The sermon by James Lundquist focuses on Elizabeth as a profile of a godly woman, emphasizing the lavish grace of Christ as the foundation for salvation, shared by figures like Rahab and Paul. Elizabeth, wife of Zacharias, is portrayed as righteous and blameless, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord. Her story is set against the backdrop of 400 years of silence without direct revelation from God, which is broken by the angel Gabriel's announcement to Zacharias about their future son, John the Baptist, who would be the forerunner of the Messiah. Elizabeth's faith is highlighted as she trusts in the Lord despite being barren and advanced in years, reflecting her humility and deep belief in God's promises. The sermon underscores Elizabeth's role as a blessing to others, demonstrating joy and humility when meeting Mary, the mother of Jesus. Through Elizabeth's example, the speaker illustrates themes of trust, humility, and the gospel's power, urging listeners to examine their own faith and walk with God.

I get to speak on Elizabeth, the profile of a golly woman, Elizabeth. Turn to Luke 1. One of the key things you should get from this, especially from the very beginning of this, Rahab, Elizabeth, us, we are all saved by the same as we just sang, the same lavish grace of Christ. That's the only way any of us were saved. Any of us will be saved.

Luke 1, let's pray. Oh God, I thank you for the wonderful examples you give us in Scripture of your grace, of your redemption, whether it's Rahab, whether it's Paul, whether it's Elizabeth, and then God looking around the room the wonderful trophies of your grace that are here. God, this is you. Would you be glorified, God, as we talk about how merciful and kind you were to Elizabeth and therefore to the world, God, as her son was a forerunner of our Messiah. How gracious you have been to us.

God, may this glorify you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Luke 1, I'm going to read a few different parts, there's three different parts. We're gonna start in verse five.

Verse five. There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron and her name was Elizabeth and They were both righteous before God walking and all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. But they had no child because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years. So it was that while he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord.

And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son and you shall call his name John and you will have joy and gladness and many will rejoice at his birth for He will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb.

And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. And Zacharias said to the angel, how shall I know this? For I am an old man and my wife is well advancing years and the angel answered and said to him I am Gabriel who stands in the presence of God and was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings but behold you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their own time." And the people waited for Zechariah and marveled that he lingered so long in the temple. But when he came out, he could not speak to them, and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple, and he beckoned to them and remained speechless.

So it was, as soon as the days of his service were completed, that he departed to his own house. Now after those days, his wife Elizabeth conceived, and she hid herself five months saying, Thus the Lord has dealt with me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people. Go to verse 39. Now Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste to a city of Judah and entered the house of Zechariah's and greeted Elizabeth and it happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary that the babe left in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

But why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For indeed as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears the babe leapt in my womb for joy Blessed is she who believed for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord." Over to 57. Now Elizabeth's full time came for her to be delivered, and she brought forth a son. When her neighbors and relatives heard how the Lord had shown great mercy to her, they rejoiced with her. So it was on the eighth day that they came to circumcise the child, and they would have called him by the name of his father Zechariah.

His mother answered and said, No, he shall be called John. But they said to her, there is no one among your relatives who was called by this name. So they made signs to his father what he would have him called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote saying, his name is John. So they all marveled.

Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed and he spoke praising God. Then fear came on all who dwelt around them. And all these sayings were discussed throughout all the hill country of Judea. And all those who heard them kept them in their hearts saying, what kind of child will this be? And the hand of the Lord was with him.

Little background, There's been 400 years of silence without any direct revelation from God coming to anyone. No prophets, the angels haven't come to anybody. There's been 400 years of silence. And here we have Zacharias. Zacharias' name means the Lord remembers.

And he's a priest. He's a priest, he's of the order of Abijah, and there's about 18, 000 priests at this time. And the priest, what he would do, the primary, we think of priests in the temple, what they did 50 weeks of the year is served in their synagogue preaching and teaching the word of God. But two separate weeks a year they go to the temple and they would help out with the temple sacrifices. And then one time in their life if they were blessed one time, many none, they would be allowed to burn incense the lot would follow them so they could burn incense before the Lord so here we have in this text the height of his life as a priest is here he gets to go in or a lot of people don't even get a go to burn incense.

