Standing in the Presence of the King

Well, as Brother Chris said, we will be in Luke and we will be in Proverbs some, if you could take your copy of God's Word and open them. I will go ahead and read the Proverbs passage first and I will come back and reference that at the end. And we will be, for the most part, in Luke tonight. "Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence or stand in the place of the great, for it is better to be told, 'Come up here,' than to be put lower in the presence of the noble." And as we look forward into Luke, let's begin in chapter 1 verse 5. "In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the division of Abidjan.

He had a wife from the daughters of Aaron. Her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and the 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 to 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, and when he saw him, fear fell upon him. And 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. 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.

He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and the 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 for the Lord a people prepared.' In verse 18, 'And Zechariah said to the angel, 'How shall I know this? For I am old. I am an old man. And my wife has advanced in years.' And the angel answered him, 'I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God. And I was sent to speak to you and to bring to you this good news.

And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you do not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.' That was quite a lengthy amount of text, and I will stop there. We may pick up later. But I want to look tonight at four different characters in this story. We will read text and bring out Mary and Elizabeth, and I'll allow Brother Chris to show the title, as well as the four things that we will see tonight. We're going to look at the first character tonight. We'll look at Zechariah. We'll see that Zechariah doubted. We'll look at Mary. We'll see that Mary believed.

And we'll look at Elizabeth. And Elizabeth witnessed. And then we will see that the angel Gabriel stood. So if you want to write those in your notes, we will get to them. The first thing that I want us to see about this central figure of the story begins with Zechariah. I want you to see a few things about him. Zechariah was a godly man. Scripture tells us in verse 6 and 8 that he was godly. Specifically, it says that he walked in all the commandments. That meant that he was blameless. Scripture says that he and his wife both, not just Zechariah but Elizabeth, they walked in the commandments and statutes of the Lord.

To let you know a little bit about him, he was in the temple serving. That meant he was a Levite. It meant that the Levites were broken into divisions. Some Levites carried the temple, excuse me, the tabernacle, the wilderness, the sons of Kohath. And other Levites specifically tended to certain jobs within the temple. Now he was not a high priest, so he was not in the holy of holies. And the high priest only entered once a year. But he was chosen by Lot. Lot was the custom. And he was faithfully executing his duty. In our language, we could say he was a God called pastor, faithfully serving his job.

Not only was Zechariah a godly man, he was a blessed man. We see in Luke chapter 1, 15 to 17, as well as 39 to 45, he was blessed in several ways. He was blessed with a godly son. Now not to get too far ahead, but you guys know that John the Baptist was the last of the Old Testament prophets. He's actually in the New Testament, but he's basically what we would call the last prophet. And not only was he the last prophet, Jesus called him the greatest born woman. What that means is apart from Jesus of all the prophets, John the Baptist is at the top. Because he was the forerunner to Christ. He had a message of repentance.

Every father dreams of having a son that he can be proud of. Isn't that right? Now those of us, we all have sons and daughters. And obviously, I'm thinking of Chris, you have two girls. You obviously don't secretly wish for a son. If you do, don't ever tell them that. That was terrible. I could tell you a story about that, but I won't. Bottom line is, moms and dads long to be proud of their kids. They grow up and do things that honor them and bless them. And they are happy to see them succeed. And so for a priest serving in the lineage of Levi to have an angelic visitation, announcing that the greatest born woman would be his son.

That is a tremendous blessing. He was blessed with a godly son, but he also was blessed with a godly wife. As I've mentioned, the text mentions in verse 6 that she was, along with Zachariah, righteous, walking blameless in the commandments and statutes of the Lord. So she was a godly woman, along with this blessing of a godly son. But scripture gives us some implication, not just in verse 6, that she was godly. But let's look, if we follow the Christmas story, scripture tells us that Elizabeth was filled with the spirit. The spirit comes upon her and she begins to prophesy when she meets Mary six months later.

