Zechariah - Advent Courage
So today we begin a brand new series called, Christmas Courage. This Christmas, we will examine the people God used in the Christmas Story, who had cause to be afraid but chose courage instead. Each of one them experienced a different fear, and by looking at how they dealt with their fear, my hope during this season of hope is that we together, may learn to follow their example and choose courageous faith in the middle of the difficult moments in our life that urge us to dread and give up.
We know The Bible is not short of people who stepped out by faith and trusted in God with courageous faith. The first theme and person we will examine is Zechariah and his willingness to persevere. Zechariah’s story can be found in the beginning of Lukes gospel. Where the Christmas story actually begins. The Christmas story doesn’t begin in a small town of Bethlehem but in the home of Zachariah and Elizabeth, who are one of God’s most devout and faithful seekers.
However, there was one thing missing in their marriage. A baby. Luke tells us in chapter 1 verse 7 that they didn’t have a child because Elizabeth couldn’t conceive and they were both well along in years. Then in verse 8 the story continues with Zechariah serving as a priest, he was chosen by lot, which was like drawing straws, to enter into the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense.
Now, This was a huge honor. An honor that, once you were selected, and you performed your duty, you would never do this again. And What’s interesting is that once you performed this duty, you were considered to be rich. It was a huge honor to be selected and to perform this duty. As Zechariah heads into the holy place, this is where the story gets kind of interesting. The Bible doesn’t tell us specifically what Zachariah prayed, but there are some hints of what was on his heart…
As he would have prayed for the forgiveness of sins for Israel, I wonder if his heart was praying something else. If it was my… My heart would probably be praying like this…. God, I’ve been faithful and loyal to you for my whole life, I’m devout. My wife is faithful and loyal and she’s devout. We live our life to the golden standard of your law. We’re righteous in your sight and without blame according to all your commands.
And now, Lord, when I leave this place, I’m going to be considered rich among the people. What else could a priest ever ask for, Right? But Lord, how can I be truly rich if I have no children as a heritage and blessing. Again, we don’t know what Zechariah’s prayer was, but we do know this.. God sent the angel Gabriel to meet him in the holy temple to give Zechariah a message that God has heard his prayer.
Then, an angel appears and says, “Your prayer is heard, and here is How God is going to bless you and the people of Israel.” But look at Zechariah response in verse 18… “How can I know this? I'm old and my wife is well along in years.” Zechariah doesn’t believe it. One of the most devout men, a priest, kneeling in the holy temple. Righteous in God’s sight, living without blame.
Married to a woman with the same faith and righteousness but when he has an encounter with an angel, and when God intervenes in his life, his first reaction isn’t praise, but he reacts in fear and disbelief. How many times have we done the same? How many times have we been called upon by God, or we’ve come to church, and prayed and worshiped and did everything we believe is what we’re supposed to do as Christians in the eyes of what others would think..
but when he has spoken into our heart and we met his Spirit, we met the Lord with the same fear and disbelief as Zachariah did? We all struggle at times with seeing the godly purposes of our lives. But what I’ve learned was… “Even while I may not be aware of God's exact plans for my life, He has made it obvious what He desires for each and every one of us.” And what he desires is holiness!
It’s Sanctification! Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4:3, “this is the will of God, your sanctification.” Why is sanctification so important… well one reason is that it keeps us focused on Jesus where we are in life. Remember a few months ago Pastor bob preached this amazing message called, “Bloom where you are planted?” One of His main emphasis was that we’ve got to be deeply rooted people in the word and in following Christ.
One thing I want to emphasize about that message is this… we bloom because we’re walking with God, where God wants, how he wants it and where he wants to go. But to bloom there must be a death… As we all know seeds die. A seed must die so that the plant can bloom. For many, at our initial salvation we are given everything we need for us to die to ourselves and to live for Christ.
To bloom where we are planted will always take the courage to die to ourselves while accepting the fact that we’re growing into a person who’s called to be courageously different than we were yesterday. I think we miss the fact that sanctification isn’t a one and done moment… but it’s a life long commitment. Just like salvation isn’t a one time thing… salvation is initial and ongoing. Repentance is initial and ongoing.
What I mean about that, is this, Longevity doesn’t always mean staying the same or never changing,. Longevity is being consistently faithful in growing into who God calls us to be, at this moment… it’s living day by day by His grace because we Don’t know what tomorrow holds, most times we only have today. I read an interesting article the other day and I wish I would have saved it, but it said something like this: “Jesus is creating tomorrow, so we must learn to live in his provision for today.” What we have today is a gift…
Master Oogway says it better when he encourages po during a hardship and discouragement he’s facing while becoming the dragon warrior. watch this… Today is a gift, that is why it’s called a present. Our reward is staying on this path of faithfulness not by our strength, but by God’s, while being radically faithful to where God has planted us. The goal for our life as Christ followers isn’t to live with limitations in our faith, it’s pursuing the everyday sanctification of our faith.
If we get to a point in our lives where we’re not desiring to worship, are we really being faithful in our walk? Because when it comes to being rewarded in faithfulness, “the real reward in faithfulness is not being blessed or gifted something from God, but a deeper trust in the one who blesses. What if I told you that our faith isn’t to bring us lottery winnings, or a bigger house or a better car, or an easier life or a better job.
What if I told you that the reward of your faith was to have a deeper trust in Jesus. I mean, isn’t that the goal of our christian faith? Would you be satisfied in that? Would you be satisfied in knowing that Jesus is what you get as your reward, and you get him daily? We have two responses when we are confused on what to do in our lives, We either walk in obedience or disobedience.
