The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Welcome

Walkup music: It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Well, good morning friends! If we haven’t met before, my name is Dan and I serve as one of the pastors here alongside Jason Phillips and we are really grateful you’re here with us today!

New to Lifepoint Language

Introduction

Hey, if you have a bible with you, would you open with me to the New Testament book of Colossians. Colossians chapter 1. If you need some help finding it in your bibles, remember the table of Contents is your friend...

Out of curiosity, how many of you feel like that’s your Christmas song?

All of us have one...

We have that one song we love to play on repeat until Christmas day.

While you’re setting up your tree…while you’re driving to the next Christmas party…while you’re doing the dishes…

How many of you feel like that one’s yours?

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year...It’s the hap-happiest season of all...”

I think it’s one of the songs that captures the spirit of moment, isn’t it? I saw some of you when I was walkin’ up here…it makes you want to move a little bit…you feel something!

To me, December is fascinating…because we have this strange moment in time when, collectively, we have this overwhelming sense that we we should be festive and happy…and excited. And the entire city gets all dolled up with lights and decorations…we have fancy parties…we have traditions…we have our music…an entire movie industry is built around this with Hallmark…we have our stories…all of these Christmas rhythms are on full blast every year.

And we join chorus sung by the four horseman of Christmas Dogma: Crosby, Sinatra, Cole, and Buble affirming that this is, in fact, the most wonderful time of the year.

And yet…the question we so often don’t seem to ask is: why.

Why is it the most wonderful time of the year?

What is about this time of year that actually produces that feeling? Because it’s real…at least the feeling that it should be is real... Where does that come from?

Now don’t get me wrong. This is not one of those kinds of messages where I rail against modern Christmas practices; pinning for the glories of “christmases long long ago…the ones we used to know...” (See what I did there?)

You see, I have no issue with Christmas. I am not, contrary to popular belief in my own family, a modern day Ebenezer Scrooge.

I do however, take issue with a holiday that, left to its own devices, offers little more than: -Parties for hosting -Marshmallows for roasting -Caroling out in the Snow -Hopalong boots -A Pistol that shoots -And a tree in the Grand Hotel

Because at the end of the day, what we will inevitably discover on December 26th…is that contrary to the trope of every Hallmark movie…is that you’re long lost rich uncle did not die, bequeathing you with a quant horse farm on which you will find your financial problems solved and the love your life hiding in plain site…probably wearing flannel.

No, we will wake up to find that whatever we worried about on November 30th is probably still a reality on December 26th. You will find that your body is likely still to function the way it did a month earlier…your relationships may still be mess…you will discover the most wonderful time of the year does not become so if we only we pretend enough that it is.

This is why, for many people, the entire month of December feels like a charade. It’s why, to you, Christmas may feel like little more than a cute delusion…a momentary escape from the pain of the real world.

And if that’s you…this new series we are starting today called Love’s Pure Light is for you. And over the next four weeks we are going to discover together that this is indeed the most wonderful time of the year…but not because we pretend it is...

…but because it is the moment in time when we reflect on and celebrate a story that is at the same time real and beautiful, mysterious and profound; a story of cosmic significance that reshapes and reorients our entire lives; framing the way we understand our past, present, and future. And through this month we will explore four major themes of the story of Jesus that solidify this as the most wonderful time of year.

So if you’re not there yet, open with me to Colossians chapter 1 as we explore the first theme today: Hope.

I’ll pray, and then we’ll get started.

PRAY

Hope Laid Up In Heaven

Alright, let’s get started. Take a look with me at Colossians 1, starting in v. 3 (Colossians 1:3-6)

Colossians 1:3–6 ESV

3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth,

Background of Colossians

And just so we have a little background...

Colossians is a letter written by the Apostle Paul who was one of the earliest leaders in Christianity. Paul’s M.O. was to travel to cities in the Roman Empire, tell people about Jesus, and start these communities of followers of Jesus we call Churches. And much of the New Testament we have today is made up of letters Paul wrote to the those churches to encourage them, correct a few things and just generally check in on them.

