Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1)

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

We thank you for your word that we can open up and it just continues to teach and guide us. I pray that this morning our hearts are open to you. I pray that my motivation is not to please anybody in this room but to only please you, God. And it's your name we pray, amen. You guys can be seated. Good morning. My name's Daniel Oster and I'm a pastor here at South Burleson and it's a great honor to be with you this morning. As we continue our sermon series, we're doing the voices of Christmas. And so the first week we talked about Herod the king. Last week we talked about the shepherds and their interaction with the angels. And this week we're gonna look at maybe a lesser known couple named Zachariah and Elizabeth. Now our family, I think I've shared with you before, has a tradition every Christmas morning that's passed down through my parents and we would read the Christmas story,

the first thing we do on Christmas day. So before we open up presents, we would open to Luke two and we would start reading the birth of Jesus. And it's a great thing, recommend it, it's awesome. But it kind of begs the question, why do we skip to Luke two? Like what's in Luke one? Well interesting enough, Luke one is the longest chapter in the New Testament. It's 80 verses long. And we skip it on Christmas morning, where my family does, y'all might not. Y'all might read all of Luke, I don't know. But this morning we're gonna spend a little time in Luke one and you would think 80 verses, that's a lot of verses to talk about Mary and Joseph finding out that they're pregnant with Jesus. But over half of the verses are actually dedicated to Zachariah and Elizabeth. And that's where we're gonna spend our time this morning. To set kind of the context of like where we are entering

scripture and the gospels, there's four gospels, one of which is Luke. I think it helps to understand the context of where we're entering in. I wanna ask you a question. Have you ever used a dramatic pause? To emphasize something, okay? That silence in a dramatic pause evokes anticipation. But silence can also not only build anticipation, it can maybe bring fear and silence, it could bring fear. Candace leaves the TV on at home when she's by herself because she wants noise in the house, right?

It reminds me, it also can make people, silence can make people uncomfortable, okay? This reminds me of a time where Kevin's here, I work with Kevin, his wife Sandy, he's a great mentor and a good friend. And we had this tough meeting years ago and we were talking to a guy who just never really gave us any indication on where we were. And so Kevin's like, there's gonna be a point in this meeting where I'm gonna be quiet, don't say anything. And we're gonna smoke this guy out so we can kind of find out where he is. So I'm all prepared. We're in this conference, this big conference room, it's just three of us, glass all around, you can kind of see what's happening. And it's the time to be silent and it happens. And I begin to sweat. Yeah, I'm like, I'm fidgeting, I'm acting like I'm looking at papers. I look down, it's only been like 10 seconds, okay? We probably went a minute and a half to two minutes,

it felt like 30 minutes. I think he ended up not even saying anything. But that silence created uncomfortable. I felt the need to feel the silence. I felt the pressure. I don't know if any of you guys are like that. If there's silence in the conversation, you just kind of interject with whatever because silence bothers you. Also, silence can maybe be interpreted that you're mad or angry. I get this a lot because I'm not great with text messaging. And so people think sometimes that you're, maybe angry or mad, why aren't you returning my texts or my calls? But we have a tendency to avoid silence if you think about it. Think about any time you're faced with silence in a car, maybe in a waiting room, maybe at home, what do most people do?

Pull out your phone, right? We like to kind of keep busy. Silence can sometimes bother us. Well, today when we talk about silence, we're not just gonna talk about the lack of sound, but a silence that's due to inactivity. This idea that nothing is going, this silence means nothing is happening. And this silence is occurring because nothing's going on. And so, but we're gonna look how God works in this perceived silence. And we're gonna see it here in Luke one. If you open your Bibles, if you have a physical Bible, I've marked mine here, this page between the Old Testament and the New Testament, it just says New Testament on it, this page represents 400 years of history, okay? So you flip right before it, you get Malachi, and then you flip over and you get Matthew. That one page flip is 400 years, okay? And a lot of scholars and people refer to this as the 400 silent years.

