His Name Is John | Sunday, March 2, 2025

If you have been watching us here on our YouTube channel for Cross Connection Church, and you could join us here on campus on a Sunday morning, we would welcome you to come and visit us at one of our services. If you are in the San Diego area, check out our website, CCchurch.com, for service times. We would love for you to come and visit us.

Take out your Bibles, if you would. If you don't have a Bible, you can raise your hand, and one of the ushers will bring you one. Alternatively, you can just download the YouVersion Bible app on your phone and open to the Gospel of Luke, which is where we are very slowly moving through Chapter 1. We are going to pick it up today at Luke Chapter 1, verse 57.

Luke 1:57 is a very long chapter. That's one of the things you're going to notice in the Gospel of Luke; he is a little bit wordy, like your pastor. Luke 1:57 states, "Now Elizabeth's full time came for her to be delivered, and she brought forth a son. When her neighbors and relatives heard how the Lord had shown great mercy to her, they rejoiced with her."

So it was on the eighth day that they came to circumcise the child, and they would have called him by the name of his father, Zacharias. His mother answered and said, "No, he shall be called John." But they said to her, "There is no one among your relatives who is called by this name." So they made signs to his father, asking what he would have him called. He asked for a writing tablet because he had been mute, and he wrote, saying, "His name is John."

So they marveled. Immediately, Zacharias's mouth was opened, his tongue was loosed, and he spoke, praising God. Then fear came on all who dwelt around them, and all these things were discussed throughout all the hill country of Judea. All those who heard them kept them in their hearts, saying, "What kind of child will this be?" And the hand of the Lord was with him.

God, I pray that you would speak to us from this text this morning. I think that there are truths and principles that you want us to glean that are not just on the surface. Continue to teach us by Your Word. Holy Spirit, help us to apply these things in our lives, we ask. We ask it today in Jesus' name. And all those that agreed said, "Amen."

Now you may be seated. I was talking with my wife last night, and it's kind of startling how quickly...

Time goes by, and every day seems to go faster and faster. Do you remember when you were, say, in the fifth grade, and summer seemed like an eternity away, even when it was just a couple of months away? But now, it feels like it’s gone in an instant. I was thinking about that this last week because it’s been more than 15 years since I was on a mission trip in Africa with a group from our church and a ministry called Cross Connection Outreach, which had been a partner ministry of ours for a very long time.

Speaking of mission trips, you saw our announcement. I want to encourage you to prayerfully consider going on a short-term trip. I can tell you from experience and observation that it radically transforms your life when you go to another culture, another place, on behalf of the Lord. It’s totally different than going on a vacation, and it will change your life in profound ways.

I was in Mozambique, Southeastern Africa, more than 15 years ago. My friend Luke Ryder ran Cross Connection Outreach for many years. We were driving along, and one of the primary things that Cross Connection Outreach would do is record the New Testament in native languages there in Mozambique. They would put these recordings on little talking Bible units and take them to the villages because the vast majority of people are illiterate.

As we were on our way to do a Bible distribution, we were just talking as we bounced along on the dirt road in his truck. He was sharing with me that the cultural custom in Mozambique is that when you have a child, you do not immediately name the child. That’s totally different from our culture. Because of the technology we have, most of the time we determine months before the baby is born what the sex of the baby is, and then we rifle through dozens of names until we finally select one. My wife and I thought we were being very original when we chose our first child's name, only to discover it was the most popular name of that year.

In Mozambique, however, they don’t name their children until many times after their first birthday, which is hard for me to wrap my mind around. Sadly, this has a lot to do with the very high levels of infant mortality in Mozambique. They don’t publicly announce a name until the first birthday, and sometimes they don’t select it until much further along. It’s very strange to us, but it highlights the reality that...

Culture is vastly different everywhere you go, and culture is amazing. You don't often realize this, especially true for Americans, until you go to another country. I have a friend who is a missionary, and he says you don't realize you have a culture until your culture gets stepped on by another culture. This is very true because culture is kind of the water you swim in and the air you breathe; it's just a part of who you are, and you don't recognize that you have it.

