When God Seems Silent, Hope Speaks

Life is filled with moments when God’s presence feels distant, and our prayers seem unanswered. In Luke 1:5-25, the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth reminds us that God’s silence is never His absence. Watch or listen to discover how to trust in His timing, stand firm on His promises, and rekindle hope through faithful obedience. Join us as we explore how hope speaks powerfully into our lives, even in the quiet seasons, and learn how to be a beacon of hope for others.

In this message, Pastor Chris reflects on the significance of the Christmas season, emphasizing the importance of worship and faith during Advent. He discusses the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth, highlighting their faithfulness amidst personal pain and the silence of God over 400 years. The conversation explores the fulfillment of God's promises through the birth of John the Baptist and the rekindling of hope through obedience to God's word.

Chapters
00:00 The Christmas Season and Its Significance
03:03 The Silence of God and Its Impact
06:01 Faithfulness Amidst Personal Pain
11:47 God's Promises and Their Fulfillment
24:11 Hope Rekindled Through Obedience

Keywords

Christmas, Advent, worship, faith, God's promises, Zechariah, Elizabeth, John the Baptist, hope, obedience

Takeaways

The Christmas season is a time for worship and reflection.
Silence from God does not mean He is absent.
Faithfulness in prayer is crucial, even in difficult times.
God's promises are always true, regardless of circumstances.
Hope can be rekindled through obedience to God's word.
Zechariah and Elizabeth exemplify faith amidst personal struggles.
The story of John the Baptist signifies the fulfillment of God's promises.
God often prepares us for His promises in unexpected ways.
Obedience to God can lead to unexpected blessings.
Celebrating the Christmas season reminds us of God's faithfulness.

Note Sheet 

Rockwell Church     Dec 1, 2024     Pastor Chris Teien
When God Seems Silent, Hope Speaks
Luke 1:5-25 (The story of Zechariah and Elizabeth)

1. The Silence of God is Not the ABSENCE of God (Luke 1:5-7)

2. God’s Promises Are Still TRUE (Luke 1:8-17)

3. Hope is Rekindled Through OBEDIENCE (Luke 1:18-25)

The WELL Faith Podcast offers encouraging, Bible-based messages from Pastor Chris Teien and guests. New sermons are released every Sunday. Replay episodes are marked with an asterisk. Find us online at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.Church in Virginia, MN. Email comments to wellfaith24@gmail.com

