Rediscover Hope

Good morning and welcome to Family Worship with Eastern Hills Baptist Church. We’re thankful that you’re here, whether you’re in the room or online. I’m Pastor Bill Connors, and if you’re visiting with us this morning, I pray that you’ll find the Eastern Hills family to be warm, inviting, and passionate about Jesus and His Word. We’d like the chance to thank you for being here today, so if you wouldn’t mind, would you take a couple of moments during the remainder of the service to fill out one of our communication cards? We have two options: analog and digital. The analog (or physical) option is found in the back of the pews in front of you. The digital option for those of you online or who prefer filling out an online form is found by texting the keyword WELCOME to 505-339-2004. You’ll get a text back with a link to our online communication card. Whether you fill out the analog or the digital card this morning, if you’re in the room I’d like the chance to meet you after service is over. I’ll stay down here at the front after the benediction, and if you wouldn’t mind coming down so I can introduce myself? I have a small thank you gift to give to you as well.

Announcements

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Friday Prayer Brunch Fri 12/1 930-1130 am

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Opening

This morning, we begin a five-week series that we’re calling “Rediscover Christmas.” From today through Christmas Eve, we will be focusing on the major themes of Christmas: Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. But this year, we’re going to consider how we can find hope in our uncertainties, peace in our struggles, joy in our discouragements, and love in our differences. On the 10th of December, we will celebrate the Majesty of Jesus through a presentation of the entire music ministry of Eastern Hills, and we will bring everything together on Christmas Eve (which happens to be on Sunday this year). It’s going to be a wonderful Christmas season, and I’m looking forward to our walking through it together!

So let’s begin our look at the story of Christmas this morning, all standing as we are willing and able as we read our focal passage of Scripture, Luke 2:22-38:

Luke 2:22–38 CSB

22 And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were finished, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (just as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every firstborn male will be dedicated to the Lord) 24 and to offer a sacrifice (according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons). 25 There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, looking forward to Israel’s consolation, and the Holy Spirit was on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he saw the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Guided by the Spirit, he entered the temple. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform for him what was customary under the law, 28 Simeon took him up in his arms, praised God, and said, 29 Now, Master, you can dismiss your servant in peace, as you promised. 30 For my eyes have seen your salvation. 31 You have prepared it in the presence of all peoples— 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory to your people Israel. 33 His father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and told his mother Mary, “Indeed, this child is destined to cause the fall and rise of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed—35 and a sword will pierce your own soul—that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” 36 There was also a prophetess, Anna, a daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was well along in years, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 and was a widow for eighty-four years. She did not leave the temple, serving God night and day with fasting and prayers. 38 At that very moment, she came up and began to thank God and to speak about him to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

PRAYER (pray for EHBC, and for the Groves: Andrew, Shelby, and Willow, who was born on Friday)

“Where were you when?” Every generation has its “where were you when” question about some seismic cultural event. Sixty years ago this past week, JFK was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. For those of you old enough to remember that, do you remember where you were when you heard the news? Where were you when you heard that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had landed and walked on the moon in 1969? Where were you when you heard about Columbine in 1999? Where were you on 9/11? Some of those examples pre-date many of us, but nearly all of us have one we share: Where were you when you first realized the coronavirus was a real threat?

Moments like these are big. They change things. There’s no going back. Culture shifts. Our lives are never the same. Unfortunately, many of these tend to be negative events, catastrophes, or tragedies. They strike with no warning and introduce a new sense of uncertainty into our lives.

The fact is that, as we sit here right now, many of us have been living in a state of relative uncertainty that started in 2020. In the past three years, we’ve faced a global pandemic, an economic recession, mass unemployment, major political division and conflict, a massive cultural shift away from personal togetherness, racial tension and riots, wars in Ukraine and Israel, and even natural phenomena like wildfires, hurricanes, and floods. And that’s just since 2020! You could write a sci-fi-political-drama-nature-military-thriller novel or movie straight out of the headlines. I know there’s no such genre… but looking back at the last three years, there could be.

And through it all we’ve found ourselves trying to connect through our screens and being incredibly connected to our screens, actively doing something that we had to create a new term for: doomscrolling. You know, it’s that scroll through your news feed on social media on your phone, just thumbing through the headlines, which are almost all terrible. We’ve probably all done it. Hopefully, we’ve all caught ourselves and learned to limit the doomscrolling before bed. It’s enough to stress just about anyone out.

