Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Do You Have Faith in God? | New Testament | Luke 1

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

How do you respond to God's promises? How would you react to a miracle? Do you normally lead with faith or with doubt? Keith kicks off our time in Luke by sharing about Zechariah's faith in Luke 1. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Luke 1

Welcome to 10 Minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. Hopefully by now, you know that in 2023 on 10 minute Bible talks, we're dedicated to walking all the way through the New Testament together. Today, we start in the Gospel of Luke, which is my favorite of the four Gospels. Now, before we dive into chapter 1, I want to give you five fast facts about Luke. One, Luke was a physician who accompanied Paul on some of his missionary journeys.

Two, Luke is the only Gentile or non-Jew to write one of the four Gospels. Three, Luke's Gospel is the longest gospel. Four, Luke's Gospel is the only one with the sequel, and that is the Book of Acts. Luke wrote that too. Five, Luke's Gospel has a special emphasis on women and the poor. So now in Luke chapter 1, Luke is going to show us two ways that we can respond to Jesus. Two ways we can respond to God's promises. Very early in chapter one, we meet a priest named Zechariah, who is married to a woman named Elizabeth, and we're told in verse 6 that they are both upright in the sight of God.

They observe all the Lord's commands. But verse 7 tells us they don't have children. That's because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well along in years. So Zechariah is an ordinary country priest, one of the estimated 8,000 living in Palestine at the time. He and his wife Elizabeth had a strong faith in God. Infertility is always an aching disappointment in any culture, in any century, it doesn't matter who you are. Some of you are in this position right now, so you know the pain that Zechariah and Elizabeth were experiencing. On top of that personal pain, they also had to deal with the fact that in Hebrew culture, the inability to have children was interpreted wrongly as a sign of God's punishment.

And so they lived under the suspicion that they had done something wrong. So now imagine what it's like to be them. You follow God wholeheartedly, but he hasn't given you the one thing that you most want. And because he hasn't given you that, people around you and your community think that somehow you're disobeying God. In verse 8, we're told that Zechariah's division, his priestly division, was on duty and he was serving as a priest before God. And then he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. So he gets to go into the Holy of Holies where God dwells in all of his holiness and all of his power and all of his love and all of his mercy, but God dwells there in a special way. This is the

kind of thing that maybe happened to a priest once in a lifetime at the most. Verse 10, when the time for the burning of the incense came, all the assembled worshippers were praying outside. That's when an angel of the Lord appeared to Zechariah. The angel was standing. And, the angel was standing on the right side of the altar, and when Zechariah saw him, he was startled and gripped with fear. Verse 13 tells us that the angels said to Zechariah, do not be afraid, Zechariah. Your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. 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. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the

Lord their God. Zechariah was stunned and he looked at the angel and asked him, how can I be sure of this? I'm an old man and my wife is well along in years. The angel answered, I am Gabriel. Now, look, there are only two angels in the entire Bible that get named. One is Gabriel and the other is Michael. So, like, this isn't a JV angel that's showing up and talking to Zechariah. This is a first-team angel.

Gabriel says to him, 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, and this is important, you did not believe my words, which will come true at the proper time. We've all said, or at least heard other people say, that if God or an angel appeared to them, then they would for sure believe. Whenever I hear that, I think of Zechariah. God sent the angel Gabriel to give him a message, and Zechariah didn't believe. His unbelief is revealed in his question. How can I be sure? Well, guess what, Zechariah?

A word from an angel, a word from God is about all you're going to get. So what can we learn from Zechariah's unbelief? Well, first we learn that religiosity doesn't guarantee faith. You can be a priest in the Holy of Holies and have an angel of appear to you and not believe. Second, we learned that your past obedience doesn't guarantee future faith. Remember Zechariah and Elizabeth? They were fully devoted to God. They obeyed all his commands. And yet, when presented with this good news, Zechariah doesn't believe. Third, knowledge doesn't guarantee faith. Zechariah had been raised in all the stories of the Bible. He'd heard them over and

over and over. He knew the Bible forwards and backwards, inside and out, and yet he doesn't believe. Okay, so now I think Luke wants us to compare Zechariah's response to the angel to Mary's response to the angel when he shows up to her and says, greetings you who are highly favored. The Lord is with you. Verse 29 says Mary was greatly troubled at the angel's words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son. and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end.

Okay, so think of who Mary is. She's this young girl from a backwater town who's got a boyfriend that she thinks the world of. They're going to be married soon. And now she's told by this angel that she is going to give birth the son of God even though she's never slept with a man? I mean, what's her response going to be? Well, here's what she says in verse 34. How will this be? Mary asked the angel, since I'm a virgin. The angel explains how it's all going to work. And in verse 38, Mary says, I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said. And then the angel left her. So compare Zechariah and Mary.

Zechariah was a priest and Mary is a young girl. Zechariah was married to Elizabeth and they were praying for a child where Mary is a 14-year-old virgin and having a child isn't even on her radar, at least not at this point in her life. So how did Mary's faith express itself? When the angel was finished predicting the miraculous birth of Jesus, Mary says, How can this be? Zechariah asks for more evidence. Mary asks for an explanation.

Zechariah says he can't be sure. Mary says she can't understand. And Mary receives at least a partial explanation, but Zechariah receives a rebuke and is rendered unable to speak by the angel. Luke's point to us is this, be like Mary when you hear about Jesus. Don't be like Zechariah.

Be like Mary when you hear about God's promises. Don't be like Zechariah. Hebrews 4 says this. also had the gospel preached to us just as they did, but the message they heard was of no value to them because those who heard did not combine it with faith. God has given us promises, promises to be with us, promises to fill us with joy, promises to give us peace over anxiety, promises that he will protect us and take care of us and that all things will work together for our good. And yet none of those promises would do us any good. We don't experience the benefits of them

if we don't meet them with faith. So today, ask God to give you faith in his promises so that you'll be more like Mary and less like Zechariah. Amen. Hey, thanks for listening. If you want to go deeper, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talk newsletter. You'll get a short email once a week. It'll challenge you to grow in your faith, give you interesting background on today's past. and a lot, lot more. Just click the link in the show notes to sign up. It'll help you deepen your journey with Jesus.