Flicker of Hope (Pastor Vann Trapp)

Okay, so usually this is

the time I ask you how you guys are doing and when the shopping.

Have you got started and all that?

But is this beautiful,

right, BJ?

Like when

over the top with this one.

It's been a long time.

I think we could thank him.

Just regularly to come into a place

and just kind of have the ability to almost be immersed in it.

You know, when I'm standing here surrounded by this, I was thinking,

because we we kind of said, let's go with this, this theme,

you know, a theme of Christmas that is the stars and the star of,

Bethlehem and, regularly talking about light.

And, I was thinking,

you know, and I have these memories of just the stars.

And one of the things is really kind of, a little bit

disappointing growing up in the, you know, having grown up,

you know, long time ago.

And then the world as it is now, there's so much light in our world

that comes up from the ground that we don't get to see the sky.

You know, we don't realize, what an impact that it has had

on humanity for just for, you know, for centuries, for millennia,

where just the sky was such a, regular part of people's lights.

And, I had this memory that came back each summer when I was growing up.

This is about fifth grade

or so, but, our camp, our church would have a summer camp.

And so we'd go up into northern Wisconsin and, you know, we we swim in

and horseback

riding and doing silly crafts and, you know, stuff like that during the day.

But at night, every night there was a campfire, you know,

and you sit around the campfire, but nobody's

nobody's paying attention to anybody that's talking after the campfire.

Nobody's even really looking much of the campfire, because you just look at the sky

and you just be like, absorbed, just immersed, just

dazzled by

this clear sky and just the thousands and thousands of stars.

You know, you look up at the sky now, and

when you get to one of those dark places where you can see

just the milky Way coming down, I mean, it's just breathtaking.

And so I remember that.

And I remember then moving to California shortly after that,

we were in the Bay area where there's a there's a lot of light.

And so not many of the stars have seen, you know,

most of the stars are not seen most of the time.

And and that's how most of us live our lives.

We just we don't get to see them that way.

But then, when I was a youth pastor out in Colorado,

there was another memory that stands out because we were up in the Rockies

and we're up camping and also and I looked up

and it was like, oh, yeah, I know the sky.

And and we forget,

we forget with you when you have something that awesome

that just, it shouts at you.

You know, when you look at that every night

and for much of human history, that's what it's been in in Psalm 19,

Israel's King David, he wrote about looking up at the sky.

And he said, you know, the heavens are telling of the glory of God.

The expanse is declaring

the vastness of the works of his hands.

Day to day.

They pour forth their speech night to night.

They reveal their knowledge.

But there is no speech, and there are no words,

and nor is there any sound that is heard.

And yet their line goes out through the whole earth

and their utterances to the end of the world.

You know, in

Genesis 114 through 19, this is going to be our passage this morning.

So stand with me as we read this Genesis 114 through 19.

It tells the purpose of these lights of the heavenly,

luminaries.

And it says, God said, let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens

to separate the day from the night,

and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and for years.

Let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light to the earth.

And it was so.

And God made the two great lights the greater light to rule over the day,

the lesser light to rule over the night, and the stars also.

And God place them in the expanse of the heavens

to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day,

in the night, and to separate the light from the darkness.

And God saw that it was good.

And there was evening, and there was morning.

The fourth day.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for this this morning.

Thank you for this day.

Thank you for this world that you have put us in and for the season that we are in.

And, father, you said that you have set in the heavens

the lights, the sun, the moon, the stars,

so that we would be able to just know where we are,

that we would be able to know when we are, that we would know these seasons

and these days that we would have light on this earth

so that, we wouldn't wander around in the darkness.

Father, this morning,

we come in and we were seeking that light.

We're seeking that kind of understanding

that helps us understand our purpose and our place, understand

just where we are and where we're going, where you're calling us to.

So, father, we pray that

your spirit would be here speaking to us, that he would be teaching us,

enlightening our hearts and our minds so that we might follow you,

that we might know you, that we might make you know,

I pray these things in Jesus name.

Amen.

And have a seat.

You know, when you start to dig

into the details of our universe, you learn very quickly

that we are very small and our universe is very big, right?

You know, our our, galaxy, just our galaxy

is like 100,000 light years across.

And to put that into perspective, that still can't put that in perspective,

right?

If we take the fastest rocket that we have,

it would take 37 billion years to get across our galaxy.

