The Thrill of Hope
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Happy First Sunday of Advent!
I love this time of year and I love how we celebrate the season here at Faith.
Today we are going to look at Isa. 7:14
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.
The first Advent candle represents hope. I am so thankful for the Hope of Salvation. For the Hope of walking with Jesus. Also, hope is an important theme relating to Christmas, and especially relating to the Advent season leading up to Christmas.
Our world needs hope what a message we get to share!
Many people today live without hope or have given up hope.
But Christ came at Christmas to bring us hope, and that is what we want to see in the Scriptures this morning.
We are going to look at three aspects of hope this morning relating to Christ and Christmas:
1) Hope in Christ gets you through the waiting.
2) Hope in Christ helps you go the distance.
3) Hope in Christ does not disappoint.
Hope in Christ gets you through the waiting
First of all, hope in Christ gets you through the waiting. The Advent season is all about waiting. It’s a time when we remember the long period of waiting that preceded the first coming of Christ, and also a time when we reflect on our own season of waiting for the second coming of Christ.
No one enjoys waiting. But the feelings that waiting brings are as beautiful as the hope He brings. Anticipation, expectancy, patience, excitement, surprise, wonder!
That first period of waiting stretched all the way from Genesis to Matthew, from Adam and Eve to Joseph and Mary, from the Garden of Eden to the manger of Bethlehem.
There are signals of hope in the form of prophecies continued throughout the Old Testament period.
In Genesis 12 God called Abraham and promised him:
I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”
God fulfilled this promise by bringing the nation of Israel out of Abraham, and through the nation of Israel, God continued to give promises about this special individual who would bring blessing to all the peoples of the earth.
The long years of waiting, the prophecies became more and more specific focusing on the Messiah who would come as prophet, priest and king to rescue his people.
Around the year 700 B.C. we come to the prophet Isaiah who told the King of Judah in
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
This was the clearest prophecy yet that the promised offspring would come and deliver his people.
There were still many centuries of waiting to come, but these prophecies and others like them continued to give the people hope.
These were long and difficult days for the people of Israel, and yet their hope in the Messiah, the Christ to come, helped them through the waiting.
And it’s the same for us today. We all go through periods of waiting in our lives, and we need hope to get us through the waiting.
Waiting is never easy, and whatever you are waiting on today, I want you to know there is hope in Christ.
Whether you are waiting on God’s direction or a job offer or an answer to prayer or a response from someone you love – whatever you are waiting for this morning, there is hope in Christ, and the candle of hope reminds us that hope in Christ will get you through the waiting.
Hope in Christ helps you go the distance
Hope in Christ helps you go the distance
Hope in Christ gets you through the waiting, and hope in Christ helps you go the distance.
An important part of the Christmas story has to do with the Magi who traveled to see Jesus some time after he was born. The Magi were pagan magicians or astrologers who studied the stars and interpreted dreams.
We find early instances of Magi in the book of Exodus with Moses in Egypt and then again in the book of Daniel.
We read about the Magi in
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
The Magi are important for a number of reasons.
They were a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy which spoke about nations and kings coming to Zion to worship the Lord. (Isaiah 60:3)
Their coming to Christ was a foreshadowing of the gospel going out to the Gentiles and far away nations. (Matthew 28:19)
And the gifts they brought for Christ were gifts fit for a king, befitting the birth of Jesus who is the King of kings and Lord of lords.
But what I want us to focus on this morning is the distance they came to see Christ. Matthew tells us that they came from the east, so they were most likely from Babylon or Persia. Either way they had to travel a great distance, perhaps as many as one thousand miles, over difficult and dangerous terrain in order to come and see Christ.
What would prompt them to make such a journey?
And the answer once again comes back to hope. The asked Herod:
and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
Now you might wonder how they would connect this star with the birth of the Messiah.
As Magi they would have been very interested
in stars and prophecies
they would have access to the Old Testament Scriptures because of the Jews who had been exiled there centuries before. Focus could have been on
Numbers 24:17 which said: “A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel.”
This prophecy connected a star with a scepter or king of Israel.
The star signaled to them that the Messiah – the Christ – had been born, and it was this hope in Christ that helped them go the distance to worship the newborn king in Israel. The Magi illustrate what hope can do.
It is hope in Christ that helps us go the distance in life, too.
It is hope in Christ that helps us go the distance in life, too.
We all go through trials in life, and it’s easy to get discouraged. That’s when it’s so important to remember that God is with you, that God will help you, that God has a purpose for you in your trials, and most important of all, that eternal glory awaits you in heaven.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
How did Paul keep going when the going got tough?
He had hope for the future, and hope in Christ helps you go the distance.
Hope in Christ does not disappoint
Hope in Christ does not disappoint
1) Hope in Christ gets you through the waiting.
2) Hope in Christ helps you go the distance. And
3) Hope in Christ does not disappoint.
And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
The Christmas story is full of shining examples of people who put their hope in Christ and were not disappointed.
When the Magi made it to Bethlehem their hope was not disappointed. They found Christ in Bethlehem, just as it had been prophesied.
There are so many other examples as well:
Remember the virgin birth prophecy?
That prophecy was fulfilled when the virgin Mary gave birth to Christ that first Christmas evening.
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
How about Mary?
Mary was told by the angel that she would give birth to the Savior.
Every pregnancy is a time of waiting and expectation and hope, and in this respect Mary’s pregnancy was no different.
He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
All of Mary’s hopes for that baby – when the baby was born and she held that newborn infant in her arms and wrapped him in the cloths and laid him in the manger – Mary’s hope in Christ was not disappointed.
How about Simeon,?
a man from Jerusalem who was waiting for the Messiah to come. Luke 2:25-32 tells of this.
God told Simeon he would see the Messiah before he died. And at the precise moment that Joseph and Mary were bringing Jesus into the temple, the Spirit moved Simeon to go into the temple, too. Simeon put his hope in Christ, and he was not disappointed.
And then there is the prophetess Anna. We read about her in Luke 2:36-38. Anna lost her husband probably when she was still young, and she lived many years as a widow, but she put all her hope in God, and her hope was not disappointed. She also saw Christ in the temple.
The Advent season is not just about those who waited for Christ’s first coming, It is also about us who wait for Christ’s second coming. This is why we light the candles and read scriptures, we are waiting, watching, looking, longing, and Hoping.
Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
When Christ returns he will banish all evil
He will make all things right
He will restore the earth
We will see Christ face to face, and all our hopes will be fulfilled.
When you put your hope in Christ, you will not be disappointed.
As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.”
If you put your trust in other things, they will disappoint you – whether you put your trust in people, or in possessions, or in future plans you have made – other things will disappoint you, but not Christ. Jesus will never disappoint you.
Hope in Christ does not disappoint.
CONCLUSION:
The Christmas season is a wonderful season for so many reasons, but one of the most important reasons is the hope that Christ brings to a lost world.
if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.
Jesus was born into this world at Christmas so that he could grow to be a man and die on the cross for your sins and mine.
So if you are discouraged this morning – if you are tired of waiting, if you feel like giving up, if you’ve faced too many disappointments in life – then let me point you to Christ and the hope that is found in him alone.
Just any day now my Lord is coming