Set Apart

The people of Israel hadn’t heard from God for four hundred years. There had been no miracles, no angelic appearances, and no prophets. And as Luke’s Gospel opens, we find Israel in the midst of a long night of spiritual darkness. But that was about to change.

One day God sent the angel Gabriel to a priest named Zechariah. Interestingly, the last we read of an angelic appearance in the Old Testament is when an angel appeared to a prophet named Zechariah five centuries earlier.

Luke 1 tells us, “While Zechariah was in the sanctuary, an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the incense altar. Zechariah was shaken and overwhelmed with fear when he saw him. But the angel said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Zechariah! God has heard your prayer. Your wife, Elizabeth, will give you a son, and you are to name him John’” (verses 11–13 NLT).

Interestingly, the name Zechariah means “Jehovah has remembered.” And the name of Zechariah’s wife, Elizabeth, means “God is my oath.” This event in their lives would confirm the truth of both their names. God remembered. And God would keep His oath.

So, why did God set Zechariah apart for such an amazing task? He was a humble man. And if you want to be used by God, you need to know that He is looking for humble people. In contrast to the powerful and prideful Herod, whom God ultimately would cut down, Zechariah was a humble servant of God.

As James 4:6 points out, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (NLT). But what does it mean to be humble? Humility is simply seeing yourself as you really are. In fact, it’s our obsession with ourselves that is at the root of so many of our problems.

In his book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis summed it up this way: “The real test of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object.”

That was Zechariah. He was a country priest. Today we might call him a country preacher. At this time in Israel’s history, there were about eight thousand priests. They represented God to people and people to God. The priests interpreted Scripture. They counseled. They provided wise judgment for the people. And twice a year, each priest would leave his local duties to serve in Jerusalem.

In the same way, we are God’s representatives as followers of Jesus Christ. First Peter 2:9 tells us, “You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light” (NLT).

God does extraordinary things through ordinary people. We can be used of God wherever we are. God wants to invade our ordinary lives and do something amazing. Will you say, “Not me. I’m out”? Or, will you say, “Here I am, Lord. Send me”?

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