The Advent of Hope

This morning, we, like I said, we're looking at the advent of hope.

And we have to ask ourselves when we think about this subject of hope, this topic of hope, what we're really asking is this.

We're asking ourselves, how can this be better?

Right?

We believe in a better outcome.

We believe in something to improve or be better than it currently is, which is why we have hope in the first place.

We're not hoping for something worse necessarily, like unless you're really vindictive or right or have a vendetta against someone, maybe you hope worse for them.

But in general, when we talk about hope, it is that something should get better.

We're working to understand a better outcome, to have hope for things to change.

But we have to ask ourselves, where does this sense of better come from?

If we really think that things could be better, if we really think that things could change for good, where does this sense of betterness come from?

Why not what we have currently be as good as it gets?

I would argue that in us we are ingrained with our uh with our very creative being to have this sense of better.

And really the Bible gives us the only answer to this innate feeling within us that things should be better, that we should have hope in the first place.

Because when we understand the story of the scriptures, what we discover is that uh when God created man, Adam and Eve, uh in his image, uh he gave them paradise.

He gave them himself in full communion with him, in relationship with him.

And they had all that they could ever need or desire.

They had Eden.

But then they rebelled against God and they fell.

God cursed them in their rebellion.

And from that point on, we have had this sense of things could be better.

We've had an innate sense of hope.

And then we try to find these solutions.

Throughout the history of man, we've tried to discover solutions for this betterment.

This things aren't as they should be.

We should actually be greater than this.

And so we try to fabricate and man-make solutions to try and curate for ourselves this betterness, but we fail over and over again.

They're insufficient in their own strength, and so then in comes Jesus.

It is the gospel alone that actually gives us this satisfaction, this reality that hope can be real, and it becomes both our substance and source for better.

Ultimately, we hope for the best possible outcome.

When we say we're hoping for something, what we really are saying is we desire a reversal of the situation to reflect that perceived best possible outcome that we have in our hearts and minds.

What the writer of Hebrews gives us is a reality of true and certain hope.

Because you and I put our hope often in things that aren't certain, that are insufficient.

It's kind of like a rolling of the dice.

I hope this works.

You ever kind of use that statement?

Oh, I really hope.

And there's so much uncertainty behind that statement, right?

If you walk into a casino to pull uh a jack slot uh like a uh, what do they call this?

Coin uh things.

I don't go to casinos much.

Slot machine.

Hey, I've been to some, I'll just be honest, but I haven't been many.

Uh but uh you pull a slot machine, I hope this works, right?

You might buy a new piece of workout equipment, I hope this works.

You might move into a better school district, I hope this works.

You have these uncertainties about the outcome.

What the writer of Hebrews, though, is going to bring us into is true and certain hope.

If we look at the verses of 19 through 22, what we see is we have confident access to God because of Jesus alone.

We have confident access to God because of Jesus alone.

The author of Hebrews starts off this section of the letter with a therefore.

When we were reading the text, he started off in verse 19, therefore, brothers.

And we have to look back to understand what he's talking about, what sets up this passage that we're reading from in 19 through 23.

Well, let's look at Hebrews 10, 1 through 4.

He says this, for since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come, instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.

Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered?

Since the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins.

But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year.

For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

What the author is working to help us discover is that historically in our lives we have placed our hope in insufficient things, in things that would fail us.

This is the propensity of us as people, as image bearers.

That's what Hebrews is setting up.

If the law, if the sacrifice of bulls and goats was sufficient, then why do we have to keep doing it every year, year after year, to try and get for us the outcome we actually are desiring?

Forgiveness of sin, reconciliation with God.

And you and I can kind of understand that.

In our own lives, we have put our hope in insufficient things that year after year we have to try and do again, right?

How many of you have written New Year's resolutions or communicated New Year's resolutions that were the exact same resolutions as some year past?

Well, why do we do that?

We're putting our hope in insufficient things.

We have to keep coming to the altar of sacrifice to try and lift before us this hope of things to be better.

