A Season for Hope
Notes
Transcript
It’s Christmastime, and we all have hopes for how it’s going to go.
Expectations vs. reality (career)
Hope is a central theme of the Bible, and of Christmas.
Our hope is in Christ for salvation both for the present and for the future.
The world cries out for rescue.
The world cries out for rescue.
The context of the psalm is unknown. It seems to come from a deep, personal pain, perhaps on behalf of Israel.
The world instinctively knows we are in trouble and need rescue. The world is deeply religious (10K religions worldwide).
Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice!
Let Your ears be attentive
To the voice of my supplications.
The world has been crying for a rescuer for some time. Religion has been a part of world cultures for our entire existence. The question is where does that hope come from?
Forgiveness through Christ is God’s answer.
Forgiveness through Christ is God’s answer.
The Bible teaches us that everything was created according to God’s design. But when we abandoned that design, we brought corruption.
However, God offers to wipe the slate clean.
If You, Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with You,
That You may be feared.
God offers forgiveness through relationship. In that relationship, God removes sin from us.
As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
But how has God accomplished the forgiveness of sins without holding us to account?
Getting into a boat, Jesus crossed over the sea and came to His own city.
And they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, “Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven.”
And some of the scribes said to themselves, “This fellow blasphemes.”
And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, “Why are you thinking evil in your hearts?
“Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, and walk’?
“But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—then He said to the paralytic, “Get up, pick up your bed and go home.”
And he got up and went home.
And there was a woman in the city who was a sinner; and when she learned that He was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume,
and standing behind Him at His feet, weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears, and kept wiping them with the hair of her head, and kissing His feet and anointing them with the perfume.
Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet He would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, that she is a sinner.”
And Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he replied, “Say it, Teacher.”
“A moneylender had two debtors: one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.
“When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both. So which of them will love him more?”
Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.” And He said to him, “You have judged correctly.”
Turning toward the woman, He said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.
“You gave Me no kiss; but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss My feet.
“You did not anoint My head with oil, but she anointed My feet with perfume.
“For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.”
Then He said to her, “Your sins have been forgiven.”
Those who were reclining at the table with Him began to say to themselves, “Who is this man who even forgives sins?”
And He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Jesus arrived and did something no one else could do: he forgave the sins of others.
God’s people wait expectantly for his coming.
God’s people wait expectantly for his coming.
The promise of a Messiah, a Savior was given in Gen. 3:15. The prophets foretold his coming. By the time we get to the gospels, Messianic expectation was high.
I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait,
And in His word do I hope.
My soul waits for the Lord
More than the watchmen for the morning;
Indeed, more than the watchmen for the morning.
We have the promise of Christ’s return.
“And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.
“And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.
They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.”
But why can we be so confident in this hope?
Our hope is rooted in God’s faithful love.
Our hope is rooted in God’s faithful love.
This great hope of a future with Christ, of his return is not wishful thinking. We don’t hope as if it might happen or it might not.
O Israel, hope in the Lord;
For with the Lord there is lovingkindness,
And with Him is abundant redemption.
And He will redeem Israel
From all his iniquities.
The word lovingkindness is the Hebrew word used to describe God’s covenant love. Reserved for those in covenant relationship with him.
We can be confident because God never abandons his covenants (as we have learned in Genesis).
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people,
CONCLUSION