We also see that Elizabeth and Mary have an extended time. So they stayed for weeks or even months together. And I've jokingly called this the first woman's retreat. Because you have two of the godliest, most blessed women in scripture meeting together. This was a truly blessed time. They had a fellowship that I think few of us could really understand or appreciate. The mother of the greatest born woman and the mother of Jesus. Now we do not share the belief with our Catholic friends that Mary was infallible. We do not share the belief with our Catholic friends that she is co-redemptress, meaning she is co-redeemer. We do not believe that.

However, she is blessed to be able to have the gift of nurturing Jesus. And so was Elizabeth. It's a bit of a malfunction. I don't know if that's ever happened before. But Zachariah was blessed with a godly wife and a godly son. But he also was blessed with a godly church. I want you to open up in your scripture to Luke chapter one and verse ten. And I want you to see something that perhaps you've not seen before. Maybe I speak for myself. I had not seen this until studying for this. The whole multitude of people were praying outside at the hour of incense. I was curious about this great multitude.

Some scholars, actually there's been no small debate about this verse. Some scholars say this must have been at a time of the burning of the incense people gathered to pray only during festivals. So some have argued that this happened during one of the prescribed feasts that people have. Other scholars say no, not necessarily. Jesus would later clear the temple and he would say, quote the Old Testament and say, my father said this would be a house of prayer. I believe that the Lord moved upon people's hearts, saints' hearts. It could have been a time of a feast. It could have also been God moving the hearts of people into a time of prayer.

I had other scholars that I've read bring this interesting point up. Simeon and Anna. If you read further on, Simeon and Anna, scripture says, were in the temple constantly praying because the Lord had showed them in a vision that they would not die before seeing the consolation of Israel, the redemption of Israel. So what that tells us is that Simeon and Anna were most likely in this prayer meeting. So I use that to say that Zachariah and Elizabeth knew them, most likely knew them very well, most likely had prayer meetings.

If you think of this now, this is something that greatly encouraged me, that the Lord had a prayer meeting in such a way and prayer will come front and center into this message as we see this message really is about answered prayer. That Zachariah was blessed with a godly church, this was throngs of people meeting for a prayer meeting the very night that an angel would come and answer their prayer to show them that God had heard their prayers. But unfortunately we get to a sad part that Zachariah not only was blessed with a godly son and a godly wife, the godly church, Zachariah was a doubting man.

Now he was a man of faith, scripture tells us that he was blameless. And what scripture tells us is that even godly blameless men can sin in the area of doubt. Let's look at this in verse 18, "And Zachariah said to the angel, 'How shall I know this? For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years.'" So let's think of this, this blessed man, this godly man, this faithful man, this praying man and this chosen man was also a doubting man.

Now before we think of Zachariah and completely throw him under the bus, I want to ask you the question, if you've ever, in the midst of your faith, in the midst of your blessing, in the midst of God choosing you for things, have you ever found yourself to be full of doubt? I think Zachariah would find himself in the same boat as Peter. I think that he would find himself having some sympathy for Peter and others like Thomas who doubted. But God disciplines those he loves and we see a beautiful picture of God disciplining him and correcting him. Listen to what Matthew Henry says and I'll read this, this is kind of lengthy.

"Zachariah heard all the angel said but his unbelief spoke. In striking him dumb, God dealt justly with him because he had objected against God's word. He may admire the patience of God towards us. God dealt kindly with Zachariah for thus he prevented him from speaking any more distrustful, unbelieving words." That's why I love Matthew Henry. Matthew Henry says this is actually a grace gift from God to keep him from speaking out of his unbelief. Matthew Henry goes on to say that this actually bolstered his faith.

It strengthened his faith because nine months later when his son is born, he speaks in obedience the very first words are his name is John. So I love that. Now let's move on from Zachariah. Let's see that after Zachariah doubted we see that Mary believed. Let's jump forward in the story. Luke chapter 1, 26 through 38. I will not spend too much time, I will read the passages but as brother Chris says I do not want to preach on top of him. In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, the house of David and the virgin's name was Mary.

And he came to her and said greetings O favored one, the Lord is with you. Joseph is greatly troubled at the same and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her do not be afraid Mary for you have found favor with God and behold you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and he will be called the son of the most high God. The Lord will give to him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end. And Mary said to the angel how will this be since I am a virgin?

