The Power of Hope

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Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's pray together, church.

Lord, it's not lost on us.

As we sang earlier, that this all started, we were in the darkness without hope and without life.

And you didn't have to come.

You could have just left us there and still been God.

You could have left us there in our natural state of darkness.

Just existing.

No life.

Just muddling through, paying the bills, trying to get ahead.

We were in darkness, by nature, in darkness without hope and without life.

And then Big King Jesus, the manger king, came hurtling out of heaven like a meat meteor and boom, splashed down.

It changed everything.

Everything.

We can't hate people we used to hate and love hating them.

Now we've got to forgive people.

We don't got to, we get to forgive people because we've been forgiven of everything.

We can't hold grudges against our spouse.

We can't resent our kids.

We can't get mad at our neighbor who can't seem to keep it on the driveway and drives on that little strip of grass that's really mine, not his.

We pray in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

If you got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up to Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

I'll start reading in verse 18.

Uh uh, and welcome to the first Sunday of Advent at Grand Parkway.

Our theme this year is wonders of his love.

Wonders of his love.

One of the wonders of his love is the incarnation.

Sorry, I got a little emotional.

It just kind of I meditate on it during Advent and the undeserved nature of it.

That you didn't have to come and you came.

And the way in which you came was so subtle and yet so threatening to everything that I prefer.

Uh uh and so, and that's good for me.

I want to talk to you today about the power of hope from Romans chapter 8, starting in verse 18.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

We read these words.

Paul says, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Notice that the Bible doesn't say you're not going to suffer, it says that it's not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, as daughters, as children of God, the redemption of our bodies.

For in this hope we were saved.

Now, hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes what he sees?

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

The power of hope comes from us being reminded of and believing four things today.

And the first one is this is that hope is born of consideration and comparison.

Hope is born of consideration and compare comparison.

This is what verse 18 tells us to talk about.

Now let me get it, let me just speak to the obvious uh uh reality in the room for many of you to talk about hope with all that's going on.

Sounds like I'm somebody that doesn't live in reality.

And yet the Bible says the exact opposite is true.

Uh uh you say, why?

Because Paul uses these three words.

He says, for I consider, for I consider.

He doesn't overlook or deny or act like it isn't going on.

That word consider is such a rich word.

I brought you a definition for it because I think you would say consider, like, oh, I gave some thought to that and decided against it.

No, this is what consider means when he says it.

For I consider, it means to reckon, to count, to compute, to calculate, to count over, to take into account, to make an account of and mediate on.

I mean, make some decisions because of what you count and what adds up there.

So, so, so, so no, to hope is not to ignore what is all around you, but to consider it.

Uh, at the end of the year, I meet with the staff and their spouses and I have a pastor friend in town just to say, hey, how are you doing?

How are we are we treating you?

Uh, do you have a good work-life balance, all that?

Uh, it's not about job performance, it's about our responsibility to take care of our staff.

Uh, and I have a pastor friend in town, he's like, Well, why do you do that?

Because uh a spouse, especially a woman, will not let her husband be taken advantage of without taking up an offense.

Uh, and they'll say, Oh, yeah.

And so, uh, but I met with one couple this past week, and it was great because the wife said, Yeah, I just kind of wrote down our year.

And I was like, wow, and it was a list, and she didn't read it, but I know some of the stuff.

And I thought about this.

I said, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

So if you if before you went to bed today tonight, we could all make a list of just these are the things that have happened and didn't see that coming, couldn't afford that, what was up with that?

And I'm gonna stand before you this morning and say that hope is born of consideration and comparison.

And unless you do that, he didn't say don't do it, he just says, I don't think it's it's worth it, because the glory that is to come far as outweighs the sufferings of right now.

And so, unless you're careful, uh uh uh you're gonna miss that.

And it's just gonna be, you're gonna get stuck in this.

And so once you recovered from that offensive blast, uh, think about this.

Uh I'm not saying we're not going to suffer.

I'm saying they're not worth comparing with the glory that is be to be revealed to us.

And one of the reasons that we are not a hopeful people, that Christians in America are not hopeful people, is that we've lost sight of the glory that is to come.

And what we fixate and focus on is what's happening right now.

We fixate on Israel and Hamas, Russia and Ukraine, the economy, politics, the interest rate, RSV, my kids, my marriage, death, artificial intelligence, the T-SIPs might get into the college playoff and the ags didn't.

