Advent Week 1: Hope
Notes
Transcript
The word Advent means arrival.
The season of Advent is a season of intention and expectation.
It’s easy to let it slip by. It’s easy to get caught up in the flow of everyone else in the world and let Christmas have nothing to do with Christ at all.
Let me encourage you this morning as you’re all beginning to think about the season according to the traditions you’ve been raised with, and the new traditions you’ve formed over the years…be INTENTIONAL.
Intentional with why we sing Christmas songs, and the lyrics we sing.
Intentional with the money we spend and the gifts we give.
Intentional with how we receive the gifts that are given to us.
Parents being intentional with leading our children to understand who Christ is, and why he came.
Be intentional.
So we’re going to have four sermons that make up the Advent series, and my goal is that we look at each of the traditional elements of advent, Hope, joy, love, and peace, but with a view of how they affect the mission of the church today.
Today we’re going to look at hope.
Hope is that glimmer of light in the darkness. Sometimes it’s that sense of assurance in the midst of waiting for something important.
Biblical hope an objective truth that you cling to that holds you up and presses you forward through the hardest of seasons. It keeps you longing, and waiting, and expecting, when nobody else can find a reason.
Christians are the only people in the world who have this kind of hope, but again, we have to be intentional, or we’ll get caught up in believing that we, too, are hopeless.
Solomon wisely said this...
Proverbs 13:12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
Waiting for something good, and then prolonging that waiting over and over again, can make you feel weak and sick, and helpless. But as soon as that hope is realized, life is revived and it’s like continual nourishment for the soul.
That’s the Christian life on repeat.
Waiting and hoping in the now and not yet.
For God’s people in the OT it would have been more like the Not Yet, all the time. What we have in Christ by faith today through his fulfilling of all the requirements of God is something Israel did not have.
And over and over again, from Genesis on, what we see is what looks like dashed hopes. That’s really how we gain an understanding of what the OT is about…It’s a picture of fallen humanity clinging to what God had said, but facing obstacle after obstacle, and weakness after weakness, so that when God does come through, HE get’s all the glory.
Genesis 3:15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
This put hope in the hears of Adam and Eve, that one day a son would be born and he would crush the enemy who deceive them.
Genesis 4:8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Dashed hopes.
Then Genesis 4:25 And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.”
Seth was a gift from God, an offspring for them that would carry on the lineage of faith toward that promised seed.
Then Genesis 6 - so much corruption and evil on the earth that the only solution is to wipe the earth clean with a flood - hopes dashed.
Genesis 6:8 - Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. There’s hope
God’s covenant with Noah is one of hope and promise, but Noah’s descendants are not all righteous. Why? Because of Sin. But God’s promise endures. He will deliver that messiah to the world.
Shem is the line that Scripture follows, and not because Shem is special, but because God shows mercy. Shem’s lineage follows down to Abraham, a pagan man, chosen out of the world to be the first of God’s house, the Hebrew nation. And through his family, all the nations of the world will be blessed. There’s hope
But wait, Abraham and his wife, Sarai, are childless. What hope is there of a seed to save humanity if the couple God has called is infertile?
Romans 4:17-21 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
Here’s 18 and 19 in NLT “Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping—believing that he would become the father of many nations. For God had said to him, “That’s how many descendants you will have!” And Abraham’s faith did not weaken, even though, at about 100 years of age, he figured his body was as good as dead—and so was Sarah’s womb.”
Now, what is the reason for such “unreasonable” hope?
God’s absolute and infallible record of promise keeping. When every circumstance said, “impossible” and “give up”, Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God.
Through the years leading up to the birth of Christ this is the pattern of things. Believing against all earthly reason, because God is reason enough.
Judges would fail. Kings would fail. Prophets would speak of a time of rescue and redemption and peace, and these words would give hope.
But what does this do to a nation? I don’t think we can really grasp it. The anticipation and expectancy, waiting for the messiah to come. And why was this so important? Because of the curse of sin on the whole world, and the darkness of men’s hearts. God would perform this, but when?
One such famous prophecy is found in Isaiah 9.
Of course this comes right after chapter 8 with the pronouncement that, because of their rejection of the Lord, he will send the Assyrian army like a raging river overflowing all its banks.
Chapter 8 ends with these words v21 “They will pass through the land, greatly distressed and hungry. And when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against their king and their God, and turn their faces upward. And they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness.”
That’s an accurate depiction, not only of the one who turned from God then, and and chose the raging waters of Assyria over the gentle waters of Shiloah…but its a picture of the unbelieving world we live in today.
Broken, shattered, distressed, dark and full of inner anguish.
The prophet speaks this into that darkness.
“But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
2 The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone.
3 You have multiplied the nation;
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
4 For the yoke of his burden,
and the staff for his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
5 For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
and every garment rolled in blood
will be burned as fuel for the fire.
6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
Now, many of you recognize this text, especially verse 6 and 7, but did you catch the region for which this was promised?
The Northern regions that during Isaiah’s time were occupied by gentile nations, will be the first to see a glorious light never seen before.
What was that light?
Matthew 4:12-17 Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. 13 And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
15 “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,
the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
16 the people dwelling in darkness
have seen a great light,
and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death,
on them a light has dawned.”
From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
The light was Christ, and his message about the Kingdom.
The hope of Israel was that child who would be born, and the Son that was given for us. The fulfilled promise of Genesis 3:15. The seed of the woman, conceived by the holy spirit and born of a virgin…the hope of the world.
We’ve looked back for a moment at their hope, now let’s look at our hope, and what we’re to do with it in this world today.
First of all, is this world in darkness and anguish? Like never before!
Sin and death and evil are spreading under the rule of Satan more rapidly today than any era before ours. But Christ did come and he crushed the power of death by dying on the cross and rising again, and his government is still increasing. As his Gospel spreads, so does hope.
But what is our message to the world if we act as though we have no hope either?
When we join the world in their language of fear, and fretting, and faithlessness, we say that Christ’s Advent means nothing to us, When we fail to cling to what He said, and would rather listen to others, we show weaken and we waver, and we show little confidence in the blessed hope of His second coming.
The incredible thing is that the Gospel is for the anguishing. So if that’s you, look no further than to the lamb of God, the child that was born, the son that was given, Jesus Christ.
Remember that proverb? Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
We wait for the Lord, but we wait on sure promises, and with faith in a God who never fails, so that tree of life…It’s a guarantee for all who trust in Christ. Let’s pray.