Sermon Tone Analysis

Various Texts

©December 26th, 2021 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: Advent

Hope is an interesting word in our society.

When we talk about hope, we are talking about a desire for what we want to happen in the future.

Much of the time when we use the word hope, its synonym would be “wishful thinking”, like I hope the Cubs win the world series this year.

But other times, we hope for something somewhat grounded in reality, as in I hope I get the raise my boss promised me this year.

Hope can have many meanings in our world today.

Because these are the most common ways in which we use the word hope, it doesn’t mean a lot.

These kinds of hope have no power, they are just wishful thinking.

This kind of hope doesn’t help us as we face the world around us, because we have no assurance that what we want will actually come to pass.

Today we want to talk about a different kind of hope—a confident hope of our future that enables us to keep pressing forward, no matter what we face in the present.

This kind of hope is not mere wishful thinking, it is a confident belief that what was promised will come to pass.

Most people view our world today as pretty hopeless.

Many have concluded that our world is so messed up that there is no real hope of anything getting any better.

This causes many to despair.

Many feel hopeless as they look at their lives.

They see no way out of the current mess they are in.

Christ, however, provides a means for us to have hope, even in unhopeful times.

As we look around, we may not have much hope that our government can fix the problems that exist, we may not have much faith in other human beings, or in our society…but we should have a confident hope that God is still working, and He is still on the throne.

Christians have a hope that is not anchored to our circumstances, but to the person of Jesus Christ.

Such hope is something I believe the world longs to have.

The Basis for Hope

The hope we see in the Bible is not wishful thinking, it is not simply a positive mental attitude.

The hope we see in the Bible is a confidence in the outcome of the future.

When Christians speak of the hope they have for the future, they are saying they are certain that God will bring these things to pass.

So what gives us such confidence?

How can Christians be confident in their hope for the future?

The Christian’s hope is not anchored to their circumstances, but to a person.

Our hope is anchored to God.

There are several reasons the Christian can have confident hope.

First is God’s track record.

If we look at the Bible (and our own lives) we can see that when God makes promises, He has consistently followed through on them.

When God says something is going to happen it does.

Because of God’s perfect track record in the past, we have ample reason to confidently trust in his faithfulness in the future.

Think of it like this.

Most of us know someone who has trouble getting places on time.

For whatever reason, no matter what they do, they always seem to arrive late.

These are the kind of people that when they tell you a time they will be there, you know to add 10-15 (or more!) minutes.

As a matter of fact, you might even be surprised if they arrived on time!

Contrast that with someone who is the epitome of punctuality.

These are the kind of people who might have been in the military or had Tim Lafferty as a coach (or both!).

Coach Lafferty used to (and maybe still does) drill into his players that 15 minutes early is on-time and on-time is late.

Such people are always there when they say they are going to be.

These are the kind of people that if they tell you they will be there at 7:00 and they haven’t arrived by 7:01, you are calling them to make sure they are ok.

This is the way it is with the Lord, but on a much larger scale.

God has consistently shown himself faithful in the past.

Whatever He promised, He has delivered.

Even when what He promised seemed impossible, the Lord has come through.

He never misses His deadlines, and He never fails.

As such, we can take Him at His word.

We see this throughout the Old Testament, when God promised victory, the Israelites were victorious, even against seemingly impossible odds.

And when God promised defeat and destruction, it happened, no matter how hard people tried to stop it.

We see it clearly in the Christmas story.

For hundreds of years, the Jews were waiting for the promised Messiah to come.

And when Jesus arrived, all of God’s promises were fulfilled perfectly.

We can have a confident hope, not because we trust in the people around us to do what we expect, but because we know God will do what He promised.

The second reason we can have confident hope is because of the resurrection of Jesus.

Jesus coming into the world was an incredibly significant event and it should bolster our faith immensely.

The birth of Jesus was the ultimate kept promise of God.

Jesus the promised Messiah, and He came to the earth and lived and died exactly the way the scriptures had foretold.

But Jesus’ existence alone does not give us the confidence we need to face the challenges of life.

There have been many people who made claimed to be great teachers like Jesus.

Some people argue that Jesus is not unique and that all religions are basically the same.

But there is one significant difference.

Jesus, like all other religious figures died.

But unlike every other religious figure, Jesus did not stay dead.

Jesus rose from the grave on the third day, just as He had foretold that he would.

Admittedly, this sounds a bit far-fetched.

None of us have ever experienced someone coming back to life after being dead for three days.

So how can we be confident that this man who lived 2000 years ago actually came back to life?

There are a few reasons we know this is true.

· The opponents of Jesus couldn’t disprove the resurrection.

If Jesus was still dead, all they had to do was take people to the body.

The fact that the resurrection story continued is a testament to the fact that it was true, because it was a pretty easy claim to disprove otherwise.

· The disciples changed drastically.

They went from people who were denying Jesus, hiding from the Jewish leaders, and meeting behind locked doors to people who were standing in the temple courts, boldly defying the religious leaders, claiming they had seen the resurrected Christ.

What else can explain that fact than that they really had?

· Not a single one of Jesus’ disciples ever denied the resurrection, even though they were tortured and killed for that belief.

The only thing that makes sense is that they knew Jesus really had risen from the grave.

If they had been trying to perpetrate a hoax, there is no way every one of the disciples would have persisted in the rouse even to the point of execution.

What gain would there possibly be for them to continue deceiving people?

None.

The only explanation was that they had an unshakable confidence that Jesus had risen from the dead.

There are certainly more reasons we can be confident of the truth of the resurrection, but these stand prominently in my mind.

And if Jesus rose from the grave, just as He said He would, then we can be certain that Jesus’ testimony can be trusted.

What Do We Hope For?

So we can have confidence in God’s faithfulness, but the big question is what kind of hope do we have?

What are we, as believers in Christ able to hope for?

There are several things.

First, we have the hope of resurrection, or life beyond the grave.

This is one of the greatest blessings of being a believer in Christ—we know that this life is not all there is, and that when we die, we will spend eternity in heaven!

Listen to how Paul explains this truth in 1 Corinthians 15

12 But tell me this—since we preach that Christ rose from the dead, why are some of you saying there will be no resurrection of the dead?

13 For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised either.

14 And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless.

15 And we apostles would all be lying about God—for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave.

But that can’t be true if there is no resurrection of the dead.

16 And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised.

17 And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins.

18 In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost!