Waiting in Hope | Sunday, February 16, 2025

Amen. While you're standing, would you take out your Bible this morning? If you don't have one, you can raise your hand, and an usher will bring you one. If you don't own a Bible, consider that a gift this morning. We are going to be in the Gospel of Luke, which is about two-thirds of the way through your Bible. Open to about the middle and start to turn to the right; you'll get to the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Luke chapter 1, the same passage we've read the last couple of weeks, begins at verse one. We read these words: "Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the certainty of the things in which you were instructed."

Father, I pray this morning that as we consider the text of Scripture, we would once again be reminded of the certainty of the things in which we have been instructed and in which we have believed. Lord, that you would continue to reveal yourself to us through your Word and by your Spirit. Not just through your Word and by your Spirit, but by the work of your Word and Spirit in our lives. God, we would see your transforming work at work in us, your transforming power at work in us. The Scriptures say, Lord, that we can be renewed by the spirit of our minds and that we might display what is your good and perfect will in this world. So I pray, God, that you would continue that work of transformation in us. We ask this today in Jesus' name, and all those that agreed said, "Amen."

Amen. You can be seated.

One of the things I think becomes clear as you study through the Bible, especially the Gospels, as we're doing here on Sunday mornings, is that the Gospel—the story of the Gospel that's given to us in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and really the whole of it throughout the whole of Scripture—is the ultimate answer to our hope and our waiting in hope. I think you probably agree that one of the most difficult things to learn is to wait. Patience is a challenge for most of us, probably all of us. It's been said that patience is a virtue; unfortunately, we are well more exercised and well-versed in the vice of impatience than the virtue of patience.

We don't like to wait. We don't like to be told to wait, and we certainly don't like to be put on hold. I don't know about you, but I cannot stand hold music and just waiting and waiting. Sometimes, I will procrastinate quite a bit in making a phone call that I need to make because I know I'm going to spend 40 minutes on hold. We just cannot stand to wait. We don't like to be told "next week." We want things immediately. We want to have that "Buy It Now" button, and not only do we want the "Buy It Now" button, but we want it delivered to our doorstep by 5:00 p.m.

We live in a culture that caters to our impatience and, not only that, but also cultivates more impatience. We want instant access, high-speed internet, drive-thrus, and free delivery. Am I the only one? Am I wrong? I think we all kind of fall into this impatient category. Yet, patience is a virtue.

The story of Jesus, as we find it in the New Testament Gospels, brings us into a period of time for the people of Israel, who are one of the highlighted people groups of Scripture. It brings us into a time in their history in which they had endured a very long season of patiently enduring and waiting in hope. Their patience was being cultivated through a long period of painful difficulty in waiting.

Their existence, as we find them here in the pages of Scripture 2,000 years ago in the first century, was miraculous when you think about it. Many of the other people groups who lived up until that time had been destroyed through tribal warfare, conquest, and conflict. Names of people groups like the Hittites, the Hivites, the Ammonites, and the Arameans did not survive the conquest of other great people groups like the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, and then the Romans.

But the people of Israel survived. In the early first century, as we are acquainted with them in the Gospels, they continued to wait and hope. You kind of wonder, what is it that they are waiting in hope for? Well, that really is what the Gospels are answering: the question of what it was that they were waiting in hope for. The opening three chapters of the...

The Gospel of Luke serves as a preface to the story of Jesus, and you might expect that the narrative would begin directly with Him. However, it starts with three chapters that have nothing to do with Jesus, containing about 3,500 words of content that lead into His story. This may seem like a lot, but as you read these opening chapters, you discover that they are preparing you for His story. They remind us that the story of Christ began long before the appearance of Jesus, leading us into a period where people were waiting in hope.

From the Old Testament, spanning Genesis to Malachi, we see that all those chapters serve as a lead-in and preparation for Jesus, who is the fulfillment of the anticipation and hope that people had. The story of Christ, as recorded by Luke, does not start immediately with Jesus. Instead, it begins with an individual who would otherwise be lost to history. We would have no idea who he was, as he lived and died in obscurity, except for the fact that he had an important son. This son helps us understand who this individual is; his name is Zacharias.