So that's Zacharias. Elizabeth, Elizabeth means God is my oath. It means she is a worshiper of God, a worshiper of God. She is a descendant of Aaron as well as Zacharias. Zacharias does not have to marry.

There's no right regulation, there's no ordinance that says a priest must marry somebody from the tribe of Aaron, but he did. And I think that really feeds into the sweet relationship that you see here. And her name is even the same name as Aaron's wife. That's how tight this relationship is, but we know Elizabeth is barren. Now we know according to scripture, they were both advancing years.

The King James says stricken in years. So how old is that? Well for Elizabeth we don't have any time markers for what that means. How old she was. For Zacharias we do and men it's gonna be humbling for you to find this out if you don't know.

In Numbers 8 it tells us what are the years given to priests to serve in the temple between the age of 25 and 50. Zacharias is younger than 50 and called stricken in years. So me being 49 humbled myself on how young I may think I am at times but stricken in years I am apparently but there's been 400 years of silence and we think of God breaking that silence we're probably most of us would go straight to Mary. But that's not how it happens. God breaks this 400 years of silence of coming to Zacharias first and talk about the coming Messiah and that his son is going to be the forerunner of the Messiah.

Now anybody that was barren or anybody here rejoices over the birth of a child and yes they're gonna rejoice over that but they're rejoicing as we'll see when we talk about the characteristics of Elizabeth. The rejoicing is really over yeah okay I'm getting a son I'm excited but that means the Messiah is coming. And they're real excited about that as righteous and devoted priest and wife. They knew what it meant to be said that your son's gonna be the forerunner to the Messiah and they were very excited about it. Every point I'm going to make about Elizabeth could probably be made about Zechariah's.

In verse 6 it says, and they were both, they were both. As we're focusing on Elizabeth I hope you can see just from those words there they were both just a sweet sweet marriage they had here and it was all grounded in what we're going to talk about that follows and they were both. So with this background on their marriage and what the background is here I have I have seven observations of the godly character of Elizabeth. I have seven. First in verse 6, Elizabeth was righteous before God.

Elizabeth was righteous before God. Verse 6, and they were both righteous before God. You are not a godly woman. You are not a godly lady. You're not a godly father.

You're not a godly mother unless you are righteous before God. That's the only way that can happen. So what does this mean? What does this happen? You've heard the gospel woven in to all of these messages and that is right.

If you're going to preach out of scripture, if you're going to bring scripture, the gospel just comes out of it because it's everywhere. But I'm going to take this opportunity because it says they were right before God. I'm going to make sure you hear the gospel as plain as I can make it. May the Holy Spirit give you ears to hear especially those that have not proclaimed the gospel and repented and believed. So what does this mean and how does this happen?

Being righteous with God means that you're right with God. And how does that happen? It's through the gospel. And we cannot know the gospel well enough. You cannot.

I cannot know it well enough. I lie to myself all the time by thinking I have to earn the favor of God or doing things that think I have to earn the favor of God. And that is not the gospel. It starts out with God. Everything starts with God.

He is perfectly holy, perfectly righteous. He is perfectly merciful, perfectly gracious. He is the just, God, perfectly just God, the exalted judge of pure eyes that can behold evil and cannot look on wickedness cannot he's the creator that that we are completely dependent on and as the creator he has complete authority over us, complete authority over us, and he demands perfection. Be holy as I am holy. It's said in Leviticus several times, repeated in 1 Peter, be holy as I am holy.

Then we have God, then we have man. We're sinners, right, for all have sinned, all, everybody here, anybody you ever meet, they have sinned. There is no such thing as sinless perfection. You sin, and you continue to sin even after you're a Savior, after you've been saved. But we're all sinful, and we deserve death.

