Sermon Tone Analysis

2020

Vision 2020

Focus:

📷2019 2020

Great vacation with the kids.

Good to be back and excited about what 2020 has in store.

Although I did not intend to begin our new sermon series of Vision 2020 until next week, it is hard on the 1st Sunday of the New Year to resist.

I was praying and thinking about the message today.

1st Sunday’s after the New Year are often focused on resolutions and challenges.

I’m all for it.

Set SMART goals.

Believe that change is possible.

There are tons of helps out there for you…

What I was thinking about was that we have just spent 4 weeks preparing for the Advent of Christ.

Then we celebrated the coming of Christ at Christmas.

He has come!

He has provided all the blessings of salvation; specifically, forgiveness, eternal life, hope, love, joy, and peace.

Our lives are series of rest, storms, and recovery.

2019 may have been a difficult season for you.

2020 may be a difficult season for you.

However, Christ is a constant reality!

He has come and our tomorrows are defined by that realization.

The question becomes, “Since He has come, will I allow Him to rule my life and, thus, bring the Spirit of God into my personal life, family life, and public life.”

The Lord Jesus Christ is Very Much Alive and Powerful

As we enter a new year or perhaps a new chapter of our lives, it is important to understand that the Jesus we have celebrated at Christmas is very much alive and stands with us in this New Year wanting to do some amazing things with us and through us.

is a proclamation of the fact that the Lord is very much alive and powerful:

Jesus didn’t stay in the manger.

Many people who celebrated Christmas are content to pay their respects to Jesus in the manger but don’t see Jesus as the bright future of today.

They are missing out on the relationship with the Son of God and Son of man that you and I are enjoying today.

We are unique as we look into 2020 and open ourselves to all the possibilities available to us in Jesus Christ.

(NIV) Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.

29He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.

Jesus didn’t stay in the manger.

Many people who celebrated Christmas are content to pay their respects to Jesus in the manger but don’t see Jesus as the bright future of today.

They are missing out on the relationship with the Son of God and Son of man that you and I are enjoying today.

We are unique as we look into 2020 and open ourselves to all the possibilities available to us in Jesus Christ.

As the New Year approached, I kept asking the Lord, “What can I do this year to see You do amazing things in my life and in the church at Grace Chapel?”

His response to me was “wait on Me”.

It can be found in verse 31.

Isaiah 40:31

The Power of Waiting on God

(NKJV) But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.

The Power of Waiting on God

Waiting may seem counter intuitive at the beginning of the New Year.

We think we ought to be making resolutions – dieting, making budgets, running, joining charitable groups, whatever….just

doing something.

So, when we hear the word wait it doesn’t seem to compute.

When I first heard the Spirit speak this to me, I knew that the Lord wants me to be listening more intently to His Spirit and responding in obedience.

My brain thinks, “Well, that’s good but while I’m sitting around waiting, what is not going to be accomplished?”

I didn’t understand what the Spirit means by wait.

Wait (qavah) (from a root meaning twisting or winding a cord) means to wait for, to hope for, to look eagerly for; to lie in wait for; linger for, to expect.

The basic idea is to wait for or look for with eager expectation.

I find a number of interesting things in this definition: first, the root carries a significance of twisting or winding cord; secondly, it means to hope; thirdly, it means to expect (or trust); and, finally, it’s primary meaning is to wait.

Although my message this morning focuses on the action of waiting, remember that the strength and power of God precedes it and the promise of renewed strength follows it.

Don’t Confuse ‘Waiting’ with ‘Passivity’

Before we go on to some of the simpler understandings of waiting on the Lord, I want to deal with the word’s root connotation.

We saw that it carries the meaning of a twisting or winding a cord.

Why would we twist or wind a cord?

Answer…for strength.

Ecclesiates 4:12

2 days ago, 750 soldiers of the 82ND Airborne loaded up and headed to Iraq.

Do you think they are unprepared?

NO! CENTCOM has been watching the entire Middle East.

The soldiers have been training.

While their unit has been waiting, they have been twisting and winding their cords.

They know how to communicate, lay down sectors of fire, identify the enemy, use their weapons and tools, defend their position, and destroy the enemy.

(NIV) Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.

A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

2 days ago, 750 soldiers of the 82ND Airborne loaded up and headed to Iraq.

Do you think they are unprepared?

NO! CENTCOM has been watching the entire Middle East.

The soldiers have been training.

While their unit has been waiting, they have been twisting and winding their cords.

They know how to communicate, lay down sectors of fire, identify the enemy, use their weapons and tools, defend their position, and destroy the enemy.

When God speaks to us about waiting, hoping, or trusting, in the background remember that there is always strengthening being accomplished!

Base Your Hope in Jesus in 2020

Because the Hebrew word qavah can mean several different things, translations of the Bible can show different words.

Check out the NIV:

Context: Living in captivity

(NIV) but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

(NIV) but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Context: Living in captivity

Among Isaiah’s original readers those who hope in the Lord were believers who remained faithful to God.

They were the ones who would be restored.

For his readers in captivity Isaiah was probably speaking of a national refreshing when the captives would be released and would return to their land.

Even though in captivity they were weary the Lord would help them endure and soar … like eagles, to be uplifted emotionally and spiritually.[1]

The mistake that some make when they think about an all-powerful God is that He is removed from them.

We feel that our worlds move and shake without God thinking about them.

He is too big to care about little ‘ole me.

You couldn’t be further from the truth!

God was concerned about the captivity of Israel and had a plan to bring them back to their homes.

Hoping in God realizes that God knows, God cares, and God has a plan for you even if you are in ‘captivity’.

One Bible scholar suggests that ‘hoping in the Lord’ “point(s) to a maintained relationship.

Renew, from a basic meaning ‘to change’ (√ḥālap), comes to mean ‘to put on afresh’: here, ‘keep putting on fresh strength’.

It is a different strength, as if people become eagles, a strength brought about by transformation; it is divine strength, a strength like the Lord’s own that does not weary or faint (28e).

Run, the exceptional demands of life; walk, the ordinary daily grind.[2]

Always remember that ‘Hope’ implies ‘Expect’.