Advent: Hope

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 Open your Bibles to actually Luke chapter one and I’m going to give you some time to get there. Uh, there really is, uh, we could have started Advent this week or next week, but because Christmas Eve lands on a Sunday. I wanted us to give four Sundays before that, and so today is the start of Advent for us.

Now, some of you, if you grew up kind of in a church like I did, or maybe you’re not around church at all, you don’t really know what Advent is, so I’d love to explain that for you as we begin. Advent is essentially waiting for an arrival. So it’s waiting for God to come, and, uh, that’s literally all that’s about.

So at the church calendar from, like, way back in history, like the second century, they began to do this thing the month leading up to Christmas called Advent. I’m going to give you a quick history lesson, kind of understanding what Advent is as we approach what this looks like in the coming weeks. Go ahead and write this down.

Every Advent, Christians focus on two events and four virtues during the darkest time of year. Let me parse that out for you quickly. We focus on two events. The first event is we celebrate, we look to, we look back to the first coming of Christ. And so the whole story of the Bible, if you’re here in the summer during our scripture series, is this idea that in Genesis God created the world, and it was good.

We look at the Garden of Eden, we like to define it, it wasn’t perfect, but it had potential. God created it where man and woman can together create something beautiful, but that also had the potential of creating something destructive. And Adam and Eve… Uh, they were assigned to rule over creation and expand this kingdom, uh, under God.

But then they were deceived by the lies of the serpent. And now you have sin, Satan, and death that’s reigning over mankind. Humans are no longer living in the fullness of what they’re supposed to live. We now die. We have disease. We have heartache. There’s all sorts of bad things going on. Our earth is crumbling, everything because of the entrance of sin.

And so now though, the Genesis story in the Bible, as humans, there’s nothing we can do to get ourselves back to Eden. Eden is gone. What do we do in the meantime? How do we get back? And immediately in Genesis 3, when God pronounces that, hey, sin is entered, now, you know, there’s going to be judgment. He also says, but I promise a coming Messiah, a coming Savior, who will come at just the proper time, as it says in Galatians.

At the proper time, a Savior will come, because guess what? You cannot save… Yourself and that’s the story of the old testament. You see all these different versions of us trying to save ourselves And but you do see pictures of coming the coming king david is a picture He’s a fallen person But he’s a tiny picture of of this christ the son of god who will come and make all things right So in the, in the Old Testament, you have thousands of years of the Israelites and just people in general, they’re sinning, they’re grumbling, and they’re looking for a coming king.

Now, what happens though, there’s this, all of this Old Testament stuff happening, and then there’s 400 years of silence. People don’t hear from God. There just seems to be a void. And then Jesus, the God man left heaven, comes to earth in the form of a servant wrapped in a manger, right? This is the story of the coming of Christ.

You may hear this as the incarnation, right? So that is the first thing we celebrate because if Christ doesn’t come we have no hope. But the second event that is often overlooked in Advent is we’re supposed to anticipate the second coming of Christ. And so just as we’re looking how Christ came once, we are celebrating or anticipating that Christ will come again.

We’re in this gap. So when Jesus came and died on the cross and rose again, offering us forgiveness and redemption, and we are a new creation, there’s this gap between us being redeemed and then all of us being fully restored. We’re in that little middle ground as we speak. And so our job as a church is to seek to restore and redeem as many people as possible.

But we know it’s not a fool’s errand because eventually God In Christ, Christ will come again and make all things right. Go to our Revelation series if you’re interested in that, that we talked about over the summer. So here’s the weird thing. At the cross, I say this all the time, death, sin, and Satan were defeated.

But yet, we have this weird tension that we still experience death. We still have the presence of sin in our lives, and Satan still seems to deceive us and those around us. And so it’s this middle ground where the victory was taken, now Christ has conquered. But it’s yet to go fully in effect. We’re in, again, that middle ground.

We long for that. We pray, God, we pray that you come again. There’s so much evil in this world. There’s so much heartache. We praise you that we’re forgiven, and we pray for more people to be forgiven. But also, we just want this whole thing to be restored. And so we are grateful. We celebrate the first coming, and we anticipate the second coming.

That’s how you properly do Advent. But within Advent… Again, church history, you started to recognize people began to talk about four different virtues. And that’s what we’re going to look at each and every week leading up to Christmas. It’s hope, joy, peace, and love. Okay, those are the four virtues. You’ll see those in sermon series all around the world the next month, okay?