We will discuss Zacharias and his story, along with his wife and the child they will have, as a lead-in to the Gospel story. They represent a couple, Zacharias and Elizabeth, who were waiting in hope. They illustrate a long line of people who patiently endured difficulty while waiting in hope. I won’t go through everything in the lead-up to their story from Genesis to Malachi, but we will reference it a bit.

One of the key points you discover as you delve into the Gospels is that the Gospel makes the most sense when you understand it in its global, historical, cultural, and sometimes personal context. The story needs to be situated within the context of everything that has been happening in the world up until that time to fully make sense. When you begin to place the Gospel in its context, you realize that the story of Jesus Christ—His life, ministry, death, burial, and resurrection—is the fulfillment of humanity's hope and the answer to our hope.

Even today, it is the fulfillment of a long period of time of people hoping for something, and it is the fulfillment of our hopes. As we look back at the story of the Gospel, that’s a pretty big statement to make. My hope, in some way, is that I'll be able to demonstrate this as we go through the text.

These two individuals, Zacharias and Elizabeth, are a picture that illustrates this reality of people waiting in hope. I think that probably all of you who have endured a waiting period for anything realize that sometimes it can be frustrating. At times, it can not only be frustrating, but it can also be hard. Zacharias and Elizabeth are a picture of two individuals who are waiting in hope.

What were they waiting for? In one way, they were waiting for the same thing that many of the people who lived around them at that time were waiting for. They were among a group of people who had endured a very long season—more than a thousand years, really—of difficulty and hardship as a people. The Old Testament story illustrates this for us. Zacharias and Elizabeth were members of the family of Israel, and they had gone through some major upheavals and crises as different people groups had come in and destroyed their nation.

If you go back 700 to 800 years before the time of Jesus, you read about the Assyrians coming in and destroying the nation of Israel, taking the northern ten tribes away captive and almost completely destroying the whole nation. In the 8th century BC, the Assyrians first came and devastated the people. Then, in the 6th century BC, the Babylonians came in and once again destroyed the people. By a move of miraculous grace, the people were able to endure the Assyrians and then the Babylonians, eventually returning to their land.

However, once they returned to their land, they had a brief period of freedom, but then the Greek Empire came through and decimated the people once again. The children of Israel found themselves under the thumb and oppression of the Greeks. Eventually, the Romans showed up in the 1st century BC. What's fascinating is that this couple, Zacharias and Elizabeth, lived during the time when the Romans became the ruling authority over them.

People were living in a tumultuous time during the mid-1st century BC when Pompey, the Roman general, conquered Jerusalem in 63 BC. Zacharias and Elizabeth were alive during that period; they witnessed their nation once again subjected to the authority and rule of Rome. Shortly after their nation was overtaken by the Romans, the Romans set up a puppet king, Herod the Great. Herod was not someone the people liked at all. Although he did some good things for them, such as rebuilding and beautifying Jerusalem and the temple there, he was a king that the people did not want. He was not a great ruler, and the sentiment among the people of Israel at the time of Zacharias and Elizabeth was not positive. They were devastated and were seeking a deliverer.

For centuries, the people had been hoping for a deliverer who would come and rid them of the political oppression they had endured. This oppression began with the Egyptians, who had overrun the children of Israel and devastated them 1,400 years before the time of Christ. They were hoping for a deliverer during that time, and then again during the times of the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, and now the Romans. They were constantly looking for someone to come and free them from oppression. Their desire for a deliverer is a microcosm of the larger desire of all humanity for someone to come and liberate them from their oppressors.

Zacharias and Elizabeth had been waiting in hope with their people for a long time for someone to come and free them from oppression. Yet, their hope had an added dimension. It wasn't just the collective desire for a deliverer to save them from Roman oppression; there was also something personal happening in their lives. This is always the case, whether it is with you and me or anyone else in this world. There are significant issues that weigh upon us. For instance, look at our own nation right now; we have many concerns that weigh upon the national consciousness, and people are hoping for something to come and fix these problems. However, in every single one of our lives individually, all of us have something that weighs upon us.

