Set Your Heart on Hope

Introduction (5m)

Are you eagerly awaiting Christmas Day and present unwrapping?

4am wake up!

Let’s hope this isn’t what happens:

Video: Kids React To The Worst Christmas Presents Ever | 2:00

Come to think of it, perhaps receiving God’s Christmas gift is a bit like that!

God has broken into our broken lives. Jesus has moved into our neighbourhoods. God has broken into our lives. He has bridged the gap between us, the gulf of sin between God and humanity.

But we are also aware that God’s reign has not yet fully come. Sin and separation are still evident in our world in so many ways. Sometimes, the world seems a hopeless place.

Disturbing events in the television news or on the radio or in our newspapers often drown out the ways in which God is working in lives and in world.

We live in the now but not yet. It’s easy to become discouraged! It’s easy to feel disappointed, hopeless.

Explanation (5m)

That’s what Paul is getting at

Romans 8:22–23 NLT

For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.

Our lives consist of groans. We groan because of the ravages that sin makes in our lives, and in the lives of those we love. Also we groan because we see possibilities that are not being captured and employed. And then we groan because we see gifted people who are wasting their lives, and we would love to see something else happening. It is recorded that, as he drew near the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus groaned in his spirit because he was so burdened by the ravages that sin had made in a believing family. He groaned, even though he knew he would soon raise Lazarus from the dead. So we groan in our spirits—we groan in disappointment, in bereavement, in sorrow. We groan physically in our pain and our limitation. Life consists of a great deal of groaning. (Ray Stedman, pastor and theologian, From Guilt to Glory)

Does that sound familiar? It feels hopeless. It seems like we should be out on streets with placards - “The end is near”.

But Paul does not leave us there

Romans 8:24 KJV 1900

For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?

Paul wasn’t a pessimist/glass half empty. He saw human sin. He saw state of the world. But he did not see human condition as hopeless.

Why? Because he also knew the power of God’s redemption. He knew that the coming Kingdom had already broken into the world. He knew that as followers of Jesus we already have a foretaste of future glory.

We know that one day we will be fully and finally redeemed. We know that one day we will receive our promised resurrection bodies. We know that one day, the Holy Spirit at work within us will complete the task and we will fully renewed.

So we wait, both eager and patient, in the tension between now and not yet. Our hope is anticipating something we have not yet received. We see the contrast between how things are now and what we hope for. That’s why we groan: we express the pain of experiencing the world and our circumstances in ways they are not supposed to be.

Eagerly waiting and hoping hurts. It gives us a restless heart. It means we are disappointed with what is in front of us. If you have ever asked, Where is God in all this? that is not a hopeless statement, but a hopeful statement - we know this is not the way things should be or will be!

How does Paul say we hold on to our hope?

He reminds us we are already children of God. We are part of his family. We have been adopted by him.

That’s a powerful metaphor, because adoption is an act of grace. To take a child who does not biologically belong to you and embrace them as part of your family is a powerful, gracious and loving thing to do.

God has powerfully, graciously and lovingly adopted us into a family composed of men, women, children of every country, race and class. We are in the blessed position of being to call God, our Creator, Preserver and Governor - Abba, father, daddy.

Application (5m)

Christmas arrives in a week’s time

I hope and pray that as it does so, the world seems a brighter, happier place, at least for a little while.

But it will not be perfect. Things may go wrong. You might burn the turkey! There maybe relationship tensions. Some people may spend Christmas Day on their own. You might fall out with your family over a board game. You maybe disappointed in a gift you receive.

But Christmas Day is not the end! We live in the tension of now but not yet, but we live in hope. Hope is so important!

Hope is the most powerful thing. Because it’s hopelessness that causes us to give up. It’s hopelessness that causes us to pull out, right? Of a marriage, of a community, of a culture, of the earth. It’s hopelessness that causes people to quit. You have to actively participate in hope. It’s not something that just happens to you. You don’t get hope like you get the flu. You have to take hold of it. You will actually be the kind of person who then naturally engages the world because you’re not hopeless. You’re not giving up because you’re filled with hope. (John Eldredge, author and speaker)

So hold on to your hope this Christmas

Jesus arrived over two thousand years ago with the sole intention of offering his life for the world. This is the thrill of hope we had been waiting for. So, we sing our praises of that story and the promises God has fulfilled.

But it is not the end of the story. We keep looking forward to another arrival, when all things will be set to the glory of God, when we will receive our resurrection bodies and when creation will be fully restored.

We don’t just hope this will happen one day. We because we know it has already begun in Jesus and one day it will be fulfilled completely when he returns to us.

So let’s eagerly wait in hope. Let’s be ready to receive that hope we’ve waited for when it fully comes to us. Let’s live faithfully in the present and sense the thrill of hope once more.

Next Steps

CC 64 - O holy night!

1 0 holy night! the stars are brightly shining,

It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth;

Long lay the world in sin and error pining,

Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!

Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices!

O night divine, O night, when Christ was born!

O night divine, O night, O night divine!

2 Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,

With glowing hearts by his cradle we stand;

So, led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,

Here came the wise men from the Orient land.

The King of kings lay thus in lowly manger,

In all our trials born to be our friend;

He knows our need, he guardeth us from danger;

Behold your King! before the lowly bend!

Behold your King! before the lowly bend!