We only figure out that what our efforts accomplish is insufficiency.

This propensity that we have of something so silly as a New Year's resolution is the reality of mankind and his story from the very beginning when we've realized that something was wrong.

But then we're told this statement.

Let me back up real quick, because what I love about this passage in Hebrews 10 is it says this, it brings, it brings about the reality of the law.

When we look at the law or rule, oftentimes we think about something to be obeyed.

We think about it as a hurdle or something that we have to jump over to clear, right?

This thing that we have to uh fulfill in our own strength to be able to be accepted and welcomed by someone, specifically God and his law.

That's actually not the root of that word.

When we look at rule or law, think of like a trellis.

That a vine can grow up and flourish and produce fruit.

God's law was never meant for us to do so that he would love us.

God's law was always given in place so that we might ultimately flourish in our human existence.

That was the purpose of his law, not to oppress us, but to cause life to flourish when we live in it.

As we move down the passage, we're told this statement right before the beginning of our text.

So, Paul, or the writer of Hebrews, it's probably not Paul, but the writer of Hebrews, what he says is uh these things were insufficient.

Our sacrifices that we tried to bring before God to be able to get uh reconciliation with him and the forgiveness of sins, these things were insufficient.

If they were sufficient, then we wouldn't have to do them every single year.

But then right before we get to this, therefore, he says this in verse 17 through 18, he says this.

Then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.

Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

And what the author is trying to help us understand is the sufficiency of Jesus.

You see, what our efforts tried to accomplish always failed.

It never could do what we set forth to have them do for us.

But Jesus comes on the scene and he is fully sufficient in his effort and work to be able to accomplish for us what we truly want.

Because all of us want better.

All of us have this innate reality inside of us that believes things aren't as they should.

Now, in our fallenness, in our misunderstanding, we might try to apply that in different ways and realms that miss the mark, but ultimately we also put our hope in things that will not be sufficient to accomplish it for us.

Jesus, what he does is he takes our hopeless efforts, he sets them aside, and he offers us himself forgiveness.

Real, sufficient, hope-filled forgiveness.

In light of his work, we obtain the freedom to drop our hopeless tools of earning to the ground and come to him.

That's what we're getting set up for in this passage.

Therefore.

Because everything you tried to do to make things better has failed.

Jesus comes into the scene and he makes all things better in himself.

You see, this hope-filled truth creates a major therefore.

Because now, because of Jesus, we have confidence to enter the holy place where God is.

This is what he starts off with in 19.

Therefore, brothers, since we have a confidence, where's that confidence coming from?

We talked about our uncertainty of our hopes, right?

Well, I hope this works, or let's see.

No, we don't have that when we approach God any longer through Christ.

We have a confidence, not because of anything that you and I have done, but because of everything that Christ has done for us.

We have confidence to enter into the holy place where God is.

When we look at this passage, what it's referring to is the Holy of Holies that we see in the Old Testament.

This is where God's presence dwelt in the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant.

And what happened was that the uh high priest would have to make this a sacrificial ceremony perfected as he went in to the Holy of Holies to sprinkle the blood of the Lamb on the mercy seat so that the people of Israel's sins would be forgiven.

And this was something that he had to do every year.

But that priest did not go in with confidence.

That priest went in with a great amount of uncertainty, so much so that they would have to tie a rope around his ankle with bells on it, because if he messed up one part of that ceremony, he would be uh uh killed in the presence of God.

And when his body fell, uh they would hear the bells jingle and they have to pull him out uh by his ankle.

There he had no certainty as he tried to enter in for the people of Israel for the forgiveness, the atonement of their sin.

And what had what he had to pass through as he was doing this ceremony, this tradition, is he had to pass through this veil.

It was this heavy, thick curtain that actually separated the Ark of the Covenant and God's holy presence from Israel.

It protected Israel from God's presence.

And so the priest would have to pass through this veil, the high priest, and there he would see the throne of God's presence, the mercy seat in the Ark of the Covenant, and he would sprinkle the blood of the sacrificial lamb for the sins of the people.