Transcript

Chris T 0:16

We come to Christmas season already. And it came quick. It seemed like Thanksgiving was kind of late or something, but you know, the Christmas train is coming. And I don't know what that means to you. I don't know if that means busyness and crazy shopping, or if you actually do take some time to worship Jesus during the month. So we're going to try to help you to worship Jesus during the month through Advent readings, through viewing the Christmas story that everybody knows so well, to remind us of what God was doing at that time, to make it possible for Jesus to come, to for Jesus to show us how to live, for Jesus to go to the cross, to die on the cross for our sin and to rise again, exchanging our sinfulness for his righteousness to those who believe in him. And it's exciting to be able to baptize believers. It's exciting when uh students come along and say, I want to be baptized. So then they let us know that it's because they are saved and they want to follow Jesus and they know that Jesus wants them to be baptized because he set the model, because he was baptized, and he set the commandment to make disciples baptizing. So that is an exciting way to live, an exciting way for us to live. And can you imagine what it would be like if there was no one speaking for God? If there was, well, here in Elizabeth and Zechariah's time, that's what we're going to look at. The parents of John the Baptist, two old people, that God called to have a baby, to have a child, who's going to be a good child. The angel even promised that he was going to be a good child. So, from what I can see in my experience, young parents do well with their kids because they have so much energy and they can keep up with them. But on the other hand, young parents are often trying to get their lives started, they're trying to figure out what their career is, they don't have as many resources. And so, young parents, that can be a great way. Old parents usually have their career established, they usually have more resources, they usually have done just about everything they wanted to do. So much of their time is just focused on those kids. So just raising those kids, caring for those kids, watching those kids play every sport and saying, I got nothing better to do. Young parents are like, I'm watching the sports, but I got lots of stuff I gotta do too. And so God chooses at different times in different ways to give us different types of parents and kids. So I don't know if you are the result of a young parent or an older parent, but God gave Elizabeth and Zechariah this child. So that's what we're gonna look at. But there was 400 years of silence from Malachi, who was the last time that God had spoken through the prophets. There was this 400-year period where God's people did not hear any special revelations through the prophets from God. And so it was a sad time. It was a difficult time. The Romans had moved in, and while they protected Israel from other enemies, they also caused a lot of trouble, and it was difficult. But number one, the silence of God is not the absence of God. So, again, Elizabeth and Zechariah are living in a spiritually barren time in Israel, 400 years of silence. So personally, they are experiencing personal pain and sorrow of childlessness and their nation's spiritual drought. Zechariah and Elizabeth remained faithful in their priestly duties because Zechariah was a priest who served God. And while he served God, he was a bit disappointed that God didn't had not answered his prayer, a prayer for a child. Because back then, if you did not have a wife that had a child, sometimes the men would divorce those women and go get a different wife to have children. It was seen as like God had turned his face against you, like maybe you had done something wrong. God was not showing you any favor if you were especially a priest and you did not have any children. So that was a source of sadness for both of them, a source of pain for both of them. They had given up on the idea that they would ever have a child. They still prayed, but as we know, because we're all familiar with this story, they were pretty surprised by the answer when God said yes. But at that time, they had pain and they wondered where's God? Why isn't God answering? Why aren't we hearing from God? And maybe childlessness isn't your problem, but maybe you struggle with a financial problem or a health problem or a relationship problem or a child problem or an in-law problem. You always find out in-law problems when it comes to holidays and stuff like that. You got the in-laws and you got the outlaws. But people struggle with a lot of things and they pray. And some people, they pray, and they don't hear from God fast enough, so they just give up. And other people, they just keep praying and they're like, like Job, you know, even if you slay me, yet will I praise you and worship you. Some people don't give up. Some people just keep serving, some people keep pursuing God, even when they don't get what they want. Some people just keep pushing on, and they're like, someday on the other side of heaven, I'll ask the Lord why he did not answer or give me the prayer that I had. And they choose to be content, they choose to keep showing up, they choose to keep being faithful, and that's what Zechariah and Elizabeth did. So Chuck Swindahl in his commentary insights commentary has written these it's really great to read. I don't have time to read it all to you, but just the way it's written. Luke's I'll read some of it. The Christ actually begins before singing of angels and the arrival of shepherds, before innkeepers and manger beds, or before peace among men. In fact, it begins more than 400 years earlier with a mostly forgotten promise, or Malachi 4, chapter 4. Behold, I'm going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse. And that was the last thing that God said for 400 years. And you read about the story in Luke of Elizabeth and Zechariah, and you just try to think about okay, so the silence of God and the sadness that goes with it is going to be changed in a day. An angel, we'll read this in a second, an angel is going to show up and announce that times are changing. There is a new thing happening, and that God is going to answer this through John the Baptist. And it is so exciting. So here we go. Let's start reading in the passage. Luke chapter 1, verse 5. In the time of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah. So here, Herod