Sermon Tone Analysis

I - What makes it Christmas at your house?

Y - I find myself looking for that Christmas feeling this time of year.

And its harder and hareder to find

G -

Trans: IF we are going to reclaim a biblical hope TODAY we have to understand what it meant for THEM to have hope, and what kind of hope we area talking about.

Luke gives us a picture of what HOPE looks like for individuals and the whole world and what role hope plays in not jsut they story of people who lived a really long time ago, but the story of our whole world, the story of our communities and the people we run into, and ultimately the story of each of our individual lives

Lead Up - Hope for WHAT?

If the movie opens and you see...

What kind of movie is it?

If you turn on the TV and you see...

What are you watching?

You immediately know what is going on because the picture you are looking connects you to something else.

It plugs right in.

Whitehouse - Political movie

Helicopter - War movie

They tell you what is coming next and in milliseconds you know what kind of story you are about to watch.

One of the most important things I am learning about the bible right now is that it is CONSTANTLY doing this same exact thing, but we miss it because we didn’t grow up 2,000 years ago reading hebrew and greek.

For early christians and Jewish people in Jesus day.

The bible WAS their popular culture.

It was their star wars and the avengers, and toy story.

It was the stories they knew and talked about and shared with each other.

Not just out of religious duty but probably for some of the same reasons we watch movies today.

To feel something, to be carried away by a story, to learn something about themselves, their God, and their world.

And the bible is written by and too people like that and when we start to realize that, and start trying to see the bible through their eyes it just opens up in amazing new ways.

So for the next four weeks we are going to read the Christmas story looking for the hope peace, joy, and love in its pages by understanding part one what we call the Old testament

Explain Part One - HOPE FOR WHAT?

World made Perfect - God Chooses - Human Beings to Rule

They Reject God and abuse there power - Utter brokenness results - The Earth fills with Violence

God Chooses a family and he promises that Through them - The same sickness that destroied paradise and has been destroying lives every since will be cured -

That family becomes a tribe, becomes a people, and settles in the land of isreal and their they become a nation.

A nation where God’s chosen King David, rules for a time with Justice, Love, and Peace.

A nation where God’s people, are ruled By God’s chosen king, in his chosen land, while offering sacrifices to that God when they sin.

A nation where, for a time, God’s People seem to be fulfilling his purpose, ruling on God’s behalf, and curing that great sickness.

It’s to that king DAVID that GOd promises one day his descendent will rule the whole world forever in peace and justices and love just like God wanted.

They reject God - and it all falls apart

But it doesn't last.

The King falls victim to the sickness, and his descendents, more so, and their descendents more so

They reject God for their own profit.

They abuse the poor, the widow, and the immigrant, they ignore God, The kill and steal and grasp with all their strenght at more power and more wealth all while crushing and ignoring others.

Before long the kingdom falls into a civil war, is conqured by many foriegn powers who abuse the people, scatter them all over the world.

But all throughout this time there are people called prophets.

warning against their evil actions, foretelling the trouble that is coming.

But also proclaiming a messages of HOPE, repeating the promises that God made to their ancestors.

Clinging to the hope that God really would one day through is people cure this.

Years and years go by, but people still tell the story.

And every time things look Good for gods people they get exicted they get on tiptoes and they hope

Launch Into Story - hold this in your head

Hope for a people

This is the world that luke is written into.

These are the people reading it and filling its pages and after a brief introduction it begins like this.

5 In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron.

6 Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly.

7 But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old.

And the first readers read this and immediately they are thinking of that story and that unfulfilled promise and they get to choose over and over again in the story how they will see this promise.

Where they will see that shoot.

Hope for/through a couple - fullfills hope for a people - A barren Womb

Hope form the WRONG place - a teenage from the sticks - A virgin WOMB

A cut off stump

G - Point

G - part 2

“hope is a choice to wait for God to bring about a new future… Not .... circumancts lining up, not optimizim, not self deception, not delusion, not glass half full.

Y - How do we choose hope that Hope?

Gather with the community of hope + Hope Together (the table

Remember and retell the story

Be honest about sorry and pain.

Trust that God has worked and is at work, wait for teh RESSURECTION

W - So where are you going to place your hope this season

I dont know where you have placed your hope in the past

In christmasy feelings?

in a glass half full?

a good plan and hard work?

An optimistic outlook

Denial perhaps?

I dont know the last time you have really felt hopefull or PRACTICED hope.

I dont know if you are felling it.

Perhaps you find yourself searching for hope that used to come so easily.

BUt today remember that HOPE is not up to you, its a choice to trust in God to bring about a new impossible future

a barren woman pregnant, a shoot from a stump, a virgin birrth a LIFE from DEATH.

So as we come to the table to remember.

To remember a death and a ressurection, to participate in one.

Remember the HOPE we are choosing.