We also need to know that Paul wrote this letter while he was in prison. Interestingly, several of his letters are what we call prison epistles, meaning he wrote them during the time he was imprisoned by the Roman government.

Now, the church in Colosse, which is in modern day turkey is not one of the churches Paul started…as far as we know, he never actually visited there. It was more of an out of the way city with not much going on. Kind of like the Ann Arbor’s of the ancient world.

And we know that based on what he says in v. 3 and 4. Look with me there.

Colossians 1:3–4 ESV

3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints,

He says since he first heard about their faith in Jesus, he regularly thanks God for them.

One of Paul’s co-workers named Epaphras came to visit Paul in prison and he shared with Paul what was going on in Colossae.

And I love his response…he hears about this new church, this new community of followers of Jesus and he’s really grateful for them! It doesn’t matter that it’s not his church…but it’s a church that loves Jesus and wants to get after sharing and showing the message of Jesus to the world around them. And Paul doesn’t see them as competition.

As a side note, that’s the same spirit we want here at Lifepoint! We are for other Jesus-loving churches in Worthington and Columbus! That’s why you’ll regularly hear us pray for other churches in our community because at the end of the day, they are not competition…they are not rivals!

He’s thankful for what’s going on in with the Colossians.

But look the flow of what Paul’s saying here…and we’ll have to work backwards a bit to track with him.

Look at v. 3 again.

He says, “We thank God....”

Colossians 1:4 ESV

4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints,

Now notice this...

He’s heard of two things: their faith in Jesus and their love for the saints.

MEANING

He’s heard that they have become followers of Jesus…they have turned from an old way of life and have found new life in Jesus…they have pledged their allegiance to Him and Him alone.

AND

He’s heard of their love for the saints.

Now that words “saints” is interesting. Today, when we hear that word it comes across as a very religious sounding word. You might think of someone like Mother Theresa or like the Christian version of the Avengers.

But that doesn’t quite capture the idea of what Paul’s talking about.

In the original language of the New Testament, which is Greek, not English, the word is Hagioi. It means “Holy” ones. What’s interesting is that in all of Paul’s letters in the New Testament, he never calls anyone a Christian, but they way he designates a follower of Jesus is with this other title: saint. Holy One.

And Paul says he’s heard of “their love of the saints...” meaning there is something about the way they live in community together that is marked by love and care for one another.

And I think in a way, these two things Paul mentions here really represents different realms of our lives.

Faith is like the spiritual part of our lives…our relationship with God.

And our love of the saints is like the social part of our lives…our relationship with those around us.

He encapsulates the totality of who we are and how we engage the world around us.

But look again starting in v. 4 because Paul introduces this profound idea that how and why we engage in the world around us…is intimately connected to what we ultimately hope for.

Hope For Something Outside This World

Look at v. 4 again...

Colossians 1:4–5 (ESV)

4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven....

And hope is an interesting word, isn’t it?

A part of what tends to bug me about Christmas time is that we take a words HOPE, JOY, PEACE — all of which we will be talking about this month — and they get plastered all over in signs, on cards, in songs…and while we mean well, we end up cheapening a word that really is quite powerful.

Think about how casually we can use the word hope, today.

If you’re thinking about Christmas day, you might hope for an iPad. You might hope for a new watch.

You might hope for a playoff spot...

You might hope it doesn’t snow when you’re travelling.

But at the same time, we will also hope for a resolution in the war in Israel. You might hope for your cancer to be eradicated. You might hope for [EXPAND]

And while we use the same words, right, we all know that we mean something radically different here.

I think we need to distinguish between “small h” hopes and “big H” hopes. And the difference is not that one is good and the other is bad or even that one is immature and selfish and the other is altruistic.

“Small h” hopes are those things that, essentially, we want. They’d be nice to have, a good perk, but it’s not going to change your life. In fact, whether you get that thing or not will have little to no discernable impact on you a week from now. They are wishes.

“Big H” hopes are different. These are ULTIMATE hopes.

Ultimate hopes are what we build into our identity…Ultimates hopes are better described by the word, LONING or YEARNING. There is something deep within the very fiber of your being that says, “I need this...”

