2025-11-30 Jesus Is Our Hope

Today we are starting a new series that will bring us up to Christmas: / / Our King has come… And we are at the first of the four weeks of Advent. If you’re not familiar with Advent, it is a long-held tradition within the Christian church that takes the four weeks leading up to Christmas and focuses on four different aspects of our coming Savior, Jesus Christ.

Over the four weeks of advent we look at / / Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love, all pertaining to the coming of and the birth of Jesus Christ.

Advent comes from a latin word / / adventus, or advenio, and it means to arrive, to come, but also to develop, set in, arise. And what’s really interesting is that it was used in ancient Rome as a technical term for the ‘glorious entry’ of an emperor into his capital city. So, it has a bit of a military overtone as well.

From that we get our english word advent, which is defined as, / / the arrival of a notable person, thing, or event.

“With the advent of the television, we suddenly had news beamed right into our homes.”

And the early church chose this word to describe a set period of time in which the Christian church focuses on the coming of Jesus before Christmas.

So, we use the word Advent to title this season, but it is also the right word to describe what is happening in this season. / / In Advent the season, we celebrate the arrival of a notable person, thing or event. That is true on every level of the birth of Jesus Christ.

/ / The arrival of a notable person. Jesus, the Son of God, is to be born to a virgin named Mary, by the power of the Holy Spirit

/ / The arrival of a notable thing. Isaiah 9:6 says of the coming Messiah, For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder…

What is the message that comes forth in the time of Jesus?

John the Baptist starts in Matthew 3:1, / / In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

After being Baptized by John and led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, Matthew 4:17, says, / / From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Galatians 4:4-5, / / But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

Call it any of those things:

/ / The kingdom of God has come.

Salvation has come.

Redemption has come.

This notable thing has come to us. Salvation from God Himself.

/ / The arrival of a notable event. Obviously with Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Now, the beautiful thing about Advent is that traditionally, throughout its history, the church has not ONLY celebrated what we call the incarnation of Jesus, his coming to earth as a human baby, but also, the second coming, which has not yet happened. / / Advent as a season is about celebrating the birth of the King, and the future coming reign of the King.

Advent is a beautiful church tradition, and it puts things into perspective about why we celebrate Christmas.

We spend so much time preparing for Christmas as a holiday:

We get our tree.

We decorate our houses.

We buy our presents.

We plan our parties, our dinners, our trips.

The stockings are hung by the chimney with care… right?

What about preparing our hearts? / / We spend a lot of time preparing for the holiday, but don’t necessarily spend much time preparing for Christmas as a HOLY day.

That is truly the essence of Advent. A spiritual and internal preparation for the coming of the Lord.

Again, that is in two aspects, which is amazing.

Yes, we anticipate with great excitement the opportunity to celebrate the birth of Jesus, 2000 years ago, with the intention and purpose of redeeming us from sin.

But we also anticipate, celebrate, and look forward to Hebrews 9:28, which says, / / …Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

What’s beautiful about that is that one does not happen without the other.

Without the atonement of sins, the second coming of Christ to establish his kingdom where all of humanity will stand before his throne and be judged for our lives… without his first coming, the second coming dooms us all.

We talk a lot about grace and mercy, well Grace is the free gift of Jesus Christ born into this world to be a sacrifice, so that when he comes again, because of his sacrifice, he can show mercy to those who believe.

This is why, as we are looking at this idea of Hope today, that so many live without hope, because they don’t recognize the reason for first coming of Jesus.

Hebrews talks about / / Jesus being the great high priest, saying that a high priest is no longer needed, because Christ himself is our high priest.

The greatest role of the high priest, the pinnacle of what he did, was to bring the sacrifice for the sins of the people on the day of atonement. Once a year he would offer a sacrifice for the people of Israel.

Problem is, he would have to do that every year, among all the other sacrifices day in and day out.

/ / Jesus is all of the parts of the sacrificial system combined.

Jesus, being God gave the law. (John 1)

Jesus, is the High Priest, the mediator between God and man. (1 Timothy 2:5)

Jesus, being sent by the Father, but one with the Father, is the one who offers the Sacrifice.

