GODS PLAN!

[0:00] Now our next reading is taken from Luke 1, 68 to 79. But I kind of want to paint the scene before I read it to you.

[0:12] And I've just penned together a wee imagining that Zechariah might have said, or might have done when he got the use of his tongue back.

[0:27] So these are the possible words of Zechariah. Then we'll read the reading. Well, at last, I found my tongue.

[0:41] All these months I've been speechless. Yes, literally speechless. At what has happened to me and my family.

[0:53] I admit I did a bit too much shouting at the angel. When he told me we would have a son. He said our son would have a special task of getting ready for the long-awaited Messiah.

[1:10] Well, can you imagine how I reacted? What us? Never. Not two old folk like us, I yelled at him.

[1:22] It would take more than an angel to convince me. Now Elizabeth, my wife, she took it all in her stride, as did her cousin, Mary.

[1:35] Between them, they seem to have had quite a few things weighed up pretty well. As for me, it's taken months of keeping my mouth shut, with plenty of frustration, pointing, signing, to bring me to my senses.

[1:58] And now, now the baby's here. I can speak. I've seen the bigger picture. God's amazing plan. You'll have to forgive me.

[2:11] If I burst into song, you may even feel like joining in. In fact, you may still be singing it years from now.

[2:22] So that was just to set the scene. This is the reading. Zechariah's song. Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them.

[2:45] He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he said through his holy prophets of long ago.

[2:57] Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. To show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father, Abraham.

[3:16] To rescue us from the hands of our enemies and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

[3:30] And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High. For you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him.

[3:45] To give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins. because of the tender mercy of our God by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the path of peace.

[4:14] This is the word of God. May they be a blessing to you in the weeks ahead. And may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O my Lord.

[4:36] Quick question for you this morning. How many of you, how many of you have been roped in to helping your son or your grandchildren with a school project?

[4:52] Many of you have been, well here we go, the hands are being shown now. That's good. Okay. Well there was a wee story of someone being asked to help out, to help their grandchildren with a school art project.

[5:13] And that, that art project meant having a certain model to bring to school and they had to make it at home. So the grandson expected his grandparents to just produce something like that.

[5:34] As most grandchildren think about their grandparents, because they are just the best. So the grandparent had two options.

[5:46] One was to find something in the house there in men to make a model or two to think carefully about what they were going to do.

[6:01] And then make a plan up to buy all the art materials and spend time collecting paper to make paper mushy.

[6:15] So after a good rake around the house, option one was of the books they could only find a little ball of plasticine. So the grandparent ordered online and just had to wait.

[6:34] It was part of the process. Wait. So all the art materials came. The paper was torn into strips and they started to make things together, the grandparents and the children.

[6:53] And the paper paper took a time to set. It was pretty messy. You know this? The wait was worth it.

[7:05] It really was. Grandparents, grandchildren had great fun. And even mum and dad helped out as well. Brought the family together.

[7:19] And everybody funnily enough made their own models. Now, the grandchildren had to wait.

[7:31] They had to wait longer than they were probably expecting to. The end result was something that was really, really imaginative.

[7:45] Creative. They brought the whole family together. And it really was the result of a loving plan.

[7:56] The plan that their grandparents did. And you know, God has a plan. He's got a plan for raising us up.

[8:11] That involves saving, loving us. Sometimes that plan requires patience on our part, doesn't it?

[8:21] we have to be patient. We may need to change our expectations on something. Or maybe we've got a preconceived notion about something.

[8:38] But we have to change, we've got to be adaptable. And maybe we've got to think about using a different modelling material. Instead of plasticine, they used paper mashing.

[8:56] And really the point of all this is that our readings today that we've heard tell us that God's plan was and still is one of love.

[9:10] It's carefully planned. and there's messages and there's others preparing the way. And the outcome was God.

[9:27] He sent his son into this world in love for us in the world. And all these images that we've got about us are exactly the same as this.

[9:40] It just tells a story. tells a story. And if you think about Zechariah's song that I read to you earlier on, that kind of sums the situation up nicely.

[9:57] And I'll read it again. For you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways. Not somebody else. You will go.

[10:09] you'll go to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace.

[10:43] That's surely a loving plan worth waiting for, isn't it? God. And as we journey through this season of Adra, as we take this step together as a church, I really hope that Jesus will make you see things different.

[11:10] And from a new perspective, I really do hope that. And I want to remind you of the words that we can read in the book of Revelation.

[11:23] And they are, look, he is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all peoples on earth will mourn because of him.

[11:41] So shall it be. Amen. I am the Alpha, and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and was and who is to come, the Almighty.

[12:01] So today, I want to really encourage you. I want to encourage you to lift up your eyes, keep watch on the clouds, get rid of that sin in your life.

[12:18] We need to be ready. We need to be ready for the coming of the Lord, our King, because he hasn't just left, folks.

[12:28] He's on his way. He's on his way to us as we speak. and he has a plan for every one of us here today.

[12:42] Amen. Amen.