I mean, good gosh, what the what the this world's going to hell in a handbasket.

And as heavy as all that is, let it remind you of the glory that is to come.

This is not escapism, this is engagement.

Consideration and comparison ward off self-pity and unbelief.

Let me say that again.

Consideration, unless you're not learning to engage in consideration and comparison.

Consider.

Take account of all the suffering that you're going through and compare it with the glory that is to come.

Unless you do that, uh you'll just be racked with self-pity and with unbelief.

I hear a lot of people say, Well, I tried Christianity, but it's just not working for me anymore, so I just quit.

And I say back to them, it wasn't working for you.

I appreciate the sentiment of that, but there's a good chance you probably weren't working at it.

And they go, What do you mean?

You're supposed to work at it.

Yeah, they never engage their mind to wrestle some of these things to the ground until these feelings submitted to the reality and the truths of the gospel in all their glory, weight, magnitude, thickness of being.

Well, I tried it, it just didn't work for me.

Yeah, there's a reason the Bible says, take every thought captive and make it obedient to King Jesus.

You can't just say, Well, I had a feeling and I just went with that feeling, you're gonna be a flighty, insecure person the rest of your life.

Yeah, I'm not saying you're not gonna have dark thoughts, but you've got to take that thing by the neck and subject it to the reality of the gospel and say, I'm gonna hold you under this gospel water until the bubbles stop.

This is where hope comes from because they won't leave you alone.

They won't leave you alone.

They won't like, oh, I'm gonna have another pour of red, I'm gonna feel better.

No, you're not.

You're gonna become an addict.

Hope is born of consideration and comparison.

You got to believe that and embrace that if you're ever gonna experience the power of hope.

The second thing you gotta believe is that God does what he does in hope.

God does what God does in hope.

It's verse 19.

Um, it says, for the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, okay?

Not willingly.

Creation is not just at the mercy of climate change, like, oh, it's been set in emotion, and no one's at the control center, and this thing's out of control and off the rails, and it's up to us to save it.

Can I just say graciously, get over yourself, people?

You climate worshipers, get over yourself.

Greta Thornburg, go back to the eighth grade.

Stop lecturing the world with your anger and no content.

For creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope.

And here's the hope that God has in subjecting creation to futility, that creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

Now, when I say God does what he does in hope, this is what I mean.

How can you wait with eager longing when you've been subjected to futility for thousands of years?

This is what creation is able to do.

Creation waits with eager longing, and it's been subjected since the garden, okay, to futility.

Now, there's three things at the center of this, that three true statements that allow creation.

I'm not talking human beings, I'm talking about rocks and trees and skies and everything that you see, that it's so easy to focus on and fixate on and fall in love with and kind of get an attitude towards God or people.

And now I'm saying this, my generation is the one that made the Indian cry, okay?

I remember as a kid, we'd be going down the road, my dad just throwing it out the window, we just threw stuff everywhere.

I remember seeing the commercial with the Indian.

Remember the commercial, the old Indian cries?

I was like, I don't think that's good.

Uh we're littering too much.

Uh nobody, you know, nobody litters anymore.

Nobody, you're not right with anybody rolling away and throw stuff out.

You're like, hey man, go back and pick that up.

So I'm not saying just we don't care about the planet, I'm saying stewardship, not worship.

Big, big difference in those two.

But there's three things that allows creation.

I mean, what does creation know that we don't?

Well, well, here's three things that allow them to wait eagerly.

Number one, that there's someone behind it all.

There is someone behind it all.

It says verse 20, because of him who subjected it.

Christianity is not about something, it's about someone.

And he is behind it all.

He's not always not obvious.

He doesn't say, hey, look what I'm doing.

Notice I'm doing.

Be hopeful.

No, no, there's someone behind it all.

Secondly, his motivation for all that he does is hope.

That word hope means an expectation of good.

Let me ask you a very vulnerable question.

Do you expect good?

Or have you just kind of calibrated to, well, let's just get ready.

Those shoes are gonna drop.

Brace yourself for impact.

Hope is the expectation of good.

And the Bible says that he subjected creation to futility in hope.

Because he did that because he believes that some good's gonna come out of it.

Third thing the creation believes is that he is redeeming everything he created, he is redeeming everything he created.

Do not miss this.

Verse 21.

Let me read it again.