In Luke chapter 1, we have a small peek through a window into a different culture. For the people in Zechariah and Elizabeth's day, it wasn't a year later that they would announce or publicly proclaim the name of their child, but on the eighth day, we see that they declare the name of this child. This brings up the question: why? Every cultural practice you have can be identified by anthropologists, who then try to trace it and figure out where it came from.

So, where did this practice come from? With many of these questions, the answer is found in the Book of Genesis. In the twelfth chapter of Genesis, God identified an individual named Abram and called him, saying, "I want you to come and follow Me by faith." Abram, who became Abraham, followed God by faith. He trusted in God to go where he had never been before. He left everything that was common and normal, including his family and all that tradition, behind to follow God. Ultimately, he came to what we know today as the land of Israel, at that time called the land of Canaan.

A few chapters later, in Genesis chapter 15, God establishes a covenant with Abraham after he has begun to follow God faithfully. They enter into a covenant relationship with one another, and as part of that covenant, God makes promises to Abraham and his family and descendants, along with obligations that He requires of Abraham.

In Genesis chapter 17, there is a reaffirmation of that covenant. God once again makes promises and has obligations, adding a new twist: He says to Abraham that for him and his descendants who will come after him, they will be His people, in covenant with Him, and they will have a sign of the covenant. That sign is going to be circumcision. In one respect, we can understand this idea of a covenant and a symbol of the covenant because if you're married today, you have a covenant relationship with your spouse.

You have a symbol that identifies you with that covenant. In our culture, you wear a wedding ring on your left ring finger, which serves as a sign that connects you to that covenant. It is not the covenant itself, but it is a symbol that indicates you are in a covenant relationship. It tells other people that you are part of this covenant.

The descendants of Abraham were in covenant with God, and they had an external sign. Although it may not be very visible or evident to others, they had a sign among themselves that indicated they were attached to God in a covenant relationship. Years later, Abraham finally has the child of the promise. God had made a promise to him: "You come, follow me in covenant with me. One of the promises I am making to you is that you, who are childless and whose wife is barren, will miraculously have a child." They have a child and name him Isaac.

At the naming of the child, which is connected to the eighth day, we find this in Genesis chapter 21. God had told them they would circumcise their male children on the eighth day after birth. They do what God instructed them to do, following the obligations, and they announce that his name is Isaac. In Genesis chapter 21, these two events—the naming of the child and the entering into the covenant—are joined together. From that point in their history, this becomes a cultural tradition for Israel. It becomes the way they assign names and identify themselves as the people of God.

Even today, if you know Jewish families who are faithful to their religion, on the eighth day after a male child is born, they hold a bris in the synagogue. They do exactly as they have done since Genesis 21. Now, if you are not Jewish, this might seem strange to you. Culture can sometimes be odd, but it is always important and has something of value or significance to the people who hold these traditions, even if they cannot fully articulate why it is important to them.

Cultural practices can be peculiar. Having traveled all over the world—Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Central America—I have encountered many cultural practices in other cultures that seemed strange to me. I guarantee that when people come here, they find many of our cultural practices normal, but they may not be able to explain why we do them. These practices can appear rather odd to outsiders. However, those things that set you apart as a people group are distinct and meaningful.

Who you are, your family, and your culture are distinct and significant. They have important value. This background sets the stage for the event on the eighth day when they came to circumcise the child. It is interesting that it says they would have called him by the name of his father, Zacharias.

From the story, we know that Zacharias and Elizabeth were well-known. Zacharias's job was that of a priest, and that is where we are first introduced to him, involved in his priestly duties in the temple in Jerusalem. This means he belonged to a specific group within the nation of Israel; he was from the tribe of Levi, which is the priestly tribe. Among that group of people, they had distinct family names.