And the angel answered her the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you. Therefore the child will be born will be called holy the son of God. And if you look in verse 10, excuse me if we look in verse 38 and Mary said behold I am the servant of the Lord let it be to me according to your word and the angel departed from her. So a few characteristics of Mary, Mary was favored verse 28. Mary was young as I mentioned earlier but one thing that I think that blessed my heart was to find that Mary and Elizabeth although cousins were separate from age.

Elizabeth was quite old, Mary was quite young and to me I think this highlights a challenge that I have for young people is that our faith ought to transcend age. A lot of church sometimes we see youth groups and youth groups are kind of totally separated from the older church. One thing that we have really highlighted at our own youth camp. I can remember a young man came through our camps and came through a youth ministry that we were affiliated with and he went into the ministry, made a profession of surrendering to the ministry and the youth minister challenged him to be active in engaging other ministries outside of the youth ministry.

Challenged him to be a part of singing in a nursing home or to getting to know elder mature Christians. Unfortunately this young believer shied away from this. One thing I hope that the Nola Baptist Church can always do is to foster a place where young people like Mary can find older, mature believers like Elizabeth and that we might see that our faith transcends things that often times don't in the world. We do believe in a thriving God centered youth ministry but how much better would that be for older women to teach younger women and younger women to encourage the older woman.

So Mary was young, Mary was favored but also Mary was chosen in verse 28. One thing I want us to see is that Mary was troubled. She was greatly troubled in verse 29. For many years also Mary was perplexed. Let's say for many years I struggled with why Zachariah was punished for asking a question at the surface it may be very similar to the question that Mary asks but God is the one who instituted punishment and not Gabriel the angel. One thing we need to notice that that was God's punishment and God knows our hearts. Sometimes we can ask a question of the Lord and it's asked in faith.

Sometimes we can ask a question of the Lord and it is asked in doubt. So you can have sometimes the same question with two different spirits and God discerned and illustrated the judgment. Gabriel doesn't speak for himself. Gabriel only speaks for the Lord and Gabriel instituted a judgment. And so I guess it causes me to ask us here tonight if we've ever sometimes beaten ourselves up for asking questions of God. You know ultimately we need the Holy Spirit to sift our motives when we ask questions. I think Mary was running up against a great mystery. She was running into the mystery of the virgin birth.

And today people still run away from that mystery instead of running into it. She was Lord how would this be? This is defining, this is defying the very system that you have established. She asked the question in faith. She was faith filled. She was not only favored and young and chosen and troubled and perplexed but she was faith filled. And tonight I just want to challenge you to enter the Christmas season seeking to discover mysteries. Ask the Lord to reveal things you don't understand. Some people suspect that we should have a theology that if you take one, one, it's like a trampoline. If you take one spring out you could still survive.

It's actually heretical. Some people have suggested that the virgin birth is one of these things that we can take out. We don't have to believe it's still have faith. That's erroneous. The virgin birth is front and center in our faith. There's no virgin birth. There's no infallible incarnation. An incarnation that was foreordained as Brother Chris preached. The Old Testament prophecies would be null and void if Mary was not virgin. So Mary was faith filled. I want you to see tonight the third character. Is Elizabeth. Elizabeth witnessed in verse 39. "In those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judea.

Then she entered the house of Zachariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.' And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." I'll move very quickly here. But Elizabeth was humbled in verse 43.

She didn't say, "I'm much older than you. Sit down and let me teach you something of my wisdom." She didn't say, "Let the older women teach the younger." No. What God chose you for a greater purpose is that we see great humility in this fellowship, in this sisterhood. And Elizabeth at this point was no longer an older cousin. She was a witness. Verse 45, "Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her." Do you think she could have sat down and said, "Do you realize that my husband can't speak right now?" My husband is not speaking right now, and yet you're here and you're speaking.

My husband did not believe the Word of God. You did. And so we're going to have a woman's retreat. And we're going to expound and we're going to celebrate the Word of God. And we're going to run into this mystery of the virgin birth. Do you realize that Elizabeth was the only person that Mary could share this experience with? In fact, Scripture tells us that they hid these things in their heart. They didn't talk about them. They were glad. Elizabeth was glad that her reproach was taken away, and I will get into that. She had great shame as being a barren woman.