Ours. Right.

And we know that there are trillions of galaxies and each one

has billions, hundreds of billions of stars.

So there's this vast, vast universe out there.

And yet God says in Genesis that when he made this incredibly

just enormous and rich,

place that we call, we're just a speck in.

But he says that one of the things that concerned him

is that when we walked around, we wouldn't walk around in the darkness.

That even here, right here, right now, we would have light

so that we could navigate our world so that we could know where we were

so that we could track the days and the seasons

so that we could look up into the night sky at a campfire

and hear the the stars, even though they're not saying anything,

but hear how they proclaim the glory of God.

Right?

So that we could, when we're lost, even at night, we could look up in the sky

and find that North Star, that thing that that we know just.

It doesn't move.

It'll help us know where we are and how to get to where we need to be.

That we would know when we look up and we see as the clusters of stars, the,

you know, the that we've assigned the signs to so that

we can know when the seasons are passing and even when on our calendar that we are.

But then this God, also this God who created this universe,

and this the physical sky with the physical light.

He also he looked down and said, you know, he didn't want us to have to navigate

spiritual darkness without any guidance, without knowing the light as well.

And so,

you know, we as we go through our lives, we encounter that, don't we?

We encounter things like the darkness of fear,

the fear of the future, the darkness of of loneliness.

Because we know that darkness is not just a physical thing.

It's it comes inside, too.

It's, it's in that very personal space where we live sometimes.

And God said, I don't want you to be having to walk around in that darkness

as well. And so

even in those times when we feel alone, in those times

when we feel like our like we're lost, we feel like we're confused

or we're not sure what this season of life is, is meant to bring.

Says that God said that he has placed lights for that darkness as well.

And I say a nine that we read earlier in verse two, it says,

the people who live in darkness, they'll see a great light.

And those who live in the dark land, the light will shine on them.

And this verse is quoted in Matthew is talking about when Jesus came

because we were walking separated from God.

And so Jesus came so he could make known to us the very the face of God,

so that we would know this God that loves us, this God that relentlessly pursues

us and doesn't want us, does not leave us alone.

Who comes to save us?

Who comes to lead us?

But then there's an interesting verse in Philippians, this in Philippians 215

and, and over this advent, we're going to keep kind of touching

on this verse, because in this verse it says that he is also made us

to be lights in this world,

us to be lights in this world, that we would shine

like the stars shine in the night sky.

We would be those who live our lives

in such a way that our presence

in the lives of others also brings in that same kind of hope,

that same kind of comfort, that same kind of direction.

It helps light their way.

It helps give direction.

It helps them see kind of where they are and maybe where they're going.

Now, sometimes we know

that that light is seen and in very real ways.

Right?

I love, you know, in the seven years that we've been here just watching.

And I didn't tell him I was going to do this, but,

Ken Bell is one of the most amazing people

I've had the opportunity to walk beside and just watch him.

And I know he doesn't like the spotlight, so.

But I'm going to keep going a little bit.

Because Ken has a

way of just finding out what are those needs that people have.

And in a very real way, he comes alongside

and God shows people that he's there

because there's somebody that comes alongside to be there.

Matthew 516 says

that we're supposed to shine our light in such a way, in this world

that people turn to the father and thank him.

Thank him for what?

Well, we kind of I mean, a lot of people would.

They'd like we'd like to thank him for us,

but mostly

thank him for the light that he shows through us,

live our lives in such a way.

That they thank God.

But sometimes there are situations that come up

that there's nothing to do to help, right?

You guys have had those in your life, and I know that you've had them

in the lives of those around you.

There's nothing to do to help.

There's nothing that you can really to say to fix the promise right

there in the moment.

And then we say, well, what are we supposed to do then?

Well, sometimes the light that's needed is called is the light of hope,

right? It's not the light of the moment.

It's the light of hope that looks beyond just what's here.

You know, when we go all, all the way back to the beginning of the book

and we read, you know, the beginning of the Bible, read about Adam and Eve and

right after, you know, they've just done what God said not to do, right?

They just walked in that place of disobedience.

They've just, broken their their relationship, their covenant with God.

They've just betrayed that that covenant he made with them.

They they've broken the world by this point.

This is what plunged it into darkness, plunged us into that place of despair

and anxiety that we know and and God came near.

