A Thrill of Hope: Hope

This podcast of the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know.

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Amen.

Let's pray together.

The hopeful weight of advent by reminding ourselves of your sufficiency.

Sometimes we use uh the hymn writers use language that feels irregular to our hurried pace.

But it slows us down and invites us to think deeper about our lives and about how they're lived, about your life and how it was lived.

And so when we sing and say this morning, by thy all sufficient merit, what we're saying is that what you accomplished on our behalf, and yet for your glory, was enough.

It was sufficient.

And so wherever there's lack today, we just we just we we speak out the sufficiency of Jesus over that.

Where there's frustration in marriage, we say that the way Jesus is sufficient is enough for that.

And so, Holy Spirit, lead us into the truth today.

Speak to us in gentle and yet provocative ways.

The thing about hearing it all the time in the same way is that sometimes we kind of get in a routine of not listening.

Today, arrest our attention, God.

Thank you for the little people that are in the room today to remind us of the wonder and the wildness and the unruly nature of the kingdom.

So if these kids get off the reservation this morning, that'll be okay.

It'll remind us, hey, that there's wonder and wildness to be had.

So, Holy Spirit, lead us into the truth today.

Thank you that you're sufficient.

Let us live as if we not only believed that, but we found it to be true.

We pray this in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen.

You can have a seat.

Uh today, as Clyde mentioned earlier, uh, if you're one of our uh later rivals, and that's understandable being uh the Sunday after Thanksgiving, it's the first Sunday of Advent.

Advent is the first, it's really the beginning of the church calendar.

Uh it's the four Sundays that lead up to Christmas.

Each Sunday has a different theme.

Like the theme of Advent today, today's Sunday is hope.

And so I want to talk to you this morning about the hope of Advent.

Uh and so uh I I I want to establish the historicity of Advent, but that's a big hard task, and so I need to help her.

And so I've asked my friend Sophie Collier if she would come up here and help me.

And so, Sophie, if you'd come up right now and help me, I have a seat up here with your name on it.

And uh uh a lot of times Jesus put little children in their lap to make a point.

And so I I want to explain uh the hope of Advent to my friend Sophie uh and and explain it to her.

I believe you can get it as well.

How about a hand for my friend Sophie?

Here's your seat right here.

And I want you to hold this microphone.

This is gonna be your seat right there.

Can you sit right there beside me?

I won't you don't have cooties or anything, do you?

No.

Now tell us how old are you now that day, Sophie?

Seven years old.

You're seven years old.

And you have a mom and dad?

Yes.

Yes, that's good to know.

Uh and you have like a little brother, right?

And and what's his name?

Jackson.

Jackson.

And what do you call Jackson?

Do you call him Action Jackson?

You call him Jack.

And do you have any pets?

One dog.

Hold the microphone like an ice cream cone.

Can your dad teach you that?

There you go.

Because I want them to be able to hear you.

Now, do you have a dog?

Yes.

And what's your dog's name?

Gus.

Gus.

What kind of dog is Gus?

Boxer.

He's a boxer.

Do you like Gus?

I've got a dog I don't like.

I'll trade you.

Talk about it later, okay?

Now, Sophie, sometimes we preacher people, we talk about things in church that people don't understand, but we feel better for talking about them.

Now, when we talk about Advent, tell me what you know about Advent.

You know anything about Advent?

Advent, by the way, is a word that means coming.

And really what it is, is it it's a season of the of the of the church calendar where we kind of remember that Jesus came in a baby, but also that he's coming again.

It's just two things we kind of we don't try to recreate this angst of, oh, Jesus is coming.

Jesus already came, but he's coming again.

And so uh there's a lot of stuff, like when Jesus was, before Jesus was born, uh a lot of stuff happened in the Old Testament.

Would you like me to summarize the entire Old Testament to you in just a couple of minutes?

Yes?

Yes.

You're not the first woman to look at me like that, okay?

Kind of like, what in the world?

Uh see, before Jesus came, we'll just we'll just kind of walk chronologically through the Old Testament because a lot of stuff that happened, and by the way, here's the thing I want you to remember.

Advent, like this part back here, this is the Old Testament.

This part here is the New Testament.

And in between, there's one little page in the Bible.

And look, it's blank.

There's nothing on it, okay?

And so if I was to say to you, how much time do you think this one blank page represents?

Like how much time elapsed between the Old Testament, the end of the Old Testament, and the beginning of the New Testament?

If I said to you, Sophie Collier, how much time do you think to happen between when this part ended and the new part began?

What would you say?

Would you think it's five years, ten years, twenty years, a hundred years?

What would you what would you guess?

I don't know.

You won't know.

Do you have a guess?

50 years.

50 years.

Close.

450 years.

