God With Us Brings Hope

God with us Brings Hope

Luke 1:68-79

Series Slide

Happy New Year!  No, I haven’t lost my mind, yes… today is the start of the new year according to the Christian Calendar.

What an awesome and amazing day we had on Tuesday.  Yes, the Bazaar was a lot of work!  Yes, the Bazaar was a lot of time spent in fellowship.  Yes, the Bazaar was a fundraiser… but it is so much more!

We raised over $20,000 for local and global charities.  Your work will provide food for the hungry, it will clothe the naked, it will give a drink to the thirsty.  As a result of the support you provide, the lonely and imprisoned will be visited and the sick will be healed.  I am honored to be a part of a church that fulfills the call of Matthew 25.

And now, with Thanksgiving behind us, we now enter Advent - we enter the season of Hope. 

It is the season of God with Us.

Sermon Slide

And, I can think of no better story to begin Advent than the story of Zechariah.

Zechariah was a priest who had the honor of serving in the Temple in Jerusalem.  Every year, one priest was selected to go into the Holiest place of the Temple and offer sacrifices for the people.

While it was an honor, it was also a scary time for the priest.  If he had any sin that he had not sought forgiveness for, then he was in danger of death.  They took this so seriously that they would tie a cord around the leg of the priest with a bell on it.  That way, if the bell stopped ringing and the chord stopped moving, they could drag the dead priest out.

So, when Zechariah entered the Temple and saw an angel, it was pretty frightening; he likely thought he was about to die.  I guess that’s why Angels always start with, “Do not be afraid…”

This angel went on to tell him that Elizabeth would give birth to a son who would be the forerunner of the Messiah. 

When Zechariah questioned the angel, he was rewarded with silence… he was unable to speak until his son, John was born.  This barren couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth, now had the hope of a child… and not just any child… this would be a child who would become a prophet of the Most High.  As is always the case, with God… what seems hopeless becomes a season of hope.

As we get into today’s sermon, let’s pause for prayer.

<PRAYER>

John Aldridge and Anthony Sosinski set out on what was to be a normal night of fishing off the coast of Montauk, Long Island.  They had been fishing together most of their life, weather was nice, and the only excitement they expected was a good catch.  Anthony went on down below deck to get some sleep, leaving John on deck running the boat and getting ready for the day.  It was about 2:30 in the morning.

With the boat on auto pilot, John was getting ready to fill the storage tanks, but a 125lbs ice chest was on top of the lid to the hatch.  He did what he had done thousands of times, grabbed the handle and pulled, but this time it snapped.  He lost his balance and fell into the cold water of the North Atlantic.  John screamed as loud as he could, knowing there was no way Anthony would ever hear him.

As he treaded water, he watched as the boat continued its preprogrammed path until it was completely out of sight.  And like that, he was alone, floating in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean without a life vest, contemplating his certain death.

To some, that was a hopeless situation… but not to John.

As he tried to calm himself and tread water, he noticed that his feet kept floating up.  Realizing that his boots were buoyant, he took them off, turned them upside down above the water, then shoved them down, creating an air pocket in each one. He placed each one under his armpits, creating a makeshift flotation device.

There was a glimmer of hope… at least he could float.

He floated along thinking of his family and all that he hoped to see again… wondering if he would ever be seen by anyone… besides the two sharks that kept circling him… fortunately, he didn’t look much like a meal, so they swam on off.

He set his next goal… stay alive until morning.

4 hours later, it was 6:30 in the morning and Anthony was awakened by Mike, another crew member who told him John was missing.  He called in the mayday, and the Coast Guard began their search procedures and protocol… Commander John Thell put in the calculations, and based on all the data, the search area was roughly 1200 square miles.  A little larger than Navarro County. 

But, when Anthony saw the ice chest and the broken handle, he knew what John was doing when he fell overboard… and therefore, he knew he would have been filling the tanks and at what point on the trip he would have fallen off.  He radioed the Coast Guard again, and they narrowed the search from 1200 miles to a few hundred.

As the sun rose over the waters of the Atlantic, John knew he had accomplished his first goal.  It was morning, and he was alive.  With sunlight came new hope… but as the waves passed by, hope began to fade, until he saw a fishing buoy.  He was able to reach it and finally had something to hold on to.  A new surge of hope.

In less than an hour, the Coast Guard chopper spotted John on the orange buoy.  Coast Guard diver Bob Hovey jumped in the water pulled him to safety. When the Bob got to John he said, “Wow, man… we’ve been looking for you for 9 hours.” To which John replied with a smile, “Well, I’ve been looking for you for 12 hours.”

John Aldridge had survived. Moment by moment… hope grew.

But hope is like that.

Hope is the whisper that maybe, maybe these boots will float if I turn them upside down.

Hope is fire in the fireplace when the power has gone out.

Hope is making it through that first day of rehab after the surgery.

Hope is the faint line on that stick when you’ve been struggling to get pregnant.

Hope is the fuel of faith and dreams and what we celebrate today as we begin this Advent season.

Advent is a season of expectation and awaiting.  It is a season of anticipation and longing.  It is a season that links us to our past, present, and future.  We await the celebration of the birth of our Savior… and His second coming.  We gather, looking forward to the reality of “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

I know many of you took advantage of the sales of Black Friday and Small Business Saturday!  Our calendars are already filling with parties and family meals.  The frenzied pace of the holidays has begun…

but Advent invites us to so much more than business as usual. It invites us to set aside time to prepare our hearts and help us place our focus on a far greater story than our own, the story of God’s redeeming love for our world.

Advent is a season of digging deep into the reality of what it means that God sent His Son into the world to be Immanuel, God with Us.

Advent is a celebration that God comes to be with us. He is Immanuel, God with Us.

In the darkness, in the pain, in the chaos…

He comes. And He makes a way.  God always has and God always will.

Think back to Zechariah and Elizabeth.  Zechariah was going about his priestly duties when God stepped in and made a way… It wasn’t only a message of hope for Zechariah and Elizabeth, it was a message of hope for all of humanity… for all of creation. 

It had been four hundred years since Israel had received a clear prophetic voice and message from God.

So when an angel showed up and told Zechariah that he would have a son who “will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:17), Zechariah knew the significance.

It was a wonderful message of hope and a future for him and for the world, but how could he be a part of it? He couldn’t get over this part about he and his wife having a child at their age. “Who me?” he thought, “Uh, we’re old, God. That’s not possible…” but it was, remember, “With God, All things are possible…” and in fulfilling that promise,

God restored hope.

Hope in Israel was alive again! Hope on earth at its deepest levels was alive again!

Maybe some of you are thinking,

That’s great back in Bible times, but what about today!

What about us? What about me?

They weren’t living in constant pain.

They weren’t facing surgery.

 Their spouse didn’t walk out on them.

They weren’t affected by a government shutdown.

They didn’t lose their income because of an injury…

They weren’t experiencing the grief of the loss of a friend, or spouse, or parent.

We can add our item to the list of hopelessness around us, but here is the truth…

No matter what you are facing… no matter how dark life seems right now… No matter if you feel like you are bobbing in the frigid Atlantic, there is still hope!

Hope is alive because God is with us.

I want us to take a couple of minutes as we wrap up today to think about how we can find hope in what seems like a hopeless world.

Hope Based on God’s Word

The first is hope based on God’s Word. Part of God with Us is the written word that He has left us. These are His promises to His people—both long ago and today. God’s Words are beacons of hope. They are reminders that God will never leave us or forsake us. And nothing can separate us from Him.

Consider these words from Psalm 139:7–12 (2 Slides)

“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you”

These words from the Psalmist give us the same hope as the words of Paul in Romans 8 when he reminds us that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Scripture is filled with stories of Hope.  Whether it’s the story of Abraham and Sarah… or Jacob and Leah… or Naomi with Ruth and Boaz… Scripture is full of stories of hope.

Take time this Advent to dig into God’s Word and rekindle the hope of God.

God is with us… We are not alone… That is the story of Immanuel!

So, we find hope based on God’s Word… but we also find it based on his Character.

Hope Based on God’s Character

We rekindle our hope when we focus on who God was, is, and ever will be.

There’s a powerful story of bold hope in Luke 8:43-48. 

For twelve years, this woman had been suffering from an issue of bleeding. No one had been able to help her. Doctors had tried… Soothsayers had tried… She had exhausted every option…. but her condition had only grown worse. This condition would have affected everything about her, every day of her life. She would have been considered unclean and treated as an outcast because of her health problems.  She couldn’t work to support herself… she wasn’t supposed to be around others because she could “infect” them… She wasn’t even welcome at the Temple.

But… this miracle worker named Jesus was coming to Magdala where she lived.  She had heard the stories of his healings, his teachings… he was more than just a miracle worker like the others… he was different… and because of that she believed he could help her. 

Hope was rekindled. This hope of healing, this hope of a new life, drove her to take action.

But the crowds were so big.  The people clamored for Jesus’ attention.  Who was she to trouble the teacher.  But then she thought, “If I can just get close enough to touch His clothes, I’ll be healed. If this Jesus is who He says is, He can heal me.”

It was a bold hope.  Just to touch him… not stop him… not even have him acknowledge her… after all, she was unclean, she didn’t deserve his attention.

But she took action…. She reached out her hand, and it changed everything.

I can’t imagine how hard it was to climb through and push through the crowds, weakened from 12 years of loss of blood… she couldn’t even get to him, all she could reach was the hem of his garment.

In that moment Jesus asked, “Who touched me?”  Luke records the moment like this…

Luke 8:45-48

“Who touched me?” Jesus asked.

When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”

But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”

Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

Jesus didn’t chastise her… he loved her… he reached out to her as God with us… as Immanuel… in that moment… Jesus changed her life… everything about her life…

This is the character of our God… one who restores hope… one who restores life… one who ushers in peace when there is no peace to be found… one who lifts hope from the hopeless situations!

So… we have hope based on who God was… and who God is… now, we will see that we can have hope because of who God will be…

Hope Based on God’s Faithfulness

The third way we can find and choose hope is by focusing on God’s faithfulness. Oh, our God is faithful.

I doubt many of us read Lamentations very often, but there are some profound statements of wisdom, grace, and hope in the words provided to us. 

Hear these from Jeremiah found in Lamentations 3:21–26,(2 Slides):

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’ The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD”.

Jeremiah has hope because he remembers God’s Word… He knows God’s Character… and he focuses on the faithfulness of who God was, is, and ever will be…

It’s like the great song proclaims…

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father, there is no shadow of turning with thee; thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not; as Thou has been Thou forever will be…

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, Thy own dear presence to cheer and to guide; strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow, blessings all mine, with then thousand besides…

Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness!

Morning by morning new mercies I see;

All I have needed they hand hath provided –

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.

We know that God will be faithful… because he always has been! 

Sermon Slide

We are a people called to hope!  We are called to live into that hope today, and share that hope for tomorrow.  We hope in the fact, that God is with Us!

No matter what you are facing… no matter what darkness seems to be surrounding you… even if it seems that you are floating on your boots in the frigid Atlantic being circled by sharks,

Hope is alive, because God is with us.