We deserve eternal hell. The wages of sin is death. And our sins, even our smallest sins, girls listen, your smallest sins is you may be tempted to compare yourself to your sister, your brother, people in other families. Your smallest sin, Jason used the word, used the phrase, respectable sin, that smallest sin, oh I just, I just stole her hair clamp, all right, whatever it might be, that sin is enough deserving of the full wrath of God in hell. Hey, even the smallest and RC Sproul calls us cosmic treason.

Jason talked about treasonous activity of rehab treason deserves death. The penalty for treason is execution death and our sin deserves that and God's whole nature is set against sin he hates the wicked and his righteous demands punishment so there's our problem God's holy we're not and that's where Jesus all right Jesus came and lived that perfect life that we could not live we can't because we're sinners Live that perfect life that we could not live He lived it in our place lived it in the people's place that he's going to say shed his blood on the cross All right without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins, broke his body, taking on the wrath of God, died the death we deserved, then rose again conquering that last enemy of death. So that's what Christ did, but just that action of Christ doesn't save everybody. Everybody's not automatically saved because of Christ's work. You're only saved because of his work, but not everybody will be saved.

You can think of the people that you know, well they're definitely not saved, but there will be people that stand before the Lord and they'll say we cast out demons in your name and God will say I never knew you never knew you so what from there you are commanded by God by Jesus to repent and believe. Repent of your sins, believe the gospel, believe that Jesus is the only way, the only truth, the only life. There is no other name given among men whereby you must be saved. He is the only way. You're not saved through your parents, you're not saved through your pastor, you're not saved through a priest, You're not saved through any works you do only through the work of Christ.

So with that How was Elizabeth saved she did not know the name of Jesus Rahab didn't know the name of Jesus How were they saved the same as every believer the same as as all the people in Hebrews 11. By faith, by grace you have been saved through faith. Hebrews 11, by faith Abel by faith Enoch Noah Abraham Sarah Isaac Jacob Joseph Moses Rahab Gideon Barak Samson Jephthah David Samuel the prophets us are saved by faith faith in who They didn't know the name of Jesus. Go back to Genesis 15. It's quoted in James, what Jason read earlier.

And he, Abraham believed in the Lord and he the Lord accounted to him Abraham for righteousness for righteousness Elizabeth believed the scriptures on God man the Messiah the required response by faith she said yes this is what God says and I believe it. I believe that the Messiah is going to come and do that last sacrifice. She knew the sacrifices up front through her husband Zechariah. She knew all the people, all the millions of animals coming to be sacrificed day in, day out, year in, year out. She knew and he knew that's not how we're saved and someday a Messiah is gonna come and if he comes if he comes from my hot while my husband's still a priest he's gonna be out of a job and we're so thankful for that they're not gonna be required anymore she had faith in that not just a belief not just the knowledge She had way more knowledge than Rahab had, but it wasn't just her knowledge of that.

She believed, and it was counted to her for righteousness. She had faith in a belief. She didn't have to know the name of Jesus. She had to have faith. Yes, God, you said it, therefore it is true.

I believe it. That's what you're gonna do. Fathers and daughters, Fathers and daughters, you have heard the gospel. You've heard the gospel. My plea to you is if you haven't, to repent and believe.

Have faith. You will not be righteous before God as Elizabeth was without repenting and believing the gospel in Christ alone for salvation. So number one was Elizabeth was righteous before God. Number two in verse six Elizabeth walked in all the commandments and ordinances blameless. Elizabeth walked in all the commandments and ordinances blameless.

Verse six, and they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. She walked blameless because she had been made righteous. By faith, by being justified by the work of Jesus by his grace and mercy it doesn't mean she was sinless that's not what blameless means means she was above reproach in her obedience to God this is This is more than just being accused of scandalous sin. We want to say the blameless. We may put too high of a bar on that, or too low of a bar, I should say, too low of a bar, just saying, well, if you're just not accused of scandalous sin, then you can be regarded as, no, no one can bring a charge against Elizabeth that she did not walk according to all the commandments and all the ordinances of the Lord.

