Today's reading comes from Luke, chapter one, verses one through 25. In as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, It seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the division of Abijah, and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years. Now, while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. And your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. and you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready for the Lord a people prepared. And Zechariah said to the angel, How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.' And the angels answered him, I am Gabriel. I stand in presence of God. I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time. And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple. And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept making signs to them and remained mute. And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home. After these days, his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, You may take your seat. I am so happy to be kicking off our Advent sermon series. I love Advent, especially this first week of hope, how it heralds everything that is to come with hope, right? I love that it worked well, how Luke is setting up the stage for us to hear about the incarnation of our Savior, and I am very excited to share with you all how Luke presents us with an unbelievable hope this morning. Last time I had the privilege of preaching, I opened up for our previous series going through the first seven chapters of Acts, right? The author of Acts is Luke, and now we're coming back to volume one of Luke's work. So if Acts, we said, was about what Jesus continued to do after his death, resurrection, ascension, and session, the gospel of Luke then is Well, everything before that, right? Luke tells us that there is a specific purpose in his writing. He actually has a moral agenda in producing this gospel. In verses one through four, we see that he is compiling a narrative. He is writing an orderly account of the things that were witnessed and investigated regarding the person and work of Jesus Christ. For who? For Theophilus, which could be a real person. Maybe not, we discussed that. But also for all the Theophili, the lovers of God, which is what his name means. All the lovers of God that would be to come for us. Verse four states Luke's purpose plainly. He wants Theophilus to be fully convinced beyond any doubt that the things that he has been taught, the things of the Christian faith, are true. In other words, Luke wants Theophilus to believe. I love Luke. He's an orderly guy, as we learn from these verses. Kind of obsessive in his research, determined in his communication. and in fact very neat, and actually highly regarded in his craft as a historian. According to scholars, these four verses are the most exquisite expression of Koine Greek in written form in all of the New Testament. You can't tell very much in English, it's just one long sentence, but we'll take their word for it. All of these are nice ways to say that Luke was probably a little OCD, which, if you know anything about me, let's just say that resonates with me a little loudly. Now, if any of us were to create an orderly account, as Luke is wanting to do, we wouldn't necessarily have to pick a starting point, an ending point, and then fill the middle up with some kind of logical flow that holds up to certain criteria, right? That makes sense. And this is exactly what Luke does, but his inspired starting point is just so, so interesting. While Matthew kicks off with Jesus' genealogy and then his birth, Mark launches into John the Baptist as an adult, already doing ministry and ushering in the kingdom of heaven. And John kind of does his own little philosophical artistic thing and decides to start from the very beginning, right? Quite literally, in the beginning was the word. But Luke, Luke kicks off with this narrative full of echoes of the Old Testament with priests, temple worship, angelic appearances, and mentioning and quoting of Old Testament prophets. Why does he start this way? Well, Luke wants to stress the connection between this new news of Jesus Christ and the old news of Jewish religion. He's connecting these eras, these movements of God, despite a 400-year period of intertestamental, between the Old Testament and the New Testament, intertestamental silence, right? in which God was at work, but in silent work. He wasn't revealing. The prophets ended, and now we see something new happening after 400 years. And for Luke, history is not just an accumulation of events, but rather a well-crafted, purposeful unfolding of sequences, of eras, which are ever moving towards something, namely God himself, right? Now, for the kids in here taking notes, this is what Luke wants you to understand, that all of human history, everything that has happened since the creation of the world into eternity is history. It's his story. Did you see that? Isn't that cool? Share that with a friend this week. And as we engage this text, this story, Luke is inviting us to discover where we're coming from and where we're headed. He is inviting us to dive into his gospel, which he clearly understands as scripture, an equal category to the Old Testament. He believes his words, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to be capable of producing life-changing faith. He wants us to resist engaging Scripture kind of like a toolbox to get whatever we need