Advent--Week 2 Hope
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Advent Series—Gift Exchange
Hopelessness for Hope
Intro: As we get closer to Christmas, we are buying gifts for our kids, and family members. We are waiting for Santa to arrive. And their whole month is about waiting. The Advent season is all about waiting for the arrival of the messiah. The Jews were waiting and technically still waiting for the messiah to arrive. As Christians We know that the incarnate God has come and instead of arriving like a conquering KIng that arrives with an army,he is born of a virgin in a guest room.
The Thessalonians were worried about waiting for Jesus’ Second coming, and they were so concerned about it, they thought they missed it. Paul wrote the second letter to the church because they were beginning to run out of hope.
I titled the entire Advent series “Gift Exchange.” It is fitting because God exchanges the His glorious gifts with us.
The four weeks of Advent are broken down into the themes and these:
Week 1 Preparation (waiting or prophecy) which we have been talking about for the past few months in Thessalonians.
Week 2 Hope (or promise)
Week 3 Joy (peace)
Week 4 Love (adoration)
The Last three are the Gifts that God gives to us. The first gift we are going to talk about is Hope
A lectionary outlines the Biblical texts that walks the church through the weekly service. The New Testament reading this week is from . Paul encourages the churches he wrote to and wants to pass on the hope that Jesus has brought to the world.
Read Verses:
Main Point: Jesus is the Hope of the world and He will exchange your hopelessness with His Hope
I. The Hope is Foretold (4-7)
Most likely, the Jews converted in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost brought Christianity to Rome and started the church. But in 49 AD the Jewish population in Rome had been ordered to leave the city by Emperor Claudius, which caused many of the Jewish Christians to be forced out as well.
About 57 AD, Paul was most likely on his third missionary trip and he wrote to the church to encourage them and also let them know that he was going to Jerusalem first and then come through Rome before heading to Spain.
So the church as reassembling after being exiled from the city and it now had more gentiles than traditionally Jewish. So there were conflicts inside and outside the church. Paul was an expert in handling these types of problems and so after a lot of theology Paul writes chapters 12-15 about the Gospel and the Transformation of Life.
Paul reminds the church that The Good news of Jesus. For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
What is comforting about the Scriptures? The whole storyline, from Genesis when the Fall of man happens, the solution is given in and we see that the seed of a woman is born in Bethlehem which is foretold in Micah tells us about the Good news that the Messiah was going to come.
Paul is telling telling the Roman church in the earlier part of his letter to God is sovereign and he has ordained everything to happen.
Paul is reminding the Jewish Christians of the history they collectively share. God knew the Israelites would be exiled and instructed Jeremiah to record in the scripture that it would last 70 years, and Isaiah recorded that a king named Cyrus would return them to the land. Daniel knew that Jeremiah said their exile would last 70 years. He had hope in God’s word.
The scriptures are about Jesus and the Hope he brings to the world, that there is a way for the world to be reconciled to God. There is hope
Chrysostom: These things were written so that we might not fall away, for we have many battles to fight, both inward and outward. But being comforted by the Scriptures we can exhibit patience, so that by living in patience we might dwell in hope. For these things produce one another—hope brings forth patience, and patience, hope. Homilies on Romans 27.
Biblical hope is different than how we generally use it. We say I hope i get this present for Christmas or I hope I pass a test, or I hope this person likes me or anything else we are unsure and uncertain of the outcome. When we say these things, we don’t know and that gives us cause for fear or doubt.
But when we have hope in the right things or person, we can be at peace
In Paul says (ESV): Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Donald Barnhouse says “for in the Christian hope, there is all the strength and certainty of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is ultimate, final and absolute”
TS: But the story that is foretold in the Old Testament is not only for the Jewish people,but also for the gentiles or the Non-Jews
II. The Hope is For Jew and Gentile Alike (8-12)
In the book of Acts, we see all manner of people who believe in and on Jesus. Jews, gentiles, people from everywhere became Christians.
Part of the problem in trying to determine the Christian community to which Paul addresses his letter is that he writes to it with a certain ignorance. He has not founded that church or evangelized the Romans. What little he knows about that community and its problems has undoubtedly come to him by hearsay, such as the problem of the “weak” and the “strong” (14:1–15:13). The best explanation of that distinction is that the “weak” refers to Christians of a Jewish background, and the “strong” to Christians of a Gentile background, who had been influenced at one time by Jews. Hence, as Paul writes, the Roman church was a mixed community, partly of Jewish, but predominantly of Gentile background.
Paul works hard in many of his letters to make sure that both the Jews and the Pagan know what it means to be Christians. The Jews, using their scriptures could easily think that Jesus belonged to them and everyone else was just piling in. But Paul wants to both groups to know that they are now one group. One Church.
He uses several Old Testament verses to point the gentiles and the Jews to God’s plan for the Gentiles and who Jesus was coming to the earth for. Christ cam no only to be the servant of the Jews, to teach His ancient people the truthfulness of God, and to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, but also that we Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy.