It says that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

Now, don't miss this.

What do you mean?

Creation is going to one day be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom that Christians already have, right?

Do you see that?

Do you understand that?

Say amen.

Oh, okay.

Stay with me, okay?

Now you that that's right out of the Bible.

Creation is going to one day be set free from its bondage to corruption and it's going to obtain the freedom that we Christians already have.

Okay, then riddle me this, Batman.

How confusing must it be to creation to watch you get free and then turn around and worship it when what it groans for and waits for in eager expectation is to have the freedom that you and I have.

I know it's advent, but think a little bit.

When you obtain the glorious freedom that only belongs to the children of God, and then you turn around and worship creation or the climate, it's an offense to God and his purposes in setting you free because basically you're in effect exchanging freedom for a socially acceptable form of bondage.

And creation doesn't respect you.

And by the way, if you ever have a conversation with a climate person and you say that to them, it doesn't go well.

I mean, they lose their mind.

Uh such was the case.

I was, I preached at a church.

I won't say where, because some of you know where it is.

Uh, and a man came up and he said, Can I have a word with you?

And I was like, sure, absolutely.

And he just said, uh, it started off nice, and then when I didn't agree, it wasn't nice and it wasn't harsh.

It was kind of somewhere in between, whatever's not nice and not harsh, like opinionated, I don't know.

Uh and he said, I just think you should use your platform to advocate for the planet.

And I said, Actually, I think my worldview is more hopeful than yours because my belief system says it gets better.

Your belief system says it's just gonna get worse, and it's up to us to keep it from getting any worse because right now it's as good as it's ever going to be.

He said, Well, we're gonna fundamentally disagree.

I said, Going to.

We fundamentally disagreed when you got up this morning, and I'm not mad at you, bro.

I mean, I just I'm not gonna waste my life worshiping creation instead of the creator who is forever praised, like Romans 1 talks about.

Well, you know, the Bible, I don't think the Bible has the final say.

I said, and we disagree about that too.

And then I said this because I just thought, I'm already out here in trouble, might just go all the way.

I said, You have never seen the world as God created it to be.

And he looked at me, he's like, Oh, well, because a man's you know, destructive pattern and the carbon footprint and fracking, fracking.

He hated fracking, by the way.

And I said, I love fracking.

If it brings down the price of gas, I love fracking.

Drill, baby, drill.

Uh because I just thought we already in trouble.

Let me just get at him here.

And he's like, bah.

And I said, Man, I'm just telling you, you've never seen the world the way God created it to be.

And he goes, I've been to some of the most beautiful places in the world.

I said, I have too.

I've been to Hawaii four times.

I put it out on the 18th green on a nice golf course in Hawaii, watching the sun sink into the ocean.

I just stopped.

He was like the Holy Spirit said, Check this out.

Hello.

How about me now?

It was a worshipful moment.

Besides, I took some money off the guys I was playing with.

It was a worshipful moment watching the sun go down.

I've been to beautiful places, been to Switzerland.

I was talking to a friend this week who grew up in Switzerland.

I was like, oh man, it's incredibly beautiful over there.

Iger in the Swiss Al, incredible.

But you and I have never, not only that guy, but none of you have ever seen creation the way God created it to be.

Allow me to demonstrate.

I brought some pictures today.

I'll just show you a picture.

You'll look at this picture and kind of go, oh, that may be attractive.

And I'm just gonna tell you that's ugly.

That's not the way God created that to be.

You're like, what is that?

That's a place called Antelope Canyon, about three hours from the Grand Canyon.

Tourists go to the Grand Canyon, geologists go to Antelope Canyon.

Hideous! Isn't that terrible?

Don't you look at that and think, sin has ruined that?

No.

But wait, there's more.

Unbelievably cursed, right?

Yes, as pretty as that is, it is not the way.

That right there is groaning as a woman in the pangs of childbirth.

I don't know if you've ever been in a room, but it's not like on the TV.

Look at that.

That is somebody manipulating their lens, sinful, under the curse, not the way God created it to be.

As beautiful as it is.

And I'm not saying don't appreciate beauty.

What I'm saying is you've never seen creation the way God created it to be.

Terrible.

Terrible.

Who would want to look out their back window and see that?

Reminds you what a fallen world you live in.

Now, see, if you're giggling right now, you're like my climate friend who is like, ha ha, and I said, Hey, I'm not saying it's not beautiful.