was identified that he's the king of Judea. He's like a kind of king that claims to be a Jew, but he's really not. He tries to follow along with some of their customs, but he's really all for himself. One Bible commentator said, it would be more like if he said, in the time of Al Capone, there was a priest. So this is not a good guy, but Luke is setting the stage, letting you know that this is the time, and it's not a great time for the nation of Israel. In the time of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah. His wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. So he was, she was a priest's daughter. And so they were living their life righteously. They were doing what they could. Zecharias, one commentator says his, or one Bible dictionary says his name means remembered of Jehovah. He was from the country, a mountainous or hilly section. So, and he was of the division of priests. So he was in the eighth group for division. There were 24 groups, and each group of priests served in the temple for one week twice a year. So Elizabeth, whose name means one whose oath is to God, was the daughter of a priest, and she was a pure woman, a virgin at her marriage, because the priest was required to marry someone like that. And it says both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all of the Lord's commands in decrees blamelessly. So I don't think it doesn't mean they were perfect, it just means that they knew that they were doing the right things, that they knew, that they did what they knew they were supposed to do. They were trying to live righteously. They were trying to live before God in the way that God had intended, following his decrees and his rules and doing what was right. So blameless. They were faithful, they could not be accused of being open in open sin. They had offended no one, they lived honestly before God and men. Would that be great if people could say that about you and your wife or husband or whatever? That maybe we can, maybe we do. Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all of the Lord's commands and decrees blamelessly. So there's you know the things that you know that you should do, and there's the things that you could do, and there's then shortcuts that you could take. So, me personally, if no one else is involved, I might take some shortcuts, but not everyone to follow when I'm following God. But as the leader, pastor of this church, as a leader of an organization, I will go out of my way to try to make sure that everything is right and everything is done right and everything is safe and everything. I never want to know that there is something that could hurt you, harm you, or anything that I could not get somebody to fix or to fix. You know, I see sidewalks or anything else. I will go out of my way to make sure that you are all safe. I think that God holds me accountable to do that. And I think God holds you accountable to do what you know you should do, to follow God in the way that you know you should follow Him, which obviously means that you pray and you read your Bible and you share your faith and you give back to God through offering. And if you haven't been baptized as a believer, you get baptized. Uh, it doesn't save you, but it is something that saved people do. And so all of the things in the Christian life that we just know we should do, we do that. And we follow after God and we keep showing up. Even when things don't go our way, even when we have troubles in our life, we keep serving, we keep sharing, we keep caring, we keep doing everything that we can, and we try to follow the Lord's commands and decrees blamelessly. And a lot of times God is going to bless you for that. A lot of times God will bless your finances, he'll bless your career, he'll bless your family, he'll bless your health, he'll bless your life. A lot of times. Sometimes, sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he lets you go with that sickness, sometimes he lets you struggle with those finances, sometimes he lets you endure that stress at work, sometimes he lets you endure troubled trouble troubled children. And so it seems like if you have multiple children, like I was looking at um, you know, groups of parents, and it's like, okay, they got four kids, I bet they have one wild one. And then they're like, Yeah, we have a wild one, but it switches. Sometimes the wild one switches. But nonetheless, they were doing everything right, and they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old. So again, it was a disgrace. It was a sadness. People questioned Zechariah on what was going on in his family that Elizabeth had not had a baby. And Elizabeth was wondering what her value was as a woman because she had not had a baby. And she prayed for a baby and she did everything she could to have a baby, and she did not have a baby. But they were faithful to show up, they were faithful to trust in God's promises, because number two, God's promises are still true. God's promises are still true. You know, maybe they prayed like the psalmist in Psalm 13, verse 1. How long, Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? And maybe there is something in your life, an unanswered prayer. Maybe you want to write it down on your note sheet. If you want to share it or share it with me, I'll pray for you. But to commit that to prayer and to trust that God is going to give you the answer that you need. Sometimes the answer that you need is not always the answer that you want. I'm very grateful and thankful that God did not answer some of my prayers, because it would have led me in a different direction, and then I probably wouldn't be here. But the prayers that God did answer brought me to this place on this day to share this message with you, and I hope that you will find it helpful. All right, God's promises are still true. Once, when Zechariah's division of priests was on duty and he was serving as a 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. This is a big deal. So this is something that probably would happen to a priest, because there are like 20,000 of them. So the time by the time you divide them up, there's only one person that gets to go in and do this. And on this time, in this day, he was chosen to go burn the incense and to go into the temple to do all this. And so it was a big deal. And I'm sure he was excited about it. I'm sure he had been waiting for this his whole life. I'm sure that he wanted to do it right. I'm sure that he had studied on