I’m not trying to bring us down here. Quite the opposite, in fact. But this is the reality we’ve all been living with for quite some time. It’s been a tough season of life. If there’s ever been a time when we need to rediscover the true meaning of Christmas, this is it. If there’s ever been a time we need the hope of Christmas, this is it. If there’s ever been a time we need Christ, my friends, this is that time.

It’s a good thing we’ve made it here—to Advent, nearly to Christmas!

This is a season of hope. Advent is all about hope. The word Advent means “coming” or “arrival,” and the season is traditionally a time of expectation, waiting, anticipation, and longing.

Advent is not just an extension of Christmas, like a “pre-Christmas” season—it is a season that links the past, the present, and the future. Advent offers us the opportunity to share in the ancient longing for the coming of the Messiah, to celebrate His birth, and to be alert for His second coming. Advent looks back in celebration at the hope fulfilled in Jesus’s coming, while at the same time looking forward in hopeful and eager anticipation to the coming of Christ’s kingdom when He returns for His people. During Advent we wait for both—it’s an active, assured, and hopeful waiting.

Far too often, our Christmases have become frenzied and overwhelmingly busy. We pack our schedules with so many seasonal happenings. Our stores start pushing Christmas decor and merchandise and fueling a gift-buying frenzy in October… some stores even September or even August! Our season of peace can be quickly overloaded and become a season of stress.

But Advent is an opportunity to set all that aside. Advent is a time to prepare our hearts and help us place our focus on a far greater story than our own—the story of God’s redeeming love for our world. It’s not a season of pretending to be happy or to cover up the pain or hardships we have experienced during the past year and maybe continue to experience—it is a season of digging deep into the reality of what it means that God sent His Son into the world to be Immanuel, God With Us. It is a season of expectation and preparation, an opportunity to align ourselves with God’s presence more than just the hectic season of presents.

So wherever you are on your level of anxiety and uncertainty, wherever you are on your own spiritual journey, I invite you into this season of Advent. I’d like to even suggest that in the craziness and uncertainty of the past few years, we’ve been given a gift. We’ve been given the opportunity to rediscover Christmas.

So this morning we begin with rediscovering the hope of Christmas, even when we are surrounded by uncertainty.

As we explore these themes of Advent over the next few weeks, we’ll see how they relate to and are exemplified in different characters of the biblical Christmas story. But first, let’s cover a little background to the times these people were living in.

We think we have it bad today, but, you know, so did Israel back in the days of the Bible. At the time Jesus was born they, like much of the world, were a defeated nation under the thumb of the Roman Empire. It was a harsh day to live in, a time of conquest and brutality, of corruption and immorality. It had been thousands of years since the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the calling out of God’s people. It had been a thousand of years since the reign of King David, and since then Israel had been invaded and conquered by enemies like the Assyrians and Babylonians, and then the massive empires of the Greeks and Romans. It had been generations and generations since the formation of God’s covenant with humanity, promising a Messiah to make things right, to bless humans and restore all that we had messed up since God’s perfect Creation.

The fulfillment of God’s Covenant and the coming of the promised Messiah who would make everything right wasn't just a happy idea that drifted in and out of the Israelites’ consciousness and culture. It was their deepest hope that sustained them and encouraged them and spurred them on, especially through thousands of years of uncertain waiting. They clung to God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3:

Genesis 12:3 CSB

3 I will bless those who bless you, I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

But “How long, O God?” was the cry of the ancient Israelite people. And how long can hope survive, especially under the world-changing forces of the Greek and Roman Empires, whose cultures we are still influenced by today? Were there even embers of hope left smoldering in God’s people?

As we see in Luke’s biblical Christmas story, the answer is YES.

Spoiler alert: Jesus, the Messiah, was born at that first Christmas. I know that’s no surprise, but I say that because as you could tell by our focal passage, we’re not picking up Luke’s “Christmas” narrative at the beginning.

Often we end our Christmas story narrative with Mary and Joseph and Jesus in the stable. The shepherds come and visit and go back to their flocks in the field. Sure, we sneak the Magi into the Nativity because it’s more convenient to get everybody together for one last group number in the Christmas pageant, one last ancient group selfie for us to put on our mantles. We all sing “Silent Night” and roll the credits.

