Summary
Coming soon!
Transcript
So we are starting our first week of Advent. Now for those of you who've been here and celebrated Christmas with us for the past seven years or so, this is something we've been doing that's part of attrition in which we get to celebrate Advent. And if you aren't familiar with it, it's basically the four Sundays before Christmas Day, you celebrate these four ideas or four concepts that represent the coming of Christ. And we call Advent. It's called Advent because it comes from the Latin adventus, which means coming or arrival. And so it's this anticipation of coming. We're kind of doing a couple of things. We're putting ourselves in the place of the people who were waiting for the Messiah when he was born and like kind of importing our imagination into the story. But we're also thinking about the second coming of Christ and what does it mean to live in a way with this anticipation of waiting for this arrival? And what can we learn from the first coming to think about the second coming? And there's four traditional themes that we study during this season, and that's hope, peace, joy, and love. And we celebrate those. We think about them. We study them. We read through them. There's different ways that you can participate in that. And so today we're kicking off as we always do with the concept of hope. And these are always so impactful because I think it's such an amazing time to yearly come back to this idea and view these words and view these concepts through another lens, through another view, through another idea. And how does it affect us? And so the first thing we're going to talk about, because this is important anytime we talk about these words, is I don't want to just use the way that we use the word in our modern English language. I want to be able to have the understanding of what it means to the authors of the Bible, to the timeframe, so that we can really get the full impact of what the word means. Because hope, like we have that word and we kind of float that word out there sometimes as far as something that just can kind of mean like, man, I'm just kind of hoping that this thing will happen. Or I hope that it snows on Christmas Day. Or I hope that for Christmas my family buys me anything other than socks. Like you have these things that you say and that you put the same, but it's like kind of this like ethereal, almost like a wish list. Or sometimes people have this idea of hope or being hopeful is like being the eternal optimist. Like no matter what's happening, you had hope. Like some of you, your Thanksgiving turkey did not turn out well. You still had hope even when there was no room for hope. And yet you kept hoping and that turkey still was dry. I'm sorry if that was the case for you, but that sometimes happens, right? Like it can happen.
And so hope is, that's how we kind of use it in our modern language. But that is not at all what the Bible or how the Bible uses the word. And it's actually a word that's used a lot in the Old Testament, a lot in the Old Testament. And because of what we're going to study today, we're not going to look at all of them. But there's two real big words that we get to use in the Old Testament and in Hebrew that we study every year, which is the words yahal and kavah. And they both mean to wait or to hope for or to expect. This idea of waiting. Biblical hope is this idea of waiting and anticipating something to happen. And the word kavah is really great because it has the root, it's actually like a compound word, and kavah actually gives this idea of cord or line. And so to kavah for something is this anticipation. And so for today, I'm going to need a little bit of help to be able to illustrate this. And I try to pick someone new every year to be able to do this. So I need someone to be able to help me out. And so here's what Nick Chizo, come on, come up here real quick. Nick Chizo is a buddy of mine. He's really strong. And that's what I need. I need someone really strong. Can you give Nick a hand?
Yeah.
OK, so Nick.
Look, I even got a rogue fitness bank because I'm no year fan. So here's what this idea. There's this idea of kavahing that's like this thing of tension and expectantly waiting. And this illustration to me every year is like really great. So here's what's going to happen. Nick, I need you. You're very strong, way stronger. I need you to just hold on that, but two hands, just hold on to it. Now, you don't move. I'm going to move. So you just get yourself planted. So here's what happened. I just keep going and this band just keeps stretching and stretching and stretching and stretching. And there's a tension. Right. And I can keep going. And some of you, I can already see it in the face because one of two things could happen. I could keep going. And at some point, this is going to snap.
Right. This is a rogue fitness band. So it's really strong. And I'm not even sponsored by them, guys. But like it's really strong. OK. But at some point, this band would snap or even meaner. I could keep going. And you can see, although Nick really trusts me because he just brilliant. I could let go.
And Nick would be in a world of pain on his fingers right there. Right. But there's this tension that's happening right here, not just in this band, but in like, oh my gosh, when could it break? How many more steps can I take? How much further can I go before it breaks?