That's almost as old as your mom, isn't it?

That's a long time, isn't it?

Yes.

And here's why.

Here's the thing.

By the way, this is not like one story over here, and this is a story over here.

No, this is all one story.

So when it starts in Genesis chapter 1, it says, in the beginning, that's just part of the story that God's telling.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

And the same story goes all the way through the Old and New Testament.

And so, way back in the very beginning, God made two people and put them in the garden.

Their names are Adam and Eve.

Remember that?

He put them in the garden and he said, Hey, you could eat of any tree of the garden of this one tree, don't eat, because when you eat of this tree, you're going to just mess it up.

And they didn't trust God.

And so they said, you know what?

Maybe God didn't want us to do this because we're going to be happier doing this than we would be listening to God.

And so they didn't trust God and they sinned.

And when they sinned, sin entered into the world.

It was kind of messed everything up.

Everything kind of started coming off the rails then.

And then they had some kids because God said, Be fruitful and multiply.

And they had kids, Cain and Abel, and they got in a fight, and that didn't end well, and things were not going good.

So much so that in Genesis chapter 6, one day, Sophie, God said, I'm just sad that I made people, because they're just, they just messed up.

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

They're not listening to me.

And sometimes when kids don't listen, the parents raise their voice.

Does your mom ever raise her voice to you?

Say it in the microphone.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

We'll pray for her later, okay?

And so and so God was kind of like, What in the world?

No, you're not doing what I told you to do.

Just trust me.

And so in Genesis chapter 6, God says, Ah, I'm just sad that I made these people.

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

They're being all chickeny, they're not listening.

And so God found a guy named Noah.

And you know what Noah did?

He built something.

You remember what he built?

An ark.

An ark.

That's exactly right.

Ark is like a big like ship that's going to float on the water.

Did you know before Noah built the ark, it had never rained?

And so he's telling people, hey, God's gonna come and he's gonna flood the earth.

And like, flood the earth with what?

You're crazy.

You're like, you're talking about the two fairy.

And so, you know how many people got on the ark and survived?

Five and three.

Eight.

Eight.

Eight, yes.

And so here's what God did.

God started off with Adam and Eve, and then God said, Hey, you people aren't listening.

We're just gonna hit the reset button, and I'm gonna start over with eight people that survived the ark.

And so as soon as they survived the ark and the water receded, Noah got off and had a little too much happy punch, okay?

It was like a little Kentucky on the ark, okay?

Uh ask your parents.

Anyway, and so after that, they started over.

God said, because God's always got this capacity to start, so God starts over.

And he says, All right, now you people listen to me do what I said.

And so they started, you know, multiplying, having more people, and they got to Genesis 11, and they got to a thing called the Tower of Babel, and the people said, Hey, you know, we're gonna build a tower to the heavens and make a name for ourselves.

Now remember this, Sophie.

How old are you now?

You're eight, seven years old, almost eight.

Almost eight.

No, don't you have a birthday coming up?

When's your birthday?

December 26th.

December 26th.

Keep those cards and letters coming, right?

Now, do you ever feel like your parents cheat you because they just give you an extra Christmas present for your birthday?

No, not really.

No, not really.

What about Gigi?

Does she hook you up with a present?

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

What about me?

Do I ever get you anything?

Yes.

Don't tell these people that, okay?

So, and look at me.

In the Tower of Babel, they build this tower up in the heavens.

They're like, we're gonna make a name for ourselves, but remember this if they're trying to make the name a name for themselves, who are they competing with?

They're competing with God because there's something in all of us that kind of says, I got it, I got it, I can do it all by myself.

And God looked down and he said, Hey, he saw them down there building that tower, and he says, Hey, we gotta go down and confuse those people because they're gonna start thinking they can live apart from me.

And it's not that God's like I'm worried or threatened.

He just says, You cannot live apart from me.

Your life is better.

It's like your life's better when you do what your mom and dad say.

Would you agree with that?

Yes.

Yes.

But as you get older, sometimes it's hard to remember that.

So if you start kind of thinking, oh, I think I got it, they were like, we got it.

We're gonna build the big tower and look and look at God and go, nanna nanna boo, but look what we can do.

And so God came down, and the Bible, they were building the Tower of Babel, and God said, Since you're building a tower, let me just give you a little, and God confused them and God made them all speak different languages.

And you know what happened?

The nations were born at the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, and they were scattered all over the earth.

That from then, because they couldn't communicate, and so they said, you know what, we're gonna get with people that talk like we do, and we're gonna go here and someone there, and someone there, and someone there.

And even when God disciplines his people, he has redemption in mind.

He's not like mad, like, do your mom and dad ever put you in time out?

Yes.

They're really bad people.