And okay, truly the “Christmas” narrative does end the night of Jesus’s birth with the shepherds’ departure—not the three kings, mind you—but the next, ongoing scene in Luke’s telling us about the arrival of Jesus comes right after it. And I’d like for us to look a little more closely today at that scene, and specifically its characters, Simeon and Anna.

Simeon and Anna were, in a way, those embers of hope in Israel. More than that, they were sparks of hope, expecting God to come through and do what He had promised. They believed it! They were waiting for it!

Both Simeon and Anna were likewise elders in this story. They had both lived long lives. They had seen and experienced many things, both hardship for their people and pain in their own lives. We know Anna specifically had been a widow for decades, a position of low social status in that culture. But we know both Simeon and Anna had remained faithfully devoted to God. They were ready to see God act and do great things as He had said that He would.

Did you notice in Luke’s account that neither Simeon nor Anna seemed the least bit surprised or uncertain about the fact that this baby, Jesus, was the long-promised Messiah?

Almost everyone else in the Christmas story so far had taken a little convincing about the whole arrangement. Granted, many of the others had an angel appear with a heavenly announcement, and it caught them off guard, if not made them completely terrified at first. Maybe God knew Simeon and Anna might just have heart attacks on the spot if an angel appeared, but I think it’s more than that. I think God didn’t need an angel to get His message of hope for the world across to these two faith-giants. They were ready. They were tuned in, waiting, watching, listening, expecting. They were filled with hope, and that hope made them ready.

Day after day, year after year, Simeon and Anna had served God faithfully, inspired and fueled by the hope that God was at work. Even though they couldn’t see it. Even if they were surrounded by hardship. Even as time passed and they grew older and older. Simeon and Anna still held onto hope. And they fostered new and renewed hope as they set their focus on God, worshiping Him, serving Him, serving others, taking one step faithfully at a time as they waited.

“Of course God came through!” they might have said. “This is what He said He would do. The Messiah is here!” And they rejoiced and celebrated and infused new hope into the people around them, including Mary and Joseph who were still figuring out just what it meant to be the earthly parents of God’s Son, Jesus, the Messiah.

Simeon and Anna reveal several things about hope and its power that we can take away and apply in our lives today.

1. Hope sees beyond.

Hope is the fuel of faith. And dreams. And possibilities. Hope is that whispered reminder of the trustworthy promises of God. It’s the spark in the cold darkness that catches flame. It’s the flicker of first light on a new morning. This isn’t a wishful hope that I’m talking about. Simeon and Anna had a confidence, an assurance that because God said that He was going to do something, then God was going to do all He said He would do.

No matter how bad your year has been, no matter what kind of problems and struggles you are facing right now, no matter what kind of season of darkness and pain you are experiencing, let me encourage you not to abandon hope. Hope is still alive even in our deepest pain and most hopeless circumstances. Hope can chase away the darkness and uncertainty. Hope is alive because God is with us in Christ.

Romans 8 is a well-known chapter in the Bible, but there’s a section of it that often gets overlooked. In this chapter, Paul starts off clarifying that “there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1, CSB). He then explains our relationship as God’s children and what it looks like to live by God’s Spirit. Then he shifts to our future when God will fulfill His work in us and restore all of creation. And here in verses 24-26, Paul says this:

Romans 8:24–26 CSB

24 Now in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? 25 Now if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience. 26 In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings.

Let me reread part of that again. “Hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees?” Let me see if I can illustrate this. I’m going to ask my daughter Abbie Hope to come and help me.

Abbie can wishfully hope with all her heart that I really have a $20 bill here in my pocket and that I might take it out and give it to her right here on the spot. She can think about it. She can wish for it. That’s not the kind of hope we’re talking about this morning. You see, what Paul is saying is that the biblical kind of hope exists before the reality comes to pass, but is confident that it will. Now if I actually tell Abbie that I have a $20 bill here in my pocket and that in a moment I’m going to give it to her, that’s a different kind of hope, right? She can expect it. She can tell herself to keep believing that it is going to happen. She can trust that she will be $20 richer in a moment, even though it hasn’t happened yet. But as soon as I pull this $20 out and give it to her, hope is done. There’s no need for it. She’s not going to keep hoping it will happen because it already has. Now, she can hope I’m really going to let her keep it. Just kidding, you can accept it as a fact of reality that already happened.

