before God. He was chosen by lot, according to the custom of priesthood, to go to the temple of the Lord to burn incense. And when the time of burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside, and then an angel of the Lord appeared to him standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled. He was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him Do not be afraid, Zechariah, your prayer has been heard.

Speaker 1: 1:14

Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight for you and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to their Lord, their God, and he will go on before the Lord in the spirit of power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, To make ready of people, prepared for the Lord.

Speaker 1: 1:49

Zechariah asked the angel how can I be sure of this? I'm an old man and my wife is well along in years. The angel said to him I am Gabriel, I stand in the presence of God and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time. This is the word of the Lord am I on now?

Speaker 2: 2:25

now I'm on, that's my granddaughter, yeah, so cool. Um well, christmas season is officially here, and I'm one of those guys I'm purist. You don't get to celebrate Christmas until after Thanksgiving. None of this, you know? Halloween directly to Christmas stuff. That's nonsense. All right, christmas starts after Thanksgiving and it's a little bit later this year, but now it is official, it is Christmas season and one of the things I love Christmas for a lot of reasons, but one of the things I love about it is Christmas is the only holiday season that has its own music.

Speaker 2: 3:01

You ever thought about that? It's the only one that has it to me. And one of my favorite, favorite, all-time favorite, is O Holy Night. That is like my top one of all the Christmas carols that we sing, and there's a line in there that talks about long lay the world in sin and error, pining till he appeared and the soul felt its worth. And then the next line is a thrill of hope.

Speaker 2: 3:28

And hope is what I want to talk to you about this morning, because hope is absolutely essential to our lives. Hope is all about the future, and this is the first Sunday of the Advent season and the theme for Advent first Sunday of Advent is hope, and without hope we lose all sense of purpose. If we don't have hope, we really lose our reason for moving forward into the future, because there's really nothing there that we are hoping for or moving toward. Because there's really nothing there that we are hoping for or moving toward. Lewis Speed's put it this way there is nothing more important in this world than keeping hope alive in the human spirit. There is nothing more critical to any one of us than the vitality of our hope. Problem is, there's a lot of things in life that can decimate our hope, that can erode and undermine our hope. So how do you keep hope alive through all of these things? Well, what I want to talk to you today about is I'm going to give you four hope-building habits, because there's these things that will undermine our hope. So how do you keep hope alive? And that's what I want to talk about. And I want to give you the first habit is this that hopeful people outlast their disappointments, because disappointment can absolutely devastate hope.

Speaker 2: 4:49

We read this story about Zechariah, and it's really where Luke begins the Christmas story, not with the announcement to Mary, but actually before that, with the announcement of the preparation of John the Baptist and it starts out with this couple, zechariah and Elizabeth. It says that both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord's commands and decrees blamelessly. But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive and they were both very old. Three things right away we find out about them. The first off is they are very devout, very devout. They are doing everything right by God's standards, as best that they can. And we find out that they are childless and they're very old, which means there has been a long time of trying to get pregnant, a long time of a hope of a family, and there's kind of especially in those days, there was kind of this stigma that was attached to being childless, that for some reason childless. That must have been something you did wrong, or you just don't have enough faith or you're out of sorts with God, except that Luke is very careful to tell us. No, they were devout people, they did all the right things, they obeyed God's laws as best that they possibly could. That they're still childless and think about that because when they first got married I'm sure they had all kinds of hopes for a family. The larger the family, the better. That was a sign of God's blessing. And then, month after month not this month and then months turned into year after year not this year and on and on it goes, and all of those dreams of a family crushed and the stigma that came along with that.