I'm picking up on this.

Yes.

Now, when they put you in timeout, they're not putting you in timeout just because they're like, we're putting Sophie in time out just because we want to punish Sophie.

They're trying to teach you something.

You know that?

Yes.

And so God's the same way.

God put, he says, hey, I want you people to listen, so he scatters them.

The very next chapter, God sets his affection on a man named Abram.

He's the nations were created in Genesis chapter 11.

Genesis 11 · chapter mention

Genesis chapter 12, God says, You know what, Abram?

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

I'm gonna bless you, and through you, all the nations of the world will be blessed.

And so what God creates right back here, God prepares to redeem right here.

And so the next chapter, God says, Hey, you know what?

I'm gonna bless you.

You're gonna be the father of many nations.

And and Abraham, Abram is kind of like, Lord, me and my wife, we got some infertility issues going on, and and and my wife's like really old, and God's like, hey, I got this.

You gotta trust me.

And so they go on from there, and God's found somebody that's gonna be a father of many nations.

And so he goes on from Abram, changes his name to Abraham, and then the next uh thing he finds a guy named Moses.

Now, Moses was the guy, there's a book in the Bible called Exodus, and it's a great book.

You should go to a church that sometimes preaches through the book of Exodus because it'll tell you about the history of your faith.

The book of Exodus is really what it is, Sophie Collier, is it's a reminder.

Uh, it's a story of Christians.

It's us today.

We're out of bondage to slavery, but we're not in, we're not home yet.

We're not in the promised land.

And so in the meantime, we're prone to idolatry.

We a long time ago, the church used to sing songs out of a book called a hymnal.

You know what a hymnal is?

Yes.

Yes, yes.

Uh and they used to sing songs out of the hymnal.

One of the songs in there says, Prone to wander, Lord, I leave it.

Prone to leave the God I love.

And and the book of Exodus is about a people that was prone to wander.

They were prone to kind of go, mmm, like your mom and dad ever tell you to do something, and when they're telling you to do it, you're looking at them and you're listening, but you're thinking, I don't know that I want to do that.

You ever have that feeling?

Yeah.

People in the Bible are the same way.

God's talking to them and they're like, we're listening, but so and Moses, you know, God, by the way, when God found Moses, Moses has already killed somebody.

Did you know that?

No.

Yes.

Yeah.

People in the Bible aren't perfect.

Uh, and so God uses people that aren't perfect.

As a matter of fact, Moses got in a fight with a man.

He was so mad at him, he conked him on the head and killed him, and then he buried him in the sand.

And he just thought, eh, I'm gonna bury this guy.

No one's gonna find him.

And you can't hide anything from God.

And so God's like, hey man.

So Moses fled, and he's afraid, and God said, Hey man, I'm not done with you.

I'm not dumb.

I know you got a past.

I know you got a past, but I'm the God that can redeem your past.

And so God finds a uh a father in Abraham, he finds a leader in Moses, and then next he finds a king and a guy in the Old Testament named David, King David.

The Bible says King David was a man after God's own heart, which means he always did the right thing for the most part.

And so he did he did a lot of right things, but he did some not good things.

Okay?

Now, most people have heard of all those people in the Old Testament, and then it gets up to it's called the divided kingdom.

Uh, this happened about 722 BC.

You know what BC stands for?

Before Christ.

Now we date time, it's this is the year 2016 A.D.

But back then BC meant before Christ.

So 722 years before Jesus, baby Jesus was ever born in the manger, uh, God's people, there were 12 tribes.

And sometimes church people can't get along.

I know that's surprising, okay?

Uh, but they couldn't get along and they were fighting.

Like, and so the guy named Jeroboam, do you go to school with anybody named Jeroboam?

No.

You go to public school, right?

Yes.

You have to go to homeschool.

You have to be homeschooled to have friends named Jeroboam.

That's a homeschool name there.

So a guy named Jeroboam, he comes along and he leads a succession of the ten tribes.

They kind of break off.

There's 12 tribes.

So 10 of them said, We don't like you, we're going over here.

And two said, We're going down here.

We don't want to hang out with you guys anyway.

We don't care.

And then they're divided, they're separated, so when people can't get along, God says, Remember this.

Now you're seven, right?

And you're going to be eight on December the 26th, right?

Yes.

Yes.

Remember this.

Sometimes God uses bad people to teach his people a lesson.

And so the people are separated and they can't get along, and God raises up the country of Assyria.

Assyria is this nation, and they they just come and they invade, and Samaria falls.

It's one of the big important cities in the Bible.

And so it falls, and God's people are like, ah, this is not good.

And then as if that wasn't enough.

After that, God raised up a guy named Nebuchadnezzar.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just like to spell that on all your homework.