Is it just a little bit? When is it going to snap? And when the Bible talks about Yechal or Kavah, it's saying like, there's this tension. I'm anticipating that at any moment the breakthrough could happen. And in that moment, I will see God show up. And so I'm not going to snap it on his fingers, although it'd be funny. And some of you would laugh because you're like that. OK. Thank you, man. There we go. We're good. Give Nick another round of applause. Thanks, guys. Here's the thing.
So when we talk about hoping in God, it is far more than just like, well, I hope God does it, and then turn around and leave.
Hoping in God is this expectant waiting and in this tension of saying, I haven't seen what I'm hoping for yet, but I am going to actively wait and see that and just know that at any moment, suddenly the breakthrough could come. And I can see the result of what that looks like. And so here's the thing. Here's a great example of a biblical verse just so we can have one under our belts of putting this picture on our imagination. Psalm , verse , it saysand by the way, I'm going to put it in some of the Hebrew words because the English translation often changes the words and it doesn't give us this thing. So it says, "I am counting on," which is kava, like, "I'm counting on the Lord." Yes, I am counting on Him. I have put my hope in His Word. I long for the Lord more than centuries long for the dawn. Yes, more than centuries long for the dawn. O Israel, hope, Yechal, in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and His redemption overflows. Like, I'm justlike, I want us to have this picture that we are not hoping just in, like, this optimism. We're not even hoping in the evidence of what we see around us. We are hoping in the very goodness and the promise of who God is. Our hope is not based on an idea or even our surroundings. It is based on a person. And as New Testament believers, our hope is based on the very person of Jesus Christ. Like, He is our hope, the hope of our salvation, the thing that we get to hold on to. And in the New Testament, they replace this word because they're using Greek, not Hebrew, with the word "alpis," which is the same thing. It's this idea of hope. And if you read the Greek translation of the Old Testament, they would use alpis every time that they had this kava word or the yahal word, like, this idea of
it's the anticipation and the expectant anticipation.
But here's the problem with that. When we hope, if we're expectantly anticipating, what it actually means we're doing in hoping is we're waiting.
We're waiting.
We're waiting for that breakthrough to happen.
But here's the problem with waiting.
People hate to wait. I don't know if you've noticed this. How many people are Amazon Prime members? Come on. This isn't a, yeah, you know why. And you know why.
Because you hate to wait. You need that Prime shipping. Some of you, you won't even go for the best price you go by. Which one is overnight, to a.m.? I know you. You aren't even up at to a.m. But you're like, "But I want it to wait for me. I want it to wait for me because I don't want to wait for it."
Some of you are like that. This is no guilt or condemnation for those of you who are in Christ Jesus. But some of you don't want to wait. We are like the instant generation at this point. Like the younger you are, the more instant. Like people don't even understand. Like there was a time when you got paid, some of you older people remember this, you got a check.
And you had to take that check to the bank. And then you had to wait for that money to deposit to your account and post before you could spend it. There's a whole generation of people who have never experienced that in their entire life.
It's just there. It's instantaneous.
Some of you get cash out from your friends and you pay cents, so it shows up in your bank account right now.
The instant transfer. I need it right now. I can't wait three days. Jesus rose from the dead in three days. You think I can wait for $ for a Kedoba? No way.
We don't like to wait. We want things right away. We want our food right away. We want everything. There's this idea of like waiting is negative.
It's negative. You have to wait. It's not good.
We don't like that. And there's a couple of reasons for that.
So here's a few reasons why.
Many people don't like to wait because first of all, in their view, waiting is the awful stage between where they are and where they want to go.
It's the waiting is not any part of the journey. It's just the inconvenience to get to where I'm going. So we have this idea that waiting has no value whatsoever.
Secondly, people are fearful.
People are fearful. We are fearful at times. And because we're fearful, we're fearful of all of us. I'm fearful of the world around me. I'm fearful of people. I'm fearful of other people's influences, things that people could do against me. But I'm also fearful of my own thoughts and my own feelings. I'm fearful of the future. I'm fearful of lack. I'm fearful of uncertainty. I have a lot of fears in my life. And because I am fearful, it makes waiting really difficult.
Because when I'm waiting, all I think about is what if it doesn't go the way I think it should go?
What if it doesn't turn out the way? What if what I'm believing for and hoping for doesn't happen?
And so as fearful people, instead of waiting, we typically try to find what actions can I go and take to be able to get what I'm hoping for.