Have any of you ever met someone with the last name Cohen? Some of you may know a Cohen. They are from the tribe of Levi. Generally speaking, most Jewish people with the last name Cohen can trace their lineage back to the tribe of Levi and the Kohanim, the priests of the Levites. They have a family name that connects them not just to the tribe of Levi but also to a path and plan for life. If you were to meet them and you were a Jewish person in Galilee, encountering someone named Zacharias from the tribe of Levi would tell you a lot about them immediately because of the culture.

Now, they bring this son, who has not yet been publicly named, to have him circumcised and to follow the custom of their fathers. They ask, "What is his name?" Zacharias would typically be the one to respond, but he could not because he had been mute for the entire time Elizabeth was carrying the child. So, Elizabeth speaks up and says, "We are going to call him John."

They respond, "Hold on a second! That is not a name connected to your relatives. This doesn't work; this is out of step with culture and tradition." The name John, even in its original form in Greek and Hebrew, is not a common name. If you look for it in the Old Testament, you really don't find it. Zacharias shows up a lot, but this name is not common, especially not connected to the priesthood.

Relatives in the family often say, "That's not how we do things." All of you have experienced that in some way in your life, whether in your culture here in America or within your family. You've done something where people say, "Time out! That's not how we do things." Can anyone relate? Some of you can, and that is what we have here in this text.

They say, "Well, now we need to talk to Zacharias." The problem is that he can't talk; he has been mute for some reason since the time he received word from the angel Gabriel that they were going to have a child. So, he calls for them to bring him a tablet—an old iPad, you know—and Zacharias writes, "His name is John."

I find this to be a fascinating exchange that teaches an important biblical principle. Point number one, if you're taking notes today: obedience to God overrides tradition and culture. Let that sit for a moment. As I was going through my notes this morning, I thought it may be that God brought you here today just to hear that. I believe there is someone here today that God wants to hear this message: obedience to God overrides tradition and culture.

This principle is illustrated in this text, but it is also taught by Jesus in another place, in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 7. Jesus is having a conversation with a group of Pharisees—very religious individuals in Israel who were ardently committed to their culture and tradition. In fact, they placed tradition on the same level as Scripture. Jesus exposes, in His conversation with the Pharisees in Mark chapter 7, that they had actually put tradition above Scripture. He says in Mark 7:9, "All too well, you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition, making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do."

Now, this right here is a challenging concept. It was a challenging concept for people living in Jesus's day, and I think it remains a challenging concept for us today.

Today highlights an important truth that focuses on the question of authority. Many people come from a more traditional culture. As we sit here today, each of you comes from a culture and family of origin. I had a conversation after the first service this morning with a man who was born in Hong Kong. He comes from a certain cultural and family tradition. We are all products of that culture.

If you come from a more family-oriented culture that is not necessarily represented in American culture, you might have come here as an immigrant or your parents were immigrants. That family culture and traditional culture weigh heavily upon you, valuing the authority of tradition and family. This represents one group of people.

On the other hand, there is American culture, which is not exactly like that, at least not in the 21st century. American culture today highly values individual autonomy and personal authority. These two perspectives are significantly in conflict. One traditional value emphasizes family, ancestry, culture, and tradition as preeminent, while American Western culture in 2025 emphasizes personal autonomy and individual authority.

These are important distinctions, and they represent the environment we navigate in America. It becomes evident early on. Some of you may remember years ago when I showed a video of my daughter Evangeline, who, when she was tiny, walked around declaring, "I do it all by myself." Her personality remains the same a decade later. Is that not a reflection of American culture?

I am not making a judgment at the moment as to which of these two is better or worse. Already, some of you may have certain thoughts in your mind. I will just say that both have their good aspects and their bad aspects. Without making a judgment about which one is superior, we should at least recognize that they are significantly different. When you become a Christian, it is important to consider when, how, and why these cultural influences impact your faith.

Where the traditional view or the individual view needs to be challenged by the biblical view, there may be some pros and cons to both of these perspectives. As Christians, they now need to be filtered through a different lens. Regardless of which one you think is important, the cultural stronghold exists.

