John: Well, hello, church family. This is, a rerecording of sorts. This is, a problem we had today. We had some, technological issues where our recording of the sermon didn't work and, at the end of the day, I wasn't going to re preach it, but at the end of the day, I thought, man, I I kinda want to have this in this series because we are studying something, for the next 4 weeks that I think is is very helpful. I think it is something that, I think at the end of this we'll all say, okay, that was, that was good.
At least that's what I hope. And so, what we're studying is this season of Advent. If you grew up anything like me, you didn't know what Advent was. It probably wasn't in your vocabulary, But so many Christians over the years have, celebrated the season of Advent which is, the 4 Sundays leading up to Christmas. We can actually go back as far as 480 AD.
That's how long people have been celebrating this and that's over 1500 years of of Christians deciding, to celebrate something. And we're gonna talk about that in a minute and, I hope this is not something you look at and think, well, other churches do that. It's so interesting to me that Jesus prayed, one of His most important prayers, praying for unity, and we seem to do everything in our power to separate ourselves. So if that church does it, we can't do it. Well, okay.
What Advent is about is really anticipating, this idea of the coming, of Christ. As we lead up to Christmas, so we can kind of put in our minds this idea of, how they would have waited in the past for the Messiah to come. And us being on the other side of that, we now anticipate not his birth because that's already happened, but we anticipate, the coming back of the king. Right? And so what you see on your screen right now, is, is exactly what we're gonna be looking at.
You see at the bottom, you see all these candles. And so, these are in order. You may see people, may have seen before, may not even know what you were looking at. But a lot of times, people will set up almost in a it really isn't a horizontal wreath, laying on a table or something like that, and they may have 4 and sometimes 5 candles in there. And so, what you see on the screen is is in order, hope, peace, and they may have a white candle in the middle, signifying Jesus as the center of it all.
Some don't have that. They just have hope, peace, and then you see the other 2, joy and love. And these things are are not any you're not a bad Christian if you don't celebrate Advent or you you don't follow this. What this is, like so many things in our life, is just a tool, that you can employ to help center you, to help ground you, to help focus you, for the time at hand. And, yes, we can focus on Jesus all year round.
I understand that. But especially as the whole world comes, into this part of December, thinking about Jesus' birth, we can, as Christians, kind of, come in with that and celebrate all of these things we see, before us, the hope, the peace, the joy, and the love. And for me, that's a very good thing. It's something that that helps keep me, keep my mind focused. And I hope at the end of the day that that is, exactly what you see and what you are able to do with this.
And so season of Advent and and you see in the subtitle, celebrate the coming king. This anticipation of Jesus returning. And so our first candle, that you've seen up there is labeled as hope And, today, and all 4 of of these days, that we all 4 of these Sundays that we do this, we're going to watch a video, by the Bible, project talking about each one of these things and then we'll discuss, afterward. So enjoy the video.
John: So let's say you want to describe the feeling of anticipating a future that's better than the present. You might be giddy or excited or maybe unsure. But most of us know that experience. We call it hope. It's a state of anticipation and It is crucial for healthy human existence.
And it is a really important concept in the Bible. In fact, there are many words for hope in the ancient languages of the Bible and they are all fascinating. In the Old Testament, there are 2 main Hebrew words translated as hope. The first is yachal, which means simply to wait for. Like in the story of Noah and the ark, as the floodwaters recede, Noah had to yachal for weeks.
The other Hebrew word is kavah, which also means to wait. It's related to the Hebrew word kav which means cord. When you pull a kav tight, you produce a state of tension until there's release. That's kavah, the feeling of tension and expectation while you wait for something to happen. The prophet Isaiah depicts God as a farmer who plants vines and kavahs for good grapes.
Or the prophet Micah talks about farmers who both kavaz and yachal for morning dew to give moisture to the land. So in biblical Hebrew, hope is about waiting or expectation. But waiting for what? In the period of Israel's prophets, as the nation was sinking into self destruction, Isaiah said, At this moment, the Lord's hiding His face from Israel, so I will kavah for Him. The only hope Isaiah had in those dark days was the hope for God himself.
You find the same notion of hope all over the book of Psalms where these words appear over 40 times. In almost every case, what people are waiting for is God. Like in Psalm 130, the poet cries out from a pit of despair, I kavah for the Lord. Let Israel yachal for the Lord because He is loyal and will redeem Israel from its sins. Biblical hope is based on a person which makes it different from optimism.
Optimism is about choosing to see in any situation how circumstances could work out for the best. But biblical hope is not focused on circumstances. In fact, hopeful people in the Bible often recognize there's no evidence things will get better. But you choose hope anyway. Like the prophet Hosea, he lived in a dark time when Israel was being oppressed by foreign empires and he chose hope when he said God could turn this valley of trouble into a door of hope like the day when Israel came up from the land of Egypt.
