We point to Jesus.

May 21, 2017

Introduction and offering:

Have you ever wondered where to start a story?

ILL: When I was 13 and a brand new Christian, I was asked by our youth pastor to give my testimony at a retreat with my fellow junior high students. I had no idea what a testimony was, so I asked, and he told me to tell my story. I started, “I was born on August 11, 1951…” and for the next hour, gave every detail I could remember of my 13 years on the planet. He was too kind to interrupt and stop me, but he should have! It was a disaster!

When Luke writes his gospel, the story of Jesus, where does he start? The story starts with…John the Baptist. But actually, as we’ll see, it goes back way farther than that.

Welcome to our Summer Bible Series in the gospel of Luke. Today, we’re going to read Luke 1:5-25 which predicts the birth of John the Baptist. I started my miserable junior high testimony with my birth. You’d think that’s where the story of Jesus would start too, but only two gospels have birth narratives: Matthew and Luke. Mark begins with John the Baptist preaching—so both John and Jesus are already 30 years old when the story starts. John begins in eternity past with Jesus as the pre-existent Word: “In the beginning was the Word.” Only Matthew and Luke tell about the birth of Jesus, and only Luke gives us lots of information about the births of John the Baptist as well. Luke weaves together these two births which were 6 months apart. It looks like this:

John’s birth predicted. Luke 1:5-25

Jesus’ birth predicted. Luke 1:26-56

John’s birth. Luke 1:57-80

Jesus’ birth. Luke 2:1-20

Today, we’re going to try to cover the birth of John the Baptist and see what we can learn.

Luke 1:5–25 (NIV)

5 In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. 6 Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. 7 But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old.

8 Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, 9 he was chosen by lot, according to