We don't like hearing that. I don't like hearing that, especially when Elizabeth was and everything that had to be done, all the ordinances, she knew him very well being the wife of a priest and hearing him Preach in the temple teach in the temple teaching the synagogue and probably teach at home as well Right. So this is about her reputation when people think of Elizabeth they think of one that walks in obedience to God. And this includes when there is sin, she's prone to repent. She's prone to ask for forgiveness.

She's prone to forgive others. That's her walking blameless. You think of think of Job, right? Job who was blameless and upright feared God and shunned evil. That's Job.

She walked this way because she feared God and she believed the word of God as the word of God. All right, in the previous point, Elizabeth believed the scriptures. She believed it and she lived it, especially growing up in this priestly home married to a priest, she learned the Word of God. It's in the Word of God she learned in the beginning God. She learned Leviticus 18 for you shall observe my judgments and keep my ordinances to walk in them.

I am the Lord your God." She learned in Psalm 119, 35, make me walk in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. This is just an outward demonstration of her being made righteous. That is what Jason mentioned earlier. This is an outward demonstration. She's walking, right?

Walked in obedience. Not just had faith that God's ways were right. Walked in them. That shows action. They were both acting in faith.

They were both walking. They were both obeying. They were both showing fruits of righteousness, works of righteousness, because they had been made righteous and they could do no other. The Holy Spirit could do no other within them, But encourage them to walk in these ways and they wanted to and they delighted they learned in Psalm 119 This is a delight to walk in these this is all of Scripture when it says all all Watch and command all the commands all the ordinances. She didn't just pick and choose what her culture said needed to be obeyed still.

You think our culture today is bad? Go back and read the Gospels. Read Jesus, just read Jesus' woes to the religious leaders. Read his woes to them and you'll see the culture said, I'm sure the culture was telling Zechariah and Elizabeth, you don't have to do that. You don't have to do it that way.

Zacharias as a priest teaching week in and week out in the synagogue, he probably wasn't one of the religious leaders' favorite teachers. I can see all the pressure he may have gotten, but they obeyed all of the sacrifices, all of the feast, all of the ceremonial law with all sincerity, all of it, even though they knew a Messiah was coming. So they're just saying, well, Messiah is coming. I'll be saved. I don't have this.

This doesn't save anybody. But God said it and I believe God on his word. This is what needs done now until the Messiah comes. So he believed that. And of course there's a lot of applications you can think of.

There's hundreds and hundreds of things you can say. But what I want to give you here without going into the specific application, just some filters. What are the filters to help us and understand? Are we walking in the commands of God? Are we walking in ways that show that God has made us righteous?

If you are his, where are some filters? Here are some filters I use and my family uses. When I talk to my children, It says, one, what does Scripture say? Just explain. What does Scripture say?

What are the patterns? What are the guidelines in Scripture? Do you take the Word of God as the Word of God? That's your first place. What does the Scripture say?

What does it say? If it's clear, obey it. It's not always clear, so you have other filters. Next one. What will demonstrate, what one of my actions will demonstrate a love for the Lord our God with all our hearts soul mind and strength.

I'm trying to decide what do I need to do what actions going to demonstrate a love for Lord my God with all my heart soul mind and strength and then the next one's got to be what will demonstrate a love for my neighbor. Will it demonstrate a love for my neighbor? Another one, what will this action show I believe about God? Your action, I think somebody's already talked about this, but your action demonstrates what you believe about God. I think it might have been Paul talking about Tozer.

What you do says what you believe about God. And that's what people are going to think. If they're going to think of you blameless, they're going to be looking at what's your reputation. What you say and what you do tells people what you believe about God. And what will this action show, the last filter, what will this action show I believe about the gospel?

What will this action show I believe about the gospel? So fathers and daughters, how is your example of walking in all the commandments blameless? How is it? How is it? You're going to need help.

