Hope in Advent

Advent

That video gets me SO excited. I think about Israel folloiwing the Lord by that pillar of fire and how amazing that is, but that was only a glimpse of God. Just a sliver of who He is, just part of how AWESOME He is and that God came to Earth, as a baby, and saves the world? It’s amazing and we would be FOOLS to think that Christmas is about presents or trees or hot choclate and ugly Christmas sweaters.

Those are the things you start to see whenever Christmas approaches though, right? And it does warm our hearts a little bit in the middle of the winter.

You know a lot of people have studied the Christmas story and come to believe that Jesus probably wasn’t born on December 25th, but even if He wasn’t this is when we celebrate His birth and I kind of like the fact that it’s in the middle of winter.

Winter is the coldest, darkest part of the year, and we choose to fill the cold, dark world with lights and hot choclate and we try to lift spirits with presents and caroling or whatever and what better time to remind to remind ourselves of the joy of Jesus Christ, than in the midst of the darkest part of the year?

Traditionally, the Church has observed something called Advent.

The word Advent means “coming” so we celebrate Advent by focusing our hearts and our minds on the expectation of Christ coming to the world.

There are slight diffrences in the way that people celbrate Advent, but we are going to observe it together by focusing on 4 things

-Hope in Christ’s Advent

-Preperation for Christ’s Advent

-Joy in Christ’s Advent

-Love in Christ’s Advent

Then Christmas will be here, but we want to spend time before Christmas looking forward to His coming.

You know every year Christmas rolls around, I hear talk about “don’t forget the true meaning of Christmas” and this is a very good thing to remeber. A matter of fact, that’w why we observe Advent. Christmas is about Christ, not presents and trees or Santa and elfs. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.

However, this year there’s been an issue with people getting their Christmas presents delivered. There’s been a supply shortage and it’s been taking people a lot longer to get there packages delivered.

But there was a shipment that made it’s way from China to Florida and when it got there, I kid you not, I saw Christian’s posting about how “Florida saved Christmas” and how they were so happy that they’d be able to “have Christmas again.”

I’m not going to lie- I kind of wish that all the presents never made it to their destinations this year. Not in a mean way, but it would’ve been nice if instead of just saying “don’t foget- Christmas isn’t about presents” that we actually lived it out. That maybe we celebrated by getting together and just worshiping Christ.

So the celebration of Advent is a time when we are going to be intentional about focusing on Christ this year and tonight we will be focusing on the Hope we have in Christ.

We’re going to read a pretty popular Christmas passage from Isaiah tonight, in chapter nine.

So Isaiah is a prophet, which means he’s writing about future things concerning the Lord. A matter of fact, it is written about 6 or 7 hundred years before Christ is born.

And Isaiah is writing to Judah in a very dark time. Judah is facing desruction from the Assryians and from the Egyptians, their lives are on the line and they are in need of deliverence.

So these are the people that Isaiah is prophesying to and he says

Isaiah 9:1–7 KJV 1900

Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, When at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, And afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, Beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: They joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, And as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, The rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, And garments rolled in blood; But this shall be with burning and fuel of fire. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: And the government shall be upon his shoulder: And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, Upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, To order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice From henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

“There will be no more gloom for those who are in distress”

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. ”

Judah was living in a land of darkness and Isaiah says that a light is coming, there will be an end to this pain, and in verse five.

“Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire.”

This refers to Gideon’s great victory over Midian in Judges 7. As wonderfully complete, joyous, and victorious as Gideon’s victory over Midian was, this is the same kind of victory the Messiah will enjoy and give.

And the victory is complete.

This is why I wanted to point this out.

The reference to every warrior’s sandal… garments rolled in blood, will be used for burning and fuel of fire means that the battle is over. This is what you did when the battle was finished, and you had won.

We don’t have a savior that comes and goes. The light didn’t come for a time, just to be overcome the next year.

Our Hope is in a savior that has fought the battle, rose victorious, and conquered the darkness for good.

Sounds good on paper, right?

But how are we living our lives?

When the darkness surroundes us, do we live as if our savior has conquered the darkness or as if there’s a chance that He is not going to keep His word?

Jesus said He would not leave us, but time and time again I see people living as if they’ve already been defeated. As if Jesus is too small for the opposition laid out in front of them and I’m sitting here going “wait! NO! You serve a God who has overcome the darkness and even if the world beats you up for a season, you will come out on the other side victorious.” The worst thing someone in this life can do to you? Take your life from you. But as a Christian, we know that means that we will be in Heaven with the Father again. We have hope for this light that is coming. No matter what happens, we will come out on top, because Jesus already fought the battle and Jesus already won the war against darkness and because we are on His side- darkness will not overcome us.

Are you living as if you serve a victoreous savior or a defeated one?

When hard times come, how do you react?

We like to say things like “Jesus is in control” and “God can use everything for His good. Even the hard times.” or “No matter what. Jesus is victorous.”

And when we’re going through hard times, we need to keep saying these things. Because they are true!

And when the world see’s us they should see people who live as if their hope is in a king who has already won the battle.