Hope (2)
Notes
Transcript
Text: John 8:21–30 (ESV)
Series: Advent
Setting: Gospel Community Church, Price, Utah
Liturgical Season Christmas Sermon Title
Liturgical Season Christmas Bible
Good morning’s and intro’s.
A change of pace for the next month or so.
Pausing John and celebrating the season. The season of Christmas with Advent.
We have Christmas, a celebration of our Savior coming into this world.
Christ, Mass. Christ gathering, or a coming together of believers to honor, remember, and celebrate Christ’s birth.
Christmas is this remembering or celebration of the Truth of Christ.
The promised One of old has arrived!
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
This is Christmas, the Christ our Savior of old, has arrived!
Advent is the celebration of the things to come. An anticipation. A remembrance of God’s truths fulfilled with a remembrance of God’s truths to come.
We understand the truths and importance of Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection. But we also look around and realize this isn’t heaven and we’re not living with Him in the Father’s house.
So we have great joy, love, and gratitude for Jesus’ birth and what that ultimately brought. But we know there is more to the story.
And this isn’t a surprise to us beyond our current living conditions.
Jesus himself told us...
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
So we know more is to come, hence this time of advent.
We have Christmas, a remembering of Christ’s birth and we have advent, the anticipation of Christ’s return.
Within the celebration of advent, we have four themes celebrated during a four week timeline before Christmas.
They are Hope, Peace, Joy, & Love.
Today is the first week of Advent and therefore the theme of Hope is upon us.
What is hope?
As a verb.
to cherish a desire with anticipation : to want something to happen or be true
Examples..."Do we have enough?" "I hope so." "Is it too late?" "I hope not."
As a noun.
desire accompanied by expectation of obtaining what is desired or belief that it is obtainable
Examples...came in hopes of seeing you. a new medical treatment that has given hope to thousands
As a verb, it’s more or less based on a feeling and as a noun it’s more or less based on a thing hoped in.
The story of many of our childhood memories of Christmas.
I’m sure some of you can relate. Christmas wasn’t about Christ at all for me. It was about presents!
The hope of getting that new rc car, that tape player, that new tape that just came out, maybe a bike, cd player, race track, not clothes!
All these things are what my hopes were in when it came to Christmas.
I bring all this up to contrast two different types of hope.
One temporal or worldly and the other eternal or heavenly.
Let’s look at temporal hope or worldly hope.
Little boy at Christmas, what does it bring (elaborate)?
Where is that little boy next Christmas (elaborate)?
The point, it leaves us empty, and only wanting more, never really fully satisfied.
We all to this day can do this same thing. Money, career, health, goals, you name it we can put our hope in it. All for what?
The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.
All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.
All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.
Round and round the world goes, with or without us.
What do we within the world want...more and more.
But for what, within just the confines of this world with nothing else to be concluded...meaningless, utterly meaningless!
That’s the point of these verses!
Now let’s contrast this with the eternal or heavenly hope.
And I’d like to pull a comment from Gotquestions.org
Biblical hope is.
“the sure and confident expectation of receiving what God has promised us in the future.”
or as Hebrews says...
We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain,
Our hope as believers is in the only Hope there is, Jesus!
And why are we so sure and confident in this Hope? And why do we as believers but our everything in this Hope?
It is quite easy if you think about it.
We use our given minds to think about what is known, namely creation, and understand that there is something more. Namely a god or a creator.
We then use what’s been given to us in the here and now, namely history.
And we see it well documented and the world affected greatly by it. Documented communication from God to His creation. God’s Word, the Bible.
We have thousands of copies, of these historical ancient texts, speaking about God and His righteous ways.
Declaring He created, He spoke things into excisentsence, He’s outside of creation, He’s always been and always will be.
He is God and there is no other.
Within these texts, we read of truths that we all really know deep down. Something’s not right. Something’s wrong.
We stepped outside of God’s law, outside of His perfect ways, and we are now outside perfection, we are outside of Holiness.
We are in a place of disorder, in a place of lawlessness, in a place of impurity.