Now we're told in 1 Corinthians, before taking the Lord's Supper, we need to be able to self-examine ourselves. We need to be able to self-examine ourselves. We need to be able to examine ourselves and yes we're accountable for this but let's be honest with ourselves we can lie to ourselves all the time about how good we may think we're doing. We need the observations of other people. We need input from other people.

One of my favorite quotes from a pastor is, we cannot limit the observations of ourselves to ourselves. Now when we think about that, daughters, when you think about getting feedback from my parents or getting observations from my parents you may be going right to well they just tell me what I'm doing all wrong and fathers your daughters may be right about that your observations of your daughters and helping them know how they are doing in their action showing the righteousness should not be all negative should not be what you need to do this more this more this more fact by God's grace I pray that's very few and what it should be you should be given observations of hey daughter I am so thankful I'm so you you may not notice this but over the last year your attitude towards your mom, your attitude towards your sister, I recognize, you probably don't even recognize how a year ago you would have slammed the door in your sister's face but today you were just helping her out the door you were helping her with things a year ago you would been yelling at your brother over this but now now today I saw where he'd said something to you where a year ago you would have just right back today you were so gracious and kind and and I think you may did you go pray I think you went and prayed for your brother instead of just responding in anger they need that observation of how they're walking you want encouragement men when we work we want encouragement from our bosses, right?

How much more do we want encouragement and how we're doing walking in righteousness before our God? We need that daughters daughters. Hey, you can be used mightily in your home and giving observations to your sisters, observations to your brothers. Just a thank you will go a long long way, but acknowledging how they encouraged you, how they helped you, thanking them for their prayers for you. The sweetest prayer, I can say that for a lot of prayers, but some of the sweetest prayers on Wednesday night are brothers and sisters praying for brothers and sisters.

There are some of the sweetest ones. Your language is going to help you. So number two is Elizabeth walked in all the commandments and ordinances blameless number three Elizabeth had her trust in the Lord Elizabeth had her trust in the Lord So we know she was barren and well advanced in years in other words She she was too old for children too old from the society would think you know There's here's what said we don't know how old she was. Maybe she was 50, 60, 70, 80. I don't know, there's no markers.

But whatever it was in the society at that time, it was just, she's well-advanced. She'll never have children. She'll probably never have children. This is very similar. She'll bring up memories of Abraham and Sarah and the birth of Isaac.

It should bring up that. There are other mothers in scripture that also cried out for children. Think of Hannah and others, but she was too old. And people, here's what, much different than today. Today, if you don't have children, nobody thinks really anything of it much, if you're not having children.

They're not thinking you're barren. But then, if you didn't have children, you were considered, it was considered a curse. They would consider it a curse a lot, and that's very unfortunate. They took, at least of all the commandments, they took the command to be fruitful and multiply. They took that one and multiplied.

But unfortunately, if someone didn't have children, one of the things they might go to quickly was that family must be cursed. Family must be cursed. I can even picture as wicked as the religious leaders were and how they got Scripture so wrong. I can picture some of the other priests telling Zacharias, hey for the sake of continuing your name and your line and getting more priests, hey go get another wife. I could see that happening.

Go get another wife. You know it's like, this is like Job's friends and Job's wife just maybe saying, Zechariah, it's Elizabeth, just confess your sin. That's what's holding you back now. Just go confess your sin. And scripture does talk about that you can be cursed in God's chastening, but more of God's chastening upon you, more than being cursed of the Christian, but they'd be treating them like Christians.

No, this wasn't anything like that, we know, because Scripture says they were righteous and they were blameless. Here's what's actually like. This is actually like the blind man in John 9. Do you remember the blind man in John 9? The disciples come to Jesus.

They see this blind man. They come to Jesus. They say, Jesus, who sinned to cause this to happen? Him or his parents? Who were the sinners here?

And Jesus says, neither this man nor his parents sin, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. So it was not because of the sin of Zechariah and Elizabeth, she was barren, it was because God was gonna make his name great through them. God was keeping them barren because he's gonna bring the forerunner to Christ through them. And he wants this to come. He can do it any way he wants.