Like, "God, yeah, I hope in you, but you are taking too long.
So I am going to go and do it myself.
With your blessing, of course, oh, sovereign one of the universe, I'm going to go do it on my own. Because I'm afraid."
And the more afraid we are, the harder waiting becomes.
And here's the thing.
I think it's no surprise that in the story of Christmas, the Advent story, what we find, especially in the Gospel of Luke, are a bunch of characters who are waiting.
They are waiting on the Messiah. We see characters like Elizabeth. We see a character like Zechariah. We see Mary. We see Joseph. We see Simeon. We see Anna. We see these characters who were waiting on the Messiah. They were waiting on something. They were actively looking. And even though nothing around them gave them hope, they were in a place that was under oppression. They had seen so much dysfunction, brokenness, exile, the inability to worship with freedom. They were in a dire place. And yet this faithful remnant was waiting and hoping for the Messiah to come.
And we see that right away, that they were waiting for God to show up.
And here's a few things about hope. And we're going to kind of look at some of these things. We're going to look at five or six things today about hope and about waiting and how those things come together.
So hope, this is the first one, hope anticipates the promise.
Like we already said, I'm not just hoping in my own ideas. I'm not just hoping in what I see around me. My hope is based in the promises that God has given me. The word that he has spoken to me, whether it be through his word or through his Holy Spirit, to me personally, that I have a promise that has come from God. And my hope is based on him in the work of Jesus and the cross. And that is what I am doing. If we look into chapter one of Luke at the very beginning, verse , it says, "But then the angel said, don't be afraid, Zechariah. God has heard your prayer. Your wife, Elizabeth, will give you a son, and you are to name him John." And if you skip just a few verses down to verse to Mary, the angel says, "You will conceive and give birth to the son, and you will name him Jesus." You see, we as believers are not waiting on something that has not started. We are not trying to tell you to wait on something that has not even been created yet or that you're trying to wait for something out of nothing. No, we are believers who have already been had a seed of hope planted, a promise that has been given, and you are waiting for something to come that has already started, that the seed has been planted in the ground. And you may not be able to see what's happening, but that seed is growing. And so we are waiting from something to something greater. We are not operating from a place of absence, but from a place of a promise has happened. And if God has given you a promise, you can count on it that it will come to pass, that that hope is not frivolous or something that is not based on reality, because if he spoke it, he is faithful to bring it to pass in your life. So you can count on it. And the reason you can count on it is not just based on that's what the Bible says, but you can look back on the faithfulness of God and your life and in the people around you and in the Bible itself and say the one who is proven faithful and is the same yesterday, today and forever is the one that I'm going to hang my hat on, that if he said it, it's going to happen. And I can put that in the bank and count on it.
I am anticipating something that has been promised. I'm not just hoping in nothing. I'm not hoping in how good can I be?
If my hope was in myself, I might as well just call it quits now.
I will fall short. My hope is in him.
My hope is in the promise.
Elizabeth and Mary, who we're going to be looking at, God came and told them some crazy things. Elizabeth was crazy because they were very, very old. But God said, I'm going to give you a son.
And this is a pattern that's been repeated before. Abraham and Sarah were very, very old. And God said, I'm going to give you a son. And they didn't believe it.
God had to make Zachariah go completely mute so he wouldn't speak out against the promise.
It was really unlikely, but I guess not physically impossible, no matter how old. Unlikely, but not impossible.
But then Mary got a promise that wasn't just unlikely. It was impossible.
You, the virgin, will conceive because the Holy Spirit will come upon you and you will be with child. And you will name him Jesus. Yeshua, God who is with us.
And Mary says, may it be so.
What she was promised wasn't unlikely. It was impossible.
But she had been waiting for the Messiah to show up and she saw that God chose her.
And she believed it. And she held on to that.
And God showed up to Joseph and said the same thing. And he believed it. And they held on to it.
Here's the second thing. Hope, or waiting, we can use those as synonyms this morning.
It's active. The way we use hope today is like, is this passive thing? Like, I hope so. And there's nothing I can do about it.
Biblical hope is not passive. They weren't passively waiting for the Messiah to come. They were eagerly, daily anticipating that this could be the day that the Messiah arrives.