And it's because God was not speaking directly to his people and he seemed as if he was inactive. So I thought it'd be interesting to read a couple of verses out of Malachi before we jump in because I'm trying to create the context of 400 years of feeling like God hasn't done anything. But listen to the last few verses in the Old Testament. Malachi three one says, "'Behold, I send my messenger, "'and he will prepare the way before me, "'and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come "'to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant "'in whom you delight, behold, he is coming,' "'says the Lord of hosts." Okay, in the last two verses in all the Old Testament, Malachi four says, "'See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you "'before the great and dreadful day of the Lord comes, "'he will turn the hearts of the parents to their children "'and the hearts of their children to their parents,

"'or else I will come and strike the land "'in total destruction.'" Old Testament ends, okay? And so what Malachi though is saying is, look, there's something that's going to happen. There's someone who's going to come. The Old Testament's talking about a Messiah, a Savior. And so as we open up the book of Luke to try to create that context of feeling as if God has just been silent for 400 years, for generations, okay? So Luke one, let's go ahead and get started. Luke one, verse five, we're gonna be looking at five through seven here first. It 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. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all commandments and statues of the Lord, but they had no child because Elizabeth was barren,

and both were advanced in years. So what do we learn here? We have Zechariah and Elizabeth. Okay, they were a couple. We know from their lineage that both of them come from a line of priests, and Zechariah himself was a priest. Some of the translations may use Zechariah. It's the same, it's just a different spelling of his name. It says he and his wife Elizabeth were righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all commandments. So this doesn't mean that they're perfect, but they're actively following God.

Then we learn that Elizabeth was barren, which means she can't have kids, and that they both were old, or the Bible puts it nicely, advanced in years. Maybe try that one. Later Luke confirms that they've been praying for children for a child. So why then does it seem, why does God not give them one? Weren't they doing what he wanted? It was as if God was not listening, or being silent during Elizabeth's need, that she did everything the Lord's kind of asking her to do, and it's as if he's not hearing her prayers. And this can be similar in our own lives. It can seem like God is silent in our need. You need something you're praying out for, you're in a situation, and it's as if God is, it seemed to be listening to you. Disease could strike your family, or friends, you may be in a time where you just feel alone, a difficult time, holidays can bring that about, or just not understanding why God is not doing,

or is doing something in your life. Why is God being silent in my time of need? Okay, let's keep reading. Let's look in verse eight. Says, now while he was serving, so we're talking about Zechariah as priest before God, when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by a lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of people were praying outside at the hour of incense, and there appeared an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense, and Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. 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. So, now all of a sudden, Zechariah is being told through a message of an angel that he's gonna have a son.

So the point here is if you pray hard enough, an angel's gonna come and grant you all your wishes. That'd be nice, that's not how it works. No, we see, rather, what we're gonna learn is that in times when it feels like God's being silent, rather, we must depend on God's timing, that it's perfect, that God's timing is perfect. See, Zechariah was one of many priests, anywhere from like 2,000 to 20,000, depending on what you read, a lot of priests and what they would do is they had daily things that needed to happen at the temple, based on Old Testament law, and one of which was burned incense. And so, it was likely that a priest, because there were so many, maybe once in his lifetime would get to do these duties. So this was a big deal. This wasn't like an everyday thing for Zechariah. So his name gets called, I imagine he's super excited, he goes in and he starts to burn incense,

and what happens? There's an angel like right beside the altar. And what is the response when most people see angels? They don't high five them, right? They are scared to death, okay? So, like we said last week, this is not a baby with wings flying around like some of the pictures depict, okay? This is a majestic angel that just invokes fear into people just from what they're seeing. And so, later he identifies his name, the angel is Gabriel, and so Zechariah's prayer had been answered, but even far greater than, he's praying for a son, but the angel goes on to talk about what this son will do. Look in verses starting in 14, it says, it says, 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,

and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before them in spirit and in power, of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared, okay? So if you really kind of hone in on 17, the angel's saying, hey, not only are you gonna have a son, but this son, and you look in 17, and these are words I want you to remember, he will go before him in the spirit of what power of Elijah, he'll turn hearts of the fathers to their children, and the disobedient wisdom of just, and to make ready the Lord a people prepared. So just in context, that's kind of cryptic and weird, and maybe we don't really understand what it's saying, but if we take some of the verses we just read out of Malachi, listen to, let's read those verses one more time

in Malachi three. It says, behold, I will send my messenger, and he will prepare away before me. In the last two verses of the Old Testament, in Malachi four, it says, see, I will send the prophet of Elijah, and the grateful, dreadful day the Lord comes, he will turn the hearts of the parents to their children. So you see the connection here? The angel's saying, your son, John, is going to be this person that's prophesied about. He's going to prepare the way for the Lord. He's gonna prepare the way for the Messiah. So this is great, amazing news. Just later, Jesus affirms this to Matthew 11:13. He says, talking about John, he says, for all the prophets, and this is in chapter 11 verse 13, for all the prophets and the law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.

