Advent Week 1: Hope in God's Promise

Introduction

What is Hope?

Americans try to define hope in several different ways. Some talk about hope in a wishful sense as if they are wishing that something good would happen.

I hope that I get a bonus. I hope that we get a white Christmas. I hope that I get an A in my class.

Other people talk about hope as though it is a positive mindset.

I hope that tomorrow is better than today. You see a lot of churches use this slogan, “The best is yet to come.” It’s the same idea of having a positive mindset that tomorrow will be better.

Others use hope as though it’s based on probability or statistics.

This player is a 35% shooter from 3, I hope that they have a good game. I hope that we have enough people sign up for our mission trip so that we get locked into a cheaper flight.

These aren’t necessarily wrong definitions of hope - but they’re not the way that hope is used in the Bible. The word hope (elpis) is found 53x in the New Testament and it often carries with it a confidence not in oneself but in God’s power and redemption. Here is a working definition of Biblical hope: The expectation of experiencing God’s goodness through God’s power and presence in the present and future.

This definition of hope is different because Christians not only wait for the future to experience God’s hope - they can experience it today! In this season of Advent, we look in two directions. We look back at His first coming and we look ahead to His second. Today, though, we find ourselves living in this already but not yet period. Christ has already come, but He has not yet exterminated sin as He one day will. He has already saved those who have repented of their sins, but He has not yet given us our glorified bodies. We’re in this period of tension. While we wait, it’s so important for us to do so with hope, love, joy, and peace. These are the main themes of Advent and this year we’re going to celebrate this season of the year by studying through the book of Ruth. Maybe you’re wondering how we can study about Jesus from an Old Testament book that takes place long before King David? That’s a good question.

The book of Ruth reminds us that God works and moves in sometimes obvious ways and other times in mysterious ways… But He’s always at work! The book of Ruth reminds us that God doesn’t stop working after a tragedy strikes our life. The book of Ruth reminds us that God uses ordinary people to accomplish His extraordinary purposes! As we begin this study, we’re going to dive into the land of Israel some 900 years before Jesus Christ.

Emphasize what has taken place within the Kingdom here - the people of Israel are in despair as the victories have dried up and now they are being oppressed by their enemies such as those in Moab. In the midst of this darkness, God will provide hope as only He can do. From this darkness, God will send forth His chosen king: King David. God will make a promise with King David that from his offspring will come a king who will rule forever and be called the Son of God. This Christmas season as we study this somewhat forgotten character and book, may we be reminded of our God’s faithfulness to save and use sinners to accomplish His glorious plan of redemption! As we begin this study in Ruth 1, we’re going to look at the Hope that God provides in difficult times and how the Christmas season is the one of ultimate hope! We’re going to see how this book in particular points us to Jesus - the source of eternal hope.

Ruth 1 CSB

1 During the time of the judges, there was a famine in the land. A man left Bethlehem in Judah with his wife and two sons to stay in the territory of Moab for a while. 2 The man’s name was Elimelech, and his wife’s name was Naomi. The names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They entered the fields of Moab and settled there. 3 Naomi’s husband, Elimelech, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 Her sons took Moabite women as their wives: one was named Orpah and the second was named Ruth. After they lived in Moab about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Chilion also died, and the woman was left without her two children and without her husband. 6 She and her daughters-in-law set out to return from the territory of Moab, because she had heard in Moab that the Lord had paid attention to his people’s need by providing them food. 7 She left the place where she had been living, accompanied by her two daughters-in-law, and traveled along the road leading back to the land of Judah. 8 Naomi said to them, “Each of you go back to your mother’s home. May the Lord show kindness to you as you have shown to the dead and to me. 9 May the Lord grant each of you rest in the house of a new husband.” She kissed them, and they wept loudly. 10 They said to her, “We insist on returning with you to your people.” 11 But Naomi replied, “Return home, my daughters. Why do you want to go with me? Am I able to have any more sons who could become your husbands? 12 Return home, my daughters. Go on, for I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me to have a husband tonight and to bear sons, 13 would you be willing to wait for them to grow up? Would you restrain yourselves from remarrying? No, my daughters, my life is much too bitter for you to share, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me.” 14 Again they wept loudly, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. 15 Naomi said, “Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods. Follow your sister-in-law.” 16 But Ruth replied: Don’t plead with me to abandon you or to return and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. 17 Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me, and do so severely, if anything but death separates you and me. 18 When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped talking to her. 19 The two of them traveled until they came to Bethlehem. When they entered Bethlehem, the whole town was excited about their arrival and the local women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?” 20 “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara,” she answered, “for the Almighty has made me very bitter. 21 I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has opposed me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?” 22 So Naomi came back from the territory of Moab with her daughter-in-law Ruth the Moabitess. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

