Behold...Hope

Merry Christmas!

I pray everyone is feeling well and very stuffed from Thanksgiving. We are starting a new series called Behold. This series will bring us through several attributes of the Christmas season. Today we are starting with hope. Hope and faith are like peas and carrots, chocolate and peanut butter, like Forrest and Jenni.

Hebrews 11:1 CSB

Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.

Though they are different, for the christian, you cannot have one without the other. The very bases of our hope is built on faith. We serve the God of hope.

Romans 15:13 CSB

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.

Let me tell you a story of hope.

Every year around September, my beautiful wife will start to gather her things together for Christmas. She will get with me and the girls and ask what we would like and she will look for the deals. This is how the conversation goes with the girls. “Tutta and Karkar, what would you like for Christmas?” “Oh I haven’t thought about it but I would like this or that.” What does my beautiful wife tell them? “Oh I like that. I will start to look for you.” The question will eventually come to me. “Hun Buns, what would you like for Christmas?” Foolishly, I will say what I would like…it could be cheap cheap or expensive....It could be big or small…her answer will always be the same…She will look at me with her big brown eyes and say…Yeah, I ain’t getting you that! I have hope every year that she will actually listen to me, but nope.

In all honesty, I really don’t need anything. I am a very blessed man. Sometimes we forget how blessed we really are. We don’t see the forest because of the trees. We always want the more!

Just like Adam and Eve in the garden, they were in paradise, but they were tempted to want the more. And it is this fall that we get our first promise of the hope of Christmas.

Genesis 3:15 CSB

I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.

This is the first promise of the coming Savior.

The prophet Isaiah writes one of the most classic of all Old Testament prophecies about the coming birth of Christ. The passage he writes is born of gloom and darkness. The world had felt the full weight of sin, and it had wreaked havoc on all of creation. What Isaiah offered in chapter nine was something the Jewish people needed more than anything—hope. Hope that one day someone would come to make all things right and restore what had been broken. The birth of Jesus was the fulfillment of that hope and this fact offers us hope in our lives today.

Isaiah 9:2–7 CSB

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; a light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness. You have enlarged the nation and increased its joy. The people have rejoiced before you as they rejoice at harvest time and as they rejoice when dividing spoils. For you have shattered their oppressive yoke and the rod on their shoulders, the staff of their oppressor, just as you did on the day of Midian. For every trampling boot of battle and the bloodied garments of war will be burned as fuel for the fire. For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this.

The backdrop to Isaiah’s writings (around 740 BC) was poor leadership. The people of Israel had been suffering through the reigns of four ungodly kings: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. They were corrupt and had led the people far from God. It was a very dark time in history. Isaiah wrote these words knowing God would have to intervene to bring Israel back to himself. The kingdom was crumbling, and the people needed hope.

This passage makes two major statements. This first is an acknowledgement of the brokenness and darkness that surrounded Israel due to sin and corruption. The second is the hope of a dawning light through the birth of a child who would one day make all things right. The Jewish people in the Old Testament needed these words to remind them that God had not forgotten about them.

The book of Matthew also reminds us of Isaiah’s writings. The gospel writer was making the connection between what Isaiah had prophetically written and what had taken place in a manger in Bethlehem.

Matthew 1:22–23 CSB

Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name him Immanuel, which is translated “God is with us.”

The child would be named Immanuel, which means God with us… Even in the midst of darkness.

THE PRESENCE OF DARKNESS THREATENS OUR HOPE

The center of the Christmas story is focused squarely on the birth of Jesus. He is the fulfillment of the Isaelite’s hope that God would push back the darkness and shine a bright light into the world.

One of the reasons Christmas resonates in our hearts is because we, too, live in a world that is similar to Israel. Our world is dark and corrupt because of the sin that so easily entangles. There is war, disease, conflict, and oppression all around us. We, too, are in need of the Christ child to usher in a light to push back the darkness around us.

Christmas is a reminder that whatever it is we hope for in our lives—healing, restoration, forgiveness, or a fresh start—it is available to us through Immanuel, who is God with us. Hope is not a result of the absence of conflict, difficulty, struggle, or trial. Hope is a result of the presence of God.

GOD’S PRESENCE HAS COME TO GIVE US HOPE

The hard part about hope is that it often takes longer than we would like to be fulfilled. Like the Jewish people experienced, hope requires patience.

Isaiah saw that one day in the future, God would bring a great light and salvation through the birth of a child. It was not until hundreds of years later that Matthew recorded Jesus’s birth in Bethlehem. Jesus is the very presence of God on earth. He offers forgiveness of sin, destruction of evil, and the promise of eternal life.

So why do we read Isaiah’s prophecy each year during Christmas? It is because seeing the faithfulness of God in the past gives us deep and abiding hope in the present and unwavering trust for the future.

It is important that we revisit the prophetic words of the Old Testament and the fulfillment that comes through the birth of Jesus because it reminds us that God can be trusted to come through and meet us in our greatest time of need.

: Dr. James Dobson relates a story of an elderly woman named Stella Thornhope who was struggling with her first Christmas alone. Her husband had died just a few months prior through a slow-developing cancer. Several days before Christmas, she was almost snowed in by a brutal weather system. She felt terribly alone—so much so that she decided she was not going to decorate for Christmas. Late that afternoon the doorbell rang, and there was a delivery boy with a box. He said, "Mrs. Thornhope? Would you sign here?" She invited him to step inside and closed the door to get away from the cold. She signed the paper and said, "What’s in the box?" The young man laughed and opened up the flap, and inside was a little golden Labrador Retriever. The delivery boy picked up the squirming pup and explained, "This is for you, ma’am. He’s six weeks old and completely housebroken." The young puppy began to wiggle in happiness at being released from captivity.

"Who sent this?" Mrs. Thornhope asked. The young man set the animal down and handed her an envelope and said, "It’s all explained here in this envelope, ma’am. The dog was bought last July while its mother was still pregnant. It was meant to be a Christmas gift to you." The young man then handed her a book: How to Care for Your Labrador Retriever.

In desperation she again asked, "Who sent me this puppy?" As the young man turned to leave he said, "Your husband, ma’am. Merry Christmas." She opened the letter from her husband. He had written it three weeks before he died and left it with the kennel owners to be delivered with the puppy as his last Christmas gift to her. The letter was full of love and encouragement and admonishments to be strong. He vowed that he was waiting for the day when she would join him in heaven. He had sent her this young animal to keep her company until then. She wiped away the tears, put the letter down, and then remembered the puppy at her feet. She picked up the golden furry ball and held it to her neck. Then she looked out the window at the lights that outlined the neighbor’s house, and she heard from the radio in the kitchen the strains of "Joy to the world, the Lord has come.” Suddenly, Stella felt the most amazing sensation [of hope] washing over her. Her heart felt a joy and a wonder greater than the grief and loneliness.

“Little fella,” she said to the dog. “It’s just you and me, but you know what? There’s a box down in the basement I bet you’d like. It’s got a little Christmas tree in it and some decorations and lights that are going to impress you. And there’s a manger scene down there. Let’s go get it.”

Conclusion

Our God is always right on time. He knows exactly what we need, and he can be trusted to reveal the light of Christ in order to push back the darkness in our lives. In a land full of deep darkness, a light has indeed dawned.

I want to invite you to express your hope in God this morning by bringing him the things that weigh heavy on your heart. I am going to begin our prayer together and then offer you a moment of silence to speak to God, and then I will close us in prayer.