But look at what Hebrews says.

Hebrews says, Jesus is that priest for us.

Jesus is the priest for us whose blood was poured out as a sin offering for us, his people.

Now we get to come to God, not through any uncertainty in our own actions, but in a certain confidence in Jesus' finished work.

It is by his blood, it is through his flesh, and it is he who is the great priest.

You see, when Jesus was uh on the cross and he was being crucified, uh when he gave up his spirit to God, when he forfeited his spirit to the Father, uh, what it records in the gospel accounts is that the veil in the temple, this thick curtain uh that separated God's presence from his people was ripped from top to bottom in two.

And what that helped us understand or signified for us is that God's presence would no longer be kept from God's people.

Because why?

A sufficient sacrifice had been made offer had been offered in Jesus.

You see, so now through Christ we are all called to draw near.

By what means?

With a true heart in full assurance of faith.

That's what Hebrews says here.

He says, So you have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh.

And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith.

Full assurance of faith.

Not faith in ourselves, not faith that we've done everything right, not faith that uh we've been obedient and good, but faith in Jesus alone.

With our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

All of this is by Jesus' finished work.

He makes the way for us to come to God, and he fulfills the conditions necessary for us to be in the presence of God our Father.

All of this is about Jesus.

Our confidence of a hope that we have is found in him, in him alone.

In verse 23, he says this our hope is certain because he is faithful.

Our hope is certain because he is faithful.

Verse 23 says, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

We're instructed to hold fast, to white knuckle the hope that we have in Christ.

We're being called to white knuckle this confession, this statement, this declaration of our hope.

Ultimately, hope in Christ is this confession that He is who He says he is, that He has accomplished for us what He says that He has accomplished for us.

It is a proclamation of faith behind Him and His finished work.

Our hope is not rooted in our actions or our efforts, but in Jesus' alone.

So our confession of hope is a declaration of his finished work for us.

And why should we white knuckle this proclamation of faith without wavering?

This is the most uh critical part of this whole passage.

He says, hold fast, white knuckle this confession of hope that you have.

Why?

Because he who promised is faithful.

That's the baseline of this whole text.

When we understand that we can have hope in the first place because of Christ, and because he's what he's accomplished for us, it is rooted in the reality that he who promised is faithful.

Faith in his finished work.

He alone is the once and for all sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin.

We have a certain hope because what he accomplished for us is certain, having brought it to completion, and he is faithful.

God never allows a single word of promise to fall to the ground.

You see, it's interesting about God, our creator.

When we look at the creation of all things in Genesis 1, it was God's word.

This is the creation of heaven and earth.

This is the creation of all beasts of the field and in the seas, and it's the creation of us, mankind.

It is God's word that went forth.

And not a single word that comes forth from the mouth of God falls to the ground and is void or null.

Every word that comes forth out of his mouth is true.

It is yes and amen.

And so because he is faithful, and because he displays for us his faithfulness in the sending of his son, and in the sacrifice of his son, and the resurrection of his son, we can have what?

A confident hope, a certain hope.

Jesus is fully the source and substance of our hope because he has fully completed the work necessary and has placed his very reputation on it.

If we look at Hebrews chapter 6, we're brought into this idea, this whole thought of God being faithful because his reputation actually is, uh it rests upon it.

Hebrews 6 · chapter mention

When we look at Hebrews 6, 13 through 20, we see this.

For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself.

Let's pause that.

Go back.

So God in Genesis uh were brought into this story where he makes a promise to Abraham that he's gonna have a son.

Even though him and Sarah were of old age and she was thought to be barren, they were gonna have a son.

And it was gonna be this promised child.

And through Abraham, all the nations of the earth would be blessed, right?

Uh and so what did God do?

When he was about to make this promise, he searched in the way, heaven and earth, to try and discover a name of which he could swear by.

You ever made a you ever were a kid and said, I swear on my mama, right?