God had surprised his people with redemption back in the days of the Exodus and he could do so again. So it's God's past faithfulness that motivates hope for the future. You look forward by looking backward, trusting in nothing other than God's character. It's like the poet of Psalm 39 who says, and now, oh Lord, what else can I kava for? You are my yachal.
In the New Testament, the earliest followers of Jesus cultivated this similar habit of hope. They believed that Jesus' life, death and resurrection was God's surprising response to our slavery to evil and death. The empty tomb opened up a new door of hope. And they used the Greek word elpis to describe this anticipation. The Apostle Peter said that Jesus' resurrection opened up a living hope, that people can be reborn, to become new and different kinds of humans.
More than once, the Apostle Paul says the good news about Jesus announces the Elpis of glory. In both cases, this el peace is based on a person, the risen Jesus who has overcome death. And this hope wasn't just for humans. The apostles believed that what happened to Jesus in the resurrection was a foretaste of what God had planned for the whole universe. In Paul's words, it is a hope that creation itself will be liberated from slavery to corruption into freedom when God's children are glorified.
So Christian hope is bold, waiting for humanity and the whole universe to be rescued from evil and death. And some would say it is crazy. And maybe it is. But biblical hope isn't optimism based on the odds. It's a choice to wait for God to bring about a future that's as surprising as a crucified man rising from the dead.
Christian hope looks back to the risen Jesus in order to look forward. And so we wait. That's what the biblical words for hope are all about.
John: Well, I hope you enjoyed that video. The Bible Project, Tim Mackey, did a great job explaining what, what hope is And, you may have seen some things in there that surprised you. May may have seen some things in there that you, may may not wanna have want to see. And that's okay. But that is, we need to understand what it really means to hope, within scripture.
So that's what we're gonna do, for the next few minutes is, talk about several places within scripture, that have this hope. And, sometimes as as the video, talked about, we can kind of get hope and maybe optimism mixed up. And again, as he explains optimism, optimism is this idea that I look around and I try to see how it's all going to work out, Where hope in scripture may be understanding that there's no way this can work out, at least not with my wants and desires. But my hope comes from a person, not a situation, and certainly not an earthly person, but we're we're hoping in the Lord. And so that's a completely different mindset to hope and to anticipate and to live in attention where, things may not go well here.
But we know ultimately they will. And so our first scripture comes from, the book of Isaiah chapter 64. And in this, we we kind of get that. We kind of get this human side of things aren't going well, but my hope is in you. Listen as I read.
As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you. He's he's crying out to God. Do something. Do something. For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down and the mountains trembled before you.
Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any god besides you who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continue to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.
We all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind, our sins sweep us away. No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you, for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins. You you get the sense of, okay, you are not near right now. Look at this turn. Yet you, Lord, are our father.
We are the clay. You are the potter. We are all the work of your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord. Do not remember our sins forever.
Oh, look on us, we pray, for we are all your people. Do you hear? Even in the midst of, this deep pain, understanding as this person looks around that it is not going well, They understand the sin that is, is, is present. They understand that that God is not close because of this sin, but they still have this hope because of who God is. They they they're still hanging on because of who God is and they position themselves in this posture of, God, you are the potter.
We are the clay. We anticipate you using that. That you can use us, that I I hold myself out here to be used by you. And that's a that's a scary thing. That's a scary prayer to pray.
Often what we do is we ask God to rubber stamp what we're already doing. Instead of this posture, where we say, God, we're waiting on you to lead. We wanna come alongside what you are doing versus how we may have God in our pocket or feel like we do at times where I'll make the decisions, Lord. We'd love for you to bless those. And a lot of times, let's be honest, it's not a good or a bad thing that we're we're choosing between.
We may think, hey, God absolutely wants to reach people and so he's gonna bless this ministry that we're wanting to do. Well, have we prayed about that? Have we asked God, is this the way he wants to work? Or are we just assuming things, that that we believe God is gonna come alongside us on, right? I remember when I was younger that I started dating this girl who was, also attending a Church of Christ and I thought, man, this is a match made in heaven.
This is what God wants, because we both go to the Church of Christ and we got all this in common. Then it wasn't too long before I realized we didn't have much in common at all. I assumed something before I prayed about it, before I really got into it, and a lot of times we get that cart before the horse. What is our posture towards God? From Isaiah, 64, we move on to Luke 3 verse 15.
The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. John answered them all, I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Remember at this time, Rome ruled the region. That's 3 r's for you.
Rome ruled the region. And and so can you imagine a foreign power ruling where you live right now? That's what they were dealing with and the people anticipated. They hoped for because of what God had done in the past and because the faith they had in him, they believed and hoped for god to do something. And so as they came to John, they they looked for the Messiah hoping or thinking maybe he is the Messiah.