out of it so we can apply it to life. The question is not how Scripture or God is relevant to me, but rather how I, how we as God's people can be more relevant to what God has done, is doing, and will continue to do in history. Luke is inviting us not to discover the lesson or the moral biblical revelation, but rather participate and take our place in it and discover the intentionality, the care, the purpose, the love and power of a sovereign God, hand crafting each of the little moments in time to display in much grander scale his zeal for his own glory and his purpose of preparing and redeeming a people for himself. through the person and work of Jesus Christ. This is why Luke feels a need to compile this gospel and write it down to share it with others. This is the most important story out there because it's a story of true hope that is made available to all. If this is your first time here in this church or hearing a message from the Bible, this is a great place to start. The Gospel of Luke is a great value to those seeking to be theophili, lovers of God, or those who are exploring an interest in Christianity. I'm so glad that you are here to listen to this message of hope, even though it might seem a little unbelievable. So remember, Luke's purpose here, he's writing for Theophilus or for us as well to be fully convinced beyond any doubt that our hope in Christ is well grounded. To sum up this first point, he is convinced that this unbelievable hope, an unbelievable hope ought to be taught and ultimately believed. So that is Luke's introduction to his gospel, verses one through four. And now we launch into the narrative itself. So verses five through seven, an unbelievable hope is conceived through suffering. To get the most out of a good narrative, we need to get to know the characters. In this passage, we learn of Zechariah and Elizabeth, soon to be parents of John the Baptist. Zechariah is a priest. He's one out of the 18,000 to 20,000 of his contemporary priests, actively serving in temple worship in the various roles. We learn in verse 5 that he served in a specific division of Abijah. That's one of the 24 divisions that the priests were divided into that King David had established a thousand years ago to be like a rotation for temple worship. That would be very nice to count with 18,000 other pastors that would help here, right Matt? Elizabeth is Zechariah's wife. She is also of priestly ascent. We learned that she's one of the daughters of Aaron, brother of Moses. Moses was in charge of prophecy. Aaron was in charge of priestly worship, right? Aaron's wife was actually Elizabeth. Her wife's name was actually Elizabeth, and some commentator says it's a very popular name among the ladies of priestly ascent. So the chances are if you had a daughter and you were a priest, you would name her Elizabeth. Now we learned that both, from verse six, were righteous before God and walking blamelessly with the Lord. Another thing for the kids, they were righteous before the Lord. What does that mean? It doesn't mean that they were sinless. The Bible very clearly teaches that there is no one other than Jesus Christ, made man, that is sinless, but they did seek to sin, Less, yeah, isn't that great? Another thing you can share. And this was able because they loved and trusted God. And because of their devotion to him, they had an ongoing conformity, an ongoing obedience to God's law. They walked in a pre-gospel rhythm of repentance and faith according to the law of God. So we learned that they were thriving as God followers, yet in verse seven we learned that they carried some baggage. They were now old and they were never able to have children. The way that it is written makes us understand that they were beyond the childbearing age. Now, in any culture, no matter time or place, infertility has been and is a pretty big deal. Pep and I have had good friends over the years that have struggled, and some still struggle with infertility, and it's an ongoing disappointment for a couple who longs to have children. It's a deep sadness and could lead to many difficulties and difficult dynamics in the couple itself. It's a heavy burden that Nowadays, actually, you can carry in silence and many people do because of our modern culture that doesn't make much of a family without children, right? So we do well to empathize with those struggling with infertility and to pray for them as they navigate this waiting and this disappointment because as is true with any kind of suffering, it just wears people out. And not to minimize people's struggle with infertility today, but in Hebrew culture, barrenness was considered a disgrace and even assumed as a punishment from God because of sin. To have a childless family was the worst thing a woman could suffer because of how her cultural identity and value as a person was proportionately related to the amount of children, and specifically sons, that she had. Children represented wealth, again, very different from modern culture, right? Children represented wealth for a family. To have children was to ensure an honorable death, an honorable end season of life. It was a retirement plan. Your kids were going to take care of all of your needs as you grew old and prepared to die. No wonder that even after Elizabeth's conception, even after being delivered from her barrenness, she still calls her barrenness her reproach, as we see in verse 25. Now this is why Luke had to go out of his way to stress that