From Love to Hope and Back Again

This is my third year of conducting Advent services at Liberty Spring Christian Church, but it is ONLY my third year, and I was struck this week by the realization that some things about the Advent tradition are still mysteries to me.

As many of you know, I was raised in a Baptist church, and the churches where I spent much of my life as a believer were non-denominational.

Now, Advent traces its roots back to the high church tradition. For whatever reason, it’s rare for Baptist churches to acknowledge Advent, and many non-denominational churches do not do so either.

Sailors talk about it taking time for someone to get their “sea legs.” You could say that I’m still getting my Advent legs.

So I was thinking this week about the themes that we have chosen for the four Sundays of Advent. Did you know that Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love are not the only Advent themes that are used?

Some church traditions name the candles that are lit, calling the first one the Prophet’s Candle, symbolizing hope; the second the Bethlehem candle, symbolizing faith; the third the Shepherd’s Candle, symbolizing joy; and the fourth the Angel’s Candle, symbolizing peace.

Another tradition gives the themes as Prophets, Angels, Shepherds, Magi. Still another tradition has as its themes Faith, Prepare, Joy, and Love.

When I was preparing to conduct my first Advent services three years ago, I did a bunch of research on the tradition and its significance, and I settled on Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love as my preferred Advent themes.

This collection of themes came from a devotional in Our Daily Bread, and I really liked how all four themes are centered in the person of Jesus Christ.

But it wasn’t until this year — in fact, last week — that I really noticed how well all four of these weekly themes — Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love — all fit together, especially if you look at them in reverse from how we celebrate them.

We know we are loved, because God sent His unique and eternal Son to live a sinless life of obedience among us as a man and to die for our sins on a cross at Calvary.

For those of us who have put our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, we can have joy because we know that our sins have been forgiven and that God has adopted us into His family and sons and daughters.

We can have joy, because now we who were once enemies of God are now friends of God. We are at peace with God, because God made peace with us through Jesus.

But even more than that, we rejoice in the fact that, as Christ-followers, we have available to us a peace that passes all understanding — even in the midst of the worst trials and troubles life can throw at us — because we have within us the Spirit of Peace, given to us by the God of all peace as a guarantee of our salvation.

And finally, the peace that we have as followers of Jesus gives us hope, the confident assurance that God will do for us what He has promised to do, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus, that those whom He foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son; and that those whom He predestined, He also called; and that those whom He called, He also justified; and that those whom He justified, He also glorified.

We can have hope in the resurrection and in God’s promise to make each of us who have followed Jesus in faith into the people we were always meant to be, because this calling, this justification, and this glorification are all God’s work and not ours.

And that great hope should give you great peace, which should then give you great joy, which should then result in you growing more and more in your love for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

I think it’s simply wonderful how God works these four themes together.

You heard two of them — joy and peace — in the passage that Cat read for us earlier this morning. In fact, as we prepare to look at that passage — Philippians 4:4-7 — in greater detail today, I’m going to suggest that all four Advent themes are represented there, and I’m going to tell you that’s not a coincidence.

Turn, if you will, to Philippians, chapter 4, and let’s look at this passage together.

While you are finding your place, let me remind you about the Apostle Paul’s situation as he wrote this letter to the church in Philippi.

Now, there is some disagreement among scholars as to when Paul wrote this letter, but I believe, along with many others, that it was written sometime between A.D. 61 and 63, during his first Roman imprisonment.

This is the imprisonment that we read about in the last chapter of the Book of Acts, when Paul was kept locked up with a guard in a house he rented and where, Luke writes, he welcomed all who came to him

Acts 28:31 NASB95

preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered.

This was not the imprisonment that would result in Paul’s death. That would come a few years later, in about AD 68, after what church tradition records as a much more severe imprisonment.

But neither Paul nor those who loved him knew at the time of this first imprisonment whether he would survive or not, and so, as he wrote this letter to Philippi and others to churches in Ephesus and Colosse, he tried very hard to be encouraging to them.

So, in chapter 1 of this letter, he tells them that the circumstance of his imprisonment has “turned out for the greater progress of the gospel.”