Even in the Darkest Moments of Life, God is at Work (1-6)

Every year around Christmas time the days seem to get shorter and shorter. For us in the Northern Hemisphere, December 21st is the day whenever we get the least amount of sunlight. We will have less than 9 and a half hours of sunlight on that day which means that we’ll have more than 14 hours of darkness. Darkness has a way to change the way that we feel and more people express feelings of sadness, depression, and loneliness during this time of the year because of the shortness of sunlight that we experience. Darkness often clouds our feelings and judgments - it makes us think that we’re alone. Darkness has always been something that society has sought to avoid. In the ancient world people believed that light and darkness were at war with one another and that each morning when the sunlight pokes over the horizon, darkness and its chaos are avoided at least for 1 more day. In the middle of dark times, it can be hard to see what is really around us. Whether it be you walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night and stepping on a toy or stubbing your toe on the edge of your bed frame, we fail to see well in the darkness. What must we do?

We must look for the light. Light allows us to see in the darkness. Light gives us perspective to understand what’s around us and how to best move and act. We look around our world and we see much darkness - in this world we must also look for the light because the light is our only hope.

Where is the light in the opening section of Ruth? We see that there is a famine in the land and Elimelech and Naomi and their sons leave Bethlehem to go to Moab. This is ironic - do you know what Bethlehem means? The House of Bread… God’s Word tells us that the house of bread had no bread - we see darkness here. Times are hard. This family leaves and goes to a foreign land and while they are there the 2 sons marry foreign wives who worshiped different gods. We see more darkness here. Fast forward and Elimelech dies and 10 years later Mahlon and Chilion die as well. We see more darkness. In this world if a woman lost her husband, her sons would have the responsibility to care for her and for 10 years this is what happens… but what about whenever they pass away too? This is bad news! This appears to be the darkest, most hopeless moment of all. Where will they turn for aid? No place other than the place that she previously left - verse 6 tells us that they set out to return to Bethlehem because the House of Bread had been restocked by the Bread of Life Himself. The Bible tells us that God had paid attention to His people’s needs by providing them with food!

In the middle of the darkness - God is at work. God hasn’t left His people. He hasn’t abandoned Naomi. He is still present and with them. He is at work! During this Christmas season where darkness is abounding, it can be difficult at times to see God’s handiwork but if you look closely, you can’t miss it. Just a few days ago we celebrated Thanksgiving and maybe you’re in a situation this year where it was hard to give thanks because of sickness, sorrow, or suffering. Let’s do a personal inventory this morning of some ways that God is at work in your life right this very minute!

God is at work because you are still breathing

God is at work because you are here this morning

God is at work because your basic needs are provided for

See, in the middle of loss and suffering it can be so easy for us to be overcome by the darkness around us and ignore God’s amazing work and providence in our life. What we find in Scripture, and especially what we see whenever we look at the birth of Jesus Christ, is that darkness doesn’t get the last laugh - darkness might last for a season but God isn’t absent… He’s still there, He is still at work, He wins in the end!

Psalm 30:5 CSB

5 For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor, a lifetime. Weeping may stay overnight, but there is joy in the morning.

Not only is God working something good here for Naomi, but His goodness will extend to her daughter’s in law as well! He will bring about something good from this darkness and this is true in our world today as well friends. The God of the Bible is at work - even when it can be hard. Charles Spurgeon once put it like this

Our longest sorrows have an ending, and there is a bottom to the profoundest depths of our misery. Our winters shall not frown forever; summer shall soon smile. The tide shall not eternally ebb out; the floods must retrace their march. The night shall not hang its darkness forever over our souls; the sun shall yet arise with healing beneath its wings.