Zechariah and Elizabeth's case of childlessness was not because of sin. We learn from scriptural testimonies of Sarah, Rachel, Hannah, and now Elizabeth, that God alone opens and closes the womb. He is sovereign over the precious miracle of life, and he does not grant life casually. He is deeply invested in giving life. God has been ready from eternity past to give baby John to Zechariah and Elizabeth, but the timing was not right yet. However, Zechariah and Elizabeth had probably lost all hope that this would happen because of their old age. Their desire probably never faded, thus neither did their suffering, but their expectation, especially as they were living their later years in life, was probably extinguishing. But let's look at suffering with a wider lens. The reality of life is that we're all going to suffer. And I know this is exactly what you wanted to hear this first week of Advent. But Jesus tells us, in the world you will have tribulation. you will suffer. It's a guarantee from our Lord. And even the second part of that verse, but take heart, I have overcome the world. That is great. What peace and joy we find in that, but it still doesn't remove the suffering. The suffering is not necessarily, in this case, persecution because of your faith of godliness, though there is a category for that, but He's saying that the good, the bad, the Christian, the unbeliever, the man, the woman, the rich, the poor, the old, the young, everyone will suffer. This is a reality of a fallen world. My sin, your sin, our sin, their sin is all affecting us. The entire cosmos, the whole created order has been disturbed and distorted by human rebellion against God. And as a result, creation groans. We groan, that language from Paul in Romans 8, and we all suffer. We all suffer to a greater or lesser degree for different reasons and at different times, but we all do. It's a common thing of the human experience. And it's a sad thing to suffer. It hurts. It makes life feel heavy and burdensome. It makes you feel exposed and incapacitated, vulnerable and helpless. But listening to Sorry, that suffering is not an accidental byproduct of the fall. We learn from scripture that it's rather a God-intended consequence, an instrument to bring about hope. Now, I'm not just gonna throw a bunch of Bible verses that teach us how God uses suffering for hope or for good and all that. Those are great. It's God's word that gives us perspective. It aligns us with how God sees things. But I'd like to lean a little deeper into what suffering is, what's the core of suffering. Because sometimes we're too quick, we're too quick to throw verses at stuff. As evangelicals, we're good to do that. We have our memory verses, and we assess situations through verses. But remember here Luke's perspective. Don't only have a utilitarian approach to scripture, but rather soak in it, know it well, soak in it, and let yourself be engulfed by it, rather than painting your circumstances with a coat of scripture. In Ephesians 2, Paul teaches us that the worst kind of suffering that someone can experience while being alive is being spiritually dead. It's like spiritual zombies, if you will. And that's why zombies are so grumpy. They're always aching and they're rotten and they're decaying constantly, but they're still alive. It's a very gross thing. But that is a picture that the Bible paints of people without new life. It's spiritual aching and restlessness. And what is the counterpart to that? Well, it's God himself intervening in a sovereign and life-giving way. We read in Ephesians 2, 4, but God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, incapable of doing anything by ourselves, he made us alive together with Christ. If you don't hear anything else this morning, just pay attention to these 80 words. This is the core message of the gospel that we believe and celebrate every Sunday here in this place. We are all born dead and continually prove our deadness by engaging in sin. And it's only because of God's mercy that he offers us true life simply by putting our faith in Jesus Christ as the one who cleanses us of our sin and puts it on himself. And through even greater suffering, he atoned for it on the cross as a sacrifice so that we could enjoy a relationship with God into eternity. Only by this gift of spiritual life do we solve, or actually, does God solve our spiritual death. But even after being given life, we still suffer. Then what can relieve our suffering? Joy? Not in my experience. I can be suffering deeply but still laugh at a joke and have happy moments here and there. Endurance, keeping pressing on and just push through it because your circumstances will pass? I don't think so because some don't pass. Some stick with us through all our earthly life or after one comes another. What about character? As long as you keep it all together, you'll do well, right? No, you'll eventually break. Suffering is not meant to be withheld. So it's a trick question, sorry. Scripture repeatedly encourages us to lean into suffering rather than to pursue a quick relief or avoidance as our world is increasingly designed to do. And as we lean into it, what do we find? Well, see how our Lord dealt with our greatest problem? Through his own suffering. And what did he bring? He brought hope for you and for I. We then should pursue hope. in God's good purpose in our suffering, not ultimately in the relief of our suffering. And this is a tension we can't get rid of, but one we