So we start seeing the things that God has promised through his prophets start to connect the dots to what's happening here. Okay, so right now, an angel's telling one priest, the time is now, it's happening, okay? And so when we think that our plans are better, when we think we know what's supposed to take place, we think if God only listened to us, if he only read my comment cards that I dropped off, if he would just listen to me, that's really a foolish way to think, because when we feel like God's not hearing us, our perspective is wrong, God does not need to hear our ideas and then determine who's got a better idea.

We have to understand that his time and his ways are perfect. And it's an example I use often, it just has helped me, is when I was putting the kids in the car seat when they were seven and eight months old, what were they doing? They were screaming like I was murdering them. They hated being in the car seat. As I'm strapping them, if they could talk, they probably would have said help. This guy doesn't know what he's doing, he's locking me into this chair, it's uncomfortable, it's child abuse, okay? And to us as parents, that's really silly, why? Because we know what's best. This eight month old doesn't know what's best, okay? Yet they're crying out and you're just like, okay, we're still gonna do this because I am taking care of you. And so it's similar when God is, when we're going through things and we're screaming out and we're like, why is this happening?

We have to remember that God's timing is perfect and that he is watching over us. And so Romans 8:28 says this well, he says, and we know that in all things, this is Paul writing, that God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. So to think about God, God knew when he was given the words to Malachi that this is how he was gonna do it the whole time. And so when it seems like God is silent in our need and we have to remember that silence does not mean that God's ignoring you, that he's forgotten you or that he's inactive. Instead, we must put our trust into his God's perfect timing. Okay? So let's continue reading in verse 18. It says, and Zacharias said to the angel, how shall I know this? For I am old man and my wife has advanced in years. And the angel answered him, I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God

and I was sent to speak to you to bring you this good news. 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. And the people were waiting for Zacharias and they were wondering about his delay in the temple. And when he came out, he was unable to speak and they realized that he had seen a vision and he kept making signs to them and remained mute. Okay. So after all this great news that the angel delivers to Zacharias, what is his response? Yeah, how's this, wait a second. You're forgetting something. I'm old. My wife can't have children. And I empathize with this because I remember when Candace was pregnant with Emma, she was a week late. Emma was in there like starfish. Like she just was not coming out. And the doctor told us, we go in and they take tests

and the doctor comes in and says, hey, we're gonna need to induce. And so I pull out my calendar and I'm like, let's see here, what day works the best for me? Okay. The doctor's like, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. Y'all are walking over right now. Y'all are gonna get induced like in a couple hours. Okay. What did I hear? I didn't hear, I was having a baby. I heard like, what works best logistically? How could this, you know, look, just men in the room, I get in trouble for a lot more advanced things now. Okay, that was elementary. I've graduated in the things to do wrong.

But like Zachariah, he's saying like, I'm old. My wife's old, how are we gonna do this? And the angel responds like, I just appeared to you in the temple. You see my presence. So I'm in the presence of God. He uses present tense, which is just kind of, I'm talking to you, but I'm also in the presence of God. And you're questioning like how this is gonna happen. And make some you. And this reminds us that God deserves immediate obedience. Like there's no, it's not like just do what you're told, but just when you trust in the Lord your God is caring for you and watching out for you, our immediate response should be obedience. But what happens to me times is we start to question or we start to think and in this we become the noise. Here God is answering a quest that they've been asking for years. His lineage is gonna continue. He's gonna have a son. Elizabeth's no longer gonna be shamed as a woman in that time

to not be able to have kids. Now she's gonna have a child. And his question is, but wait, how exactly can we write this down? The correct response should have been this is amazing. I'm sure it's gonna happen. I can't wait to see how it's gonna happen. But too many times when we hear God, before we listen to God we're too quickly to speak. So what does this have to do with God working in silence? Well in order for God to work in us, many times we must be silent and listen.

Shut up and listen wasn't a good sermon point. So I said be silent and listen. Don't. This is all over scripture. But it points us to the fact that hearing God is important. Listen to what James says in James 1:19. He says everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. And so when we feel like God's not giving us an answer, our tendencies are to maybe to get louder, or maybe if we pray hard enough, we can obligate God to do this.