Nebuchadnezzar.

And so Nebuchadnezzar, you know what he did?

No.

Nebuchadnezzar, he invaded a real important city in the Bible called Jerusalem.

And then he deported the people.

You know what deportation means?

No.

Donald Trump's fixing to teach you.

These old people watch too much Fox News.

Nebuchadnezzar, he destroyed Jerusalem.

And then he's like, he loaded up everybody in a bunch of minivans.

Doesn't your family have a minivan?

Yes.

And he deported them to a city, okay?

And the city he took them to was as the crow flies, like in a straight line, it's 500 miles away.

Like if we're from where we're sitting right now, if you got in your mom's minivan and you drove 500 miles, you would drive to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Have you ever been to Tulsa, Oklahoma?

No, sir.

You should go there on vacation.

It's awesome.

And right outside Tulsa is a little community called Sand Springs, and in Sand Springs there's a truck stop slash waffle house.

That is just a bold, fresh piece of humanity right there, my lady, okay?

Especially about one in the morning and it's shift changes taking place.

It's interesting.

But that's how far away it was.

They got loaded up and took them, but it's 500 miles away, but in a straight line, but they they had kind of had to water and they had to follow this river, and then they cut down south.

And so really they traveled 900 miles to get 500 miles.

So 900 miles from right here, you know what cities, 900 miles from where we're sitting right now?

You want me to tell you?

Yes.

Yeah.

Des Moines, Iowa.

Have you ever been to Des Moines, Iowa?

No.

Your parents need to take you places, kid.

Des Moines, Iowa has a great antique, repurposing place there.

It's kind of this crafty, artsy kind of person.

I'm kind of artsy, so I shop there.

Do you think I'm artsy?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I knew I loved you.

And so he takes them away.

And remember, sometimes when God puts his people in timeout, he's not just punishing them, okay?

He's not just saying, Hey, I'm gonna put you over here until I figure out what to do.

He's doing it for a reason.

It's like when your mom and dad say, Hey, Sophie, you're in timeout.

I want you to think about this.

God's saying, you're in timeout.

Matter of fact, he even told them this.

He said, Hey, settle down.

Get married, get jobs.

Isn't that that's crazy?

God told people to get a job.

Uh and so God said, Hey, get married, get jobs, because what he said was, you're gonna be here a while.

I'm not gonna put you, I'm I I mean, I'm I want you to learn what I'm trying to teach you.

And so, and so there Nebuchadnezzar takes them into captivity.

They were so sad in the Bible, in the 137th Psalm, because even back when they were in captivity, they were writing part, they were living part of the Bible.

And they said in the 137th Psalm, you ever get mad at anybody?

Yes.

Yes, yes.

This will be our secret too.

Let me see that.

I sometimes get mad at people too.

Some of them are in this room right now.

So the God's people in the 137th Psalm, they got so mad at people because they they had them in captivity in Babylon, and their the people that had them hostage, they said, Hey, sing us some of those worship songs you guys like to sing.

And they were like, We're so mad at you, we want to bonk your babies on the head, you chicken man, pipe pan, weasels.

They were mad.

And what God's people said, they said, How should we sing the songs of Zion in a foreign land?

They threw they had harps like guitars, and they threw them up in the trees, and they said, We're not gonna sing no worship songs.

We don't feel like singing no worship songs.

This is sad.

Now, Sophie, remember this.

You're seven now, right?

Remember this when you're 16.

Sometimes boys mean well, but they hurt your feelings.

And you still gotta sing worship songs when you don't feel good.

Sometimes bad stuff happens.

People die, people move away.

You have a friend in school, and your friend moves away, and your mom picks you up from school, and you're she's like, Sophie, what's going on?

You're like, ah, my friend moved.

I'm just bummed out, mom.

But that's okay.

The Bible never says, Don't be sad.

The Bible says, be sad and keep worshiping Jesus.

Keep believing the gospel.

And so they're in captivity, and then because whatever God does to discipline his people, he's always got a plan to restore them.

And so he raises up a guy named Cyrus.

And Cyrus is a like a military commander, and his army comes and they capture this huge city called Babylon.

And he said to everybody there, he said, Hey, you guys can go back home.

And they were like, free at last, free at last.

And so they all started going home.

Now, that part in the Bible, a guy named Zerubbabel, helped them kind of go back because their church was just decimated.

And so he started rebuilding.

Their church was called the temple back then.

They started rebuilding it, and they kind of said, Hey, and while they were cleaning up the debris, they found like a copy of the Bible, like a book of the law, and they were like, Yes, yes, here it is.

This is what God tells us how to live.

And they were so excited they read it in public, like out loud, just for a long time.

And the people were like, Oh, that's so good.

Oh man, thank you, God.