And later, he writes that whether he lives or dies in Rome doesn’t really matter. “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” He’s a winner either way. As he put it in a letter to the church in Rome,

Romans 8:37–39 ESV

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And so, we see a man locked up with a guard in a little house in Rome — a house he had to rent for himself — wondering whether he will live or die at the hands of the Romans, writing this letter to encourage the church in Philippi.

And we might expect that a person in such circumstances would be bitter — or at least frustrated and maybe a little frightened.

But we don’t see any of those things when we read this letter to the Philippians. Instead, what we see is one unexpected theme, emphasized over and over again — rejoice in the Lord!

In fact, the word “rejoice” appears nine times throughout this short letter, and the word “joy” appears seven times.

You see, for Paul, joy wasn’t about circumstances. Your happiness may hinge on your circumstances, but joy does not. And people who have joy in their lives are called to show it — they’re called to rejoice!

Let’s read this passage together, now, beginning with verse 4.

Philippians 4:4–7 NASB95

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

In the first four words of this passage, Paul gives us the key to joy. Rejoice IN THE LORD. True joy comes from the Lord, and it’s not dependent upon your circumstances.

In fact, joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit, whom God gives us when we first put our faith in Jesus. Remember the fruits of the Spirit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

These are the qualities that are supposed to mark the life of a Christian, regardless of their circumstances. These are the qualities by which the Holy Spirit shows the world that we belong to God in Christ Jesus.

And the key to all those qualities is that they are experienced as fruits of the Spirit for those who are positionally IN Christ Jesus.

Those who do not follow Jesus may be nice, and they may well exhibit some of these characteristics, but only a life that has been transformed by the Spirit — only a person who is IN Christ by virtue of having placed their faith in Him — will be able to live a life that is truly CHARACTERIZED by these qualities.

So, then, the way to rejoice — to find true joy even in the midst of the trials and troubles of our lives — is to be found in Christ. Indeed, as we will see in a moment, Paul shows us that this is the only way to have true peace in life, as well.

Rejoice in the Lord.

This is the word that Matthew uses when he writes about the wise men leaving the scheming King Herod and finding once again the star that would lead them to the new king who had been born in Bethlehem.

Matthew 2:10 NASB95

When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.

And this is the same “great joy” that Luke writes about when he describes the angels appearing to shepherds outside of Bethlehem.

Luke 2:10–11 NASB95

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

A king is born, a savior given. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

The world had suffered in darkness and sin, but God Himself came in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, born to a young virgin and laid in a feeding trough for animals, and “in Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.”

Way back in the beginning, God had said, “Let there be light, and there was light.” But then Adam and Eve sinned, and they brought darkness and death into the world, and we do the same every time we sin.

But when He sent Jesus, God sent light back into the world, so that in Him we might find life — true and everlasting life in the presence of the Father and the Son the way it was always intended to be — through faith in Jesus.

This is life that transcends your circumstances. This is hope that does not fade, because it is grounded in the promises of the God who keeps His promises.

And so, Paul can say, as he does in verse 4, “Rejoice in the Lord, ALWAYS, and again I say rejoice.”

I don’t know what’s going on in your life right now, but I suspect that some of you are hurting. Some of you are dealing with hard things, and maybe life seems a little hopeless for you right now.

I can’t change your circumstances, but I CAN give you a new perspective, and maybe it’s one that will help you find joy, even in the midst of your pain.

“The Lord is near!”

Now, in this passage the main thing Paul probably meant by this statement is that the return of the risen Christ is imminent. It could happen at any time.

And because of that, we should let our gentle spirit — our Christlike character — be known to all men. It will be because we demonstrate the character of the one we follow in faith that others are drawn to what we have inside us.

But there is a sense in which “The Lord is near” describes the wondrous hope of Immanuel — God With Us.

This is one of the things that sets Christianity apart from all the other world religions. They set mankind in a position to have to reach God through good works or meditation or some other effort that we produce.

But the righteous and holy God of the Bible — the one true God — is the one who knew that there was nothing we could ever do to earn a place in heaven, and so, in His infinite grace, He came down to us.