There's things that take your breath away sometimes.

You should always stop and pause for beauty.

But here's the problem: you've never seen the world the way God created it to be.

It is groaning as a woman in the pains of childbirth, waiting for the sons of God to be revealed.

That's what the text says.

Amen?

Yeah, that's what it says.

I'm gonna resist the temptation to say it's like an old MM song, creation is saying, would the real sons of God, please stand up, please stand up, please stand up.

So we can be liberated from our bondage to decay.

So see, here's what happens when God's redeeming everything He created, and you and I get free and we turn around and worship anything but God, you are just choosing a socially acceptable form of bondage.

Creation longs to have what you have, and creation, if you worship the climate or creation, it does not respect you.

It's the third thing you have to embrace if you're gonna be uh experience the power of hope.

You need the right hope.

You need the right hope.

Verse 22 says, For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, we have the first fruits of the spirit.

We groan inwardly as we wait patiently for our adoption as sons and daughters, the redemption of our bodies.

For in this hope we were saved.

Underline verse 24, for in this hope we were saved.

Many of us do not experience power in relation to our hope for two simple reasons.

I mean, just ask yourself does hope is hope a powerful reality in you?

Or every time you get bad news, every time you get a bad diagnosis or a test result, or your kid doesn't get into the sorority or fraternity that they want to get into, or you just see mostly just regular, like, what kind of God would let this happen?

You see, we have the wrong hope.

We don't experience the power of hope for two reasons.

Number one, there's a lot of groaning going on.

The Bible says that creation groans.

The Bible says that we who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we're not exempt from groaning.

By the way, groaning, you may think groaning, remember Sam Storm stood up here, he's like, oh, not that kind of groaning, not like, oh man, it's exciting.

Groaning means to sigh with grief.

To sigh with grief.

It's just like, oh, are you serious right now?

Yes.

You know how I sighed with grief over this week?

I got in my truck uh and the pressure tire indicator thing is messed up on one of my tires, and it pops up on the on the on the dashboard.

Every time I start my truck, and I'm like, I've checked all the air, all the tires have good air, but it's so painful that the computer is sending me a bad message and that little light stays on.

It's vexing to me.

I've lived in America too long.

Yes, yes.

You see, there's a lot of groaning.

To groan means to sigh with grief.

There's a lot of people going through something, okay?

Don't back off from them.

Matter of fact, step towards them because the task is to wait eagerly while you groan inwardly.

Let me say that again.

The task is to wait eagerly, to wait eagerly, okay?

To wait, uh, that Greek word wait, it's a big long, convoluted word, but the root word is head.

And so the way you wait affects your head.

And so look at me.

So, what they were saying was, hey, we're not waiting with our head down, but when they're talking about it's that their head is up and they're looking at the horizon to see what or who may be coming.

This is how they wait.

They don't wait like this.

Well, you know, I didn't get my bonus this year and I don't know what we're gonna do.

I'm not gonna be able to go skiing.

That's a first world problem.

Love skiing.

First world problem.

Here's the second reason we're gonna experience hope.

We have the wrong hope.

We have the wrong hope.

Our hope is not the hope that the Bible talks about.

Verse 23, hear it again.

And 24, we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, as daughters, as the children of God, the redemption of our bodies.

For in this hope we were saved.

We were saved in the hope that this life is not all there is.

Our body is going to break down because we live in a fallen world that's under the penalty of sin.

We're living that out.

And so our hope, the hope that they were saved in in the Bible is that our bodies are going to be redeemed one day.

And not only our bodies, but because God is redeeming everything that He created, it's all going to be redeemed.

None of it is as it should be, nor is it as it will one day be.

This is the genesis of hope.

The problem for many people in America is that this is not the hope they were saved in.

Because it's not the hope that was preached to you.

A lot of it is on preachers, but their hope is in getting saved or becoming a Christian.

Their hope was that life would get easier, your kids would become more compliant, we get more stuff, have more friends.

People would be nicer, life would be easier, and when that does not happen, we're at a loss and we begin to doubt God's existence, much less his sufficiency.

What we do is we dress up our desires like hope and we expect God to treat them the same way.

Let me say that again.

We dress up our desires like hope and expect God to treat them the same.

Desires are about now, hope is about then.

The problem with that is that if you can see it, you don't need faith in relation to it.