Society would have suspected that she had sinned or that she was at fault, that the Lord had punished her. But she knew that was not the case now because the Lord took away her reproach. And she was a witness. And she could run into the mystery of the virgin birth with her friend, and she could know that God's Word was true. The last character that I want us to see tonight is Gabriel. That Gabriel stands. Gabriel stands. Let's go back to verse 11 of Luke chapter 1. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. Notice that Gabriel does not have a grand entrance. He's just there.

And notice where he's standing. He's standing at the right side of the altar of incense. I don't know if you know this, but the altar of incense, all incense represents the prayers of the saints. So Gabriel is standing at the right side, and his presence in the temple at that place is significant because what he's saying is that I am here as a witness, Zachariah, that God has heard your prayer. He will not only say that verbally, but he's saying that with the place in the temple where he's standing. He appears. Second, I want you to see that Gabriel comforts. Verse 13.

But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zachariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son, and you shall be called, and you shall call his name John." Now the comfort comes in the right moment because Zachariah is scared to death. Gabriel is an imposing figure. When you see angels, they engage in battle, and oftentimes have a sword, Scripture tells us. He obviously had been serving in the temple. This is in the evening, and he sees a figure who he had not seen before, and it's frightening.

He understands that this is from God, and Gabriel tells him not only not to be afraid, but he says that your prayer has been heard. Now I wanted to bring out something from Elizabeth and Zachariah, their barrenness. Their barrenness. And the reason why this is a comforting word is because their prayer has been answered, and this is something that they prayed years ago. Matthew Henry says that God may answer a young man's prayer in his old years. And I love that insight, Matthew Henry says, that even when you're young and you're saying a prayer, do not ever doubt, do not ever lose hope that the Lord has heard you.

There's reasons why God hears because he's omniscient, he's all-knowing, he hears, but also he cares. And Gabriel is here to comfort them in their barrenness, and to say that God has blessed them just as sure as that incense is being raised in heaven. Gabriel not only appears in comforts, but he instructs, verse 14, "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 the hearts of the fathers to the children, and this disobedience to the wisdom of the just, and to make ready for the Lord a people prepared." God answered their prayer decades after they began praying for a son. In fact, they were so barren that they had given up hope. And what amazes me about this is that we look at the people who struggle with barrenness, the mother of prophets, the mother of patriarchs. And in this case specifically, at the moment when they felt the greatest curse, they were actually being tremendously blessed. Now think about this.

Have you ever felt cursed? Have you ever been through trial and tragedy and difficulty and hardship to the point you felt as though God were punishing you? Zechariah and Elizabeth felt cursed. Now scripture said that they were blessed, that they were not only blessed, scripture said that they were highly favored. But I want you to see this paradox at the moment when they had felt their greatest reproach. Verse 25 says, "You have taken away my reproach." At the moment you feel cursed, God could actually be preparing your blessing. At that moment, I pray that God would give us all faith and help our unbelief.

But I want us to see that Gabriel is a model. Gabriel not only appears in comforts and instructs, but he models. There's something that I really appreciate about Gabriel and also about how Dr. Luke crafts this account. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed, to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David and the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you." Now something I've highlighted when teaching in the past, just I've even called it the Gabriel principle.

You notice that Gabriel never identifies himself. The only time he identifies himself is actually, he's really identifying his position. When God is executing judgment and making Zachariah mute, he says, "I am Gabriel and I stand in the presence of God." But in so doing, he's really saying, "Who are you and how dare you question God?" He's not speaking for himself. And so every other time in scripture, it says, "An angel of the Lord appeared." Gabriel does not put himself forward. Gabriel does not toot his own horn. He doesn't even announce himself. In a sense, Gabriel is nameless and faceless.

The only time that we really know who he is, because you could think that it's two different angels, but he says that Gabriel visited Mary after he visited Zachariah. Gabriel never identifies himself and never boasts. He only boasts in service to the king. I want us to go back where we began in Proverbs chapter 25 and 6 through 7. I will seek to tie all of these character studies together, all these snapshots into these beloved Christmas characters. Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence or stand in the place of the great. For it is better to be told, come up here than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.