When you get into the discussion of conservative and liberal views, it is important to note that this exists in this area too, having nothing to do with politics. It just has to do with society and culture. The more conservative view advocates for keeping traditions and conserving those values, while the more liberal view emphasizes individual autonomy and personal expression. These two perspectives are in conflict, and they are in conflict within us as well.

We need to evaluate these views in the light of Scripture. Regardless of which one you think is better or to which you find yourself leaning, the New Testament teaches in Acts 5:29 that we ought to obey God rather than man or culture. The biblical view, as you go through the Scriptures, indicates that following God's will outweighs sticking to family customs. Sometimes, God's command takes priority over cultural habits; obeying Him surpasses holding on to traditions.

While I believe all of this is true and can be shown in the Bible, it also requires that we evaluate our customs, habits, and traditions in light of what God has revealed in the Bible. This means we need to get to know what is in the Bible. Do you know the Scriptures? Do you understand what they teach about how we ought to live?

I think it is really important to gather together as a group to receive the teaching of Scripture. However, individually, we also need to get to know the Bible on our own throughout the week to deepen our understanding. As you do this, you begin to discover, as I have seen over the last two and a half decades of my life, that sometimes you need to re-evaluate what is the established authority in your life. What sits in your life that has rule or authority, or that we might call "Lord"? For some people, culture is indeed the Lord, especially those who grew up in a much more traditional collectivist culture where family and societal expectations play a significant role.

Culture and ancestry are extremely important. For some people, culture is Lord; it dictates their path. For others, family is Lord, and for some, tradition is Lord. This would have been the case for the Pharisees in Jesus's day. In American culture, you are Lord. You are the captain of your own ship, the master of your destiny. That's American culture, and we have idealized the individual entrepreneur for decades—the one who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps. It's a phrase I need to go and figure out what it means, but we say it because you are Lord.

So, you have to evaluate: Is culture Lord? Is family Lord? Are you Lord, or is Jesus Lord?

Point number two: If Jesus is Lord, then we submit to His rule and way. Let me just say, that's not always easy. We are confronted by cultural expectations every single one of us. Let's talk about American cultural expectations in 2025. We are confronted by it, and it has certain values that it promotes. Sometimes these values are not explicitly stated, but it's the water you swim in, so it becomes a part of who you are.

What are some of the cultural values that we feel the pressure of? You must go to college or university; that's an American cultural value. You must identify a high-value degree path. You must take specific and certain internships. You must climb the corporate ladder. You must do all of these things.

Now, I'll just say, maybe those are not necessarily bad. In fact, to be successful as Americans define it in 2025, those are all the values that you need to value if you want to be successful in this culture. At least, that's what we're told.

I had an incredible illustration of this last night at 10 o'clock. I was laying in bed when I got a text message from my daughter. This was the text message: "Dad, I got to find some extracurriculars to join if I actually want to get into a..."

Good college, but I don't know what kind of extracurriculars there are. I have to be a more interesting person. Right now, I'm too boring for any college to want to accept me.

At 10 o'clock last night, my daughter told me culture is not powerful. She's 15, and I said, "Love, you're going to have no problem. You're going to be just fine. You should not be stressing about this at 10 o'clock on a Saturday night." But she is, and we're confronted by cultural expectations. I have to admit we're also challenged by family pressures. Where does that come from? It's not just culture; there's a family pressure that is unstated and nonverbal, but it comes from the lives of her mom and dad.

I have another great example of this. Last week, I was on a walk and listening to an interview between someone I don't know and Bill Gates, a name you probably know. He is the co-founder of Microsoft and one of the wealthiest men in the world. Bill Gates said something fascinating: "Things with my mom were very intense. She had very high expectations. She would ask me to do things, and I would do them, and she would always raise the bar a bit. It was a wonderful relationship with a lot of intensity."