Hebrews 10:5, you gave me a body to offer. Jesus offers himself, in obedience.

Jesus, being the Son, is the sacrifice itself. (1 Peter 1:18-19)

From start to finish, Jesus is the fulfillment of the sacrificial system.

Matthew 5:17, / / “Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

He is the only one that can say that. He is the only one that can do that.

This is the difference between Christianity and any other religion.

Christianity, or what started as Judaism, was built from the ground up to include the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh.

No other religion can claim, “Our God was willing to put on flesh for the expressed purpose of suffering and dying for us.”

Yes, Jesus came and did all sorts of wonderful things…miracles, teaching, discipling people that would revolutionize the world… And all of that is incredibly purposeful. But as we read in Galatians 4:4-5, / / But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

That’s it right there. Redemption that leads to adoption!

And this is ultimately what we celebrate at Christmas, and Advent is the time leading up to that celebration that we prepare our hearts. And I want to challenge us as we move into these four weeks leading up to December 25th, to think of this time a bit differently than you have before - maybe you’re totally locked in to the true meaning and joy of Advent, so if that’s the case, disregard that.

But for those of us that didn’t come from traditional church backgrounds. Or maybe you did, but it’s become just another season, or another tradition.

Or maybe you are newer to the faith, or newer to taking your walk with Jesus seriously.

/ / This Advent season is an invitation.

A little story. And you may have heard this before, if you have, then you get to laugh at me again, but if you haven’t, then enjoy.

11 years ago Kelley and I moved to Norway to help a church out for a season. We were there for almost a year serving as interim pastors. It was wild. Kaylee was all of 9 months old when we went over there. While we were there we flew to Iceland to do a conference while Kaylee was heavily teething… It was. wow.

Norway itself, and I would say most of the world outside of North American western culture anyways, regardless of denominational practice, takes tradition more seriously. You could say, “The old world is more connected to the old ways still.” And I grew up in a non-denominational church. And the particular church I spent all of my formative years in, not that this was taught, but the overtone was, or at least what I walked away with, was, we are right, the denominations are wrong.

So, when I got to Norway and I’m leading this church, and Christmas comes around and on Saturday night, four weeks before Christmas, the leadership team looks at me and asks, “Do we have the Advent candles for tomorrow?”

Now, I’ve just explained to you in the first 5-10 minutes here more about advent than I had ever heard in my life.

The only concept I had for advent, I am not kidding you at all, not even one little bit, at 32 years old, my knowledge of advent was a cardboard calendar with little doors that hid a bit of chocolate behind each one.

That was it. I knew absolutely nothing.

So, my response was naturally, “The what?”

“The advent candles. Tomorrow is the first week of Advent.”

“The first week of what?”… I’m telling you, I couldn’t have felt more dumb.

I grew up in a church that not only did we not celebrate Advent, but we didn’t even talk about it. No one even explained it as something that existed. I just had no clue what they were talking about.

Now, this is important. And I’ve mentioned it a few times recently, the fact that we don’t want to fall into legalism, while we also don’t want to ignore tradition for the sake of some fear of falling into legalism.

So, maybe to cover my own shame, or to challenge the status quo, or maybe a bit of both, I asked the question, / / “Why do you do Advent?”

And this is a good question to ask. Whether you come from a traditional background, or from the free-est, non-denominational, charismatic church. / / We tend to do things as a rhythm, and rhythms can become ruts.

We wouldn’t say we have a ‘liturgy’ here, but we certainly follow a format, right? Things aren’t wildly different every week you come in here. That would be weird, I would think.

So, that’s a good question to stop and ask, “Why are we doing this? What is the purpose? Should we be doing it? Or at least, doing it this way? Does it still cary meaning or weight?”

Now, sometimes we do things simply because they should be done, and that’s ok. If our kids came to us and said, “Ya, I couldn’t remember why I was being obedient, so I just stopped being obedient.” We would explain that’s not the way!

But other times we look at what we do because we always want to make sure that what we are doing is both purposeful and truly coming from a heart of worship toward God, not just devotion to a “system” or “tradition”. It can be easy to simply do things because we have always done them that way, and they can lose meaning, and that can cause us to become stagnant in our worship.