This passage in Proverbs may seem unrelated, but I wanted to have a footprint tonight in Proverbs. And so I thought of the Christmas story and I thought about one proverb that really meant a lot to me. I'll just share a brief testimony. I was in my office at Co-Land and this was shortly after moving into the classroom. And I read this passage as I had a break and I was reading over this. And the Lord used this proverb to bring me to such a point of conviction. Because I realized that this was not just me reading the Proverbs, this is the Lord taking a scripture passage and kind of beating me up with it in disciplining.

Much like Zachariah was a man of faith who had fallen into sin, the Lord used this passage to convict me. And he showed me that I had really found many opportunities to end up in the administration office where the president's office was. I found that there was many times when I would go over there for coffee when there would be coffee at some other place. And I'd find myself being around people and I found myself kind of tooting my own horn some. Now part of this you might call networking, part of this you might call self-promotion. The Lord calls it sinfulness. And the Lord convicted me of this.

The Lord showed me that there's a fine line between networking and letting people know what you can do and boasting. And it was after this lesson that I came across this Christmas story and I thought of the times when we see angels visiting and they don't announce themselves. You know in fact it's really, it's who they serve that is their boast. And you look at Gabriel and he is a model and I can see that element that the Proverbs gives us. They first tell us that we ought not to have self-promotion. In fact there's something about humility and when you start to look at humility that was really the thing that separated Mary from Zachariah.

Her questioning came out of a place of humility. Who am I that you would choose me? I don't even have a husband. Who am I? Whereas Zachariah it's as if he's saying who are you? Who are you? Don't you know we're barren? Who are you? Don't you know that we can't get pregnant? Even in his fear he is seeing a great angelic visitation and he's like Matthew Henry says his disbelief starts talking. And one thing that I think we can take from this proverb and from this Christmas story is that the one characteristic that all godly people have is the ability to learn and to be teachable. If you sum up the Proverbs it is the wise son is teachable.

The foolish is haughty and arrogant and puffs up. And if you contrast this you see Elizabeth, you see Mary and even Gabriel. Gabriel doesn't announce himself. He just appears. He tells people not to fear you've been chosen by God. What makes you precious is that you've been chosen for a special purpose by God. And so I think that we can be encouraged. The practical aspect is let's ask the Lord this Christmas season to give us Mary's humility. Let's ask the Lord to discipline us and correct us like he did. He was so gracious. We have this godly man Zachariah. We can't beat him up because Peter fell into the same sin.

Thomas fell into the same sin. You and I can fall into the same sin. So we need to see Zachariah and we need to humble ourselves and say Lord help my unbelief. Lord where am I doubting you this Christmas season? Perhaps there is a need that you have in your life. Maybe you've been praying for this need. And maybe you have a temptation like Zachariah to say who are you God to tell me that you haven't done this. Your window has closed. Don't you know my wife's biological clock is no longer ticking. That window is over. So let's ask the Lord to help our unbelief. Number one, let's ask the Lord to deliver us from self-promotion and pride.

Number three, let's ask the Lord to teach us to pray. Isn't there a great multitude of people praying? It says there were throngs of people and I don't know if it was a time of a festival and I don't know if the Lord just wanted people praying when he was announcing the birth of John the Baptist and later Jesus. Regardless I know I want to be in that temple praying when God starts moving. May we be a church if we are not chosen for an angelic visitation and if we are not chosen to be the parents of a great prophet. Let us be the generation in the church that's waiting outside praying why God's men is getting a word from God.

They were praying while God was answering their prayer. I pray that God would raise up people like Anna in our church who are praying. I pray that God would raise up people like Simeon in our church who are praying. I pray that God would raise up men who are great with the word like John. I pray that God would raise up little Christ's Christians, little Christ's, little Christ's like sons and daughters. So this Christmas let's ask the Lord to deliver us from doubt and from self-promotion and and that He would deliver us into prayerfulness.