But he didn't fix it.

Right.

There was something about that moment that it didn't allow it to just be fixed.

But he didn't want to just start over.

He didn't want to wipe the slate clean because like, no,

we're going to.

I need to tell you some things that are going to going to happen here.

And so one of the things he told me, he says he spoke to them words of truth,

right.

He told them about the consequences

that were going to come from their, from their, action.

And a lot of times we think, well, that's God's judgment, right?

That's God getting man.

He's saying, now you're going to pay.

Now he was he gave him these words that they even that is light.

It helps them to know what their new surroundings are.

It helps them to navigate this new world that they've they've kind of inadvertently

by their own decisions. They, they brought in.

But then he doesn't

just stop with the words of truth because we need words of truth, right?

We need we need to know the landscape.

But he also came words of hope

gave them words of hope.

And he told them, you know what?

But this is what I'm going to do.

And you can hope, because

I'm going to work to restore this relationship.

I'm going to work to restore this world.

I'm going to work to restore

this, this life as it was meant to be,

instead of how it now is.

So the words of hope.

This is the same kind of hope that God gave to Israel

when Israel had rebelled and rebelled, and they were getting dragged off

into into captivity, that they deserved.

But he says, this is the truth.

But I

also want to tell you, I'm going to I won't leave you.

I'm going to I'm going to get you out.

I'm going to bring you back.

It's the same, same hope that God gives us.

You know, we think about that hope that God gives us when we realize

that Jesus died and he rose from the dead, and he paid for our sins.

And we realize that that personal kind of hope.

Right? And we grab hold of that.

But what about the hope

when we wake up the next morning and we realize that Jesus rising

from the dead didn't fix everything,

so anybody run into that right

that we still have to live in a world where there's

still this darkness, that we still come crashing against stuff.

And we go, well, what am I supposed to do now?

And God says, well, this is the truth, right?

This is how it's going to be.

But what about that hope that still serves us,

this light that guides us in that I'm still with you.

I'm still going to bring you out.

I'm going to I'm going to transform you as my people.

So hope.

What is hope? Hope is the promise of something better.

But hope is only as good as the ability of the person

that makes the promise to bring it about.

And so we have this hope that's in God.

But we look at that and we go, well, then how can we ever be?

How do we ever be signs of hope, right?

How could we ever be like the stars in the sky that somehow

bring hope to people's life?

We don't have that kind of power. We're not.

We can't change things like God does.

We can't create. And yet.

But he says, he still says

that he sets us in this world like stars are set in the sky

to drive away fear, to bring comfort, to bring hope

in the situations where people don't see any.

So how do we do that?

Well, the first thing that we need to know is we need to not try to be God.

Don't be God.

He doesn't ask you to be like he doesn't ask you to be him.

It's like he is the source of all light, right?

But he just asks us to be like that one star,

that one star

that's out in there and in the vastness of space.

You think about that.

We think of stars through these huge flaming balls of fire.

And yeah, they are.

But in the hugeness of space, that's still just a little tiny thing.

I don't know about you guys, but sometimes you're out there,

you're trying to bring hope into your world,

and you're going, how am I ever going to make a difference?

I hope,

I believe there's hope for this situation, but how does that make a difference?

And God says, you know what?

There are many times that he uses the little things,

the seemingly little things, but he makes a huge difference.

In fact, he loves to do that.

And stars are an illustration of that

because it doesn't matter.

You look up in the sky and even as blocked it as it is in our world,

don't we still love to look up in the sky and look at the stars,

even though we can't even see the millions of them that are out there?

We still love to look up and see just the few that can still break

through into our world. Why?

Because guys aren't concerned about

whether it's a little thing or a big thing, he says.

I just want you to do what you can do.

I want you to be like the stars that are in the sky.

So what can we do?

Well, we can be that flicker of hope.

We can be that flicker of hope that sometimes is just

you come along side of someone and you just walk with them.

There's no words that can be said.

There's no there's no actions that we can done.

It can be done. It's just you walk with them

because your presence, just

your presence can be that flicker of hope that brings light.

Sometimes we can be that flicker of hope when we when we encourage

other people, right?

We just come alongside them

and like the stars that are in the heavens,

we just and not encourage them about the situation.

The situation is horrible.

There's nothing to be found.

But we can still tell them, like the stars do, about the glory of God.