So, it’s this idea, without Christ coming, you and I have no hope. There would be no reason for joy. Peace would be impossible. And we legitimately couldn’t love one another, but because Christ came and is coming again, we have these gifts on offer because the tomb is empty. And here’s the last reason. And this is the thing everybody talks about.

Was Jesus actually born on December 25th? Let me just explain that briefly. It’s during the darkest time of year. So in the Middle East and Europe especially, when they began to decide when do we celebrate the coming of Christ, they decided to do it right after the darkest time of year. So the darkest time of year is December, but the 25th is now when the sun starts to dawn.

The sun starts to really begin to overtake the darkness. And you start to see light coming and eventually summer. Does that make sense? There’s also, uh, some people believe it’s December 25th because they looked at the pronouncement date of John the Baptist getting baptized. We know what time of year that was.

And then it says six months later, Mary found out that she was, or three months later, Mary found out that she was pregnant and then did the nine months thing. And so some people legitimately believe it’s December 25th. Other people say it’s September. I here to tell you, I don’t really care the date. The point is.

Jesus did come. That’s what I’m excited about. Okay. And so that’s, it’s not, and it’s in the 12th century, we began to say, well, is it because it was a pagan holiday and we tried to redeem it? I don’t know. Okay. The point is look it up on Google, but make sure you tell me who you’re looking up. Cause some people are crazy out there.

So don’t look it up. Nevermind. Let’s just talk about, talk to Caleb after, but this whole idea is it’s intentionally the darkest time of year. We’re supposed to embrace that. It’s interesting because in American culture, Christmas is, is nothing but joy, but, but as Christians, we recognize the darkness and say, even though it is dark, we still have hope.

We still have joy. So I hope you have turned your Bible to Luke one. That’s enough of an intro for what Advent is all about. We’re going to be looking at the first coming of Christ, actually the first coming, uh, or sorry, the coming of John the Baptist pointing to the first coming of Christ. And we’re going to look at the virtue of hope.

During the darkest time of your life. And so that’s why I think the best place is Luke. And the best place to start is the birth of John the Baptist. Why? Because we’re Baptists. No. Uh, John the Baptist, let me explain why. Again, there’s this time between, I know I’m giving you a lot, between the Old Testament and the New.

The last book in the Bible is Malachi, that was written. And then there’s 400 years of silence. Uh, theologians call this the intertestamental era. Between the two testaments, between the Old Testament and the New. Or some people call it the 400 years of silence. Now, especially as Americans, we cannot even compute how long 400 years ago was.

Right? Like I remember going to Bismy, Arizona one time and saw something was made in 1893. I was like, wow, this is ancient, right? But then you go to the other world, I mean the other side of the world and everything’s super old. Let me give you an example of what was 400 years ago and it’s perfect timing.

In 1621, which is technically 402 years ago, The pilgrims set on the Mayflower and arrived at Plymouth Rock and 400 years ago, 402, was the first Thanksgiving. Doesn’t that feel like forever ago? And don’t you wish they had roast and not turkey for Thanksgiving? But here we are, right? And so, that’s how long 400 years ago was.

We as a country, we’re only 247 years old. So 400 years is a long time to hear something from God and then to hear nothing. Can you imagine? The silence from God is deafening. It is a long time. And so as you go into Luke 1, we have to remember, these people are having a really hard time keeping hope.

Because 400 years before the events of Luke 1 happened, the Israelites, the last thing they heard from God was about a promise in Malachi 4 5 saying that there would be a prophet Elijah In the spirit of Elijah, who would come and prepare the way for this coming Messiah, the Savior, who would save the world.

Who is the prophet Elijah? John the Baptizer. John the Baptist. Okay, so, the last thing we heard of Malachi, there’s this guy John the Baptist coming, who’s gonna prepare the way for Christ. Luke 1 knows that that’s the last thing they’ve heard, and now the story starts. Let’s talk about the last thing you heard, even though it was 400 years ago.

Are you guys with me? You guys are too quiet today. I don’t like it, but I won’t judge you. Luke 1 verse 5 says, In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest of Abijah’s division named Zechariah. His wife was from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Both were righteous in God’s sight, living without blame according to all the commands and requirements of the Lord.

But… This is always so difficult. There’s people we have, this is what’s so hard about life. You can have all these great things said about you, but there’s always a but. There’s always something that’s bad is happening, but they had no children because Elizabeth could not conceive and both of them were well along in years.