Because you know your name was crud?

You've you've already when you've already like said a lot of things and broken a lot of promises, what do you have to do?

You have to start swearing by something above yourself, right?

And so you would do that in school because your friends wouldn't believe you, because this was the umpteenth time that you you said something and they they you know, they're like, Yeah, we'll see.

No, no.

If you really wanted them to believe you, what did you do?

You you swore by a name greater than yours, your mama's name.

I'm gonna swear by her name.

Now you gotta believe him.

They're like, oh, he's he's not joking this time, right?

So what did God do?

God searched heaven and earth for a name that was greater than his, of which he could swear by.

But what does the Bible tell us?

He couldn't find one.

He could not discover one.

Since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself.

What does that mean?

When we think about that, that means that if God does not come through on his promises, what do we, what's our response to that?

To not believe him.

To not trust him.

You see, there's a lot of people in this room who probably have trust issues because you've been you've been in an experience where someone promised you something, someone gave you their word, and they didn't come through on it.

And we have all kinds of uh issues with that, right?

We have relational tension and fallout.

Maybe you're the person who has promised something and you didn't follow through.

Your word what?

Fell to the ground, it became null and void.

I know there's probably a hundred things I've told my wife I would do around the house, and I have yet to come through on a lot of them.

Well, what does that do?

Now, when I say I'm gonna do something, do you think she's full out 100% trusting that it's gonna happen, or does she maybe question in the back of her mind, we'll see.

And that's just like doing small things around the house, let alone big things.

When we're talking about our relationship with one another, I promise often for us doesn't end with that coming through to completion.

So, what do you think our relationship with God looks like?

Are we a people who trust his promises?

If we're honest, often we don't.

We don't trust his promises because you and I have been hurt so many times by other people's promises, their word falling to the ground.

But that's not God.

God swore by his very name.

Saying, next verse.

Surely I will bless you and multiply you.

And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise.

This is this is critical here.

Go back.

Patiently waited.

Abraham patiently waited.

He obtained the promise.

You see, many of us uh we get frustrated in the waiting.

We don't want to wait for the promise to be uh uh delivered, and so we feel like God has not come through.

Like what he has said that he would do for us isn't going to actually happen because it doesn't happen in our timing, in the way that we desire it for.

But Abraham displays for us what?

A patience that accomplishes for him the obtaining of the promise.

Next verse.

For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes, an oath is final for confirmation.

So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath.

So that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we have fled the refuge.

We who have fled the refuge might have strong encouragement and hold fast to what?

The hope set before us.

We have this as sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

What the author of Hebrews is trying to help us understand is God's promises are always yes and amen.

Not a single word that comes from the mouth of God is ever going to fall to the ground as null and void.

Why?

Because it is his word that gives birth to life.

It is his word that life comes for his people.

We have a hope.

We have a certain hope.

Because we are God's children.

And what we have to realize is that hope has nothing to do with how bad you've been or how good you are.

Every ounce of that hope has everything to do with what God has declared he would do, promised he would do, and we've seen it realized fully in his son Jesus.

God said he would bless the nations.

And he has.

Through the curtain being torn.

First, in the flesh of his son, and secondly, through the curtain that was in the temple.

You see, if we're going to have any hope in this life, we must place all of it in him.

Because he alone is faithful to deliver on his promises.

So for us, what we have to see is that Jesus alone makes a certain hope.

Jesus alone makes a certain hope.

The entire emphasis of this text is only certain when we look to the accomplishments of Jesus.

It's because of his finished work alone satisfies the demands of the Father to make what is wrong not just right again, but better.

This is this reality with our desire of hope to make things better.

Jesus isn't just coming to right the wrong, he's making the wrong even better.

You see, in the creation, we get the Garden of Eden.

But when Christ comes, he establishes a city for us.

In creation, we were made in the image of God, and we uh we are akin to our Father Adam.

But it is in Christ that we're not just made back to that, we're made like Christ, the better brother.

