Reflection
- Malachi 4:1-6
- Luke 1:5-25
- Luke 1:39-45
- Luke 1:57-80
Discussion
On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate your level of patience? 1 being practically none, 10 being a lifetime-long ability to wait it out. From the closing of the Old Testament there is a promise made that God will send someone else, two someones in fact. There will be a prophet who will come like Elijah to announce the other one who will come to restore all things. These things are given in the final words of the final book of the Old Testament, Malachi 4:1-6.
The crickets. Four hundred years of crickets. Generations of crickets. How long would you be willing to wait for God to fulfill His promise? Would you want one year or even one decade? The people of Israel had no choice, really. God would move on His schedule and none other. So they waited. Surely some of them lost hope over the generations. Certainly some gave up, but there was always that faithful remnant in Israel trusting in the promises of God no matter how far removed they seemed to be.
Two of those were Zechariah and Elizabeth. An aging couple with no children and past the natural age for such things, yet faithfully serving the Lord throughout their lives. Little did they know that they would finally have a child and that he would be the prophet sent to announce the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Connection
Has there been a time in your life where you were helpless and waiting for the Lord to move?
How did your patience vary day by day as time drew on?
When resolution finally came, was it what you had expected?
Looking back, how can you see God working through every step of that time?
Expansion
God the Father has eternally existed in the past and will eternally exist forever in the future. He alone is the sovereign creator and supreme ruler of everything. He is unchanging, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient and entirely holy in every capacity.
Genesis 1:1, Exodus 3:14, Genesis 1:26-27, Isaiah 40:28, Romans 11:36, Malachi 3:6-7, James 1:17-18, 1 Kings 8:27, Jeremiah 23:23-24, Hebrews 13:5, Matthew 28:18-20, Job 9:19, Revelation 19:6, Luke 1:37, Isaiah 40:28, Isaiah 40:13-14, Psalm 147:5, 1 Timothy 1:17, Jude 1:25, Romans 11:33-34, Romans 16:27, Isaiah 6:3, Revelation 4:8, Psalm 111:9