Yes, God wants us to take our frustrations. He wants us to take our doubts and those things to him. But there's also times when we need to sit silent before him and ask him to speak to us. I found this verse in the Ecclesiastes, not like I found it, it's been in there the whole time. But it's really interesting to me. Because it says, Ecclesiastes 5:2 it says, be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God. Listen to this. For God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few. It was like know your place.

God runs the universe, you do not. Silence before him acknowledges our rightful place before the Lord. And so God tells the Israelites this in the Old Testament often, Habakkuk 2:20 says, but the Lord is in his mighty temple, let the earth keep silent before him. Zephaniah 1, 7 says, be silent before the Lord. Zechariah 2, 13 says, be silent before the Lord your God. So knowing that I was preaching on this, I was gonna practice it and I was gonna set in silence before the Lord. So the Lord didn't oddly speak to me or giving me like flashing signs or I didn't win the lottery or anything, but it really did kind of set the tone from our prayer time to just be silent and just remember who he is. And now if you're like me, your mind races. Like I can physically be still and I can close my eyes, but my mind doesn't know what it means to be silent sometimes. And so here's some things,

like even in my prayer life, I'll be praying for like work or something and then I start thinking about it and then five minutes later I'm like, oh yeah, I'm praying, I need to get back to that. Y'all ever do that? Or is that just me? Okay, good, that makes me feel better, thank you. So here's some just quick tricks on how to like, quick tricks on how to sit silent before the Lord. Here's some just ways to kind of start it. First of all, just start small, okay? One minute, 90 seconds, just see what it feels like. And just build up, pick a place that's quiet. Maybe use scripture and just hyper focus a good verse, a hyper focus on Psalm 46:10, be still and know that I'm God, okay? It's what you're trying to do. So you're sitting there and you're going, okay, be still. What does it look like to be still before the Lord?

The fourth one, the fourth tip is to think about God's characteristics, to really meditate and ponder on what does it mean when you say God is love or that he shows you mercy? To really deeply think about those things and meditate those things in your silence. Here's one thing I do, it may sound silly, but I put use your imagination. And so what I do sometimes to quiet my mind is I will physically imagine myself before the throne of God. I do this sometimes worshiping and it helps me, it may sound silly and it may not work for everybody, but it kind of just helps my mind just go, okay, this is where just imagine yourself there just talking to the Lord because that's really what you're doing. And so those are some things to help you be silent before the Lord. Zacharias seemed to have missed what God was telling him because he was quick to talk, quick to question and doubt.

And so sometimes we have to be silent before the Lord, before we can hear him, okay? All right, let's skip down to verse 57. Don't worry, I'm not gonna hit all 80 verses today. We would have ordered in lunch or something. Verse 57, it says, when it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy and they shared her joy. And on the eighth day, they came to circumcise the child and they were going to name him after his father, Zacharias, but his mother spoke up and said, no, no, no, he is to be called John. And they said to her, there's no one among your relatives who has that name. So then they made signs to his father to find out what he would like to name the child. And he asked for a writing tablet. And remember, he still can't talk. And to everyone's astonishment, he wrote his name as John.

And immediately his mouth was open and his tongue set free and he began to speak praising God. All the neighbors were filled with awe and throughout the hill country of Judea, people were talking about these things. Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking what then is this child going to be for the Lord's hand was with him. Okay, so Elizabeth gives birth to her son. And then as the custom was, you waited eight days. A testament law and then you would circumcise him and that's the time that you gave him his name. And so she is doing that process and they said, what is his name gonna be? And she says, John. And they're like, I don't know, why not Zacharias, why not somebody in your family? And so it was kind of a thing then. This wasn't throughout Bible to name after your father, but during this time, it was common to name after a father or family member.

And so they were really confused. And so he gets the tablet and so they ask, it's almost like, don't believe Elizabeth. They wanna make sure with Zacharias. And then he writes down and his mouth is open. And so big as a question about this, this circumstance is amazing in itself, but people walked away in awe. And it's so much so, it says, throughout the hill country of Judea, people were talking about this. And they're asking, what is this child going to be? And so there's another layer to this that's really interesting. The word John in Hebrew means, it sounds like Yohanna, okay? And that means God is gracious. Hana, the end of the name sounds very similar to how they pronounced Hannah, which means grace. And so, okay, so what is that even important? Well, Hannah in the Bible, they find this in 1 Samuel. It tells us that she was barren and she was praying outside of a temple for a child.