Do you see that hope precedes our present reality? Hope, by its very nature, exists in the uncertainty before. It exists in the questions. In the doubts even. In that unclear sense of what is to come. But hope is the willingness and desire to believe beyond what our present circumstances and reality are presenting to us because of what God has promised.

Look at what the psalmist said (and this is just a small sample):

Psalm 31:24 CSB

24 Be strong, and let your heart be courageous, all you who put your hope in the Lord.

Psalm 38:15 CSB

15 For I put my hope in you, Lord; you will answer me, my Lord, my God.

Psalm 43:5 CSB

5 Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, my Savior and my God.

Psalm 119:49 CSB

49 Remember your word to your servant; you have given me hope through it.

Psalm 131:3 CSB

3 Israel, put your hope in the Lord, both now and forever.

Now, notice what Paul wrote about at the end of this passage in Romans 8: “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.”

This leads us into our second point—

2. God is with us—here, now, and always.

Friends, with God there is no uncertainty. God knows your pain and challenges and struggles. He wasn’t caught off guard when COVID happened. He didn’t worry or fret when Hamas attacked Israel. And likewise, He was not surprised when you or your loved one received that dreaded diagnosis, or call in the middle of the night, or heard those words that broke your heart or shattered your world or left you in confusion or uncertainty.

He sees you. And He is here. He is Immanuel, God With Us, the fulfillment of the prophecy about the Messiah from Isaiah 7:

Isaiah 7:14 CSB

14 Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: See, the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel.

And Jesus, Immanuel, isn’t just with us in a physical sense (although He did come physically). He’s not just with us in an emotional sense (although He does care for each one of us). Immanuel is also with us in the sense that He identifies with us, calling us His brothers and sisters (Hebrews 2:11). He understands our struggle against sin because He was tempted in every way just as we are, but without sin (Hebrews 4:15). He understands the brokenness that we experience in our sin because He was broken on our behalf to pay the penalty that we owe (1 Peter 3:18). But the hope that He brings is that, since He has died in our place, we can be forgiven because our debt is paid. And more than that, He overcame death in our place, so that those who believe in Him will overcome death as well, and He rose from the grave never to die again so that those who surrender to Him as Savior and Lord have the confident hope of experiencing the same unending, eternal life with the Father.

If you’ve never believed in Jesus, then you don’t have this hope. You can’t give yourself eternal hope. It only comes from Christ. Believe in Him and what He’s done and surrender to Him as Lord today, even right now, and discover the true hope of Christmas.

This hope that Jesus delivers, this hope He embodied and fulfilled and brought into the world so long ago, this hope that He offers today—this is not a hope He dangles before us, taunting us with it just out of reach. It’s not a hope He demands us to conjure up within ourselves as we struggle in our life’s worst moments to achieve.

No, this is a hope that He infuses within believers by His very presence. It is a hope filled and fanned within us by God’s Spirit—even in our weaknesses. Even in our grim circumstances and deepest pain, when the faintest gleam of hope seems too far away or so impossible. When we feel too weak to carry on, when we feel our grasp slipping on even the ability to try to hope, His Spirit is with us. His Spirit restores hope by reminding us of God’s faithfulness and promises. His Spirit leads us into God’s Word and its reminders of all God has done for us and all He has promised to do.

Immanuel, our God who is with us, has promised His people throughout history, and us today, messages of hope, including these:

Jeremiah 29:11 CSB

11 For I know the plans I have for you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

Isaiah 43:1–2 CSB

1 Now this is what the Lord says— the one who created you, Jacob, and the one who formed you, Israel— “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you and the rivers will not overwhelm you, When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched and the flame will not burn you.

Lamentations 3:21–24 CSB

21 Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope: 22 Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end. 23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness! 24 I say, “The Lord is my portion, therefore I will put my hope in him.”

Do you feel the hope leaping in these words? We are not alone even at our loneliest or darkest moments. Christ has come. Our God is with us every step of the way. And since that is the truth for those in Christ:

3. Hope inspires us to carry on.

You know, it has often been said that Christianity is a crutch for the weak. And I want to say that that is absolutely correct. And we’re all weak—every last one of us on planet Earth is weak and in need of the hope that Jesus offers. There is no other way for us to make it through this adventure called life and into the arms of God other than Jesus. But once we have this hope, that hope inspires us to live a life that produces more hope, even in the face of and even in spite of our uncertainties. The apostle Paul described the cycle of hope like this. In Romans 5, he explains:

Romans 5:2–5 CSB

2 We have also obtained access through him by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, 4 endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. 5 This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

This hope from God’s Spirit does not put us to shame. It will not let us down. It will not disappoint us. Instead it gives us new and growing strength to see beyond the pain and confusion in front of us.