And you know what. That was the response I got on that day when I asked that question? “Well, because we always do it.” Again, not a terrible answer, but it left room for a renewed sense of purpose and meaning behind the tradition.

If you’ve read the book of Revelation, you might remember what Jesus says to the church in Ephesus. Revelation 2:2-4, / / “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary…

That’s a GOOD report! That’s all stuff that the New Testament tells us we should do! Good works, patience, endurance, abhor evil, don’t tolerate false teaching…. this is good stuff… But what does Jesus say next?

(4) / / “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.”

And as such, they were at risk of losing it all.

Just like Jesus says in Matthew 7:21-23, / / “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord,Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

Prophecy, Deliverance, Miracles… Some of you are salivating right now… Now THAT’S church!

I don’t disagree… Lord, let it be so… AS we keep the main thing the main thing.

In the same way that I don’t want tradition for the sake of tradition, I don’t want miracles, signs, and wonders for the sake of miracles, signs, and wonders…

I said this a few weeks ago. We don’t want to do all of what we think are the right things, and end up looking back and realizing Jesus wasn’t with us…

We move at the pace of Him!

Now, that does NOT mean all of those things aren’t amazing, wonderful, and most definitely have their place in the body of Christ pursuing God and community. But not at the cost of losing our first love. Not at the cost of missing the will of the Father.

I used to say “I love you” to Kelley way more than she wanted me to. To the point where she would get a bit annoyed. I kid you not. And, we get to this point in our marriage where she says to me one day, when I’ve said to her, “I love you.” she says, “Why?”

“What do you mean why? I love you!”

“Why do you love me? What is it about me that you love? Why choose to say it now?”

Now, it’s not that I can’t answer that question. I have plenty of answers for that question. Let me count the ways! BUT, it made me intentional and thoughtful about the simplicity of saying, “I love you.”

Maybe God is like that sometimes. I wonder if he’s watching us in our churches and watching us follow our liturgy, or our anti-liturgy that is just our non-denominational liturgy, and come in, we worship, we drop our tithes and offerings in the box, we pray, we fast, we do all the things, and he looks in on us and says, “Why? …” Just a simple, “Why?”

Not because He doesn’t love that we do those things, but because the questions reminds of us the reason.

It’s a common business practice to ask yourself, / / What is your WHY? meaning, why is it you do this business? Why is it you want to be an entrepreneur, or why is it you want to be in the job you’re in?

Tradition for the sake of tradition runs the risk of not being worth it. But that doesn’t mean tradition is bad, because tradition with heart can be the launching pad for a beautiful moment in, through, and with God.

So, in the case of Norway and my shameful ignorance of all things Advent - I hope my team there learned something valuable, but whether they did or not, I know I did, because every year now Advent reminds me. Is Christmas just Christmas? Is it just lights and presents and carols and family, food, and fun? Why do we celebrate? It makes me intentionally think about the joy of celebrating both His birth and His future return.

So, this morning we are going to read a good portion from Luke 1 and look at the invitation of Jesus being our Hope.

Starting in verse 5, / / In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.

The opening of this story doesn’t have much hope. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

This couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth are good, faithful, loyal, God-fearing, blameless servants of the Lord. They’re even of the priestly line, all the way back to Aaron, from the Tribe of Levi!

To say that was really something special. There had been so much marriage outside of Israel that to try and prove you were of a particular tribe had become increasingly difficult. And priests could only be from the Tribe of Levi. So we know that Zechariah was from the tribe of Levi, and Luke specifically writes that Elizabeth is of Aaron’s line as well, meaning she’s a Levite.

If you read the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, when the people of Judah return from being exiled in Babylon, it actually says that some who desired to be priests were turned away because they could not prove their lineage. The priesthood was taken very seriously.

All that to say, Zechariah and Elizabeth are good people, doing good work, yet, their hope was broken, they had no child, they were barren and now old.

And this is how our story of hope starts.

(8) / / Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

This is amazing… The angel is saying, God has heard your prayer, and I’m here to tell you it is being answered.

This should inspire some hope, right?

Let’s pause here for a second.