He continued, "We had a lot of people come over to our house, and I sort of learned her value system. After people would leave, she would say, 'Oh yeah, the so-and-so were here, and they must be so disappointed in their kid that he didn't go to a good college.' They went to some not very good college, and I would think, 'Okay, that's the way the score is kept.' I told my mom, 'Hey, you told me to go to Harvard,' and she said, 'No, I didn't, did I?' She was right; she never explicitly said, 'I would be most impressed if you went to Harvard,' but she got that across very effectively."

So, we are pressured by cultural expectations, and then we have these family pressures. But it's not just that; it's not just family or culture. It may be internal to us as well. We are conflicted by our own internal measures of desire and calling. When I was in high school, I did not aspire to be a pastor. When I was a sophomore in high school, I wanted to be a pyrotechnician. I wanted to blow things up.

Like, what guy doesn't want that? That's what I wanted. Even when I was in eighth grade, I wrote to a pyrotechnician and said, "This is what I want to do." He sent me a great letter and told me I needed to focus on chemistry. So, I took chemistry my sophomore year in high school and discovered I would never be a pyrotechnician. Instead, I became a pastor.

Somewhere along the line, that shifted. It changed because becoming a Christian adjusts your priorities. It's a lordship issue; something begins to change that has to do with authority and who sets the agenda. That's very hard—personally, for a family, and culturally speaking. We run into these issues.

Becoming a Christian is not just about adopting a faith and trust in Jesus as Savior; it involves submission and surrender to Him as Lord. Christianity isn't a casual belief; it's a life-altering commitment. This is why, when a secularly minded person in the Western world, particularly in the United States of America today, says that religion, specifically Christianity, needs to be privatized and kept as a personal, private matter, that's just not possible if you're a Christian.

It's a fundamentally life-altering commitment that changes everything about the way you view the world and your relationship to it. What that means is that when you commit yourself to Christ as Lord—and I don't think you can have Jesus as Savior without also having Him as Lord; these two are inseparable—if He is Savior, He is Lord. Scripture says in Acts that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, the Savior and the Anointed One.

What does this mean? It means that your future might not look like what culture or even you had in mind. It might become different. That's not to say that you'll become a pastor or a missionary; that's not what I'm saying. God may have ordained that He wants you in a specific sector as a light. However, it will change the way you work within that sector. It will fundamentally transform it. This is precisely what we see in this passage, which could be so easily overlooked.

Read through quickly and just get the flavor of the story. Imagine John's life had he followed the family script. John's name wouldn't have been John; it would have been Zachariah or Zacharias. "Bar Zacharias" means "son of Zacharias." A priest's son shall be a priest, and he was of the order of Abijah. There were different family names among the Levites of the tribe of Levi, and one of them was Abijah. This means he would be relegated to a certain kind of task as a priest.

So, he's got this name, Zacharias, and he's of the order of Abijah and of the tribe of Levi. That tells you everything about him. In fact, if he were to meet the average Jewish person and say, "Who are you?" and he replied, "I'm Zacharias bar Zacharias of the family of Abijah of the Levites," they would say, "Oh, I know everything about you," just like that.

If he had followed the family script, this is what he was going to do: a priest's son on a priest's path. But then God steps in and says, "No, his name is John." Well, that's not the family name, that's not a relative's name, and that's not even a priestly name. No, he's not going to do the priesthood; he is going to be a prophet. He has a different call and a different plan, and he is not headed to the temple in Jerusalem; he is headed to the Wilderness of Judea.

That doesn't align with my plan for him, Zacharias thought. Now, after he's born, eight days later, his wife says, "We're going to call him John." The family says, "No, no, no, hold on! You can't do that, Zacharias. You have to set her straight." He writes on a tablet, "His name is John." Those four words were powerful for Zacharias in that moment, powerful enough to open his mouth.

Now, all of a sudden, he could speak. He couldn't before. Why is that? I got a question a couple of weeks ago: How come Zacharias was struck mute and Mary wasn't when she talked with Gabriel? It doesn't seem like he had any drastically different response. Maybe not in the text, but perhaps in his heart he had a plan for his son. If I ever have a son, I'm going to name him Zacharias.

