Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What Distracts You From Jesus? | Advent | Luke 1:5-25

Episode Date: December 13, 2022

How do you prepare your heart for Jesus? What areas of your life are you keeping from him? What consumes your time and energy? In today's episode, Tanya looks at Luke 1:5-25 to discuss what it looked like to prepare for Jesus's coming. 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. 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.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. If you love a good Bible story, you'll love Luke's gospel. He writes with so much depth and detail, he wants his readers to see for themselves the reality of when heaven broke through and Jesus came to earth to fill our longing hearts. Luke's narrative begins with an older couple named Zachariah and Elizabeth,

who didn't have any children. Zachariah was in the middle of a really, special day. He was a priest for the Jewish nation, and his division was on duty serving the temple for the week. This job only came around twice a year, and this time, Zachariah's lot was chosen among all the other priests. He would be the one who would go into the temple to burn the incense and pray, while the people of the Lord prayed outside. It was as close as you could get physically speaking to God, as the one designated to go into the most sacred part of the temple to pray for the nation. It's interesting to imagine all the things Zachariah would have prayed for that day in the

temple. Israel was in a dark, oppressed time, so of course he prayed for the nation. They were ruled by Herod, who was like a puppet under the Roman king. They had also been waiting so very long for God to come to them as he had promised, and the prophets had been silent for hundreds of years. Surely Zachariah would have prayed for the Lord to break through this darkness. But this also would have been a time when Zachariah's most intimate prayers also would have come tumbling out in the presence of his holy lord. Now while all this was happening inside the temple and while the crowds were waiting outside, Zachariah had a vision. He saw the angel of the Lord standing next to the altar in the temple. And the angel said something amazing. He told Zachariah, your prayer will be answered.

We could be thinking, what prayer? A prayer for the name. a prayer for a child, but the angel goes on to answer, Zachariah and Elizabeth were going to have a son, but not just a son to fulfill an empty ache and longing in the hearts of a mother and father. This son, who they would name John, was going to begin to tell the people about Jesus. Jesus would be the one to fill the empty ache and longing inside all the people of Israel. Well, the prophet Malachi had written about a messenger who would come to prepare Israel for the coming of the Lord. So when Zachariah heard his son would be this messenger, he knew God was coming to his people.

John the Baptist would trigger everything Israel knew about the promises of Scripture. And he was going to have the best job in the whole world to prepare people's hearts to meet their God. Now, when our kids were really little and my mom, was coming to visit, I used to turn the house upside down to make it look like we were living in some kind of cleanliness and order. I would vacuum the crumbs, I would put clean sheets on the beds, I'd make sure there was toilet paper in the bathrooms. I didn't want my mom to see the chaos we lived in, and I also wanted her to feel like we were making room for her because we wanted her to be with us. John the Baptist is going to help people make room for Jesus. But his message is going

to turn things upside down. He's not going to prepare them for a king who will come to a palace and require nice things. He's going to prepare them for a king who will come to rescue their hearts. In one sense, the nation of Israel probably had empty hearts when John the Baptist was born. They'd been waiting so long for God to carry out his promises. In another sense, they probably had tried to fill those longings with lots of empty things. Even the sacrificial says, system didn't fully satisfy their need for closeness and relationship with God. We can have empty and full hearts too. We can stave off discontent and regret with our phones as soon as we wake up.

Before we know it, we're so full of information about other people, we don't even realize what's happening with us anymore. And often, that's how we begin our day. The wonder and amazement of Luke's gospel is that the one who creates, aided our hearts and put that longing for something greater within us was coming to fill us completely with His presence. Ezekiel 3626-26 describes the way Jesus will rescue our hearts when it says, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from

your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh. John the Baptist would begin the chain of events that led to Jesus. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, John would begin to turn parents' hearts toward their children, disobedient hearts towards wisdom, and prepare people to welcome their rescuer. He would call God's people to examine their hearts in a way that would revolutionize the way they lived in their homes

and the ways they conducted business. In a picture of grace, God would overturn stone-like hearts and transform the way people interacted with each other. Parents whose passions were misplaced would freshly awaken to an unselfish love for their children. Those who were stuck on unwise habits would be freshly awakened to the better truths of God's commands. Now, while we sometimes experience the momentary ability to turn our hearts to the people and the things that we want,

none of us holds the power to regenerate our heart from the inside out. But this would be the message John the Baptist was born to preach. The rescuer was coming to do what we cannot do, on our own. If you were living during this time, what would it have looked like for you to get your heart ready for Jesus? Is it still necessary to prepare our hearts for Jesus today? Like the people of Israel,

we are part of God's grand story of redemption. We have seen the fulfillment of Jesus, but we are still waiting for him to return to rule and reign among us forever. And as those who are waiting, we have time to have time to, examine our hearts. A few years ago, our family had a chance to declutter and start fresh, because we were moving from one house to another. Between houses, we lived in a duplex, we sublet from a college student for a few weeks. It was a crazy time and made for some good laughs

from the neighbors when we parked our minivan on the street with the college kids. But when we moved into the duplex, we put most of our stuff in a storage unit. And then a few weeks later, when we moved into our new house, we didn't even really want the stuff that was in the storage unit. This is kind of how we need to look at our hearts. We can have them so full of things we think we need and not even know it. But when we intentionally set those things aside, we come to realize we don't need them, and we fall out of love with them as Jesus takes up more space in us. I hope each of us can get away in a little peace and quiet, away from the distance, distractions of our phones especially to repair our hearts for more of Jesus. Take time and be

intentional to know the desires that consume your time and your energy. Ask God to reveal areas that are keeping you from him and then repent to him in honesty about those things. Jesus teaches in Mark 621 that where our treasure is our heart will be also, and in Matthew 1234, the out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, those are good places to look to understand. what's happening within us. And then, we need to know and meditate on the bigger promises that Jesus brought to earth. Ephesians 317 teaches that Christ now dwells richly within his people. Ask him to fill those places you just listed with His grace

and continually fill you with the knowledge of his presence. It's ironic that Zachari heard about the arrival of Jesus while he was making sacrifices in the temple. Because when Jesus came, he fulfilled that need. He rescued our hearts from the sin that separates us from God and made us at peace with God. No matter where you are in your day, your week, your month, or your year, you can turn to Jesus because heaven broke through. No wonder Luke was so excited to tell us the true story of Jesus so our lives could be changed by Him too. Before you forget, sign up for the brand new TMBT newsletter.

Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help you beat the midweek. week slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.