In a place of death and we see it all around us.
We have this desire to live but can’t in this current state.
But within these same texts, there’s talk about restoration.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
I will give enmity between the demonic and the human race.
A gift of hatred towards the dark. I will make you aware of the evil schemes of the devil and give hate towards those schemes.
Darkness has been made known through our disobedience but God just doesn’t leave us there in it, but gives us a hatred towards it.
In some sense we now know right from wrong.
We see for the first time the darkness but we also see for the first time a depth of light that wasn’t known before.
What else do we see?
Within this offspring of women shall be a man to come that will be struck by the darkness. A strike of His heel, painful but not deadly.
On the other hand, the strike from the offspring of women will be to the head of darkness. Not a lite strike but a strike leading to death.
This is the very first talk of restoration to come.
A Hope given, in truth and love.
About things being made right.
About the wrong being corrected.
Not through forgetfulness or injustice.
But through Truth and Love.
Within this Truth and Love is Justice. Wrong made right, so to speak.
Justice.
the process or result of using laws to fairly judge cases, redress wrongs, and punish crimes.
We’ve seen horrible things happen to innocent people.
Horrible school killings, wars, robbery, you name it, it’s been done.
Sin is known by all mankind.
It’s unrighteous to practice forgetfulness or injustice when wrong has happened.
Wrongdoing needs Justice.
By doing nothing to correct a wrong is unrighteousness or injustice.
There are consequences to our actions, right?
Murders, thieves, deceivers, swindlers, liars, are they to be let go saying all is well.
No, all is not well, real damage was done and justice is needed, right?
Ah, but the same for all mankind. We’re all guilty of sin towards God.
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
Who or what can make so much wrong, right?
Only One! A Savior, a Messiah, a Christ. God interceding for man.
Not based off of any works of fallen man but of the works of a Holy God.
Our Creator, our Father gives many mentions of this Anointed One, this Messiah to come within His Word.
Mankind is given hope in this messiah, mankind is given prophecies about this messiah, mankind is given detailed accounts of what the messiah is to be.
These come to pass! From His birthplace and lineage to His being born to a Virgin. The Hope is not just a story but Truth!
He lives, foretells His death and resurrection.
The messiah is struck with lies and allegations and sentenced to death, though not one sin was ever committed by Him.
His heel as been struck.
The Holy, Perfect, Anointed One, The Messiah...takes upon the sin of man. Willingly, lovingly, sinlessly.
Death comes.
For three days, He’s gone. Certainly dead.
3rd day comes… raised. Truth is made known!
Hope alive! Death is conquered in Christ alone!
Through His pure and selfless sacrifice, we have a restored relationship with the Father.
We can commune with God! Let me say that again, we can commune with God.
We have this transformation of the world through this one event in time some 2000 years ago.
12 ordinary men, with no prestige, with nothing worldly to gain, proclaimed these events to their death.
From there, 1000’s more proclaiming the same thing to their death.
The Gospel truth of Jesus Christ.
Sinner, saved by the Grace of God, through His Son.
Why are we so sure and confident in this Hope? And why do we as believers but our everything in this Hope?
Because He is Truth and He’s never not been!
What He says come to pass, unlike the world.
So this advent week, as we ponder Hope, think about this.
A great joy of Hope was given 2000 plus years ago.
The Word became flesh! The Word of hope was faithfully given and secured.
This is marked and counted as fulfilled.
Yet more is to come. Death is defeated but we’re not home yet.
Take heart in that!
There is more wrong to be made right.
Satan and all those that choose to ignore Truth will be cast away.
Darkness will be no more.
I urge you, don’t hope in the temporal but hope in the eternal.
It will come to pass!
To close, let's read scripture of Hope
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
But as for me, I will look to the Lord;
I will wait for the God of my salvation;
my God will hear me.
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
Today we commune with God through the living hope that came.
What does tomorrow bring?
Revelation 21:1-4
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
The dwelling with God through the living Hope that came!
Amen!?
Let’s pray,