And we all have something we longing for. We all have ultimate hopes.

And it takes some real heart examination to figure out what these are in our lives.

Let me show you what I mean.

An Ultimate Hope…a “Big H” hope may be your career, because in your mind that establishes value to who you are…how you understand yourself, and the extent to which you believe others value you.

An Ultimate hope may be your ability to amass a specific amount of money over the course of your lifetime…because that amount give you both the ability to maintain a financially care-free life…allows you to cultivate the kind of lifestyle you find most meaningful…it frees you up to be who you believe you really are.

An Ultimate hope may be where you’re able to live—in the house that’s just a little bit bigger…with just a little bit more land.

Man, for me…I constantly bump up against this…it’s the kind of church I’m able to lead…the size…the budget…the kind of music.

Your ultimate hope in life is whatever you tell yourself, “If I only had that…everything else would be okay.”

Interestingly enough, Ultimate hopes are almost always things just slightly out of reach. You are always, almost there. And you probably know someone who has it.

Aesops Fables, the world's best-known collection of morality tales, has this famous line, “Be careful what you wish for...” and I think it’s worth bringing up and modifying here...

Be careful what you hope for…because what we hope for ends up shaping us far more than we think.

What are we willing to risk on the alter of our career? Who are we willing to cut down or cut off if they get in the way of our finances? What shortcuts might I be willing to make in the endless pursuit of a bigger, more influential church?

Here’s the dirty little secret about hope that no one talks about:

Hope only for things in this word, and your hope will inevitably end with this world.

Let me say that again.

If your ultimate hope is for other things in this world…things you can see, touch, feel…than your ultimate will perish in this world. And the end of the day…while you might give everything for your career, it won’t…it CAN’T give anything for you…it can’t return the favor. It can’t live up to the ULTIMATE status you have assigned it in this life.

Hope only for the things in this world and your hope will end in with this world.

Friends, the reality is, we need to hope for something outside of this world.

This is why I found Paul’s words here so profound.

Look again at v. 4

Colossians 1:4–5 ESV

4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel,

Paul is not talking about a “small h” hope. He is talking, quite literally, of a outside this world, Ultimate hope.

You see, the Colossian church, the church today, we engage in those two realms Paul talks about in v. 4 (with our faith and love) because of the Ultimate hope we have laid up in heaven.

It is the ultimate hope that God is at work to one day make all things right and all things new…that that what we experience here and now in this life is not all that there is, but that we await the fullness of God’s kingdom where there is no more weeping, or mourning, pain or sorrow, where we experience an eternity of life the way it’s meant to be lived.

This is the Hope laid up in heaven for us—

The Christmas Story - Gospel Hope

And it strikes me that this kind of, out-of-this-world, Ultimate hope is exactly at the heart of the Christmas story, right?

Think about what we actually celebrate at Christmas.

That the God of the universe, the creator of all things that were, are, and will be…the one who is outside of our own experience, All powerful, all knowing, Transcendent, and majestic…THIS One, as the Gospel of John reminds us, took on flesh to dwell among us.

That God himself, stepped down into human history, to become like us…for us in the person and work of Jesus.

Living the perfect life, we should have but failed to live...

And while our failure to live the God created us to live…our sin…should have lead to our death, Jesus lovingly and willingly choose to arrive in our place…to take on the judgment for our sin…to die our death.

And he rose again from the dead with the promise and HOPE of new life, true life, and everlasting life for any and all who would trust in Him, pledging their allegiance to Him and Him alone.

In other words, at the heart of the Gospel Story, at the heart of the Christmas story…is that the One who was out of this world stepped into this word to free us from the false hopes of this world.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

And now, think back with me to how we started all of this out today…asking a very simple question, “Why is it the most wonderful time of the year?”

It’s because now, if even only for a month, as followers of Jesus, we retell the old story to reform and relocate our hope…not on the things of this world…but on the One who stepped IN to it.

Application: Advent Rhythms

Application: Joy and Endurance Teaser for next week.