Luke is so nice. It’s not saying they were too old. No, they were well along in years. That’s a good way to describe people. Much more gentle. Now, in this context, there’s a couple things. Corporately, we see it looks like God has forgotten Israel. There’s no king on the throne. They’re under Roman oppression.

And the Israelites are not ruling and reigning over the world like they thought they would be. Okay, so you have to know the temperament. The priests, they were all kind of depressed. They haven’t heard from God. They’re still not winning. But personally, it looks like God has forgotten Zechariah and Elizabeth.

Now, in every generation, infertility is… Devastating it’s it’s hard. It’s hurtful. A lot of people don’t understand. They always say hey How come you haven’t kid yet, and they don’t know the pain you’re going through and we have those people in this room We want to offer so much grace to that and we know there’s a lot of pain What’s helpful to know though in Zechariah’s time.

It’s almost like that pain doubled because There was this totally irreverent didn’t make sense belief That if you didn’t have a child, it meant that God didn’t favor you because you were somehow disobedient. There was something wrong with you, you had some hidden sin, and because of your hidden sin, God didn’t bless you with children.

And so even though they were righteous in God’s sight according to the scriptures, it was likely a lot of their friends and contemporaries were saying, Yeah, Zech and Liz, You know, they’re not all they’re cracked up to be. I know it looks like they’re great, but they don’t even have kids. So God clearly doesn’t love them.

Well, you don’t imagine that public shame. It was, it was full of grief. And now, not only that, but now they’re too old. Now all of their friends, they’re well, they’re in the teenage years, their kids. And they don’t even have kids themselves. And so the hope to have a child is pretty much long gone. But then, I’m going to summarize because of time, Zechariah gets an opportunity of a lifetime.

Let me summarize for you verses 8 17. Zechariah, he was a priest. Now, 24 times a year, what this gig would do is a team of priests would go to the temple, and all of these groups, they had about 300 priests per group. In other words, it was a huge honor that Zechariah got. Zechariah actually was selected to go light the incense in the holy place.

Now here’s a misconception, Israelite history for you briefly. The holy place is not the same thing as the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies is where only the great high priest can go into, and they would tie a rope around their foot and a bell, and all of a sudden they couldn’t hear him walking anymore, it seems like he died.

They pulled him out because he had sin as he entered the Holy of Holies, and God… Striked him on the spot. Now the holy place is right before the holy of holies. It’s there’s only a veil, a thin veil between the holy place and the holy of holies. So some priests, you can work your lifetime. Most priests never even get to the holy place.

It’s kind of like a lottery pick. You just kind of get selected. So in Luke one, we see Zechariah got the lottery pick of a lifetime. His resume will now forever say, number one, I was in the holy place and I lit the incense and this was a huge deal. Okay, so Zechariah, he goes, his name is picked, he’s going to enter in, and now something incredible happens.

He hears from an angel. He sees an angel and encounters, you have to think, 400 years of silence, it is likely Zechariah had no idea, there’s no way God would speak to them, but let me go in and do the thing. And an angel appears, Gabriel, and says, you will have a son, and this son will cause the world to do two things, to rejoice.

And to repent. So can you imagine, there’s a lot happening probably with Zechariah. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m here. Now there’s an angel here. Now he’s telling me the one thing I thought would never happen anymore. Which I also thought was fascinating as I was reading this. Gabriel was saying, your prayer is answered.

He knew what the prayer was. I’ve been praying my whole life for a child. And now you’re saying I’m going to have one. So now let’s zoom in to verse 18. The question we have to ask ourselves is how does Zechariah respond? One thing we do with the Bible is we deify everybody. We don’t remember that they’re just humans like you and me.

And that’s what I love about James last week, right? What did James say? Elijah, a man just like us, okay? Just human. So does he have hope that what the angel says happens will happen? Let’s look at verse 18 and look at his response. Remember this is a righteous man, a good man, and an old man, right? And he says this, How can I know this?

Zechariah asked the angel. For I am an old man, and my wife is well along in years. Must have had a very happy marriage, because he knew how to reference his wife. Just well along. Verse 19, the angel answered him, I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God. And I was sent to speak to you, and tell you this good news.

Now listen. That’s a key line here. This theme here is to listen. You will become silent and unable to speak until the day these things take place, because you do not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time. So Zech, did he respond with good faith? Probably not. Versus later what I love what Luke does he’s gonna juxtapose.