Charles Spurgeon

Sorrow has an ending. God will see to that. It will either end in this life or it will end in eternity to come with our Savior - either way, He is at work and He wins! Therefore

Even in the Confusing Moments of Life, God is to be Trusted (7-18)

Think of the things that we trust in in this life that sometimes we don’t even think about. Whenever you go to bed, you trust that your brain and heart will keep your body alive until the morning without you actively telling your body what to do - that’s a scary thought! Let’s get a little more lighthearted. Whenever you got here this morning you, I pray, said hello to several other people and got to visit but eventually you made your way to where you find yourself at right now and you did something remarkable without even thinking of it. You sat down! Why is that remarkable? You made the conscious decision to trust that your pew would support your weight. Whether you thought of it or not, you placed your trust in that pew. We trust in all sorts of things each day: Ourselves, our friends, our cars, our pews, our computers and phones, and the list goes on! But what about whenever something doesn’t quite work the way that we expect it to?

What about whenever our friend lets us down? What about whenever we’re waiting and waiting and nothing happens? What about whenever we sit down in our pew and it breaks? In confusing moments, we can be tempted to doubt in the soundness and faithfulness of the things around us. This is the situation that Naomi and her daughter’s in law are in following the loss of their husbands. They are forced to leave this land and go back to their respective homelands in order to survive. All was fine one moment and then everything changed! Have you been there before? That’s a tough place to be in! We see that Orpah makes the completely reasonable decision to return home… But what’s incredible is that Ruth makes a vow to her mother in law that wherever she goes she will also go and that her God would be her God. She had determined to go with her mother in law wherever it was that she went. This makes zero sense! Ruth is saying no to security and no to her homeland and yes to uncertainty and a foreign place. Who in their right mind would do that? Rather than allow her mother in law to journey back by herself, Ruth is willing to sever all ties to her past self and follow this older woman instead of go on the look for a new husband. What changed here?

Ruth trusted not only in Naomi, but she had faith in Naomi’s God. She may not have known much about the God of the Bible, but she trusted in Him enough to leave her homeland and safety net in this confusing situation. This must be our response in difficult times as well, church. God is not in need of more fair weathered fans, He commands us to be faithful followers and to trust in Him supremely! What is our basis for trusting in Him? Why should we trust in God in these difficult times?

God does not lie Psalm 89:34

Psalm 89:34 CSB

34 I will not violate my covenant or change what my lips have said.

God fulfills His promises 1 Kings 8:56

1 Kings 8:56 CSB

56 “Blessed be the Lord! He has given rest to his people Israel according to all he has said. Not one of all the good promises he made through his servant Moses has failed.

God gives us peace Phil 4:6-7

Philippians 4:6–7 CSB

6 Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

See, He is worthy of our trust. Just as Ruth was willing to bank her entire life on God, you and I must be willing to do the same! We have the luxury of looking back at the cross and we know that our God is faithful and trustworthy.

Even in the Uncertain Moments of Life, God Provides Hope (19-22)

These women have suffered loss and famine and now they have to travel - for Ruth to an unknown land and town called Bethlehem. Yet, in the midst of this uncertainty, God provides hope as they arrive at the beginning of the barley harvest! They were in famine, but now it’s the harvest time. Ruth has experienced loss but she will soon experience love and redemption. This is what our God does - He provides eternal hope in the midst of temporary uncertainty. He provides hope even when we experience tragedy.