He says, I want to do this in such an obvious way that this is my hand. And I'm going to do this through a woman being barren and then after 400 years I'm going to send an angel, talk to Zacharias. Zacharias is then going to be, can't speak because he doesn't trust, doesn't believe. And then this baby is going to be born, she's going to get pregnant, this baby is going to be born, and he's going to proclaim to God, I'm going to make my name great through this couple. And I'm going to show people the Messiah is on the way.

That's what's going on here. She's not cursed. She is definitely not cursed. According to verse 25, verse 25, this is Elizabeth talking, thus the Lord has dealt with me in the days when he looked on me to take away my reproach among the people not the reproach of God the people were reproaching her you can see her heartache None of the reproach was from God. It was really from her family, her friends, the way she thought about herself, the way she thought about maybe her self-worth, especially when she was younger.

Ladies, do you see the potential power of your tongue here on other ladies? And how you might talk to them? Right, and James talks about how we use our tongue for blessing God and the father and and cursing men that this ought not to be so. Ought not to be so. You know Elizabeth I'm sure was very grieved at times especially in her younger years and maybe more in her later years because she's still the reproach of women of those around her of just now she's just I'll never have children now but we don't see Elizabeth bitter do we I don't I don't see anywhere here where she's bitter just as she had enormous faith in God.

She lived Psalm 11, in the Lord I put my trust. She lived Psalm 40, blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust. She knew God's grace and mercy was not dependent on her having a child. She knew that. God loves you because He loves Jesus.

Therefore, he loves the bride of Christ. God loves you because he chose to love you, not because you're married, not because you had children. God loved Rahab before she got married. Before you're saved, well you are still an enemy. God loved you while you were yet still centers.

Before you knew of his love, he loved you and he was wooing you to himself. This irresistible grace. Yes, children are a wonderful heritage of the Lord, But there are many wives, many husbands that are saved by his grace that are barren. What you need to think of this is That is a very unfortunate effect of sin in the world. It's going to happen.

We know it happens. It's going to happen. So ladies, most of you, if not all of you, want to get married. There's no guarantee that's going to happen. As much as you might think of yourself, there's no guarantee that's going to happen.

And then therefore, most of you, if not all of you, want to get married. There's no guarantee that's gonna happen. As much as you might think of yourself, there's no guarantee that's gonna happen. And then therefore, most of you, if not all of you, want to have children. And there's no guarantee that's gonna happen.

As Paul mentioned earlier, marriage is a poor goal to have. It is a poor goal to have. If that's your goal, if that's what your hope's in and therefore then having children, if that's your hope in, what happens when it gets dashed to pieces just two years into your marriage like Elizabeth Elliot or right away like John G. Payton and then again with his next wife? What's happening?

What's gonna happen to you if that's what you have your hopes wrapped up in? Being married or having children. So what's of more concern with for you? Marriage with children or being righteous before God and walking blamelessly? Which one?

You don't really have control over it if anybody really wants to marry you really don't have much control over that all right but you can cry out Lord have mercy on me a sinner Lord have mercy on me a sinner you can cry out in the Lord I put my trust father's the same question to you what's more important to you That your daughters get married and give you lots of grandchildren? Or that they know the God of the Bible. They know his ways are a delight. They know of his grace. They know of his mercy.

They know of his faithfulness. What is going to bring you more delight ultimately a thousand years from now when you're standing in heaven? What's going to bring you more joy? It is great when you can get all of that. It is fantastic.

It is a joy, and we see it evidenced here, daughters. It is a great joy when we can get all of that. But I will take The mercy of God, the grace of God, salvation of God over anything. It's hard to think of, but that's the way it should be. Pray that God gives you all of that.

We're praying for you. We pray for your marriages. We pray for your children. But that's not our ultimate hope in you. That's not what gives us, that's not what makes you precious to us or worth anything to us on your potential.

You getting married and having children? No. No, it's not. If you're saved, and we're just delighted that God would save you, you need to save as much as me. You might think, well, if I got married and had children, I would be a much better service to God if I was able to do this or that.