It is not passive. It is an active waiting. It is the belief that the ground that I'm on is the ground that the work will happen because the seed was already sown. The promise has already been given. I don't need to anticipate another day, another situation where there's no problems around me or my finances look better or my health improves or when I'm married and when I'm older. No, the promise has been given. And today I can anticipate and be active of what I'm doing right now. And I can wait.
That God's goodness is here, not at some time in the future, even when here doesn't look that great.
Here's the problem with impatience. Impatient people are always expecting that the real thing that they're hoping for is somewhere else.
And they have to go somewhere else to find it because it's not here. It's the whole idea of FOMO.
You guys know FOMO. Fear of missing out. Some of you have FOMO. And here's the problem with FOMO. You always believe that they're like, no matter where you're at, somewhere could be better. I'm hanging out with this group of friends and it's really fun. But what if there's another group of friends that's funner?
And I missed it. We have this idea that there's this, it'll be better there. It'll be better there. Tomorrow will be better. This next season will be better. This next job will be better. This next relationship will be better. This next stage of life will be better. The next house will be better. And the problem is we're always looking to the better. It'll be better there. It'll be better there. And you miss the moment. Hope is being able to be fully present in this moment, knowing that God will meet you here right now.
God is the God of right here. When he showed up to Moses in the burning bush, he didn't say, hey, I need you to go somewhere else. And when you get there, that'll be holy ground. He said, no, take off your shoes because right here in this moment, Moses, is holy ground. Where God meets you in the hope of anticipating and waiting is right here in the middle of the hardship, in the middle of the brokenness, in the middle of the difficulty, in the middle of the waiting, he meets you right there and it is active. And you meet him there. You have the conviction that something is happening where I am. And I want to be present for it.
I wrote this down. One who believes that the moment is the moment right now.
I'm waiting for the moment that God shows up and that moment is right now. And I'm just waiting for when it snaps. I don't know when the breakthrough will happen, but I know the moment that God shows up in my life is right now because he's with me right now.
And as I'm hoping, I'm actively believing that I can be present here. Because see, if I'm always like, what about this? What about when I have this? What about I get distracted and then I miss the moment and the thing that God's trying to do with me and through me and to me in this moment, I'm missing and I can't be a blessing for others because I'm too busy being focused on the future.
And instead I can be present when my hope is in Jesus. I can be present for right now. And even though the rest of my circumstances may not look how I would like them to look, I can be used and available for God in this moment.
Because I'm anticipating and waiting with him. Here's the third thing.
Hope is patient. The willingness to stay that we are believing that God's goodness is here and we can wait right here.
It's here. It's in the middle. It's active and it's patient. I'm waiting.
Here's the fourth one. This is a big one. Hope is openended. Hope is openended. What do I mean by that?
Here's what happens. We tend to believe and we're waiting for something that has a concrete ending.
We want there to be an ending. God, I'm hoping for this thing. I create this hope. I have this idea in my mind of what I want to see. And so I'll know that you came through when I experienced this concrete ending that I'm expecting to see. But the problem is often what happens is we are confusing the hope that we have in Jesus and the things that have for us with our wish lists and our desires that we have. And so what we say we're hoping for is a promotion at work or a new car or a bigger house or a spouse or whatever it is. And what we confuse as, "God, I'm hoping for you to do this." And what we're doing is actually creating our own wish list with a closeended result. That I'll know God showed up when I got that new house or when I got that promotion or when I got that car or when a bank account says this or when a retirement fund says this.
And so when we convolute those things together, we're not waiting, but we're trying to control the future.
I'm not waiting on God to do in me and through me and to me what only God can do. I'm trying to say, "God, I need you to do this for me so I can control the outcome of what I think is best." Instead of saying, "You know what's best for me, and so I trust you, and here I am waiting."
Now, am I telling you that you shouldn't believe for those things you're like? No, that's not what I'm saying. But when you have closeended ideas that the only way that God is faithful to you is whenever you get that new car that you've put pinned on the back of your desktop, then you've only created one result. And if God doesn't do that because he knows there's something better for you or that that's not what will bring you happiness, you think that God failed you because you didn't get what you asked for.
That is closeended, and so therefore you hope in something that only one result is the answer. And God says, "I know way better than you."
