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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Andrew Park

Full Potential

Funny is my wife wrote that bio And I and I looked at it after I said that's perfect exactly what I was gonna write down as was introduced earlier My name is Andrew.

I'm from Michigan And I've been a pastor for about 2 years now in Michigan.

I was born and raised there, grew up in Detroit.

When I was asking God what he wanted me to share this morning with all of you, which I don't know pretty much any of you, maybe acquainted with a couple, God placed a passage on my heart to share.

And as I was preparing the message, this might have been 1 of the most difficult messages I have ever taken to prepare.

Not in terms of the difficulty in my own, I guess, heart, but more so just the difficulty of preparation of the message.

And I asked God, I was like, why do you want me to share this?

Is it even going to hit home with anyone?

But I believe that God placed this message on my heart, and I also believe that this has been so difficult to prepare because there is at least 1 person here that needs to hear what I'm going to share this morning.

So why don't we bow our heads for a word of prayer and ask God to bless our time in Bible study.

We're gonna be studying the Bible by the way so I hope you brought a physical copy.

Father in heaven, I do want to place my confidence in your promises this morning.

And I want to claim Jeremiah 1.9, And the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth so Lord I pray that you may do that for me this morning may you grant us the gift of your Holy Spirit that whatever comes out of my mouth may be taken by the Spirit into the hearts of those who are listening today.

Open up our hearts and I pray that you may bless our time together in your word.

This is my prayer, we pray it in Jesus' name, Amen.

We're going to be turning to Luke chapter 1 this morning, and we're going to be spending probably 95% of our time in Luke chapter 1 and Luke chapter 2.

Luke chapter 1, and we're going to be analyzing the lives of 2 very important figures in the New Testament.

Both of these figures laid the foundational work for the birth of the Christian church, and they both occupied very different roles concerning that work.

Luke chapter 1 and we're starting here in verse 5.

Luke chapter 1 verse 5 And I'll be reading from the NASB version.

And it says, in the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zacharias of the division of Abijah.

And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.

They were both righteous in the sight of God walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord but they had no child because Elizabeth was barren and they were both advanced in years.

So we're picking up here in Luke chapter 1, and we see 2 figures, Zacharias and Elizabeth.

Zacharias is a priest, Elizabeth is of the daughters of Aaron.

According to the Bible, these are very godly people.

But as we're also reading in verse 7, they have 1 problem.

Elizabeth cannot bear children because they're both advanced in years and she's barren.

Now this is a very obvious answer to the question, But to make it very simple, is it possible or is it impossible for Elizabeth to have a child?

It is impossible for her to have a child.

It is physically impossible for her to have a child.

It says, Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called, what?

Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph of the descendants of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.

So in the same chapter we're introduced to another figure, and this figure her name is Mary, and she's a virgin.

Now, I'm gonna ask another obvious answer to the question.

If Mary is a virgin, is it possible or is it impossible for her to have a child?

So we take a step back in Luke chapter 1 we have 2 opposite end examples of impossibilities of childbirth for 2 opposite reasons.

The other she's a virgin she's never known a man all in Luke chapter 1 do we see this both of these women are faced with impossible scenarios for opposite reasons So what happens to the story of these women?

If you continue reading through Luke chapter 1, there comes a time where Zacharias, who's the priest, he gets selected to do some work in the temple.

And so As he's in the temple, he's burning incense and the people of God are outside of the temple.

And when you look at verse 11 of chapter 1, we're going to see what happens as he's ministering in the temple on behalf of the people of God.

It says here in Luke chapter 1 verse 11, and an angel of the Lord appeared to him standing to the right of the altar of incense.

Zacharias was troubled when he saw the angel and fear gripped him.

But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your petition has been heard and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son and you will give him the name, what?

So, an angel comes to Zacharias and he says, despite your wife's impossibility of having a child, I'm here to tell you something very important.

You are going, she is going to have a child.

And the angel doesn't just give the prophecy that they're gonna have a child, but he also gives the child's name in advance.

As I'm looking here in Advent Home, there's a lot more people than I thought would be here.

And I'm assuming that there are some people that don't know some people in Advent Hope.

Do you meet new people when you're at Advent Hope?

So imagine you meet someone new, probably at least 10 people new at Advent Hope, and then you go home.

Then while you're at home, you get a text message and it says, hey, it was so great seeing you at church today and that's it.

That's what I would wonder, and I'd feel bad because I don't know who it is.

I'd say, hey, it was so great seeing you too.

That's the question that you're going to be asking.

And assuming this is not a spam, they're going to respond back with what?

When you hear, when you read the person's name on your text message, assuming you remember who the person is who texted you, you are now going to be able to identify who they are.

This was a very roundabout way of saying, our name reveals our identity.

And what we're seeing here is before John was even born, what does the angel Gabriel give to Zacharias?

What we're seeing in this passage is nothing can stop God from establishing the identity of John.

Not infertility, not age, nothing can stop God from establishing his identity.

And did you know that the same power by which God establishes the identity of John is the same power that God uses to establish your identity?

There is nothing in your life, not your location, not your socioeconomic status, not your you name it, not your mistakes, nothing can stop God from establishing your personal identity this morning.

And my question for you this morning is, do you know who you are?

Do you know your God-given identity this morning?

Because when we're not grounded in our God-given identity, this is the natural human tendency.

What we will automatically do is we will try to either find or create our own identity.

For almost my entire life, I grew up in the church, grew up going to a Korean SDA church.

Now this sounds super cliche, this guy doesn't know his identity.

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