If this would happen or if I get to do others. Look at others. Look at the things that they get to do that are more honoring than what I get to do. What difference am I making? No, what you need to be thinking is trust in the Lord with all your heart.

Trust he is leading you in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake that the Good Shepherd is leading you. Fathers, help your daughters see this. Help them trust in the Lord. Help them see that his paths are good, his paths of righteousness that he's leading them in. And when we think of, oh but I want to do grand things, you hear songs about that and a lot of preaching, I want to do grand things.

If I could just do big things for God, my life be fulfilled. Fathers, mothers, help your children know, help your daughters know, you know, if they get married and they have children, they're gonna be changing diapers. They're gonna be changing diapers. Now you're gonna be saying, well that's not a great thing, That's not going to some foreign nation being killed for God. But no, that is teaching that they will be changing diapers for the glory of God.

And that is doing big things for God, a godly mother. I love what came out in the story of Rahab and what happened with Boaz. Rahab, the harlot, but Then we have Boaz. And who, what lady here doesn't love reading the story of Ruth and Boaz? All right.

That is transforming work. Elizabeth had her trust in the Lord. Number four, verse 42 through 45, Elizabeth was a blessing to others. Elizabeth was a blessing to others. Verse 42, then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

She did this with a loud voice. You look up this word, it's a great voice. It's a strong voice. It's an abundant voice. Even says it's a voice that would take great efforts.

That makes me sound like you're just screaming this just loudly. Blessed are you. Blessed are you. I praise God with you. I celebrate with you.

Being a blessing. Here's Elizabeth, six months pregnant at this point. Very obvious she's pregnant. Mary comes in, not obvious she's pregnant. I don't know what Elizabeth knew.

Mary was just recently became pregnant, just very recent. Probably not showing at all. But here's Elizabeth, Mary comes a visitor, very obvious pregnant, she wants to tell Mary, I'm sure maybe in her mind or would be in my mind, I wanna tell about all these things that Zacharias was in the temple and this happened an angel came said I'd be pregnant You know, I've been bearing cousin and and now look now look I've got a child And I've been told right before techno. I've been told it's gonna be a boy We're gonna name him John. Yeah, there's nobody in our family named John.

We're gonna name him John. And guess what? He's gonna be the foreword. She wants to tell him all of this. That's not what she does when Mary first comes in.

She cries out, blessed are you. She blesses Mary. She pronounced a blessing on my Lord Jesus, who she's talking about, and she's last. And her blessing on herself is not about her pregnancy. Her blessing on herself is the things I have believed I'm now going to get to see.

I'm going to get to see the Messiah come. I see where the Messiah is coming through Mary. That's what she's celebrating. She's pronouncing this blessing such a loud voice. If anybody's around, they heard.

I know many people. I am so blessed to know people like this that just love being joyful and celebrating with you in your joy and blessing you. I'm confident you know people like that. What a joy those are to be around. What a joy it is to be around people that love celebrating with you, that love having joy in your joy.

And that's the type of person Elizabeth was here. Yes, she was filled with the Holy Spirit and she was probably some prophesying in here for her to know exactly what's happening. Holy Spirit has to reveal to her exactly what's happening. But even at that it's not out of character for her at all. I'm very confident of that.

We talked about James 3, you know, with our same tongue we curse and we bless, and it ought not to be so, Elizabeth's blessing others. Here's a question I have for you. Are you a jealous person? Are you a jealous person or one that's looking for ways to celebrate the grace and mercy of God on other people? Which one are you?

Are you bothered when people don't notice you? Are you bothered when people don't notice you and they may have noticed somebody else. Here's one I don't know if you seeing happy birthday still at hope or not but a Sovereign Redeemer on Sundays if you know Jason is one that usually leads this and he gets out he's saying the names of who we're gonna whose birthday it is maybe your name's forgotten. Are you upset and jealous? Why was her name remembered?

