Waiting for Good News (Luke 1:5-25)

Redemption Bible Church Sermon Audio

SERMON NOTES

Sermon Series: Good News of Great Joy

Sermon Title: Waiting for Good News

Sermon Text: Luke 1:5-25

The Church liturgical calendar is a lived remembrance of the life of Christ by the body of Christ.

1st Scene: Our Waiting on God (v5-7)

By entering into Zechariah and Elizabeth’s story of waiting, we learn more about our own story of waiting:

• Waiting reveals what you most desire of God

• Waiting tests your obedience to God

• Waiting teaches you to trust God

2nd Scene: God in Our Waiting (v8-17)

By entering into Israel’s story of waiting, we see God in our waiting:

• God is working

• God is present

• God is listening

• God is faithful

3rd Scene: Our Responding to God (v18-25)

By entering into this story of waiting, we see what waiting is

• Waiting is active

• Waiting is patient

• Waiting is open-ended

Open ended waiting requires:

• Hope

• Faith

• Trust

The good news of great joy as we wait this Advent season is that everything we need is found in Jesus.

Reflection

• What are you waiting on God to do? What is that thing you are praying for?

• As you reflect on your waiting on God, ask yourself: What is God revealing to me and teaching me as I wait? How is God testing my obedience to Him as I wait?

• As you reflect on God in your waiting, ask yourself: Where do I see God working and how do I sense God’s presence in my life?

SERMON FOOTNOTES

• The liturgical calendar is “the attempt to live the Jesus life over and over again all the years of our lives…The liturgical year is the process of slow, sure immersion in the life of Christ that, in the end, claims us, too, as heralds of that life ourselves.” - Joan Chittister, The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life (pXVI, 13)

• “The word ‘patience’ implies the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us. Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there. Impatient people expect the real thing to happen somewhere else, and therefore they want to get away from the present situation and go elsewhere. For them the moment is empty. But patient people dare to stay where they are.” - Henri Nouwen, The Path of Waiting from Finding My Way Home (p99)