In the scripture it says, the priest saw her praying, but no words were coming out. And he accused her of being drunk, okay? So some similarities here, right? So Hannah is married to a priest, Elizabeth is married to a priest. Both are barren, both are praying for a child, okay? Samuel, she gives birth, God gives Hannah a child, and it's Samuel, her son, and she dedicates him to the temple under Nazarite rules, which means he can't, some of the things he can't do, like drink wine and cut his hair, okay? Similar to John the Baptist, who's told these things. So both Samuel and John the Baptist confront religious leaders going forward. Both are prophets, and this is the key thing. Samuel is who God appoints to anoint David as king. So if you remember, he goes and they go through all the brothers of David till they get the last one, and God tells Samuel, this is the king David,

who is a biblical hero, okay? Who the lineage of the Messiah is to come out of, and David was described as one after God's heart. And then so how does that connect to John the Baptist? Which John the Baptist, Baptist wasn't his last name, he just baptized people, so they call him John the Baptizer. What does this have to do with him? What does this have to do with the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth? Well, what is John the Baptist gonna do? Later he is going to what? He's going to, he's preparing the way for Jesus, and then the beginning of Jesus' ministry will happen. Jesus baptized, I mean, John baptizes Jesus. He anoints the new king, very similar to Samuel, by saying this is him, and John at the time says, look, my ministry lessons, Jesus must be greater. And so we see these dots being connected to God's promises the whole time from Old Testament story, and God is laying this out saying that this is the time.

And so what's happening here, after years of silence, they are remembering what God has promised. So this breaks generations of what feels like silence. And listen to what the angel tells Mary in Luke 1:32 about Jesus, he says, he will be great and he will be called the son of Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, okay? It's connected the prophecy lineage of David. And so it's actually happening now. The promised Messiah is coming, prophecies are being fulfilled, and anticipation builds because they're beginning to remember what God has promised. So the Jews, though, were thinking that this Messiah was gonna be a conqueror, they remember they're under Roman rule at the time, and they're waiting for someone to overthrow Rome, and to establish his people, and so they kind of envisioned Jesus like Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know, like that's the kind of king

they were looking for. But God had bigger plans. He was sending his son to be the sacrificial lamb of the entire world. And so this month, as Advent season, we have anticipation leading up to Christmas to celebrate the birth of the Savior. And in the waiting and the build up, we remember God's promise, we remember what Jesus represents as God's promise to us. And now we're on this side of the New Testament. Right now we can read what happened, that Jesus sacrificed for our sins and resurrected, and now promises to come back and establish his kingdom, and we're adopted into his family. And so we now live in similar anticipation of this. So like where we get the people here who are anticipating waiting for Jesus, we are similarly waiting for Jesus in different contexts. And so in this time, we can feel as though, because now we, if you were to hold, I guess the end of this leather until now

is what, 2,000 years, right? Seems long. Where's God forgotten? Has he been silent in our life? Maybe he feels distant now. Maybe he feels heavy. Maybe your life feels heavy, and you really can't even see past, much past tomorrow. And you wonder if God has forgotten you or disinterested. Maybe you've done something wrong. And the answer is no, he didn't. He didn't forget you. And when you step back from our kind of our situations, you step back from it. The truth is God is always speaking. God is always active. And some ways, the ways that we see this is, think about creation, okay? Just every day. Sunrises, fall, colors on the trees. Texas doesn't have a beautiful fall, but other places do, trust me. Sunrises, rainbows, the stars on a clear night. I mean, they just, like Psalm 19, one says, says the heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Look, even just watching the birds and see how they're taken care of when like cold hits like this. Listen to what Jesus says in Luke 12. He says, consider the ravens. They neither sow or reap. They have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. And the last part of this is really important. How much more value are you than the birds? Okay, so when you see birds flying around and they're taken care of, God cares about you so much more. So in times that it feels like maybe he's not speaking or active,

the truth is he is. Some of this happens in the background of our lives that we don't see. Just because you don't hear or see God working doesn't mean he's asleep at the will. We see God working in the background. And I just know there's, in the time of my life where I really kind of put my Christianity on the back burner, I wasn't really trying to pursue God and really distancing myself. In that time, I started working at the job that I work now and I met my wife. Like in a time that I was giving God zero. I was trying to run for him. I didn't even want to hear from him. I had my hands over. God was still working in the background of my life. The third thing is where God's always speaking is his word. Hebrews 4:12 says, for the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing the division of soul and spirit and joint of marrow and discerning the thoughts

and attentions of the heart. I know that, always like to say that just reading the Bible, like it's not always easy. It can be difficult, but it's worth studying and meditating on and talking to people about. It's worth it. But I just don't like giving the impression that you just flip, you open up Jeremiah and just understand everything that's going on in there.