It’s a big word, especially for Queen Creek public education like me Zechariah, I mean, sorry Luke juxtaposes Zechariah’s response and Mary’s response So if you kept reading Luke one, you’d see Mary responds in faith and joy. It’s like incredible Zechariah goes I’m not sure right So we have to remember this.

It doesn’t look like Zechariah shined in his best moment, right? This was the amazing time he could say, yes, I believe you. Let’s go. Instead, he goes, how can I be sure? But here’s where a lot of us misinterpret this passage. If we aren’t careful, we can read the angel’s response as a punishment. All right, isn’t that, I grew up reading it that way.

As Americans, we cannot, we cannot imagine anything good coming from silence. I, uh, I made a video. I think it was over the summer, I gave myself a challenge to be silent for 24 hours. If you know me, that’s a big deal. You know, that’s really hard to do. And so, 24 hours I went up to the cabin, didn’t even talk to myself out loud.

And that’s hard to do as well. And, didn’t do it for 24 hours, I promise. And then I made a video. And it was amazing how many comments I got like, I can never do this. There’s no way. I, was that torture. It’s so funny because as an American, we just, we can’t fathom. Silence, it just seems like such a, a terrible thing for us.

So I think when we think that we bring that energy to the Bible, our American perspective and lens to the scriptures, and we immediately think, man, if he was forced to be silent, that means the angels punishing this man. This is not a good man. We have to remember though, we just read how he was a righteous man and so was his wife.

We have to take all of these things into account. Remember for us. We love noise because we want to feel like we’re always significant and we feel like the moment we stop talking, we’re forgotten. Noise is an addictive drug in our culture. Robert Cardinal Seurat in his book, The Power of Silence, one of my favorite reads, he says the following, he says, From morning to evening, from evening to morning, silence no longer has any place at all.

He’s talking about the modern world. The noise tries to prevent God himself from speaking. In this hell of noise, man disintegrates and is lost. He is broken up into countless worries, fantasies, and fears. In order to get out of these depressing tunnels, he desperately awaits noise that it will bring him a few consolations.

Noise is a deceptive, addictive, and false tranquilizer. Anybody feel that? Right? When you’re depressed, not doing great, you reach for your phone, you have to have noise on in the car. We’re addicted to noise. The reality is, is because we want, we don’t want to deal with what’s actually happening. But if we don’t deal with it, we don’t actually get joy.

So how we interpret noise is how we interpret this passage. Noise always good. That means silence bad. God hates Zechariah, but that’s an incorrect. Interpretation. Even more so, what’s more important, how we view God determines how we interpret this passage. Is God a loving, generous, slow to anger God who is gracious and want what’s best for you?

Then we should assume every good and perfect gift comes from above, even if it’s in the form of silence. We say this a lot at Passion Creek. Go ahead and write this down again. Your vision of God’s love determines the version of your hope.

If your God is always mad, then of course you’re always afraid. If your God is always stingy, then of course you can never be generous. If your God is always absent, then of course you have control problems, and you’re filled with fear.

Right? So, as we read this, this is confronting. It shows us who God is. And we need to be willing to see, maybe if I assume this was bad, I have a improper vision of God. I need to have a re examination of the sender. I don’t know about you, and I, I asked permission this morning. Have you noticed, let me just, let’s just say people, I would say your spouse, but I don’t want to get in trouble today.

Have you noticed certain people read texts differently than you do? Like, from your phone, text messages? It’s amazing. Um, one thing when our men get together, we talk about that, about how the wives just read texts so, so much different than men at the risk of getting in trouble. I am amazed at the tone.

Like when my wife reads texts out loud from a certain individual by which I will not share who it is, rest assured it’s nobody in this room. Okay, when she gets a text from this person and she reads the text out loud to me, it’s never a good tone. You know what I’m saying? It’s never like, Oh, this person’s just so kind.

So sometimes though, she doesn’t read the text out loud. She just gives me the phone. She goes, read it. And she’s like real neutral. So I read it and it says, Sounds good, I guess. I’m like, cool! Sounds good, I guess. That, I think everything’s good, I guess, right? She’s like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Sounds good, I guess.

Or whatever, right? Like, I guess it sounds good. Like, uh, and it’s just like this whole theological exposition of exegetical of the I guess. And let’s parse this out and figure out why she, what did, why is this person mad at me? All of this stuff, all because of just a simple text, right? In the same way, what is happening here?

