Sermon Tone Analysis

The Real Hope of Advent

Advent means 'Coming' in Latin.

This is the coming of Jesus into the world.

Christians use the four Sundays and weeks of Advent to prepare and remember the real meaning of Christmas.

... Some people fast (don't eat anything) during advent to help them concentrate on preparing to celebrate Jesus's coming.

Hope.

An expectation or belief in the fulfillment of something desired.

Present hurts and uncertainty over what the future holds create the constant need for hope.

Hope is the expectation of the future attainment of a desired object or outcome.

Hope is a powerful concept.

Without hope in the future, we have no power in the present.

Hope may keep us alive.

Without hope there is no reason to live.

It has been said, “Life without Christ is a hopeless end, but life with Christ is an endless hope.”

What is Hope?

BIG IDEA: The real Hope of advent brings reality to our fantasy.

When someone is living in a fantasy world they either choose not to or are incapable of seeing the reality that is right in front of their eyes.

The light of the world that came into the world over 2,000 years ago was not recognized or seen by everyone, however make no mistake that the second advent of Christ will not be missed, every eye will see the heavens split open and the risen Christ in all of his glory.

Once someone’s eyes are opened or illuminated to the truth of the gospel it brings reality into clear focus.

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Three Ways we Use the Word Hope!

A desire for something good in the future.

The thing in the future that we desire

The basis or reason for thinking that our desire may be fulfilled.

All three of these are found in the Bible.

But the most important feature a Biblical hope is not present in any of these ordinary uses of the word hope.

The distinctive use of the word hope in Scripture is almost the exact opposite of our original usage.

Cultural Connection: Most peoples hope has been reduced to nothing more than a lengthy wish list.

Ordinarily, when we express hope, we are expressing uncertainty.

But this is not the distinctive biblical meaning of hope.

The main thing I want to do this morning is show you from Scripture that biblical hope is not just a desire for something good in the future, but rather, biblical hope is a confident expectation and desire for something good in the future.

The clearest promises of the Messiah have been given in the darkest hours of history.

If the prophets had been silent upon the Coming One before, they always speak out in the cloudy and dark day; for well the Spirit made them know that the coming of God in human flesh is the lone star of the world’s night.

It was so in the beginning, when our first parents had sinned, and were doomed to quit the Paradise of delights.

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“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 heal.”

NOTE: We are not sure what the first parents understood by it.

They must have understood that they were not going to be there and then destroyed because the Lord spoke of a “seed”.

They must have understood that for the seed to come from the woman to overcome the serpent and bruise his head it must be a prediction of great hope for them.

The could not fail to see that there was some mysterious benefit to be conferred upon them by the victory upon which their seed would bring to the instigator of their ruin.

*Notice that Christ would be bruised by the serpent.

It is only his heal not His head that is bruised.

*He comes to us in mercy and puts enmity between us and satan.

This suggests that there was peace between us and satan once, when he tempted us we yielded, whatever he taught us we believed.

We were his willing slaves.

*Once mankind gave themselves to all of the allure and temptations of satan and now somehow it has lost its appeal.

The juice of the apple all but dried up and has gone away.

Then you suddenly perceived that you were living in sin, and you were miserable in it and thought that you could not escape or get rid of it on your own, so you groaned under it’s weight.

In your heart of hearts you no longer remained on the side of evil and began to cry out,

“oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death.”

The Lord through His divine mercy into your very soul.

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A LIGHT HAS DAWNED

1.The real hope of advent brings us moral certainty.

Light: Concepts of light and it’s relationship to visions, light was also used to represent good and positive things as apposed to utter darkness.

You hear of people being afraid of the dark but rarely do you here of someone being afraid of the light, however that’s what happens when we get accustomed to the darkness.

If there is a terror about darkness because we cannot see, there is also a terror about light because we can see.

There is a terror about light because much of what we see in the light about ourselves and our world we would rather not see, would rather not have be seen.

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

Those who dwelt in the land of deep darkness, on them has light shown.”

“And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

And God saw that the light was good.

And God separated the light from the darkness.

God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.

And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

I think it’s interesting when you consider that on the first day of creation God created the very think that we would associate with good and evil; sin and righteousness.

The Hope of Advent illuminates the Light of the world on the darkness of the world.

Walking: living out their lives.

Darkness: the hiding of the Lord’s face, during which they persevered in believing expectancy (8:17).

Shadow of death: the noun ṣalmût

(‘darkness’) developed the extended poetic form used here,

ṣalmāwet

(‘death-shadow’).

It means such trouble as casts a death-like shadow.

The idea of death is in the background.

Seen … light … light has dawned: the motif of darkness becoming light points to a creative act of God.

Those who have waited through the darkness will come to the objective reality of dawn and the subjective experience of seeing the light.

With the imminent devastation of the nothern kingdom by Assyria is now relegated to the past.

By faith he sees a glorious reversal that will one day be effected by God’s grace.

Devastation will give way to glory.

The dawn will break in the very region that was the first to experience God’s judgement.

ILLUSTRATION

Moral Certainty - this is different from saying merely logical certainty.

Logical certainty results from the necessity of non-moral laws.

For Example: If you have two apples and you add two more, we may be mathematically certain that we have four apples.

That is a mathematically certainty.

If all men are mortal and if Plato was a man, then we may be “logically” certain that Plato was mortal.

That is logical certainty.

That kind of thinking is important.

In fact, it is indispensable in biblical studies as well as all other areas of life.

But most of our experience are not like that, there is a kind of legitimate certainty and confidence that does not come from mathematical calculations or merely logical laws.

I call it “moral certainty.”

This is moral because it is rooted in the commitment of the will of persons.

And the will is the seat of morality.

We can only speak of moral right and wrong in relationship to acts of will.

So whatever has to do with the will is an issue of morality.

And moral certainty is a certainty that is based on acts of will.

I can tell you that I have a strong moral certainty that I will be married to Diana as long as we both shall live.

This is based not on mathematical laws or mere logic.

This is based on the character of our wills and the promise of God.

Diana and I now hove 30 years of evidence on the nature of our wills and the graciousness of God’s.

Illustration

One of the first appearances of the Christmas season is the long time honored Christmas tradition of hanging Christmas lights.