ought to embrace. Romans 5, 3-5 paints that picture. We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, there's a little of that, Endurance produces character, yes, but character bruises, and the ultimate goal is hope. This passage that we're reading in light of the good news of the gospel, which I just explained, is teaching us that that suffering is a breathing ground for unbelievable hope. So Zechariah and Elizabeth were devout worshipers of Yahweh, seeking to submit to his commandments and statues and living a godly life, but it was hope that sprouted in the midst of their lifelong suffering that shaped them that way. It's a virtuous cycle of suffering and hope that comes at a great cost, no doubt, but it's God's work in our life. Suffering before God, therefore, is the most fertile ground for unbelievable hope. But how is that sustainable? How can hope be kept alive? Well, we learned that in verses 8 through 17. An unbelievable hope is sustained and realigned by worship. Zechariah's division was on duty at the temple. That meant that there were two weeks each year, two one-week periods in which each division was serving at the temple. And I believe that these weeks were a pretty big deal for Zechariah and that he looked forward to it with anticipation and just eager to encounter God in this fresh, new way, extraordinary way, right? And then I realized, oh, we're entering into one of those seasons in this modern church, right? To me, it's like Advent and Easter. There's those two celebrations that we—Christmas and Easter—these two celebrations that the church calendar revolves around and we anticipate as a people. So personally, I know that these dates are coming, so I prepare, right? Music, the scripture readings, the prayers, and every year it has a different flavor to it, and it's exciting in different ways, but also at a personal level, For me, some years, of course I'm focusing on God's worship, but some years, my heart leans more towards serving specific groups of people and how can we address this theme for some. Or even some years, I need to receive something special from the Lord through Advent or through Easter or through these special seasons. And I believe these dynamics were true for Zechariah's rhythm as well, considering his circumstances, sometimes leaning more towards interceding for Israel's redemption, sometimes leaning more towards using that season to intercede for God to give him a child. These somewhat extraordinary opportunities of worship reveal his heart, and in it his hopes and dreams. He prepares to share these with God during these special occasions, and he presents them before him. And in God's presence, Zechariah's hope was continually being realigned and recalibrated in conformity to God's heart. But this time around, it was even more special. What we read here in the passage, what he was chosen to do to light the incense before the hour of prayer was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Priests could only do it once in their life. Remember, there are 18 to 20,000 priests, and only 14 priests did this in a year, and he was chosen one. I'm terrible with numbers. I would've given you a percentage of the odds and all that. I can't do that. But when Luke mentions that by lot he was chosen, He's not saying, oh, what a coincidence, that's amazing. No, he's saying in the vein, in the line of Proverbs 16.33, that the lot is cast into the lap, but every decision is from the Lord. He's saying, look, look at what God is doing here. I think that in this opportunity, Zechariah's putting it all on the table. He's not gonna leave anything unsaid or unprayed for before the Lord. He will surely lift up praises to the glory of God. He will intercede for the forgiveness of Israel's sins. for its spiritual barrenness, for its liberation from Rome, and for the coming of the Messiah, all those things are in his mind. But also, despite his and Elizabeth's lifelong barrenness, in this unique occasion, he's probably gonna throw in a request for a child. Elizabeth would never forgive him if he didn't. So Zechariah suddenly finds himself at the peak of his priestly career. He can't wait to get back home and tell Elizabeth all about it, but he has no clue what is about to happen next. So in verse 10, we read, everyone was praying. And by the way, in Luke and in Acts, as we saw, whenever people engage in prayer, you have to look for something big to happen. Luke rarely points out a prayer time in the narrative without pointing to something big. And speaking of momentous occasions, Zechariah has collected his thoughts. He's getting ready to pray as soon as he lights the incense, but right when he's about to do that, 400 years of divine silence since the prophet Malachi were broken by whom we later learn is none other than the angel Gabriel. This is amazing. It's been six or seven generations since there has been word from the Lord. And the last word that people received was this, in Malachi. Behold, I will send you Elijah, the prophet, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. So, while the first 100 years of the intertestamental period were practically uneventful, the other 300 were years of significant cultural and political change, which led to suffering and oppression as a people of God, right? Israel, just like Zechariah and Elizabeth, was in a period of suffering, and thus, as we just learned, primed for hope. They could only hope that this wasn't the part of God's decree of