You haven't given up on us.

And so Cyrus captures Babylon, he sends everybody back, and then the Old Testament ends with 12 minor prophets.

There's no accent, there's 12 tribes in Israel, but then there's 12 minor prophets.

You know what their names are?

No.

No?

You want me to tell you what their names are?

Yes, sir.

You could like think about names for some of your when you get older and you get married and you have babies, if you have boys, these are some great names.

Because no one's getting these names, okay?

Names like this: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachariah.

Oh, those are 11 right there, by the way.

That's a homeschool football team.

And you know what?

If there was a homeschool football team, Larry Pavlik would coach them.

You know who Larry Pavlik is?

He's a man in our church that coaches a homeschool football team.

Is God good or what?

But you know what?

I left off.

I said there was 11.

There's only 12.

I said there's 12.

I named off 11.

The last one is named Malachi.

It's the last book of the Old Testament.

Malachi.

Now I'll tell you a secret.

When I was your age or a little bit older, there was a show on TV called Happy Days.

Have you ever seen Happy Days?

No.

No.

Your parents are hipsters.

You don't have cable, do you?

Let me guess, you got Netflix.

Tell your parents you need to see Happy Days.

Because when I grew up, watched Happy Days.

There was Richie Cuttingham and there was Fonzi.

He was a real cool guy, kind of like me.

And Richie Cunningham is, and then there was another guy on the show called Potse.

He was kind of like your dad.

Potsey.

That would be your dad's character.

And anyway, uh, and my favorite episode of all time, I'm going to confess something to you, and don't you tell anybody.

My favorite episode of Happy Days All Time where they had Demolition Derby, and they had these two brothers that were kind of the bad guys in this episode, and they were called the Malachi brothers.

And so when I first became a Christian and I started reading the Bible, I was like, the Malachi brothers are in the Bible.

Look, there's an Italian prophet, Malachie.

And so for like nine months, I would I refer to it as the book of Malachi.

Until one time I was at church, and church people sometimes are mean.

And this man said to me, It's Malachi, boy.

Don't you know how to pronounce the books in the Bible?

And I thought, I would like to bonk you on the head.

But I didn't say that.

Because I was new and I wasn't quite freed up yet.

But now I'm freed up, I would say.

It.

Now, here's the thing: the Old Testament ends.

And now, these minor prophets, the guys with these crazy sounding names like Obadai and Micah and Nahum and Hosea and Joel, if you read them, it's kind of like God's kind of going, He's raising his voice.

It's kind of like when you and Jack aren't doing what mom says, and she's like, hey, hey, she raises her voice to get your attention, right?

God raises his voice towards the end of the Old Testament, and he's saying to his people, hey, hey, come on now, you're not doing what I said.

Now he gets to the very last book, the very last chapter of the book of the Old Testament, and God says this, for behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven.

Now remember this, Sophie, okay?

You're seven, right?

Remember this when you're 30.

God always kind of says, Hey, let me tell you what's coming.

And when God says, hey, remember this, he says, Behold, the day is coming, he's saying, Don't forget that I never run out of knowing what to do.

I always know what to do.

He says, Behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven.

Have you ever touched a hot oven?

Yes.

Yeah, it's hot, isn't it?

Yeah.

He says, hey, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and the evildoers will be stubble.

The day is coming that shall set them, I shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

But for you who fear my name, the Son of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.

You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall, and you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet.

And on that day when I act, says the Lord, and then because God knows that sometimes He says things with such, they're just big, and people are like, Oh, please, Hammer, don't hurt us.

And God gives them two words.

He says, first of all, he says, Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Orab for all of Israel.

Now, when God says, Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Oreb for all of Israel, what he's saying is, look back.

Remember.

This is why you should go to a church that preaches to the book of Exodus, so you could understand the historicity of your faith.

Do you have any idea what I just said?

Okay, you're tracking with me.

What I mean is, because he says, hey, remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and the rules that I commanded him.

Because what God's saying is, hey, I don't change the rules.

God's consistent.

That's one of the things that makes God awesome, is he's the same.

Matter of fact, in the New Testament, it says this of God, He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

So you can learn things about God as a seven-year-old girl that they'll be that, they'll be true.

They're true today, and they'll be true when you're 59.

59 is a long time from now, isn't it?

That's exactly right.

God says, remember.

And that means kind of, hey, look back.

Like you could probably look in your family's life and you could think, man, God's done some pretty cool things for our family.

Would you think that?

Like you were born into a family and you have Gigi and Bop, right?

Isn't that your your mom's parents?

You call them Gigi and Bop?

Yeah.

And God's done some neat, like one of the neat things, He gave you Gigi.

Because she's kind of a neat lady and she gets you stuff, doesn't she?

