Hearing God
Dreamin' of a Bright Christmas • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
January Study
January Study
Relationships | Friendships | Sinkin’ Ships
2024 Goal
2024 Goal
Serve to show your love. Testimony of not serving in a church to serving in a church.
Introduction
Introduction
Let’s get ready for Christmas. Our Christmas Night is next week, so we are going to start today to prepare tonight by looking at a couple who had no kids but were about to hear the most surprising news that left the husband speechless!
Live to Hear God (5-10)
Live to Hear God (5-10)
We have a priest named Zecharaiah who was married to lady named Elizabeth (what is familiar about her family lineage).
How does the Bible say they lived/walked?
Rigtheous before God: what is a righteousness? — Dictionaries define righteousness as “behavior that is morally justifiable or right.” Such behavior is characterized by accepted standards of morality, justice, virtue, or uprightness. The Bible’s standard of human righteousness is God’s own perfection in every attribute, every attitude, every behavior, and every word.
Walk blamelessly in all the commandments: To keep God’s commandments and regulations means to believe in and follow God’s Son and by his grace to observe the “commandments and regulations” that embody his will. Zechariah and Elizabeth represent the best of OT piety and as the faithful remnant received the good news of the gospel
Ready for a good Bible question? Why couldn’t Elizabeth and Zechariah have a child?
How are your living? Are you living to hear God? How many of you or your parents has a sign that says LIVE LAUGH LOVE?
I’m going to start my own brand: LIVE LOVE LISTEN. God gave His life to show His love, and I’m going to listen to Him. I want to live to hear God!
As we (1)Live to Hear God, this will (2)Prepare us to Hear God
Prepared to Hear God (11-17)
Prepared to Hear God (11-17)
Are you prepared to enter into a place by yourself, where they tie a rope to your waist with bells attached to it? The selected priest would wear this because they are entering the most holy place of the temple. If there were any sin in their life, they would be struck dead. If the bells quit jingling, the person likely quit existing.
Are you prepared to go into a place where you hear from God, but God has not spoken in 400 years?
It’s like the time I had my permit, drive a certain way to school. a car was never coming this way so I got used to barely yielding and just go, until one day a car was coming and we missed each other but I did pop two tires on my dads truck.
It’s like the amount of times I’ve run down the stairs here at church and got really good at it, until there was one day I trip on some steps and my head the corner of some trim.
We can easily get comfortable in different situations, that we are not prepared for the moment. Are you prepared for an angel to show up and say, “Don’t be afraid...” I don’t think an angel is going to show up right here, but I do believe the main lessons for us is to be prepared to hear God
Once we are prepared to hear God, we must respond to hearing God.
Respond to Hearing God (18-23)
Respond to Hearing God (18-23)
There is an important lesson to grasp here: Don’t question God & Don’t doubt God. When Zechariah responded, the angel responded that you will be silent and unable to speak until their baby is born.
Be aware of how you respond to God. Your response matters. Be careful what you ask for! Zechariah asked for a sign, and he got one. “How bout no talking for you big boy.” We all know someone we wish that became unable to speak. “Dreamin’ of how nice that would be.”
Seriously, be alert/ aware of how you respond to God. Your response can greatly impact a moment. It can impact in a way beyond our understanding. Our response to God reflects one word — OBEY!.
Will you LIVE TO HEAR GOD
Will you be PREPARED TO HEAR GOD
Will you RESPOND TO HEARING GOD
CLOSING
CLOSING
How is this passage getting us ready for Christmas?
The child of Elizabeth and Zechariah was John the Baptist. John paved the way for Jesus baptism and ministry. God worked through John to prepare the people for Jesus. The Bible even records a moment of Elizabeth(with John) and Mary(with Jesus). John, as a baby, leaped in the womb for Jesus.
How is this getting us ready for Christmas? Tonight we are paving the road to learn about the birth of Jesus by studying about the one, John, who paved the road for Jesus.
So are these two people on an equal level since they greatly impacted groups of people?
SPORTS: Babe Ruth | Michael Jordan
PRESIDENT: Washington | Lincoln
PAINTER: Van Gogh | Da Vinci | Picasso|
TEAMS: Ga. Bulldogs
ARCHITECTS: Gustave Eiffel | Fredric Bartholdi
DOCTORS: Hippocrates | Jospeh Lister
PASTORS: David Jeremiah | Adrian Rogers | Robby Foster
SPEAKERS: Billy Graham | Martin Luther King Jr.
Think of any title; think of any position, think of any person — for every person that is good, there is at least more that is equally good.
When it comes to Jesus, there is no one on His level because He is God. He has always been. He created everything we see and the vastness of creation we don’t see. He remains the God of the universe. No one is like Him.
Next week, we read about the most unique birth in all of history because He is the most unique being in all of history.