But his word is always teaching and directing us. And the fourth thing is through fellow believers. There's times during our family meetings we have where we talk about what the Lord is doing in our lives. And maybe the Lord isn't, I feel like he's doing much in my life, but I can see it in other people's lives. I hear it. And so for me to just assume that he's inactive and not speaking would be wrong. So I wanna leave you with some practical ways on what to do when you feel like God is being silent in your life. The four P's, I love doing those kind of things. The first P is pray earnestly, okay? So express your needs and feelings to God. Even the difficult ones, as the active self can be a proclamation of faith and that he is listening to you. So go to the Lord in prayer. The second one is to pour over scripture. Open your Bibles and look for guidance. Just pray for God to speak to you through his word

just to kind of show you some things. And the Holy Spirit really just guides you, your mind and helps you to see maybe what God is trying to communicate to you. The third one is practice silence. We talked about it earlier, to just set quiet before him. Drew Ivey's not here, but a lot of times before Drew Ivey prays, he'll like pause. He says, we just need to be quiet before you. And he just stops. And you can just hear it. Sometimes we need to do that in our own lives as we just need to, before we go to the Lord, we just need to stop and just remember, okay. You're a God in heaven. I am here on earth. I need to hear from you. The last one is participate in the body. Surround yourselves with community. Look, Sunday mornings, kind of church, when people think about church, they think about Sunday mornings. This is like, this is not even enough. You can come in and fake being okay

for an hour on Sunday. Where it's a little bit harder is when you're in community. We have home groups and they're starting up in January, eight weeks. You meet in a person's home with a group and it's a little harder to fake it at a Wednesday, at six o'clock after you've had a hard day at work. You walk in and people are, I'm like, you don't wanna be here and that's okay. Thanks for coming. And we have a meal together. We open God's word, we pray for each other and you come away just kind of rejuvenated and just thankful that God has put these people around your life that you can just be vulnerable with. And especially during hard times in your life, to just lean back on that. So Sunday mornings are enough. We have life groups that's a little, it's one on one accountability. And the same thing you're talking about, you're being a lot more vulnerable because you're talking about sin that you're struggling with

and you're having people pray for that. But to open up yourself to community, to participate in the body allows God to speak to you through other people. And so David, if you and Wesley wanna come up, it may seem like God is silent in your life now. We've talked about the feeling of silence can bring fear, it can bring anger, discomfort. I mean, we may wanna act out to fill in the void. And I just wanna encourage you to believe that God's timing is perfect, even when it doesn't align with ours. Even when it seems like there's no other way this could happen. To understand that God's not inactive. He may just be telling you to be patient and just wait on him, which none of us like to hear that. But just trust in his perfect timing. Maybe you feel like God is being silent and not listening in your time of need. Maybe you're going through something right now and you feel like no one really sees you

and God's not listening and I cry out to God and all I hear is silence. Practice being silent in front of him and see about if you can listen to hear him in your silence, remembering in your place before God, seeing the importance of hearing from him more than him hearing from you. Lastly, remember the hope, remembering what God has promised in the Christmas season.

We see God delivering on his promise of sin in his son and that that son took away the punishment of sin from us if we put our faith in him. And not only to just stamp our ticket into heaven, but to walk with us now in relationship with him. And so as Christmas approaches, let's celebrate God delivering on those promises and let's have hope in knowing that he's promised to come back and to establish his kingdom and to bring us into the family of God where death is no more. And so it only feels fitting to end today with Silent Night and this song depicts this idea of a silent night where a baby is born, no fanfare and yet God is shaking up the earth in what he's doing in the silence. Let's pray. God, we just thank you that the Christmas story doesn't get old or stale and that it is,

that it's a reminder, God, of how much you love us and how you just go beyond our expectations that you sent your son, Jesus, to die in our place and his whole mission was for us. God, I pray that we can just find rest and hope in that and Lord, if it feels like there's silence, if it feels like you're distant from us, Lord, I just pray that we remember these things, that we remember that you love us and care for us and that you have promises that you don't waver. In your name we pray, amen.