Which is why we must be taught and trained to walk in faithfulness and sometimes this training isn’t easy. I had a friend that raised Arabian horses. And there was one thing she always said about Arabian horses, That teaching an Arabian horse was hard because they’re stubborn. Comes to find out, their not really stubborn as much as they are actually really intelligent and they easily develop bad habits. Have you ever read on how these horses are trained in Arabia to deal with the hardness of the dessert?
They are trained to tough the harsh dessert by learning to trust in its trainer. Arabian horses go through rigorous training in the deserts of the Middle East. The trainers require absolute obedience from the horses, and test them to see if they are completely trained. The final test is almost beyond the endurance of any living thing. The trainers force the horses to do without water for many days. Then he turns them loose and of course they start running toward the water, but just as they get to the edge, ready to plunge in and drink, the trainer blows his whistle.
The horses who have been completely trained and who have learned perfect obedience, stop. They turn around and come pacing back to the trainer. They stand there quivering, wanting water, but they wait in perfect obedience. When the trainer is sure that he has their obedience he gives them a signal to go back to drink. This is what God does with us many times. He wants to know if we, trust Him.
No, really ask that question, “do I really trust Jesus.” You see, longevity and perseverance prevail because we’ve learned to courageously trust. God provides difficulties to discipline, train, and build our spiritual muscles so that we can trust him more. The writer of Hebrews describes it this way in Hebrews 12:7, 11: “It is for discipline that you endure (To endure means to suffer, but to suffer patiently) ; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?” This is what is happening with Zacharias and the silent treatment.
Zechariah answered with unbelief, and God took his voice and hearing from him. God was giving Zacharias time to think on some things. This is the hardest part in our faith… It’s what I call, “the sideline treatment.” The sideline treatment is when we’re on the bench. We’re in a dry spot. Where in waiting. It’s like when the Isralites were circling the mountain. It’s where patience and perseverance is strengthened.
Think about it through the sports we play, What happens when we are sidelined in sports. It’s a time for us to rest. It’s a time for us to heal from our injuries. It’s a time to collect our thoughts. It’s a time to learn something. It’s a time to eat and drink, to strengthen and hydrate our bodies. The sideline treatment is where God puts us into a position to wait so that we can learn to trust.
It’s not a punishment, It’s actually a spiritual discipline to teach us trust. Why does God take us to the sideline? Because God wants to be the center of our passions, desires, and affection. He doesn’t want to share that chair with anyone. Because He is God, and nobody compares to Him. He desires and deserves worship. When we are being blessed, and when we are sidelined. Think of Moses… When God passed in front of him.
Exodus 34:6-8 (NLT) 6 He passed in front of Moses and said, "I am the LORD, I am the LORD, the merciful and gracious God. I am slow to anger and rich in unfailing love and faithfulness. 7 I show this unfailing love to many thousands by forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion. Even so I do not leave sin unpunished, but I punish the children for the sins of their parents to the third and fourth generations.”8 Moses immediately fell to the ground and worshiped.
What we see in this Scripture is that Moses comes to grips of who God is, and it brought him to his knees and then he responded with a heart of worship. Obedience will always drive us into the heart of trusting. Trying isn’t sanctification… trying isn’t even God willed or power… Trying is always fueled by what we have… not by what God gives. God calls us to lay down our trying and faithful live by trusting, and when we trust, we worship.
Henry Blackaby said: “If you have an obedience problem, you have a love problem. Obedience is the outward expression of your love for God.” What we learn is that when God calls us, he provides for us. God always rewards faithfulness. This morning, as we begin to lean in to Christmas courage and look at all of these peoples lives. Let this be our first lesson from the life of Zachariah.
For many of you, This is where the Christmas story starts to be real in your life. Because like Zachariah, this is your life. Maybe you feel frustrated by the path your life has taken or it feels like you’ve been in the same position, and sidelined for a long time. Like Zechariah, he prays and he is praying righteously, he is even praying in his values, he is holy, righteous, good leader, but yet he didn’t believe that God would answer him.
He’s given the honor of burning the incense and before God he still doesn't believe God doesn’t hear him. Sometimes our own personal values can be clouded by personal disappointment. Sometimes our own personal values can be checked against God’s holiness. Think about it, he has becomes so familiar with holy things and the everyday life of his faith, that when before a holy angel, he’s numb to the intrusion of real in your face holiness in his life.
However, Zechariah finds the courage to rise through change. He learns to rise above. That’s good courage… good courage is fearlessly doing what God tells us to do without delay. Believe it or not, it takes courage to do something outside the will of God. For instance, if someone disrespected us, we have a decision to make regarding which courage to choose. Bad courage would lead us to curse them out, bash them on Twitter or Facebook or behind their back, or do physical or emotional harm to that person.
Good courage would lead us to love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, and stand for righteousness (Matthew 5:44). When we have the good courage to walk by faith we will, every time gain the perseverance to endure all trials. Colossians 3: 15-17 Always be thankful. Let the words of Christ, in all their richness, live in your hearts and make you wise. Use His words to teach and counsel each other.
Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. And whatever you do or say, let it be as a representative of the Lord Jesus, all the while giving thanks through Him to God the Father. And may the blessing of God, the love of Jesus Christ, and the presence of the Holy Spirit strengthen and encourage you as you go out from here to live lives of gratitude and service.
Amen.*