There was a time in the history of humanity where Type 1 Diabetes was a death sentence. Some people lived as long as a month or two, but many died within a few weeks. This was a death sentence, though, as everyone with T1D passed away. You couldn’t change your diet enough or exercise enough, this was a hopeless situation for millions throughout the years. But in the midst of this hopelessness, light broke through. In 1921, Fredrick Banting in Toronto figured out how to remove insulin from the pancreas of a dog and they were able to keep a dog with diabetes alive for over 2 months before running out of insulin to give the sick dog. They were able to refine the process and in 1922 a 14 year old boy was treated with insulin and within a day his previous life threatening blood sugar level was brought down to normal levels. This boy went on to live 13 years after his diagnosis of T1D - shattering all previous records! Now people with T1D live decades and have near normal life expectancies. See, the diagnosis of T1D use to be a death sentence for humanity but the discovery of insulin brought life to those near death and gave hope to future generations of diabetics. The Bible reminds us that we are all sick with something even worse than a malfunctioning pancreas. We are sick with sin and sin is a death sentence. Some might live 70 years on this planet, but the result of our sin is death… But God doesn’t leave us without hope - church! The Gospel of Jesus Christ pierces through the darkness and brings life and hope to our dying lives. God brings harvest where there used to be famine. He turns graves into gardens. He provides hope to the hopeless.

Even in your moment of uncertainty, trust in the Lord who will provide you with His hope. Naomi knew that the Lord had brought her back to Bethlehem - but she says that God has made her bitter and empty. The truth of the matter is that Naomi left Bethlehem in a famine and returned in the harvest. She left in a time of judgment and came back in a time of blessing. In uncertain times, God still provides for His people. He is faithful even whenever His people are faithless. Our responsibility today is to place our faith in the Lord.

Like Ruth, we are called to trust in our Lord and go wherever He calls us to go. God’s people have always been a people of hope because they serve a faithful God. Even the people who were waiting for Jesus weren’t without hope because God made a promise. He made a promise back in Genesis 3:15 that from the seed of the woman would come a curse reversing, snake crushing Savior. The people of Israel knew that God was faithful… but He was faithful in His perfect timing, not theirs.

Maybe you are here this morning and in this season of the year and you feel empty, bitter, and alone. You feel like you’re searching for something to provide you with some sort of meaning or hope and you’re coming up empty. Maybe you feel like Naomi and you feel like God has done all these things and afflicted you and maybe you’re right, Naomi isn’t crazy here. She is acknowledging that God gives and God takes away just as Job shares in Job 1:21. But here’s what we can’t miss - Naomi wasn’t alone. She wasn’t empty. She wasn’t hopeless. In God’s providence, Naomi had Ruth. In the uncertainty of this life, God provides as only He can do. He provided for people in the Bible with food when they were hungry, deliverance when they were nearing destruction, and feasting when they were about to starve due to famine. God continues to provide today. In this season of waiting on Christ’s return, we have the benefit of having a completed Bible and we know what Christ has already done for us! Therefore, we can all have hope because we know that our God provides. Let’s look at 4 reasons for us to cling to God’s hope this Advent season

4 Reasons for Hope this Advent Season

God Rules Over His Creation

God Provides For His Creation

Hebrews 1:3 reminds us that Jesus not only created all things but sustains all things today!

God Has a Purpose for His Creation

God Will Send His Son to Restore His Creation

God graciously fills our void that darkness brings about. God replaces emptiness with enjoyment. He replaces fear with faith. He replaces hopelessness with joy. He replaces loneliness with a reminder of His amazing love. During this Christmas season, as we’ve studied this morning from the book of Ruth, remember that there is reason for Hope today. That reason isn’t because of who you are - it’s because of Whose you are!

Today, you might feel like you were a cracked and broken pot. A cracked pot is unable to transport anything and we tell Jesus this is all that I am I’m a broken pot, I’m dirty, I’m good for nothing, I’m hopeless! The hope of Christmas is that Jesus knows that we are broken, and he came to save the broken. Your brokenness is welcome at the arms of your Savior, because your brokenness is what he alone can fix. The hope of Advent is that the Savior breaks through the darkness, and brings with him some thing that lasts. He means the broken. He uses crackpots to carry not just any message, but the best message of all! Church, we are all broken, but God will use your brokenness, hurt, and suffering for His glory, the good of others, and to bring joy to our weary souls. That’s how big of a God we serve! This is our hope today. Do you know this hope? Do you know this Jesus? Friend, if not, why not today. He will save you. He will save you. He will save you now!