Yeah.

But you know what?

God knew that when you were seven.

And it was just I mean, when your mom was seven, it was just her and her mom.

God knew that you'd be born.

And he knew that Gigi and Bob would be your grandparents, and that they'd come to visit you and bring you cool stuff like shoes and clothes and take you out to eat.

They ever do stuff like that?

Yes, sir.

And you just kind of think, man, is God good or what?

Let me ask you something.

Do you ever think when you hear Gigi's coming, do you ever does the thought ever go through your mind, I wonder if she's bringing me something?

Sometimes.

Yeah.

Yes.

You know why?

Because God made you think that what think that way about Gigi and Bob because, hey, God wants us to think that way about him.

So he says, remember, and then he says this other word in verse 5.

He says, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.

And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.

Now God says two things there.

He says, first of all, remember, look back, but he says, behold, which means look forward.

Behold is a big word where it means look.

Like this week, if you want your mom to see something, don't how do you get your mom's attention?

You say, Mom, Ma, Mom, is that what you do?

Yes.

Yes.

Change it up because moms grow deaf to that.

You need to say this week, behold.

Let me hear you practice saying that.

Behold.

There you go.

And that's exactly how you need to say it.

Because Jack will be going, ma'am, mah, mom.

And you could just be like, behold, and your mom will be like, oh boy, I don't want to miss this.

God says, behold, because he knows that we just look.

We're like, look, look, look, okay, I got it.

I got it.

I'm on Pinterest.

I'm looking.

God says, behold.

That means, hey.

Remember means look back.

Behold means look ahead.

So remember this when you get older.

You always got to look back and remind yourself, hey, God's been good to us, and he ain't run out of goodness.

He's still going to be good to us going forward.

So God says to these people, as the Old Testament is ending, he says, hey, remember and behold.

Now, you're probably wondering to yourself, why is he making such a big deal out of remember and behold?

And here's the reason why.

Because later on in the New Testament, like in the book of Romans, chapter 15, about verse 4, God says this.

Romans 15 · chapter mention

He says that everything, he's talking about this part back here, everything that was written in the former times, he says it was written for our instruction.

Now he says everything that was written back here was written for our instruction.

And he says these two things, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures, we may have hope.

Now, you're probably thinking, why in the world is he tell, why is God saying, hey, I want you to remember, I want you to look back, I want you to look forward, I want you to, you, I want you to endure, and I want you to find encouragement in the Bible.

Remember this, Sophie.

When you get older, sometimes you're just gonna be like, and nothing's gonna encourage you.

You're gonna be like, you watch your favorite TV show and you're like, yeah, I've seen that before.

Because sometimes the encouragement you need is found in the Bible.

And sometimes you just need to get your Bible and go in your bedroom and close your door and just read.

So sometimes you could go to your mom and dad and say, hey, I'm kind of just kind of wah wah.

What's a part of the Bible I could read that would encourage me?

Because that's what the Bible's intended for, to encourage us.

The Bible is not God kind of going, Topy, do this.

That's not who God is.

God says, Hey, I want to encourage you.

And so the Old Testament gets ready to end, and these guys, the minor prophets, Obadiah, Micah, Nahom, guys like that, it's God saying through these guys, Y'all better, y'all better get it together.

I'll tell you what, I'm tired of you doing it.

And it sounds like God's angry, but not God's not angry, He's sad.

He's like, Why are these people listening?

So guess what?

When we don't listen, you know what God does?

He just stops talking.

He's not gonna compete with us, he's not gonna be like, hey, hey, because you know, you can only raise your voice so far.

You realize that.

You can scream as loud as you can, but you can't scream any louder.

And so what the way God gets our attention or got their attention was he just got quiet.

Can I tell you a secret?

Sometimes, uh, especially this time of year, because it gets dark like at 5 30, if I'll be talking to my wife Marcy, and we'll be in a disagreement, and and sometimes she doesn't agree with me, even though I'm right.

She just likes to be stubborn because that's what wives do.

And so we'll be she'll be sitting in a room, we'll be talking, and I'll just walk out and just turn the light off of her and just leave her there in the dark.

And she she told me one time, she said, I hate it when you do that.

And so I just put that in my pocket.

Thank you for telling me that.

I'll use that at a special time.

And so, every once in a while, I don't do it all the time, but every once in a while she'll be talking.

I'll just walk out and I'll just turn off the light, and she'll sit there in the dark.

She'll be like, Really?

Really?

What are you, seven?

And I'm like, I know you are, but what am I?

Because she doesn't have to get up, she's got to take the blanket off and get up and turn the light off.

And then I leave her in there.

Guess what?