They are waiting through what they are enduring patiently, hoping that there will be a resolution. Zacharias and Elizabeth certainly had that hope, and we get to know specifically what that was in Luke 1, verse 5. It says, "There was in the days of Herod, the King of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias. He was of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless."

However, they had a personal problem that they were enduring: they had no children because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years. There was a bigger problem that their whole nation was going through, for which they were hoping and praying for a resolution—deliverance from the political foe, Rome. Yet, there was another problem that probably dominated Elizabeth and Zacharias's thoughts and minds much more than the national issues. All of us have that; we have the bigger things that weigh upon us and concern us, but then we have the micro things that are much bigger to us. Nobody else may even know about those.

Zacharias and Elizabeth had this major problem for themselves. We are told that they had no child; Elizabeth was barren, and they were old. They were waiting through this patiently, enduring, waiting in hope. In that place, they were probably experiencing what King Solomon wrote about a thousand years before they lived when he said, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick" (Proverbs 13:12). I think most of us here this morning hear those words and understand; hope deferred makes the heart sick. It gets harder and harder to hope the longer we wait, and sometimes it becomes more painful.

As it relates to barrenness for a Jewish woman like Elizabeth in her day, 2,000 years ago, there were multiple dimensions to why this was such a challenging thing to face. For a woman living in the first-century Jewish world, being childless meant that you had no heir within your family. Not only did you not have an heir, but your family name would cease, and this was a big deal for them, for Zacharias and for Elizabeth.

Elizabeth, it was the custom of the time that the man would hand down his first name to his firstborn son. So, Zacharias's son would be named Zacharias. However, Zacharias's name is about to cease because he and his wife are barren and old, beyond the time when they could hope to have children. This was a massive shame for a couple, but especially for a woman living in the first century. For Elizabeth, there was a heaviness upon her.

For a Jewish woman living in the first century under the occupation of Rome, there was an added dimension to this situation. You see, there was a hope among Jewish women that they might be the one through whom God's promise to Eve might be conceived. What am I talking about? Well, there was a hope among the children of Israel that a deliverer would come, and it goes all the way back to the very first book of the Bible. They had this enduring hope through the occupations of the Assyrians, the destruction of the Babylonians, the Greeks, and the Romans. They were looking for this one, this deliverer, the anointed one of God, whom they called the Messiah. The term "Messiah" in Hebrew means "Anointed One."

Every Jewish woman, when she would get married and hope to have a child, was hoping that maybe her child might be the one that was promised. They were all looking back as far as they could in their histories, back to the Book of Genesis.

Point number two, if you're taking notes: the good news of the Gospel makes more sense when you understand the bad news of Genesis 3. Good news only makes sense in the context of bad news. To understand that, you need to grasp what the bad news was. I did say I'm not going to go through the whole of the Old Testament, but we are going to reference Genesis. If you're in Luke, you can turn all the way back to the very first book of the Bible, the first chapter of the Bible.

The Bible opens with the story of Creation: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth." The Earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw the light that it was good, and He divided the light from the darkness, calling the light "day" and the darkness "night." The evening and the morning were the first day. God said it is good. That is how the story of the Bible opens—with God as Creator. That is the most fundamental thing that we are given.

About who God is: God exists, and He is the one who made everything that we can see and even the things that we can't see. He is the Creator.

A lot of times, we can get sucked into the debates and discussions about how He created and in what way He created. Was it a literal six-day creation? Was it a day-age period? What is the gap theory? All these sorts of things, really, when you get down to it, matter very little. The fundamental belief that Christians have had throughout all of their faith is that God is, and that He made everything. When He made it, it was good. Seven times in the opening chapter of the Bible, God declares the goodness of creation. He creates the heavens and the Earth, the stars, the planets, all the land, the dry ground, the water, and all the animals that inhabit the waters, the air, and the ground.

After everything is created, we read in Genesis 1:26, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the Earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the Earth.'" So God created man in His own image; in the image of God, He created him; male and female, God created them. Then God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the Earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the Earth."

