Advent 2021 Hope in troubled times.
Advent 2021 • Sermon • Submitted
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When you think of your own personality and views, where do put yourself on the spectrum of optimism and pessimism?
Do you tend to be a glass half full, or glass half empty sort of person?
Last week I had out by the bulletins a family advent guide for 2021 and there are some more available if you didn’t get one.
This is a great resource to use as a church family, to use together in our individual families to help prepare our hearts for Christmas.
Advent is a historical tradition used by Christians to prepare for the coming of Christ.
The earliest dating of Advent is impossible to determine.
The other major holiday in the Christian calendar is tied to the Jewish passover, Easter.
As far as Jesus birth being celebrated in the 25th of Dec. there are countless theories and speculations as to when He was born.
What we must keep in mind is that what we celebrate matters far more than when we celebrate it.
We are celebrating the birth of the Messiah.
God’s only son.
Light coming in to the darkness.
Most celebrations of Advent in history had a twin focus.
The Latin word adventus was the translation of the Greek parousia—
a word used for both the coming of Christ in human flesh and his Second Coming.
Advent, historically has focused on both.
So as we prepare for Christmas, I would like for us to have the same twofold approach.
We celebrate Jesus coming to earth.
Because without it, we would still be lost in sin.
But we also look forward to Jesus second coming.
Over the next few weeks we will study together the themes of hope, love, joy, and peace.
This first week of advent helps us to both look back to Jesus birth and forward to His return using the topics of Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace.
What comes to your mind when you think about the word hope?
Hunting season ends today.
Every time we go out hunting or fishing, we go out with the hope of acquiring game.
How many of you kids have a Christmas wish list going?
Things you hope to get.
Adults have them as well.
Maybe you are hoping it snows so we have a white Christmas.
(Do you want to build a snowman?)
Maybe you are hoping it doesn’t snow before a trip so the roads stay clear and travel is easier.
In each of these cases, we don’t know if what we are hoping for will actually happen.
You can’t make an animal walk in front of you.
You can’t make a fish bite your hook.
You can’t control the weather.
The hope that we are talking about in the season of advent is different.
That is what I really want for us to take away this morning.
As Christians, the hope we have because of Jesus is so drastically different than the everyday hopes and dreams.
Because when scripture talks about hope, there is truth that cannot be denied.
There is a hope that is sure because of the one in whom we are hoping.
Hope that is more than a wish or a dream.
A secondary goal that I hope to achieve in our time together is teach us a little bit about word studies.
Something each and every one of us can do.
Especially with the amount of technology available today.
A few great resources I will put up on the screen
www.biblestudytools.com
www.biblehub.com
www.blueletterbible.com
These can help you find cross references and strongs concordance numbers which help you understand the words from the original language.
Then you can take a word like hope, and study on your own to see best how it is understood in the Bible.
As we begin to study the word hope, you want to begin with definitions and then see how it is used in scripture.
Hope as a verb
1: to cherish a desire with anticipation 〈hopes for a promotion〉
1: to desire with expectation of obtainment
2: to expect with confidence: TRUST synonym see EXPECT—hop•er noun—hope against hope: to hope without any basis for expecting fulfillment
Hope as a noun (person, place, or thing.
2 a: desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment 〈came in hopes of seeing you〉 also: expectation of fulfillment or success 〈no hope of a cure〉
b: someone or something on which hopes are centered 〈our only hope for victory〉
c: something hoped for
We must take our basic understanding of hope and now see how it is used in biblical terms.
We then can take our word and look up the Hebrew and Greek words by using a bible lexicon.
the blue letter bible site is one of the easiest to do this.
See screen shot.
BLB Screen shot 1
If you go to the website, select your preferred bible translation and type in your word.
BLB Screen Shot 2
Then you go down the the lexicon tab.
For hope it says there are 20 results
15 Hebrew/Aramaic
5 Greek.
That is a lot of results but we can narrow it down pretty easily.
BLB SS 3
By clicking on the Strongs number you can go and see how many times each word is translated into the word you are looking for.
When we do this with the word hope, we find that there are primarily two Hebrew words, and one Greek word.
In the Old Testament, there are two main Hebrew words translated as hope. The first is yakhal, which means simply “to wait for.”
Like in the story of Noah and the ark, as the flood waters recede, Noah had to yakhal for weeks. Hoping for the water to recede.
The other Hebrew word is qavah, which also means to wait.
It’s related to the Hebrew word qav, which means cord.
When you pull a cord tight, you produce a state of tension until there’s release.
That’s qavah, the feeling of tension and expectation while you wait for something to happen.
The prophet Isaiah depicts God as a farmer who plants and qavahs for good the results. Not toiling forever at the same stage of farming.
Does he who plows for sowing plow continually? Does he continually open and harrow his ground? When he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter dill, sow cumin, and put in wheat in rows and barley in its proper place, and emmer as the border? For he is rightly instructed; his God teaches him. Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is a cart wheel rolled over cumin, but dill is beaten out with a stick, and cumin with a rod. Does one crush grain for bread? No, he does not thresh it forever; when he drives his cart wheel over it with his horses, he does not crush it. This also comes from the Lord of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom.
Or the prophet Micah talks about farmers who both qavah and yakhal for morning dew to give moisture to the land.