Speaker 2: 6:45

One of the things I like to do when I do premarital counseling with couples is, as part of the counseling, I want them to tell me what their hopes are. What do they envision for this life that they're going to start out together? And I ask them the, question me, what their hopes are, what do they envision for this life that they're gonna start out together? And I ask them the question. I say so everybody kind of has a mental picture of where you want your life to end up, what you want your future to look like. So just tell me what does life look like for the two of you as a couple five years from now, or even 10 years from now? And as they give that mental picture that they've all got in the back of their mind, they maybe never even thought about it before, but they start to share their hopes and their dreams and they start to make plans for all of that. And yet you've got this very devout couple who for years and years and years have been trying to have a child, and every month and every year, disappointment when dreams and desires and plans all fall apart.

Speaker 2: 7:46

We have a tendency to lose hope, and their story is not unlike ours Maybe not that specific hope or dream, but every one of us, I'm sure, can think of things hopes that we started out with in life that somehow have not come about. Maybe it's relationships, hopes that you would hope that that girl was going to be your wife and you dated her for all these years and then she broke up with you. Or that child that you never had. Or the child that you have that has now become an addict, and you're hoping and you're praying God, please, please intervene. Or maybe it's your career and you thought you would be a lot further along. You thought you would be doing much better. You thought you'd have that corner office by now, or whatever it might be. We all have these hopes of dreams, and the greater the hope and the greater the dream, when it doesn't come about, it can be devastating.

Speaker 2: 8:42

So how do you outlast your disappointments? I think one of the keys is that you need to begin to make a shift. You make a shift from the things that you're hoping for to the one that you will put your hope in, and that makes all the difference. That's how you outlast disappointments. Even in their disappointment they trusted God's character. And it says Gabriel says to him do not be afraid, zechariah, your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you were to call him John. The implication there to me is they have still been praying, they've still been trying, year after year after year, feeling that disappointment, and yet they didn't give up because their trust was in God's character. You see, you may not always achieve all of your hopes and dreams. Chances are you won't, and life is often a series of hope adjustments and it comes down to is the thing that I am hoping for greater than the one I put my hope in? And if I can make that shift to the one that I will put my hope in, no matter what hopes or dreams may die, it changes everything. It gives you the strength and power to outlast those disappointments.

Speaker 2: 10:06

Very early on in my ministry and I've shared this a number of times, but my second ministry position I was an associate pastor at a church up in Washington state and the church was full of all kinds of hurt and dysfunction. It had gone through a church split. One half stayed, the other half went down the street and started a new church and it was all kinds of. It was a mess. But we went there and I really believe that God was leading me to this position and we prayed about it and we thought about it and we went ahead and we took the position that was offered to us as an associate pastor. It was the worst year of my life. There was all kinds of bitterness that was left over from the split. There were people there was actually, if they didn't like the pastor, they just stopped giving to starve him out.

Speaker 2: 10:55

That was a dysfunction in that church and I just kept saying, god, you brought me here and until you tell me it's time to go, I'm going to, I'm going to outlast this, I'm going to stick through it and finally it got to the point where it was time to go because they couldn't pay me anymore and I was more than disappointed. I was downright angry God. I was downright angry with God and it's hard to admit, but at one point I prayed God. If this is the way that you treat the people that want to serve you and follow you wholeheartedly. And this is how it turns out. You can have it, and I left pastoral ministry for about three years. But in those three years something changed and I began to realize I put so much hope in my position and moving up and being a successful pastor at a church and I'd lost the true focus of my hope in him. So you may not get what you hope for, but you can continue to trust who you put your hope in, and hopeful people do that. They make that shift.

Speaker 2: 12:08

Next one Hopeful people persevere through their doubt. So Zechariah gets his visit by an angel. He gets this great news You're going to have a son Finally, finally going to have a son, and not just any son. Gabriel says to him he will be a joy and delight to you and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He will bring back many people of Israel to the Lord, their God, and he will go on before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah Whoa. This is incredible news. It's almost too much for Zechariah. It's hard to believe. And so Zechariah asked the angel how can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years. Now, just as an aside very smart man, I am an old man, my wife is along in years, so husbands never call your wife old, even to an angel, because you never know where that's going to go. But he's overwhelmed by this. It's just like this is just too good to be true.