When we have openended hope, we can bring our beliefs and our desires and our heart, and we can make requests to God and believe that he hears us. But what we know is that even if I don't get this job or even if I don't receive this thing or even if this healing doesn't come through in the time frame that I think it, I am here trusting in you. I'm hoping in you. And it's openended.
And that's why hope is such an act of trust and faith. That faith is the evidence of things hoped for.
That I'm believing that God, I have these things, these very real needs, and I think I know a good way for you to fix it. I don't know about you, but I have a lot of ways that I could tell God how he needs to fix things in my life and here at the church.
I've told him many times. I've even shown him Excel spreadsheets to help him out. Lord, as you can see here, there's an overrun and an underrun, and as the graph shows, thank you for your consideration. Amen.
And it would probably really move like a boardroom investor type of people.
But if I say, God, the only way that you're faithful is you show up for the way that I just gave you my PowerPoint presentation, then not only am I limiting God, I'm not trusting God.
I'm not trusting that his deepest desire is for my greatest happiness in him.
That's his deepest desire for me, that he loves me that much.
And so I get to trust him in an open way, that it will be fulfilled according to the promise, not just to my wishes.
So for me, I'm in the process of trying to let go of some of these wishes and start embracing more hope, embracing hope.
And I can bring the same thing before him, the same thing I need, the same financial need, the same health need, the same relational need, the same person that I'm praying for. I can still bring this, but instead of dictating how that win looks like, I say, this is the need and my trust and my hope is in you.
Open. Show up and move how only you can move. I trust you. I trust you.
The last one, number five. Hope, the waiting, it's best done in community.
It's best done in community. Church, if you want to know why it's important to be part of a church body, why it's important to be in a small group, why it's important to have friends who are like that, it is best done in community. Because what you're hoping for is what the world will say is crazy and possible, delusional, doesn't make any sense. What you're waiting for, the world will tell you that it is broken. The world will tell you that you're foolish. What you are waiting for is something that only God can do. And you need to be surrounded by people who will not scoff at the hope that you have in God, but will encourage and create space for the hope that you have in God. Guess what? When Mary found out, this year old girl was visited by an angel and said, "You are going to be with child."
And she lived in a culture very different from ours today. In which a teenager who was impregnated out of wedlock, the punishment was death or at best complete social rejection. So she left her hometown where everyone knew her and knew that she wasn't married.
So she went to her cousin's house, Elizabeth, the old lady who was pregnant.
And she went to this place where she could be in community with someone else that she had heard. She's also experiencing a miracle because this old lady, this old cousin of mine just got pregnant and her husband can't even talk right now. So it's a safe place.
She went to community. She went to community to be with her family, to be with a cousin. And listen to this. I wasn't going to read this, but I felt this morning I had to. And so it's not going to be on the screen. Luke chapter , of you have your Bible and you can turn to it.
It says, "And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
And she exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb." Do you think that's what Mary thought she was going to encounter when she went to her cousin's house as a person who just said, "Yeah, I didn't have sex. I just got impregnated by the Holy Spirit."
I bet she wasn't the first person to try it. Do you think that what she expected, maybe she thought my cousin will love me unconditionally. Maybe she thought she's cool. Maybe she thought she'll at least protect me. Maybe she thought her husband's mute and I can at least get some quiet. Like I don't know what she expected, but I doubt that what she expected was the moment that she greeted her cousin. That the very spirit of God, the same spirit, the raised Jesus from the dead entered into her womb and filled her body. And what she said was that, "Blessed are you, blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb." And it was, "Well, why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord, the one who holds unto the promise."
And let's know what Mary said. So she comes for this and this is what Elizabeth said. Listen what Mary says to her back.
As a result of coming into community and someone who acknowledges that there's a promise and that we're in the waiting.
Neither one of them have had this baby yet, but they're both with child. They're both growing. You can't see what's happening, but it's happening.
Mary says, "My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. For he has looked on the humble estate of this servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed because of the promise, because of the hope.
For he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him. From generation to generation, he has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their heart, and he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.
He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped the servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy, and he has spoken to our fathers to Abraham and to his offspring forever."
Listen. Mary remained there about three months until she returned home because while she was waiting, she needed a community in her life. She needed someone who wasn't going to speak cursing or judgment or lack of faith or disbelief. Instead, she would wit with someone who was also hoping for the same thing for God to do for her, the same thing that she was doing for him. So she got into community together and they together waited for God to do what only God could do.