what the requirement was and what he was supposed to do. Go in there, light the incense, offer the prayers, back out, lay prostrate and back out, and then go give a benediction for the people that were out there waiting, go pray with the people. And so he was excited to do this. This is something that he had never experienced before. Maybe he had heard about it, but he had never experienced everything that would be of this wonderful opportunity. It was also a scary thing, because supposedly if he did it wrong, God could kill you. But here, Zechariah has this opportunity. He's been doing right, he's been praising God in the midst of his pain, and God chooses him, and he gets to go in and do this wonderful thing. So twice each day a priest would enter the holy place, trim the wicks on the lampstand, and burn incense on a small altar in front of a woven veil, separating him from the most holy place. It would be likely, it would likely be the one and only time Zecharias would perform his duty. So this was no ordinary day. Yeah, he had no idea what a non-ordinary day it would be. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshippers were out, were praying outside. So he was basically like leading them in a worship service, in a prayer time, and so he was doing what he knew to do in a way that would honor God. And nobody would want to mess that up. Nobody would ever think of doing anything wrong. So he's offering his prayers and he's doing everything right. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and gripped with fear. So I don't know what appearance or form the angel took. Pretty sure no one he had talked to about the policies and procedures for doing this ever said anything about an angel right there. And so Zechariah says he was startled and gripped with fear. But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zechariah. Your prayer has been heard. So what prayer? Well, obviously, the one for a child and maybe for the peace of Israel or the restoration of Israel for the Messiah, whatever, whatever he was praying. The angel says, Your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. You are to call him John. And so he hears this message, and he hears his prayers have been answered, and I'm sure he's just in shock. So I'm sure he's in shock, and he's like, wait, we're like really old. Like my wife already went through menopause, and according to the doctor, we can't have kids. So I don't know. Do not be afraid. Your prayer has been answered. What is that like to you when you hear after praying for something for so long, or after waiting for a resolution to a problem for so long, that it's been answered, that it's been fixed. Some of the littlest things can cause us distraction at least, if not anxiety, or whatever. I'll share one real quick. So this week we had the grandkids coming over, and you know, my wife does really great at helping create memories and everything. And so for some reason, the downstairs area family room, all the outlets went out, and there was no power. And I had swapped the outlets for newer ones a couple years ago, but they worked fine, and there was no reason for it not to work. We have the space heater that helps heat everything, and I'm like, maybe it burned up the wire, I don't know. So I took everything apart. I took all the outlets apart to check my work and to see if I had a bad outlet and everything. And I was praying about it, and I called for an electrician, and he's like, Well, I wouldn't be able to be there for at least a week or two, and under my breath, I'm like, I don't think I could afford you anyway. But and then some nice person that goes to this church stopped by, and together we looked at it and figured out that somehow there was a loose wire in the box. And after that loose wire was tightened up, everything worked right again, and I put all my outlets back together and did everything to get it right. And it was right, and it was good, and it was done on time. And I was distracted by that. I was bothered by that. I was bothered by the thought that maybe I did something wrong. In my other house, we had to finish the basement and I did all the electrical myself, but then I had two friends. One ran habits at her for humanity, and the other one built houses. I'm like, okay, so I'll do it all, and then you can come check my work, and then you can hook it up to the box, okay? And they're like, okay, that sounds good. I never want to make a mistake. I never want to do anything wrong. I always want to be doing the things right. But if there's ever a thought that maybe I made a mistake, I it hits me. And so to have that problem gone, to have all of our outlets working and to be able to use it for everything we wanted to was just such a great relief. What is it like when you think that you have a medical problem and then you go to the doctor and they're like, nope, you don't. You just have this issue, it's not really a big deal. That x-ray, it was just a shadow, it's not cancer. Don't worry about it. Our mistake. Sorry about those two weeks of anxiety. Or you finally get your car fixed and you're able to get back out on the road, and it wasn't as expensive as you thought. Or people come along and they replace your roof before the snow and the rain come. And so it's all good. But to hear that, to hear the impossible, an angel of God is standing there at the altar saying, Your prayer's been answered. Your prayer's been heard. You are gonna have a son, your wife is gonna have a baby. How exciting! But even better than that, even better than that is what the angel says about the boy. And I think every parent would love to have an angel show up before the child is born, give a little preview of what the kid's gonna be like, and have the reassurance that this is gonna be a great kid. John will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He's never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he was born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. So he's gonna take a Nazarite bow. He is not going to be the kind of kid that you're gonna have to worry about struggling with alcoholism. He is going to have the Holy Spirit before he's even born in the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit would show up often for a period of time for someone to accomplish a task and then disappear. But here, John the Baptist would have the Holy Spirit even before he was born and for his lifetime to carry out God's plan and God's role. Everything, everything