She has a certain view of this person and that’s how she interprets everything that person says. In the same way, I think Advent is supposed to be a shake up for us and to re examine what is our view of God and do we remember this God is so generous. He came down to save us. Even when you and I were the ones who messed it all up and we hear these words from the lord We forget psalm one says that the law of the lord is delight to the soul We assume it’s drudgery.

We assume holiness is just the worst, but we have to do it It’s how we view the sender and I think luke one is such a beautiful way to give us hope That man reimagine who god is he is a god of love and he has come to save the world. So you and I have Immense hope. But it’s how we read the text. See, hope, which is the idea I want us to lean into this morning, is the singular power that can give you the strength to endure the darkest times of life.

If you don’t have hope, you can’t, you can’t fight through those battles of depression. Without hope, it’s impossible to really wake up the next day after you’ve been so deeply betrayed. It’s hard to have hope. It’s hard to keep living if you don’t have hope when you have unanswered prayers or chronic pain or some sort of shameful event that too many people know about.

Even overdue payments, your finances are struggling without hope. It’s hard to endure. I think the hardest thing too is in those really dark seasons of life, it usually feels like God is silent. And so what I want us to see here and lean into is I don’t believe. God didn’t make Zechariah silent to punish his unbelief.

God made Zechariah silent to prepare his hope. Listen, God isn’t punishing you. God is preparing you. But if you don’t have a vision of God’s love, you’ll always just think he’s punishing. But if you’re a child of God, he’s only preparing and pruning. Here’s what I can say with full assurance. If you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ to redeem you, to forgive you, for the cross of Christ to wash over you in your life, here’s what you could take to the bank.

God will never punish you. How do I know that? God punished Christ on your behalf. And when Christ was on the cross and took the full punishment, he said, it is finished. Therefore. You and I can rest assured the punishment is done, fully taken care of, so you and I can rejoice. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t discipline, but it feels a whole lot better knowing he’s disciplining us, or preparing us, than he is punishing us.

And that is what’s happening in Luke 1. Zechariah is not being punished, he’s being prepared. Because his job is to prepare the one who prepares the way for Christ. So he needed to get a better understanding of who God was and a better understanding of the hope that God has for him. So I want to tell you, if you have breath in your lungs today, God is not done with you, there is hope for you.

Do not think your season is a punishment, it is a preparation. This is what we can take to the bank because Christ already came. We know this is true and this is a promise. And mainly he’s preparing us, by the way, for the mission of becoming like Jesus, being formed by Jesus together for others. Now let’s look at his response.

So between this response, we now see Zechariah was silenced and now we kind of go back. To the story of Mary and, and all these things and, and actually Zechariah, um, everybody’s like, Hey, how come you’re not talking? And he can’t talk. So he’s signing and they’re like, okay, he, God visited him and something crazy happened.

Um, and then you see Mary and her praise and all this amazing stuff. But now look down to verse 67, verse 67, Zechariah finally begins to speak after the birth of his son. Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied. Blessed is the Lord, the God of Israel, because He has visited and provided redemption for His people.

He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David, just as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets in ancient times, which is the Old Testament. Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of those who hate us. He has dealt mercifully with our ancestors and remembered his holy covenant saying the silence.

It doesn’t mean he forgot us. He’s still remembering us. Look, the oath that he swore to our father, Abraham, to grant that we, having been rescued from the hand of our enemies, would serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness in his presence. All our days. There’s a lot here. I encourage you to look up a commentary this week and dive in.

But here is the hope of Christmas again in verse 68. God visited and provided redemption for his people. Quickly, a word on each. God has visited. Here’s what’s beautiful about that. Every other religion in the world is all about us trying to visit God. Us trying to get to God. Most people, I’ve heard a lot of people who believe that all religions are the same, they love to give this illustration of a mountain.

So God is on top of this mountain, and the reality is, is what they say, there’s many different roads that get to the top of the mountain. The point is, as long as you work hard, and you try, and you keep going up this mountain in your life, by the end of your life, you will be with God. Now it sounds so incredible, but it’s impossible.

There’s no way to get to, get to God. We are impure. We sin. We fall short. There’s nothing we can do to get us on top of the mountain. But the beauty of the gospel, the only thing that the gospel, no other religion has this except Christianity, is that God comes down from the mountain, goes to us, picks us up, and carries us up back with him to the top of the mountain.

