Long Expected - Long Expected Hope

Hey, I'm Pastor Forrest, and welcome to the Multiply Church Podcast.

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Now, let's dive into this week's sermon.

I'm excited about starting this new series today called Long Expected is.

We take a look at the scripture and in this Christmas season.

If you're new here with us today, you've come on a great day.

Come on a great day.

If you're new, welcome.

I'm Forrest Lee Pastor here.

You stepped into a church that's three and a half years old and is filled with faith, love, gratitude, and generosity.

And today you're gonna witness our church exercise faith together collectively as at the end of our service we give to our year in plenty offering, which is an over and above offering that we've been talking about and praying about for a few weeks now.

And so if you are new, you've come at a you've come at a perfect time to watch Jesus and his bride, the church in action today, in faith.

And as we're stepping into this Christmas season, we're all walking into it with some level of a wish list.

Maybe uh you've already got your wish list down of what you want to be under the tree on Christmas morning, or maybe your wish list is just that your family won't kill each other before this holiday season is over.

We all have wishful thinking at times, and we're diving into this uh series on Advent.

And we know if if if we're just coming with just a bunch of wishful thinking, what can end up happening to us is when things may not go our way or work out how we want it to, to have a major disappointment.

But what we're right now talking about is as we're heading into the Advent season.

Since the sixth century, the church has celebrated this Advent season by honing in on four aspects of the Christmas story: hope, peace, joy, and love.

And today, the title of my message, and we're honing in on the title, is Long Expected Hope.

Everybody say hope.

We're zeroing in on hope.

We're honing in on hope in this Advent season.

And Advent's one of these church words.

What does it even mean?

Well, Advent means the coming or the arrival, the arrival of Christ, the Christmas story, but also the second coming and the arrival of Christ at his return.

And so over the next few weeks, we're gonna be looking at hope and peace and joy and love.

But today we're gonna hone in on hope.

But I wonder if you could ask this question with me.

What is hope anyway?

What is it?

What is hope?

Something we say all the time, but what does it actually mean?

Well, we get a clue of what it is from the definition of faith in Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

The scripture says, now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

See, the world has a definition of hope, and hope is just wanting something to happen really bad.

You really want something to take place.

But with God, with godly hope, we have a confidence in what we know will happen through Christ.

Not just wishes.

But if we misunderstand hope, then as hope is an aspect of faith that we just saw, that we have uh this faith that it's this hope that we have of things that are not yet seen.

We we, if we misunderstand hope, we can misunderstand faith.

And this advent season is here to correct that in us.

See, because hope is not just what we wish for, hope is a confidence that it will be fulfilled, what God has said.

And we're coming to the throne of grace this morning, not just with wishes or with fingers crossed, but with a confidence, with our T's crossed and our I's dotted in a confidence that what God has said it will happen.

And so if you're approaching this Christmas with a hope that's just wishing and wishes, it can lead to a lot of disappointment.

Or maybe you have a hope that's just an optimism and just positive.

And when your faith is tested, it's possible that if you're just coming at it with just a positive mindset, then when things don't work out, then the hope that you have could crumble under the pressure.

Or maybe the hope that you have it, we we we don't want it to just be about emotions.

Because emotions, when emotions, when emotions crash out, then your faith could crash out too.

And we don't want our hope just to be in our present circumstances in life.

Because when things may not work out how we want, then that hope could be overcome by the darkness.

But that's exactly where we begin in the Advent story and what Advent corrects.

What we're gonna do is we're gonna take a look at the scripture and the beginning of the Christmas story.

But Advent, it doesn't begin with Bethlehem.

It begins with a longing, with a waiting, with prophetic promises that God will keep his word.

And there's an angel that comes and pronounces the Christ child to the young Mary and tells her about her cousin Elizabeth, who is also pregnant with John the Baptist in a miraculous way.

And so we dive into the Christmas story in the first chapter of Luke and the first chapter of Matthew.

And so if you have your Bible, please turn to Luke chapter one.

If you've got your phone, pull it out, your Bible app, look it up.

Luke chapter one.

It also will be on the screen today.

So let's dive in to the Christmas story.

Y'all ready?

In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary.

She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David.

Gabriel appeared to her and said, Greetings, favored woman, the Lord is with you.

Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think of what the angel could mean.

Don't be afraid, Mary, the angel told her.

So the baby to be born will be holy and be called the Son of God.

What's more, your relative Elizabeth, has become pregnant in her old age.

People used to say that she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month, for the word of God will never fail.

Mary responded, I am the Lord's servant.

May everything you have said about me come true.

And then the angel left her.