When the Old Testament ends, when God says all this stuff, when he says, Remember and behold, he's getting ready to turn the lights out on people.

They didn't have lights back then, they had candles.

And what God does is God just blew out the candle.

You ever go to a birthday party and they try to blow out the candles and everybody's like, there's always that one person that's like blowing each one?

Do you blow out each candle or do you like blow really hard and blow them all out at once?

All at once.

There you go.

Now, how hard do you have to blow to blow them all out?

Very hard.

Very hard.

Can you show me how hard you do it?

Yes.

But that was more dignified.

That was like I would get right down there.

Let's do it together, okay?

I'm gonna count to three, and then I'll show you how I blew out the candles when I was seven, and you show me how you do it, okay?

And don't hold back because I mean, now I got like 34 candles on my cake, and I these are all bad people.

And so you gotta blow, I mean, I gotta get out and go, turn the cake.

So let's we're gonna blow out all the candles because just think about it this way.

How hard if God was gonna just blow out the light on the whole world and just kind of say, you guys won't listen, you can just sit in the dark.

We gotta blow that hard, okay?

You ready?

Only count on three.

One, two, three.

Whoopsie.

And guess what?

This, my friend Sophie, is what it was like at the end of the Old Testament.

God just kind of said, You guys don't want to listen.

I'm not gonna keep raising my voice.

I'm just gonna let you sit in the dark.

And so they sat in the dark.

Not as punishment, but as invitation.

Now, here's one thing you'll notice, Sophie.

If we sat in this room for just a few minutes when the lights first went out, people were like, oh, ah, all the women grabbed their purses.

Easy, easy.

But if we stayed in the dark a little bit longer, your eyes would adjust and you'd you'd learn to kind of look around.

But God doesn't want our eyes to adjust to the darkness.

And so what does God do?

Well, the Bible tells us because it right after the book of Malachi, the Bible says this first word of the New Testament, first sentence.

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Now, Sophie, hear that again because the Bible says big things in little ways.

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Now, genealogy is that list of uh of names in the Bible and it says this person begat that person and this person begat that person.

You know what begat means?

No.

No?

Ask your parents when you get home.

Hey, what does begat mean?

Because Pastor Neil told me to ask you, uh, because it's just a list of, hey, this person was born to that person, and this person was born to that person, and it goes on and on and on and on.

But then the book of Matthew begins and he says, hey, he names two key people.

He says, this is the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

He traces it all the way back and he says, the very first thing God tells us about Jesus in the New Testament is, hey, he's not just a man, he's the Son of God.

And he traces who he is all through the Old Testament, so there'll be no doubt that, hey, God was telling the truth when he says the things that he said.

Now, the two things I want us to start this Advent season with, Sophie.

And here's the first one right here.

Number one, this is not as good as it gets.

This is not as good as it gets.

And so the thing to remember about that is that all of our this is different.

Your this is different than my this, like my this this week, it was it was kind of different.

And you're this, seven-year-old girl, you're ready for school to be out for Christmas, right?

Yes, sir.

Absolutely.

Your parents can't wait either.

They love to have you at home all day.

Yes.

So everyone's this is different.

So you can't look around and kind of go, oh, that person there doesn't have it that bad.

No, no, we're all different.

But as good as it gets, or as good as it feels, or as bad as it feels, you got to remember this is not as good as it gets.

That's why God tells them in the end of Malachi, in the Old Testament, Malachi, and that's why God says, Hey, hey, remember, look back.

And then he says, Behold, look forward, because I'm not done doing stuff.

Why?

Because this is not as good as it gets.

And so that's why the New Testament begins.

This is the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

He grounds Jesus and basically he says, Hey, this was a long time coming.

I've had a plan all along.

Second thing I want you to remember as we begin this Advent season, Sophie, is this.

Number one, this is not as good as it gets.

Number two, this is not all there is.

Now, what I mean by that, Sophie, is that you can look around in this world and kind of think, oh, this is all, this, this, this is all there is.

And so when you start thinking that this life is all there is, you get ruthless.

But the Bible says this is not all there is.

Jesus said in John chapter 14, he's talking to his disciples because they're kind of like, they thought this is all there is, and Jesus was saying, I gotta go, and they're like, No, don't go.

John 14 · chapter mention

And Jesus says, Hey, if I go, do I go to prepare a place for you so that where I am you may be also?

And they're like, Oh, and then Jesus keeps talking.

He says, In my father's house are many rooms.

If it were not so, I would not have told you.

He's getting them ready.

He's saying, Hey, this is not all there is.

The Bible also tells us these words.

And 1 Thessalonians in the New Testament, Sophie, it says this.

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do, who have no hope.

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and even though Jesus will bring with him those who have fallen asleep, for this we declare to you by the word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

And then we who are alive who are left will be caught together with them, caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

And so we will always be with the Lord.