So many of the strong convictions that Christians have go back to passages like this in Genesis chapters 1, 2, and 3. In this very passage, we see that God is the creator of everything, but He also creates humanity. He creates us distinctively as man and woman, male and female. That seems to be a controversial thing in 20125 in the United States of America, which is strange, but that's what we believe and what is taught: that God made us male and female.

As He made us man and woman, the very first command that He gives to us is phenomenal. He says, "Be fruitful and multiply." He wants us to pair together as man and wife. He talks more about this in Genesis chapter 2, where the two would become one flesh. As they are joined together, man and woman, as husband and wife, they pair together. When they pair together, what is the outcome of that union? "Be fruitful and multiply." That's the first commandment of Scripture, and it's a commandment that still endures to this day. Our conviction is that there are only two: male and female, and that the two should be joined together as one.

Flesh, in what we call marriage, involves male and female together producing children, and they together raise those children to serve God's purposes. That concept is right there in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. Yet, it's controversial today. It's okay for you to believe those things and to stand strong upon them. This is what we are convinced is reality as God has made it.

Humanity was given rule and dominion over all of God's creation to create with what God had made. Humanity, man and woman, are given this mandate: be fruitful and multiply. I have a theory that God's original mandate, given to man and woman to be fruitful and multiply, is the reason that humans have this innate desire, this deep desire within them to pair up, to marry, and to mate.

When pairing up is postponed, when it doesn't happen, there is a heaviness and a weight that falls upon men and women. Women often experience this sooner than men. The pain of not pairing up is real. Why? Because God created you with a certain part of your purpose hardwired into you. There is something in you that desires to fulfill that purpose, and part of that is pairing up. When that doesn't happen, when it's delayed or postponed, there is pain associated with it.

When you do meet the one and you're paired up, if it doesn't move toward marriage, if that marriage is postponed or delayed, there is pain and frustration. Often, women experience this more acutely than men. But where does it come from? It comes back to the fact that God made us for this; He created us for this. So, when pairing is delayed, there is a painfulness, a waiting in hope. When marrying is delayed or postponed, there is also a painful part to it, accompanied by a waiting in hope.

Furthermore, when people are joined together in marriage, if it doesn't produce children, there is pain that people experience. I know a number of couples that I have prayed with and counseled over the years who get married but are unable to conceive. The pain that causes is profound. Why is there that pain? Because there is something within you that was purposed by God to do that, and so there is this waiting in hope.

We see this illustrated in the story of Zacharias and Elizabeth, two individuals from 2,000 years ago who find their way into the story of Jesus. One might wonder why the story of Jesus does not...

Start with Jesus. Why does it start with this obscure figure named Zacharias? What's this all about? Well, there's something about their experience, their waiting in hope, and the pain that they endured that the Gospel is going to solve. The fact that they show up in the story tells us something about this narrative; it gives us some ideas about what this story is all about.

One of the things that it shows us is that the Gospel answers our deep desire and the pain that we endure as we wait in hope for something. It addresses that hope, and hope deferred makes the heart sick, as Solomon said in Proverbs 13:12.

Now, back to Genesis for a moment. Before Adam and Eve, the first humans we are told about were created in Genesis chapter 2, when God made them male and female in His image. He said that He wanted them to pair together and be fruitful and multiply. However, before they could fulfill God's mandate, something bad happened.

We have the creation story in Genesis chapters 1 and 2, but in Genesis chapter 3, we encounter the fall. There, we meet another being: the serpent, who is more cunning than any beast of the field that the Lord God had made. The serpent said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of the tree of every tree in the garden'?"

It is strange and odd to us that the serpent talked, but it was apparently not strange to Eve. I don't know how we should interpret that other than the fact that she was not afraid when the serpent spoke to her. If an animal spoke to you, you might be concerned. If you meet someone who says animals speak to them, you're probably concerned. But here, the serpent spoke to her and asked a question: "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree in the garden'?"

There was actually a conversation about this between God and Adam in Genesis chapter 2. Two trees are named in that chapter: one is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the other is called the tree of life. God said that if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in the day that they ate of it, they would surely die.

Now, if the tree of the knowledge of good and evil brings death, what do you suppose the tree of life brings? Good answer! You guys have some great deductive reasoning skills. The tree of life brings life.

