Welcome to our Together on Mission Podcast, when we seek to be with and like Jesus, as we begin a conversation with Jesus in the morning, through scripture, prayer, and meditation, and then continue that conversation with them throughout your day. Your host is Travis Twiney, the pastor at the Inland Vineyard Church in Corona, California. In this season of the podcast, we will be journeying through the Gospel of Luke, specifically looking for moments in the life of Jesus of the Oscar. Good morning, everyone, and happy Tuesday morning, and welcome to the Daily Podcast.
The title of the podcast this morning is The Quiet Christian. And what we're doing is we are going through the Gospel of Luke because Luke wants us to carefully investigate the life of Jesus, the teaching of Jesus. Luke wants us to bring our minds to the task and see what happens. And he sets the stage for that with what we talked about yesterday, and then he moves into the rest of chapter one, and we're going to call this podcast The Quiet Christian.
And as has been said, we tend to live lives of quiet desperation. I don't remember who exactly said this, maybe it was Soren Kirk regard, but Kirk regard coined the phrase The Quiet Christian, right? Quiet, not passionate hiding, instead of open and verbal, dull, instead of sharp, lukewarm, instead of on fire, and we could go on, and this is a predicament of many, many Christians in the West, and maybe some of us, if we're really honest, we are able to relate to this phrase that Kirk regard coined The Quiet Christian, even though we may not want to admit it, it may be more spot on than we'd like to admit. And so the question this morning is, can you, can I relate to this quiet Christian?
Are we often more quiet, or that Luke's going to use in just a moment? Are we often mute instead of verbal or passionate or living out loud? And I think that's the question that presses, is Luke tells the story that he's about to tell in the rest of chapter one. I guess we talked about the beginning of Luke and Luke's purpose, that we might know the certainty, that's a keyword of the things that have been taught.
And now in the remainder of chapter one, right, we get this story of Zachariah, John the Baptist's father, and John the Baptist became the forerunner for Jesus, and Zachariah is old, and his wife Elizabeth is old, and well advanced in years, the age of childbearing, and an angel comes to Zachariah and says, Elizabeth is going to have a child. And Zachariah doesn't believe the angel, he doesn't believe here's the word, the certainty of what the angel said, and so in his unbelief he is then unable to speak. He goes quiet. And again, when we're sure, when we're certain about anything, we can't keep quiet, we must speak, we must share, we must talk, we must inspire, we must live, but, but doubt in the lack of certainty, you know, silence all seem to dovetail together.
And, you know, I'm thinking about my Christian journey, other Christians that I've known, maybe you could think about your Christian journey and other Christians that you've known, as quiet Christian set a good phrase for some Christians in the West that we've experienced. And see, here's the thing Luke has convinced as we keep reading this gospel, as we become certain of the things that we have been taught, that our Christian experience will not be marked by silence, but marked by passion, speaking, whatever that speaking might look like in whatever situation we find ourselves in. And so Zachariah does remain mute during the duration of the pregnancy, and then when John is born, we pick things up in chapter 1, verse 62, then they made signs to his father, Zachariah, to find out what he would like to name the child. Zachariah asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone's astonishment, he wrote, his name is John, and verse 64 immediately Zachariah's mouth was opened, and his tongue was set free, and he began to speak, praising God, and all the neighbors were filled with awe throughout the hill country of Judea.
People were talking about all of these things. Everyone who heard this wondered about it asking, what then is this child going to be for the Lord's hand is with him? And so with a certainty, his tongue is loose, his mouth is open, and he's let loose. He's set free to speak, to live, to be bold.
And Luke is certainly telling the story of Zachariah, John the Baptist's father, but Luke is also telling the larger story about what happens when we know the certainty of the things that we have been taught, and we can't be silenced. We get to live out loud, we get to live free and alive on the kind of foundation that the story of Christianity, the story of Jesus gives us. And then we can't be bought or bribed or stopped, kind of like Jesus. We're literally set free.
His tongue was set free. And so the prayer that I would like for us to pray this morning is the prayer of freedom, that our mouths and our lives would be loosed as we more and more by the power of spirit gain the certainty of the things that we have been taught about Jesus. The freedom to say, to speak, to be bold, to announce, whether it's truth or vulnerability or love or bringing Jesus into conversation or whatever it might be. And I think what Luke is saying here is that quiet and mute and dull and lukewarm marked our yesterday, kind of like Zachariah, but not our today, and not our tomorrow, as we encounter not only the historical Jesus, but the risen and ascended Lord, who is ruling the universe.
But that is a podcast for tomorrow. So let's enjoy Jesus and let's pray this prayer of freedom. Let's pray this prayer of freedom in the presence of Jesus this morning, and we will talk tomorrow.