Speaker 2: 13:13

Now this man is a priest. He knows Israel's history. He knows about Abraham and Sarah, who were childless for many, many years, and God granted him a son and he was going to be the father of a great nation and of many nations. He knew the story of Jacob and Rebekah, who went years and years and years without Rebekah being able to have a child, and then has a child, joseph, who ends up saving the nation of Israel through their time in Egypt, and on and on and on. All through the Old Testament there are stories of childless couples, childless women, who have a child that becomes someone great in the history of Israel. So he knows this is something really, really special, but it's just too good to believe.

Speaker 2: 14:05

See, hope is a very close relative to faith, which means it is always going to be subject to doubt. But doubt is not the opposite of faith, nor is it the opposite of hope. See, you can hope with your doubts left over. Sometimes, when we have those doubts, sometimes I think people feel like I can't admit that I have questions, I can't admit that I have doubts, because that's a lack of faith and then I'm not going to get what I'm praying for. No, god can handle your doubts. He can handle your questions, and when faith falters and your doubts arise, hope is the one thing you can hang on to. I've kind of thought of hope as kind of like holding on to faith by my fingernails. You know, when I don't have enough faith, I can still have hope.

Speaker 2: 14:59

The issue becomes what will you do with your doubts? See, god can handle them. And I don't know about you, but I think if I'm standing there in front of an angel, you know, like an angel, angel, and they're telling me this thing, I think that would be pretty convincing to me, but it's not to him. And so he asked that question how can this be? I'm an old man, my wife is well along the years, and the angel answered Zechariah this way I am Gabriel, I stand in the presence of God. Now you can almost hear his tone of voice. You're going to question me, don't you know who I am? I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God and I have been sent to speak to you and tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you didn't believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.

Speaker 2: 15:53

So what do you do when you're faced with your doubts? How do you keep hope alive? You keep hope alive by taking action in spite of your doubts. See, there was still something that was going to be required of Zechariah to make this happen and, to put it delicately, this was not going to be a virgin birth. He was going to have to do something. There was going to be some buy-in in his part. There was going gonna be something that he was going to have to do to make this happen. And he did. In spite of his doubts, he still did what was needed and when his time of service was completed, he returned home and after this, his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and, for five months, remained in seclusion. The Lord has done this for me, she said, in these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people. So when you have those doubts and question your faith in hope, you can still take action in spite of the doubts.

Speaker 2: 16:58

Third one hopeful people endure times of waiting. See, very often hope involves waiting, because hope is about the future and there's very often a lag time between a promise and its fulfillment. And I don't know about you, but I hate to wait. I am one of the most impatient people. Like I go to the grocery store, I'm the guy that gets in the express lane and then I'm counting the number of items in the people's cart to make sure they don't really belong here. They should be over in the other lane because they're in my way. And when they put in that self-serve counter it's like, oh man, that's great because I can get in and out, you know. And then your experience is you go to the self-serve center and there's like four different registered and it's supposed to be for like quick, you know, I'm just in and out one item, two items, three items. And there are actually some people who have a full grocery cart full and they use the self-check aisle. It's like don't you know the rules. There are rules to self-check. If you think the express lane was 15 items or less, then the express lane over here is like two items or less. I hate waiting.

Speaker 2: 18:18

Zachariah had to wait at least another nine months and added to this waiting, he was silenced. The angel said now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day that it happens. And I wonder what he thought. Probably one of the first thoughts was, you know, my big mouth. But once he got over that, I think it gave him time to think. I was thinking about that this week. It's like, why was he made silent for all of that time? Was God like giving him a time out? You know, go stand in the corner and think about what you've done? I don't think so. I think that time of silence was not a punishment. I think it was an opportunity Because, you see, we get so busy and we're so involved in activity and making things happen that we very seldom take time to wait and to think and to ponder the story of Mary taking time to ponder these things in her heart. And I think what's happening here for Zechariah. He's given time to ponder, to think about all of this that's been announced to him.