And John is quick to say, no, I am not him. But notice how he keeps that hope up. There is one more powerful than I and he's coming really is what, we know the story to, to be that he was about there at that time. And so, again, this anticipation of god, what are you going to do? From 1 Corinthians 1, verses 3 through 9, Paul says this, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in him you have been enriched in every way, with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge, God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. Therefore, you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. You hear that in that verse. As you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed, our hope, our anticipation, He will also keep you firm to the end so that you will be blameless on the day of our lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful. Say that again. God is faithful who has called you into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Again, tapping into God's faithfulness, not your circumstance. From Mark 13 verse 33, Jesus speaking here, talking about the end times.
He says, be on guard, be alert. You do not know when that time will come. It is like a man going away. He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch. Therefore, keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back, whether in the evening or at midnight or when the rooster crows or at dawn.
If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone, watch. Do you hear that? In the vigilance, in the watching, in the hoping. Again, that our our lives should be centered around Jesus Christ.
How many times, how often, let's just go and say every day or every week for me, does life just keep coming at you? And in the, the craziness and the, the noise, we lose focus on Jesus Christ. That center candle that should be, center in our lives. Jesus sometimes gets pushed to the back burner because of everything else we have, planned in our lives. And Jesus here, telling his his followers, be ready, be watching, hope for this.
Hope for what God, has planned. And our final, scripture, for today is from Psalm 1 verses 12. Blessed blessed I wanna say blessed. Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord and who meditates on his law day and night. Every single day, every single night vigilance, hoping for the coming of Christ instead of dwelling on our present circumstances.
The thing about this is, again, if you're confusing hope and optimism, we can really spiral into our own circumstances. We can look around and life hasn't gone the way we thought it should or would or what we would have planned, and we can get mired in that. What is happening here? Because our hope at that point is not in Jesus. Our hope is rooted in the outcome of those circumstances.
And I wanna tell you that if you today, listening to this, find yourself in a point in your life where you don't see the way out, you don't know how things are gonna get better, there's no logical way they can get better. I wanna tell you that I don't doubt at all that God has you right where you need to be Because it's in the chaos. It's in the thing we can't control that we finally understand that God is in control and only he can bring about change. And so we hope in him. What you think about this for just a second.
How many times in scripture does god work through the impossible? How many times were barren women or couples that never had a child too old and thought to be barren? It doesn't make sense. There's no logical reason. There's no way it's gonna happen scientifically.
Right? But that's when god works. God shows us that nothing is too big for him. Think about the the story of Elijah. Elijah on, this this Mount Carmel, he is, I joked with the I joked with the church this morning that I've been on Mount Carmel and it's really more like a ridge, but for the people of Southeast Texas, it probably is more like Mount Everest because it's got some elevation.
But it's just like a big ridge and Elijah is up there with all of these false prophets. The prophets of of Baal or Baal has, have come to learn to say it. But he's up there against all odds, him against them. Both are supposed to set up this altar. He allows them to go first.
They prepare it and what they pray for is for their god to send down fire and take up this, this offering. And what happens? It never comes. He even gets to joke with them about what where is your God? Is he is he out doing something?
But when it comes time for Elijah, Elijah, against all odds, says, okay, well, let's prepare this and let's cover it all with water because that's the best thing to do if you're gonna burn something. Right? And so in in this circumstance, there is no way that you can't give God the glory when he sends down the fire and it says it even licks up all the water that was in the moat or however he had configured this around, this offering. It has to be God. How many times in our lives do does something happen?
You may have wished for it to happen and and you're certainly glad it happened. Maybe you even gave god some of the glory but maybe in the back of your mind, you thought, you know, I I had quite a bit to do with that. I put in the work. I showed up. I'm thankful I was in the right place at the right time, and maybe at least our our faith isn't as strong as maybe we think, and we give ourselves more of the credit than we deserve.
It is in those times again of the chaos, of the rock bottom, of the there's no way out of this and I don't see how anything could change but God works. And that's who we have hope in. We have hope in a God that, there's nothing that he cannot do, that old people, barren people have children. Offerings, sacrifices are burnt up from heaven even when covered with water. A man killed in front of everyone, crucified on a cross, walks again and is seen by 500 people.
It doesn't make sense except that God is faithful. And so I just want to encourage you. I hope that through this season of Advent that we can refocus on, really keeping the main thing the main thing, that Jesus is the center of it all. And I hope that's who you have hope in. I hope you don't, put root your own hope in some other person, some other circumstance, some other politician to change something, because it they're all gonna let you down.
But God won't. Your circumstance here may may not change, but at the end of it all, God has you and He has me. And I pray that we are able to focus on that. Thanks for listening. And again, if you, haven't been to our church, we'd love to have you come visit anytime you get a chance.
Come and see us. Have a great week.