The word hope and advent are similar in that they involve waiting, an anticipation. There is an expectation, an excitement that builds when you have true hope. And Advent, being the coming or arrival of a notable person, thing, or event, has that same anticipation.

Hope is one of my favorite words. If you have been in my office, I have a really cool wooden art piece that has hope and it’s definition on it. Our daughter’s middle name is Hope.. that is no accident.

But, hope is also a very misunderstood word. Or, should I say misused, and misrepresented.

Most of the time today when people say they are hoping for something, there’s a lot of doubt in their voice. “I hope that happens.” often means, “But I don’t think it actually will.” We say things like, “Don’t get your hopes up.”

So, how do you think Zechariah responds? Man full of faith, Priest of the Lord Most High, faithful and upright before God

(18) / / And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.”

It almost has a, “Ya, I’ve been praying for a long time, and honestly, this is a bit late in the game. I’m old, and my wife…. dude…really old…”

There’s a couple really amazing things happening in this story. First of all. I want you to remember this verse through this whole Advent season. I’ve read it twice already today, I’m going to read it again, because, it is absolutely mind blowing:

Galatians 4:4-5, / / But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

Remember that verse. Specifically, / / when the fullness of time had come.

The NLT says, …when the right time came…

The AMP says, …when [in God’s plan] the proper time had fully come…

When we talk about the sovereignty of God, I don’t believe takes control of us, but He most certainly knows what He wants to see happen, and in the grand scheme of His plan, things will happen when He wants them to happen.

So you have to see this scenario with Zechariah.

Luke 1:8-9 says, / / Now while he (Zechariah) was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense…

/ / His division… there were 24 divisions of priests.

/ / Each division served for 1 week at a time, twice a year.

At the time of Jesus there were roughly 20,000 priests, so there are somewhere between / / 800-1,000 priests per division serving for a week at a time.

/ / Only ONE priest gets to go into the Temple ONE time a day, in the morning.

So, that means Zechariah’s division sends 14 priests into the temple to burn incense every year. I don’t know if you were able to serve twice or not, or just luck of the draw, which would only increase your probability if you weren’t able to, but if everyone got a chance, it could be nearly 65 years before you serve one time.

Zechariah is picked by LOT, meaning, he drew the short straw, or won at the roll of the dice.

The chances are slim, yet, he’s chosen, for basically this once in a lifetime opportunity.

So, the story goes, Zechariah goes in. His job is to pray before the altar of incense, which is representative of the prayers of God’s people, and verse 11 says, / / And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

So, it makes sense. Seems he is standing at the altar of incense, offering prayers to God.

But, prayers about what?

So, I wonder, maybe, and I can’t confirm this, it’s speculation on my part, so take it for what it is. But maybe Zechariah is chosen, against all odds, to get to go into the temple and offer incense, and when he gets in there, he’s like, “Ok, I’m here to pray for Israel, here to pray for Israel, here to pray for Israel… Lord, I know I’m supposed to pray on behalf of all my people….but, I really want a son…”

Now, again, I can’t confirm this, BUT, the angel responds to him saying, / / “your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son.”

So, what’s his prayer? He wants a son. So, although I can’t say for sure what he prayed, the answer was…you’ll have a son.

Gabriel shows up and says, “We got you…”

Now, where Zechariah messes up, is when he is told that his prayer is going to be answered, after having prayed for the power of God to be evident in his life, he responds with, “But I don’t have the power to fulfill it.”

Can I just say, as a side note. / / When you pray for God to do something in your life, and God begins to work the miracle, don’t try to take over in your own strength… You will end up doubting God because you’re not capable of doing in your own strength what only God can do!

BUT, here’s the other side of it. OFTEN, Not always, but Often, when God does a miracle, he also invites us to participate in the working of His miracle.

See, Zechariah is old, Elizabeth is old and barren, ONLY God can do this - except, we know that there’s only ONE virgin birth, so Zechariah and Elizabeth are still responsible for their role in this. And I’ll leave it at that.

All throughout Scripture, except for in the case of Mary being pregnant with Jesus, and even she at least has to say, “Yes.” but in every case of Scripture, God does something and humanity walks into it.