Why didn't he remember my name? Why didn't he point me out? Or, or even if that happens, are you saying, wow God, thank you for giving my friend another year of life to glorify you, to magnify. God, make yourself great. May they proclaim your greatness for however many years you give them.

At the end of the song, we'll say many more. Are you just saying it because it's a quaint saying are you saying Lord I want you to bless them and keep them your face shine upon them for many many decades for the glory of your name and maybe they get married maybe they have children maybe and then they might have a golly see God me the gospel go out through them God use them in the years you give them is that what you're thinking think that way a blessing others not if you're forgotten fathers what is your example of blessing and praise Our daughters learn so much from us. What is your example of blessing and praise? Here's where it should start in Proverbs 31 28. Her children rise up and call her blessed.

Amen. We all say that, but how many of us stop right there in that verse her children rise up children rise up and call her Bless children bless her. I'm gonna be going bless her bless her Continue her husband also and he praises her Husbands how big of an example are you of blessing through the way you bless and praise your wife? How are you at that? You want your daughters to learn how to bless others as Elizabeth did?

You show her how. By blessing and proclaiming with loud praises about your wife. Do that. Do that as such a great example. Think on that.

I love it when I hear that from other husbands of them proclaiming how helpful their wife, how great their wife, how well their wife was used in someone else's life. Whether it's at the abortion clinic, whether it's helping with food here, whether it's helping at somebody else's home, whether it is I had a lot of work to do and my wife, the load she took on to care for the household was absolutely amazing. My child was sick all last night. I woke up this morning, I didn't even hear a peep. I didn't even know a child got sick until I woke up this morning and my wife's tired and I asked her, hey, how'd you rest?

She was up all night. Oh, Praise you. Thank you so much. Let me give you an example. Example's first Thessalonians first Thessalonians Paul, Silvanus and Timothy have gone to Thessalonians.

They now have left because of persecutions, but they're blessing this church. You can see in 1 Thessalonians 1 as well, but I'm going to do 2 Thessalonians 1, verses 3 through 5. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy say, We are bound to thank God always for you brethren as it is fitting because your faith grows exceedingly in the love of every one of you all abounds toward each other so that we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which you also suffer. Paul, Sylvain, and Timothy say we are bound to give thanks for you because of what he's doing. And we are so thankful that your faith is exceeding, your love towards one another is abounding more and more, and the gospel's running swiftly through all these places, all of Macedonia, because of your example.

We are so thankful for you. They're not saying, oh, I'm so thankful that God sent us to you. They are, but we're just so thankful for you and your example. So Elizabeth was a blessing to others. Number five, Elizabeth was humble.

Elizabeth was humble. So it was to her husband that the angel came and broke the 400 years of silence. Right? And it was to Mary, It was to Mary that the miracle, the Messiah, was coming through. And instead of saying, but I've got the forerunner, instead of saying, oh, all I got was the forerunner, she's just celebrating.

She's celebrating the goodness. Elizabeth is much older than Mary. She's not jealous that, oh, Mary got this, but I only got the forerunner. Right? Oh, I'm the one pregnant.

Why'd the angel come to Zacharias? The angel came to Mary. Why didn't the angel come to me? No, she's humble because she knows her Savior, her Messiah is on the way. And she's looking at the big preacher saying, I get to be used in this way?

Amazing. She's in complete awe. Look at verse 43 back in Luke. But why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? She's just incomplete.

Oh, that my Lord would come and visit me and hear even even the unborn incarnate Christ. She's still in awe. See her humility there sit thinking about her state and want to talk about just you humble there we We see in Philippians 2 about where's our source of humility. Go read Philippians 2. The source of our humility is Jesus.

And Elizabeth being raised in her home, She was raised in a priestly home. She's married to Zechariah. She knew the humility of Christ from Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, other places. She knew the humility of her Savior. And so here she is saying, wow, if she has any inkling to the meaning of Isaiah, she's going, I know how much he's going to humble himself.

And she was able to be humble before others. Humility magnifies God's work in you because you're praising and glorifying its trust.