What do you mean that I mean, remind them, you know what?

God is a God who loves you even right now.

God is a God who said, I don't leave you.

I don't abandon you.

And when he comes in, he walks with this.

He's the God who, how he, how he hasn't forgotten them.

How he hasn't. He still holds them.

He doesn't lose lives, his grip on them and how God never fails.

And that can be just as flicker of hope.

That can be that light that actually

can bring light

in that darkness.

We can be a flicker of hope.

Sometimes when someone is stuck or confused

and they just need they just need to sit down with someone

and just to talk with them about, okay, what's a different path?

I can't see anything else and what I have right in front of me.

Have you ever been in that where you just have the opportunity to just talk

and something opens up and they go, oh, I didn't even see that.

There's hope.

There's hope because there are a lot of ways to bring hope.

But in bringing that hope and being that little,

that star, that flicker of light sometimes in the darkness and being that

we have to remember, we can't bring hope

if we don't have hope right?

Stars can't shine with light.

They don't have.

So where do we find hope?

Well, we should know that we find hope.

And the only source of hope.

We know that the only source of hope

is our God, our father in heaven, the one who created the heavens

and the earth, who created us in Jesus Christ, His son,

who gave himself for us so that we might

not only know that hope in our lives,

but also then through the power of the Holy Spirit

who lives in us, that we might show that hope into our world.

We know that he has given us His Word, that he says, this can be like a lamp

to your feet, like a light to your path, that in that we find hope.

That's where we find our hope,

because we know that he is the only the only source of hope.

He is the only hope that we have to

give to others is just in knowing his presence.

So we we, we don't despair.

We don't despair in the darkness because we have a great shepherd.

We know that he loves us deeply.

We know that he he has saved us eternally.

He protects us relentlessly.

He provides us with.

He provides for us generously.

We know that he knows our future.

We know that he holds our future.

We know that he has.

He has also.

He has plans for our future.

And in Jeremiah says, so that he might give us a future and a hope.

And so we hope in God and our only hope,

or as Romans puts it, our hope against all hope,

right, is that God is even the God who will do the impossible at times,

if that is what it takes for our rescue,

for our redemption, for our restoration,

to that lift, to that promise that he intended for us.

So these are the lights of hope that we hang on to.

These are the lights of hope that we hope,

you know, can shine from us

in the darkness, and not just in the darkness of our lives,

but into the darkness of other people's lives.

So, you know, you might be you might be right now,

some of you might be in a really dark place right now,

and you might need to be you might be here because God wants to remind you

that he has given you the light of his promises,

his presence, but also his people,

his people that he has brought around you,

that he has brought you in the midst of, so that you don't have to fear.

You don't have to wonder. You don't have to.

You don't have to wander around in confusion.

You don't have to sit down in despair and just give up instead,

he says, just like at that campfire, just lift your eyes up.

Lift your

eyes up to see the stars of the sky,

to see the lights that are in the darkness.

See those ways that God is wanting to speak to you,

not only to tell you the truth of what's going on, but to give you the hope

of what's to come, of what his plans are for you, what his intentions are

for you, to bring you into the fullness of the life that he intended.

And not only that,

but you can then get up from that place.

You can

you can walk in a way with the Lord

that you also become one of these lights, one of these stars

that's in the heaven, one of these that is placed in the world

so that you might shine in the same way, and that you might bring that same light.

It won't always be in the big things.

It'll usually be in those little flickers,

those things that you can do right.

There's ways that you come alongside the ways that you

you encourage, the ways that you just speak into the lives

of those who enter into the lives of those shining you light in such a way

that they give glory to the father who's in heaven.

So on this first Sunday of Advent, we want to we want to celebrate, right?

We want to celebrate the the flickers of light we see in the night sky.

We want to celebrate those flickers of light that we see

also in our own lives,

from the those people that he has surrounded us with these

like signs and wonders of the night sky.

But most of all, we celebrate Jesus.

We celebrate the one who entered into this world

and showed us what it meant for the light to enter in, showed us

what it meant to be the fulfillment of hope in this world.

So I want to leave you this morning before we go into our time of of communion.

But I want to leave you with the Rome.

The words of Romans 1513

says, now may the God of hope

fill you with all joy and peace in believing,

so that you to you will abound in hope

by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Amen, Amen.