Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - When God Makes You Wait | Christmas | Luke 1:5-25

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 Tanya Wilmuth. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now, we're in our Christmas series. We're exploring the stories around Jesus' birth and the prophecies pointing forward to it. Waiting used to be free, but now you get to pay for it. Beginning October of 2021, you have to pay for the fast pass at Disney World so you can wait in the lightning lane instead of the regular lane.

Starting point is 00:00:33 And that's if you're lucky and your ride is included in the day. the Genie Plus system. If not, you get to add on the ala-card option to pay another upgrade to wait in the lightning lane for the bigger attractions. So I did some quick math. And for my family of six to buy our way into the lightning lanes at Disney, we would have to upgrade by $342 for the privilege of taking in the views from the peak of Thunder Mountain. As we open the pages of the New Testament, we walk right into the dusty sandals of a nation that's been waiting for a very long time. In Luke's gospel, chapter one zooms right into a generation that's been waiting for a better king.

Starting point is 00:01:08 They believe God's promise, but it's been quiet for a very long time, almost 400 years. See, through the prophets, God told them he would send his king to rescue them, but they live under the rule of Herod, and they wait and they long for God to do just as he's promised. And right in the middle of that generation, Luke Zimsin on the very personal story of one couple, and it's a couple all too familiar with the story.

Starting point is 00:01:32 and the agony of waiting. Zachari and Elizabeth are waiting like everyone else for their promised king, but they are personally waiting for God to give them a child. Luke 1.5. In the time of Herod, King of Judea, there was a priest named Zachariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah. His wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were righteous in the side of God,

Starting point is 00:01:55 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. The passage tells us about their blamelessness, not because they were perfect, but to make sure we understand that despite the way they were treated by their peers, their childlessness wasn't because of something they'd done.

Starting point is 00:02:15 The timing for a child was just completely dependent on God. The story continues, once when Zachary's division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. So this was during a time of festival, and on this particular day, only one priest would have the privilege of going into the holy place within the temple to burn incense and intercede on behalf of the people. So biblical historians estimate that there were about 18,000 priests.

Starting point is 00:02:47 So having your name called by lot to perform the highest priestly duty on this most special day would have probably been like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So surely when his lot was drawn, Zachari would also have taken his deepest personal burden. inside with him. Imagine what it would be like to live in a time where the most direct access to God was a designated place. And imagine being the person whose day it is to go to that place. What would you talk to God about when you were in there? Luke continues, and they appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of

Starting point is 00:03:21 the altar of incense. Zachariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, do not be afraid, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John, and you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord.

Starting point is 00:03:42 God was doing more than answering Zachariah's prayer. He was giving this old man a son, and the son would signal to the people that the king was coming. Zachary and Elizabeth's child, the one we know is John the Baptist, would prepare the people for the king they were waiting for. So Zachary didn't have the perfect response, and Luke tells us he asked for a sign because he didn't really believe it. Through the angel, God rebuked him and gave him confirmation that the baby would truly come,

Starting point is 00:04:10 but because he questioned God, Zachariah's mouth was closed and he wouldn't be able to talk until the baby was born. So the very fact that God silenced him until the promise was fulfilled was actually confirmation that the clock was ticking. Zachary and Elizabeth had been hoping for a child for a long time, but I wonder if it was even harder those last few months. I wonder if the days were even longer with anticipation because no day seemed to matter in comparison to the day when their child would come. In 2010, some Oxford students published a study they did in a book called premarital sex in America. But the goal of the study was to understand why young adults either chose to wait for marriage to have sex or not.

Starting point is 00:04:53 They were two control groups. One group identified as being taught that they should wait for marriage to have sex. And the other group said that they weren't taught to wait for marriage to have sex. They were both groups of males ages 18 to 23. In the first group that was taught to wait for marriage, 28% of them reported that they were still virgins. In the other group that said they weren't taught to wait for marriage, 23% reported that they were virgins.

Starting point is 00:05:22 The statistics are so close. that the difference between them is almost insignificant. Now, interestingly, the study was conducted right during the time that sexual purity was being hit pretty hard in American youth ministry audiences. So promise rings and purity contracts were being made, and they symbolized a commitment a teen had made to wait for marriage to have sex. But the kids who were making these promises to their ministries and their parents were essentially making the same choices as the kids who weren't making any promises.

Starting point is 00:05:51 The problem, I think, is what we were telling kids to wait for. We were telling them to wait because their parents wanted them to. We were telling them to wait because of their reputations. We were telling them to wait so that their sexual fulfillment would be greater in the future. Maybe these aren't bad things, not bad things at all, but they're not the main thing. We were telling kids what to do without showing them the why, without magnifying the beauty and the glory of Jesus. We follow what God has said in His Word because God has a better promise for us, because following God's way is the only real fulfillment,

Starting point is 00:06:29 because only through the blood of the lamb will we be made pure. And sometimes following what God has said means we have to put today's desires on hold to live in the sweet spot of his grander plans for us. The Bible is full of encouragement about waiting because it points us to a better king. In fact, the Bible tells us that waiting for the right thing, for the better king is a good thing. Waiting makes us stronger.

Starting point is 00:06:56 Psalm 2714, wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage and wait for the Lord. In Psalm 31, they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up on wings like eagles.

Starting point is 00:07:10 We can do a lot of things to ease the discomfort of waiting. But if there is no tension, no discomfort, no flexing of muscles and straining for our eyes to look beyond our smaller fixings, for someone greater.

Starting point is 00:07:23 Have we lost sight of who we're waiting for? For Zachari, I'm sure the silence must have been challenging. He must have woken up every day wanting to talk, yet thanking the Lord that he couldn't because the silence reminded him of God's promise. For you, it could be keeping your mouth shut instead of coming to your own defense or keeping your mouth shut instead of saying what you think

Starting point is 00:07:45 at the refs during a soccer game. It could be waiting for a new car because you want to have room to be generous with your money. It could mean picking up more hours at work to help out the other staff while you wait for someone new to be hired. There are ways we can follow Jesus and image Jesus in our waiting. There are ways God can use our waiting to make us less selfish and more focused on His kingdom. We hasten toward the time when Jesus will return to make everything new. When it seems slow, we have assurance that our waiting isn't in vain.

Starting point is 00:08:17 It is very much real, very much evidence of God's work. and our hearts to make us ready for the Lord. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - When God Makes You Wait | Christmas | Luke 1:5-25

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