Promised Hope
Notes
Transcript
This Advent season - look Jesus Birthday candles
Not about his age like ours
About attributes and benefits that are ours for knowing Him.
Today is the Prophets’ Candle
It is about Hope
Where do we put our Hope?
In Whom do we put our Hope?
Isaiah has an answer for us in our scripture today
25 “To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.
27 Why do you complain, Jacob? Why do you say, Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God”?
28 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.
29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
30 Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;
31 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.
THE WORD OF GOD - FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD
Weary and Exhausted
Weary and Exhausted
Weary and Exhausted
2020’s Toll
2020 - a tough year because of COVID
COVID Health & Finances - Death
Uncertainty.
Working from Home.
Wearing masks.
Online Church
“Get over it.” “It’s Not Real.”
“Snap Out of It.”
“Let’s go back to normal.”
2021 surely will be better.
The “vaccine” is coming.
Reactions change with the news that changes.
A solution for weariness and exhaustion...
Hope in the Lord!
Hope in the Lord!
Hope in the Lord!
Exchange our strength for His
Renew = Exchange
When we’re down and hurting, God doesn’t tell us: “snap out of it.” “Grow up.” “Get a life.”
What He tells us “WAIT FOR ME”. Depend upon Me. Lean on Me. Place your hope in Me!!!
Wings of Eagles - Run the Race - Walk in Life
All with God’s strength - not our own
Maybe are life is more like:
“There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud” - Carl Sandburg
“When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.” - Sir Winston Churchill
Eaglets learning to fly
Eagle dependent on the winds for its survival
When the storms come uses the wind to soar above it
We need to hope in the Lord - get into His wind and rely on his strength
Charles Wall, Jr - expanded paraphrase - "Yet those who with a sure expectancy look to the Lord will have their strength exchanged for His strength and will be able to live supernaturally in the impossible situations they face and live supernaturally in contrast to their natural weaknesses and fleshy responses."
A paraphrase of verse 31
This advent season - look with expectancy to the coming of Christ - to the hope we have in Him.
Remember - God never commands us to do something that He will not enable us to do.
God is the one who makes us soar above the storm.