utter destruction in Malachi's prophecy, but rather the sending of Elijah part. And that's exactly what this was. And I've gotta say, angels need a better introduction line. They always come with a version of, do not fear, and that just causes terror in people. But at least Gabriel brings great news. He says, your prayer has been answered. Your prayer has been heard. And I imagine John thinking, uh-oh, which one? Because people know that I've been praying for a kid and then I only have a kid, that will get me in trouble with everyone. But Gabriel says yes, yes to all of it. Your love for God's Word, your zeal for righteousness, your devotion to worship and prayer has shaped you in such a way that you are praying God's heart and God is happy to answer that. You see, when we are regenerated by the Holy Spirit and as He continues to work with us in our sanctification, our affections, the things that we love, change. The things that we used to treasure and seek have been exchanged and will continue to be finely tuned into the things that God treasures and the things that He pursues. And this is why worship in all of its expression, personal, family, here, and wherever you may be, and as a life expression, is a worthwhile investment. We do well to live our life as worship, as we are being transformed from one degree of glory to another, right, into God's image. In verse 13, we read, now Zechariah and Elizabeth will have a son, right? His name will be John, which means God has been gracious. Now, Zechariah can't imagine to what degree the grace of God will affect him. Up to here, Zechariah's prayer was answered the way he, as of late, Honestly, never expected it would. So that's great. He'll have a child. But what follows is an unimaginable answer to his deeper prayers, which he probably wasn't even fully aware he was praying. Interceding for Israel, for the glory of God to be revealed in the Messiah, for atonement of sin, etc. He and we are just getting an idea of just how unbelievable the hope that was sprouting in him and in Israel and God's people truly was. In verse 14, we see glimpses of this. The angel says, and you will have joy and gladness, but also many will rejoice. This is where the glimpses of this unbelievable hope start. Gabriel begins to reveal how Zechariah's suffering before God, God's work in him as he worshipped, and how everything in his history and in Israel's history is connected in God's history. Your joy will be shared with many. Many will rejoice because he truly continues in the line of Old Testament prophets, which despite some of the heaviness of their message, there was always hope because God was engaged. During the previous 400 years, God apparently wasn't engaged, and now he's apparently back again and preparing for something big. So John will also extend this hope into the future, as was prophesied by Isaiah. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight. Every valley shall be filled, every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Through John's ministry, every obstacle shall be removed for people to see salvation in the flesh. revealed as never before in Messiah. And this is why John will be great before the Lord. Jesus says of him, I tell you, among those born of woman, none is greater than John. He was especially consecrated in an Old Testament, Nazirite kind of way, living an ascetic lifestyle, a special service to God through spiritual disciplines. And he would never drink. He would never cut his hair or touch a dead body. Through these things, his spiritual consecration would be made evident externally. And we keep reading, no wine or strong drink for him, but rather he would be filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, I love this. We learned from Elder Jeff's sermon a few weeks ago what being filled with the Spirit is all about. I think he defined it as a special openness and willingness to be led by the power of God. And here, Luke puts it in contrast to the consumption of alcohol, as it's done in other parts of scripture, too. For whatever reason someone may drink, maybe for pleasure, for warmth on a cold day, for medicinal purposes, or healing, or for joy, right? Wine makes the heart glad. Or for the darker aspects of alcohol, the reasons to drink alcohol, motivation, maybe inspiration, loss of inhibitions, or courage, Gabriel says, when filled with the Holy Spirit, God lets his Holy Spirit be all that for you. If you are filled with the Holy Spirit, God will let his Holy Spirit be your pleasure, your warmth, your healing, your motivation, your inspiration, your courage. No wonder he's going to leap for joy in the presence of intrauterous Jesus. the Spirit in him will react in an amazing way. Now, this is something very unique about John. He apparently would be regenerated by God in the womb, which is kind of mind-blowing. It's definitely not the traditional way hearts are regenerated as we learn from the rest of Scripture, but there is nothing traditional about John. He is quite extraordinary. But now for his ministry, verse 16, he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord. Now this statement is an implied twofold. Many will be brought closer by his ministry, but there are also some of ethnic Israel that will be revealed as being far from God. This is a seed of what later enacts will be an establishment of God's people as the church, no longer ethnic Israel. He will go before them in the spirit and power of Elijah. I cannot do justice to who Elijah is in the time that I'm allotted, but he comes, as we just read, to fulfill Malachi's prophecy. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes, his birth, and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of children to their fathers. This is all the turning language that defines John's ministry plan. If you ever lead a ministry here at New City, the elders would ask you to prepare a ministry plan. Just FYI. And I think John's motto in his ministry plan would be something like to proclaim a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. That's the way he is preparing the people of God to receive the Messiah. John's baptism is very different from the sacrament that we saw celebrated here last week. John's repentance baptism instead was a public acknowledgement of one's sin, a longing for spiritual cleansing, and a renewed commitment to follow God's law in anticipation of Messiah's arrival. And that's exactly how Gabriel sums up John's ministry at the end of verse 17, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared. Now, prepared for what? Well, to receive the promised Messiah, his body as a bread of life and his blood as that of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And by doing so, to respond in humble adoration with a life turned toward God and the pursuit of his kingdom. For Zechariah, the priest, as he took all this in, I bet he saw that this was a threat, maybe, to destroy his little world, the end of the sacrificial system, the end of the priesthood. It sounded nice, but how could life continue if all this were true for him? He couldn't imagine it. Well, the having a kid part of it was great, but the rest, I don't know if he was very cool with. And this last point, Which brings us to this last point, an unbelievable hope is quite unbelievable but certain. Verses 18 through 25. I imagine Zachariah saying, Gabriel, Mr. Angel, sir, how will I know this is going to happen? Literally it says, according to what will this happen? I need a sign. And I imagine Gabriel saying, what kind of sign do you need? Pregnancy kind of comes with its own sign. You will know. Zechariah says, but I am an old man. And Gabriel says, I am Gabriel. He reveals his name. And by revealing his name, he lets him know that he's the same Gabriel who showed up to Daniel back in the day. And there's lots of connections there that I would love to explore, but there's no way you could do that. But he's no random angel. He's Gabriel. He stands in the presence of God. He is sent as the mouthpiece of God. He is sent to bless with good news. And here Gabriel is gonna throw his behold card. Whenever a behold card is thrown by an angel, everybody knows that you should just drop what you're doing and pay attention. And he says, you know what, I'm gonna give you a sign. And Zechariah there is made mute and deaf, as future passages can show, until these things come to pass. So his silence is both a punishment for his unbelief, for his doubt, but also a sign. Gabriel assures him this way that these things will be fulfilled anyway, despite doubt. A commentator says that Zechariah's silence is a sign in itself that the initiative and authority does not pass on to Zechariah, but remains firmly with heaven. And something very interesting is also going on here. Look at the language used in this section. Zechariah demands to know according to what these things will happen. But Gabriel reprimands him for not believing his words. To know is way above Zechariah's pay grade. It's not his place, it's not our place to know many things. Zechariah will have nine months to think about that. And that time served him very well, as we will see in his prophetic song at John's birth. But as we conclude, to believe this unbelievable hope is what scripture calls faith. Hebrews 11.1 says, faith is the assurance of things hoped for. It's a greater knowledge. It's a surer knowledge revealed by God. Jesus said, blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed, right? Again, we go back to how this gospel started, to Luke's purpose for writing. He writes so that we would be certain, not in a mental assertion of the facts kind of way, but rather in believing you have a place, a role, a purpose, an inheritance, an eternity through faith. In that way, he's inviting us to engage with this news. Hope takes place in our imagination, so it's easy to have hope of the things we know, right? That was what was in Zechariah's mind as he thought about having a child. He could manage that. Yeah, having a child, he's seen that many times. But faith takes place in the certainty of God's imagination. Zechariah never imagined his son would be a prophet and the herald of the inauguration of the kingdom of heaven, proclaiming the arrival of Messiah. While it's easy for us to construct hope based on what we know, faith can only be given to us by our Heavenly Father through the work of His Holy Spirit, which enables us to hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. This morning, we kicked off our Advent season celebrating hope, hope that on this side of the cross is found in the source and object of our faith, Jesus Christ, that came to dwell with us. But as we continue to be a people waiting for Christ's second Advent, may God help us to build hope on the certainty of faith, that our imaginations may be stretched, our place in the story of God found and our kingdom impact multiplied and our God's glory magnified. Amen. Let's pray.