It is us who seek to have better because Christ is not just making things right, he's making things new.

Where's the origin of hope in the first place?

Hope only exists because we know in our soul that not all is as it should be.

We can only have hope for something better if we have rooted belief that things should be better.

This is ingrained in our human experience because of the relationship fracture that happened in Eden.

We try to put hope around other outcomes, but both the very thing we hope for and the means to obtain it are insufficient.

The only true and real bettering of the wrong is right relationship with the Father.

And that is only accomplished through faith in Jesus' finished work.

This is why Jesus alone makes for us a certain hope.

But many of us struggle with hope.

Because we don't understand what we need to truly hope for or where to place that hope in the first place.

You see, because of the fall, because of who we are as people, we put our hope in a lot of things.

We put our hope in our relationships, we put our hope in our education, we put our hope in the salaries of our occupation, we put our hope in the school districts that we move our families into, we put our hope in things.

And ultimately, there's a lot of these things that aren't necessarily bad, but they're not ultimate.

But we treat them as ultimate.

We treat them as that is the thing that we should put our hope into.

And all of us have been going through a season over the last two years where we've had hope for things to be better, and we're not, people aren't delivering on the promises that they've made to us.

And we've been going through this experience now for the last two years, but this isn't new.

This experience, this reality that we have been going through in a society and culture isn't anything new.

This has been happening since the fall.

That we have hope to make things better, but we don't know really what we should hope for or where we should place our hope in.

Ultimately, the only thing that we should is worth putting our hope into is Christ, and for what purpose?

To be reconciled in right relationship with God the Father.

Let's look back to what the writer of Hebrews tells us about the relationship between our hope and who God is.

He says, He who promised is faithful.

But for many of us, what we do is we place our hope in unfaithful things.

We place our hope in unfaithful things.

How many of y'all can just realize this from yesterday at the OSU game?

Y'all placed your hope in unfaithful things.

Things that can't deliver, things that are insufficient.

Many of us, we put the hope that we do have in these unfaithful things, people and things that ultimately don't have the faithfulness of God.

The world is trying to convince you to put your hope in everything but Jesus.

If you walk down, or if you drive down 75, you'll see from UC Hospital, there is hope in science.

This is the message of the world, the culture.

There is hope here.

There is hope there.

Put your hope in this new diet.

Put your hope over here in this subdivision, in this school district.

Put your hope in this education.

Put your hope in these investment choices.

Put your hope here.

They have to sell hope.

That is the whole root of marketing.

Things aren't as they should be.

We can make them better.

Hope is the very thing that sells.

Because we all want things to be better, but ultimately you and I put our hope in very faithless things.

You see, the enemy wants to bind us in distraction and confusion about what to truly hope for and where to place it.

Ultimately, idolatry is not just rooted in false saviors, but the very false saviors themselves are discovered in false hopes.

Here's what I mean by that.

For many of us, we look at what our hell is.

Our hell might be any given situation.

Maybe your hell is singleness.

So what's your heaven?

What's your hope for?

To not be single anymore, to find a spouse, to be married.

What becomes your idolatrous, functional savior?

A relationship with a boy or a girl that would help you get out of your hell and into your heaven.

Maybe it's power, right?

You feel like somebody who just doesn't have any influence, or you feel like you're so weak.

So what do you want?

You want to get out of your hell and you want to get into your heaven, which is power.

So what do you seek?

Your functional savior, your idolatrous savior, becomes wealth or education or promotion at work.

All of us are living in some form or fashion in a hell that we've fabricated and we've placed this uh uh uh this assumption around because the devil ultimately wants to keep us distracted and bind us in confusion of what we should really be hoping for.

And all of us have this very sense of what heaven could be like.

Heaven here on earth.

Right?

Maybe it's more uh uh time with your family, and so a new job becomes that hope that will get you more time with family and more money in the bank account so that you can actually go on those trips and do the things that you wanted to do.

It's not about those things.

We have to look at what our hope actually should be in.