Therefore, encourage one another with these words.

Now, the thing I want you to remember, my seven-year-old friend, is that you hear what he said there towards the end?

He said, We will always be with the Lord.

We will always be with the Lord.

That's the great thing about being a Christian, is you always be with the Lord.

And so when someone dies that's a Christian, you can be sad, but you could also remember, you know what?

They're with the Lord.

They're not, they're not suffering anymore.

They're with God.

That's the way God said it.

Because he said, hey, I'm gonna go prepare a place for you so that where I am, you may be also.

And so remember two things as we begin Advent this year.

Number one, hey, this is not as good as it gets.

And number two, hey, because this is not all there is.

Enjoy this.

But remember, not everybody has the same this.

Your this and my this are different.

Everybody in this room, their this is different.

There's some 20-year-old people in this room right now that wish they had a boyfriend.

Do you know that?

There's also some 20-year-old people in this room that wish they did not have a boyfriend.

There's some 50-year-old people in this room that wish they did not have a boyfriend.

But because he's called their husband, they are stuck.

But they gotta be they gotta be reminded, Sophie.

Hey, this is not as good as it gets.

This is not as good as it gets.

And so, what does God do?

Here's what God does, Sophie, and I need you to help me, okay?

Let me see your microphone.

What God does is it's dark, and God just they weren't listening, so he just quit talking, and people are just sad.

They're like, man, what's going on?

And so remember, God said, hey, he said, remember and behold, he said, the day is coming.

What he does is here, hop off your stool for a second.

Help me.

Let me see your hand.

God just, because it was real dark, God just came along and he punched a hole in the night.

And when baby Jesus was born, he didn't take up on your stool.

Have you ever been arrested?

Just checking.

Ask your dad about it.

Hey, sometimes when you don't have to be arrested, you get pulled over by the police, they shine the flashlight in your eye, and you're like, eh! I'm like, why are you squinting?

Because you're blinding me.

Give me your license and registration.

God's not that way.

When it's dark, God just lights a little candle.

Remember when you were a baby?

Not really.

I remember when you were a baby.

In your room when you were like not a baby, like you were two or three, did you have a little night light you plugged into the wall?

My girls had a night light in their room because they didn't like the dark.

And so it wasn't like a big bright light, it was just like a little four-white ball, and we plugged it in.

And every night, the last thing Madison would say to me before I left her room was, Daddy, turn on my nightlight.

And when she would say that because she was, she wanted to sleep, but she didn't want it to be totally dark.

When Jesus was born and they laid him in a manger, God wanted you and everybody else in this room to be reminded that, hey, hey, it's not gonna be, it's not totally dark.

And so when Jesus came, God just kind of said, Hey, I'm not done.

I still got some stuff I want to do, I still got plans.

Things that God said way back in the Old Testament.

And he said, I know the plans that I think towards you, plans of hope in a future, plans to prosper you.

I'm gonna take care of you.

When Jesus came, that was just a reminder of that, Sophie.

And so we begin Advent this year.

And the hope of Advent is that Jesus came and he's gonna come again.

And we live between those two realities, and the second one's just as certain as the first one.

And so we gotta live as people of hope.

Okay.

How five?

Let's think about that for just a minute.

Just what does it mean to be people of hope?

Father, what makes the night divine is that you're in the dark with us.

The Bible reminds us in Isaiah that the people dwelling in deep darkness have seen a light.

And so, Lord, we have seen a light.

Because we live on this side of your coming, and yet we live on this side of your second coming.

And so it's in that deliberate tension that we want to live and be as your people.

We want to be people of hope, people of the truth.

And so, Lord, thank you that you've been telling a story for a long time.

And the coming of Jesus is the climax of the story, and the life of Jesus is the expression of the story.

And the death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus is a reminder to all of us of the eternal nature of the story.

And so, Lord, give us fresh words to tell the story this week.

Give us opportunities to spread a little hope around our city.

Thank you for seven-year-old girls and 77-year-old women.

We all need a little hope, Lord.

And our hope is not in the horizontal people we see around us, our hope is in you.

So we trust you.

Let the thrill of hope adorn our lives this Advent season.

We pray.

And we pray this in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Want to help me speak a blessing over people?

You ain't got to do anything.

You just gotta stand here.

Like these people here.

You gotta do nothing.

Here, stand up right here.

Stand to your feet.

My friend Sophie and I want to speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

The weary world around you is waiting to rejoice.

Depart now and give them a reminder that there's something to rejoice over and someone to rejoice in.

This is the life you were called to because it's the life you were created for.

So depart now and give yourself to it.

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

Amen.

Bless you.

You're dismissed.