If you read the Story of Jesus healing the Centurion’s Servant in , we see this idea that Jesus did not just come to help the Jews. and you see the Centurion’s hope and faith as he calls on Jesus to come heal his servant who was highly valued. “7:3 The centurion heard of Jesus. Even as the centurion had heard of Jesus, so Theophilus also had heard (); and just as the centurion learned certainty and truth from what he heard, Luke hoped that Theophilus would also recognize the certainty and truth of what he had heard and now was reading.” So Jesus Goes to the man’s home , which “For a Jew to enter a Gentile’s home would defile him ceremonially. The centurion knew this and did not want to subject Jesus to ritual impurity (cf. ; , ). This passage is a good example of the social and religious gap that existed between Jew and Greek in the first century and with which the early church struggled.
But Jesus didn’t really worry about the outward holiness or cleanliness as much as he did the inward holiness, the true holiness. The centurion knows what is like to have power because he is in charge of people. and he recognizes and understands Jesus’ authority and how much more Jesus’ power exceeds the centurions. So he says in verse 7 to just say the word. And jesus replies “I have not found such great faith even in Israel.” “In Luke’s context the centurion became a symbol of believing Gentiles who stood in contrast to unbelieving Jews, so that what was true in Jesus’ situation became even more true in the Evangelist’s. Yet for both Matthew and Luke, this affirmation of the centurion’s faith served as support and encouragement for the acceptance of Gentiles into the church.”
Robert H. Stein, Luke, vol. 24, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992), 220.
This is true today in the Church. More than a few Church goers are culturally christian. They identify as Christian, they were raised in a church, they know the language, but they don’t have the hope or the faith in God
Robert H. Stein, Luke, vol. 24, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992), 220.
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We are not the gatekeepers of who gets in the Kingdom of Heaven. That is the Holy Spirit’s job. We are the town criers telling people the good news. We are to be ones, again, having the Holy Spirit work through us, to help explain the feelings that may well up based on new knowledge of God and share our experiences with people. We should not be turning people away. It is not our home.
Now this does not mean we tolerate sin and behavior inconsistent with God. And we do not shy away from the truth because it may make you or someone else uncomfortable. God’s standard does not waver.
Now this does not mean we tolerate sin and behavior inconsistent with God.
Christianity turned the world on its head because you could no longer just have rich and poor being separated. A few weeks ago we talked about Perpetua and Felicita’s and how one was from a well off family and other was a servant. They both died in the same gladiator ring holding on to the faith and Hope of Jesus Christ. There was no distinction in their minds because they were both Christians.
In our day and age, we don’t worry so much about Jews and Gentiles, but our churches should look like our neighborhood, and it should include people from every walk of life.
At the end times, People from Every nation and every tongue shall bow their knees. God is interested in saving one type of person, sinners. That is the only thing he sees. He doesn’t care if your American, Scottish, South African, Filipino or somewhere in between. If you have been called according to His purpose then you have been justified. And we might say, well not me. I’m too bad. I will go to church when I am good. It will never happen. You might was well go to the doctor after you recover from the flu. But how wonderful it is that God has come to you. How awesome is it that God the son would come down to be born as a baby. Paul says in
“Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
III. The Hope is Filling (13)
Paul closes this section of his letter with an encouraging statement :
13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
John Bunyan wrote a book called Israel’s Hope and he says
But a little, now we are upon faith and hope distinctly, to let you see a little. 1. Faith comes by hearing (), hope by experience (, ). 2. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God, hope by the credit that faith hath given to it (). 3. Faith believeth the truth of the Word, hope waits for the fulfilling of it.”
Our faiths the seed that is planted and our hope is the tree that grows as the rain and the sunshine and the snow waters and the wind shapes the tree.
The Old Testament records the trials and tribulations that the Israelites went through. We see that the trials continue with Jesus an also the Apostles and the new first century churches.
If we only think that the that The Old Testament but the NT also instructs us about the Hope that Jesus provides. Peter begins, his first letter “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” ().
Paul explains a few things to his audience
1. God is the source of Hope.
2. He is the one that fills you with the joy and peace
3. He can overfill you with Hope.
The work is designed by God the father, and then the work is arranged and completed by God the son and then the work is sustained by God the Holy Spirit. This is the distinctness of each person of the trinity.
This gives us true hope because we do not have to do the work and it is not ours to do. We are busy trying do the work and then carry the load, when it is beyond our capability to do any of it.
We cannot control the earth, we cannot control people and make them Iike us we can’t control the traffic as we drive from our home to work or vacation.
We cannot reconciles ourselves to God from our sinful nature, but We can have the hope in the work of Christ, that began when he was born on Christmas night and he grew up.
The small baby is our savior, redeemer and the intercessor for us. This is why you can have hope.This is why you can be excited about the celebration of Advent.
Conclusion
In this Christmas season, it starts with hope that God would act according to His word. The savior would be born and we know that it happened and we have the hope inGod’s word that his second coming will take place.
The Savior is effective for all kinds of people. Rich, poor, white black, European, Asian. He does not belong to one group.
The hope God provides can fill you so full that it pushes the hopelessness that we have from time to time completely out.
Charles Spurgeon said “Hope itself is like a star- not to be seen in the sunshine of prosperity, and only to be discovered in the night of adversity