In any situation in our lives where our hell is not separation from God, and our heaven is not restoration and reconciliation with God, and our only functional Savior that can accomplish that for us is Jesus Christ alone.

We're setting ourselves up for an idolatrous life.

This is what I mean by we are confused and we're misunderstanding what to actually hope for.

And when we hope for the wrong things, we're gonna put our hope in the wrong things.

We're gonna put our hope ultimately in unfaithful things.

Because these things can't ultimately accomplish for us what we desire them to.

What we should truly hope for is reconciliation of relationship with God, and our only true hope for that is Jesus.

Jesus shows us what to hope for and gives us what to hope in.

It's Himself.

That's the beauty of this Advent reality.

Jesus comes to show us, to put on display what to hope for.

Peace with God, joy in our relationship with him, restoration and reconciliation.

This is what Jesus demonstrates for us.

This is what we should hope for, that we can have right relationship with God the Father once again.

All of his coming and being born of the virgin, all of his taking on, putting on flesh, all of his perfect obedience in his life, all of his suffering, death, and resurrection.

What was that for?

Well, to show us what we should hope for, but also to guarantee for us what we should be able to hope in.

Many of us, though, we don't place necessarily our hope in unfaithful things.

We place our hope in our own works.

What I mean by that is some of us may be hoping for the right thing.

We may have this innate reality where we want to have a right relationship with God.

We believe in God and we realize that our relationship with Him isn't where it should be.

And so we strive and work and put effort into making Him love us, causing Him to love us.

If I do all the right things, and in my own works and strength I might be able to win His affection.

This places our hope in insufficient things because in our own strength we cannot perform the demands of God for right relationship with Him.

This is that whole passage of Hebrews that we read, is it puts the confidence in what?

The finished work of Christ, not the work of man.

He says, our efforts, our strivings to put forth a sufficient sacrifice always failed us.

This is why year after year we had to come back and keep trying it over again.

But Christ, who came and was the sufficient sacrifice, once and for all, has accomplished for us that sin might be forgotten, remembered no more.

Because forgiveness reigns.

This is the very truth that we see in this passage.

The efforts of man were insufficient.

They were unable to accomplish what they set forth to do.

It took the advent of Jesus to accomplish these things on our behalf.

Consider what our actions communicate about Jesus when we try to have a relationship with God through our own strength.

Ultimately, we're communicating, hey Jesus, nice try, but it wasn't good enough.

I'm gonna do all the right things to make God love me.

I'm gonna work hard and be obedient so that He will love me and His favor and blessing will be upon me.

You're trying to skirt around Jesus.

You're trying to accomplish this in your own strength.

And here's how I know we still believe that.

You might be a Christian saved by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ, but there's still a gospel reality that you struggle with almost on a daily basis, and I can almost guarantee it.

When you get yourself in the spiritual doghouse because you messed up, because you fell, because you sinned, because you didn't read your Bible this week, or you didn't pray like you used to.

You did something that you failed in your relationship with God.

But here's what you convince yourself of.

I'm gonna read my Bible even more.

I'm gonna pray even more.

I'm gonna listen to all of the worship albums that I have on repeat for the next 36 hours.

I am going to make sure that I do whatever I have to do to get back in the right relationship with God.

This is something that I can almost guarantee every single one of us in some form or fashion struggles with.

When we get ourselves in the spiritual doghouse, what do we do?

We do everything we can to work ourselves out of it.

What is that?

That is putting your hope in your own works.

That's gospel disbelief.

If God accepted you in spite of you, he will maintain and sustain relationship with you in spite of you.

This is the beauty of grace.

We can come boldly because of Christ, not because of us.

The beauty of the gospel for us is that Jesus' flesh was torn, so we would no longer be separated from God.

This is what he shows us.

Why do we have confidence?

Why can our hope be certain?

You have nothing more to do than to look to the cross.

Because his flesh was torn, because his blood was spilled for us, he is the total and sufficient sacrifice for us.

And so when we look to him, we see a true and certain hope.