The knowledge of good and evil brings death. Here, Eve is asked if God said they could eat of every tree in the garden. She replied that God said they shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day they eat it, they shall surely die. She added that they shall not even touch it. However, God didn't really say that, and one can get into all the intricacies there. Ultimately, the serpent deceives Eve, and she eats of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When she sees that it is good and looks appealing, she assumes it will taste good and finds that it will make her wise.

After eating, she gives the fruit to her husband. The eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. When they heard the Lord walking in the garden, they hid themselves from God. What comes from this? What is the result? The New Testament says in Romans 5:12 that through one man, Adam, sin entered the world, and death through sin, and death spread to all humanity.

If you fast forward thousands of years from then to us, we see all the brokenness in the world as a result of that action in the garden. At least, that's what we believe: that through Adam and Eve and their disobedience and rebellion to God's command, sin entered, bringing death and brokenness. We have creation in Genesis 1 and 2, and we have the fall in Genesis chapter 3. This is the start of the big story that leads to the Gospel of Luke, everything that moves in that direction.

After the fall in Genesis chapter 3, there is an allusion to a promise in Genesis 3:15. As God speaks to Adam, Eve, and the serpent because of the sin and rebellion that has taken place, He makes a promise. In Genesis 3:15, He promises that through the woman, the seed of the woman, there will come one who will destroy the work of the serpent, the devil. He will undo the curse and overcome death that comes from sin. This is the promise in Genesis 3:15, and theologians have referred to this as the first allusion to the Gospel. They call it the Protoevangelion, which is derived from two Greek words: "protos," meaning first, and "euangelion," meaning gospel.

From that point in Genesis 3:15, the desire for the fulfillment of this promise—God's promised redemption—begins. This is the big story of the whole of the Bible.

In the Bible, there is creation; God made everything good. Then there is the fall, which brings all the things that are bad into this world. Following this, there is God's promise of redemption. From Genesis 3:15 all the way until the time of Zacharias and Elizabeth, there is this hope in humanity for a child—a child we are told will be a son. This child is going to bring redemption and undo the curse and the stain of sin. That is what all humanity has been looking for from Genesis 3:15 until the time of Zacharias and Elizabeth.

Zacharias and Elizabeth had no child; Elizabeth was barren, and they were both old. This story and theme show up numerous times in the Old Testament. It's interesting to note that their great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents were named Abraham and Sarah. When we are introduced to Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 12, they are also old and barren, having no children. What does God do by His miraculous power and grace? He brings forth a child, Isaac.

As the story continues, the same thing happens with Isaac and his wife, Rebecca. They are old and barren, hoping for a child that will come and undo the curse and the stain of sin. By God's miraculous grace, they also have children, and we are introduced to Jacob and Esau—twins who had problems from the beginning. Sibling rivalry goes back thousands of years.

We continue to follow the story through the histories, tracing the line from Adam and Eve down through their sons, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all these different people. It all leads in a progressive movement towards the story we have here in the Gospel of Luke, where we are introduced to Zacharias and Elizabeth.

Let me read some more from their story. In Luke chapter 1, verse 8, it states, "So it was, while Zacharias was serving as a priest before God in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense, and he went into the Temple of the Lord."

What's going on here? Zacharias is an old man, and his wife Elizabeth is back home somewhere near Galilee. She is barren and waiting for him as he has gone to work at the temple. Every priest would go and serve at the temple.

Zacharias served in the temple for a one-week time slot twice a year. During his time there, he received a call one day, informing him that he had been chosen. Perhaps they reached into a bag and pulled out his name, and it was his turn. He was going to enter what is called the Holy Place of the temple, a very secure area that only a few people could access at various times of the day. His job was to burn incense on an incense altar that was right before the Holy of Holies, the most sacred place in all of Judaism, which only one person could enter once a year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

Zacharias was chosen to go in, and this was probably the one time in his entire life as a priest that he would have this opportunity. He entered the temple to offer incense, and while he was there, the whole multitude of people was praying outside at the hour of incense. Suddenly, the angel of the Lord appeared to Zacharias, standing at the right hand of the altar of incense. When Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.