That’s the beauty of the gospel. God visits us. That’s why Christmas is a big deal, because God came down to us, and here’s what we can rest assured in. You can be with God, because God already wants to be with you. Right? We love because He first loved us. We can go to God because He first came to us.

Without, if He didn’t want us, there’s no way we can get to Him. But He came to us in the form of a slave, to redeem us. And that’s the second thing. So God visited his people. This is wonderful theology from Zechariah. He would have not have found out without silence and provided redemption. This word redemption is just the deliverance of evil by a payment.

You have to pay a price. Nothing’s free. Somebody has to pay for it. Somebody needs to tell the government that. Anyways, so the Bible teaches us our sin deserves payment. It has severe consequences, right? It brings death, disease, plagues, division, hatred, murder, alienation from God, which is the big one. And sin, wrongdoing, demands justice.

A price has to be paid. And because God is just, He has to have those sins paid for. And the reality is, is outside of Christ, it demands we are separated from God for eternity. But, God comes down in the flesh so that He can pay the price you and I can never fully pay for. He redeems us. He pays the penalty of our sin to bring us back to God.

This is the hope of Christmas. Write this down. Christ came to save us from the penalty of sin. That’s what He did in the first coming. And Christ will come again to save us from the presence of sin. That’s why we look forward to the second coming. Penalty of sin? You and I are forgiven in Christ. If you believe.

Presence of sin? You and I are still struggling with the presence of sin today. We are not totally victorious. We have moments. It’s incredible. But we still have sin done to us, sin done around us, and sin done by us. But one day when Christ comes again, we will be with Him in the kingdom, and sin will be in the past.

If we have the humility to receive it. And so for four hundred, for nine months, Zechariah pondered. The last 400 years of silence and defeat, and it was probably bitter, it was probably a lot of different things, it was struggle, but this silence eventually opened his eyes to God’s plan and God’s grace, not just for him, but for the entire world.

What is it about silence that changes Zechariah’s hope? Zechariah did not experience silence from God, but silence with God. It is a punishment if it’s silence from him, but it’s a gift if we are given the liberty of being silent with God. And so that’s what I want us to call to in this Advent season, to find moments, times in your day where you are just silent with him.

Where you give God your sorrow and your burdens. This time of year is such a mixed bag. It makes you joyful for what you do have, but you’re also burdened about the people you’ve lost, the dreams that have been crushed. And I think in our culture we think if we just crank up the noise and the happiness, all that stuff will be drowned out.

But there’s always this underlying pain. But Christmas is this opportunity in the silence to present your pain to the Father. And allow the Father to love you. Your vision of God’s love determines the version of your hope. And some of us don’t have hope because we haven’t just been silent enough to hear how much God actually does love us.

So what if we spent less time talking and more time listening? Which you’ve done a great job of this morning, by the way, you’re not saying a word to me except brother Ron. I love you, Ron. All right. What if we did that more? Just listen and see what God begins to do. And that’s why Pastor Caleb, he’s going to talk about this more.

We created an advent guide we’d love for you to participate in. It’s not just like step one, two, three, four, be silent. There’s a bunch of other fun stuff here, but we do want to create, especially in the reading plan. Just to. Kind of give yourself those moments where you just allow God, where you read the scriptures, and you lay your heart out before God, and wait.

See what God begins to speak to you, to give you hope that noise can never give. As the music begins to come up, I, I was really pulled to Romans, Romans chapter 5. Verses 2 through 5. this over us. I think this is the hope we have this Advent season. Hope is the thing many of us don’t have. It’s the thing we desperately need.

And I think in Christ, because of Christmas, it’s fully on offer. Verse 2, Romans chapter 5 says, Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand. And we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory. We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance.

And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. I love this line. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with love. That’s our invitation for you to be filled with the Holy Spirit who fills us with love.

With love. And the Holy Spirit’s language is typically that of silence. See this in First Kings 19, you see this all throughout. God’s typical volume is that of a whisper.

We think hope comes from shouting. More than, usually more than that. It’s, it comes from silence. It comes from the whisper. It comes from listening. Will we give God this season? Will we give Him our hopes, our fears, our dreams? But will we actually hope because we know in Christ, because He came. We can take this to the bank.

We can receive a hope. That will not disappoint. Let’s pray.