Sometimes God speaks to your heart, and what you do is you try to go to other people who don't believe in God and tell them this dream that God put you in your heart. And then you're shocked whenever they try to crush the dream.
When something is a seed, you've got to protect it.
You have to take that seed. And when it first starts, that's the most infant thing that can happen. It has to be protected. It has to be cultivated. It has to be cared for. At one point, a tree will be so large that the wind of the storm cannot blow it down. But when it is little and young, you have to keep it in community and put it in a greenhouse and keep it safe until it's deeply rooted and connected. And so when you're in the process of hoping and waiting, you do not need to surround yourself like, "I'm going to post this out there on the internet and see what people say," because they will say, "You are foolish."
They will not believe in you. Somebody's saying, "Well, I'm going to tell my parents, even though they don't believe the same way I do and they're always judging me." Don't tell them.
You keep that in your heart. Mary kept these things in her heart and she treasured them, and she went to where she needed to go to find the community that could create space and the affirming love and power to be encouraged in the word of God in her life. And the promise, and when Elizabeth said it to her, she encouraged it. And what Mary said to her, she encouraged it. And they together created a community and they held on to the promise.
In one birth, John the Baptist, in the other birth, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. And that is what we get to hold on to.
So when we say we celebrate hope in this season, it's not just a cool decal that we can put on a window.
It is the very person of Jesus Christ and the promises that he has. And I am waiting. There are things that I am eagerly anticipating, waiting for that cord to snap here in our church and for some of you and your families and what you're believing for and in my family and people. I am waiting and I am hoping and I am praying and believing and saying, "God, I am just anticipating and eager for you to show up for your promise."
And if you want to know what the promise is, there are so many. There are so many that are for each and every one of your situations. But today, in closing, I want to read this promise. I'm just going to invite you to stand right where you're at.
Just let these words, you can read them, you can close your eyes, you can listen to them.
Romans chapter , , it says this,
"Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are.
Against its will, all creation was subject to God's curse, but with eager hope the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children and glorious freedom from death and decay.
For we know that all creation has been groaning as in pains of childbirth, right up to this present time.
And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering.
We too wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he's promised us.
We were given this hope when we were saved. If we already have something, we don't need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don't have yet, we must wait patiently and confidently.
And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don't know what God wants us to pray, but the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.
And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God's will.
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance and he chose them to become like his son so that his son would be the first among the brothers and the sisters.
And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given him right standing, he gave them his glory. What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can be against us? It says he did not even spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. Won't he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse God, or who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one for God himself has given us right standing with himself.
Who then will condemn us? No one for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us and is sitting in the place of honor at God's right half, pleading for us.
Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love?
Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity or are persecuted or hungry or a destitute or endangered or threatened with death?
As the scriptures say, for your sake, we will be killed every day and we are being slaughtered like sheep.
No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us.
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life nor angels nor demons neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow. Not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below. And indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So we hope and so we wait.
And we hold on to the promise.
And when we're in the tension of the now and the not yet, in the process of becoming, we patiently and eagerly hope knowing that today I can see God's goodness.
Today I can see that miracle.
Today I can stand in this place and know that in this ground he's working.
And I will see a miracle and he will be faithful to keep his promise to me.
No matter what I see around me.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you so much for today.
Thank you for the hope that we have in Jesus.
Lord, help us wait for you.
Help us be able to eagerly trust in you. That we will see your goodness here in the land of the living.
Our hope is in you.
Our hope is Jesus.
We love you this morning.
It's in your holy name we pray.
Amen and amen. Church, a couple things. We can give God some praise this morning. Come on.
Last couple things before you're dismissed. If you need prayer for anything, if you have questions about salvation, what does it look like to put your hope in Christ? Our prayer team will be down here at the front. They would love to pray with you. Answer any questions for that or anything else. Also, don't forget, if you haven't gotten a chance to take your family picture, they're going to be out in the lobby after service. Get your kids, get the group, get together, take that picture. And for those of you who haven't done it yet, sign up for the cookies. It's going to be awesome next week. It's going to be amazing. You don't want to miss it as we continue our series and we talk about peace next week. It's going to be just, it's going to be awesome. You don't want to miss it. Love you guys. Have a great rest of your Sunday.