This angel appears to Mary, and it's a shocking scene.

It's a scene that we're very familiar with.

You've heard this story probably many many times when it comes to the Christmas season.

But for her, this is a moment of shock and fear, even to the point that the angel has to say, Don't be afraid.

As she comes to this young woman to tell her that she is about to be a part of the greatest story that has ever happened in human history.

And thankfully, God was kind enough to also send an angel to Joseph as well, her fiance, to fill him in about this whole situation and details.

An angel was sent to him in Matthew 1, 20.

As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream.

Joseph, son of David, the angel said, Don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and she will have a son, and you will name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

All this occurred to fulfill the Lord's message through his prophet.

Look, the virgin will conceive a child.

She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God is with us.

If it's not really something that I can see, and maybe for you, you struggle also to trust in God's timing in your life, especially when you're waiting on a promise that looks impossible, or maybe the circumstance just looks like it's too far gone, or that it's empty.

Do you know that we should have and that we will have and that you will have a hope the moment that God speaks?

A hope that starts the moment that God speaks, not the moment where you see the results.

This word comes to Mary and the truth is spoken to her, and we're gonna see that her hope and her confidence begins the moment that God spoke it.

But for you, are you able to believe God and have your hope set on him the moment that God speaks, not when you can see that it's all worked out?

See, the world tries to tell us, well, you know, you can have hope as long as, you know, you know you can handle it all and you have it all figured out and you've got a plan, but a biblical hope, it starts even when the circumstances are impossible.

When you can't see the way out.

There's a Christmas song, the thrill of hope.

Well, that thrill of hope that's in our hearts, that thrilling, that excitement of hope, it starts when God says it, not when we see it.

It starts with us having a faith and having a hope and having a trust in our God that He has promised and what He has promised to us, that He will be faithful to fulfill it.

It's kind of like a seed planted in the ground.

It's not visible, but everything is real.

And to remind us about the seeds that are planted.

And I had kind of a funny conversation with my six-year-old this week at a Jingle Jam on Friday night.

She invited one of her friends with the with the little Debbie Cake Christmas tree invite, which by the way, I mean, who doesn't love those little Debbie Christmas trees, right?

And she had given it to one of her friends at school, and we were having a conversation in the car, and she was saying, I really hope that my friend will come to Jingle Jam.

I gave her the invitation, and I said to her, I said, Well, you know, sis, like she she may come, but also if she she doesn't, you know, sometimes you have to invite somebody to church uh many times before they actually accept the invitation.

And then I said, you know, but what you have done with her is that you have planted a seed in her heart.

You know what I mean?

She said, No, I have no idea what that means.

I mean, no, no, no, like, you know, there's a like you're planting a seed of love into her heart.

I'm trying to explain it in a different way.

I'm like, you understand now?

She's like, no, Dad, I do not understand.

What are you saying?

A seed is gonna go into her heart, is gonna grow.

Like, what are you talking about?

And it's the like next hour and on, I just would like go by her and I would just like just poke her in the chest and say, I'm planting a seed of love.

She's like, Dad, stop it.

Stop it, right?

Stop it.

Just didn't get it.

But what we know is that even though we can't see it, it doesn't mean that it's not real.

We've been talking all through this last series about the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.

This plentiful harvest that we have, this bountiful harvest that is we sow bountifully and then sow, we will reap bountifully of what God has promised to us.

And we see in Mary this young woman who has received the commission.

She's received the enunciation, she has received the pronouncement, the announcement that the Christ's child would come and that God would use her.

She steps forward and she begins to worship before she even knows how in the world it's going to work out.

See, right after the angel appears to her, Mary goes into this incredible worship psalm.

This young scholars mostly agree that she was probably a teenager.

She was illiterate, never schooled.

But look at the worship that pours out of this young woman.

Luke chapter 1, the next verse in 46.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

Mary responded, Oh, how my soul praises the Lord, how my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

For he took notice of this lowly of his lowly servant girl.

And from now on all generations will call me blessed.

For the mighty one is holy, and he has done great things for me.

He will show mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him.

His mighty arm has done tremendous things.

He has scattered the proud and the haughty.

He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands.

He has helped his servant Israel and remembered to be merciful, for he made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever.

I don't know about you, but sometimes it's a struggle for me to start with worship when I'm not seeing things change, not seeing the circumstances get better.

And maybe for you, you struggle with praising the Lord when you don't see the progress or you don't see the visibility or the clarity of what's to come, and you can't see how in the world it's going to work out.

And like Mary, we need to have a hope.

A hope, we need to have a hope that sings before it sees.