We don't have to go in before the presence of God, wavering or in uncertainty.

We get to go in to the presence of God with confidence and with certainty because of Christ and because of Christ alone.

You and I have a reality that we have to constantly force ourselves to look upon the cross, to remember the gospel, to preach the gospel daily to ourselves so that we don't forget this truth, so that we don't uh uh uh lose sight of the reality that everything that we have from God does not come from our own efforts and strength, but it comes from Jesus' finished work.

This is why we come and take communion every week, so that we're reminded that it was Christ's body broken, his flesh that was torn, that we're able to enter into the presence of God in the first place.

It is a continuation of the grace of Christ and a reminder for us of our continued need for it.

Why was Jesus' flesh torn?

So we would no longer be separated from God.

It wasn't so that you could have the marriage you always wished for.

It wasn't so that you would have the children you always hoped you would have.

It wasn't so that you would live in the neighborhood or have the job or have the friend group that you always wished you did.

That's not why Jesus came.

Jesus came and died to bring you back to God.

Our ultimate hope for should be that and that alone.

And our ultimate hope in should be in Christ, in Christ alone.

But when we look at our hope from a perspective of today, we are looking both for the reality of what Christ has done in his finished work to bring us into right relationship with God, but we're also looking forward as Christians, as believers, for his coming again.

The whole season of Advent is not just looking back, but it's actually for us to look forward because every word that comes out of the mouth of God is yes and amen.

Not one of it will drop to the ground, null, and void.

And what Christ promised is that he's gonna come back for us.

We just got out of John 17 in the high priestly prayer of Jesus.

And what Jesus started off with in the upper room in John 14 was that he was gonna go away.

He was going away to make a place for us.

And there was all kinds of confusion around the disciples.

And Jesus said, Don't you understand yet?

I came from the Father.

I'm going to go back to the Father, I'm going to make a place for you.

And when I come back to get you, I will make all things new.

Jesus is creating for us all things new, and we're stuck in the middle of this tension where you and I are going to be tempted to disbelieve God.

We are going to be tempted to believe that his promises are not true.

We're going to be tempted to believe that he is not faithful.

But again, to have our certainty, we only must look at the cross.

But that cross should not cause us just to look back in remembrance.

It should cause us to turn our heads and look forward to the other promises of God that He has made for His people and that are guaranteed in Christ.

Charles Spurgeon, when writing about this passage and about hope, he says, if I begin to describe our hope, I must begin with what I think is always the topmost stone of it.

The hope of the second advent of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And he says this our hope in Christ for the future is the main spring and mainstay of our joy down here today.

You see, what I want us to walk away with is this God's word is true.

Everything that he's ever promised us is true.

It's guaranteed, it's certain.

From his first promise to Abraham, from his first promise to the serpent, that he was going to send a seed through this woman who would crush his head, and then to Abraham, and then the promises that he made to David, and the promises that he made to Mary, even at the birth of Jesus.

This is the promises of God that he has always had for his people, and every single one of them has always come true.

Why would he cease to be God now?

And why do we have a hope?

It's because of that single beautiful truth.

And how does he show us that it's guaranteed?

Through the death and resurrection of his son.

And so we should look on with joy.

With joy and hope for what God was going to do when he makes all things new for us, when he brings us fully to himself, when he establishes a new heaven and new earth, and we get to live eternally in the splendor of the better you and I desire.

So what can we do, church?

We can do three things, I see.

First off, is we have to hold fast your hope.

This is the charge that's given to us in this passage of Hebrews.

Hold fast your hope.

That means to white knuckle, to not let go, to grasp it with all of your strength and might.

Because what we're going to do is we're going to be tempted to lose hope.

Because why?

Ultimately, we're going to be impatient.

We're going to be ones who want it now.

Many of us are like little children, right?

Hey, I got something for you.

If you I watched this video.

Video a couple weeks ago, and it was these parents who it you've seen it before, it's like the marshmallow test.