The parting of the Red Sea means nothing for Israel if they don’t walk through.

The walls of Jericho falling doesn’t mean anything unless they rush into the city and win the war.

Zechariah receiving the promise of a son means nothing if he doesn’t go home to be with his wife.

So, this is just a side note, but / / when you feel like God has given you a promise, look for where you’re meant to be faithful and put your hands and feet to work.

I quoted my friend Dr. Jonathan Boerger a couple months ago, / / “When we ask for blessings, we should be rolling up our sleeves.”

Zechariah didn’t get that memo, and his response gets him in a bit of hot water…

(19) / / And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple. And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept making signs to them and remained mute. And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home.

After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”

I want to touch on some things here. This is a story of hope. But not necessarily in the ways that we generally think of hope. And I’ll explain.

See, / / hope by definition is a confident expectation in a positive outcome.

To say you have hope actually means you’re assured of the outcome, not “oh gee, I sure hope so.”

And the reason hope has such a bad name is because the more people put their hope in the wrong things, the more those things let them down, and the meaning of hope is broken.

See, one of the problems with the thought of a “positive outcome” for us, is that sometimes what we think would be a “positive outcome” is not what God has in mind for our lives as a positive outcome. And what I would suggest to you today is: / / Hope is reserved for less than what we use it for.

Paul says in 1 Timothy 1:1, / / Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope…

He says in Romans 15:13, / / May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

And if you go up to verse 8 through 12 what He is talking about there is the fact that Jesus came for both Jew and Gentile for the purpose of salvation. That’s the hope he’s talking about.

See, what we are looking at in this first day of Advent is that / / Jesus IS our hope. He is the God of hope…

Let’s keep reading our story from Luke and we’ll keep talking through hope as well:

Jumping down to verse (57), / / Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.” And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him.

The people around Zechariah and Elizabeth are asking the right question, “What does all of this mean…”

Hope is beginning to rise with the advent of this child. But the people around aren’t quite sure why.

I want to talk through this a bit, because at this moment the people around this story could easily get caught up in putting their hope in the wrong thing.

The opportunity to see what God is going to do is there, but I want to explain what I think one of our problems in the church has been when it comes to hope.

/ / It is easy to see the thing that God has done and put our hope in the thing instead of God. You have these people, there are things happening, an obvious miracle. And people are waiting for a Messiah. Would it be so weird for people to look at Zechariah and Elizabeth’s situation and say, “Is this the Messiah?”

In fact, later, in John 1:19-20, it says, / / And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” (Messiah)…

The point I want to make here is this: / / When we hope in the things of God, and not God himself, when we don’t see God do what we thought God would do, our hope is misplaced, broken, and we can fall prey to feeling betrayed.

If people hoped in John being the Messiah, when he’s beheaded, their hope dies with him.

When I hope in a thing God does, a miracle, and it doesn’t happen…

When I hope in healing, and it doesn’t happen. I am left asking, “Why me?” or worse, “Why did God NOT do this?”

When I hope in provision, and the bill doesn’t get paid on time. I am left asking, “Did you not see my need?” and possibly, “Are you not my Provider?”

When I hope in reconciliation, but the other person doesn’t want it. I can be left wondering, “what happened? I thought God would fix this…”

I don’t want you to hear what I’m not saying. I believe 100% in all of those things. What I am saying is that I think hope is the wrong word. Because hope by it’s very nature cannot let us down. It is a confident or assured expectation in a positive outcome.

1 Corinthians 13:13, / / So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

/ / abide means to remain, not to depart…

So, I propose to you today that / / True Hope is placed in Christ Alone.

My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus name.

I have seen people hope in some thing, meaning, they had absolute confidence that a thing would happen, except, it didn’t, and their faith didn’t know how to handle the letdown.

Now, I can’t answer why things do or do not happen. I wish I could.

I can’t answer why God does not heal all the time.

I know Scripture seems to paint a pretty good picture that when Jesus is somewhere there’s no sickness that he can’t or won’t heal. Yet, my experience has not been every prayer answered.

Does God want to heal all the time? I don’t have an exact answer, but it seems that God limits his intervention and interaction in the affairs of men.

