Trying to take yesterday's sermon on Zechariah and Elizabeth into my week

I pray that God will help me take what I learned from yesterday's sermon at Ada Bible Church into my week.  I find it easy to get distracted during the week and let sermons get set aside and ignored.

The sermon was based on the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth from Luke 1.  Are you familiar with it?  I've probably heard it a few hundred times over the years.  It seems like it's part of the Christmas ritual.  Kids' Christmas programs have the story and it's read during church services at this time of the year.

It revolves around an old couple where the man is a priest in the temple and who has to exercise those from time to time.  They were older.  According to our pastor, Jeff Manion, they were probably around 65, not old, just older.  They with chidless, a situation in those times which was looked down on and put them in a position of shame.  Their prayer, apparently, was for children.

While on duty in the temple, the angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah and told him that their prayers had been heard and answered by God.  Being 65 years old myself, I could understand his reaction to the angel who said that he and his wife would have a child.  And, it would not be just any child, but the one who would prepare the world for the coming of Jesus Christ.  Think about this.

They prayed for a child and at the beginning of their senior citizen years, God says "okay" and gave them John the Baptist as their child.

So what?  What does that mean to me?  That's what I will be thinking about and meditating on between now and next Sunday.  Our church has two inside pages of their bulletin called Beyond The Weekend to help personalize the sermon and to help make it more real to those who hear it.

One of the first questions it raises is "what prayer have you been waiting for God to answer and how long have you been waiting?  This story shows that God responds to people who wait and that he makes good on his promises.

I'm working on this.  I've got six days to work this over in my heart.