All right now, if we're honest, reading the Bible consistently can be a challenge, but it's never

too late to start, and we're in this together. This is the Join the Journey podcast.

Thanks for joining. I'm Lauren Atkinson on the Join the Journey staff team, and I have a quick

announcement before we get started. On Sunday, December 15th, we would

love for you to join us as we highlight join the journey and pray together for a year of the

word in the chapel right after the 4 p.m. service. This will be a sweet time for members in our

church body to pray for all that God is doing in and through Join the Journey. And as we prepare for a year

of the Word, our Join the Journey team has created family discussion cards in place of journals for

2025. These are an amazing tool for families with kids of any age to read the Bible together and have

conversations around what you're reading. We'll be selling these discussion cards in the town center on Sundays for the rest of

December and then all through January, and we'll put the link to purchase those in the podcast

description.

Today, we are continuing in our Advent series in Luke 1 5 through 25, and we're talking about the birth of John the

Baptist being foretold. And I'm going to start us off by reading the beginning of this passage.

It says, in the days of Herod, King of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the division

of Abijah, and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron,

and her name was Elizabeth, and they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly

in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was

barren and both were advanced in years. And so we see that we have Zechariah, a priest,

and his wife, Elizabeth, who came from the line of Aaron. And it describes him as being righteous

before God and following his commandments, but they didn't have a child and they were too old to.

It sounds a lot like Abraham and Sarah from

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