Sermon Tone Analysis

The Newborn King

Welcome to the first Sunday of Advent.

What an amazing season it is as we journey together toward Christmas.

The word advent is a version of a Latin term which means “coming.”

So we use these weeks leading up to Christmas as a chance to look forward to our celebration of the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, the light of the world, our Savior.

Advent is a season of great expectation, and I’m glad you’re here with us today as we embark on a journey—actually join in an epic journey that began more than two thousand years ago

It’s a journey of the heart and soul, but it’s also a journey that will realign our expectations and experience of the Christmas season.

And it’s a journey towards the Newborn King and the hope, love, joy, and peace that the Christchild came to give us.

We all need hope in the storms of life and love that never gives up.

We need fresh joy on our journey and peace no matter what we’re facing or dealing with.

As we embark on this journey this Advent season, I want to encourage all of us to look tonwards the manger and the King that was maid in swaddling clothes.

Look towards, gaze at, and journey to this Newborn King.

The Advent season is about the journey as much as the destination.

As we’ll explore, it is a time to prepare, maybe to pause and to ponder, to breathe deeply and turn our eyes to the true meaning of this time of year—a season that can seem so hectic and stressful in our culture.

No matter where you find yourself today, you are invited into this journey.

Think about the people who were part of the journey toward the first Christmas—Mary, Joseph, an innkeeper, a jealous king, some wise men, common shepherds, angels, and so many more.

They didn’t have all the answers.

They hadn’t spent hours getting ready and making sure they were prepared for the supernatural events awaiting them.

They didn’t even understand what was happening all the time—even when angels appeared or a star guided their path.

But all of the Christmas story cast answered God’s invitation to come and see the arrival of His Son, the light of the world and the Savior of all.

Will you say yes to the journey?

Will you peer through the darkness of your life, no matter what that may be, and look for the glimmer of hope?

Will you step toward the light of the star even if your vision seems cloudy or muddled?

Will you journey toward Bethlehem, drawn by hope for the love, joy, and peace that await?

Is that a difficult vision for you?

Does your night seem cloudy?

Is your Christmas season overwhelmed already by any number of struggles: financial stresses, relational dysfunctions, memories of loss, commercialized expectations?

We’ve all been there at some time or another.

We may be there now in some form or another.

But let me encourage you—that’s exactly where hope shines brightest.

A Promised Hope

Today we began the Advent season by lighting the first Advent candle, the candle of hope.

This candle reminds us of the hope God gave His people when He promised to send them a Messiah, a Savior, a Deliverer.

The candle reminds us that this promise was fulfilled in the birth of Jesus Christ.

And it invites us to look forward in hope to the day of Christ’s second coming, His second Advent, when all the promises that were initially fulfilled at His birth will be completely fulfilled at His return.

If you think about it, it’s entirely appropriate for Jesus Christ, who is the hope of the world, to have come in the form of an infant, because babies are hope personified.

They are pure potential.

Their lives are all in the future.

Is there a mother or father who hasn’t looked into the face of their newborn baby and wondered, “What will this little child accomplish, what will he become?

A doctor saving lives, a lawyer pursuing justice, an engineer; painter, ballerina, astronaut, college professor, athlete, research scientist. . .

anything is possible.

But Mary had even more than the usual maternal pride to justify having great hope for her son.

The previous year, she had been visited by an angel, Gabriel, who gave her this promise:

This promise to Mary echoed the prophecy of Isaiah, given seven centuries earlier:

Not only that, but Joseph, Mary’s husband had also received a promise:

“… an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

– Matthew 1:20-21 (NIV)

In other words, when Jesus was born God made it clear that this baby was the one for whom the world had been waiting, and watching and hoping, ever since the first man and woman had been driven out of Eden.

A Savior, a deliverer, a king.

What joy must have filled Mary and Joseph’s hearts as they looked down at their tiny son, wrapped in blankets, lying in an ordinary manger filled with straw, surrounded by cows and sheep and donkeys.

What hope in knowing that this child was the one in whom all of God’s promises would be fulfilled.

Knowing that He was the one in whom God’s people would find forgiveness of sins, the one in whom they would find true and lasting peace, the one whose power would establish an eternal kingdom of justice and righteousness.

It must have been almost overwhelming, as they considered the awesome responsibility God had given them.

A Practical Hope

I mention all this because it highlights the fact that Christianity is a religion of hope.

It is a faith that looks forward to the future, to the time when God’s promises will be fulfilled.

That was true for God’s people prior to Christ’s birth, as they looked forward to the birth of the promised Messiah; it was true for Mary and Joseph as they looked down at their newborn son, knowing that the time for the fulfillment of God’s promises had finally come, and it’s true of us today as we look forward to the return of Christ.

Our faith is a future-focused faith, a religion of what is to come, a religion of hope.

That doesn’t mean Christianity has no relevance to our daily lives right now.

Far from it.

The Christian faith is intensely practical.

The Christian faith is intensely present.

But it means that the here and now is not our only focus, or even our primary focus.

It's present in light of the past and the future.

All of time meets in Christian faith.

Our primary focus is on the world to come.

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

– Colossians 3:1-2 (NIV)

Our focus is on the world to come, but paradoxically, it’s our future focus allows us to live this life to the fullest.

Now that would be the end of the sermon if it weren’t for one thing.

Hope is not automatic.

In fact, sometimes hope is very difficult.

Sometimes our circumstances seem anything but hopeful; on the contrary, sometimes they can seem all but hopeless.

A Persevering Hope

So how do we sustain hope in the midst of disappointment and difficulty?”

How do we keep from being completely overwhelmed by trials and pain?

How do we maintain an attitude of hope when everything in us wants to yield to despair?

When we can’t see a way out?

When we want to give up?

We’ve all faced situations where there seems to be little objective reason for hope – in our jobs, in our marriages, in relationships with family members.

Some of us have faced seemingly hopeless medical or financial problems.

Some of you, right now, may be in situations that seem hopeless, so that you are tempted to give up hope.

How do we hold on to hope during those times when our circumstances seem hopeless?

A Placed Hope

First, put your hope in God.

Trust in Him for help.

That may seem obvious, but too often we are willing to seek help from anyone and anything before we turn to God.

He becomes the appeal of last resort.

After we’ve exhausted every other option, we go to God.

So if the problem is financial, we don’t look to God first; we look to a banker, or maybe a rich uncle.

We rack our brains trying to think of any way we can put our hands on more cash.

If the problem is relational, a conflict with a spouse or a family member, we’ll buy books on marriage, scour articles in magazines, listen to Oprah or Dr. Phil, and then finally, maybe turn to God for help.

We will try everything we can think of, and then if nothing else works, we will think of praying.

But that’s backwards!

We should go to God first, not last.

Listen to what the Psalmist wrote:

Now, what is the Psalmist saying?

That kings shouldn’t have large armies, that their warriors shouldn’t ride on horses?