If your desire is just for something new and something next, you can see it.

You got it picked out.

You went down to the dealership and said, I'll be back at the end of the year.

Nothing wrong with that.

That's a desire.

That's not a hope.

Who hopes for what he sees?

See, the Bible liberates us from dressing up our desires like it's hope is that here go God.

God sees through that costume.

Here's the last thing I want you to understand about the power of hope that hope involves waiting.

Hope involves waiting.

What do you mean?

Waiting is the ultimate testament to the fact that someone else is in charge of some of the things most essential to my sense of hope and well-being.

Long sentence.

Let me read it again, let me say it again, and I'll demonstrate.

Waiting is the ultimate testament to the fact that someone else is in charge of some of the things most essential to my sense of hope and well-being.

Now, I know you come to church sometimes, you're like, Pastor, I don't understand.

You use a lot of big words and big sentences, and I'm, well, uh, waiting is the ultimate testament to the fact that someone else was in charge of things essential to my wife.

Have you ever gone to a restaurant and got a bad waiter or waitress?

Then you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Someone else is in charge of things that are essential to your well-being.

And like when I ask for ranch dressing, and 10 minutes later the guy walks by and I'm like, hey, the ranch?

Oh, yeah, I forgot.

I knew you forgot.

That's why we're talking right now.

I don't need you to tell me you forgot.

I need you to tell me you remember and you're sorry, and I'm gonna get a free dessert.

My experience is me, and my wife and kids just pick up their menus and bury their face in them.

I'm like, we've already ordered kids, put your menus down.

And then the guy comes back.

I'm helping him.

I'm not hating on him.

I tell him, hey man, tips is an acrostic.

It means to ensure proper service.

What you think you're gonna get out of this?

Well, man, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, don't pay the bills.

Okay?

I'm ensuring that the next person you wait on is gonna get proper service.

And they come over and they're like, hey man, we all good.

Yeah, yeah, I hate my salad dry.

I'm all good.

I gotta go home, jam a garden hose down my throat and wash it down, but I'm good.

See, you it might help you to understand that I wish I was kidding.

I'm not, I it might help you understand this.

I'm not a man of sentiment, I'm a man of principle, okay?

You don't take care of me, I don't take care of you.

Have you noticed they want you to tip on anything these days?

You go into a place to get it together, they go, would you like to tip?

Yeah, plant your corn early.

There's a tip.

I never missed an opportunity to tell them you're just begging, stop being so moochy.

COVID made everybody a bomb.

Hey man, you want to tip me?

Tip you for what?

I stood up here and ordered this.

I told you what to put in it, and you put it in a bag and handed it to me.

I'm not giving you$3.40 for that.

Get out of here.

Whatever happened is shame.

And then by that time my wife's walking home, I gotta pick her up, she's hitchhiking.

Do you have to say something every time?

I try not to.

And then they say something, and I'm like, oh no, you didn't.

Hope involves waiting.

Waiting is the ultimate testament to the fact that someone else is in charge of some of the things most essential to your sense of hope and well-being.

And yet, look at me.

And yet, this is what you really want.

You say, I don't know about that.

Yeah, you do.

We we want it all to depend on somebody bigger, better, and beyond us.

I mean, think about it for a moment.

Do you really want everything essential to your sense of hope and well-being to depend on you?

That sounds good, like, oh, I'm a self-made man.

I would say to you, that is the genesis of anxiety.

To believe that I'm the only one who can help me is a lot of pressure to put on me.

I would also say this hope, well, what do I mean?

Hope involves waiting.

I would say, here's why, because God structured the world such that waiting is an essential part of our existence.

Let me talk to you people over here.

God structured the world such that waiting is an essential part of our existence.

And I would go a step further.

I would say it's been that way since the Garden of Eden.

Genesis chapter 3, we read these words, after Adam and Eve distrusted God and sinned, and sin entered into the world.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

God says this to Adam and Eve in verse Genesis 3:15.

Genesis 3:15

I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

Did you hear it?

I will.

I will, I will, he shall, you shall, I will, he shall, you shall.

You got to wait on that to happen.

It took thousands of years for this to come to fulfillment, and yet everything in all of existence depended on it.

Let me say that again.

Sometimes we hear holy things and we handle holy things so much we're no longer burned and jolted by what we hear and what we touch.

Hear it again, beloved.