This empowering of hope reminds me of a great story from the COVID-19 pandemic. Do any of you remember hearing about Captain Tom? In all the doom and gloom of the pandemic, Captain Tom rose as a hero, and an unlikely hero at that. Here’s a picture of him.

Tom Moore, actually Captain Sir Tom Moore since he was knighted by the Queen of England, turned 100 years old on April 30, 2020, and he singlehandedly raised nearly £40 million (nearly $50 million) for the British health care system by walking 100 laps around his garden, which he started on April 6, 2020. That’s right, 100 laps for 100 years. What started as a challenge from his son-in-law to donate £1 per lap went viral when his daughter posted the campaign on an online charity site. The news spread quickly, and suddenly this World War II veteran, gripping his walker, wearing a navy blue blazer decorated with his military medals, walking around his garden, became a national hero in England. Captain Tom was an inspiration.

What an amazing story! I hope I’m that spry when I’m 100 years old. But there’s a great lesson about hope in this story. Listen to this, what Captain Tom told reporters:

“The first step was the hardest,” he said. “After that, I got into the swing of it and kept on going.”

The first step was the hardest. Isn’t that true of so many things for us? Isn’t that true of hope in the middle of our uncertainties?

It can be so hard to lift our downcast, tear-filled eyes to look for that tiny spark of hope when we feel swallowed by our pain. It can seem so difficult to reach beyond our troubles to grasp our Lord’s outstretched hand. It can feel impossible to take that first step toward hope when we are weighed down by our burdens.

But when we receive the promise of hope in God’s Word, we find new strength. When we accept the power of hope granted to us in God’s Spirit, we find new inspiration. When we focus on the power of hope embodied in the birth and life and death and resurrection and return and eternity of Jesus, we discover new strength to take that first step. And keep on stepping. And walking. And maybe even running. One step at a time, as Isaiah wrote:

Isaiah 40:28–31 CSB

28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the whole earth. He never becomes faint or weary; there is no limit to his understanding. 29 He gives strength to the faint and strengthens the powerless. 30 Youths may become faint and weary, and young men stumble and fall, 31 but those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint.

Hope inspires us. Hope emboldens us. Hope builds upon hope and keeps us going.

Closing

What is your next step of hope today? What is your next step of hope in this Advent season?

So often, we as humans want to see what happens tomorrow. We want to know the future. We want to skip to the end of the story.

Our lives just don’t work like that. It’s not a privilege we’ve been granted. But in Christ, we have been given the end of the ultimate story. In Christ, we have been given true life that transcends the pains of earth and the brokenness of our present world.

In this Advent season, we can find hope in the arrival and life of Jesus. We can draw hope from God’s faithfulness in fulfilling His long-awaited promise of the Messiah. We can focus on the hope of God’s continued work in and all around us, that will one day take away even the need for hope as we realize and forever live in the reality of God’s full restoration. And in the midst of whatever life is throwing at us, we can experience the hope of God’s Spirit within us, carrying us, emboldening us, and giving us the strength to take the next step before us.

Friends, my invitation to you is to take a step toward hope in this Advent season. Hope is dawning. Christ is coming. Christ is returning again. If you have never believed the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I pray that today as you’ve heard it, you’ve believed that Jesus is the Messiah, that it is only through faith in Him that we have forgiveness of sins and eternal life, and that you have trusted in what He has done to save you. If that’s you, we’d love to pray with you and for you this morning. Come and let us know. If you’re online, send me an email. If you have more questions about the Gospel, let me know.

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Prayer

Giving through the new mobile app or by text (EHBCGIVE to 888-364-4483 [GIVE]). Boxes by the doors if you’re in the room.

PRAYER

Closing Remarks

Bible reading (Rev. 17, finishing on Friday… We’ll have a reading plan beginning December 1 posted for Advent before the week is over, and then we’re going to challenge ourselves now that we know we can read through the whole Bible: We’ll begin a plan to read through the Bible in two years starting January 1.)

Pastor’s Study tonight at 5:30 in MH

Prayer Meeting this Weds at 5:45 in MH

youth tree things

Instructions for guests

Benediction

Romans 15:13 CSB

13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.