I'm going to raise him in the priesthood. If I ever have a son, he's going to carry on my legacy in my name. Then he finds out I'm having a son, and the angel says, "You're going to name him John." Whoa, hold on a second! I have a plan for my son. I have a family and cultural expectation for my son. Maybe he wrestled with that for the entire pregnancy and in the eight days afterward.

Now, all of a sudden, he praises God. Look at what he says when he praises God in verse 67. Now his father, John's father, Zacharias, was filled with the Holy Spirit. His tongue is loosed, and he prophesied, saying, "Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets who have been since the world began. That we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember His Holy Covenant, the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life."

"And you, child, will be called the prophet of the highest, for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of God, with which the Day Spring from on high has visited us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."

Consider, if you will, those two verses, 76 and 77. "And you, child, will be called the prophet of the highest. You are going to go before the face of the Lord to prepare the way of the Messiah, the one who is from the house of David." In verse 69, he speaks to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the remission of their sins. Following the path of family, culture, and tradition, John would have been Zacharias bar Zacharias, a priest of the order of Elijah. Instead, he's now John, a prophet of the Most High.

It's fascinating and reminds us that yielding to God's lordship means...

Embracing His purpose and plan for our lives, and sometimes not just for our lives but for the lives of our loved ones, I think Zacharias had to come to that place where he accepted God as something different than he had planned.

Listen, anybody who has ever come to that place realizes that's not an easy step. God has something different than we had planned. Zacharias may have had a plan; he had a vision for his son, and God said, "No, I have something different." Maybe it did take him all that time of his wife carrying that child and the eight days leading up to his circumcision and naming for him to finally come to the place to get on board with God's plan. I don't know if that's the case; it's possible.

But here's what I do know: I've seen it in myself and others. Point number four: you are never fully at peace until you find your place in God's purpose and plan. That's been my experience. Zacharias praised God, and he found peace when he yielded to what God had for his family and for the son that he had waited so long for.

Then, what's the result? The last verse, verse 80, is fascinating to me. So the child, John, grew, and he became strong in spirit. Stop there for a moment, because I believe it was back in verse 15—feel free to fact-check me—that the angel Gabriel said to Zacharias, "Your son will be filled with the Holy Spirit from birth." This has something to do with his anointing and his call. From the very time that he was born, there was an anointing set upon him by God and by His Spirit for a specific task.

Yet, verse 80 says the child grew and became strong in spirit. He had the Holy Spirit from birth, but there was something that had to grow and change to become strong in him. Just because an individual has a divine call and purpose from conception does not mean that they don't need to grow into that purpose and become strong in what God has called them to. It says further, the child grew and became strong in spirit.

The spirit was with him, and he was in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel. You don't just receive the spirit one day and then, boom, the next minute you're charging forward in the spirit. Very frequently, there is a significant time of maturing, growing, and preparation.

There are so many examples of this. Immediately, Abraham, Moses, and David come to mind. If you read their stories in the Old Testament, you will see that there was a long period of preparation. No doubt, there were certain times of angst, wondering when they would get going, and the Lord would say, "No, not yet."

For John, it seems to be somewhere around three decades in the desert. For Moses, it was 40 years in the desert. For David, it was 20 years running from Saul. For Joseph, it was 21 years in slavery and prison. For Abraham, it was 25 years of waiting on God for the fulfillment of His promise. I could go on and on through stories in Scripture or stories of people who have lived throughout history. Perhaps you could share your own story, which may feel like being in a desert.

Escondido, for instance, has a stone inscribed on Maple Avenue that talks about someone who came here as a millionaire and died penniless in the 19th century. You might think, "That's what we're known for? People come here and die penniless in Escondido?" It raises the question of what we want to show about ourselves.

There is always a dry and mundane time of preparation. John was in the desert until the day of his manifestation—30 years, three decades in the desert—until God said, "Now." That's often how it works.