Speaker 2: 19:32

Ben Patterson wrote a book called Waiting appropriately enough, and one of the things he says is he wrote this book on this belief that at least as important as the things that we wait for is the work God wants to do in us while we wait, because in our times of waiting, god's also waiting. See, we often think we are the ones who are waiting on God, but have you ever stopped to think that maybe God is waiting on you, maybe the thing that he wants to give to you you're not ready for, maybe there's some work that needs to happen in your own life, maybe there's some pondering that you need to do? So how do you keep hope alive in times of waiting? You make your times of waiting productive. The time of waiting is a time to prepare. We took a trip back to visit our son and daughter-in-law a couple of weeks ago and our flight was delayed. And so you're sitting at the airport gate and I looked around and have you ever done this? Like in a waiting room or at the airport or something? People spend their time waiting on their phones. Very little conversation takes place, everybody just kind of head down Wasting time while you're waiting. But you can make waiting times productive.

Speaker 2: 20:58

Zechariah had been given a lot to think about. This is what the angel said. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord, their God, and he will go on before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children, the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. This time of waiting was also a time of preparation for Zechariah. When our first daughter, erin, was born, I began to realize the weight of responsibility that now I am responsible for this new life. And you know we had done all the things to prepare for her birth. You know we painted the nursery room, we put together the Ikea Well, it wasn't Ikea back in those days, it was anyway put together the crib, you know, did all the decorations, everything. But now we're ready for the baby to come. And then the baby comes and you realize all that preparation time was not about a crib and painting the walls. There was going to be a lot more involved in this parenting thing for the next 20 years or so and I think giving Zechariah this prophecy about his son I think gave him some time to do some preparing for his own heart, to realize the responsibility that he was going to be, because raising this child was going to be very, very important.

Speaker 2: 22:24

So how do you do it? There's a couple of productive practices I want to give you when making your waiting times productive. The first is seek counsel. Find mentors, people maybe who have gone through what you're going through, people who've had to wait a long time, and ask them what did you learn, what happened during the waiting time? Seek out people who can give you counsel. Take time to examine your own heart, take kind of a spiritual inventory, if you will Think about your own motives, your attitudes or your expectations. And I think there's a third thing you can do you look for signs of progress and possibility, because very often during waiting times, god will give you little glimpses, kind of like pull back the curtain and say, no see, I'm working here, and just kind of a sneak peek of what's to come.

Speaker 2: 23:20

For Zechariah there was going to be a gestation period of nine months, but during those nine months he was going to see the belly swell a little bit and the ankles to get swollen up a little bit and the cravings of food and whatever's all involved. During that pregnancy there were signs that this was going to happen, just like the angel said, and I think part of making your waiting times productive is to start looking for those signs that something's about to happen. And the think part of making your waiting times productive is to start looking for those signs that something's about to happen. And the last one is this Hopeful people rely on God's greater purpose, because whatever you're going through, whatever you're waiting for, god has a purpose for you in the middle of all of it, and sometimes you just have to trust that. Sometimes you won't see those signs. There are times, there are things in my life, disappointments and times of waiting, that I never figured out what that was all about, but I know on some level it fundamentally changed me as a person, as a follower.

Speaker 2: 24:24

So if you skip on down in the story to verse 59, it says that Elizabeth had the baby and then on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child and they were going to name him after his father, zechariah, but his mother spoke up and said no, he's to be called John. Then they said there's no one among your relatives who has that name and they began to make signs to his father to find out what he would like to name the child. It's like Elizabeth, no, no, you don't get to do this. Okay, we're going to, we're going to. This guy can't speak, but we're going to ask him. And they began to make to find out what the name was. They asked him for a writing tablet and, to everyone's astonishment, he wrote his name is John. And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free and he began to speak, praising God. Those four words his name is John. In those four words, what Zechariah was saying I'm all in. I'm all in, whatever this is all about, whatever your hopes and dreams, whatever's going on, just the saying his name is John is saying I'm on with God's program. I don't understand it. A lot of promises have been made here, but I'm following obediently. His name is John. He was saying I'm all in.