The angel of the Lord said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer has been heard." He may have been praying for years, offering all kinds of different prayers, and at that moment, he did not even know which prayer had been heard. The angel continued, "Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son." However, Elizabeth was barren and old, making this announcement seem unlikely. Yet, the angel assured him that Elizabeth would bear a son, and he was to call his name John.

Normally, one would name the child after the father, Zacharias, so Zacharias wondered why he should call him John. The angel explained that John had a very specific call and purpose from God. "You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth," the angel said. John would be a great child, bringing joy and rejoicing because he would be great in the sight of the Lord. He would drink neither wine nor strong drink and would be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb.

John was coming for a very clear purpose. The angel referenced words that Zacharias would have known from the prophets, specifically two prophets. He said that this son of his, who would be filled with the Spirit and abstain from strong drink, would turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He would go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers.

To the children and the disobedient, to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Zacharias said to the angel, "How shall this be? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in age." The angel answered and said to him, "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you glad tidings, euangelion, gospel. But behold, you will be mute and not able to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their own time."

As I was reading this last week, I thought, "Man, this is an interesting story." Why does the story of Jesus begin in this way? The story of Jesus is the answer to those who have been waiting in hope. Zacharias and Elizabeth are just a small picture of this. They, along with their whole nation, have been waiting in hope for a deliverer to free them from Rome. However, they, along with all humanity, have been waiting for a deliverer to save us from sin and death. Personally, they have been filled with shame their entire lives because the one thing they desperately wanted, they never had.

But now the angel comes and says, "Your prayer has been heard, and you are going to have a child." This child is going to be no ordinary child. He is not just going to take after you and work in the temple. His name will not be Zacharias; his name will be John. He is coming for a very specific purpose. What is that specific purpose? Well, he tells us what the specific purpose is; it has to do with some prophetic passages of Scripture in the Old Testament.

Before I get to that—and I am totally out of time, so you will have to wait—there is something about this story that I think we can identify with. All of us have endured waiting from time to time. Sometimes the things we are waiting for weigh heavily upon us. They may seem like light matters to other people, but they are really big deals to us. It may not have been a big deal to anyone else that Zacharias and Elizabeth had no child, but for them, it was the biggest thing in their lives.

One of the New Testament writers speaks about waiting and patience. He says, "Count it all joy when you have various trials." I know many of you do that really well, but I am not very spiritual, so I do not count it joy when I have trials. However, he says to count it all joy when you have various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. Let patience have its perfect work.

In you, you'll be complete, lacking nothing. The fact is, we don't always let patience have its work in us, so we don't come out of difficult things with greater maturity. Instead, we often emerge from challenging situations feeling bitter and angry. Perhaps you've met someone who is bitter and angry because things didn't go the way they wanted them to go.

However, if you let patience have its perfect work in you while you're waiting in hope, it can produce something great within you. I believe this is what happened with Zacharias and Elizabeth. We are told in verse 6 that they were righteous and followed the Lord faithfully, as described in Luke chapter 1. This is a beautiful picture, but it's important for those of us seeking to follow God to have the perspective that God wants to do something during that waiting and hope period that produces something good.

Point number three is that the tested faith of those waiting in hope produces patience and maturity, if we allow it. Certainly, going through trials can lead us to bitterness and anger, but if we allow God to work by His Spirit in us during the time we are waiting in hope, He can produce patience and maturity within us.

Fortunately, Zacharias and Elizabeth did not become bitter and angry as they patiently waited. They waited in righteousness, doing what was good and true with their lives. Then the Lord came and said, "Your prayer has been heard, and I am going to answer your prayer." Zacharias was shocked and surprised, and in his shock and surprise, he was rendered speechless because of his unbelief.

In verse 21 of Luke chapter 1, the people waited outside for Zacharias and marveled that he lingered for so long in the temple. They wondered why it normally doesn't take this long to offer the incense. When he came out and could not speak to them, they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple. He beckoned to them and remained speechless.