Then the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples like dew from the Lord, like showers on the grass, which delay not for a man nor wait for the children of man.
This verse is spoken in the context of a coming messiah.
Looking forward to, hoping for the fulfillment of a promise.
So in biblical Hebrew, hope is about waiting or expectation,
This waiting was extremely difficult though.
In the period of Israel’s prophets, as the nation was sinking into self destruction,
Isaiah said,
I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him.
I will qavah for him.”
The only hope Isaiah had in those dark days was the hope for God himself.
This same notion of hope all over the book of Psalms where these words appear over forty 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 wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
“I qavah for the Lord ... Let Israel yakhal for the Lord, because he’s loyal and will redeem Israel from its sins.”
The hope was for the Lord.
The New Testament, words for hope are the verb ἐλπίζειν (elpizein), and the noun ἐλπίς (elpis).
Both have to do with trust and confidence; the expectation of what is sure to come;
and the active, faith-filled waiting for God to fulfill that which He inaugurated by the power of His Spirit.
In Paul’s letters, hope is bound up with eager expectation or anticipation.
Paul writes of waiting in hope for the adoption as sons of God through redemption of the body
And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
waiting for the hope of righteousness
For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.
and, above all, “the blessed hope (elpis) and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ”
waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,
Paul hopes to honor Christ always in his life
as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.
but, with even greater anticipation, his death will usher him into the presence of Christ where he knows existence “is very much better”
I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.
We Are People of Hope
We Are People of Hope
As Christians we are people of hope.
We are, or at least ought to be different.
We don’t have to live like those who wonder if everything will be okay.
We don’t need to tie ourselves up in knots with worry about tomorrow.
We shouldn’t worry about the trivial matters of life.
While yes we do need to make decisions, some quite significant,
Where to live, where to work, how much insurance do we need, who should we be friends with.
These are but a few of the important decisions we must make.
The difference is that in reality, no matter the decisions we make,
God has the final say.
For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
That is why we can be a people of hope.
We have one—and only one— hope.
But it’s a huge hope,
Hope that changes everything.
It’s the truth that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and we will too.
We are people of the resurrection.
Rooted, built up, and established in Christ—this is our identity.
Our hope is found outside of this messed up world and in the one who will make everything new, everything right.
This doesn’t give us reason to go around doing nothing though.
after all we have been tasked as stewards over this beautiful planet God has placed us upon.
But we can have hope that even when we mess it up it is not all about us.
Look at Peter, disciple and friend of Jesus.
He denied knowing Jesus on the night he was betrayed.
Witnessed the resurrection.
Went on the preach at Pentecost in Acts 2.
Thousands of people were saved.
He became the leader of the early church.
Was martyred for his faith.
During great persecution, Peter wrote,
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,
He knew the truth of his hope, and that it is was in Jesus alone.
The same hope he wanted other Christians facing persecution to know.
He wanted those scattered for their faith to remember that they were people of hope.
They were the people of the resurrection of Jesus.
They were born again into his kingdom, and their inheritance was waiting—imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.
They had every spiritual blessing then and in heaven.
Christians in the context of early Rome faced great threats,
verbal abuse, physical mistreatment, and even death.
So Peter told them to prepare their minds for action:
Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
In other words, Jesus conquered death and he’s coming back, and then we will receive our inheritance.
Peter said to press on, friends! Put your hope in King Jesus.
Commit your ways to him.
Stay the course.
We are a people of true, unfading hope.
Reasons we can hope in troubled times.
Reasons we can hope in troubled times.
Most of us though are a mixture of emotions and experiences.
The good, the bad, and the ugly wash over us regularly.
The key issue is what we do with these feelings and experiences.
How doe we as believers shape the way in which we view the world around us?
Especially when we are faced with difficulties, worry, and grief.
If you have ever heard of Corrie ten Boom
Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker who became a heroine of the Resistance, a survivor of Hitler's concentration camps, and one of the most remarkable evangelists of the twentieth century. In World War II she and her family risked their lives to help Jews and underground workers escape from the Nazis, and for their work they were tested in the infamous Nazi death camps. Only Corrie among her family survived to tell the story of how faith ultimately triumphs over evil.
She wrote a book called The Hiding Place.
In the book she tells the story of looking forward to her first railway journey.
Although her trip was not for many weeks, she would regularly go to her father and ask him if he had the tickets.
He would tell her over and over that he did.
She realized that her problem was a lack of trust in her dad; she did not believe he would take care of everything.
She was worrying that he would lose her ticket and that somehow she would be without it on the day she was to travel.
In that lesson, she learned that God gives us the ticket on the day we make the journey and not before.
He, of course, is much better at keeping it safe than we are.
In our own journeys through life, we find heartache, disappointment, loss of loved ones, failures.
We must learn as Corrie did to trust in our father.
We can have hope because our father has the ticket.
The ticket to eternity.
That ticket will be there ready in God’s time.
We are in the hands of a loving God.
Ps 31 helps us to see this quite clearly.
But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors! Make your face shine on your servant; save me in your steadfast love!
God cares for us.
This is a wonderful reminder to hope in Him, as we approach Christmas, let us remember the hope that has come into the world and the hope we have that Jesus will return and make everything new and right.