a father would want to hear about his kid. Be so awesome to be able to, you know, have that happen for you. Even better. He would go on before the Lord, and in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn their hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. And we're talking Zechariah's a priest, he knows the last thing that was says in Malachi, and he is like, Whoa, we just bridged that silent period and all that to this. Son that we're going to have? How exciting is that? How exciting is that? You know, in Isaiah, Isaiah, hello, Isaiah, those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. I'm pretty sure that if you are a parent that finds out that you're going to have kids at a very old age, that this is one of the verses that you paint on the wall of your house, maybe in the kitchen or whatever, that says, God's going to give us enough energy, God's going to give us enough strength, God's going to give us the ability to keep up with this kid and raise this kid. So again, promises, promises, promises. We need to trust on the promises of God. God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through? God answers his promises, but sometimes, sometimes he takes a while. Sometimes he helps prepare the stage. Sometimes he helps prepare the person for them to be what they need to be, so that they can serve in that role or do the thing that God has for them. So it's exciting. Number three, hope is rekindled through obedience. Hope is rekindled through obedience. So Zechariah hears all that. He says, This is so exciting that you're here. I've heard about you, Gabriel Angel. This is great. If we had cell phones, I'd love to do a selfie. That would be really cool. I can't wait to tell all my friends. And so John is his name. Okay, I can't wait to go home and tell Elizabeth. This is awesome. Is anything else you want to tell me while we're here? But no, Zechariah opens his mouth and says what he's thinking without thinking about what he's saying. And he's like, Yeah, I'm right. How can I be sure of this? You know, I'm an old man and my wife was well along in years. And the angel says to him, Dude, I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God and I've been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. You're not going to trust me in my word? Are you kidding? Gabriel didn't say, Well, let's do let's do the Gideon thing. You know, you got you got some sheepskins, you know, you got some wolves, we could do that. That was pretty effective before. I'm sure you're familiar with that. Or what would you like as a sign? I could do that. No, they Gabriel, the angel says, Because you didn't hear me, because you didn't believe me, you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time. So maybe he would have said other things that he didn't need to say, and God's like, you know what? I'm just gonna make you silent. Part of me, you know, wants to look into scripture a little bit and think, you know, maybe Zechariah wasn't good at keeping secrets. And if he told everybody exactly who John was prophet, who who the angel said that John was gonna be, maybe that would put his family at risk. People probably wouldn't believe him. Somehow, God thought it best that Zechariah be silenced. Let's see. It said, Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. And when he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them, but remained unable to speak. They probably thought he did something wrong. They're like, dude, what did you do? You must have done something wrong. You must have like crossed something over. But then it says when his time of service was completed, he returned home. So here he's lost his voice. You know, he's basically sick, and he's like, I'm just gonna keep serving. So actually, I didn't do anything, I didn't really do anything wrong. I talked back to an angel. That was probably dumb. Uh anyway, he served, he finished serving, and after this, his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. So why did she remain in seclusion? One, maybe she just needed to focus on God and worship God about this opportunity. So maybe she just didn't want people to criticize her if she said that she was pregnant and they said, No, you're not. So at five months, you can definitely tell a woman is pregnant. So then she's like, she became public after that. But for five months she remained in seclusion, then she comes up. But the Lord has done this for me, she said. In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people, among the people. And she was excited about it and she was ready to live it. And God gave that baby to parents who were righteous, who worshipped, who prayed, who led others to worship and showed them favor for their faithfulness. So Abraham was another one who struggled with God for a period, but came to the conclusion that faith was important and God could be trusted. Abraham never wavered in believing God's promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises. And James says, do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves, but to do what it says. All right, so we'll pick up on that again next week. So before you go, if you could fill out the prayer and connect card and let us know how you'd like to get involved or how we can connect with you, or maybe you'd like to subscribe to our weekly email update or whatever. And when you give, you can give online or by text or whatever. This is up every week. But there's a box there where you can give to support the church, and you can also give to support the benevolent fund. But when we give, it's an act of worship. When we give, God sees our heart and he can reward us and bless us based upon our faithfulness. And we are so thankful for those people who have given this year, even those who gave over and above to help pay for part of the roof. And we'll probably tell you more about that at the budget and ballot meeting. But we're just so excited. Let me just pray again, Lord Jesus, I thank you for these people. I pray that they would go from here excited about the Christmas season and see good things in the in the Christmas trees that have needles that point up in praise and the lights reminding us of the light of the world and all the Christmas songs that proclaim you and everything that goes along with celebrating the season where we remember your birth. You probably weren't born on December twenty fifth. But we just thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.