As soon as the days of his service were completed, he departed to his own house. After those days, his wife Elizabeth conceived. Imagine the shock she must have experienced in her old age! She hid herself for five months, so shocked that she didn't want anyone to know. She said, "Thus the Lord dealt with me in the days when He looked on me to take away my reproach among my people."

Solomon said, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick," but his word doesn't end there. He continues in Proverbs 13:12, "Hope..."

Deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes, it is the Tree of Life. Here's that reference again; it is a reference that only appears about a dozen times in the Bible, mostly in Genesis and lastly in Revelation. However, here in Proverbs Chapter 13, it shows up: hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when desire comes, it is the Tree of Life.

Humanity has been seeking the Tree of Life since it first ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Access to the Tree of Life has been restricted until 2,000 years ago when the hope deferred for Zacharias and Elizabeth was answered, and the Tree of Life began to be opened once again. God had spoken to Zacharias and said, "You're going to have a son," and this son that you're going to have is going to fulfill a very specific purpose, which was spoken of by two prophets: first by Malachi in Malachi Chapter 4, and then by Isaiah in Isaiah Chapter 40.

God said to His people about 700 years before Zacharias and Elizabeth lived, "Comfort, yes, comfort My people," says your God. "Speak comfortably to Jerusalem and cry out to her that her warfare is ended and that her iniquity is pardoned, for she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins." The voice of one crying in the wilderness says, "Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain brought low. The crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it."

The angel's message made to Zacharias as he spoke to him there in the temple while offering incense to God was, "Listen, you're going to have a son. His name is going to be John, and he is the one, just like the prophet Malachi said, who is going to come in the spirit and power of Elijah. He is going to prepare the way of the Lord."

What the Lord spoke to Zacharias, which he no doubt understood because he knew the Scriptures, was, "Listen, the Messiah is coming. The one that the whole world has been waiting for, the one that your nation has been waiting for, the one that you both have been waiting for, is now coming. He is going to ultimately make the way straight for the glory of the Lord to come."

The answer to every single heart's desire that has been waiting in hope for a resolution to the death that comes by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is found in Him. He is the one who will open the way to the Tree of Life. They waited faithfully throughout their lives, continuing in obedience to the Lord and in righteousness, and now their waiting has been answered.

It is interesting that the last word of Isaiah 40, which opens with the prophecy about the coming of the one who would come in the spirit and power of Elijah, whom we call John the Baptist, states: "Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint." Some of you this morning have been waiting in hope for a long time. David, the great king of Israel, wrote in Psalm 27, "Wait upon the Lord; wait, I say, on the Lord," because those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. God will empower them with great strength and grace.

Point number four, and I'll wrap it up: God renews and restores the hearts of those who wait patiently on Him. Israel waited patiently for centuries. They endured the pain of conquest, crisis, and devastation by the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, and the Romans. They waited for a deliverer to come, and eventually that deliverer did come, but not in the way they thought He would. He came to deliver not just from a political foe or an earthly problem, but to rescue us from the bite of the serpent. He came to save us from our sins, and John the Baptist would be the forerunner, making straight the way unto Him.

For us who are waiting in hope, our ultimate hope is answered only in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We must constantly be reminded of this because we often think that our hope will be found in some political thing, some earthly thing, or an inheritance that we did not know about. However, our ultimate hope is only answered in Jesus Christ. May we recognize that and share it with others. Amen.

Would you stand with me as we close in prayer?

Just going to close, guys. You can hang back.

Father God, I pray that you would remind us today that You are the answer to the deep longings of our soul. As we wait in hope, You are the one who answers that desire. Lord, some standing in this room this morning have been waiting in hope for something, and I pray that You would reveal to them the reality that You are the ultimate hope, the ultimate answer to our desire.

Help us to be able to share that reality with others, because there are a lot of desperate people that we live next door to, or that we work with, or go to school with, who are also desperately seeking for something. They may not even be able to fully articulate what it is, but Lord, in You and You alone are our deepest needs and desires satisfied.

I pray that we would discover that first and that we would be able to share it with others. We praise You, Jesus, for the reality of Your Word. I pray that You would cause these things to sink deep into our hearts, that we would meditate upon them today and this week. We praise You, Jesus.