She hears this word, and then hope and worship is pouring out of her because we have a world that says, Well, seeing is believing, but hope is believing before seeing.

The world wants us to just, okay, well, I'll praise God once the breakthrough happens.

But Mary shows us what it is to praise before it happens.

As we come to the Lord, we confidence and a confident hope, this hope of this worship that's overflowing out of her, and a belief that God is gonna keep his promises, even though she can't understand how it's all gonna work out, how it's all gonna happen, and she has this confidence that if God said it, I can sing it.

Now I'll put it to you like this.

Now I'm sure there's no ladies in here who had any aspect of their wedding already picked out before they had a fiance.

Not a one.

Or maybe a woman that had already the plans of how the nursery was gonna look before she even knew that she was pregnant.

See, God has been had been preparing this promise long ago and in preparation of what was to come.

And Mary knew it.

She knew it so much that she knew that it had been this promise from her ancestors all the way back to Abraham and the book of Genesis, and the first one of this new covenant, a new nation that God was going to bring to bear of Israel and the forefather of Abraham.

Where God would make a covenant with him.

And in this covenant, in Genesis chapter 22, God says to Abraham, I will certainly bless you.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

I will multiply your descendants beyond number, like the stars in the sky, the sand on the seashore.

Your descendants will conquer the cities of their enemies, and through your descendants, all the nations of the earth will be blessed, all because you have obeyed me.

God is talking about the Christ child that's gonna come.

God's talking about the fact that all nations are gonna be blessed through Abraham and his descendants, all the way from Abraham to this conversation, this moment where Mary receives this word from this angel.

And I know for me, sometimes it's so difficult for me, as I'm thinking about what's going on, for me to recognize that God is writing a bigger story than just my life.

And that we're standing on his promises.

And maybe for you, maybe you maybe you struggle to remember that God's promises that they started long before you and they're gonna continue long after you.

That's the God that we have.

And so our hope needs to be anchored in these ancient promises that God has given us, a third point.

God gave those promises and gave that promise to Abraham that the nations of the world would be blessed through his descendants two millennia, two thousand years before Mary walked the earth.

God created this covenant and sealed it with this people that out of Abraham's offspring, that all the nations of the world would be blessed through Jesus.

And Mary understands it.

She recognizes it, and she has a hope that then turns into a faith in her life.

And a faith that becomes obedience, and an obedience that then leads to transformation, and that's the exact same thing that we need to do.

Have a hope that leads us into a deeper faith in Christ.

And then our faith walk out in real-time obedience to the Lord so that we can see transformation come to our families and our children and our children's children.

That when we think that hope is lost, we look to the scriptures and see that the thread of hope has been woven all throughout.

The word.

See the thrill of hope, the excitement, that thrill of hope isn't that God might come through.

A thrill of hope is that God already has come through.

Let me just prove it to you more.

The prophet Isaiah pins in Isaiah chapter 7, verse 14.

Isaiah 7:14

He says, This, all right then.

The Lord Himself will give you a sign.

Look, the virgin will conceive a child, and she will give birth to a son, and we'll call him Emmanuel, which means God is with us.

You know, and Isaiah pinned those words that was written down.

723 years before Mary walked the earth.

Give or take a few years.

Over 700 years before Christ's birth.

See, because the Hope that we have, it's not just this feeling, the hope that we have is the fulfillment that God has been orchestrating for thousands of years that we're not walking in.

And so this event of Advent, this is a time for us to take our faith and to place it in the one that we can have a confident hope in.

And what would our life look like if we did that?

Could you imagine it with me?

Could you imagine if going into this Christmas season you were living from a biblical hope, not this worldly hope?

If you were walking into Christmas with a confidence in what God has already done in your life and already blessed you with and what he's already promised to you.

See, because we want to respond like Mary did.

With surrender and with trust and with worship before it all works out.

Imagine if you were going into this Christmas season with a posture of hope and not of panic.

Because we have a weary world that is waiting to see what the true hope is and rejoice.

And hope it's it can start so small.

It can start with a seed, it can start with a whisper, and it can grow into a God-sized story.

And so let us respond like Mary responded after this angel came to her, and in confidence she said, May everything you have said about me come true.

Church, let's look to the one who is the sustainer of all things and say, God, everything that you have said about me, let it come true.

Every promise that you have given to me about my children and my children's children, and the blessing that we will receive in Christ from this day and into eternity in heaven, let it be said about me.

Let it be true for us to walk in a confident hope, not letting the world tear us down and get us distracted and keep us from walking in the faith that God has called us into.com to let us know.

We love you and we'll see you again soon.