Does that mean we don’t pray? Of course not. I will throw my life at the mercy of God every time. I will cry out for mercy, I will put my life before Him and ask for His will to be done.

And at the same time, I will be like the Father in Mark 9 who comes to Jesus with his son and asks him to heal him. While they are talking his son falls to the ground in a demonic seizure. Jesus asks, / / “How long has this been happening to him?” And (the father) said, “From childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” And Jesus said to him, “If you can! All things are possible for one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (21-24)

God is not a genie in a bottle… He’s not a formula to be figured out… Do the right thing, gain the reward. He is sovereign, and righteous, and holy, and good. And I KNOW He DOES heal. I know He DOES do miracles. I know He DOES deliver, and provide, and all of what Scripture has shown us that He does and can do again. So I pray, and I believe, but / / I do not put my hope in the thing I am praying for, I put my hope in the ONE I am praying TO.

/ / And my hope is not in Him doing the thing I asked, my hope is in him knowing what is best.

Let’s keep reading from Luke 1. Because this is where the story of hope leads. In the last passage we read it said that when Zechariah writes on the tablet, “His name is John.” his voice suddenly comes back, and he begins to praise the Lord.

(67) / / And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days…

This is amazing, because he says / / salvation is coming from the house of God’s servant, David…. Remember, we’ve already established that both Zechariah AND Elizabeth are from the tribe of Levi, not David, who was of the line of Judah… So, he’s not talking about his son, John…

Now, we didn’t read this part of the story. Mary had come to visit while Elizabeth was pregnant, and Mary was pregnant with Jesus, and had obviously shared her story with Elizabeth and Zechariah, and she too had Gabriel come to her. But we’ll get into that side of the story next week.

Zechariah sees the story of hope building, but knows that the hope is not his son. The Hope is in Christ alone.

He continues to prophecy:

(76) / / “And you, child, (Now he’s speaking to his son John) will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

/ / Zechariah sees John for who he is, the sign that points to the hope of our salvation!

Like any sign, wonder, miracle, healing, provision, anything God DOES for us in this life, they are meant to point us to the ultimate truth, that there is a Hope for eternal salvation… / / “For you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation…” John identifies himself as such in John 1:23, / / “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”

John was saying, “I’m not the thing you’re waiting for, I’m just here to tell you about Him!”

/ / Signs are never the destination, they are meant to point to it. The signs point to Jesus!

And when we know where our Hope truly lies, then what happens or doesn’t happen, although it might be painful, difficult, sad, even though it may challenge your faith, it will not crush your hope, because your hope was not in the thing, it is in Him!

No matter how hard it gets, we have a hope, an eternal hope in Jesus Christ and his finished work, not going to finish, but finished work on the cross. There is absolutely no doubt, whatsoever, that the work of Jesus Christ for salvation is not complete. 100% it is. He lived a sinless life, he died a sinners death, he rose from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit, ascended into heaven, proving that he is God the Son, one with the Father and one with the Spirit.

We need to place our hope in the right thing.

Romans 5:5, / / And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

You can be assured of that. For God so loved the world that he sent his son… the hope of the world… God loves you. That will not change. You can have a confident expectation in His love for you. In fact, don’t settle for anything less than a confident expectation of God’s love for you. Believe it so deep down in your heart that there’s no room for doubt!

1 Peter 1:3-9, / / All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation (hope), and we have a priceless inheritance - an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see.

So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold - though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls.

(13) So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world.

See, our hope, way beyond whether we receive or do not receive what we think we should or should not receive in this life, is in the eternal salvation bought and paid for by Jesus Christ.

And the beauty of this hope, who IS Jesus Christ, through all time, is that in the Old Testament the people of Israel had a hope, the Messiah would come, there was no doubt. And for those who believe Jesus is the Christ we don’t miss out on having a hope for a savior, but we wait patiently for His return!

/ / We have a hope, a confident expectation in the positive outcome of the salvation of Jesus Christ. It is assured.

And we celebrate that this season, that he came, 2000 years ago to show us the way to the Father, to make that way possible through his sacrifice, and that we patiently wait for his return.