And He didn’t do so in the form of some almighty, supernatural being demanding to be worshiped and feared.

Instead, He came as a human child who would grow to become the Suffering Servant and give Himself as our substitute so that all who put their faith in Him could be saved and receive within them His Holy Spirit — God with us.

The Lord is near, so you who follow Jesus in faith CAN be anxious for nothing, because “We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose.”

The Lord is near, so you can go before Him in prayer in the knowledge that the Spirit within you “bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”

You can be confident before God in prayer, because even though we often do not know what to pray for as we ought, “the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words,” and because He “intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

The truth is that we often DON’T know what to pray for. Many times, the things we think might solve our problems would just cause us to have worse problems.

Sometimes the things we think we’d most like to avoid are the very things God will use to make us into the image of Jesus.

So Paul makes it easy for us. Knowing that the Spirit is interceding for us according to God’s will, we can pray with supplication and thanksgiving.

Supplication is the earnest sharing with God of our needs and problems. This is pouring our hearts out to God about what’s going on in our lives.

It’s not going to Him with our preferred solutions, but rather getting on our knees or our faces before Him and crying out, “Lord, save me! Lord, I need you now!”

Supplication was the kind of prayer Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before He died, when He sweated drops of blood as He prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.”

Prayer in supplication says to God, “I’m hurting, and I want You to intervene, but more than that, I want Your will do be done in my life.”

Paul also says to pray with thanksgiving. Thanksgiving should be the very centerpiece of our prayers.

Whatever else is going on in the life of a Christian, we should always be thankful for our salvation, for the knowledge that however broken things might be here in this life, Jesus will make all things new, He will heal the brokenhearted, and He will bring us into His kingdom, where there will be no more crying or pain.

Psalm 107:1–2 NASB95

Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, For His lovingkindness is everlasting. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary

If you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ and in His sacrificial death and supernatural resurrection, then you have been redeemed from the hand of the adversary because of the lovingkindness — the grace — of God.

And as we give thanks to our good God for the gift of His Son — as we revel in the wonder of our salvation and the awesome grace that made it possible — something incredible happens, something that Paul says surpasses all comprehension: We become filled with the peace of God.

Note that Paul doesn’t tell us we’ll understand why we are suffering. He doesn’t say that we’ll receive knowledge or comprehension about why our hearts have been broken or even about how things will work out.

In fact, he contrasts peace and comprehension. Essentially, he is saying that peace is better than knowledge.

“No doubt he had in mind situations where knowledge is insufficient. Sometimes it cannot explain, and sometimes explanations do not help. Peace, however, is always appropriate and meets the need of the heart.” [Richard R. Melick, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, vol. 32, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1991), 150.]

And note also that Paul says the peace of God will guard your and your minds in Christ Jesus.

That word “guard” has military connotations in the Greek. So, we can think of Paul saying here that the battle zone of your heart and mind needs to be protected by the military guard of God’s peace.

The peace of God will keep your heart from corruption and your mind focused on His truth.

And God’s truth is that God loves you. He makes that plain from Genesis to Revelation. And He demonstrated it at the cross.

Romans 5:8 NASB95

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Hidden within that manger where shepherds watched as the infant Jesus slept and below that star the wise men followed to Bethlehem was a cross, the cross where God Himself, in the person of His eternal Son, would suffer and die at the hands of the very ones for whom He gave Himself as a sacrifice.

During Advent, we celebrate the birth of a king and savior, and we sing of the incarnation of Immanuel — God With Us.

But God’s great love for us came to its fullest expression at that cross, where Jesus died so that we might have life, where He became the treaty of peace and reconciliation with we who have rebelled against His kingdom.

Is your name on that peace treaty, or are you still in rebellion against your rightful Lord and king?

Today, you can have peace with God. You can experience Immanuel — God With Us. You can begin to know what it means to have true joy, regardless of your circumstances. You can experience a hope that is founded upon the promises of a promise-keeping God. And it’s all available to you because of His great love and grace.

If peace is what you seek, come and talk to me during this next song or after the service. Let’s talk about how much God loves you.