Speaker 2: 25:49

And Zechariah and Elizabeth got so much better than they had hoped for. They got a baby who would prepare the world for God's coming kingdom Something incredible. So here's how you keep hope alive when it comes to God's purpose Start considering your hopes in the context of God's bigger plan, in the context of God's bigger purpose because you are a part believe it or not, you are a part of God's redemptive work in this world. You are. He does his work through ordinary people, ordinary people like you and me. Paul wrote to the Ephesians this way we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. You are God's handiwork, which God prepared to do good works in advance for you, which God prepared to do good works in advance for you.

Speaker 2: 26:52

My dad passed away a month ago yesterday. He was an ordinary guy. He was a carpenter, then became a building contractor. Nothing particularly special. Well, he was my dad, special to me, but just an ordinary guy that I can tell you. He touched the lives of hundreds, probably thousands, of people throughout his lifetime. His greatest desire was that his family, his friends and the people that he encountered would put their faith and trust in Jesus, and he was not ashamed to share it with his subcontractors, with his friends sailing. His life was all about the kingdom of God, wasn't a preacher, wasn't a pastor, was a Sunday school teacher, but he touched literally thousands of lives.

Speaker 2: 28:02

And when we had the memorial service and have so many people come to me and saying your dad made a difference in my life and a friend he said your dad had a way of asking just the right questions to make me think about and when I had lost my faith and I had nothing to do with God, your dad would sit down with me and we would have conversations. He would just ask questions to make me start thinking about my relationship with God. As a carpenter, he was involved in the building projects of his church. He went on mission trips to Haiti and Kenya where he helped build schools and dormitories and medical clinics. He shared his life with people and he shared his faith through his life. And there are many, many people that are in heaven today because of my dad, an ordinary guy who believed to the depth of his soul that God had a purpose for his life. And thousands are in heaven today because of him and many more will be through his legacy, even some of you, because if you came to Northgate as an unbeliever and over the years became a follower of Jesus Christ, thank my dad because he shared that life with me so that I could be a part of sharing it with you.

Speaker 2: 29:38

You see, zachariah's story is your story, it's my story. It's really creation's story story. It's my story. It's really creation's story. That started when sin entered the world and a great disappointment fell on humanity. And through a long time of waiting and God working through people slowly to bring them along through their doubts, through their struggles, through their ups and downs, through their long, long, many, many years of waiting, he sent a precursor in John to announce the coming of the kingdom of God. And then Jesus came and said the kingdom of heaven is among you.

Speaker 2: 30:20

You may never realize your hopes or your dreams, but know this that in your doubts, in your struggles, in your disappointments, god is working in you and in you. He wants to work through you. Would you bow your heads for a moment? God has a purpose for your ordinary life and your hopes and your dreams are a part of that. And some of those hopes and dreams they're of your own making, but some of them are placed there by God and it might be taking some time for them to flesh out and you're wondering if it's ever going to happen.

Speaker 2: 31:04

Whatever God is doing with your life, I want you to know this he has good plans for you. Whatever you are facing today, this morning, it's part of his plan in your life and maybe for you. Today it's moving to the place that says I may not get what I hope for, but I'm putting my hope in you and you can do that for the very first time this morning. And it's just a simple prayer, if you want to just follow me. It's this Lord, here I am. You know me better than I know myself. You know my hopes and my dreams. You know my faults and my failures. I can't do this all on my own, but I believe you have a plan and a purpose for me and I'm going to quit trying to do this on my own. I'm putting my faith, my trust and my hope in you this morning. By your grace, by your mercy, by your forgiveness, put that new life within me and let me live to the hopes and dreams you have for my life. In Jesus' name, amen.