One of the applications to think about first is a simple question: Where are you right now? Have you surrendered to God's lordship? Have you acknowledged that you have been the one charting the path and plan, or have you been living according to what your family said or what the culture dictates? Have you said, "God, You are Lord"? Have you surrendered to the Lord and recognized His authority to make decisions over your life that might be different from the decisions you are currently making?

Maybe it will be very much the same; perhaps the Lord will keep you where you are to be a light and fulfill His purpose and plan there. But maybe it will change. Are you seeking to know His will and His purpose? I can tell you from my own experience and from the observations I've made of so many other people that God is so gracious and kind in the way that He does this.

My favorite passage of Scripture, which I have shared hundreds of times at this church, has to do with Philippians 2:12-13: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to desire and do His good pleasure." God is so gracious. You know how He starts to lead us into His path? He does it by changing our desires.

If you had asked me when I was in 10th grade if I wanted to be a pastor, I would have said no. I wanted to be a pyrotechnician; I wanted nothing to do with being a pastor. I took speech in my 11th-grade year in high school and realized I would never do public speaking. God just smiled and thought, "This is funny; it's going to be so much fun." But God changes our desires, and they begin to shift. This is often an indication that God is moving when the desire begins to shift and change.

Let me state it explicitly: God has a purpose and plan for your life that is different from what your culture, family, or you believe it to be. You may think, "Well, you don't understand; I'm in the second half of life," or "I'm in the last quarter of life." Maybe you're just starting out; you need to hear it too. God has a purpose and plan for your life that might be different from what your culture, family, or you expect or plan. I will say it will be far better than what your culture, family, or you expect or plan, but it might be different.

Have you ever asked God, "What do You want me to do? I call You Savior, and now I accept that You are Lord"? That acceptance might mean things change. You may say, "Well, I'm in the last quarter of my life, and I've wasted a lot of time." Well, maybe all of that was...

Preparation is something I've been doing now for 26 years. It seems crazy to me that I have been the senior pastor of this church for 17 years. Every single day, I think this must be preparation for something more that God wants to do. Why do I think that? Because I still wake up every morning with that thought.

Now, here's the challenge: not everybody acknowledges God's lordship, recognizes His call, seeks it, and pursues it. You can live your entire life without doing that. I hope you don't, because one of my greatest desires is to hear the Lord say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

My wife and I were with Jared, Kim, and Lla on Monday for about two and a half hours in the hospital room. As we were leaving, we prayed for Lla. My wife prayed first, and while she was praying, I was silently praying as well. I thought, as I was praying, "Lord, You ordain for everyone a purpose, like John from birth or Jeremiah from birth." You ordain a purpose from the very beginning.

As I was thinking about this, I realized that Lla's purpose was fulfilled sooner than we would have hoped, but I believe she fulfilled her purpose wholeheartedly. I prayed that, and afterwards, her mom, Kim, came and gave me a hug, saying, "Thank you for saying that. I think you're right." God wants you to fulfill the purpose He has prepared for you. It might be different than you imagined for yourself, whether for your career or your retirement, but I can promise you this: it will be better.

Would you stand with me as we close in prayer? God, I thank You for these passages of Scripture that can seem so familiar to us. They can be so familiar that I can read through them quickly and skip over large sections, thinking, "Oh, I've read this a dozen times." But, Lord, sometimes there is something there that You want to speak to us. I think for more than a few today, there is something here that You are trying to convey.

Wanting to speak to us, You have something bigger and greater. Maybe right now we're stuck in the desert. Perhaps the desert is some corporate office building, a construction site, a classroom, or whatever it may be. But it is a time of preparation.

Lord, I pray that in the days where it seems mundane, we would be faithful, seeking You, pursuing You, and delighting ourselves in You. We know that You will give us the desires of our heart, give us new desires, and fulfill those desires because You work in us to will and to do Your good pleasure as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

God, would You move in our hearts and help us to see in some way as You see? Help us to recognize Your lordship and authority in our lives. We ask for this in Jesus' name. Amen.