Hey, if you, I'm gonna put this marshmallow down, and if you wait for X amount of time and I come back, I'll give you two marshmallows.

But if you eat it now, then you're gonna get some kind of discipline.

What does the kid almost always do?

They always almost always eat the marshmallow.

They don't understand that if they had patience, if they waited, things would get better for them.

We're like these little children.

It's such a silly kind of analogy, but it's true.

Many of us lose hope because we don't have what we want right now.

But there's two, there's some fundamental issues with that.

It's not that we don't have what we want right now, it's that what we want is the wrong thing in the first place.

And then we're frustrated that we don't have it.

But God might be the very one who's trying to bless you by not giving the wrong things that we want.

And so we have to be ones who white knuckle our hope, our hope in Christ, in his finished work alone.

But what we also have to do for one another is we have to encourage one another in hope.

We have to be proclaimers of the gospel to one another.

Where is your hope?

When people around us in our church community are disheartened, when they're saddened, when they're going through this dark of night, we have to encourage them that hope is on the horizon, that as sure as the night is dark, there is a daybreak coming forward.

There is light that's going to pierce the darkness because Christ is our certain hope.

And so we have to build one another up in this encouragement of hope, proclaiming the gospel to one another, showing them each other and challenging each other.

Where are you placing your hope?

What are you hoping for?

Is it the true things?

Is it the right things?

Or are we actually putting our hope in false things, insufficient things that aren't going to deliver on the promises they're making us in the first place?

We have to encourage one another in hope, because this is a communal reality.

We're not going to be able to do this in isolation.

We're not going to be able to do this on our own strength and might.

We have to do this together for one another.

Do you remember God's promises?

When we stand up and we read the text to one another, when we encourage one another by prayer in our mission groups, when we when we try to gospel one another over lunch as we meet up, these are things that we have to be consciously working toward to help each other, be encouraged to hold fast, to steady the course, to stay strong, to not give up.

And then ultimately for the world around us, we have to capture them with real hope.

Capture them with real hope.

Many of us, if we kind of play back the last couple years of our life, and I'm so guilty of this too, when we talk to the people around us, unbelieving people around us, do you think that they have walked away from their encounters with us believing that our hope is in Christ and Christ alone?

Or maybe they've left our conversation believing that our hope is in something else.

Our hope is in something that's insufficient, that's let us down, that hasn't come through on its promises.

You know, many of us, if we're honest with ourselves, the bulk majority of our conversations and time and energy has probably been spent on communicating to other people that our hope isn't everything but Jesus.

And what we've communicated to them is that honestly, we don't really believe God's promises to be true either.

I think we could do a lot better job at capturing the world around us with real hope, to preach Christ, to tell them that we are rooted in holding fast to one certain hope and nothing else, the finished work of Jesus.

And this has no bearing on what decisions you make in this context of society.

This has no bearing on whether you uh get the vaccine or you don't, whether you wear a mask or you don't, whether you do this or you don't.

What this has is everything to do with where our hope is.

Is it in Christ?

When we leave interactions with one another, when we leave in conversations with those who are unbelieving, do they hear that our hope is in Christ, or do they hear that our hope is in things that will not come through on the promises that they make?

There is nothing in this world that can actually come through on the promises that it makes except for Christ in Christ alone.

Nothing.

Every single thing that the devil is trying to get us to put our hope into, ultimately, even if it's at the end of time, will fail us.

It has no true power to accomplish or to come through on the promises that it makes for us.

Only Jesus has that.

And so for us, let us hold fast, let us encourage one another into the world around us in this season.

Let us capture them with real hope.

One of my favorite Christmas hymns is um, Oh Holy Night.

And there's a passage, there's a verse in that that says this a thrill of hope.

The weary world rejoices.

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Christ is the Lord.

This world is going to cause us to be weary.

But there was hope born in the coming of Christ.

There was hope realized, hope entered in.

Light broke through the darkness, and we can rejoice now as God's people because our hope is certain.

Amen.

Let's pray.