It took thousands of years for this messianic promise to come to fulfillment, and yet everything and all of existence depended on it.

And God came through just like he said he would.

And here's why.

Because he wants you and I to have a certainty to place our hope in.

That certainty is not a place, it is a person, and only when our faith is in him can we wait patiently.

Don't tell me what you have faith in.

Let me watch you wait for something that you can't control the outcome, you can't make it come faster.

Let me watch you wait for that, and I'll tell you what you have faith in.

You pick up the phone and you try to leverage your social network or your connections.

Or if you say, hey, how much would it cost to speed this thing up?

You have faith in your ability and your capacity.

When you wait, when you wait, as the Bible says, the hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes what he sees.

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Let me close by asking a simple question this morning.

Is your hope, as you said in this room right now, is it in something you can see or in something you cannot see?

Let's pray together.

If you're a guest today, just relax.

We like to teach the Bible and give you some soul space to think about it.

And today we're thinking about this reality called hope.

It's not an emotion, it's a state of being.

What does that mean?

That means you can be sad and hopeful at the same time.

You can be concerned and be hopeful at the same time.

But God did not create us to live in bondage to all that we see.

So let's take a moment and just think about these things.

I'm gonna voice a prayer.

Some questions come up on the screen to think about.

Maybe just pick out one or two and just go, ooh, I want to talk about that at lunch.

Let me pray.

Holy Spirit, thank you.

That the Bible is compact, it's nourishing and nutritious, it's thought-provoking, life-altering, me sacrificing and God glorifying all at the same time.

And it is effortless.

The Bible does all that effortlessly.

We have to exert some effort sometimes.

We have to take our thoughts captive and say, nope, nope, that's not in keeping with the gospel.

My God is better than that.

His plans for me exceed that.

I'm not gonna live in fear.

So, Holy Spirit, just brood over us.

We want to be people of hope.

And so, wherever we need to find an alignment, bring it this morning.

We just wait, think, listen, sing, remind, orient ourselves around to and towards the power of hope that is ours in God because of the gospel.

Father, what a lot of this comes down to is who's reigning over the life that we're living right now.

The church answer is to say, Oh, Jesus, yeah, God, the big man, you know, I believe.

Then we ought to be some of the most hopeful people that anybody knows.

Not disconnective, naive emotion, but gutty, gospel-centered hope.

He says, Yeah, yeah, this is going on, and I still have hope.

I lift my eyes up to the heels.

Where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord.

So I receive any kind of help I need to from people, and I see that as an expression of God's care for me.

My help comes from the Lord.

So, Holy Spirit, make us remind us that we are people of hope.

That this all started when we were in darkness without hope and without life.

And from heaven you came running.

There was mercy in your eyes, and we're better for it because we were created for it.

We're grateful.

So we say thank you in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen, amen.

If you're a guest today, let me say thanks for being here.

You're always welcome.

If you're not meaningfully connected to a church, we would love for you to be a part of what God's doing here at Grand Park Way, okay?

Uh Advent services are kind of streamed down, there's no announcement, thing like that, because we want to just focus on every Sunday on our theme.

What we're going to talk about.

And this today was hope.

Uh, but if you have any questions about anything you heard, some of us will be available down front.

We'd love uh to talk with you, to pray with you, whatever.

There's a number on the screen.

If you're visiting, you can text.

Welcome to that.

It gives us a record of your being here.

Uh, and we just want to help you take your next step in your journey towards a relationship with God or in your relationship with God, okay?

If today's the day you worship God through obedience or generosity when it comes to giving, you can take care of that by the at the offering boxes by the doors on your way out, or you can do it online.

That's between you and God.

All right.

We'd like to conclude our service with a spoken blessing.

Now, before I have you stand up, I want you to notice that once again, we are getting out early.

We're also looking for a new worship pastor.

Put your resume.

No.

No.

Uh, and here's why.

We like, I told you during advent, we want you to have time to check in and check on, check in with each other, check on each other, get your picture taken at the photo booth.

I photo bombed some family, they were all posing, and I jumped in, their kids were like, make the bad man go away.

Anyway, we're not gonna conclude our service with a spoken blessing.

So stand to your feet, hold your hands out.

Hope is not an emotion you try to sustain through effort.

It is a reality that is nourished by biblical understanding of God and the gospel.

Depart now.

As people of hope.

And always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is within you.

In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.